Wednesday, August 25

Tuesday, August 24

Tourists, don't worry. I'll kiss all of you.

Monday, August 23

Your body will never be familiar.
I'll often ask for you.
My coffee bitter, the last few hundred mornings.
Love is out of my control.
"i would like to remind
the management
that the drinks are watered
and the hat-check girl
has syphilis
and the band is composed
of former ss monsters
However since it is
new year's eve
and i have lip cancer
i will place my
paper hat on my
concussion and dance"

Sunday, August 22

Yesterday

Rajasthan looks like an entirely different place in the monsoons. It’s green everywhere, the skies are constantly dark grey and the wind reminds me of Himachal. I saw a cow get hit by a truck today, but it remained standing and only looked a little stunned. I seriously hope she’s alright. I was driven around by the littlest gremlin of an auto driver yesterday, whose face looked exactly like the Grinch who stole Christmas. This fellow kept smoking bidis and had this horrible rasping cough. I actually tried to avoid breathing (I’m smart like that) for as long as possible so as to not get TB from him. He smelled like wet rust and constantly kept getting lost. My fingernails have grown long and I must cut them today. I feel surprisingly compassionate towards heyyy bud-dee, I don’t grudge him his stupidity for some reason. I have cold milk with cereal and honey for breakfast here every day and I like it. I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee in what feels like forever and I’m smoking too often. The cigarettes also taste a little like honey and make my toes curl. I’ve been having vivid, chaotic dreams this entire week, some intensely emotional, some plain nightmares. This never used to happen in Delhi, I sleep like a log there, usually dreamless sleep, and any dreams that do turn up are usually loosely structured and comprise entirely of subtext and no plot. I’m a little perversely comforted that the themes and people turning up in them are all very basic and important to me. I’m enjoying the realization that I too have options, that I’ve always had options.

Sorry, internet. This entry is not for your benefit at all. I’m just sitting in a conference room in an industrial area, on the outskirts of Jaipur on a Saturday morning and documenting for the purpose of documenting. I think I’m still slightly numb from last night’s medicines, and enjoying the remaining stupor. I didn’t want to work today, but once I’m awake I really don’t mind, and if you’ve deprived me of my sleep on a weekend for something I consider to be entirely beneath me, I’m going to hate you forever anyway.

Thursday, August 19

My relation to music has changed entirely over the past few years. It’s become some sort of compulsion to not share any of it. I’ve tried multiple variations and techniques but it all ended up as some sort of perverse commodification of the music. So now I’ve finally found the solution that allows me to listen in peace. I’m listening to dance music. That and all the Glee soundtrack volumes. And of course, Leonard. Always Leonard. I don’t really know anyone else who even remotely wants to listen to some of this. And I know it sounds insane and there’s no real logic here, convoluted or otherwise. But I’m finally listening actively again and enjoying it, so I’m not complaining. I’ll eventually get back to the rest of it. I hope, I assume. Or maybe I’ve moved on altogether and become a different person.

I’ve felt surprisingly productive and efficient of late, this happens always as soon as I get back from work, to my hotel room. My usual work trips are characterized by an undefeatable lethargy and loss of sense of self and purpose. I usually spend my time feeling isolated and alone and endlessly introspect on completely unnecessary things. I chain smoke and I feel like I can never get enough. The tips of my fingers taste of ash and nicotine and I’m needlessly bitter. This time around I’m not sure what’s different. The people I’m working with are incompetent and annoying, and completely irrelevant to all calculations. But I feel completely awake and alert by myself. The norm used to be that I’d be up till 2 or 3 in the morning, struggling to balance my routine with the overpowering need to stop doing everything and just sit still and not feel toxic. Now I find that I’ve somehow finished everything by 9 PM and am getting 8 hours of healthy, wholesome sleep. Nothing appears to be too difficult or daunting, and I think I know what the difference is. I think it’s been a while since my mind’s been made up, it’s been a while since I’ve moved on completely.

The weather outside is really nice right now. It’s a little humid sometimes, but there’s a cool breeze blowing and the day is blue without being overcast or bright. I feel clean and I worry about every cigarette I smoke and the residue it keeps leaving behind in me. I want my insides to remain pink and healthy. I’m investing in my future, internet. I’m suddenly interested in my future.

