I don't know a poetic way to say this. - I have been drunk for a week.
Today I gate crashed a wedding. Believing I was being led to a BYOB house party, I walked into a shiny Punjabi wedding of my senior from school. Uninvited and not unknown I stood in a corner feeling uncomfortable that I was freeloading off the family of a an ex-classmate who I hated. But two whiskeys down and all my dilemmas sorted themselves out. 
There's nothing in the world like free booze. Or sour grapes. 

It's finally cold and I'm suffering, yet ecstatic. It's Winter now which means whiskey and beds and Nick Drake and emerging through the fog. 

Yesterday my friends and I huddled in a circle like hobos to keep warm while drinking. It was awesome. 

Often I can feel myself doing something utterly completely stupid(I have always admired myself for being transparently self aware) while I should be doing something useful. Then I can feel a horrible familiar uneasiness in my chest-it's happening right now- but I become physically glued to doing the stupid thing. 


I just remembered this in Kerouac's book of Haikus, 

I should have scratched 
that spot before
I started to sleep


Regret is my most encountered emotion. My worst friend and my best enemy.

I have exams, and Strokes stalking is tradition. 

There's an entire movie. 


But for now, I am going to be as responsible as responsible gets at eight hours before the exam and having done nothing. Back to postmodernbrechtpostcolonialtheatrelyotardalthusserreadagainstthegrainhatemyselfandiwanttodie. 

I am finally, after three years of fairly proficient but illegal driving, going to have a license tomorrow. 
Apart from the fact that Justin Bieber's voice has cracked, it might be the biggest achievement of the millennium. 


I found this today in my documents, 

Syd had that beautiful thing going where you could see he was tormented, heartbroken, insane, in complete agony of being alive, but still dignified about the whole thing. That's the thing about madness. It isn't crass and insecure. Like most things, and people that are 'normal'.

(Normal is in quotes apparently I am (pretending to be) an 'academic' and my Profs yell at me everyday to 'CAN'T USE TERMS LIGHTLY')  

(Academic is in quotes because it makes me feel uncomfortable)

I don't care if the sun don't shine 
And I don't care if nothing is mine 
And I don't care if I'm nervous with you 
I'll do my loving in the winter

I just finished reading The Taqwacores. I talked aloud through various Arabic interludes, often lifted my face to imagine the scene I just read played out in front of me and constantly imagined an encounter with the people from the book. I wept in most parts, not the kind you expect to happen(like in formulaic bullshit Romantic Comedy shit) or forget why in about two seconds. But the kind of weeping you cannot comprehend and cannot help. It's the kind of book you hold to your chest after it's over and with satisfaction comes the tragic sadness that you know exactly how things are going to turn out. It's the kind of book that makes you want to go to the first page and forget every single line so you could live it again, it's also the kind that makes you want to kick yourself for watching the movie first. It's the kind of book where you start talking like it does because it transported you with such truth to another world that inevitably becomes your own. It's the kind that tosses your heart and mind around and it absolutely totally fucking sucks when they're restored back into their own places and everything is as you knew it. 

I don't know why the blog says 11:21 but it's actually four o clock in the morning and the first day of the last month of the year. I don't even remember where this one went. Which is exactly why I know where it did. 

When i was young and shone like a crazy diamond I had this sweater. It had a shiny purple parachute on it. I think this was also about the time when I was reading those hard bound Enid Blyton books with a bunch of weird creatures on the covers. There was one about a Wishing Chair. The Wishing Chair belonged to a pair of brother and sister, whose routine Victorian life obviously bored them to death. Post supper and changing into pyjamas and brushing and cleaning and all that other hygiene and morality that Blyton tried to teach us (Didn't work on a SINGLE Indian kid I'm sure), the brother and sister took the wishing chair and whizzed to a strange land. One time they went to visit the woman who lived in a giant shoe. One time they met Moon-face and the pixie(Silver-toes...Silky-feet?) that lived on the Faraway tree. And one time they went to a land where they met Top-Cat. This one I think I imagained. Now whenever I wore the sweater(every minute of every hour) with the magic parachute, I would go to a land of unlimited cake and merry-go-rounds the king of which was Top Cat. He would be posing on a dustbin and all of that. His actual name, not his gangsta name, was Jaykumar. I remember hanging with J.K, walking around the house and running from the police. My mother recalls being severely worried because I used to insist that a second plate of food be laid out for J. The time I remember with him most was when my parents took me to, Shimla, I think it was. Or maybe it was Ranikhet. For days the two of us collected ladybirds and picked mushrooms(OH CRAP that must've been it). After about a week of being together, that seemed like an eternity, J.K decided to jump the cliff. Literally .This all sounds so incredibly stupid, but this is one of the clearest memories I have from being a kid. I remember being in near a cliff, and I remember an erect standing cat waving to me as he cheerfully hopped off the edge of the mountain. One one foot. Just like that.

My sister(the smaller kid on the right) is wearing it in this picture. The older one one with the mushroom hair and the perfect set of teeth would be me. 
I hope we haven't donated the parachute to paradise to an ungrateful cousin with more facebook friends than imaginary ones. 


