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.