Prose before hos

Earlier this year, I was suggested an astrologer. I suppose when you're a woman in your 30s who is without a partner, a child and a promotion, that's the most conducive socially acceptable idea to pass. I spoke to her over an email, broken WhatsApp text messages and two calls. At the end of a two-week cycle of trying to communicate with her, she opened up, "I've never seen stars like yours. You get nothing in life and whatever you do, it evades you. But, keep trying and don't give up."

For the first time, in a long time, I felt sorry for myself. I'd suffered major career setbacks, personal losses and a crack of support system in 2020 and I don't think I'd felt that miserable, as I did when I heard her explanation of what had been happening to me. According to her, this is the "golden period" where everything is fine and it's good. According to her, this is as good as it gets. Among other ominous details, she talked about being childless; but in a way that I try for it and that doesn't work. "A lot depends on your partner's stars and whether he has kids in his chart. You don't."

I didn't need to pay thousand bucks to be told what I know about myself but hey, this could have been a dissatisfying meal and it wasn't. 

The few friends I shared this information with lost their shit at me, or asked me for her contact details. I think that's also what happens when your friends are having a bad time and don't have any reasonable explanations for the same, while the others put together their lives. I'm not saying either is wrong; just whatever shoe fits you, there will be no questions besides ownership of the said set of footwear. 

When my mother found out, she was livid. She tried to recount multiple instances of how astrology and astrologers are farcical and proceeded to bring up the convenient example of the last instance when I'd attempted something as silly around a difficult moment in a relationship. A woman I spoke to when I was in shambles, about the guy I was seeing, had suggested that I was gonna end up with him. He broke up with me the same week and it was followed by a dating drought in my life. We've not come close to meeting anything I've remotely had serious life/future chats with but also, there has been nothing else either. 

I'm told men respect men so talking about a partner may have helped ease the unnecessary drama but the response from folks in my life has been sickening, "you should have blocked him" is an equivalent to "you should have not been out in the night". Can't men behave themselves? Why can't I just be without having to block someone who doesn't touch my life in anyway and that the blame comes on me? I don't think stars have any answers for why men are the way they are but not one man is good enough or trustworthy to my existence here. 

I wish astrology had quick fixes on how to cure life. While stock market and stars behave the same way, I think the government having some control on stocks helps men more than women who believe in tides turning over when stars move. I'm begging them to turn in my favour and shine on me, just fucking once. 

1) May left Delhi and she cursed us all before leaving. However, like a solid game of Mortal Kombat where the attacks are reflected in 100%, her relocation backfired just as much. Turns out staying in an apartment and flirting with a cat is a lifestyle she can get behind. I'd write some more about how she infected the last person by their drive to the airport but I'd not. Cause Pollen Allergy is now being blamed. 

2) My employers decided to let me go and I cursed the world to stay at home in solidarity with me. The kids to be homeschooled, people to pretend work from pyjamas and then for a lot others to lose their jobs. Nobody puts Snobster in a corner. 

Please leave other conspiracy theories as comments. This limited broadcasting is brought to you courtesy anti-histamines and a hives attack. 

(Title reference; track of the day)

It sucks to be back.

I know, I say it each time I'm back after a short/long sabbatical from Delhi but it truly sucks dead monkey balls to be back here, in the center of things. All the things that I believed I had wrapped up just about explode in your face when you return. This time is no different. Everything you think you have forgotten and would never come back just shows up as soon as you're back. It seems as if no time has elapsed since I left, so now that I am back, I can't keep pretending otherwise.

I remember so vividly, coming back last year from my birthday vacation. The flight touched down, and I knew, I wasn't prepared to deal with the shit here. I wasn't prepared to go back to work, to go home and be at the center of things. Cutting slack is something people in this city don't understand and with my return, it was no different. Things I left behind, blew up in my face. People I left, decided to bite me back and how. Everything I thought I knew and was leaving behind came back in unsurmountable quantity to attack. Within three days, I was morose and dead on the inside yet again.

