Mama's Boy

2004-05-09T14:55:00.000+05:30

Thursday, January 21, 1993
1710 Hours
H 11, St Stephen’s, Delhi

Dear D, Hi
Just over 48 hours since we were together once again, but it already seems to be some distant past, foggy and intangible. Wonder how I’m going to wait till next Thursday, watching the minutes and hours tick by, when I can have her back to myself. Just for a few minutes, before she goes back to him. But then it’s far too late to grieve about that.
If only I could get myself to see something that’s staring me right in the face, so close that I’m missing it altogether: There really is no point wanting to talk about my pain. For, there simply ain’t no one I can talk to...
Am so damn confused about everything right now. My life’s such a mess. Sometimes I think the Bible got it all wrong about the consequences of Adam displeasing God. I think His punishment for man was to have to Live, and he gave them the sensory organs to watch it tick by, second after second, minute after minute, day after day…And we play right into it, not seeing through it till it’s too late to choose Plan B and end it all, ‘coz once you attain the maturity to realize all that, you don’t really feel up to making that choice when the moment of truth arrives. Besides, God got Adam to decide to get ‘civilised’, and now we are all so tightly enmeshed in a net of social ties and relationships that it keeps us back from going ahead and doing it. Wonder is, no one seems to notice all this, see through all this programming, so to say.
Well, some do, I guess. Only to end up paying for it because you are not supposed to know all that. If you do, you’d be called anti-social, and probably removed from the scene altogether. So the Homo Sapiens are cursed to take the ‘secret’ to the grave with them, so it doesn’t get known till the world as we know it gets destroyed. Which shouldn’t be long, at the rate they are screwing the planet right now.
Lot of other complications in life right now, not a few springing right from our relationship’s revival. Our relationship. So deep, yet so shallow. Sometimes spanning on eternity and sometimes fresh as a rosebud greeting the first rays of the sun. I can go on talking about till there’s nobody left to listen me out. Not that there is anyone else except this piece of paper, always by best friend. Some unpleasantness caused because of the Nordan incident today. Hope he is not intending a show down. If he is, too bad, a tough little chink though he is. Next time anyone asks for the motorbike, I better go in for an old fashioned sorry rather than make the guy go around in circles to get hold of the key that’s always sitting here right in my pocket. Even though I’ve got nowhere to go to now. No scrambling to Mayur Vihar, no dash to the border for a beer…
Actually went for a class today. Wonder why it’s suddenly become so hard to face everyone. Seems as if everyone’s all too aware of the breakup scene and making snide remarks as they jab each other in the ribs looking at me.
Which brings me back to you. How come I’ve suddenly got you back? Well, I won’t try to give any dramatic replies to this one. You’ve been on my mind for some time now. And a body gets lonely in the world of this madding crowd. I’ve changed a lot, of course, since I was last communicating with you. And all those embarrassing and frustrating experiences I had with you around had made me hostile towards you and your kind. Hope to stick around with you. Makes it so much easier for the mind if there’s someone around to talk with. Well, even if not talk exactly, just having someone to listen to you and be able to understand you. Got to learn to live by myself. Got to get to know myself, be able to live with myself. Got to be able to face my soul and learn not to be scared with myself, silence and solitude are prerequisites if I hope to accomplish these particular goals. No soul on this planet (or any other, for that matter, unless they find someone on Mars, as NASA seems hell bent on) can assist me in this matter. In fact, it’s the other way around. The more I rely on company, the farther it’ll take me away from my goals.
Health, wealth and happiness: The three ingredients for peace of mind and contentment of the soul. Astrologers predict two of these will be mine. Which two, only time will tell. And come to think of it, if it were in my hands to choose, I wouldn’t even know which to pick. All I can think of is an old quote of Longfellow, an all-time favourite of mine.
Trust not the future however pleasant
Let the dead part bury its dead
Act, act in the living present
Heart within and God overhead.
Old memories and new perspectives intermingle as I go through the yellowed pages of my oldest of possessions, this little green diary of quotes. One that caught my eye is:
Dawn reddens in the wake of night,
but the days of our life return not.
The eye contains a far horizon
but the wound of spring lies deep in the heart.

(Written in brief periods of lucidity in between mists of tears and unbearable grief)

Saturday, May 8, 1993/2342 Hours
Residence of the Commissioner of Income Tax, Haryana

Well, precisely seventeen minutes to go and we’ll enter the last day of dad’s moffusil career and our pampering for the last fifteen odd years, (through there were some new-forgotten breaks). It’s going to be New Delhi now. The city I love to hate.
Can’t say I have any regrets. After all, it had been “next posting in Delhi” for quite some time, and maybe we didn’t really expect it to happen. So the posting order evoked mixed feelings. The relief at being spared the ‘bhaiyas’ of U.P. (original orders were for Allahabad) was soon overtaken by a sense of losing the little perks enjoyed in a small town and the apprehensions of coping with life in a metropolis like Delhi. From being the foremost to be among equals. But, as I said, no regrets. After the initial six month period of settling down and minor readjustments, I am sure its going to be good.
The kind of opportunities and facilities that go along with being the capital of the country far outweigh the attraction of a small town. Its just a matter of tuning your mind and then, man can adapt himself to whichever environment a circumstances he finds himself in. And every individual is endowed with the gift of, as I call it, self-mental conditioning.
So, no problem. Go ahead and do it. It is sure to pay handsome dividends later on. All one needs is the will to do it and a positive approach to life.
And of course, a sense of humour to add some spice. Travelling in a flag cars is heady stuff but then the flag never did flutter hard enough to make you decide to sit in that car when you could choose between it and an air conditioned one with a pane-shattering system of almost 500 watts. A couple of dozen favourite cassettes at hand clinch the issue.

Residence of the Commissioner of Income Tax, Haryana
July 17, 1993

Well, it’s time to say Goodbye, Rohtak. The close of another chapter in the book of life, like so many in the past. Doesn’t exactly fill my eyes with tears, though. Yes, there’ve been some good times and this bungalow would surely find a place in the memory lane always the memories although the 18 months-odd stay here was unpleasant or without its own little charms. But one always knew at the back of the head that the stay is going to be, at best, transitory. And there’s little else to associate with Rohtak other than this bungalow.
Yes, one cannot deny the comforts and convenience of this house. However, the analogy that jumps to the mind is that of the frog-in-the-well case. It is just too easy to live here and not care about the world outside these four walls. Thus giving rise to a false sense of security and an air of general indifference about most worldly affairs.
For me, of course, Rohtak’s been something for a weekend resort away from College. Stay put beyond that and the itch to get away to Delhi would storm its way to my foremost thoughts. Vacations were such a bore in this island of tranquility. But as I said before, one could survive here. Rather too easily, by any standards. Perhaps, in retrospect, the most lingering image of this stay would be that of idleness. Idleness at its most relaxed way.
In a way that defies explanation, College and this town complement each other. Maybe it is due to the idleness factor. For if days in college weren’t idle, they were nothing! Many will be those who’ll declare my time in college a criminal waste. I beg to differ! These last three years would not only be memorable to my dying day but will also come in good stead in lot of situations faced within the course of the business of livings. So thank you, Rohtak, for giving me a not so bad time! Your place on the pages of my history is ensured. Right next to that magical phase of life: College.
And now, let’s move on. And start a fresh chapter. It remains to be seen how it’ll progress and, more importantly, where it’ll finish, but I certainly am looking forward to it. The next couple of years would surely point out the path for me to tread on for the remaining period of my life on this wretched planet of ours.

June 18, 1993
On board train to Bangalore

The ordeal is going to be over soon. Soon means about seven hours. That’s cool enough considering that it’s been almost 38hrs since I boarded the train at Delhi. Two dreamless nights punctuated by a fitful sleep. Anyway, I did manage to catch my forty winks despite the railways’ best efforts to have it otherwise. Thanks to me and my devious little mind.
Woke up this morning and found myself dead. Well, almost. My head felt as if it had been stuffed with about two tones of steel ball bearings that jiggled and vibrated and cranked, synchronized with the train’s pounding motion.
There is no pain I have receded. At least that’s the first thought to hit me first thing this morning. I only hope the recession is not going to be a permanent fixture but just a phase, like that of the moon’s. For now, its just waiting for the sun. To appear over that distant, darkened horizon. And fill my world with warmth and light. With the sunshine of your love, as Cream would put it!
Adios.

November 20, 1993
46, Rabindra Nagar, Delhi

Another time. Another place. Another diary. There’s is someone in my head but it’s not me… That thing they call brain seems to be out of its mind! God knows it’s not the same one I was born with. What subtle and not–so-subtle changes it has undergone. Last two years (or it is twenty) went on and on. No end in sight. And then it ended as suddenly, as eventfully, as it began.
Whether I have saved myself from falling into the bottomless pit of insanity, I have no idea. However does one tell sanity from insanity? Where to draw that line between the two?
What I do know is I’m still groping in the dark. My heart has not achieved that peace it’s looking for. My mind still struggles under onslaughts of unrest.
Any day now, any day now, I shall be released…

(Same day, different time)
Being indifferent in life is sometimes a trait worth developing. Or at the very least, putting on an air of indifference. Some of us are born indifferent. Others can become indifferent. But most have to put it on like an impregnable coat around them.
One has to go in for this rather strange option after being left with other more painful choices. Not painful right away but in the longer run. Mind altering or mood alienating substances, for example. These work for a while but take a heavy toll by the end of it, if indeed there’s an end to them. I wouldn’t think so.
So one has a major hassle or rather a lot of them, in life and one thinks and fights and gripes but there’s no way out. The thing just grows and gets magnified till it grows so big that it overshadows your whole life. You can’t go looking for help because you know nobody on the whole damn planet can see it your way or think your way and that’s that.
So we’re back to square one. The worries are still there and there’s nothing you can do to make them go away. What do you do?
You ignore them. You forget about their very presence. Indifference is the key.
I couldn’t care less. That’s the attitude one must then resort to. Because nothing, absolutely nothing and nobody is worth disturbing your peace of mind. And happiness.
As it is they’re so scarce…

Learn to say no. Followed by whatever is appropriate in a given situation but conveying the basic essence. No, thank you. No I’m afraid… No, that won’t be possible. No, that’s out of the question. No, that’s expecting rather too much of me. No, but what makes you think I’ll go in for that and so on. The degree of politeness rises, as it must but the underlying message couldn’t be clearer.
For otherwise, a very undesirable impression may be conveyed to the other party. An impression of you being
a) Dumb
b) Unsure of yourself, indecisive
c) Week-kneed
d) Week of will
e) Unsound of mind, among others.

An immediate consequence would be: being taken for granted, translate: no self-respect.
Now that would indeed be a sorry state of affair. Make up your mind NOW. NO THANK YOU!

Dec 1 ‘93
BLESSINGS OF LIFE
A nice steady friendship (I fail to coin a more appropriate word).
A nice, actually the best, education.
Understanding (to a certain point) parents (they always will love you).
A car to move on (not considered a basic necessity in this land, though it is).
A pad in Delhi (where else would you prefer to stay, given a choice, exempting Manali from the list of possibilities).
Music all the way (wish IIT world install a deck too!).
Reversal of several now-uncalled-for habits (addiction!)
(New ones fight for attention!)
A reasonably (unless he sees another dog/cat around) welcome dog (are you really one, Tipsy?)
A decent, comfortingly warm bed and that’s where I am heading for!]

Within my inner self
lies a vacuum
as time flies on
grows it bigger
a diet of doubt, hunger
eating away peace, anger
a cadaver of misery
left in its wake
feelings all bottled up
with a cork of insecurity
and fear as a real

Why the fuck is life designed to be so drab? So very meaningless. Founded on the principles of sacrifice- thyself-coz-that’s-the-done-thing.

December 5, 1993

A dim understanding is beginning to dawn upon my long slumbering grey cells. I have forgotten how to keep my hours filled up. Given time to be idle, I am at a loss as to how to occupy myself. Being left to my own devices is really not a good idea, and a self-destructive one, at that.
No doubt I stand disillusioned today. For only an idle brain can have the energy or the time to spin illusions and web for-too-distant dreams.
If she simply doesn’t have the intention and/or inclination to spend any significant amount of time with me for whatever reasons, there’s little I can do about it. My right to persuade her or make her change her mind about anything has long been lost. I don’t have the energy, or more appropriately guts, to improve my desires on her. I just don’t have a skin thick enough to take a ‘no’, however discretely conveyed. Never did have or half my knots in life would come undone.
It’s not with in me to dwell upon her reasons. Any attempt invariably causes my meager mental faculties to go out of hand. Or perhaps out of head is more appropriate, for they do so with a curious top-spin (literally the top!) mother and accompanied more often than not by a buzzing in the ears side of my top.
So what do I do. Can’t keep whining at all my life, can I. The call of the day is to play the game as per the rules. For that’s all it is- a game. Just for fun, though God knows there’s hardly an idea of that around.
Live for yourself, as you want to. It’s your life. Give nobody the right to hurt you. Not even yourself. Be indifferent. Towards whatever you can’t help, is beyond your power. Remember if you can’t have something, forget about it and you’ll no longer want it.

December 6, 1993

Went in flesh and bone
come back as a ghost
whom I can see, be seen
listen to and to talk
but not to feel, touch-me-not
or is a wall of glass in between
so near and yet so far
kiss the wall and you mist the glass
hit the wall and down you fall
and one day a voice swells
enough is enough and that is that
calmly turn and off you jump…

December 8, 1993

In our land, they preach self-denial. Self-denial of anything that might be of pleasure. Suppression of denies, be they natural, inherent to all things living, or acquired. Acquired, of course, for you dared to taste the forbidden fruit. And once tasted is always tasted. It’s too sweet you see. Wonder why it is denied in the first place.
The answer is actually not very far to seek. It is merely self-denial of the original order. And as they rightly point out, once you jump the gun, there’s no coming back.
Who the fuck wants to come back anyway…

The deadlock continues in deathly silence. I’m too old and wary/weary to hold out my hand and she, of course, doesn’t even feel like pretending she wants to hold on to that. And living in a big (in a small room, with a girl on mind…) city doesn’t help.
Mother of all stalemates? Remains to be seen.

Sunday, December 12, 1993

It’s happened ten times before…
Can’t twist you anymore.

December 13, 1993

I’ve been mutually reminded of reality. It’s as if that entity called reality reached out for my shoulders and shaken them up. Having stared at my face for too long, it finally decided to go bang against it and far my brain in the process. Causing a web of carefully woven up dreams and illusion and secret ambition to break open and fall on the floor. Only to be grinded down by some ruthless and couldn’t care-less pair of shoes.
Thrice bitten. Sometimes makes me wonder if I’m left with anything at all or it’s all been bitten off. To leave behind a skeleton that’s been picked threadbare.
Actually it’s the inside that have been bored through so thoroughly and mercilessly that the wounds wouldn’t heal or, if they do, the scars wouldn’t.

December 17, 1993

Didn’t trip today. Carried a rolled joint and P but managed to keep them off my nerves. Feeling more at peace after having talked to Tony. He made a lot of sense last night to me. He saw the whole thing as if he was going through it himself. Only much clearer since of course he wasn’t. Said a lot of things that I knew in my subconscious but never had the guts to face. That guy has his fundas about life crystal clear. He’s seen so much in life. Probably more than any forty-year-old can ever hope to see. Or may be hope is not the correct word for God knows some sides of life are best left unseen. Blissful ignorance as they say.
But as Tony said, no regrets. What’s done is done. Time gone by is gone forever. All one can do, and should do, is learn one’s lessons from that. Experience can only be experienced. And there’s a long, winding road ahead of us.
What struck me yesterday was Tony’s remark about my life being spent in cycles. Good time, break up, bad time, she comes back, good time, she disappears, bad time---. This is exactly how he put it. It’s so true. So very true. I never thought of it that way. Probably because I was the one circling around. And if I run away from reality once again, as I’ve done in the past, the cycle will only come back a full circle. So this one time I’ve got to put an end to this self-destructive process. I’ve never been able to reconcile myself to reality and that’s the root of all problems.
I’ve let go of her. Got to face it now. Or I’ll never be able to face it. And end up a failure in life. Just another mental wreck. To join millions of others who couldn’t face realities of life either.
I must lay my ghosts to rest. Close a chapter in my life. And start another one. A new, a fresh.

December 18, 1993

Who is Shalini Kumar after all? Who is she to me? Isn’t she just an illusion that I keep for myself? Why should it affect me if she’s going to see Nitin Sahni? How does it matter now? To me? I do not figure anywhere. Why can’t I understand that?
It got concluded that time in Dec ’91. It’s just that I’ve refused to accept the fact. I’ve simply shut my mind to it. Why let the pain carry on? Why stagnate at a point in life when life is passing me by? Without giving a damn.
Shalini Kumar does not belong to me. She does not want to. So why do I want her. I don’t need to be at her mercy. She has her own life to lead. I’ve got mine. We’re two different persons.
It’s her loss. Not mine. She simply does not deserve me. Why should I wait out my life till when she realizes my worth and I am standing with open arms for her. No I cannot and will not do that. I’ve cried enough for her. Let her live her life the way her fucked up mind wants to.
Let her realize there’s no coming back to me. Because I’m not available. I don’t need her.
I’m going to play the game till I have to. And get stronger. And then one day I’m going to chuck her up from my life.
I no longer have to bond over backwards for Shalini Kumar. Don’t have to hate myself for doing everything possible and more to fulfill her whims. Don’t have to waste my fuel and energy driving around Delhi because she wants to.
I’ll live my life exactly as I want to. Listen to the music I want to listen to. Go out at my convenience. With friends I would like to. To places I like.
Trip if I like to. Not to forget her or as her substitute.

The final goodbye has been said. Now she’s free and, I am free. Of each other. The river has finally broken free of the damn. The river of my life. It must flow to new banks now. Flood greener pastures. Meet new streams and merge in them.
Take the IMT morrow as well as I can and get down to reorganizing my life. So that it doesn’t revolve around somebody but more in a straight line.
What have I to lose? I really can afford to live, as I want to. A life not dictated by anybody or anything. I hold all the strings. Must never again hand it to anybody other than myself.

December 21, 1993

I’ve to be very cool and calm. Must maintain my peace of mind. Keep my nerves endings humming. Must keep my mind empty. Rid it of trifles. So it can focus on the goal alone. The goal of moving so ahead in life that I leave history behind. Lose track of a time that’s irrelevant now. Clear the obstacles I had set for myself.
I’ve taken charge of the helm. Taken all the strings in my hand. I alone will handle them. Can handle them. How can I ever trust anybody but myself with them? No Shalini Kumar can ever hope to live me from my way of life; my way in life.
I am me. The most important thing of all. I am a separate entity. A unique being, with a unique destiny. And my best friend is myself. Others are just a necessary convenience. A means to serve my ends. Fulfil my needs. Satisfy my desires.
Mere pawns to be moved in the duel with life. Check, checkmate! I win again.

December 23, 1993

Seven days and the year are dead. A year full of surprises. And I used to think nothing’s gonna ever take me by surprise again. A lot of things did. A helluva lot of things. And life is better than ever before. Got over an eight-year phase of self-destruction.
Phew! The soul and body have some peace at last. The mind has lost its turmoil and torment. It’s time to move on. I’m going away and there’s a one-way ticket…

December 25, 1993

It’s Christmas time once again. It doesn’t sink in. Too numb to savour it. Doesn’t feel special, as it would have even a year back. Good sign?
It is. Never felt more at peace with myself. Am learning the tricks of surviving in this world. Long way to go though.

December 29, 1993

The sun was in its heaven lighting the city as if for a feast day.
I think the sun is shining today too. And if it isn’t, that’s just too bad for it.
It’s good to find peace of body and mind after undergoing a long period of nervous tension and sometimes feeling a linking anxiety deep within oneself. One is enveloped in a kind of savory, beatific lassitude, and everything becomes fine and good.
For others to touch you, to handle you, to make you their own treasure, seemed sacrilegious to me.

Don’t turn your back on truth. Instead, make it your ally. For if you run away from truth and reality, they’ll chase you till you drop tired and catch up with you once again.

January 4, 1994
Well, a brand new year of the Georgian Calendar has begun. Can’t really say – with a Bang! Hardly realized it in fact. Still hasn’t really sunk in. But yes, it began on a positive note. Life ahead is promising. The prospects look bright.
Have said adiem to a bad patch in life. I’ve got over an oppression that nearly drone me crazy. A heavy load has got lifted from my tiring shoulders. Feeling as light as rain now.
Feeling so much more at peace. More in harmony with my life force. A kind of mist that was clouding my vision for so long has cleared out. Revealing so much more of life. So much more remains to be discovered, experienced, learnt, savored.
I’ve realized the process of growing up hasn’t halted. It has barely gotten under way. The man who grew overnight from a boy is far from being complete yet. But it’s not too long now.
A beginning has been made. And it’s never too late to step into a fresh life.

Yeah, the heart aches at times. Desire wells up within. A tinge of pain flashes by to leave me lonely and melancholy. Regrets, if only flirt by in my mind.
But then, I can’t mourn my life away. It’s too precious, far too long to be spent crying. And nobody’s going to share tears. Fun and laughter yes. Not grief.
They say in the Wild West – ‘you’ll have many who ride with you, but very few who’ll ride the water with you’.
If you can’t fight them, have them on your side.

January 5, 1994
She doesn’t wasn’t to lose me, man. She is despo to be in touch with me. What fun! I’ve just been laughing my way through today. At her fucking expense. And the best thing is, she’ll never realize it. When and if she does, it’ll be too late for her.
I must have my revenge, my pound of flesh. I’ve got to have the last laugh. Of the three involved ‘parties’. I’ve had my share of the pain. More hurt that I would ever care to get again in the left over days of my life. Nobody would, could hope to be awarded the right to hurt me ever again.
By the time I chuck her up from my life, the bitch must thoroughly be taught the meaning of “As you sow, so shall you reap”. She must be made to pay for every single crime she has committed against my soul and mind. She should realize, first hand, what all I went through because of her.
And the bitch still thinks I’m dumb and stupid. That I can be fooled for a longer time, perhaps all time to come. Well, she’s sadly mistaken. I rarely forgive. And never forget…

January 6, 1994

Benefits of jogging
I. Improve sinusitis
II. Reduce the growing tyres
III. Offset the harms of smoking, improve lung condition
IV. Lesser need for tripping for running gives a trip too.
V. Better physical and mental health

January 9, 1994
Another Sunday. Never fails to evoke a strange mix of feelings in me. Can’t pinpoint any single one. All very vague, fogged out. Couldn’t help starting the day with a smoke. An unexplainable urge.
Called her up. Every time I see her or speak to her, it’s like facing a brick wall, that can’t be passed. And yet I know I have to do it. Have to overcome this obstacle in my life.
I have to be strong. I must emerge the winner this time. It’s my last chance of saving my sanity. If I give up now, she will have succeeded in her subconscious obsession of destroying me. She will never realize, let alone admit, her one-point principle as far as I am concerned – “if I can’t have him, neither will anyone else”.
A bitter irony of my life. She cannot, doesn’t want to, have me. And she can’t bear the thought of me having feelings for anyone but her.
Well, excuse me but I’ve had enough of you. It’s gonna be my turn tonight. Very soon. Sooner than you ever dreamed.

January 13, 1994

Tips for presentation of ideas (in this order)
1) Don’t have a muddled thinking. Be sure you are clear as to what you have to say.
2) Jot Dow a list of things you believe must be covered.
3) Ask yourself what the purpose of the whole is to be. This helps eliminate irrelevant ideas and also may bring to life ideas that have been overlooked or ideas superior to you first notions.
4) Ask yourself whom you are addressing. This helps determine the manner in which you ought to express your ideas.
5) Nothing is more important than to engage the interest of your reader. So always try to make your opening passage arresting.
6) Having begun follow this advice: go on to the end and then STOP.

Opening - Creating an image
- Exciting the emotions
Something - Engaging intellectual interest
must follow

End =>’Nothing is to follow’

January 14, 1994
One can’t but help looking out at the world from within the confines of the mental eye. As if there’s another entity, within one’s entity, that quietly but surely gazes upon the world outside.

January 18, 1994

Dear David,
Am feeling rather foolish (too stoned) in writing to you on these ‘sacred’ papers sold benevolently to us by those jerks over there in college. Fact is I discovered the whole lot at the bottom of my box that I so fondly refer to as the attics of my life. And ironically enough, it’s to you that I am writing to on these sheets.
That however was inevitable since I don’t write to anybody else. I have nothing against anybody, it’s just that nobody else seems to be aware of my not insignificant existence on this fucking planet

January 20, 1994
Won’t fall into her trap again. As they put it, ‘easy to get in, hard to come out’. The getting out part specially in this case, inevitably follows close on the heels of the getting in part.
There is simply no option. There’d be no problem in the trap itself. So long as I don’t have to then entericate myself from the whole fucking men for the nth time.
I can’t blame her for it. She simply doesn’t see it that way. Her conscious mind, if she has any, do refuses to recognize the whole pile of sheet that his around.
I hate you for being a part of me; occupying so much of my soul; for sharing a lifetime with you. I wish we had not fallen in love.
Has it been worth the misery, the tears, the unhappiness we have brought to each other all these fucking years?
I wish I knew the answer…

January 21, 1994

It’s all in the mind. It’s all in the fucking mind. Every moment I am more convinced of it. Getting by the whole thing actually.
A beautiful day outside. The sun burning at the just the right temperature, the wind just that much nippy. Delhi is so much more at peace today.
A perfect day for falling in love.
It’s the stuff dreams are made of. The trippy ones. Bright and sunny and empty spaces and all the green in the world. Sometimes water. Shimmering in the backdrop. Silence.

