Loop de loop

And so it seems that years have passed. Well over a decade. Welp. Here we are, thinking better, happier, but in some ways, so much the same.

Every year or so, or every five years or so, I mean who's keeping track really, I claim to have found the answer except now, five years past the first smol and the little teeth onto the new smol and the old smol-big and the big-dogsmol, I think I know the question?

This affectation, recently acquired is only charming when flirting. Elsewise it is thoroughly annoying. Be sure or be done with it etc. One never had much patience, and now one has parceled out the reserves for the smol and the smol-big and the big-dogsmol and the household staff (YES ONE HAS A STAFF!) and dear old DH who through it all has somehow remained constant (Truly, did we think we would be here?), and one has miniscule portions left to give and often not even that.

To be a real adult is really a terrifying and demanding experience. 

Onto the headlines then: 

I am happy
I know the questions
I went to therapy and why didn't I go sooner?
Dad has died.

So much has happened and we have much to talk about, though, really you might have gone away for a decade and come back and large parts are still the same. I took a walk in the rain, I wished I had a brighter umbrella but settled for an IKEA black. I drank tea and I felt very good about my place in the world.

Time to buy some shoes? This place has good bones, and I guess its time to roll up sleeves and begin to type.


Speaking of, in my inexhaustible drive to buy ALL THE BOOKS, I am contemplating buying a whole book just because I loved in it, one essay. Mary Oliver's Power and Time in her book Upstream has made such a profound impact. Doubly so because, gentle reader would you believe it, a real live Daddy Long Legs made its way upto my mountain retreat and sat gently on a wall next to me. How lucky am I!

Maybe this appeals to someone not in heels

It is 2: 18 am I am thinking about truth.

To be more precise, I am thinking about how I am unable to often say so much of what I think or feel. There is this sense of deliberate, playful dishonesty that I contain within myself - sometimes staring at someone intently during a meeting, or ordering a cup of coffee, all the while giggling because I am saying to them silently what I would never at that point say out loud.

You are cute.
You are annoying me.
Please stop speaking.
I think you are over-reacting.
Actually, you are the one who's wrong.
You are lazy.
Work harder!
This is awful.
I dreamt of you. This makes me feel weird and I don't want it to repeat.
Please, stop speaking.
Yes I am awesome.
I am hungry. Again.
I feel so fat and ugly.
I am tired.
I am tired * 100.
I wish you would email me. And I would like to stop thinking about this.

A lot of this is partly because at work I have to do big things and I wish everyone would stop talking to me so I can do them - the big things. A few minutes ago, I was lying in bed, trying to sleep, and thinking about this one work problem I have to solve. And feeling simultaneously excited and crushingly anxious. I don't doubt myself (much) but for once I am in the cosy little intersection venn spot between a circle of IMPORTANT FOR HUMANITY problems and WORK PAYS ME TO SOLVE THIS problems.

All my life has been spent in coming to this point where I have a juicy problem to solve and it is a hard one. You know what Judy says: I asked for an adventure and by god i am having it. Good ol Judy. Is there ever anyone else who I love more fictionally than her? I think not.

***

Speaking of DLL - what a fine thing is Project Gutenberg. And generally what a fine thing is the internet. I love you all strangers.

***
My new favourite poet is Akhil Katyal - see for example, this:

Our beginnings were rocky, we held hands, infrequently, and uneasily, like Def Col and Kotla,

but then, in some years, often and more breezily,like Jangpura & JangpuraExtension.

***

I am sad that the chronicles of 4, Birbal Road did not grace bloggy much - but maybe that is because not much happened? I truly think I was unhappiest in life in that most beautiful of houses. A gilded cage. With daily travel to Gurgaon and back. Life was cruel, in an ironic sort of way.

***

God so many updates on the paternal front but I can't. No energy. Another sign of old age alongside untruthiness. The ability to scoop up unwanted thoughts and vanish them because I am full as a person otherwise of thoughts and emotions and sorry but there is no space so please go away. I am waiting for someone to write me an email and for someone else to stop talking. Yes.

***
I read God of Small things. Eh.

***

Baby Boo has 4 teeth and makes vowel sounds. What a miracle. He smells adorable and his feet are so smol. He is a smol. It is all manners of enchanting.  He just woke up so I went to make some formula for him. DF is a splendid father (not just because he'll rock boo to sleep). I am almost envious. In a non creepy way. Promise.

