I'm reading in the bus today. Wondering if the sweaty smell is the guy next to me or..... I was on the way home to take a bath. A whole day of overseeing repairs could make you sweaty. Fan repairs. Haha.
My phone beeps. I perform a complicated manouvre involving head, bag, book and phone in pocket in limited space. The text is simple.
Yes or no?
I blink. Then feeling very positive inspite of everything i text back a 'yes'. And for good measure add a 'What was the question?'. Thankfully my old roommate is used to my conversational nonsense and explains the question to me.
'Did you get the parcel?'
Oh. The one I have been begging for for only the last ten weeks.
Sheepish reply-"I haven't been home in 24 hours. Don't know if I have received any mail."

Reminds me of another time. I receive a text from my brother. 'Pick a number between one to twelve.'
So I get excited. Do vague probability sums in my head and text a number to him. Then I wait for a long ten minutes and send another 'Now what?'.
The curt reply. "It wasn't a magic trick. I was choosing a sample question paper to solve."
Such cruel disappointment.

blue is the color. and the mood?

First ChelseaFC match of the season. Sunday. 6pm in India. At around 5.30 my aunt feels the need to go to the mall one last time before she returns to her small town.
We run to the mall, pick up a t-shirt and run back. Some sort of record timing, even with a break to grab some street food. I can still make second half.
The moment I sit on the sofa my mom comes in with a demand that I go buy dinner.
"I want forty-five minutes. Leave me alone."
For whatever reason my mom and my aunt plonk down beside me.
Sometimes their chatter breaks through my invisible barrier of sound.
"This guy is wearing a monkey cap!"
"Oh, yeah! Why?"
"Just like a Bengali"
"Why? Is he cold?"
"It's not a monkey cap. He had a concussion once."
"Ohh. If he had a heart attack why does he wear a monkey cap?"
"He had a concussion."
"These English medics are so great. That black guy who had a heart attack on the field, he was clinically dead for a few minutes."
For a minute I'm wondering how she confused Cech with a black man. Then the commentary is back on.
"He should wear a helmet. Why aren't his ears covered? Did you know he could die if his ears are hit hard enough?"
"I think he'd die of the heat if he covered his ears. He is playing football."
.
.
.
.
"Where is the Chelsea goalkeeper? How come we haven't seen him yet?"

Mars

The curiosity rover landed on Mars on the 5th. Therefore the new header. MARSscape. Whoo!

There are days when I would kill for fifteen minutes of uninterrupted time. Literally.
I would probably settle for five without getting my hands bloody. But in a family with one deaf mom who can't hear her phone ring and one super-busy-semi-celebrity-scientist-dad who refuses to buy a cellphone and gets atleast one call every half an hour, it is very hard being the jobless one cum telephone operator.

Attempts to lie on the sofa and watch the olympics were thwarted by my brother threatening to spit on me if I took up too much space.

All I want to do is hear one spanish conversation beyond the starting Hola!

a muddled rainy goodbye inside my head

It hit me on a rainy afternoon.
It hit me like a swift punch in the guts.
Like a cold clammy hand seizing you from behind.

I stuck my head out of the auto and let the rain soak me. Distracting me for a moment as the delightfully cold droplets slipped into my eyes, behind the contact lenses and the world went blurry for a second.
I blinked furiously as I attempted to focus on the familiar roads.

I had grown up here. Cycling like a madman, stealing guavas from irate neighbours. Walking down the road calmly, so covered in mud that the crowds in the street parted to let me pass, after an afternoon of football in the rain. The disregard that only familiarity can bring.

It hit me when he asked me which one of my guitars I would take with me. I stared at him for a moment.

Then comprehension dawned. Like the first ray of light breaking through the heavy shroud of cumulo-nimbus on a monsoon morning.

It was time, to pack up what little I call my own, apart from these streets and this city. It was time to leave.

 

That's it. I have been trying to write a seriously touching, tear-inducing, total literary piece of a post.
And all I can think of is my brother throwing a capo at me after I try to sing a song, realise it's not in my natural key and thus alternate between screechily high and ghoulishly low. I am a one-woman orchestra of dischord.
I then hit my brother's friend, ask him to hit my brother and run away before anyone hits me.
I then finish dinner feeling hungrier than when I started thanks to Masterchef Australia.
So this is all you get to read. *lopsided insane grin*

Toniiiiight, weeee are young

Everyone who knows me knows that before going to watch an A-rated movie I must be reminded to carry ID.
Some people who know me well also know that my mom has hearing aids. But she never wears them.

In a flight from foreign shores to home.
Steward to me-"And what would you like to drink with that?"
Me-"The red wine please"
"But.."
"I'm 22."
"Ohh, you look so young. What's your secret?"
*charming/mysterious smile*  (or maybe the why you delaying my food you strange man)
"I guess it's your mother's genes"
Mom-"I'm her mother!"

The steward looks a little confused and walks away. 

Thanks mom. Let's both jump on the train of youthfulness.

The next day she's recounting the story to my Dad.
"The steward wasn't letting her have any wine and he asked her where her mother was so I told him that I was her mother and he understood that it was ok to serve her alcohol and stopped questioning her."

My sudden burst of laughter was discounted as normal madness.