Prose before hos

Uphill climbs bring out the worst in me, whether on feet or in the car. The market where I work is located on a relatively uphill slope. Naturally, I'm at my worst every single time I'm asked to lug my ass anywhere around the area.

On one of my last ATM hangs with Mia K, I was ranting to her about a friend. I believed the said friend had fewer fucks to give about me than in comparison to her SO's friends. That should irk anyone.

Mia K being Mia K (ahem) looked at me calmly with an expression that read, "This child." and continued to hear until I shut up with all my ranting and replaced it with panting.

Speaking of panting, Mia K has a great joke on how dogs wear coats and they pant in the Summer due to the same coat (haha fuck me, hilarious). It's something that's a part of her overcompensational behaviour since she put in her papers.

I digress, but coming back to the uphill climb and Mia K, she responded with a counter example on how my friend was giving me all the fucks and how I have been forgetting about the same (citing two academic papers and four parties from the last one financial year).

"You know what's your problem? (mental note, not verbal.) You keep a list of grudges only. Instead, why don't you focus on a list of gratitudes?"

"You know what, I hate you (mental note, not verbal.) You are right. I have never done that. Maybe, it's time for me to make that."

What better than the last post during my birthday month, to recall the kindness and the large heartedness of the people I've encountered.

To the girl who didn't show up to take admission at my second college - You helped me secure a seat. Without your input (of staying out of admissions) help, I wouldn't have managed to meet the people I call family today, the degree that taught me everything about images, still and moving. That made me realize that there's a life outside academia and that it's worth pursuing. You also ensured I didn't go to the UK since I got admitted in Delhi and that was the only one condition upon which I skipped all the colleges I got through there god I hate you so much (how does one not add grudges to the same list man?).

Mum - For being oh so nonchalant about dating, bringing men home and for being all round resourceful by ensuring me the tastiest present from my birthday wishlist this year.

The Japanese passerby who told me to pick the John Coltrane Tshirt - He was my Yoda and I had a full padawan moment with him. He appeared out of nowhere when the Thai woman was charming her way in and ensuring she sells me three t-shirts including Chili Peppers ("We don't stock Chili Peppers, but we do keep Red Hot Chili Peppers hahaha.") and Oasis. He came in nonchalantly, not looking to buy anything and when I was hyperventilating over the Coltrane t-shirt he asked me to pick that over the Chili Peppers. "Classy, definitely. RHCP is more rocker like. Which one are you?"
All of a sudden, I no longer needed Sinner to help me with my purchase. The Thai woman looked a bit disappointed.

Speaking of which, Sinner - For being the most compassionate travel partner despite travelling with me since 2010 and knowing I throw up at the drop of the hat. For fussing over me when I didn't sleep enough and for calming me down when she lost her wallet full of monies and cards. For baking that cake on my blog anniversary party (it wasn't this month but still) and being one eye roll away from knowing what's up with me. Recently, she pronounced I liked a guy before I knew I liked him. I don't know about you, but I need more of her in my life. "He's crazy, just like her.", she told her Catfish friend, and he nodded in agreement. This, when I knew nothing about the person. All that we (Sinner and I) are missing is an umblical cord. Really. She wouldn't agree though.

My University - For making sure I exited academia with an A, and nothing less. It was an absolute pleasure and my gratitude to the people who feigned well at tolerating my work and vice verse. Quite a ride.

My workplace - For trusting in me and giving me a chance of a lifetime on projects that people usually take a long time to reach to in their career. 

Thai Airways Ground Staff in Delhi - For blocking the middle seat and thus ensuring I slept through the flight with my feet curled up on the next seat. I make a silent wish for everytime a ground staff personnel does that for me.

The lady at Platinum Mall who exchanged our pants two days later - She's my hero, for not only did she recognize me and gave me stuff my size in a plethora of colours, she also agreed to exchange sizes and allowed us to try outfits (despite so, we came to exchange). She was more than happy helping Sinner and I pick pants and skirts. In a country where you're asked to not enter a nightclub cause you're not a guy and not allowed to touch clothes which don't fit your size, she was quite something. I hope she makes a fortune selling those soft as hell, skinny pants.




Circuit - For fighting through the time I was traveling. After I came back, there were days I wondered how he survived. I am so fucking glad he did, I would be devasted otherwise...

The lady who gave me change for 1000 baht in exchange for buying two rubber bands worth ten baht each - You make me want to move to Bangkok and embarrass myself asking people to help me get a job there. Recently, I was out trying to buy a bottled water in exchange with a 100 rupee note. I was shown the door by FOUR fucking shopkeepers because they did not deem a 20 rupee purchase worth giving 80 rupees worth of change.


Fuck you guys, learn a thing or two on how to treat people.


His Holiness The Dalai Lama - For making that miraculous entrance during my vacation and ensuring I didn't come back to a situation where my ass was on fire trying to hunt rare images from the cesspool of shit that the internet is. Youdaman.

The men who played Charlie "Putz" at the drinks trucks - You gave me a reason to laugh at myself, besides stiff drinks.