This time, the layover and the jetlag may have prevented that instant touchdown horror, but it's back. A week later, it's all real. It's haunting. It refuses to go. I can feel it settling down. What's worse are the people all around who are ensuring that I need another vacation even before the jetlag wears off for the first. Everything I thought I knew about everyone is inadequate. People can surprise you in ways unimaginable, that is to say, if you think someone's going to disappoint you, you don't know the degree of disappointment they can strike you with. Case in point your family, but we'll come back to that when I'm not writing hate posts about being back in the city where I've been raised and braised.

Here we go, we're stuck for at least a year or until some agency comes forth and sets us free in the form of all expenses paid research trip. Or a sugar daddy. Whichever doesn't happen first? There's always the option of running away from home and becoming a refugee.



London was magical. I've been avoiding giving words to this trip, in any fashion, on any portal just as much as possible. I want to live with the experience in a selfish way where I don't share any of that with anyone. Sure, I've rambled non-stop about it since I set my foot there, but that's cursory. I refuse to give up in words and limit my thoughts down. To write is to lament, to give out every bit of what you own in your head like yours. What's mine is mine, I refuse to share any bit of what it has been in my own solitary company.

London gave me the joy to be by myself, in my company and love every second of it. Being in the center of things alone, of not giving a shit and of getting lost, and finding myself each time, making it back.

London was joyous. I walked for kilometers together. I lugged my luggage from places, to bus stations, to railway stations, across modes of transport, to running across platforms knowing that if I miss the train, I'd miss my flight and quite possibly be poorer by about 100 pounds buying another flight ticket back home. London allowed me to be emancipated in a way where I could be lost in the middle of the city at 2 am, pissed drunk with my phone on the verge of dying and nobody being on my side.

On one such night alone, I asked myself, would it completely suck if you're mugged at this point on gunpoint and face death? Not entirely, I remember answering inside my head. Everything I wanted to see, to know, to feel and live through, I've done. I've no regrets and I can't ask for more. I'd be dying happy, satisfied and certainly lighter in the head.

London is a gift that keeps on giving. It's like going to the carnival and playing a game where you're hunting for the stuff toy from the machine where you keep putting nickels in and meander the controls for you to pick the toy. Sure, there's all kinds of crap inside, but you're only eyeing that Paddington stuff toy. London's that in the list of countries in the world. There are better places, there are easier breaks to take, there are much kinder cities to go to, but London, it's the real shit.

London's the bitch you want to be best friends with when you're going on a night out. It's the hot spot in the city where you don't have the reservation but you'd wait for the entire evening in a queue, just to be able to make it in. You ask yourself, is it even worth it standing in a queue on a cold, wet, grey night when you have less than 12 hours left in the city. The city gives it back to you when you get to go inside. It is truly fucking worth it. Heck, it brought my birthday in with the downpour. At 12 am, I found myself with frizzy hair on cobbled sidewalk, running along with a motley crew of old and new friends just to be able to find a place where we could sit. It rained at 12, and it continued to rain, as though embracing me and welcoming me to a new place, a place where I felt some sense of belonging despite not having anyone I could call my very own. It's a Delhi ritual, where it rains like mad on my birthday. London welcomed me, just as much, with open arms. Before you think I'm getting dreamy and unbearable, it didn't rain a single day while I was there, with the exception of my birthday.

It's maybe not London as much as it's Delhi at its pathetic best. The two weeks I spent away, not one day did I think everything is crashing down. The university I study at is coming undone, the liberals really need to start a revolution and be more proactive, the right wing nut cases need to calm their tits down and open their eyes to the ignominy that surrounds them. It's just Delhi being its brutal self on me, and on everyone around. To be in London, or for that matter, any place is to be away from your own personal reality and what you're facing. Delhi, is facing a total breakdown. For my personal growth, in my career, in my academic career and pretty much whatever little personal self space I retain here. Delhi is dusty, deranged and dirty, not in the way a cocktail should be, but more in the way the adjective it shouldn't be.

