The meta-post

The past few days, a couple of the fellow co-conspirator(s) (as one of our dear blogger friend prefers to call ourselves) had detailed their hardships in christening their entries. Fair. Even I have had had my share of title travails. Like for example whilst I tried to figure out a name for today’s post. I have a wide array of stuff to write about, albeit personal. And I was left to wonder as to how to sum it all up. I didn’t have to think too hard to come up with, what some might call an ‘intelligent’ title. [Pause, with a gracious bow to raptures of clapping from the audience comprising of 5 people.]. Thank you, thank you ladies and more… uhh… ladies!

I guess I’ve been rambling about sleeping troubles (references 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6). I’ve been ranting about solving those, at least to myself (in my head), for at least the last couple of days. Today I did it. Yesterday, I forced myself to fall asleep reading a book. That seemed to be the unanimous choice of experts from all corners of the globe to the clinical phenomenon of disorder of falling into sleep. If you are not aware, most of the medications prescribed by shrinks and pharmacists for sleep, are actually to let us fall asleep rather than to make us sleep more. [Funda 1 of the day] This funda will be highlighted in a tangential drift vide infra.

I spent about 2 hours reading Alan Hollinghurst’s ‘The Line of Beauty’. It’s a charming book mainly because of the fantastic adjectives and phrases which are only used in formal parlance in the high English society. So I had my Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary beside me constantly providing me spasms of unusable knowledge. I distinctly remember four instances when I was in the process of getting into the first stages of NREM sleep [Funda 2 of the day: Sleep is composed of stages which are divided to NREM and REM sleep] when sounds of squeaking and scrambling through my kitchen-stuff, which the classical music that I was playing was unable to drown, awakened me. I was frustrated. I wished if I could go to a supermarket and get those unhuman-fequency-noise-emitting-devices (reference)to ward off these silly weird creatures. Finally at around 6 ‘O Clock in the morning, I fell asleep.

I woke up to brisk knocking on the door at around 9 ‘O Clock. Warily, I got up from bed and opened the door. My jaw dropped when I saw that it was my landlord and his wife visiting their cute little apartment, after a period of 3 months of recluse in Dubai. Thankfully, the apartment was not too shabby (at least for a straight guy). Even though there weren’t any places to seat them, I invited them to sit on the longish cushion that I had made out of one half of the mattress which lay by the window in the living room. They refused. Instead they walked in and checked out the teeny-weeny studio apartment, which was my abode. I guess they were impressed at the levels of cleanliness and order (at least for a bachelor).

Soon the conversation shifted to what plumbing/carpentry/electrical work that I had done at the apartment. He had agreed to settle the expenses when we would meet. I was still delirious because of the relative hyposomnia and could not recollect the exact amount that I had ended up spending. The golden chance to procure some money in the darkest monetary phase of my life was slipping away. They were about to leave.

Then, something incredible happened. The landlord’s wife, an intelligent looking lady, walked to the little ‘table’ made out of the biggest carton that I had and began checking out my book collection. A rich sprinkling of the best of fiction from the recent years including the likes of Rushdie, Hosseini, Desai, Lahiri must have been the causes of redemption (despite the presence of Rand, Robbins [Harold!] and Crichton and Marvel comics). The conversation went on when I explained them that the collection is not only mine, but also my friend’s (Noise Market’s singer Jodi also reads a lot). I offered the coffee which was against dealt with a firm ‘no’.

By then the conversation had eased out and I think I was also woken up. I managed to convince them that I needed some money and I would appreciate if they gave me some money for the work that I had done. We rounded up to a nice sum which will be deducted from the actual amount at a later date and that was scribbled in a cheque and handed over to me. It was like my Christmas present without the Santa, reindeers, the cute sexy Santa-helper-dwarves and of course, Christmas!

It was such a relief that I forgot to pee in the morning. Okay, okay… I made this up entirely for recreational purposes. I’m a creative writer and I require that kind of space and freedom!

