Middle age reality

Is being in your middle age supposed to be like this? It seems to be a time when all you seemingly do in your life is worry, and when everything you do seems like a chore. Those fun things — going to a movie, reading a book, catching up with friends, taking photos and sharing them — everything becomes tasks that you wished you didn’t have to do. Even hobbies — especially if you have made them into an unfulfilling unforgiving profession — aren’t enjoyable.

Probably, it is a phase of life where the amount of hope dwindles, and the amount of expectation, from your friends, society, and you yourself, overwhelms you. In addition, it’s when you tend to make lists of things to do and tasks to accomplish and check a majority of the items off because of lack of time and money. You also would wish to overcome insurmountable barriers because you see others achieving them with ease.

Your life seems stuck at a place which is unpleasant to you, yet not unbearable, and you do things to please others — others who you care for, or who you don’t, who are often at a much happier place in life. You see childish foolish folks around you everywhere you look, who seem to be happy, much too happy for what they deserve, and you wish for a moment as to why you couldn’t be so innocent and naïve.

To add to this, almost everything that you end up doing had to be done because if you don’t, something bad will happen as a consequence to you and to others, who often, almost coincidentally, seem to forget life is not a one way street. Everything seems to be stuck at an unfortunate point in your life, and its easy to find fault every relationship that you have had — be it friend, family, lover, and those with the other people in your head.

Even if I had a time machine, I probably can’t use it to good effect — I hate my past, I dislike my present, and I’m scared about my future.

Pink

Pink is everywhere. My mobile handest's case, a woman who's travelling in the same railway coach, my lover's cheeks when he blushes, the new construction coming up at Santa Cruz station, a series of advertisement hoardings at Bandra - everything's pink. Yet people make fun of pink. It's a girly color. It's a faggy color. It's eeks.

But why? Aerosmith wrote a song about it. I love that song, and everything about the song is brute and androgen inspired. And it was not mean to be ironic, I'm sure. Yet, people around me, most of them, make fun of my mobile handset case. I didn't have a choice to select from - all the store had was pink. They want something unsimilar to a barbie doll on the mobile.

My first choice wouldn't have been pink. Not because I expect such negative reaction from everyone, but it's not my most favorite color. For my handset, black/grey would have been the best choice - blue is my all-time favorite color. Yet, I'm okay with the pink rubber case. It's sturdy and it's comfortable. It gives me good access to all the keys, and actually goes with my theme on the phone, which is actually pink!

To date, I haven't studied why my phone theme is in pink. The first reason that comes up is the fact that it offers the best possible contrast to menus and makes my phone work smoothly. The same reason why the case is pink too. Why can't people just assume that it's comfortable for me and let me be me? Why can't they stop being ashamed of me if I'm using pink?

Walking through the jungle

So you are walking toward your destination in a hurry. A guitar and a backpack strapped to your shoulder and back, respectively, and you are trying to make good time. You're late by ten minutes already and are on the brink of drowning in shame and guilt. And you see these kinds of people walking in front of you:

• Middle-aged women who walk slowly as if their uteruses would fall off if their perinei were stretched any further during the locomotive act - same reason why their husbands and spouses get more than adequate sleep in the night and grow obese.
• Obese men walking slowly as if they are ambulating in their parallel universe where the gullies (and phalluses) are as wide as their waist size, but in reality their shrunken organs can't penetrate the pubic bush-crown of the abovementioned class of women - the same reason why this unfortunate couple stopped making kids.
• Their kids act as if they grew on a land called Imbecilia. Sometimes they pair up and walk slowly as if they want to beat their moms and dads in cuntitude.
• And then there are hawkers, peddlers, and similar beings who forgot to scratch their balls/butt before leaving home.

All of them together create this spectacular series of pedestrian bottlenecks. The Mumbai Municipal Road Development Authority is in liaison with all of them, I think. How else could we explain the strategically placed barricades and dugouts which confuse the shit out of cunning canines and felines attempting to traverse the stretch?

This is when you feel a tad abusive and whiny. You also feel the world is being unreasonably unreasonable to you and your diabolical plans to save yourself from humiliation due to hypochronomodulation.

