Moorings.

 

Weekends shouldn’t be about going out, partying, trashing, shopping, dining, and tiring yourself. They should be about the things that you would want to do otherwise. It should be about, well, honestly my answer changes as frequently as the illogical and unwanted threats, thrown by people who might run a country and yet wouldn’t know how to run a country. So, if you asked me last month what are weekends for, I would have told you the very thing that I denied when I began writing this. I would scream and holler in insta accent “Partay” or “friyay” but this weekend was the reflection of the other shades of me. All I wanted to do was to sit at home, avoid people and read. I did everything else but this.

 

So with a sullen and putrid mood I met a friend and we were waiting for our Uber when she tells me “phones inside”. This was supposed to be our one on one so no phones were allowed. Okay, I wasn’t looking at my phone. And she was the one who had this habit. But I was the one who was being told to keep it inside. I didn’t have a bag or a wallet on me. I had the needed cash in my pockets and thanks to the sizes of the new phones, my phone won’t fit in my pockets. So I said. And so she indicated at her own pockets when I refused to do anything about it. I thought what the hell, is she wearing her boyfriends’ pants? I mean no other way did her phone fit in there. I wonder why is this? I mean why do they do this? Why do men’s pants have pockets the size, which can fit a wallet, keys, sanitizer, kerchief, condoms, phones and what not. I have seen men carrying almost everything that women do, there is nothing different. Yes, except from a sanitary pad, I guess the needs are pretty much the same. Then why in the name of God do they do this to us poor souls? Not all women like carrying bags just as not every man likes not carrying a bag. So, yeah, my friend, she indicated that she could fit her phone in her pocket so I did ask her why and how. She said, this is what you get for not going after brand names and gave me a wink. So now I was wrong in wearing a branded pair of denim! Great!!!

 

But this pocket and bags thing remind me of one other thing. I guess big pockets or not I think I should start carrying a bag always. I mean there is the possibility of my mom calling me here and now and asking me to bring so and so and so things. I tell you the list goes on. Tell me why is it that moms need so much stuff from stores. Okay, don’t tell me. I have asked this a million times and I have got the same answer. You will know when you become a mom. Believe you me, I am in no hurry! Yeah, so she calls me randomly and then there is this store called reliance fresh on my way and I go in and buy those things on the whatsapp message that my mom stresses on sending despite the fact that she just called me and then I realize that I don’t have anything to carry this in. So I ask for a bag and he generously adds 14 bucks for it. This could happen to you too. I remind myself that the next time I am not leaving my house without a bag. I mean yeah sometimes you forget to carry bags, and then the stores make you pay for it and then it is all-fine. But 14 bucks for a plain ‘jhola’ isn’t what I intend on paying again.

 

But that ‘jhola’ and its gloomy look is still better than the goofy smile that that boy gives me on the third floor of my building. He is new. Just shifted. I hate it when they bring such tenants. And by such I mean bachelors. Not that these bachelors are disturbing. Far from it. They are dull bloody boring engineers and I hate it. I hate them not because they live a life of a bachelor but because they are bored engineers who have nothing in their lives except for work. I see them going early in the mornings, dressed formally and return in the night with such dead looks as if nothing is left in their lives. I pity them. But the pity lasts only till I see one of them with that big bright smile of his. Why? Why does he creep me out? And since he is a neighbor now I am forced to smile back which leads to an even bigger smile. Okay fine so from now I am going to avoid coming and going when he comes. Yes, that’s what I am going to do.

 

But I don’t like how he looks. I mean not how he looks-looks, I mean how empty he looks. As if he has nothing left in his life except for work. I have heard him talk over the phone sometimes, dull mundane talks, not that I was spying. He was in his verandah. I was in mine. He was loud enough. I tell you, he could be nothing more than 30 and the way he lives! I guess isolation does that to people. Yes, it must be isolation. That friend of mine? With whom I was waiting for an uber she has made me believe 100% that you mess up your own life when you are so lonely. It makes you do things that a sane mind would otherwise not do. Yes that is it, he is and my friend is lonely! But who isn’t today. Aren’t we all living in the phase where we have only happy pictures not a happy life?

 

Yes, that is true. The 15 year old who put a picture of his new haircut, with that ‘lit’ emoji tags his picture with the quote, “life is hard.” So it must be. Yes, it definitely must be. Life is lonely and hard. So do you think I should become a matchmaker and make my friend meet this engineer guy? Could work, right? I should believe so.

 

But then people believe in a lot of things these days. The man following me on the road the other day must have thought so. I mean he must have really believed that something could happen here, between him and me. Only then would he have driven around town, wasting his fuel, for a whole 30 minutes in the same area again and again. God! It took him 30 minutes to realize that I wasn’t going to stop driving until he stopped following. What was I? Some frenzied woman who would show him way to my home? No! So, I kept driving here and there and he kept following. I wonder how his mind was working? That he would follow me to my home and then since he will have my address he will come to my place again and again and then just like it happens in romantic movies, I will blush and smile and fall for him? I guess so. I think this is the only explanation, only hope for which he must have wasted his life’s 30 minutes after me.