I have a paper on Modernism to write in five hours, and all I've done for two hours is stare at this photograph. And imagine filming my friends as we trudged up a mountain in the snow, swearing, smoking and dreaming aloud. 
This is how it goes in my head and usually in life:
Mo(smokes continuously): Fuck work man, FUCK, this is the life, who cares about money man? I'm going to work till I'm 26, then I'm done with this shit man, Faaaak, who cares man
K: Abbe tu itna bada chooda kyun hai dude. NO ONE cares bhenchot, apna muh band nahin rakh sakta yeh baccha
Sha(crinkling eyes and smiling at the world): 'TNT...watch me exploodddddddde'
Sols:Yeah baby, you'll explode when you're inside me...
Me: You guys one day let's buy a house on a mountain, you guys! let's get a house on every mountain. Oh man I love the mountains. Okay you guys, whadyou think we should eat? LOOK there's a river!
Shaun: Chill out, S!
Sid: Dudes and ladies, I think I've got a vision for my movie...
V: Abbe oh, the only vision I can see is me kicking you in the balls like at Christmas. 
K: Chooda
Deba: We should get direwolves, and then we should go fishing, abbe abhi chalte hain main toh kehta hoon, LETS CONQUER THE WORLD!!
DJ: ............................hmmm......
M: WOW THIS PLACE IS SO PRETTY! OH WOW, LOOK THERE'S A SHOP THAT SELLS FUDGE, YAYYYYYY!
Nish: And we sang DIRGES in the dark!! Umm, okay Mohit, but technically...(starts something that no one gets)
Jess: *chuckling* this is fun...
Me to V: Bro, I feel like everythings....right, yknow
V: Knowwhatchamean bro. I feel like *insert movie reference that no one gets*
Dibbi: arre, Birds!
Deba: AAAAAAAAAA! Main Bhagwaan hoon!
TanTan(laughs):Abbe tum sab kitne bade gadhe ho, yaar
Mo:Abbe sid, bhenkelode, stop fucking smiling like that man, fuck man what the fuck is wrong with you
Bose: easy on the profanities, young man.
Almost everyone: SHUT UP BOSE!
Kotia looks at a campaign poster and rants about something no one cares about.
Sid: Bla blaaa
K: Pet se hai ma ka lund


I apologize for the absurd interruption above. 
It is four thirty in the morning and there is a shaadi ka band playing outside my house.
I need to find that sweater. Or maybe just those mushrooms. 

You know, If I had a tumblr page, you'd thinK I was cool. YOU WOULD WOULDN'T YOU? 
That Why this Kolaveri guy is freaking lucky I wish my life could change in one day on youtube so I could be the envy of people my age and everyone would want to marry me. Shruti Hassan seems to be quite into him in the video. Youtube is the new centre of the world. Today in attempts to distract myself from studying, I downloaded various application forms for various colleges in various countries to make it seem like I have drive. I pretended like I wanted to apply for things like 'Masters in Economic Law'. FUCK that is a scary sounding course. Much to my mother's annoyance I insisted that I must make dosas for the entire household, resulting in poisonous glares from my sister and my mother beating her head shrieking in Tamil. Even my dog looked like he wanted to cry. The upside of not knowing your mother tongue is that I have no clue what Ma is ranting about when she does. Sometimes I think she calls me things like 'pawn of the devil'. I dug out my music player which I decided needed to be fixed RIGHT NOW(kal kare so aj yo), and drove around town only for the guard at the Sony shop, in our not so friendly neighborhood Noida, look at me like I was asking to marry his daughter. Then I sat on my sister's bed and read out Catcher in the Rye aloud and told her things like 'Dude, you always have a choice to just NOT do things'. 'Man, always remember that hard work NEVER pays off'. I had a delightful conversation with my friend, parts of which sounded like this. Ah, to be young and stupid.

me: Maybe I'll go to Bombay....

12:13 PM   

I wish we lived in the 50's so we could just get like small jobs. Dreams were practical then

  D: youre mad

  youre not mad

 maybe im madme:we're all mad here

D:I think I oversimplify everything....me: I feel like there's a blanket on my head

  Like my brain is being covered :/

D: idunno

  things seems to make a lot of sense to me

 me: social constructs man, if only we knew what we ACTUALLY want

  normal things?

  things you read?

 D: no

  things

  just thingsme: whoa.
me:white people aren't real people.D:some.but they're white.
It's friday night and my BFFFF is in HER house and we're sober and this just feels wrong. Peeni Bharke gilass, man!!  I haven't read the paper in days. And I haven't opened a single coursebook, but its Delhi University. It's where things....work out. I''m going to top my Masters in Harboring Delusions. 
Doesn't the italic font make it seem like you're saying smart things?(handla glass-u, glassla scotch-u lalalalala....)

In other news,

YOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PAAAAAAAAAAAARTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

It is my final year of college. When I was eighteen and just getting in I decided what I wanted to be for the next three years. I wanted to be a hater. I hated college. While all my friends were smoking under trees talking about Plato, and throwing around a few words from a few classes they attended, here I was, stuck in a building full of women with better clothes, longer hair, and absolutely no capacity for conversation. My school of cool was empty. I was alone. I hardly went all of first year. And whenever I did, I mocked my course, pissed-off my professors, and wandered around feeling like the maverick I had always planned to be. What I didn't realize is that I was desperately sad. Being comfortable was never a choice. Accepting was never a way out. All I did for two years is cling on to a fading, weak sense of hate that kept up with my image, but completely came in the way of who I was. I was a lover, not a hater. My angst wasn't artistic or productive, it was just an amusement that kept me going for a year I hardly remember anything of.

In second year, I developed a different outlook. I smoked my time away. I smoked in the morning, in the afternoon, and before I knew it days became fluid and it was all the same. I would wake up in the morning, not know what to do, so I would get stoned and wait for the answers to come to me. Now because I was still sticking to being sad, the only answer would be getting into bed and waiting for night. Then, sometimes I would drink beer in the day with a few losers(one of them who I believed I was in love with) I used to hang out with because all the actual people were doing their shit. My luck ran out and I fucked up an entire year of college. This was when I abandoned the losers, embraced reality and took the path more taken. The void that was my very adopted essence had left me. I can still remember it being around in my chest for so long, but I have no idea how it felt. 