I found myself constantly worried each time I was out beyond 10 pm by myself. My Delhi ass was worried about being abducted, killed, raped, or having rods inserted in my intestines at any given moment. That's what Delhi does to you. It terrifies the living daylights out of you and ensures you feel the same even when you're in a different city. By the time I was ready to leave, I felt like I could breathe effortlessly, even while being alone in a sketchy neighbourhood at 3 am. Unfortunately, it was time to leave.

And Delhi? It's the same. I stepped out at 12 noon today in a dress covering my knees and found myself the object of gaze by onlookers. Mind you, this is a Sunday and I was in a public place. London taught me that Sundays are for brunch and ciders, they're for your family and cookouts. Instead, all I got was a pathetic day after spending a shit tonne of money to keep myself upbeat and about 3000 calories to cope up with the loss of all things fun for at least a year to come. It doesn't help when your family is acting out and you've to find extra ounces of your Delhi self to deal with them again. This fortnight made me forget that I live with them and that it's just as difficult as the city to adjust.

And me? I'm back. The cheerful person I nurtured in this fortnight is dead and we're celebrating her demise tonight in the form of a pathetic birthday celebration that people around me forged to have, complete with a disgusting mousse cake. There's nothing more heartbreaking than coming to know that people you've known all your life can't manage one thing right or display such attention to detail when it comes to you that you want to shoot yourself in the head, even before Delhi allows an opportunity to a serial killer to murder you in broad daylight.

Delhi, you win. I'm back and I'm dead on the inside. I hope you're fucking happy. 

I've spent about a month revisiting The Office in an attempt to get off this funk overpowering me. It's grown on me like a layer of mold. Anything I do, see, touch, taste or feel tires me out and drains the life out of me. I have a few theories on why what and how this could be helped, but I'd spare those theories my words.

For now, my record breaking attempt at staying in bed and catching up on Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute's relationship has been positively stimulating.



Here's what I'm emulating-

"You know I used to think that I had this perfect person out there waiting for me, but knowing that, that's just silly because she's dead. What do you do?"

"You wait until next year's chair catalog comes out and you find someone who's still alive."

"Oh, you move on."

"Yeah."

About three months ago, I'd have chided at anyone who would have asked me my take on PhD.

But also, three months ago I was a totally different person.
Dead on the inside, if you must.

Heraclitus was right, you change just as soon as your thought does. Probably faster than the time it takes for the rays of the Sun to reach Earth. 8 minutes is a decent time to be one version of yourself.

If you've been following this page then you'd know that I also nearly died. PhD would be useless in the event of a death.

I mean, what sort of doctor can't save their life from Malaria? (question)
The kind that does a PhD in Cinema. (answer)

A step away from being vixen Doctor and about 10k odds words away from sealing the deal, but did I want to step in that boat twice? (the answer is no, in case you're looking for it).

Then, something happened.

Three odd days ago, I woke up to a deadline reminder for pitching my proposal to the faculty at large. "8 May is the final date. Call me and we'll discuss."

Owing largely to the ill health of me and mine, I was going to take the semester break and give myself a buffer period to bounce back.

However, here's the thing with me. If you're me, you don't do downtime. You don't put your life on buffer and stare at the screen to let the events unfold as they desire.

You grab life by the balls. You go down on it, you own it and tighten the grip because you're taught just as much. Never give up, don't bow down to the circumstances. You're a fighter, give that dirty cock a good squeeze and take the life out of it.

"I was thinking, instead of you know, the Kardashians, how about I work on Netflix as a new medium of television...like post TV but on the internet?"

"That's a great idea."

72 hours, a few emails and a packed weekend later, we're getting down and dirty.

Bring that roof down, son. I'm coming for the last hurrah.

The most befitting end to the first month of the year, resembled the finale of Mukkabaaz (2018; dir Anurag Kashyap). Without giving much about the film, let me jump straight to my point.

