.Me.Space.: February 2010

Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Death

I hereby solemnly pronounce Fluid Vortex to be dead. I don't guarantee any eternal peace. You are now dead and may you try not to haunt.

You now have a new avatar. You now have a new purpose.

You now have more colour and more purpose. The black hole is dead.

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Mystery boy

I had a crush on him the first time I ever saw him. He is sitting in front of me right now. He is sitting with another Indian girl. They are working on problem sets, I assume.

He is very cute. I really like the way he moves his fingers. I like the way his hair falls on his forehead. I like his lips. I like the way he chews gum. I like looking at him. I don't know what his name is. I've never spoken to him.

The first time I ever saw him was in my flight from from Colombo to London. He took the same flight as I did from Madras to Colombo. Madras boy he was... It was a passing glance. But it really was during the immigration wait that I got a good look at him. He was standing in front of me. He was talking to another girl, standing in front of him. She was a student too. I caught snatches of their conversation. They'd worked together before apparently. Everyone knows everyone in Madras, anyway.

I just kept looking at him. I didn't know he was going to be at LSE as well. I thought he was proper 'Peter' as we urban Tams like to put it.

But I see him all the time these days. In the library lift, at the Plaza cafe, while waiting for Hare Krishna food, around the Old Theatre, while running up the stairs for lectures at the NAB, hanging around the Peacock theatre, randomly on the road... I see him everywhere. He knows me and I know him. Sometimes we give each other a miniscule smile. But we've never spoken. We never will. I just think he is cute. This is just another college crush :)

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Crowning glory - Julie Andrews today...

A really long way from Mary Poppins but as elegant and graceful as ever. She can make every girl who looks at her feel like a princess. Julie Andrews should be a staple diet for every girl child. I've made sure my little sister has been over-'boozed' with Julie Andrews.

When Julie Andrews sings, you want to believe and you want to slip into her magical land of perfection. A world where Prince Charmings actually do exist. Where Lochinvars come riding on steeds of steel...

But the sad reality of life as Kr says, "They keep saying the right person will come along, but I think mine got hit by a truck!" :-o

Right now, I'd rather take refuge in the comfort that Julie Andrews offers rather than the seething pain of Kr's reality check!

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Yeh meri kahaani...

Seven years is a long time. But it still seems like the first time I ever met M. We can still laugh for no reason and we can still talk for hours about nothing at all. When I first saw him, he was drunk. I can't seem to remember who his girlfriend was back then. He was with Sush, I guess. Can't really say. It was party night at Dublin, Park Sheraton. Priti had to lie to my father to get me out of home. Ha! Fun it was :) Pri and Shriki were seeing each other back then. I was only 18. Pri was given the task of 'taking care' of me. That's when we bumped into M. Shriki and M went to MCC. M was Shriki's junior or something like that. A long long night of head-banging it was. Ah! What joy, M had long hair back then. Not the corporate conformist he is today. He wore wooden jewellery and vegetable print shirts and of course, had red (long) hair.

Today, well-hidden under his corporate pinstripes, only his tattoo remains reminiscent of those old days. Far off in a Nungambakam cafe, we'd talk about the great mysteries of life. We still do. In these years, we've moved to different cities and countries, fallen in love, had our hearts broken, found jobs, lost them, made mistakes, messed up terribly, did well, shared our successes, laughed at our failures, lost loved ones, gone incognito, re-emerged... the list is endless...

The first thing I did after returning to India from London was to visit him in a different city. He bought me flowers, bought me food and drink at Ruby Tuesday, told me stories that made me laugh and convinced me that it was a fantastic idea to get my belly-button pierced from a random road wallah in Commercial street :-o My friend is the most awesome in the world :)

There is probably nothing that can make me forget all my cares and worries like a good telephone conversation with M. Like they say, everything becomes so much more funnier when you are with your best friend. Yes, it does :)

Today, I just received a message on facebook and I couldn't stop laughing for five whole minutes. I am posting it here because I want to come back to it some day, look at it and laugh again. No, I don't bookmark anything!

Subject: will call u tonight

"oh my dear... With each moment, I m realising that at the end of the day, am just a ridiculous narrow minded mallu who is very possessive and who helplessly loves his girl beyond words... Pray tell me, which of the above characteristics is the faulty one? I am broad minded most of the time but if my ego comes into play then all is lost... And ego has now got a brain of its own... Come and goes as it pleases... I need u to broaden my mind beyond the horizon and help me lock it down there.... Pls..."

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Feed the birds...

Growing up all by myself on Herculean oil tankers and coal carriers meant that I often had to find escape routes into more palatable banalities that deserved a little girl mostly dressed in purple polka dresses and abnormally large hats. As I write this, reminiscing about events that rewind back to over a decade and a half, I still wear a purple jumper, purple tights and a purple scarf. A look at my fingernails suggest that it probably needs a manicure - but I can see the ugly remains of my once beauteous purple gloss polish. The colour of royalty they say. It is a notion that was deeply rooted in my psyche by a mother who wore purple on her wedding day.

Though not much was understood by my fickle mind back then, it comforted my juvenile thoughts to slip into chimeran states as often as possible. Somewhere between the Pacific and the Indian ocean, around the land of the Kookaburra, where the Occident and the Orient was trying to define its boundaries, on the shores of some Australian port-city, my father showed me the magic of Mary Poppins.

Feed the birds... Tuppence a bag...

As awestruck as I was by her bottomless bag, my skepticism prevented me from entering the realm that I my father was struggling so hard to push me into. He wanted me to indulge in those childish fantasies. To enjoy, to lose myself... But I questioned. I didn't believe Mary Poppins could do magic. I knew something was wrong. The only thing that really fascinated me about the movie was 'Super-cali-fragilistic-expiali-doscious'. I did really believe my father when he told me that it was the longest word in the English language. We repeated it together until I committed it to memory as he took his evening walk on the 'monkey island'. That was the highest level on the ship. The SOS lights were off. I always had a mad desire to convince someone to turn them on. Very rarely, on lonely oceans, when there weren't any other vessels visible on the radar, the captain would permit the SOS lights to be turned on. It would drive me wild with joy. This particular day, the wind was unleashing its full fury. I always thought that it would carry me away one day. I remembered to behave. I didn't want to become like Thumbelina. There was nothing but black sea as far as our eyes could search.

The dark visuals of the old woman feeding the birds would haunt me. At that age, surrealism meant just that I had to sit through it. It also meant that I was a part of it. It made me queasy. It made me shift on my seat. But I'd calmly sit through it. It was just another phase that I'd have to pass before hitting brighter areas. I knew the sequences by heart. I knew exactly what was going to happen next. I'd watch it everyday. I would wait for the dark scenes. I'd sit through it.

A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down...

Last year when I finally bought the DVD, I still knew all the lines from memory. But every time I watch Julie Andrews sing croon 'Step in Time', I learn something new. How could I have missed it after all these years of watching the film at least a hundred times?

My mother, I believed had the most beautiful handwriting in the world. I distinctly remember her red cursive writing on the video casette label. It was all capitals. Red felt pen. It was as though Mary Poppins descended from the skies holding her parrot umbrella to write my video cassette label. It fit the fairy tale. It was a dark fairy tale according to me.