Wednesday 21 November 2007

Nostalgia oh dear

Written on 20 November 2007. Posted the next day

I’ve gone into a nostalgic mode since Sunday. It was sheer impulse that made me open my journal last night. (Yeah, I maintained one for a few weeks last year.) I was surprised at how many pages I had filled up and how much space Hubby (then a crush) had occupied (half of it by scale). My writing style too surprised me a bit. Maybe one day I'll post some of it here.

Life was so different then. I spent almost all my weekends travelling and catching up with friends. To fill my week, I commissioned authors for a prominent (smug look) publishing house. Wow! Ever noticed how talking in past tense about an ex-office renders it an aura of glory. The office wasn’t all that great when I worked there. But hey it did give me enough fodder for my online chats with Hubby. God bless my ex-boss for torturing me :) I used to look forward to our chats. God bless G-Talk guys as well. Our daily chats always left me feeling happy and unhappy at the same time. Happy for having spent so-and-so-many hours chatting up with him and knowing him better, and unhappy for having to end it. These chats normally started around 7pm and ended at well 10pm, then 11, then 12 and then even later. (Can you see a correlation of the ‘closing time’ with how our equation developed?) OK guys more later. I have this immense urge to digress.

It’s 20th November again. Papa would have been 60 today. S I X T Y! That’s a lot many years older than what he was the last time I saw him. On his pyre. Or was it at Har Ki Paudi in Haridwar a few days later when the priest said the ceremony was over, but I refused to leave until I saw all traces of him washed away be the strong current of the Ganges, and when a part of him got stuck between two stones, I edged forward and ensured it broke free and flowed to I-don’t-know-where.

I’ll always remember that cold winter morning. Not just because that was my last physical contact with him, but also because we had let him down by saying goodbye in a typical Hindu ritualistic manner, the one he avoided, in fact shunned, all his life. I wish there were rituals to say goodbye to non-believers. Come to think of it, one doesn’t really need rituals. They are just ways of spending money on pundits and feeling smug at having fulfilled religious (really? Or psychological?) responsibility. As Papa used to say, the real responsibility is when people are alive and you can look after them, especially in their old age. “No point crying over your dead who-ever-is-dead if you were not around when he/she was ill or happy. You didn’t share that then. So don’t show your crocodile tears now.” I almost hear him say.

Happy b’day Papa

Monday 19 November 2007

Thoughts crossing my mind right now:

I have acidity…that chicken must have been dead for a day before it went to the wok

Paashu, I know you are upset with me, but hope you understand that my life has changed a lot

My passport…will apply in December

That weighing machine on the fourth floor is definitely messed up because I’m not that light

I want to go to sleep right now and wake up tomorrow at noon and I don’t mind taking days off from work for that. But I have no days of leave left, but what the heck, I’ll go on leave without pay

Will I ever get rid of this substandard skin that I was born with?

I miss Ankur, my bestest friend ever. Ever. And life had to mess it up this badly.

Who describes her birth (walls covered in dark red velvet and lots of books around, I think) vividly in her book…? Simone de Beauvoir? Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter? Why does she call herself dutiful? Was she? Hey where’s it? Mom’s place? In Delhi? Another planet? Or just a different age? Ohhhh I want to sleep

No groundnut at home

I don’t want to play the who-does-more-(avoidable)work-and-wastes-more-time-in-kitchen game

Why can’t all people have a sense of self and stop living for others?

I have to edit her CV…oh poor girl…not even 25 and a forced housewife in a joint family! Sigh! Hope you get a job. Soon

The weather’s really nice

Mmmm…those heavenly handmade chocolates in kitchen…must polish off a few tonight

Sunday 18 November 2007

I used to be myself

I used to be myself...not long ago. I know I'll be back one day. Just don't know when. Hope some time soon. or even a bit late, but hope not too late. At least not late enough to not feel like myself. Confused eh? I'll be back.