Hobby

A secret? Okay, okay. If you insist.

So I was flying back to Bombay from London, a good long nine-hour flight. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just come out. I'd bought the book the day before and painstakingly managed to resist opening it until I got onto the plane. I gazed at the cover art for sereval minutes, running my fingers over the hard spine, and finally opened the tome as the flight took off.
Three chapters into it, the man on my right spoke.
"So, flying to Bombay, eh?"
Aha. An annoying Indian uncle trying to make new friends.
"Yes." I mutter, nose deep in my book.
"Came to visit boyfriend in London? Heh-heh."
"No." A page turns.
And so it went on, my nerves shredding finer with every word he spoke. He was even chattier after the air hostess brought him his drink. ("Oh you don't know what a patiala peg is? Arrey you've obviously never been to Delhi then. Let me pour you one?)
                                                                      *****
The plane was dark. Everyone slept. Everyone except me. My reading light was the only one on, my mind was in the Ministry of Magic...
"So, you like to read?"
...and I'm snapped out of it, back in a too-small seat with no legroom.
"Obviously." Irritated fingers tap the spine of the book.
"It's a good hobby," he said, settling back into his seat.

My head snapped right to look at him for the first time, hatred in my eyes.
                                                                   *****
The rest of the night went quite peacefully. I even managed to finish the book.
"He's asleep," I told an air-hostess while exiting the plane. I pointed at the uncle-ji, his head slumped down, shawl-covered. "Do wake him. I didn't have the heart to."
As I stepped out into the humid Bombay air, I inspected my book.
I'm just glad I didn't get any of his blood on it.
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Fiction. But I do loathe the word 'hobby'. Reading is not a 'hobby'. No.

How to get over writer's block.

Somewhere, in the multiverse that is your mind, there is a floating graveyard. stretching out towards towards the horizon. It is a dark place, but then most graveyards are. Push open the gates, listen to them creak gloomily. Walk in.

Meander among the headstones, reading inscriptions. Here lies the first realisation of sin. There, a fallen god, long forgotten. Here are notions, ideas. What could have been, but never was. Designs, stories, machines. Concepts. A child that was never conceived, but sorely wanted. A dress pattern that didn't work, a screenplay that was never written, a movie that was never made.
Touch a gravestone. Feel its cracks. Stand before it and hear the ghost of an idea whisper your name. Take out of your pocket the notebook you always carry (you know you do). Now, with the ghost in your mind, write.

Halfway.

One day, he finally snapped.

He was tired. Tired of trying so hard not to mope. (For other people’s sakes more than his own. If it was up to him, he’d settle into a seat with a drink and glare at the universe till the end of eternity.) Tired of being the one at parties with the blazing eyes and the sad smiles. Tired of having to remove himself from company so he didn’t upset the ones who loved and worried about him. But most of all, he could not anymore handle being around his girlfriend (he couldn’t bring himself to think of her as his ex, no, not even six months later) who 

would not have him back.

So he left.

He packed everything he truly needed into a small backpack. Many books to read, a notebook to write in, a pen to write with, and music to save him. A photo of her.

He walked. For hours, days, he didn’t know. He walked till he had run out of thoughts. That was when he saw the house.

The sign on the gate said ‘Here live those whom love hath taken away’. He looked at it for a long time. Observed the quaint little garden, the empty swing, the shed. Then he entered the house.

Around a table sat people young and old, sharing stories. Memories. Remnants of souls wrung dry.

“I’m here because I can’t be anywhere else. Back there, all I think of is her, after she…she died. This is the only place I can sleep. I’ve been here so long…nothing matters anymore.” Grizzled old man, hands shaking.

“She filed for divorce. I got fed up of all the sympathy, the worried looks. Fuck that,” says another.

A photo thrown onto the table. The thrower sits in a corner, a seeming poster-child for the starved and the gender confused. “She killed herself.” Throaty voice, barely female. “She slit her wrists because her family wouldn’t let us be together. She just too the easy way out, didn’t she? Didn’t wonder what I’d have to do. What I can’t do.”

There is anger in the room. There is grief. There are memories, craved for, never to come back. There is yearning. There is love.

There is acceptance that comes only when you know everyone here’s hit bottom just as hard as you have.

He swings his bag to the floor and settles into a chair.

He’s home. 

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Extra points to you if you get the 'poster-child for the starved and the gender confused' reference.

