Spaced out

Have you thought about how much space do you give each other?
Oh yes! loads.
Why do you say that?
We meet only once a week! Isnt that enough space?
Space is not what you give to someone when he is not with you. Space is what you give to someone when he is with you.

What they want

Those who know what they want, those who try to find what they want and fools.

Will you stay back?

I am leaving.
All right. Bye.
Won’t you ask me to stay back?
No.
Do you want me to stay back?
More than anything else.
But you won’t ask me?
No.
Why?
Because I dont want you to stay back for me.I want you to stay back for you.
But I want to stay back for you.
Nothing stops you from doing it.
Something does.
What?
Not being asked to stay back.

They asked..I gave

Someone asked me for my time. So I gave them my watch.

So if someone asks you for a date, will you give them your calender?

Fourth Two types.

Those who learnt and loved mathematics and the ones with deprived childhoods..

Analyse this

Everyone around me is doing some analysis.

I do analysis, day in and day out.
The people who read it, further do their own analysis based on my analysis.
I say I am doing market research.
Right now working on a piece of “category analysis”

She does her analysis.
She says she reads reports from the internet (obviously ones thrown up by google searches) and collates them to do her own analysis.
Obviously people who make these reports in the first place, get the information from other publications to which they give credit.
She says she is doing “sector analysis”.

His job description is “Business Analyst”
Needless to say, he also does analysis.
Relying on Client’d analysis of their own requirements, he further analyses them to tell them what they want.
He says its “Requirements analysis”.

He says, he is doing “Equity Research”
I analyse the equity markets.
Hmm….very good.

I, just wonder if all of us here are doing Analyses, is anyone finally using them?

Who won?

Happy Anniversary darling
Wow!
What?
I didnt expect you would remember!
I didnt expect you would forget.
Met your expectations..didnt I?
I knew you would.
You didnt meet mine though!
Aren’t you glad I didnt?
I am!
I know.
So how did you remember?
Just put it down in my diary.. a long time back.
Really? Like how long?
Really. Like the first time we met.
You knew then, that we would celebrate an anniversary together?
Honestly, no.
Then why did you write it down?
I would rather take a chance and not regret it than regret not taking a chance.
I am glad you took the chance… or wait a minute..you didnt!
Either ways.. I won didnt I?
No. I did.

Third “Two types”

Those who keep segmenting the world into two types of people and those who dont.

The second Two Types.

Following up on my segmentation of people.

The second “Two types of people” are
Those who give directions and those who confuse.

Consider this.

“Haan…Dekh,tu jis road pe hai…vahan se seedhe.Keep going straight till you reach “gol chakkar” (yes..people in Delhi actually say that!).Then take that turn and after 200 meters you will see a Black Label hoarding.
Bas vahan se u turn le le and then after 100 mts take the left turn.then take immediate right and then you will see mother dairy. Take the right…go straight.. no no..wait…
I think you should come from the other way.

After the first gol chakkar (snigger snigger) and the turn, stop after 50 mts.you will not reach the Black Label Hoarding. Take a turn before the hoarding. U will not be able to see the hoarding from the turn. Take a left from there.(huh!!dude!).
Then go about 200 mts and take the right. Immediately you will see The medicine shoppe. Take that right. Vahan par gate hai. There a guard will be standing (Yes correct. Thats The landmark I was trying to find.So if the guard has gone to pee, it’s not the right gate?).

Get into the gate and then go straight till you dont see anything in front (Ok.thats innovative!!).
Bas vahan se, take the left then left again and then right. Last but one building on your left. (again, how will I know unless I go to the last building?)

Any guesses which category of people this is?

The first two types

Just back from a friends engagement in Delhi.
Sweet as he is, the idiot didnt know what functions were scheduled, what time and what was the dress code.

For instance, his first brief before leaving Mumbai was…
“Sunday evening is the engagement. Thats all”

Great! So I take along a lovely new dress and Heels.

Saturday night 8.45 the brief changes to
“Tomorrow afternoon lunch at her place and then engagement in the evening”.

Damn! you duh…I would have prepared that way. Never mind I have got stuff.

Saturday night 11.45 the fellow tells me
“Tomorrow at 12.00 noon, is the engagement, followed by her birthday party in the evening!”

Eh?Birthday? No one mentioned birthdays before? That too, the bride’s ! What were you thinking?

Saturday night 1.30 a.m., the dear groom’s mom tells me
“What evening? There is nothing in the evening tomorrow. Engagement is at 12.00 noon and then immediately birthdy celebrations too. Nothing in the evening”.

“huh? Does anyone around actually know what is when?I hope the engagement is actually happening.”

