Teenage angst

I feel like a teenager today. Shopping for birthday gifts, angst at my parents, a little crush, staying up late checking my mail. I'm about five years behind my age. I should be driving myself around, living in a rented house, responding furiously to mails on my blackberry/iphone, travelling to london, paris and tokyo for work and complaining about how incessant flight-taking has given me chronic backaches.

 

Alas.

Sleepless

It is so strange. I haven't slept properly in two weeks. Till yest my body was breaking and my eyes were droopy. Day before I fell asleep with the laptop in my hand. Today I've slept all of 3 hours - 5.30 to 8.30. That too after a rather gruelling day at work. In fact, I'm incredibly stressed today as well. Yet, somehow, I feel.....fresh...no other way to describe it. No burning eyes, no desire to drown myself in my blanket. I feel energetic. I feel like going place and doing things.

 

I hope I haven't spoken too soon and I hope this feeling lasts a while.

 

It's probably because i didn't have to go for the training. Just the knowing that the day could've been a lot worse is keeping me happy.

 

There are three kayasthas in my office. I don't think I've ever seen so many unrelated kayasthas in one room before. And the strange thing was one of them actually knew I was a kayastha before I told her! This has never happened to me before.
Plus they knew about Chitragupta and the kalam-davaat pooja! I thought that only happens in our house! Its very strange to meet other kayasthas.

Please send in your suggestions

After vowing to write more often (one post every week, i had naively promised my blog) the momentum just died out. again. i don't know what it is about writing that makes me unstick. it's just a stupid blog which maybe two people in the world read so it can't be the pressure of putting up a good post. And i do have things to write about. Every day in the auto i think of something and forget it by the time i reach home. maybe should i carry a journal and write the old fashioned way. Or, i could get a PDA. hmm, i like plans that end in getting a pda. or a mini lappy like the twin's. why mini? i should save up and get a macbook pro.
Please send in your suggestions on a way to stick to blogging.

Gosh, I need a new obsession. I was watching HIMYM today and Ted is just so passionate about everything! From architecture to marriage to the appropriate usage of 'literally' to his ugly red boots! I've been through phases of savage garden, 104fm radio, fali, roswell, harry potter etc etc but I can't rem what passion feels like anymore. All I feel is fatigue. (Now fatigue is something I can write volumes about)
Please send in your suggestions for things I might want to be passionate about.

My life begins and ends with office. I think of office all day. It's the last thing in my head before I fall asleep and the first thing I think of in the morning. Although i wait desperately for holidays, I spend them incessantly thinking of work and remotely funny things that happened at work. For instance, the other day this guy says at the lunch table that I don't talk at all and forces me to tell a joke. I tell the only (really sad) joke that I know and there is deathly silence at the table. On a table of 16, not a single person's lip even twitches. But mostly I think about inane things that have no bearing and in all probability make no sense to people outside of work. I have no way of verifying this theory as i meet no people outside of work.
Please send in suggestions for fitting more things into your day and telling better stories/jokes.

Review: The Museum of Innocence

Orhan Pamuk is famous. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
This is what I had in my head when I started reading Museum of Innocence. The book is the story of a man's obsession with a girl. OP is clearly a good writer and I must say the translation was excellent; at no point did I feel like I was reading a book that wasn't originally written in English. But man, the book drags on!
I think what OP forgets is that I (the reader) am not in love with Fusun. There's 4 pages of "sometimes we would stand by the window, sometimes we would eat brinjals, sometimes i would leave late, sometimes we would go out.." not 1, not 2, not even 3 but 4 whole pages of this! in tiny miniscule print! Reading that bit really solves the mystery of the size of the book.
The story itself has no real mystery and an entirely predictable plot. The first part of the book is...scandalous. The second half is just obsessive. On some level, I could relate to it. I've been lonely and stalkery. I have that magpie-like habit of collecting objects and reliving memories through them. Despite this relatable-ness, at no point in the story do you feel like something important is happening. You're always just hoping that something important will happen and when the action finally arrives, it's over before you know it.
[In one Subhash Ghai moment, OP himself makes a guest appearance in the book. That was funny. ]
The book is well-written and while I wouldn't recommend it, I wouldn't tell you not to read it either. I think OP is a good writer. All he needs is a little perspective. If he would just concentrate on the right parts, and reduce the pages by half, it could make for a really nice story.

What do you do in your head?

Chini used to say she outlines objects in her head (artist)
Mansi used to outline objects and try to do it using a single line, without breaking the line (artistic and competitive tendencies)
I try to imagine what different people would do in my shoes (self-centered psychologist)

What do you do in your head?

Soundtrack: Stars- Personals

I spent a lazy Sunday morning in Saket today, simultaneously eating and reading brunch. Except, I wasn't really reading Brunch. I just said that because it sounded clever. I was actually reading Nisha Susan's article in Tehelka's new special issue on love across borders. All the while I was reading it I kept thinking "How can people reveal such personal issues in a national magazine? Don't they know it that 110,000 (wiki-verified) people are reading about their lives?"
But I guess that's exactly what made it a good story. If you took out the personal bits, there woudn't be a story at all.

That's one of the things that holds me back from writing/speaking. I have few lifestories and opinions to begin with and I'm reluctant to share the ones I have. Even seemingly frivolous things like my choice of music, my friends, my favourite food.. Everyone probably knows I spend atleast a third of my waking hours on the internet but ask my friends what I do online and they'll all be stumped. What do I like to watch on TV? What are the things I value in life? What do I think about most often? What is the one thing I'm working towards? and they wouldn't be able to answer. I'm not sure even I know the answers to those questions.

[There was more to this post but I decided its too personal to be on a blog and took it out.]