Little Things of No Consequence

Things I Saw

2011-11-26T21:01:00.000+05:30

Things I saw weren't pretty,
not nice,
certainly not pleasant to eyes.
Reeking, unfair,
world is as bad as everyone says.

My soul cries for revolution,
for change.
Day and night, when not busy
with deadlines
or friends, spending quality days.

Silver Wrapper

2011-10-16T00:25:00.003+05:30

Sweet chocolate and sugared hope
A girl can live seconds to centuries with those
And a prince who brings never ending caramel dreams
Sweetness wears off and 99% cocoa, bitter
The real him awaits relentless

How to Ensure Zero Social Life

2011-09-04T07:53:00.005+05:30

For Men:

1. Declare yourself “Homophobisexual” (Sexually attracted to homophobes).

2. Sing ‘Big Girls Don't Cry’ imitating Frankie Valli’s voice.

3. Reply every question with "And Your Mom."

4. Ask everyone if they are pregnant (Yes, men too).

5. Repeat it at least six times in a conversation.

"You know what..."

"What?"

"Never mind."

6. Wear 'Being Human' T-shirt in all available colors.

7. Tell people you get aroused watching ‘Sex and the City’.

8. Shout ‘size?’ to strangers.

9. Grow a bushy moustache, get an ‘extremely neat’ hair cut and wear thick black-rimmed glasses (In short, the paedophile look).

10. Carry notebooks to restaurants and scribble every time people on the other table say something.

For Women:

1. Be intelligent, independent and self-sufficient (and don’t wear make-up).

Moi? Emotional Abuser?

2011-09-02T23:20:00.004+05:30

Have you ever read an article and felt ‘Oh my God! They are talking about me!’? I bet it feels awesome to read an intelligent well-written and thought-provoking article and identify yourself with it unless, of course, you are reading something like this: “Jerks who Fuck with Your Mind - and Your Compassion: the Emotional Blackmailer" by KR.

I was enjoying reading nasty stuff about the other sex at Heartless Bitches International, till I bumped into this page and the mean question clouded my heart, ‘Am I an emotional blackmailer?’

Let’s see what KR has to say -

1. S/he can be very charming and seem to want to rush into friendship/ relationship with you.

KR says an emotional abuser will say things like "I'm tired of my other so-called friends. You are someone I can trust. Let’s get to know each other better.”

I did tell this to my guy before we started dating, of course not in so many words. I just told him how I never can make friends, let alone so-called ones.

“S/he wants to isolate you from outside influences so they can have your undivided attention for their problems/crises/secrets.” Says KR.

Yes, (oh shit! I am blushing already) I admit.... at that time getting his undivided attention was my only goal in life.

2. S/he is very emotionally deep.

“The emotional blackmailer will have a "depressed" kind of persona and will let you know that they get depressed sometimes and occasionally contemplate suicide.”

God knows why but every guy I date, befriend or even sit with for more than an hour thinks I am a very tender and hurt soul beneath that layer of carefreeness. To be honest I have never been really depressed in my whole life. Yes I did try to commit suicide. But that’s because I believe every teenager is supposed to do so at least once. That’s part of growing up.

I never complain how mistreated and misunderstood I am (at least not directly) but I don’t know why people just get the impression that I have been wronged by selfish, psycho, jealous or plain sadists all my life". Even my guy considers my exes to be responsible for the failure of my past relationships, though I am not so sure.

3. "Help me, I'm a failure, I'm so sorry."

“The emotional blackmailer appeals to your sense of compassion by regularly appearing miserable and depressed: "I've screwed everything up my whole life. I can't believe it's happening again"

I whine. I do. And my screw up rate can put a lot of people to shame.

4. "The reason I'm nasty/an alcoholic/a beater/drug addict is because you make me do it/we're co-dependent."

I am not nasty, alcoholic, a beater or drug addict, but I do blame him for making a pervert out of me.

5. Crying

“It is the emotional blackmailer's most useful tool.”

