When you are away my heart comes undone

My house is tidy.

Actually tidy. For once, if i swabbed a finger across anything, there would be zero grime. And I walk around on said floor with no feeling of scrunching dust poke up between my toes. It’s almost magical. I also played a game of Tetris with the furniture and it actually looks bigger! I’m in awe. There must be some karma going on here that I cannot comprehend.

I was awoken this morning by the mailman ringing on my front door, wielding a silvery looking package that moved beneath his arm. He had me sign his digital thingimajig (I miss those days when there were some things at least that were left un-digitized) and left the peculiar parcel in my hands before rushing back inside and out of sight. I inspected the package and came to the conclusion that it was, indeed, a package addressed to me. So without further delay I ripped it open, feeling excited and nervous at what lay beneath its space-agey depths. Was it something wonderful, fantastical, technological, maybe anthraxable?

It was a pack of duvet sheets and a President's Day card from Pottery Barn.

I promptly fell back asleep.

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

I am going to erase some things out of my life. I had so many plans for so many things, but of late I think I have grown wise to the idea that I will not have enough time for many of these things. I am not sure if I have complained about this before, but my life has been completely scheduled. If my life was a restaurant and you came in my maître d’ would tilt his nose into the air and say that I am full.

From one Monday to the next, every week, I am booked. I never used to be this way. I used to have more free time than I deemed necessary. People would call me up out of the blue to invite me for a night out, and I would gladly accept. Now my nights out are planned two, three, sometimes four weeks in advance. I have people consecutively booking me at the same time every week. One of these, my kid brother I look forward to and enjoy immensely. However I loath that he just won’t give me the controller as he sits on my bed and plays Halo wrong.

Whenever I am not stuck at work, I’m being either pushed to the gym or being pulled to play tennis (because my kid sister is getting married and she will not have me at the festivities till I can fit in to that damned kurta she got). Because of this four evenings a week are taken up (the other three being occupied by the Internet and my latest online muse of the week) which means I can’t go to the beach and stare at waves and I can’t get drunk on boys' night out and I can’t go scrounging around for that new really nice, really cheap place to eat.

I have also been travelling, reading and catching up on my sleep. Everything else is taken up by everyone else. So I am going to delete some from my life. Deletion. Simple catharsis. The joys of chopping away at weeds as they strive to enter mainstream essence. But what can I delete?

Friends.
Films.
Reading.
Writing.
Work.
That startup that refuses to budge.
Tennis.
Recent History.
Internet.
Music.
Television.
Useless talents.
Family Drama.
Musical Instrument Learning.

Internet would be a good start, but I don’t actually spend much time on here. I read blogs, read comics, download videos and that’s really it. Occasionally, once in a blue moon, I gorge myself on wikipedia or the entire archives of certain webcomics. This takes up a lot of time but I have an addictive personality. But, it is still the reason I stay up to 3am most days.

The telly is a negligable item; I am too fresh for mainstream programming to a point that I barely watch it and when i do it’s mostly films or the box.

Family Drama can be cut. Easily. When my sister moves to the US, my parents should realise how much easier it is bringing up one kid. Sons! They are the future of everything. Atleast, they ought to be.

I refuse to give up reading and writing things. They are too much fun. Have I told you about Hari Kunzru's Revolutions I am reading? Well, I should.

Work has been cut down, to an extent. I used to work 10 hours a day spread over 6 days a week till about a couple of months ago. But, as of now, I have managed to stave off work to a minimal few hours every day. I still have to stay in office the required 8 hours. If I am able to redirect all the energies to a venture on my own is a different question altogether.

Musical instrument learning has be deleted for now. One day I will learn that precious guitar.

Useless talents? I can name some but I will refreain. Gone.

Music and Movies? I’ll cut down, but never ever will I give them up. No matter what the expense. I love my unpaid escapism.

Delete .

And now I am left an empty shell of someone. Hooray for the brother that won’t give me the controller and won’t play Halo properly.

Close Encounters of the Mundane Kind

I hate cleaning you house.