Written...a few days after the last karaoke night. Possibly for someone I'll never actually show it to. 

In a parallel universe of grainy monochrome, she sits on a pavement with her hair hanging over her shoulders and smoke curls escaping her parted lips.

It is raining.

Smoke winds through the raindrops, dispersing into mist.

Stub it out, throw it away.

Roll another, yes please.

She closes her eyes and puts black pen to white ruled paper.

Stringing words together like beads, thoughts flow in black inky veins from head to hand to black pen to black ink on white paper. Letters curling out to fill a page, mind and soul laid bare on paper.

Pick up the sheet. Careful, don’t spill the thoughts. Gingerly roll it all up. It’s all there. Tamp it down into a beautiful neat cylinder.

Ignite.

Inhale deeply.

She leans back and lets the smoke curl away into the rain.

It’s the only high worth having.

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Written a month an a half ago on a late night on the way home from Blue Frog, with The Doors curling into my brain. Putting it up now because I have nothing else. 


It's been a while, I know. Tonight, I'm flying from one furnace-like city to another. Again, mental disconnect from place, from most people, from everything. Lie on a beach, map out my brain. Shoot, run, lie on cold tile and pester my cats for some love.

The smiles have gone,
There was a time when she could smile without thinking, when laughter would bubble out of her like sludge from a malfunctioning drain. When it didn't take much to make her laugh, smile, giggle, chortle, guffaw, grin.
Not any more.
She's always in the middle of the group, laughing, joking.
But look carefully at her face.
Her mouth curls.
Her eyes yearn.
Beseech.
Envy.
Want.
All she wants is to smile.

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Conceived in rehearsal, when I could only fake-smile. Written later, so it didn't turn out like I wanted it to. Thanks to Aldish for the edit advice.

Dear SPai.

Stop seeking it. Stop seeking fluid for your words, eyes for the images you want to create. Stop searching for things, people, to complete you, for you are whole. Stop looking to fill the emptiness because your eyes are closed to the fullness of your life. Stop looking for love from others, because all the love you get won't matter if you have no love for yourself. Stop trying to be me and burning the bridges back to yourself. Stop seeking to be someone else, a shadow, a projection, for you have nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. Stop shutting away your joys and your tears, your smiles and your fears.
Just stop.
Stop. Let everything be still, and look forward into the wind and the waves and everything will be better than just okay.
And as long as you have me, you'll never be alone.
Love, Myst.

It's been an insanely happy day. Very balanced. Just. I *studied*. And I had a Double Chocolate from CBTL and a Bachelor's Special on the same day. Yay!

Grey

There is no morning. There is no evening. Only grey.
No sunrise, no sunset.
Shades of grey.
Time doesn't make sense any more, everything looks the same.

Breeze.
"It's so lovely."
"Let's drink some chai."
"Old Monk and Coke!"
What wonderful weather. Make excuses for the lack of blue. No colour. No...light.
Cross your fingers and hope the sky doesn't fall on your head.

It rains.
For hours. Days. Weeks. The calendar is drenched. The clock has stopped. There's water in the gears.
Wake up arbitrarily. Go out. Work. Come back. Drenched. Like a wet cat. Have you ever seen a happy cat in the rain?
No.

The day the blue skies and the breeze are back is the day we'll stop shaking our fists at the universe.

Uniform.

Some days, I tumble out of bed, late by a crucial five minutes, and stare at all the clothes crammed into my two shelves, wondering what to wear that I haven't worn in a while.

Sometimes, I wear the same pair of pants for a week, every day, because I'm either too late or too lazy to find anything new.

Some days, I miss the uniform. 

Sure, I've left my school days behind, and the grey uniform with them, but there is something to be said for the comfort that a uniform offers you. Button up the shirt, pull the pinafore, fresh from mom's iron, over your head, and you're good to go. No need to stand before the mirror wondering if this shirt goes with these pants and whether I need leggings with that skirt. No worries about whether you looked femme or butch or cool or funky. The uniform was cool.

Yes, we did crib about the length of the skirt, and we did crib about it being a pinafore instead of a skirt-and-shirt. We'd wear them loose, with the waistband cradling our hip bones, a few inches hacked off the skirt. Socks carefully folded close to the ankles. This took a mere five minutes, and I'd have time for a real breakfast. 

I wouldn't want college to have a uniform, obviously, because that time is gone. Just saying, I shouldn't have cribbed so much when I had to wear it, because when you're in uniform, there isn't much room for a fashion faux pas.

