Chasing the Years of My Life...

"I'm ten years old. My life is half over and I don't even know if I'm black with white stripes or white with black stripes!" - Marty- the Zebra, Madagascar.

So, yet another year has come to pass. I don't grow up anymore; I only grow old. By now, I know a few things with certainty - like eventually you get over almost any crisis in life, no matter how soul-sucking and stupendously indelible it may have seemed at one time. Also, I know which are the things that really matter in life - like fun and friendship.

You were a good year, 26th. I'm almost longing for you to be back. I made amazing new friends, cut my hair, learnt Spanish, learnt how to cook, worked hard, partied harder, danced a little, sang a lot, wrote some, and dreamed many armchair adventures. I went on a vacation to frikkin' China! (Beat that now.) It was a year of reminiscing and forgetting, forgiving even - a year when you pick the pieces of past and reorient your life, little by little. It was the kind of year that gives you hope when you look back upon it.

I think about the past decade often - a succession of revelations. I went through years when I didn't like myself too much. Then through years when I grew comfortable with my imperfections and contradictions. Eventually, I learnt to live with myself. As a corollary, I learnt to live with others.

I learnt that knowing that expectations are traps just doesn't save you from them. And that true freedom lies not in their defiance, but in their righteous fulfillment.

And oh, I thought a great deal about love, of course. I shredded the concept to pieces - analysed it, experimented with it, embraced it, resisted it, condemned it. Once, I surrendered to it and let myself be comforted by it. Once, I simply walked away from it. Once, it was ruthlessly taken away from me. I learnt that it is difficult to move on without achieving closure, but that sometimes you just have to do it. I contemplated the nature of longing and loss and discovered that often one begets the other. And so I learnt to perfect the art of un-possessing, un-belonging; of severing ties and of letting go.

I learnt that you live some moments in life which seem perfect; and that you long to preserve them. I also learnt that these moments seem so perfect only because they are transient and because you cannot frame them inside a snow globe and hold on to them forever. I learnt that memories are one of the surest sources of joy in one's life.

These have been years of reckoning - of growing older and wiser; of growing richer with every experience.

In a few days, I'll have surpassed 26. I never imagined I'd be a 26 year old when I was young, but I had an inkling of what I wanted to feel like when I am a woman.

And today, I feel every bit like the woman I wanted to be.

Seasons of Providence

Fall; October, 2001; Ranchi:

I was returning from my physics tuition class when my "Lady Bird" got a punctured tyre.

The wind was strong, and the evening, dressed in colours of the earth: ochre, brown, yellow; golds and pastels. A bicycle is good company for a stroll on a lovely autumn evening. The trees are mighty and benevolent - they strip themselves off, to carpet the road below with their withered foliage - which crackled underneath my feet, welcoming, as I walked. Dry leaves caught in a wind eddy, danced in circular jubilation before me.

I tried to look ahead, sheltering my eyes with one hand, to see if I could find someone who could direct me to a cycle repair shop. When you're 16, help comes easy. Through the flurry of dust and leaves, I saw the silhouette of a boy approaching. A beautiful boy with a grand smile and mischievous eyes.

He decided to walk me to the shop. We found things to talk about - school, tuition, common friends. My cycle was repaired. I could ride it back home. But we walked instead. Back in the days no one exchanged numbers in small towns. We knew that we'd run into each other again and we did. Let's say, quite often indeed.

I did not know what love at first sight meant, before that evening of fall. And I will not qualify the last statement with anything cynical about growing up and knowing better.

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Winters; November, 2008; Delhi

My first Delhi winter was about to make its way into my life in all its fury. I intended to make good use of the last few days on which I could still flaunt some skin, and wore the little black dress. I hopped into a car with some strange beautiful ladies among whom I had a friend from my dance class, who had invited me over for a night of letting my hair down.

23 is an odd age - lacking in character, lacking in anything which can be considered a significant milestone during a girl's passage to womanhood. I had been in love, been heartbroken and gotten over it, several times already. A harsh winter in a new city can be a lonely time. I wanted someone to keep me warm.

As I stepped out of the car, I realized what a mistake it had been to underestimate the might of a parky November night in Delhi. Men joined us, and one of them noticing my discomfort, offered me his coat. Several vodka shots and car hops later, we landed at a bachelors apartment for some after party.