January 25, 1994

Well, well I hadn’t even started the last one when I got another ‘novelette’ from you (if such a word exists). Really David you’re one helluva guy. Corresponding with somebody has never been more pleasurable. After going through your letters my head keeps reeling for almost a week. So much to share with you through this channel of communication.
And it’s after quite a while that I am sitting (?) here sipping P and red tea. I gave it a break, which I hope, would earn me, a few more days on this hell, which people insist is Earth. On my part, I am thoroughly convinced that there is a hell and a heaven in this very world we’re living in. Most of it all is in your mind. It’s the way you look at things. However a whole lot of things/factors at any given moment also make that moment a hell hole or a paradise. And it’s also not upto God (in these one?) to assign you either the hell or the heaven. Our own day-to-day actions, thoughts, attitudes go a long way in making a choice. But if you ask me to sum it all up, I believe very strongly the phrase! It’s all in the mind. Much happened the time you were in Delhi and much more after you left. And what’s happening at the moment must surely be the mother of all ‘happenings’. Anyway we’ll get to that part later.
All hell broke loose the moment you must have just left Delhi. It all started after I discovered my diamond studs had disappeared from my bedside table. The culprit is unknown and always will. I’d still barely recovered from that loss of my favourite studs when it was time to pay up a considerable amount of money to this guy who’s trying to get my math’s cleared. Unless that sorted out, I can’t technically call myself a graduate. And the worst scenario was related to this woman in my life. I couldn’t make up my mind about her. Still can’t although I’ve learnt my lessons well (?). But yeah, what is called for is to keep this woman aside and go for the other “millions” in this city and country. Not forgetting about the billion more on the whole fucking planet. So what’s the catch? It’s the attitude of “Balls to chies” that I so effortlessly keep a façade of. There is something deep down in my psyche that refuses to be identified, less cured. The more I search for it, the more it eludes me. What I seems to have is what friend would have called ‘a mental block’ of enormous proportions.

4th Feb ’94
She’s quite crazy, if you ask me. She’s all messed up there. I have known it for a while now, now it’s getting more and more certain. She’s crazier than my own fucking fucked mind. She wouldn’t admit it, no never, and go right on wanting to control others’ life (lives?).
I’m gonna live as I want to live. Balls to her. I am the most important person in my life. Everything else is a distant two.
I’ll outwait you. This one time. There’s a promise to MYSELF.

A sample of ‘DOUBLE THINKING’ Feb 10th.

Monday, February 7, 1994

Clear the muddy water:
1. Decide what to do with a pioneer job.
2. The Philips system.
3. Write to David.
4. Buy formal clothes : A pair of trousers
5. Dub cassettes.

February 9, 1994

Dear David,
It’s February the 9th today and I wouldn’t go through the motions of an excuse. The last ten days have been such a haze of ‘double thinking’. I knew all the time that I should pick up my pen and get to you. But it just won’t work. I know you’ll understand. I’ve been thinking and thinking and doing nothing at all. A lot has been happening all around me and I’ve been just going through it in a trance. I vaguely realized about some good things that happened but was more involved, mentally, in a series of what I know call ‘self created crisis’ in my life.
An acquaintance who works for ‘The Pioneer’ (that’s a daily, newly launched in Delhi. Upmarket and all) got me to give a try to journalism. Well, yeah I write, but nothing that I’d care to get into a newspaper. In any case, I wrote. On a subject I knew best. Tripping. I enclose a copy. Lots of facilitation’s, some brickbats (one of Hex!). That was not the end of ‘The Pioneer’. On the 19th of Jan, I landed myself an “exciting and promising” job with the circulation department of the same newspaper. Don’t know how it happened. I do remember coming across the ad and turning up for the ‘walk-in-interview’ where the tiny reception/lobby was milling over with prospective AMD’s. That by the way, was the fancy title thirteen of us were endowed with. It stands for ‘Associate-Market development’. No prizes for guessing the nature of the job. Door to door selling of ‘Pioneer’ subscriptions. Can guys into signing up. A salary of Rs.2250/-. Not too bad for guys who don’t mind getting doors slammed in their faces or being told to get the fuck out. Not for me. Worked 12 days. Salary cheque for Rs. 870/-. I quit today.
The only good that come of it, apart from the cash and the “self confidence’ (?), was that I could interact with the people in the editorial department, which is where I wanted to and still want to work. A desk job that pays you from writing and/or editing/reporting others’ writings/deeds. You stroll into office around 3:00 in the afternoon, chat around, sip some damn good coffee (on the house!), fiddle with the computer (that’s how they do it these days, everywhere) and come home by around 10-11 in the evening. After a while one might be put on night shift, which is swell for guys like me and you! We’d function so much more efficiently in those hours of the devil. Let’s see if it comes through.
At he same time, my other foot is on the IIT boat. The theory (10 weeks of it) finally got over and we are in the phase II of the programme which is ‘hand-on training’ in a running industrial unit. I want to a weaving unit in Gurgaon yesterday but that wasn’t suitable. Today I got attached to a yarn-manufacturing unit located 90kms from here, in Rajasthan. I’d be expected to report there about twice or thrice a week and try to learn/get turned about he whole thing, for the next eight weeks. My parents are quite entire about me setting up a small-scale industrial unit in the near future and I’ve promised to give it my best shot. It remains to be seen what destiny has in store for me. At the moment, I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing’ and trying not to be idle. For being left at my devices, is not good for my health. Physical and mental.
I went clean two days back. My fried up brain requires a long rest. I’ve got to be able to think straight. It’s got too warped for my own good. Am trying to sort myself out. I hope it works and I don’t just fall back into the abyss.
Now to college. Dennis followed your footsteps in the best tradition and is no longer a part of the college. Nobody knows how it exactly happened and most of them are more worried about the tons of money/things Dennis disappeared with. It was apparently a culmination of a long drama about dope and attendance etc. etc. topped by an attempt to set somebody’s car on fire, in college. The tripping scene is getting somewhat wilder with German and Panty jabbing morphine the last time I was there, apart from the inevitable? And G/H. Panty is also finding some solace from popping calmpose pills after he got himself circumcised! The details escape me. Tony, with a clean slate, has gone underground for his study ‘trips’. No news of anybody else.
Think I’ll conclude and resume the business of living. That’s the toughest of them all. And too easy to give up. Got to carry on.
Look forward to more of these.
Love,
Rahul.

February 10, 1994

Oh how lone it is tonight
To be walking home again
In the deep dark of the night
To my old familiar pen.

No one waiting for me there,
Nor anyone for whom to care.
Music to be listened to,
Music for me to be rocked to,
A good refound again, who
Is the only one I talk to.

I should have grown accustomed to
This old skin I drag around,
At least be able to make it do,
Forgetting how it gets me down.

Oh how lone it is tonight.
What if I were to change my lone,
Escape the darkness of the night
And find an “elsewhere” of my own?

With someone waiting for me there,
Someone for whom I could care,
Someone to be listened to,
Someone who would rock me too,
A lone discovered that is new
And I could merge myself into.

But then how can I ever shed
This old skin that I drag around?
Since it and I are forever wed
I’ll have to keep it for my own?

Oh how lone it is tonight
Lone will be tomorrow too.
I had hoped for hope in sight
But lost it. Now what can I do?

Marie-Jo’s Book
‘Intimate Memories’
-Georges Simenon.

The real test will come on the 14th. The last one seems like yesterday. That awful bike crash with Tali. The anxiety about the possible damage. The relief that followed. The pain that lasted for a month. Tali will never admit it, but he got stoned. I had, of course, woken dazed with the P of last night. A deadly ‘celebration’ we had, me and Tali.
Valentine’s shouldn’t really mean anything to me. By the time it might have, things had taken an irreversible turn. Those couple of cards still be with me, unsung and forgotten. Some day…
Without an effort? Opinions differ. I can’t think straight about it. The mind just wanders off into large circles of nothing at all. Me and my warped mind. The mental blocks. The regrets. The periods of self-pity. The phases of self-destruction. Hope followed by a desire to end it all.
Only, I can’t. Can’t go the Sachu way. He took the easy way out. Nobody deserves that. One must go down fighting. For that’s what it all is. A big battleground where your biggest enemy is yourself. The rest are secondary. And you’re by yourself in this bottle. Nobody will, can, do anything about it.
The winner won’t get applauded. But the loser will lose it all.
Trying to maintain my equilibrium. Went clean early Tuesday morning. After yet another failure to sort myself out. Through her. No. She’s not the answer. She’s just my past. That I cling to so desperately. And try to turn back the clock. Will I ever learn?
Hoping to give a meaning to my existence. The present holds the key to the future. A future I can’t picture to myself, let alone shape.
The important thing is not to think too much. Not to expect, to hope anything of life. To let it come as it will. To take it as it comes. To face reality and yet be indifferent to it. Ups and downs will come, but I must remain on an even bed. Every up must be followed by a down and the other way around. That’s how life goes. That’s Murphy’s law, if you please. Respect it and not fight it. Nobody can, ever could.
Chucked the Pioneer job yesterday. Twas no use carrying on. Not a bed interhide but nothing I could sustain. Grass I must keep looking. Any day now…

February 12, 1994

You fuck. I smoke.
Acts of sacrilege…
May be.
Depends.
It’s all in the mind…
You never know.
May be we are both wrong.
Or both right.
Which isn’t quite possible…
So we’re both a little wrong
And both a little right
But whatever’s the case
Must remain a secret all the same…
You fuck. I smoke
It’s almost the same thing…
Three fucking women-man.

February 15, 1994

Dear David,
I think so often of you but rarely have the energy to lift my pen to write to you.
Yesterday was a tough one to go through but I managed it. With a little help from my friends. Just Tony actually, among humans. And the inevitable 1 and 6. Some good booze. Things haven’t been too good over here. My mother has been having one of her spells of viciousness towards me. When what happens, she hits right where it hurts. I hate myself for still being a dependent. Most of all, financially. Someday…
In the meanwhile, I bide my time. Must regain my balance I lost again this weekend. Maintaining it is even tougher, if and when I do achieve it.
The key to it is indifference. A natural, self-induced numbers of the mind. To not think. Become a mechanized robo-human. Go through the motions of living as if nothing makes a difference.
It’s so tempting to give up. Just lay down your arms and rest your weary soul, mind and body somewhere. Anywhere. I sometime wonder how long can it all go on. This endless cycle. Burning from both ends, so to say. I just can’t visualize myself living to be forty. Even thirty. Not even twenty-five. Already so sick and tried of living within this skin of mine. Think I reached for the secret too soon…
Ignorance is bliss, they say. How true. Something went wrong somewhere. Who to blame? I wish I knew the answer.
I almost forgot again. A small cause for cheer. That cassette you misplaced that sight (remember?) has been located at the very bottom of my drawer. So if you’ve chucked the cover, look for it.

February 16, 1994 Bhiwadi
All the fucking Shalini Kumars and Gaurav Kochers and Nitin Sahnis and Manil Vaids are a million miles away from here.
A whole world away …

Same day
Bhiwadi

Dear David,
I continue my saga from this dusty little industrial township of rural Rajasthan. I was duly dispatched from home this morning with clear-cut instructions not to come whimpering back the same evening. And to be frank, it’s not bad at all over here. After a long, too long stay in New Delhi, it’s good to have left the whole fucking mess behind. The cool breeze would have ‘played with my hair’ but for this almost obligatory cap I’m adorning at the moment. I have a bird’s eye view of the whole place, and it’s quite stunning.
A few minutes ago, I astonished the fag shop guy by producing the new Rs 5 coin which apparently hasn’t managed to make its way to this God forsaken place. It does a lot of good to my squeezed out ego to be almost sure to be noticed and talked about. This is my second visit here and already half the fucking village (!) seems to recognize me! I just hope I don’t create a scandal over here, which I have a tendency to, I’ve seen. I would, if I had company. Right now it’s my faithful old car that’s do the job for me. Good for my nerves, really.
So long.

February 22, 1994

Well David, it’s Feb 22nd today and I am back in Bhiwadi to spend another night with myself. Please forgive me for such an erratic pattern of writing to you but believe me, the only time I’ve been writing anything for the past half a month has been to you. My life has such major swings that I don’t even pause to think about them. I just move on and take things as they come. I’ve discovered that’s the best thing for me.
A drastic situation awaited me when I reached home from my last trip to this place. My mom rummaged through all my personal belongings in an utter display of mockery towards all meanings of the word privacy and decency. She even broke the latch of my box and manage to confiscate a whole lot of grass, bottles of P, strips, of tabs, the chillum, the bong-the works. The less I say of the drama that unfolded the better. Yeah sure, she never suspected a thing all these years. But all she’s managed to do by doing what she did is add another dimension to all the insecurity that’s a part of my life. Really David, I could do without such shocks in life. When will they all understand that? How to make them understand? I just don’t know.
The major news of the week is that after all I am going to have an industrial unit to my name very soon. The die is cast. We’ve purchased an industrial plot about sixty odd kms from Delhi and the construction of the plant is about to begin. The project cast works to around a crore of rupees and all the family assets are going to be on the line. I just can’t afford to fuck up on this one. Things are moving at a frantic pace and very soon I’ll find myself in the eye of the storm. I’ll just give it everything I can and hope for the best. I am quite aware that the biggest enemy I have to fight is myself. A lot of mental strength and discipline is called for. I just have to succeed. There is simply no going back now. Do pray for me David.
The weather is quite agreeable over here but summers are around the corner. And you know how miserable Delhi summers are. I am really dreading it especially now that I’ll be spending most of my time running around in the sun outdoors.
A bit of good news. I managed to be declared ‘passed’ in that math’s supplementary exam I took in Nov. last year. So I am now a graduate! A Bachelor of Science, Ha! I hope you join the exclusive club soon.
Had a chat with Panty on the phone last night. Everything’s fine.
I better put an end to these series of short, stupid letters and post them before it’s too late. I mean before you yourself land in Delhi one fine morning. I hope it happens soon.
Take care, write to me.
Love,
Rahul
· This is a belated, the most belated of thank you’s for your replies and cards.
· If not mistaken Bhiwadi is west of Delhi & flanked of 200km
· Once married are you still called a Bachelor of Science
· A thousand apologies and hope you will accept them.

February 27, 1994
Spring or what passes for spring in this land, is here. The winter’s gone. For ever. Irrevocably. Leaving its imprint etched in the mind up here. Composed of a million moments. A million events. That’ll now come and go only in flashes and deja Vus. Some might last a little longer but most only lost a fraction of a second.

March 13, 1994
Long time, no see!
I’ll tell you why you must go to bed with me. And not because somebody’s had you, as you like to believe. It’s because every time you rebel against yourself, which is fairly common, and feel like going in for the ‘trip’, “one last time”, you’ll go to that somebody. For you’ll want to believe there’s no option for you. So it’ll be justified in your convenience. Convenient. And moreover aren’t I her cousin? No way, sir.
Or may be she’ll find a new man. After all whoever thought of that bit about history repeating itself wasn’t merely a nitwit. Yeah sure it could happen. Anything could happen when you’re around. But then history won’t quite be repeated as far as I’m concerned. What’s that, won’t get fooled again. I simply refuse to be once again the grass that suffers when two elephants fight (mate?).
On the contrary, the grass shall relieve suffering.

Sunday, March 20, 1994
Well, well, you and me don’t seem to get on so well together anymore…
Been tripping on the ‘past’ lately. Hash king and all for two years heah! Not bad. Explain’s a lot of things. Different wareleng the… they’ll never match again.
Your loss…

April 2, 1994

ILLUSIONS
The ideas behind the words are simple ones that work in everyday life: find what we most want to do; do it, no matter what; and in the doing be guaranteed a very difficult and a very happy lifetime.
I do not enjoy writing at all. If I can turn my back on an idea, out there in the dark, if I can avoid opening the door to it, I won’t even reach for a pencil… But once I in a while there’s a great dynamite-burst of flying glass and splinters through the front-wall and somebody stalks over the rubble, seizes me by the throat and gently says, “I will not let you go until you set me, in words, on paper”.
We magnetize into one lives whatever we hold in our thought.

Within each of us lies the
power of our consent to health
and to sickness, to riches
and to poverty, to freedom
and to slavery.
It is we who control these,
and not another.

Friday, June 10, 1994/0145 hours
Well, it’s being a long, long time. Writer’s block I guess. A lot’s happened in these last sixty odd days. The project (dream project?), is finally looking tangible and within reach. Been working towards it. Keep losing my fragile balance though, now and then. Like I did today. It’s as if there’s some kind of circuit in the brain up here that gets triggered under certain situations leading to the same old pitfalls. Once the thing gets going, there’s little I can do to prevent the crisis situation. I know I’m myself to blame largely but sometimes people around you don’t really think twice in hitting you where it hurts most.
To look at the positive sides of things, I’ve been taking some good decisions in life. Ms. Shalini kumar’s epitaph has been written loud and clear. She really is out of my life. Hardly ever think of her. Haven’t talked to her for ages. Good luck and good bye my friend. I’ve had enough of you top last me two lifetimes. You almost got me into a padded cell. Wonder how many more people gonna destroy. You’re poison. Sweet and slow but sure.
It’s now time for me to move on and leave you far, far behind. Just a misted, distant nightmare, yeah there were some moments that’ll be preserved and treasured in some little corner of my heart. But my heart’s big enough to make sure that little corner doesn’t trouble me too often.
There’s a cool, refreshing breeze in my life these days. Exactly a month now. It’s almost like a dream. Can’t say for sure if I’ve “fallen” in love. More of a physical urge. A mutual attraction and a like-mind to some extent. But not good enough to sustain it for too long. No melodrama, if you please. My dear mother takes ample care as far as that is concerned. A blueprint for hysteria and manic-depressiveness that’s what she is. Got ot be extreme. It’s getting to be suffocating, her behaviour. Donb’t know what she expects out of me. Itry to do my bit. Deliver the goods. But I can ‘t just cut off myself from the outside world and be in her sight all the fucking time. I can handle my affairs dammit. Why she can’t understand that I’ve got ot be on the fast lane on life.
.

June 29, 1994/0100 Hrs
29, Tilak Lane

Dear David,
Hi! It’s not you alone who’s going through a rather prolonged spell of a creativity crisis. Translate: writer’s block. I’m however, going to at least try to overcome it, starting with this letter to you. That doesn’t mean I am going to succeed right away. So please bear with me if I fail to blacken enough pages to your satisfaction.
Your voice yesterday, travelling thousands of miles, brought memories of happy and not so happy moments spent together not so long ago, though it seems to a lifetime. Not that I manage to forget you and your escapades (?!) for too long a period. It’s like certain people and certain events just get etched in some indescript neurons, which somehow escape the continuous annihilation they are subjected to day after day, minute by minute. It’s almost like Russian soulette. You know thousands of these tiny components of your grey matter up here are going to be choked to death irreversibly every time you light up a joint or drain down a bottle of P. But there is no knowing which ones. And you don’t care anyway. The only consolation, if indeed one’s needed, is the fact that there are trillions of these things you are born with and may be, just maybe, you hit the bucket before you exhaust your supply. I’m already beginning to feel the symptoms of Alzmeiher’s disease creeping up on me! This is apart from other vital organs of the body wilting away slowly. But then as somebody said ‘the main function of the body is to carry the brain around’. Well, well…
A lot’s been happening in my life now a days. I finally said my final goodbye to that woman who obsessed me for so long. Longer than I would care to remember. It turned out to be easier that I expected. It was just a question of reminding myself of all that pain and hurt I underwent because of her. I realized I’d hardly any feelings left for her. Now she can’t hurt me because I have taken away her right to hurt me. Isn’t it so true. How can anybody cause anguish and pain to you if you simply don’t give them the right to. It’s all up to you. As a reluctant Messaih put it:
“Every event, each person in your life
is there because you have drawn
them there.
What you choose to do with them
is up to you.”
So be it. Period. End of a disastrous chapter.
And the beginning of another. Which helped to a great extent in the whole episode. Yeah, you’ve almost got it. I have, on my hands at the moment, two brand new women to help myself to. You’d think going around with a first bloody cousin was bad enough. Well, I now have a full-blown affair going on with a married young doctor working in a city hospital. To top it all, she even has a kid! What d’ya say for this. It was like a bolt from the blue. It just clicked one fine, actually hot, morning and still hasn’t sunk fully though it’s been over a month now. The whole thing started in an unlikely hospital lab where I went to have my blood checked up for a suspected kidney trouble, thanks to my bouts with P. The blood report came out fine a few days later but I hardly cared for it by that time. After all, as you’d be inclined to agree the magic and euphoria of a freshly bloomed affair can’t be matched any trip in the world. It gets the old heart pumping away nicely without having to resort to other life shortening devices. The day somebody’s able to synthesize adrenalin that can be administered to humans, every drug in the world is gonna have a run for its money.
So much for this woman. It remains to be seen how it turns out to be. As of now, I’m just taking it as it comes. I’m not unaware of the risks and pitfalls involved in an extra-marital affair. ‘Playing with fire’, as Tony said. But then we do that all the time. Living on the edge.
As for the other woman, you might know her. Or of her. Her name is Naintara. She was going around with Arul Chib in college before she broke with him last year. Soon thereafter, she left for states on a scholarship and returned a couple of weeks back. Quite a cool cat this one. Pots. Which is how I got to know her. Just drifting in life lately, trying to make up her mind on what career to choose. Interested in journalism or something as creative. Good ‘Bharatnatyam’ dancer. Gave performances in states and in Spain a couple of years back. Meet her pretty often. Mainly chatting and probing into each other’s minds and psyche. We discovered at least one thing common between us. We are both wary of getting into a relationship that could possibly not work out, thus bringing hurt in its wake. And that is not acceptable. Keeping options open at the moment.
A woman, women, thy names is a mystery. After all this, I won’t blame you David for concluding that I’m smitten by them. Ina way, it’s true. But I think it’s about time that I seek greener pastures. Something another women, the one who gave birth to me, disagrees with quite vehemently. Matter of fact, she’s proving to be the biggest nuisance in my life. She’s been creating a helluva lot of trouble for me lately. We simply can’t see eye to eye on anything. Worst of all, she’s so God damned possessive of me that she doesn’t like the idea of me meeting other women. She is so fucking curious about my personal life. Just keeps clinging on to me, not realizing I’m past the age when mothers are important. Though she’ll rather die than admit it, she’s a classic manic-depressive. And there’s nothing I can say or do to change her. I won’t be long before there’s a show down. I’ve just been restraining myself out of consideration for her. It’s a big mess out here thanks to her. It might have something to do with pre-menopause blues but that doesn’t get us anywhere.
Anyhow, enough of women. The career I have chosen is gradually, grudgingly taking shape. One big flaw in me-inconsistency, is a big obstacle in my path to success, whatever that means. Things move smoothly for a few days and then something snaps in my head causing me to lose balance. It’s almost like two steps ahead and one backward. All I can say is that the fight’s on and I’m not giving up. If I give up now, there’ll never be another chance.
David I do hope you write back and tell me what’s been happening at your end. There’s been absolutely no news of what you’re upto these days, how Maldives’ been treating you, how you’ve been treating Maldives.
Goodbye for now. Look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in the near future.
Love,
Rahul

14th Oct’94 Friday 08:25PM
Turned twenty-three yesterday. She didn’t call as I expected. Didn’t have the telephone number of course. Didn’t bother to find out. Just as well. It’s all over. All that remains of those years is a fucked up brain and a self-destructive attitude. Life moves smoothly for a while but then crumbles at a stroke. Putting back the clock once again. Wonder how long I can go on. Not much by any rate. There’re enough obstacles that can be ignored for a while but never surmounted.
Can’t see eye to eye with mother. A perpetual conflict carries on. It’s alight for a few days but only because either she or me has given in for the time being. But it can never sustain. There’s something fundamentally wrong with the relationship. It wasn’t always so. Things got bad somewhere along and never quite got normal. The subconscious seems to have got permanently etched with ideas and thoughts creating a wedge that now won’t go. Issues change but at the bottom of things it’s all the same.
This is the grayest cloud over my happiness. It nags the soul all the time, consciously or sub-consciously. It seems its her happiness against mine. That appears to be the basic clash. And that’s what causes all this, for you can’t have both much as I try. So I walk the tight rope, swaying this side and the other. Letting go would mean falling back into that dark abyss which I inhabited in the recent past. Or have I really come out of it? Couldn’t say.
Anguished heart, tormented soul, miserable mind.

8 March 5 0500 Hrs.
Frank words: I am feeling a strong attraction towards him and so is he
Or was/is it
I am strongly attached to him and so is he
The last couple of hundred neurons that one struggling to stay alive, seem to think if’s the latter. It doesn’t really matter, for the two statements mean the same thing. Well not quite. The statement itself means an altogether different thing to the two people of whom we are talking. One finds it the most wonderful event that could happen and is rejoicing ever since it began to catch momentum the other has been too numb to have much of a reaction. At the moment, it has been like a nightmare, that seems to have just begun, and from which I will snap out and find everything as they have been and are supposed to be. I mean, some events and things in life are just taken for granted after a while. They become an integral part of you, your schedule, your joy and sorrow. It’s like brushing your teeth in the morning and meals in a day. One doesn’t question those things. They are there so they are there.
But of course it’s not like that. You can only take yourself for granted, nobody else however close or trust worth. The moment you forget this axiom, expect trouble. The conolary to this world of course be to not let anyone else take you for granted either. This has even more damage potential than the other one.
One wanted to be freed while the other wants breathing space.
These two mean the same thing as well. They wanted a change from me. New guys more exciting, more fun loving, more charming.
To sum up: Phoney. So shallow one could just peep in to be able to see the slime dripping all over.
One has been paying the price for it till lately, almost an year. The others’ remains to be seen.
I haven’t lost you. You have. And with me there is no coming back.

8 March 95 19:20 Hrs.
They said they were going but would want to remain friends. They weren’t rejecting me for someone else. And they wouldn’t give me everything I wanted; I couldn’t get them wholly. Only certain few things that they considered to give. But that of course didn’t imply that I could do the same. No, they wanted the whole of me. Whatever’s demanded must be fulfilled; irrespective of what I felt.
‘If you’re a doormat, obviously people will step over you…’

She came back home at 4:00 last night. It’s so uncanny the way events are so identical. Only the participants have changed and of course the time and place. I can’t get over the fact that it’s happening all over again. It’s left one even more dazed than the last one. If I’m so screwed up today, it’s largely my fault. Women are women, they’re just different. When they tire of a man, after they have taken out all that can be taken out, they just have to find another. To start all over again go through the euphoria and the excitement that only the courtship can give. It’s the most potent of all drugs. To flirt and to comes naturally to them. The past ceases to matter. Only the present counts. Why can’t men be like that?
I don’t need to see or hear how she’s doing at the moment. It’s all crystal clear. She’ll have that spring in her walk. She wakes up looking forward to the day in office, which’ll make her, shed all lethargy and rush through the morning deeds. Special emphasis on looks and smells. Eight hours just flying away with an exciting bit in the somewhere share your lives stories. Evening date. Good music, good drinks, good food and a good fuck.
Me? Who cares for losers? There are millions of them. Join the rank once again, welcome back.
God, how many more times will I have to hear “ there’s another man in my life”. I don’t know how I’m taking all this and fighting to survive.