***

Amelie Poulain is still my favourite melancholy-bittersweet-wistful-happy soundtrack. Some things never change. I listen to La La Land a lot as well. It is also melancholy.

***
Japan was lovely, btw. I bought back many flavours of Kit Kat.  And a Hello Kitty Comb and lip balm! I had a drink at the Lost in Translation Bar. I havent seen the movie. I only feel like a tiny fraud. OMG I also saw the Great Wave. IRL. It was wonderful - I was truly moved after a long time by a museum.

***
Are you there? Anyone?

Thinking aloud a while ago

Its that time of the year when I need to book tickets to go home and as always, I'm faced with some difficult questions.Lon-Del-Mas-Lon or simply Lon-Mas return?

There is a fabulous shoe store in Delhi that I simply must visit, and of course I must eat at Andhra Bhavan one last time before I return, but are these two reasons worth the extra ten hours either way in travel?

Edited to add in 2017.
No. They're not and you made pretty poor choices. Stupid 2012 Sow.

I'm like the sheepish call you get the morning after

You know the ones, don't you? Where you've either dropped me back home, knowing fully well that despite my calm, drunken assurance that I'll just be a moment before I pick up my passport and come back down so we can head to the airport (and fly away gloriously into an adventure), I'm going to curl up on my sofa, shoes on, spittle clinging gently to my chin and a bucket under my head, just in case, forgetting all about you.

Or where I insist that you leave the house at 3 am after a rowdy racuous argument, and then proceed to  meticulously snip the buttons off each of your shirts and dump them on the stairwell in a fit of controlled rage.

Or where I hide your glasses and go away to a party and switch my phone off, because in that moment of pique, immaturity offers the best shield under which I can hide my frustration.

Or where, well, you get the picture.

And the sheepish call. Where I don't really say, I'm sorry bloggy, I left you thinking it was the sophisticated and adult thing to do, but in the harsh, hungover, light of day, its a bit petty, what?

Yep.

***

Veiled apology to bloggy apart, for the first time, gentle reader, I realised what it was like to have someone actively and clearly try to screw me over. While one part of me was scrambling for evidence, and writing emails saying things like "this is without prejudice to the other rights under the Retainer Agreement" and calling up lawyer-friends for legal advice and forcing them to send me bills, the other part of me was like:

1)  "huh. look at that. you're getting screwed over. huh. interesting.this is what it actually feels like."
2) "clearly all the times you had to forgoe your morning flatwhite + chocolate croissant for a wonderfully exciting meeting was not actually a screw-over. huh"
3) "being asked to do timesheets was not a screw-over. huh"
4) "being paid in full without any dicking around on leave entitlements was not so routine as I thought. huh"
5) "so this is what being treated like a worthless piece of crap actually means. huh"

After a couple of fairly traumatic weeks, where I had to question self-worth, other people's worth, wish I had a chief minister aunt/uncle hidden away somewhere, make long-distance and short-distance advice seeking phone calls and draw up a vindictive game-plan, things finally ended in the most practical/unexciting manner yesterday. And it ended because I had the foresight to set up a smoking gun.

And I'll say this - no amount of literature on power-dynamics, or societal structures analysis or gyan on drafting contracts, or understanding dispute-resolution strategies could have given me the kind of learning I had in the last few weeks.

I feel like I left bruised but a winner, though not as much win as I'd like. Ah well.

***
Though its been advanced by a couple of months, I'm finally, actively, totally and unresistingly entering into a super-scary phase of life - the I AM JUST CHILLING AND NOT WORKING AT ALL UH HUH THAT'S RIGHT phase.

Not only am I be completely free to do whatever I want, I am also doing this with  
 no lifeboat/gameplan in mind for the future. Exciting in the scariest possible way! YAY!

As much as I hate you uncertainty - looks like we're going to have to become great friends - so let's get a move on.

As Day 1 of chill phase - I have woken up late, had a domestic argument, watched the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory and eaten cold pizza for lunch. I may or may not nap now. I have a feeling this is going to be fun! Await my despatches from the front.

