You don't call anymore. Maybe that's foolish of me to expect. But you never take my calls either. I wait patiently till the ringing sound runs into the automated voice telling me you've moved on and have no interest in speaking to me anymore. Maybe you finally saw through me, maybe saw me for who I was - maybe all those sob fests about poor-old-me finally got too much for you to take. I must have disappointed you somehow, must have let on that I was just another girl in a long string of girls, with nothing to set myself apart with. You must pity me, the thought is horrifying, you must laugh with your new girlfriend, discussing the latest in my endless list of debacles. Both of you shaking your perfect heads at the weird heartless girl. I don't know why I do this to myself. It isn't helping anyone.

I wonder how you are though, all the time. I restrain myself from calling you, instead I send you an offline message with the vain hope that it will pop back at me with a witticism from your end. But I get nothing. Sometimes, you reply, but it is never the same as it used to be. I can almost taste your half-heartedness on my tongue. It makes me want to cringe. Our conversations are dry, full of words that neither of us ever got comfortable with - 'how are things?' and the like. We were better than this. Remember when I said with absolute confidence that we would never fade out? How silly of me. There, another anecdote for you to share with people who are more important these days.

I am not half as witty with others as I used to be with you. I can never pull of the any of the old stories and jokes. I no longer have a reason to stay in on a Saturday night, glued to my computer, talking and smoking and drinking coke for hours, giggling to myself.

Better things to do, you will tell me, smirking. We've got better things to do, both you and me. Then why are none of them half as much fun?

lets make a mess, lioness

i'm happy. skip in my step, put together outfits, shiny hair, smiles for strangers, compassion for people on death row, making mousse for flatmates, no amount of photocopying and shredding can bring me down happy. oh dear lord, i've had a fantastic month. and please god, please, please let it last. if you promise to keep up your end of the deal, i promise to smile through everything. i absolutely, truly promise.

and dear readers, let me list the things that have made september my best month this year:

• the new album by arctic monkeys that has quickly become my favorite by them so far


• my amazing wardrobe - it has been built over the period of a year - i think i now finally own 90% of the items (clothes, accessories, shoes and bags) that i would want in my dream wardrobe. don't ask me what i've been subsisting on though. there is a price to pay for fashion. a price. and it's rude to ask.


• the planning and organizing of my birthday present for the jew - we are going to taipei tomorrow for a long weekend. you know how i feel about cities and how i feel about boutique hotels. i can hardly wait!


• gossip girl season 3 started last week and chuck bass is sex on legs. oh how i've missed chuck bass.


• and finally, my sister was in town for two whole weeks of fun and debauchery before she starts uni in october. it was brilliant fun. especially since she's also one of the best photographers i know and she indulged me quite substantially by arranging for a faux-fashion photo shoot. it was absolutely marvelous. and you know i never say things like marvelous. here's a photo of my feet and the piggy bank. we captioned it "Queen P"

how cute are the shoes? i'm serious, this is not a rhetorical question - i really expect to know, on a scale of 1-10 how cute you think my shoes are!

and now, i must run run run so i can run some errands before the trip tomorrow. have a lovely weekend everyone! speaking of, LiLo is in town for the F1 tamasha, i'm looking forward to coming back to work on monday and going through paparazzi pics of her eating like chicken-rice or something.

i am the son and the heir of a shyness that's criminally vulgar

I have been reading a lot about love lately. Love and loss, love and suffering and sometimes, just for some irony, love and fulfillment. I am careful about love, usually. It doesn't make sense to have too much of the one thing you're afraid of losing. It is wise to choose carefully, if the situation allows for a choice at all. I didn't have that choice.

Some people spend their entire lives envisioning a city, a country. Over time, it turns into a romanticized, over-crowded day dream with illimitable possibilities and adventures. The place you have always wanted to go to - it is a crazy fucking land, isn't it?

For me, it has always been cities. Back-alleys and cobbled streets, concrete and grass, strange languages and smells, thunderstorms and sharp sunlight, cigarettes and coffee, nightclubs and street food. Old widows, restless boys comparing bomber jackets, girls flicking their hair in tandem on busy sidewalks, crazy homeless men with a bone to pick with you, stories on the subway, the nausea and the stillness. Cities. Nothing thrills me more than seeing miles and miles of sprawling settlements from an airplane. Every block, a different way. Every window, a different view. I can tell my entire life story in the context of the cities I have loved. And not loved like you love a person - there is nothing to fear if you love a city. It is yours if you choose for it to be. It will always be yours.

