another one of those meaningless posts

The weather is becoming brittle - every now and then the clouds break into droplets, the sun hides, the trees moan and sigh in the wind. And my mind goes blank every now and then, devoid of thoughts and dreams. i float in and out of reality, one foot in dreamland, another hovering over reality.

After another one of my unexplained break-ups with books, i got back again with the written words. And as always, i find myself living the stories. i am in the middle of two or three books - with age i am becoming more fickle. Years ago, i would not have been able to even think of starting a book before finishing one. Now, i flit from one to the next, leaving unfinished stories hanging on a line. Sometimes, i go back to finish the story. Sometimes, i just bury them. Pretty much like most of my fragmented dreams.

These days i find i am searching for nothing. i am empty. Drained.

It could pretty well be the weather. Either that or i am mellowing, rather fading. i think i want more books. i think i want to get high on grass and talk to the stars. i think i want to sleep and have another one of my recurring dreams. i think i am so losing it.

Ema always used to worry about me and my ceaseless thinking - she used to say i will go mad one day. i think i am already mad.

the art of saying 'no'

'No' is one of my favourite words. Anyone associated with me can vouch for that. 'Can you do this for me?' - 'no'. 'Lets go there' - 'no'. 'Eat this' - 'no'. No. No. No.

i think it has something to do with i being pig-headed and conceited and yes, inconsiderate too. i don't think twice before saying 'no' to things i would rather not do. i am someone driven almost entirely by her own needs and wishes. So i cannot be bothered to think if i am hurting sentiments or breaking customs by saying 'no'. i hate being nice - there are too many nice people in this world.

i think 'no' is a powerful word and so under-utilised. Ironically, almost all of the people close to me are the type who cannot say 'no' because they are such nice people who would rather do something they don't want than hurt the other person. (It could also be that i was drawn to them in the first place because they cannot say 'no'!!!). M, one of my close friends can never say 'no' no matter how much inconvenience she has to face. So she ends up being exploited by people and having to house- and baby-sit while other people enjoy a vacation. She complains about how tired she is but she would never say 'no'. Such are the soft hearted people i associate with.

Since i am lucky enough to have been blessed with a heart that does not melt easily, saying 'no' comes easy to me. S used to say it is because i am so sure about what i want and don't want.

And once i say 'no', come hell i would not change my mind. Or so says K to anyone who tries to change my mind after i have uttered the word always at the tip of my tongue -no! He is wrong though. There are some people in my life like my mother and him who knows just which string of my otherwise insensitive heart to pull. i call it emotional blackmail. They call it 'love'. Or friends like SM and SC who can also be stubbornly patient to wear me down to the point to make me revert my 'no' to a reluctant 'yes' (like SC who can say 'chalo cha khai' almost a thousand times when i say 'no'). Would this prove i am partly human after all?

And of course, i cannot stand it when i get a 'no' for an answer!!! Such is the beauty of my nature!

anti social networking sites

The other day, a junior from work (read ex-work) asked me to join orkut. Now, i am allergic to all social networking sites. i told him i have an insane desire not be found by anyone or to find anyone in the virtual world.

i have been told i can find long-lost friends, have friends find me. Which is scary if you ask me. i mean, for someone so anti-social like me, that is like hell! i have always maintained that if i want to be in touch with someone it would not be through one-liners or what they call scraps (is that the right term ?). And i just don't want to be 're-discovered' by people i don't want to be in contact with. Which makes you wonder whether i have many skeletons hiding in the cupboard!!

Almost everyone (net-savvy i mean) i know has a parallel existence in the world of orkut or facebook or whatever other sites you have. In my ex-project, all the kids (and the adults too!) always had their orkut accounts open - of course, surreptitiously (but i am eagle eyed) and SC and i always cribbed about project productivity being reduced by people 'scraping' rather than working. SC is the only person in my orbit who does not exist in orkut.

i can never understand why people are so addicted to it. But then, i am an antiquated hag.

Up

You know how much of a sucker i am for animation films. The other day we watched this film 'Up'. What drew me to it was that it was a story of an old man trying to fulfil his dead wife's dream. A romantic animation film - how cool is that? Of course, it is not the kind of cootchie-cooing, mushy stuff. You have the film's prologue showing the couple meeting as kids, falling in love, getting married, getting old and the death of the wife - their entire love story in mabye 5 minute of silent footage.

So if the wife dies before the film hardly takes off, you ask me where is the romance? The romance is in the old man, who cannot even walk unaided, trying to fulfil what is his wife's lifelong dream of going to South America. That is what got me. Maybe the first animation film that brought a lump to my throat.

i wonder if i die now, whether he would cross the sahara for me. Or go watch the aurora borealis. Nay...sigh..sigh...

basketball in the rain

Sometimes, memories are all that is left of happy days, when the world was unencumbered by expectations, when life flowed from one day to the next, when crushes and blushes bloomed, when you were drunk with the possibilities of things to come...

How carefree we were - bunked classes, staying up nights reading M&B and lusting for the forbidden fruit, of adda fuelled by lebu-cha, the mindless chatters, the endless ribbing, those nights at the library mugging up before the semester, the off-tune rendering of 'truly, madly, deeply do', those games of basketball.

When it rains, i remember that evening. When the skies opened up and everyone scurried for shelter, and we braved the rain and carried on playing. Drenched to the bones. With the lighting lighting up the dark night, with the thunder applauding. When our sweat mingled with the rain drops.

i no longer play basketball. i cannot remember the last time i intentionally got myself drenched in the rain. But i still have the memories etched in my mind, like scars of wounds sustained long ago.