Embarrassing, very embarrassing indeed. I do cry in front him. It’s his fault (There I go blaming others). But what can I do, the temptation of him wrapping me in his arms and kissing my forehead is irresistible.

6. "If You Leave/Take that Job/Do Something I Don't Like I'll 'Do Something Silly'"

I do tell him if he cheats on me ever, I will turn lesbian and seduce that woman away from him.

So, am I an emotional abuser? I can’t say for sure but then again I can’t say I am not one with conviction either.

But does it matter as long as I get to sit here sipping a cup of tea, whining how bad my day was make him help in my assignments?

How I Came to Love Nyctanthes Arbor-tristis and Grew Suspicious of Male Species

2011-09-02T02:37:00.007+05:30

I was exactly ten years and three days old. It was one of those mellow August afternoons. After three grey moldy days of drizzling, the sun painted the world in watercolour, a charming monochrome of yellow.

It wasn’t an afternoon meant for siesta. But explaining that to my mother was impossible. When talking failed, she used songs, then stories, then threats and finally a slap to put me in bed, wrapped in her arms. But the birds, the trees and the strip of yellow light through the closed window kept calling out my name. Finally my mother’s arms loosened and the lulling sound of her light snoring came. It was a narrow opening but the temptation was overwhelming. I tiptoed out of the bed and then to the field outside my house.

Unfortunately I didn’t have telepathic abilities. And at that ancient time kids didn’t own mobile phones. Going to my playmates’ houses could only mean allowing other miserable adults to snatch away my hard earned freedom. So I sat in the lush green field, basking in warm sunlight, alone.

‘Are you lonely, little girl?’

It was a boy in early twenties. I had seen him before. He used to work as a part-time gardener for our neighbour. The neighbourhood rumour was that he dropped out of school after his father lost everything in debts.

I didn’t want to talk. Though now I know the truth but at that time he was an adult for me. And adults are by default fake, pretending to know everything and out to prove a point all the time. And they believe they can get away with anything by barking (which they usually do).

'Is you name shiuli?' (Parijat/Night-flowering Jasmine/Nyctanthes arbor-tristis)

‘No.’

‘Oh! For a moment I thought this year they started blooming early.’

Okay, go ahead and call me stupid. But for a girl whose mirror tries very best not to shatter each time she visits, that was a huge complement.

Anyways, that and a mischievous wink stopped me from protesting when he sat next to me. He talked, he smiled, he held my hand. And I blushed and blushed and blushed. For him I wasn’t an ugly duckling. I was a pure, white, innocent shiuli flower whose fragrance teases the lovelorn all night. Hours flew by without realization. When the golden light gave path to fiery orange sky, I had no idea.

‘It will get dark soon, little girl.’

‘I guess so’, I said with a resigned sigh, ‘I should run home.’

‘Won’t you come with me? I want to see why shiuli is called queen of the night.’

But I saw the backdoor of my house opening. It was my mother, shouting my name. I shook my head in negative. Mom didn’t sound happy.

‘Okay, it was really nice to meet you. Let’s sit together again, someday.’ He smiled disarmingly and stood up. I sat there watching him go; mentally praying to my mother to stop calling my name. Her voice had started growing panicky by then. But I knew if I answered her, the spell of that moment would break. And I wanted to hold on to for a moment longer.

His strides were long and carefree. He looked back over his shoulder at me and winked, without pausing and slowly vanished in the setting sun at the far end of the field, like a cowboy, whistling a merry tune.

I never heard from him ever again, though heard about him a lot after a particular incident. He was arrested for molesting a six-year old.

Who Do You Think You Are, Garfield?

2011-08-28T23:10:00.006+05:30

A cat lives in my hostel. It must have been pretty cute as a kitten, that could be the only reason why it was named ‘Oreo’ but if you ask me hell has seen no sinister fiend than him. To be honest, I don’t know it’s a he or she. But he is too much of a pain in the ass to be ‘her’. But from now on I will refer to it as ‘it’ so as not to offend any gender.