I hadn't spoken much to the man in question, since I had my eye set on another pretty boy in the group, who disappeared later. I took to a corner in the lobby to get a couple of hours of sleep before sunrise, when I could make my way home. As the effect of the alcohol in my blood wore away, the tip of my nose froze; my toes curled inside the carpet; I drew a cushion close to my chest for warmth and my breath spawned mist before my eyes.

And there he was again - anticipating my needs - offering me a large sweatshirt, a warm quilt and a hot coffee, along with a delightful conversation which continued till day light.

I spent the next year and a half in his T-shirts and sweatshirts.

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Spring; January, 2004; Chennai

This is cheating, you'd say - January isn't spring! But it is the closest you can get to "feeling" spring in hot, hot Madras.

I had left Hyderabad to attend the grand "IIT Saarang" with a huge backpack containing my prettiest dresses and loveliest shoes. (What can I say, I have a thing for nerds.) I eventually reached there only with my handbag, that had only my wallet and my toothbrush. What transpired in between is a story for another time.

I didn't have much hope for finding romance in the next three days, considering I had to manage in a couple of cheap T-Shirts and pajamas that I had picked up from a street-side shop, with whatever little money I had, before making my way to the IIT campus. Strangely, even after literally having lost so much, my spirit was intact. Must be the spring in my veins.

At one corner there were a hundred talented young men and women painting each other's faces - metamorphosing what was human into a motley of characters out of fantasy; at another, vast expanses of the floor lay covered in kaleidoscopic illustrations of Rangoli; further ahead, in the midst of a congregation, a bunch of vivid performers proclaimed social slogans and implored upon people to participate.

As I walked further ahead a bevy of deers bounced past the road, into a meadow of tall-grass, causing its culms to spray white tufts of tiny flowers into the settled air and then quickly disappeared into a thicket.

Spring is so much more of a state of mind, than a season.

I walked far and long - in my dirty jeans - nonchalant towards my disheveled appearance, content with the anonymity, till I reached an auditorium which announced a "Salsa Workshop".

"Hi, I'd like to register."
"Do you have a partner?"
"Umm, nope. Don't know anyone here."
"Dance with me?"

Well, what can I say, I guess nerds have a thing for me too.

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Summer; June 2011; Delhi

At almost 26, you'd think I know something about romance and love and butterflies in the stomach. But I am clueless, still. Not having dated for a whole year, is, going by past experience, quite odd for a girl like me. The seasons have passed me by, markedly lacking in happenstance.

However, I am a summer girl. I like trotting about in skimpy shorts and tank tops. I like crunching up my short hair before I make eye contact with the cute guy at the bar while sipping on a frozen margarita. When it is bright and shiny, I like to be a darling and a flirt. When it is bright and shiny, I am hopeful of providence once again.

By the way, the other day I ran into a very cute guy at the bar. He got my number. We have a date. You never know. ;)

That Summer of Her Dreams.

She kicked off the dusty ground with her feet - where the grass had depleted because of repeatedly being struck against - to launch her make-shift swing in the air. She clasped the rugged rope that fastened the swing to the mango tree with her tiny hands, stretched her little legs together and bent her body backwards to streamline it, in an attempt to make the swing gain momentum.

As she descended, the pit of her stomach sunk and a surge of thrill ran through her chest down her spine. She let the zephyr stroke her soft, fine tresses - pushing the stray strands on her forehead off her face. She observed the ground closing in. Her immediate ascension, just when she speedily approached it, made her body lean ahead and her legs to curl back. As she reached the highest she shut her eyes, and allowed the stray rays of the sun streaming through the fissures of the shady branches fall on her freckled face. A beatific smile spread across her countenance. If she could only open her arms and fly like a bird just then!

She swung back again causing the wind to usher the hair over her face again, as her heart filled with ecstasy and the orchard with her guileless chortle. She breathed in the still, summer air, heavy with the sweet smell of ripe mangoes. In her next ascent she would aim at swinging higher, to try and pluck that bright red and yellow one dangling from one of the lower branches. She could hear her mother's distant voice calling out to her: "Anu...Anuradha...not so high. Come down now, it is time to eat."

But mother's voice was drowned by the loud screech with which the early morning bus came to a halt before the pavement on which she slept. It emitted odious black fumes all over her and made her wake up.