But there is one. Isn't there always one? The one that jolts you wide awake. The one that shakes you up. The one that fits with you. With all its grime, filth and disguises, it belongs with you and you with it. In the three years since I was last there, I have wanted nothing more than to go back. I dream that it waits for me, it waits for me just as I left it - foggy and chilled, it smelled of stale beer, cold air and cigarette smoke. I left it as the first of the snow-flakes danced down, and just for a moment, stayed frozen on noses and tips of ears before dissolving silently. Oh, London.

In my imagination, I stand outside a small, dirty bar that plays The Smiths almost obsessively. I smoke a cigarette, wrapped in the warm melancholy that only Morrissey can induce. In my heart, there is a relief I haven't felt in years, there is a security I have denied myself for a while, I'm happy to be where I am. Regardless of who waits for me inside the bar. It's a seductive day-dream.

There is a problem with pinning all your aspirations and hopes on to a city though. It seems almost fatalistic, the idea that if I get there, I will be happy and content and fulfilled. It almost makes you believe that nothing else will ever compare and so there's no point trying. There is also the fear that maybe the build up will lead to a disappointing second half of the tune. That's the thing, it's not just people who have the ability to let you down. But for now, none of this is what I want to believe in, none of this is what I want to fall for. If for no other reason, then to know that I am driving at something, I'm working towards a destination. I do not claim to know anything about my future, but I know where I want to stage it.

London town will be mine, one day.

gold stamp. pre-inked and very patient.

there may be something to this whole "don't overthink" theory. i'm still not convinced, but i'm toying with it - overthinking the idea that i ought not to overthink. you see, no doubt, why it would mean a departure from my usual self. my comfortable, morose and predictable self. and why do i even need to give this up? i don't know what i'll gain from working hard trying to become a more practical and no-nonsense person. i like my nonsense, i like absorbing everything, i enjoy my melancholy moods that are always, always followed by the clearheadedness that 'letting things go' will never give me.

i have a feeling i'm not built that way - sometimes i do wish i could shrug everything off and waltz down the street that leads to the club of those who are never perturbed (do you want a google map?). but isn't that what i detest too? the ease with which some people can unburden themselves? isn't it a crying shame when someone exposes their ability to close doors without a second though? that doesn't seem possible for me to achieve, in any case.

for however deranged it seems to want to stay the way i am - the human equivalent of the baggage collection counter - i am fine. i am glad sometimes, to look into my little emotional closet full of miseries and joys. they'll be good material someday.

then maybe the solution is not to change who i am, but change how i seem. because patience is such a rare commodity and affections so easily transferrable that it would be foolish to antagonize the people who remain by my side - whatever their often unfathomable reasons. it may be wise to keep my thoughts to myself, to appear discerning where it matters, to indulge practicality for their sake and maybe also forgive them their impatience.

i don't need to sell my soul, he's already in me

will it ever quit? this need to continue competing with myself, this hatred that surges over me when i fail spectacularly? i'm tired of fighting for authenticity. i either am, or i'm not. enough of this turmoil.

there are days when i refuse to question it, in all my self-congratulatory hubris, i remind myself of how i always have my originality, if nothing else. i'll always know how to turn a phrase on a piece of paper so that my name is stamped all over it. i'll always have the ability to enjoy poor subconscious imitations. those are the kind of days when i'm insufferable.

and then, there are the normal days. when praise sounds false. every word of encouragement a devious mockery of something i hold so dear to me. as if they all see it, as if they are all participating in a game that i'm unaware of. on the normal days, i'm suspicious and vulnerable. fretting over sentences and words. worrying i'll never be good enough, never be witty enough, never be enough.

i wish i had the courage to follow through and see myself over on the other side. the other side, where there is no doubt, no loathing, no surprising outcomes. the other side, where i'll know myself. the other side, good or bad. i wish i could have it settled, once and for all.

i know it won't, can't, come from anyone else. i know that for me to be satisfied, it has to be a quiet self-assurance that doesn't stem from pride or some other fleeting emotion. i just worry i may have cut off all relations with that part of me - in a self-destructive moment, i may have told it to go fuck itself please. because cynicism is much more realistic when you can't stand the sight of yourself. it wouldn't be authentic otherwise, you see.