I went to class, smiled at people, raised my hand to ask endless questions and went back with the feeling of victory that you only get from learning something. With getting back to the books and strengthening drunk bonds with my friends, there was suddenly a moment when I realized that I was happy. You know you've finally grown up when you start being a person, and not a bunch of ideas. Even though the time has come that I look forward to the next day, I'm still absolutely clueless. I don't know how to do what I want. I only have intentions but no actions.

But I know I don't want to sit around being gloomy, feeling my heart break and thinking that was how it's supposed to be. I've been googling colleges all day and feeling upset because I doubt I will actually get in but feeling good at the same time about feeling bad. 

Why is it not possible to be religious and liberal at once? As a modern Hindu, I have never been able to believe in this shiny mess that it's boiled down to. There's no black, white, grey, it's all just nothing. It's power is not productive or reductive,just vague. Which is why I just told Ma that I'm deeply fascinated with Islam and she is now getting physically hysterical.

It's probably because of listening to the coolest people in the entire world and beyond. I would do anything to have this much spunk. 

I finally had an academic epiphany reading Foucalt. 
Now I am going to google Chinese buffets. 

(None of the above was an indication not to smoke pot.)

(I know I'm incredibly repetitive. I'm not going to apologize about it because every time I do, I want to backspace and add a 'fuck you'. Despite not wanting to publish this I will, cause all day I have been singing 'Be what you wanna be...taking things the way they come lalalala'. If you have to google this shit- SHAME ON YOU)

Also. this black and orange really has to go.


Jeff man, I wish I could tear my heart out and give it to you. 

I haven't had an academic epiphany in a while. It's maybe because I have been refusing to read, or do any work at all. I am also past the time in which I believed that my laziness would develop a hidden genius.
Maybe my adolescence is finally passing. It makes me sad.
Par jab rak Rafi aur rum hai, toh kya gham hai.

So my mom's friend in Philippines found my blog, scoured and swallowed it, and made a plan to call my mother for absolute revelations about the daughter she has raised. But my mother, disapproving but not ignorant, gave her best bud from high school a little pep talk about being a cool mom.

Nothing much has changed except I have holidays for a week, and have been stuffing my face and parading around the Durga Puja pandal in shorts with cousin(immediately misunderstood to be my boyfriend inviting stink eyes from aunties) looking for things to eat. I would say now that while we do this we are usually stoned but then my mom's friend from Brazil might have a problem, and some blog visitors have mentioned that they find my intoxicated rants a little....what was it?.....oh yes, mundane. 

Hmmm. What can I say, I'm a one way motorway.

My extended family, the Bengalis I grew up with, The Sens, came for their occasional Durga Puja visit.

The Sens used to live one floor above us when I was growing up.
There are six small sens(all teenagers-which is often a point in the question of why I spend every waking moment with them while they're here) and their parents.

Father Sen is a guitarist and plays in one of the biggest bands in the country. So outside our perfectly normal household complete with grandparents and god-fearing mom and dad, was SenWoodstock. My father used to run upstairs for a quick drink, my mother used to waddle slowly up for more, and Suks and I used to wander around the house curiously-stepping over drunk people in boxers. Since the Sens are a musical family, every night we used to sit down to play guitar and sing and eat pork. Now I am allowed the additional privilege of drinking.

I remember one day about ten years back when it was my sister's turn, she chose that 'Pari hoon main' song, and was absolutely horrific. Instinctively, I laughed out loud- as you do when people sing badly. What I got in return was not a following echo of laughter but surprised looks from all the Sens(some being five years old then). I was taught then never to laugh when someone sings. I was taught then to always love any art, to appreciate everything that is ever said to you, or happens to you. I was told that 'To include yourself is to live happy, Sharanya.'. I told this to Father Sen a couple of days ago, and he was taken aback with his own wisdom and got a little upset about the passing of this youth-only to pour me another drink.

I have nothing more to say except I cleaned and painted my room and changed my blog url and I like both new things.

I also am aiming and hoping and praying to be able to go to the mountains this weekend.

OH, AND I also went to the Formula one opening all dressed up and uncomfortable but uncontrollably excited and ran around the VIP section yelling in a frenzy caused partly by downing bottles of Red Bull due to the lack of any water.
Capitalism slowly kills. And I can't say that I hate it.

Why am I not in the mountains looking at valleys under the stars? I want to be in a balcony looking at the Himalayas and being able to hear the river. I want to smoke on rocks. I want to smile at random people at the street and pretend like it's absolutely normal when horses glide past you in the forest.
All I can see now is fat smoking uncle look worried in the grey building in front of mine that blocks my access to the rest of the world.
I realized today that I had'nt even thought about the hills in a while. I get so involved with the AC, complaining about how much reading I have, temporarwondering if I'm looking good enough, spending hours on the internet that I sit unbathed in pyjamas watching TV in the only free time I have and forget where the party really is.
Need escape strategy.And bus ticket.

Wasteland

I've been staying away from the blog because of sounding like an absolute total moron lately, and I am unable to decipher a way, after weeks of trying, to make myself seem interesting, aloof,funny. 

I have looked for things to write about but there's just been the usual getting drunk scared happy sad high anxious sentimental worthless high excited bored and drunk again.

All weekend my teenage sister has planted checkmarks on her 'to-do' list and stayed up all night homeworking and making it to class on time the next day. All I've done is jump on the computer when it's my turn again only to click the next button on iTunes while waiting for my life to change.

