All I do is miss you, and the way we used to be.

I'm beginning to understand why people get 'boring' as they get older. Why butterflies in the stomach 'used to be' that feeling you knew, why it gets harder as time flies by. It was a strange, startling discovery when a song played in the background yesterday - Romeo and Juliet by Dire straits. One of my favorites.. Ive been humming it ever since.

I'm a music person - I had a song for every mood - mellow, happy, sad, sad-sad, happy-sad, melancholy, in love, heartbreak, make up, break up, aloof, spaced out.... I had one playing in my mind everyday and that song defined my mood. I remember this week that "Bittersweet symphony" was the song in my mind and I went about the week feeling randomly disjoint and pieced apart. This other time Boulevard of broken dreams was playing on my mind and I had a nasty few days since it reminded me of a friend whose no more. And it was his favorite song. Hungry eyes was that song I danced to. You get my drift.

Today on my way to work in the cab, I realized how the music in my life has been replaced. Slowly, without realizing the transformation I was talking to myself each day - debating the outcome of my day, the presentation I am supposed to make, that conversation I had last night, the emails I need to reply to, where my relationship is going, what Im going to write in my application essays... its all getting thought without a background score in place.

It was after that I hooked up my laptop and played back some of my favorite music - Mark Knofler, Coldplay, maroon 5, floyd... its safe to say that the state Im in currently could be called "on a trip" or "spaced out" or some other such vaguely intense definition.

Each song hides moments, memories - nestled in the notes, the lyrics. Its like Mark Knofler said "All i do is kiss you - through the bars of a rhyme". I've hidden so many stolen moments, kisses, glances, rides, tears, fears in the folds of so many songs... and discovering them sometimes by accident is just a delicious tingle - a feeling so infinite, of being able to travel time and 'relive'.

Moments have a way of shrinking when put into words - but they magnify when romanced with music. making love, out of nothing at all.

Here's to a homecoming - to my favorite boys - Dave Matthews band , Dire Straits , maroon 5, coldplay, Neil Diamond, Randy travis, Richard Clayderman, and my girlies - Norah Jones, Alanis and Tracy.

The Song I'd dedicate right now? 1992 Serendipity - Forever and Ever, Amen. Randy Travis. (click link for song)

The dice was loaded from the start...

Romeo and Juliet, lyrics (Dire Straits) (click link for song)

On Saturday night I went for my college reunion. Engineering revisited - 4 years of my life spent in the nooks and crannies of a (then) raggedy old building. Its now new and funky - the run down shed like laboratories replaced by a new age modernistic look. Floating amphitheaters, a dinosaur ribcage stairway and a canteen that looked more like the food court of an expensive mall. I sure was wowed.

I found myself missing those hallowed shoddy walls - that makeshift look, and those dull grey corridors. These clinical precisely painted ones felt like they replaced my memories - hushed the secrets and caved in my relationships. 4 years is a long time to spend, and I had the biggest metamorphosis of my life in these years. I grew from being a tomboy with sideburns and anti-fit beer t shirts to being a "woman" who finally acknowledged breasts as a privilege and not an irritant. I had the biggest heartbreak of my life - one that in many ways shaped the way I love now, forged and lost some of the greatest friends I could possibly ever have. I failed miserably academically, realized engineering is a tough nut to crack, got my act together and redeemed my slowly declining self esteem.

Still, going back to college that day was a surreal experience. I met 2 friends, each my best in someway or the other. One, an ex-love. I can hardly say 'ex' when the never left that part of my heart right? Emotional investment in ways I dint know possible. Knowing I was coming to face him, nearly 3 years since made me unsure of myself, scared, uneasy, excited, a stew of multifarious emotions playing havoc. Nothing could have prepared me for the evening that lay before me, not even my best dreams about our eventual face off.

The actual function at college was nothing to write home about. I felt 50 years old, since the other "Alumni" were batch of 2009 etc. (Should they even be called Alumni?). After the "reunion" the 3 of us went to Soul fry casa at Bandra and 3 large pegs down, for one night, 5 years after graduation and a million changes in our lives later, we took time off to be the people we used to be. The same 3 fools talking random incoherent disjoint conversations. Changes, if any were only subtle. I took a few drags from a smoke, so there's a revelation, given my anti smoking tirade thus far.

These 2 people, changed in their own ways in the past 3 years felt like home to me. There's a certain comfort in being around people who knew "that" me. The naive foolish romantic one before stoicism and a general all round cynicism took over. I had no defenses, no walls, nothing, and this very sense of vulnerability, which I had denied myself the pleasure of feeling was exhilarating in itself. It was wonderful, and surreal.

Thats the thing with an ex-love. an old friend. everything about them reeks familiarity - the perfume brand you know, the contours of their body, the feel of their fingers, the curve of their smile, the undertone in their voice, that look in their eye, that wrinkle on the sides of the lips which give away the identity of a smirk, smile or sarcasm. They are like that dusty old armchair you can snug into whose touch make you feel better already, which understands your long sighs and pregnant pauses, that warm fuzzy ray of sunshine which creates a halo of elevated feelings that eclipses all else.

We couldn't even lie about how much we've changed. Structural changes aside - new jobs, promotions, going to school etc aside, on the person front, there were just no discernible changes. We just knew we had missed each other. There wasn't even a point denying it. Sometimes hugs and handshakes say more than words do, and we were smart enough to realize the futility of pretense.

We sat at the helipad in my building, 37 floors high on the highest point in Mumbai till 4.30 a.m. - long silenced interspersed with nostalgia, randomness and sighs, alternating between being with each other and alone. A dichotomy of singularity and togetherness as we transcended space, time, distance and change to be who we were 5 years ago.

Maybe one last time, maybe one last us.

Antaheen

Pronounced - "Ontoheen" A Bengali film ** I watched yesterday.**p.s the link has spoilers

One I'd recommend you'll all to watch if you can lay your hands on it. National award 2009 winner, starring Rahul Bose, Aparna Sen, Sharmila Tagore, Antaheen starts off on a slow note, and cocoons you into a trance with the background score, the mesmerizing dialogues and the visual poetry. All my senses were heightened while watching this movie as I became one with the script and the unfolding of events.

No emotion is in abundance - the glory of this movie is in the subdued mellowness - one that engulfs us in our life more often than not. No time to love, grieve and really 'live'. A mellowness that you would relate to, of being in love and yet not, of being certain yet not for sure, of conversations in your mind coming alive with musical notes and moonshine and yet being unsaid. There are many love stories intertwined, and yet there arent. Ronjon da and Parro di love each other desperately yet contain it within the realms or their hearts and the depths of their eyes. Its easy to tell how much dependence and vulnerability links thee two characters, and still there's words unsaid, emotions unquantified and feelings undiscussed.

The movie absorbs you further and further till it reaches a melodious orgasmic finale. A sad one, but befitting of the string of reality that ties the movie together.

Modern day romances of song and dance and exaggerated feelings really make for a foolish watch. They're far from our daily lives and hard to relate to. In this scenario a film maker making a film with such superior emotions, such well rounded characters and screenplay that makes each scene look like a work of art, beautiful and lustrous in its depiction. This really is modern day Kolkata with Parro di a workaholic advertising professional having a smoke break and drinking a martini on her husbands birthday. The aerial views and the landscapes depicted are truly phenomenal, it almost makes one feel as though the director is just taking the liberty of showing off this city.

Sharmila Tagore's story is an unexpected one, which later one parallels with the more modern version of Rahul Bose's. how a modern setting can affect the same feelings, and the same emotions is truly worth a thought.

All in all, a must watch, and a wonderful experience to sit through. If you have it in you, try listening more to the Bengali - the dialogues are a treat, and in Bengali, even more sensous.

A why?

Love is painful. And in that, we are all masochists - perennially wanting to fall prey to, or entice someone to succumb.

I ask you why?

Growing up is hard on the knees

The top things I HATE about growing up (err, older)

• Decisions - From which teacher I like most to which field should I specialize in, it just gets significantly harder. And your expected to take them ALL by yourself, AND do a good job of it. Heck what do I know? I no wanna get married, or decide which country to move and study in, parents outta do it. This half assed job of "now your grown up, you must decide yourself" is just them shirking their responsibility. yes.
• Generation gaps - From the coolest thing you owned being a frisbee to now being uncool without an ipod. Getting 10 bucks a month and saving up from that to 1600 bucks a month and complaining (Yes, its a meager pocket money for a 16 year old apparently)
• Changing landscapes - From "mommy whats this building", to "You know, during my childhood there was so and so here". I never got it when my father used to say Cuffe parade didnt exist then, it was all sea, and now i do when i point out a "used to be" to my 16 year old brother. A slow quiet renaissance in the landscape of the surroundings means it gets harder to identify with the new chique and clinical buildings. Old school Victorian architecture has a charm like no glassy, clean cut modern building can ever dream of having.
• Obsoletion - (I know it isnt a real word) Brands, technology, favorite tv shows, actors, fads - all symbols of 'your time' - fade into oblivion. I take offense when my brother finds something i loved 'uncool'. drat 16 year olds
• Complexity - work and professional life are getting more intertwined, childhood is fusing directly into adulthood, newer diseases are cropping up, and we struggle to stay afloat. come to think of it, even music succumbed - no longer are genres defined as 'rock' or 'pop' - theres 'fusion rock -pop' or 'punk techno blues' which basically means when i go to a club which apparently defines what music its playing that night, I have NO clue what to expect. Dj so-and-so playing the best of "house funk fusion rnb" and I pay 1500 rs for that?
• Expectations - from one candybar for a good result in school to expecting a 100 thousand dollar salary from an MBA grade, we've come a long way baby.
• Crossroads - I need to decide which country to move to. and Im hating it. Maybe why thats why this post.