Moon Faced Crab

Change is good

2010-04-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

www.killthebutterflies.wordpress.com

Too small for shoes(part 2)

2010-03-31T09:25:00.001-07:00

No one ever talks about journalism colleges. In fact my family thinks I'm a bit of an airhead for having gone and gotten an admission in one. So you want to be Barkha Dutt? They ask me.

I don't want to be Barkha Dutt.

And so I spend my days doing the most un-Barkha Dutt like things. I am 21 She fumes Obviously I am going to write about love and friends and sex. Give me a break She holds up her assignment sheet, covered in red pen marks.

This is a journalism college you know- I remind her.

But she's RIGHT. We are 21, we sit on the terrace at the villa and mull over whiskey and coke. Sure its barely legal to drink right now, but let's face it guys- we are old.

My girlfriend wants to get married, He tries to slip in offhandedly. Doesn't work.

We all scream, WHAT?

We'll probably just get engaged once college ends, I dunno. We've been together for six years, he reminds us defensively and then curls up to hear our wrathful judgement.

Instead, S cries gleefully, Invite us to the engagement, I want to DANCE

Alcohol- A says slowly, like she can't stress the point enough. I want lots of A-L-C-O-H-O-L

My wedding, I tell them, Will have BUCKETS of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Clearly neither of us is growing up soon.

I don't want to grow old I tell A and S in a half whisper. I'd make a really batty old lady They agree with me.

Probably wont feed your child, they remark.
I will buy him his own food. GOD. How many times do I have to remind you I am not selfish. I just don't share. There is a difference.

We laugh.

The best years of your life, my mother reminds me over the phone, You will never look like this again. Enjoy it. She tells my Dad.

And my dad's no agony aunt. He sends me an email the next day- Stop pitying yourself, he types in caps lock, if it bothers you so much, do something about it.
He cites examples too. Like Raveena Tandon. I am bitter but impressed with his knowledge of Bollywood

Yeah. Gotta start putting anti-wrinkle cream once we are 23 , A reminds me. We are only half joking.

Too small for my shoes

2010-03-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

"We are adults now. When did that happen? How do we make it stop?"
(Grey's Anatomy. OBVIOUSLY. The only source I can quote from after three years of English Literature. No thank you to you Mr. Shakespeare. Although I do recall a certain line about a certain little white ewe being tupped by a certain old black ram. But that's only because my perversion got the best of me.)

But we are ADULTS now. Does that mean I have to stop being afraid of banks? I think that's the only thing keeping me from plunging into adulthood. A bank to Kritika, is like a potty to a child afraid of potties. It speaks to me in gutteral tones, "2 out of 100 in math. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? And you walk in here, impudent piece of shit, what do you think of yourself?! You think you can do it NOW? Do you not remember what happened with you and trigonometry last summer? Forgotten the shame already eh? Get out I say. Get OUT."

Do I have to be neat? Like learn how to fold clothes? Apply nail polish INSIDE the nails. Do I have to share now?

Because I can't do these things. there are only so many nachos inside the nachos box, and clothes are vile and tricky,sleev-ey and button-ey. Lets like compromise, I do my nail polish bit and I NEVER have to do banks and clothes and OMG..SHARE.

I don't know how to embark upon this journey to adultland. The land of bills and mortgages and family and marriage...

The HORROR! - That's Joseph Conrad bitches!

Mothers

2010-03-31T09:08:00.001-07:00

she-All boys want one thing at this age.

me-Oh so you mean they get better once they are older? Do they get wiser and want other things?

she-Don't be cheeky, yes THEN they are mature. At this age they are all out to have fun.

me-I don't believe you.

she-You think they aren't jerks?

me-Uh not that, I don't believe you when you say they'll get better, wiser, mature-er whatever.

she-We are just trying to protect you.

me-I know.

But....how much longer???!

she- Till you're mature enough to handle them yourself.(sub-textually- Till you get married, sub-sub-textually-till you get arrange married)

me-How does it make a difference, when it all boils down to the one thing, which they'll obviously want even when I'm mature enough to know that that's all that they want.

she-But you'll be older then.

me-Wait...so do you want me to be older and more mature, so I can try and find someone who wants the one thing, but is from an Ivy league college, good looking and has a great sports car? I already know what they want. Geez, frankly this is not even the kind discussion I want to be having with you right now. It's awkward and inappropriate.

she-But we are the only people who really care about you. Plus there is the whole deal about the hormones at this age. You know boys and their wild, raging hormones.

me-Ugh! No. Please not the hormones. I refuse to talk about the hormones with you, esp ones that are wild and raging!

she-Why? You know you can talk to me about ANYTHING.

me-Uh..no. Not boys.

she-okay. alcohol? There was alcohol too at the party right?

me-oh ya, vanilla vodka..awesome!

she-WHAT?

me-kidding. I hate alcohol.

she-yes, please hate alcohol and cigarettes.

me-and boys.

she-yes boys. Specially boys with alcohol and cigarettes.

me-oh cmon, you're freaking me out. Are they that bad.

she-yes, at this age, the hor-

me-don't say it!

she-they get better, but not right now, right now they think with their DI-

me-aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! i'm blocking you out now!!!!!!!!( sing latest hindi movie song at the top of my voice)

she-you get the message.

me-no alcohol. no cigarettes. no boys.

