Chiffonesque

 It is amazing how early a day can begin and how late it can end but nothing much gets done.  A heavy day today. Actually I am feeling more sad than what I had expected.  It was a beautiful full moon night. So I just left everything late evening and went out for a walk. It had been emotionally exhausting.  A friend has been unwell and it can be quite serious. A colleague's last day at work. Another colleague is going to move out of my project next week.  Too many people going away. Just feel a little...like you are at the station watching your friends get onto the train and go for a  excursion while you return to school with Sister Mabel to clean classrooms. I always forget that these things end. That everything ends. This little vein of dazzling connection with a collaborator. It ends. Your colleague who sends you pictures of her little pup over weekends...that ends. The wrapping up of a tense little project but where you met decent people with courteous m...

  Barood se aise Yeh shabd phoote bum jaise Daaru se hum Chaddhe sir pe yeh rum jaise Rum se yaad aaya Tere bevde baap ko salaam bol jaankaari lele beta Kaam bhaari kaam bol - MC Sher and Kaam Bhaari, Gully Boy Check out the song here - https://youtu.be/CJG8Whdc_Ko Image reference - From Pinterest

 

 Today I just got the sense that I will never be ahead of the curve. I will never be able to stand by my principles as staunchly as I want. I will never be able to make time to write my book. I will never have enough money to make my studio, take time off for meditation, engage in legal aid, call out prejudice. I will live a life waiting for people's approval and validation that will never come. I will never have time to be with people close to me. It will be a life of half-chewn mediocrity and I will never be able to make a happy, joyous world for my daughter. Someday, baby girl, forgive me for... Whatever follows those ellipses. 

 There is a man called Gio Mckluskey who has a Facebook page. He puts up interesting, eerie, whimsical photos. This one made me want to hug this lady and crushed me bright and early on a Monday morning. May as well. Why delay meeting what Life will send your way?

 I woke up this morning to a few messages from someone who seemed to be having a rough time trying to get over someone or something. I asked who. This person who had messaged me...we weren't friends. I think we had chatted a bit many years ago. Then he had made some snide comment about me. Which I thought I had let go off but clearly not. And then weeks later I get this message. I ask for details...to be fair, mainly to be polite. I really wasn't interested. The state in which all my projects have now reached video-game level complexity and my damn controls are jammed. So someone else's life really just irritated me.  The person declined to give any further details and I asked why he thought he should contact me. He said that his own friends wouldn't understand him and think he is making too big a deal about stuff. Then he said, "Forget it. Let it be." And I let it be for 5 minutes. Then I told him to not contact me again and blocked him.  When this year began...

 1. Always remember where you keep your keys and spectacles 2. Always see through conditioning - yours and every one else's 3. Spot a puppy every day 4. Always get a vegan option for whatever you love 5. Always live in a place with a yellow door 6. All delivery folks find your place without having to call you for directions 7. Ola and Uber never cancel 8. Travel to the bottom of the sea and rest there for as long as I like 9. Filter coffee always available 10. Masseuse always available

 I will list a few things on YouTube that make me happy: 1. The Graham Norton show. He is such a charming, cheery host. A couple of my favourite episodes have Russell Brand and Emily Blunt, Naomi Campbell, Kevin Hart and Kate Winslet...I just put those one sometimes while working. 2. Trinny Woodhall's channel. A long time ago, she used to do this show called 'What not to wear' with one of her friends, Susannah. I didn't quite like her all that much then. Found her terse. But I love her shows now. There's a softness and maturity about her that's lovely! And boy, does she know how to style stuff! Sequins and shimmer for a daytime office look, clashing prints, opening up her closets to show her range of coats, scarves, shoes...it's lovely. There's a segment where she goes to Zara and some other stores in London for her shop-ups. She browses through the store and talks through the collection and such stuff. Those bits really drive home the fact that if you h...

