What a girl wants, what a girl needs...

I believe having the flu and loads of work to do, can do strange things to you. OK, so maybe not to you...but to me, definitely! (This, apart from the crazy rhyming thing.)

So, in a heavy-headed, feverish moment, I ask Google “what Priya needs”. And this is what Google says -

1. PRIYA NEEDS A DATE!!! (Yes, in capitals too!!!) Hey, if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll find someone else who will! HA!

2. Priya needs to stop giving in! But the only way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it! Duh!

3. Do you think Priya needs to tell? Google, never miss a good chance to shut up!

4. Priya needs to wait to be malamaal. Oh google, all I want is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy!!! 

5. What do I need? Uniquely Priya. Ok, if I seem to give a damn, please tell me. I would hate to be giving the wrong impression!

6. Priya needs true friend. R,S,V,P. (!!!)...you listening?

7. Priya needs numbers. Hmm, I do need something I can count on... 

8. Priya needs to wake up early to revise! Oh yes, There’s this blood test I have to take...

9. Priya needs to learn compliance. No way!!

10. Priya needs home in Begur, Bangalore. Check previous post please.

Very funny!
So I ask Google “what Priya wants” next, and check this!

1. Priya wants a new boob job. Google, what’re you like, a 16 year old boy?  


2. Priya wants a decent man in Chennai. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong!

3. Priya wants to quit LRL for Kasturi. Huh?? I’m baffled. 

4. Priya wants to be your friend on orkut! Eh, I don’t, thank you very much!

5. Priya wants good work. Yes, especially since a thing not worth doing isn't worth doing well.

6. Priya wants true friends. Actually, don’t walk behind me, for I may not lead. Don’t walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Don’t walk beside me, either. Just leave me alone, will ya? 

7. Priya wants to tell about her personal life. Hahaha! Ya right! A word of advice to you guys – A closed mouth gathers no foot.

8. Priya wants to learn English online at busuu.com. Because, it's not who you know, it's whom you know.

9. Priya wants to control her diet. Definitely! Replace meals with dessert!

So there you go! You have, apparently, the Google version of all my needs and wants! Now aren’t you just a wee bit curious to find out what Google thinks you need/want?

So hey, go play! And have a nice day!

:D

ps-a whole buncha bumper sticker lines have gone into this. There's no way my dulled-by-fever brain coulda come up with them. 

These are the places I remember...

-->

Going back to a place you once knew intimately can be somewhat of an anticlimax. You take your expectations built on the promise of reminiscence with you and sometimes, these expectations sell you short, and you realize that some things are better relived in memory. Your time there has passed, and things will never be the same again.

Ranchi, the place where I spent my childhood, and most of my teen years, holds some amazing memories for me. And yet, returning to it, long after my friends and family have left, casts a shadow on these memories somehow, simply because I no longer feel like I belong. Ranchi and I seem to have bid our farewells long back and have now become somewhat of strangers through long years of separation. 

Chennai was grand. I broke almost every rule in my parents’ book and lived out the wild child in me. I made friends for life out there, and wrapped around myself enough stories to keep my grandchildren entertained in some distant future. Every time I return to it, it feels like meeting an old friend, albeit one that is impatient to move on after pleasantries have been exchanged. Chennai is still grand. Despite the annoyance of haggling with autowallah’s, and the humidity which makes me feel like I’m inhaling water instead of drinking it, it still feels like home. If not anything else, the language binds me to it, along with many secrets that the city and I share.

Bangalore will always be the place I love, insanely so. But from a distance. It has taken away much, and it has given me a lot too. Long story, that...

But Pune remains the place that my feet turn towards, wherever I may be. Like right now. If home is where the heart is, then that’s where my heart lies, awaiting my return. I don’t as yet know Pune the way I used to know Ranchi, with all its little nooks and crannies, but maybe that’s why I like it so much...because there’s still much to be discovered, much to be learned, and much more to be loved.

*sigh* I want to go home...

And now, just because I feel like, I’m going to list out all the other places I’ve been to, right from Khandala, where I spent a little less than a day, to London, where I spent a year. They have all added, in some subtle way, to the person that I am today. So, here goes...Jamshedpur, Patna, Hazaribagh, Monghyr, Netarhat, Cuttack, Rourkela, Calcutta, Indore, Hyderabad, Chittorgarh, Delhi, Agra, Chandigarh, Shimla, Mahabalipuram, Trichy, Thirunelveli, Nazareth, Palayamkotai, Coimbatore, Vellore, Kodaikanal, Pondicherry, Cochin, Ernakulum, Allepey, Panchgani, Mahabaleshwar, Matheran, Lonavala, Khandala, Bombay, Nagaon, Goa, London, Ceylon, New York, Northampton, Boston, Connecticut, Fremont, San Francisco...

Ok, not a terribly impressive list, but I plan to keep it growing.

Until then, these are the places...

Find Yourself

A song.
And a wish, that we find what we're searching for.

Yesterday

"That era has passed.

Nothing that belonged to it exists any more.

He remembers those vanished years.

As though looking through a dusty window pane,

The past is something he could see, but not touch.

And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct."

- from 'In the Mood for Love'

Fragmented

Saying goodbye wasn’t easy

Knowing that

I didn’t want to leave,

And that you didn’t want me to...

But also knowing that

I couldn’t stay...

Shouldn’t stay any longer.

I kept the moments

And let you keep the memories...

So that if you should ever wonder

If I’ll come back,

You know, that

In these memories, I will...

Whenever you think

Of me.

Hmph!

My cell phone rings. I check. Unknown number. I pick anyways.

Here’s how the conversation with someone I figure is a telemarketer pushing god-knows-what, goes.

Me (in deadpan monotone) : Hello.

She (chirpy, nasal voiced) : Yeh Mr I.B. (the husband) ka number hai, kya?

Me (repeat deadpan monotone) : No

She (in same chirpy, nasal voice) : Aap mujhe unka number de sakte hain?

Me (same deadpan monotone) : No

She (amazingly, still chirpy) : OK! Thank you!

*click*

She hung up? She hung up!

Me (left holding dead phone) : ???


(Someone should complain to her boss! Telemarketers shouldn't give up that easily! Or sound so happy, for that matter...)
Bah!

Untangling the Knots

Dreams are a kite

That dances with the wind...

Love is a fetter,

Held down and pinned.

Hope is a paper boat

Braving a stormy sea,

But thoughts are a bird

Rising skywards,

Unencumbered and free...

    source: XKCD

Turn the Page

I open the heavy album and look into my paper memories. Highlighted life looks back at me…content, happy, full. Bright colours, special moments, white grins…all captured in a frame, so that someday I might look back into each picture and glow in the warmth of its recollections. These photos, the legacies of the life I have led so far, speak of my experiences, my friends, the travels, the adventures and more. Each, a window into a moment, telling a story of the person that I am, of all that I’ve valued through time.

But there are spaces between each vibrant picture in its tidy white frame…spaces filled with invisible moments that do not want to be remembered, that carry too much hurt to be remembered. The prizes that couldn’t be won, the love that promised and then went away, the friendships that destiny cruelly discarded, and the wounds that each loss seared across the heart.

Maybe good times aren’t meant to last forever. Maybe that’s why we save them in the recesses of our minds, sometimes, on paper; proof that we have lived these moments, and enjoyed the offerings of those special times. Our memories recall the vivid shape of joy, whenever happiness seems hard to imagine.

Yes, remembering is important, and yet, forgetting, even more so. Because in a world where pain outweighs happiness, it’s easy to get stuck in a moment. And forgetting is the only way we can let go and move on.

I turn another page.