TGIF

It had been a particularly difficult week. And the last few hours had simply crawled. No, just refused to move. 

Finally -


Your message has been sent.

I’m done I’m done I’m done.

Click.

Windows is shutting down.

‘Hey, you wanna get a drink?’ a colleague called out.

‘Sorry, I have plans!’ she smiled cheerily as she sprinted out the door. 

She counted the colours in the sky on her way home, humming a song tunelessly.

Two glasses of wine later-

GAME OVER

Damn.

Five glasses of wine later-

GAME OVER

Fuck. Stupid, stupid Pacman.

Suddenly she couldn’t wait for Monday.

I wish You are Here had been an extension of Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan's celebrated blog. Sure the novel does read like an insanely lengthy blog post, but it's not The Compulsive Confessor.
There were some moments in the book which made me sit up and scream, 'Oh my god I know EXACTLY what you mean'. It's Indian chick lit, of course I relate to it. I'm twenty something and single; I live in a big city and earn pennies and I can't really exist without my vodka and sprite. There, I just described the protagonist for you. Sometimes it's interesting to hold up a mirror in the form of a book. You are Here could have been interesting in that sense, but it was too shoddily edited. Cut every other page, and it will make a brilliant urban slice-of-life novella. Good night. 

Things I'm looking forward to this year:

1. Solving that 500-piece jigsaw puzzle that I just bought. 

2. 

I've started being wary of instant friendships. The kind of friendships you sink into after a great first conversation, where you discover that you like the same books and watch the same movies and laugh at the same things. The second conversation is even better because you think you can really TALK to this person and you feel you've known them all your life. By the third conversation, you're absolutely confident that you are going to be best friends forever. Now I don't want to make any sweeping generalisations, so I'm just going to say this is a pattern I've noticed in my own life -- such friendships, more often than not, are short-lived. And you'd be surprised how quickly they fizzle out.

I'm a closet extrovert. I like people, contrary to popular belief. I come across as shy and reserved because I automatically clam up when there are more than three people in the room. Even if I'm with a bunch of friends from school, I'm usually the quietest person. I'm just not good with groups, which means I don't have a huge social circle I can go partying with every weekend, but I do have quite a number of people I'm close to individually. Most of them are people I've become friends with gradually. I've taken my time with them. I probably sound like a grandmother here, but I feel you have to grow into friendships in order to make them last. If you just happen to slip into one, then it's easy to slip out as well.

I happened to meet a person very randomly a couple of years ago. We hit it off instantly. Very soon we were pouring out our life's secrets to each other. I had just graduated, and I wasn't really in a hurry to find a job, so my days were pretty much filled with conversations with the New Friend. Then of course, I found a job. Which didn't change anything, really, because even if I'd had an exhausting day at work, I'd still find time to call or at least, send a text. You don't have to spend four hours on the phone everyday to keep in touch with a friend. And then all of a sudden, our conversations started becoming strained and just ... strange. Messages were curt and terse. At first, I thought I was just being paranoid, but then it became more and more obvious that the Person just wasn't interested anymore. And we're talking about a very, very platonic relationship here. Not being someone who lets go of things very easily, least of all friends, I tried my best to be all 'what's up' and 'heyy, what's been happening' every now and then but eventually I had to give up when all I could hear was the sound of my own voice. That friendship, or whatever it was, at least the good part of it, lasted for three months. That's it. What annoys me is that I still think about it, and there are times when I actually miss what I shared with that person. Though he turned out to be completely horrible.

So the moral of today's story is that all worldly ties are evil, and one is better off meditating in the Himalayas. Yes. 

(It's the middle of the night, how else do you expect me to conclude this absolutely cringe-worthy post?)

The Rushdie Affair (Yes, apparently the world is not done talking about it yet)

Oh for the love of god.

It has been over twenty years. Twenty. Years. People want to kill someone because he wrote some rubbish twenty years ago. Not that I'm calling The Satanic Verses rubbish. I haven't read the book. I tried, but I couldn't get past the second page. Only because I was in the middle of a dissertation and had other things that demanded urgent reading. And also because it was ... erm, slightly dull. Ish. It was a little disappointing, okay? I love Rushdie otherwise. 

Anyhoo. We're not here to discuss my opinion. My opinion doesn't matter. And neither does anybody else's. Rushdie's opinion of Islam does not matter. People don't judge a certain religion based on what one person wrote once upon a time. Do you know when they do judge it? When half the world cries for the author's blood.      And are you telling me that all these people who are ready to chop the infidel into pieces have actually read the book and are offended? 

Please. The world doesn't have so many readers. And we're talking about a Booker nominee here. 

But you know, I don't understand why I'm so surprised by the twenty years thing. We, as a nation, have never been able to let things go. We are stuck in history. Which is why Babri happened, and why we let 2000 year-old religions rule our politics today. It's why we still have a caste system, and why my mum would prefer me marrying a Mallu Christian even if I find that I get along better with a Bengali Hindu. No doubt, I'm mixing up things here. What I'm trying to say (badly) here, is that we should learn to let things go. 

Also, somebody should honestly ask the Indian government to look up secularism in the dictionary. 

One part of me is heartily sick of Bangalore and its lack of whatever other cities seem to have in plenty. And the other just wants to curl up in its cosy familiarity forever. #conflict

I think the problem is that I tend to write blog posts in my head all the time, so I have nothing left to say here. (It's also why I don't talk much. It's terribly dull to repeat the conversations you've already had in your head). 

We've drifted apart- Writing and I. And to think we used to be such great friends. (Have you noticed that it's only great friends who drift apart? Wait, does everyone know this already?)

But I have carefully avoided making any new year resolutions pertaining to writing on This Blog. So I might just end up writing again after all. The mind works in weird ways.