 St. Xavier's. Saturday afternoon. Class cancelled.  First year of college so every tiny segment of free time was lush with either ennui or enthusiasm.  This Friday it was enthusiasm. Br, a guy in my class asked a bunch of us to go for a movie.  Where? Sterling, of course. Gorgeous Sterling. In that teeny strip of tree-lined Avenue near VT. Near the beautiful, white, so pristine that pigeons got polite and didn't poop building of Deutsche Bank.  Sterling with curved stairs, large areas for balcony seatings, little alcoves for Dress Circle, a massive square for the general junta that clapped and hooted and threw pennies...that space called 'Stalls'. And everything pointed to that large swathe of magic that took you away for a spell...the silver screen. But Sterling was expensive. Which movie? Speed. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. (It's the movie that got me to watch films by myself. But will write about the movie another day.) But Br told me that it wasn't abou...

Diwali. And I wake up to three or four emails indicating that 4 of my projects need to be wrapped up today. So there's that. Okay then. Enough of all this angry, sad mush I've been saddled with since the last few days.  Time to get back to work. More focus, less feelings. Happy Diwali everyone. 

 It was a good, happy day yesterday. Woke up with a feeling of just wanting to get out of the house. Was feeling trapped. Went to my friend's place. She had done it up so well! Rangoli and fairy lights, sweets and her really trio of fish swimming about in a decorated fish bowl. They seem like babies - so cute they are.  Had wanted to write about this yesterday but couldn't. I don't know...my heart still feels heavy and I still feel angry but...it will pass.  I called up the sample guy I had written about earlier. I said I would share some links next week. He said that he didn't need it. He had googled me and checked out my writing. Said he'd come across my blog and the post. He asked me if I was not afraid that people would not give me work considering how 'open' I was there. I think he had read a few posts from really far back - I think when I had written about my divorce. I can't say for sure but I think he may be having some problems with his partner....

 Couldn't go shopping today. Couldn't meet my friend or do my reading or my writing.  I had to revisit some writing today after ages. It is a daunting process for a writer like me who is pretty much a first draft or second draft writer. Then all these gentle edits etc.just feel like you are dressing a corpse. So I just opened a fresh page and started. And that was okay-ish. And then I did one more and I am finally fatigued in a kind of energising way. But...I don't know. I feel bled out now. Happy with what I put out. (That's what I had typed yesterday but couldn't post.) Today was rough. It was rougher than what I signed up for and really, at this point I don't think I deserve to be treated this way. Anyway I think it was also a reminder of my early lesson when I started working as a freelancer. Don't take it personally. And I did.  I don't know... maybe things were building up for while. Maybe it was the text from a person who I had cut off all ties wi...

Many years ago Mumbai did not have a metro and the trains from Churchgate were always crowded. Ladies would hurl themselves into the compartment first and then hurl their purses to catch a seat in the train, and once seated would open their little tiffin boxes to eat morsels of sustenance to tide them through long, endless journeys. 6:30 pm train from Churchgate to Bandra. Packed.  You can smell 7 armpits at a minimum. Regular women's rowdiness. Someone yelling ' tera marad toh kucch nahin karta ...' in anger on losing the window seat. (Literally translated it means that your man cannot do anything. The phrase here I think refers to the man's sexual incompetence. One never asked because one would be responded to. In detail. Anyway, some women are very insulted by this slight. This window-seat usurper was not. She opened her newspaper packet of  sookha bhel and started eating.)  Someone else was squished at the entrance of the compartment. She seemed to be pressed deep ...

 I had a very bad dream in the afternoon. I generally work through the night and take a nap in the afternoon. I saw Ma and she was sad. It was a bad dream. I remember just hugging her and holding her. But she was sad. And then I woke up and my father said that he is going out tomorrow. I don't approve one bit but...I mean, no one here is really looking for my permission to do what they like.  Anyway, I had to have a few calls in the evening. And one of them went really well. It is such a Irish pleasure when you and a visual designer connect. I can't explain it.So much is made of 'love at first sight'and all that - but when I meet someone who can give visuals to my words, I just feel like there is some meaning in my life. That was good. Then I had another call. And it went on longer than I expected but I learned a lot in that time. Those are the best bits I feel in a workday...when you just log in for a regular call but you come out with a little bit of marvel of what yo...

