Summer Cuteness

I wish I had a super cute and comfortable laptop right now. I also wish I had a cute, ultra-funny and bollywood-type-loves-me boyfriend right now. But as it stands, I have got a kind of cute lime green laptop, which is anything but comfortable. Let’s just say, it’s got a broken spine. And I have a bollywood-type me, who is cute and semi-funny also. Somehow I have got this new type of parasite that is making me really enjoy what I do have.

Singlehood requires heart and soul type of music, and I think it makes you cherish driving even more. I will not say that my car is my boyfriend. My car is a girl, for sure. Music is my boyfriend. My lost ipod has that engraved on the back of it. Moreover, there is a an exact duplicate copy of my lost ipod with the very same engraving as the original ipod, which I found to be the sweetest and most thoughtful thing ever gifted to me. I was shocked that someone could have a cuter gift idea than I could have ever come up with. I think it is really the “loads of love” type of emotion that can drive someone to be that cute and creative. Anyway, whoever has my original ipod better be appreciating my insane bond with music, my all time favorite boyfriend.

I smoked some hookah just now, and while I do not think that it has had much of an effect on me, the cold coffee I had after that may be the culprit keeping me up. I am thinking faster than I can talk or type, and I actually talk and type pretty fast.

I decided to repeat this driving for my soul thing again. There’s something about University Avenue and 13th street and their traffic lights. These roads are actually not creepy even though the town is empty. I am growing to love this town after I have actually graduated from here, and to realize how much I will miss Gainesville. It takes me about a song and a quarter to return home from dropping off my friends. If I’ve got a heart and soul song playing, the summer breeze pouring through my window, I cannot stop the song mid-way. I just cannot.

So, I have to play some game, and drive more. Since I am alone, I talk to myself: I’ll keep driving till I hit a non-green light. I love this song, even though it’s about how the day has dawned and it is 3 am at night right now. My game is probably not a smart one, because I will end up driving really far, and the song will end, which will make me pick another such song that I won’t be able to switch off if I reach home before this third one ends. I see yellow flashing lights. Though I do not have to technically stop at these, I might as well head back home, and this way I have tweaked the rules (as I always do), and have played my game well.

I also drove on the highway the other day, with the moon nice and gorgeous and right smack in my face. With the Florida turnpike unfurling itself, rendering itself to me, I made love to the highway, listening to, “I wanna make love right now right now.”

*Sigh* : )

Good times.

I never used to like summer. I always thought I loved winter. India’s heat could not stop me from falling in love with summer. Notre Dame’s winter would have killed me with its gloom, and I am glad I chose to have no future plans over having plans that would not have dawned on my nights. If that makes any sense to anyone. Basically, the wrapper of this dove chocolate said, “In life’s winter, find your invincible summer.”

I think I am doing just that. Summer is meant for relaxing. So just chill ;-)

July 20th

Happy Birthday, Papa!

This time it's not a greeting card posted by your bed. We're going electronic!

I tried to make your favorite vanilla cake today. It is currently in the oven, and has been there for over an hour, and I have no idea when/if at all it will come out good. I know you wouldn’t have cared any way. I wish I could bug you by wishing you ten million times, but I am posting this onto the world wide web, and I hope my message gets to you somehow. I love you and miss you loads. Your sweet little bacha is thinking of you, always!

P.S. I loved it when people told me in India that I look just like you.
P.P.S. I love it when mom and bhai say I talk like you
P.P.P.S. I may have huge hands for a girl, but they match the size of your hands, so I look at them and smile.
P.P.P.P.S. Time to check on this never-will-bake-cake!

Brain Clutter

Unclutter that shit.

So, this blog post may be a little random, and a little tangential for someone to follow. Sorry readers, my mind will go crazy if I don't pen down these little snippets of potential blog posts.

Somebody mentioned to me that I am no longer active on facebook as I used to be. I thought it over, and decided that the reason was that I just recently came from India, and all those dormant contacts that were classmates from school and such, now actually try to talk to me online. Also, I've now got more cousins on my list that have summer vacations right now, and they're about my age, and while I was in India, I made promises of keeping in touch with them. So there's that. But there's also something called mechanics of conversation.

By that, I mean, who will be the asker and who will be the answerer? Who will be the storyteller and what stories will be told? There is always just too much that goes into a conversation, that not everyone is aware of. I like to think that since I blabber all the time, I have mastered a few of these skills. See, I'd like to pour forth some knowledge about the technicalities of making conversation in a blog post at some point. We now move on to another previously aborted yet readopted train of thought.