I dropped my phone inside the pot.

Pot where one takes a dump. A commode. Or whatever you call that space in your culture.

This cover is my calendar, only less fun than seeing the "dentist".

Semantics aside, this was truly the cruellest way to end the cruellest month of the wretched year. Amongst other notable things that took place, here's the highlight of this year in badly organized point format (because fuck me, I'm truly not in a state to think of beautiful, prosaic words that make sense).

1) I started smoking after four years of being clean. I also got sick enough to lose my hearing ability. That had something to do with smoking and little something to do with the fact that I sneaked out of my house and had a run-in with the cops, all in the same evening.

2) I am truly out of fucks to give for deadline and work. Here's something that everyone around me has noticed. A sample-

a) We need images for the opening pages. Oh my.

Me- Don't worry. I'll do it in an hour.

b) We need to send the book to the press. Tell them this is the deadline.

Me- Yep, will be done.

c) I basically need 10 posts to have gone up on Facebook yesterday.

Me- I'm tracking the delivery of the time travel machine. Could you hold a minute please?

3) I'm eating crap. Mindlessly. All day, every day. I have no chill with regard to my diet so I'm taking bites (sin), I'm eating butter and oil and fats and dairy all day (sin), I'm also piling on carbs and how (sin), eating ketchup by the bucket (sin), no working out (biggest sin).

4) This page. I am single-handedly responsible for the dwindling numbers because if I don't show any interest, nobody else does either.

5) Went to the theatre one whole hour before the designated time of the film. Entered the exhibition space, a whole ten minutes late. Don't ask why.

6) Terrible, terrible personal space issues. Concerning an almost pleasant past experience. Or the beginner's charm. Either, or. Just not the way things were supposed to pan out in a personal space.

7) The phone. After dropping it inside the pot, I carried it with me again each time I went to take a dump- just to challenge the universe.

Come at me motherfuckers.

"Now that you've had a trim, I can't wait for your life to change."

I had hoped my mother would stumble upon Tom Hiddleston who would take her first born as his lawfully, soon-to-be bedded wife. That's quite a life changing deal in exchange of a hair cut, alright. However, her life did change. Six hours after the wretched hair cut, she landed up in the ER.

I, in my bed, stared at the ceiling all night long. In my head, one question. "Is this the life changing moment I was awaiting?"

Everyone has a bag of ridiculous supestitions. There's a varying degree to pick from, from people who wouldn't cross the road after a black cat walks over, to people who consider, hair cuts are life changing. There's a measure for superstitions. Mine, ofcourse, is all in my head. Garbage pile.

Thus, everything connects to hair on the head. The pile of garbage to life changing luck.

I was 13 years old when I had a life changing haircut. Wanting to be one of the cool kids, I decided against the advice of my mother and late grandmother and opted for what's strangely named, "Razor Cut".

That was everything except the fucking haircut I wanted. It's also another reason I don't trust barbers one bit.

The next haircut that I visibly remember is at 21. I was struggling to get admitted into a post graduate course here, in India. Despite having made it in the UK, I didn't want to take a loan and spend the better part of my 20s paying that.

I had hit the point of frustrating dead end, after having appeared in eight odd entrances and had cleared one, which I had no intention of going through with. Raging poverty with a Masters in Philosophy was not an alternative to paying the loan.

Back in the day, I had obnoxious Orangutan red hair colour that was left with a residue of ugly golden tail. Sitting with utter frustration, one morning before heading out of the house, I handed my mother a pair of scissors and asked her to chop it off.

Four hours later, the college I was not nearly eyeing but had my last shot at gave my mother a call. "Please deposit the fee. She's made it past the wait list."

By the time this could sink in, I got another news. I had topped my college in the final year examinations. Undergraduate in Philosophy, shining with the best of grades.

Man, I remember being thrilled. Followed by passing out in the washroom. A story for another day.