Taken from something that the girl in uniform up there said to me yesterday.

Rage against Machines.

Power on.

A screen lights up.

Why get out of the house, or even her bed, when she has the world on her lap?
Good Morning.

Outside is inclement weather, traffic, stress. A hundred people with a hundred different demands. Outside: Bad. Inside: Good. In here, she can sit in her soft bed, with the A/C on, with a mug of coffee by her side, and watch the world unfold.

Windows popping up. MSN, oovoo, Facebook, Twitter.

Friends? They're all here, all of them. Who else does she need? She can talk to you, typing is talking, isn't it?
What? You want to hear her voice? Fine, then, she'll switch on the webcam, plug in the mic. Video conferencing is a wonder, isn't it?

Outside is limited. Stepping out of the house, she can only see so much. Just one city, just the rain, the trains, the same people everyday. The same language, same college, same routes. After a while, it gets old, doesn't it?
The world's on her lap, she's connected to everywhere and everyone, it's magical and wonderful and she doesn't have to move an inch. A few words typed in, a tap of the Enter key, and she can see geisha from Kyoto, and Valentino's fall line. Read newspapers from New York and London side by side. Watch movies that released internationally months ago, but still haven't come to her city. With a little patience, she can have her favourite TV shows without having to hunt for the remote.

So connected. She can access everyone, and everyone can access her. Even more, maybe, than if she actually went out. Isn't this so much better? So much less effort? Twitter, FourSquare, Facebook. What wonder. She knows what everyone's doing, even if they're a continent away. She has them tracked.

She hasn't been out of the bed in a week, there's a pile of dirty dishes on the floor and a pack of cookies by her side. She's gained 10 kilos in a month. She's smiling, the glow from the 13 inch screen illuminating her face. Her eyes ache....
She will power off only to sleep at night.

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A rather disturbing half-piece that came to me just before I woke up. (Yes, the dreams HAVE gone, for now. Joy.) It seemed much better then, as always, I should just have written it down.

I finally got a new laptop battery, and it doesn't seem to be working. The laptop doesn't boot, and when it does, it takes aaaaaaaaaages. It works just fine with the old battery, though. I'm a little disturbed that I liken this whole situation to a transplant, where the patient doesn't accept the transplanted organ, or something like that. Likening my laptop, in effect a machine, to a sentient being. Who can maybe hear me mentally, and sometimes loudly, curse and plead at it.

That's how the above bit came out, in a fit of anger today, I was grumbling at this generation's almost-dependance on...well, I suppose computers is a given, I guess...Facebook. The internet. Connectivity. I hear last week, many celebrated Quit Facebook day...though I don't think anyone I know actually did it. We're too scared of losing out, aren't we? Especially people like me, and so many others I know who've shifted cities and leave old friends behind...we live our lives, but FB's a boon to us, isn't it? We keep up, kind of.

It's rather sad, actually. And the most we'll do is deactivate our accounts for a while, and then get back on.

It's really quite tragic.

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

Now Re-reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Now Feeling: Tired. I should sleep less. And write more. Like, physically. With pen and paper.

Playing with Mr Brightside

I'm coming out of my cage and I've been doing just fine gotta gotta be down because I want it all

Sitting on the parapet under a light drizzle, flicking an old lighter on and off. The sound soothes me, the flame keeps dying. Waiting for someone who’ll never come back; not everyone holds on to old flames like I do.

It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this, it was only a kiss, it was only a kiss

I see lips. Parted lips. Soft lips. Pretty lips. They’re the last thing I see before I close my eyes and smile.

Now I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab while he's having a smoke and she's taking a drag

I taught you how to smoke. You tried to smoke one of my cigs and dissolved into a coughing mess. Somehow, smoking someone else’s lights makes you more unfaithful than actually sleeping with him.

Now they're going to bed and my stomach is sick and it's all in my head

Watching a cab pull up on the street below me, giggles, high-heels clacking. A window lights up opposite me.

But she's touching his-chest now, he takes off her dress now, letting me go

The sheets on my bed are still rumpled, but the candles have burned out. Rose petals on the floor, a pretty pout. You don’t remember any of this, it’s a wisp of smoke in your head, now gone. I light my last cig of the day.

