Prose before hos

"Why do you say that?"

"Yeah, it won't end well."

I've been doing a writing thing with this person, we'll call him K.

We also don't know if he wants to be identified here yet, hence, we'll assign him a name conducive to me.

K's a rather gifted writer himself. He's criminally talented and, if anything, puts the fear of God in me when we do our thing.

What's the thing, you ask?

Right.

K and I have been writing 'newsletters' to each other for a bit now. It's not been a month, and honestly, if something like this lasts a month, I'd consider sending these to a publisher. K, if you're reading this, I'll split profits, I swear.

I'd tell you more but it's so incredibly personal that I also don't want to share this with anyone.

I don't know if he'll feel violated or what but this has been raw, intimate, and every bit wholesome.

For over a month, I'd been in my bed, sulking and playing silly games. Somehow, this exercise is the only thing I look forward to in my day and our writing routine has set me back to some disciplined life. Where I know, I have to write by a certain hour.

Years ago, I recall, someone close to me at the time had said, how I made him want to be a better man.

I'm finally able to pay that compliment back and take it forward. K, makes me want to be a better person, a better writer, and certainly someone who feels motivated enough to do something, anything.

I have been seeing people around me who have absolutely given up and then there are those who are struggling. To be able to have some discipline in writing and then keeping it up, it truly takes a person to do that.

Because I've neglected this page and I don't want to, here's one whole letter that I wrote. Feel free to skim, skip, or ignore.




-----

"Do you have a man in your life?"

I had been chasing a fat ginger cat at the party, a work event, and had just perched myself on a couch- one of many at a plush flat in central Delhi. The families in the neighbourhood were most likely aware that the owners amongst others have (amongst many) spare houses and have converted the said property into an exhibition space. The owner was hosting a pre-public viewing party for selected friends. The crowd had poured in from one party to the other. Some familiar faces, others page 3 familiar.

The large verandah could be good for playing with a dog, hosting a bake sale, heck even lawn parties. I've seen 8 member families stay in smaller spaces than the size of the back lawn but here I was, in my pencil skirt and blazer, clutching my kulhad filled with qawah tightly. I had stopped to pet the cat, chilling with the artist seated across me. The cat escaped me and I remembered the words, "network, talk to people. This is appreciated."

"Haha, well, if you must know, I don't."

The artist raised a glass to me, "I hope you get someone who deserves you, soon."

"Do you have someone in your life?"

"No, I don't. That's why I was telling you. Take a break. From everything and everyone. Just disappear for a while. I did for six months after fifteen long years in Delhi. You know, everyone outside knows me and I know them but I don't want to go out. I want to be here, by myself. Sometimes you need the space, and from all that you have just told me about your life in the last one month, my darling you need a break."

"Are you the sign I'm looking for?"

"Maybe I am. You should really just get out for a week, or try to cut people out and see the difference. You'll feel light-headed."

I took out a strip of medicine from my bag and popped out a pill.

"Well, I'll be light-headed in no time and it didn't need wine."

"Darling you have glowing skin. You could use aloe vera and get off medicines. Just take care of yourself and put yourself up. If you like a guy and he doesn't like you back, just cut him out. You'll see he'll come running back with more intensity."

"I actually don't, not really."

"No, I mean cut things out. People, work and respect your body. Your mind and body are pretty much giving up on you because you're not treating either with respect."

"I think, I will."

"You deserve to be loved, darling."

"I really think it's a make or break for me the way a guy dresses. I've literally called things off once cause a guy showed up in a green t-shirt."

"What's wrong with a green t-shirt?"

"Nothing's wrong with a green t-shirt and he actually showed up in a nice jacket but then he took it off and there was that eyesore of the t-shirt. It's very hard for me to take anyone seriously in a t-shirt like that. I also can't deal with a badly dressed man. I get your aesthetic and over time if we become friends or whatever I learn to deal with it. But the worst kind of problem is when you like a person's aesthetic and they show up in a terrible outfit. I think it's the easiest way to get over someone. Like this."

"Who is this green t-shirt person?"

"You know, that one."

"I don't know this one."

"Everyone in English speaking world knows of him and this outfit fail. For fuck sake, SSD was there with me and he saw it in person. I'm sure Pantone has the colour of his t-shirt under 'The worst green' and the t-shirt had Taj Mahal. No wait, it didn't have Taj Mahal as it is. It was a face with glasses and you could see the Taj Mahal in it.""

"No man, you didn't tell me."

"He is the same person who sent food for my entire office when we were all working late and everyone around me was head over heels for him except me."

"No idea."

"You know the one who was really nice to me and I was a complete asshole."

"You know you are an assh..."

"Before you say it, can you just say it, 'you're an asshole to every guy who likes you' and please get it out of your system?"

