mis amigas..this week

Met Bonu after agesss today. Practically spent the whole day together. Catching up. Filling in. Sounding out...you get the idea..

Its wonderful (something I've taken a while to get used to, no doubt!) that my relationship with most of my closest friends (hail the gmail/gtalk revolution as well, of course!) is based on picking up and dropping off..flying in and flying out. And we still yap like kms never existed. Work. Ambitions. New phones. New work places. Essays to be submitted. Mean boys. Nice boys. Boys who are hard to get rid of. Pretty places visited. Expectations. Museums. Lounges. New creative talent sought. Chocolate. Bling. Chess.

-------------------------------------------------

Watched the short film she's made. Had read the script beforehand; had even tried helping her out with the title..But had no idea it would come out so well. As a first, its certainly something I'm super proud of.

The credits rolled. and i sat with a lump in my throat.

Dealing with the process of change per se, she has most sensitively, and almost seamlessly, inter-woven the story of change in printing technology with change in her own familial vocations and the values and affiliations therein. So there are frames of printing machines and letter presses juxtaposed with family photographs and musings. Lingering Impressions, she's called it.

The film in itself is a tremendous project. But i know for me, it was more than that..i was revelling in our shared experiences and overwhelming we're-nappy-pals pride!

---------------------------------------------------

Have also been dealing with insecurity lately. A trait i do not entertain, acknowledge or own up to. I blame it on global warming-induced dust squalors and early scorching summers!

---------------------------------------------------

Pudd's wise words when i needed them the most:

There's humour everywhere..in small things..and in people who annoy you.

You always know best, Puddsie!!

Yes..it was another weekend!

a mindnumbing whirlwind of a weekend..
sat through seven steps around the fire. caught a cold. broke my phone. was let down. cried.A LoT. slept at 5.30 am three times over. escaped family wedding to go to TC (my happy place :D). played hide-n-seek with a four-year-old. drove to DLF. drove to Rohini. found solace in 15-minute ISD phonecalls. walked up-n-down through a maddening Sunday night Sarojini nagar shoppers crowd coz i wanted to think. fought through layers and piles and stacks of accusations of expections unfulfilled. learnt that i cannot make ALL the people happy ALL the time. drove a policeman around in my car to prove that i had not jumped the traffic light. was told that i was "the best-est TONU in the whole world". used dirty green kajal. sang tunelessly. swore at the wrong people. danced on a barstool. put my foot in my mouth.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Had a second cousin get married from my house. So the Great Indian Wedding played out from my living room. and my bedroom. and the kitchen. and even the staircase.
Found strangers in my room. and their children. and empty muffin packets full of ants.
Its crazy. fun in bits. not so much fun when i have to take shopaholic cousins for an afternoon out in the sun for two and a half hours and she buys a belt. that's right. two hours..for a freakin' belt. or when I have to stay up till 5.30am and make tea four times during insane hours of the night. or when i need to walk around in 4 inch heels pretending to look very pretty but when i feel like my ankle will die. or when i have a huge, and i mean HUGE, problem with the dynamics of a Hindu wedding ceremony (or any wedding ceremony for that matter) and realize that my ranting has been recorded for posterity on the obnoxious, ubiquitous-at-weddings, annoying-light-flashing-in-eye video camera.
I watched..mother and daughters cry. chaos reign. suitcases being packed and unpacked and repacked. tempers rise with fatigue and the heat. egos clash and burn. sarees being worn. the electricity go off at the wedding venue just as the groom arrived. fish being wrapped and unwrapped and dressed up. lots of family. some liked. others not so much.

Do i always post after the weekend?

Saturday night began under starlight..yemenite-rajasthani-ethiopian music..israeli lead singer..backpackers, sadarji uncles, fat aunties in sarees, hippies, yuppies and us..shared space on mattresses..
concert on the greens. with strobe lights and lots of space. man with the multicoloured turban and wooden castenets (the kartal, i think) from rural rajasthan dancing with gay abandon..with the girl from perisan-israel..

Sunday night i met bengalees..of all shapes and sizes..on the mount. there was colour. there were loud, musical voices. there were big round red bindis.
tiptoed over the marble inlays set for people remembered..like i have done since i was 3 - names and relationships etched on stone..freezing people in time, in a house of worship.
there was incense. and someone rang the temple bell right behind me.
We're in the year 1414, im told.

This weekend. I also found out i'll be losing 3 more people to distance.

A regular hmm..

We're so darn good at stubbornly following a dream,which after a point we make ourselves believe, is the only way life can go right.

Sealing an envelope, I catch myself thinking, I'm probably the clown in the ring right now..

Reveling in the aftertaste

four days. coffee stains. penne twice over. familiar bickering. car rides and familiar drives. airport pickups and drunk stories. mornings of faith and lots of newspaper supplements. favourite bookshops and a new blue blockprinted skirt. cyber conversations with happy details. "bone-marrow squeezing" hugs and homecoming. old friends getting jobs at favourite magazine. new friends dancing in the dark. MC's pickled olives. hope-inducing emails. loungy afternoons and chick-flicks. beer and lal chai. "Music and Lyrics". ECG and under-weight. eye-squinting grins over three heads. black or khaki or bluey-green or clowny-pyjama stripes. squatting on carpetted floor with nachos and laughing eyes. barefeet on wet grass. tantrums at the black market. nostagia o'er unexpected group emails. curfews and rebellion. "The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers". a chiffon-sareed wedding thrown in. overwhelming head-whirling. book inscriptions. two phones playing the same song. "Prince of Persia." one completed application. realizing that the "now" and the people therein are ephemeral, and being okay. lots of leg-pulling and tons of gay abandon. ulaan bataar and nelson mandela and ferozeshah. lots and lots and lots of laughing.

--------

I love the aftertaste of a good weekend. Wont lie and say that it helps me yeii-yippee headlong into work and weekdays..but i think i'm sufficiently fortified to face to-do lists and pending word-generation.