Up, up and away..

The amount of times, I have shifted around in Bangalore… would put people to shame. And no, the shifts are not personal (new home) shifts.. they are due to office spaces. In PharmARC, we shifted 5 times in 5 years – quite a feat, that!

I just joined my new company.. that was in August of last year. This April, we moved bag and baggage and shifted.. from Diamond District (6km from my house) to MG Rd (double the distance).

And oh god.. it’s a pain in the ass, and all other wrong places. Right now, Bangalore governments are frenetically digging trenches wherever they set their happy sights on, to build the Bengaluru Metro. What were one beautiful serene tree lined avenues in various parts of the city, now look like the Rann of Kutch.. flat dusty plains, billowing dust storms. And since dear aforesaid govt. is digging with a damn spoon.. it looks like we will be stuck in this grimy, cement-sand-floating-in-air limbo, forever.

I’m taking 3 hours per day, on the road.. which means that the rest of my life almost peters out, over weekdays.

Who am I kidding!! As if I was a party hopping freak when I was living 5 minutes from work. Still, do give me my moment to gripe, people..

MG Rd has been dug up completely. All scientists.. please don’t bother observing moon craters..we have them right here. Walking is a problem, as there are now no roads and no pavements anymore. So one totters over piles of dirty and mud and sand, smiling apologetically to vehicles who are waiting for you to pass, and maybe fall, face first, into the ditch beside.

One doesn’t just ride an auto in BLR, one careens. Merrily, capriciously, blindly… the autowala doing his version of being Michael in the Grand Prix till I tell him, “hello bhaiyaa, bhagwan se itna pyar toh abhi nahi hai, theek se chalaiye”.

Lurching through busy traffic, this guy decides he wants to overtake..an Innova no less. So we caper along, till aforesaid misbegotten vehicle nudges us, oh so gently, into a mound of cement. So there I am, trying desperately to look calm and poised and serene, while sliding slowly but inexorably, down a seat with suddenly, a 45 degree slope. And in the middle of all this, the auto stalls with a choke and a sputter. My auto wala quietly says, “Shit!”

What else can I say, really?

I’m back folkses!!

All of us have times when we want to sink, and almost disappear. And I was going through that, last week. I think the shock of never being able to see Sasha again, hold him close, hug him tight till he yelps in discomfort, smell that doggie smell.. well, I can go on endlessly on this.. was too much to take and auto-recover from. So everything in life became tinged with this dirty gray tone, murky and dark.

And then… there are times when one jumps back on the proverbial bandwagon. when u dust off the, well dust.. and say “enough is enough”, and get back among the living.

I’m back, people!! And heck, it’s about time. Enough moping and whining and feeling sorry for myself. Enough of having expectations from certain friends, who don’t deserve all the time and thought wasted on them. And time to look around at all the ones who have reached out to me, and comforted me in so many ways, through these bleak moments. And thank god they are such a part of my life..

As for Sasha….let the beautiful, and they are all beautiful, memories remain…

Death is a lonely feeling

My sister died 3 weeks ago. She was a very distant cousin, living alone in Bombay, quite cut off from everyone. She was also 2 years younger than me. And while I’m not very traumatized by her gone, vis-à-vis if it had been a favorite cousin; I’m still rather shaken up by the fact that she’s GONE. And that suddenly among the 6 cousins, there is a blank space forever.

And my doggie passed away, as all those read this blog will already know, a week ago. And to say I’m facing this huge void right now, would be an understatement. I definitely prioritize my babies over my family, kya karein..

And when I have friends who I thought of as very very close, who don’t even bother to sms me when I’m at my most down, and then tell me that she contacted my mother because, I quote, “I thought she needed comforting more than you did”, I think something inside me dies a little bit.

Maybe people think that I’m that strong that I don’t need a shoulder to howl on, or that I don’t need anything, period. And it makes me wonder… did my sister feel just as lonely in Bombay? That when she looked around at family and friends there wasn’t really anyone there for her..

I wish I had the chance to talk to her once..now it is too late..