I cried last week.

I don't cry unless I'm compelled to. And then I never cry in public. I don't know why, but some part of me probably perceives it as a sign of weakness.

So I cried last week, and when I did, I was lying in bed, crying silently into my pillow, so that I wouldn't wake up the rest of the house.

I don't particularly enjoy crying, but it's useful, sometimes. When I cry because I'm stressed out and have too much to do, I let the tears fall and sob and sob and sob until there's nothing left to cry about anymore. At the end of it all, I feel slightly better.

But when I cried last week, it wasn't stress. I can handle stress. I might complain and cry and feel exhausted at the end of it all, but I can still handle it. I cried because I had emotions. I felt them and they were overpowering, and I don't handle emotions very well. I didn't cry uncontrollably. I cried a little and stopped and cried again, because I kept telling myself that I needn't let those emotions get the better of me.

I've been crying easily lately, but I suppose that's what happens if you spend six-maybe-seven months feeling slightly sad.

I have a feeling I'm close to hitting what they call 'rock-bottom'.

I'm done.
If I've hurt your feelings, I'm sorry.

Happy new year!

2012 started out fine. It changed colours somewhere along the way. It's been a rough year. Here's to hoping that the new one will treat me better.

Happy new year, fellow bloggers :)

One bad day after another.

Realizing that everything I'd painstakingly put together to keep myself happy, is slowly falling apart, slipping away. I can't fix it. I've tried, failed miserably, and wept.

I wish I could pack a few random objects into a bag and travel around the world. Go to a little-known corner of it, spend a month there in the company of complete strangers, and maybe, just maybe, it'll all come together.

Emotions.

So many emotions, they will overwhelm me soon. I could've gotten rid of them as soon as they appeared. I could've tried. No, I let them be, I let them grow, I encouraged them. I let myself believe in them. I threw logic and reason out of the window. I let my emotions paint me into what can only be called a mess.

And one fine day it all hits me, and my pen traces the words this is stupid, in barely legible writing, yet again.

The emotions remain. They will continue to torment me.

You remind me time and again why I love losing myself in a good book, quietly letting it take me where it wills.

A-year-and-six-months

"You know how people say 'something inside me just died'? Well, that's what happened to me." - S

As she put it so well. We'll miss you.

Last month was a whirlwind of birthdays and emotions and tests and stress and tears, all of which resulted in frayed nerves.

I see the two of them nearly every day and form opinions that no one understands, or agrees with. They simply add to the clutter in my head. I've been putting this and that off for so long, because I can't think these days. Unfortunately, I also care about you enough to make my head explode once in a while. And you have no idea, so this makes me look like a pathetic little mess.

September, treat me well, please.

August

It's been a while. We seem to be wandering in circles, and your circles are just like mine, but we aren't getting anywhere. Meanwhile, life must go on and the usual things demanding my attention must be attended to.

I know I shouldn't hide anything from you but there'd be problems with that, just as there are problems with everything else. And then I wonder why I feel so stressed out.

As much as I don't want to, I could safely ignore you for...a month? Two, maybe?

It takes only a few minutes of being around them and their infectious smiles to forget about everything else, to stop listening to the voices in my head. Oh, how I adore them. I'm glad they exist.

I wish they'd talk to me every minute of every day.

Three weeks of not being able to channelize my mental faculties into something productive. I knew I was given to the occasional daydream or two, but of all the voices in my head, his is the loudest and the most convincing. I've been giving in, every time, listening wordlessly.

A few hundred photographs. I looked at them, one by one, permitting every little detail to find itself a permanent place in my head. Soon, my field of vision was full of vivid colours and distorted shapes. I relived every little memory I could recollect. Photograph after photograph swam in front of my eyes, each one bringing back a flood of memories. Recent memories. I blinked furiously to suppress the tears that were long overdue. I knew that it would never, ever be the same.

***

"How long do you think you'll carry on like this?"

It was one of the several questions she asked me. Her voice was definitely distorted over the phone. But I knew that tone. It was the one I always use when I want to drill sense into her. She was trying to do the same thing to me, because I needed it.

I couldn't answer.

