Supernatural powers if I had
I would muster up all sadness into a lad
I would stick it with pins and needles like a voodoo doll
And when it writhed in pain
I'd stick it deeper again.

Since I'm not doing anything even remotely earth-shattering, I think I'll make this almost mid-year resolution to blog more frequently... Maybe chronicle my mundane days as well...

Well, as far as work goes, it pretty much SUCKS!... Lack of motivation, lack of direction, lack of class... basically a lack of everything... Then why am I still here?... Only the Old Black Dude up there knows perhaps... (After watching Bruce Almighty, I swear that God is a Black Man who looks like Morgan Freeman:-))... Waiting and watching and chewing cud... That's what I'm upto... Hopefully something exciting rescues me from this perpetual intellectual lethargy at the work front and otherwise...

Remarkable says that I'm downing the spirits and blowing the smoke rings a little too much and a little too often... Wise Man doesn't say anything... He's of course very wise and after spending so many years wallowing in my company, knows better than to sermonise me...

Folks would rather be happier if I made a quick retreat and returned with bags and a fat suitcase to the City of Joy... Not happening right now at least... Well, I had a sort of a long weekend... Frantically tried to make plans of a quick getaway from the Hell hole that's my life... Failed miserably... partly 'cause I'm surrounded by unenthusiastic, broke losers... They're all quite nice, mind you... but not my impulsive, adventurous type at all... So the weekend came and went with me trying a bit too hard to make it last a bit longer... sigh...

I didn't play Holi and I don't play Holi... Petrified of the festival where people completely lose control and try to take liberties... Don't really like masks... and people with colour make it impossible to identify them... Wise Man and Roomie had a blast at a friend's place... Booze, colour and a kiddie pool apparently made their day... Good for them... When they did return, I didn't let them near me or my bed or my room or my walls or my soap! hee hee...
I have tried to discover the charm of this horrendously wild festival... As a kid I would lock myself in my room and hope and pray that no one came for me... Almost 24 and I have managed not to give in to the Hol(y)i wiles... But after my self-imposed confinement, I would stealthily part the curtains and watch the neighbourhood kids at play... That was ok, I guess... from a safe distance... and the only thing about the festival that intrigues me is Bhang... Another Holi gone by, still not tried it...

This week has brought on a new sense of low... It's intensely hot outside and freezing in office... Throat is always feeling bad...

Old friends have given way to new ones... I mean they're still friends but not like before... But I guess no one's indespensable... The novelty will have to wane some time, right? Often reminds me of the lines from Merchant of Venice: "...the pageants of the sea,/Do overpeer the petty traffickers,/ That curtsy to them, do them reverence,/ As they fly by them with their woven wings..." The context in the play itself is different but then I think it can fit here as well... That's one of the gazillion things that's cool about the Man from Eton... His words have so many connotations... I wish I didn't lose friends...

It's my 24th birthday in two weeks! 24! 24! 24! I feel old... Just yesterday, I was 13, then 16, then 18... And now I'm 24 and have nothing to show for it... Good grades, yes... and if I have to believe people, I have turned out pretty fine...ahem! (Talk about being self-obsessed... My computer at office has a pic of me in Mcleodganj sitting at the foot of a waterfall... The pic makes me feel happy and optimistic... I can get out of this, I keep telling myself...)
Coming back to my upcoming birthday... In the prelude to it, I'm oh so excited but on the day itself there wasn't a more depressed, defeated, cranky person... My loved ones have quite a field day... But I don't know why...

"I don't know why"--- That pretty much sums me up for today at least... More later... Toodles!

My life is a charade...kisses in the air and making mundane conversation with people who don't really matter... who I wouldn't even miss if they were not around or kicked the bucket...which ever came first...I'm smoking like crazy, hoping that each day finishes as quickly and effortlessly as a cigarette...but it never does...At the end of it, I'm tired, distraught and end up going home hating every single one of these morons... I mean what are these bloomin' idiots so happy about? I'm sure their life sucks as much as mine, only they lack the insight to see it... They go on living a lie... and that lie becomes their life...

Took some facebook survey today... (That's what journos do when they refuse to work) It was about how normal you are... There was this question about whether I would like to change something about my perception of life --- as in be more positive etc... And I said 'yes'... How bizarre! Here I am, totally downgrading and bitching about these 'loser excuses for human beings' and then I want to be one of them? Maybe temporarily, yes, but at the end of the day I'd rather be a miserable, old woman who knows about life than a twit who thinks that he has had a "happy" life... Funny how easily I can write when I'm depressed... (Some asshole trying to act smart with me just broke my concentration ...*#@$*#) Hmmm... So where was I... Ah yes...Who am I kidding...I revel in depression... It's dark, comforting, it's home, it's me, it's my life...

