Restless...

Boy, these times when words come out in a burst. It’s palpable…you’re in a rush, a thousand things are running amuck in your head,a nd you’re scared it’s about to explode. That isn’t figurative by the way – there comes a day when you truly feel it.

The restlessness can make you want to slap the first person you make eyes with. You grab that notebook, and begin keying it all in…your fingers fly, you don’t see typing errors, you produce absolutely disorganised pieces or writing, and yet, nothing’s enough.

Suddenly you remember how strongly you felt about that brilliant girl who was denied admission at a prestigious school, and your blood begins to boil. Then you remember a that touching conversation with a friend you spoke to many months later, cos you’ve just gotten yourself a new life. The sigh – you can almost hear it! You’d promised to record that for later.
The big wide reservation debate, 59 years of independence, the power of communication (America’s biggest weapon – Thank you for smoking, ma friend!).

And then you’re filled with a frustration – why am I never more organised? Why can’t I make time for the things I feel so strongly about? Do I just don’t feel enough? Am I letting other people guide my life too much? For example, why do I shop every weekend, when at the back of my mind, I think I want to be sitting down and writing. Will there be a day when I feel confident about a zillion things to be truly impulsive and spontaneous? Will there be a day when I stop feeling like a fake cos I am always volunteering for a 1000 things and never doing anything concrete on the ground? Will typing out all that I feel about myself and what I want to do at breakneck speed make it all a little clearer, make me want to do something about it all? Will something just snap, and release this energy and jolt me into action? But to act on what? To do what ? to be passionate about what? To give up this life of chaos for what?
And we’re back to square one.

Collection B...

So, armed with my first pay cheque, I resolved to make one of those dreams come true. Thoughts that had motivated me to do one extra exercise in Class 9. Petty? Well, who says they weren’t at 14!
I decided to start my classic book collection. My mind conjured my the familiar wooden shelves one atop the other, neatly stacked with books in their complete series – the 6 terms of Malory Towers and St Clares, all the best sellers who ever walked the New York times – the Grishams, the Sheldons, Archers, despite the snide ‘poor taste’ remarks…the Indian classics – Seths, Rushdies, RK Narayans, Suketu Mehta, etc, etc….the comic strips…Calvin and Hobbs, may be even a few Archies…the classics…ok, stop muttering Pride & Prejudice…that still is my top favourite!, well, add to it the Huckleberry Finns, Tom Sawyers, Tale of two cities, …fine, so they really aren’t the same genre, but they’re still one cheap paperback option!

So, thus my collection grows – randomly and in every direction! There are the fat Suitable boys in Maximum city; the ‘can recognise cross eyed’ famous classics paperbacks, and the incomplete years at Malory towers…and they’re growing by the minute.
Boy, is it a joy, to buy and own and re-read those very books you borrowed for Rs. 1.5/week from the local neighbourhood, and longed to ‘lose’ and never return!

I read really slowly - haven’t gotten through more than 2.5 of the 12 books I have begun my collection with. But then , I didn’t really buy my Tom Sawyers to read it in one night – I’ve done that several times over in classes 6, 7 , 9 and 12…I just wanted to own it the next time I read it; I just needed to pick it off my very own rack.

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Sometimes I am just ashamed at the fact that I haven’t written about the most eventful moments of my life – the time I got my first big job, the time I started being with the love of my life, the time I moved to live in a foreign country for a bit, the time I stayed in my first five star hotel, the time I first began to fly twice a week from twice in 10 years, the time I’ve been the loneliest with absolutely no one to talk to, however much I wanted to, the time I visited my first cabaret show, the time I saw opportunities I believe motivated me in every goal, fall at my feet…well…and these were the best and worst of times……

And I wonder… the busiest times bring out in us the need to multitask like never before…when I had never studied enough, never knew enough for the impending test was when I religiously updated my blog….and now, in spite of the busy life, my loneliness leaves me with a lot of time, and yet I don’t write…I don’t make an effort to learn new things, I don’t see myself going out and getting ‘em things I thought I’d fought to have for a lifetime. In short.

It’s ironic, and yet what’s even more ironic is the fact that you never wake up to the irony.