As my friends discussed life and business plans all I could do was chug rum after rum and yell 'Let's start a band!!', 'Let's make a bar!!', with approving nods from Chunni. It's my last year of college and if I have to hear another rich girl complain about the vast variety of colleges abroad to choose from, I will stage a massacre. I think sometimes that I want to apply to fancy schools(those that must not be named), but my temporarily ambitious rants disappear soon. 

For now, I'm just happy to be in my room, stare at my fish tank and force myself into sleep when I need to get something started. All I need is for someone ubeliievably hot to show up at my doorstep and say something extremely abstract yet meaningful.
What I lack in experience and insight, I make up for in cliches.

For almost a week now I have been thriving in a familiar but long forgotten pool of self-pity. I've been sitting at my computer unable to kick myself up and talk to anyone or be funny, cheerful, pleasant and alive.

When I was younger, this was more fun. It was more of a 'thing'. You could imagine you were crazy,different, intelligent, fucked up, no one understands you,  oh wow that song is like MY LIFE man. We used to drink and thrive in our self imposed misery.

Now it's more annoying. I want to stop feeling like shit, so I can study, sleep, read, and just not have my head hurt. I know the way to end this is to laugh, look pretty, exercise and implement that 'life is what you make it' bullshit, but I just can't right now. 

I don't feel unhappy, just sad and restless and unbelievably lethargic.

Today a man insisted on holding an umbrella over my head as I waited for an auto in the rain outside college because he told me that his daughter had died of hemorrhage a week ago. Being in Dilli and from Dilli, I was immediately suspicious of even this story, until I saw him wiping his tears on his sleeve. So I let him hold the umbrella over my head for half an hour, not knowing at all what to say the whole time. 

Apparently the first thing my dad ever said to my mom was 'Behen,aaja'. He was drinking in a balcony with my uncle-my mother's brother, and my mom walked in, all beautiful and shit, and that was what he said to her. My mom, already miserable because she had to marry a bearded Delhi-boy from Defence colony, walked out calmly and burst into tears. 'Chhi, he was so HINDI', she tells me about twenty minutes ago.

I just finished drinking with my uncle, mother and cousin, and everyone got all nostalgic and teary eyed.

My mother told us about games we used to play when we were young. AD, his sister, my sister and I were inseparable when we were younger. We believed we were real siblings distanced because our parents were evil, so in all our imaginary games we were a family that lived together. And we believed we were married. All of us to each other. We were not only married, but American citizens, with huge jobs and a million dogs. Apparently, I was banished from the game every now and then because I wanted to read all the time and was a real bore.

Today I saw a photograph of my father about ten days before he got married. He was shirtless and holding a glass of some absurd concoction, grinning in ignorant bravado at the camera. It made me so happy to know he was just like I am today. But it also made me scared to think about the amount of work it would take to become him one day.

People everywhere are talking about MBA's and futures and it makes me want to jump into a hole.

But maybe I'll just drink.

My mother had left me and my younger,but infinitely more responsible young sister home alone for three days. She's gone to spend a romantic weekend with my father in Bombay-leaving me incharge of my house for the first time ever.

Even though Suks is three years younger, she is saner and infinitely more responsible. As V and I drank away our funds, she persisted to buy milk so we could drink tea in the mornings, helped me host my equally drunk friends when they decided to invade parent-free zone.

I spent two days smoking cigarettes and drinking in the living room just because I could, never once switching on a tube-light.

But Ma has returned bearing cupcakes and love to feed and bring us to life.

I turned twenty one about an hour and fifty minutes back. Technically, I was born at 1:15(Oh yeah child of the night) so it's been about half an hour, at twenty one years back that my parents were presented with their greatest challenge.

This birthday, I'm actually in an unexpectedly good mood (surprise yourself-check!). I don't feel angsty, sad, self important. I'm just feeling happy to be around the people I am and looking forward to meet more of them tomorrow. 

For me, deciding to be around the right people was an important lesson. Before learning it ,I was obsessed with a ridiculous ex-boyfriend who I don't even think I liked at a basic level, I hung-out with people if they made me feel better about myself, or if they just smoked endless pot. But then I decided to stop thriving on bad social experiences and do something better with my time, and get high with a little help only from my actual friends. 

I also learnt to do my shit because it was absolutely worth it, and feel content. I learnt to love other cities and all kinds of people. I'm not comparing this year with the last and learnt to celebrate change and not hate it.

I'm still confused, drunk, uncertain, but excited, often sad, vulnerable and emotional but it's not so bad.

I wish I was writing a coming-of-age novel like Martin Amis or JD Salinger, but I'm not even one percent genius or half as mad. 
Now I must get back to best friend beer.

Whatever, I really like this song.

I just realized that everything I had ever written in the ages 15-19, undeniably the worst words ever written in the history of time, have been deleted from my computer. I actually feel really bad about the loss of my exaggerated adolescence. 

Life would be easier if you could just admit to the yourself, and everyone concerned about how you actually feel- I quote from the sole survivor of my teenage prose.

All day, the only thing I've done is scour the internet to gratify my incredibly weepy mood. I've been at it since one in the afternoon. I stalked Mila Kunis's life and thought continuously about how pretty her hair is. I video blog stalked a seventeen year old English boy who looks like a peach. I watched uncountable episodes of That 70s show and tried to read the Guardian. I re-stalked the Strokes and sobbed about how much fun they are. I you-tubed 'cool cheesy songs', from which I got nothing. I registered myself at every online shopping website that I could. At one point, I even watched twilight fan videos that made me want to cut my head in half. I tweeted to Jaques Derrida ('s representative account,like how there's one for The Beatles) in agony, asking him why he must be such a hard-ass.
Two important conclusions were derived from this beautiful,vital, day.
That there is no such thing as a cheap iPhone.
And when that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Bell/Stewart whatever break up, more people are going to die than in the Great Irish famine.