Wednesday, August 18

This is not even relevant, and none of you barring one person will know the difference but it's killing me and I'm cracking under the pressure and guilt of lying!
I wasn't in an MSC room. I was in a BTS room. I did it for the alliteration *hangs head in shame*

Tuesday, August 17

MSC Murphy

This is an all new experience for us here at Murphy Corp. We’re blogging from a switch room. Which for the benefit of the laypeople is where the telecom equipment is stored for routing calls and keeping the entire network up and running. It’s freezing cold (because a constant temperature is required), there are a lot of us sitting on the floor around these tall stacks (because there’s no furniture), and we have no shoes on (and I’m not wearing socks, so the old paws are slowly but surely becoming icicles). It looks like some sort of scene from the distant future where the machines have taken over and we’re sitting in some sort of shrine to them. I wonder what would happen if I casually started smoking in here. We’d all get chased out and probably beaten with laathis. But I’m so sick of this work that that actually sounds like a fun day. I know I said a little while back I was bored of my deskjobesque project but this is a different extreme.

In other news I’m in Jaipur for a while. Hopefully not too long, the company of imbeciles and easy work does nothing for me anymore. I’m working with a hardcore punju guy from the fantastic town of Bhatinda, who compensates for his punjuness by replacing all his ‘yaars’ with ‘bud-deee.’ Heyyy bud-deee.

I also got to hang out with the manfriend. Yay! I’d forgotten how old Wrinkles is. He too compensates for the failing memory by randomly grinning, pretending like there’s actual thoughts and cognitive processes at work in that empty ancient space, instead of bits of fluff and dodgy memories. But we must be kind, internet. We must put up with the heyyy bud-deees and the senile smiling and make the world a better place.

Man. I can feel myself becoming mediocre. I’m sitting here and I’m completely uninterested in what my team is doing and all I can think of is if I could spit in the MSC without anyone noticing. I’m very glad it’s finally come to this. Now I don’t really think I have excuses to not do anything about it. I’m going to be very impressive and disciplined and full of purpose and eat only apples.

I’ve had this thought running through my head for a while now, and even though it sounds ridiculous and insane and like a request to attract all sorts of chaos I’m going to say it. I think my life’s boring. I’m surrounded by people I have no wish to be around, I don’t get to do the things that give me pleasure, I don’t get to be around people I do really like and I don’t get to chill enough. I’m only 24.
Wow. My cool entry from the switch room wasn’t supposed to end up sounding melancholic. But like my colleague and my manfriend I too can compensate and share this insane draft I found I’d written a week back.

“God. I’m stuck in this stupid office, waiting for the blasted CFO to get back from her lunch. And all I have to do is nod a bit at her and get the hell out of here. And then I can go back to my office, skip the lunch crowd and have a completely leisurely sandwich and coffee. Did I mention I’m starving? But I refuse to eat here, in this cesspool of incompetence and despair.
I really want to buy new kurtas. About six of them. I’m getting depressed and bored at work and the only way to counter that is to be wearing new clothes. Or I could actually get off my ass and figure out what I want to do instead with my life, something that may actually make me more money, instead of spending even more.
I had a super weekend and it makes coming back even worse. Do people who write features for magazines get free stuff? Are the Marie Claire staff getting free hair and beauty products and clothes and shoes? I bet they’ve never met a washed up CFO in their life.
I’m free!”


Here’s to the little things.

Saturday, August 14

Thursday, August 5

Well there's the post below, and then there's also lines by the poet Lady Gaga on repeat in my head.

'BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!
We like boys in cars
BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!
Buy us drinks in bars'

< 3

We shall not stop our exploring
And at the end of our exploring
we shall arrive where we started. and know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remember the gate
through the last of earth left to discover
is that which was the beginning
At the source of the largest river
the voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree-
not known because not looked for
but heard, half-heard in the stillness,
between two waves of the sea
Here now a condition of complete simplicity
costing not less than everything.

Sunday, August 1



Ladies. Pay attention. When someone asks you what kind of person you want to be, and you're making pffting noises over the 'can't do anything for herself / constantly needs to be rescued / needs someone to take care of her' choice, I beseech you. Think again. The stoic, has answers and comfort for everyone and everything choice gets old. And it shows on your skin and your eyes and you get little lines at the corner of your mouth which makes you look defeated all the time and nobody wonders why.
Make your choices wisely.