Conversations With Boys

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Mid Life Problems

Just as it’s time to leave, he leans in and asks like it’s a secret, “Are you happy?”

I lean back. My brow knots up. “Wrong question. Ask me if I’m excited about the future.”

“Are you excited about the future?”

“Yes. Even if the happiness comes & goes.”

 “Hmmm…”

“You? Are you excited about what’s up ahead?”

“I don’t know. I’ve checked all the boxes – degree, job, marriage, money. I expected something more than this.”

“More than what?”

“More than…vanilla.”

“Talk to your wife more. Be vulnerable. You’ll be surprised how meaningful it can make your life to share like that.”

“I think I’ll start a band.”

 ******

Reminiscing

They meet after more than decade but one might say they’ve never met before because this is the first real conversation they’ve ever had.

And she says, “I used to be so scared of you back then.”

He looks surprised: “Why??”

“Oh I was scared of everything in those days.”

“No no. I’m pretty sure it was me. I used to be an asshole.”

 ******

Body Issues

He texts me from an out-of-town wedding: “God everyone is *so* fat here. The women are cows.”

I text back: “I’m fat too. You seem ok with it.”

“You’re different.”

“Why?”

“You change. Your face changes.”

“In bed?”

“Yes.”

*****

Insomnia

She is half a country away from home and from him. It’s a lonely hotel room, where the TV only plays Tamil channels. She has an early morning but sleep won’t come.

“Why not?” he asks on the phone.

“I have trouble. Insomnia.”

“I can sleep anywhere, any time.”

“Lucky you.”

“I’m going to help you sleep.”

“Best of luck. You won’t succeed.”

“Oh I will. Are you in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Listen to the sound of my breathing and breathe deeply with me.”

She inhales and exhales with him. For a good ten minutes.

“Are you asleep?”

“Mmmmm…no.”

“Ok. I’ll keep trying.”

 ******

The Turning Point

I dream of forevers with him.

But he says, “I’m only going to be a chapter in your autobiography.”

“Impossible. Only one?”

“Yeah, I’ll be the one after the assholes. Just before the love of your life.”

“You’re the love of my life.”

“No. I’m the turning point.”

******

Wah, mazaa aa gaya!

Loyalty - II

I'm set to be presented a Kindle in a couple of months and ever since I learned this, I've been devoting a few minutes of each day to stare at my cupboard full of books. I've decided to get rid of most of them, especially the ones I've only read once, even if they've been gifted. I'm pretty nifty like that, doesn't take much time for me to sift through objects and decide which ones are relevant, which ones aren't. My nostalgia is nuanced, ruthlessly honed to a fine-tipped craft. Most things will not make the cut.

(My generation has had to say a lot of goodbyes in quick succession to the things we built our lives around. I have a feeling the next lot will find it easier to use & throw.)

So anyway, I've been spending more time off the computer and reading books, hoping my fingers will remember their weight and crinkle long after I give them away, even though I know it won't matter a few months, years and decades from now. I'm disciplining myself to read with more care - my attention wanders disastrously nowadays. I'm preparing for loss and this preparation is bringing new joy into my life.

Everyday I will stare at my cupboard full of books, pick one and say goodbye. 

Maybe the books will be gone, but the cupboard - the one that used be in my grandfather's house - will remain.

Reminiscing

I may be over-reaching here but I do believe John Lennon knew my heart before I did. His music did, at any rate. For the longest time I carried his songs with me wherever I went and like a UN interpreter, they had the ability to translate emotional experiences into bite-sized chunks my mind could easily digest. I told no one.

I grew older & did the things I was supposed to do - scrape past the big exams, get a job, be reckless with my heart etc. When I was 28, I willed my circumstances into buying me a ticket to New York. Incredible things had happened to me on the inside. No one knew on the outside.
For some reason, even as young as 10 years old, I had hitched my hopes on New York City. As if it were the promise land. What does a 10 year old Indian girl (pre-cable television, pre-Internet) want from New York City? I really don't know. All I had was a withered, worn out air-ticket with the letters JFK etched out next to my name. When I was one my mother had carted me along when she visited her sister in the States. The ticket, which she'd allowed me to keep, had grown into a myth that I could barely contain.

New York City was everything I'd imagined and I could hardly stand it. I went numb. I would walk the streets of Manhattan everyday. Penn Station was the imaginary pole to which I tethered myself, stretching the imaginary rope as far as I could, as I wandered around. There were the crazy Doomsday roadside fatalists, the pavement artists, the musicians, the flirtatious doormen, the snobbish salesgirls, the nice salesgirls, the Bangaldeshi umbrella vendors. My crazy would have fit right in there. But I told no one.

And then one day my friend took me to Central Park West. We stood outside the Dakota Building for what felt like eternity. Wasn't that long at all, actually. I didn't really want to stand where John Lennon was shot dead. We crossed the street and entered the park. It's funny now, looking back I have to remind myself that my friend was with me. It played out so differently in my head. I walked into the park, walked down the path and came upon this:

Strawberry Fields Memorial to John Lennon: Central Park, NYC

There were a few benches around the Imagine mosaic. Not too many people - a backpacker with a tiny boombox playing Lennon's songs, a balloon vendor, a father explaining Lennon to his son, a vagrant and me. The numbness inside turned to something else and began to swell. Lennon's music had always been my permission to feel. Now I was here. He was all around. And no one knew.