Why the hell do you get so dirty? And more so, damn you kitchen. I hardly cook in there, I simply store food, thaw food, break the occasional egg. What is that stain on the bottom shelf? Do the little creatures have parties in here when I'm sleeping or something? Nasty little critters. And, for some reason, I feel really, really vulnerable when I'm bent over, scrubbing your gross shelves. Don't know why. So thank you for keeping my beer cold, but damn you for making a mess of it.

Damn you, paying bills. Every god damned month? I barely even watched TV this month, I still gotta shell out all that cash? And, while I'm at it phone companies - damn your pathetic little late fees. They're small enough for me to easily ignore them but they add up over time. So thank you for the electricity, credit and Internet, but fuck you for your constant demands.

Damn you, light bulbs. It's 2009. I was irritated when I wasn't issued my jetpack in 2000 (where's my bloody raygun ?!? ), but I figured by now technology would've at least advanced to the point where I don't have to stand on my wobbly chair and deal with this. Bonus damn yous for scaring the crap out of me when I walk into a darkened room, innocently flick the switch and get momentarily blinded by that huge flash and terrifying pop! Also, for somehow convincing your light bulb brethren to join you, causing a chain reaction that means I'm filled with fear whenever I turn on a light. Smash! Smash! Smash! What, did you all join in a suicide pact? Bastards.

Damn you, washing dishes. Yes, I know, you smell funny, and I know the longer I wait, the slimy stuff is just gonna get weirder as they accumulate on you. That's why I've pretty much switched to just eating off the dishes and eating with my hands. I'm a caveman in an apartment.

Maybe I should just get off trying to work and watch mindless television. Life goes on.

Acting my age, not my shoe size

Why are these the only thoughts going through my head as I sit through what ought to be a busy day at work.

1. Should I work with chemicals and hot liquids so much that i could be like that guy from the once popular video game Thief (who is a thief, gosh, surprise!)

2. Shouldn't I sleep on my arm so it goes numb and then upon awakening, i can pretend that someone else is holding me, as it lies dead across my chest.

3. Yesterday i learnt to balance an egg on its tip. One of those life skills that you need to know.

4. That's one damn ugly mirror I'm looking at. Not been a good week for sleep.

5. Think carefully for something impulsive to do.

6. If Androids someday do decide to dream of Electric Sheep, don't forget to declare SheepCount as a LongInt. (XKCD - I hate you for putting that in my head)

7. How do I clone yesterday and call it tomorrow.

8. On a lazy drive to work, why do the clouds mock the way of a perfect view to a perfect day.

9. I could be a millionaire, if i could only stream my consciousness.

10. Where did i put my keys.

I'd have to be acting between almost 26 instead of in between of a ten and eleven...... that's probably where my mentality and my feet sizes are right now. Well, not right now. I don't know what just happened, but i feel my age. Everyone worries about ageing..... About leaving the teen years behind them, then apparently life started at 21. And the variations of the same that come to pass.

I read this somewhere once.

When your young you don't care what the world thinks of you. Then you grow up and start to worry a bit what it thinks. Finally you realise that in fact, it just doesn't think about you.

It was probably more eloquently written originally, and my bastardisation has watered it down.

Currently Listening to - M.I.A - Paper Planes (should probably explain the entropy above)

You know what really brightens a day?

Being diagnosed with pneumonia.

Yeah, despite starting to feel a little better on Tuesday, the fever returned over the week and never left. I also feel like ass and sound even worse. Finally, I gave in and called the doctor this afternoon.

So, ahead of me, I've got at least a couple of days of staying at home and a nice big pile of antibiotics. On the upside, I have a nice bottle of codeine-rich cough syrup to make my days at home fly by. Hopefully I can avoid any conference calls. I'd hate to slur my way through an important meeting.

I keep see-sawing with the cold, alternating between phlegmy death and 100 health and armour every hour or so. Got caught in some nasty weather yesterday, my own fault for shunning sweaters in favour of the breezy look. I've always felt the cold more than most, and have taken to wearing thermals all the time, and sleeping with both a duvet and a blanket.

Stupid global warming. Why can't it just live up to its name.

