Not lost, not yet.

If the world had not shifted from beneath us, we would have been together for seven years in a week's time. And in a month, you would have thrown your seventh tantrum about the birthday gift I would have given you. But you'd have loved it, and refused to part with it. I would have had enough of it by now, and probably would have held off on giving you the gift that I'd planned so meticulously till you promised to accept it with grace. It was a one of those leather tech kits and table layouts you liked and Luffy's cosplay, in case you ever read this.  The month would have continued. We would have spent our late evenings watching something on the laptop and ordering from outside. I'd continue to hope that one of these days, you'd surprise me by learning to cook my favourite meal. It was a hope that I'm slowly learning to let go off, because I'm not entirely sure you even know my favourite meal any more. And then, our nights would draped in the boisterous h...

I want to write to you.  But I know how this correspondence ends. Sentences laced with honey become tinged with arsenic. I liked my words better when they were soft like the moonlight. I liked your words better when they were comforting like the night. And now, all I have is the harsh sunlight that withers under your late afternoon storms. I want to write to you. But I no longer know how to soften the blows of grief that attach themselves to this exchange. So forgive me, if I do not write to you any longer. I cannot take much more pain.

Sometimes I wish that I'd read Caitlin Moran's letter to her daughter long before I had met you. She tells her daughter to never love somebody that has to be mended. Sometimes I wish I'd known and I'd listened. But you know precisely how foolish I can be when I want, and it would have done me little good. Because if love is a four letter word, then so is fool. And if I had only understood this sooner rather than later, I would have known that trying to mend you in the hopes that my love would be enough, was just setting myself up to be fool. Sometimes I wish I'd met you at a better time. Perhaps a few months later? Maybe we'd have grown up a little more. Maybe you'd have been a little less angry, and me a little less childish. Maybe we'd have made a better start and smoother spin around the track. Maybe you wouldn't burn up with jealousy at every little thing, and I wouldn't be so passive aggressive about it all. Sometimes I wish I'd stayed. ...

 Dearest darling, I spent the whole of last night wondering how you would have felt about this film I just watched. There were so many moments when I turned my head in reflex, expecting to you see your face scrunched up in a laugh. Maybe in awe. Definitely twisted with glee, once or twice. I'd like nothing more than to say that this was a one time thing. It's really not. I turn my head to catch you smirking when I'm all alone in the car and yell at the other drivers. I turn my head to tell you the food is tangy, even though I've set a table for one. I turn my head to ask you to pass the water bottle, conveniently forgetting that I sleep on your side of the bed now. I turn my head when I have really good sambhar, hoping that we've finally found the one that fixes your sinus. And then without fail, every morning, I turn my head to check if a minor miracle has settled you under the covers next to me.  It might sound odd to you, but I often turn my head and pretend that...

Post a certain point in time, having a blog seemed to have lost the relevance it once had in my life. Ideally, I'd love to blame this on the sudden growth of the mobile phone and the ability to broadcast myself whenever I wanted to. The truth is, somewhere along the way I lost the courage to pour myself on to an empty page and allow it to be judged by so many others. I may not have regained the lost courage or the ability to write long, winding blog posts. Not yet, at least. Still, I can write letters to myself, in the hopes that I'll find what I've been looking for. The only trouble, I feel, is that I have no inkling regarding the nature of what I seek. Such a dull thought to have these days, that I seek what I do not know. My hide and seek isn't quite as poetic, I fear. It isn't as if I have picked a path blindly and set upon it with all the foolishness one can expect a child to have. If only it were that, then perhaps like a foolish child, I would have bee...

It's a little early for me to have found myself wandering over to write a letter, but truthfully, what is time when the world has stopped? The light dies, and night creeps over the horizon and the sun shines and the birds sing and I fall asleep when the first rays of the sun begin to find their way around the stars. But I don't want to be sad or wistful and melancholic tonight. I want to be beautiful and passionate and tell stories of faraway places where the world exists but just barely. I want to be on top of a mountain, searching for the lights and waiting for the moon to show the dark side for just a moment. I want to walk into the forest and find a hidden path to where the wild things are. I want the skies to split apart and thrust us into a parallel dimension where fireflies live forever and all the beautiful moments we've ever lived through are bottled and sold on the streets to strangers. I want to be the Enchantress from a lost kingdom and create a world from ...