THE HILLS CAME ALIVE...(PART-2)

13,051 feet above sea-level! That was our destination... The journey to Rohtang Pass, which connects the Kulu Valley with the Lahul and Spiti valleys of Himachal Pradesh, was a trip to remember... After we checked out the local sites in Old and New Manali, there was a sudden need for adventure... Lack of time and poor physical condition meant that a trek was out of the question... Then my Dad suggested (over an STD call to Kolkata) that we should book seats on a guided tour... After extensive deliberation we decided to follow parental guidance... The few times that we actually have...But as I have reluctantly come to accept that parents are always right...because this trip was going to be something out of this world...

First, I absolutely must speak about our co-seekers of adventure... They were this motley bunch of Tamils all the way from down-under (and I don't mean Aussieland)... These 20 odd people who were presumably from a small village or town in Tamil Nadu, insisted on increasing decibel levels in the bus, changing their lungis in public and most importantly littering the hills with un-recyclable plastic packets... We also had a young couple, on a honeymoon sort of vacation and an elderly Bengali couple who visit Manali every year and sat on opposite windows in order to enjoy the scenery...

We made a rather lengthy stop at a shop that rents out fur coats and boots with the Tamilian party choosing the most outlandish animal-print coats and boots, while we, after much debate about the need for fur coats, settled for the sober brown and grey ones... Even in Rohtang which literally means, 'pile of corpses' I refused to be caught dead making a fashion faux pas...

After passing the picturesque Solang Valley and a quick stopover at the small but beautiful Rahalla Falls, we made our way to the last stop before Rohtang, where we had some Maggi which was half-cooked... I also learnt that that was because it is difficult to boil water at those high levels...

The climb to Rohtang was chilling! I'm serious... Thank God for the fur coats... even though my 'Doubting Thomas' self kept telling me that the driver and guide were getting commission and were fooling us by saying that it was going be really cold... Coming from Kolkata, where you have temperate climate almost the whole year, there's just that much of cold that you can imagine... But en route Rohtang it was bitterly cold... High altitudes, the onset of Autumn and to top it off it had been raining the whole day... So the otherwise cool breeze seemed freezing and what could have been a comfy picnic turned out to be a hazardous, extreme expedition...

Initially the drive around the hills was exhilarating... A zillion turns later, it got unnerving... As we continued to climb upwards as if seeking some kind of spiritual transcendence, my stomach churned and heart leaped up to my mouth incessantly... I'm not scared of heights but narrow and sometimes bad roads with buses and trucks coming from the opposite direction, where you have chances of falling into the recesses of the valley at any unfortunate moment, brought to my mind all the horrific tales of buses carrying pilgrims rolling off hills... What I had read earlier with detachment and indifference seemed so personal now... I strained to remember the actual fact... Was it a drunk driver or brake failure that had caused the mishap? For the life of me I couldn't remember... And the fact that I saw a Maruti 800 and a truck that had fallen into the mountains, totally smashed, did nothing to assauge my fear...

But snow eluded me! No where did I see snow... I really wanted to as I had never seen it before... My biggest regret on the trip... Alas!
Nevertheless, some poor consolation, were the bits of dirty snow patches that had been there for ages...Gulping, gasping, closing my eyes and cursing the driver we reached Rohtang...

After reaching Ground Zero, we were asked to walk the rest of the way... Walking to the actual pass was not that tough... Fighting the light drizzle we huddled to the actual pass... The view was breath-taking, even without the snow... But the walk back took my breath away...And I mean literally...I could hardly breathe...As we walked against the wind, it blew with a new-found vigour... I was sure that I was frost-bitten... Fingers stiff, nose running, I resembled Rudolph... Panting and walking for dear lives we reached the bus, only to have the ridiculous Tamils jeering us to our faces...(Disclaimer- I'm half-Tamil, so I have nothing personal against the community) The smart-asses didn't even venture out, as if that was a very intelligent thing to do... You come to Rohtang and go back to your friends and boast that you saw it through a bus window! I may have almost collapsed but at least I had first hand information...

Anyway the drive back got worse instead of the other way around... Thick mist and clouds had descended on the hills... Reading, listening to music and praying most of the time, we made our journey down... Even the Himalayan mineral water bottles fallen on the Western Himalayas (what an irony!) couldn't be discerned... But just when we had resigned to the fear of the unknown and the maneuvering skills of the driver, we stumbled upon the most perfect rainbow! It was the best sight ever and I hurriedly caught it on my phone camera... A distinct giver of hope... I knew I would survive the difficult journey, not only from Rohtang, but also the journey called 'life'...

The rainbow was one of those once-in-a-lifetime sights that make every tribulation, fear and risk worth it... Today as I sit in my boring office, surrounded by the day's mundane work, it is that picture on my mobile that lifts me up when I'm feeling low... It gives me strength to face today and all the 'tomorrows' of life...

