In a Battlefield, Screams go Unheard...

Those same battles, often fought

The adversary undefined

The blood on the soil turns blue

A salute to friends lost

You move from arena to battlefield

Gladiators in the art of love

Raging against the immovable

Passionate for something unholdable

The fields become crimson, the faces stained with pain

Their quest unparalleled

Our fates aeons ago sealed

It’s time to move on, a higher cliff, a different view

Change the visage, drive your heart

Into believing again

In the indifferent stars which shine

On the war, if not on you

I, Dreamer in Absentia

We breathe poetry, in a world where stab wounds are the norm
We build bridges in places where fires destroy all
We love deeply, even in the moments before we take the fall
All for the final puzzle piece where one size doesn't fit all...

Today, while reading a book and having a solo lunch, I realized that I missed myself. Not in the sense of 'I don't know who I am' , but in the tangible sense of perceiving a complete human being. I miss having another perspective, someone who sees how you walk, or what the back of your head looks like. Someone who will be able to tell you in detail about all you can't see about yourself, someone who can watch you sideways.

My perspective is uni-dimensional. There's only so much of myself I can know. It's not self-esteem I'm talking about.. it's more like... even the silver on the back of the mirror needs someone to stand in front of its shiny side, to let it know of its true nature.Yeah, like that.

I miss that.

Monday Brings the Blues...

Life just sucked today.

A TV show I was pitching for tanked without a whimper. An animation film I was looking forward to making died without so much as a last few meaningful words. My editor of a potential book hasn't got back to me about a chapter I wrote (and in my current frame of mind, it was a crappy chapter and everyone hates me). And then, as the icing from Hell on a cake of brimstone, my mother says, "Maybe you should give up all this media thing and come stay with me."

Yep, I had the 'our daughter lives in the room above the garage' moment. Crap.

The thing is, she tapped right into the core of my fears - what if I'm really not good enough? In an industry that's spilling over with mediocrity and some flashes of real genius, what if I'm one of those that needs to be shunted out, for the greater good? What if... what if... what if I'm the wrong person in the right place at the right time?

Aaaarrrrrrggghh!

On the bright side, I also ran for 20 minutes straight. Okay, it doesn't sound like much but you have to understand that I'm not a runner at all and I haven't been to the gym in months... Sure, I collapsed, and it's nowhere near the 21kms of the marathon I dream of getting through some day, but it was a start.

And a couple of total strangers made me laugh today. More on that later, even if it is to differentiate the experiences as being portentous or merely noteworthy.

So not a total disaster. I have been given two days to mope by my friends. I better get down to it.

No Goodbyes..

Remember all those teary goodbyes we say to so many people - the breakups, the heartbreaks, the fuck-offs (someone cried then too, you know) - and we swear to ourselves that we will never see them again? Yeah, don't bother. Next time some person looks you in the eye, and tells you that this is the last time you'll see them, just smile and say, 'We'll see." Because honestly, you will be seeing them again. And it won't be such a bad thing.

This week has seen the exes crawling out of the woodwork. Everytime I see or hear from one of them, I'm transported back to the time when lots of tears and anger and resentment were the prime features of the relationship. At some point or the other, each one of them has told me (or has been told by me) that this was the 'last time'. I wish time travel was a reality right now because then I'd take a short trip down memory lane to point and laugh obnoxiously at the people we were. Maybe even sell popcorn for the show.

But here's the thing. Even though I'm amused by the antics, and expect nothing of any real meaning to come through except maybe nostalgia and some laughs, I'm really glad that those doors are still open. It makes it easier, for instance, to be in a coffee shop and have two exes in the immediate neighborhood, while you prepare to meet the third. It feels good to remember that there was a time that you put yourself out there fearlessly, and while your tastes did veer to the highly dysfunctional, it also veered to the talented and the bright. And ofcourse, you see how wrong they are for the person they turned you into.

But because they came back, and they always will, you realize that you weren't horribly wrong to choose them, and even though there were times when you hated each other, there was real love there too. Maybe someday you'll even realize that, because there are no cut-off dates, whom you choose has less to do with how long they'll stay in your life (though extra points should go to those who last longer than a hail mary), and more to do with how they'll change you.

And hopefully, the next time you feel your heart race, you'll remember to factor this in.

Seems doubtful.

Coffee Moments

Is it love when you bump into the ex-object of your affection/betrayal/complicated friendship after years of no-contact-for-reasons-everyone-knows, and you realize just how much you still miss them? Or is it merely a weird hook thing where you only want what you can’t have.

I bumped into Mark today. We were at an incredibly dull event, both of us doing our civic duty, armed with our respective weapons against mass boredom. Things have been awkward between us for years, thanks to all the shit that happened, and I was expecting just another perfunctory ‘Hey, what’s up… ok, take care” kind of 30-second conversation which has become our default interaction whenever common friends, loud music nights and other circumstances have thrown us together. After that, we would have the freedom to avoid each other by diving headlong into our books, no harm no foul.

Imagine my surprise then, when he actually asked me to have coffee with him. Coffee implied going somewhere else, just the two of us, and being forced to chat with each other across the table, atleast for the amount of time it takes to finish a mocha. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but this is a HUGE deal. In that half hour, we kinda-sorta caught up with each others’ latest projects (work), discussed the state of Indian television and film, and ofcourse, the weather. As we carefully tap-danced around each others minefields, I caught myself thinking, "This isn't how it used to be...but atleast it’s something."

Would he have sought me out had we not been forced to stay in a boring place, doing boring things? If his girlfriend had any intention of showing up? Had any of his other friends been there to get coffee with him? Doubt it. That’s what makes me pathetic, because when it comes to him, I suppose I’ll take what I can get. But my heart soared as we laughed together, and just for a moment, I got a glimpse of who we could have been.

Then, at the end of the three hours (three hours?? Yes, he also chose to stand with me in an interminably long line, and we smiled and shared amused glances with each other throughout. Yes, it counts), as we awkwardly hugged goodbye, all I wondered was – was this the start of a new chapter in a friendship or just the end of a brief truce?

All I know that I miss my friend, and I hope he can find his way back to me someday. Love, and all that it means, is just background noise.