looking back

its 30 december. 2006 has just passed me by. its zipped by a lot faster than i expected it to. and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing. but as always, as everyone mostly likes to think, the year gone by has been good year in more ways than one. a lot has happened. a lot has changed. a lot didnt happen. a lot could have happened. im nostalgic. im contemplative. im also terribly sleepy..so im saving my end-of-year, looking-back-on-2006 post for a time when im less sleepy and tired and exhausted and intoxicated with life.

as of now new years plans include food, drink and a movie marathon. i almost never have plans for new years. invariably something comes up last minute, or i just stay home. this time however, im super excited.

happy 2007 everyone. and dont drink and drive!

be

..and to be yourself is all that you can do
to be yourself is all that you can do..

niyu

niyu's going away to bombay in a few weeks. make that about 2 weeks. and i think its only coming down on me now. it hadnt fully registered in my head. and suddenly i feel like its all happening all too soon.

niyati is going away to bombay, to study music with my grand parents. to live away from home. to learn what life in another city, away from home is like.

and for that im really proud of her. she's doing something i didnt have the courage and clarity to do at 17. im so frikking proud of her. she's taken the plunge.

we're all going to miss her. but i think im going to miss her the most. im going to miss coming home to the one person who's always (well almost always) willing to let me sink myself into her warm and cuddly bear hug. im going to miss having someone with a superb sense of humour around at home. im going to miss having someone to cover up my sorry ass everytime i do something naughty. im going to miss having someone to snoop around and bug and annoy, just for a laugh. im going to miss having someone to teach me how to bake that chocolate cake right. im going to miss all those experimental cooking sessions. im going to miss having someone make me that mindblowingly fantastic pasta / lasagne / mousse / tangy mexican chicken..anything. im going to miss her happy cheerful presence at home. im going to miss having someone around to help me pick clothes. im going to miss having her to call me names and curse and yell and fight. im going to miss picking on each other. im going to miss our hysterical laughing together sessions. im going to miss all the mad crazy things we did together. im going to miss all the nonsense. im going to miss being just me around her. just the way i am, the way i really am, and she'd take it all..laughter and tears.

she's almost the exact opposite of everything i am. and yet in her, i see so much of me. and deep down im furiously possessive and feel such an immense sense of attachment and such a strong bond, that its going to be so hard to let go, and to see her fly her own way. but this is for the best. i KNOW its what she needs. i KNOW its the best thing for her. here's to you niyu. here's to your becoming a cool funky happening and successful whatever-you-want-to-be. because i know that whatever you do, you'll do it well. im so proud of you.

suddenly, i dont know what im going to do after 8 january 2007.

ancient love

i wrote this over 3 years ago. i must admit, at the time i felt like something absolutely profoundly emotional and heartfelt and poetic had flown through my mind and onto paper. now im just embarrassed. not at the way i felt, or what inspired the "poetic words", but at what i wrote and what it made me feel back then. i was kicked at myself. now i just think "hahaha what was i thinking"..funny thing it is, going back to what you once felt and expressed..

but this feeling remains. a lot of the time. after so many days. so many months..i still feel the same way. a lot of the time. its grown with me. its a feeling thats aged with me. its a part of me.

I cant wait for the next time I will see your eyes.
Those few moments, an eternity.
Those moments, an eternal bliss…
when suddenly all the trouble, the grief, the angst just disappears, in a moment.
And everything ceases to exist…my whole world is captured in those minutes that we share.
The world around comes to a halt and I’m caught in a rapturous, euphoric break in time.
Nothing else matters
and all that remains is you, me and the bliss
I long for that comforting embrace…a reminder
the warmth and hope…the overwhelming calm.
all in a few moments of being together
I’m addicted to you, to those moments I share with you
It feels like in those moments, is my everything.
—18 11 ‘03

tree

so christmas is here. saw the most beautiful tree today.
as you can see, the cold is better already. antihistamines zindabad. but yes, that is my handkerchief in my left hand.

the point of this post, and this picture..
im going to miss you stupid fatty. get your ass back fastly.