For Apoo

2010-02-17T09:20:00.000-08:00

100 Things That I love (in random order)

1. The kissing scene at the end of a movie. Right before the closing credits. Accompanied by a cheesy song.
2. Explaining to people as to why I love Kurkure more than Lays. (More chips in a kurkure packet.)
3. Dancing to Bollywood music.
4. The fifth glass of whiskey and coke.
5. Celebrity hook-ups.
6. Facebook photocomments!
7. Dancing to Lady Gaga.
8. Singing really loudly. In the car.
9. Smudgy kajal.
10. Celebrity Break-ups.
11. Pigs.
12. Pigs as bacon.
13. Foggy mornings.
14. Considering Grey's Anatomy dialogues to be the ultimate advice with regard to relationsips.
15. Considering Entourage to be the ultimate handbook on dealing with men.
16. Colonel Sander's pretty pretty face.
17. Little puppies learning how to walk.
18. Manicure and Pedicures.
19. Facials and Oil massages.
20. Unexpected compliments.
21. New Years Eve kisses.
22. Post-its.
23. The sound the ATM makes before spitting out cash.
24. Overeating.
25. Fluffy Quilts.
26. Stalking the exes on social networking sites.
27. http://www.gofugyourself.com/
28. The sound of the phone ringing.
29. Hot pizza and the cardboard delivery box it comes in.
30. A friendly auto driver who takes you home at a reasonable rate.
31. Mills and Boons. Watching Dirty Dancing, over and over and over again.
32. Giving relationship advice to the girlfriends.
33. The last day of exams.
34. CCDs in general.
35. PVR nachos and cheesy dip. SIGH.
36. Mark Wahlberg in the Italian Job.
37. My mom and dad, close-dancing. awww.
38. Birthday parties!
39. Gifts.
40. Eating my burgers in the grossest way possibly- consuming the bun first and then the filling.
41. Eating my samosa in that exact same manner.
42. My eyebrows, when they are perfectly shaped.
43. Earrings and nose-pins.
44. Vengeant Alanis Morrisette break-up songs. (Does she know how you told me you'd me hold until you die/ But you're still alive!)
45. Linda Goodman's astological precision.
46. Books.
47. Smoke mingled with the smell of cologne.
48. Holding hands for the very first time.
49. Sylvia Plath poetry.
50. Watching mom giggle like a little girl every time she listens to a John Denver song.
51. the words, "I love you"
52. The "getting-back" after the "breaking-up"
53. New seasons of Grey's Anatomy.
54. Harry Potter Books.
55. LOTR movies.
56. Abba, Carpenters and Boney M.
57. E-mails.
58. Pithoo.
59. Secretly being in love with Edward Cullen.
60. Planning my wedding cuisine. (KFC and beer.)
61. Acting a little too feminist to scare my mom.
62. Crazy Relatives.
63. The successful completion of a diet.
64. Being told, "You've lot weight"
65. Eye liner.
66. Pouring my heart out to my best friend on the phone.
67. Watching Patrick Swayze MOVE.
68. Falling in and out of love with Shahrukh Khan.
69. Breaking up repeatedly with Americana. And then ordering the crumb fried chicken in the next two days.
70. Losing self control.
71. Giggling like an idiot.
72. Talking in the middle of movies.
73. Waking up to his voice.
74. Falling asleep to his voice.
75. Bitch-fights.
76. THE WEBCAM
77. Dad's suitcase when he comes back home after 6 months of sailing.
78. Saag paneer chawal.
79. Stray dogs.
80. T-shirts that are cut up around the collar.
81. Short shorts.
82. People who are funny.
83. Truth and Dare
84. Never Have I Ever.
85. Drunk Friends trying to dance.
86. Judging people.
87. Trying out clothes that I secretly know will never fit me in this lifetime.
88. Horror movies.
89. Disneyland!
90. Parantha with a blob of butter in the middle and then watching it melt and spread all over.
91. Mangoes.
92. Swearing on people to prove my innocence.
93. Googling stuff and then wikipedia-ing it for more in-depth knowledge.
94. People who share my enthusiasm for food, or dieting.
95. Hating people who are too smart.
96. Intimidating people.
97. New haircuts. And bangs. :)
98. Licking off melted chocolates from the wrapper.
99. Dancing drunkenly to "I Love Rock and Roll with Apoo and then suddenly singing in unision at the "He said can I take you home...." part of it!

100. The butterflies in my stomach when I am excited.

The Joke

2010-02-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

THE JOKE still haunts me. I live with it every day, its poltergeisty appearance not leaving me for one waking second till I just wish it would lock me up in my T.V. and then GO AWAY. I’m familiar with it, THE JOKE, so I talk to it. Basically it makes Chandler-esque sarcastic comments like, “Could that Sub BE anymore cheesier?” and I ask it to shut up. THE JOKE, that happened so long ago that I have forgotten its origins, its incidence and its basic geography, has come to define me and the woman that I will turn into one day (-most probably my mother, but I blame the THE JOKE and not THE GENES which I shall talk to you about in a separate story.)

[THE JOKE- 199?-200? – THE JOKE was introduced in the late 90s, it entertained many people while it was alive (and thriving). It brought smiles to the faces of adolescent pimply boys and bitchy long-legged girls.
The JOKE is a part of the genre that combines the power of the ordinary joke (building up of the tempo that culminates into a thundering climax) and the one-liner. THE JOKE needs no tempo and yet it is no ordinary one liner- it is itself, the very punch-line, a punch line being far more superior to a mere one liner.
Once the cool kids grew up eventually, and turned into what most cool kids turn into i.e. the world asks them to get over themselves (if I am lucky the girls even become fat.)- THE JOKE fell from the glory it had enjoyed in its former heydays and it transferred from the lips of a well meaning friend into my heart and soul and began living parasitically within me. I was feeding off the drama; it was feeding off my misery.]

It’s just A JOKE, she tells me. Me, I’m the Fat Kid. Every group on the playground has a Fat Kid. My personality is defined by that title. See, once you’re branded the Fat Kid, they call you names that pertain to your “Fat Kid” status (fatso, moti, etc). It’s not a mere title, it is your persona. You subscribe to all its prejudices. You live by its commandments-

1. Thou shalt forever be branded a glutton because well...everyone knows that Fat Kids eat a LOT. Every bite of food you eat shall be judged, and dare you be viewed eating an orange bar in public, thou shall be humiliated by the calling out of names aforementioned.
2. Thou shalt NEVER be asked out by a boy. It is below any normal weighted boy’s dignity to be seen with a fat girl. Your name, shalt however come up regularly, linking you to several boys so that well, they get very very embarrassed and say, “Shaat app!!! Why would I date HERRRR??!”
3. Thou shalt be picked last for every team. Because well...who are thou kidding, everyone knows Fat Kids cannot run.
4. Thou shalt be ignored at all social gatherings, gossip sessions, dance-parties and that’s because thou art not cool enough.

Sometimes I was not invited. I think that’s when the THE JOKE began to be circulated.
It went like this, “Imagine Bubbles in a BRA.”
I am Bubbles. The butt of several, “I enjoy watching Bubbles in the bathtub” jokes as well but NOTHING, nothing in the world (not even the 2 out of 100 in MATH, which, according to my mother should have been my first priority at that age and was the biggest disgrace this family had faced since the hush-hush wedding of a barely legal cousin), could make me cry like THE JOKE.
“Imagine Bubbles in a bra?” I screamed. “How could she? That WHORE!” (I doubt I used “whore”, must have been more like “that IDIOT!” at that time but it betrays the magnitude of rage that was in my heart.)

I wanted to prove to myself that they were wrong. So I went to the bathroom, stripped off my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror. The fact that my mother was making me wear ugly, conical bras to “make my breasts develop the right shape” did not help. No one told me that I should be glad that my breasts were growing rapidly out-of-control while those girls, almost four years older to me, did not have any. The point being, what I saw in the mirror that day, confirmed THE JOKE.

From thereon, every time someone laughed at me during a game of hide and seek, I freaked out, are they imagining me in a bra?

People I did not know very well, people I had just met, people I passed on the street- I looked at them and I wondered- Are they too imagining me in a bra?
The fear of not being bra-worthy plagued me all my life.
We’ve grown up. Barely anyone calls me Bubbles anymore. I am hardly in touch with my childhood frenemies. But every day I stand in front of the mirror in my bra and the ghost smiles at me tauntingly; I know it will never leave.

Bad Toenail Day

2010-02-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

Hello. I am back home. Tonight was a good GOOD Nigh-a-aight. (Woo hoo Fergie. RESPECT) Currently applying black nailpolish on toenails, that never behave. They curl...proudly..disgustingly. My grandmother's heritage, or thats what my mom likes to tell me. I always seems to inherit the worst of the family. My dad's skin allergies, my grandma's toenails, my mom's weight problem's and general paranoia AND her stinginess. Except your values. She reminds me. Don't worry you're like a peacock. Beautiful with ugly feet.
Try telling that to other people. And then watch them laugh. Hmph.

I hate boys sometimes. When I am being all feminist. Hypocritically putting on a push up bra and then judging them for staring at my assets. "You're DISGUSTING" I scream at them mentally but judgementally, "STOP OBJECTIFYING ME". Then I go and adjust it in the bathroom.

Writer's Block

2010-02-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

I have been losing myself lately, and finding it all back during conversations with the mother, the boyfriend and the best-friend- who are all back at home, all as lost as me. Some haven't yet moved from where I last left them, be it lying on the bed watching T.V. or angsting over their love lives, some have partly moved on.

