My State of Mind

If these days were to be a person, they'd be a lady; with blow dried combed back hair whose been married awhile, but not that long. She still meets old acquaintances who'll say, What's been happening(with you?) and she'll say oh I got married early last year. And there's a secret growing inside her, a secret with feet and a tummy and no one knows and she's bursting to tell him when he gets back.

Or if I was to be a day, I'd be a late thursday afternoon, with water droplets drying off me as an indulgent sun watches over my water splashing. And the icecream cone I'll have before I pick up my things and head into the evening.

And he'd be a saturday dawn, before the twilight rays strike and he crawls into bed, after a night spent devouring a book, such as Prep, with a mug of the last cold dregs of coffee beside him and a crumpled cigarette packet.

A Country Bar Named Johnny B Goode

Places, Food and Books

Lame title aside, some books have a very strong sense of place or food (since it's me we're talking about) associated with them and will forever be locked with each other in ones memory.

All my Enid Blyton memories are very strong, because when I read them I was a) Hugely unpopular in school, I had NO friends, and I mean none, like I used to roam around alone during break and everything and b) We lived in this massive old bungalow with like miles of wilderness on either side (ok not miles but really dense undergrowth type things, and people used to spot snakes on an hourly basis.) All those Fatty mysteries were so real because we had a garage/shed kinda thing just like in the book and I had very strong visuals for the place. This is the same time I used to play Xena with colony friends and set out with laser killer pieces of stick and fight demons and witches that lived around our house.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I got a day before my chemistry exam in the 7th, think mum or someone had just returned from Delhi and had got that book and a big box of melted choclates for me. Needless to say the book was devoured and I was eating that stciky choclate alongside and you can bet I was too lazy to go wash my icky fingers before turning a page and so my copy was brown finger marks all over, which makes me love it even more.

I remember reading A Suitable Boy after the second term exams in the 10th which I had worked super hard for and before the preboards (which I totally blew.) The parts when Pran is falling for Saeeda Bai and he's hanging around her place is very descriptive and well written. She entertains all these people and they have Shammi kababs and hookahs and there's always music and a singing (rather annoying) parrot remember? So I was reading this part and I was getting major cravings for kababs. As luck would have it, we'd had a big party in our house and there were these kababs in the fridge and omg its bliss when you're reading about something and your mouth is watering and you can satisfy it instantly! Zap it in the microwave and get back into bed..and no one bothers you because you can lock your door and say you're 'studying.' Good times I tell you.

English, August is one of my all time favourite books, I read it when we were living in a place so so like Madna it freaked me out a bit, and I got everything he was sayng. I was Agastya man, ofcourse I wasn't stoning back then, it was simple sitting on the fence and liking a book sorta thing.

Oh and for Wodehouse there was this wonderful obscure Gymkhana in some shanty town where them Britsh Bozos used to once live, and the loo/Ladies rest room was HUGE, I mean like the size of a persons house with sofas and reclining chairs, and dim yellow bulbs and mottled mirrors and I loved it. Discovered it really late, when it was about time to leave but I pictured the whole English thing. (argh, we've been studying colonialism and when we take notes instead of writing the British I write BB - British Bastards, oh the latent anger)

Delhi by Khushwant Singh was another book that had a huge impact on me but more than that people remember me reading it. It was the beginning of 11th, when the board results weren't out and everyone's sorta strung out, didn't really feel like studying etc, and our temporary classroom was in some basement type part of the school and I'd sit at the back and read this book, and I didn't really know anyone in my new class expect Puri who ofcourse would be off all over bunking, making new friends, doing his imitations which I'd seen a gazillion times before, and I remember Yadu coming over, reading the blurb and laughing his ass off, because it said, 'back from his whoring days' and guys can never stop finding stuff like that funny. When he sees me today, he usually mentions that book, still reading books about whores? he'll say and I'll laugh like it's really funny because it's sweet no?

Though I don't like to admit it, I've also read all the Shopaholic books(Fly take a bow) and this was the summer before college started and all of a sudden you have to go shopping for a whole bunch of new clothes, and you really need them right, no more uniform to put on sleepily every day. So I would just buy without thinking, oh heady days and then when I became a poor college student who refused to spend more than 15 bucks on lunch I was reading Shopaholic and Sister which had her super frugal sister who hates shopping and kept saving up or was broke and she was totally in sync with my new self!

Zorba the Greek is ofcourse for my fututre travels which I've mentioned earlier in this post.


PS - Is anyone else television blissed as well? New seasons of The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Entourage AND Greys Anatomy. Sigh, life can hardly get better..