Rude awakening to reality was something she had become used to. There had been worse days. Once a mutt had pissed all over her feet while she was asleep under a flyover. Another time when she had managed to sneak into the swanky metro station to get a good nights' sleep, she had been hit and chased away by a potbellied policeman, who seemed to be devoted to serving his country by keeping her parks and public places clean of her hapless and destitute citizens.

She scratched her tacky, brown hair which had tangled itself in knots with her dirt filled nails. Then, she rubbed her dirt-filled eyes which stuck to each other with her small blackened hands, before she sat up and looked at the bored, sleepy faces peeping through the sealed, misty windows of the air conditioned bus.

The mango orchard of her memories appeared in her dreams often. The girl had been her own age and had a classic name - Anuradha - so much more important sounding than what she was called - Guddi. She had come from Dilli, to spend her vacations at her ancestral home in her village. How Guddi had longingly looked at Anuradha's soft, shiny hair and her Minnie-Mouse shoes, when she had accompanied her mother to their house where her mother cooked and cleaned for wages. How she had longed to be Anuradha and often was, in her dreams.

She had been told that they were both five years old that summer. The following autumn she had run away from home, scared that her mother's man would beat her to death in his state of inebriation after her mother had died of a pernicious disease. It is easy to lose the concept of time, when living on the streets. In the coming autumn, it will be two years since she ran away from her village and came to Dilli. She knew it by keeping track of seasons.

That summer with Anuradha had been the best days of her life. The beautiful city girl had had no qualms in befriending her. She had allowed her to take her turn at the swing. She had told her fascinating stories from her little book of fables - stories of lovely princesses and charming princes; stories of adventures embarked upon by brave travelers. And she had let her eat that divine-tasting fruit freshly plucked from the sprawling tree. Guddi remembered feeling its sweet, squishy pulp squirt into her mouth filling it with its savor and making her smack her lips in delight.

She liked the streets mostly - she was free here, and most days she managed atleast one small meal. But sometimes she missed her mother and sometimes her thoughts returned to that summer of her dreams.

But she quickly cast these thoughts aside. It was a new day. There were things to be done - rags to be picked; palms to be stretched out for alms; food to be foraged for, among the garbage disposed away from the restaurants.

She wondered though, what it was that the bade log - the "big people" - the rich people, dreamed about.

An Insignificant Incident, that Warrants no Mention. And Yet.

He had stared at the dance floor; for uttering a confounded apology while staring into the eye is a task for the braver to undertake.

He had eventually come around to saying the words, and he had meant them. And I had heard them. "I am sorry" - heard each syllable pronounced coherently, even over the loud pulsating music, along with the other fumbled phrases about the past and things as they used to be; my gaze still affixed unto the blazing red paint on my finger-nails, that rested delicately upon the folds of my satin dress.

And we had looked at each other briefly. And he had tried to study the blankness of my visage to decipher my predicament. Would I forgive him, or would I not care? And in my head, I had wondered: did I remember?

For a split-second, I was reminded of the hurt as it had existed: a memory of a feeling as opposed to the feeling itself. A feeling that had been agonizing and impassioned. A feeling...that had been, but no longer was.

I remembered it, as I would remember an old movie, watched once upon a time: its plot vague and amorphous.

And maybe for a moment I had smiled lightly. Or was that a smirk? My mind had earnestly tried to contemplate a response.

But our moment was lost.

And I had let his apology linger there, among the din of the exulting crowd and the numerous pairs of feet swinging to a popular bollywood number, in ironical silence.

And we had returned our gaze to the cavorting lights on the dance floor.

Strawberry Fields Forever.

"We will soon be landing at the Birsa Munda Airport, Ranchi. You are requested to keep your seat belt fastened and keep your mobile phones switched off till the aircraft has come to a halt."
This aircraft is the smallest commercial shuttle I have ever journeyed in. We are barely 25-30 people on board. Ours is the only aircraft in the miniature aerodrome.
When we land, a little stair case, with all of five steps, falls under the aircraft's exit and we alight and walk straight ahead to the small administrative block, which has only one conveyor belt. Pa is waiting for me outside.