And I just can't look, its killing me…and taking control

Some cigarette ash falls onto my arm, I gasp and then surrender the small mark on my arm to the drizzle outside my balcony. In the window, there are shadows. Silhouettes. Now the light goes off. I lean my head back and blow out smoke.

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies

I used to watch you while you slept sometimes. Hogging the covers, your mouth all pouty, curled up in a little feline ball. I’d stroke your hair once, and then go to sleep with you fitting close against me like the last piece of the puzzle.

Choking on your alibis
But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
'Cause I'm Mr Brightside

Somehow, this song always manages to remind me of someone or the other.

It's weird, sometimes, that's the song I listen to when I'm sad, so I can be sadder, and then I listen to the words, But when I'm happy I listen to the tune and how the same few notes roll round and round.

Such a strange song.

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Playing with the lyrics of one of my favourite songs. I heard the song, I thought of you, I thought I should write. I reaffirm that I do not smoke.

A story about ethics, or something like that.

The characters: Tiger, Failboat, Spinach, Nikon. And, to some extent, the Man. You know, the proverbial Man who puts us all down? Also known as the System. The actual Man is an Assistant Vice Principal.

The setting: A fictional high school in a fictional multiverse. Note: Tiger is Head Boy of this school.

The background: Last October, after a party to which absolutely everyone was invited, these four split. After a bit of a discussion, they decide to not go home at all, and just...go where the fates and the winds and the cabs take them. So off they went, to normally crowded spots on the beach that were now so quiet, and then, bored and hungry, they went to the airport, post midnight. Everything else was closed. They ate, they chilled, and then they came back to the beach to watch the sunrise. All very cool, and if I belonged to that multiverse, I'd have been jealous.
Now here's the cinch. Still way back in October, one of them published a note about it. On Facebook. Referred to as Nomadic Night.
That was in October 2009. Since then, Nikon has left the school.

The Story:
It's happened a couple of times, the principal telling Tiger that he's received 'disturbing reports', and alluding to Facebook. I did wonder about the jurisdiction of a school over our cyber-lives. I mean, everyone's heard that with times and tech changing, we must too. Everyone's heard that applicants for prestigious jobs are thoroughly googled. I even read an article where college applicants changed their Facebook names so that they couldn't be found. But this isn't a job. This isn't a college application, this is school. And this...is somewhat out of the blue.
So, one fine day in April 2010, the vice principal called Tiger into his office to tell him that someone had seen the note about Nomadic Night, and lodged a complaint. I may need to add here, that there were photos in the note. And the first of those photos was taken at a home bar, with one of them holding up a bottle. Tiger told the Vice Principal that no one drank that night, and that even though they did stay out all night, the bar and the bottle was just a gag.
The Man was not happy about this note, as it gave a 'bad impression' or something like that.
On a bright and early Saturday in April, Tiger was called to the Vice Principal's office in the presence of all the AVPs, and was told that the School Committee had decided to ask him to resign his post as Head Boy. After Tiger's parents met all the authorities concerned, and Tiger submitted an apology letter, the decision was reconsidered at a meeting of the committee. Tiger submitted a resignation yesterday.

My point here is this. The person who put up the note has pretty tight privacy settings. How then, did anyone find it? And also, my main issue here. This is school. The characters in my story are barely 17. On Nomadic Night, no one was near the school, no one FROM the school was hurt, they did nothing related to the school in any manner.
Why then, is the school looking into something so unrelated? It's all...a not-so-thin line about privacy, and how much of ourselves we put online. A party isn't a party till it's on facebook, haven't I heard that before? Facebook is...the public's Page 3. Or something like that. I think I'm losing my point.

Opinions about the incident appreciated.

Beyond the Frame

Note: Credit for title goes to SNam.

Sitting at my usual booth in the bar earlier tonight, watching, waiting for someone worth my attention to come in, I saw her.

She was perched on a bar stool, so tall that her toes just skimmed the floor. Her black dress stopped at her knees, giving me a glorious view of a pair of perfectly arched legs, ending with the trademark red soles of her black Louboutin stilettos. Her hair was piled up in a messy chignon, and above the collar of her coat, I could see the beginnings of a tattoo on the nape of her neck.

Indeed, this woman was intriguing. So intriguing, in fact, that I lacked the courage to go over and talk to her, at least immediately. I nursed my drink and watched her.