BUT this week, I stopped biting my nails AND I kicked ass in my exams which are the two things that I have never done. Prepare to be shaken, world!

Sometime last weekend,I remember looking at my newly turned 21 years old friend passed out and signalling to me for water, and feeling crazy happy like everything in the world is right.

My heart is wrenching with sadness because my summer is over.

I can't believe I have to go back to college and sobriety (NOT). Now my friends will leave and the others will go to work and we'll all pretend to be ambitious and reformed for about a week till we can't take it anymore.

What scares me is that this year is my supposed year of achievement. It's the year I make up for all the others of slumbering and scraping through exams. It's the year I aim to put fancy schools on my Facebook profile.

But the truth is that I don't know the first thing about being an achiever. I don't understand how to be competitive or driven. I don't get how to worry about results(mine is out today), and I don't feel the urge to ask everyone else how they're doing or have done so I can place myself on the graph of success.

It's not like I don't care about doing well. I always have in-fact, but I can never seem to dedicate myself to endless swallowing of text books and other people's notes so I can get the marks that I need, more than want.

Maybe I'll learn, or maybe I won't and wade through life like I have till right now, relying on moments when I can watch my friends pass out under my feet and know that this is where life's at.

Yesterday I went to my frat friend KD's party and played beer pong and drank vodka pineapple punch and yelled 'krayzee motherfuckaaa' several times. V the playa got boob sightings from a really drunk chick at the beer pong table who was more than happy to distract her with some bending and pressing. There was gay boys singing Madonna, bassists playing Incubus while V gleefully sung along 'Oh YEAH i LOVE this song', drunk fighting, cosmic stoned epiphanies and immediate making up. I spent all night wandering from group to group, getting sucked in into circles and situations and then arbidly deciding to travel to another. 

At this party, I met a friend who I hadn't thought about in a while. Because of unfortunate social occurrences, we had stopped talking, but it had no relevant impact. Yesterday after a first ten minutes of akwardness, SickBoy, V and I progressed into the night with a sudden fresh bond, and I realized that I'd missed him. SickBoy and I had shared the same extreme,childish,self important/destructive impulses when we had first met at the age of sixteen. While I was being judged at school by my 'group' for drinking a beer on my roof with a boy(who SMOKED!!! AND wasn't part of the group), I used to climb over the wall and race to KD's house to drink some more. SickBoy and him were always welcoming, happy to initiate more adolescents into their 'too cool for school' regime.

Last night, we drank till dawn, planning drug escapades but not being able to execute any, searched for food but found scotch, talked at the top of our voices and did sleazy Noida(FTW)dances, and for some reason, this nostalgic getting high with a little help from my long lost friend, reassured me about what I'd been fearing all day. That connections don't get lost between cities, breakups, or time.

That was trivial lesson number 1. 

Trivial lesson number 2 is that People's lives look better on Facebook than they actually are. This one I've been learning since I was a teenager.

Trivial lesson number 3 is that Do not let your drunk friend drive at night even though it seems exciting to passenger in his death-cab of a golden esteem.

There was one guy at the party who was so stoned and spacey and loose-limbed, it made V and me ecstatic in our hobby of 'people we meet at parties who we decide we love'. All I wanted to do was fist bump with him and say-righteoussss.

The fact that I know I'm talking crap makes me want to do it even more. This is one of those times.

Look what I bought for ONE FIFTY RUPEES in Bangalore, and it's totally new and everything.

It's always good to be back to good old crass, unapologetic Delhi. 

The last Harry Potter movie comes out tomorrow and I can't help but not care. 
Thirteen year old me is going to be so pissed.

My friend just sent me a message inviting me to her party on the sixteenth of this month and I responded in about two seconds saying 'OH YES!'. She was nice enough to reply with a courteous 'ha ha'.
My aunt is shopping and my miniature cousins are at school followed by football class so the Penthouse is ALL MINE muahaha. I have been lounging on the computer and in the bathtub(my first time ever in one) drinking my uncle's expensive beer and pretending like I'm Kanye West. The bathroom in the place is bigger than my room.
Yesterday I met my friend Kavya after months. Kavya is the Samantha to my Carrie. More beer, less Blahniks of course.
Me: 'Okay dude I have something weird to tell you'
Kavya: 'Umm wait...You're in love with your cousin?'


I'm going to do a Big Daddy beef burger challenge in three hours and have my Man vs Food moment. Give it up for gluttony. 

love.these guys.