How do you know if someone is hitting on you? And how do you know if someone is flirting? So, while I was on my travels this summer, I was quite the social butterfly. One instance comes to mind, and I feel like detailing this one because I could not publicly talk about this one. So there is a kurta shop we're all in in Jaipiur's Johri Bazaar. This is our first shop of the day, and we actually saw kurtas we all liked.

The salesman is a short fair-skinned guy with mysterious looking eyes. Part of the mystery probably arose from the fact that he had a cloth on the rest of his face. We did not know whether it was due to a disease that people cover their faces in India, or dust, or sweat, or what. But we were in air conditioning! In any case, salesman did his job, suckered us into buying a buncha stuff, that now needed to be altered.

Since I was the "ring leader" of this foreign group of people shopping in India, and since my American friends were pretending to not understand a word of English even, I was naturally making sure that everyone's alteration needs would be well met by the shopkeepers. So, I gave this covered face guy plenty of instructions for everyone's measurements, and now came my turn. I reiterated what I had learnt to say at each tailor's shop: Big arms and shoulders, so please take a note of that, and fitted around the waist, you don't have to worry about how I will get in it.

He now finally started speaking a bit more, and he instead gives me a look to just be quiet and stand straight, while saying that he knows best, and will do best. But, see I know better than his best, so I insisted that he listen to me because otherwise he will have to redo everything, which will be a waste of everyone's time.

So, long story a little less long, we come back to the store to get our stuff, and now the face is uncovered. And now I notice that aside from the fact that this guy is super short, he is actually Emran Hashmi cute! So, the thing that now happens is that I try on the clothes, and they were of course, tight in the arms and loose from the waist. And now this guy is silent. He's just watching how I keep trying kurta after kurta, and how I keep getting sad after each kurta trial. And to top it all off, I can't bitch to my friends properly because I have to pretend like they don't know english, plus to keep my "local" cover, I'd have to bitch in Indian english and speak much slower, which will not be satisfying anyway.

Anyway, so this guy that was talking patar patar to me before, from behind his cover, now shuts up and nicely sends stuff for alteration again. We now need more kurtas so we keep looking, and he shows us more stuff. All the while, he keeps flirting with me, I'm pretty sure. It's hard to translate everything to my dear friends, and ask. So, while he tells me how he likes what I am wearing, and gets cheeky with me, I try to maintain my focus on shopping.

There's something I don't understand about flirting. Unfortunately, I think it is called flirting when someone makes a remark, and you've got a cute, clever, fun comment back to report with. I treat that as a skill. I've worked on it over the years, it comes in handy. But never has it been my goal to "flirt". I have always just wanted to be witty.

So, I tell him "Chalo (let's go), hurry up and show me something else" He says, "where?". Typical Indian guy flirting. Then I tell him that the price he is asking for is way too high, and I quote an absurd price, knowing he will flip, but this is too much fun, and could potentially be profitable. He says, "why don't you take me along too?" "Alright, my friends will take you back with them," I say.
"What am I going to do with them? I won't understand anything they are saying to me." Haha, remember my friends are from morocco and only speak espanol?

Anyway, he was cute. He was cheeky, flirty, and something mysterious. But he was also 5'4", miniature sized, in India, and not my type.

After having scrolled up to recollect what my original train of thought was, I realized that whatever it was, now this blog post has taken a turn towards the better. It is now about flirting.

The thing about it is no one knows what it is, and it is always your friends who let you know you were flirting. If you are making an effort to flirt, it probably is not coming out well anyway. So don't bother.

Like I said, it's a skill. Though I would not like to be called a "flirt," if the definition of flirting is as I mentioned before, I take quite some pride in it. Not everyone can do it so smoothly. It requires a lot of practice.

So here's the strategy. You talk to many people online, and attempt flirting, you'll realize why it is not working. You then collect all this data by having numerous such conversations, all the while analyzing the process in your head. Bare in mind that that is all internet conversations are good for: practice. The performance has to be done in person. Sure, you'll fail a couple times, but until you take the risk, you'll just be that shy person in the corner.

I hear that in today's day and age, guys need to delve into literature that teaches them how to score points with a girl. Well, I am here, adding to it. Watch movies, the ones that the girl you like likes. And please do not follow the movie. Obviously, she has watched it, so if you replicate anything from the movie, she will know your act, and you will then be headed back to your misery and doom.

Instead, understand the movie, and its characters. Then, move on to her next favorite movie, think about it, and hold that thought. Movie after movie, you'll hopefully just "get it". Then, look for the intersection and the union of the information you have collected.