The next hair cut happened at 24. I was struggling with the Grad School. To be precise, struggling to exit. The tails needed to come undone and breathe life into my hair, a tactic I believed could ressurect my life.

Four inches short, I felt light in the head, not to forget how much of a change it added to my face. In under a month of that almost too dramatic a change for me, I was seeing someone and had snagged a job in publishing. I was elated.

Naturally, last week when I went for the coveted tail cutting, I knew life would bypass a certain change. An entry of sorts and exit for another. A job change? Two sizes for clothes? I don't know.

However, what I didn't anticipate at all was sleeping on the bench in the hospital within 24 hours of that wretched hair trim.

I joked to my mother on the second day, "See, I told you life would change."

Her expression translated to "Fuck you."

Sixth day in, she was home. I was convinced that's all for a change and surprise this time. And by my standard, I had done okay at all the change. I had flipped out only twice in those five days and managed to keep a nearly straight face at most people, situations and things at work- something I was doing for the first time since a family member landed at the hospital.

This was ofcourse until I got a Whatsapp text from my academic advisor.

"...you have to defend your proposal by the end of this winter semester. That is around May. Please let us start work on it if you are interested in your PhD."

Fuck. My. Life.

“Are we over Cold yet?”

Unexpected text lit up my phone screen and made me vomit just a little bit in my stomach. My infatuation towards Cold (a name just as apt as his response to most of my advances) was taking a toll on all my friends and family. The fact is, Cold and I have been having a bit of a hot-cold time ourselves in the last couple of months. For a fortnight now, I had been really thinking of shaking things up and moving forward. There was nothing more left to pursue in this push and pull for me. I have been emotionally drained, after having invested in a slab of stone for what seemed like eternity.

“Why, do you have someone to distract me?”

“What happened to *****?”

I was half hoping for the individual to answer in, "Yeah man, met someone great at this party last night and I really think you should meet him."

Instead, I was evading a conversation that would be headlined as something like this- Serial dater gets conned into snogging by a professional PUA

"Yeah well, he was a pick up artist so nothing is happening there."

"What, how do you know? :O"

I asked the said person to reconvene after dinner so I could fill her in.

When I flew to Thailand in September, I carried along a book instead of my staple magazine. Been on my reading list for long, Dave Besseling's Laid In India was perfect in my mind, for a breezy beach read and it ended up being everything I didn't anticipate for it to be. The book is an observational telling of Sid Malhotra (name changed, naturally), who claims to be India's number 1 pick up artist (PUA). I was expecting a list of tricks up the sleeve of the pick up artist and read more on the author's personal pick up stories and what became of them, a la fiction. Instead, missing on the AI sheet information cost me a bit. I read 3/4 of the book and promised myself to return to it before the year ends. That book deserved my bedroom way more than the carry forward hotel room reading.

The book did return, albeit in a manner I did not anticipate. My view to remembering it was IIT gate through a haze of fog. SDA market never fails to make less than an impression. My beau, arm in arm, a yummy 30 something who was more into me than I've ever been into anyone, including Cold.

Let me just take a minute and address this man. He was a total 10/10. The kind I never swipe right to, and least of all go out with. I settle for an easy 7 because they put in some effort in the conversation, they're usually funny/cocky and make up for the perfect 10 by being witty, if not perfectly alright to take that forward to date 2.

However, this man, ***** was everything I'm not used to. He was an easy six feet something, toothpaste advertisement smile and outfit straight out of Karl's notebook on how to be effortlessly chic for a date. When I complimented him on the same, he just brushed his shoulder and said,

"I like to be comfortable. This was really comfortable. I didn't quite put it together."

The man could tell me he's Charles Sobhraj's cousin and I would buy it off his perfectly symmetrical face. This is why, ladies and gentlemen, I skip the 10 and head towards the 6 and the 7. They don't have this effect on anyone. His stubble was well maintained and saying anything more would mean an awkward family conversation in 48 hours.

If Nicolas Simoes and Milind Soman ever get to make a baby, that man would grow up and look like my date from the evening. Yes.