Last Week

The pages of words and numbers and odd symbols in front of me don't always make sense. Nevertheless, they're engaging. I like having something to do. Moreover, it keeps my mental faculties from brooding over things that will probably never be; events that, in all likelihood, will never come to pass.

***

We talk and talk about trust, and many other things, besides. Your trust and my trust and his trust and her trust and how I do not trust people easily. I don't trust any of them, I shoot back. Some part of me wonders why. I'm glad I can trust her. And her. And so many of them. And him, of course.

I've always hated how I seem to have walls around me, walls that are hard to breach, if not impossible to breach altogether. Yesterday, I realized that it probably works to my advantage.

***

I did not get hurt. Or emotionally blackmailed. Or played with. Or any of the horrible things they've been through. I'm glad.

Finally, I know I've made the right choice. I don't care if the things that my over-active imagination envisions never happen. I know I'm safe, and perfectly happy.

Baarish and Life

The first little drizzles of the season have arrived, bringing with them the characteristic grey shadows that cloak our little world. I've always loved wet weather, although my reasons for being so fond of the rain are ever-changing.

Rain in Bombay spelled the end of the unbearably hot and sticky summer months, so everyone welcomed the torrents of water that would fall from the skies every June. The rain would also turn the city's streets into waist-deep streams, and one would have to wade through them, hoping fervently that nothing questionable lurked in their murky depths. As children, we loved it. But as we grew older, it turned into a much-dreaded exercise, and by the end of it, we would be tired and chilled to the bone. There ended the charm of the monsoon rains, as far as Bombay was concerned. Someone who'd lived in the city long enough would appreciate the inexplicable beauty the flooded streets possessed when it rained. I happened to be one of them.

But it's so different here. The rain washes away months of dust and soothes frayed nerves caused by the oppressive summer heat. Both heaven and earth wear a look of such freshness, as if the water has sent new life coursing through their vast expanses. Everything around me is so vibrant, the colours are deep and speak of newfound energy, and the grey shadows cast by the overbearing clouds are a welcome shield from the harsh sun; not harbingers of gloom, as many people would say. The world around me, and every living creatue in it, seems alive, all of a sudden.

And I can almost feel them calling out to me, to join their joyous exultation, to be a part of Life itself. An enormous circle devoid of both beginning and end.

A few things I'd like to yell at myself for.

Get all the facts right before you blame people for things they haven't even done.

Don't read between the lines all the time, for goodness' sake. And when you do, you don't need to get worked up.

Can't you send him to the back of your head for one day? Is it really necessary to give him so much of your attention?

You've always loved yourself for not being judgemental, but when you develop an irrational dislike for someone  and you know it's here to stay, no matter what other people say; aren't you being a hypocrite?

He hasn't done anything wrong. Do you really have to be so mean to him?

Isn't it a little stupid that you care about him so much, but he's blissfully unaware of this?

You're being silly. You've disappointed me.

Bombay

Something is definitely different about this place.

On the surface, it hasn't changed much. The old divisions are still the same. SoBo, the suburbs, New Bombay, everything else. Marine Drive is still Marine Drive. Juhu Beach and Chowpatty are still as crowded as ever.  Every inch of this city has retained its aura of chaos. When has anything about this city ever been pre-planned, when has it ever been static? Bombay has always been about spontaneity, contradictions, surprises, and the unknown. How else would millions of migrants have come to live here, accepted by the locals, and become the beginnings of a culture so unique, so dynamic and ever-changing? True, we migrants (or children, or grandchildren of migrants) still stick to some of our old idiosyncrasies. If, like me, you happen to have South Indian parents, you know you'll end up in Matunga every so often, getting coffee beans ground just the way you like it, so you can savour filter coffee at home, every day. But I digress.

Some things change for the better. But some don't. And what is horribly different about this place is the attitude that its people seem to wear. It's all very good to organize charity events and protest marches for various issues, but they don't seem to lead us anywhere. People are getting murdered and raped and tortured and criminals seem to roam free on the streets, and nobody cares about the madness the city is slipping into. The scary kind of madness, not the chaotic madness the city is so well-accustomed to.

Oh, if you've got money, you can lead the good life, and none of these things matter. Or so we think.

This city has always been so beautiful, and it does not deserve a fate so tragic.