"I have been watching the World Movies Channel, the Golden globes- Jennifer Garner's soooo skinny now", it is funny watching my mother talk about Hollywood and phoren cinema when I will always remember her as a hardcore Jagjit Singh fan.

My best-friend's still trying to find herself, I wish she'd just stop- because from where I stand- she's everything, even the things I want to be one day. (I'm not just talking about the fifty kilos.) But you know- the kind of person who walks into restaurants like she owns them, ("I lived in Prague for two years you have no idea how they look at a person with brown skin, that's when I decided to walk around the goddamn city like its MINE.)

Sometimes I find myself in pages of books. Hoping those words will validate me, let them be examples- I'd rather be remembered as a part of an archetype rather than as nothing at all.

I want to go home for sometime. The land of free laundry, never-too-broke-to-have-a-pizza and plenty of hugs (that choke and smother, but are so warm, and so much love that sometimes you're almost scared that you probably dont deserve it).

The place where he's just around the corner, and he'll sit across from you, the most goodlooking boy you have ever seen in your life, - with a voice so deep. Somedays he'll help you find yourself, and the days that you don't, he'll simply offer you plenty of golden packets, warm coffee and lots and lots of food (and tell you that you're pretty even though you look like shit.)

phone conversations.

2010-02-02T01:16:00.001-08:00

Why did you cut your hair?, she thunders, that was the ONLY feminine thing about you!
Mother!
What! have you SEEN the way you walk?
MOTHER!

Speaking of childhood enemies.
"----'s mom is gonna start looking"
Be not confused my dear readers, there is but one thing that mothers of all daughters look for. A HUSBAND.
So, get this, she tells her mom, "Ma i don't trust my choice in men, since all my relationships have only ended the wrong way", maybe you should pick someone for me."
Seriously?
Seriously.
Is she CRA-
SUCH a nice girl.
-ZYY!

So Apoo and me are going to watch Valentine's Day together.
With whom?
Ummm...with... each other??
I hope you are not gay now. (jokingly)
What if I was though?(not so jokingly)
(Tragi-comically) Haha, no you would never do that to me.

Cancerous

2010-02-01T02:34:00.000-08:00

We are the crabs. Linda Goodman says. And crabs, as we all know, are crabby. With shells. Ergo, don't mess with crabs, she warns, So they don't scurry away and retreat into "the shells".

Being a crabby crab I have a shell too you know. A fully furnished shell in fact, with a T.V. that plays Grey's Anatomy on loop, a couple of romance novels and lots and lots of food.

I invited you in and said, "Make yourself at home".

And now its lonely in here without you.

Pearls of wisdom that haunt me till today

2010-01-26T07:14:00.000-08:00

My mother- Fall in love with a clean looking guy.

She said so at a wedding.

THAT groom, she said to me, is not ugly. He is clean looking. She took a large sip of vodka and sighed, Beta, fall in love with a clean looking guy.

I didn’t know what she meant by this statement back then anymore than I do now. I think it had something to do with the kind of boys I was falling in love with at that time. My mother’s standards always intimidated me, you see, because they were so much higher than mine. And everyone else’s. They did not just include the predictable disapproval of hippies and crazies.

Moreover, her admirable standards belittled and trifled love. They were MONUMENTAL and could not possibly be bothered by stupid things like that. Fall in love with a clean looking guy, she repeated through all those years. Or better still scout him out, marry him and then fall in love by and by.

I am in love again, but I’m afraid she might see it as a sign of weakness.

My father- Never ride at the back of motorcycles

After some mighty scarring in his teenage years, my father followed the old-age idiom of prevention is better than cure and gave me my life’s most important advice. “Paro”, and I cringe as I quote this verbatim but I’m a fan of authenticity, “you’re a big girl now, going to live alone in Chennai. Sweetheart, you gotta keep your head straight and focus. Eyes on the prize like Arjuna would have said in Mahabharatha. No alcohol and cigarettes. (No drugs, he would have also said but I doubt he thinks I know of their existence).

And please, PLEASE, never sit at the back of motorcycles.”

And so, the thought of doing something as outrageous as THAT, still makes my knees quake.

A friend, “Bitches bite girls in short skirts.”

I know now, that the words were said in jest and possible snootiness. Yes, I am well aware of that NOW. But that does not mean that every time I wear a short skirt I don’t look around at the slightest sound, grabbing my skirt with both hands and yanking it down considerably so that the bitches don’t maul my legs.

Your body is your temple.

2010-01-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

Lets unlearn what you've learnt. The dark ages of body fat are gone, this is ENLIGHTENMENT. The body, a temple? How orthodox! How 1990s! - We here, ma'am, are completely and fashionably atheist. We believe in machines and worship them. Here let me just grab your side tyre and show you what we are talking about. 29%- do you realise how close that is to being OBESE???? And an obese body, as we all know, is NOT a temple. Figuratively yeah, but spiritually well..you get the drift. This my dear friend is the RENNAISSANCE of fat- we have bikinis now, if we starve you enough you might grow packs- don't look so baffled my dear, a pack is, well lets just call it a limb. If Darwin were here he'd talk about the elimination of all those who don't have it. Decimate the flabbies!-he'd say. Aye aye! Repeat after me, "Survival of the FITTEST".

You need help. Yes you might DIE. I KNOW you are not really overweight, you're BMI says you're okay, but you and I both know that the BMI LIES! ALL the time. You could die of heart disease, when, why I believe right now, at this very moment! It is written right here in your folds of fat.

Don't gape at me, you know what that is, that is FAT. You are fat. The digital weighing machine has pronounced its verdict. You are guilty of fatness!. All the boys who laughed at you when you were a pudgy child, all the fancy schmancy showroom attendents who sniggered behind your back while you weeped inside locked changing rooms- THANK those people. Go down on your knees! You wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.

Welcome to our gym. Here is your membership ID. You are not fat anymore. You are ENLIGHTENED.

Resolutions Smechzolutions

2010-01-10T01:15:00.000-08:00

Once again I vow, solemnly, dolefully, resolutely and one-last-day-before-I-get-to-it-ly: I WILL lose weight. Yes that's right. I finished a big fat burger, half a box of dark chocolates, and a rava masala dosa and let me tell you that I am cured of all my left-over depression and am satisfied with a capital S.

The biryani I had 45 minutes ago is the last high carb dish I will ever touch for the next one month.

An angry bitter blog

2009-12-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

9:45- Woke up to an onslaught of alarms- La Bamba, Accidentally in love and some random beeping.

9:47- After knocking on the bathroom door for over 3 minutes, decided to change in the middle of the room. Roommate caught sight of naked torso, gasped in horror and turned to the other side, willing herself to go back to sleep.

9:50- Looked for kajal which was carefully hidden behind heaps of newspapers, Maggie soup packets, roasted chana packets, libray books that will never ever be returned, ever, and fluorescent coloured mugs.

9:55- Watched roommate stir again. Struck a deal.(If I go for morning class, you'll do the afternoon one?)

10:00- Promised myself that I would eat one paratha and one paratha only.

10:05- Ate two paranthas.

11:30- Informal meeting with Professors. Got singled out. Oh yes! (Who is the editor???! Ridiculous headline, RIDICULOUS!) Skulked to the lab, re-re-edited page and sat around for the designer to come and help change my life.

12:30- Came back to room. Watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, almost crying at the funny parts.

