MystiqueSpeak

Once, I was given a butterfly.

It must've been four years ago, maybe.
I was waiting for him, in an empty school. Perched on the bar of a free-standing basketball hoop, a few feet above the ground. A couple of small girls chattered away by my side, I was supposed to be watching them.
Suddenly, I'm shoved in the back. I involuntarily jump off the bar and turn to see him. standing there.
He grins at me, his fist is raised.

The fist opens, releasing an orange butterfly, which flits away.

In the background of my mind, I hear the little girls chorus "Ewwwww!" but I'm too busy smiling.

To date, that remains the most unusual thing anyone's ever done for me.
But then again, he was never a conventional guy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know I haven't written in over a month. I haven't been feeling it. I've been low, and I've tried to raise my spirits. In many ways.
A large part of my Diwali break was spent chilling in and around Bombay. I got a new camera. It's my baby. I'm delighted, yes.

Another birthday has come and gone. It started well, and ended better...thanks to my lovely, lovely friends. And in the middle, I had to attend college. The night, well, it had flames, and it had cake. And wonderful people.
I don't feel any older or wiser, really. But age, it's in the head, isn't it? I feel ageless.
I am ageless.

Let it be said that I love food blogs. Well, blog. The Pioneer Woman is as good as it gets. Because she is awesome. And provides step-by-step photos that make your hungry. And she makes it look oh-so-easy, and it is! And this is food with a ton of butter and cheese in everything. Mmm.
Also, Bakerella and her cake pops are adorable.

Meanwhile.

I am studying! Finally! I realise that I tend to stress-eat around exams, like during my 10th grade boards when I baked many batches of very dark brownies and ate them all, or during the end of 12th grade when there always, always had to be mini-croissants in the house, many of them. These days, I make do with whatever's at home. My current way of dealing is forgetting that any time between now and the night of Oct 15th even exists. I'm in limbo. No dates, no days. Just notes. Bed. And whatever food's around. And the images in my head.

Bags are half packed, rather neatly if I may say so myself. Just have to dump in my shoes and straightener, and find the keys to that bag. So that I can lock it.

In five years, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be that girl who goes to her friend's weddings stag and hangs out sipping Cuba Libres (assuming my tastes don't change for a while) and hitting on hot guys.

Disclaimer: For censorship reasons (obviously) we have had to replace a certain four-letter word, crucial to this piece, with 'beep'; we apologize if the impact is lost.

I ache to write. I long to get the spark of an idea, it doesn't have to be phenomenal, any idea, and I want to catch it and trap it down on paper even as it struggles to escape me, pin in down with the lines and curves that form my near-illegible handwriting. I will write about people I know, and the people that come out of the depths of my head. I will...create.

I packed a fast bag after my first paper on the 30th (so fast, in fact, that I forgot to pack in my underwear and had to return for it the next morning before my paper) and went to meet KayDee at Dadar.

I wish I were older than the stars

I have not much to write right now. So, the photos. I'm loving my new Nokia 6303 (low budget, to compensate for the loss of my MOTOK1.), more for the camera than anything else. It helps greatly when I'm bored.

Mom left yesterday so now it's just me.

It RAINED. And even though I live on the main road in urban jungle, I could smell that smell, the smell of freshly rained-on mud. Bliss.

Lessons learnt over the past three days fron life, Zaiu, mom and Jai Hind college:

You're the rum in my coke
The puff in my smoke

The vada on my pav
You're my hugs and my love

The rocks on my beach,
Th credit in my phone

Ragda to my pattice
The flesh to my bone

You're the pillow on my bed
You're the voice in my head.

You're the blood in my heart,
You're the apple in my tart.

You're the red on my nails
You're the To: in my mails.

You're my little love-smile
You're the sparkle in my eyes.
You're among the best hugs ever
And I'm the reason for those lies.

You're the coffee in my cream
You're those eyes in my dream.

You're the only reason
I'm writing this bad mush,
So shut up and read
and don't make a fuss.

I've tortured you enough
With my over-cliched lines,
So I'll end with more cliche.
I'm yours, you're mine.

I'm learning....
To shorten the strap on my jhola so that it hangs at my waist and not my butt.
Which side to get off the train at Andheri and which side at Dadar.
To cross roads like a mad mosquito.
To wake up late.
That listening to music on the road will one day kill me.
To always, always keep change on me. Always.

It drizzled yesterday. You can't even call it rain. First drizzle. Hit me in the face as I hung out of the train on my way home. That's my nightly pick-me-up...I hang out of the train, as far as I can go, and I sing to myself. The tunes meandering around my head find their way out.

I've found waves and rocks. In Bombay. Bandra bandstand, sitting on the rocks with a friend, gazing over the panorama and the sun shining onto the waves. Crash. Couple haven, how many? Kids. Cat. Crowd. Nowhere close to my bliss-point wall at Shatti. But for Bombay, it's great. And it's close to home. I will be back there. Soon.

I've finally got books. I purr in contentment.

My results are out tomorrow morning. I am trying very hard not to think about this. See, ideally, I wanted to be sloshed the night before the results...but it doesn't seem like that's gonna happen. Tomorrow, Facebook statuses (statii?) all over are going to be either triumphant or defeated, shouting out numbers to the multiverse. My boards passed in a numbness, the moth after that was the most alive I've been. I'm Very Happy now, and I badly want to stay that way.