Also, keep in mind the analysis about your own flirting skills attained during internet practice with random people.

Then, just try one of the flirting techniques out one of these days. Since you are bound to be rusty because you are trying, play the goof card. Don't try to be smooth, keep it real and bumpy. Eventually after some rusty and goofy remarks, you'll get the hang of it!

And then, just come back and thank me, for this crash course in flirting 101.

I know this blog post is far from cohesive. It takes a lot of brain power actually to connect a lot of random snippets into anything coherent. The way I think of it, try not to be smooth, give something a try, and hope that the next one will come out smoother.

Treat this blog post as a precursor to my discussion on the mechanics of conversation. Flirting is just the ice-breaker. Conversation is water.

Sip that little thought over, and if something philosophical emerges, then you get my drift ;-)

The Tourist

I bought this shirt while I was in India that said, “will dream forever”. I basically thought it to be a cute yellow, and the sleeves fit me just right. I liked what it said, but I wondered if I would stay committed to the declaration I was making…

My dream to go to India with my closest friends from the US came true. What I had literally dreamed about when I was younger actually came true this summer. My two worlds did meet, and I had an amazing time. I stayed in the most royal of hotels in India, I watched an Indian movie with a random Chinese kid in China. I was requested to be in pictures with random Chinese people on top of the Great Wall of China. I was in a rikshaw in crowded streets of Chandni Chowk with 3 Americans who entrusted their lives into my hands in this foreign land assuming that I know all. I saw the dabbawalas and dhobi ghaats of Bombay, and chilled at marine drive with the love of my life best friend gringerberger! I have lived my life like there is no tomorrow. I have taken risks and chances that I probably should never have taken, but that I would undoubtedly be incomplete without.

When I think of this summer 2010 trip, I always take a deep breath because I just feel more satisfied with life. While I have no idea what my future will be like, I really lived the present. Murgi kya jaane ande ka kya hoga…but I know..ki at least..changey marenge =)

I had once also dreamt of London. I wanted to go there, live there, study there. That part didn’t come true, but I visited London with one of my oldest friends from India. And it was surreal. I can proudly say that despite the ups and downs in life, I have been severely blessed to have seen different corners of the world.

Not only have I seen Glasgow and London with a close friend, but I also managed to travel in China with another friend. Each time, the trip has been long anticipated and imagined, and then that finally, realized.

I was watching the videos of the Ramayana play I worked on in college. These are dreams that I never dreamt when I was younger, but they developed with time. More so, they developed because I was pushed in charge. I still cannot believe that it happened. I still cannot believe all of the above has happened. I cannot believe that I have so much to be thankful for, so much to keep storytelling about.

I was on my way to Shanghai from Delhi, when I met some people from Mumbai, who also happened to be coming back from Shanghai on the same flight with me. When leaving the flight at Delhi, I pretty much said final and forever goodbyes to my fellow travelers because I never thought I’d see them again in just less than a month in their hometown in Mumbai. I merely expected to see them a couple times during my stay in Bombay, but they really took me and Grinner out to see amchi Mumbai. We taught them, “Changey Marengey.” And I learned ki kabhi alvida na kehna…

I never thought I would take my bestest friend from the US to the chemist ki dukaan by my house where I grew up. I bought her chawanprash there by the same guy who used to be this cute hunk when I was ten years old. He is still cute today, but not in the hunky way, but in a cute married with some gray hair kinda way.

In this last month, I have sipped coffee in these cute new fancy shops in India called Café Coffee Day, CCD in short, and Costa Coffee with different groups of friends: American friends that had come to visit India, friends I made when I visited in India last, classmates from when I used to live in India, and those friends that I made on this very trip on the way to China.

To top it all off, I sang the song, “I love my India,” while freaking out on the backseat of my cousin’s motorcycle as he showed me all of Delhi on this fatal and life-threatening yet life-fulfilling ride with the Delhi loo (hot wind) hitting my glasses, all the dust of my hometown collecting on my skin, and the sweat running the colors of my shirt. WOW, London dekha, shanghai dekha, aur dekha Florida, poore jag mein koi nahi hai doosra Hindustan…doosra Hindustaaaan..

I am now back here in Gainesville, and I just watched videos of my crazy friends from about a year ago, and again the pattern remains the same: I can’t believe it happened, but it so pleasantly did. I have had many of my dreams come true, some of which were never even dreamt out loud.

I have journeyed on in life, collecting moments, collecting experiences. Many losses on the way, but I’ve got my smile on, and I know that I will dream forever ;-)

Changey Marenge!