Stairway to hell

What happens when you meet your last crush from school three years later

1) You notice he's grown fatter and his face has broadened out, and you laugh to yourself because of course, he's lost his hold over you once you've seen that.

2) You wonder why your chest is hurting. Could it be the chhole-bhature you just ate? Your mother always warned you against eating from roadside vendors. You wish you'd listened.

3) He introduces to you the girl next to him with a special emphasis and a meaningful look in his eye. You realize with a shock that She is very pretty. Of course, it doesn't matter to you. Why should it?

4) You suddenly feel this urgent need to get back to college NOW. You're puzzled about why exactly your brain is telling you it's time to leave. You try to remember what caused all this tearing hurry. Maybe you forgot to do something? But you can't think of anything.

5) You're on your way back when you realize that today happened to be the first day in three months that you wore your old baggy T-shirt, decided not to put make-up, and came with oiled hair for fear of Holi revellers. Lovely.

6) Your friends all notice some erratic behaviour on your part. You're falling into abstract silences, then getting hyperactive and racing them around college, then either laughing maniacally at their jokes or totally missing the punchline.

7) An hour and fifteen minutes later, your chest is still having that mysterious pain. You're trying to pinpoint the location. It's somewhere on the left side. On a completely unrelated note, you're wondering why Her image is floating in front of your eyes. Not that you care.

8) You feel this powerful rush of hate towards him. You don't know why, but you want to hit him, shake him...something.

9) Immediately after, you get an overpowering urge to burst into tears and bawl your eyes out. You have no idea why - it's not that you're sad or anything. But your every sense is - for some incomprehensible reason - telling you to indulge in an hysterical crying jag.

10) You glance at your phone every 1 minute. You gave him your number a full three hours before. Why the fuck hasn't he called? Or at least messaged.

11) You remember there's spaghetti waiting for you at home. Strangely, that doesn't get you at all tempted. In fact, you realize the thought of food is making you nauseous. You try to remember when was the last time you refused any kind of food. Think it might have been sometime in 2002.

12) You know it's going to make you miserable but you go ahead and check out his Facebook account for Her profile picture. Yep, still very pretty.

13) You decide to write a blog post about this baffling behaviour on your part. The pain in your chest is bothering you, but you get on with it anyway.

There they are - the 13 steps to insanity and hell. And then they call me a rationalist!

Sojourn in Kashmir

I've been out on holiday the last week, which is why my alarming prolificness was somewhat curbed (I wasn't absolutely sure there's a word like 'prolificness' but dictionary.com says there is. And who am I to question it? The internet is my god. Anyway....)


PASSENGER SHED, read the signs above the bus stops as we pass them on our way back to our hotel. Whether or not the irony of this registers on the users, it seems like an ominous reminder that here, more than in any other Indian state, people have been dying for so long and with such frequency, that their lives are now not worth more than cattle, and their deaths have less impact on the rest of the country’s mind than does a chicken-killing virus. As far as anyone outside Kashmir is concerned, these people have in fact become nothing more than statistics. We sit far away, safe and sound from the danger and shake our heads over another twenty dead in a bomb blast in Kashmir, and then move on to the next news item. Twenty…what? Twenty people; twenty men going home to their wives; twenty school children playing cricket and wanting to be Sachin; twenty girls with dreams of being doctors and lawyers; twenty humans; twenty cows…what does it matter? We no longer stop to think about it. Or care. But you can’t ignore it when you’re there, in the middle of these people, looking at their rickety houses and broken-down, almost non-existent infrastructure and feeling what it must be like to be those people we only see on TV.

Still, on the surface at least, Srinagar presented itself to us much as any other town busily living off its tourists. "Thog-er desh", my mom says dismissively. Loosely translated, that means 'city of cheats', and it's hard to dispute that. The shopkeepers bargain long and hard to try to sell us a bottle of mineral water for 25 bucks instead of the 12 it costs in Delhi. The horse owners demand Rs 500 for a horse and then come down to 20 when we threaten to walk away. The entire city seems out to get the tourists. Tall, lanky youths try to waylay us and offer to be guides. Bearded men lining the Dal Lake try to persuade us to take a trip in a shikara. Complete strangers accost us on our way and ask for money. It's all slightly disconcerting. It takes a subtle shift of perspective to see that they have no other way. In a state of war and chaos, no industries can survive and few jobs are forthcoming. The hordes of youths milling about in the middle of a weekday bear testimony to that.