Finally it happened.
But I have decided that are two types of people in the world.

Those who give good briefs and those who dont.

A little more love

One of my posts elicited a longish response

followed by….

He: So what do you think?
She: I love you for this
He: I know.
She: Of course you do.
He: Do did you like my view about it?
She: Am deciding.
He: About the last statement or the entire comment?
She: Both.
He: To be true to my views, I’ll say that I mean it :0)
She: I never doubted that.
He: I meant about the last statement.
She: I was also talking about the last statement.
He: Hahahaha, good! Our frequency tuning is flawless.
She: Does that put me higher up in the race for your preference among all the loevelies?
He: You are the only one baby. Priority zero is assigned to you.Rest of the list is empty.
She:Liar. I thought you said universal pronoun.I prefer the plush leather couch.

Will you?

What would you say if I said I loved you?
Are you saying it?
Maybe I will
Maybe you wont
Yeah, maybe I wont
Or Maybe you will.
Either ways…what will you say?
I will say ..I love you either ways.
Really?
No.
Why?
For the same reason that you might not say it.

Why someone arbit learned to drive

Trigger moments. Trigger Factors. Trigger Actions.
Those moments or things that set you off on a course of action.
Those times that set the ball rolling.

This incident is one of those funny ones in life that will get me laughing whenever I think about it. Also the one incident which finally triggered me off into doing something that I have been postponing since years – learn driving.

Imagine this.
Heavy peak hour traffic at nine a.m. Somewhere near the city centre, at the busy intersection of two flyovers. Bumper to Bumper. Everyone including us is driving at 2 km/hr or slower.
Such a time, where anyone stopping their car can lead to a huge pile up behind them.

He is driving. I am having a jolly good time in the passenger seat, when I see the traffic Cop 3. Reminds me that he is driving without a license.

Me: hey did you get your license back?
He: Not yet.

(He is right now driving on a ticket given to him by Cop 2 who fined him for talking on the cell phone and asked for his license. Our man, did not have his license because it was already with some Cop 1 who had confiscated it. (No prizes for guessing why! Of course for talking on the cell phone while driving (some people never learn!)
So Cop 2 promptly, took our man’s original ticket 1 and issued him ticket 2 which is currently serving as the license)

Me: (One eyebrow up) Don’t think you should?
He: (carelessly) Yes yes, I should…I just don’t have the time.
Me: (with as sarcastic a tone as I could muster) – Then I think we should wear our seat belts now no? Else you might just be issued ticket 3 by Cop 3 on your ticket 2.
He: (With the air of a man who knows everything that can happen and not happen in this world) Pagal hai kya?Kidhar rokega? Usko life main time hai kya?Jagah hai kya?

The Next second after these golden words are uttered…

Splat!!!! The car halts.

He: Oh Fuck!
Me: What????
He: (Shouting) The car has stopped. We are fucked!
Me: (Dying to laugh at the irony in the last three sets of words uttered by him) Are you sure?

Our man is galvanized into action. Jumps out of the car, Expertly diverts traffic around the car and gets Cop 3 (the same one, who we were eyeing) to help him push the car to the side.

He: (Urgently) Can you steer?
Me: (Incredulously) I what???
He: (Patiently) The Car. Can you steer the car??
Me: (Even more Incredulously) I have never touched the steering wheel!
He: (Even more patiently!) Doesn’t matter. Just move as we instruct.
Me: (Hopelessly) OK.

He goes behind the car to push the car. Mr Cop 3 stands at the window next to the driver’s seat to push

Cop 3 (Urgently) Lift the handbrake.
Me: (Stupidly) Eh? Where is the handbrake?
Cop 3: (Frowning) There. That is called hand break! Usko neeche karo!
Me: (Feeling slightly stupid). Ok…. Done.
Cop 3: (Shouting) Ok press the clutch!
Me: (Feeling more stupid). Which one is the clutch?
Cop 3: (Thoroughly irritated) That one – on the left! Press it quickly!
Me: (Flabbergasted) Ok Ok….

And they push the car to the side of the road where it is free of traffic.

Cop 3: Now press the brake.
Me: (Shamefaced) Sorry but I don’t know which one is the brake!
Cop 3: (With a mixture of pity and irritation on his sweating brow) – Madam…who wahan pe..doosra wala. Usko dabao.
Me: Ok…

And the car stops.

What happened later is everyone’s guess…. We got the mechanics to take the vehicle and continued on our way to work.

That same evening I went and enrolled for my driving class.

