I am Jack's fractured sense of being

She sat on the couch and stared blankly at the TV. It wasn't fully in focus but she didn't really care. It crossed her mind that she should probably get a move on and start working, but she wasn't too inclined to do so. A thought tentatively made its way up to her and timidly suggested that perhaps she might want to sit up straight and take some care of herself, perhaps tidy herself up a bit, but again, she told it to take a hike. (The thought crept away in defeat and ended up with a woman who got a mega makeover and landed the guy of her dreams so perhaps the girl might have felt bitter about dismissing the thought had she known, but she didn't. It was her loss nonetheless.)

She wasn't really interested what was playing on television, she wasn't watching it with too much involvement anyway. A movie was on. A happy ending came up. She got a bit teary eyed at the ending, as she always did, whatever be the movie. She started crying. But then, unlike normal circumstances, she kept going, on and on, breaking down completely and going at it again with renewed vigour just when it seemed she was calming down a bit, not knowing why, but being sure that the happy reunion of the long lost lovers on screen was not the reason for her waterworks. She just need an excuse to get hysterical.

"Ach, this was bound to happen", she sighed, after she was too spent to cry anymore, "This is probably what happens when you feel like you're a couple dozen punches, a lot of blood and some kick ass dialogues away from turning into Tyler Durden."

Spooked

I've said it before. Talking nonsense is one of the most glorious things a person can do. With a person who understands that it's utter nonsense and participates fully with that spirit, of course. But of course, once in a while, we encounter some brilliant people who think all of it is beneath them and seek to enlighten us about the same.

A classic example is seen when I was having a conversation with A , regarding our friendly hostel ghost that us girls summoned when bored to tears during a blackout. A seance was duly conducted, makeshift ouija board made, mood lighting given with candle stumps and viola!

His name is Rameshwar. Affectionately called Ramu. He was habituated to living in an empty room on the ground floor of the hostel but when someone moved into that room, he was in a quandry.

Now me and A were sitting and discussing the particular predicament. We wondered if Ramu visited the girl who occupied his old room and whether she enjoyed his company. Whether she even knew if Ramu visited his old room from time to time and what those two were upto when she mysteriously disappeared into her room at odd times. About where he would now live. We concluded that he had now shifted to the empty room containing the communal fridge. We congratulated ourselves on single (double?) handedly solving the mystery of the missing chocolates from said fridge.

We were in the throes of discussing whether Ramu actually ate the chocolates or gave them to visiting spooks when a voice piped up. It was self assured. It was overconfident. It spoke with an air of pitying us fools to whom such obvious wisdom had to be imparted. It said, "Uhh guys... You know... There's no such thing as ghosts."

Sigh.

It's people like this we should stay far far away from.

Much laughings, yes.

I am currently reading A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Apart from the fact that it is like a long 1500 page version of a typical masala Bollywood movie, and I can just imagine all the characters upping themselves and shimmying together to Shava shava a-la Kareena Kapoor, I always think of one thing when I pick it up. This is all hearsay, mind you.

When the book was just released, I was around 3 years old or so, thinking of course that I was the next best thing to Nutties in butterscotch ice cream (What? It's the height of brilliance I tell you.) One day, probably when I was out foraging for Nutties, I overheard my dad mention the name of the book. It was then I promptly marched up to him and very authoritatively demanded "I want A Suit of a Boy too!"

Yes, I am still teased by my parents for the most incongruous of things. Like the time I trapped a kitten in my carry bag. But that's another story. Sigh, the injustices of life.

You can well imagine that my first full English sentence ever spoken was "I school go", no?