1:00- Slept.

5:00- Woke up to phone screaming out "Bohemian Like You" and to find people who were not my roommates beside me on the conjoined beds. Clutched sheet to chest, and poked one of the non-female intruders. It was a friend. Somebody pitched an idea, "Let's order Americana", someone else yelled, "I am on a diet!". Wills weakened, wallets groaned in protest. "Yay Americana" screams punctuated by, "I hate Chennai! It's making me FAT"

6:00- No money=No Americana

7:00- Phone calls that made me wish I could EAT love.

8:00- Read two pages of a book I don't intend to finish. Decided to starve.

9:00- Stalked people on facebook.

9:30- Stalked some more. Read celebrity gossip. Snapped at roommate after which we analysed her love life. Skipped dinner, drank some soup, swore that we'd do Surya Namaskar the next day.

10:00- Watched a french movie with hap-hazard subtitles. Googled my body shape, which to my dismay was apple. "But you can't be an apple", said my roommate, her eyes wide with pity. "That would mean you're round!"

12:00- Fought over who'd switch off the lights, and then fought about whether we'd switch off the lights.

1:00- Sat alone. With the lights on. Torn between loneliness, hunger and self pity. Googled apple shaped celebrities to make self feel better.

2:00- Wrote an angry bitter blog.

Sighing and Groaning

2009-12-10T04:44:00.000-08:00

My mum did not meet my dad at some party, over cigarette smoke and vodka shots. The story does not go like, “So I ran to the loo, to adjust my dress strap and on the way I saw him standing there, with his back against the wall... “

Nope, my dad was like William. You know, the Conqueror. She had rejected hordes of marriage proposals before he walked into her living room with my grandmother. He came, he saw and he conquered, under my grandmother’s careful supervision of course.

I can imagine my dadi as she climbed the steps of the Agra bungalow, her mind whirring with mental checklists. Punjabi. Check. Beautiful with child-bearing hips. Check. Cooks. Cleans. Sings. Check check check....

My mom continues, ‘I had six beautiful months to decide whether I wanted him or not. He took me for movies and dinners, the works...’

It’s cute and Victorian. It’s my mother, so I am glad that there are no vodka shots involved. I don’t even understand my cynicism, they’re happy. They are in love. A love that is way more long-term and scrupulous than the kind that my friend’s fall into.

And because I am her daughter, she does not want me playing the fallen woman, who adjusts her straps in bathroom mirrors, in my love story either.

‘No alcohol’ she told me at an unnecessarily young age. ‘And no cigarettes... ever’

I would rather have men dropping out of the sky, than walking in through the living room door, for me.

“You’ll fall in love with the right guy”, she would tell me, “At the right time.”
The right time, was a very ambiguous term. Sometimes it extended to college, sometimes it extended across years. I was not supposed to question/debate the right time. It was fate. It was ‘parental fate’, which, as we all know, is of the worst kind.

Until I reached that right time, my mother told me, I was to study. Because that was my entire life’s purpose. “It is all you have to do beta. Just study. Forget everything else. You are not supposed to be doing anything else. You are only supposed to be studying.”

She found a Mills and Boons under my pillow once.

“What is all this sighing and groaning?” She screamed, quoting indirectly from the text, “Aren’t you supposed to be studying?!!”

2009-11-22T23:53:00.000-08:00

I fucking miss bollywood.

2009-11-20T00:19:00.001-08:00

I starve till I am blue in the face. Every second begins to count, I feel the back of my eyelids turn darker and darker, till they are no longer pink but red-brown. Unhealthy but oh-so-happy I continue living like nothing happened. Nothing matters. Not even the food on the table and in my mind.

Home

2009-11-16T01:26:00.000-08:00

We run out of conversation pretty fast, and that's a pity since we were running out of time in the first place.

"So.." I buy more time with the word, elongating to several more "o's" until I stumble upon the perfect topic "tell me what everyone was wearing?"

We're women now. (Estrogen or not) (Unshaped nails and scraggly hair still count)

"Nothing great" she says in her sing-song voice, "xyz-maasi has put on weight, wore a deep neck blouse as usual. She looked horrrreeeebblleee" The last word said in such a beautifully exaggerated tone, it would put the French to shame.

"But I thought she was on that diet" -I join in with my best conspiratorial whisper.

"You know her diets"

She's rolling her eyes. I KNOW she's rolling her eyes.

We might as well be sitting in a black Santro, on our way to PVR. I hang up and dream of nachos.

Shiny Disco Balls

2009-10-26T00:57:00.000-07:00

We are sex in the not so big, almost semi-circular (thank you urban studies) city. Chennai seems more and more charming each day, no longer do I view it with the same prejudicial glare as I did before, when I saw its map and all it looked like to me was a phallic bulge in someone's pants, if you know what I mean..but then...that's probably just me.

And then God decided to give it all up, on a platter, "Let's make her happy" he must have said in his gruff voice since that's what I presume he must sound like. "Put an end to the cribbing and the whining, the sentimentalizing and the blackmailing, and the unnecessary threats of converting to atheism. Here is your free-pass to chennai, your boy, your good-hair day..."

Sigh.

Thank You.

Mirror Image

2009-10-03T08:24:00.001-07:00

We are different. No I don't copy you. It's the genes,you know, the "I-suck-at-math gene" and the "horrible-taste-in-music" gene. And as I lie choking in the dressing room, and implore you to let me buy yet another loose/extra large/kaftan-looking top, and spray my hand with lavender body spray, and tell the thela-man to load up on the momos- I realise that I AM you. When driving you almost knock down the people on the road and say that's because "They don't listen". I raise an eyebrow and and so you scream-

"I AM LOW ON ESTROGEN!"

We have diet coke with extra large popcorn and I wonder who copied who there.

I miss you...

2009-09-29T12:11:00.001-07:00

"My forehead occupies three-fourths of my face" I tell her while stuffing my face with pizza.
"Oh God!" she rolls her eyes, but I am immune to her judgmental eye-rolls and impatient hmmms. So I scream and point at it- "Really...look!"

"Hmmm.."

I measure its length between my thumb and finger, and compare it to the rest of my face.

She bursts out laughing.

"I think I need a flick..." I mope into the diet coke.

"Me too" she adds in her patent I-feel-your-pain kinda way, "I have a widow's peak"

We study our reflections in the window.

Wishing

2009-09-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

Be careful of what you wish for. That one's always stuck in my mind. Maybe because of Edgar Allen Poe. Or maybe because I'm always wishing for something. Wishing on an eyelash, wishing by a well, wishing on red vans and black cars...all the time. I stand in line, she's sitting on her shelf (all by herself) and we are waiting.

I have spent so long anticipating that I have almost forgetten what it is like to have. To see, touch, smell rather than dream and wonder and wish. Have you ever noticed how life is just a series of anticipatory moments, its like this big dress rehearsal, we are all running around, getting stage directions, prompters, lights, dress, hair, make-up- everything in place- for that one big moment. The opening night of our lives. We cross our fingers hoping that this one, God let this one be the one big hit of my life so I don't need to go back to wiping tables at the local coffee shop....We wish, all the time and stare at the half empty glass of water and dream of it bubbling with champagne.

2009-09-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Play it cool.

Put the shades on. And the red lipstick that never really worked for you. Insist it does. Wear your high heels, let them streak across the sand. Let the dress blow in the wind- a la Marilyn Monroe. Do the little twirl, the shimmy, the hip shake-

There's nothing with more scope for style than a heartbreak.