 

Hey, this reminds me the other day I went on my walk and saw someone following me. A very old uncle this time. I was creped. He smiled too. Look at the audacity. But as soon as he passed me it struck me. He wasn’t smiling in a way I was thinking; he was a very old man. He was a guard someplace. I knew him. Yes, it struck me then that he was the guard at my old school and I didn’t smile back. He was the cute guard who held our hands and helped crossed the roads. And I didn’t recognize him, I didn’t smile back. I didn’t even acknowledge him. And so now I am one of those snobs who forget those cute people as they grow up. At least he must think so. See, these pervs do this to you. Ruin every other man for you in every possible way.

 

But among all of this there is something good too. I mean of course our world if full of people whom I (I don’t know about you) abhor but there are little perks of joy in and around too. So as I was telling you about my walks, I have missed something about it of late. There is the cutest little girl who ties two pony tails and stand beside her dad everyday at the same place, same time, waiting for her school bus, looking right in front of her with such command and precision that I’d be mad not to admire her. There is something about that look, command may be or endurance? But as soon as she sees me she will be smiling back at me as if there was no other look in the world that she knows. Her dad once asked her, “Who are you smiling at, Do you know her?” And she just said, “That di”. I mean isn’t she cute. I hope she doesn’t do this with everyone though. Her dad smiles back too since then. But they had been missing since so many days. They are back! Yeaaaaaa they are back and that smile is back. I didn’t realize till now how much I had been habituated to her. My walks have been better since the return of my waving friend.

 

But don’t you think one day this is going to stop. Either I will stop going to walks on that route or she will start driving to school herself. She doesn’t look far from that age. I guess that is how this works, isn’t it. I mean of course nothing is permanent except change. This brings me to another question, if nothing is permanent then what about love? Isn’t it the only thing that doesn’t wither? Isn’t true love the only thing that can beat and overcome anything? Who am I to say? What would I know? You tell me!

 

But then again who would know anything of true love, I wouldn’t. Would you? Hard to say. I mean I saw three relationships breaking in the last week. In just one week I saw three couples go their way, couples who had been together for years, couples who were mature and immature. One of them, a couple I mean has been dragging their drama to me too. This couple generously falls in the category of immature. Well, that is how I see it. So yeah, they have been dragging and pulling at threads and I am stuck in between. Initially, it is fine you know. You think they are your friends ad it would be only good if you could kick some little sense in their rusty mind, but no they won’t get it. They will carry every drab fight to you, as if they are the kids and I am the parent. So I got fed up and wanted to scream, “Dude, if I wanted this kind of drama in my life, I would be in this sort of a relationship myself. I don’t want this shona-babu-baby which is why I am not in this kind of a relationship. Please…. Let me be. I was not in that relationship, you were, I cannot do anything, you can.” But I guess troubled minds don’t get this simple language. Well, but if they don’t get such simple things then why do they get in a relationship? Why do they play the game called feelings?

 

Oh, I got carried away, didn’t I? Became too philosophical, did it? Okay, don’t answer that. I know you won’t. Because even you don’t have any answers. I know you don’t. Well at least my cousin makes me realize that you don’t, I don’t, no one has these answers. Drunk on self-pity after crying for a whole half hour I decided I’ll call her and vent everything that’s bottled within. But before I could muster a dreary and mucus filled hello she started crying! Okay, old story Moushmi! Clear your head and start listening, this doesn’t sound good! Something’s up. And so just like every time you shut up and listen making yourself believe that it is probably for the best not to talk to anyone about it. So, yeah don’t even think about it again. But boy, is she messed up! Well, didn’t I say messed up people and solitariness makes people do things, weird things! Anyways, who am I to judge?

 

By the way, judgment reminds me of one thing. The thing because of which I stared writing this.  No, no not the weekend plans. But my kind of weekend for this week. Books. Enough with the ramblings, and before you kill me let me jump straight, without any glitches in between and without any diversion that could hinder my asking you this very small petite question. What do you do if you don’t like the book that you are reading? I mean I am always torn between leaving the book that I start disbelieving in and my love for reading, simply saying, “They are books, how can you leave them midway?” So far in my entire life there has been only one book that I have left after 100 pages and I don’t even remember which book it was. Isn’t life too short to waste on books that you start disliking? But then again, how do you know if you like it or not unless you read it. But what if you not only don’t like it, you hate it, and you just don’t believe in what the author is saying, he/she is just going round and round and round without making a point just as I am doing with this post? So, yeah enough with this merry go round, I will stop here, and ask you if it is often that you leave a book midway? Or do you suck it and finish it and then judge the author and the book. I know by using the word ‘judge’ I am giving you the full liberty to judge me, but you are going to do this anyway, right? So judge away and let me know about the books. The next time I am leaving a book after a mere 50 pages, there might be less guilt within me, guilt of leaving someone, just as someone else (may be you) might want to leave me. So if you are not one of those who got bored midway and have reached this far you know my question, and I’ll be waiting for your answer.