Yes..in case you are wondering if I know where the handbrake is, I do. I also can incidentally distinguish between the brake, accelerator and the clutch. And the different gears! Talk about small mercies…

…What? Oh yes, I got my license.

…And him? No clue… will ask and tell you if its still with the cops!

Friday Luck

Usually people run out of luck. Yesterday for the first time, my luck ran in!!!
Ha!

After a long tiring evening of shopping for a couple of impending weddings (not mine thankfully!I shudder to think of the shopping I will have to do, if and when I get married…urgh!), we headed out to TGIF.

His bright idea. I played along. I love the place. Specially the Chicken Veracruz.Yumm

So we got to TGIF, he had his Mozarella and I had my Spicy Chicken Fingers. Incidentally, both of us are off alcohol and were staring wistfully at the next table where these two happy women were busy polishing off Martinis and Margheritas. So while these happy people around us enjoyed TGIF’s liquor, we made do with good old H2O.
Watched a couple of matches, Rooney getting a Yellow Card, Ronaldo scoring well (which according to him was the most interesting part of the game), and other handsome sexy men running about the field (thats obviously the part that I found most interesting) and then asked for the bill.

And thats when fate decided to do a U turn on me!
The waiter came back with the bill that we had paid and announced that we had just earned ourselves a voucher of five hundred to be redeemed during the next TGIF visit!Every seventh bill wins this and we were among the lucky multiples of seven.

Now that might not be such a big novelty for everone, but for someone who has never won a housie game, never won a lottery, never won at musical chairs or at any of those silly party games, never won a flash deal, never won free tickets,never won any of those events where you need even a little bit of luck, this was a big thing!

SO how did we celebrate?I emptied the bottle of water into our glasses and went bottoms up on H2O !That was the craziest moment of the evening.Was I excited or what?

Its only later tht I realised, damn..its not my good luck that has suddenly run in. Its probably his.For a person who naturally wins all the contests, this was just another one.

But then who cares?I was there too, at that table.So I can safely claim to be half the contributor to the luck 😉

Here’s to TGIF and their lucky number seven! Cheers

If only I was mad enough

If only I was mad enough….

I would stand by the sea and scream and scream and scream till I got all the pent up screaming out of me.

I would run. Run run run till I dropped on the wet grass and then sleep there with my face turned up to the stars.

I would tell you how much I loved you.And how much I wish I could see your face before I see anything else, when I wake up each morning.

I would pack my bag, take my money and set off ..to where the roads take me.

I would go up to strangers and spend hours talking to perfectly unknown people about their lives.

I would get stoned and float in space for months.

The Star Shined

Dont remember the exact date, time when it happened or where it happened. When the Star shined.

But when it did, it was like a tornado blowing into my face.
Out of nowhere. Out of everywhere.
That bottomless-bottomful feeling.

That voice which started humming inside. The hums ascended into screams which steadily increased in pitch till I could take it no longer. Louder with every day. The dead weight inside me increased. By the hour.

The voices remain there. Hidden from all ears.No one can listen to them.But in the still of the night when the outside world shuts itself out of my immediate conciousness, when the shield of blaring horns, loud music and commuting traffic breaks, when my carefully contructed invisible barrier from the day falls into pieces and I try desperately to block them out, they strike at me angrily.Lash out across the dark night and pierce my memories. I stumble a bit, my thinking’s jammed and the old dreams recur.

The next day I plunge back into the Masquerade.

Voices in the head

Solitude.

A time when there is just me.
Just me and my thoughts.

There….. I just destroyed the whole idea….Me AND My Thoughts.

Flying all around.Enveloping me in their conflict.Colliding with each other. Always.
Forming little black spots in the recesses of my mind, that I cannot fathom.
Occupying my brain. My space.

Duties colliding with Desires. Logic bursting into Dreams. Constraints latching themselves onto Ideas. Wrongs corrupting Rights.Opinions overriding feelings.

Not all of these are mine.Half of them are.The other half are not.

And the world goes on.All around me.With it’s black spots.With it’s collisions.With it’s conflicts.Accepting them.Living with them.Sleeping with them.Not asking them about their existence.Not wondering why should these happen.Creating walking bodies.Not living people.

But thats not my concern.People can become Bodies if they choose to.Yes..they choose it.
My concern is those black spots.In my mind.Someday I will understand them.When I do, they will cease to exist.

Who knows

You cannot fall in love with me because you dont believe in love.
I cannot fall in love with you because you dont believe in love.

I wonder if love believes in either of us.

It’s that easy to define Love

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, “What does love mean?”

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.”

Rebecca- age 8

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”

Billy – age 4

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

Chrissy – age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”

Terri – age 4

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”

Mary Ann – age 4