sneeze.sniffle.bleargh.

i have a cold. and its no fun. of course colds usually arent, but this one is particularly annoying. its a 100%, all the time blocked nose. with an incopntrollable trickle here and there. (yes, ewww is right).. and its making me wish i had another vent from which to breathe. OTHER than my mouth which goes dry and begins to burn after a while. i wish we had like a back-up nose. like switch to breathe-thru-your-ears mode, when your nose and nostrils are down and out. or gills maybe. or something, just to ease the discomfort.

the mornings are the worst. like a cold-hangover. everything is blocked. everything is stuffy. everything is weird and fuzzy. and so i missed going for a run today.

right now my throat, nose and insides feel like they've been sandpapered down..nice and pokey and nice and yucky, with a good dose of goop thrown in. yeearrccgghh. all i wanted to do all of today was drink coffee endlessly. and sit in a chair all day long, and not move a limb. my back feels sore, my shoulders and neck are sore.

sneeze.sniffle.brrrrssmmmppp..bleargh. over and out.

(ps: julia by chris rea is the new happy high meter ticker song..anyone else heard it / like it?)

today

monday morning blues. sigh. cold monday morning blues. which actually begin on sunday evening. and go on through monday. and make you count days till the weekend.

somewhere in between are thoughts of happiness. thoughts that bring a smile to my face. thoughts of sunshiney happy times. thoughts of a time and place far far away.

and here i am. its monday.

such is life

last week i went to a concert at palace grounds. remember shakti. it was freezing in palace grounds. james, niyu and i were there in advance..with the most expensive tickets, in the 2nd row. in the bands face. when it started it was all worth it. they played their regular few numbers..and then what seemed like new stuff.

im a big u srinivas fan now. he's just so bloody effortless with the mandolin. things just flow, he doesnt do much. and then there was shankar mahadevan with his unrealistically tuneful voice. its absolutely insane how he can wander all over the scales and stay perfectly in tune (well almost). and then there zakir. he's the dude. theres just no other way to put it.

i havent heard them in a while. and i was mighty impressed. i cant judge if they were really that good, or if it was just a refreshing change, because iv been so out of the whole music scene. it was a good good good fun evening.

chicken parmigiana at casa piccola followed at 10:30 that night. so all in all it was fun. james macha is damn good fun to hang with. (and now he'll say im just blading, because i never seem to have the time to hang with him. so how do i know what im saying. muhaha.)

works been good. we released our calendar. and i got conned into representing the office to collect the bouquet on stage. which was not fun. i hate fake smiles. works been chilled out. when the cats out, the mice take it easy. the cat has been having a run of really bad luck. a spate of crises and family issues has kept him out of office. the mice have been at play / work. and its really fun. made me realise we work so much better when we dont have someone brething down our necks, making sure we do things only his way and no other way. we worked and we had fun and we werent so stressed out. sigh. theres a downside to everything i guess.

im tripping to bob sinclair..world hold on. the need to go clubbing is really coming back. i feel so old. havent been out dancing in months. the music is getting to me. i feel like i cant hold it anymore. like im going to burst into a jumpity jump right here, right now. which by itself is quite ok. but id much rather it happens on a dance floor, in a smoky, dim, bass-beat-thumping club. sigh..the little pleasures in life.

speaking of feeling old..i will soon complete 6 months since i started working. its like life has caught up all too soon. feels like just yesterday i wandered into the office for my interview..with what felt like an ndless life of freedom stretched out before me. now its like 6 months have raced by..time has caught up. and im back to thinking about "the future". which is ironic. for once in my life im enjoying the present. where i am in life, and everything about it, on all fronts has been so liberating and has taught me so much..and once again im forced to leave it and think about the future. more about this later..when iv sorted out my thoughts a little..

basically i want to be a baby forever. and enjoy life. im a sucker for the good life. i really am.

selfish me

lets have it out..

im selfish. i think iv told myself that a lot these past few days. im having a hard time. and im taking the easy way out by not thinking about it and choosing to be selfish.

in the meantime..here's something i came across today: The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings

and its really stuck in my mind.