The bartender smiled at her and put a mug of beer in front of her. I saw her reflection in the bar mirror smile back at him before taking a long sip of her drink. You don’t see too many women who like beer…this one was definitely my type, and as the minutes ticked by, I stared, fascinated. She put the mug down, leaving a perfect scarlet lip-print on the rim. That would have made such a wonderful photograph…that beer mug, with froth spilling down the side of the glass, and that immaculate lip-print. A visual treat, hinting at something beyond the frame of the picture.

That’s it. In five minutes, I thought, I was going to go up to her and say…what? I didn’t know. Something smooth and charming and witty. I’d make it up on the spot.

As I gathered the remaining shreds of courage, watching her, a man walked up to her. I was transfixed, I couldn’t go there till she had finished with him and (I hoped) turned him away, could I? I sat in my chair, melting in a puddle of my own cowardice. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

She turned to him, and said something, so soft I just barely caught the words….

“You’ll have to pay me in advance”

He slipped her a hundred dollar bill, which she hastily stashed in her coat pocket. Then she gulped down the remains of her drink and eased herself off the stool, taking his hand.

As they walked out the door, my heart shattered into a million pieces.

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I haven't written fiction in a while, so my apologies if this is a bit...shaky. It comes from me trying to do justice with words to an image in my head.

Beep.

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.

Beep.

Bee Eeh Eeh Pee. Beep.

Terrible little four letter word that taints my soul each time I utter it.

It's almost become like a mantra now, we regrettably admit, and only the clenching of our teeth stops us from spewing it out at the worst of times, in front of family and impressionable children.

On bad mornings, the first thought one's mind articulates, and one's mouth mutters, is a long-drawn painful 'Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep'. Beep dances in one's head, and rolls on the back of the tongue till one has fully woken up.

As the heat grows/you get irritated/NOISE grows, the one thought mulling, fermenting in your brain? Beep. Beep me, Beep you. Go beep yourself. I don't give a beep. Beep, beep, beep.

And with every bee eeh eeh pee, your headache swells. And why not?

It's a terrible thing, this bee eeh eeh pee, and we don't seem to realise it. Don't seem to realise that it has infiltrated our vocabulary, that for some of us, it has crossed the line, from being a cussword to a mere punctuation mark, a vocal tic in every beeping sentence, and I just illustrated that for the reader's benefit.

It's turned genteel ladies into foulmouths. It USED to differentiate between the well mannered upper crust and the crass low class, but apparently not any more. Now we're ALL pretty much beeped.

Beep doesn't discriminate by caste, class, colour or gender. Beep is a virus. Uttered by the 11 year old schoolboy who's trying to be all badass to impress, by the frustrated college student with deadlines, everyone.

So here it is, BEEP. We've reached the pinnacle of the cussword hierarchy, after decades of politesse. We've done something great, we've reached up to take that unattainable elitist bee eeh eeh pee and its relatives, and we've brought it down to the masses.

What next?

Vouloir

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 long to do random dance steps everywhere, but I don't. I'm waiting for the moment when I realise that my body is finally one with the beat.

I want to click. To capture light and shade. To freeze time into millions of pixels. To see the unusual in the ordinary. To frame life as it passes me by.

But I'll never get any of it done if all I do is want and wait.

Readying herself for bed, Juliet heard a sound

T’was the feet of brave Romeo, hitting the ground

From the wall into her orchard he has jumped

Adrenalin and love his systems have pumped

He opens his mouth, delivers a dose of sap:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady, O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

Ay me, thinks Julie, what do I say

This silly Casanova will not go away…

“Tis thy name that is my enemy, you cannot have me.

Oh, don’t protest, together we cannot be”

Says the emo Romeo, “Then if it is so

To the afterlife I will have to go

First I leave Rosaline, then I lose you

I now know what I have to do”

He shed a tear, and drew his sword

He slit his throat and thus kept his word.

Juliet she stared, and then gave a little shrug

The poor little chap must have been on a drug

Then she went back inside, before her mirror she did preen

For the lace-clad lover in her bed, her fair Rosaline.

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Just something I was trying out. Yes, the 'sap' IS lifted directly from the balcony scene. Please do not bash me for 'destroying' one of the greatest ever love stories. Literature is free to interpretation and all that.

On a slightly darker note, college has resumed, after them exams and that teeny break. It's a royal pain trying to wake up in the morning.

Thin girls hate mirrors too

A skinny girl in a department store will sigh

"Everything's too large, nothing in my size"

To the kids section maybe they must go

But to the innocence there, they'll say no.