I have the honour to remain 
Your most truly obedient servant
Spaax

A year and a day

A year and a day ago, I came to Delhi, utterly sure that I could face everything the city could throw at me. I fancied myself worldly-wise, and a sophisticate, a gentle ball of joy and wisdom that would obliviate all negativity and coat itself with rose petals.

No such luck - Delhi won, I hate the city (as much as I want to love it, I hate hate hate hate hate hate Delhi and most of its disgustoid, honky, honky, honky, overtake-y, dub stepped inhabitants).

Surprisingly, (or maybe not), most people I knew in Delhi didn't share the sentiment; to them, Delhi was either home, or an adopted home with more pluses than minuses, and it suited their purposes just fine. I despaired of finding someone who would understand how soul-crushing and spirit-defeating Delhi could be - did no one hate it as much as I did? Did no one dream that they'd find satisfying careers elsewhere? Were people really comfortable making long-term plans about staying in Delhi - WHY?

I wondered if there was something wrong with me - did Delhi leave me out of its charm-spell? Why couldn't I enjoy the gol guppas and the lehengas and the meter-using autowallahs and be happy?

I don't know, and I wish I loved Delhi - I really do, because then life would be much simpler - but seven years (bloggy's birthday is sometime now) at idreamthedream should have warned you that I never get to do simple. Its always complex, and sometimes its even batshit insane, and I guess that's what gets a blog running. Who wants to read about a simple life anyway? (looks around warily)

What else - oh, professionally, I am a mess, but not really, I think. I don't know. Clarity is lacking sorely on this front, but I trudge ahead, brave warrior, spiky ball, less gentle than I used to be - wondering why I have to look out for myself as much - what a bloody waste of time it is.

I feel like so much has happened in the last year, but I can't articulate my ineffectual grasp of it all. I lived in Delhi, I tried being in academic / public policy, I slept more than I should have, I am rested now, and I'm ready to take on the world - but I worry that I am losing my gentle, flower-child, sense of self, and am instead morphing into a (even more) manipulative thick-skinned bitch. Will I cry if children die? That's rhetorical, calm down.

I can't say I'm impressed with the last year - it was a more a lesson in what-not-to-do, rather than the opposite. But learning happens in curious ways, and knowing the things that one shouldn't do isn't any less useful than knowing the things one should do - right? I feel so anyway - and that's my silver lining for Aug 2012 - Aug 2013.

That's all my news for you - save one. Over seven years, across themes and fonts and templates, and laundry struggles, and chemo rants, and heartbreaking sadness, and loves, and crushes, and work and play and food, at places, with varying conceptions of privacy, and sense of self, this blog has been a constant in my life, and I love it dearly, and I love you dearly, gentle reader, but you probably know that there is another very special constant in my life - DF, with whom I have an arduous, complex and mostly bewildering relationship,

I've hated him, and loved him, and wanted him, and then not, but its taken nine years and then some to figure out that he isn't going anywhere. And that's fine by me. :) We're going to make this work - and as commitment phobic as I am, that's a huge step to take, isn't it? Well, unless you count the fact that we're getting married as a step - which we are, in the form of a somewhat large madras wedding hoopla, and I'm going to write about it here, but anonymously, because DF is somewhat private.


Goodbye, and Happy Independence Day, gentle reader. I leave to board a flight to Madras, to home, where I shall continue to mend a once-broken, but slowly salvaged relationship with my father. We are both survivors of such tragedies, great and small, real and perceived, some suffered jointly, some separated by 40 years of lives lived apart and before, but there is such peace in my heart these days, and I wish for him to have it too and for us to have it together.

And I wish for you to have it too - so hugs. Don't forget to watch the parade, ok?

Neruda-ness

For a few days now, it feels like the moment is right there, a few inches away and I am forever just out of reach. The saturation, the wonderful jolt of ...thought, before I begin to type.

I wrote something a long time ago, a letter of lost love and much too many tears, and today, like all the other days, just out of reach of the moment, as I re-read an old Neruda favourite, I decided that this
needs to be said here. And now. Because if you haven't read Neruda and felt like your soul was bruised and wandered the corridors in search of a hug, well then you havent really loved and lost. 


I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.


I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume 
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm


In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 

pablo neruda


Also, see the entire two (beautiful) paragraphs on the Poem of the Week Page.