Where I tell you a little bit about THAT YEAR

Don't delay, something tells me I gotta go away
Maybe it's the way we always stay when our hearts have gone
We can't hold us anymore, no, we've got to fold
Down to the floor, yes, I know it's cold but baby, our hearts have gone

 

It is one of those nights, tonight. Some night bird is calling out the fact of morning, I’ve had one, two, no, three drinks and it’s that strange hour when your sleep has past and you feel like you could stay awake forever. If there was someone else with me, I’d be confessing right now, I’d be spilling my little ol’ guts right over my coffee table, but after I fed a friend dinner and gave him a drink, he went home and so I turn to the internet and talk to it and tell it about what I’m thinking of.

 

Which,  tonight, is JC. Specifically, when we ended, how we ended. No one, even people who love me dearly, can fathom exactly how unhappy I was in the last six months of 2010. I think back upon it and all I can remember is feeling my stomach in a perpetual knot, feeling like I was walking on glass, feeling like that same glass had somehow climbed into my throat, was resting in my eyes. I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t swallow, I couldn’t move. And yet. And yet, I loved him. And I think he loved me. Which is probably why we were so unhappy.

 

A night I just tweeted about, having a fight about god knows what now, and me in a hurry, pulling on sneakers and my tights and slamming the door ferociously behind me. I ran down Carter Road, feeling the pavement under my feet, ran, even though I’m not a runner, ran and thought and felt the hot almost-rain on my face, yes, it was almost monsoon time then, wasn’t it? I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell above my iPod, just go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA until I couldn’t scream anymore, until the glass in my throat fell out finally, but Bombay is a crowded city, and I didn’t want to cause a scene or have people stare at me funnily and this I think, is my basic problem.

 

Just because there once was love
Don't mean a thing, don't mean a thing
Just because there once was love
Don't mean a thing, don't mean a thing

 

A friend came to meet me, and tried to say soothing things, like you would to a horse that’s threatening to bolt, but the fact of him, the fact of us, in that small, hot flat, the fact of his things happily married to mine, the fact of our lives so intertwined now that I couldn’t even begin to see where I could start to unravel it, it just made me so, so tired. I didn’t want to go on. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to squat on Carter Road forever and just NOT DEAL.

 

I was so tired that whole period. If I could have stayed in bed forever, I would have, but then who’d run the house? Who’d make sure everything was on the up-and-up? And by slapping a brave face on it, I could escape and meet people and pretend like my life was just FABULOUS DAHLING, MUAH MUAH. I don’t know how much people were fooled, I know when I moved here and began to breathe normally again, people said, “Oh, you look so relaxed now.” I didn’t think strain would show on my face, but I felt like I had Botox, my eyes didn’t move, my mouth turned upwards in small degrees, my hands—I’m a big hand-mover in conversation—stayed static or curled around my glass of wine.

 

Why am I thinking about this tonight? It’s so far in the past, that we’re even at the point where we’re having friendly-ish conversations, JC and I. Thinking about it closes my throat up again, it’s so not a pleasant memory that I’ve blocked most of it. Occasionally, one or two incidents will swim up, like this night, but mostly, nothing. I’ve been on the occasional date, other boys’ numbers are on my cellphone and they have the power to make me laugh through a text message.

 

But it’s that kind of evening. It’s 3.30 and even my night bird has given up and gone to bed like a good night bird should. If this was a real life conversation, this is where my throat would be sore and parched from talking so long, I’d say, “You know?” a lot and touch your wrist, I’d top up our drinks, you’d look at me in sympathy, but mostly you’d want me to stop bringing up such depressing things like my last breakup, GOD, will you get over that already? For the most part, this is me telling you, “This is where I’ve been! And this is what happened. And this is why I am.”

 

…. now that my heart is gone.

Balle balle?