i am trying really hard to come up with something tangible. i am trying really hard to conjure up some image. all this while, i've been staring out into damp, sunny mornings and i have been hoping for a breakthrough. and i always end up coming back to staring at the familiar folds of skin on my knuckles, always my knuckles. and i've been studying the stitches in my black pencil skirts. i don't care about meaning anymore. i don't mind leaving it up to those who are dispassionate and learned and bored. me, i'm just tired and disconsolate. me, i have no talent.

i feel no responsibility. no urge to record a generation's smoke-exhaling, vodka shooting, easy-loving life. it is only lately that i even see it for what it is - this instant gratification. maybe that is the first step towards dissociation. maybe some day soon, i will look at them, at them, i will not refer to us. there will be me and there will be them. and maybe that will be the day when staring into space, earnestly and hopefully (clearly persistently), will pay off. maybe i'll stop coming back to myself. maybe i'll take off and will land in that familiar yet strange territory i've come to dream of lately. all i hope to carry is a sense of deja-vu. and maybe a dixon ticonderoga 2/HB and some yellow note-paper. i wonder if i'll miss myself.

old stone

it is three in the morning and i'm sitting on a chair in a dark, cold room with my laptop on my knee. you are three feet away from me, tangled up in sheets, fast asleep. occasionally, i hear you sigh restlessly, moving your limbs until you are comfortable again and with a final sigh your dark outlines settle back into another dream. maybe you dream of me, causing another scene, falling down again or yelling in hindi. or maybe you dream of the things you so long for - home, familiar people, a new city, a new adventure. but you are here. and i smile.

my cold has gotten worse and my sneeze makes you mumble something about going to bed. i agree, hmm, but continue making the tap-tapping noise that cannot be drowned by the low hum of our air-con.

in a few minutes, i will crawl into the warm bed and snuggle up to you at which you will protest mildly - my arms are too cold. we will giggle slightly, and soon i will be asleep....

... you just woke up, saying, "what's going on, baby?"

"nothing, just surfing."

"what's going on with the typing? come to bed, it's really late."

"yes, yes"

"come to bed, now!"

"okay, two minutes"

"why the fuck are you typing?"

"two minutes"

and you are wide awake now, waiting for me to finish whatever it is i'm doing.

i will have to continue this attempt at an ode to imperfect love some other time. i'm too annoyed to carry on now.

No more of this living-dying, scientific analyzing

The last time I traveled somewhere on my own, I was found roaming the streets of Barcelona chugging wine straight from the bottle, eating pieces of plain french baguettes, musing over a certain boy from a certain country in Central America. Those five months were the most uncomfortable, most life altering, most lonely months of my life. I would go days without saying a word, I would also spend days and days with Sasha and G, living off pot and coke and midnight kebabs. It was self-discovery at it's most distilled, it was my most productive time as a student and as a self-doubting writer, it was the city of my first foray into adulthood.

Since then, I haven't been to many new places, I haven't really ventured out of my mundane life in this town. I have changed jobs, I have fallen in love, I have somehow, made a relationship last more than three hoegaardens (despite all attempts to the contrary) and I have managed to find some form of comfort in routine and familiarity.

It is with the realization of this notion that I found myself restless for the unusual, the daunting, the downright intimidating. I wanted to change the patterns I had formed, I wanted to challenge my long-dormant sense of adventure. And so I decided to start changing things - become more like the 20-year-old without a care in the world and less like the 23-year-old today who takes each step with caution and consideration, even fear.

The first step to this change was a spontaneous, solo trip to Bangkok - a place I have always wanted to visit, but plans for which have never worked out. On a particularly bad Friday evening, I found cheap tickets for the weekend and that was it. I was leaving for Bangkok, regardless of who came with. No one did, since it was too short a notice, but I went ahead - slightly scared, very very excited.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, I made my way to the airport, checking in on my own with just a small backpack. The two hour flight was quiet, having the entire row of seats to myself, I put my music on and lay down for a nap as I had hardly slept the night before, a usual for me before a big trip.