Today when I stood smoking outside bars that blared Pink Floyd shamelessly I knew I was in Bangalore. I have been on the road for about two weeks now, in four trains, two buses, and countless moods.
On the twenty first of last month I left for a badly planned trip with my friends to Goa. There was a lot of initital hesitance about the rain, akward social mixing, and general mishaps that might occur because of this chronic non-planning. But we were to discover that mishaps are more fun that they are not. Chunni and me along with five of our friends left for Bombay on the twenty first. Katty and Tanya refused to join us- 'AYE HAYE, TRAIN!', and flew straight in style to goa, waiting for us with a rolled joint and affectionate curses.
After a beautiful breakfast at Theobroma(dude if heaven had a cuisine this would be it), and reckless drinking at Gokul we somehow landed in our train to Goa, all passed out before the TT could say ticket.
Sid had forgotten to get two of my friends tickets, making a sheepish face and throwing his hands up in the air when questioned about the matter, but the two ticketless were more than thrilled with their first act of holiday rebellion. 'DUDE we can tell people this is the craziest thing we did in Goa.Wikkedddd!!'.
Trains are fun anyway, but when you can get high with a little help from your friends, they become stories. We have an official roller, his name is DJ. Now DJ has to make sure that everyone is high all the time. That's his job.So as soon we got into the train, DJ got to work. 'Tum log baitho, main scene dekh ke aata hoon'. After Deejay's sneaky but slow rolling we managed to smoke outside the window. Now the problem with DJ is that though his job is to get everyone high, he gets mindfuck stoned all the time, and forgets his job.
So we had to pass the night watching him get stoned and grin at random people, while C and I swigged from a bottle of rum doing the usual 'humaari zindagi BARBAAD hai yaar' sequences.
We reached Goa in the morning and rented bikes and a car, which we realized were eventually fucked up, and drove to Palolem where our friend from the flight was waiting. After deciding on rooms and swimming in the sea, I knew this was all Goa was going to be about. For the next five days we swam, drank, smoked, laughed, rode, cursed, joked, loved, and knew, like my friends always say, that this was forever.
We took buses to Gokarna, complained about by the boys because there wasn't enough party. Mo decided it was lame because 'I need loud music in my ears man!', and Katty because 'Kya jagah hai yeh bar 11 baje kaun band karta hai'. He has a point though. We still managed to get happy and high and talk till the morning when it was time for us to leave.
I didn't write anything on the trip, mostly because I was deliriously happy the whole time, and I can never write when I'm high, or tired. Which are the only two things I was throughout. I've scribbled things like 'If you try sometimes, you will find, you get what you need!". 'We rule'. 'Jealousy might be my largest(wtf??) flaw'. 'My friends might be the best people in the world'. 'Kaisa Karobaar?Aisa Karobaar!' and 'Lund lele muh mein'. I remember getting crazy drunk on the last day (first time I drank vodka in three years) and running on the beach, feeling a bunch of things I couldn't process or admit. I remember sitting with a few dogs and calling my own's name to the sea, hoping I could see a glimpse of his face in the sky like Mufasa's. I remember looking back and seeing shadows on the beach and not knowing if it was my friends or not, but knowing that if it was, I had nothing to worry about. I remember looking at the sea and letting myself flow like the calm storm of the waves. Aristotle was right. To be a good man, one needs good men to live by, and I know that I have found mine.

(Photo credit supercool supersavvy Tanya Bhandari)

No one tells a story like Queerfish, who scribbled relentlessly even when everyone around her was dying.


I love Bombay. I love it's calm madness, and it's tall Parisian buildings. I love that the city runs in rain or in riot. I love the nice cab guys who I trusted to doze off drunk at the back after telling him my address. I love that the city looks like it's going to break down any second but it never does. Bombay is one of those cities that movies are made about, books are written about. It's a city with soul(shola hai ya hai bijuriya and all). It's like Delhi, it's a person. That's why they have a problem getting along. Because both Bombay and Delhi are distinct, but strong soulful people. I love how you can suddenly see the sea, and feel and smell it as you come close. I love hoping to see someone famous at every bend.
My favorite places in Bombay are Gokul, Indigo, and walking around Colaba. Everything is so beautiful and alive and hindi cinema. Yesterday when I was on my way to VT station, I drove along a railway line and a cab full of kids going to a madrassa and I decided this was my second favorite city in the world. With vada pav and badass streets, what's not to love man.
First favorite (don't ask why cause you'd know if you know) was, is, and always will be, sadi Dilli. More than all of you who visit and complain, I, as an inhabitant, KNOW that the city is vile. I sense it's ruthlessness everyday, but it's got into me. I am a pure bred angry mutton dilli vaala.
I felt different in Bombay. I hadn't fought with anyone in a while, and my father and I had managed to survive in the same space for a week without wanting bringing the walls down. I felt really good in Bombay, but Delhi had taught me how it felt not to feel good. It had taught me to be jealous, angry, sad, drunk, self important, and still be a human being, and not necessarily a bad one.
When I drank out of a broken heart and wept, Delhi told me that pyaar mein kabhi kabhi aisa hota hai. When I fucked up exams and misused medications it told me that zindagi barbaad hai, and eventually it taught me to accept myself and grow. It taught me that it was okay to be ridiculous, hysterical, absolutely wrong, and absolutely crazy. It absorbed me into its madness and taught me to be like itself. Not ideal, but real.
What I was saying before all this bakwaas was that I love Bombay, with all of my Dilli ka Dil.


When I drove away from my father this time, I could see him in the rear view mirror, wagging his finger furiously. 'Sharanya DON'T GET DOWN at any stations and don't talk to ANYONE'. It kills me to leave him alone. Every time I drive away from his apartment in Bombay, I develop a familiar lump in the throat and the waterworks begin.
I can see my parents miss each other everyday. I can see my dad's determination combined with discontent at living this single life in a city that doesn't belong to him. Unlike me, he has vowed never to love Bombay but only it's people. It's absurd that as we focus on getting away from our homes, our families, and everything we know, all our parents want to do is come back to it.


Today I visited my grandmother and was a self confessed pukka South Indian because I realized all I need to live is rasam sadam and mangoes. I noticed that some bastards are cutting down trees that I climbed as a kid to build a McDonalds or Pizza Corner or some such.
I am at least five kilos heavier, but also five times happier than I was a month back. 
I am also half drunk, lazy and sleepy, and there is a Penthouse at my disposal to sleep in. True story.
Excuse me while I dive into a Parking Lounger and maybe never return again.

Best song ever. Is dard ki hai na dawai. 