10-3-95 2:30 Hrs.
En route to Sims/e

Told her it won’t work out. She, like all others, wants everything for herself, irrespective of what I feel about it. Got a lose something to gain something. If that hadn’t been true, most of the unhappiness and sorrow in life wouldn’t exist. No body would have to waste away, hate, and take their life. She wouldn’t have lost and I wouldn’t have lost you and it’s time for as many guys as I know- I, Shalini, Nitin, Sona-Arul, you name it. Somebody’s loss is somebody’s gain.
Anyway, as around I’m growing . Yeah, you. Euphoria of a new man. Growing in importance, with each day spent together in office with the promise of an exciting evening. Soon or may be already, you’ll be spending each moment with him, waking and most sleeping. It’ll soon become a way of life, runtime, when his company would just be presumed, taken for granted; not to be questioned. Like it was with me. But I know now it can just break apart at a moment’s notice. Nothing can be presumed to have performance for nothing lasts forever.

10/3/5 03:00 Hrs. Kalka Mail
When you keep pointing out to me that “I haven’t changed, my feelings remain the same, you are fooling yourself, not me”. Distracted and self-centered at the best of times, how do you ever hope to include me in your thoughts and your life which would, sooner than later, revolve around your new lover.
It has been so convenient for you to have your way with me. After having extracted all that couldn’t be for there last six months, you decide that I couldn’t be a lover, but yeah, stick around; in case my services are needed. In the meanwhile, you get “strongly attracted” to another guy whose services are available.
The best thing is she has the guilt to say that it’s my fault of having been presumption about the status of one relationship; that she made it very clear in the beginning that we would just be friends and no thing more.

Going out->lovers or friends every day

Nain’s point if view I.P->Personality, credibility, trustworthiness, doubts over mental ability.
Sunday 12 March 5 23:25 Hrs.
On my way back now. To where I belong for the time being. It’s a major problem, not knowing where I belong to. Rootless. The identify crisis I have at the moment might have something to do with that. There’s no denying about the I crisis. After having racked my impoverished brain for all these days since March 6, I am almost certain about that losing her has meant:
1) No premarital sex, for the time being
2) Vacuum in life
3) Not belonging to anywhere, anybody

23 March 05
She’s back. Can’t say missed her. May be consciously. Cot slightly strange these days, I think. Got a feeling it’s the shield. Not like last time. This one’s coming on real strong. It’s like my whole being, each fibre in me, has joined forces and decided that this won’t do. My ‘self’ will not, no, never, crumble again. Not this time never again. Shall beat this selfish, self-centered world at its own game. Be on top of it. So that they can all look up and tell each other “he’s the one, knew him so well once, he’s a damn good friend really”. Will smile back of course, for I know the secret now; it’s only me who matters to me and money and cars to ‘friends’.

25 March 5 2355
I was so mistaken about the whole thing. She is so much different from what I thought. Or shall we say, not so much different from fellow humans crowding the face of this planet. Her pretending to be so doesn’t mean anything. She is just like any other woman I know of or have known. I’ve got so dazed in life that everything happening around seems unreal and dream like. Half expecting to be shaken awake to find everything the way they were.
I’ve not been following what’s going on in my life. I’ve got so disjointed ever since she first mentioned the guy one moment it’s me and her and the next I’m told she’s interested in the guy. I given things happened so fast that I just got zapped and lost track of events. I won’t be surprised if somebody told me I’m not same. It’s just not sinking in that this could happen. All over again. Rejection once more.
May be those things are not for me. For once, there’s this thing about trust. I just put all my trust blindly in somebody, a kind of child like attitude towards people who are even a little nice with me. End up feeling hollow, as if everything from the insides been extracted and sucked.
I don’t quite believe in the ‘risk factor’ theory of relationships. It doesn’t have to be that way. If it does hold good, it’s only the fault of the participants. Nothing else can be blamed.
It’s really baffling about her. This was the last thing that expected to happen. Either my judgment of people is so snewed up that I can’t see through them or it’s about women. If former, I better remedy that or forget about being able to be happy and content in life. If the latter, there’s just one thing to be done- keep away from them.
I don’t know how I’m managing to face the reality. It’s more of a nightmare actually. So there’s nobody I can trust completely. Do that, and be a loser every time. Is there anything at all in this world that has any performance? Everything’s so short lived and temporary. Can never have the faintest clue as to what might happen any given moment. How can one ever hope to be ‘prepared’? If one were to believe in that, things wouldn’t happen, the way they do, to begin with.
How does one keep a man-woman relationship going, without giving it all one has which of course implies dropping the guards and baring yourself to the other person. Leaving you so vulnerable to him/her. And no rulebook on earth can ever hope to help when one person decides to walk away. Helplessness defined. Absolutely nothing one can do. Just store at the horizon long after the person’s out of view.
Leaving you two options: crumble down and merge unrecognizably and namelessly with the obscure earth. On stop caring, whichever the case, all the effort, love and selflessness that builds a relationship from scratch to a meaningful one lies abandoned and forgotten.
Leaving behind a vacuum of bitterness.

5.4 ‘5 01.20
Can’t get over the fact that it’s happened. Every now and then got to tell myself that it’s for real. Well, talking of reality, most things that happened in the recent past and the present seem so unreal. Find it hard to imagine the kind of lifestyle I was leading in the past few months. Seems so alien and unlike of me. Guess that is a prime reason it didn’t work out. I am a little funny in some things and they just start showing up to the other person after a while. And of course I’ve always been a firm believe in the theory that every little thing adds up in the long run. Guess six months was long enough in this case.
Like to think I’m, a loner at the core of it. So may be I just creating the circumstances to ensure nobody sticks to me for long. Sub concisely that is otherwise or may be sometimes, I break out of my self imposed cocoon and try to be like ‘normal’ people (whatever that means). But as they say, once a non-conformist always a non-conformist. Find it impossible to adapt to the way society expects one to. Hence the rebellion every now and then. In some way or the other.
Everything is so uncertain and non permanent in life. I don’t care any more.

7.4 ‘5 02:45
It’s been exactly a month since the there’s-another-man-in-my-life and it’ll-be-unfair-to-the-other-guy-if-I-continue-to-be-like-before-with-you might. Looks like fairness can be defined in the most convenient cause of action. And what’s fair to someone is, or may be, unfair to someone else. It’s all very well to turn around and say it’s been a mistake all along. That the relationships been misinterpreted by me and it wasn’t going out but ‘just friendship’. This one sounds very convenient too.
Anyway, it’s over. Irreversible damage has been done. She’s moved ahead, and about, in life. She’s happen. I’m more or less numb.
Shouldn’t her happiness. After all this world is all about serving one’s own ends. In any possible way, even if one has to trample upon another human-being, one makes the best use of something and check it after it’s been exhausted to it’s limits, especially if a fresh replacement is at hand. Something like “I’m strongly attached to him and so is he to me “ would make that justifiable.
What I am concerned about now is as to what am I gonna do about women. Something has got too deeply etched in me about them. It’s going to take a long, long time before I start having the slightest faith in the species. Marrying one out is simply out of question. Before I even considered that, I’ve to make sure if the fault lies with me, or something else, for carefully built up relationships to shatter overnight. Whether any person will ever understand me, love me and forgive my follies for all one worth. Haven’t came across everybody like that for twenty-three years. And the situation deteriorates each day, for my brain and my soul are getting complicated in a way that even I find tough to understand; whoever ‘I’ am.
Resorting to mood alleviation with a vengeance. It’s almost like the old days, Pre-Nain life. Another distinct dividing line like so many others in my life. In fact it wouldn’t be too far from the truth to think my life is a series of phases clearly…

21/06/95 2300 T.L.

I have had enough of Judas in my life. There self righteous be stands getting their kicks at keeping track of my activities. It’s time to breakaway from this crowd of so-called well intentioned people. Don’t need advice from these perit up personalities for whom the idea of a good evening is sitting glued to their idiot base or fantasizing of fucking a whose.

Out in this house, apart from the tens of other conflicts, there’s this East-West divide. This dawned on me only this afternoon somehow. It’s not western person but the attitude, the lifestyle that go with it which clashes with the “traditions”. That’s not so bad as the hypocrisy is. One would be instructed to obtain on a particular day and told to “enjoy yourself” at a party in the same breath.

23/06/95 0730 TL

This craving for a woman manifests itself in so many ways, including it’s suppression. However well the suppression, it boils out now and then, calling for increasingly strong efforts to cap it. Thus it goes on in a spiral, the voten of which is I myself, not knowing how to escape. B’Coy the means and ways to escape correspond to those of suppression. A spinal within a spiral.
They say a woman is man’s better half. Don’t know about the ‘half’ but at least I am in a bad shape, so anything else can only be better. Not that this knowledge helps in any way. Fact remains that somewhere within me exists a dark corner which when discovered, drive people, in general, away. Women get ‘interested’ in other guys while guys manage to lose touch.
I’ve always glorified loneliness, corollary to Craziness. Now, they look at me as if looking into an aquarium. I don’t really care for it’s only for me to decide about myself, but it irritates sometime. Self deceptive efforts of getting to the bottom of the P thing continue in the meanwhile. Just letting it be, for once. Instead of feeling guilty and lousy about it, for I was doing it anyway.
It’s as well that Nayan has lost touch. She has her own life to lead, and in whichever way she thinks fit. It was getting to be a drag anyway. Now saying to fuck off in those many words. A “healthy” & “hardworking” (the words never change) ‘friend’ should be able to help her erase the unpleasantness of our brief relationship.
The monsoon are here once again. The small transports me to college as also to Rakin Nagar. When the euphoria of Nayan’s was at its peak. Can’t believe it’s been a full one year. It seems like yesterday. But then, those days have turned into ghosts too. My ghosts and I, to give each other company. I always end up taking care of the moments etched in the mind. They simply move on, proclaiming the chapter shut.
It’s all over now. No more of anything. Beyond he point of return. Don’t really expect to live long, but whatever time I have, will be spent precisely as governed by my heart. Nobody is every going to have the right to share my time and company.

29/4/95 0415

Must have reached there around 0215. Banged into them right outside the gate. Said they were leaving since the rest of the gang is missing and it’s getting to be boring inside. She must have reached there around 0000 hrs. So two hours inside with this guy. Brief discussion after I was asked by her to park my car after which they decided to go back inside. She seemed putty put off and showed signs of impatience at my unexpected appearance. Went off at least thrice to some other place and I noticed her speaking to a couple of guys. Informed me that the other guy wasn’t around. We then move to the lobby and sat for around ten minutes after which I went to fetch water from the bar inside. She, in the meanwhile, had also come back to the floor and talking to some guy, following which she suggested we leave from the place. Three of us come out and then she asked me if I am going back home, which obviously I was. When she told the other guy that she’d get dropped home by me and he can stay on, apparently because he was with some woman sitting inside and was only doing her a farran by dropping her home.
If he was with a woman, how come there were just the two of them supposedly leaving in the first place to drop her all the way to Delhi and come back while the ‘woman’ waited inside. Even if she was dead tired and really wanted to get back home, and this guy sweet” enough to do that and come all the way back, the “woman” would have had come along. And fact is that it was just the two of them going out of the place, so they were leaving the place for good, both of them for whatever plan they had.
Enter me. She gets zapped for a moment. Plans would have to be revised considering the development. That needs to be thought out and discussion. That needs time. So back they go with me in tour, wherein M am deposited in a corner. She sits with me for a little while wanting to know what I hoped to accomplish for this act of mine. I, in turn, want to know if she’s going to stick around for a while, which she affirms in a way that seemed to communicate to me that my unwanted furnace is not encouraged.

Night of 10-11/07/95 TL

How is it that two people who have shared such intimacy as a man and a woman possibly can till not too long ago are down to an obligatory once-a-week five minute telephonic conversation, that two punctuated by a parallel conversation on one of the sides? How come the same people could, and did, put their naked feelings on the line have in between a gulf so wide that they have nothing to say to each other on a twenty minute car drive though they are chatting animatedly to other people minute before?
Forgive the long sentences and the all too apparent invenile streak. Both cannot be helped, attributable to a rather poorly developed intellect in comparison to some of my peers. In a way I can answer the questions myself without having to resort to pen and paper. However, they have been painting at whatever passes for a brain in me for so long, and such intensity that I just had to upchuck them.
I am not sure yet if this piece of paper would meet your eyes. If it does, you have two options – Either read them carefully without bias or prejudice, think hard and honestly, and give your subjective as well as objective views, bearing I mind the circumstances prevalent in the relevant period of time; or tear it to sheds.
Paper’s getting dearer by the day, so let us utilize the other side for generalities. How does it feel now, entrenched firmly into NDTV and it’s behind-the-camera men? Can’t help but admire you for the last six months well spent. You get a job you like, you met new people you liked even better, the doorman at fireball smiles at you in recognition, and you got rid of me, ever so slowly. A remark of yours made in the shamatic “Shimla” days of March flashes by, to the effect that year, we can snap off all ties but not “right now”, gradually. Translation: the break up (not literally) is inevitable since there are other, more attractive plans; but it takes time for operation –‘assuage’. A.k.a. chib.
Well, we now know that’s not the way it works with me . Me, I carry a grudge to the grave. That however doesn’t prevent me from inviting pain over and over again. N, I am not the kind to let by an opportunity of getting hurt. I’d go out of my way, the little road beyond your backyard for instance, hoping I bump the little road beyond our backyard for instance, hoping I bump into your current lover. Now that is being presumptions, you’d say of course, I’m not adverse to admitting it. It just happens to be a strong forte of mine, one of the few. This the fact that not very many presumptions I’ve had over the past few years are all that presumptions. As I say- better presumptions than surprised.
My presumptions (to drag on with the issue; goes with my excellent reputation of being a bore) are somewhat non-conventional though. (Fasten your seat belts ladies & gentlemen, we are about to hit a musty cloud). In that behind the façade, I am hoping like hell I am wrong. But not daring to find out. Willfully keeping the blinders on. As you might notice, this is a union predicament to be in. To look or not look. To ask or not ask. To confront or not……thrust goes on thus. Days, months go by while I hedge. What does anyone do with a guy like this right?
Then there is the issue of whether one should take life so seriously as to create situations where one human being must suffer in a never ending guest for a superior mate… Oh well, we are out of paper so this must wait till the next time. In the meanwhile, happy hunting !

VI. Dec. 5, 1995 TL

Another twenty five days & ’95 would cear to exist. Tonight I miss you Nayan. The mind strayed into another world. I have been busy to show away from my mind.

4.6.95 / 1848/TL

Possessiveness is indeed a four letter word thrice over. No other issue has been more of a whip so far as my life goes. Over and over again they have spanked me for that of crime of mine – to be possessive. It would seem that everything, all of my ‘good’ things take a backseat when it comes to that. Never mind if I give all of myself, that’s just too bad. Whether or not I do, I have no right to expect it to be reciprocated.
And the extent to which some people would go to get their point across never ceases to amaze me. I have been browbeaten, armtwisted, imparted impossible hurt and pain to make me understand to not be possessive of certain people. Women, to be more to the point. It’s not to say I have had too many women but somehow have this feeling that I have had more than my share. That childhood friend of mine was so intense in her emotions so as to put the sun to shade. Whatever she did or thought had to be intense-never mind if someone’s sensibilities and emotions had to be trampled over. She could never make up her mind if she loved me or hated me, or for that matter, any other being in her life. All she knew was that she had to be intense, had to come over so strongly as to leave you without any idea of what hit you. It was another thing that being with her was a full time job for all practical purposes. One never did have the energy or time or the inclination to look things over, to analyze facts with a cool mind. That would have to wait till later, when she had gotton over her fancy for you and the storm had passed over.
No prizes for guessing what it meant to be ‘possessive’ about such a person. It was like perpetually working a sea of thorns. Not that she would take it any other way. No, you had better be a ‘one woman man’ if you wanted her. The trans just went along with the job.
This other one is equally passionate about possessiveness, or the stood against it, though less vociferously. She’s beaten me with her quiet, firm stands. She put her foot down in the recent past after the provincial last straw in her relationship with me. She had done so before, in the past, on the issue of our coronal forays. She discovered and accepted, the latter took a long while for me, that it just couldn’t work out between the two of us. I was suitably distressed for a long, long time and made no bonus about it, hence, she gave it another try, again unsuccessfully. The list, of course, is history but is nonetheless, recorded here for posterity’s sake. She demanded, and got, more ‘breathing space’. I displayed my usual show of acceptance and submission, which didn’t help either. I gave her all the breathing space in the world and retreated to my shell, shocked and nursing my wounds. Most were inflicted on the great male-ego but some managed to reach deeper into the soul, opening up others since forgotten but ever present from the earlier time.

18/6/1995 0225 TL

The thing about MPD is making more sense than initially when I read that book. As I mentioned earlier, the criteria of suppressing pain by creating an alter ego definitely holds. I just thought of the other thing of feeling it was “some other guy” in that particular phase of life, and not me. Now, that’s what the advocates of MPD say, almost verbatim.
So after all those “other” me’s are not dead, grieved in moments of weakness; but quite alive and well, thank you. It’s just a question of looking at the issue in this new perspective and a lot of questions hitherto unassured, make sense.
What’s more, a cleancust distinction exists between MPD & schizophrenia, which is what some people have been hoping to prove in me.
The next step is to identify all the multiples existing inside. Though some people have been discovered to have 10, 20 and even more multiples, I shouldn’t be having too many. I don’t think I underwent a major trauma in my childhood, though I can’t vouch for it. The events that took place in the winter of ’92 were close to being traumatic though. And the pain was definitely suppressed into the subconscious it seems. The ‘boy’ then took the shape of an alta ego white the ‘new personality’ carried on.
What I want to checkout is if this kind of a thing, I mean the creation of a multiple is necessarily a byproduct of a specific traumatic incidents. And if this multiple only shows up when any kind of reference, however subtle, is made to the trauma including its circumstances, facts etc.
Came to think of it, I have been patiently explaining to whoever wants to know my theory of the “snap” in my mind over which I have no control. It just happens without an indication or warning. “Time lost”… It all fits now. Not scary either, anymore.

9/08/95 0305 Hrs. (This room be a fucking clock) Lehra

Time to say goodbye once again. As they say – all good things….only that the good times are hoped to be taken and get them rolling to my adopted hometown.
Talking of hometowns, the closest it’s even gonne get in this place. Haven’t come across any other place, as yet, that fits in better in that category. There’s no hurry it’s okay, as I would say.
This roly-poly of a relative (ugh!) of mine, I like (Parden the somewhat issugola sentence formation but so long as the message is conveyed…). This is one real lovely guy, may be more than I consider / indulge in myself. And he’s real fond of us “bhaiyas”. My sibling was the blue eyed boy for him, till lately he’s developed a affection (for want of better word etc.) for me. Why? Let me quen:
a) He consider me as one of “us”, you know.
b) He admires something in my. Something that he has aspired for/ is as putting for. The effort to talk in angrezi that I kind of excel (in his option) for one. Fay boy syndrome? May be.
c) He is lonely. Solo tripping, this gravely, can get you down & out in a hurry. There are no vents in life : no outlet for thoughts, dreams, reminisces. The stages around are just that. I wonder if managing might help.
d) All the above.
I’ll take d).
As I was saying before my notorious digressing began, it’s time to say adieu to this last but one paradise in Earth. It wasn’t bad. Lot of people made a lot of effort to humour me up. I mustn’t push one’s buck though, as I’ve learnt a hundred times the hard way (to no avail). Sweet & short, is the motto, suo-motto. Ton them little enough at a time, as the latest corollary to GUI’s theory of his enable existence says.
Last but foremost, GUI’s theory of obstinacy of will must not be disproved (after all this time spent proning it).

Adios
8/9-08-95 Lehra

My grandma (only by default) asks me why I’ve got so antaquestic against my mother. I answered truthfully, which is now high on the list of vices, and said I don’t know. There are a million possibilities. There is no dearth of reasons / justifications etc. etc. either. But I am unable to answer that with any coherency on sense/logic. Definitely no logic.
But then isn’t logic illogical. However much Nayan sticks to her logic and her sensibility and her ‘point’, she is an illogical as the dog nent door who have day & night for no known reason.
And who can deny me the right to lead, or not lead, my life in whichever way I think fit. IN all probability I have lived more than half my life time. May be more, if it’s gonna carry on like this. The very desire to live in missing. Carrying on exactly as three year ago, with no tomorrows in right. Simply unconcerned for my own life : my dog would be more concerned. “Their” concern seeks of unsincerity which is not to say that don’t care; it’s just that they care not for me per se but other things that go with it. They need to tell inquiring stranger their son owns a factory. Yes, he is eligible for marriage and he’ll be “settled” soon if God with.
Well, my with says otherwise which is just too bad. I plan to go my way, on the path I choose. I don’t care if I end up a pauper. There are other things I am looking for there all the currency bills in the world.
I’ve betrayed your trust. So have you. It’s all square and fair now.

13/14/07’95 TL

Why grieve for anything. Why grieve at all. Does it help at all; instead ends up fermenting ourself. Who given a fuck about the Diwali night of ’94 as opposed to tonight. People have moved on while I stood back to give company to ghosts long dead. Parts of you once heating and glowing now maliquantly conscious. Turning overnight into this baffled bay of bones, well, almost. Smt. Like turning inside out, so that the dark side is there for all to see. Wonder if that makes anyone of them-gone-ahead turn around to have a second look. Reconsider consideration.
Why not look at it as her love and not mine. Just a question of changing perception that kit much. She should be thankful if the privilege to share a part of me. As I am known to say : They’ll get if me, they deserve me.
It’s high time I should treat women like they should be.

21-22/07/95

Long time no see on P. Does sun like am over Nauph. Just a question of holding up your head. Old fashioned self confidence. Am beginning to get the ‘pride’ factor. Sometimes it’s good to be proud – anything that you think fits in your case. Stephanion Hash King. The cost guy smoothing at women. Refusing to let Nayan look into my eyes the first time we ever exchanged a word, at the Dhaba on a chilly (Chhotu’s jacket – my trademark for a long time) morning. Piqued her curiosity. The next time what a party at a Panchsheel have (probably Arti’s) when I found myself parked next to Nayan who had waist long hair then. Distinctly remember being electrified at the touch. Ha been having my gynophonia at all time high. Got too drunk and barely made it back to my room in Haryana Bhawan.

Over and out.

24-25/07/95 TL Past Mid might.

There is amount to it : women having sex to number two priority, after the emotions thing. But the most amazing past is the case with which they erase the past in lieu of the present. Nayan, if I don’t take a pinch of salt, chase this other mass during those depressing March days, The way she turned about overnight is sant. I am yet to figure out. But I understand it somewhat, even if not admitted it even to myself.
Most lately it has got reconfirmed the theory of a biochemical brain. Contrary to belief, the body does not control the brain but exactly the opposite. And so, when a male & female have the right chemicals sucisting around in the brain, at the right time and the right place, the inevitable happens. Of course the will should be there before one can have the reactions going hale & healthy.
I am reminded of “the unbeatable lightness of being” in which a theory of men and women being fused as hermaphrodites. Somewhere along the way the split happened and men & women, ever since, look art for their other half, not necessarily better, all the same. The author also ventures to theorize that it is that ‘perfect fit’ everybody looks for. Until & unless the perfection is found no peace can resigns.
Here’s woody Allen again.
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one mustn’t love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to lose is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, and to suffer is to suffer.
To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer, but suffering makes me unhappy. To be happy then, one must lose to suffer or suffer to suffer or suffer from too much unhappiness.

26/07/95 Noon

It is the ‘left out’ syndrome that fucks me up the most. Being treated like an outsider, a stronger not privy to the personal relations of somebody with somebody else; the former on terms most intimate this the other day right down to transpose.
She asked me why I avoid her, and what could she do to help the situation. Even if I could answer her, it wouldn’t have served any purpose. I need something she, or anybody till date, have not and would not realize or pretend not to : I want to be a part of all that happens / happening. Part not as in Fireball (sic) but as feeling a certain kinship with and person, a sense of belonging. That’s the only way to understand my complex brain and relate to my behaviour.
If you can’t see that one liner, it’s too bad period.

09/07/95 TL

Eating my customary ‘Parathas’ at breakfast when the sudden thought of the Naina Sahni affair turned my stomach. The morning papers were expectedly fall of appropriate denouncements. Somebody’s view that use the Indians will soon digest this ‘tandoori’ sample of the state of affairs isn’t far from the truth. If mankind can live or with memories of auschwitz, this is but a speck of sand.
It boils down to the insensitivity that has gradually hardened human minds. Yesterday’s TOI depicted it so well, the demise of Ranjan Pillai and bail of the Sharma guy figuring alongside on the anchor page. Pillai’s death in police custody is not an unusual incident, in that hundreds take place, whether reported or not. What is alarming in the Magistrate’s view on the bail application where he goes on to say that Pillai simply wanted a “Five Star Clinic” in keeping with the lifestyle and implied that the applicant deserved the lives ailment for imbibing alcohol.
A controversy has ensued dwely with judicial experts and retired judges making various statements. I think this has more to do with the individual who delivered the judgement who is to know his personal views on the moneyed, the havebes. Can it be inferred with any surety that the man may have had a poverty ridden childhood, or an unhappy family life. May be he had been aspiring for the riches to take him to the five star circuit. For all you know, his father may have expired due to lack of financial resources or medical facilities. The point is not whether he took a fair decision but that he was/is empowered to decide at all when it comes to one human being having that kind of power over another. That in that split second he was to say yes or no, a million events and factors going into the making of a human mind were at play, unknown to him and all those concerned.
Democracy is all very well in running a nation’s paperwork. But to grant decision making powers to individuals who can exercise them to affect another’s life, livelihood & health is self defeatist. If the freedom of will, the basic of all human rights is being curtailed, one might as well go back to stone age and follow the laws of the jungle, which would at least grant the right to die as one wishes to.