"You're an asshole to every guy who likes you."

"Thanks."

This is as close to a public apology I'm going to get to for our friend in the green t-shirt. I'm sorry for me not reciprocating to your bad memes, advances and efforts. You're a nice guy but only the Dude gets to dress bad and get away with it.



In the meantime, if you hear of a publicist who is willing to take up the role to improve my public profile on how I'm an asshole to one and all (been getting a lot these days), hit me up.

"I'm hormonal and sick and fat and want to quit my job right this minute."
"Let's get a drink?"

I get done sending these texts to BoDa, Gurugram's answer to grumpy Yoda, and keep my phone down as soon as I hear my name being called from two directions. Can I Whatsapp images instead of emailing them? Can I also upload the same graphic meant for a cell phone screen to upload in 1x1 square frame on five different Instagram handles our workplace is running?

Why the fuck not.

BoDa calls me back in under four minutes, a delay from his standard under-two-minute rule of receiving texts that he deems to not address in the written word.

"...listen, the other day I had this girl over...someone I'd been texting and you know it was fine, okay. We're chilling at my place, she's got a drink, she gets up and puts some music on and comes and sits close to me. Next, she whispers in my ear, Do you want to dain-se? and I ask her "What?"

"Wait a minute, what did she say?"

"She said dain-se. Do you want to dain-se? I even asked her again but she said the same thing. I gave her the benefit of doubt. Do you think I've high standards? Is that the reason I can't date?"

At this point, I'd heard my name being called thrice from three different directions. BoDa, that bastard, has more dates in a month despite the arm candies he lands up with from time to time. Naturally, I ignore all the rest of them at work calling my name out and get up from my chair. This was getting interesting. BoDa's radar at an all-time low meant my priorities to this conversation had to be re-arranged.

"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CALL HER OVER? WHY ARE YOU DOWN TO OUR LEVEL? DATING IS FUCKING HARD AND YOU RUINED YOUR SHOT AT THAT. YOU KNOW WHAT DO I HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH? MOPING ABOUT THAT MAN WITH DISPROPORTIONATE CALVES AND BODY. Look, there's nothi--hello? Hello?"

Motherfucking reception.

What is it about single people and their invisible yardstick of obnoxious, tight-assed standard that always remains far too high for other hot singles in the area to match? Is it the obvious stick up their arse that prevents them from taking a shine on others? Is it because they're floating in the ether to look down upon mortals who make themselves vulnerable around others? Is it because they would much rather prefer dying of loneliness than being with someone who can't pronounce dance?

The case has been going on for far too long.

Strangely enough, I've been looked at purposefully by people as someone who has things to say. By default, anyone who is single has things to say. I can pitch multiple pieces as to why I'm a great fit at this.

Been single for a little over 26 years and counting, I can count the number of heartbreaks I've had caused by men on a single hand. However, the number of heartbreaks caused by me in my own head (including mispronunciation of words, bad grammar, bad punctuation, no punctuation, bad breath, disproportionate calves to body ratio, belief in astrological rings, lisp, bad hair, no hair, grey hair, girlfriend, wife, bad human are some of the examples) is a little too high and the list, far too long.

A couple of nights ago, I was bantering with an acquaintance who I had the pleasure of matching with on a dating app about two years ago. We found each other at several Delhi do's and ultimately stopped feigning ignorance after I vomitted one too many times at his place during a house party he was kind enough to host to ring in a friend's big thirtieth birthday. The guy is every bit loony and delightful, a charmer and a total keeper. Last week, he shared a screenshot with me. This girl made a plan with him, to call it off fifteen minutes later and in the next fifteen block him out. This girl apparently only dates academics or oncologists.

newsflash- he's neither.

That was her selling point to him. "Hey, I can maybe date you despite you not being at my level."

I don't know the man very well and I definitely don't know the woman but man, you can't throw your weight around like this if you're in the wrong side of 20s in Delhi.

What used to be my standard to go out is now just a filter of the past. Is he an asshole? Okay fine, don't mind. Is he a sexual predator? Okay, I do mind.

What my committed friends don't get is that the market is dry. There's nobody left. The good ones are taken. The idiots are taken. Bad breath holders are also taken.

The ones who are left are all those of us who overthink. Who waste time on details. Those who unmatch the minute someone says "Hey!" because no matter how single and lonely I get, no great dating story begins with a bloody "hey".

The only "hey" that works in this world is for fucking horses. "Hey" by default is not for human consumption.

 If you skip past the bloody hey, it's not as if the battle is won. The standards continue to torment.

