Things I have done in the last five days:

Set up a bank account.
Hallucinated sufi music.
Tried on 347 sari blouses.
Eaten 4 types of paranthas.
Listened to an Israeli qawwal.
Spent 2+ hours at Jama Masjid.
Gone to a bar in a kurta-pajama.
Created an online photo portfolio.
Acquired a potential freelancing gig.
Been recognized because of my glasses.
Run into an old friend in a public place.
Pulled my first post-collegiate all-nighter.
Shared an autoriksha with 2 lovely strangers.
Eaten 10 bowls of homemade fruit chaat (approx.)
Been cellphone photographed by 3 teenagers (approx.)
Had an hour-long conversation about Indian aesthetics.
Seen the precise spot where my Mum first asked my Dad out.
Hesitantly/unwittingly photographed a famous photojournalist.
Discovered the existence of an Instituto Cervantes Center in Delhi.
Watched Egyptian whirling dervishes against a lit-up Purana Quila.
Listened to carnival-tango-flapper-jazz by a Mexican Argentinian band.
Had 6 day-dreams about a green-sari, white-rose-in-hair, literary romance.
Met the wonderful, seedha young man who's marrying one of my best friends.

Shattered hearts on a cloudless morning

Weeks, months, years later, here I am--damp, distant, glue drying in the cracks--
wondering what the big deal was, and how I failed to notice the absence of real loss. 

Pehle aap kurta peheniye aur urdu bolna seekhiye.
Phir hum sochenge humne kuchh khoya bhi hai ya nahin.

 ¿Qué me importa perderte? 

Nunca lo has tenido.

On Interruptions, Tangents, Repetitions, and Fixating on Details

I attribute to Hindustani Classical Music all my annoying conversational contortions. Listen long enough, and you may begin to hear beauty in the complexity, superfluity, exaggeration.

This revelation/self-justification is brought to you by the annual
Delhi Classical Music Festival.

Heart over History

Oh man. Out of Africa has broken my heart clean open.

Which is weird because my first reactions to colonial-era films are usually always political. I have no idea why this one should escape. I think I should feel terrible, or second guess how I do feel, or protest, somehow.

But I suppose once you get used to a certain narrative of history, you learn to feel between the lines. Something other than discomfort. Something other than rage. Something other than what is now so obvious to me, it has become almost invisible. The fibs are transparent, glass-like: tangible, yet uninterfering.

***

(April 8)
On another level entirely, this film is so resonant it scares the pants off me. Does someone really need to die in order to facilitate a nostalgic resolution and a successful writing career?

Others

What do you think it would feel like to be someone else?

Cooler, I should hope.

Record:

Damn, I'm happy.

Graduate.

How completely absurd to have to move past the people and ideas that you've spent such time and energy letting into your heart and mind.

I suppose the necessary impossible is a pretty apt summation of what they're calling "the real world". Choosing a self, a vision, a mission, and loving it, living it, every single day. Can't do, but can't do without.

So there you are.

There I am.

Happiness / hit her / like a bullet in the back

Florence and the MACHINE.

That's all.

Queasy

Loss, longing, nostalgia and nausea all feel the same to me.

Understandably. It's all just gastrointestinal uneasiness at a lack of nourishment, whether physical or emotional. My stomach is nervous about the state of affairs in my head, and is expressing its protest the only way it can.

Sunday

Today was the kind of Sunday that made it imperative for me to wear aquamarine sunglasses, ride a borrowed bike around town, and try to get hired at a bookstore. And it was important that I came home to a gigantic mug of tea, strawberry jam on toast, and fairy lights.