The most annoying thing about the cat is that it behaves like a human. I blame its parents. I guess they never had any time for it and left it alone at home and let it read all the Garfield comics to keep it entertained. It lives under the delusion that cats can talk and can actually throw sarcastic and witty comments at human. Each time I kick or even pretend to kick it, it looks at me and makes sounds that almost sound like ‘aw Common mein! Whaddid I do to ya?’ I know it would have preferred to be born as a human. But it should have, by now, come in terms with its status in this world.

It’s the only cat (I feel, in this whole wide world) with no navigation sense at all, not to mention, self-respect. No matter how many times I throw water at it, hurl everything that is at my hand at that time, abuse it in a language fitted for only truck drivers, it keeps coming back to my room. I threw it from third floor, twice (I would have loved to do it from a little higher but my room is on third floor). Showing middle finger to every theory that says ‘cats always land on their feet’, it landed on its back, twice. I stared at it with disbelief, twice. To be honest, felt a little cheated. Is it out to prove that everything I know about cats is wrong? Next thing it’s gonna do is to tell me that it doesn’t have nine lives either.

Listen Oreo, Johnny Cash already sang it but let me remind you again... ' Sooner of later, God will cut you down!' So stop pretending that you have forgotten that you are just a feline creature and stop acting too cool. I promise if curiosity doesn’t, I will definitely kill you.

But I know he thinks all of these are empty threats. I can swear he is smirking reading this while sipping warm milk with a satisfied ‘meow’.

How To Insanely Love Someone Who Is Insanely In Love With You

2011-08-28T16:18:00.002+05:30

There comes a time in everybody’s life when they find someone who is madly in love with them. Well, it’s good until the day they discover they don’t feel quite the same.

If it’s a guy who keeps following you and throws flowers or letters at you or leaves gifts at your door, but his very face makes you feel like visiting the loo, then the solution is obvious. Don’t even think of loving him back (forget about ‘with same fervour’) so as not to hurt him. He just doesn’t have a life and you don’t need throw yours away for his sake. Rather throw rocks at the miserable git (and yeah, his gifts too) before he throws acid at your face for refusing him. And inform the nearest police station.

But if you are already in a relationship and your other half’s dedication and passion is driving you out of your mind, into the dark cramped sinister corner of guilt, turning you claustrophobic, then it’s time to sit and think things over.

Firstly, beware of anybody who appears to be insanely in love with you. Chances are he is really insane. He can very well be a psychopath who will torture you or even murder you if another guy accidently steps inside one kilometre radius of yours. Or worse possibility is he is just faking it because your dad has enough money to support him for three generations while he watches runs and re-runs of Baywatch.

But the real trouble is when these are not true. If he keeps saying things like ‘you are the one for me’ and ‘we should get married’ and ‘I can’t live without you’ every five minutes in a conversation, it’s time to take action. Nobody wants a guy who treats them bad. But it might just get too much to live with when you are smothered in love and you can’t just do things that way. The guilt feeling would be inevitable. The whole idea of ‘he is doing so much, he deserves better’ will slowly eat you up from inside.

Ask yourself ‘Is it really important to reciprocate any feeling with same intensity or in the same ways?’ If you answer ‘yes’, then ask again. It might just be possible that your partner believes in gifting you a garden full of red roses on Valentine’s Day, but you feel one is more than enough. Try to talk to him and tell how his profound display of love actually hurts you. And the no-brainer rule says ‘he would understand if he really loves you’. And if it gets too much just change your house, your job, your hair colour or your sexual orientation.

So, how to insanely love someone who is insanely in love with you? I don’t know. Become insane, probably.

He Was Everything That Was Wrong With The World

2011-08-28T00:05:00.002+05:30

I had looked at him a lot of time, but never really paused to see. And finally when I did, my whole world came crashing right in front of my eyes. I wasn’t falling in love. What was happening lacked every softness love is supposed to possess. He was everything that was wrong with the world.