If he/she's needier than you- which is to say- shows the need to be with you, your own snooty self will dump his/her ass because how dare someone show vulnerability to you when you're praying to all agnostic gods together to hide your vulnerable, lonely ass infront of everyone you know at the restaurant, including the server who's now seen you come in with eight different men in the last quarter of this year.

That monologue has been me for the last one month. Minus a few details here and there, but it's true.

I can't get myself to date people who like me. I can't get myself to date people who don't like. I can't get myself to date people who can't type properly. I can't get myself to date those who can type (because the ones who can write put together an exquisite heartbreak- like no other).

What I'm trying to say in this convoluted, verbose, giant piece of turd like writing is that there's no hope for those of us who read this and can identify with the shit I have said.

If you don't identify with this, consider yourself saved and visit a church/temple to celebrate the same.

As for the rest of us, I'm going to hope for men to rain in every hallelujah I say.

It's not raining cats and dogs. It's definitely raining inappropriate men. Hallelujah.

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."

I came across a post a friend had shared on my Facebook Wall- back when Wall was still a thing.

Four years ago today-

"26 has happened, someone was supposed to meet me!"
"Can't la, *insert author's name* has discontinued his column in the newspaper and I need time to get over this trauma."

I remember that too well. It hit me enough that I called Man Friday to rant- back when talking to Man Friday (MF) was still a thing.

"I promise you, one day we'll have breakfast in his house. Bacon, eggs, sausages...he's going to make it all for us. I'll make it happen."
Broken hearted, I believed. I lapped at every word MF had to say. To be honest, his words were all I had in times of sadness. When sadness truly meant no column by my favourite author in the newspaper.

2018, I'm working on a book which will be co-authored by him. Hoping I wouldn't have to do it. It's not the easiest book to work on, he's not the easiest guy to deal with. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with him or my fifteen-year-old self would die of anxiety thinking about it.

If only, I could go back in time and tell the little girl who started reading his work back in the early noughties, hang in there, you wouldn't want it one bit in time to come.

Off late, I have been finding myself in situations where I no longer remember the people who I come across in my phone book. At least 90% of those names are off Tinder, a space where I exist like chimera in undergraduate philosophy classes. People have heard of it, but don't quite understand the nature of its existence.

I digress, but most of these forgettable men have one thing in common- they're godforsaken boring and have done little to nothing to me to make me touch base, unblock, un-mute or whatever it is the reason they are not on my recently touched base with list. If I think about it, if you've held my attention for a little over three months, you should rank yourself god level interesting because I'm yet to see anyone cross the three month mark in my diary.

I am probably making this all about myself but that's not the point. I see men around me who have set ridiculously high standard for wit, charm and whatever it is that men ought to bring to the table. You learn at home.

My reason for blog hiatus has been my grandfather. Man gave us a fright with a heart failure, water in his lungs, high potassium levels and everything possible in between.

It's been over a week, he's home and sass still in tact.

Motherfucking sass.

Where do I even begin?

First day after having been shifted to the room, he looks at me and asks if I have been going to work, "No, I am not doing very well and I'm working from home."

"If you don't dress proper, how on Earth do you intend on keeping well?"

Oxygen pipe in, multiple cannula marks and sarcasm on fleek.

All of yesterday, I spent watching a shit film from the nought with him while he continued to make remarks on all and sundry- from the heartthrob of the lead to the person who produced and even the ones who interrupted- cricketer who recently got married.

I woke up this afternoon after a night of heavy debauchery (bread, waffles, jam, butter, eggs and cigarette- shit) and walked to his room disgruntled. That used to be a ritual until I started this wretched job, which he began enquiring about the minute I entered.

"How's your job?"

"Crap. How else."

"How's your boss?"

"Crap. How else."

"You have a pensionable job. Enjoy it."

I stopped rubbing my eyes and looked at my mom, seated across the room. Was he hallucinating again?

All that time he spent in the ICU, he had something called the ICU Psychosis wherein the person is delirious and has no sense of space and time. They mess situations and and events and let their imagination play havoc to their rational abilities.

"Er, no. I don't have a pensionable job. I barely make any money."

"What's wrong with you? You walk in late, you come home early. You also take work from home when you're sick and I'm sick and complain about the job all the time. They're paying you for surviving, not for working. Jobs are where they pay you for hard work not for bullshitting. You get pension for bullshit which is what you're getting."


Owned.

If that wasn't it, as prologue I can throw some more-

"You can't hear because you're not wearing socks."

"You have been wearing socks yet you landed up in the ICU. How about that?"

"How about you wait until you're 83 and write me a letter telling me about yourself then? We can take stock of things at that point."

“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. 

Meghna Talwar edition

"What day is Christmas?"

"Monday."

"No, no. I mean like the date?"

"It's Jesus' birthday. WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT?"

"Haan, I don't know. When is it? Shame on my Catholic School Upbringing."