 Today my sister turned eighteen years old.
All I want to do is eat her cake from a box and watch Reality Bites, but my sixteen year old cousin is parading around my room with his shirt off and a pair of pyjamas over his head and saying 'mere back ke muscles toh dekh yaar'.
Now he's telling me his Sudoko score on his blackberry while two others prepare munchies that my dog is lusting after. 
Life is absurd. I NEEDS to watch some senti cinema alone, though. 
The feeling that I can't share my space with probably the only people I like in the world, and the guilt that comes with it sucks.
I know that when I wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy, everything will be fine. 

I now know that god has finally punished me for my gluttony after I bit into a piece of emseal that was lying on my table.

Since the sixteenth of may I have not had a silent moment in the house. Today for the first time in almost twenty days or more, I walked into my room to find it empty. Not wasting another moment I locked the doors and buried myself in my bed.

I am one of those unlucky people who have the luxury of coming from an absolutely normal family. I have no bizarre trauma to trace madness back to. I grew up in times of boring but fortunate normalcy. Till I was sixteen, I used to live with seven other people. My mother,father,grandparents,aunt,uncle and sister. We ate all meals together, watched KBC every night, and every morning before I left for school I collected canteen funds from every adult in the house. All my neighbors were very involved in our lives. I always had friends over for dinner and Swat Cats. It was a time full of unnecessary celebration and unrequited absurd love for family and others we believed were tied to us by bonds that were based on time, not blood. The past month has been like that. There have been several plates laid out for meals, an unreal number of teenagers around, and clouds of blaring noise.

All I want to do is lie in my room and stare at the ceiling and never hear the doorbell ring again.

Immensely surprised at myself at not wanting to get drunk, I am finally at the place I have dreaming about for almost a week. Leaning in an obtuse angle on my computer chair and listening to the music from Shaitan, which I watched today. Call me young and easy to please, which is what I am, but I loved it.

Articulate writers from across the country are already trashing the film, but it's youth Bollywood dudes, it's supposed to be fast paced, transmitted in slow motion technicolor, and a little bit in-your-face.

I wish I could get those snazzy templates with psychedelic Elvis faces flashing at you, and political boom boxes in black and white, but I just don't got it to pull it off. 

This year was my aunt's fiftieth birthday. My sister, along with enthusiastic family members, had planned a get-away with the whole gang. During my years of brash teenage bullshit, I used to pretend I was 'off' family. I bunked weddings, pretended to be interested in nothing, and turned up late/drunk/or didn't at gatherings. I refuse to change this policy for my dad's side of the kinship, but my maternal relatives rule. They are creative, crazy, and all look exactly like me. It is interesting to see parts of yourself in people sitting around a room and know you have come from them. My uncle is a mountaineer cum software engineer, full of contempt for the capitalist urban world and almost sickened at the idea of existing in it. After years of what he describes as a war with the world, he decided to live in the mountains. He owns exactly one pair of pants, two shirts, and one suit for meetings at his son's school. His home, that he and his wife converted to one from a cow shed, was inhabited for two weeks by sixteen spoilt people created and consumed by the city. After complaining about the lack of fans, and the inadequacy of bathrooms, everyone decided to settle down. I was more than happy with the absence of a cellphone signal and the internet, spending all my time with my cousin lurking in the trees and finding routes to the river.

Since I was little I was sent to live with this uncle for at least a month wherever he was. Many times it was in the south, in a small hill station near Madanapalli in Tamil Nadu, or Koorg. I need to see the mountains, I need to breathe that air once in a while. I need to know that there is a life outside the city, outside who's dating who and she's so much skinnier than me and what will I do with my life and ohmygod I want to kill everyone in college,on the road,in the bar,and in the other bar.

I admit that my attitude is a little escapist,romantic,and every other label that is put on things that give people joy. 
I wanted to write a Queerfish style 'Mountain diaries' post, but things, and experiences become less relevant as they pass. 

We got driven up to the hills in a huge van called a Winger by a Punjab da stud, complete with long hair and kudis calling on his phone from time to time. The whole family was letching at his wide Punjabi smile, and his delightful taste in music.

My uncle's house in a village called Bhadol outside Dharamshala was owned by a man called Thakur. Just Thakur. Like Santana, or Usher. Thakur was a man born and bred on Chandni Chowk ki rotti aur makhan ('jaisi duniya mein koi cheez nahi hai!'), and had served in the Delhi Police till 1975. 'Emergency ke wakat mainne bahoot haramiyon ko peeta, sirf haramiyon ko', he tells us as my father stares at him mesmerized, nodding and signalling the group to nod after. The party from the South couldn't care less about a bad-ass ignorant cop from the capital, but I assisted my dad in the Thakur campaign, nodding along furiously but being ignored completely. Thakur's dog is an Alsation called Jackie, joh unka 'ek lauta dost hai'. 'He's my best friend', he translates for the benefit of the madrasi ladies, who hated him, whispering in Tamil about how he must treat his wife. I used to sit on a hammock and watch Thakur and Jacks dig for hours at end in the morning, not asking for or needing any assistance on their vast tract of land. I saw in Thakur a sense of fairness that I often wished I saw in cops of the city, and contrary to my mum and her sisterhood believed that he was probably an excellent husband. 

My cousin AD and I sneaked off into corners to get the occasional stoned. We climbed on to trees, peering at our mothers and grinning at each other through the leaves. We managed to find many elevated spots, thanks to my decent climbing skills and AD's hoisting and letting me climb on his back so it was easier. He's still in the mountains, camping and behaving like an avatar monkey and I miss him. Once we were spotted by my (other)uncle who glared at us yelling 'Ey tell me when you go da buggers!'. After that it became a trend for him to pretend he was taking me out for a 'talk', so he could give me a fancy cigarette to light.