Still, despite decades of bloodshed, despite deforestation and pollution and fires and bombs, Kashmir remains beautiful. It takes us a four-hour drive to travel to Gulmarg. "The valley of flowers", as it's called, is one of the loveliest sights we have ever seen. The entire mountainside is covered with flowers of different colours, swaying in the gusty wind as we make our way to the top. On both sides, we see huge glaciers partly or almost completely covering the mountainsides like enormous white blankets. It's an awe-inspiring sight. The river gushing out from under the glacier is deafening and icy cold. It froths, roars and crashes against the rocks on its banks with almost frightening ferocity. But it's the lifeline of the people. Farmers on both sides of the bank have diverted water from the river into channels to irrigate their fields, and the river meets all the water needs of the city below. On the way, we occasionally spot clumps of tree stumps. Our driver explains that cutting of trees here is illegal, but it's difficult for authorities to protect the trees from the tide of humans sneaking in here in the dead of night to get wood. This then is the reason why wood is so extensively used in construction of buildings in Srinagar. It's cheap and easily available, and no one questions where you get it from.

We are woken up at 4 the next morning by loud and insistent calls to Allah from the local mosque. In the cool dark early morning the sound is creepy as it floats over the desolate roads and sneaks in through our window. Disgruntled, we try to drown out the sound with pillows and fingers stuffed in our ears, but somehow it filters through. But despite our irritation, it's one of the charms of this strange valley town. In place of the many cows back home, you see mares dotting the roadside. The few cows look strange and unnaturally short and stocky. The people themselves are lean and strong, quite different from the fast food-eating, rotund breed of humans we're used to seeing in Delhi. The language seems to slide off their tongue with a lot of 'k' and 'sh' in their syllables, sounding not unpleasant in its smoothness. I've always thought Hindi's a very harsh-sounding language.

But the most enduring image of Kashmir I'll keep with me is that of the glaciers of Gulmarg. Far away from the cries of global warming and melting ice caps, the glaciers we saw looked gigantic and invincible. And surrounded by the river and the towering pine trees, it seemed impossible that they could ever admit defeat to those frail humans. I guess it's a reflection on the power of the human race that we can even talk of wiping out these giants of nature. But somehow I have the uncomfortable feeling that one day or the other they'll get even with us. And that day is coming.

Black is for mourning and blue is my mood

This feels worse than it should.

Or in the words of Kevin Federline:
Fuck. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Damn. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Fuck.

I can breathe more easily now. Feeling better.
One last time. Fuck.

When I found myself sniffing with the start of (yet another) cold yesterday, I thought it would be the worst thing that was going to happen this week. But I reckoned without my splendid ill-luck. As it happens, the searing headaches and the bitter taste and blocked nose were nothing compared to the shock I got today at dance class.

Right at the end, Gaurav sat us all down, and with the air of one relaying a somewhat important but rather boring piece of news, told us that our batch was being cancelled for the workshop, and that we’d have to enrol in other batches until after the workshop stage performance (in July).

His announcement was met by stunned silence, and then loud protests. Which he promptly cut short. He seemed either embarrassed or annoyed by the protests.

That was when I realized I was getting teary. I just never knew I’d come to depend so much on seeing him twice a week. And now the thought that I won’t get to see his sudden smiles or hear his insanely stupid jokes for another two months was causing a surprising amount of heartburn.

The really sad part is that he doesn't even seem to care all that much. Oh, he did mention a couple of platitudes about missing our batch, and looking forward to teaching us after the workshop, but you could see his heart wasn't in it. At least not as much as our hearts were*. And he still has his elementary and BE batches. Which I'm sure must be a lot more fun for him to teach, since they aren't lowly beginners.

But dance is dance and even if it's not the same without him, it'll still be fun ....I guess. Maybe. Possibly.

My only question is: Why Gaurav's batch? Why not the other instructors - Deepashri, Isha, or Prince, when Gaurav is clearly the best and the most experienced instructor at the centre?

I worked off most of the initial indignation I felt with the verbal diarrhoea that I was spewing all the way back from class**. Now I'm just very, very sad.

Black and blue.


*Quite a few people begged him again and again to stay, but I suppose what the Office decides, the Office decides.
** the recipient was Ankita, who isn't very used to my foul mouth. But who really cares about that? Who cares about anything anymore?


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Feeling blue
When I'm trying to forget the feeling that I miss you
Feeling green
When the jealousy swells and it won't go away in dreams
[…]
Feeling jaded,
When it's not gone right
All the colours have faded - then I feel your eyes on me
Feeling fine, sublime,
When that smile of yours creeps into my mind

- Colour Blind, Darius
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