Musings of a deranged saturday mind

I was out in the party. Saw a million women around . Most of them pretty, lively, and smart. Dancing to the beat. How do I go and speak to the "one"? So I look for a familiar face. Find them. And spend the evening with them. They are cute. Funny. Sassy. Time passes by. Midnight clock strikes. I am half-drunk. Look for the subway back. And I Take it. Two girls sitting next to me. Two strangers. One was sublime. The other lost. But trying to be funny. She was gazing an empty bottle. The bottle was rolling on the floor - from me to her and back. She smiled and said, "It's not me." "You are giving me ideas," I quipped. But hmm... not interested. I was fixed on the other girl. I saw peace, quiet, and a face that was telling me a long story. Asking me to fill in the words. What's lurking behind those soleful eyes? Is she lonely? Is she looking for love? Is this love? How can that be? No, may be just a wanting to love. But huh! How do I go and tell her that? So "I was sitting in the fence". Her station came. She got off. My jorney continued. To my empty bed. I write this. I kiss this. Oh! well I might just go and kiss the air.

"I always dreamt of being ...." - Oh Crap!

"I had this dream to become an movies star." I am so sick of hearing people saying such things. "Ever since I was a kid I thought that's what I will become." Remember Ellen in this year's Oscars - "I always wanted to host the Oscars." You guys - give me a break, will you.

If only people could reach to where they are just by taking a flight in their dreams. Dreams are not enough. I had a dream - of becoming a mango. I ran and ran and ran -- more than I ever thought I would. Yup! Trust me. And guess what? I turned to be an "apple". Should I say now - I wanted to be an apple? Liar. Seriously, I am tired of hearing this. If only life ran according to the - ever-since-I-was-a-kid-I-had-a-dream way. Loads of BS that at best drives me nuts in mae of giving some vicarious pleasure.

Yes, I may have fallen over the cliff and have become cynical. Maybe as some might think that I simply don't "get it" and still don't get it. Fair enough. Here's the truth. I never had dreams. I did loads of daydreaming bunch of them, and I still do. But to imagine that they will become reality - boy, let's not kid myself here. I do hope something somewhere somehow I'll get close. Hope is much more abstract than my tangible daydreams. Daydreams like: driving at 55 mph during the rush hour in the Beltway. Singing along with the Stones to rock the world. Getting a seat in the ariplane next to sexy girl. Writing something and seeing The New Yorkers and Vanity Fairs running behind me. Whoa!

What I have become and where my life is headed -- I don't have a clue. How I have arrived at this point -- I don't know how it happened. Merely a series of random accidents. I can't retrtace my steps. I can't find my back. I have no control of how things happen. I don't know what things will be thrown at me in future. All I do is hope that I can duck, may be swing myself, and deflect it in a way that's not that bad for me. For now, I can dream that I can always go for hitting out of fence.

Vegetating

My mind has been vegetating for the last few days. I feel like a sloth. It seems like one of the dull patches when the weather, and lunch deli all seems to be consipring to make my head heavy and sleepy. I wake up, go to work, keep glaring at the screen - emails, NYT, and Dow Jones. Lunch, and more of the fluorescent screen, drive back, gym, dinner, and sleep. Run that ten thousand times and there goes my life - my future. Of course I know that not true. Yup! I have plans! I began by reading my own stuff that I posted over the last few months. Gosh! some of them seem to be great, but large part seems to be utter garbage. Reminds me of some filmaker who said he finds his own work intolerable. I can now see his point. I sound so preachy, at times boring... oh! man! I can't go further. So it is good that my mind vegetates for a while. A rested mind and body will be good. That's what I hope.

Coming home to The Namesake

In the last few days I realized that I cannot escape myself from “something” related to the movie “The Namesake”. It has been a common topic of conversations among my friends. Even last week, when I crisscrossed the nation on a Jetblue flight from DC to SF and back, there were trailers shown in one of their “36 channels of Direct TV programming”. Quite repeatedly, in fact. So, what’s so? Nothing much. Actually, I was browsing Barnes and Nobles today and even picked up the CD. The checkout girl thought the movie has been released – to which I quite solemnly replied, “not is DC, only in SF, LA, and NYC.”

It was a little more than a year ago when I read the novel. I don’t know why I picked it up. Probably, I heard a note somewhere that Jhumpa Lahiri was a good story teller. In some of her interviews, she seemed honest and genuine. Before that I was not so keen on reading about novels or stories on identity conflicts and the whole subject seemed quite trite and boring. In a way, it was too close to reality to even think about it. But, things were a bit different this time. The novel was compelling and riveting. It hooked me on right away. Thank God, I picked it up on Friday evening, which meant I did not have to qualm about dropping the book aside – and worry about going to work the next day. And so page after page, I read on – under my bedside lamp in one corner of the world – my then home in town in North Carolina.

It was as if in some sense my fears, agonies, crises were being depicted and being underscored. I felt – if it were possible for the story to go on and on without an ending. It finally did end, and I did not like the ending. It was well - what's the answer - too ????? for me. I wish it never happened that way. Will he find happiness? It was all the more bothersome because I was living into the character most part and in the end I did not want to end up like that. I did not want to be another addition to long list of forlorn looking-for-peace human beings housed in the richest country. And then I looked my own self and could easily detach myself. I had company then.

What a twist of fate? Within a month – a storm blew away my marriage and I was in face of the earth left thinking that I was “destiny’s child” again. As I resurrected and reconstituted myself in the last year through multitude of travels, relationships, and explorations, I still seek my home. I see myself running towards the horizon grasping for something that may be nothing but “hope” itself.

While the movie will open in my city in the next month or so, I believe I am going to love the ending too. In the last year, I have sensed that it is possible to have a happy life without a happy ending. I appreciated real freedom to sense, perceive, and feel one with myself.

Many people believe - What we don’t want to see in life we love to see it in movies and novels. This novel does not meet that expectation. And may be that’s what so great about it. To understand that hope as an object can be as strong a reason to live as what is actually hoped for. One year later, I find myself not to be so different from Gogol. Searching and set-out to discover the world. Living into a life where journey and destination have collapsed into a nebulous cloud. “The End” never happens here. There is no silver lining. Remember Tagore’s masterpiece short story “The Homecoming”? - about a confused, vulnerable teenager at the crossroads of childhood and adulthood who finally gets to come home - the eternal abode called death

I don't want to die so soon. I care to enjoy this journey - coping with my changing identity, changing contexts, and a changing home. Yes, I am driving towards the horizon - an endless cycle of life.