I went to Mc Leodganj for the first time, and it really is only Paharganj with a better view. I was appaulled at the number of cars, there was a freakin traffic jam one day. And after I'd spotted the ocassional hot phirang and bought pretty turqioise jewellery and Free Tibet merchandise, I was pretty much done. AD and I usually abandoned the screaming group of identical people in the market and ran off above. He looked for pine trees to walk under, and we walked to nowhere. On the way we ate expensive pizza and chatted up locals, my cousin's favorite passtime after chatting up foreigners. 
In a few days we decided we should go trek since it was getting bloody hot where we were. The 'oldies' were offended at our desire to sneak off alone and were all 'We don't even WANT to come you guys are so boring'. My uncle the trekker packed us a backpack of rain-jackets and torches and sleeping surfaces, shouting 'You'll die you fucking chapatti morons PACK PROPERLY!'. 

Because of a 'fuck you man' 'fuck YOU man' argument I'd had with my cousin and the unearthly time of departure(5:15 am) I was hesitant to go on this voyage, but I did anyway.
After eating more expensive pizza in the middle, we started out fully on our trek of the tambis. Initially we lost our way but got shown the way by an enthusiastic monk who decided he liked us after noticing my Free Tibet Tshirt and that we were Indian, and young. He sprinted up a small hill like an elf, signalling for us to follow, and after reaching the top pointed to a direction and said 'aise zaao', smiling and taking photos with us as he left. We decided that this was a test of us by the monk, and we must follow the path of enlightenment been prescribed to us, made our way into the prettiest forest in the world. There was a little path beside sudden streams, and after we sighted a pair of white horses gliding through the bushes, it was established that this was freakin unreal. AD began his Lord of the Rings fantasy and galloped forward like Legolas, while I carved myself an axe and ran behind like small but fearless Gimli, and Suks(my sister) made herself jewellery from flowers like a pretty elf with no name. On the way to our destination Triund, it started hailing on us. Draping shower curtains on our heads we ran out of the forest to a small stall on a cliff that overlooked the valley, called Sunset Cafe. I was doubtful about sheltering in this small settlement. It looked like one blow of wind would send us seedhe khai mein. When we entered, the dude in the shop twinkled his eyes at us, asking us where we were from, and introducing himself as Ajay. He must have been around nineteen years old. He had torn up his jeans, and was wearing a sweatshirt that said 'don't give a f***. When AD in his stumbling Hindi asked Ajay if he could roll, Ajay twinkled at him showing him that he was rolling too. He disapproved of AD's maal telling us it was corrupt, nakli, and that we were his guests and it was his responsibility to get us high. We sat in Ajay's shop for three hours, because just the sight of the thundering skies was murderous. But it only took three minutes of effortless chatter and exchanging stories, that AD, Suks and I had all fallen in love with Ajay. I thought I was the only one till I looked at my siblings looking at him and grinning with glee. In the middle, we were joined by Ajay's bro, also Ajay, and also terribly god looking. (Hills people got the looks always). Ajay and Ajay told us about crazy white people, mad punjabi families, and the groups of boys from Chandigarh- 'ek chaanta maarne ka mann karta hai'. 'Hum sochte hai ki paise jab aa jaata hai insaan admi se chutiya bann jaata hai'. In three hours, we realized we had all been talking the whole time. Suks and I even dancing to Ajay bro's phone music consisting of all our favorite songs. (Ji Karda, Laung da Lashkara etc). I made myself a dream in which Ajay and I get married and I grow vegetables in the garden like a good Himachali girl what fun.

On the way back, since it was downhill and we were very high, we were even happier than before. We ran, sang, danced, swam in the river, held hands, jumped from rock to rock humming-much to the amusement of passers by and made arbit resolutions and promises to ourselves and the world. I stood on rocks looking at the Himalayas and wished my friends were there. We were led back home by a dog(I named him Morphius, AD wanted to call him Ikamafoona-wtf!!?). Morphius of course was sent to us by the monk who gave us directions, and abandoned us as soon as he knew we were ready. 

The three of us returned back home dying, but so content that our mothers were all tears and 'I wish we could always see you this happy da'. After that it was two days of random short walking, countless momos, and waking up to my grandmother shouting curses instructions at the entire household, and feeding us like we'd been starved otherwise. 
But when she cooks, it's like every meal is my first. 

I knew that I had sold my soul to Himachal Pradesh and vowed to come back repeatedly to thrive in the beauty of the people and the 'Him-a-layas' like the mad phirangs coming to the hills pretending that India is a place to attain peace. But they're so sweet in all their ignorant bliss. I thought of bro Chunni repeatedly when I saw what we call 'scruffies' and bought postcards to send to my more than friend abroad. :D 

Delhi's it's blazing difficult mad self but it's where I was made, so tis no problem. And in my two hours of driving on the road a couple of days back, I had exhausted all the angry swearing I had missed out on.

Now I am going to go watch endless American television and be lazy cause it's vacation time bitchezzzz! 

Till then you can see my most awesome worst pictures of all time. 

I'm not going to brag, but I suck.

          Thatha praying

        Coolest thukpa lady of all time 

      Ma in the monastery 

  Misty mountain tops 

                       Best shit ever (I was sitting on a rock so the water came down straight on my head)

                          This one, I'm showing everyone as 'dekh yaar maine itni sahi photo li'

The only way to live is to see and the only way to see is to take a bus sometimes and leave, so that like Johnny Cash I can say that I've been everywhere, man. 

I only had one song to listen to the whole time as it was the only one on my phone, but it was perfect. Cause

I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree