It was the first time I ever witnessed euphoria. I have been part of winning football teams in school, part of the arriving of the millennium, but this was like nothing else I had ever seen. As Indians, we are forever rooted in our inherent desire for mass hysteria. (THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAA!!)
We were supposed to go watch the India Pakistan semi final in Mohali but some dubious mix-up happened with our passes at the very end.(FUCK BHENCHOT BT!!). I was disheartened but more worried about if Chunni would ever be able to recover from the grief of this news.
I stopped watching cricket after the 2003 world cup in South Africa. I went for some IPL matches but was interested little in the sport,more on the endless free supply of chinese food and whiskey. My uncle got for my cousin and I some VIP badges and I remember nodding drunkenly at Vijay Mallya once.
Today was not just about cricket. It was bigger than that. It was an event on which the life of the entire country depended. Cricket is India's collective fix. It is our story. Sachin is our hero, and Pakistan is our villian. And in every Bollywood movie, the villain must die a powerful,terrible death.
All academic instititions, offices, grocery stores took half days. It would be sinful not to be supportive. I got messages at night saying I must wear blue as encouragement to the boys. I usually reproach all efforts of communal harmony, but I knew I couldn't this time. We were all in this together. In all seriousness, Unki ma behen ek karni thi.
I spent the day with my favorite women(all my men in our lives considering us as unworthy company) watching the match at home. There was much beer drinking, politically incorrect cursing and absolute jingoism, chips and continous discussions of 'kuchh order karien?' 'CHUP REH YAAR you'll jinx it!'.We were rooted in one position from beginning to end. There was also endless dancing to this mostawesomesongofalltime and more punjabi music that could be created and loved in NCR. We travelled through the seven and a half hours with heartbreaks and screams of joy that must have co-incided with almost all of the country. It really was a historic moment. As soon as their last wicket fell, everyone was out on the streets screaming dancing drinking swearing crying dying doing the things we do as celebration. We immediately equipped ourselves with a mix of vodka and pepsi and water(?) , the only booze we could find and ran downstairs to watch the fireworks explode in the sky and the hearts and minds of our friends and countrymen. For one night, a nation divided in strife over almost everything was united in one conscious happiness.
My grandfather told me on the phone that, 'Bharat ki azaadi ke liye bhi itna wait nahi kiya tha beta!'
Out of immense harmless joy, I am dying to say something of the abusive extremist likes but I shall not.
Yesterday, I decided to spend the day reading and writing but I came home to find that my electricity had gone off, and the generator wasn't going to work for the whole day. Which means that there would be no air conditioning, and no Personal desktop computer(DEATH!DESTRUCTION!).
Due to the absence of my best friend disguised as machine, I was forced to keep myself busy doing other things. Which is when I realized that I had no longer posessed any(none) stationary. No pens, pencils, gummy smelling erasers in the shapes of watermelons and sheep, cool plastic sharpners, steel rulers(the best!), crayons, nothing! When I was a kid I used to save up all my money for a much awaited trip to Mahalaxmi book depot near the residence and buy myself a whole lot of cool stationery stuffs. After returning home to my desk, I would arrange it all neatly, keeping some aside for favorite friends, only to disover that a week later it was all gone.
I need to subsitute some of the space taken up by the million wires and pointless gadgets in my room with some gifts from the good old bookshop,stationery and general store.
I realized that at most times I was owned by a perfect mixture of claustrophobia and agoraphobia which led to sometimes feeling like crap. But it's so...generic. I have resolved, or resolved to resolve, to stop.
Reading The Rachel Papers by one of England's fave nutty novelists- Martin Amis. This is my first ever Amis novel and I absolutely love it. He makes being disgruntled look so nonchalant and tranquil(?). The book is narrated by Charles Highway- neurotic, highly intelligent, cheeky, sexed up, aloof, and teenager. Charles is at nineteen going on twenty, making the transition as he believes,into adulthood. He employs the persuit of Rachel-half-french,beautiful,and a little silly- which he serializes and strategizes through several entries transcrbing into The Rachel Papers. If I was English I'd say that it's absolutely delightful, or bloody brilliant. Charles's adoloscent madness and self importance is painted ruthlessly, yet with sympathy and affection. The novel as all good ones is making me go all 'FUCK YEAH!!'.
'To think back, actually, 'self-infatuation' strikes me as a rather ill-chosen word. It isn't so much that I like or love myself. Rather, I'm sentimental about myself. (I say, is this normal for someone my age?) What do I think of Charles Highway? I think: 'Charles Highway? Oh, I like him. Yes, I've got a soft spot for old Charles. He's all right is Charlie. Chuck's . . . okay.'
'Herbie now propounded the toiling paradox that was the ostentatious 'unconventionality' of youth was, in point of fact, nothing other than a different sort of conventionality. After all, was not the non-conformity of yesterday the conformity of today? Were not these young people as orthodox, in their very different way, as the orthodoxy they purported to be subverting?'
Anything that starts a tornado of questions in your head is delicious!
I started to realize myself that 18 is different than 20. We drink GALLONS more than we used to, but it was never enough. I couldn't stay up all night and go through the day with youthful ease and energy. I 'needed my sleep.and my bed'. I was thinking about sex adventurously, not that I was ever into candles and rose petals etc. The only thing that made me feel worse than going to college, is not going. The usual torrid rush of feelings was replaced by a weird emptiness resulting from the understanding that most things were trivial and irrelevant, which was worse.
I was different. (Ah, THAT particular claim never changes).
I wasn't allowed give exams last year because of attendance fuck ups and tyrannical minority institutions. This year, I can't wait. I'm actually rather bright (I am aware of how horribly ludicrous that sounds. I am not saying I'm intelligent, I'm just saying that I'm 'bright'. Which basically means that I am not stupid, and actually interested.), so it was a bummer not being able to get hold of my admit card last year because even with the single day prep for each paper I was sure that I would have passed. On a positive,'everything happens for a greater good' note, I had done no work whatsoever last year, and would have gotten through the year having learnt nothing of Milton, Webster, Donne, and Plato, and the fascinating others (Sartre-can't wait!)whom I feel like I am starting to know now since I now go to class everyday, allthe time . This year I actually can't wait to give exams. I want to study the fuck out of all this bakchodi that occupies our lives, and kick some ass! rather than thrive endlessly in typical college student existentialist theories.
Summer yuckkk!! I miss my jackets and boots and smoky nights in the cold already. I want to just go to the hills for a bit so I can you know, BREATHE. But the summer also means holidays which means South India, goa maybe and months of endless lounging in saddi dilli. Sounds legit! (my favorite new word borrowed from my friend Mohit who literally knows all the lyrics to all Eminem songs ever written. It is bizarre, yet brillant.)
I wanted to blog you a Happy Birthday DJ, but the power cuts(brought back by dreadful summer) fucked over my plan. A big beeday shoutout to my far away friend in Canada and a plea to return soon bearing liquid presents. Khoob party karenge.
I now have a camera with which I am most impatient, but I am glad I can visually record memories now. It is a shmazzy SLR and I think I must do the usual amateur 'mujhe photographer banna hai' Dilli darshan.
Meet my new fashion friend Classy&Fabulous. She is infact, both.