I am a closet small town girl, living in a big city. I will always be. Even though I visit my small town once in two years, for a little more than a weekend.
"This is all so cute. Nothing has changed."
My father disagrees. "So many things are different. You will see on your way." And then, in a moment of comical irony, escorts me to our old, antiquated, Maruti 800. He puts on the same old cassette with Manna Dey's beautiful and primitive, classical renditions.
"You hardly ever see this car in Delhi these days. And oh my God Papa, no one listens to cassettes anymore!"
Mumma comes out of the kitchen in delighted anticipation, after having heard that I have arrived. I enliven her in one sweeping embrace. She smells of her signature soap mixed with the aroma of tempered spices; sweet smelling nostalgia. The lentils in the kitchen taste of fond memories. I can never quite get it right, back in Delhi, even if I scrupulously follow her instructions on the recipe.
I immediately leave for the hospital, a few blocks down our government quarter. This is the reason which has drawn me home, after two long years. While parents visit me every couple of months in Delhi, I never really get to see my grandmother. She had been admitted to the hospital two weeks back. She can't sit or walk anymore.
The hospital itself is a castle of the past. I was born in one of the cabins I walked past. When I broke my leg, I sat on a wheelchair right here before the emergency ward. In its corridors, I have walked innumerable times, to visit friends and family, to celebrate and to mourn. The faces of nurses and the staff are familiar. There are no visiting hours. It is all in the family.
=Dadiji does not recognize me at first for she can't see too well. When I tell her it is I, "What happened to your hair?" she asks with concern. I laugh it off.
At above 90, she is at a place where it is difficult to differentiate dreams from memories: a place in transit.
"Your grandfather took me to Japan."
"You never went to Japan, Dadiji." bemused, I remind her. Her eyes widen in defiance, then she fixes her gaze on the sluggishly spinning fan, and squints. "When he was posted in Motihari, he took me to Japan."
"That was Nepal, Dadi." I remind again. "Yes, yes. Nepal." She concedes, reminiscing.
"We also went to America." I tell her only Dadaji went to America, to study at Cornell University. He went on a government scholarship and had to leave her behind.
"Your grandfather was a very good man." He indeed was.
"You should think of getting married. Jawaani to hasi-khushi beet jaati hai, magar budhape mein ek jeewan-saathi zaroori hai." When you're young, the life is full of fun and frolic, but you need a life partner when you grow old.
Pa comes into the cabin. She signals at me, and tells him "I have convinced her, that it is essential that a girl be married off." Then she looks at me intently, as if about to divulge the greatest secret of life.
"A husband, is a husband. Even if he is stupid or a charlatan. No one will do more for you in life, than your mother or your spouse."
This is for the first time that I find someone giving me marriage advice, so utterly endearing.
Pa strokes her forehead and sparse tuft of silver hair with his hands. "You will leave me and go Ma?"
"My mother also left me and went away." she said, smiling, like a sage. A simple reply. I couldn't continue the conversation without feeling a lump rise up my throat.
"I was born to my parents after a lot of prayers and appeal to the Gods." She said. "After three girls and two boys who did not survive. It seems like God sent me with all their quotas for living. I am ready to go, but the pran (life force) refuses to leave my body." The humour hasn't left her.
I tell her I was going home and would come and see her again, later.
"Home? What is this then?" She asks innocently.
"This is hospital, Dadi."

And she smiles again. For a person in so much pain, she smiles quite a lot.
I head home, with a renewed sense of mortality of all things and how that makes life all the more treasured.
Pa wants me to see the new house they have bought, which is still under construction.
"They have made it totally Gurgaon style!" He exclaims with child-like exuberance. "The society has everything. A swimming pool, a jogging trail, a club, and what else....we can see the distant Jagganathpur Temple from our balcony. I dream of the day I would wake up every morning to this auspicious darshan."
I am heartened at his excitement. On the way Pa points out to me the piles of bricks and rubble, that used to be the erstwhile illegal dwellings of the poor, now bulldozed off at the High Court's order. Some people are still sitting and sorting out their paraphernalia among the debris. Some are cooking in open air. The path that takes us off the main road to the site is a congregation of potholes of various sizes. Pa says a pakka road will be constructed there.