On arrival, I took a taxi ride to Khao San, the mecca of all backpackers. I found myself shivering with nervousness. We reached within an hour, thanks to the lack of traffic. It was 10 am, I was standing in the middle of a road that was already bustling with excitement and activity. It seemed like no one had even slept as backpackers in Singha beer singlets and baggy shorts sat around the roadside bars, drinking beer and smoking, looking curiously at the oddity that was the single Indian girl with a backpack. I walked in the heat, my cheeks flushed with the humidity and the awareness of being watched until I found a hostel that looked inviting.

I watched as the guests sat around the patio, having breakfast and I felt I could see myself doing the same next morning. I checked into the only available air-con room they had - a depressing, affair with just a bed, a table and a mirror at the bargain price of 500 baht a night. The bathrooms were shared at the end of the corridor, but were thankfully very clean. I took a quick shower and decided to walk around and find a place for lunch.

I had packed very lightly and even my oldest red shorts and black button-down shirt stood out amongst the grimy clothing of the other backpackers as if I were literally walking a runway. My straightened short bob looked too well-maintained, my flip-flops too unworn, my sunglasses too shiny.

I stumbled around Khao San, perpetually red in the face, until I chanced across a hotel advertising air-con rooms with attached bathroom for the same price as my spartan room with nothing attached but a plain mirror. I checked out the room - it was bigger, cleaner and had a tv, a mini-bar and toiletries. It also seemed to have a more happening bar right downstairs and if I wanted to find someone to talk to, I had to move here. Half an hour later, I had my refund from the old hotel and was lying across my new bed in my new room, smoking a cigarette, flipping through my lonely planet that I was too ashamed to bring out in public for fear of being labeled an idiot.

I decided to grab some lunch at the bar/restaurant downstairs and then head to the flea markets for some reliable retail therapy. I had a very quiet lunch of basil chicken and my pepsi arrived in a quaint, dirty glass bottle reminiscent of road trips in India. I wandered around Khao San for another hour or so, noticing the pretty Indie boys who stood out as if they had a halo around their carefully mussed hair and I noticed the skinny, beautiful scandinavian blondes who roamed about in packs, making eyes at boys at street-food stalls. They all looked comfortable and at ease in their harem pants and frayed t-shirts, wearing beads around their necks and wrists, carrying faux-indian jholas slung carelessly across their bodies. I bought a plate of phad-thai that I ate from as I walked past bars and bars and bars, clothing-stalls selling fake LV handbags and funny t-shirts. It was exciting, it was refreshing and I was absolutely alone.

I finally made my way to a taxi to take me to the markets, where I wandered for a few hours, looking at cheaply-made clothes in the latest trends, wondering if I could get away with wearing any of them in my posh Vogue-like office where everything you wear is scrutinized until it is found acceptable. If any of it is found to be too cheap, too local, too inappropriate, you are served the "raised eyebrow" which can shame anyone into running to the nearest desginer store and spending your entire monthly salary on a dress with the right label.

At about six in the evening, I made my way back to Khao San, wondering how I could find a reasonable enough excuse to join a group of people. I went to my hotel room, took another shower, lay across my bed in the blue bathrobe the staff had thoughtfully provided and wondered if it would be okay to accept defeat and just order room-service and watch some TV. The loneliness was finally getting to me. I silently scolded myself for being so awful and changed into some more of my too-decent clothes and after one final, comfort cigarette, walked out into the carnival that had already begun.

I walked again, looking longingly at raucous groups of boys and girls getting drunk off cheap beer. I ate dinner at one of the more crowded bars, reading my Margaret Atwood with my head-phones plugged firmly into my ears. I wasn't making it easy for anyone, least of all myself. After a coffee, I decided to wander around some more, until I found myself at a bar with a big-screen telecasting the women's Wimbledon finals. I decided a beer was in order and sat down to watch the match. A gaggle of indie boys I'd seen earlier in the day came into the bar and sat on the table next to me, ordering rounds and rounds of beer as they talked about football and music and girls. One of them, noticing my smile (I had obviously been eavesdropping) asked me my opinion on the transfer of Michael Owen to Manchester United. I joined in the conversation, and before long, found myself sitting in the middle of a pack of people, waxing eloquent on the charms of Alex Turner - which always works!