Night of 10-11/07/95

It is when I attain this somewhat disconcerting calm that some sensitive issues can be addressed without fear of upsetting myself. Indeed, I really can’t have any more phency, can’t go higher. Nayantara, expectedly tops the list.
Looking objectively, it’s evident we aren’t made to each other, so to say. Mouso in the social content. I guess she could call me old fashioned. She certainly has doubts of my maturity level. There’s no denying her intellectual superiority over mine. Considering her parent’s inter-culture marriage, she may be said to have a more liberal upbringing, and thus viewpoint. Further, her exposure to the kind of culture her social circle in Delhi goes a long way to shed some light on her psyche – Arul M/H, Manda etal.
She must find me naïve and somewhat juvenile after we got to know each other better. The relationship I have had in the recent past with my parents didn’t help. The kind of hold I was allowing on myself wouldn’t go well for a twenty three year old. Can’t blame them if they label my stint with her as a classic bay-woman scenario.
As for phency, well, I shouldn’t have tied. This took care of the trust factor as well as the adult-in-control one. Tony jumped the gun in having that little chat with her around Feb. end. It dealt a body blow to the affair which was getting shift anyway.
And the crun of the matter – compromise of my self respect. One is got to retain one’s identity no matter what is the nature and extent of any human relationship. Neglect this axiom to face trouble.
Last but not the least is the masculinity theory. Women expect, and one turned on, a certain machoism in a man. Thanks to daddy dear and all the men and women has admired. They like them with a “rough” facet. Otherwise, as is rightly pointed out. Women would love gays or other women. Motto of the Story: Ton them Little at a time; they’d hate put but at least they’ll stick on for more.

14/07/1995

Simplify life. There’s no limit to the wants & needs of man. The man you have, the move you want.
A content life is a thousand times preferable to one increasingly materialistic but Montreal hollow. Restlen.

Dispose of unit in whichever way
Confirm actual investment.
Explore – Piecemeal (m/c to RIL etc.) selling, HFC shifting of change etc. Yogmama
Sick unit?
Nothing to be ashamed of. A Lon making unit has to be rectified commitment to run it mixing. Nobody capable of as well as wanting to run it. Some of contention even since began. Began with incorrect attitude anyway.
Is life happier with 3 can’t 3 phones than earlier with one each?
Papa should presume his career while heatedly.
Chintu to finish college.
Ma to take up farming somewhere.
I? Yeah. The main guy. Well, I will fine. That’s enough to begin with. The rest will follow.
Everybody’s suffering right now drawn faces, hollowing checks, prone to disease and pass. What the hell, life’s not supposed to be like. This is not what time bargained for.

Wee hours CII/29, Tilak lane, New Delhi 24/09/1995

S.K. called today. The usual way out of the blue. Only to Vamoose the same way; but this part got over & done with in the time taken to mouth ‘No’. This attitude towards women is not new. Just that the disenchantment has set in deeper, much deeper than I’d have thought. He is come to a stage that mind & body crave for fortification even for a by-the-way dinner with a new canal acquaintance. It’s scared shitless of history repeating itself yet another time; the pain of getting hit where it hurts.

13/09/1995 BS

What adjective to use what to say. All’s been said and thought of and done. All then wants be is lot. We lost all those years ago itself. The morning is frozen to immortality within somewhere.

The boy who greyed overnight, that particular freezing night of Nov.’ 91, never quite matured into adulthood. The transition was too fast, then time lag too short. And in this transitory boy-man state I remained suspended; embalmed in choice chemicals, of choice, by choice. The world, of course, carried on, ignorant, blissfully ignorant.

Their two years passed away in merry destruction. Then soon forgot of my existence in this world, in this very city. Love is habitual of causing things akin. Our love of an eight years. Came to a naught.

Ashes to Ashes.
Dust to Dust
They Say, I agree, though a few things remain to be seen.

Sept. 16/1995 CTL/29 Tilak Lane.

The signs an unmistakable: Chemistry, at its best, is hard at work. If it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have found myself sitting at the DLF Gymkhana provide keeping an eye for Vibha Gaba (who else?)on a Saturday evening. And it I have got my philosophy (that’s women) right, there’s gotta be a basic, mutual attraction between these people in the first place. For them to make the least of an effort towards what is a potential environment. I mean, keeping in mind the theory of laziness: if a body can, it’ll not raise a finger, let alone get out of bed (and some such state of comfort (inertia).

All this not withstanding the existence of a more than a boyfriend tucked safely away across seven continents New York, for five years. Now that’s a lifetime, and if the obligations of a full-blown affair of the heart cannot, monthly, be sustained by continued physical presence of glamour, the guy doesn’t stand a chance in hell.
Not that I also either.

06/09/95 CII 29 Tilak Lane Afternoon

This is surely the umpteenth exercise in fertility. I undertake at the drop of a hot. You’d leave a sign of relief when Delhi finally gets rid of me. Al I have been doing in the past few weeks would leave the inevitable impression of me as a hardcore pile on. Almost impossible to make me lay-off despite numerous hints & messages to that effect.
Don’t ask me what I hope to achieve in writing this, and others, to you or indeed anything else. The solitary thing I am certain of is this perpetual feeling of emptiness, alternating with a heavy burden kind of a feeling that may account for my behaviour. I think I have still not come to terms with ground realities of my life, being instead in a make believe world of my own. There is this omnipresent sense of loss, compiled with regrets, that refuses to leave me alone.
And all this after being told, in no uncertain words, what you think of the matter. It’s as if rationality has been completely taken over by impulse. This there’s no tomorrow business over rules any other consideration. The alarming part is the short time it took to assume such gigantic proportions. But how long can it go on? Body & mind both must have some breaking point. With the kind of outlook/attitude I have developed, modeled entirely on a feeling of an impending doomsday, I won’t go for.
I often wish me hadn’t met. My life would have caused on going up in smoke either way, but you would have been spared the pain of dealing with a compulsively self destruction ‘boy’, that shows through most of the times. I gives the most irritating part of it must be the hesitancy. Keep on and on harping on anyone of the many issue. I am fond of. I mean it must seem really ridiculous to never give on dropping suggestive remarks/pints to get you in bed. You don’t want it, I should accept it and carry on. What is the big deal, right.
It’s just that the issue entails contradiction in my mind. On one hand, my self respect for bids me to behave that way: and on the other my mind chides me for being chicken; the risk factor that I am really scared to risk. All my life I have been shy of women and there are been lots of times when things did not even take off lost of that.

08/09/1995 CII/29: Tilak Lane Mid evening Pudusk.

The circle, as I am want of saying, has come a full circle. To being in its wake a jangle of neuron, or whatever parks for them. and some facts of life never imagined, less witnessed ever before.

Somewhat analogous to the idea previously being discussed is a code of morality that had so unamounted me initially. The very concept of a couple (its, whoever) heading for the nearest place to sack in, the women (Nayan) smiling at there who bother to look what’s going on (the other being smashed). The might long debauchery also entailed some body or the other overwhelmingly giving over a break-up (they like the sand of this). And I can kept my I belong to the ranks of the fallen by the way siders. A time that never fails to figure when they get down is therein “ goods fuck” fucking good in bed”.

Sept./3/1995 Midnight CII/29, Tilak Lane

The affair peaked exactly a year ago. We were madly, passionately in love (fond of?) with each other. The first doubts were two months away. Sleeping together became a routine, the most natural thing to do in the world. I was so wrong.
Correction: The first doubts were sown the time use moved to this house. That was about third week of Sept. Chintu’s Birthday was definitely around when we were moving/had moved.
My spirits had been high in these days. After the fracas involving Nayan and Ma at Robin Nagar, Tilak Lane promised to give it a fresh start. I distinctly remember calling up Nayan to came help with my room and she was so excited. Naturally, I had to categorically seek Ma’ permission. She said No Nayan had howled on the phone. Thus was a significant thinking point between us. She was never to come see me at my place, save a couple of insignificant sneak which we both didn’t like.
The two of them were not to meet either. It was to be a major factor in over final goodbye as lovers, when it did happen.
I look back at those three odd months that flew away in a mutual outpan of love and passion as being one of the happiest to accept Nayan’s implied contention that sex part was a mistake for me, it made a complete relationship with a woman, that I yearned for in the preceding chotic months (years). A fulfilling asked for, of her. A lot many scars healed with the magic balk of that magical phase.

06/09/1995 Tilak Lane Just before Lawn

I am beyond thinking. There is some one in my head but it is not me. I was not like this. Not so blown. Busy with chemicals, now a days.
It all fits. One sentence & every things fallen into place. It clicked before you could say, “it is/was just a physical need for me.”
I am been used, to put it mildly. It is all clear now : the indifference, the stream of “big favour” and little errands, n slope De conictly stated : mew have their utilities.
Her self confused “dirty mind” could obviously not stick to a guy for too long. Greener pastures had to be, and were, found. The next going didn’t stand a chance. I can imagine it all the way. That lusty look in her eyes. The kisses getting frantic as she reaches down for her cock. Unzip. Go down on knees.
The guy couldn’t have asked for sent better. It wasn’t long before he got his act going; neither as she straddled on to him, having shored as “Today’ tab into he event. The guy must definitely came soon after, followed by the spasmic orgasm.
The spasm continue as they live still, locked to each other, smoking classic mild as some such. The next evening, after the usual running of beer and discotheque, the scenario is repeated except for two things. It’s his turn to flex his muscles, missionary style: and the light is kept burning.
The look in those eyes is Smt. I’d never forget. A look of sheer pleasure, heavenly bliss.

Sept. 1/2, T/L
What hurt me most is her assumption to the effect that all I did for her was so. I could get her in to bed. As she put it, “the situations getting to be identical to what it was earlier, and there is a danger of history repeating itself”. I am not quite sure which one of us has a deeper complex about sex. Can she deny her attraction in the past couple of weeks? She suppresses it more than I thought I do.
The trip to CP to hunt for her book, the food I made her eat at Def cot and Pandara, the time I spent at the hospital when she needed company and support, the time I went to her side when Manda was leaving : it was all spontaneous. Not preplanned like she’s implying.
What made me wince is her mention of liberties I am taking with her liberties? Is that what my affection is seek as. She wants me to come see her on a night when I am not so keen and she insists. I give into it the usual way. And the next, the very next evening I wonna see her she says I take liberties with her.
It’s time to stop this one way affair. Giving, giving all the time; not expecting and not getting any reciprocation. Cannot she see how selfish and self centered she is and to have the 9 all to say I am like that : I may be a junkie but I don’t hurt nobody. In the process others end up hunting me as it. I don’t hurt myself enough on others account.
What kind of fucking friendship does she claim to have with me. Old are : take away my car and that’s the end of the story. She is not going to make any efforts: never has She doesn’t have to when there is me to take for a side. The moment she’s nice to me, ever so slightly, I fall head over heels.
Be a fucking man. Face it : she gives me one smile costing a hundred tears. Not worth it. Giving her up world not charge my fuckedup mind any better. But at least I will stop dreaming altogether, in which I indulge myself much too frequently.
When it comes to the last word, as it will soon what with Bombay and all, I must not lease my self respect and dignity. Not to a woman who’s caused me so much pain and damage.

The idea is to learn to live alone by myself. Not seek company in other’s, especially women, who are inherently capable of getting under my skin and suck me out completely. And stop lying about tripping what is there to loss? She is not worth the effort to lie. Be brutally honest for my own sake.
It shows “ lean about what she doesn’t want, “ I am clear what I want : I don’t want to bend backwards for a woman who treats me like her dog. She will mess me when I am gone.
I better not do the some, even it I have to kill myself. Not her. Not her. Not her. Hate her.

06/09/1995 Tilak Lane

Yes, I run on chemicals, like others do on weath, women, al whol, sports : ambition, dreams, aspirations. The latter have no meaning left for me. I live by the minute. Sometimes even that seem too long : things happen in a millisecond. A sentence, passed down the telephone live, makes it all to come tumbling down before your eyes. Your dream house razed to the ground as you watch helplessly : shocked into immobility.
And then it is too late (in the day ?). I reversible. The damage done. As of now (But surely I am back into my favourite made of naivete). I can’t decide whether I am helping or if all hope is lost. Bombay seems to belong to the former category. At the same time a part of my brain realizer the folly of this experiment. For, it is an experiment, almost all factors being variable. I have only a vague idea of what it entails. It will surely be tougher than the cushioned life I am leading / have led. What remains to be seen is if this will be compensated by other things.
Women, I will not bother to pretend, top the list. It just struck my that women are an addiction for me. Going by the logical theory of “trips”, I partook of that drug for a sufficiently long time, and in generous amounts to be hooked. No wonder I was cold turkey for those times long years spent in social exile.
The craving was satiated with the arrival of Nayan. The fact that I quit cannabis, unthinkable at that time of morning joint afternoon-joint-evening-joint-bedcap-point, apart from tens other in between, bolters my theory quite a bit. As for the occassional phency. on the sly, it must have been a manifestation of some kind of discontent/hurt/disillusionment at that moment.
Though Nayan’s contention (and belief) of phency being the evil that reflects me, my mind and every thing I do and think is true to some degree, that is not all there is to it. Active tripping does affect the thinking process, but only so long as it is active. Even that is not so else similar to the state of mind. I did have if I were clean. My claim has some grand: a) The mind’s been tried to such an extent that it can’t but help think in a particular way. Isn’t that idea to do drugs, to begin with: to alienate the mood vis-à-vis the grey matters : b) except for brief, much too brief, phases of going clean, it is never completely washed out of the system. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If it is taken 3½ years to get like this, would not it take at least half that much time to recover some semblance of a healthy, happier life.
It is too bad for her. She got stuck unawares. I should not try to argue when she says it was all a mistake. From her point of view it definitely is. And now I have the gall to suggest me repeat the “wrong thing”. Her fear of me getting a “wrong message” is justifiable too. So deny it’ she must.
Her chapter’s about finished excepting footnotes. What sense me is : what now ? How would I risk it all over again ? And, I hate to use this particular clichi, no risk no gain. Which brings me back, as always, to the starting point : SQUARE ONE.
I might as well settle on this one, square that is, instead of going around in traumatic cycle after cycle only to end up back which I started. Like the President’s jetty in male.
A confirmed problem lies in the “martys Syndrome” I am hooked to this as well. A close cousin of this is the team-of-rejection-by-women syndrome, which they faithfully invoke at periodic time intervals.
I am the epitome of one of will Durant’s various categories of men-lovers the compulsive romantic. One who perpetually ends up heartbroken each time he falls head over heals with a woman any woman. The saddest part is that : hill fall in love with every single of them, the moment they so much so smile a greeting.
This is all two deep seated in the psyche. I have given up on “locate, engage, destroy”. Does not work for me.

27th Aug., 1995 Tilak Lane.

Better watch out lest you get singed yet again. Yours and her perceptions of the situation are miles apart. It is convenient for her to have me around, to a large extent. The I am-fond-of-you business is just a inherent implication of my extreme tolerance of her, as also a manifestation of the pain-trip. It is as if I am perpetually drying to be martyred every new and them. Volunteering to be one, all the time.
I await your command, of master. And will carry it out no matter how high the odds against it. She knows it too which is why it keeps on like clockwork, never mind her “guilty conscience”. From the looks of it, that fails to bother her except for once in a blue moon when I his on the self party trip and not out any severe concern for me and the practicality aspect of a situation.
That is not to say it is done consciously. Her overflowing affection for that uptight cousin of hers ensured she does not regular my calling out her name quite articulately, and within hearing range surely.
My pondering to her moods and wishes belies a more than a trace of living in a foot’s paradise like I am lingering around helping against hope she will condescend to be a lower again. And I did die than communicate with her on this account.
The paranoiac fear of rejection rules the roost when it comes to women. How, but how, will I go through it all, all over again. I am not sure if I have resigned myself to it in toto. The desire for a soulmate floats around up here in some way or the other. The mechanism that is got evolved over the past few years to never depths is entirely a defensive one. It sums to get activated at the slightest interaction with a member of the unfair sex.. You know like AUTOEXEC. BAT kind of thing.

Wonder who will, and when, and how, it will reprogramme it. If at all.

Aug. 30,1995 Tilak Lane

You the sensible one. I the impulsive one. You worry for regrets tomorrow. For me there is no tomorrow. Or present, just the past. To which I cling.

Everyone moves on. I stay behind. The caretaker. Of happier times now forgotten by the rest. Precious moments that now fleet in my deadening brain.

You are right. The danger o falling in to ‘it’ all over again looks. And you, the ever caution you, sense it all the way.

So there’s no print in meeting tonight: nothing :interesting: How about yesterday. I wasn’t inclined to see you and was going to crash out early. Plus I had work to do. But your voice, or rather, your silence ensured I go right over to see you and spend over two have with you.

No, this time it is my turn to not give into ‘it’. If I have an iota of self respect left in me.

13/08/1995

There is some kind of emptiness to life. One just drags on hoping for Smt. to happen Waiting for Godot, one is subconsciously aware. So one pretends. To be happy, to be content, to be sad. One seeks one’s desires but the moment they are achieved, they lose any value.
Is it because of having lived in a hurry- wanting it all at the same time. Is this what they call being a burnout- Is this disenchantment less to stay -–is it the cause of it or the effect.
Now that I have reached here, where must I head for now. Why is it that living is so meaningless. What do I want, what am I craving for that will fulfill this undetermined, elusive desire. Women? To some extent. The potential risk to a untrusting, scared soul; if there is something like that, is a major deterrent. That doesn’t mean I will keep up with my auto suggested gynophobia. I need a woman. I need a woman who will hav me as much as I love her. Who will never leave my side, disappear one night. Betray trust. It is also the only way out of the chemicals that have turned into a means of sustenance along the way.
Bombay is worth the chance. Delhi will continue to be a fall back should the need arise. It is about time I went into a world not protected by the walls of home and cushioned by a set of dating parents. It is another thing paying the price of that doting, but quite within content. The lesson in humility would do me good in the longer run, though the run is being faithfully shortened every minute. Which only lends credence to the idea. I have convinced myself of : live it up before you give it up et-catera. No cars & no pad- one has to pay the price of freedom. You can have some of the things all the time and all the things sometime but you can’t have all the things all the time.
Take the plunge.

Nayana,

Are going with my preference for the written word, I find myself writing their at the explore of B.S. Not in terms of man-hours, some I am not yet on the rolls, but stationary wise. No big deal really.
The current impulse (facing me more than you, apparently) is not too unfamiliar. Every now and then similar situation/ circumstances seem to arise putting my mind into total discovery you did think I have a penchant for them.
# 1 : One factor that is been, and continue to be, a discordant note in our label defying relationship is the sleeping business. Let me lay it is rest. No more of it : no talk of it, no subtle hints in the form of desire expressed to make use of your bed’s utilities. You will never have to complain of mono pollination of your bed : it’s all yours.
# 2 : It would be my endeavour to not stifle you in terms of space and time. You did asked for it some six odd months ago and I did given you all the time and space in the world. Lack of foresight, combined with the post U.S. & B.S. euphoria. Seems to be the culprit. The rudely rubbed reasons are struggling to get back to ‘Normal’ made as before.
#3 I realize the under liberties, I have been taking with you lately and that I really have no right to do it. I will check myself now on.
In a few weeks, I’d leave for Bombay, thereby parting ways more radically than error before in our one year acquaintance. Whatever the future holds, there is one things I want you to know : you make a lot of difference to my life. I feel a strange kinship with you that I can’t put my finger as, let alone articulate. Maybe wire too similar. Maybe that is why it did not work out…….
At this precise moment in the wire hours of September the second, I fed on impossible urge to lay certain ghosts to rest.
I have an undesirable sexual attraction for you. I know I am not a sex-mania (as do you) and in all probability lost my habits thanks to my habits. Repairable/irreparable, temporarily. Permanently- I don’t have the vaguest idea. All I know is I have to face myself even to masturbate. And that too just for the need to have a release. If something else when it come to you.

Why? I don’t know. I do know you don’t want it. It perplexed me for a long time till I finally shut the whole in out of by brain. Whatever wen through my mind the times my guard mechanism was down was forced back to the anonymity of the mind.
I was careful to never let out a hint of it, for fear you did drift further away. It is because I have been so scared to let go of your that I lied about phency, as well. Even though the habit was/is a sub conscious manifestation of the constant effort to suppress natural desires.
This went on till you were out of town a fort night (I know you know all this, that it is the usual bullshit I write to you periodically which you just glance at since you already know about it all). The last 15 days were a slight change in that the bonhomie uses revised.
I gives the warning bell finally sounded in your brain. Cut it out before it is too late. What is hurting (poor me?) is your presumption that all I do with you, for you is aimed at getting, to the cunt. And you are of course the wiser one. You are “clear about what you want. I am not so “clear” what you want. I wonder what to do so I could be enlightened. You don’t seem to be a help. You have no idea how much this is fucking me up.
Before you jump to the right conclusion, let me say I am being a martys. That’s just calling me a name. It is true and I cannot help it. I love to feel like that. I go too great many lengths to inflict pain on myself. You did not believe me if I told you.
Most of what I do with my life is dictated by this unconcern usage to destroy myself. I guess it is your bed luck to get stuck with somebody like that. You did not bargain for this shit the time you got to know me an year ago. You needed a crutch of a man and you found the ideal candidate. Now you don’t & it is worse than even before.
I am aware this note may end it all. I don’t care I have got to say all this. Just got to break through the wall existing between you and me ( I am careful to not say us). I have pretended long enough.
That’s about it, I guess. I guess it as you do, or do what you will. I can’t go living like a fugitive. Running away all the time- from myself, from you, from the whole wide world. I won’t say sorry for the unpleasantness that this may possibly cause’ cause the word’s hollow so far as I am concerned.
Nayana,
I have never felt so miserable in my life, than to night. I have been howling some I saw you some hours ago. I don’t know what’s hit me. I think it stuck me in the face-the Bombay thing. It is going to be first goodbye new finally. Given it had to happen someday.
I have been in Love with you. Think still am. At times I think it is much more than what that word implies. I feel an inexplicable bond with you. I have not words to name it. I just feel it.
I don’t know if it is really Shalini’s image that I see in you, as you believe. To an extent yes. But she was so much shallower than you. Perhaps it is your depths that’s influenced me to an extreme degree. I had loved her, in another altogether different way. You are as much diverse from her and her ways as possible.
Like I said, she doesn’t mean anything to me. That part is locked away somewhere deep down in the psyche, to never emerge in totality. Maybe that’s one reason I am as I am if might be good for me to unlock all of it and wash it out of my system. I don’t know.
But honestly, that image business is a fraction of the way I relate to you (Hang on while I stiff out my blue nose). Your sensitivity to the people and the world around you is something that few people, if at all, I have known, posers. I mean it, Nayan. I think it is one of the things I have been deprived of all my life. They call me mama’s son and the pampered one. But they don’t understand it is different. The way I am so intense about it must have it is roots in those dangerous years as a child. Whatever happens during that vulnerable, defenseless, senseless time determines the way you are going to be all your life. I believe strongly in that.
All these part few months of emotional roller coaster for you and I. I have denied myself that you don’t matter. I fill myself up with chemicals to become the need to have you around. I can never go long with it. By the end of it. I just want you back, even at the cost of self respect, which is the single most important virtue for me.
The sex part is definitely linked to Shalini who denied it to me, it seems in retrospect, almost sadistically. She did let me go all the way but that crucial part. I took it the way I have now been doing it as a born-with-it one: silently, smallomingly. Not a word of protest. That was the time my make-believe button, for inflicting pain on myself, for the other persons fault, come into being. Let the other person have her/his way, no matter how much it means to me and hurts me. The pain trip.
That’s, also, why I never say ‘no’ to anything you ask for. Sin years of brain washing left that as one of the lasting programming I got subjected to, without being conscious of it, till it was too late. It is like choosing the larger of two evils. Saying no would have me at least as much miserable as saying yeas to it knowing fully will. I will hate myself for it later. So, since a corollary to the pain trip preaches to try make the other person happy. I can never say ‘no’.
The same goes for seeing you. It is about as worse to not than to, no matter how many times. I row to stop it. I consider myself essentially a lover. Meeting two people at the same time, is meeting a crowd in a way. Being with you gives a storage sense of peace. I world rather avoid the company of most people I consider myself essentially a loner. Meeting with you gives a strange sense of peace. I would rather avoid the company of most people I consider are close to me; or at least I cannot be consistent with it. I guess Tony’s one of the closest friends but I have always had a imaging to part with his company after a certain time limit. That’s not the case when it comes to you, and that almost certainly is not because you are a woman, an ex-lover (I flinch saying that). I said so to Tony, in one of over erstwhile(extinct?) heart-to-heart talks, that you might have been a guy when it comes to a lot of things, which I am unable to articulate.
When we were getting to know each other (forgive me my nostalgic inclinations) we were constantly trying to find things and issues we agreed on and similarities in common. There had been that time also when this got reversed. I do believe we have a lot in common value it comes to the basic personality, the way use react to certain situations, the way we perceive and to a certain extent, the way are think.
I have tried long and hard to be in your shoes about the “instants”(for back of a better word) between us. And we both know the discouraging results of that. I have been angry, despondent, hopeful, desperate about it at various times in various forms.
With the latest imparse having just gone by, I wish to hurry it once and for all. The chapter stands closed. There will be regrets, I know, but I cannot go about it further an iota. It is not like accepting defeat or anything : it is going to be my parting gesture of indebtness I one you for all the happy minutes you contributed to so beautifully. I don’t think you will ever cease to occupy some past of me.
I wish I could see you this moment and hold you tight with all my might.
Your (sometimes way mean) friends
Get.

Finally, did wake you up. Feeling slightly silly now. The brief conversation did wake up something I did overlooked.
You said I am probably feeling this way cause of the smokes. You are more than probably right. It is these smokes in the evening plus a thousand phency bottles drained down into the grey matter plus hundreds of various kinds of pills. I have popped plus …………….. the list goes on.
The biggest regret is that I tried to you about my junkie status. I died because I was scared to lose you. That’s hardly a possible explanation, but that’s the way. It got to be. I did be/not disclose and feel miserable about it. To get over that I did do it again something to tell you. At the crucial moment my courage world disclose-the cycle went on and on till it trapped it. Can’t blame you if that caused your loss of that basic faith in me. The most miserable past was infact that. I had million to things to say to explain myself that they remained unsaid till it was too late.
Put simply, drugs, especially, opiates, numb your senses. Putting it the other way, the need felt to number your senses, consciously or subconsciously, is fulfilled by them. I know you know all this but please let me finish. In my case, it’s the libido. Now, I hope you don’t take it as emotional blackmail all over again. Just need to clarify everything. Even if it was you indirectly the cause for my drug problem it does not mean you are obliged to change your decision, for whatever reasons you know best. I understand that however much another person wants you to do something, you have to have your own interest safe before the other person’s (it doesn’t work that for me, of course, which is just too bad). Can’t blame you for my naivete.

There are a few things. I must ask you to spell out for my mental peace :
1. Why do you think it was a mistake, in retrospect. I mean was it
a) the realization you were cohabiting with a (unhealthy, non-visible) drug crazed guy (make never told you about it )?
b) The realization that I was falling in love with you, which you wished to prevent for whatever reasons.
c) What else?

2. At what point of time did the first seeds of doubt about our compatibility get sown (Sept., Oct., Nov.?) And how, why.

3. What were you looking for in a guy, to continue from being a crutch-man to a real man? What are my disqualifying faction?

Please try answering these honestly, if necessary bluntly. It is important for me.

3/6/95 2305

Classic reaction to a classic situation. Must watch out for the familiar the all too ones, pitfalls. Those concerning women especially. Well, most of them, almost all I’d think, are connected to matters concerning women. Though I had think, are corrected to matters concerning women. Though I cannot think of a single thing I could have done about today. Could I really help not getting enacted, to look forward to something I had been wanting to do in my hart of hearts, though I have pretended to be otherwise. Is the pretension really a defense mechanism? A guard against similar situations and happenings, drawing from past experience. And what, pray, is one to do with ‘past experience’. Even supposing it can be “forgotten & forgiven”, should not one act and think and decide keeping in mind the follies & lessons of Yesteryears. For if something can happen once, twice… it can happen again, specially when one factor, ‘I’ in this case, is constant and the other, though variable in mot practical ways, not quite so. It seems the only truly variable factors are time and space. Most events just repeat in different combinations & permutations to evolve patterns just that bit differing from the preceding, and the succeeding ones.
I can’t help but wonder if that is what ‘life’ is all about. One lives not to ‘look forward’ to anything but just that. One times not for anybody’s sake but one’s own. To think and behave as if one is accountable to anyone or anything else, or answerable, would be self delusionary to say the least. We digressed along the way, however, as always.
So I have none to blame, also as always, for tonight. But then, does fining blame ever get one anywhere? Has it ever? No, that’s purely for consolation purposes. It’s no consolation, though, that I’ve put the clock back by those many precious minutes. Hours? Hope not. ‘As always’, hope is the virtue to cling to. Which is not to say there’re too many options. Indeed, what else is there. Definitely not medicine. At least I am sure of that by now. And that is the biggest of all hopes at the moment. Can’t allow myself the indulgence anymore. Time’s out, dragging along a broken sprit. All there’s to do is to keep tending to it, day in and day out. It still can be revived. Need to infuse new life into it. Everything just hangs by that now. The day I finally give up on that is the day to blow the final whistle. For the final ‘cut’. Period.
Though life’s been flux personified all these years, it’s never been this critical. Urgently need to find something to cling on to. There are numerous straws drifting along all the time, but I am a bit choosy, I am afraid. Waiting for the right one to be within rich, fighting, in the meanwhile, to not drawn. To not give up. It’s as much I can do at the moment. Realize that soon, it may be too late. But, with a weary eye on the sand clock, I am sustaining myself and everything that goes with it.
Keep in touch with Arya, for I have this feeling that B.S. may be the thing for me. I might be overrating myself and being presumptions etc. etc., but just got to line on faith as far as issues close to the heart, like this, are concerned. Will go give it a shot one of these days, (don’t or rather, stopped bellowing in ‘best’ shots) and let destiny take its unchartered coarse. If they deserve me, as I have been wont of saying, they’ll get me. If they don’t, someone else will. Some traces of self confidence, or should we put it another way – some basic confidence in myself about a few things, show up every now and then. And this is one of the most visible ones. The magic of the written word has withered considerably with the down and invasion of the electronic media, but it’s there for the few who still, and will, swear by it. One of the reasons for the decay may be unexploited and untapped talent. Fresh blood always do manage to deliver its bit.
A major apprehension for me is, if the flow of words will dry up, if checked and restricted by ‘ought tos’ and ‘will have too dos’. But then, as another favourite wisecrack of mine, there’s just one way to find out. Shall do.
Haven’t really given much thought to ‘if not than what’. What if the print media finds me two abstract, too self absorbed, two undisciplined. Don’t have assumes to those, I am afraid. To repeat myself, there’s just one way to find out. And the way to go about it would be to keep the reservations at bay. May be, how would I know, experienced people of the field have a way to see through people like me and recognise their worth and use it to the best advantage of all concerned parties. After all clay has to be moulded to give it a shape and big tion tempered to trust it into desirable form. To steal the catchline of a popular brand of consumables, the idea into ‘just do it’.
The hander part, of course, would be to maintain a steady cause after the first phinge. To stick to my guru in the face to adversities and hardships that are sure to follow in the wake of my rather drastic decision in life in general and career in particular. It’s golta be irreversible with no convenient fall backs for my hereto pampered and spoiled lifestyle, by any standard, or no way at all. Must inculcate that most critical of all values: the facing upto part of life. Be ready to accept the consequences of my actions instead of the routine escapism. This particular tedency has almost become my trademark among my friends and well wishers (!). Lot to prove that it’s going to be a several of that attitude once I get my life on sort of track.
The urge to write is wearing off now. A terrible sign for any budding writer, bring for the dreaded images of a ‘writer’s block’ whatever that’s supposed to mean. That would be one sure way of ending a career prematurely, right !
Hope to resume, sooner than later. Can’t just walk into an Executive editor’s, or whatever fancy title is won by those men or women in charge of screening & deciding the fate of desperate souls in the quest for receiving some kind of a job in media, with a sheaf ful of irrelevant and spun of the moment ink on paper in the form of a jumble of words & sentences. Or can I ?

4/6 0017

The situation was rather classic. Two hours or so of excitement and looking forward to an evening with her. Didn’t feel there were any strings attached, for a change, or that the plans would crash at the very last minute. Wonder if my ‘facefell’, or that it could be deciphered so by people around me, something someone once claimed was all too easy with me. Just cannot hide those naked feelings when it comes to the crunch. Am lift groping for suitable words for the suitable given situation. And that five letter word, ‘sorry’, is too ridiculous to be bothered for. How the fuck does it mean anything when the damage has been done; when a situation is “beyond circumstances one can control”? When nothing can be said or done about it? The sheer helplessness I feel in these situations is what gets to me. For there was a time not two long ago, when I firmly behind that everything is under one’s control, that destiny or fate or whatever word one chooses to describe that intangible force, has no or very little role to play in day to day events. So may be I was wrong-young and hotheaded and unexposed to the ‘ground realities” of life. One keeps changing all the time, alongwith one’s fanatical views and opinions and the way one looks and judges things and facts of life. Time, age, catches up sooner than later. Specially if one’s going two fast, the burout has to happen now or then. Regrets won’t help either. Matter of fact, nothing helps. What’s happened is happened and what one has became and is, one is.
The only thing is to get on with it. The world does not give an iota as to what one does with one’s life. One may die, to leave behind a group of people who will griever in degrees according to the stature they occupy in one’s life, and that’s about it. The world does not come to an end, nothing changes, the traffic will still up and down the roads, the disk will keep transmitting its sublingual brain washing signals, global warming world go on till it reaches a flash point (whatever it is) and Reliance & PSL will go on churning out their thousands of tons of polyester filament yarn. It’s all over for you, though. And may be also for a few people whose life will be catastrophically be affected by the action. That’s about it.
Just ramble on. However worse would it get. There ha to be some point beyond which you can’t rink anymore. Let’s see.

14/5/95 0615 Hrs.

I was somehow convinced that it would have, or would happen sooner than later, despite being assurances of the contrary. But to hear it so bluntly and unexpectedly caught me with my guards lowered. And it seemed not to occur to her that all I was told was the standard “just friends” bit. However, partly due to the reaction I clumsily tried to hide and partly due the fact that she may have realized her faunpa, no elaboration was made of the risve. Not that I desperately wanted to listen to the story of her new / over alias just-a-friend. But I was adequately fortified and I would have had to listen to it sometime or the other.
I can’t understand why you had to mention it at all. Like the word “Platonic relationship”, the sound of it? So you go around announcing the ‘decision’ reached? Or was it for my benefit alone? And mind you, they ‘didn’t go all the way’. Ha, Ha! I can just visualise you, in bed, for a romp. It does feel strange to be not able to give a face to the guy though would never want to either.
Gotta face it. There’s this guy in her life who’s more special, at present, that anybody else and with whom she goes out. (In my case, there were different standards). In short, she’s got this relationship going while I am to behave like a mute spectator on the sideline. Will I ever understand why women behave the way they do, and how is one supposed to deal with their complicated thought patterns. They keep insisting that there is no such thing in them as a switch system in their minds. Guy no. 1 switched ‘off’, Guy no. 2 switched ‘on’. Ha.
I would beg to disagree. Not only they have that switch, but also several other devices and mechanisms to ensure that the ‘Changeover’ is smooth and incident-proof. The best thing about ‘Changeover’ is that they carry it out in the minimum amount of time. One moment things are just fine, and the next moment it’s all over the irreparably damaged.
I am aware that I keep harping on this but it hits me strongly each time I write about all this : why? Is it really worth it? I’d rather kill myself than cause deep hurt and pain to all living souls, let alone a lover (friend ? whatever).
It’s high time I detach myself from these two women who almost succeeded in destroying my life to cancer. Let it be.
Let go of her; of them.

20/06/95 1010 TL

Feeling miserable for doing the maladies thing. Major cash lunch at home. Fifteen grand down the drain. How could I do this to these people who are obviously so caring. Not really their fault if I’m picked up in life. They were well-intentioned in what they did. It’s another matter if it was out of context and at times stiffing.
Anyway, too late for regrets. Everything’s been said and done. All that is left to do now is to part ways. It’ll hurt but it’s better than the day to day hurt we all bring each other. May be time and distance will help heal some of the wounds.
The least I can do is to get hold of this rudderless existence and demonstrate that I can take care of myself. They’d find some peace and were to be happy doing whatever I would in the near future. In due time I should be able to support myself. And may be, just may be I’d have a woman to call my own someday.
The very thought puts me on guard. I wonder when and if, I get over my antipathy towards a man'’ '‘better half'’ It'’ got more complex them ever before, entwined with other issues. The omnipresent catch-22 applies her too. Need to be loved to get cured, but got to be cured for being loved.
Care in point in this woman. She could’ve cured me if she wanted to but she didn’t love me enough to do that. So she took the easy way out. If she did love me, she wouldn’t have got put off by my dark side. So the moment she saw red, she bolted. If one truly loves another, one has to accept the full package. It’s the classical adage ‘love me or leave me’.
It’s so much easier to say “I can’t relate to P” than to actually make the effort to. It had to be not worth it for it to be not trying.
So it’s fine. I have learnt a few persons in this endless book titled ‘life’.
Neither can I say I was in love with her per se. It was more of a infatuation coupled with the physical face of the relationship. That was something I was experiencing for the first time and thus the confused feelings. Today as I sit here thinking of the past, it’s evident that I want a man possessed, furk sign of being in love. The passion was there, but not enough to feed love. There was communication but not the kind lovers do without the need to grope for words.
Yes, she was right. It was not love, anything but that. To think the idea upset me is now appearing silly. I was bent upon believing it to be true. Anything to the contrary made me react typically – emotional violence.

Jan. 13, 95 TL
2 Booth
Nayan,

Here’s the trillionth and one piece of paper that, hopefully is not also the billionth and one to never reach the addressee.
This one’s got triggered by a vague feeling I have got lately, that this juncture of time and space is going to prove critical, for me in general and our growingly complex relationship in particular. Don’t ask me to elaborate, for I can’t really put my finger on it.
What I do know is that in a lot many ways, I have reached the end of my tether. There are far too many uncertainties to bear for a we any mind and indifferent body, which is of course no news to you.

THIS IS NO GOOD. THINK I’LL SPEAK TO YOU INSTEAD.

What’s using with doped. Two things, mainly screwed health, little company. Little? Less than little. Really tough to strike a wavelength with other people.
Which is not to say they any better. No way. It’s the same old story about these seven deadly sins. Now is immune where that’s concerned. And the casualty: goodness.
So who’s good & who’s bad? Who’s right and who’s wrong? Vibha Gaba – master liar? May be compulsive. Surely compulsive boyfriend my an Ella Datta – master bitch? Chandroni – all slime. But there’s no end to it.
Just lime. Be Good.

C-II/29 T.L. 26.09.95
Nayan,

Considering the circumstances of the situation as you made then out to be, I’d rather not give you company. So Prashant ticket may be got cancelled.
I can’t risk more disillusionment to set in carrying out plans that won’t work, my idealistic mind. Both of us seem to have lost our sensibilities and that grey area of find-lover-the way we started off.
Looking back now, I see another Nayan and another but discovering each other and showing everything: hurt, pain, team, smiles, driving lessons, bold jamum on a sat at Pandara, strolling in Khan, getting coffee from Khan Market. The idea (of saying what I have) is to do some soul searching instead of just carrying on in i/c

17 Oct. 95

Let me get this thing clear.
I her logic.
“I’m not in lone with this guy. I found him a great support when I needed it, in the form of a man. Sex was a secondary issue and anyway it’s only it’s physical facet I care for” so when he started displaying signs of emotions and related things like possessiveness, her alarm bells went off.

Result: Severance of intimacy by her.
he back it sell destination with a vengeance

Her Point: You’re uncool – not my type

His Point: I don’t give a damm to your logic; I’ll do what I feel no matter how “illogical”. In fact, the more, the better.

17th Oct. ’95 0100 Hrs.

You wanna know the truth, huh? You are never sure about it one way or the other? Well here it is, in all its glorious nakedness : I’m a confirmed junkie. No use giving it other names or spinning pipe dreams anymore. This term is in fact quite descriptive – encompassing my insecurity, my hardened cynical skill, my resignation and helplessness, my search for an identity.
Though it’s a waste of space, let it be said junkies never, cannot, think of tomorrow. The junk is good enough to fortify the present. And skew the past the way it’s least painful.
Junkies, I, need love and affection, something to care for – something to make little plans and weave dreams for the days to follow. Anything but the painful screeching of solitude trapped in the deathly silence of this vacuum growing everywhere.
It is on the quest of that which decides for me. Till my doubts don’t get blown away and my convictions decided one way or the other, I’ll centime with the self destructive tango savaging my insides every few hours or so.
Why can’t I just move on like ‘normal’ people? Sadly for me, it does not happen that way. And what is there to move on to? It may be too late anyway. Who do I insist on going to bed with you? Coz I am scared for myself, to face it later all alone, or with a stranger. No that won’t be.
I cannot carry on like this. Your convictions are too precious to you; my doubts too painful to bear. It started with you in command : stifling myself – expression with your span of the moment ‘decisions’. I am finally at the end of my tether : if you think you, can, and want to do anything about it, do it. I’ll proceed on, the loser who’s got no more room for hate, and tears.

08/05/95 0245 TL

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced of it. The ‘basic trust’ in her is lost. We may keep intending for all times to came but it will never ever come within a mute’s distance of what it used to be. She was sight when she had said about her being frivolous at the core of it. She may convince herself of she thinks she is but it does not change facts.
I jolly well deserved what I got. Blind faith is always dangerous. Nairette doesn’t help either. She’s putty close to the truth that I was looking for someone else in her, an image I was chasing. But then who led whom. It’s convenient to blame me for “misinterpreting” the situation. And to declare that it was just a big mistake making it with me. That it was thoughtless of her to come so strongly onto me, almost rash.
But who does she think she’s deceiving about her “non-platonic relationships” with other men; so much for giving it time before giving in and that ‘reassurance’ that she won’t go for it. “Just friends…”.
So, she’s looking for romance. Well, I, for one, am through with her. Thought the other one was bad enough but this one decidedly scores higher when it comes to flitting. I say flitting can promiscuous might be two strong a term.
One thing that must be admired of her the way she widely thew me out of her bed. Quite a professional job did, she did. I was simply written off; switched off would be a better term. And then wasn’t a fuck I could do except pickup my ego and self respect, dust them and walk wearily home. While she painted the town red, I blacked out my interiors.
All this is not to say I care. That ceased a while ago. I must lookout the a repeat. The least I can do is to walk my way around with my eyes open and skin thickened even if artificially. Stop bothering for others. Live for myself and if need be, die for myself.
Panty confirmed what I have been feeling lately – a noticeable change I my attitude. I am not quite sure what exactly that means or the extent to it’s permanency. But there’s definitely something to it. It’s unlikely to be a by product of this medication, though it seems to be on the job. However, the mental yearning has come back. Been doing it fine times in a row now in a rather peculiar manner. A couple of swigs and out it goes. Haven’t been having too many negative symptoms either. Wonder where all this will lead to.
The libido remains frozen in the meanwhile. A forced release is all that happens. I am beginning to see signs of a sustained abstinence from women. Not to prove a point this time but just a lack of desire. Hardly much to it anyway. Yet another trip in life, classified ‘non-injurious’ to health.
Writing has been on my mind. Sometimes, can’t have enough of it. But it’s all so vague if one thinks of earning a living off it. Moreover, lately it’s started to feel as if I am going around in circles. That everything’s keen written before, in different ways of cause, but identical all the same. That all I need to do is glance through old dusty sheets of paper and find it all there. It’s threatening to become a major mystery. Must investigate but not panic. That’s only make it worse, as has happened with other things.
But a problem with my nocturnal wakefulness. Sleeping would appear to be an a version with me. Can’t make up my mind as to whether it’s because of dreading the next day or an urging for the present day to continue as long as possible. For all I know, I might have it’s roots out there. The idea is worth pursuing. Come to think of it, the need to sleep in pretty strange in humans. Am curious about this aspect in other animals. The notion does not quite fit. Or is it attributable to the domain of the illogical. World give it a thought.

Tea time.

Oct. 10/95 0300 Hrs.

She’s probably right about snapping ties. If the deadlock, of not making further efforts (if at all), continues there’s no way out of it. I’ve ended up being taken for a ride to the very hilt. Realisation of the B’bay fiasco was just in time. Her single minded purpose left nothing much to imagination.

The streak of self destructiveness has its roots in the conflicts raging on subconsciously in the mind, the basic cause of which is some feeling of insecurity always present as an undercurrent to everything.
The key word is ‘conflicts’. Not physical of course, but the potentially more damaging conflicts of the mind.

07/06/95 0400

You do whatever you want to do, or are doing with your life. I just can’t afford to care anymore. I don’t want explanations & justifications for your conduct and actions. I don’t think I have much lift in me so far as my feelings for you go. Somewhere along the way, it lost all meaning. Now it’s casual, just for the heck of it. Or may be your conscience is troubling you.
Well, don’t bother. I don’t.

Feb. 22, 1355
Tila & Lane
Dear Mama,

Let me begin by pointing out that I was home last night tossing around in my bed when you came to check me out. I had no inclination to go out and anyway I think the car key was not with me. In any case that is besides the point.
I am aware of the dilimmna facing you and papa. We are all at a crossroad not knowing which way to take. This project has taken its toll and it’s showing on us. It was a bad idea, in retrospect, and our inexperience and haste just made it worse. I know it’s been created for me which means I have to reap the rewards as well as take all responsibility for it. At this juncture it’s futile to look back and argue as to who is to be blamed for taking the decision on year back. Of course I was enthusiastic about the idea. Having emerged from a self destructive phase that lasted almost three years, I wanted to start a new and do something constructive in life.
Please let me take a detour at this point to go back to that phase of my life. I think my life can be divided into two major portions – pre-college and post-college. Whatever you may say about college, I still think that joining college and staying in Rez was an important event that taught me a lot about life. I know I could have benefited a lot more and did not give it my best shot, for reasons we both know. But then whatever’s happened cannot be changed and I like to believe that everything adds up in the long run. Now what I wanted to say was this : coming from a protective and conservative family to the rez, which has guys from all kinds of backgrounds, was a new experience. Exposure to liberal guys and freedom to do what one wanted, being accountable only to yourself, all this made me into what I am today. Stephen’s imparted a different attitude towards life, another way to look at things. Like they say “an apple tasted once is tasted forever”. Even since I have finished college, I have not come to grips with life outside college. The lifestyle and the way of living has become habitual to me without me consciously realizing it. It’s only at times like Yesterday that I realize how much lifestyles clash. I am almost a misfit in my own house. When it comes to that.
I think that is the root of all things. It’s a clash of value systems. I appreciate the extent to which both of you have gone to accept and / or overlook my strange (to you) ways. It would have been very difficult for you after having toiled all your life satisfying all my needs and wants, showering your love, care and warmth to see me not living up to your dreams and expectations, not even following your way of thinking and living. But let me tell you that I respect and love both of you dearly.

CT1/29, Tilak Lane, N.D. Frithe 6th ‘95
Dawn

Come to think of it, as I’d say, I am fucking lucky insomuch as BS goes. Lou at the guys around; mostly unemployed; a few ho are not well, they sometimes seem to have got a raw deal, considering all factors.
Today was real good fun compared to the more regular one’s. Dunno what made me 90 cackling those crazy 30 odd minutes, when everybody’s lung capacity and condition was put to quite a “nitrous” test.
Smt. has lately happened/ing with Nayantara. Can’t seem to see eye to eye at all, and neither bother rot help it. That thing has gone, the high spirits that made the beginning.
Vibha’s fate, in my perspective, hangs in balance so far. I haven’t the foggiest notion how one’s supposed to Oct.
It’s not so bad to be working after all, I given.

17/06/1995 2330 TL

Back. Feeling a bit rested now. Amazing to have gone through almost forty five have like that. Wondering if it is something like the thing about multiple personalities where a personality that didn’t want to sleep prevailed.
Just spoke to David. It was good to have gone down to see him. Know each other so much better now. College was different, Another tripping guy to hang around with. Never could spend time together by oddness. Have a feeling I have got a life long friend here, whatever that means. We relate to each other to a considerable extent. Can appreciate the chronic problems be setting us. Quite a guy. He is. Mind stimulating company like nobody I know. The way to look at things, the way he puts them. Extremely witty when he is not busy frowning in thought. Not easy to keep pace with her thoughts unless are tries real hand. Exhausting, sometimes.
It is been an enriching experience, Maldives and David despite the continuing destruction of testosterone(?). The health factor suffered also because of the nutrition. Or the lack of it. Realized I hadn’t eaten a wheat chapatti for all these days.
One tends to live a simple life not there. The money factor doesn’t help. Must ensure a steady touch with David and help him as much as possible.

18-06-1995 0445 TL

Isn’t it contradicting to have been known to declare that sex is no big deal but it’s fine to do it if it’s there on one hand, and to maintain she doesn’t want to do it “unless I am sense sure on the other”. When she’s sure, she simultaneously forgets she had reasoned to not “commit a mistake” again like she did by jumping into bed with me the very first time we were spending a night partying, of which many were to follow.
As is evident, sex has taken alarming ramifications in my life. I have come a long way since the days of rubbing against a warm body and achieve as orgasm. The following cock teasing days went on and on for months turning into years, for ridiculous reasons. Then it transpired that some outer guy had been granted the follow. I lost track of the story at some point, delegating the job to an alternate personality within. This is still standing guard, though in a form quit distinguishable from the initial.
Help as this scene had came along briefly a few months ago. Then my dark side came into view and the activity abandoned. Fresh blood was Daught, and I believe, and found. The concerned parties are busy erasing those days spent mostly sipping coffee and somebody’s party, smt. Culminating in a warm, fragrant bed. From what I hear, or imagine, the project is smt. Of a success.
I am not sure if the success includes me. I indulge in having sex with-somebody-you-love which ensures the natural release of the seminar. It mostly seems it’s purpose, except the times when salt warm body to cares and long their to play, as only a woman has is what one craves for.
The only substitute I know is to suppers it, a process finitude ones two years.

20-06-1995 0310 TL

Self reliancy is an important virtue. Why must one need to wash one’s plates and clothes, or clean one’s room. One is perfectly capable of doing one’s own chores, If anything one appreciation the value of them, apart from desiring satisfaction. Satisfaction, of course, is something one can’t say too much about. It is the bottom line to all one strives for in a lifetime. It is what passes for ‘passes of mind’.
To contain one’s needs is the main idea. They could go on forever cluttering up non-functional junk. There is really no end to temptations offered by a materialistic world. One can never have enough of it. One should be able to draw a line between necessity and indulgence; and have the courage to stick to it.
The adage ‘simple life and high thinking’ may hold water after all. One discovery that a simple life is indeed conducive to high thinking, which is nothing else but giving the mind enough space to not bother about trivialities of an everyday routine. The lower the things to worry about, the man one can think of higher things.
It is not to say one should withdraw completely. One must adhere to the society in a way that generation one certain rights. Materialism is essential to a certain extent to fulfil basic human needs, that vary from one individual to another.
What this boils down to is freedom of will. Every mature adult has the right to determine what course of life to take. Any society that curtails this and instead imposes itself on its individuals is certain to face an immature demise.

10-07-1995 95 TL

You know what Nayan, may be you should erase me from your mind. Just forget me and all that’s associated with me. Save yourself the bummer it must be to call me up. I have turned into an epitome of depression and negativity. Greens I like being that all the time, day after identical day. Why should you have to be put off each time you have to thin of me and thus the relationship that’s now cause of such regret.

