There are different kinds of pain Pothead. At different times in your life. Isme kaunsi badi baat hai, she said. Just because you have a splitting headache don’t pretend you are a philosopher. I made a face. I can’t log into the net, I haven’t got any money for 2 and a half years, I have stopped working, it’s the eve of Diwali, mess will be closed for a day starting tomorrow afternoon, I feel bloated AND I have a bad headache. I feel like I have a strong urge to fly and nowhere to fly to.
You have had too much of vacation, Pothead said. That’s bad for health. There is such a thing as too much vacation. And yesterday you said that you have passed that stage of life where you could quote Pink Floyd.
I don’t feel like sleeping, I said feeling really really sad.
That’s because that’s all you have been doing all day.
So when life was such a mess as this (and there was still no net, although everyone else on my floor was happily watching whatever they watch on pre-chutti nights, and I had only watched some 20 minutes of D-Day ) the only bright spot in my life was the string of tiny pink lights on a string in the mess that I could see from my room. I could see 8 of them.
I felt so sad that I wasn’t even hungry, and it was half past two at night. I had only one meal today-dinner. I didn’t even feel like falling in love. With anyone at all. Or even going to some exotic place. Or walk in the rain. I didn’t even want to listen to Arijit Singh.
What did I want?
Nothing.
They had started with the voice part in Ode to Joy, and suddenly it seemed a little too over the top. I wanted to read my hand, but I couldn’t open the palmistry site.
I love the faded worn light green curtain of my room, it makes me feel rather comfortable. It has bits of white paper stuck on it at places now-they came off from the flight tags my rucksack had when I washed all of them together in the new automatic washing machine.
I felt a little feverish. My, head, still throbbing felt warm and so did the back of my neck. Now I knew why and when people obsessively watched FRIENDS. I was watching the series again. I also knew why you needed the cued in laughter.
And then BB called in the morning.
It was an exceptionally warm day for end October. Everything outside was much too bright. Ph pulled the light green curtain over her side of the window to let the bright blue sky keep to itself outside and not come in through her window. This was the last Diwali she would spend in the hostel. The room needed cleaning. She needed a bath. But it being an official holiday, she couldn’t let go of the opportunity to indulge in a guilt free daydreaming.
And this is why you need festivals, thought Pothead. She felt insanely happy looking at the little hand painted earthen lamp at her doorstep. She wished there was a larger variety of crackers at the hostel. The smoke had a distinct charm. She inhaled the deeply polluted air and felt good. There were only fulzharis, charkis and tubris in the hostel. Some guys had brought chocolate bombs and were making good use of them near the guest house. It felt good to be alive. The sky across the Powai lake was acting as this luminescent backdrop for occasional bursts of a splattering of colours.
With a very give-up expression, Pothead had to admit to herself that BB had better ideas. And was a lot more fun. She liked his vision rather too much and found her own pretty mundane and barley water type. The reader in her earnestly hoped he would be a terrific writer. The chronicler, the woman in her grudgingly wondered, if after all men were better than women. Deny as she would, she couldn’t bring herself to really really find a favourite female author. Ok, there was Christie, and Enid Blyton and Daphne du Maurier- but they weren’t a Bernard Shaw or an O.Henry. There was Bani Bosu and Lila Majumdar and Ashapurna Devi- but they weren’t Sharatchandra or Rabindranath. And she liked reading BB much more than she liked her own thoughts. “It’s a simple matter of experience”, BB would elaborate to her, “Not that there is a qualitative difference, but you being a girl can’t take the risks I can take. You haven’t even seen the rainbow as many times as I have. Maybe, you could talk about me- have your gen-re based on me that is.”
Have my what based on you?
Gen-re.
What? She inched closer to the window in trying to hear better.
GEN- RE.
Oh…genre, said Pothead, falling back. This guy couldn’t pronounce genre right, and yet I like his writings. Sighhh.
“Oreeee. Girls are looking at me for the past one week. “
You have put on 10 kilo?
“No ree. But since I got into mensa, one girl has asked me to get her a fruit from the tree on the road. And this girl at the gym (I have joined a gym) told me Hi! See you on Friday. The gym trainer is a girl here, can you believe?”
Did you just get into that gym because the trainer is a girl?
“Nopes. I got in because the doctor told me to. I have neck pain.”
You’ve had that since like forever. Didn’t you get that after trying to lift dumbbells in high school?
