Prelude

ENOUGH
of the laziness
of the unwillingness to budge an inch
of the need to kill it everyday
of the TV
of not exercising
of the excess
of not looking out
of not aiming higher
of being a couch potato
of being demotivated
of wasting my life away
of that false sense of comfort
IT STOPS NOW!

Rising

These are the Yoshida Brothers.
They play the Shamisen.
And they are freaking fabulous.
Think they will be on my playlist for a while.

Breakdown.

In my head, 27 is not an age to start feeling old and tired
It's the beginning of the rest of my life
I honestly believe that my body can still take all the abuse
4 hours of sleep, drinking till dawn, smoke after smoke, non-stop partying 
Exhaustion is only a state of the mind - I can shake it off by heading out once again
An endless cycle of 4 hours of sleep, drinking till dawn, smoke after smoke, non-stop partying 
Trip after trip after trip 
In the moment, I'm all enthu 
Then after four, five, six continuous days, I get a sign 
Either an unshakable cold or my house is a constant state of mess or sometimes a niggling reminder in my head that this is not all there is to life
So begins a small period of detox - confinement at home, the banish of intoxicants, reclusive behaviour 
Before i get back to the endless cycle once again 
It's only a while before I breakdown

My unfinished tribute to Himachal

I love Himachal Pradesh! Been there twice in 2012 and i have fallen in love with the state - the scenery, the terrain, the people, the food, the weather, the roads... simply everything that the state has to offer. 

So my first trip there was with the MTB Himalaya team in September 2012. MTB Himalaya is this annual mountain biking race where cyclists need to cover over 400 kms across 10 days in some of the most severest and scenic terrains of Himachal.  I was part of the Communications team whose job was to send out press reports, update FB & Twitter from time to time and for some strange reason emcee the closing ceremony. Thankfully, we pretty much covered the same distance as the cyclists in the support vehicles.  

So there was this one evening, where the comms team got off the support vehicle to make way for tired cyclists. And by the time the vehicle that would eventually take us to the campsite arrived, it was dark. The moon was brilliant - almost full, and it cast a lovely glow on the mountains. Inspiration struck and there I was typing a poem on my phone. 

So here it is my unfinished tribute to Himachal Pradesh... 

Through the whistling pines and woods
Blows a breeze: it's the song of the wind
The clouds descend, kiss the mountain tops
A love affair rekindled every sundown
Blue black sky with moonshine bright
Radiant light: it's the night at play

And this is where I either started getting car-sick from all the bouncing around or killed my phone battery, therefore rendering my tribute incomplete. I vow to complete this the next time i set foot. 

Dumb and Dumber

While the sweetness of doing nothing is brilliant and every day feels like a Sunday and all else that comes with being in between jobs is lovely, I have made the following observations. 

1. All the things that you think you'll do on vacation don't get done. Still on my to be done list are the planetarium, Timbuktu, Hyderabad & Mumbai, swimming classes, driving lessons and the bane of my life - weight loss. Ah yes, look for another job as well. 
2. My mastery over the English language has diminished. My grammar has taken a walk, my pronunciation has gotten even more regional and writing takes more time. Thank heavens my spelling, for the most part, is still superb. 
3. Without an internet connection, the television becomes your window to the world. And the television is called an idiot box for a reason - it makes you an idiot. 
4. I have become dumb. With every day that passes by, where i am not working and therefore not interacting with people or getting stressed or learning something new or bossing people around, I am getting dumber! 

In other news, I have officially started looking out for a job today. Wonder if it also means that this is the end of my dumbness... 

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing

It’s been a little more than 4 months now since I stopped working. After 4.5 years of working, 4 months seems like a long time to have taken a break for. And for almost the entire duration of the break, I’ve been in one of two modes – couch potato mode or constantly on the move mode.  No prizes for guessing which of the two I would prefer to be in for the rest of my life.

The former does have a certain appeal; in all honesty I think it’s akin to a holiday in your home. You chill all day, you mindlessly watch TV, your diet goes for a toss, you sleep and when it gets too much, you curl up on the rocking chair with a book and a cup of hot tea. Makes for a perfect winter holiday...

The latter is an eye opener. It’s like a ball rolling downhill – rather difficult to stop. From Coorg to Hampi to Delhi to Kasol to Bitherkad to Goa, back to Bangalore, it’s been one long trip. Each place obviously had something different to offer.  Coorg was refreshing – it was after a really long time that I was bonding with extended family once again, and I had the wind, the cold winter wind in my hair all the time. Hampi was fun – any trip with friends is – more so when you go exploring and wind up with a seriously fucked up ankle; a villager offered to give me a piggy back ride too, I politely declined and then gave one limb each to friends to carry me to safety. Delhi was cold –cold enough to make me buy thermals. The evenings were lovely though.  I have never been one for waiting. But wait I did, and the minute my boy came back from work, the cold didn't seem so bad. Chilly weather does give way to romance, allows you comfortably bury yourself in the arms of a loved one. Delhi was also a recce of sorts - do I see myself living here in a few months from now? I absolutely do! Kasol was breath taking – I touched snow, I had a snow fight, I warmed my bones by the tandoor, I was baked, I had a killer New Years, I went on holiday with my boy and there were so so many gorgeous dogs and 1 cat.  

