On why we read and write...

" Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a short dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship"

Brain Pickings. http://bit.ly/S6uLfQ

An Ode

You know who you are. 

You don’t have to be picked out.

We've had our differences. We’ve had our days when we've not spoken to each other. We've bitched.  We've gone for months without meeting. We let men come between us. We let stories come between us. We've scowled and sulked and overreacted.

But we drink. Better than fishes, we drink. Sometimes, we drink more than we talk. Other times, we drink in order to talk. We’re butch like that.

And we may never be up to speed about the all the things that bother us; our jobs, the stress of making it on your own, that boy you’re trying so hard to get over but can’t, that shoot-me-in-the-head-now marriage conversation with the parents, an existential crisis, life! Some of us get to know sooner than the others, some of us sense it and everybody understands.

And through it all, you’re there. In between the chottas and the badas and the joint. The cheap whiskey, the good Old Monk the gallons and gallons of beer; you’re there. A phone call or a What's app message away.

By some weird telepathy we understand. We provide a window, a breath of fresh… rather some booze breath but a renewed one nonetheless. The escape, into a world where everything is sorted, even if it’s only for a few hours.

For our kind that lives weekend to weekend, Janta to Carters, Brass Monkey to Kohinoor, Deepak’s to Juhu Beach - You help pause the madness, with a little help from the high.
Even if we don’t know about it.

Cheers! 

Whirrrr

If you look inside my head right now, or any other time for that matter, you'll see hundreds of thousands of tiny little machines with gears and levers and pistons chugh, chugh, chugging away with little gasps of steam coming out the little chimneys and being swallowed back up to prevent any wastage and together they resemble an air conditioning unit that provides you with an agreeable atmosphere to be in except when its late at night and you can't sleep and all you can hear is its constant whirrrrrrrr  and if you look closely you'll see that they're all moving at the fastest possible speed and if the pistons jumped any faster they'd jump right out my head and knock out some important screws with it.

So this thing has no start. There is no beginning. Its something that you experience in passing… like a huge passenger train with a big red engine that swooshes past the platform you’re on and it looks so cool and the breeze feels so great and your shaken for a bit but your hair will never be the same again.

Some things aren’t planned. Sometimes you just get lucky. And each time, we’re too naïve to realize it. We go through life trying to find logic in all that happens. Which were the words that bowled me over? Were there that many? Do those hands feel the same to everyone or is there really a story behind why it fits perfectly on the small of your back. The silly arguments, the laughter. Oh the laughter! More than enough to make lines on our faces in a few years. Random banter takes over your mind.

And then logic begins to evade you. Like a stupid drunk leprechaun… grinning yellow teeth each time and poof! So you decide to be brave. To butch up and do it. To jump, into something you have celestially no idea how it’d turn out… just to see how it would. The journey. The energy. The high. You want to be brave. You want to trust your heart, blindly. You want to feel the most honest, untainted, anti-normal feeling there is.  And then, you hope he does too.

We’re in a constant state of want. A constant state of need. We’re again too naïve to admit that we constantly need to belong. To belong to this phenomenon that’s greater that yourself. To share that high with someone who’s feeling it himself.

So you do it. You make that mark. You place that bet. You lay out you cards. And then, reality checks in.

* Scramble  *

You’ll do fine. We’re all ok. Logic, my best friend, is always one deduction away. You’re brave, you deduce, you drown out. That train’s left.

The moments passed. Arresting finality stares you in the face. But, your heart’s still racing…

Note to self: Happy Anniversary

She gently turned the key and pushed, trying not to make a sound, not to wake the neighbours.

Work was crazy that day. Three meetings, apart from the everyday truckload of shit she handled.

It was too late to switch on any lights. Besides, she knew her way around her house.

She walked straight to the digital clock that was flashing 1.38am and pushed a button. Time disappeared and a playlist showed up…she pushed two more buttons and Janis Joplin’s Summertime started to play.

Like clockwork, she went to the bar, poured herself some JD. That sound somehow playing with the sound of the guitar in the background. One desperate sip, she closed her eyes, half winced and swallowed.

Alcohol cleanses away the ruins of the day.

She walked to the middle of the room, took off her shoes, one heel at a time and took another sip when he woke up.

“What time is it?” he said, groping for a switch.

“Shh shh shh. Don’t.” She stretched out her hand in his direction. “Dance with me” she whispered. Walking up to her, he took her hand, made her do a little twirl, and pulled her close by the waist… jack between them.

*N-nothing’s gonna harm you now*

One year ago today, they danced to this song in front of their families.

He moved his hand to her hair, untied it. As her hair fell down to her shoulders and to the small of her back, the air around them smelled of fruity, herbal tea and cigarette smoke. She downed the whiskey and asked him to pour her another.

“Get me ice with it please” she said as he looked around for a glass for himself.

“You know, I had a meeting your side of town today.”

“Yeah”, he called out from the kitchen. “You should’ve called me. We could’ve done lunch”.

“It was last minute. But I did lunch. At Gianni’s. You been there?”

He’s waking up from what seems like a dream. His entire body’s in pain, his back damp and BB King’s playing softly on the stereo. ‘We did it on the floor again’, he thinks to himself.

He turns his head, still in pain, and he sees her. ‘Wow. She’s here. She didn’t run off to hog the bed’, he thinks. ‘Wait’.

She’s sitting on one of the dining table chairs turned backside front, looking down at him. She lights a cigarette. In that 3 second flicker of light, she looks beautiful - her hair, her lips, her red fingertips.

And click. Its gone.

“You didn’t get to hear about the rest of my day” she says, picking up her glass from the floor, taking a sip.

“I bumped into Jackie today”, she’s says, behind a cloud of smoke.

He realizes he’s still in his pajamas. ‘So did we do it?’ he thinks.

“You know, that friend of mine from college.”

The dampness is spreading.

“She said you work in the same building. And sometimes the two of you have lunch together at an Italian restaurant down the street.”

The dampness now reaches his feet.

“Oh, and you know, she had on a beautiful pair of earrings.” She takes a large sip. “ Just like the ones I lost.”

He realizes that the pain is originating from his side.

“Oh and guess what.” She lifts the cigarette dangling from her fingers to her lips,takes a long drag and exhales a large cone of smoke. 

“I finally found daddy’s gun today.”

He’s finding it hard to breathe now. Every attempt to inhale makes his body writhe in pain.

She finishes her last sip.

“Here, I’ll show you. Happy Anniversary, baby."

Note to self: Pick up a bottle of Jack at the dutyfree