anyway. this too shall pass.

only questions

am i doing the right thing?
should i really ignore the way i feel?
should i give it more time?
should i confide?
who should i confide in?
who would be most objective about it?
but is being objective the right way to look at it?
should i stop running away from the obvious?
should i hold on to what i believe in?
should i listen to what i want?
should i stop lying to myself?
should i face up to what i really want, ego aside?
what will happen then?
why do i hurt so much?
why should someone or the other have to hurt?
why do i feel this way?
why do i feel anything at all?
cant i just be a rock or something?
only questions. fuckall...

watched dhoom 2. a wonderful exercise in futility it was. but for a trip of 12 ppl from office, it was fun. iv never bought 10 samosas, 4 panneer rolls and 10 cokes at inox, and held up the queue for 10 mins. everyone in the movie is ripped and buffed and in super shape. i felt fat. aishwarya is BUTT UGLY. so is hritiks 11th finger.

listening to walking in memphis. its still super happy..but that apart, i only have questions on my mind.

where am i?

im incredibly happy. its bloody hard to explain how or why. but i am. my body hurts the good nice stretced hurt. i had a good nice long rather productive and fun day.

but my mind is not in it. my mind is on a beach somewhere. had i been in college, i would be on the brink of christmas vacations. yes VACATIONS. something i will never have the priviledge of enjoying again. waah.

so this is lisa, pooja and i at auro beach..same time, last year. and mannnn im craving to go back again. what id give, to be lying on a beach right now. sea spray in my face, the sea wind in my hear, the smell of drying fish and sea weed, the sound of the endless incessant waves, and the sand between my toes.

take me away..because right now id rather be on a beach than anywhere else.

fun sun fun sunday

its sunday. i think i love sundays. for the most of it at least. especially sundays when im all alone and by myself. the family is out today. folks in mysore. sister out with friends. so it was just me with myself and some more me. blissed out it was.

spent all morning at the parlour, pampering myself. its been a while. all of it wasnt a treat—wasnt "pampering". but some of it was. and im glad someone invented that hot tub of water in which to soak your feet. fucking amazing.

and then i drove around in a city that seems to be dead just pre lunchtime. wide and empty roads. grey skies. perfect light. it was like free falling.

and then i cried some. emotional overload happened. but i wasnt alone, so that helped. chinese food that followed helped some more.

its frikking scary just how much iv begun to love alone time. i dont know if its a good or a bad thing. i say scary because i wasnt like this. i wasnt one to sit around by myself endlessly. but today, i loved it. i need my time. my space. my mind. to recollect and gather myself every so often.

today was a day of renewal. love, happiness, contentment, satisfaction. its all back where it should be. remembering a line from million dollar baby.."there's magic in risking everything for a dream nobody sees, but you."

more pics

nothing makes me feel more complete and like myself, than water. then there was us, pushing it with every inch, on the rocks. the water was bloody inviting. the most amazing feeling was being perched at the edge of the rock, feet dangling off the cliff, and the spray of the water fall showering you ever so lightly when the wind changed direction. fucking blissed out.

i wanna go back. it was just short of perfect.

we then went on a wild goose hunt trying to find somanathapura, to see the kesava temple. someone said 15-20 kms. turned out to be more like 60+ km on a state highway, with no food joints or even a measly tea joint. as a result we didnt have any lunch. but we DID have breezers. and NO TOILETS. sigh. road trips are so much fun. anyway, we got to the temple after what felt like an uneding drive, on the worst road iv been on, in a long long time. and the crowds were dizzying. i almost didnt go in. decided to sit in the car and wait for the gang. but i ended up going anyway..having come that far. and mannnn, if you think belur and halebid are gorgeous, you have to go see somanathapur. its the only complete and still existing hoysala temple. its mindblowing, to say the least. i wont try and explain.

and just for the record, in the pics here are: raghu, prashanth, shwetha, vivek and me. i hope we can do it again, really soon!

shivasamudra and then some...

