Rant Alert!!

I don’t think I will make any introductions. I need to rant, crib and vent it all out. And I will do so in a much organized bulleted manner just make sure I have put it ALL out there. So here I go-

• I am terribly overworked and severely underpaid! I don’t mind doing a lot of work but it would be nice to be compensated accordingly!!

• I hate Delhi traffic. Also, I hate the traffic in Calcutta and Bombay (and yes I would forever call it ‘Bombay’) which limits my choices of metropolitan living in India to one city! *Sob*

• I am bored with Delhi (there I said it out loud). And considering the rant mentioned in the bullet above I don’t know where to go!!!

• My mother has postponed her trip to Delhi by ONE week!! *Dies of shock just writing this* And don’t judge me. It is very hard to wait for luchi and aloor torkari and chilly chicken for ONE more week!

• I keep wanting to run away. I try not to want it, you know. I try telling myself that this need of running away is NOT actually going to take me anywhere so I should be happy and content with where I am and what I am doing. And that telling myself DOES NOT help.

• I miss living in New York! I miss the walking, the subways, the freedom, the summer and the tall skim latte at Starbucks. That city did magic to me, I tell you. *Sigh*

• I also want EVERYTHING. Yes. I want everything and want them right now. I have told myself, I tell myself everyday actually, that one should not ask for everything and one should count her blessings and smile forever and that it is practically not possible to obtain everything unless you are literally floating in money (by which I mean hard cash) these days. Doesn’t help!!! I still want EVERYTHING.

• I want a job in one of those travel shows. No. Wait. I want a job in one of those travel FOOOD shows.

• This reminds me that I am getting fat. I have put on many many pounds of weight over the last six months. Which had not bothered me at all except these last two weeks when I could not fit into  a nice tee and when R realized that his trousers were feeling tight-er around the waist! So realization happened and we went around Gurgaon hunting for THE gym with THE machines and THE deal and THE location (see, that wanting everything again!). After a week of ‘checking things out’ and ‘weighing our options’ last evening we zeroed in one place. The gym looks a little flamboyant (it has pink green and red lights in the reception with white couches and the staff wear purple shirts with black pants and purple tie with black stripes) but it has a lot of equipment, interesting group classes and spinning classes which apparently make you lose 800 calories in one here! I can already picture myself sweating it out and then donning a bikini and labeling myself super hot super soon! Aah! Such good thoughts, I tell you.

Now. Having said ALL THAT and being on the other side of fence where the grass is supposed to be greener and stuff let me tell you what the truth is (and the reader MUST remember  that such reality escapes the resident of greener pastures very very frequently)-

• I actually like my job. I do a lot of work and not in the perfect working conditions (imagine being on the top floor of a run down building without fully functional air conditioning when it 46C outside!) but I really like what I do. Compensation is an issue but I did jump into this headlong knowing that compensation would be an issue. So it’s okay, I guess.

• It is for the same reason that I do the one and half hour commute one way everyday to get to work. I really do like it THAT much!

• I AM bored with Delhi but then I get bored with anything that looks permanent. I need change all the time!

• Yes. I want to run away.  I want to go and live very very far from here. Far from all my problems, my nightmares, my anxiety, my constantly looking over my shoulder and my worrying about my mother. I think the last bit tops.  *Sigh*

• That’s a part of the reason for which I miss living in New York. I was safe, I was free and I was very far away from all the problems back home. (But then one can’t run away forever. Can they?)

• And I can rant and crib about not having everything without actually ever having them all. So it’s all good, actually.

So dear God, thank you for a life which is not half as bad as I make it out to be, thank you for the wonderful mother, thank you for R, thank you for my friend of twenty five years, thank  you for my other friends who I can ping on g-talk at any time of the day and crib my heart out while they fight deadline at work. Thank you for the job that I wanted and thank you for all the comfort that I have right now.

There!  I feel a little better and I hope the Sunday will go by without much ranting now.

I promise a better post soon!!

On changing times

Sometimes I think I was much happier in my one room apartment in New York. I use to cry there too, you know. Very bitterly. With no one around me. But then R would come back home every night. And we would go out for walks, for coffee. Explore our neighborhood. Sometimes I would meet him in Manhattan. We would brave the crowd and walk to the theater to catch a movie. We used to take the train ride back to our apartment on those nights. We used sit side by side, hold hands and talk about the movie.

Sometimes now I tell myself I have a better life here. I have a big apartment, two maids, one driver, a big car and a good job. I don’t have to kill my back sweeping and mopping anymore and spend endless hours washing dishes. There is no waiting for the train. My career has finally taken off.

But something is amiss. We don’t walk around here. There is no neighborhood to explore. We don’t share household chores. We don’t get to see each other every night. There are no train rides, no walking in the rain and snow.

There is no time. He has his work and I have mine. On Sundays we match our calendars to find a window of few days to spend time with each other. Often we fail. We blame it on each other. He feels guilty, I cry for reasons I cannot explain. He thinks, I write.

And then we give up. Give up on being upset and offering explanations. We quietly retire to our own worlds while assuring the other one that we are still around.

We still love each other. We still want to be with each other. We would give anything to make it work. But the madness has gone. Somehow we have tamed ourselves, taught ourselves to walk and not run, go with the wind and not against it. Somehow, unconsciously, we have let ourselves be trapped in time, money, career and all things perceived to be essential in the pursuit of happyness.

And today, suddenly I am scared. I am scared that I’ll have to stop being insane. I am scared that he will stop being funny. I am scared that we are suddenly growing up and forcing ourselves to think ahead.

Are we ready yet?

I do not know.

I want to

Lose my calendar

Lose my cell phone

Quit my job

Spend the next two years couch surfing

Wear a bandana more often

Get out of this city

Get out of this country

Run around in a park

Learn to make the perfect biriyani

Eat more of the perfect biriyani

Read more

Write more

Be a book critic

Buy a pair of Jimmy Choos. Now.

Spend the summer in New York City every year

Be bold enough to wear a bikini

Be bold enough to start on the work out needed to wear said bikini

Have a cottage by the beach

Start driving

Start expressing

Start living.

And I am

Not doing any of the above. Except the living. That I have already started. Life is too short to do the living bit any later.

And I cannot live without my cell phone. Or my planner.

*Sigh*!

Edited to add later: Since Suchismita loves tags, I tag her to this post of mine 🙂

I love New York City.

For the sense of independence it brought to me.

For the maddening pulse of Manhattan. For the crowds in Times Square.

For the one room apartments with wooden floorings and white washed walls. For the self sufficient grocery stores. For the self sufficient Starbucks. For self sufficient everything.

For the screening of independent films. For the walks in the snow, in the rain and the cold. For the summers in Central Park. For the plays, the literature, the music, the concerts and the culture.

For the cuisines and the restaurants.

For the clothes. For the stores on Fifth Avenue. For Grand Central.

For everything that the city offered and for everything that it did not.

For its character. For its spirit.

For there is but one New York City in the world.

One may love it, one may hate it. But one will never get over it. Such is the city.

Such is New York City.

Picture courtesy: A flickr page