Weekends

2009-09-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

We are beautiful, tired and really not in the mood.
"Murphy's law" she tells me.
I want to slap her smug face.

Out of Place

2009-08-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

My Gods are petty but benevolent. But right about now, at this very moment... Hera must be making sweet love to Zeus somewhere in the clouds.

I swim with the tide you see, I'm not like...you know..."special". I get entangled in the same old weeds; swimming along the edge, the "shallow" part of the water. I'm one of the many, but that still feels so out of place. It's a rat-eat-rat world of perpetual rat races and I am standing at the starting line, a part of it all, but my tail is in my mouth, and my money on anyone else but me.

I think Zeus will also realise soon, that Hera is just playing a mean old trick.

Genre:Drama/Romance

2009-06-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

It was just another week of sleepovers where we yelled at each other "Don't call him!" and then called him, made plans to be better people..never eat again..and then woke up the next morning to gossip over chips and momos. We architectured a world that would be safer for women, even if it had to be unisexed through disturbing ways like gradually eliminating all the XY zygotes or some equally vague method.

What's wrong with "Lipstick Jungle"?- I ask the world. Especially since I secretly want to walk down the streets of New York in Manolo Blahnik with a sense of purpose.

Mom says-"You watch too much TV"...I can't help it! - there are too many people out there living my life. Power Yoga every morning, saving lives, living scandalously in Manhattan, attending proms in fancy clothes and running over a mystery person (90210:how I HATE season finales!)-I cry out, over a glass of mango shake and a packet of kurkure You watch too much tv.

"Don't call him!" I send out frantic text messages and she calls him.

Make this world a better place, we silently pray. (I recall the Lord's prayer in the swimming pool-showing off my rote-learing skills and then my handstands.)

Make me a better person, I plead over facebook chats and judge myself for including a diet as one of the prerequisites.

Like the way i do

2009-06-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Water around your island. Or the windows to your car. I flood you, let you breathe, choke you, make you want to roll me down, push me away, sail through....

My metaphors get mixed up, just like my words, my thoughts and my feelings. So I bring to you this salad of islands (and deserts), car windows (and stifling silence), love (and loathing), need (and desertion) and I lay it all out saying- "this is me"...

Snippets

2009-06-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

I lived in a castle in the air and beyond the moat surrounding it, was a world I had read of and heard about in books and on television. There was the other world too, the non fictional world of stark reality, and I thought I had done my homework before I stepped into it.
* * *

It’s complicated- this discussion on the "worlds".

My mother used the topic as a deterrent.
You haven’t seen the real world- she’d say.

I won’t lie, that statement scared me a little. I had seen evil women in soap operas, single limbed people on the BBC-news channel and more heartbreaks than I would have liked in a single lifetime, and yet, there was a world out there, the “real” world that was unimaginably cruel and well hidden from young, convent educated girls.

* * *

I did not like the girls in school and I thought I was above them- mentally, physically and choice in musically. Psychoanalysts would say that this sense of superiority was a farce, that the on the inside I felt too scared to go up to these people and make conversation because then they’d know…

Know what? - me. I was scared that all these people might just have seen the real world that I hadn’t and that they would balk at my ignorance; that they might not like me, even with my pseudo-intellectual Ayn Rand obsession. I was a pretentious snob and if they spoke to me, they might just know it.
* * *

Girls can get so annoying!

I’m not pretty- ***** told me confidentially during PT, when we were pretending to have gotten our period to get out of playing kho-kho. She really wasn’t. But you couldn’t just say that.
Why would you say that? - I cried in mock astonished tone. - Of course you are. You’re great, really.
I maintained the air of vagueness, not specifying what the greatness was in reference to.
I’m really not! - She cried- But its okay, I’ve made my peace with it.

Clearly she hadn’t. I wanted to shake her and tell her that it didn’t effin’ matter what one looked like, that there were other things that were more important, that we would all be old and wrinkly one day with the only thing to our credit being what we were on the inside, but I was sixteen. I was battling insecurities of my own and I really thought that whatever the real world was meant to be, it wouldn’t be so pretty for the ugly people. . .

* * *

Regrets

2009-06-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

His words don't break my heart, they settle in my stomach like dead weight. There is no room for closure and telling him "I move on" in high heels, because I already feel those words spreading like an internal paralysis on to other organs. I don't want him to watch me wind up right there, out of charge, out of heat, light, soul...

so... fuck closure.

Gmail- very late at night

2009-05-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

fryingbunny: hahaha
last night
there was a fuckin huge spider
in the loo
and i was all alone
and everyone was asleep
so i was like ok
if i am gonna be on my own very soon
i need to figure this shit out
so i got my register

me: hahahahahah

fryingbunny: and dropped it on the spider
and then stood on it.
:)

Out of Control

2009-05-19T23:07:00.001-07:00

In another world, I am the television show.

They shift uncomfortably in their seats, "She's out of control. Who would do that in real life?"
In another world, they watch me quoting from stale scripts.

They follow my love life- curse him, swoon over him- I'm capricious and I'm needy. But I don't need to choose, because the day I decide is the day that they will wind up this show and send me packing to oblivion-ville.

They feature me on websites, where my clothes are all wrong, they like me...they really do..."You're so cute, you know I love you and that demented little character you play so brilliantly on that whats-its-name-tv show..but hey! Is Xena the warrior princess in the house?!"

In another world, all of this is not real. I'm just a TV show and they love me!

Ghosts

2009-05-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

It was an uncomfortable summer of "jetés" and "attitude jumps". I wanted to be inconspicuous, but I was halfway to becoming a woman.

I thought my bright yellow wrap-around skirt was pretty and the girl sitting in the backseat was not. She horrified and fascinated me, she prefigured all the changes I would see within myself one day.

I wondered how we'd landed here on earth and wished fervently that they'd all just go back to Mars.

I was time-traveling, culturally stupefied and a jumbled up mixture of bitter-sweet pop songs.

Who am I kidding..?

2009-04-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

Having never been a fan of abstract notions, urban phrases, Icarus-ish-overeaching dreams and love that's not really all consuming- I laughed. Surely fashion faux pas are pardonable, I insist that they should be...and ummm...also a plate of pasta in white sauce once in a while. I offend you and that makes me want to clap my hands gleefully and dance around trees- I never seem to get the Bollywood out of my system.

I fight back harder when its hot and I am sleepy and I don't know the names of Margaret Atwood's poems.

"You never really liked chocolates as a child" -
my mother, on why she ate up all the chocolates my father bought for me when I was a kid.
A cruel lie.
I shall carry on her heritage.

Saturday whine.

2009-04-26T06:23:00.000-07:00

I like the way they do it in books. Compartmentalize life- into racy courtroom scenes in the morning and long dreamy bubbles baths with white whine at night. I like the way they compartmentalize the character- into long long legs, long long hair and humongous IQs.

Compartmentalize me!

Curtain Call

2009-04-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

I'm no Bonnie Raitt. Even if I was, I wouldn't want to waste my time. I don't know what to say to someone who reads me like a book- a cheap mystery novel. Someone who can barely draw, let alone colour between the lines. Who reads the last page instead of the entire novel and walks away thinking he's figured me out. You made your choice.

No, really, I give up.

Coz I can't make you love me if you don't.

Never know better

2009-04-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

-let's give up food!

Heavy metal, cigarette smoke, car-on-the-verge-of-breakdown.