I sat until sitting there lost all meaning. Until it became just another bench in just another park and it began to get dark. I guess my friend & I must've walked back to his car, we would've stopped by for dinner somewhere, then driven straight on through to his home in New Jersey. The heartswell would have settled into numbness again by the time we reached. We would've both sat on his balcony and puffed our cigarettes. Him inhaling smoke in his corner & I, exhaling, in mine.

Back in the Day

• The only reality show on TV was Krishi Darshan.
• Blogging was what happened to Malyali noses in Delhi winters.
• India, China & Brazil were on the brink of becoming superpowers...wait, they still are.
• People had friends made of flesh & blood, not inch-high FB pics.
• Taking a flight was something 'rich people' did.
• Relatives from abroad would return with bagfuls of Marks & Spencers, Benetton & Sony Walkmans...and we'd be excited.
• Sony Walkman - the era of 'Don't Run Too Fast Or The Tape Will Get Jammed in The Head'.
• McDonald's was the classiest joint in town.
  
• 50p could get you a whole mess of stuff.
• Boys didn't put more product in their hair than girls.
• Sting, Tracy Chapman & Bruce Springsteen performed in Delhi and the roads were blocked for miles. Now the Backstreet Boys come and go and there's barely a rumble.
• People were famous because they did cool stuff. Now there's Rahul Mahajan.
• Traveling acrobats, snake charmers and folk singers would roam the streets of our colony - remember the tiny ferris wheels & bioscopes?
• The Bioscope: long before cable TV crowded our brains.
• We laughed out loud, not LOL.
• It wasn't cool to diss Indira & Sanjay Gandhi.
• It wasn't cool to diss Vajpayee.
• You could see a film and still not file for bankruptcy.
• Cricketers' jerseys were not walking billboards.
• Good handwriting was important.
• Air hostesses were rude but spoke English we understood.
• Girls had bangs called 'flicks' and wore shoes called 'Baylleez'.
• 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' was not a marketing ploy.
• Anil Kapoor was famous for being hairy and teaching us incorrect math ('One-Two ka Four, Four-Two ka One').
• Sundays were all about Ramayan, Mahabharat, He Man and Molu.
• America was cool but the USSR was our friend.
• Games were played outdoors and had weird names like pithhoo and four-corners. Wii was just a sound one made on those tiny ferris wheels.
• Avatars were things we prayed to, to pass exams.
• South Indians did not have wedding sangeets.
• We thought the glaciers would be around forever. Then we didn't. Then we did.

Someone once said to me - "Nostalgia is so passe, darling!"
Never did I feel this more than this evening when I dug deep into my cupboard and unearthed old photographs from school....
I really thought I'd look at them, sigh and say - "We were so young, our skin was so tight, our eyes so bright...look - doesn't it seem like the whole wide world lies in front of us?..."
Except, I stared back at a bunch of kids, who looked lost and scared and were definitely not all that great looking. As for me: I have never looked or felt more miserable as I did at 15. I hated my body, I had a terrible hairdo and an even worse attitude.

30 is an amazing age for a woman to be in 2009. It pisses me off that we're brainwashed to believe anything else. Everything starts now...

Have I Lived Enough?

If there is one question that's plagued me since the age of 15 it is - Have I lived enough?
The definition of 'lived' has changed several times. I've tried to map out its chronology:

1996-2000:
Have I been to enough 'girl-boy' parties?
Have I smoked enough cigarettes?
Have I tried all varieties of Kingfisher beer more than thrice?
Have I studied enough ancient Indian, Greek, Western philosophy?
Have I entered enough inter-college competitions?
Do I have enough people who like me?

2000-2003:
Have I travelled enough across India?
Have I survived enough night edits?
Have I behaved sufficiently badly on said night edits?
Have I made sufficient money?
Have I 'struggled' enough to tell stories of it when I'm 50 and sitting in an air conditioned office ordering my minions about?
Do I have enough long-haired, male friends?

2003-2006:
Have I been daring enough to throw away everything I've worked for because I'm 'not happy'?
Have I done enough narcotics (no harder than E)?
Have I been stoned/ drunk for a sufficient stretch of time without break?
Have I met a sufficient number of 'crazed yet artistically-inclined' people?
Have I lived on my own & been poverty stricken enough?
Have I had enough 'near death' experiences?

2006-2009:
Have I been hugged enough?
Have I been outdoors enough?
Have I been brave enough?
Have I been kissed enough?
Have I been vulnerable enough?
Have I had enough therapy?
Have I made enough phone calls to powerful people?
Have I worked hard enough at improving my writing?
Have I travelled enough across the globe?
Have I heard enough cool music?
Have I fought enough for what I want?