Home aka Bitherkad happened next. This has been a roller coaster ride of sorts – I think trying to live in the same space as your parents especially after you have spent most of your time away from them in hostel or by yourself, always is. From many rounds of rummy to yummy food to fist fights to shouting matches to drunken brawls to promises of sobriety to estate work to even cop calling, the 10 days at home have been insane. A couple more days will be spent here and they promise to be exciting as well. Among the various things that I’m looking to do are also the following:  

• Paint the pots
• DIY Project – Make pots out of a tyre. Thanks My Sunny Balcony for the idea and Two Material Girls for the inspiration
• Piss off the cats
• Walk around the estate
• Cardamom drying and storage on a daily basis
• Water therapy for my foot
• Prepare my resume

I proceed to Goa from here. As commercial as it will be, it’s once again a trip with friends and therefore will be brilliant. Post that i get back to Bangalore for a little while – most of February at least. It will be my party month, a month of unabashed drinking.  There are 4 birthdays to celebrate including mine. There’s a big fat Indian wedding which will feature more drinks. My boy will be visiting, so it will be interesting to figure new dynamics in our old setting.

So while I tell the whole world that I’ve been jobless, the past couple of months have been more packed with excitement and fun than I can remember.  So much so, that I want to be on a break forever, I want to go out more, I want to see the world, I want to go to Italy! If only I had the money.. for the money, i need a job. With the job, I'm sure to need a long break. With the break, I will live it up. To live it up some more, I need money. Aaaaaaaahhhh… vicious cycle it seems to be.

In any case, I am so thankful for the present which in the words of the Italians is, "Dolce far niente" - the sweetness of doing nothing.  

Flight 6E 141 from Delhi to Bangalore

I write this out of sheer boredom. I usually find something to do or rather look at once I've depleted my stock of books while travelling by air. This time round I've finished V for Vendetta and am unable to get my head around A Brief History of Time, and I'm terrified my phone will die and with it so will the music. So to entertain myself and you I present to you, "Observations from Seat 20C".

1) Children should  be sedated. They are noisy; the parents/grand parents of these kids are noisy too. The last thing i want to hear is the lady across the aisle screaming at the toddler who has slipped from her clutches and is presently staring at some random passenger, who i'm sure has no kind feelings either, especially when the toddler is all red-faced and splotchy. Maybe the  lady should have been sedated too. 

2) The next time you are in an aisle seat and the food trolley stops right next to you, see if you get claustrophobic.

3) The in-flight magazine is called "Hello 6E". For those missing the word play, 6E would be sexy. Baaaaaarrrrrrffffffff!!! 

4) Some of the puns that Indigo comes up with are fun though. My favourite is 'nut case' for the little tin box that the masala nuts come in. 

5) People who take a window seat should be tasered if they sleep. What's the point of hogging the window if you're not going to look out of it? In addition, if these people wake up only to go the loo or to get off the place, one should feel free to trip them and hope to hell they fall on their face and pass out on the aisle. This could also ensure that noisy child doesn't get out and that the trolley cannot come by again with its claustrophobic intentions. 

6) I'm not much of a talker, especially when it comes to talking to a fellow passenger. But I long for the day when this mysterious, brooding passenger strikes up a conversation and we hit it off. We could stay friends for the rest of our lives and then visit each other with our future families. 

7) More claustrophobia! Not just the damned trolley; its accompanied by a whiff of stale deodorant and sweat. 

8) In case of turbulence the overhead compartments could open, bags and boxes could fall out and the heads of a good numbers of flyers in the aisle seats could be decapitated. I would be spared of course. 

9) How can anyone use the loo? It sees an average of 1 user a minute. That would mean on a 2 hour, 40 minute flight if you happen to be the last one to go, you're likely to be peeing on 159 instances of pee. YEW! 

10) And Bangalore is here... Excitement! To see and feel the sun would be brilliant. Especially if the temperature at landing is 21 degrees Celcius. That would be 18 degrees more than what it was when I woke up this morning in Delhi. 

That's all folks! I have landed... almost actually. I wait for the thud of the wheels on the ground to make my pen go crooked and then stop the entry. I see the familiar looking plots of land. Not that I know them personally, just that they look Bangalore like. And touchdown in 3, 2, 1... OK then, bye bye. 


P.S: It's sad that digital entries cannot convey handwriting. Mine is spectacular, especially after the thud of the wheels.