THE HILLS CAME ALIVE...(PART-1)

When you leave the city (and it doesn't matter which one) and travel into a quaint little place, you can hardly imagine how inept your life is... Living in a big city makes one forget the simple joys of life... Unhappiness, depression, jealousy, OD-ing, sex and greed are subconscious companions... But in a little town tucked away in the Western Himalayas, amid the Deodars and the clouds, life moves at its own pace... Unhurried, un-flummoxed, uninhibited... You learn to relax and your body tunes to a new rhythm...

While sitting on a bus en route Manali, as we drove on the winding, curvy roads, with the bus precariously balancing itself, rising higher and higher from sea level, going deeper into the 'Valley of the Gods', I failed to realise how far away I was actually moving from my big city life... Not in terms of geographical distance alone, I was leaving behind a peculiar life, culture, ethos and thinking...

At first sight, Manali disappoints... Too quick to make judgements and too fast to dismiss things, I looked at the hill-station as an impoverished cousin to the more illustrious and tourist-friendly hill-stations... And no, it doesn't matter to me that two former PMs had given Manali their official seal of approval when they chose it as their solace from politics and parliamentary affairs. I make my own impressions.

New Manali was, in my opinion, a town that was forgetting its identity. Changing itself to suit the palate of the foreign wanderlust, New Manali is a bustling town full of hotels and restaurants like Sher-e-Punjab (Pure Veg!) and Sher-e-Punjab---The Original (Non-Veg)...

Full of locals, New Manali can sometimes be a tad rowdy with youngsters having no way of giving vent to their hormones. They delight equitably by a chance visit by a Bollywood hero, Sohail Khan as well as two donkeys satiating themselves in the most public and indiscreet way. (Both are first hand accounts and not exaggerations of the idle mind)

Old Manali, a few kms away from the New Town, is an altogether different place. Tourist-y? Sure. But in a quiet, subtle sort of way. Old cafes manned by Tibetans offer English breakfast, Israeli lunches and Italian suppers. Most hotels and eateries are by the river (Manaslu) and having a river running so close to your feet as you sit down to eat, surrounded by a constant gurgling (which is not your hungry stomach) is a totally different experience...

Living here was like living in excess and decadence---excess of food, excess of dessert, excess of fresh air, an excess of everything (if you know what I mean)... The first thing to catch your attention are the apples... Trees and trees full of rotund, red, juicy apples... Actually there are apples everywhere---on the sides of roads, in neat mounds at the foot of tree trunks, in drains, drying on porches, in wine bottles, in pies---they can be found everywhere except in a shop!
The next thing that you can't miss even if you want to are the number of hippies, 'charsis' riding in bikes adorning the worst-possible rags. I mean seriously, what's with these firangs and their clothes! Some of our Indian beggars are better dressed than them...sheesh!

Amid the yaks, unbelievably fluffy rabbits, old, smiling people and beautiful, wild flowers that grow un-nurtured, you'll also notice the lack of political signs and paraphernalia... It's as if this place has purged itself of every kind of pollution...

Old Manali is a queer mix of Tradition and Modernity... The constant dichotomy between the Natural and the Acquired... But that is also what draws you to it... It makes you forget your home and desire to be part of this delicate balance that exists between Man and Nature...
(To be contd...)

When thousands die everyday because of hunger, war, disease, hatred...A wise man once said, 'Is there nothing else in this world other than 'you' and 'me' and 'us' and 'we'?...
When millions perish unnoticed...is it okay to drudge mechanically, making lives, building careers?...
When we hear of genocide...is it enough to shed a few tears, heave a sigh and have intelligent conversation about the meaningless suffering?...
How are we to make a 'difference' to this world, sitting in offices, manoeuvring a mouse? Who will help those who need to be taught about health and rights and education and life?...If all of us do our 'own thing' and pretend that such people, such a state does not exist...is only a figment of imagination...a cinematic illusion on screen, to viewed in awe amid mouthfuls of popcorn and coke...then who will make a 'difference'?...
Sometimes I wish I could go to a remote part of Africa and serve a greater cause...But these are just thoughts...Tomorrow I will go to office as usual...And I will fit in perfectly in the jigsaw called 'modern life' and will forget all about these ponderings...till another film or book will cause a Catharsis of emotions...and I will again sit down to write about what I feel I must do...Then I will feel noble and virtuous and moral and right...and then will I slip into a slumberous satisfaction...But never will I go to Africa...

You're as boring as the white paper...without the words written in ink...
You're as boring as the night sky without the stars...
Even in diseases, you're a Bore...Because you're a consumptive disease that gnaws away the life painfully slowly...and lacks the drama of a cardiac arrest !
You're the incessant dial tone of a telephone...monotonous, predictable and always the same...
You lack the everyday sights and sounds...
You lack the zest of life...
You're a fullstop lacking dimension...