I am reminded of early school days, when while riding home in the shabby, old school bus through a particularly rough road patch, we kids would rise up from our seats to enjoy the joyride. At times the bus would plummet over an unusually high speed breaker and for a moment there, we would all stay suspended in mid air, only to hit the floor with a monstrous thud. That was our daily dose of adventure.
I tried to drive Pa's car. It is indeed a sweet little thing, but difficult to maneuver. It has no power steering. Papa drives, clasping the steering wheel tight and forcefully swinging it with both his hands at every turn. I adoringly observe him, while he crinkles his nose and frowns and tut-tuts his way through the path across a meadow, to the construction site. The society is impressive, by the standards of a small town.
"I keep telling him to buy a new car." says Ma. "But he says, what is the use?" I identify the sharp contrast in their attitude, from what I have seen in Delhi's denizens: where a house of two members, prefers to flaunt four big cars, regardless of how many their parking spaces can actually accommodate. Their cars serve the ego, not the purpose.
It's a simpler life, with simpler ambitions: a small house, a small car, good education for the children and a group of loved ones around to spend the old days with.
I tell Mumma that Pa is right. Somethings are better unchanged.
I am saddened at the thought that tomorrow, I will leave it all behind, one more time. Things will not be the same when I come back again. Dadiji may, or may not be among us. In a couple of months Papa will retire. My parents won't be living in the same colony where I grew up: the very lanes of which vividly bring to life old memories, as I walk through them.
In these two days, I have been brought to close quarters with the past again; looked back at life as it was, and consequently, looked ahead at future with nervous anticipation. When you have lived some, you have lost some. When you have lived a lot, you probably have lost quite a bit too: loved ones, homes, possessions and time.

I am drawn towards an enquiry into the essence of a "life-well-lived", which in turn confronts me with the question of its authenticity: it is brisk and fragile; an assortment of experiences, good and bad. A sum total of all things you are and will be and will do; the spaces you will occupy; the roads you'll walk down; the people you will love; the heartbreaks you will go through; the stories you will live to tell; the dreams you will conjure for the future and the past you will look back upon, sometimes fondly and at other times, with anguish.
My attention is diverted to the song in loop in my head:
"Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real...

And nothing to get hung about."

Notes on Strangers on my Couch.

I offer couch to strangers like you. In exchange, you offer stories. It's a fair deal.

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Magda:

You were the first. Trusting you came easy, I guess it was the same for you. I wonder if it is only the prospect of a free shelter and food that brings two strangers from half way across the globe together. Humanity never ceases to amaze me.

You arrived at midnight; when the June's sweltering Delhi day had been lulled to behave. I was amused that you expected me to be, not what I was: a tiny girl, clad in summer shorts and a vest. "Not very Indian", you probably intended to say, but replaced your words carefully with a more polite euphemism: "Independent".

You stayed 4 days. You ate nothing hot and spicy. You refused to carry a cell phone. You insisted on travelling in atrocious DTC buses to Old Delhi. You befriended a strange man in Jama Masjid and accepted his invitation to visit his family. You got scared out of your wits when there was a power cut in his ghetto like home and thought this was the end of your life as you knew it. You smiled and dismissed your fears when the power came back and his sisters most hospitably served you tea and samosas. You visited the Toilet Museum!! (I did not even know that existed!) You came home to narrate to me with most animated gesticulations, each and every moment of your ordeal, with such perspicacity, that I could feel your excitement percolate through my very heart.

You carried only full sleeved shirts because of your preconceived ideas of the conservative India. We shopped at the Sarojini Nagar Market for some more summer-friendly outfits and for the next one hour I pointed out to you every Indian girl who would walk past in a spaghetti strapped top. We watched a movie together. We talked about men, and it was reassuring to know that the experiences with love are uniform across the globe. You later asked me which one I would choose between a man who is a great father, and husband and a man who is a great lover, both exclusive of each other. To which my most honest response was, "I can take care of the kids myself." And we laughed it off for the next ten minutes.

Before you left, you thanked me for dispelling the stereotypes you harboured about India and for accommodating you. I never thanked you for opening my eyes to the world around me.

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Kang Kang:

Your season was the rains. How I wished I had spent more time with you. As Murphy would have it, you had to endure the worst conditions: the pouring rain not allowing you to explore as much as you'd probably desired to, the plumbing and water condition at home going wrong and my being occupied with work mostly. But I never sensed you regretting your choice of staying with me instead of a hostel/hotel.

You stayed 5 days. We talked over breakfast mostly. You loved the milk shake that I prepared and asked me for its recipe. You took a train to Bangalore, but e-mailed me later to inform me that you got off the train at some quaint old South-Indian town that I forget the name of, to go to an ashram, which you overheard some people talk about on the train.

You are an English teacher in China, and yet you struggled to convince me of the earnestness of your gratitude. "Thank you very much dear, we Chinese people are not very good at expressing ourselves." You did just fine.