What followed is hazy, but I remember a game of pool, I remember two of the boys stealing a ring and a bracelet for me from one of the unattended stalls and I definitely remember beer. After the match ended, we went to one of the bigger bars on the main-road, and while standing around for a table, I was approached by four different people, telling me they noticed me today, wandering about smoking furiously and wanted to talk to me but thought I looked like I wanted to be left alone. I was so overcome with affection for all these new friends that I bought a round of shots for everyone. One of the guys in my group, Will, who I'd been confiding in re: my reticence and who had been witnessing the flow of people finally approaching me, stood up in the middle of the bar and yelled out in a mock-annoyed manner, "To everyone who noticed the lovely Indian girl walking down the road today, HERE'S your chance to have a chat!" at which everyone laughed and I shrivelled up and died while simultaneously feeling thrilled at the flurry of dialogue that only proved to me that I was to blame for my sad day.

Next thing we knew, Will and I were in a tuk-tuk going to one of those go-go bars that Bangkok is infamous for. We entered the promisingly titled bar, Kiss, and found ourselves in a room full of topless barely-legal Thai girls, dancing around poles and bar-tops. We got ourselves some overpriced drinks and proceeded to watch the mating rituals of those whom the exchange rates favor and those who would literally kill for a buck. Or at least give a convincing simulation of an intimate hand-job.

We left quickly, going back to Khao San, where we ate cheap satay-like meat off sticks and drank out of buckets and buckets of whiskey and coke until we could see the sun rising. I stumbled back to the hotel and passed out with the biggest smile on my ridiculously wasted face.

The next morning, I woke up at 11 am, still drunk and decided to go for a massage. An hour later, I was stumbling out of the massage parlour, straight into a tattoo shop, convinced that I needed a piercing to commemorate the eventful 24 hours I had spent completely out of my comfort zone. At 1 pm, I was back with the boys, showing off my numb upper ear which now sported a stainless steel earring.

The rest of the day was spent eating and drinking, taking the piss and general buffoonery until it was 7 pm and time for me to pack my bags and head to the airport. My indie boys and I bid farewell, I bought some awfully unflattering knee-length harem pants and some suspect silver jewelry and one last spring roll before I took a cab to the airport.

When I reached back home at 2 am, I found the Jew lying in bed, waiting for me to return with tales of horror and loneliness, only to see me bouncing with excitement and full of stories to keep him up till 5 am.

Next on the list, a long-overdue trip to London. Wish me luck.

Chin Up?

Maybe I spoke too soon. My future - at this company, in life - seems in jeopardy through no fault of any one person. Least of all mine. I feel cheated and disappointed. I have been lucky, lazy and insincere at school and work my entire life. I have always gotten grades, jobs and raises that I don't deserve and I have been the first to acknowledge that. But this was different. I was different. I gave a shit. I put in long hours and I put the job first. My social life dwindled to a night out a week but I didn't care. I was happy, I put aside worries about relationships and family and I lost myself while at work. And now this.

To be told that there is nothing that can be done to salvage the situation, despite every single thing I've done for this firm, to be told that I'd have to go back to the 'other' division - the glamorous yet soul-crushing, self-esteem breaking division that chewed me up and spat me out within two months - that, my friends, sucks balls.

Mondays are never my good days, and today is especially bad. I have no motivation, no desire, no steam. Add to that the all-familiar sense of despair that comes from marking yet another big-family-occasion date without him. The confusing mix of emotions that I no longer have the strength to untangle leave me drained. Suffice to say I'm barely holding up. How do people cheer themselves up, again?

The Downside

I'm officially a private equity whore. Due diligence gets me all excited and I can now talk on and on about fund positioning and deal structuring. I enjoy discussing market caps and book values over drinks after work. I iron pencil skirts every morning and am engulfed in a sea of black, sharp clothing. I am actually in a position to fuck things up majorly on a scale that mummy and daddy can't bail me out even if they wanted to. I have perfected the act of yelling at lawyers, auditors and advisors without ever raising my voice. I can now compose seamless, beautiful emails that even the most scrutinous of hard-assed bankers can't question. I can multi-task like Superman on speed and I can as of today, run high-level meetings without stuttering.

And I'm fucking loving it.

Except, the other day, I was making plans with a friend and said, "I'm not sure, I may have some prior engagement. In any case, I should know by tomorrow - I'll text you accordingly."