“Irrelevant. Maybe my eyes have taken on that special sparkle.”
Pshhhahhhh! Stuff and nonsense.
And then abruptly, both Ph and BB shut up. Oh well....someday again, perhaps.
You have had too much of vacation, Pothead said. That’s bad for health. There is such a thing as too much vacation. And yesterday you said that you have passed that stage of life where you could quote Pink Floyd.
I don’t feel like sleeping, I said feeling really really sad.
That’s because that’s all you have been doing all day.
So when life was such a mess as this (and there was still no net, although everyone else on my floor was happily watching whatever they watch on pre-chutti nights, and I had only watched some 20 minutes of D-Day ) the only bright spot in my life was the string of tiny pink lights on a string in the mess that I could see from my room. I could see 8 of them.
I felt so sad that I wasn’t even hungry, and it was half past two at night. I had only one meal today-dinner. I didn’t even feel like falling in love. With anyone at all. Or even going to some exotic place. Or walk in the rain. I didn’t even want to listen to Arijit Singh.
What did I want?
Nothing.
They had started with the voice part in Ode to Joy, and suddenly it seemed a little too over the top. I wanted to read my hand, but I couldn’t open the palmistry site.
I love the faded worn light green curtain of my room, it makes me feel rather comfortable. It has bits of white paper stuck on it at places now-they came off from the flight tags my rucksack had when I washed all of them together in the new automatic washing machine.
I felt a little feverish. My, head, still throbbing felt warm and so did the back of my neck. Now I knew why and when people obsessively watched FRIENDS. I was watching the series again. I also knew why you needed the cued in laughter.
And then BB called in the morning.
It was an exceptionally warm day for end October. Everything outside was much too bright. Ph pulled the light green curtain over her side of the window to let the bright blue sky keep to itself outside and not come in through her window. This was the last Diwali she would spend in the hostel. The room needed cleaning. She needed a bath. But it being an official holiday, she couldn’t let go of the opportunity to indulge in a guilt free daydreaming.
And this is why you need festivals, thought Pothead. She felt insanely happy looking at the little hand painted earthen lamp at her doorstep. She wished there was a larger variety of crackers at the hostel. The smoke had a distinct charm. She inhaled the deeply polluted air and felt good. There were only fulzharis, charkis and tubris in the hostel. Some guys had brought chocolate bombs and were making good use of them near the guest house. It felt good to be alive. The sky across the Powai lake was acting as this luminescent backdrop for occasional bursts of a splattering of colours.
With a very give-up expression, Pothead had to admit to herself that BB had better ideas. And was a lot more fun. She liked his vision rather too much and found her own pretty mundane and barley water type. The reader in her earnestly hoped he would be a terrific writer. The chronicler, the woman in her grudgingly wondered, if after all men were better than women. Deny as she would, she couldn’t bring herself to really really find a favourite female author. Ok, there was Christie, and Enid Blyton and Daphne du Maurier- but they weren’t a Bernard Shaw or an O.Henry. There was Bani Bosu and Lila Majumdar and Ashapurna Devi- but they weren’t Sharatchandra or Rabindranath. And she liked reading BB much more than she liked her own thoughts. “It’s a simple matter of experience”, BB would elaborate to her, “Not that there is a qualitative difference, but you being a girl can’t take the risks I can take. You haven’t even seen the rainbow as many times as I have. Maybe, you could talk about me- have your gen-re based on me that is.”
Have my what based on you?
Gen-re.
What? She inched closer to the window in trying to hear better.
GEN- RE.
Oh…genre, said Pothead, falling back. This guy couldn’t pronounce genre right, and yet I like his writings. Sighhh.
“Oreeee. Girls are looking at me for the past one week. “
You have put on 10 kilo?
“No ree. But since I got into mensa, one girl has asked me to get her a fruit from the tree on the road. And this girl at the gym (I have joined a gym) told me Hi! See you on Friday. The gym trainer is a girl here, can you believe?”
Did you just get into that gym because the trainer is a girl?
“Nopes. I got in because the doctor told me to. I have neck pain.”
You’ve had that since like forever. Didn’t you get that after trying to lift dumbbells in high school?
“Irrelevant. Maybe my eyes have taken on that special sparkle.”
Pshhhahhhh! Stuff and nonsense.
And then abruptly, both Ph and BB shut up. Oh well....someday again, perhaps.
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