Prose before hos

That I'm like Veer (aged 5) who is at his worst behaviour around people he sees them to make a point just when they make an effort to get to know him. Veer swung his body in the park while Meghna sat on the bench talking to me, about all and sundry. He also tried flirting with her and when he told her he's five, and she kinda retracted, he tried every trick in the book to be at his worst behaviour. She told him that she won't be responsible for any injury if he sustains any while doing the unsolicited acrobats. Despite that, he continued at this attempts to be at his worst behaviour.

If that wasn't enough, she also compared me to those kids who fling their diaper in the face of the guests visiting their house. I'm apparently that kid now.

That I'm terrifying when people play cards or Taboo with me. It's not okay to be that competitive and force people to play along till I win. That I can't threaten my team member to make us win. I don't get how it's not cool.

That "Como" is not an appropriate example of describing "Lake" while playing Taboo.

That I should always be Kajol. Never anything else. As much as I only want to be Anjali, "mera pehla pyaar adhoora reh gaya" to "mujhe singing aur dancing ka kitna shaauq hai."

That I am dyslexic and never explain people any direction. Even when I think I know.

We lost Circuit earlier today. I was at work when I got a message from my father.

"Circuit. passed away."

He fought bravely but his age seemed to work against him. Tick fever, gradual nerve damage and osteoporosis ensured he couldn't get up to walk in the last two months that he was with us.

I'm not sure if it's any easier to see a member of the family die daily, little by little, in front of you. However, it does immune you to seeing the loss and even the pain. Small mercies, eh?

I couldn't get myself to cry. Not a tear. Maybe, I'm just dead inside. Maybe, it's all a shock (look at how I contradict).

My parents named Circuit after the character from Munna Bhai film. The second installment of the film had come out a few months before we got Circuit home. Since everyone in the house was fond of the said figure, it was a unanimously decision.

After the cremation today, I forced myself to get up and eat lunch. I turned on the TV to feel differently.

The first channel I landed on was streaming Munna Bhai MBBS. 



Circuit made his presence felt, despite not being there. I think he'll be okay.

It's us I worry about.

If it can be counted as a past-time, then my favourite would be listening to my grandfather discuss his professional work life with me. 

"Every time something like this (situation regarding a work deadline) happens, I look back and check my surname. 'West', is that my second name yet?
No, it's not.
It's 'Malik'.
Then I go back to being myself and re-consider my decision (about launch date of project)."

My friend, who goes by his second name, Malik, aka Mr Malik is moving cities. Although, I did keep the sentiment in mind, he brought up how I didn't write anything about him and yet "tagged" him in a post saying he's leaving and the works.

Look out for Mr Malik's new projects, all lined up to release real soon. I'm not sure if I can talk about them, but I can talk about Mr Malik himself, who happens to be an old friend. As old as when I was 17 and cocky and ever so hyper. Despite his belief that I hated him when I first met him- a myth propagated by Mr Malik himself, I count him as a friend who has my back regardless of where I am and what stupidity I've indulged in. I'd like to think he feels the same since he's participated in eating not once, but twice over vegetarian food when all that we ever discuss is meat.

He and I have come a long way, charting conversations about biryani on different technologies, say from BBM to Telegram, to him promising to be a witness at my wedding whenever it happens, if at all it happens. Mr Malik has fed my unhealthy Diet Coke obsession and been ever so kind so let me fail a work deadline. Let's not forget the time, he allowed me to drive his car, when my own parents did not and I rammed it in the society gates at Westend. The guards promised to never allow Mr Malik's car in, and yet, only last week he offered to let me drive his car again.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is true friendship.

Now that Bombay's taking this friend away, I have a vacancy open in my life. To fill the big Yeezy's that Mr Malik would potentially wear and show up fashionably late. Although, credit where credit is due, from reaching a gig five hours late to only running late for ten minutes, that's a real leap into adulthood.

However, I'm pretty fucking sure, the spot is going to be vacant unless I move to Bombay or Mr Malik decides to move back sometime in the future.

Keeping this one real short. If I know anything about Mr Malik, he doesn't like to mull over words. Short and sweet, just like the last book he read on Soka Buddhism because, you know, it was short.

Delhi's going to be less than cool in your absence, Mr Malik.

If there's anything I hate more than being "Hmm"-ed at, it's being acknowledged for kindness. Especially when there's no way out but to be kind and being a fucking human for once.

You could say, I (I being Snobster) hate humanizing myself. You could also say, "There, there. It's okay to be a human once." But let me tell you, it's not.

To be human, is to be fucking weak. Put on a show where you wear your heart and take it out and display it to everyone. Look ma, I got a heart that works just as good as anyone else's. It's brand new, shiny and definitely in mint condition.

That's where the problem begins. When you're kind and show your heart on regular basis, it's prone to wear and tear. When you're me (by that I mean, heartless slab of stone), displaying signs of being human can be a setback to oneself.

The opposite of corporate clients are NGOs. My new, favourite topic, that I'm beginning to realize is literally poles apart from working for a corporate ho. These NGOs are the new bone of contention in my life, they are responsible for my employers paying for my weekend special white bread slice slathered with salted butter. I've been working on a new project which involves me liasing with these organizations and quite literally, touching the radioactive material ie emotions, kindness, reality and grassroot level problems that people deal with, to make lives better for those who are less than #blessed.

Imagine this, you're sitting at work. Hating everyone and everyone hating you back, while you dabble sending cold email after the other.

"Please send the content."

"Please send the content." x25870

Until the moment the phone next you to rings, a man very politely requests for you. Once you claim that it's indeed you, he proceeds in the most empathetic manner to request for an extension of two hours for submission of the said content.

"We haven't had electricity in two days, our devices are not charged. It will be very kind of you if you could please give us the liberty to submit it late by a couple of hours. We would be more than grateful."

