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!