Between me and the mountains.

From the thirteenth floor of my cold, figuratively and metaphorically speaking, office, I can see the mountains. Between them and me lie a few skyscrapers, a big slum, people going about town, trees and small jungles, hoardings and poles. And also, a 9 to no-time-to-return-home job, unsigned leave applications, responsibility and obligations, limitations, house rents and emis, city life, dreams and ambitions, literal distance, car that is not serviced, commitments, effort, permissions that ought to be taken, planning and pursuing. Someday I will cross it all. And get there.

I dig

ferns, little labradors, coasters, matchboxes, white flowers, lady bugs, turtles, bulky beer mugs, tea and balconies, photo-frames, creepers, swings, rugs, silver ashtrays, yellow paper, big watch dials, clocks, reading glasses, a bunch of keys, piggy banks, red threads, framed mirrors, low tables, strings, footpaths, railings, railway station benches, white sheets, curtains, bookmarks, smell of varnish, glass bottles, envelopes, brown paper, typewriters, fresh towels, wet pebbles, well sharpened pencils, wet eyes, earthen pots, stairs, straw and hay stacks, toe rings, big windows, sand, mud after rain, caps on boys, calves and collar bones, cycle rides, wanton dupattas, interesting strangers, train journeys, snails and gumboots, hugs, gardens, running tracks, cobble stone streets, incense, gray, cold floors, clefts, parapets, birds, quilts, lazy afternoons, early mornings.

Why must the degree vary?

When you’re in a new city, how do you decide who’s more of a stranger?
The one who randomly approached you somewhere or the one who initiated a conversation at work?
Come to think of it, are both not in the same category?
Why then do you believe and trust someone who meets you in familiar surroundings, say your workplace, or at a friend’s party but be suspicious and wary of the one who approaches you at a coffee shop or a bar?
How come the one who approaches you on the street or a Barista is more of a stranger than the one who showed interest in you at work?
Is it not a possibility that the stranger you trusted because the surroundings were familiar betrays you as opposed to the other one who may be totally harmless.
In a new city, how do you decide who is more of a stranger.
Is everyone not one?

Both

We’re caught between discipline and debauchery.

The quest to choose either is eternal; the rate of success, almost zero. Both are equally tempting. The jogging track pulls you and so does the nearest watering hole. Between the post-run high and the post-drink high, how do you tell the degree of which high is higher? You’re forever falling from grace when temptation calls and at the same constantly making an effort to keep control. Suppression is just as common as the tendency to ‘say-it-all, do-it-all, go-with-the-flow’. One-night stands reluctantly co-exist with the search for true love. Hearts that curl up with fear of commitment also nurse the desire to commit and surrender to someone like they did in old love stories. Stability and wanderlust are both desirable. Smoke filled late hours of the night and fog full early mornings, how do you ever make a choice?

Desired disease

Was reading up the net, which is when I stumbled upon a website explaining Alzheimer's in detail. Splattered with a whole lot of medical jargon, most of which flew above my head. What I gathered though was that the disease has a vital effect on your memory. You lose it, bit by bit, in patches. You forget things, names, people, places, where you are, what you are doing there, your purpose, where you kept your glasses, so on and so forth. The disease or the mind chooses by itself, things that it will forget.

Now here’s my personal angle to the disease. How would it be if we could contract a certain sort of alzheimer's in which we could choose what we want to forget? You lose just the memory that you want to lose.

You could choose to forget smells that come back suddenly while you’re walking down an avenue and take you back to places you’ve been running away from all this while. You could also choose to forget some good people, some bad ones. Or for that matter, piercing words that vaguely indicated that your parents loved you a little less than your smarter, more intelligent sibling. You could choose to forget the sinking feeling in your stomach when a loved one left the city. You could choose to forget betrayals. Regrets. A bad childhood. You could also make a choice and forget the three most painful years of your life. You could then choose to forget some people in total, the way they smelt, talked, walked, reacted, not reacted, smiled, felt. You could choose to forget nasty remarks by relatives. And light moments that are over and cause intense pain because they are over. You could choose to forget hand holding around the car gear, long walks by the ocean, romantic train journeys, shared sunrises and sunsets. You could also choose to forget the texture of someone’s skin.

Roll on

What a rolling stone gathers, only a rolling stone knows.

When it rolls down the mountain and sticks to a thorny raspberry bush, it gathers resilience, it tastes pain, it learns the meaning of hurt.

When it is pushed from behind, it gathers courage and snaps out of the pain, moves ahead. It allows wounds to heal and pain to subside.

The rolling stone lands on a winding road, gets pushed around by fast paced cards, which is when it gathers that it must move faster if it must survive.

The rolling stone at every stage gathers experiences and lessons that encourage him to keep rolling. From the mountains to the city and beyond, the rolling stone is always on the move, pushed by strong gusts of winds that blow every now and then, throwing it in various directions.

It’s only the rolling stone that gathers friends and foes. It’s the rolling stone that gets hit, hurt, played with, loved, used. It’s the rolling stone that sets out on a journey, unaware of the destination. But reaches somewhere everyday in its own little book.

The spirit of all you rolling stones I acknowledge and appreciate, I am one of you. Roll on.

The inevitable.

Go Goa and you don’t lose something? Well, your trip is incomplete. That holds true at least for me and I am sure I can speak/write on behalf of my fellow psychos.
Materialistically and metaphorically speaking, here is a list of things that people usually lose in Goa .

Mobile phones, bags, caps, sunglasses, one sock, one shoe

Sense of time and sense of control

Sleep

Direction ( in every sense of the word)

Mini luggage locks

The white sand beneath as the waves come rushing by

People. As though it were a big school fate

The colour of your skin

The size of your eyes

Many lose their virginity

Inhibitions (I hate this word, but it kept coming back, so just getting it out of my system, please don’t judge me)

Speed

Chappals

The entire point of the post being, I lost my camera!!!

Off-season

Some people come into your life like untimely rain. Brief. Relief. And totally unexpected. Before or after the season. They’re not meant to be around for long, they will not return the next day. They refuse to be bound or rot in relationships. They pour, and leave you either cold forever, warm momentarily, or simply goose fleshed with their touch.