"Please take 48 hours, my kidney and liver and all the stuff I bought from Thailand."

I shouldn't cut onions when I'm at work, or infront of my Mac, or even when I'm planning to write.

The 48 hour deadline came to an end this evening, and even before I could react (and believe me, I'm on acid when it comes to chasing deadlines), the man shared three emails with content. The landline rang for the 67th time today and it was him again,

"Hello Ma'am, I wanted to thank you for giving us two extra days. It was very kind of you. You see because of Diwali, our village gets less supply of electricity than usual and we do not have ample time to charge our devices and finish our chores that require electricity. This extension helped us immensely. I wanted to thank you again for this, and also I hope you've received the content. We shared it 10 minutes back."

Drat, onion chopping again.

Here's pretending that I'm unaffected by emotions, that Twitter is dead (according to a colleague who was popular on Twitter when Twitter was popular) and that I'm spending my weekend far away from emotions at a virgin beach with a Piña Colada and a plate of curly fries.

My fondest memory of her remains of him and I quarreling in her room.

I started my weekend with hiring Subhash.

Subhash, a grandfather to two kids, is an auto rickshaw driver in Delhi. He's seen better days, he says. The kind where his grandfather worked as a clerk at some government division, and he too was promised a job. The one which he never picked.

Ambitions are the end of us all. It doesn't matter what caste, creed, colour, sex, or even social strata. If, like Subhash, you have ambitions, be prepared to feel bad about being downtrodden all your life.

Much like me. A research scholar in cinema, people don't understand why I did, what I did. I don't understand their ignorance. They win, because they are all hiring managers, brand managers, business development managers, manager managers.

I'm a glorified Editor of sorts. Add some prefixes to that, it doesn't mean nothing. At least that's the sense I get. The day I feel satisfied, is the day I'll rest in my grave. To be alive, is to be digging with your fingertips, deeper until you scratch the surface of satisfaction. The deeper you go, the better it feels. Just the idea of being in constant motion. Which is what brought Subhash and me to the level of exchanging phone numbers.

Subhash, a Gujjar, lives in Tughalakabad Extension in Delhi. He's from around here. Born and raised, grew up in the same place. Our similarities baffle me. We're both at strife with peace. He has a son, who he trained in Hotel Management. The son works at a prominent five star hotel. He also received an Alto Car in dowry, which he doesn't drive. Bike will be cheaper, my son tells me, says Subhash. Almost as if, he's embarrassed on his son's behalf. Even less for himself, for driving the auto and ferrying people like me around.

Me? I was carrying two half full bottles of Vodka on me. Half an hour past my dinner time, when Subhash asked me to pay him ten additional bucks over and above the usual fare, I said no. Then I said yes, before he could agree to my price. "It's a Friday night. I look like a million bucks. I'm meeting the people I love to death. I can pay ten extra bucks, sure, make someone's evening." Sulking as I was about the uncredited salary and having no money, I found a friend in Subhash who was even less glum about having made less than five hundred rupees that day.

Subhash, a Congress party supporter, hesitantly told me he voted for Modi. His entire family, all his friends, his neighbours and everybody he knew voted for Modi in 2014. He was asked to do the same by the people he lived with. And so he did.

"Do you regret doing that?" I tried my best to make him talk. His soft spoken candour turned to a loud mouthed Punjabi aunty's as he distrated me by saying how the cops suck monkey balls (in the Haryanvi equivalent of those words) and are the reason why we were stuck at a signal for over an hour. It didn't help our case when he got a call from this Good Guy who he drops on regular basis. It didn't help my case when he pointed at the location where he picks that guy from, daily- outside the house of a guy I dated.

The Good Guy, though from Bihar, is very well educated and a good person at heart, Subhash informed me. He also told me about this professor who is from Rajasthan and around my age (early 30s he speculated) and gets dropped to the university in the morning.

Subhash, a retired gentleman, rents out autos to other individuals and that helps him run the household. His son makes some from the Hotel on the side and together they keep the family afloat. While filled with equal part guilt and equal part regret about not making it big, Subhash wants to continue driving. He doesn't care much about dignity of labour, although he does like his work enough to do the same thing every day from 7 am to 9 pm, all through the year.

Subhash's quite patriarchal while being ever so liberal together. It's a combination enjoyed exclusively by Delhi men and Subhash is no different. He insisted that I should get married. "But who will marry me?" I cried in my defence as the signal hit red and we missed our chance to escape the traffic the fifth time.

"Don't you have friends?"

Subhash hit a nerve. I had half a mind to tell him that all my friends deserted me and have new and fabulous lives in different cities, but I kept mum and nodded in disapproval. In my head, my answer was, "Negative, Subhash". Nobody's marrying me, I'm marrying nobody. That boat was never meant for me, and my committment phobic self anyway. However, like his political act, I didn't really find words to explain myself without making myself sound like a total asshole. Never reveal your asshole self to anyone who's driving you around, rule of thumb.

At this point, he and I had run out of conversation to make. But we had two kilometers of distance to cover in 30 whole minutes. I didn't mind it one bit, except that I was starving and thirsty and upset at the fact that I'd forgotten my Ruby Woo at home. Selfies will have to be done before I hit the dinner and I was an hour late for my dinner at that point.

Subhash too got a call from the Good Guy to have him picked from the same spot (kill me already), after which we only discussed politics and the cops, both of which, if I reveal about won't leave him in a state to drive his auto rickshaw and me, with a well paying job ever.

We parted our ways after spending good hour and a half to cover a four kilometer distance, all thanks to the same set of people Subhash's family forced him to vote for, and the one that my family was never up for.

The decision we make come to haunt us, be it our career choices, or our votes.