Monday, January 24, 2011

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying, No amount of whisky, no amount of wine

It is the particular trademark of writers that they imbue the mundane, the everyday things with a quality of romance and state the unbelievable matter of factly.

It is in good writing and in the coloured thoughts of another that I seek solace again, and again. Amidst the pretty tinted lenses of  Bollywood talk shows, their banter lending colour to my pale complexion and some life to tired eyes, a sudden burst of laughter that had dried to a trickle at the corner of my mouth- I spring to life for a few moments. Not the recommended amount, but perhaps enough to clutch on to living for now. I refused to watched "I Hate Luv Storys" when it released, preferring to spend my time instead with a friend, her dog and my almost-friend-again in the cool afternoon languor of her house. Puppy love peppered with ciggarette breaks, unhurried conversation and Coraline. What I miss about Calcutta and India- both meaning the same thing in my head- is not the frenzied rush to meet up at Aqua Java or chilling with cup after cup of endless lebu cha at VP, one day blurring into another as the days sped on by. I miss the quality of absolute belonging, the certainty in my heart-and I say this with a straight face- of being at home. Homesickness, I've discovered is not something that lessens with time. It dullens and then strikes you all of a sudden, when you thought you'd left it far behind.
So it happened, that after finally watching "I Hate Luv Storys" last night, I found myself longing for my workplace last summer, of all things. "Bin Tere" was a song that Pri Di was very fond off and it blared on and off as I performed my mad scientist feats with tissue culture. I find myself marooned, having joined a program so sure, so certain of my ambitions and future that I never could have predicted that I was cutting myself off from any possiblity of returning home or that it would matter this much. For a child who has only spent at the most 1 and a half years of her life in India, I have an extraordinarily large reaction to being away from it.
I've been reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. The protagonist constantly veers between wondering desperately what the purpose of his life is and an inflated sense of self importance. Resemblance, much? Perhaps in another dimension, I'm an artsy hippie, who's finally learned to play the guitar and is attending the Doverlane music conference right now. Someday, I really really hope I'll know I got it right.

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