Dear Diary

One day:

There is joy in me. A helpless kind. The kind that makes you dig up Bryan Adams and bop in front of the mirror. Then kind that makes you buy lipstick and then pout to see the effect. The kind that I want to rein in because I’m scared to feel something that has no meaning.

There is joy in silliness that all the sense in the world cannot erase. It just comes and laughs inside you like a jester juggling in the midst of the King’s court.

One day and then some:

And then there’s sadness. Just like that. Just that helpless.

Baarish is different from Barsaat

There’s something very peculiar about rain. It’s always got its own agenda. The rain that makes you want to snuggle in bed and read a book is distinct from the rain that wants you to snuggle in bed and watch a movie. Then there’s the rain that makes you go into you iTunes and dig out Janet Jackson or some other lost song from the past.

There are days when rain just wants to meet mud and play. The red smell of it draws you to the window and makes you look at a football with lust.

Dull throb rain means to make you as sad as it is. No matter how young or old you are it wants you to remember and pine.

There’s verandah rain and chai rain and sometimes the two go together. Rain that calls for lovemaking plays a softer tune than the one that makes you dance.

Some might think that it’s not the rain but the mind that has feeling. But that’s just silly. It’s a well known fact that Rain is a person and has moods and MPD like the rest of us.

Today Rain is just rain. She’s playing her cards close to the chest and won’t let me in on her plans. So I’m in office. Tomorrow maybe we’ll play hooky.

K.I.S.S

I feel like writing for Paris.

A letter of love to her.

A poem.

A story.

An ode.

A book.

Something that will capture what it means to me that she reads what I write.

That she loves what I write.

That she checks every two days for an update even when I go months without writing.

And I realize as I note these points… that this is more a love letter from her to me than vice a versa.

And I cannot top it with any words.

A Secretive Writer

Blank. That’s right.

Not because I have nothing to say this time.

But because I have too much.

What kind of writer has secrets I ask myself?

Expose yourself

they say

Tell of that time

you

Peed in your pants

Gave 20 desperate calls

Loved and lost

Kissed a woman

Hated your parents

Casually forgot a lover

Wished your dog was dead

Crushed a heart and grinned

Undressed before the mirror

Tell it all

In words

And painful, twisted strokes

In sighs

And anguished murmurs

Laugh as you reveal

Your demented passions

And shallow heart.

You secretive writer

You counterfeit soul

Lie. 

Homeward Bound

Gypsy, gypsy, gypsy

They call me.

Strangers

Call me gypsy.

It’s who I’m pretending to be.

 

 

My Piggy Bank

Tradition. From the Latin ‘traditionem’. Meaning “handing over, passing on”.

Nowadays most often we hear the word tradition in context to religious and cultural practices being hard headedly carried out or defiled- in both cases creating a furore. And in this set meaning on passing on. But I like what tradition means in the present sense. In the now. I like the continuity it symbolizes. It’s like procreating without the hard hours of screaming labour.

Our family has a tradition of spending summer holidays together. The entire Flanagan clan collects at the family home before taking off for a holiday together. Four generations together – children spilling out of bosoms, grandparent throwing tantrums, cousins sharing traumas, one generation misunderstanding the other, lazy days spent hiding under the fan to escape the scorching heat, lazier evenings in a swimming pool and long nights of planned and unplanned adventures. You love, you crib, you enjoy, you say you’re never coming back again, you do come back again, you watch the young ones grow, you avoid your elders, you hug a child close, you try to find a quiet corner, you play cards, you discuss books passionately with your young niece, you kiss each child good night, you mediate in fights between relatives, you wonder how you aren’t deaf yet, you rediscover why you hate and love to be a Flanagan. It is a great tradition.

I want to create many more. I want others to make their own and make me part of their pacts with life.

In the past year, this thing called Life and growing up has taken its toll on a lot of India’s crowd. Everyone’s working, juggling no less than three sets of families they have to satisfy, trying to be comfortable with who they’re maturing up to be… as well as eke time out for each other. Things are different. Alanis worries that being married and moving to another country is going to tell on her connection with all of us here but the sad truth is that just living in different suburbs seems to be enough. Because a girl’s life is made of immediate things and tiny joys. A great hair day, an impromptu middle of the night walk, a song that made you cry, a moment of desolation that came and went before you could hit the dial button… and unlike in college when all of us lived in the same house and shared every passing minute… now we’re lucky to meet once a month.

But I’m rooting for traditions to combat modern life. That’s what they’re supposed to do anyway right… join people together across time and place in a joint activity, feeling and hope?

So here I am making a bunch of traditions. To quote: Some traditions were deliberately invented for one reason or another, often to highlight or enhance the importance of a certain institution. Traditions may also be changed to suit the needs of the day, and the changes can become accepted as a part of the ancient tradition.

1. The first of these was made years ago with Harry – a weekly dinner table conversation. And Christmas eve together. We’ve managed to keep to this more or less.
2. An annual holiday with the Four… so far so good.
3. Always, always kiss each of the children goodnight and talk to each individually about whatever they like.
4. Dropping by Frederick’s uninvited for a surreal evening of abrasiveness, affection and a fuzzy reality that is quiet and says nothing.

I want many, many, many more… with Paris, with Mars and Paris, with Sky, with my home as the centre of a tradition… If it’s Christmas we’re going to India’s. And then a fortnightly dinner plan at someone’s house. A monthly weekend away with friends – old and new.

That’s another thought. Everywhere I go I meet people that I like so much that you feel like you’re just making so many friends when you don’t even find time to bond with the one’s you have. There might be a balance to strike but there’s joy in growing a family. And it’s a lovely feeling when someone new seems to meld seamlessly into a circle you’ve already built.

I just want to end on a memory that Paris and I were thinking about yesterday.

It’s the old millennium. Paris and I have just met a month or so ago in college. We’re part of a larger group that hangs out together and movie plans have been made. It’s great. It’s a new youth flick, we’ll be going in a fun large gang, eating pop corn, hooting, going out for dinner, etc. College bonding with people you’re thinking you might be friends with.

And then by the time the day rolled around, everyone dropped out for some reason or another. I don’t remember why.

So there we were, two relative strangers thinking, ‘umm… should I offer to postpone the plan when the whole group can be there and when it’ll be fun?” And we didn’t. We said, “to hell with it… let’s watch a movie.” We went and made fun of a shitty film and found that we didn’t need other people to make a plan fun. In fact we didn’t need other people to make a plan. That was true when we were ‘relative strangers’ and I’m guessing that it will be true now… when we are, for lack of a better word, friends.

A Short Story

The Importance of being Earnest
“I love you.”
“hah hahahhaahha. You’re such a joker kid. I love you too.”

As You Like It
“How many kids do you want? Where do you want to live?"
"What about you?"

Great Expectations
“I bought new lingerie. I did up my room real nice. You wanna come over?”
“No.”

Crime and Punishment
It’s been ten years since I loved.

The Idiot
It’s been ten years since I loved.

The Glass Menagerie
Where’s Sal? And Quinn? And Smith? And Shade?

Wuthering Heights
And in my heart there is a place that’s vast and bare, ravaged and quiet, dark and watchful; that cannot be heaven because it is so used to hell.