It is only much later, after I visited China, that I noticed how different you seemed to be from the rest of your kind; from the majority in China who like structure and avoid risks, who refuse to connect with people who are "different".

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Katie:

When we met, we were both warding off the same demons. You tackled them by embracing a real adventure, and I by embracing escapism. You spent four months travelling all over South East Asia: Laos, Vietnam, Nepal, Thailand and then India.

We talked while we painted our nails a bright shade of blue. We treated ourselves to ice-cream at India Gate at midnight. We rolled our eyes at the inane and bizarre attempts of Indian men at propositioning exotic women. We ate kebabs at Khan Market and you told me about your little vacation romance with a hapless young, rockstar-of-a-lad from Nepal. And I shared with you the curious incident of my life which involved falling in love with a Nepalese man. At the thought of romance, we mused, and at the loss of it, we bonded.

We rub shoulders sometimes on our Facebook walls. We don't interact much, other than "liking" a picture or status of either, once in a while. But when you went back, you left me a message: "My toe is still blue from when we painted our nails together, and so a part of you is still with me here in San Francisco."

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Mirko:

I could have fallen in love with you. I did, a little bit. And I know, you did too, a little bit. You were every bit the arrogant German I'd heard of. Your experience with India had been awful, and I believe you weren't lying when you said that I was the most "fun" part of your Indian trip.

You called me the crazy little Indian girl. You thought it stupendous that I would work for hours at a stretch and could still be dressed up and about to go out at night. We danced all of Saturday night. We got lost driving around in the labyrinths of central Delhi in the wee hours, with no regrets. You tested my Spanish speaking skills and teased me like an old pal.

I convinced you against going to the Taj Mahal with a weird Indian man you met through Couchsurfing. (Somehow all weird men have found their way to Couchsurfing). My bad. But in my defence, he was indeed quite a weirdo. Now I see that I had put up my most judgmental glasses on, while you were around. The strange man showed up at my door at 5 a.m. to pick you up for Agra. You told him you won't go.

Well, as it turned out, you traveled to Agra on your own, in a passenger train, and made it to the main gate just in time for it to be shut down for the day; you were denied the wondrous sight. Karma bites, I know. But hey, bad experiences make for wonderful stories.

An hour before you left, you got us a bottle of red wine. We trespassed my neighbour's terrace, climbed on top of my roof and balanced ourselves on the parapet. We drank wine and giggled incredulously about your little Indian (mis)adventure. We never kissed.

Before you left, you said: "If two people meet once in life, there is a 95% probability that they would meet again." I wondered where you got your statistics from and hoped you got them right. We said goodbye. We catch a fleeting glimpse of each other's life on our virtual walls; our interaction limited to "pokes" that we surreptitiously throw at each other on Facebook.

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You are all a lot more than strangers, a little more than acquaintances, but a little lesser than friends.

Through your experiences, I have vicariously trekked the Annapurna Ranges; been lost in Egyptian desserts; taught English to street kids in a quaint, old Tamilian town; attended the Burning Man.

Through your eyes, I have seen a little more. Through your adventures, I have lived a little more. In your company, I have reveled a little more.

I am the quintessential armchair traveler. Someday, I will take myself out of this armchair, and I hope the 5% chance of not meeting you ever again, does not get the better of me.

Chance encounter with a lost love.

In one deep breath, I take you in.

Hello, Bombay. It has been three long years, and I have missed you.

As I stand here, on the 23rd floor of the Taj, Lands End, at midnight, looking upon your brightly adorned Bandra-Worli Sea Link, tearing through the heart of your sea, I muse to myself. This is not how we were acquainted: you and I. And this is not where I had imagined I would ever be looking at you from: an Ivory Tower. I was always the girl of your streets.

You were always the Bombay of the brackish sea breeze, of elbowing through the locals, of knee deep rains, for me. Never a city of a plush hotel room where I spent the past half an hour soaking myself in a bubble bath; nor of 14 hour long meetings bargaining over mega-million deals and certainly not of 10 minute cab rides from Bandra to Worli.

You have changed, and so have I, Old Love. I did not mean to be here today, but I was ordered out of Delhi and into your yearning embrace, at the behest of a beseeching client. I know better. It was you that sent for me. Back here, knowing you like I never knew you before, I long to be yours again. You are my one night stand tonight. Tomorrow I go back to Delhi, to the mundane humdrum of groundhog days.

