Shubh Deepawali

How unbelievably retro we look.
I can't believe that that curly haired creature I used to drag around, pretending he was one of my dolls, grew into THIS good looking young man. Amidst all the drunken revelry of the past two days, I found myself frequently misting over with love for my baby brother.
Our families have been inseparable from the time Ma helped a shy young man from Ranchi elope with the love of his life. A few years later, this Brat in the picture was born and I fell head over heels in love with my new toy. Then Brat no. 2 came along, and Original Brat and I went psychotic with excitement. The three of us tortured, entertained, abused and comforted each other to a point where the lack of blood ties ceased to matter. We were family, no matter what anyone said.

It's true that real bonds, the kind that last for the rest of your life, are formed in the inner vaults of your being. They have little to do with facts and labels. They grow stronger with time, and sometimes even with distance.
When it was just Ma and I, the Nairs opened up their hearts and their home to us and never let us feel like we were on our own. Chacha and Chachi are always around to listen to nervous whining, offer advice and to just pamper.
The Brats and I, if it were possible, have only grown closer with the sharing of new secrets - of heartbreaks and clandestine smoking, failures, regrets and the vanquishing of our demons.


May this season of festivity bring joy to you and all those you consider your own.

Endorphin Rush

Waving my arms in the air
love, my love, got no care
no care, no, no, pressing my feet to the ground
stand up right where you stand
call to you and what do you do
laying back in a chair?
she's so high on the air
she's so high on the air...


I've done no work for the past three days. Floating around in the sun, basking in the drunk happy feeling of rediscovering the rush that comes with hearing a deep voice say your name with a smile in their voice.
It's nice not to walk around feeling like rejected goods, as if there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It's nice to have someone else's over-sized sweatshirt for cold auto rides. Anti-feminist connotations aside, it's even nice to be called "babe" every once in a while.

There are so many images and versions floating around out there about what interactions with the opposite sex should be like, that you find yourself trying to straitjacket and label every aspect of an essentially fluid relationship.
To hell with the "Is He The Right One?" , "Where Is Your Relationship Going?", "Does Your Guy Get The Real You?" type Cosmo bullshit.
There is no such thing as the "Right One" (You should be glad to know Plato never did say that crap about "love is finding your other half"). A relationship is not a linear progression towards some particular point. The "Real" me? Don't even get me started on that one. Unless you want to read a 3000 word essay on how the world is an illusion (Jagat Mithya), Brahman is the only truth (Brahman Satya), and you are that (Tatvam - asi).
There are friends and lovers and people who used to belong to those categories and then just became a part of you. Why would you WANT to put them in neatly docketed folders?

Syd Barrett's surreal, magical - yet - laced - with - inanity descriptions from "The Madcap Laughs" do better justice to this winter's sudden warmth. Here's to a great something.