Hi

Hi

Goodbye then.....

I had to tell her. I’d been playing the charade for way too long. As I stepped outside the subway a light drizzle started wafting through the air. While the 7 pm crowd started scrambling for cover all around me, I walked on - feeling nothing. I picked up a bunch of daisies at the corner of 5^th and Cedar. Ed ignored me as usual and I left dropping a sheaf of dollar notes on the table.

I steeled my nerves as I ambled past the garden, up the driveway and knocked on 412. The door opened and there she was – an absolute knockout, wearing her fantastic smile that always made my day. Well, no more after tonight.I had to be fair to her and allow her to move on…. I had to be fair to myself and let go!!

I had to tell her that on January 2^nd I had in fact never made it to work, that if she had turned on the 8 ‘o clock news she’d have seen a blue suburban being hauled out of the Cherokee with no sign of survivors. Deep breath - “I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve been …… been …. ”, somehow I couldn’t say it, to say it would be to acknowledge it. “Dead for over 6 weeks now?” she interrupted with a smile “I knew the minute it happened….. I’ve been waiting for 5 years now…. welcome home”.

The question.....

“Think of one moment of your life, that you treasure the most and would like to relive over and over again. Focus on that thought and relax, relax, relax …. “And thus, Chris Angel put his subject into a trance and sent my mind hunting for that moment. And I came up with nothing, nada, zilch!!! There isn’t one event in my life that I would like to relive over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great life – just no defining moment. So it begs the question, is there such a thing - a moment of unadulterated happiness when the joy of being alive overwhelms every other emotion? If there is, then it must be the answer to the eternal question – What makes us happy?

Staring contest....

I live in a place where the Indian community is so small that if you go to a predominantly Indian-ish place, you will run into a few familiar faces. As a result some people make an extra effort to seek out these familiar faces. Allow me to explain...

We were at this Indian restaurant today. Actually, its less of a restaurant and more of a "Dhaba" but around here, any place that serves food that remotely resembles Indian food can be classified as an "Indian restaurant". Getting back to the point, there were a bunch of guys sitting at a table outside the Dhaba staring at my friend and I as we walked in. Okay, I've got to clarify something here - neither of us was wearing anything provocative :) nor are we the attractive/fugly sorts that people just can't peel their eyes off!! I'm pretty sure that it was just a searching look for that familiar face - and all for what? A perfunctory smile? A minute of small talk? Why do people wish to draw attention to themselves in such settings? Do they think it's offensive to not notice people when they walk by or do they like to get their presence validated by acknowledgment from people they wouldn't care to talk to otherwise ?

Under fire!!

As you might have heard, fires are raging in SoCal. There was a mandatory evacuation ordered by the county officials yesterday evening. So when I woke up this morning and switched on the news, I heard that firefighters spent a lot of time and effort rescuing residents who refused to evacuate, instead of actually fighting the fire.
I instantly hated those residents for making things worse for the rest of the junta. But after I had a few minutes to digest that information, I started thinking differently. It’s not always possible to think about the greater good. In fact, let me rephrase that – it’s seldom possible to think about the greater good. The instinctive animal reaction to any situation is self preservation. And now when events involve an object of tremendous emotional investment, it’s harder to let go and let logic pervade. So last night, when people stayed back at home, they were probably clinging on to that last thread of hope, that perhaps they'd be able to stop the inevitable!!

Anyways, there isn’t any point to the above post. I’m just terribly depressed over the turn of events. A lot of houses have been destroyed. Hopefully the loss of life can be minimized.

B'Blues....

Its a funny how sometimes you wake up and realize that the better part of 2* years of your life has gone by. You look around and people who started the race at the same time as you did are fading away into the horizon (or are left far behind). The chalk lines that define their race track seem terribly different from yours. It just felt that as we started out, we were all shooting at the same target!! I understand - things change, but such a dramatic change is disconcerting.

I guess it was easy when in life you wanted just one thing. Things have gotten so messed up now that the mind can't fixate on just one thing. And as a result there is a terrible deadlock. When you start walking towards something, your other goals pull you back to where you started from. Is it this deadlock that's weighing me down or just the mental/emotional baggage I have collected over the last few years?

Is it human nature to not be satisfied where you are, what you have achieved or is it just the knowledge that you aren't fulfilling your potential, or even worse, a delusional feel of grandeur that will keep gnawing your insides never letting you be happy. B'days are days of introspection. Sadly, its the only time I actually look back at my year and wonder what the hell I've been up to!!!

Anyways... enough of that. Lemme wake up tomorrow and see if I'm peppier than I am today!!

Immortality....

I was reading a couple of Fatty novels a few days ago.... (If you don't know who Fatty is... then you didn't read the Enid B. books when you were little --- I deem your childhood wasted!! :D ). Anyways, Fatty, Bets, Pip and Larry were the same age, when I opened the book about a decade after I last visited them. Isn't that amazing ? They're practically immortal!! They themselves aren't aware of it because in their world time is still changing... but from an outsider view, they'll always be kids!!
Quite a philosopher I am :) .... more later