The buildings ran amok and people froze

A few minutes ago, I lit my first joint in weeks. A friend left me some, more for his safe-keeping than my consumption and I rolled one out of boredom and an acute need to break the stagnation that is my every evening nowadays. I went out to the balcony of my room and kept out of the eye of my mother’s driver. Lit it. Waited. The lampshade hanging in my room casts a diffused glow into the balcony. It looks pretty. Below, the dark of the children’s park next to our house is hollow black. My eyes don’t see very clearly anyway and I can’t make out anything in the dark shapes below. All I can make out is the streetlight some distance away and a car or bike passing in the road. In the dark, all that moves is their light.

The buildings don’t move. They never ever move. In the darkness, they look more patient than ever, waiting only for people to animate them. The ones who built them. I thought about a story and here I am writing it. The problem, the one that’s really biting me, is that I can’t thread it together for nuts. I have been alternating today between mild love-type exhilaration and uncontrolled laughter and a dull sword-over-my-frustrated-head kind of moments. And wondering if I would black out after eating the humongous monster aloo chaat made by this guy in the marketplace earlier today, i.e., wondering if the unexpectedness of the giant gut-buster would cause a serious alteration to my physiology. My playlist goes on and on and on. I went to the riverside today. The river is calmer than the sea and I am dreadfully out of practice (writing). Kites and crows fought for scraps of dead fish strewn around the sands, while a deadly sausage-fest style party of about 200 boys danced (?) in the restaurant-ship close by, to Chikni Chameli that played real, REAL loud. The Kites won the fight easily (boy, they are huge; wingspan, large) and scattered the smaller scavengers who waited their feeding turn.

Me VS giant Gut-Buster

I am just a little buzzed. December is cold in Assam and my hands and feet feel numb. Apparently, it gets colder next month. I can’t wait. For a long time, I have been thinking and thinking of how this is my first proper winter at home after years. I am completely confused over what to do about it. Eg. Bonfire, morning walks, work, live life to the fullest, etc. Everyone keeps telling me that I do nothing. Day in, day out. Every day that I have moved back home. And I know it to be true. I am so bad at freelancing and setting any rules or boundaries for myself. But I don’t really want to rant about it here again.

So my new rant will take on a more conceived form. Do I mean controlled? Maybe. Or maybe I mean concentrated. Maybe. Since I can’t and won’t post my exact thoughts on to the internet, maybe I can think of some metaphors. Damn. Back to Plath again (Metaphor is a poem by her about pregnancy). She is so scary. She is so subtle-ly scary. You just don’t realize when she slips you a good, solid one that hits you right on the top of your brain, a resounding, light, but well-placed smacker. Some pages left to finish her novel. I’ve abandoned it in its most terrifying chapters. Sylvia has woken up in an asylum of sorts. Face is different colours. Hair in short tufts. Under electric-shock treatment, etc. Scary stuff. And so wonderfully metamorphed (tisa word) from the initial opening pages of a thinking-girl’s Sex in the City style New York.

Flash news: Gut-Buster has got me. Am I stoned, cold or sick? Can’t tell because I feel fine but keep imagining/noticing my eyes darting way too much as I type this. But while I was in the loo, I thought I looked fine. Maybe it’s a good idea to fall sick for a few days. Then I can bypass the whole bling ka-ching Xmas/New year’s hype.

Idiot. Not escapist at all.

I think now I shall write a bit about my confrontational issues.

I cannot confront.

On a personal level. Anything. Anybody. Myself.  It gets a bit too much and was pointed out to me today. I kind of knew this in parts, but today, friend said it’s been a problem with me. I think she said it from experience. And that makes it true. And if it is true, then I have a serious problem that I have to do something about because it may be a root cause of my frustrated sedentary life. Friend (as friends do) gave me exact advice on what to do to counter the confront-issue, the execution of which is being currently delayed on my part. More on that later. It’s a vicious loop.

Gut-Buster has shattered my illusion about having a tough, Indian stomach. I have prided myself on it, many a time, eating many a junk in copious quantities. Pride, pride, pride. Shame on me. Where does it leave me in the end? Wondering if the maker of the GB knew what his lovely, exotic, 120 bucker concoction would be doing to me. He had insisted that I stand next to his chaat-chariot and eat it. He even PACKED some extra for us before we left. It was ditched at the earliest convenience. 

Pride. Another deadly transgression. Is it not a fine line we tread between actual egotist pride and a self-preservation purposed defence mechanism? I think it is. But how do you know all the time that which is which? You don’t. And hence, the fine line, as always, is blurred.

Since I am sort of spilling all, might as well write about the puppy thing. Looking at the new puppy, I wonder with what ease people tell you that a young dog will get used to anything, eg., sleeping at a certain place, toilet-training, whatever else. My point is that puppies are expected to adapt to given circumstance, enthusiastically learn their manners and not really question. This they do. And isn’t this very doggy-attribute the hallmark trait of the evolution of the human kind? Adaptation. Human ability to accommodate, progress, develop, face odds, eras, disasters, dictators, diseases, Justin Bieber (LOL)? Then aren’t we all feeling a little too smug about being the “masters” of creatures whose very characteristics we mirror so discreetly?

Who will learn cursive anymore? Who will take out a notebook and (fountain) pen down daily expenses? Who will make dog ears in books? In some future, I may well be so accustomed to technology that I find it easier. It’s with a painful ache towards analog that I think I may ditch it someday and not care anymore. Digitisation brings us all a futile step closer to the far more superior alien life that we descend from and I just pulled a below-the-belt one. Futile only because us mixed-humans are stupid. Attention spans are extinguishing. There is no privacy left un-invaded. Weed is illegal. Gay sex too.

I cannot think of what to write about anymore. But I am happy about writing a little today. Sad that it’s about to end right now. But let this be recorded as a beep/dot/jolt in the recently-so-symmetrical line of my evenings’ life-support system. One small step for me, a giant leap for... Jalebi. The Day the Buildings Ran Amok and the People Froze.

And beeps are important. ;)

Jalebi at work