Khichdi: A question of to be or not to be

It's been a while that I have written something, mainly because lately it feels like I have lesser and lesser to say. And what else could I say anyway that hasn't already been said before. In a world of Van Gogh and Martin Scorcese and Christopher Nolan and Sulman Rushdie and Jhumpa Lahiri and John Green and Khaled Hosseini and Shakespeare, the great storytellers and poets and philosophers and artists what could I even say that wouldn't feel like a sorry plain and mellow mush of khichdi in a room full of exotic mouth watering cuisines. These are some of the questions that gnaw my heart and leave me inevitably feeling inspired and uninspiring both at the same time. And these were some of the things I was wondering while I whiled away my time on a footover bridge overlooking a very busy road on the one hand and a setting golden orange sky on the other. Now what was I even doing on the footover bridge in the first place? Well, super blue blood moon and overzealous friend who managed to get me excited enough to run to the bridge to see the historic once in a lifetime event from 30 kms away were the culprit it seems. I hung over the bridge for more than an hour hoping to catch something life altering but all I really got were blaring traffic noises from underneath and atleast a tonne of smoke into my lungs. But it wasn't so bad. I listened to stairway to heaven and pondered over the questions I ask myself every once in a while. Suddenly my attention fell on a barefooted man running around in the heavy traffic charged with a lathi, trying hard to control the traffic which remained oblivious of this crazy little man though mindful to not hurt him. Seeing him milling about, I kept wondering how thin a line there is between obsession and insanity; and how liberating would the latter feel. I enjoyed my little bridge time though I couldn't really answer all the questions I keep throwing at myself. Maybe it isn't about finding all answers to our questions but maybe it's about finding questions whose answers are worth looking for. Maybe it's a little similar with writing. We don't really need a reason to write and despite all the wonderful things written in the world, it still doesn't have that one thing that only you and you can offer; your perspective. And even though what you have to offer might just look like plain mush khichdi, remember that on awful days when everything hurts there is nothing more satisfying and comforting than a bowl of warm khichdi.

The genesis of this blog came one fine day when I, overtly amused by my eccentric Marwari family and somewhat funny life decided that it should be documented somewhere and if I got lucky even be read by a few people (except my mom); well, except that even my mom doesn't read it either. But as it often happens with all my mad genius plans; I got lazy and didn't really get to actually writing anything in the blog. Gradually the blog became more of a platform for sharing my abstract musings on the world and more generally a vent for my feelings hence letting my original idea of sharing personal anecdotes going to the dump. Anyway, today I feel like sharing a personal story; not to anyone particularly but just to write it; to see whether it looks as crazy on screen as it feels in my head. So basically 2017 pretty much sucked for me. I screwed up the exam I had been preparing a year for, felt lost and purposeless, tried a bunch of things and failed, and generally procrastinated my way through; as usual. Expecting 2018 to be kind of the same way since all adulting really means is sucking at things until you just die, I had very less reason to celebrate the New Year's Eve. But succumbing under peer pressure and death threats by friends who have the potential to make good on them, I went to my friend's house party. Okay so, normal kids (read adults who live with their parents ) usually just tell their parents what their plans for new year's are and go and live their youth but marwari kids have to concoct elaborate lies which DON'T involve alcohol or drugs or boys or the fact that the party is 2 hours away and basically in another state with high incidences of road rage and testosterone and crazy hormone charged boys. By now you would have guessed the party was in Gurgaon. Or the stupidly named Gurugram (Seriously, doesn't the government have better things to do than pointlessly renaming cities? Like go and remove poverty or something?) 

Anyway, coming to the point; the party was in Gurgaon, and was made up of my parents' worst nightmares. Namely booze, hash, lots of loud and dirty music and lots and lots of boys. Basically any normal house party.