If one would have informed me that I would find myself back here on a particularly chilly Christmas, I would have discarded one as a lunatic. Unworthy of being heard or acknowledged. Perhaps this shall prove to be a lesson in time. It has been delightful to walk through the terribly maintained lanes of memory. I cannot say for sure what prompted the decision to look back, however it has turned out to be a fruitful one. It seems that the year demanded a return, the winter finally having finished. It saddens me to read my own words and realize how many were sacrificed for the sake of brevity and wit. I hope to rectify that soon. For now, this is my calling card - and my farewell for the day. And a promise to be back.

Time travel is easy. Same room, same place, same song, you're back two years in time. Chasing Cars. What a schmaltzy song. Yes, this post is about you. If it happens to show up as an alert and you read this far, don't go on further. It'll do no good. I honestly took what you said to heart. Yes, I will get over you. Perhaps that is the one way I can tell you that I do respect you. For what's it worth, I never stopped loving you.  Granted, it won't be easy. Especially when I have the internet with me. I religiously avoid Twitter for most part, because I have yet to unfollow you. That'll come with time. The thing is that everything here, it reminds me of you. For the longest time, I wouldn't sleep at night before reading Thought Catalog once. Now it just repeats things that I need to stop remembering. I haven't touched it in a long time. I'm giving up xkcd too, because the temptation to ask you what a particular strip is talking about it immens...

Hello stranger. I love you as much now as I loved you then. First meet-cute, the lick on the nose and the feeling of having found a soul-mate when you slept with your feet tucked into my hand. And in the years that have followed, I have found that love has no seasons, no definition. You brought to me - to us - the inability to deny our existence and find in our hearts a reason to love. You were then and stay for me still, an angel of four legged furry proportions. Back here, I seek your footsteps in the gentle sway of the curtains and the opening of the doors. I wish that your soft head touches my finger as they dangle of the bed. Maybe even feel your wet nose obscuring my vision in the hopes of partaking a slice of salami or chicken from my sandwich. Even though you know it is all for you. All of me is for you, my sweetheart. Remember that, wherever you are. All of me, is for you.

It is only when you finally reclaim the slow, languorous night hours. That you realize how lonely they were to begin with.

Hi. I'm.. I'd tell you my name, but what good would that do? Names are common-place. Hundreds other could share my name and it so happens that we couldn't be more different from each other. Instead I'll tell you about what I am. You know how when you are a child, you think there live monsters and demons under your bed? I thought that too. But I never fought them. I wanted to know who they were and what made the world hate them so. I would often talk to them in my sleep, question them over and over again, but they never replied. One day I woke up and I knew there lived not a single demon under my bed. All of them were inside my heart and my head. I always wanted to work at a job where I could meet my customers. I wanted to look at the way they walked, the way their face would tilt when they tried to explain things to me. I noticed the young girl who bit on her lip a little more than she should and her brother who had the jagged, bitten nails. My eyes diverted themse...

I never did imagine one could read the way I do now. I picked up Love In The Time of Cholera for the 3rd time last month, in an attempt to finally read it. I've been rummaging through it for years now, making futile efforts to move beyond three or four pages. The fact is, at the time, I would have start building the streets that Dr. Urbino, Florentino and Fermina walked on all over again each time I started after keeping it down for a day. It becomes exhausting, imagining the crowded streets, nauseating odours and myriad of emotions throughout. This time around, all of it changed. I knew the city already. I could see it forming in my mind as I opened the pages to where I had last stopped. Somehow, I could fathom every cobbled path in the city as surely as the characters tread upon them. Florentino Ariza's love letters seem written by a hand no more experienced than mine. All it takes is one whiff of the air and every floating aroma, odour and smell from the harbour comes ru...

When asked a simple question, it should be settled with a simple reply. However, questions to the tune of, "What is it that you want?" deserve just a little more. The next time you ask of me, what is it that I want, I shall tell you. I want a friend. A friend who is available all day, without fail. I want to know someone exists who can be there to comfort me without the hassles of being cities away. What I want is come home each day, be greeted affectionately by my dog. I want to not get into the perpetual argument with mother regarding life, career and the insidious tone of my voice. I want to have a life, instead of being told by father that I have none and I should go get one.  I want someone reliable who will not cancel on me every other day and is punctual. I want to be able to meet this person every few days and sit with them in a quiet place, knowing that at that particular moment in time, I have their full and complete attention. And that I am loved. I want to have...

Perhaps it is the lack of fellow insomniacs who crack terrible puns at 3 in the morning or the constant honking of horns in the evening while going back home, but I seem to be coming apart. So do forgive the rants that will follow. It is a season of wrongs. It is all wrong. The wrong cities and the wrong time and the wrong thoughts. The weather is wrong. It is supposed to be unpredictably hot and then comfortingly mild within seconds and it just won't happen. I'm sitting on the wrong chair and on the wrong side of the laptop screen and this whole room feels wrong. The books are kept in the wrong order because why, just why should they be in height-wise order anyway? Who says it is wrong to stack them in the order of which they were loved? The light is wrong, it no longer falls gracefully and has to be forced in through a tubelight that has something wrong with it and so won't start until I clamber up a chair and twist it forcefully which is again, a terrible way to start ...