 I really need a manager. Just someone sweet and funny and efficient who will manage my schedule and fill out agreements and send out timesheets and sit in for status update meetings where the upshot usually is, "Nothing much has happened in a very long time and now the deadline is softly grazing our cheek." Dear Universe, please send someone my way. Now.  Anyway, all's good in the hood. One tries to stay upbeat.  I probably will have a call with a friend with who I am planning to collaborate on something. Or we will work independently on our passion projects individually. But I am really looking forward to it. Some weeks are just filled with days where you are fighting fires so you can work peacefully over the weekend.  But I did want to go out. Let's see. I haven't finished what I had planned to do. So I will just wrap up now. It has been ages since I enjoyed the darkness of the night. Am sure it will ease up sweetly soon. And a manager will come my way.  Fing...

 I don't remember being a happy teenager. Many times when I think of my college days, I sense being too unfit for anything, anyone, any circumstance. It just felt as if I was carrying a dark hunk of granite inside me all the time. It's quite a marvel how I managed to do the coursework, graduate in Sociology, and even make friends. How I could say hello, have a chat, form a connection...I don't remember being pleasant. But I remember people hanging out with me. One of them was a girl called Alka. I think she was in my college for only 1 year or so. She was a huge fan of Shobhaa De and wanted to write novels like her. I didn't really like Shobhaa De too much until I read 'Sisters'. Then I found her voice fresh and observational.  Anyway, it so happened that Alka actually wrote a book and brought a whole sheaf of handwritten pages to our Political Science class. These classes would be held on the terrace and although the classes were dull, the daydreaming was gold....

 Brother's birthday. Got an olive focaccia loaf that we cut at midnight. (He didn't want anything sweet.)  He cut it, we had some bread late at night, and then sat around chatting for an hour and a half. It was nice. I think a family taking around a dining table - it's one of the small pleasures that you cherish as days go by.

Paris airport. Flight delayed.  I wait, my stomach in knots. I am really nervous about my client meeting in Geneva. I feel scattered. A ton of documents to go through and there was a muck-up with my flight ticket so there was a delay there and I had to finish off another project before I traveled. So all in all...my mind is in a million folders and half-finished Word documents.  I am hungry and parched.  I want something hot, spicy and quiche-like and large. And a warm, sweet, spicy drink. I have been off meat and liquor for a while. Otherwise a good toasted ham ad cheese sandwich, a glass of red, and a side of hash brown with bacon bits or pasta with sausage and white sauce would have been ideal.   And then there is the issue of the wi-fi at Orly airport which is either there or not, free or not, for you or not - who can tell. I try to remember my French and squint at the three lines of instructions with varying accents - only to understand that you must contact the...

It was a good day. Visited a friend on Sunday. Had a good time.Spoke to her fish. And ate palak khichdi after a really long time.  Spoke to a friend this morning. It was nice.  A quick list of things that I really would like to own if I live past 2020: 1. The white sequinned dress from Zara. In fact a ton of stuff from Zara. I fact I would like to have a really solid wardrobe overhaul where I have a closet full of beautiful sequinny stuff. Colours, sequins, and shimmer. It takes skill, art, great taste to take all this and make it look subdued - and it is possible. My closet will reflect this possibility.  2. Great stationery. Maybe a lot of stuff from Hobonichi. The Hobonichi stationery has been o my list for a while now. I would like to have that. 3. Paint something in my house. Maybe the ceiling in swirls and roundels of blue, lavender, blush, and dove-gray  Getting tired now and lots to do to get through the day. This is it for now.