New Lease on Life

My first day in a house spent alone, I wander around my house wondering what to do with myself. I shower with the door open, alternating between singing cheesy songs as far out of tune as is humanly possible and thinking about post-big-city arrivals, when I’ll have nothing but at least a few more months stretching out in front of me. Suddenly friends are creeping out, half-blinded, and socially inept from spending too long pouring over notes on excel sheets they’ll never really understand, grabbing me by the shoulders and pleading let’s go for a drink as if it’s not quite acceptable yet.

Its my place now, so I dress in my shabbiest and yet comfiest clothes and wander around the house. I empty the box of spoons and pots that my landlord gave earlier, and fill my cupboards, I sit in every antique chair in the living room, each giving me a slightly different perspective than the one before. The doorbell rings and the salesman asks for some name I haven't heard of. I explain the person hasn't been living here and that nobody has lived here for a few years,

I sit, cross-legged on the carpet on my living room floor; organising my office bag & tearing up those sheets that invariable accumulate. I have a series of tests coming up and I choose topics to study, and mark them carefully with a bright post-it. Open book exams are a blessing. When the flatmate finally arrives home, he greets me with an expression reminiscent of the Hillary-Tenzing adventures and a Marks & Spencers bag-full of beer.

It was warmer after that.

Everything that has a beginning...

Newly folded clothes and three new sets of clothes hanging neatly in the wardrobe with tags still attached just in case the climate changes back too soon or I decide to go on a binging spree. A clean carpet, antique chairs, immensely comfortable beds , a bathroom stand neatly boasting toiletries of many varieties. Is it okay to embrace a new perspective on life at the end of the year? Seemed more like a usher-in-your-new-year-resolution kind of occupation.

Books will line shelves like untidy troopers who have only just learning to march. Eventually some will lie on top of one another, with the odd one that has long been forgotten to be returned to. Some in language that was too tedious to demand turning the page. Nearly-free books about the world at war that Delhi just loves to sell to the most unassuming of customers on the street walks, because the publishers went out of business and the author wanted the privilege of burning them for himself, books with superfluous tales to be forgotten and some verdant with divine comedy that will never disappear.

In a few months this would all be packed again into the same suitcases and moved hours away. Pack up the memories and the books worth keeping, the articles and the old gifts that aid remembering the memories. All packed into the same suitcases and moved somewhere else, or maybe someday just left behind – who needs memories when you can make more? Running away or procuring freedom, the answer to that will only be found when I come out of it struggling for breath.

A fast paced lonely lifestyle I can’t help but imagine. As I travel there, suitcases under each arm, I’ll wave to all the cities that have a memories and people attached to them. Chennai, Calcutta, Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Noida – I miss you all. Maybe I’ll stay for a while, mull over the memories with the people in them remembering the times we spent together, and then I’ll continue on my own journey where no one else is invited. This I have to do for myself and you can’t be involved.

When I decide to unpack my bags, nobody will know my name. It’s a big new city that does not care for names, everyone can remain unnamed there. In the suburbs everything looks the same but in the midst of the metropolis everything stands out. An anomaly I can’t wait to be a part of.

Let there be Soup

Having survived yet another gruelling day of work, I am home. I feel lazy, so much so that I didn't stop at the unfriendly neighbourhood store to forrage for frozen dinners and now am left to ponder "what do I eat for dinner?" I have one egg, some rice, no bread, some mushrooms, cauliflower, onion sprouts and a can of sweet corn and tomato soup. I sense no real possibility here. I am stifled by my grocery makings. Damn! I'll have to walk after all to the store later before I sit down to do some actual work. Or we could just eat the can of soup and call it good, I suppose.

Leftovers are still in the freezer. Day three of the chicken sandwich is right on top. Maybe I'll opt to add some stuffing to the mayo, mustard, lettuce and the egg or so. It wont be much. I don't even need to bring bread for the sandwich then. I have just one glass of apple cider left, for that I will be sad to say goodbye to but all good things must come to an end, I guess.

Such grand plans. Sniff. In the end I had cold soup.