We make big plans- castles in the air that topple and fall.

-for real this time
-like anorexia? Won't happen. You and me..we weren't cut out for that.
-No really, for real- she repeats- no food.
-hmmm...I don't know...yeaaaaahhh...okay...lets!

Pause. She coughs out smoke and-

-You wanna try yoga?

I smile- no..no I don't think so.

Yes

2009-04-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more to me. I searched. Turning upside down, I shook myself hoping a few stubborn coins stuck at the bottom would fall out- shiny, jingling.
But I'm stale. Like moldy bread. Like yesterday's news.
He sets my heart aflutter. And then the butterflies hound me and tear at my skin.
"Is that all you've got?" she asks me, or implies not so subtly. The world follows me around with the question. It sticks to me in DTC buses along with the dirt and the grime. I try to shut my eyes, but the world in my head is a lot more terrifying. "Is that all you've got?" it screams.
I panic. Look inside my pockets. And my heart.
Empty

What next?

2009-04-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

I want to. It's so simple when I say it that way. Except that its not...so simple.

Because I say I want to eat a cheese-crust pizza with much more conviction and I express my desire to sit on little dogs to see them yelp(or maybe die) with much more spontaneity. My first tantrum- when I was 8yrs old, I remembering lying on my back and flailing my arms and legs about Veronica Lodge style..all for a goddamn birthday barbie. That was want! The burning sensation in the pit of your stomach, knowing that if you don't get it, this minute! This freaking second!...you'd simply die...

I want to. Hell yes, I do. But its not that simple.

Role Play

2009-04-09T09:52:00.001-07:00

Telephone conversations and a lot of faith in Linda Goodman, although I still slip and fumble sometimes- in a car, along with a cup of coffee.

Know what... I put on this charade for you! I've spent huge chunks of my life just acting- in and out of dress rehearsal, running through my lines and studying the effect of light on my guilty features. Now you go and tell me you knew all along. "What a waste" I shake my head, then you walk into the room... and I slip back into character.

Ugh

2009-03-30T04:13:00.000-07:00

My throat's raw.
I hear a big celestial, "I told you so" in the clouds.
I'm bad at reading signs, even the ones that are blatantly visible on packs, in newspapers, social stigmas and certain bans.

2009-03-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'm her complaining about not wanting him to leave. If he could only just sit by my side. I stop translating at this point. I really don't think any words in the English language can bring out the anguish in "Jaan jaati hai jab uth ke jaate ho tum"

I die a thousand deaths is equally beautiful, my mother argues.

I don't think so.

Lady Driver

2009-03-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

"They want to overtake me because I'm a woman"

My first lesson in feminism, on the road, in a car, with my mother. The speed increases from a steady thirty, to a healthy fifty, to a look-at-me-I'm-crazy eighty. I turn around and lip read abuses. All the while I am thinking, I'd rather burn my bra.

"Sweetheart its important that you never run over someone" My father tells me rather earnestly...almost pleadingly, as my feet fumble on the clutch and accelerator. I'm offended but I go on. Thinking, this is for you mom.

But then he's back, telling me women cannot reverse as well as men as though it is scientifically proven, an empirically tested theory- one of newton's freaking laws of motion. The parking attendant smiles politely, "Main kar deta hoon Madam". On days like these, I always here my mother's voice at the back of my head, urging me on.

She blocked lanes and got speeding tickets, just so her daughter could never be overtaken like she was when she first hit the road.

2009-03-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

I was hungry, so I ate the last burger in the world. The old man looked at me with sad old eyes that reflected his sad old heart, but I still ate it. I have always been shallow, so shallow that you can even see the goldfish swimming just below my skin, around my veins. So frozen, even when you take me out of the fridge and try to thaw me, the chips of ice remain in my hair and in between my toes.

Killing the feminist

2009-02-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

2009-02-16T04:58:00.000-08:00

Wrong words (wrong place, wrong time)- said unassumingly to the right person
Motion sickness, passing lights, the radio, choking on my heart.

I'd play "Guess who?" over the phone, or in the corridors when I covered your eyes from behind your back- and now I sit here with a heart that seems to be swimming in my stomach making it hurt so bad that I want to spit it out.

The wrong color, I tell myself. Let's pretend like that matters, because I don't want to acknowledge the things that really do- like what you are actually thinking in your head.

You're part figment of my imagination, I lie back against the seat, close my eyes and dream you up. And yet when I open them, you are there-so real, reflecting off my sunglasses and smelling like heaven. I can't decide between the former and the latter.

"Yes I have been to Chandigarh. I had breakfast there at some relatives' place, they had a HUGE house with its very own conference room."- inconsequential, but not to me. That was the most perfect breakfast of my life. The sunlight, the mahogany dining table, the Labrador puppy- perfect.

"I'm so sick" I tell him in a weak whisper, because we've been going around in circles.

Magic

2009-02-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

Wait...I think I did see a crystal ball in your room, the one that was cleverly disguised as a paperweight. Is that the one you use to make all your predictions? Though if I turned it upside down and wound it up, I'd see a unicorn dancing in the snow. Does that suggest something? "You have skill" - I say during a game of blackjack, and you look at the cards and tell me "joker signifies turbulent time in the future".

Does knowing you can read mean I safely presume you can also read minds? Where do you get the magic from?...

Dancing partners, could it signify love? I know you're answer would be "no but stupidity does." I ask too many questions I've been told, but answer me when I ask you this, "Where do you get the magic from" Read messed up grammar as nervousness, read grey as weakness, read half-smiles and shifty eyes as signs of me falling apart. Read me. You don't need charms and potions.

I want-

2009-02-10T03:32:00.000-08:00

I wanted to dress up as Goofy and drive that cart sort of a thing around Disneyland. More than wanting to be a doctor, an air force pilot and even a detective- I wanted to dress up like Goofy. The last time I went to Disneyland, Goofy was not even driving the cart, it was some normal looking man. I wanted to get off at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and stay there with the fake pirates, taverns, town whores, bombs and the delicious smell of water.

I want to throw away tea cups and not laugh hysterically at the moon. Or maybe be all those things inside a blue book with a Taurean on the page next to mine. I want to not want to make reality fade so badly.

I have a few burns and cracks and chips myself. I want to throw myself away and build something new. Coming Soon :Edgier, brighter, smarter...all new!

Would it make a difference? hmmm...I guess not. I could try, do it for a couple of days, drop it. Not like I haven't done it a few hundred times before.

I could try making you understand me. Not in my usual whimsical way, but in a calm and collected manner. Like grown-ups do.

I want to be Goofy, or dress up like him (Be careful of what you wish for).

Easier Said than Done

2009-01-31T07:43:00.000-08:00

Half a plate of bhel-puri, a bus back home to my bed, a message, a cigarette- something tells me that happiness has to be hollow/momentary if it can be bought for five rupees.

Speaking of crabs- "I wish I had a shell", she whispers in the middle of class.

I smile and doodle doodles open to multiple interpretations so that you can quit interpreting my life.

"Mysterious my ass!" I croak, still drowsy.

Don't touch me, I wish my body gave out the vibes that screamed that. I am drunk enough too scream the words out myself and get away with it.

"You don't get me"- I wish I could say that without sounding like an angsty teen or an American pop singer.

Forget it, I say, when you ask me to talk, or don't call me at all. I go buy my own happiness for five rupees.

