Sparkling Waters

It was as simple as that.

To read the texts that flowed in, one after the other, like a leaky faucet trying to fill a broken bucket and realize that the bucket is just that. Broken. There is no glue, no tape in the world to fix the bucket to make it go back in time and be what it used to be.

Of course, here, you have to realize I’m talking metaphors. If you haven’t already.  I really wouldn’t be writing about a real broken bucket, would I? Not that interesting.

In those few moments that it took to send about fifty messages, the past slipped out of my fingers that I have been clutching so tightly and the best part was, I realized that all I needed to do to get rid of the animosity and hatred - basically all the negativity that was getting me down into the depths of darkness - was to just open my palm, just open my heart and let it all recede like the ebbing tide on a beautiful summer’s day.

With clear waters in sight, the world seemed a little more cheery, the horizon seemed a little brighter, the very people who had brought out the worst in me seemed a little nicer. And with a jolt I realized, it is all in the head…. it is all about who and what I choose to give control to. Control of my life, that is.

Demons are always going to be around, both ones that I can battle and ones that I need someone to help me battle. But for now, I will still munch on cookies, download Grey’s Anatomy, file 130% productivity at work each day, go for long walks, read more Greg Iles, laugh a lot at the most pointless of things and learn to make the perfect cup of hot chocolate. 

***

I wrote this for myself a while ago. And guess what, I have almost perfected the hot chocolate :)

***
P.S: Lioness, Wings of Harmony and Blasphemous Atheste asked me why I disabled comments. I have been doing that for the past few posts because 1) I felt really bad about not replying to previous comments for a really long time - it was my way of atoning for it? By giving up precious comments and 2) I wanted to write for myself, just myself... because that's where I started from.

Ghosts Of Roommates Past

Ah, a topic I could write a book upon.

Caution: VERY long post ahead. ALL rant. At your own risk.
 
When I joined college 4 long years ago, I got the best of roommates (though I wouldn't have agreed then), so when I came to Bangalore first, I hoped really hard that I would find roommates who I could be friends with.

How difficult could that be, considering Bangalore is FULL of girls of all shapes, sizes, orientations, ideas, dress sizes and whatnot. Apparently, very difficult.

I shall elucidate (whether you like it or not):

Number 1 was sweet. She is what I am now, friendly and full of helpful advice but prefers to keep her life completely and entirely separate from mine. Not that it is a problem now but when you are a green, green girl fresh out of college, a kind word and a shopping trip would have helped my case. But she was nice and that's all that matters now. And I shall be forever thankful to her for my first Corner House icecream.
Duration: 1 month.

Number 2, I'd rather not talk about her. She was three times my size, from Hyderabad, had very loud opinions about 'mallus' and their 'chaluness', hated fresh air from open windows, liked the television on at high volume at all times of the day including midnight and threatened to crush me under her weight. Oh and she doesn't flush the toilet or throw away her toiler paper.
Duration: 48 hours.

Number 3 was okay. I always thought that she was a bit of cuckoo because she never used to understand what I was trying to tell her, which is surprising considering I speak her language and well, and also because she spends the entire day on Saturday AND Sundays making rice and steaming capsicum in the microwave. She kept to herself and was nice enough to offer me her rice and capsicum. She always told me that I could take anything from her food ration and cosmetics (including a heavenly bubble bath from the UK) as long as I didn't touch her clothes or shoes. I was A-OK with this and offered her the same liberties.
Duration: 2 months.

Number 4 was a mistake me and my big mouth made. I'd rather not say anything here for I fear lurkers. I think my back did hurt her poor, helpless knife though. Tch, tch.
Duration: 1 month.

Number 5 was a local and got me into a hell of a lot of trouble with the landlady, complaining about me in Kannada. This was happening right in front of me and I nodded along thinking she was saying something constructive about something else and she knew full well I didn't follow. At all. I wouldn't have minded if it were not for the fact that all the complaints were made with the intention of taking over my room which was the best in the PG (in terms of space and ventilation).
Duration: 1 week.

