An Idle Tuesday

Mary Schmich made famous an idle Tuesday when the real troubles of your life blind side you at 4 PM. My idle Tuesday is here. I don’t care much for the accuracy of her suspected 16th hour. How much evidence would you seek anyway for the proven benefits of wearing sunscreen? Exactly.

I was thinking of the choices I’m making in my life when I began writing this. A long break followed. You know how it is at work. And then there are calls to Mom. Mails from Paldi. Thoughts of Gappey. Texts to Rohan. But it shouldn’t take much to go back to my choices. And you wouldn’t know if these are not the ones I intended to write about. They materially impact my day, nonetheless.

The rains in Mumbai Bombay have taken a liking for me, I suspect. They haven’t saddened me once this season. That they’ve only come twice as yet is another thing. All of the last monsoons they made me weep, literally. I think a lot of our response is about resolve. I wake up these days and tell myself, “Smile if it is raining. You’re unlikely to get a better reason once you reach office.” Worked once or twice and then I left the city. I was in Indore and Delhi for the week that followed. A fascinating wedding in one city and my whole childhood in the other, what better excuse can there be to take a break?

This really hasn’t been about my troubles and choices then. But so long as you’re not reading, I can come back with them another time. They’re sure to return soon.

MICA

But I miss most, the smell of MICA, of newness, of summer, of the light greens and the dark brick reds. I miss seeing those new faces and secretly choosing my favorites. I miss slowly getting to know them – first by names, then as people, later as friends, now as MICAns. I miss those mornings – bright and sunny, cloudy and rainy, dark and cold, all kinds. And those nights that had a peculiar unending craze for life. I miss those benches, of beginnings and ends. The long walks, between benches. I miss the strength of MICA, and its luck. And I miss most seeing Rohan for the first time.

Three & counting...

The way it’s going, in exactly ninety seven days I’ll be able to write a first-hand original book – ‘A Hundred Bad Mornings’! The head-line drafts for the first three have been lived already:

1. Three people on a bed for two – the story of a sprained neck.
2. The ‘Mumbai Local’ does it again!
3. Account debited, ticket not issued – Netbanking, boon or bane?!

(Not So) Well done, The Fourth Attempt!

My brother was in town recently. We traveled across the city in a broken auto-rickshaw to reach 5 Spice for a late lunch but the damned place was closed. And as if that wasn’t enough, he held my hand on that crossing that nearly killed me, and casually remarked, “bahut hi bekaar blog hai..!” I pretended not to have heard. My mind was racing back to trace where the comment may have come from. An earlier conversation? An invitation to the fool to read my blog? Any context whatsoever? Nothing!

Younger brothers have a way to break things to you, not very different from the shameless way in which they break their twenty-third promise of getting you the famous rakhi gift or the mannerless way in which they abruptly say ‘Okay now Bye!’ when their more expensive phone gives a call waiting alert or the absolutely heartless way in which they fondly call you ‘Moti!’.

You fool, I wish you had stayed over for the weekend! Miss you!

Aaj pehli taareekh hai!

So, ladies and gentlemen, great minds and bright sparks, men and women who were going to change the world – yes, you – how long do you think you can come to work and sit still? No, of course, taking rounds of the lobby, the occasional chatter with the lovely floor officer, two trips an hour to the pantry and a long walk after lunch are allowed. I mean intellectually still. Worse, simply mentally still, save for those games of the mind to which I have dedicated a post already. So, yeah, how long? A week? Two weeks? I take it that by the 28th of the month, you too will raise both arms and say this is it. Only if there was one more week between the 28th and the last day of the month, you and I would have really changed the world. Sad, what money does to the best in us.

Go Away, please.

It has taken three drafts to disguise your identity. You, who inspire this post. You surprise me because, on a daily basis, you suppress the best in people. You discourage excellence. You murder ambition. You see in bright people a broken dream, a personal broken dream. You work passionately to make mirrors in the eyes you see. Your shallowness makes me go to sleep. You are that boring. Why do I find you everywhere I go?

Too Hot To Handle

Many things can make you want to go back in time to change that one moment, just that one horrible moment that left you, depending on your stars, scarred, burnt, broken, beaten, cheated... The list is long; but I say scald burns top it.

Getting Started

I think this is where my last two blogs failed me. The wrong first note. One was about real people. Think about it, you wouldn't like it yourself to know how much I laughed in my mind at that thing you said on the phone. The other was about me. No chance in hell! Third one, as it turns out, is somebody else's already. So now this fourth is going to be great - No names. No hints, either. Only stories.