Dusty Dog-eared Pages

2009-01-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

Do you think you could stop stepping over my toes each time we dance?
We studied constellations out in the garden, you and me, I didn't really see your face but the jawline was beautiful.

For a minute I thought Judith McNaught might just end up accusing me of plagiarism, especially the moment where you looked at me ..uhhh...what did she call that?- "heavy lidded gaze"- that's quite something by the way. Steel bands, murmured, abyss, gazes, locked, helpless bird oh what the hell! Just stop stepping over my feet when we dance!

Gone are the days when I needed to see my name on examination rolls/attendance registers to validate my existence. Ever since I heard you laugh...life's been so much better. I swear I could almost get rid off the bulky sweaters and the fringe that's so much more than a fringe. But it is still more romantic when the lights are dim you know.

You help me make the real world fade and I'll forget you are such a bad dancer. Is it a deal then?

Lets just be happy.

Attention Whore

2009-01-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

The mirror never lies, like the eye of the beholder.

High heels are so not worth it, neither are cleavage dipping tops.

Too many unfulfilled promises- the eye seems to say now. It wanders to the bottle in my hand, beer, golden or green actually.

Alcohol never made me lose my senses, I try to tell those eyes.

The mirror lies, I realize when I look into his eyes, so do the photographs that display unflattering side profiles. I am unsure suddenly, its the golden-green drink I tell myself. I don't know about the truth- but the beauty is in his eyes. My beauty, I mean. His eyes darkened by the alcohol and sheer want seem to scream that I am beautiful.

Feels good. Just like I had been promised. It's addictive, the high, the happiness, the attention...momentary too...

I excuse myself.

Christmas mornings/Hershey's kiss

2009-01-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

You almost wouldn't recognize me now. You and your diary with the Walt Disney image of "Beauty and the Beast" on it and the day dreams of actresses with curly hair... you wouldn't know me even if you saw me standing right in front of you.
You wrote things in that diary and disguised them behind metaphors even as you do today.
You wouldn't remember my tears or the pathetic figure I made, lying across the racing-car bed sheet.
You would listen to my story, ever since the day i left you, maybe even take a few notes, tearing a few pages after scribbling furiously on them and that's because the diary is special. You love the yellow dress, the ferocious beast as well as the talking candle-stands and teacups.

You would find it hard to even hold a conversation with me, but you would be really really happy to see me :)

Recap- Last Week

2009-01-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

The songs are all wrong. Note to self: update ipod.
Also: I seem to work much better when part of me is in shambles.

I pretend to be wise around people who'll believe me.

Self awareness was never a problem area for me, all the things you said that I was, most of which are unmentionable on the blog, are all things that I have always known I am or have the potential to be.

You were not the first to try and figure me out and do a horrible job of it. I give you permission to keep trying.

Did Cinderella wake up one morning and realize that there was a pimple over her left eyebrow and that relationships were all about sacrifice?

Did Goldilocks' parents forgive her and invite her back in with open arms?

Its not anybody's fault if not mine, but I have a right to have my own beliefs, which means that it is all your fault.

New Year Resolutions

2009-01-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

1. "Denial is not just a river in Egypt but an entire freakin' ocean."- Meredith Grey.
Jump into it and swim.
2. Stop quoting Grey's.
3. Stop quoting Grey's except for the special Grey's quote that has been saved for a special occasion.
4. Stop revering food. For God's sake.
5. Have an answer prepared for the question- "What is the wildest thing you have ever done"/Have enough yesses to get drunk and pass out at a game of never have i ever.
6. Laugh less loudly
7. Watch less T.V.
8. Do not hold someone's pretty face/big car/fascinating personal life against them.
9. Restrict moping/whining/ranting/self pitying to half an hour max, thrice a week.
10. Stop buying over-sized clothes.
11. Obsess over hair and make-up.
12. Finish reading Crime and Punishment, Satanic Verses and the goddamn Oliver Twist I first picked up to read when I was 12 years old.
13. Make more friends, lots of friends.
14. Lose more weight.
15. Get a speeding ticket.

Couch Potato

2009-01-04T22:41:00.000-08:00

I saw you on TV last night. Again. But you were lost once I switched to another channel...a faint memory by the time I had turned it off.

I saw me too...and the future. A well scripted one at that.
It was witty, there was beautiful music playing at the back, and it got a little sad towards the end. Well...sad is not the right word. I'd go for "heart-wrenching".

I was blond. You wore a green jacket. And you were funny but curt. You, on the other hand, seemed to suppress me. I loved you, and you and you...all of you...just like in real life.

It was a hospital..no wait...it was a small town or well...just forget it-it was nothing.

12pm - 29th July 2008

2008-12-30T05:56:00.000-08:00

Dr. Derek Shepherd: So, who's next, Alex? He likes to sleep around... you two have that in common.
Dr. Meredith Grey: You don't get to call me a whore! When I met you, I thought I had met the person I would spend then rest of my life with. I was done. So all the boys, and all the bars, and all the obvious daddy issues... who cared? Because I was done. You left me! You chose Addison! I'm all glued back together now. I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what you broke. You don't get to call me a whore!
*

"Intimacy is a four syllable word for, 'Here's my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy.' " -Meredith Grey
*

Christina Yang: You are eight feet tall. Your boobs are perfect. Your hair is down to there. If I was you I would just walk around naked all the time. I wouldn't have a job, I wouldn't have any skills, I wouldn't even know how to read. I would just be... naked.
Isobel "Izzie" Stevens: It's makeup. It's retouching.
Christina Yang: You get that we hate you, right?
*

Christina : Ow. Ow. Ow.
Happy Resident : Am I hurting you?
Christina : No you're touching me.
*

Dr. Meredith Grey: [about her new roommates] They're everywhere. All the time. Izzie's all perky and George does this where he's helpful and considerate. They share food, and they say things, and they move things, and they breathe. Ugh, they're, like, happy
Dr. Cristina Yang: Kick them out.
Dr. Meredith Grey: I can't kick them out, they just moved in. I asked them to move in.
Dr. Cristina Yang: So what, you're just going to repress everything in some deep, dark, twisted place until one day you snap and you kill them?
*

Dr. Meredith Grey: Okay, here it is, your choice... it's simple, her or me, and I'm sure she is really great. But Derek, I love you, in a really, really big pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window, unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me, choose me, love me.
*

Jane Burke: Do you know when to walk away? Do you know when not to take less than you deserve?
*

Dr. Meredith Grey: At the end of the day, when it comes down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing, where we all keep our distance and pretend not to care about each other, is usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to, and once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by. No matter how much we hurt them, the people that are still with you at the end of the day - those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close can be too close. But sometimes, that invasion of personal space, it can be exactly what you need.

AMEN

2008-12-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

He makes the world go round. He spins it along the axis, makes me dizzy, makes me laugh, makes me stop and feel sick...but most of the time, he makes me want this ride to never ever end.

She is sunshine, she's bright, yellow, makes me red and my skin peel at times...but that's okay because I know that even when she's not around she's there lurking behind the dark stormy clouds.

That's why I get scared you know, that one day the world might stand still and the sun might not shine.

Pathetic Fallacy Anyone????

2008-12-18T21:51:00.000-08:00

I sat in the balcony trying to concentrate on Adrienne Rich's poem, it kept growing windier and colder until the last traces of sunshine vanished.

Because that is what we do. Search for the silver lining in the same damn cloud that hides are north star.

