As they say...

Friedrich Nietzsche:

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

-----------------------------------------
In that case, I'm breeding a constellation.

..And because I would not trade my insanity for anything in the world..

Inexplicable
the cosmos conspires
for apparently when Greek Gods and Hindu mythology dictate
through all the thunder and premonition
crossing lines of faith etched
brick arcs drawn with measured precision
and guarded with careful pride
Through layers of introspection
and masked sensibilities
for clattering reflections
for the spoken word
for the conflicting vaccum
and me

TPs?

Some of us discussed Focault. Others discussed fractions. And the funniest part is that these conversations were never mutually exclusive. I remember drunken singing in a bathroom at 4 in the morning. I remember lots of chocolate cake. I also remember golgappa bowls and photo-coasters. I remember walking down dark streets of vasant vihar after saying farewell to 1 out of 3, singing like the world did not matter.

And invariably I will always remember the laughing. The context changed. Amidst the red bricks at the Cafe. sprawled across corridors. Through games of pictionary. Pizza Hut and the vodka shots at TC.

There was nizamuddin. Shared bewilderment and forgetting to cover heads. There were films that were made, along with posters and presentations. There were walks in parks among bottles and bottles of erasex (that's what whitener's called right??) at 8 in the morning. There were episodes of Friends. and Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Madagascar. Midnight Maggi. There were also surprise parties that were pulled off. Our CVs bear the marks of our common interests. And our birthday gifts were invariably six months late. And it took us three years to get a photograph "where all of us have our eyes open AND are looking into the camera"!!

There was the Middle Class in Pakistan and there were numerous others.

By the end of it we knew us all. The one who got drunk the fastest. The one who was always late. The one who hated hugs, but who we co-opted. The one who hyperventilated the most. The one who hated Subway. The one who always called a spade, a spade. The one who loved Pepsi. The one who ate dirty chowmein, and the other who ate manchurian rice.

The last time we met was over glasses of wine. 6 red, one white. We discussed relationships. The mile-high club. and bookstores. and a hammock. :D

And I remember the comfort. Shared and nurtured. sought and sought-out. Things were not always smooth. 7 invariably broke up into 2s and 3s and 5s and then some. I know I messed up at places. regrets and tokenisms. egos and gratitude. nights we would remember, and those we always will.

Distance happened. Physically and otherwise. And I write this now because through layers of MAs and MScs and jobs, gmail worked. as did facebook and orkut of course (even though stubbornness and laziness ensure that ALL of us together are on neither!). There were 27 emails exchanged over fiction. There were others about Focault, I believe. There's a resurgence of meeting and conversations, I think.

There have been conversations. Some of the comfort sometimes seems missing. At other times, somewhere we know that it'll always be there (cliched?). In a conversation with SH, (and apparently all of us still have numerous staccato conversations about "us seven") we wondered if we would still run to each other, just? Without a reason? Call, just?

There is an immense sense of pride (I sound old when I say it of course!) over ideas growing in people. Over tremendous work being done. Over people who you're proud to know. And there's respect and gratitude.

And apparently we never shared a meal at Big Chill. There's where we go next girls :)

Postscript:

And i forgot to mention the names: apt and saved in phone directories.

AJ..your happy post!

My pessimism notwithstanding..things around for me will change..for good.

The largest part of me remains ungrateful..and yes, i need aroma candles and the couch and the shrink (AJ! it sounds wayyy different from the context we discussed it in!)..

In my defence, there are many slips and cups and lips i know of. and my realist sensibilities go into overdrive.

It was surreal at one level to see people around me revel in my glory. it felt good. and it felt twice as scary. Emotions and realities that were unfamiliar.

There are stepping stones and there are first steps. And I know i will be a little broken if i find them missing.

Say..cheese sticks and crushing on a former teacher. Life felt good six hours later :)

Of longitudes in the head

Sometimes..
I wish I could box myself in
obliterating the need for
momentary
confusion, bitchiness, moodswings
exaggerated perceptions
sometimes..
its nicer to just pull away
sometimes..
I wish I could pretend all the time.

Postscript:
Melodramatic me!!
AJ read it out and well, it sounded funny once the anger and irritation had subsided..
She also reminded me of shiny disco balls and feet-dipped in pools this weekend..and despite AJ-budday-induced predictions saying my new year resolutions will not be fulfilled, things are not so bad afterall.
As for boxing in. Im still going ahead with it!

research and reality checks.

First there was anger...head-smacking anger. then there was disbelief. extreme sadness. and then after a point it gave way to desensitization. almost completely.

There i was sitting..for the better part of my working week..reading testimonies, commentaries, articles, first-persons, directives..on the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. The race towards barbarism. The winner takes the holy land. God save his soul.

There were stories untold and re-told. feminist analysis. of how systematically, deliberately, brutally, inhumanely the woman's body became the symbol of victory/defeat; of soiling the other community; of leaving "our" mark on "them". foetuses torn out and burnt. throats slit. bodies violated.

And we just watched.

There were children. hundreds in number.

And we just watched.

and then there were photographs. my facade of desensitization gave way. images broke down the wall that so effectively blocked out words.

Its been five years now. the silver lining being the hundreds of organizations working in the region. painfully, slowly..surely. Justice. reconciliation. who said building peace was easy? who said forgiving was easy?

And we still just watch.

Sometimes extreme hatred for the religion i was born into surfaces. sometimes just shame. We protect the holy-cow, but kill the human. The utter hypocrisy of it all.

Modi was cursed. and counter-cursed. How does it matter..he still walks free.

As i gathered. Little has changed.

I thought about all the people I knew. And stereotypes of the "other" reiterated even in seemingly rational, liberal minds. Would they be part of the mob? Or worse still would they turn a blind eye to it had they been there?

We had plenty to talk about at our ubiquitous living room discussions. We have reams of research. Plenty of books. Images.

..And we've moved on.