And finally, Number 6. Ah, she is a work of art, a piece that belongs in a museum, nonetheless. My biggest error of judgment and I paid for it with 9 months of sheer misery. Right from bullying me into getting a house with her despite not having the finances and having known each other for less than 10 days, she trampled her way through my life in ways I shudder to think of. The sucker that I am, she fed me a story of missing her parents and I fell for it immediately.

Shopping for the perfect kadhai for her to cook paneer in took precedence to my broken heart right in the middle of a messy, drawn out, painful break up. Between this crazie and my 'extremely understanding' ex, my life was truly hell in a cell those days and I shall forgive neither of them that easily, if at all. I remember sitting outside the room, tears flowing down my cheeks in a never ending torrent, heart breaking into a million pieces and throat clogged in the middle of an international call, when she came out of the room and yelled at me for not giving her company for dinner. I also remember being in the middle of a HUGE blowout that involved me, my mother, my ex and a colleague (you don't want to know) and she wanting me to get the internet guys to buy extra wire right then and there. Gave me days when all I wanted was to jump off the terrace parapet.

A few highlights....

1) She insisted that I eat the food that she cooked regardless of whether I wanted to or not. And if I, by chance, eat out with my friends one in a way or skipped food, she used to throw a hissy fit and not a pretty, I-care-about-you one.

2) She never 'let me' go for nightouts with my friends. I tell her I'm going, she says no, you can't, I'm scared to be here by myself.

3) She sits and looks at herself in the mirror for hours on end. After a couple of minutes, it is just plain creepy.

4) She played the most tacky of songs on infinite loop loudly on her laptop all the time. This includes midnight, weekends and any other time I choose to be home.

5) She has about 6 guys salivating after her, each convinced that she is going to marry him. They probably spend all the time, energy and money on ensuring that their princess is happy. I admire her ability to ensure that none of them know about any of the others. This is apart from flirty texts at midnight to the house owner who she has wrapped around her finger.

6) Every chance she gets she makes me take pictures of her, in different poses and clothes. This is every second minute and regardless of what else I am doing. 

7) She is so dirty. The kitchen hasn't been cleaning in atleast six months, the washroom has stains of i-don't-want-to-think-about-it, she doesn't flush properly, she sheds hair like snakes shed skin and every single square inch of the house is covered in it, she hasn't done laundry in the past three months and the laundry bag smells like no girl's clothes should ever smell. The kitchen clothes that she soaked last month, were still floating around in water when I vacated. The house reeks of the five day old bhaaji that she cooked for her puri and left behind. Open. In the cooker.

8) Creme de la creme. She hits people. Including me. And when I tried staving her off, she hit her own head against the wall and the door and threatened to call the police on me for hurting her.

And all this is only tip of the ice berg and I'm not even exagerrating.

The last couple of months, I have been afraid of going home, I leave for office by 8 30 am and get back home by 10 30 pm, spending more than ten hours in the office. I stayed away during the weekends as well, after a point just sitting at The Forum mall for lack of anything better to do. And when I go back, she still makes a face, makes derogatory comments and makes me out to be evil and uncaring.

She makes me wish the last eight months never happened. 

On 15th August 2013, I moved, extremely happily, into a handkerchief sized place with a clean, beautiful washroom (yeah, another OCD), cheerful in the knowledge of not having to go through the trauma of another roommate. I finally get to put out my books without fear of someone tearing them out, put up my fairylights to satisfy a life's ambition and keep the place squeaky clean and smelling of rose incense.

AHHHHHHHHHH. The Sweet Smell of Peace Indeed.


But, after 7 moves in less than 17 months, all these buggers have left me questioning myself, asking myself if I am that difficult to live with.

Ugh.

P.S: I know this is too long a post but it is catharsis, please bear with me.

Its surprising, actually...

... How fast time passes by.

How you block out things you thought were most important. 

How much things change.

How many emotions one person can make you feel and not in a good way. 

How there are certain days when the sun shines so bright outside that it hurts your eyes but it refuses to dispel the darkness that tiptoes around your aura threatening to engulf you. (wow, that's dramatic)

How some feelings never change. 