But for tonight, our spirit is one.

10 Things I Hate About Being 25.

(...or the advent of quarter life crisis.)

1. The disconcerting realization that "generation gap", like global warming, is a real phenomenon.

2. Having to consider whether the man you've become a little interested in, is younger to you or older, as opposed to earlier, when the only consideration was, whether he is single or taken.

3. Calling them "men" now, not "boys" or "guys". Sigh.

4. Sighing more often than before.

5. Self dependence is (pretty much like capitalism) a necessary evil of the adult life.

6. Every body around being so married and all, these days. And people thinking it is okay to ask "So? When are you getting married?"

7. The feeling of running out of time.

8. Having to take care of cooking gas, electricity bills and house repairs.

9. Missing the feeling of butterflies in stomach that came with being infatuated.

10. Bargaining with parents for deadlines as to the number of years you will be "allowed" to remain a bachelorette.

Let's face it, there is something very panicky about being on the other side of the quarter.

Pixie. Because I'm cool like that.

Don't believe anyone when they say that a girl's femininity lies in the length of her hair. It's a bogus claim. Truth being said, I have never felt this feminine in a long, long time. Add to this femininity, a dash of juvenile exuberance, and that's how I'd describe my close crop experience.

When my Pa saw a photo of my new hairdo for the first time, he instantly hated it. "You look like a wet bird!" he exclaimed. "I feel like a wet birdie, Pa!" I told him. I can now do a little head shimmy when I appear out of the shower, just like a wet bird. And I love the way my hair sticks out, making me look all pixie-like. The only maintenance it requires of me, is to wear an occasional wax and to wildly dandle up my hair with my hand. And honestly, the dirtier it gets, the better it looks!

Oh, and I'd forgotten in all these long haired years, how large my eyes really are. Or maybe they just seem larger now, making me look like those wide-eyed anime characters. I now wear kohl often and leave those glasses behind. My mane stands prouder. My naked clavicle begs to be flaunted in strappy dresses, off-shoulders, tube tops and to be adorned in retro tie-up scarves. I even bought little diamond studs to wear in my ears, which is kind of a big deal, because I never used to wear any jewelry at all. But now my ears demanded attention. When I wear those short bangs on my forehead, hold a cigarette, and make small talk, I feel very 'Audrey Hepburn', and want to refer to random people as "Darlings"!

I feel 16 again, or younger (and if you know me, you know I could get away with that easily). I feel like a girl who could get caught sneaking into the club without an ID, but who takes her chances anyway. The girl who the men at the bar give that "does your mother know?" look. I feel like I can get away with finagling for a drink on the house if only I could let my little-girl-eyes grow wide and pout about my drink getting over so soon. Who knows, I could pull off a floozy even, like Natalie Portman!

It all makes sense now that I should wear my hair short, though I wonder why I never tried it before. Long hair is meant for girls who grow up wanting to be Princesses. I was never that girl. I didn't grow up dreaming about a Cinderella story, looking for a Prince Charming. Me? I wanted to be a fairy; a pixie, like Tinker Bell. I would merrily settle for the role of the green, jealous side kick to the boy who never grew up. I wouldn't, I couldn't settle for being a damsel in distress, no Sir! No moping around in the dark corner of a tower, waiting for Knight in Shining Armour for me. Even as a little girl I thought I was better than that. My life was meant to be an adventure; it was meant for mischief and magic, for rafting down the Mississippi, for tackling Capt'n Hook, for surviving an island filled with cannibals. These are the stories I grew up reading and loving. Not fairy tales, mehh. Rapunzel is such a passé.

Of late I have been feeling that wide eyed little girl take over my personality again. She's mocking my 25 long years, willing me to get silly and naughty.

If you'd like to hear it from Mary Garden of 1920s, as she explained in her Article titled "Why I Bobbed my Hair":

"Bobbed hair is a state of mind and not merely a new manner of dressing my head.… I consider getting rid of our long hair one of the many little shackles that women have cast aside in their passage to freedom."

I do believe that this "freedom" is largely mistaken for imitated masculinity. When a woman cuts her hair, she doesn't necessarily sacrifice her femininity. Quite the opposite actually, it could metaphorically be described as a celebration of the innate femininity of a woman, which has nothing to do with her outer appearance; a femininity which is free spirited.

Coco Chanel once said "A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life". There's got to be some truth in that. You reckon?