But then things started getting crazier. Which they usually do after eight shots of mixed up drinks. After three shots you make Goa plans with your girlfriends. After five, you try booking air tickets using your paytm money. (Thank god my paytm had only like, fifty bucks), after six shots you rub against random Jat boys who are friends of your girlfriend's boyfriend. Crazy right? Not enough? Well the random Jat boys who are friends of my girflfriend's boyfriend also happen to carry pistols with them everywhere. Which they got to the party as well. While everyone was busy taking phones out of their jeans pockets to sit comfortably, they took out their pistols and kept it as nonchalantly as if everyone carried pistols everyday. After seven shots, one of the Jat boys took out a wad of cash charged with two thousand bucks notes; which I, after seven shots tried to steal from him. In my defense he was standing on a chair and had taken that bundle of cash out trying to shower it on our sorry crowd beneath him. I was just being respectful and accepting of his charitable ways. My friend unfortunately thought otherwise and returned the stack to him. After eight shots my long time chuddy buddy girlfriend was going around the house announcing to everyone that she has known me from the time we wore those chuddies while I ran around the house behind her correcting her, saying that we wear the chuddies even now. After nine shots I kissed my chuddy buddy girlfriend to tell her I love her while her boyfriend watched his mouth gaping. I couldn't tell whether he was appalled or wanted to join in. After ten shots, I kissed my best friend to again, prove to her that I love her. After her ten shots, she asked me to prove it properly so I tongue kissed her. All I can say is there were a lot of gaping mouths in the party. After eleven shots I was way overreaching myself so obviously I puked all over the place; so I was put to sleep. But not before kissing another one of my childhood friends, this time a boy. All the homophobes can sigh with relief. Although I don't remember this one but was told this by that very same boy the next morning. I pretended not to believe him but knowing me I probably would have done that too. What can I say? I am just full of love when I am drunk ;)

On a side note, the Jat boys with pistols went out later in the night, very happy and very very high and ran their cars up the dividers on the road just for fun and well, they had to uber later on since they got their bumper severely damaged and the tyres punctured. Which on hindsight is really good for other people on the road.

On another side note, one of the Jat boys I was grinding against brought a BMW for me to sit in with him the very next morning. I couldn't decide whether to be amused or flattered. Guess I was mostly scared because of his pistol.

Anyway, that was my NORMAL new year.

How was yours?

So I have an ancient laptop which is old enough to be thrown into the dumps but still a few years shy of being called vintage, hence it takes forever to start which I normally hate but today particularly so because I am bursting up with emotions I need to vent out and don't even want to waste a moment afraid that the words bubbling inside me would somehow fizzle out and I would be left with a dreary choice of words which would pale in comparison to what I had been feeling at the moment just because I was not able to find the right words to express my emotions. Have you loved a fictional character so much that they seemed more real to you than anything or anyone else you had in real life? Now some would say no, and the others who read books would know what I am trying to say. As I have grown older this feeling has hit me lesser and lesser but today as I sat down to read Turtles All The Way Down by John Green I was hit with that familiar old feeling, where the story remains with you long long after the story has ended. It's a beautiful sensation, feeling so overwhelmingly for someone who doesn't even exist. But perhaps we love them so much because they exist in us, as parts of us that we sometimes choose not to address, or simply ignore trying too hard to fit in a normal world. But then sometimes we read a book and we discover a character we fall in love with, simply because it made us rediscover who we had buried deep inside of us. I don't even know if I make sense right now and I don't intend for anyone to ever read it, and perhaps no one would really, but on this Christmas eve, I am thankful for stories; and for the various versions of us we can find and rediscover and even live simply by being a part of a story, whether by reading or even writing one. As John Green writes, the world is a billion of years old, and life is a product of nucleotide mutation and everything. But the world is also the stories we tell about it.

Forgetting you

I tell my friends I am over you
But yesterday when our 'mutual friend' mentioned your name
My heart skipped a beat
And it was all I could do
To not turn my mouth
Like I had just tasted blood again
I go out with eight different guys
Seven days of the week
And keep my schedule chalked to the T
I do all the things I love
Just so I don't have the time to think
How I love them a little lesser
Now that you aren't here anymore
I tell myself I have forgotten you
Yet sometimes
My fingers type your phone number on their own
As if they had their own mind
Which refused to forget
Exactly how your touch felt
And how perfectly your fingers
Filled the spaces between mine
No matter how many more fingers
They entwined with
No matter how many more
Lips they touch.