"The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth"

2008-12-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

I know it. We shall and we will and we'll wait and we'll laugh. Oh yes! At You, and You..and YOU!

2008-12-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

I sit by my window and dream of flying away.
If not with wings, then by an airplane...

2008-11-28T09:36:00.000-08:00

I love waking up to his deep voice..the incoherent murmur from far far away accompanied by crackling sounds. I wish this was what every morning was made up of.

2008-11-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

We believe we are sorted.
Hence we play agony aunts and shrinks each day of our lives. Smug aunts and shrinks who scold condescendingly and judge. We even laugh sometimes, other times we feel bitter about the mess that they are in. And that's because our lives are sorted.

Except that we are not. Sorted, I mean. We go back home to our own mess. We carry a fear at the back of our mind, of becoming like the ones we laugh at. The ones who fall apart, except that there are bits of us too, scattered everywhere. There are pieces that are falling, some we have already lost/left behind. We are them too, except that we don't see it.

2008-11-06T04:41:00.000-08:00

I was their 8'o'clock Cinderella. Their Red Riding Hood in a world full of wolves. And their Lakshman-Rekha was endless, limitless...all consuming.

Until Sita picked up the car keys and stepped out. Until Red Riding Hood decided to go drinking and dancing with the wolves. Until, finally, Cinderella decided to wake up past her bedtime and dismiss the pumpkin and the mice...

Handle With Care

2008-10-26T02:11:00.000-07:00

If only I could. I'd bubble wrap you, slip you into a cardboard box that has these words imprinted all across it and pass you on. If I could... :P

2008-09-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

I would like to wallow in self pity. With ice-cream. And the last few Grey's Anatomy episodes. Alone. I don't want to be near the phone, because the last time I was, I did not have anyone to call. That's when I realized I needed to do this- wallow in self pity. With ice-cream. It's not enough, it never is, to be who you are. You have to improvise on yourself, have something up your sleeve constantly- pull out endless colorful handkerchiefs or better still, rabbits from a hat- to keep them coming back for more.

I want to sit here and listen to Tim McGraw till I die and pretend that reading Harry Potter is life. I don't want them coming back, I wish they'd all go away and leave me alone. My knees are chipped you see from the kneeling and I can't do that anymore. I can't conjure up the ace of spades from that sleeve, neither can I pretend to vanish coins while sneaking them beneath it. I would cut myself in half and join myself back together, but whats the point? What's the bloody point?

So I am going to sit here and wallow in self pity. With ice-cream.

Pieces

2008-09-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

You try to collect the pieces
Scattered across coffee-shops and movie halls
Flying around in the emptiness, soaring high
You hear them break into further pieces when they fall

They have a reflective surface, quite like mirrors
They pinch and hurt and bleed when they stick to you
You cast them off, leave them behind
While the path glitters- Grey and cold and blue

They are everywhere you go
Every turn, every corner, every dead end
They fall, they scatter further and they stick to you
You chase them, you run away from them, you hurt and pretend

As if they are not pieces of you
As if they are not the pieces of your broken heart
Of winter skies, sunny mornings, intoxicating nights
Of your bittersweet, not-so-long-ago past...

Chocolate

2008-08-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I want to love chocolate again. Like I used to. Before it got substituted by other things. Before it became too "fattening". Before it ceased to be a solution to all of the greatest problems in my life.

I want life to be that simple again. So painfully simple.

Make Believe

2008-08-12T10:54:00.000-07:00

She built a castle in the air with a drawbridge across a moat, she waited expectantly for her knight in shining armor to walk across it and into her life.
Before she knew it, she was walking down a drenched road underneath a wet sky. Her velvet gown collecting dirt and her elaborate head gear seeming out of place.
She breathed clouds that intermingled with his smoke, his promises breathed life into her dreams, she let her hair down and slipped out of her crystal shoes.

She watched a movie and cried as the credit rolled by, for the girl in her blue dress since she thought she could feel what she must have felt.
A horse that had learnt to fly like the wind, she wanted it so bad- just like the promised dream.
But the armor clanged, the drawbridge creaked and when she finally woke-
She was dirty, wet and tired.

Sometimes

2008-07-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes its just not wise to open the closet and confront your ghosts. I was the kind of kid who ran away from the dark. I used to try to rationalize this by saying that it was only stupid of me to believe in witches and vampires, and that I would not belittle myself further or my intelligence for that matter, by actually looking around to prove that I was not superstitious. The truth, however, was far from that. I did not look around because I was actually terrified of angering my ghosts with my audacity. More than that, I was afraid to face my worst fears and realize that they were true.

Even as I know now, that the right thing would have been to march right up to the dark bedroom closet and satisfy myself by finding it empty, I don't. I want to believe that "its all in my head". I want to believe it with all my might. Even if it means that I have to dig a hole in the sand and stick my head into it. The lie might not save me, but it makes me brave. And sometimes, the strength borrowed from a lie is all it takes to keep you going, until that one fine day when you are finally ready to open the door to confront the truth.

Lessons Learnt the Hard Way

2008-04-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

It's unfair to expect someone else to live your dreams and fantasies like you do.
To expect him to eat, sleep, breathe, live, love and worship them like you do.

To tyrannize love, strike off its wings, so it may never fly again...and never leave you.
To pin all your hopes on it, put all your faith in it.

To give everything you have, to expose every little secret and a hope of a shared dream...and still be afraid of being laughed at/stepped on/hurt miserably.

It's unfair to want to become someone you never can become.
And to still be that someone in your dreams.

To hold on to what you have so tightly, that it leaves red angry burns on your hand but still slips out.
To blame your dreams, your love, your faith and yourself.

Moon-faced Crab/ Crab-faced Moon

2008-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it seems so much more easier to crawl back in my shell or hide behind the clouds. Its funny how I have spent most of my life building up on where the lives of most characters from T.V. shows/Movies/Books end. Searching for perfection. I like to go to college with Ally McBeal-esque music playing in my head and a Styrofoam cup of tea in my hand. I like to imagine love like what it was the first time I knew it via "Sound of Music" -the dance sequence in the rain that I just can't get out of my head. And I like to believe that when the day comes- I will perfect the art of walking away and do it just like Meredith Grey with tears that never spill, hair that's never out of place and looking back never being an option.
But then when I look back, I realize that maybe some things can never be perfect- whether its your first boyfriend that was a Nazi, your ability to be taken seriously or the fact that you can never let go of McDreamy. Love does let you down. So does success. And tears do spill out.

The Inexplainable

2008-02-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

I'm a stereotype. In fact I am the character most books revolve around-the ugly duckling straining to become a swan, the dreamer on a quest to find herself, the princess with a lost shoe... Its quite unromantic really. As much as i convince myself that I'm quite the moon maiden Linda Goodman insists I am, the only thing i seem sure of is the wild loony bird lurking behind the otherwise sane exterior.
I see my life as a huge glossy colourful photograph that everybody I know seems to be a part of. And then there is me- blurred- smiling uncertainly, her toe dragging circles into the sand. Almost like I was pushed into the frame at the last moment and I hadn't quite registered the photographer's request to say "cheese" or maybe I had but i refused to comply because Ifelt like I didn't belong.
Except that its my life.
Sigh. But the picture is beautiful, just like the beach in the background, the skies are sunny while the waves are blue and restless and alive (In a creepy, Harry Potter-istic way) and it makes want to break out of my cocoon, and kiss frogs and look for a shoe that fits just right.