Before knowing him I was happy. I had everything a girl could dream of, ambitions, love, friendship.....sanity. He snatched them all along with my sleep without even acknowledging it.....maybe without even knowing.

But I kept standing there watching how his lips curl while drinking tea.....how his eyes get all the more slitty when he smiles....how his fingers create things on paper out of nothing......I kept standing there watching a flood of feelings wiping everything I have created so far, with so much effort.

It was an eternity. The clock refused to move. People refused to stay silent. Crowd surrounded me like loneliness. I saw him sitting....I tried hard to listen...He didn’t speak a word but my mind translated his silence to whatever I wanted to hear. I was falling and wanted him to lift me up...wanted him to pull me closer and stop my heart from shivering. I was tired and wanted to rest in his warmth. I was hurt and wanted him to kiss the pain away....but I knew that kiss will take away last few strands of sanity left in me. Fortunately he did nothing, except seeing me tormenting myself from afar. As cold and distant as ever.

More than love, it was suicide. Slow poisoning. He was the person I was bound to fall for but could never attain. I couldn’t even try. That would mean breaking a lot more things....tearing too many people apart....I couldn’t afford that. He was a dream that would never come true. He was everything that was wrong with the world.

That was what I wrote a long time back. He destroyed my world beyond repair. Only thing I could do was to make a new world with him. Which we did...slowly and slowly. It’s not a paradise but a very cosy home. But he is still everything that is wrong with the world.....only cuter.

69mm of Heaven/hell

2011-08-27T21:01:00.001+05:30

“I knew a man who quit smoking. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself!” –Anonymous

I never knew quitting smoking is so hard. Mark Twain would have opposed me, I know. He himself did it a thousand times (quitting that is, not ‘opposing’ me). Anyways I am trying to quit smoking. It took me a packet and half of gold flake to sit and plan how I should go about it. I started by telling myself ‘I don’t need it’, just like numerous fellow smokers must have done, but I just couldn’t believe myself. So I tried other tricks like hiding money, not buying lighters and drinking gallons of coke. But hiding own money is really difficult (I don’t know how but I always instinctively know where it is) and people who own lighters are easy to find. And I don’t want to talk about the side-effects of coke. I won’t be able meet your eyes anymore if I do.

So I am back to the square one, sitting with a cigarette in front of my laptop, writing about my rocky end of relationship with that fair, smoking hot guy in light orange low-hung shorts. One dangerous fling it is. I love him, I hate him. I want to leave him and the thought of him going kills me slowly. He is everywhere…on the floor, on my bed, in my shower…. in me…. flowing ever so slowly with my blood. My whole body smells of him and my mind screams his name when he’s not near. Sounds like lines from some romantic novels or cheesy soft rock songs? That’s how it is with cigarettes, I guess. Like every other passionate one-sided liaison, it burns the victim out.

Sometimes, I question myself do I want to become another statistics? Isn’t it almost like I am putting myself in a concentration camp with all the poisonous gases? If someone else tried to the same to me, I would have killed him.

I dream of the day when I would wake up and search for my lover’s arm and not that son-of-a-gun. But till now nothing of that sort has happened. Except that I have gained three kilograms trying to replace craving for cigarettes with junk food. But I am not losing hope. Sooner or later everyone stops smoking, right?

I Would Like a Roasted Chicken, Full, Thank You!

2011-08-25T01:50:00.003+05:30

What’s worse than terrorism, AIDS, recession or teenage pregnancy?

Vegetarianism.

Or rather forcing it on others.

Today a friend took off like stomach of a baby with loose motion on how heartless and disgusting I am when I muttered those innocent words, ‘I really need some pork chops now!’

Yes, I am cruel because I don’t just kill plants. I also eat babies which are yet to be born (that’s how she describes eggs), I do, I like mangoes too much and lots of other ‘fruits’.