So, I was happy and relieved and felt like the little pieces of my life were falling into place again. After a brief roundup of news and my internet-footprint over a cup of black coffee, I was amused to observe that the effects of my good-fortune seemed to have crossed Sethusamundaram as I watched ‘See-wag’ and ‘Gam-bhier’ paste the ‘M’ duo around the Galle cricket ground. [Funda 3 of the day: This cricket stadium was a close witness and victim of the 2004 Tsunami as this ground lies next to the Indian Ocean.] The weather, too, was looking much better with the sun belting down on Mumbai. Without wasting my opportunity, I finished the boring chore of washing my clothes, put them on hangers to dry at the living room window. After a shower, I was ready to take on the world.

I spent the afternoon at the studio with the band. It was very entertaining with the conversation ranging from concepts for our first music video to bollywood gossip about the Khans and the Kaifs. We did all this chatter at a room beside the main control room where our dear audio engineer and his intern were mixing the songs. I’m proudly pleased to announce that it’s shaping up good!

As the evening started making out with the night, I cantered out of the studio feeling gleeful about the entire schema of my life. I felt that this money that I had just procured had unleashed me from my poverty, which had taken its toll on my lifestyle. I had actually stopped buying foodstuff like milk, vegetables and bread and had restricted myself to a diet with just rice soup and instant noodles with the occasional ordering-out from a cheap restaurant. Sauntering into the Reliance Fresh outlet with a guitar strapped to my shoulders and with an I *heart* NY T-shirt, I must have looked like a hippie rock star.

I indulged in some serious shopping ranging from groceries to shampoos to garbage bags. I think I must have had that glint in the eye of someone who just had sex or something because I saw a lot people staring at me. I don’t think that I deserved any further attention that normal despite the trimming and styling of my entire cranial hair that I had just got at a cheap saloon nearby. I even managed to get a seriously hot 32 and ¾ th-ish guy looking at me!

The walk back to the apartment was even more comic-o-bnoxious [in search of a better adjective here. Even Vinokur couldn’t help me out.] Add about 7 shopping bags to my otherwise rock-star look and you will coin some neologism yourself! I made it past all the reproachful stares in my apartment building where people make comments to each other about people like me in Tamil without even thinking of the fact that I might, just might, understand what they are talking about. The nerve!

Back home, it was time to spend a peaceful, satisfying, family evening with my husband/wife over Skype. You know, for those who don’t understand long-distance-relationships, it’s fun! We have coffee, meals with each other. We spend time with the other in the kitchen helping each other with our recipes etc. We spend time discussing art, books, music with each other. All of this thanks to Skype.

Today, Vinokur was not feeling great. He’s having sleeping problems yet again and to my dismay he has tried the tried-and-detested method of adjusting the sleeping medication according to his own judgement. I was unhappy and didn’t lose time in making my thoughts clear. Thereby, I again bring to light, the ‘Funda 1 of the day’. The sleeping medication that he’s taking is losing it’s potency to make him fall asleep. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that by taking more of this drug will not affect the process of falling asleep in a person but will succeed in giving the adverse effect of excessive, prolonged sedation.

[Funda 4 of the Day] So kids, don’t try this at home. Don’t titrate your psycho-pharmaceutical drug without consulting your shrink.

And thus I come to the end of this post. I have a lot more stuff to write about and ask you people. I’ll put them as addendum.

1. Do they have something like SnapShots (in WordPress) in Blogger?
   
2. Does anybody watch cricket these days?
   
3. Is anybody interested in music-related posts; say the review of an album or an artist?
   
4. Am I too long-drawn and boring?
   
5. Like flygye, should I list the characters on my blog so that readers could understand better?
   
6. I’m thinking of a blog-post-chain where I want to sort of celebrate the amazing, thought-provoking Indian blog content that I have come across lately. Something like a mini-review appraisal of the blogs that I frequently read. Someone interested in doing that?
   

(PS: I think it's too long. Hardly any comments. Ergo, I'm ordering the last list. I'll also make it easier for people to comment by making a default template for comments. Here goes.)

Default Comment Template

• About the rant:

1. Snapshots:
   
2. Cricket:
   
3. Posts about music:
   
4. Long?
   
5. List of characters:
   
6. Posts on other bloggers: