Paranoid Android

I have in, in my young life, been exposed to a great deal of addictive substances. I nod in agreement everytime Chef reminds us that there is a time and place for everything; and I think I have, more or less, done most things that can and cannot be reasonably expected of a young adult in college to do. Over the years, in fact, I have come to believe that I am naturally blessed with a strong disinclination towards dependency. I liked to think that the higher being that I am- occupying the tip in the evolutionary pyramid so far- it would simply be shameful if my happy existence were to depend on non-living things.

Apparently, I have been living in a delusion. Over the past week, my body has been exhibiting strangely uncharacteristic physiological symptoms which I have observed very closely. As soon as I’m withdrawn for a couple of hours, my head begins to ache at the temples. The pain slowly and steadily radiates throughout until I can finally feel the blood pulsating in my brain. I become moody, and withdrawn, and tend to sleep all the time. I’ve figured out the solution, though. The moment the first appearances of the headache are made, I determinedly strut off to Chetta’s and ask him for the manna. A cup of extra strong double coffee.

Ah. How I do wish I could adequately articulate what the first sip of coffee means to this addict. The brown bitter-sweet aroma. The flavour of the frothy warm concoction spreads through my head and my limbs and I feel again. In fact, by the time I am done with the whole cup, the headache disappears. Completely. It doesn’t show up for a couple of hours, at least. I suppose this is what an addiction is. To be rendered completely dysfunctional without one’s daily dose of one’s preferred substance.

I need coffee rehab. I'm not sure if it's comforting, but hey, at least, coffee is totally legal. I'd hate to break one more law.

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Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

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Brown Paper Bag

When I called up S, an old friend from school who has been in touch over the years, and told him about the exciting new job I had been offered at a law firm in a wonderful city  with an enviable pay package, he was eager to know when I would start. When he realised that I didn't intend to start at all, he was progressively shocked, surprised, and then, resigned. He did, however, try to persuade me with an oft-heard refrain that I can help "poor people"- as he called them, by donating half my salary to charities, and that I do not need to get my hands dirty for what I hoped to do.

I tried to explain to him, but he didn't understand that while I did want to help the "poor people", I wanted to be right there when it happens. I want to live amongst them, and experience their poverty. I want to sink my feet in the freshly turned field in a  village snuggled somewhere deep in the country and speak to a poor person who comes along.

He didn't understand, and hung up the phone. 

In retrospect, I don't understand it myself. In my head, I think, the "poor people" are romanticized.

Read this.

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I, the Blogger

It makes me want to cry, reading my earlier posts. I used to write. I used to be able to mysteriously find the right words for what I had in mind, and string them together without having to look for conjunctions. I used to write without identifying myself as the researcher. I only hope that four years and forty projects have not completely and irretrievably taken away my ability to write something, anything apart from legal writing.

I can still write in my head, though. Only I'm too lazy or bored to take the trouble to transcribe it. I sometimes go into Nagarbhavi mode. But, I guess I've outgrown my catty-fiery-yellow-journalism phase. Nagarbhavi worked cus I was writing for an audience, I knew what they wanted to read and I, being the attention seeking blore [blog+whore] that I am, solicited the latest tune by remixing it. Sigh. My analogies have gotten so ugly. I need an audience, an easy subject to write about, colourful characters and malicious readers. I need to be a tabloid journalist.

I could even be one of those columnists that write about health and fitness. I'm becoming obsessive about the subject; but that's always a good thing. (See what I mean?) I bought my quota of fruits for the next few days today, and picked up an expensive custard apple (at 12 bucks an apple) for dessert. But, being the moron that I am, I googled it to find out its nutritional quality, and discovered that it's highly calorific (see, I even speak their lingo now). So now I'm just going to have it for breakfast tomorrow.

I used to laugh at people like me.


PS : I was forced to subject myself to a most torturous one hour today when I had nothing to read in class except this exceptionally horrible book called Bad Monkeys by some dufus called Matt Ruff and it was so bad that it's probably put me off the written word for a bit and I'm warning you, nobody ever EVER read it.

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