In the middle of her speech I began to wonder if the idea racism originated from vegetarianism. Cause vegetarians behave like average halfwit Caucasians who think of everyone who is not like them (Negroids and Mongoloids) as lesser. Carnivores and omnivores are human too bitch, to be honest, a little more of a human, lot less a goat at least.

She also gave scientific facts about how essential vegetarian diet is for life. I don’t remember them too well, as I started dreaming about lamb curry. It was something about how non-vegetarian diet kills you slowly or something. But, I have this nagging feeling that even if we ignore the factors like pollution, accidents, wars, suicidal tendencies, serial killers and lack of interesting people (I will die of boredom, I know) ‘Everybody’s going to die’.....someday. Even vegans. Then what’s the point in munching on grass whole life? Live long? And at what cost? Living like a cow?

Nothing against veggies. They are cute... like little bunnies. But why don’t they just use their time in doing something better like supporting Anna Hazare than pissing off a friend by lecturing on her food habits? Please guys, put your energy in doing something about your deadlines, overflowing garbage, corrupt higher officials, eve-teasers, drug addicts, global warming, racism, natural resource shortage, domestic violence, kids with special needs, hungry African babies, ever breeding cousins or at least your sexually dissatisfied spouse and stop counting how many chickens you saved by preaching to non-vegetarians. I sometimes wonder if a veggie would fight in favour of a rapist if he turns out to be a vegetarian!

If you want to feed on something that doesn’t even have eyes to see what killed it, it’s your choice. But I don’t need somebody that cruel to tell me what I can eat and what I can’t. If I feel like I will eat the cat that lives outside my room. Yes, I hate him. And the cat knows it.

And There’s A Dead Bee On My Bed

2011-08-24T21:01:00.002+05:30

I am twenty-one and living in a hostel. And there’s a dead bee on my bed.

I am short...very short indeed. And most of the people fumble with words for sometimes before they find a parliamentary word to describe my face. And there’s a dead bee on my bed.

I have been writing a script for a short documentary for last four months. My head ached, my legs fell asleep, my back creaked and my eyes burnt from sitting for hours in front of laptop but my fingers couldn’t type more than a page. I pressed ‘backspace’ more than any other key. The deadline has finally arrived and begging for extension is out of question. I am supposed to start shooting and I have no idea what. And there’s a dead bee on my bed.

I don’t have a single piece of fresh laundry, including lingerie. I have nothing to change into except a frilly white top which went out of fashion even before it was manufactured. So I am wearing my two day old pyjama and T-shirt for the third day. And there’s a dead bee on my bed.

My sex life is at mercy of weather. A cheery sun maybe a mood uplifter for many people but not for me. Damn all the erotica with lines like ‘I stared at her perfectly toned body gleaming with tiny beads of sweat. I felt a burn at my heart and blood gushing to my cock’! Well, hear the truth, sweating is a major turn off and I sweat like a pig! On top of it I do NOT have a perfectly toned body. (Most of the time I am on bed is spent in listening to my guy joking about how many kilos of meat can be fried with the amount of lard I am hoarding in my body) And of course, there’s a dead bee on my bed.

All my favourite torrent sites have told me on my face how much they hate me. They say ‘No connection could be made because the target machine ACTIVELY REFUSED IT’. No new anime for the ugly girl! Well, thank you and yes, there’s a dead bee on my bed.

And finally, the ligament of my right ankle decided it had had enough and snapped. Doctor advised complete bed-rest for two weeks. So I spend the whole day on my bed watching and re-watching episodes of ‘Family guy’ and weeping tons for Meg (She reminds me of someone close...very close). And there’s still a dead bee on my bed.

It takes fifteen minutes to go to toilet. My throat is parched and the empty water bottle stares at me blankly (The water-cooler is far far away, even for people with healthy limbs). Of course I didn’t take a bath and can’t reach my deodorant. And I just ate the last biscuit I had, lying next to the dead bee on my bed. Damn! Every fucking thing is alright in my life! Just take the dead bee away please.