And after a year and a half of anticipation and whatnot, I'm finally in Bombay.
It's humid. grrr. I can handle dry heat, I've lived in a country that gets to 45 degrees Celsius in summer. But dry. This is humid. Fans on full blast, sweat running down my back in a most irritating way.
Alphonso mangoes. Lots of them at my place. So it's not just sweat running down me.
I'm loving life. Mom seemed rather amazed that I actually dragged myself to Andheri to meet Rushi just an hour after I got home. Home is Sion, by the way.
"How didja GO??" she asks. "Umm, walk to Sion Circle and then rickshaw." I reply.
"Wow."
What's wow, I ask. No, just didn't expect you to go all the way to Andheri your first day there.
Weird.
But yes, I did do that, I met Rushi, I met Ani, I met Jai, and there was CCD and bad stories and so much laughter that our stomachs hurt. So much.
Home, however, I must get used to. I'm so used to Mom knowing me. Like, knowing not to pay ANY attention when I mutter to myself or grumble in frustration at everything from over-affectionate cats to defunct internet connections.
But Mom's not here, I've got my grandmom and my aunt who constantly ask what I want, and tell me to lower the volume or no, that mango's a little spoilt, take another. I've told them that it is essential that they: 1. Do not worry about me, just leave me to my own devices. 2. Pay no attention to my mutterings. Because I am indeed muttering a lot these days. Lol.
But yeah, it's good out here despite everything. And it can only get better. So cheers to me and all.

Yeah, so I'm leaving tomorrow yadayada. And I think (just think mind ya) that out of all the people I love and will miss out here, I might just love (not miss though) you the most.
Chikki, thanks a lot. For everything. What everything?
Ok, here goes.
Thanks for being my partner in crime and punishment in Manali. Yeah I don't think there was anything we didn't get our asses kicked for, except maybe eating and tooth-brushing. And sleeping. Like, in our own tents. Haha.
Also you were the only other girl close to the front of the group most of the trip. Yay.
Thanks for...I don't know, for teaching (but not really teaching, more like helping me realize) a lot about love and friendship and even a lot of stuff about myself. And I don't mean the 85+ item long list.
Thanks for letting me know the little bit of yourself that you did. And thus I understand you. Then again, maybe not, oui? You know best.
Thanks for the shared D'Arcy's lunches (and the CAKE!!) and for getting me COMPLETELY hooked onto How I Met Your Mother.
Thanks for, you know, all the hangings-out at your place. Hammock and Barbican and the guys. For the crazy-ass dancing with the guys where me made fun of the girls.
And for a lot more and all....
Yeah yeah I know you're gonna hate me for even posting this up, but I was gonna do it anyway. And it'll fuel the narcissism I know you have. So all is good, oui?

Oh and thanks for the huge hugs. The kind we LOVE.
So yeah, Chikki, I love you. Hug hug, and I hope you guys don't move, so I'll see you soon.

High tide, wave sounds, shades of blue. why so beautiful?

On that wall, I've sat so many times over the last two years. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. I've never felt sad there. That wall is bliss-point. At high tide, the waves curl over themselves and crash on the stairs below. They tease my feet, so foamy, so light, but never do I go down the stairs and dip my toes in, because like everything else, it's all an illusion, and instead of an airy lightness bubbling over my toes, it'll be cold and wet. I'm perfectly happy just endlessly watching the waves.

Dad has acquired a beautiful new pearl-white Prado. Mom was out today, so Dad and I decided to take to Prado off the beaten track, go places we haven't been in a while.
I wanted to go to Yiti beach, I'd seen this house nearby which was rather delicately decorated with shells all over the wall. The last time I'd been there, it looked like a ghost village, almost.
So we set off, on the new road. Pretty soon, all traces of the city were gone, the road seemed endless. Placed between craggy hills on either side, the only sign of civilisation being telephone poles, and the winding white lane divider.


Where the road goes, nobody knows. T'is not the destination we seek, but the journey. The road goes on, endlessly, till it seems the mountains will swallow you and you will be one with the soil of Oman...
We knew which way to go, Dad never forgets a road. But we had time on our hands. And new roads had been built. So every time we saw a turning away from Yiti, we took it. We followed it till the end, and then turned back to the Yiti road. Once we found the tarmac giving way to a steep graded road. A journey for another day. The next Detour found us at the gates of an unstarted beach resort project.
Back to the Yiti road.
We passed villages, here and there. Clusters of houses with makeshift garages of green gauze, shielding family vehicles from the blazing heat. A few boys playing, youths sitting around on steps, quietly chatting. And goats. Lots of goats. Silky goats on their hind legs stripping branches of their leaves. Thin little kids gambolling, tails waggling. Goat family crossing the road in front of our behemoth vehicle. Brown goats, beige goats, white goats, basking in the shade like lazy cats. Goats sleeping anywhere and everywhere.

Yiti was one of the first places we reached, before the many detours. The quiet vast beach we remembered had receded far away from the road, the land leveled for a resort project that had not started. It had run out of money, Dad said. They've spoilt everything, he said. I quite agreed.
I got out to take a few goat-y photos, as out of place there with my shorts and huge camera as a cat at a dog show, and I saw the sea peek at me from between houses.

We did finally find the house with the shells at Yiti. It wasn't as beautiful as my mind remembered. But it was still unique. And the epiphany was in the journey, not the destination.

Oman is beautiful.