Blame me, for I couldn't resist the company of ***** and all his lies that he conveyed staring deep in my eyes.

We had met for the first time after a brief conversation. Yet the entire evening in his company had been poetic in every verse of time. Minus a few misplaced rhyme schemes (more on this, later), this man seemed to be hitting every note right and placing every punctuation just as delicately as he had wrapped his arms around me.

Wait, what?

First dates are either awkward or cocky and hilarious. Never the one to have had a cosy evening with intertwined arms (let's say you're my mother and you're reading this- stop right here) that ends with heavy petting in public sight.

What the actual fuck happened?

Believe me when I say this, it had the making of this man not getting a response from me but within 20 minutes of brief interaction, I parted with my number pretty willingly. That's standard now, since you can block them later. I didn't realize that in 2017, this is still referred to as "closing interaction-1".

We spoke briefly on the phone, for what was half an hour. It was like how a conversation with an old friend rolls, very comfortable, nothing out of place yet every bit intimate. "Closing interaction-2" check.

"I think sex is a very serious thing. I'd like to think of myself in a pensive relationship before I can get out there and sleep with someone." to "You know Amour? The manager cornered me when I left the ladies washroom after a quickie. He knew what we were upto. It was so thrilling!"

Not sure, if that was the re-telling of a pick up artist or my very serious, mature and hot af date.

To be honest, there are times you let your thinking capacity die despite it working overtime. That evening was one of those from the calendar. While I was very sure about something being off, my head couldn't pin point to what exactly. It especially stopped working after we hit "escalation ladder of kino-closing" me into this man's arms. That's as much juice you're going to get from this year end drama.

It was in that moment, I cursed myself while staring into the abyss and thought, I wish I had finished that book. This man is just as smooth as that pick up artist I read about.



"So while I was telling Anid about him, I said that all his transitions were seamless. He was so confident and so smooth, it didn't seem out of place. Not inappropriate and certainly not forced."

"Yeah, just goes on to prove that you're as human as anyone and no matter how hard you try, you can't resist."

"No, it doesn't. It could have ended up in the washroom like the Amour tell tale but that didn't happen because I wasn't human enough." something I could only think of and not muster the courage to say, as I realized the person I was speaking to, is also a pick up artist.

"Wait a minute, you have the same MO. Are you...?"

"Haha what do you think I was doing all this while. You're a tough nut to crack."

Shit.

The said friend didn't manage to nail me down for a bunch of logistical and other reasons, including wanting to have me as a friend.

"The number one rule of pick up game is, you fuck off right after. There's no contact to be established and I obviously didn't want that to happen between us."

Suck my dick, everyone whoever said "dick is everything. Chemistry, nothing".

It was after this conversation last night that I learned a few things about myself including, and not limited to-

1) I'm just as gullible as the newbie who just joined work at 22 is lucky enough to have never experienced a "heartbreak".
2) Pick up artists exist in 2017 regardless of Tinder being a commonplace to find love or lust and anything in between.
3) Your friends could be "negging", "peacocking", "kino-closing" women/men right under your nose and you'd have no idea. I also suggest looking these terms up.
4) When they say, "you've no game" they don't necessarily mean board game or online game. They mean the Game by Neil Strauss.
5) My brain works 9/10 times. The 1 time it didn't work, I felt just as foolish as Khurana at the end of Khosla ka Ghosla.

While I'd love to clinically describe the making of a pick up artist, the Game, the signs that you're being played successfully by a pick up artist etc, I don't want to give you ideas to try this out. I've been told it makes people feel good but if you're anything like me, you'd feel like shit at the end knowing you're a temporary mark up in a game, and nothing more.

As for my hot date, grapes might totally be sour but the man could do with learning about conjunctions. His perfect teeth won't take him very far in the Delhi circuit.