thats us at shivasamudra. more pictures will follow. it was a mind blowing trip. i discovered that water, in any form (falls, sea, lake, pond, puddle!) really soothes me. i can sit and be quiet and feel completely myself and at peace with everything..just staring out at moving water. iv also learnt that boys are babies. you can never expect something and hope to have it, without going through heartache. arrrgh..

on monday night, i drove the octavia. lets just say i was speechless. its driving luxury at its best. its bloody unbelievable. what i felt most of all, was immense pride. im so proud of my dad.

today promises to be another distracted, scattered day. i fucked up so bad at work yesterday. simply because my mind isnt all together. 100%. and im fighting hard to get it back together. hopefully today will be better.

ps: this is a little prayer for andy. i pray that things are going to be okay. i hope you have the strength to cope with whatever may be the outcome of the next few days. i hope that whatever it is, you have it in you to gather yourself and be strong, not just for yourself, but for your future and your family.

hold my hand. run with me.

ever felt like theres so much going on in your head, even you cant begin to fathom where its starts and where it ends and where one thought begins and the loops in to the next? like everything is one endless meandering never-ending confusing stream of thoughts? like you're constantly jittery and on edge. walking on eggshells. not knowing whats around the corner. or like you're trying to run away from something and yet you're in the same place, not moving. like it feels like you've moved miles forward, and suddenly you realise you're just where you started, if not way behind. like you're so bloody preoccupied 24/7, every waking minute of every hour, that you cant do anything straight. like you're trying to understand somehing thats refusing to make itself known. like you're trying so hard for things to work out, to be right, and everything that could go wrong, does. like you're trying to read a book in chinese, when you dont know how.

like you want someone to sit you down and say fuck its a bright and sunshiney day, stop letting your thoughts take over your life! man i needed it. so so so bad. thanks fatty..for the vibes and the "therapy" and "the happy". it just wouldnt be the same without all of that.

i wish things were simple again. really i wish my mind didnt work overtime. i wish we werent so conditioned by things of the past. i wish i knew how to keep my faith where it belongs. i wish i knew how to trust and believe wholeheartedly, especially when it abounds, and i dont really have to look very far to find it. when its staring me in the face and im running around trying to find it. like a jackass.

ah well. something highly uncanny about having actually started running, and feeling so mentally drained from this feeling of my mind running overtime. im exhausted. in everyway. nervewrecked feeling.

cut.
to today. im blissed.
to hootie and the blowfish. "hold my hand".
to a time where i sit, and surf pablo neruda.
to when i feel like im back on track.

with a little love, and some tenderness
we'll walk upon the water, we'll rise above this mess
with a little peace, and some harmony, we'll take the world together
we'll take them by the hand
cause iv got a hand for you, i wanna run with you
yesterday, i saw you standing there
your head was down, your eyes were red
no comb had touched your hair
i said get up, and let me see you smile, we'll take a walk together, walk the road awhile,
cause iv got a hand for you, i wanna run with you
hold my hand, il take you to a place where you can be, anything you wanna be
because i wanna love you the best that i can.

its 12:27 a.m. happy anniversary! run with me.

running for my life

so i started running again. yes, iv managed to wake myself up, beat the cold and get out of bed for 3 mornings in a row now. armed with trainers, tracks and different music everday, i get on that darned machine and i run for my life. the first 20 mins is a killer. everytime i look at the clock ticking, i wanna stop and go back to sleep. the first 20 minutes crawl. but once im past that, its like i never want to stop. its a heady feeling. and its such an enormous energy high. im glad im back in the zone. im happier, more energetic and more ready to face the day.

meanwhile, in matter closer to the heart, im a little torn. or i WAS a little torn. having been in similar a situation before, and having that gone a little haywire, im edgy, theres no denying that. once bitten..i would hate for it to happen again. id hate to have to lose a friend because i wasnt mature enough to deal with my feelings right. anyway all thats too "complex"..so im cutting the crap. leave things as they are. like tu pac said, keep it simple.

the weekends here again. tomorrow im off to shivasamudra with the gang from work. i cant wait. monday, il go back to running..for my life. like nothing can stop me. its a deadly feeling.