I just got back from Amritsar, which was incredible. You know I’m not a particularly religious person, in fact, I’m probably the least spiritual person I know. My moments of “prayer”, or meditation, come in the every day, I used to get Golden Transcendent moments by watching the sea go by on Carter Road, for example, or now, driving through a particularly attractive bit of Delhi. But, on the whole, spirituality has never been my thing.

 

I don’t know if a place can have a vibe, but if it does, the Golden Temple is right up there. There’s something to be said about a place invested with so much hope (and so much blood thirsty history). It resonates through the marble, under your feet, in the calm in the middle of chaos. It seems almost as if everything slows down for a second, while you drink it in. My picture doesn’t do it justice, but it is absolutely stunning.

 

The reason I picked Amritsar was simple enough. I made a friend while I was in Gokarna (let’s call him Jerry) and he was due to travel through North India, before he left back for his own country. Did I want to go anywhere with him, he asked, and since I’ve always had an all-abiding love for the Punjab, I picked Amritsar. It’s my third Punjabi experience (previously, Faridkot and Chandigarh) and by far the prettiest, even though the city itself is all screaming chaos.  It was also an interesting lesson for me in travelling like a foreigner, by myself, I am mostly left alone, but add one Boy From Distant Shores, and suddenly I was a scam magnet. It makes you feel kinda bad for all the other tourists who go through India, by the end of the day, I was so tired of people hassling me, I wanted to yell, “Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupppppppppp!” at everybody.  We got (almost) cheated twice, but Jerry is most masterful in his command over situations (thanks to travelling through India for the last three months) and I managed to delegate all post-negotiation-negotiations to him.

 

An aside: if you’re going to stay at the Hotel Golden Heritage, DON’T. The sheets were all crusty with something, which I only discovered at 11 pm, and when I asked for a new sheet, the manager absolutely lost it, and began yelling and screaming. We checked out the next morning, and moved to the lovely (and affordable) City Heart, which I would recommend highly, not least because they have a Barista right in the hotel for your morning cup.

 

Food wise, we did quite well: Brother’s Dhaba for kulcha and daal, Kesar Da Dhabha for more daal and kadi, Surjit Chicken for brilliant fish, Crystal (eh, not worth the price) for mutton and more chicken, and Chawla’s chicken (EXCELLENT) for really good tandoori chicken. I have eaten my weight in food now.  Jerry left the ordering up to me, and didn’t have any dietary restrictions, so I basically just let myself go and had a party.

 

More friends joined us the next day, and we pottered around doing this and that. We had visited Jalianwala Bagh already the previous day, and as luck would have it, it was the 92nd anniversary of the massacre on the day we left, so we decided to go back and see the ceremony. Which was a lot of people giving speeches, but I’m glad I went again. A lot of people choose to skip it, because it is rather depressing, but in my opinion, it’s an important historic site, and it was nice to see something from my history book come to life. Also, besides everything, it’s a beautiful park, and it’s nice to sit under the trees and watch people go by.

 

Speaking of historic things, we absolutely had to do a trip to the Wagah Border while I was there. My other friends were also foreign, so between them and Jerry, they flashed their passports and got shown to the VIP section, while I was unceremoniously herded to the “commoners.” We went back and forth a bit, and finally, the guard, just to shut me up, sent me off with them. And then, in my ladies queue, my water got taken away while they got to keep theirs, and it was all very annoying. Plus it was hot, and I was getting grumpy thanks to my lack of sleep the night before (see: crusty sheets). But soon, it started, and I cheered up. It’s just so funny, watching the guards almost kick their turbans off as they walk, all to the chants of people going, “Vande. Materam!” etc. There were LOADS of people, surprising for a weekday, but then I learnt it was a holiday. This is what happens when you work from home, you lose track of everything.

 

So, I discovered my inner Punjabi, learnt what it’s like to travel like a foreigner, found (at a certain level) spirituality, and ate lots of food. That’s quite a bit for a weekend trip, right? I thought so.