i wish i could go back to the day when i finished school. the date was february 2, a day after my birthday. when i walked through the empty school playground, dragging my first and only denim jeans jacket on my shoulders, flapping its already short sleeves dangling on the sides. my right cheek cut and a swollen face that schoolmates then thought was great makeup. the jester of the group, i had a boyfriend before most in my 'group', so people never really bothered much. i wish i could go back to that day so i could lose my self to this song.
walking the road back home, with the girl who i thought was my best friend, as she lamented about not winning the evening title, which was won by her actual best friend. my best friend was the hottest girl in school then, probably still is. she gets married this week.
most think that that is the day when the music dies for them, but that was the day when i could feel the bitterness on my chapped lips. i was quick to grasp at the fact that all of life was going to be a shitshow, so while 'growing up' when life actually went rosey every once in a while, i was taken aback.
the broken kid who could not ever smile, who had one too many secrets lining up the walls of her chest. the sacred sorrow of life, that we all shared with the lonely dark nights at the parents' house.
the friend who went to the call centre to slog it out and prove a point to his harsh father, and got stuck in the torrential May rain in my otherwise torrid shamble of a hometown, gets married next month. i had wept a nimble earnest few tears on my mother's shoulders that night. i had put together some poems for him when my best friend dumped him.
on the vast dry, dull and dark canvas of childhood, when i was lean and grumpy and couldnt wait to put my lips on the alcohol that i hadn't never really gotten around to tasting, i had relied on all these broken people around me.
everything on Netflix now reminds me of everyone from then. its like they got random access to my memories from 1.5 decades ago, and they're playing it all out now on TV.-- except everyone here has really nice clothes and the language and words are a thing of joy.
after i left school, there were talks about how the subsequent batches were ugly, ferocious in the worst ways and violent in everything. it had seemed to me then that no one ever saw how small acts of looking away, and cocooning, and sheltering, and hiding are also ways of being violent. and how my batch had excelled in it, along with academics. we were true all rounders.
the empty playground, the various dresses i couldnt buy, those umpteen hideous walls, chipping off on my ugly clothes. that one time when the chipped paint flake ran into my eyes, and i had rubbed it hard, too hard, on a chilly December night, how'd i've known that all of life is that broken, burning, chipped feeling stinging at the insides of your eye. that jabbing, throbbing feeling would return to me everyday on public commute when some man would almost plant his lips on my cheeks, or some one would carress my butts as if i was their child, that sting would return, rushing upto my fingernails, and i'd take the autorickshaw the next day to avoid slapping someone with my bag.
words and mathematics, the xs and ys of algebra and all those trigonometry were my buddies, a frown sitting on my forehead, dancing between my eyes -- always that menacing look, that obnoxious scowl that would later be known as the 'resting bitch face'.
we were a generation of real books, play time with friends, greeting cards, get togethers, no facebook, only silly nokias, yet we hid behind devilish plans, and behind back-biting sessions, and all that name calling. we were a shit bunch then that refused to chuck someone alone.
we were always there to let each other down, watch rang de basanti with one another and then leave the lonely dreamer, the wayward poet, the loner always woogathering, by herself.
we were a generation brought up on frigid masculinity and no emotions, and even limited communication. money mattered, phones mattered, having a room to yourself mattered, but you know what mattered the most? that you belonged.
a generation that belonged in ways that could conjure the worst ways to remove someone who didn't. and now people hide behind thousands of instagram followers, behind overseas mansions, and a life that's picture perfect.
here i'm sat listening to american pie and sip at my cheap whiskey, bad news is always on the doorstep, there's always a knock on the door, there's always something dying something on the inside of me, wonder when it'll all erode away, and only the shiny bits will remain?
gtg, there's a baraat and dhol going on, on the road outside my house, and its brilliant dilip kumar songs they are grooving to