Many years have gone by and I have found myself coveting times ahead more than making memories. I've always figured that memories make themselves. And suddenly having gone from the tiniest, most precious ones of time spent with you to having the world gone by in a blur because all I could see was you. We have memories together now. And some stories to talk about. More than that, I love you.

Walk down the road with your head bobbing to music and your steps skipping to the beat. Your arms are flailing a little while you try to dance and you're walking in a daze. You tumble about a little and almost strangle yourself with your dupatta.   Walk so that everything passes by in a blur, like you've slowed down enough to see the world in the tiniest bits. If you look close enough, you can spot the atoms whizzing by in their paths, determined to spin till the very end of time. You feel ancient at the very moment, for you realize that every part of you is stardust. Walk with your eyes all squinty so that the sunlight streams through your eyelashes and makes small patterns of colourful bokeh in front of you. In that moment, pause. Open and close your eyes so that they can catch the white light fracturing into tiny segments of colour that dance around your irises. Walk like no one is watching. For no one really does watch, especially when you forget propriety and embrace th...

The four walls of her room had been discussing a certain disturbing matter at a great length. Five and a half months had passed without her having had much of an emotional outburst or fit of rage. They had waited for pillows and clothes to come hurtling towards them. She chose to sit down and stare blankly into her laptop screen instead. They wanted her to scream till her voice went, for containing her anger gave them purpose. She hummed quietly to herself all night long. The four walls of her room kept waiting; something was sure to trigger a response one of these days. She smiled reluctantly at the sunlight and buried it deep inside. They were worried that she would give herself an ulcer like this. She hadn't fallen ill in all this time. They presumed she had given chosen to turn the blindest of eyes and see only the glittering fantasies of a dream. The four walls of her room sighed in relief at her smile. She did too.

Amelie and the plum cake that will solve all heartaches. John Murphy and the soundtracks he creates. Jeux D'Enfants for the beauty of what love is. 500 Days Of Summer for the summers to come. Endless repeats of beloved TV shows. Vivaldi played on a loop till one succumbs to exhaustion. Mr. Wilde for his witticisms and Dorian Gray. Gerald Durrell and his daffodil yellow villa. Letters, of the handwritten kind. All things I shall be grateful for in the coming few months. The smell of wet mud and clay in the evenings. Camera being slung around neck. Stepping out into the gentle sunshine. Vapours wafting through the streets of corner markets. Short hairdo's. Thumbing through books every single day. All things I missed in the last few months. Blanket, whether in winters or summers. Lemon rolls and tarts. Squinty eyed dogs. Well, dogs. Tomatoes with all kinds of dishes. Comfortable tee. The shoes she painted just for me. Those wonderful women. The earrings that go with just ...

I no longer fade into oblivion as easily as I once could. There are too many people who care, who wish to know more. Oblivion was a curious place to exist, as empty as it was full of like-minded souls who chose their poison. There is a deep comfort in being oblivious to the world around you. An even deeper one in having the world forget you. To have been a ghost, or a ghostly entity is easier than it sounds. It is also easier done than said. It becomes easier to observe others without judgement. Mild amusement becomes your favourite emotion, for it is one you shall notice above all others. There will be more to look at, more to take in silently. Often enough, we ruin the better things in life by talking. The milling crowds will assume a shade in monochrome and cease to affect you. In fact, unless spoken to directly, unnecessary conversation becomes a rare priviledge. Then again, you'll laugh a little more everyday when others become oblivious to you. For nobody will notice and ...

Circa 2007, watching Breakfast at Tiffany's. Hoping, wishing, praying and demanding that one stranger who walks into your life and turns everything around. Fast forward, January 2011. For the first time in many years, something that another person has said rendered me speechless. In a way that makes my heart skip a beat every now and then. In a way that has me almost crying for sheer joy one moment and smiling softly to myself the next. And like all the good things in life, it doesn't make any sense to me. How does someone go from an acquaintance to friend to filling up the whole of my message inbox in one week? How did I go from being socially awkward to telling somebody everything there is to know about me? How can he possibly know the words I want to hear and be the person I want to spend time with? How in the name of God does he get me singing with him in the middle of the night, especially that one song that speaks to me? Knowing him is reassuring, like a promise of so...