Mr Malik edition

"You know, Justice League was basically Sallu and friends."

"(laughs) What?"

"Yeah, Superman is Sallu and the rest are his friends."

"Ohh (laughs)."

"Yeah, and Batman is Punjabi."

"(laughs) WHAT?"

"Yeah haven't you seen Batman Begins?"

"Ofcourse I have. When does it say..."

"Yeah so like Bruce Wayne's dad gives him lots of money, he has lots of money and then he gets slapped by that girl, arey that journalist slaps him, and he drives that expensive car at night and beats up all the  men. He's so totally Punjabi rich kid from Punjabi Bagh, or even Paschim Vihar."


Mia K edition

"OMG I didn't recognize you. You've lost so much weight and that ass, I was looking at it like shit is that Baby Banana's ass? It looks so small."

"Dude my ass was always small. Like there was nothing."

"Please, your ass was a nice shape. Hourglass round and all."

"And now you don't recognize it one bit. That's what your boyfriend has done. All his fault."

"My boyfriend is an ass man, you know. It's really sad... (NSFW)."

"Shove some basil up your ass and serve him a nice, hot plate of Pesto Pasta for Christmas. I'm sure both of you will enjoy that Italian meal you've been calling me for since eternity."



Anid edition

"Your view to the sizing up of each other was the crushed dreams and hopes of all these young people who went to IIT. Very nice. How do you ever plan to take your shameless face there again? You've been there while growing up, with us, with your dates and now this. Very nice."

On love

"I just want to marry and settle down with the person who's written the script for Thor Rangnarok."

"Maybe settle with someone here."

"If it's a woman then I'll settle for Tom Hiddlestone."

"It's good to know you're fluid like that."

"I just want to marry the person who's written the film. It's so bloody witty."

"In your head you're living a Yash Raj Film but I have a feeling this will end in a Crime Patrol episode script."


On grief

My friend Momo is usually the first person who I reach out to when something goes down in my life. For a man who knew me for under a month, he's my rock across the world. When Circuit died, he was the only one I texted to inform, while I was walking home from work.

Momo lost his dog earlier today. Pola had been with him for the last 17 years. That's a long fucking time to call someone family. Pola's demise isn't the only setback he has faced. In under a week he's found out the love of his life has moved on from their erstwhile relationships, his parents were mugged in broad daylight at a gun point where in they lost their car.

When I heard, that was the first in days when I got myself to feel something, tears dwell in my eye kind of feeling. I got myself to speak to him. I don't think it helped a bit but the only thing that came to my mind is a hearty combination of what some of the people said to me while offering condolences. Two things struck out- one that Pola and Circuit would be together in doggy heaven (if there's one) and that our lives have been positively impacted by their good memories, hence we must live them out.

Grief is contagious. Ever since I spoke to Momo, I've felt drained, like I'm dragging my body but the brain has shut itself.


On melancholy

There's a girl next door, Diya, the daughter of our neighbour's security guard. I meet her daily when I return from work. Disha should be under 2 years of age, and is perhaps the  only child who I eagerly look forward to seeing. She doesn't speak a word. However, whenever she sees me, she comes running, shakes my hand and then greets me with folded hands. Having been uncharacteristically disturbed by the folded hand greeting since I was a child, Diya has learnt to accommodate my High-Fives instead. Her mum insists that she greets me with folded hands. Pavlovian conditioning in exchange of candies has taught her otherwise.

The day Circuit died, I reached home to find my sibling, all her friends and my parents in the veranda with his cold body. He stayed lifeless, looking like he's in pain and definitely nothing like how I want to remember him. It was a tough sight to soak in.

Diya walked in from the back gate which was ajar. Stood with us in complete silence, alternating with staring at his dead body and our faces. She's not the happiest baby but definitely extremely satisfied. That day she looked confused. Why were we all gathered around this dog and why was the dog laying without moving.

It occured to me how difficult is the idea to introduce death to the kids. I don't remember much on how I was conditioned or if I could give you a feedback on whether it's okay to introduce kids to "death". I would say let's never begin by explaining death to your child mentioning how you could make them meet their already dead relatives. It's a terrible idea.

I digress, but Diya was an equal participant in witnessing the end of Circuit with me. Perhaps the only one. My parents and sibling had each other. I had Diya's confused face, that's what I will remember his last day to look like.

Each time she runs towards our gate when I'm exiting, I'm compelled to meet her, say hello, greet her with a candy and try to forget that she's seen me in my most intimate moment. You're never as truthful to another as you're when you're facing a family death.

Diya forged a bond with me. She unknowingly saw me through something so personal that no loved one in my life did. Whatever it is, I'll live with Diya being the sane out of the two after having lived through that.

"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.