REALITIES

Ever since I was a little girl
I have an image etched in my memory,
A huge temple
A larger crowd
And a sea of people in front of me.
But all I was curious about
was a man with a tattered jacket and
only one shoe,
His gaze was faraway and when he smiled
his mouth revealed a missing tooth.
That man sat there gazing
to a place faraway in another land
He was so engrossed and completely lost
he didn't even notice he was holding up a queue.
"Who is that?" I asked my dad,
I was only five.
"A lunatic." He replied.
But he looked so happy in his game
making phone calls,writing mails
His phone was a broken comb
and in thin air he typed
A loonatic?
Fancy! I replied.
At age ten, in the same spot I sat again
watching him
He looked just the same.
the same "Macbook air"
legs folded neatly without a care.
When eighteen, I crossed paths with him again.
Is he absolutely crazy or the only one who's sane?
What is real and what is not
Who is to tell, who knows
It's an insanely thin line as far as sanity goes.
But today, as I sit here across from you,
and you cup my small hand
under your warm palm
you quell all my tornadoes.
And I know now
if there is ever something close to real,
close to the truth;
It is you.
It is you.
It is you.

A case for letting you go

Oh baby,
I know the blanket
seems too warm to step out
Into a world unknown
and terrifying
And honey,
I know my arms are a good place to hide
from things untypical
and mystifying
And darling,
why you've got to step out anyway
and take that long flight
To foreign lands
and strange looking people
Who make you feel
like a fish out of the sea
and fumble and stumble at
a language you can't even read
Oh sugar,
why do you have to do the things
that make your heart pound
and your palms sweat
When things here seem
Perfect
Flawless
Pristine
Just fine
Normal
Uninspiring
Routine
Smothering
Oh baby,
I know my embrace is
a good place to hide
But let this be the last one tonight
For tomorrow, you go see the world
and eat that Thai curry with the coconut
Which will make your tongue burn
and get cheated by a conman
pretending to be a guide
And get lost
in the various
twists
and turns
and narrow alleys
and dead ends
In a city you don't know
like the back of your hand
And maybe,
you stumble upon a little corner
that feels like home 
in a foreign land
Oh baby,
this blanket might seem warm
But don't let it chain you
From all the adventures
You have to get on. ❤

Looking for the right questions

Ever since Radha got a hold of her senses, she remembers being asked questions. She remembers being five, and being made to stand in a living room, a hoarde of friends and family surrounding her, throwing in one question after the other. "Radhu, what comes after D beta?", "Baby who is the Prime Minister of India", " tell me quickly what is 2+2?" Confused and bewildered with all those eyes watching her keenly she used to wade through all the questions, looking intently at the reactions of people around her. Her mummy's eyes sparkled with pride each time she got it right. Daddy laughed, clapping for her. And Bomkish Dadu even gave her candies. Knowing answers was important it seemed.
As Radha grew bigger, so did the seemingly never ending questions and the expectations of her getting them right. "What is metamorphosis?", "What did Robert Frost mean when he said he took the road not taken and that has made all the difference", "what do you want to be when you grow older", "Where do you see yourself in five years?". How? When? Why? What? Nonetheless, Radha tried as hard as she could to get them right. After all, how could she miss the chance of seeing mummy's eyes sparkle, and daddy laughing with pride. The clapping didn't happen anymore, and forget about the candy. After all she wasn't a baby anymore, was she?
But the harder she tried to get the right answers, the more she felt like she was failing. The backgrounds changed. From the living room to the classroom to the Dean's office to the boardroom, but Radha still felt like that five year old trapped in a 5 feet 4 inch 40 pound body; struggling to wade through, flailing around in a sea of questions. Until one day, she realised, while she was busy answering, she had forgotten to ask. Why does five come after four? Why isn't a rose called a lily? Do I need to choose between science and commerce? Why can't I do both? Or none of them if that's possible?  Why do I have to decide what to do in the future? What about what I want to do now? But most important of all questions, is the question that why do we need to know answers of all questions? And if we know those answers, are the questions good enough?