Man Friday- Very few people can drill facts in your head without an ulterior motive. While I'm ducking my head in the sand and not coming out to the reality, he's pushing me to face the facts and pick my life and look at what I intend on doing for the next couple of years. In his words, "fun and games are over."

Mia Khalifa - There's no easy way of doing this. I'm high out of my mind and to write this after giving her a farewell isn't exactly simple. While I'm at being sentimental, let me count the times Mia K was the bomb.

For rolling me a doob in the conference room. For the reverse psychology that made me stick around the job. For drilling in me that clean eating is completely possible regardless of being fussy and picky. For proving to me that incest is real by playing both, the role of my elder sister and potential lover. For always being a phone call away (yet never answering). For single handedly standing against everything that went wrong in the last one year and making sure I remember none of that. For making me into a better person. For telling it to my face that my IRL game sucks and for planning my mayyat. It's been a real pleasure, Mia.

What do you do when you wake up on the wrong side of luck?

I always believed that Midas was a dumb muthafucka. That man gave away his power for his inability to control it. He was literally daft not actually employing people to do all the 'touching' on his behalf. I mean, the man had the resources to hire two people (with legit four hands) to do all the 'touching' for him. For Pete's sake, he could touch turd and make it into solid gold. I hope it was all 22 carat and that he paid his employees in his gold turd (remains of gold biscuits turn to the gold turd, geddit?).

Yet, he chose to exit that wonderful blessing (or whatever power) he was granted exclusive access to. I've heard many a version of that man cursing his luck for being blessed (hashtag blessed like all Delhi teenagers) to turn everything into gold, yet, he cribbed so much that someone wrote a whole fucking fable about him.

Where was I? My luck.

I'm the opposite of Midas. Whatever I touch, it turns to turd. Throw a gold biscuit my way for sample. Address on request.

You throw a project proposal, complete with everything in order and favourable conditions and I will give you back a mess, which can neither be evaded nor destroyed. I've a great example but I'd like to believe people from work are reading this and I'm on tenterhooks (I've been informed). Right now won't be the best time.

If I believe I've found love, it often always turns out to be a gastritis attack. You know, in my head, which clears as I proceed to tell the second of my three friends about it. The man literally becomes one with the ether, leaving sulphuric after effects of his presence. Or, as the doctors refer to it in science, farts.

If I think, there's no better negotiator than me, an agency will show me my place by ignoring my phone calls, messages, sweet nothings, angry everything, only to respond in the first instance a senior colleague writes to them. So much for me being the loyal client and insisting on going back to the damn agency.

Just when I think, I'm gold with not consuming carbs and processed food and refined sugar, I get pissed drunk and stoned and book a ticket to Pune. I eat crap for three solid meals for over three days and come back to eat at McDonald's because shit it's shutting down. WHATTODO?

First, I don't drop any inches or kilos for two fucking months and just when I feel that starts to happen, I start to binge eat again.

"How's the peanut chocolate? I didn't like the milk coated in rice crispies one. Oh, you don't want yours?" Fuck people distributing food in offices. That shit should have gotten over with celebrating birthdays in school and having pineapple cakes at birthdays. Those two things are legitimately stuff of past.

On a different note, I don't get people who bring back goodies from their vacation, to work. First, you get the privilege to fuck off for a while (lucky cow), then you return to rub it in everyone's face by distributing chocolate or some such to the entire fucking office because you had a gala time, while some of us were stuck in the office with people who believe are finding the cure to cancer.

That's HR's idea of no appraisal, but how about refined sugar and cocoa as vacation leftovers? You get something for being a good girl and sticking around all Summer. Did you see their pictures from Cancun? Oh, how stunning!

There's also not getting beef samosas, beef steak burger and patrani macchi, but I think a Facebook status was more than enough rant about turning my life into turd. I literally booked a return ticket to eat those things and got none of that. Instead, I drank calories in the form of a Thumps Up (which I could have done at home, thank you very much), battled body odour, and cringed at the idea of unclean bedsheets, a pet peeve I never let go since I found this friend's sibling and her boyfriend were having sex on the mattress they had lend me during a trip.

There's also my words here. I write about people and their behaviour towards me turns turd-like.

Instead of people being grateful that I'm immortalising their ridonkulously boring asses on my blog, there are those insufferable, arrogant bastards who look at me like I've infected them with AIDS. Well, if you think you're better, then make yourself better. You are literally a lot more pathetic than my words make you sound like. And, to be honest, writing about you is like doing charity. My right hand does not approve of what my left hand makes you sound like but a girl's gotta live. And write.

It's Friday and it's my writing night tonight. Time to burn bridges and turn gold into turd.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with my blog entry. I just wanted to brag that one out of my three friends think this qualifies as 'literature'.

There's an unsaid idea of work culture that is as old as the idea of "work culture" itself. Joining the masses at work is said to be advantageous. If they laugh, you laugh. If your boss cracks a daddy joke and expects you to give a reaction that you reserve for when you see Dhinchak Pooja memes, by all means, give them that. Like a dead fish, you ought to go with the flow.