Lust in a Train

He sits across a couple of rows
A fleeting glance, it gets locked
I gaze out the window
Turn my head, I'm locked too

Perfection. The look. There is no other word
Polar opposite otherwise, I presume

Salt and pepper, looks clever
Sharp nose, trimmed black 'stache
Long fingers, three rings
Tucked out shirt, no binger
Fair and handsome
A product of the genes and not a factory

But, there is a Crimson tilak,
Probably listens to Uddhav, the shark
Has a wife, an ugly beast perhaps
And has a business that pays him in heaps

But again, conservative, religious,
And worried that I'm looking back at him

I chew the salted nuts, hoping they could be his
He shifts uncomfortably, and starts his routine prayer

Should i leave him alone?
He's too good to look at!
Is he going to come home?
He's too proud to do that!

I stare on and on, and
every thirty seconds, he catches me
Just the fleeting glance of lust
Of what he lost out on
Because society forced it on him

Society overcame him then
It does now too
The seat vacated next forces him
To readjust himself significantly
So that our eyes won't meet anymore

I start typing this
I get busy at this
Five minutes on, I look up
He's still staring at me

He wants me, but he can't
I want him, but I won't

He dozes away at Bandra
His head bounces up and down
I wish, oh how I wish, I were the reason
And not the train and the gaps in the tracks
And then a crowd blocks my vision
Hell, I won't mind pulling a Kasab, to get my view back

And then I see him staring at me
Eyes locked, not wavering
Had he decided that Sena is sin?
And sodomy is in?

I feel the stirring, a bit of hope
The train will be near empty, it's Dadar

It's my stop but I'm lost in him
And I don't feel sorry
Not for me, but only for him

I feel happy that I made a Sainik
Regain his conscience
Perhaps it's not much
But it's a start, or a semblance

QOL

I always wonder an acceptable quality of life (QOL) is? Is it intimately related to lifestyle and comfort? Are both the same?

In the last two years of my life as a struggling bachelor/artist, I have passed through the 'virtual' worst possible scenarios. Hunger, poverty, infestations, debt, depression, separation, and a helluva lot more. All through this period, I have seen and sampled many a level of 'living' - almost all of them being socially superior to mine. Most of these instances made me feel insecure, and apart from occasional fugues of mania and appreciable amounts of alcohol in blood, nothing has helped me much from feeling miserable.

Then came the real shit - depression. And even further down the lane came therapy.

Now my perspective has changed. The long and short, the broad and narrow, the deep and superficial, have all ceased to be a ghastly blur. I have started to think rationally and perhaps have started planning - maybe not to the extent that would be considered prudent at my age. I have goals to aim at and landmarks to achieve.

For example - renting a decent one BHK (one bedroom, hall, kitchen apartment - for you non-Indians), occasional partying, a few movies, a relaxed time during weekends, progress in music and editing, holistic improvement, avoidance of wasting time, occasional indulgence, a complete (albeit cheap) wardrobe, vacation, solitude, quietness, enjoying art... The list could go on and on.

Two questions remain:

1. Is this what quality of life means to all of you? I pose this question to my readers.

2. What has changed?

Is it my graduation? Is it the thrilling experience at my job (it's been about a year since I started working)? Reaching the over-hyped landmark of 30 years of age? Therapy for depression? The gradual but progressive weaning from being an eternal optimist/die-hard romantic? Completion of a circle of life? The bitterness of fate? The irony of existence? Love?

Weed out your garden

Everyone's life is in the process of being lost due to a lack of direction, motivation, and a tendency to stagnate. You may say that I'm a cynic, but I'm not the only one. If you indulge in some sort of art, like I do (music), the onus is on you to prevent this from happening. Keeping company with an intelligent group of people you selectively retain after careful weeding helps in your life.

I find it increasingly suffocating to be hanging around with people having musical egos, who don't have a structured approach to dealing with music, and those who don't have a musical goal or are failing in any attempts (mostly none) to reach it. For example, I would much rather be alone in a busy train listening to inspiring music by geniuses (like Alanis Morissette, in my life right now) than stay in a cab full of feigned, pointless conversation about how good/bad a gig/band was.

You might also say that I'm a bitch, but I'm probably one of the few with balls enough to realize, accept and execute this ideal. This, I believe, is universal - to avoid bad people/things in your life. But just keep this in mind: 'bad' is relative and there is every chance that I'm 'bad' for your life. So avoid me, if you must - for your life is your garden, after all, and it's better to start picking and weeding it in springtime.