How some feelings change so much that you wonder why you felt them in the first place. 

How long you can go without the things that you loved the most.

How much you can change, as a person, over the short period of one year. 

How different a person you actually are from who you thought you were.

How much effort it takes to put a smile on your own face just to ensure that people don't wonder why you always have a hangdog expression.

How little it takes to fall apart.

How difficult it is to just believe the words that come out of a person's mouth instead of questioning every intention, every thought behind it.

How much you have missed out on in a world that was your world.

How many people, relationships you have had to lose because you do not have the strength to explain. 

How cynical you have become of pretty much everything.

How long it has been since you actually had a bar of good, solid, comforting chocolate.

How small things that you left in the past come back to make you smile.

How much courage you get in knowing that you are strong enough to still want to say bring it on. 

How much happiness it infuses in you to know that someone still needs your shoulder. 

How awesome it is when you can cross the road during peaktime traffic all by yourself.

How brilliant it is to have a group of people who just let you be and make you laugh.

How much hope it gives you that those people might let you call them your friends. 

How much it means to know that someone is trying to make you laugh despite everything.

How high you get on being noticed for having potential.

How much it means when someone believes in you with a steadfastness you have yet to see in others' eyes.

How the person you thought you hated is the only one who really believed in you, fought for you.

How funny Will & Grace is.

How some people have the knack of saying exactly what you want to hear and despite your cynicsm, you believe in them.

How mindnumbingly, awesome sukhapuri really is.

A long way, I have come.

A long way, I have to go.

 

I leave you to drool over this monstrosity from Indijoe's, Bangalore. A cake that almost got me a promotion, one that made me sick of food itself for well over a week.

 P.S: I HAD to write a depressing post before I could move past, so COME ON and cut me some slack, won't you? If anybody still visits this place, that is :D

P.P.S: I lost months of work that I did on my blog and a couple of pages that I loved as well, all because of a tiny mistake I made. Ah well, let's start from scratch, shall we?

The Park Bench

It was a dark night, darkest one in December yet. The icy wind made her teeth chatter as she stuffed her cold fingers into her sweater and picked up the pace.

A delicious steak dinner with home-made apple sauce had made Sandeep a happy man, he was already buried knee-deep in his papers, with the patch-work quilt she’d given him for last Christmas keeping him toasty warm. His midnight cocoa was already in the microwave.

She did her duties well and happily too; least she could do for the man she loved with her whole heart, for the man who was her husband.
For the man who was there for her when she needed him, who had centered his world around her and made her feel like his Queen.

He sometimes came with her on her nightly walks, but more often let her go alone for he understood long back how much she craved the solitude of the walk down an empty street. 


She loved the dim street lamps strewing erratic lights in her path, they cast dancing shadows as she moved… how she loved the half an hour on the park bench where she sat, arms crossed, eyes closed and breathing in the crisp scent of the night. The sounds fascinated her too, the chirp of the busy cricket, the croak of the frog that lost his way, the silent hoot of the owl just before it snapped up the mouse between its razor-sharp beak.

That half hour was Her Time. And nothing ever got in the way, not work, not exhaustion, not parties, not nothing. It was then that she made peace with the day gone by, however good or bad the Universe had been to her.

But today peace was not what she strove for.
A phone call had stirred up her life.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

Silence. She struggled to collect her thoughts.

“Hi, Sabal. Long time, no hear?”

“Yeah, life happened... or something...” She heard the smile in his voice.

“Ah well, how is it going? What have you been upto?” 
She’d always tried to keep it cordial after they’d broken up. She had never wanted to be like one of those couples which had a happy, memorable run, broke up and then never stopped bitching about each other.

“Good, good… Nothing much. The usual. I have come back to India for good. True blue Indian, I am now.”

“Oh good, I was tired of you complaining about Muscat last time you called, actually. You’re in Bangalore?”

“Yes. Whitefields. Bought a house, mum is here with me.”

“Oh my, look at you all grown up!” she teased.