You did well getting out of the mers. You didn’t really deserve the raw deal. I mean, the phency, the mother-the works. I can’t figure out how you fell for it in the first place. Women would best avoid me, the issue is so complex in my mind. I think I live in an imaginary world of my own with scant regard for others around me. It takes a while for the realization to damn I guess.
The way I have abused my life, still am, it is a wonder I am carrying on. But maybe this worthless existence doesn’t quality as such. How long can this last? Surely one has to pay the price for it. There must be some limit to what mind and body can take. A point of no return.
It is been good to have known you, however briefly. Though there are moments when I think we did have both been better off without it. You know, turning the corner at all. I never cease to wonder at things like this – two people, hotness strangers, meeting at a point of a particular space-time coordinate and it just clicks.
I sincerely wish you well, in whatever you do, wherever you one. Only the uncertainty of life prevent me from speculating on us meeting in the future, both distant and near Gill.
N.B. Whatever else you do, please don’t continue the call-a-week for obligatory purpose if you, understandably can’t make time to meet anymore. What purpose does it serve? E.g. today’s call-5 minutes and half the time speaking to somebody else.

27-07-1995 TL

It is funny only in retrospect the excuses/justification women come up with to drastically change their relationships. It would seem they are mostly buying to convince themselves rather than the helpless one separately clinging to the passes who till the other day swore lifelong allegiance to the tie. It is also for the benefit of common friends, people who witnessed the euphoric beginning and the subsequent, inevitable ups and downs. When it comes to the crunch, the same people who drank your tequilas and whiskeys and had their vomit cleaned by you (never mind if it’s your birthday) stand as mute by standing, sometimes forced but more often by choice. The ones claiming to be closer to the now disenchanted one take the expected. Whispered side. It is the easiest thing in the world to twist a tale just that bit to ease their conscience and go to untroubled, self righteous stupor.
Time sides with them too. It can be counted as to fade glorious moments shared with a soulmate into oblivion. It’s not long before they seem like things that happened in another lifetime. Or maybe it was one of the flashes they beam on the idiot box at the zombies starting at it finitely, unblinking with that glazed look of a junkie. It is all you can do to not let go of the pictures, which is all you on left with.
So they slide into their featnecy beds and pully the sheets over them comfortable in the knowledge that life only happen once. There is no way they can be hauled before the justice of humanities, for crimes against fellow beings, for the evidence has been devalued by the flames of another passion. You forgot the camera behind.
There are no faces and friends in this world-everyone are a fond and a friend. They receive the choice to be what they will. And don’t be bowled that you have anything to do with the final judgement.
The other guy may simply be healthy…

05-07-1995 TL

Come to think of it, you stance of not being able to relate to my fence trip in life doesn’t cut much ice. The first time you made the observation was in November, just after I had gone down to Karla to patch the Tattoo Mobile, over a lunched meeting at the cellar. Somehow, the mind, in its inapplicable ways, registered that event to be reproduced here. Before I begin to diagram let’s have a lot of what was written at the contact.
If you really had wanted to try relate to this facet of me, you could have. It called for an effect, you, and I guess you can again too the line of argument you had for that the relationship, and thus I, didn’t demand an effort. But this is not getting as anywhere. The point is, that first time I had slipped up after an amazingly stable this month period may not have led to the umpteen following times if you had not stone walled the issue by simply saying what you did.
This is not an accusation. I guess it is more of an academic desiccation of the futile sort that an idle brain can after can afford to indulge.
My subsequent denials, half the this, white his so far as fence goes were less to do with my integrity then that of your either or approach to the tribe. You simply refused to acknowledge the issue, rejecting it outfight. Do you even once at any point of time made an effort, six cent or other wise, to look beyond the veneer of decidedly self-destruction?
This is not to say you had and have the right to choose the cause of action you think fit. But maybe it can serve as a consolation for mistakes and regrets……..

20/06/95 0215 T.L.

Well, I managed to see the ‘mind guy’. All I could go then was his boredom of the affair, though he checked himself to try give me a hearing. I obliged him rather well. Went on and or till he pleaded time to “animilate” what he did heard. Can’t blame him, anybody in his/her right mind would do the same. I have not lived my life for nothing. I have taken the human brain to heights of complexity not achieved quiet often. This takes or over protective father a hopelessly pneumatic and oedipal mother, about thousand litres of phenydyl, a nymphomaniac can't worshipped for odd years at a conducive age of sixteen and an Alma mater that teacher you what freedom of will is all about.
Time to diagram. Stephen’s definitely changed my life incident. It was not just the dope. It was meeting people. People with other ideas about life. It is amazing how one can live for tens of years believing in a certain way, quite blissfully ignorant of any number of ways to go about it. The older one gets, the tougher it is to accept another way to look at things previously seen one is own way. Which explains the resistance of the parental age group to adapt to a change.
Which are why they end being losers. It is a now in situation for them after one has crossed a certain threshed in life and begins to question things. It is not easy-specially if one is dependent for food and shelter. That world not is so bad if one were equipped to fend for oneself. And that is catch 22.
The idea is to keep trying, not giving up in two face of adversity. To demand one’s right – to self-respect, to dignity and most importantly to freedom of will. Everything else must come a distant two. Price the soul so it can never be bought, no matter what is offered. To achieve this, one must not harbour weaknesses. These would load the dice against one thereby ending the battle before it is begun.
When in double, the question one must ask oneself is : is one’s integrity being compromised? If the another is in positive, just check it. Nothing more to be said or done.

Oct., 1, 95

It has been a sent of feedback special for me, so far as friends/acquaintances are concerned.
#1 V.B. : “You’re too cynical considering you are so young. Indicative of your sensitive self.

#2 Mom : a) Though the edge in your behaviour/attitude has got considerably dulled, your eyes are that of a “sick” man.

b) You don’t quite dig meaning less, indiscriminate sexual adventures. Goes to show on your integrity of character.

#3 Nayan : a) You are surrounded by all these practical, sensible to the bone, people : your reactions are often governed by ulter defiance to there way of life.
b) Just need to whip yourself into some kind of a disciplined regimen. Be there at least by 11 – 11:30 a.m.

#4 Chintu : P is the root cause of all your problems. Get mid of it and half the battle in won.

01/10/1995 CII/29 Tilak Lane, New Delhi-110001 Morning (0840)

Another Sunday. Followed by another Monday. The cycle would not let go for the gainfully employed as well as this not. But the former are more away of it, almost painfully. Any kind of tread mill existence is bound to show.
But wait a second, that is not the idea. I intended, intend, to put down. It is my all time favourite : Women. I was struck that women do crave for attention- male attention more than anything else. Well! I did be tempted to outrightly dismiss any such notion, had I not have the means/ experience to carbonate it. There man a time of such intermingling of my being with true women’s at turn different times, that I not and then tried my luck at looking from the insides of a woman. You know.
If the one you land up with happens to be one of this precisely mentioned category, you are donned. An innocent sparks lights up the whole farmstack – a full-blown affairs of the heart; presuming whatever’s convenient at the moment. And then it is too late; the intensity evening not all parties concerned go unscathed.
I would have found myself in trouble if I did gone along with the Bombay idea. I don’t really know how she intended to have a ball, but from the looks of it. She is having a ball. At least managed to salvage a bit of pride, ignoring her presence in his bed altogether, let alone ask to speak to her. Not done.

0330 Hrs. Oct., 15, 1995 Tilak Lane.

At pain of losing your faith, yet again, and mine in myself, I turn back to my only mode of expression. These are not histories, nor is my aim to make imagined allegations. I am simply gasping for breath in being abashed of my own thoughts – and failure to have enough faith in your sincerity to an association that surely has seen either of us so recalcitrant (as you put it) as to feel choked and/or find manifestation in destruction of self.
Awareness of you diseemfirt at reference to the past present further talk on that.
But Nayan please allows me the indiscretion of this: if your convictions and views on it are so strong that your mind is rigidly immobilised at the slightest danger of any allusion to it, say so period.
But mind you; if you are doing it out of a conviction of my subsequent behaviour, on past experience; or because of fear of repercussions, irreversibility et al, also on past experience price I have already a reputation for it, to a point I will be unable to communicate. Let it suffice to say nothing world now match it is killing grip, in sheer penetration to where it hurts deep inside. And if, as you say, it has only physical ramification for you, why must self denied be preached and practiced, but for the partner’s adverse views and behaviour: now that can be helped – ascertained and vowed etc.
Superlatives, dramatics, emotional blackmail, skewed vision, screwed head – I shan’t blame you.
Point is if it can be helped, what is stopping it.
After considerable thought, and deliberation and self torture- pointless, all of it, I did rather risk it than not, and suffering anyway.
Make scene? Please tell me.

04/11/95 TL

In our fawners, the problems her with me and not her within my brain, to be more precise. One that spawns my fantasyland dreams as far removed from reality, whatever that is (w/o. delivery into epistemology), as the Daily Pratap is different to BS.
The latest one took me to kaman a little while ago just because she called up and common desired my presence for the fuck in Bharat Nayam of all things I mean! Should only listen to myself. How many times.
Are greatly perturbed at the way my head behaves when it comes to inconsequential facts such as her plan for tonight. This kind of a thing triggers god knows what electrochemical processes, against whom I stand naked powerless. For it is not quite you controlling you head but the other way round.

0230 Hrs. Tilak Lane Oct., 16’ 95.

Can you blame me for thinking like that? At another time and another place smt. Nearly identical had savaged my life. She seemed to understand it later tonight and I instantly forgave her everything.
From what I see, I ask for very little. A little love and affection and I get transformed from see thing hatred to complete surrender. I did have my whole existence spewing venom towards a loved one, but the moment “they throw one a bone”; I dissolve into candy sweetness.
My insecurity level in alarming was torturing me to an extent I thought nothing could. Which woman could ever stand upto my possessiveness, my tormented, warped thoughts, my nightmares, my weakness, my placidity, my violent emotion…..?

Oct.,16,1995 0130 Under Hill Lane.

Never knew it did come to this. They have got it for each other. The health factor? Yeah surely, for one. She, and the rest of them, seems to get repelled by me. It must be that thing about the genetic makeup of women; I mean the propagation theory. Men are supposed to be inherently polygamous, and women on the look out for virile, capable men to protect them as well as the offspring’s.
As I suspected all along, the past for people means only insomuch as convenience goes. It is convenient to forget, to erase out, a night of rapturous turn-life-around events-forget it. Who’s gonna protest? Not them all witnesses. Nobody. Who gives a fuck if that night was to end up as the beginning to the end.
The end, thankfully, is in sight. It is a constant companion nowadays. Once the head in laid to rest, won’t have to worry about losing all the times…. Go ahead buddy. I am beyond care.

CII/29, Tilak Lane, New Delhi Oct. 4, 1995 Countdown

Hey you,
You actually like it? The cowwebs, the crane feet, the dragit is to carry on like this: the only other reason could be your hatred for yourself. “You are hell bent on keeping your finger on the self destructive button, and you know it.”
Translate: day off,
I laid off.
To continue being.
What I am
Who I am
How I am
After they told me
The answer
And that
Was that;
The craving carrier
Show a menu to a hungry man??!!!!……
He sees the bait, beholding the hook

25/05/95 1710 TL

So you made a mistake. If it is any consolation to you. I made a bigger one. I made the mistake of not mistaking you as making a mistake and thereby, mistaking something. I had vowed to never make this mistake. It is fair enough. I pushed my luck. Can’t get away with it, in life, in general and women in particular. It is nothing to do with them. It is me. The dark side of me. However well hidden, it is only a matter of time before my soul in penetrated to expose it in the light of day period.

Might as well hang a little tin plate around my neck: Danger Keep Away unstable, doubtful trust witnesses, emotionally violent, suicidal tendencies, chronic, hard to get rid of, likely to land in a padded cell……….

09/06/95 2230 T.L.

So it is come down to the dirty tucks deptt. once again. Chances of reconciliation one fading fast. The latest efforts to cine me happened to be occult. Things one get extremely messy rather dangerously out here.
Am fighting it by refusing to give upon then shan’t given……………….. Can’t sell my soul out for anything on, earth. And the day my freedom of will and self respect goes shall indeed be a sorry one. These two virtues are dearer than anything else in life. A hundred trips to male can’t be worth them.
Sick of writing the same thing over and over again day after day, year after year, in different patterns. The fundamentals remain the same. Cool to break the cycle, come out of the whirlpool.
It is amazing to watch some people swing from one extremity to another, with nary a delay. But what takes the cake is the expectation of getting away with chucking currently notes on my face. Must be desiring courage and inspiration from the knowledge of a weakness – the looked forward to trip to male.
As I said verbally, the idea is not worth the obligation that is sum as hell it carries. It would have become another, episode in addition to a sevens of others (interruption: “ you haven’t done the proper thing to cancel the programme”!) used every now and thin to whip me.
At the end of the tether now. Any day now, any day now…. For they’re curious about pure academic inches, the blame is to be borne squarely by me for “letter them down”.
Down people ever think straight. Or have a conscience. Even plain, simple and old fashioned Memory. The three of these, among themselves, evolve a slightly better attitude towards life.
All in all, shouldn’t have raised the matter the trip in the first place. Lessons to learn ……………….

0145 CII/29, Tilak Lane 0710’5

How to yours heart’s centent. Nobody gives a damn.
Just please stay away from women.
For my sake.

CII/29 Tilak Lane

The deed is finally done. Take in enough shit to last me lifetime. She says she is not guilty of any crime. What about my friend reasons and received life. Lost more than I gained in this miserable relationship.
Surely I was better off before the faithful day she hooked me. So casually too. Wonder what changed it from that to this for about of morality. The best thing is, she consider it to be all a mistake on her part. A mistake! But what does it cost to call names to anything: it is all a matter of convenience; which way the wind blooms.
I am amazed at her convictions. She did rather lose the relationship than even consider smt. That area routine at one time.
Too bad for her. I have got nothing to lose. Anyway you are sullied turned over.
Go fuck Anil and Chinmay you fucking bitch.
(Drinker voices : “Never mind Nayana, Gul was a good fuck right what else do you want” “yeah”)

Dec., 18/1995

Amazing games people play. Now I know for sure there is something wrong with the Nilanjana woman. Anyway, Gren I do have the necessary credentials to make me stick there for a while.

Amen.

X MAS 1995

Not much of a Xmas. A few obligatory greetings exchanged. May be next year. ………….
My trust in her is gone completely. The mind keeps torturing itself over images conjured up out of the blue in its weaker moments. I can only hope I will forgive her at some point of time in life. Because that his at the bottom of my trauma, which I diligently number day after day, month after month.
It is so sad to have a meaningful relationship turn upside down, simply magnifying the pain it was supposed to drown out to begun with. That is the only emotion I am left with no anger, no pain and no hope.
It appears I have lost all hope somewhere, sometime in the recent past. It is as if I have will fully let it all get irrelurably buried in a hinge avalanche of disillusionment. Smt. I feel I am walking down a never-ending wasteland, pausing only to grab move of the in doing so also speeds oneself towards the ultimate peace.
The saddest part of the things between her and me is being to give just that infinitesimal bit of myself even as my being aches for holding in so much. All for her.

13/01/96 04:45 hrs.
Nayan,
After having spent a few hours of torturous thought, I chose this option of writing to you yet again.
I want you to go slowly through what follows underneath and decide for yourself:
a) I’m completely nuts->professional assistance
b) Absolutely correct facts
c) Both (a) and (b)
Let’s get to the point. I have been ceaselessly thinking of your new pal and going back over and again on your little story. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s more to it than you’d concede.
Let me add here the realization I have of risking over relationship, whatever it amounts to for you, for an issue that’s got to be settled sooner than later.
The point: I have reasons to believe I know you fair enough to be able to tell you methodology in dealing with the incredible gullible person that’s me. I think you’ve settled for the easier-at-the-moment option of telling me the partial truth about this guy you’ve been in touch with, rather than keeping me in the dark or blunting out the whole truth.
Nayan, for once, please let’s both be honest to each other-right down to the most painful aspects and the dark sides we must have. That’s the only hope I see of maintaining our relationship in any form, in the face of my growing insecurities that have assumed frightening proportions at times. It’s important to renew faith in each other, and explore other ways of strong thing a friendship that’s in constant danger of getting washed away by the funny and sheer anger of unrequited love.
And if ‘love’ has nothing to do with it (especially you) and passion only unleashed in the smoke-filled, psychedelic ambience of ‘fire-ball’, I had better face upto it.

21/01/96 Def col hair cutting saloon
Lost all control last night after confirmation of my worst fears. Some guy finally (I thought) surfaced in her room. She told me they were just going to go out dancing. I listened, told her to have a good time, and promptly gave into this flesh in my mind.
Jabbed shortly after. Howled hysterically atleast twice within an hour. 60 mls. And a strong dose of caffeine later, lapsed into security kept suppressing an urgent urge to communicate with her. It would have to be the usual way-take the back lane of her house, trundle through the bushes and reach her door.
Wouldn’t have gone but for the smoke. That finally doused all decision making process, I suppose stuck a note on her door come back. Must have fallen asleep after a while.
Woke up before 10 somehow. The first thing that stuck me was to go look for a room. Left right way. Haven’t eaten anything for nearly 20 hrs. now. Feels I could stay this way forever.

March 4’96
Dear Nayantara,
Please find enclosed a cheque for Rs.900/- that I owe you. I’m glad you reminded me, for I wouldn’t have remembered to otherwise. I find myself in possession of other little things I borrowed from you, but laziness and a hint of selfishness add to their uncertain fate, tied as it is to an even more uncertain course the future may follow.

Yours truly
Rahul.

13/9/96
Sir,
Considering certain viewpoints questioning my sincerity as well as contribution to this organization, I may not be able to do justice to my duties/ upto my standards of performance at my job in a situation like that. In my opinion, a fresh perspective of my role in style is called for to facility for which I would like to proceed on leave for a month, beginning today.
Sincerely,
Rahul Goel
SW

Well, this is it. It’s happened now. The man is out to screw style for the sake of his ego. It’s clear he don’t like me very much too. I’m afraid. It’s keen there to see all this while in fact, since the day he literally took me for a ride to pick up those capsules, and then to his pad to ostensibly look for the film roll receipt which, of course, never existed. And all those rob stories of his- mandran and alcohol and deaddiction and break up with wife. God never actually been with a bloody beem boy-can’t tell how their fucked up mind works.
The guy just won’t leave me be. First the irregularity shit (actually stunning, coming from somebody who can’t sit still in office for half an hour before vamooshing to whenever he goes for human toge then), then why don’t you do stories (what’s the point if you don’t produce pages to get the story on?). And now when I was making sure he doesn’t have a stick to beat me with, the most ridiculous of all. Why didn’t you ask me about what stones to put on page 3. I still can’t believe he screamed at me and abused me right in front of people half my seniority (if he sees it that way, why can’t I?) for something like THAT. At 2 PM on deadline day when page 3 is the only one that’s been designed and is almost ready.
I suppose he’s hardly aware of what’s happening in the real world. It’s a pity really to see a forty year old man like that-frustrated and desperate for a little job that he’s not even capable of performing at the last place on earth who’ll still take him. Can’t put up with this anymore.

18-09-1997

What? Write in a book?
When ladies look.
And gentleman spy.
In no! Not me, I am shy!

That about summed me up ten years younger. Neither have I got over that particular emotion to this day. But here’s the book.
Not that I feel like writing one, writing anything at all. The system doesn’t want you to. That man of edition, executive edition. Associate edition, screwball edition and what have you. No sir, they don’t give a damn if merit suffer over market forces. They were not given an inch when they were knocking, and so shall it be for everybody to ever ask them for a blindy assignment.
I have seen them all. You name it. TN Ninan, that icon of brilliant break-away business journalists. A man asked promise the entire feakers team a host of promises he never intended to keep. The river over don’t for a moment get deviled of that, and the greenhouse get valuable lessons in why you don’t trust nobody.
Not to forget the time I went grovelling to him to please, please let me have Béchamel scheme of journalistic remuneration rather than the company scale.

10/11/1997
Even without the benefit of your nite I know exactly how you feel right now.
There’s much I want to say to you, and it is hard to decide where to begin. We have gone new the issue many times, the last major one being at Mountview when I tought we came closest to understand each other in all there months of diquiet and distress for both of us.
Believe one when I say this is not any easier for me than it is for you. Last week when you walked into find me smiling on each occasion, you could hardly have known that I had for loves hidden away in a corner of the house on these separate occassions. If you are never been treated like ‘this’, I have never felt so despondent in my whole life, and you well know all I have gone though enough times.
It is infact thanks to all those patches of misfortune that I find myself unable to accept anything that causes me any degree of anguish. Thank about it : wouldn’t sometime, someplaces? How long can a person bear misery before saying enough! I don’t want anymore of this? And you know better then anyone that my main sources of trouble-my mother’s pay chaotic attitude-is very much around me today & promises to be so for many years to come.
But I am straying from the point. Do you have any idea of how I spent my life before meeting you? You might think you do, but the truth is that second hand accounts from me or worse, my mother, couldn’t possibly make you aware of what I really was in the twenty-five years spent before meeting you. They say one begins on a clean slate after wedding, begin a new life and all. But do you really think that’s possible, crazing the fundamental part of one’s being? As it is my life has huge empty stretches thanks to my mother’s chasing my friends away forever; it is all I can do to hang on to my precious memories.
For I am not in how I might appear to you. Definitely not or else you would have been alarmed at the drastic change in my behavioral pattern as my mother is beginning to too late.

26/8/1997

They crush my soul. Trend upon my most scared beliefs. How long will I take it? The mother’s sensitive, sense. But not towards others ; only towards herself. Typical of her self-untend self-pitying existence.
A particularly anguishing moment that, huh. Well now a days they are a dome a dozen. The post-wedding blues refuse to go too. Just realised the kind of limbo. I have been for the last sex months. Things just haven’t been the same since R chitre moned in. My UN belief in myself is itself shattered the moment. She is made me doubt my oneself, if you please, I giver, a fait accomplish simply doesn’t appeal to me.
Come to think of it, this concept of wedlock is completely anti-trite to my whole being. Tie me down with anything and I will forget but everything else and struggle to break free.
No wonder I remain jobless. So many things – loose ends – got left behind or shroud under the concept to be looked for later that not only have I lost cannot of them completely best also not felt like musing on. At the back of the head’s dingy labyrinths, the thoughts remained buried but not lost. And all the while my entire consciousness been trying to come to term with the undesired present.
May be they are right after all about not jumping the queue but install letting everything takes its over natural time course. The mind may not take too kindly to abrupt shelving of projects it was dreaming about till the other day, you know. Anything now, anyday now. I shall be released…… (remember the happy though four months ago when I seemed to think that the whole fucking thing was just a vacation that will and soon and everything will be happy and normal. And she just won’t get it….)
As I said, she just doesn’t get it.

Chandigarh Aug.6, 1997.

It is no good. The place I mean. Man of a marketing setup that is what it is. Bubbly little boys and girls excited like hell about a damn byline. Orodded on by this chap calling himself Pubby and still face the mirror every morning? Fuckin Panju. To hell with his hirdly true and kindly that. A while needs a lesson or propriety of language. To hell with Chandigarh Nounline. Couldnot have been worse. They give me an appropriate assignment or Enpru be damned.

It is all sinking in now. The importance of a loving home I mean. Get everything going for me out there is New Delhi, for roses than many most I should say could even dream of in a lifetime. Top bureaucrat’s son, loving mother, loving wife (girl? Whatever), Tilak Lane, Mobile, Five star living room with all possible gadgets, even-faithful dog. Internet, Time, Rojka Meo, UPSC. Jesus, what am I cribbing about? Some cunts in the past? Can’t imagine a man stupid guy.

Oct., 15/1997
Turned twenty six day before. Turned not to be the worst birthday ever. The despair of the last six months continues, but a strange kind of determination has also set in. Let them delay time as long as they want to, but eventually, I will win. And then I will show everybody what I really am.

25/8/1997
So much for charity. As I always respected, marriage’s a rotton institution. Not for me. So how things changed the moment she knew, he was secure for exile? And I though we did decided that the other person’s right to turn away in the face of the perils of over familiarity. I mean how do you get two people beginning too late each others guts to him amicably under the seems roof? Especially after the one who got under it by sheer chance, personal Chemistry forgot that and convinces herself/himself that right was a bright right.
And this another of mine is forever been to jump on to an opportunity to get hysteric. There is hardly a doubt now that she is what they call a manic depression. I did better get once my paranoia of her kicking the bucket. She is got enough of herself under my skin to last me turn lifetimes after she bids adless to a happier world.
Since when has living apart for a month or two-or even more been declared to be the equivalent of severing a relationship. Hysteria rubbing off. Quite possibly. Close contact with a person you begin to idouse could definitely turn your weaker personality to new towards the other person’s.
The one single most blunderms action of mine counting R Chitra in that catastrophic months of ’96 was this mistaken belief that she’s got sting inwards, a fact she often self-attested to. And I got entangled in that make-believe little game by.
They mother’s a classic case of what a lifetime of hysteria gone bad under the influence of self-prescribed drugs can do person. Light at her: ready to quiet their world at 50. Puffed up eyes, wrinkling skin, fucked mind. And every now and then she gets herself into some fit or the other, the perfect tool for getting loads of attention when infact she deserves to be dumped in a cellon and locked up for ever after failure to pay the requisite amounts of sympathetic chicks get you a severe dose of bollywood in monologues.

21/07/1997

Crazy situation by all accounts. They made a mistake : they have challenged me. And Girl never looks back when it comes to things in that particular category. Call it and suicidal streak. Its inherited. Mother’s side O’ course.
Spent the most awful day in a long time. Cried my least out. The bitch is breathing down my neck as if there is no tomorrow. Well, actually she doesn’t think there will be a tomorrow at all for her. Threatens to hit the bucket real hand at the drop of a cigarette. She will go straight to hell if she succeeds in choking her poor lungs to bits too. It’s not fair to threaten her own children in so foreboding a manner.
And this bitch. This bitch is dead meat. She will regret the day her aunt overflowed on seeing me. Doesn’t remember where she comes from. Fucking brick of shit. No wonder her fucking migger bro got sued for a similar shit. They are full of fucking shit, this fucking matter khandan never, ever again will I commit an ever of this magnitude again women? Fuck them and kick them. That’s it.