Fat girls will look into mirrors

With mind, chiselling away flabby horrors

Thin girls sigh at the angles

At stick arms that can't even support bangles

Clothes as tight as can be

Padded bras to show there's something to see

Anything to stimulate a hint of curves

Yes, our skinniness gets on our nerves

Everyone knows them guys like curvy girls

36-24-36 is what we aspire to be

To gain weight we chomp on cheese curls

Oh screw the guys, lets love me for me

-Skinny Chick.

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A stupid little something I wrote during the seminar on Saturday. I like the idea behind it, even though the poesie itself is crap.

Hangover

They say you talk too much when you're drunk. They say you do stupid things.

They say the whole truth comes out in that inebriated state.

No one knows that better than me....Kids, know your limits. Trust me on this one.

It started out as a great night. Fun, with good friends, great food, good music, and the vodka. Then they decided to play 'I never'. When it came around to me, I raised my glass.

"I never ever..." I paused to think of something I've never ever done.

And that's all I remember.

I woke up the next morning in the bedroom, with a very hazy image of a scream. That was all. I staggered out into the living room and was met with stony stares.

Silence all around.

I hadn't caught on yet. Nursing my aching head, I muttered, "Hey, I can't remember shit. What HAPPENED last night?"

Silence. All I saw, through the redness and the hammering in my head, were accusing looks.

"O-kaaaaaaaaaaaay....."

Now I was worried. Even with the massive hangover I could see that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. I'd said something, hadn't I? Last night? Had I done something...? No. Calm. Think.

"Guys? Please help me out here...? What'd I do? I said something stupid, didn't I?"

A disgusted snort, someone I held very dear left the room.

Now I could feel their stares burn me. Their contempt-filled eyes seemed to strip through to my soul.

That can sober you up REALLY fast. A great hangover cure, but may you never have to take it.

And then I knew. I'd done something that wasn't just stupid. I'd done something that showed everyone the core inside the nice-guy exterior, the coldness of my deepest soul. Something so horrific it could not be comprehended by the devil himself.

I just didn't know what it was. And, what's worse, no one would tell me.

What did I do? What ELSE could I do? I changed and left. I went home, slept it off, and hoped it would blow over soon.

But it didn't. The guys at that party told everyone they knew. Now my whole school knows. And a few other schools too.

But not me.

Kids, from that day, I've stuck to one drink at a time.

But what difference does it make?

I have no one left to drink with.

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Bit of fiction I wrote a couple of months ago.....errr, lemme say it again, THIS IS FICTION. so don't get all worried and stuff.

Epiphanies

Those who know me will know that I'm not the biggest fan of organised religion, or even religion as a whole. I'm not atheist, but God, to me, is kinda formless. I don't even give it a name....

I've almost always shied away from poojas. When I've gone, I've always been in another room, playing with the other kids around. I haven't attended a pooja or a satsang in more than two years.

So I wasn't too pleased when my aunt, who I currently live with in Bombay, decided to drag me to a neighbour's place for a Ganpati pooja thingy. I sat awkwardly for a good half hour, right in the front, as others around me chanted, some mantras known, some alien.

Even the 7 year old kid next to me knew exactly what to do.

All I did was admire the decoreations and the pure white orchids used. Yeah, I checked, they were real.

And in the middle of all the noise and the chaos, my mind throwing up random bull, I looked into the compassionate eyes of the idol...and I had a conversation with Lord Ganesha.

Naah, it was probably the deluded mental diarhhea.

'Enjoying this, are you?', I asked the object of worship.

'YES!', he replied.

'But seriously dude,' I say, 'Why do people go through so much trouble for you anyway when you'd be just as happy even if they didn't?'

'Because,' and I could almost see a grin very familiar to me from somewhere else, 'I'm AWESOME.'

The stress of moving to a new city had been getting to her.

She needed an outlet.

"Maybe it would help if I started smoking," she mused aloud, "But I shouldn't."

"Really?", asked her best friend. He moved his half-smoked cigarette towards her mouth temptingly.

"Screw devil's advocate, call me...Satan"

She looked doubtfully at the stub in his fingers

As the smoke blew out of her mouth, she could have sworn she saw his eyes glint red...

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ReLAX. I haven't started smoking. Not happening anytime soon. But the devil's advocate line was pulled on me. By Satan, hah.

Abysmal Poetry

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.