Meanwhile, if you're into dating, or are a single woman/man lurking around and stumbled upon this piece, I highly recommend doing some reading on the pick up artists, on the terms listed above and definitely reading a book or two on it. I've re-read my copy of Laid in India cover to cover, twice since, and possibly read every possible link on the internet on the subject. While my resistance to believe that, "This CAN'T happen to me" remains just as strong as it did when I was in Thailand, I would like for you to be adequately prepared before you meet one or more of these people out there.

They might have no ill intentions but I am not the one who likes being played. That said, I'd like to leave my date from last night a little more than the lingering fragrance of No. 5 on him. An impression of my knucles on his face, perhaps. 

Cookbooks, to my mind, always come across as a treasure passed from a generation to another. While someone like me prefers to note things on paper and take along to the kitchen, the concept of cookbooks on YouTube and other hypermedia links is on the lines of taking forward the legacy of our kitchen secrets into electronic binaries, and in turn making them stand out as a star dish on the table. 

I distinctly remember the first time I was introduced to Tool. In no time, Justin Chancellor, for me, became a level I aspired to reach. Nearing 26, I can claim it remains a distant dream for me today. Yet, if I go back to The Pot, the same thought occurs my mind to this day. However, by no means is Chancellor my favourite bass player. Those are two very different things. I guess I extend my militancy of detail to music as well. Bite me.

If you're a hoarder by nature, then, like me (I assume, of course) you ought to find yourself in a sea of memories. Triggered by places, spaces, events, art and media, these memories are deeply moving and more often than not, striking. Music, then, scores amongst top rated trigger for reaching out to the time that elapsed.

Eloquently put, I go back to my music from time to time to be occasionally greeted by fucking memories that I have archived for a time when I can take them down, one on one. It's hit home now, some two-three years later, I have not downloaded any music in the recent past, nor have I bought any album. Nothing at all. My listening time has gone down significantly. I don't list "music" anywhere near my pursuits, vices, interests or even conversation starter. I avoid it, like the plague that it's become for me. I don't have time to pander, especially so for issues unresolved, pertaining to music.

This rolls out like a tacky, no brainer Bombay cinema script. A person obsessed with something gives up on their biggest vice and returns to reminisce about it years later. What was that, Milkha Singh? Rock on Rockstar? Some Farhan Akhtar film somewhere. I can't put my finger (all that he's done is this script rehashed into different roles- marathon runner, vocalist, journalist?).

Anyway, so yeah. I don't go back to my music whatsoever now. On days when I am terribly bored, I find myself googling the same set of names feverishly. It starts with checking on my disgruntled pursuits in the form of mortal beings (aka jaded loves of my life) to get an update on where they're at (nowhere. I don't even know if they're alive or dead). I avoid the music that we once enjoyed listening to, together, and carefully step out of that Minesweep of a memory by skipping all of that album (which I'll be damned if I list here). I don't remember the last time I heard that common favourite album and I hope to all things controlling this universe, it's not shoved in my face anytime soon.

I've made up with stunning 46 minutes of Kind of Blue and now make it a point to listen to it once every three months. I can't do that album in any frequency shorter than that. It took a lot of willpower to return to it. That one happens to be a stunning masterpiece and one of my all time favourite albums. In fact, Kind of Blue is like medication. It's a hug packed in musical notations, a ray of sunshine on a cold, windy day which can suck the happiness out of you. Kind of Blue is the cure to most blues in my life (besides the ones it may have started in the first place). I consume it, much as I would consume a rare Japanese whisky. Reserved for very special days, sad days and not all that which goes in between.

I had recently gone out to watch a film and the trailer run before the film that I'd paid for, played Come Together's cover. It instantly trickled me down in time to the point I'd played this with a bunch of people I love to death- most of whom are placed in different parts of the world at the moment. One of the happiest memories I go back to is playing Come Together on stage in 2011. Each time I listen to that, the bass line takes me back to having the time of my life rehearsing that one with some of my closest friends.