Okay, let’s on what’s going wrong between the two of us. But let me warn you. It is not easy to confess one’s failings to oneself : and secondly, you will have to try real hard to see things from my perspective Coz that’s where trouble arises. I am an extremely tough guy to get along with (unlike you, as you say) and past of that problem in my insistence on not accepting anything I don’t again with a find unjustified.
By the way, I might add her, my appearance in usually descriptive when it comes to emotion concerning sadness and anguish. Did you know I have been trying my best not lately? You must twist of me as a stone-hearted bastard. That’s why I keep saying you don’t really know me.
And that’s tragic for me. What else is there to a relationship but undertaking at empathy ?
But let me dig us a bit and tell you what sudden me the most about you and me. Remember how touchy I met to be about my paints? I thought everything’s between you and me while the ust is incident’s isn’t it? And what do I find now? I see that my paints pan was you over so neatly that my saying leave me alone for a while is retold by my parents, who are never understood me one bit.
Now, I understand your position perfectly. You don’t want to be made to anybody. But don’t you think rudeness is the thing and talking to them about me instead of ME who known may of best is another. So that what is happened how is that you have taken upon their perspective of what I am, which is inevitable. That’s very, very unfortunate and I am afraid, rather unforgivable. That’s one mistake twice over : not knowing me fully and knowing me though my parents’ eyes. This is despite me telling you how foolishly they both behaved when it come to things like Nayan Tara and other friends of mine. I did never forgive them for that. You have forgotten how I tried you they responded to her visiting me. Or when my mother called up, actually called u/s, Nayan’s man to tell her, her daughter’s sleeping with me’. (She told my mother to lay off).
I am not made for marriage in the first place. I find the idea revolting. How could they withdraw true individuals right to company after some stupid hoo-laa around a damn fire. You remember when we debated on Bs roof about how to excuse each other’s respect for the other despite getting extra-family (Like with parents)? We both agenda that the only way is to reserve the individual right to walk off. And now that’s the very thing that offends you the most. To the point of shedding team if I indicate desire to be left alone for a while.
I, as my part, have shed enough team for enough things, including this one. Now just don’t have the capacity to do it or let someone do it to me. Your tendency to do it is one sign that you need to grow u/s a lot. Do yourself a favour and don’t let ANYBODY lose respect for you. Crying never got anybody anywhere. Reality is reality; can’t change that.
Okay, the solution to the mean. The first thing you need to do is reclaim your self-respect which has taken a beating lately. Not only for yourself but for me to respect you anymore. That is possible only if you think objection and with an reflect of fine, but that’s it. Make me respect you.
Took a break and want to look for a Fanta. Jesus, India Gate! The worst/am I am seen in term of me of can and the once involved. Talk me 1½ has to go toll 11C & come back ! Indian are such ostentatious people it’s a shame phony. Completely phony.
Fear : Don’t you think this fear of yours with regard to me is completely irrational? May be it’s a reflection of your son conscious, can suffer as I know, there is nothing nobody has got to fear if the moral right in theirs.
(To continue some other time)

24.8.97

19/7/97
Dawn

Write a book? I am myself a book, book marked at so many pages I don’t even remember anymore. Should have closed as many chapters that therefore continue on, unfinished. Didn’t have a choice at most ; the credit for which must go to my first woman-my mother. But let’s not talk of her for God’s sake. Enough last night to last a week. She and I, we both just lane in elo-dram. She, originally. I just picked up the traits. Didn’t have a choice you know. Not until much later; perhaps after I went to College.
But my mind’s drifting again. It is the Citra syndrome clomoming for my attention lately. Came up my freedom to her you know. In exchange for bitterness.
Yeah, I am thing bitter by the hour now a days. So bloody mad at everybody; they are got me by the balls this time. And they are not gonna let go in a jiffy. That much is for sure. The conflict goes back ages of course. But that will get me back to my……forget it. Some other time.
But this citre thing, I got it all wrong from day one. And she is had ME wrong since the beginning. Was she pretending. Was I pretending? Yes and No. Most human don’t ever get to know their owns elf till their drying day, you asking if me did.

27-10-1997

Well, that is that are not it? No fuckin’ job even in a juvenile point like Express features. Guy’s just as “you-know” are hole presiding over a branch of retarded kids who must consider themselves ‘journalists’ if even there were some.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me, notwithstanding my damned parents’ views that I should feel guilty about something. I have a perfectly normal intellect, if not brilliant. Most of those ushlon art there don’t have the faintest idea about themselves or their lives. They are just slaves to the grind following conventions laid down by their equally foolish predecessors. Sure, they can’t help vaguely observing what goes on around them, but are unable to group there true significance and underlying form.

Wednesday Aug., 13, 1997

What’s gone wrong?
Everything.
What can retrieve the situation :
# Physical shape up now woman: no marriage.
Problem with this marriage :
Wife more of appendage. Won’t get kicked out coz’ no where to go factor. Mummy emotionally dependent on wife. Husband wants no wife.
Son no forgive mummy. Mummy blackmail suicide. Father important-no good- henpecked.
Mummy want kid to re-fuck. Son wants no grow. Son no say in matter. Mummy hold key in both hand. Son never give up. Will make wait come true. Kick hille kid on street one day.

11/02/1997

They have done it, can’t stand the put on act. Can shell me miles away. How many times to I point it out? You can’t, just can’t change my mind from nothing to nothing. Never even. The hander they, the mouse obstinate I be. I have got and have the last word; got to win. Just got to win.

06/02/1997

Wake up in high spirits. Called up pratik (not there) and clarified matters with Nilanyana. Wore up boat stuff, dusted a part range and took off to office to submit leave app. To konica. Parking behind but that didn’t make any difference to spirits.
Bumped head or does on III Floor, the only unexpected facts. Moral of story, no matter how immediately proposed one is, there are always factors you can never take into account. Keep that in mind and leave contingency for that.

It is not gonna work out. Want it is writing? How goes, ‘it is no gonna working. Know why?
Her thought process is evidently, as I relieved with a shock today, ain’t straight enough, for one. It is then there is a language problem. Which in series enough for her to actually contradict herself in the came breath.
Then there’s the aggression. She seems to have a persecution complex, springing to attack whatever she percieves, wrongly, to be a conscious attempt to put her down. That would have still been seay if she didn’t follow that with a self-confessed obstinacy to stick to her line of argument irrespective of who is right and who is wrong.
May be partly to afford all this is her incredibly wishful thinking on the line of trust me everything is gonna be just fine chers you for a moment but disastrous in the long run. Very dangerous indeed, that, for it is a question of believing that what she say with such a strong conviction at face value.
I am not likely to appreciate the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a wilful, definitive personality of her own. Sooner than later, I get initiated by finger holding people.
There is also this dark side or whatever to her that she is really torn inside whatever to follow me or my parents. At some subconscious level of her, she wants all the perks going with my parents that will not be them when I am a my own. And the want thing is she will die rather the facing up to it.
It is really that which tip the scales in my favour if there is a choice between me and say, sutnu. I wonder him all this world have evolved if I hadn’t had all that I do the truck, Tilak done, and all took gues with it.
She also inadvertently let out how superficially she sees what is one of the gravest aspects of my life She actually used my “insecurity without mummy bit to sarcastically attack me with it when she sensed a provocation. She followed that comprise of.
Right now, health in of prime importance. I have got to get fitta-that is sure of making me feel better, for it will enhance my self esteem as well as take care of the aging depression.
That is all the mere important coz I will be doing this for myself, not citra or anybody else. And that is important for my standing with her item.

It is this constant reminder of wedding day truama that is affecting my moods. Plus the fact that post-wedding life will be different than this life at TL.
It is the thought of relative hardship and humility in the cards. But I must not forget that it will be a price paid for something very valuable – habit of self reliance instead of an parents plus freedom from the family’s approvals/ disapprovals.
The latter is surely a major factor of my behaviour in life.
It is self dependent to consider possibilities like my bro capturing all the good things once I leave. That’s fine haven’t I had more than enough, sometimes at his cost. Obviously his bitter. He deserves a better deal.
As for aging parents, I have got to understand that my life is nor tied to there, and neither am I indispensable for their welfare. They are capable of taking come of themselves. And I will be in touch, of course.
The last thing – Tilak Lane for catra’s to enjoy anytime. We could always came over and stay here. We both would be happier staying away from Tilak Lane rather then at it, though it has its advantages. It is materialism versus rationality really.
And rationality got to triumph its I have any hope of reconstructing my life sons dope to lead a quality life.
And how long am I gonna live here among people who cannot accept my transition as well as my point of view.

01/06/1997

Why is the mind stuck on that circular mat on the bed side, table? Peeling away at what was it that occurred to the mind but the disappeared. If it was anything. It wasn’t a normal day in the general some of the word, of course. First the robbing act by man. When I woke up at 11:00. Followed nor after by her calling Vinay to shut everything door at the plant.
In the afternoon, she came over when I was diving the costing thing and the conclusion we putty bleak as 30 margin to break over.
Then Vinay turned up and I just didn’t fit like meeting him. His daughter sent a could and he left those plan paper, degree etc.

Talkotra faun par
Kabab (mis dinner)
Water flask
Five Star
Milds carton
Chutni
Khan shopping (incl. Hasna)

X-Mas ’98

I write this only too aware of similar futurities in the past. You are blessed with a denial mechanism that shuts off your mind at the point things get too unnerving for you. Besides, it is quite obvious by now that there is a perception gap between you and me that makes any given words on this page mean something to you that is not quite as I intended it to. I know now it is true for everybody, but when it first sunk into my comprehension after countless conversation – verbal and written with you, it left me disillusioned enough to not attempt another for numerous months, till today I felt like doing it one last time (I long ago decided against verbal attempts, that resulted every single there in your bursting into team signalling the end of the matter)
Now, as things stand, there cars only be true ways for this impulsive union around a fire at Hovel Samrat could end: either you walk out of your own free will review the last true years cooling or you review that last two years coolly and walk out of here.
There is an alternative of course. We carry on being like for the last two years and like millions of ‘happily’ married couples all over the world. After this house is vacated, we mine to a pigeonhole on the tenth floor somewhere in the dozens of faceless, nameless concrete buildings. And start with the daily grind needed to surviving there without, of course, any of the amenities taken for granted on Tilak Lane. No water, no power, no real aim to breathe. And spend two hours everyday jailing on the road to office.

Nothing very remarkable for most people who face all this everyday. You should know. You have seen it all for nearly 205 years, which is perhaps why you are so loathe to leave the lane behind. But what about me? Try see it from my view point, difficult as it is considering the sort of contrasting upbringings we have had. You have seen me here 2 years with all the nice things around. How do you think I did be in a setting I just described? Or are you thinking that I did be forced to adopt? Of so, you better think again. Maybe I should try explaining how I view life in general. It is not a pleasant reality to face but that is how it is : I hire life on my terms or I don’t. I suppose the self-preservation instinct inherent in all being got left behind somewhere. Maybe this is what trend would call suicidal tendencies whatever. The fact remains that I don’t much care for my own life, and I always consider the possibility that it might end tomorrow. Anything can happen anytime anywhere is what I have come to believe. And anyway once it ends, how does it make a difference to oneself?
That attitude should explain why I seem to be always in a hurry about certain things dear to me. Like writing. That is why you complained I keep sitting in that chair long after often are in bed. That is all that mothers to me you see. Of course, it is abnormal to prefer jobbing at a keyboard over sex. I have never pretended to be ‘normal’. I don’t want to be. Normally depresses me like nothing can. I have just got to be different from others, which in what gets me into trouble at the work place. Everybody goes about in life convinced that certain aspects of during are common to all. You eat, you shit, you sleep, you fast, you enjoy the things meant to be enjoyed and you hurt at the things that are supposed to hurt. This goes for Clinton, for Saddam for Shekhar Gupta, for that beggar or the sheet, they think. And they think that anything ‘abnormal’-extraordinary is a better wind – can be done only over and above the normal ones.
The trouble with me is I want to be different down to the basics.

7/02/1998

It’s an open and skirt can of possessiveness. Why else would she hold one animosity toward any earlier relationship whose very mention consistently pooh-poohs. Name and gullible I may have proven myself to be then, but it is lordly comforting to have a current mate dismiss them but of existence a summarily. Isn’t she herself acting naive right now by holding manage all sacred despite the Compton number of brake ups and unions all around in this ultimately hypocritical society me live in ?
And what about this ranting that me are not even friends anymore? Is she herself being a rue friend in helping me cope with this ugly situation? On the contrary she is trying her best to make me feel wore. It’s true that human self-preservation instinct is strong, really strong in most people who are not or the other end of the spectrum-self destruction but worlds a genuine found respond that if faced with a friend’s evident desperate circumstances?
She is always drawn parallel between mine and her behaviour, but if I were in her place, I would take the suffering upon myself if it imparts ever momentary respite and joy to a loved pal.
But the most unnerving development is this doomsday perception on her past. If she goes, she says, she goes forever. That is obviously emotional black mail that is worked in the past on my not calling her bluff. I am convinced a break from each other that could ease up the strained relationship is any date preferable to a permanent break-up due to uglier and uglier scenes
After all, at no point have I demanded a permanent break up in my relationship even if it seemed a wise move on a few occassions. A temporary break, with no guarantee, world certainly go a long way in making us appreciate each other’s new-points. But not after a point of no return that she is determined to reach right now. Time is the ultimate healer, and there is no saying how we feel for each other after a prolonged separation. But whatever it is, it has to be peed and accepted. Looks like she is charging on for dean life coz she is not trusting what I did feel after some time away from her. When I Sean this-I have always despised dingus (ask chinter !) - she says I am ignoring her to make her feel bad. Obviously! But does it get the message away? No Sir, Some people just don’t get it I guess, till a drastic development forces the realisation.
Now she is blaming name is senti-talk as the reason for staying on despite what she and I feel. As if she goes by whatever mama says or wants. Her affection for her is obviously selfish.
She says, I declared her. What about she herself? Did she not claim to be devoted to her art & painting when she is simply not interested in anything of the kind.
I had made my life style and recreational drugs clear before marriage. If she was too thrilled at “catching me to pay it any attention, what is my fault? Now that is her central attack! Couldn’t be more convenient.
I have two clear choices now! Arrest my right to live the way. I think pit-painstakingly developed over 25 years and make a meaningful career, or accept an illogical situation and continue my self-destruction of mind, body and soul.
The time’s not running out ! it is already run out.

October 12, 1998

Here it comes. The 27th milestone. The time when Monisa and Hendron decided it was time to wait out. Can’t do that yet, though that was the plan earlier in the hey days. Must see my folks through before that lummy.
The citre experiment has been a resounding failure as I though it might be. That is why I was telling has to take leave them. Now, with each passing day, the cancer grows a little ways. Hardly love her as a mate. It is just practicalities. She can see that too, but won’t admit it dead or alive.
Our outlook’s completely at variances. She is nearly everything I didn’t need : this fad for dolling up, the childist jumpiness, the fucking I want-a-baby shit. A baby indeed. What does she think she herself is? And he fucking family. I can’t stand there Bastard. Bitch. I am of course completely carried. They have this p thing conveniently marked against me. The moment I show signs of breaking for and being myself. All they have to do is bring up the P topic. Even the mother fucking does that Bastard.
Well, what man can I say. My fate is nearly sealed. The die has been cast. It is all down the hill from now on. Get old. Getting increasingly frustrated. Watch dad retire. Lose the ‘royal’ life that is almost my only identity. And wait for the end.
I would of course be patenting all the while this is not so, because man needs to do that to be wanting to live on in this watched world. But that is how it is gonna be.
My only chance at clutching on to a semblance of glory could be a book now. Write me before you lose the rest of your mind you fat armhole. I hate you. Really hate you. Bastard.

The Citra chapter
Here I go again, this attempt to communicate with you more deeply than has been possible in last few months, much to my chagrin and dismay because what is a human relationship if not successful communication. (Hence the word communion, I guess).
What has happened between the two of us is a breakdown of the basic premise of over coming together; the ‘we’re on the same side’ thing. Remember how often I quoted that? Now due to reasons analyzed elsewhere, we find each other on opposite sides, and that’s something neither you nor I ever reckoned on.
(Pause)
As is evident, I’m gonna in down for you all that comes to mind at a given moment, with the inevitable pauses thrown in informally. Now, as I said earlier, the reason I may be reaction so strongly nowadays is that I just couldn’t be taking anything that gets me frowning. Usually everyone can take a whole lot of frowning before being moved to action, but the circumstances have been particularly grim for me lately, as you well know. Perhaps they are past and present of ordinary life for everybody, but then don’t forget that I’m less than prepared to accept myself as ordinary.
Life, in fact, has always been fairly good for me. I’ve seen things and experienced perks that most people don’t dream of in an entire lifetime. It’s not my fault if I was born to good fortune, is it? And anyway. I think I more or less ensured I was seen as deserving it too. Yes, my parents are fond of their first born, but more so because I made them so by actions and thoughts.
Point is, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t settle for anything less than perfection, whether it’s people, events, circumstances… So when I feel things aren’t going the way I expected and hoped, I feel impelled to do something about them; which is not how most people operate. Usually things are attributed to fate, destiny etc., and left alone to correct themselves. Not me.
(Pause)
Okay, time to talk about the real thing: the clash of perspective, so to say. I do hope for you are able to grasp the significance of ‘perspective’. It’s not a word really, with any precise definition. It stands for something far more subtle than to be defined with a collection of more words. It’s like one’s entire circumstances; it’s the sum total, the end result, of all and every single moment of one’s existence.
My perspective, as you might be beginning to comprehend, is quite unusual, I think. I say I think because obviously I have no idea of the next person’s mind; unless there’s a way to get into somebody’s head and ‘think’ that person’s thoughts. In other words, one can only think one’s own ‘thinking’ and guess the other guy’s to whichever extent one is ‘allowed’ to as well as interested in.
Evidently, one is what one’s perspective is, right? Others see you as flesh and bone but one doesn’t see oneself as that, does one? Yes, one is aware of one’s flesh and bones, but that doesn’t constitute ‘all’ of you. That’s why I say that one is what one’s mind is. To lose that is to cease being the person one really is. Perhaps that’s what is madness-when you lose al the data stored in your brain from your previous years so that you have no idea of what you are. Obviously that’ll be insanity.
What the whole point of this is that since perspective is the all-important thing in life, a clash or incompatibility of perspective constitutes a serious problem indeed. But the good news is that since perspective as a quantity obviously changes second by second, there’s no absolutes in a perspective clash. Sometime or the other, there’s always the possibility of two disagreeing perspectives to be better behaved towards each other.
And that’s why I don’t want you to say things like ‘forever’ (not coming back etc.). We both know our souls ‘like’ each other to a large extent or we wouldn’t have come so far. Let’s just give it time. It’s never the end of anything till one consciously puts an end to it.
(Pause)(Map time)
(Change of mind: same night)
Don’t think this hurts me any less than it does you. You have been a wonderful friend to me and always will be. I don’t think anybody ever held so much importance to me as you do. Our trips to Corbett, Neemrana and Rishikesh will always being a smile to me in my bleakest moments. I’m really very fond of you, though it may not show often. In a way, if I make a good career in writing, a large credit would go to you for standing by me in BS at a time when conditions were very hostile. And your motivation alone could have got me to pose for the camera, making me admit to myself for the first time that my appearance wasn’t all that awkward afterall.
In fact I was thinking may be we should work together again. That’s where we really got on. A husband’s role doesn’t appeal as much. However, I will not accept divorce, for the simple reason that I will not re-marry. No chance. This marriage was for life and that’s how it’ll remain, atleast from my side. I’m really sorry that I haven’t been able to accept your presence here, but I consider your learning only a temporary engagement till such time that I’m sure I’ll not hurt you ever again in this fashion. I know life is tougher at Vaishali than it’s here, and I promise to make up for it a thousand times over. There are afterall years and years to come. It’s just that at this point of time, I have to come to terms with a lot of things in my past and present, and I need to do it by myself, not paring on the anger and grief in the process to you, as I’ve probably been doing.
I really do hope you don’t take this very badly. It’ll pass as everything must, and there’d be lots and lots of happiness later. Happiness that’ll be complete only when Citra is around, in her pink night-suit! My little Cherkoo
Love you with all my heart. Love you, love you, love you, Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you…

28 Dec 98’
It’s difficult to continue like this. It took me two years to understand this but now I know I do not want this kind of life. I do not want to blame you for everything. It’s very comfortable for you since everything treads according to you will. In words I had said that it’s choking for me.
Your claim of giving me a good life was the reason you married me, if comforts is all that I needed (your parents) I would marry a millionaire. All that I got was mental agony, scorns, neglect, rejection from you. How can materials compensate for love, sharing, caring? I am through with this one-sided dedication. It shouldn’t make much difference to you anyways since you don’t wed any women besides you (since you want to be different) I have no reason to suffer and spend my life in and with your eccentricities and your unending quest to be different in all that you do.

3rd Jan ‘99
I’m tired of suppressing and burying my desires and this is what it comes to if one does it (my present behavior) I don’t want matters to worsen further. I don’t see both of us changing for each other for any good. All of you want to see me as a care-taker of this family regardless of my individuality, my job, my career, my future prospects (in all its my life) nobody ever bothered about. Either I quit all this and behave as any of our women ancestors. But sorry neither am I from that generation nor am I willing to sacrifice my career for anything (to be precise-be treated as an untouchable ayah, that’s how you make one feel).
There are many things happening in my head, above all that, the main is, I don’t see any reason I should be living with you in this manner.
This time its difficult to brainwash one. Your mother has tried enough by pointing the worst ever qualities in men as yardstick to compare with your behavior. But she doesn’t know those people are not men are not human beings. I am not born to be treated like this. You have right to and are living the way you want. I also shall do it my own way.

11th Feb ’99
Dear Rahul,
This is to formally announce that I am breaking this relationship forever. So there is no question of any mute-period or coming-backs. I have whole-heartedly taken this decision, thereby granting your wish of me taking the first step.
You are right by saying man-woman relationship is based on love, not hatred (nor pity). Can’t live on being pitied by you any further. Sorry, I can’t offer you any kind of professional aid or normal friendship which certainly would require visits to your place and meeting your family, following recurrence of memories, discussions, patch-up efforts. And all of this is going to be a great hindrance in my recovery and reconciliation with the bitter facts about our lives.
Amongst numerous favours one last one. Don’t contact me ever please and ask your mother in particular to forget me and not summon me because she’ll definitely be hurt if I don’t turn up.
I am taking only my stuff, which I had got along. Bank account (Canara) and the locker is purely yours from now on. I have withdrawn money from there, which was entirely exhibition money of the group. I’ve taken my jewellery from there also. Rest all the gifted jewellery and clothes and… are well secured in the almirah and the locker.

Bets wishes for your future.
Good Bye!
Chitra

25/11/99
Better put down this strand of thought before it disappear in the merits of neuronic activity gone rogue. Was just analyzing my current anguish in life, a favorite past time, when it occurred to me that I used to be so anti-people, shy and apprehensive of them that it’s not funny. And the wedding day probably changed that forever. That naked parading or stage… Flash bulbs going plop plop… Everybody staring their guts out… 7 ones sin of Mary!

April 10,2000
It had to happen of course. The need was there and smb. simply put his money where the mouth is.
It boils down to money of course. Money gets you the people to work at the ideas, of which there’s no death. I’ve no money, but my parents could surely help me out, If they wanted to. And they don’t.
On the surface they do pretend. Talk of ‘ if this thing will work, take a couple of lakh’. It’s only a share, a way to try win my attention and sympathy. Why, they don’t ever want to pay the phone bill, the only expense in the thing. Wanted me to pay from the lousy. 45 grand they got have some lala. After such a big fun.
And they keep talking to each other about how hard off they are with money. All the time, everytime.
They_she_just want to keep me in control. Knows I’ll never forget and forgive what she’s done to me, if I set financially independent, she has nothing to use as bait.
I’d have still worse if the crybaby had not shammed her way through the whole thing. To begin with, she had no business assuming it had anything to with her. It was my brain waver and my execution. From day one she’s hardly lifted a finger except to point it at me for not doing things her way. What’s she done so far? Let’s see:
a) Make the gallery logo: After much debate and it’s still reserved up. Refuse to find it.
b) Make such a live and cry over the God damned index page.
c) Speak to a few artists.
d) That 20-day work, which she did to get compatible with me, Ha. Me compatible with smb. fit only to be a nurse! The laziest and most excuse-making one, at that.

It’s of paramount importance to define grand rules of a man-woman relationship right at the outset. As important, if not more, is to seize the initiative: by now it’s clear that women, nine times out often, expect the man to take change.
Most important is sex. I could do with an overdose of that. That my junkiness is mostly a manifestation of suppression of the libido is beyond doubt, as I now know. So what’s keeping me from doing it? Surely I don’t expect a pussy to fall in my lap. That’s not the way it works: Nayantara’s been an exception.
I should be getting my act right, considering the new identity and the fresh, well almost beginning to a stale life. After all who is to know what I’ve been like, the way I am. Top on the list of remedial measures must be willingness to risk rejection. Shouldn’t, wouldn’t give a fuck whether it’s a ‘no’ or a ‘yes’. Has to be taken equally well/bad.
What is there to lose anyway? Start with the time-tested rounds of Priya, the Cellar, Machan. And undue liberties mustn’t be ruled out in the near future. All goes.

Jan 1, 1999
Will men never learn? Never learn that the fuckin’ libido is what gets them fucked, so to say, more than anything else. That woman use that to make them kneel all their fuckin’ life. That they laugh at them for falling for such a pitiful little orifice that gives rise to ‘pcnis envy’ and the sub-conscious desire to come closest to possessing one by snaring a pheromone-crazy male.
How can they tie on eternal knot with a member of the species that’s biologically preprogrammed to procreate as often as possible to keep the human race going? For just that 1/10th of a second an orgasm racks his brain, he risks his life and career- career signifies not a job but the greater purpose for which each man is expected to strive for. Why, even the lowest form of animals instinctly follow nature’s law of seeking a female to get rid of that heat bubbling over before getting back to life as usual.
It’s of course the pace at which the world works that makes it desirable to have a woman-or man-around to share the sheer effort with. But he/she still retain the pre-historic right to choose whichever individual he wants to spend any given moment.