Little Boxes on the Hillside

Sometimes it is possible to have a perfect half an hour. Let's begin with last thursday, so I wake up in the morning and there's a message from Kasha saying that oh, by the way, V is going to be in college today which made me smile instantly and I got ready singing and was generally cheerful - the singing at traffic lights kind. The thing is that even if it's all over on your side, seeing a person again and just chatting was fun and I REALLY didn't want to leave and go back but everyone was busy with some official sounding thing they had to, so with much reluctance I did. Random guy asks for a lift and on the way back he fiddles with my ipod and becomes DJ in the car. See, music is just a preference, you don't become cool or not because of what you listen to. And if someone likes the same stuff then it's a oh - universe conspiring kinda moment. There were a lot of ohmygod I can't believe you have this song, and oh I LOVE this one..and that's it, it doesn't have to be anything more (between you and him). It can if you want it to ofcourse, but I dunno, indie is really not my thing, Arcade Fire, DCC, Postal Service etc all ok, but in small doses..like I could never listen to a Damein Rice album. Delicate itself is pushing it.

Friday I said bye thee well to Eco Madonna who's off to U Chicago. He's the only person who I know in real life who actually reads this junk blog and gets back to me and that's sweet and he's promised to blog more, so I'm gonna hound him. (if you're reading this Roghan, hope you've landed fine and things are good!)

Weekend had Kasha (unexpectedly) spending the night. I knew like 2 hours before she actually landed up and it was much fun. Cheered me up a huge deal, as in lookie people I have a friend, and that's a big deal for me, cause I've mostly been a fence sitter as far as the whole have-a-bunch-of-friends thing goes.

Sunday for the first time in my adult(haha) life I had a nice chat with my Mum, it wasn't related to the future or what I should focus on etc etc. I was actually telling her about books I like and what kind I like and which people I like and how I talk to them about different things etc etc...and after a while she gets this vacant expression and I said, 'Am I boring you?' and she said 'No, you're surprising me.'

Monday I acted like a ladila lady who lunches. Woke up 12ish and met up with Fly. We had awesome cheap food though it felt strangely like a date, because I picked her up from college, we went, ate, and I dropped her back and we sat in the car talking for awhile. She gives the best answers to watsup...she looks thoughtfully into the distance with finger on chin and says..hang on wait, something must've happened, wait it'll come to me. (heehee - not funny? no? sorry)

THen, I fretted over a test whihc I studies for. I swear to god tests bring out the absolute worst in me, I really don't minbd studying but as soon as there's a test looming in the future I switch off and that fucking sucks because I end up bombing them. Season finale of weeds, Quinn is back - killer episode.

And today, for a change we hung out in my side of town which is oddly reassuring, and it's a market I've been tens and thousands of times before with Mum and Dad but with phrands we ate at this place I didn't even know existed, and had perfectly yummy Mughalai (not Panju) cheap food. Jeez priorities I tell you..

Argh, this whole post has been about recounting stuff I've been doing and if you made it through the snore fest, the lack of proper posts in blamed on the rain.

Whatever Sam Beam is mumbling

The thing is, I'm in a very whatever~Brandi Carlile(Fall Apart Again)~Iron and Wine(The Trapeze Swinger) mood. No no don't get alarmed just yet, this is what happens when you schedule every hour of your life and everything's on track - you're studying, swimming, reading, watching the US Open(yaay) etc. and then one afternoon you oversleep and your body doesn't feel like yours anymore - it's being tired and moody and doesn't want to work, so you say ok, just waste your time on the internet instead.

Have several half written blogposts lying in drafts, but just not been upto it, it's a moon thing yea?

Bookwise, finished My Secret History by Paul Theroux(did I mention this before?) which was so wonderfully good and made writing seem so easy that I'm thinking about it more and more somehow. His whole life has been to take the next train out, travel, sleep with women and write about it. That's the dream and it IS that easy. People might think I'm all focused and stuff, but anyone who REALLY knows me, knows that it's simply not true...and it's mostly a good thing.

Also (finally) reading Midnights Children which is till now everything it's het up to be. Since it's the only book he wrote without being super famous, the tone and language is much less silvery/flowery and more conversational. It's so cleverly ironic in bits, not a laugh out loud kinda thing, more like smirking through entire passages. Does this happen to you too that if you're reading a book and sorta doze off after it, your dreams end up being about the characters, and somehow the story continues in this weird way in your head and you wake up and feel - Oh, that was strange and can't read for awhile because so much has happened in your dream? I've written so many Estha-Rahel stories this way, it's not funny.

Also went to Majnu Ka Tilla today, an impromptu thing with Kasha and two people I dearly like. Omg, the beef and pork they put away was a bit scary. But you know I felt I was in a hill station, minus the heat ofcourse. It was all enclosed and on undulating (dulating?) land with those Mcleodganj bead bracelet type things, and usually Tibetans have the best albeit over priced silver and they NEVER bargain, but this time they totally did and while I bought earrings I really shouldn't have(but you can never be too rich or too thin or have too many earrings right?) The guys happily played the male role and rolled their eyes and said hurry up, you have five minutes then we're leaving bla bla bla. It's fun to do real time things once in awhile.