I move to the next number, Billie Holiday crooning one of my favourite lyrical standard, All of Me (can't you see, I'm no good without you- sigh). I listen to it, with clenched teeth and tight fist and imagine kickboxing the fuck out of a few. Mia Khalifa has observed that I'm releasing my aggression on the road traffic than at the right things. I have made a note of that. Take my arms, I want to lose them indeed (on your face, most likely).

There's more, I've withheld. Some pop crap (a Train number is all I'm willing to publically admit), two by The Black Keys. There are artists like Edith Piaf, Monk, Manu Chao, Wayne Shorter, Monique Kessous...the list is long and the time, it's always short. A lot I'm holding close to my chest, a lot of stuff I'm not willing to look back at whatsoever. For the most part, it reminds me of my tryst with trying hard to be someone. Funnily enough, on paper, I'm that person today. The person I was trying to build myself into, is one with the idea. It's her who is writing this. However, the essence is all lost. All that I believed it would be, it's nothing like it. It's a lot of faffing, faking it till you yourself believe you're making it. It took a toll somewhere. Every time I go back to my playlist, it reminds me of my struggle to be who I am, a publishing professional, a hobbyist writer, 20 something fending for myself, an academic in work (!).

Despite all these identities, it's still no good, if you can't go back to who you were. If you're still reading, you'd probably wonder how any of those (aforementioned) identities affect my listening capability to say, Justin Timberlake?

It doesn't. None of them does.
But, in process of coming close to carving those identities, the person who encountered this music no longer wishes to revisit that site anymore. Maybe, it's the brushes I had in the last couple of years and maybe, it's the mistakes I made in terms of carving myself out- the fact is, I no longer identify myself as the person who once loved this playlist to death. From it being one of the most prized possession that I had built, it's now become like an outfit, I revisit to stare at from time to time and shut my closet. I still love it, but I can't go back to it.

Why I use this outfit analogy is quite a reason in itself. I'm in possession of a closet full of things which can serve as a closet to seven people (wearing Size 14) at the very minimum. However, I go back to the same key outfits every day because I fear, I'll tamper with my favourite pieces each time I wear them. I worry that they'll be stained so bad that I won't be able to publically carry them out ever again. In the fear of something bad about to be going down, I never take them out. Instead, I hang them in my closet and admire them from far and distant sight of the roads of Delhi and elsewhere. I think the case is same with my music. I no longer listen to it in fear of making new memories and leaving the ones in the past behind. I don't want to associate my music with new people, with friends I met along the way, with newer (and might I add improved) gentlemen who look far better than my type of 3.4/10 from circa 2012. I don't want to tamper with all that what's been packed in the laptop. Listening to them again would mean going to A) revisit the previous site, and B) making new ones. I don't think I'm ready to give it all up as of now.

I have seen this particular tendency in a lot of people, coming out in different ways. One of my friends takes it out in way of not dating anyone. She won't ever go on a traditional "date" or indulge in the idea of a "dates" leading to "relationships". It didn't work out with someone she was into the first time and ended bad for her. Since then, she holds that part of her life so tightly that she doesn't allow anyone to permeate. Similarly, another friend has boundary issues. He won't allow anyone- friend, family to come close to them. He is emotionally cripped to deal with proximity and cannot express himself. It takes a toll when you're having a bad day and you're unable to tell anyone because you're holding the occasions tight when you did and the person went away (in his case, the demise of his father and another friend who moved away). It's all in our heads, our distances and holding them ever so tightly. I know this from my two friends because I've been able to identify mine- it's latent in the form of music and I've tried my best to let it go. To listen to stuff without letting a cloud of emotions huddle and pour outwards.

However, I'm trying. Still at it.

At a Safal outlet, 18:08 hours.

Baby Banana - (observing a rack full of Granny Smith) "Listen, how many calories are there in one green apple? Are those like carbs? Like I know there are 80 calories in a medium normal apple."

Mia Khalifa - "Ah, those (pointing at Granny Smith) are called pear in English and बब्बूगोशा in Hindi. You might want to learn fruits first before you learn about calories."