25/1/99
IMP: Not meant for strangers to read please none of my scribblings ever is. Please go fack off.
What a sad, terribly hypocritic society this is. Salivate at the thought of fornication but would rather die than admit it in ‘public’.
They think it’s the ‘dungs’ that I feel down and out. Will human never keep their conveniences aside and face up to the truth? Considering the agony of living out the last 2 years against the very grain of my being, it’s a miracle I keep going, if only just about. But then things have never looked worse, and I’ve had more than my fair show of it. A my-baby clinging on for dear life, a psychotic mother who thrives or morbidity, a sibling whose dick does the all the thinking and a father with such a humble beginning that his station in life today in contentment enough to not bother about petty things like emotion.
I’m no better of course. Can’t even understand every human being is a self-contained entity that must look out for itself and whose self-interest cannot be trusted to anybody outside of the flesh. Not even to a mother, as this one is so eager to advocate.
Why I can’t I get it that man inherently strives to achieve a mental state of what’s referred to as joy and happiness, if necessary by pushing aside troublesome thoughts. As such, an action towards one’s peace of mind at the cost of others’ unhappiness need not be left unexecuted since that grief is transitory, short-lived and then irrelevant in decision-making. A week’s grief is worth a lifetime’s peace.
This is the key to sort out this men. Since the mother-hen is obviously the main partly concerned-despite her protests and self-conviction to the contrary. She’s simply incapable of thinking straight without violent emotions racking her brain. Nothing else explains her hysterical laughter alternating with irritation. It’s amazing-and tragic-how she’s won’t of ignoring reality and take off laughing like a maniac. Her judgment really is suspect.
Besides rationality has got to govern emotions. That’s the law, one can not be disregarded just like the law of gravity cannot be. That, in fact, is the reason I find myself on the verge of a total breakdown.

Jan 28,’99 01:15

Nothing is more painful than have people around you pooh-pooh your most intense convictions born out of indisputable fruit-hand observation independent of perception. More so if these people constitute those responsible for your existence on this wretched planet and the observations cast expression on your entire decision-making machinery.

Mar 23’99 00:00
This is an amazing community we live in. A community that credits somebody with any virtue whatsoever with only after he/she is no longer around to accept or deny it. The deed don’t care you see.
But even more amazing is this desire to splurge in the maximum possible wealth. Mercedes, Ford, Ltra… What’s the point, as the pandit observed, when everybody’s eventually gone travel their last trip on the same wooden-bamboo contraption? Huh? What’s the fucking point man.

6/4/99 CII/29
The present is by the din’ of the implication of its very definition, made up of the past and the future. The past guides it, and it shapes the future. That’s why each thought and action must take into account that thought or action with a future perspective.
An incredibly large number of people don’t seem to be able to grasp this simple fact of life. They react impulsively, instinctively, with a second’s thought of whether they might regret it the next day.
Such shortsightedness, like that displayed by my mother, can destroy the present. And the future.

My mother’s prime emotion is hysteria. She can’t help it I guess. It’s the chemicals that make up a brain right? But I hate it, and will never forgive her for what she’s done to me. Even if I don’t dare say it out.

12/4/99

Listen Citra, I just want to clarify a few things irrespective of whether we come back together or not. First of all, my family is not bothered what we two do, or actually, what I do now. I intend to begin my living on my own by the end of this month, what I should have done long ago.
This, I’m convinced, would go a long way in curing in some of my chronic problems: rising late, generally lazy life and self-destructive mindset. I’m telling you this as a friend, something we weren’t to each other since shortly after the mistake of marrying and living with my family. You do want to know what’s happening in a friend’s life don’t you, even a terribly tall me?
My ‘drug’ intake is reduced sharply in the meanwhile. I tell you this only because you had got so observed with a minor irritant like sipping a cough syrup, thanks to my mother’s magnified view of it. But as Dr. Malika would tell us anyday we pay him a call, it’s not a cause of my strange behaviour sometimes but the symptom. That strangeness cannot be wished away because of some traumatic past events I’m trying so hard to forget. I can only keep tiring day after day like everyone else and work for things that give me satisfaction, of which creation writing tops the list.
Anyway, there’s one thing I want you to promise me, if you think you can. Being lovers and mates for two years, you can do this for me, can’t you? Let me know the day if and when you decide to take on a different soul mate. Sen and flirtative is fine with me as you know, but sometimes is different. I on my past promise you the same. You agree?
It’s just that something sudden could seriously jeopardize my life force. I’ve had a very nasty experience of the same and doubt I can live through another. Do want me alive even if not with you don’t you. Can you stay single till we walk things over. It’s not the end, surely? Tell me, is it the end of you and me? Is it? Just tell me so this very minute and I won’t bother you again.

Hi Citra. There’s something I need to tell you whether we come back together or not. There’s no way I can get along with my mother. I’m going to therefore follow Chintu’s footsteps and begin living by myself very soon. That will not only take care of my self-destructive habits but also the other reason we were forced apart: my indiscipline in life.
I’ve decided to rent a cottage in Kullu valley where we’ll be on neutral territory and thus able to talk things out in earnest. There’s got to be something to our relationship or one wouldn’t have been so attracted to each other in the first place.
We can leave as soon as you can take leave. Citra please don’t let me down one last time. If you still feel we should stay apart after a week together, I’ll be not bothering you again.
But we owe this much to our 2yr. old marriage. Remember in the last few days we spent together, we had agreed to sit down somewhere no one can disturb us and talk. But somehow it was not to be. Surely we owe each other this much. And can’t you are I love you or I wouldn’t be getting back to you after all the bitterness between us.
And what do you stand to lose if you agree? But we could gain so much. We can atleast restore our friendship we lost somewhere along the way. Please don’t break my heart by refusing. I just can’t take another heartbreak Citra; you know that. Nobody else in this world knows me better than you do.
Waiting to here from you,
Love.

April 14 Friday ’2000

Its becoming difficult by the minute for me to live like this. Since I can’t feign towards anyone as may be you can and you are, with me and living so called forcefully with me, I do not want to be the reason for it anymore. This has happened between us so many times that to repeat and review the shortcomings in our relationships will not be worthwhile. I shall not waste any more of your “precious years”, nor mine. I knew last year itself that I can’t live with you, but you insisted on my coming back in your life. Both of us should value our lives and can’t let the society or parents (particularly yours) damage our being. It’s not that we haven’t tried enough.
There is so much to say but no one to understand most importantly you. I really can’t keep up with your expectations. May be if I were just your employee, I might have tried but to be working for a husband who attributes all his failures either to his mother or his wife and has nothing to deliver but scorns, becomes hugely difficult.
So I am going, shall take rest of my stuff later.
Bye.

Mussoorie
May 9,2000
The nymph herself-Lolita in flesh and blood. Revive painful memories embedded in the psyche, love forgotten and done away with. Memory lost? The reflonogist had enquired, taking me aback. What was I to say, yes and no? Don’t know?
Anyway. The nymph. Made me think of the time the strong desire the unexpected sighting-so new, yet so far- of one used to trigger. Not so long ago apparently, but appearing to be centuries ago.

Dad at the pinnacle of his career. Fated like a king everywhere God?
Surely it gets no better than this. Gummen? Nooooo…. A pain for everyone.
The next thing you know, they are cut up cc Kanpur into cc. Uttaranchal (HQ Dehradoon.) Agra and Kanpur

21st May 2000
Dear Jugnu,
This ‘camp’ home of ours looks like a bit normal after two months repairs and of course uncertainty whether it shall be one of the ghost haunted bungalows of this dying town’s numerous abandoned and roofless ‘gora sahib’s’ residences or shall be a home to IT department’s proud chief commissioner for another hundred years, the lush lawns being the venue for moonlit night dinners and playground for django’s dynasty. It seems the rare old plants and trees have the blessing of heavens for many more decades to follow, and shall get the care of malis around.
It is quite a satisfaction for me, personally, for I do wish to pack up from here only.
In the course of search for another house here we came across so many similar bungalows in a pathetic state. Like the ones you see in horror movies! This only cemented my determination to save Mayfield. It is almost brand new now, like a human being saved from the monster of death.
People here seemed sure that we are ‘staying’ with the FM, convincing him of our claim to Delhi posting. It, perhaps, shall take time for them to get used to us again. But with a squad of 12 daily wagers dusting the house at 7 am today the message should get across.
You certainly forgot to give me letters for offices, hospitals, institutions etc., for those prints. I want Art India to work and not just be a memory. I also do not want you to rate yourself as a failure. You have a lifetime ahead. A person with such a large self-respect cannot think of standing in the que with Rajiv and Ashok as leaders. It is not a very heartening thought that you are inching to-wards that, just letting your will power walk away. All you need is to make up your mind and it will start happening. The word miracles originated form will power and hard work. Your father worries a lot about you. You love him then why let him worry. I understand what it is to go through what you have. We all have. But we don’t cling to failures. We bank upon hope. For us survival is not the word, success is. That is how it works. We don’t let the world beat us down, instead a we push it back. Failure if turned to challenges becomes very interesting. Never give in really works if you make it your motto. Stop blaming others for what has happened. That is meanest weakness in humans. It is very difficult to blame ones own self for the bad phase. But if one does sit and analyze what went wrong, and makes a point to rectify it only then it works.
As far your chemicals are concerned you can do as you like, but I am sure you know how they are creating havoc on your mind and body. I know you are aware of the fact that 30 days or a little more time in treatment is not as much as ten odd years of time locked up in a hospital waiting for no one but death. It can be quite painful not to have any known soul around except a few hostile ward boys poking syringes in one’s body; bed surrounded by more insane people shouting in agony all twenty four hours. It is not so enjoyable to be at the mercy of doctors who all the time curse you for your condition. A person with an ego like yours will not be able to stand sneers all the time. Think of it. If time goes back ten odd years how much you will like to change. After ten odd years you might wish for having done certain corrections now.
Besides this is the only cause that blocks your success and spells doom for you. To think of it how much respect will you have for another drug addict?
We shall not live forever to help you with this.
Hope you will not be annoyed at my utterance of truth, and take it in a positive way.
With love to you and Chitra,
Yours affectionately
Mama.

P.S. you must know the accounts
Rs. 32000 your phone bills (15000+17000)
Rs. 2200 to Anandlok society
Rs. 8000 Repair and whitewash
Rs. 24000 fridge
Car, AC is a present. In fact it should have been installed two years back. Please keep your phone bills as low as possible and do try to fix the elec. guy till I win a crore in lottery.

Aug 14, 2000 Tell it. Period
Mayfield House
Two to twenty three hundred hours
Feels more like it this way. An amazing physiochemical reaction up here, this unamnestary enstrangement from them (notice how enstrangement is for couples!). some of it must be to do with being relieved of the lord the next few years must bring, however illusing may the feeling be (it’s all illusions, ain’t it).

Yes. I confess. The soil you’re standing on ain’t nothing to do with a certain man media outfit that it’d have you believe, tells it like it is. If only it did. At any rate, I will like I am. Right now. Right here.
That’s not to say whoever put those words together meant to mislead the masses. No that seems unlikely. The phrase has a ring to it that be speak of good intention the road to hell. It’s just you good, old fashioned nair etc.
I’m not sure who coined it. Chances are, it’ll never be known-but whoever did sure knew but little of the human heart. Thing is, a HomoSapien are simply not programmed to do justice to it.
Fact is, the Indian media-if there is indeed an entity with that, and I hate to generalize, it goes against my individualistic streak-is, like any group of people, sure as per the whimes and fannes of the individuals at the helm of affair. That’s not to cast aspersion on those who like the BS editor Mr.Nian who had humble origin and worked hard to deserve their current status, or Shekhar, who used to be sweah backing reporter riding a bullet in ULFA-Assam. There’s no doubting they deserved what they got. The trouble is that they seem to rest as their lonely now-Shekher for instance has quite a reputation for testosterone-syndrome, with at least one woman at the top famed have used that to advantage (now in T o 1), besides, of course, Nine Pillar, the one and only, who writes a c\o letter in flair. I confirm I don’t know what or how she writes, and indeed, she may.

Aug’2000
Mayfield
All of 3 months-less-to go for entering the third decade of my miserable life existence and he’s still at don’t this, don’t that! Something that ‘normally’ a kid mustn’t have to listen to-let alone empty-beyond the age of 5. Just goes to show what they think of me.
The trouble with the world is not the unfairness and downright mean behaviour melted out to an individual, put that the latter expelled to not only complain , but to excel in the business of life. They chop off your legs but the more than it must be won.
There’s no right and no wrong. No question of ‘justice’ coming to your rescue. The injustice people go to count to get reduced sometimes even get reversed must constitute an infinitesimally tiny fraction of that which get perpetuated all the time over all of us. My folks were unjust on one and my brother, but there’s nothing to do about it. The hands of time move in one direction only.
That doesn’t, of course, prevent them from demanding my affectionate presence at any time they might feel like it. The whole thing is so irrational it numbs the mind. What would you do if someone’s done you wrong but there’s nothing you can do about it? Okay, make it someone close to you emotionally, who is immune for punishment one way or the other? The least and the most you could is to deny the other person yourself.
I shouldn’t even be here…

16th November 2002 Raiwala
Trouble in the air

Not sure what’s happening. Have got this thing for this woman who’s not only quite a ‘goner’ but also her some sort of obligation towards this guy that makes her “unavailable”(No vacancy!). Refusing to say that, been expressing intent in her and trying it attract her attraction. In the process, fucking up my security enough to smoke wit her, and now, today, do P. The one thing that, screwed me for so long and so hard it’s not funny anymore. Made me lose so much it’s crazy.
Anyway, the net results that ah gotta resume the ‘flow’ of life that’s got interrupted for some stupid chick with nobody a mind to speak of. What the hell’s she got for me anyway, man? There’s so much I’m going to have soon that going through this for a long fuck’s so fucking stupid.
Nothing’s got lost though. Just a lapse or two. No big deal. Gonna set fine once set back home. And pick up the threads of life again.
One good thing to happen here, though, is this clarity in perception about NA and all. Learnt some lessons about how it is about individuals, now withstanding the ‘Tradition’. Likes and dislikes play a huge role, as in all areas of human interaction. Here will always be motherfucker and jerks to look out for, and jealousies and heartburn to mind. So be realists and wise. Life’s main struggle anyway is to keep going despite others. It’s all about ‘managing’ and dealing with family, colleagues and similar creatures wisely to reach one’s objectives. Can’t let anyone succeed in entering your mind. Can'’ give anyone, any fucking one, the power to influence your mind, actions and moods. The only way to do it is insulate yourself from others just enough to keep out anything and everything that’s not in the scheme of things and could fuck your happiness.
So long as that’s, in place, the severity and joy that’s inherent in me and I suspect most others, cannot be off-balanced. Don’t need nothing else, man.
Just flow with life as one I meant to and let the bottom the reservoir of strength, joy and talent for the written word takes care of the rest.
Fuck others. You are all that covers to love yourself and others will follow suit.

December 2, 2002 02:50 Faridabad
Too much trouble
It is no fun trying out old formulae, man. No fun in it, never was. Was a compulsion canlia? But not no more. Have a choice now. Exercise it.
Or the sehab’s waiting for you.

19 Dec Outside Sarvodaya school
A bit confused. Quite unlike me. It’s the drug remember. The drug gets you to this state. It’s happens before, will happen again. Fight it, man. So it doesn’t happen again.
You don’t need soone’s friggin’ company, man. Got enough to do. The job, to begin with. There’s Chitra too, though I can’t count on her. Bugged her a bit too much I guess.
Got to get over what happened all those year ago, man. That’s all past. It can’t happen twice to somebody. You are just in giving this one.
Just cut up one’s lack of communication. Guess she just doesn’t know any better! And then, what is she to you? Huh? She’s nothing, no one.

Feb 9, 2003 838, 1930 (lj.com entry)

sudden insight into why i dislike her and not him, except for his over-frugal, irritatable habits.
she doesn't see me and/or love me as an indivdual, but only as a son, that too for her own selfish ends like support in old age et al. and for that she would go to any length, manipulating, lying, feigning things, cooking tales (like dal bahadur calling ravi the other day, though that turned out to be true), double-guessing people as an 'informed/real' person et al.
a good instance being my marriage thing. she wants a grandson, so go get married asshole, and give me one. nothing else matters. how utterly selfish.
humans are programmed to be like that to ensure survival of the species, of course. but she also wants to get another chanxce at raising 'me', so 'i' dont go out of hand and get a mind of my own etc.
all this is recorded for posterity, of course, thank goodness. but it ain't possible to record and hold her accountable for everything. good example being this current 'no money to buy drugs' thing.

this is why she is so insecure and scared of me also, for i see right through her. not an easy thing for others coz of her sheer craftiness and emotional blackmail.

gotta cook food as saving grace
old age home

he, though, respects, likes and loves me for what is 'me'.

Feb 20, 2004

This is what i hate about her, as in other people: phonyism. In this case, a radical change of tone, language etc when she talks to others in the way of social life. if it's biting, bitter, provocative punjabi with immediate family, others get to hear her talk (as she must think) as a suave, cultured, intelligent woman.
Truth is she bluffs and bludgeons her way through life. And in doing so, she is not averse to do whatever it takes to have her way: trampling on others' emotions, assassinating characters, poisoning minds, destroying relationships, lying, fantasising...
I saw through her early on and tried to get out of the one soul, two body type relationshiop she had with me -- diallowing the devlopment of my own identity -- and i've been in harm's way ever since. She's smart, damn smart, of course.
Anyway, these days she's flat out 'working' on some symposium on a very phony topic: meera bai. That's on the 25th, a date that's been turned into more something more important than even the Republic or Independence Day. No matter what you talk to her about these days, she steers the conversation towards meera bai!
I mean I know everyone needs a distraction, a project to keep them feel occupied and productive and all, and right now it's good she's thinking of SOMETHING other than me. But can't help but notice how weird the whole thing is, really.
While at it, i should mention her recent outburst against me in which she actually screamed something like 'how dare you write a book against me'! Jesus H Christ, a blueprint for a bitch, for sure. And a phony one, at that.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

The bitch is trying to ‘break’ me down nowadays. Typical ‘hearing-shot’ statements include ‘kutta billa ke picche thodi bhagte rehna hai, nahin khata mat khaye, do din khana mat do, teesre din khud kha lega’. Yesterday, a similar reaction when reminded of need to buy deworming tabs for the dog.
Today’s special was ‘civil services are still the best in the country’, ‘mehnati ho to koi bhi aajaye’ and ‘some ladki not asking brother for money to do MBA in Canada despite lots of money at home, worked in Australia also, goes to gurgaon everyday in car’.
Bhai manna padega, bhen ki lodi mein dimag ki koi kamin nahin. Aur jhoot bolne mein to hamesha se champion hai hi.
Was thinking of sitting with dad, asking to set up PC in drawing room etc but she preempted that. Chalo theek hai, at least she is concentrating on him.
One amazing bitch, man…

Btw, her insistence on not giving 150 odd bucks a day mean I might have to gonna sell the damn stepney, which I was hoping I won’t to.

Surviving mom
(How dare you write against me…)

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Mother came upstairs just now, ostensibly to enquire about her shitty email ID and website. Tells me she can run a Rs 10 lakh a month jewelry business if only there was someone to help her use the Net to do so. Told her she can hire someone for it through the placement agency, but she ignored that and just moves on to how my father is on the brink of a “nervous breakdown”. “He’s been crying all night, she claims. “It’s not easy for him to get used to this life after being at the top of the government.” Claimed she spoke to Dr Malik who prescribed ‘Serlift’ for him to calm down.
I suggested told her she should take him to see him instead, to hear the truth about my “drugs”, and perhaps spend the day in the city with him. She says she can’t because she’s “busy”.
Then she comes to the point. Tells me that it’s because of my “drugs” that my father is “dying” and that I better quit right away because she wasn’t going to let him die like that.
“Quit before April 1 or things will turn ugly,” she threatens, brushing away my usual response that this stance of hers was highly counter-productive since the habit was a manifestation of rebellion against abusive parental authority, in the past as well as the present.
Actually, come to think of it, it’s a call for help, this stubbornness to drop in at the nearest chemist for a couple of bottles of a rather popular – or notorious should we say – cough syrup. Because I have been and continue to be helpless, at my parents (read: mom’s) mercy, at an age when one would expect to be self-sufficient if not indeed be at the peak of one’s career et al.
But she just doesn’t get it, which is incredible! It’s quite obviously up to me not to make for the chemist in a few hours from now, which isn’t all that difficult as I pretend and that would be that. It’d feel “different” for a few days, of course, considering that my mind’s got so conditioned to having the syrup poured down my throat at periodic intervals.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, or even to deal with whatever minor “withdrawal symptoms” there might be for a little while, 90 per cent of which are, quite obviously, psychological.
So she decides that I needed to see yet another psychologist since all the previous ones pointed out that she herself was my problem, something that she just wouldn’t accept. The latest one too saw that right away, and not just because I said so at the start.
It’s so damn simple: I simply don’t like her trying to “control” my life, to live it by her own set of rules, convictions and expectations. Yes, she’s given birth to me, brought me up and cared for me when I was sick, for which I remain grateful and owe her the same. But I’m not willing to pay for it at a price that costs me the loss of my own identity and negation of my own real-life experience of, well, life.
She was also told at the outset, just on the basis of the facts, that I would not need to have my basic freedom curtailed by getting “admitted”, and would just be required to visit the facility at Ghaziabad for 4 to 6 months in the out-patient department. Just like I was, by Dr Rajat Ray, Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the Capital-based All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) and the National Center of Drug Dependence Treatment (NCDDT), Ghaziabad.
It’s another thing that in my last meeting with him, on March 16, 2004, he reversed his stance, and told me to quit in the first week of April or face a week’s confinement in the Center. He was putting himself in the “Authority Figure” role for my benefit, I guess, and probably passing on that ultimatum suggested by my dad, acting on my mom’s instructions.
What’s most painful in all this is the way my dad’s getting psyched and being used to psyche me. It’s like she’s cashing in on my well-known mutual respect and love for his simple and straightforward way of life. Every time he spots me, he has just one thing to say to me: When are you going to Ghaziabad? As if…
It’s impossible to explain things to him, of course, and increasingly even to the professionals, who are evidently being influenced by her to “cure” me. Fast, overnight, using that magic wand, like those tantrics and sadhus she once approached to get me rid of the ghosts in me…!
Which is so, so unfortunate, since I don’t see the point really in going to see them now that I’m no longer certain that their professionalism and objectivity has not been tampered with to cause bias.
Damn, it’s past one o’clock and still no call from ‘Today’…I just hope I get a job, which would to some extent defuse the present levels of stress in this house since she resents giving money to me for my “drugs”, unmindful of the NDDTC’s clinical psychologist Dr Manoj Sharma’s advise and the fact that that is only making me gravitate more towards the damn syrup. Just when I feel I’m so close to getting over it once and for all and get a life for myself…

Friday, April 23, 2004 838 17:49

Actually, it’s not for nothing that I’m so depressed nowadays. Truth is, God knows, got no business to be alive right now, in the situation I am in. Pushing 33, divorced, pot-bellied, jobless, worthless, living with parents and living off them…Just asking them for money or cigarettes all the time, as they pointed out… Waiting for some job that’s never going to come, and for some wedding that’s never going to happen. Which is just as well, coz it ain’t going to work anyway. This is all just a mirage, a chimera, to keep me going. To not end it all, bringing disrepute to the family.

What the fuck is wrong with me? How can I let this happen to myself

Some rules
--Don’t talk with them, him too, as much as possible. He is as dangerous as her, because he doesn’t really exist. It’s all her.
--Don’t get talked into accepting anything from them, new or old.
--Do not let your guard down even for a moment.
--Eat just enough to get by. It’s all getting counted, every single grain.

4/28/04 7:37 PM
838

Well, what to say. My mother’s actually made this Nepalese servant boy think he’s a “son of the house”, and too the good one since I’m, of course, the black sheep of the family! She’s been treating him with kid gloves lately, endearingly asking him to have his meals, often especially-prepared in view of his mysterious “sickness” – including a phantom pain in his shoulder blades allegedly caused by a chicken meal he had at some eatery – and giving him a free rein to watch the boob tube.
Most of all, the motherfucker is actually allowed to participate in the frequent dressing downs I receive nowadays by her in her eternal quest to break me down to act as per her wishes in life! About a week ago, she took off on her usual “today you’ve drunk lots of it” tirade while he looked on, despite my pointing out the need for privacy.
She’s always been hysterical, of course, and publicly too, but nowadays she’s crossed all limits of acceptable public behaviour. Lost her fucking head, if you ask me.

June 4, 2004
1316 Hours
838, Sector 15 A, Faridabad 121 007

This is madness. Downing a bot when feeling fine, ignoring a message in the brain warning against it, and ending up feeling miserable.
Had half a bot to begin the day, for a change, which was just fine. But succumbed to the self-destructive message to drain a full bot just for the heck of it.
It’s true: can’t trust the mind. Can’t do whatever it wants me to; gotta listen to NA that’s based precisely on the philosophy of watching one’s thoughts come and go in a disassociate fashion, without necessarily taking each one seriously and acting on them.

5/7/04 8:54 PM
838

It’s suddenly become apparent that I’ve got myself trapped in here. With these two people who don’t know me any more than the newspaper boy but think they do, leading to a situation where I’ve got classified as something I’m not. I’m also scared to be myself, because the moment I do, I’d get labeled as something according to their perception. Violent, or ‘nutty’ or…
Thing is these two people have failed me. They’ve failed to bring up their kids as they should’ve been, because of this woman’s neurosis/psychosis. I’ve known these all these years, of course, but never managed to escape her.
The codeine’s been a way to cope with it, keeping the mind slightly intoxicated. Enough to keep going, but also landing me up in a situation where I’ve been called as crazy and sent to shrinks who’ve all reached the same, inescapable conclusion: There’s nothing they can do for me. Coz I’m okay in their department.
Lately, of course, she’s taken on the syrup thing, demanding that I be locked up in a rehabilitation center! As if…
Got to get out of this madhouse boss. Or you might well become fit for it. Get the hell out of here, no matter how painful the process might be. Jump into the deep end, once and for all, and you’d be okay. You have no choice, see.

Dramatics

April 22, 2004: Gurgaon Dahiya visit: 10,000 calls, worried!

May 7: Lie down near dining table with empty valium strip in hand, water nearby

Antics before servant

May 7, 2004

Undertaking

To secure a job before end of month and in any case no later than a month from now, or go to a rehab. If get a job, to begin process of setting up a home, and succeed in that by year-end.
Meanwhile, to get money as loan at the rate of Rs 200 per day in lump sum to retain measure of self-esteem and mental peace. Includes any personal expenses.
If in violation, hereby authorize forcible measures as seen fit by my father.

(Sign)