“Ah well… Listen, I called you because…”

“Yeah…?” she asked, almost tentatively. She hoped fervently that he wouldn’t start with the ‘come back to me’ routine. It had been so long, yet he never seemed to give up.

“I’m getting married.”

Her breath left her body in a surprising whoosh of relief. Relief, not at not having to refuse yet again, but relief that he was getting hitched. Finally.

“Wow. Who? What? When? How? Why?” she didn’t mask her delight. “And sorry, congratulations!” She added with a smile.

He seemed a little chagrined when he replied, maybe he had been hoping for a different reaction?

“Her name is Maithili. She’s from work. Mum liked her. It’ll be small. On the 29^th. At the cathedral. No reception.”

“…. Wait a second… from work? Aunty liked her? As in this wasn’t arranged?”

“Erm… not really… ”

“Wow. I’m so happy for you, I really am,” she just could not keep the smile out of her voice.

“I know you are, which is why I wanted to tell you before you heard from the grapevine.”

“Thank you for that,” she said quietly.

“Chalo, I got to go see to some furniturewale who insist that I ordered a mammoth study that I have never seen in my life. You take care, alright? See you around.”

She giggled like a twelve-year old. 
“It’s funny to hear you’re being all grown-up. Anyway, congratulations once again. Buh-bye”

“Bye”.

And the conversation played on loop in her head all day.

Now, as she sat alone on the cold, hard bench, one that had become her companion during her rendezvous with her own inner self, her mind filled with memories.

They had been so young, so innocent. That first bitter-sweet sting of Cupid’s unmerciful arrow, sneaking all over the place to spend a few minutes alone, lying at home about extra classes after school, hiding scraps of paper from the teacher, 14-rupee cards on Valentines' and the key chains they got made with the other’s initials. Being leg-pulled by friends who secretly envied them for the dreamy smiles they exchanged during class, first butterflies, first nerves, first dates and first and (till then) only true love.

They had taken it very seriously, planned their whole life together right down to the color they’d paint their house. She didn’t want anything more than to be married to him and he’d kill himself before he’d even look at another girl.

But, like always, things had started falling apart by their second year together. He wanted a ‘homely’ girl, like his mother, who’d not question him, not be ‘modern’ in ways she didn’t even understand and questioned her even on things she considered as basic freedom.

And she, on the other hand, was a wild spirit, untamed and free, who chose to believe in what she experienced and live the way her beliefs dictated rather that what the society did. But she tried to change for him, tried hard considering he was the love of her life. She gave up everything she believed in and tried her best to fit in the ‘homely’ mold. She tried to get him to meet her halfway but he was too set in his ways. She struggled occasionally only making him hold on tighter.

Finally, the day came when love was just not enough. The sun rise saw her failing miserably at pretending to be what she was not. Pretending to be Miss Goody-Two-Shoes when all she wanted to do was do three shots of tequila and ride the fake bull at the bar. Pretending every day that her swollen eyes had nothing to do with tear-soaked pillows.

She broke free. And she broke them too. 
The most successful couple from school bit the dust.

He fought long and hard to get her back for once she was gone he realized what she’d meant to him. He swore to change for her, every time she chanced to pick up his calls, but she knew that people were born a certain way and if they tried to change, they’d only be miserable.

She told him it was over. That she’d moved on.
He said he’ll wait.

And he’d waited ten long years, saw her become successful at a profession he’d hated, saw her fall in love with another man who accepted the wild mare and never tried to hold her tight. He saw her walk with him down the aisle and have his child, never…. not once letting go of hope than she’d come back to him.

The guilt had eaten her alive every day, just a little bit. She felt that she’d been the cause for all the ill-luck in his life. She wished that he hadn’t fallen for her. She prayed every day that he’d meet somebody.

Because she was happy and he was not.

Now, she sighed as a small tear escaped the crinkle of her eye and dripped down to her now dormant dimple. A tear shed not for grief or pain. Not for a relationship lost nor for her failed first love. 

The tear was for peace. For closure.
For he’d finally gotten his happy ending.