An Oft-repeated Song

If you are even a casual peruser of my blog, then you know how often my best friend is mentioned. This blog is practically a love letter to her. And I'm sure that this must all seem weird/borderline creepy to you. Why on earth would a straight woman in her late (ugh!) twenties have such a seeming fixation on her best girlfriend from childhood? I'm not sure I have an answer for you that will assuage all your discomfort. At best, I can point you towards Grey's Anatomy, as I'm sure I've done elsewhere on this blog. Exhibit A, Meredith and Christina, which leads us directly to Exhibit B, Gooseberrie and Chelsea Dagger.Yes, my relationship with her is odd and dysfunctional, as has been noted often and at length by our other friends. I think the reason I value this relationship so much is that it is, apart from my relationship with my mother, the most fulfilling and complete one in my life. If that's a sad comment on my life, well then so be it. 

What inspired this next stanza in my titular oft-repeated song about our friendship is the recently released excerpt of Mindy Kaling's new book. In one of the many mini-chapters, she writes about best friend responsibilities, including being gentle about how a person looks in an outfit, putting up with their sad break up stories for the millionth time and raising their kid if they die. You can read the excerpt of the book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, here. First, a quick note on my girl crush on Mindy Kaling. She's awesome, and being a fellow brown girl who writes, I love, I love, I love! Second, her hilarious note on all the things that come with being a best friend really cracked me up, and also set me thinking about what I do/will do for my best friend. So here goes:

1. I will, on all occasions, tell you the absolute truth. Even if that truth is that you look fat, ugly, and you will likely die alone, I will say it out loud. I might couch it in niceness and compare you with Natalie Portman (only she will get this joke) while I am doing it, but it shall be done, eventually.

2. I will share in your morbid sense of humour. Yes, I know you think the absolute worst thing is always about to happen, and oftentimes find it funny, but here's the lucky thing, I feel the EXACT same way! Isn't it hilarious that we're both overweight, broke and single, while our asshole ex-best friend is swanning around America with his many millions?? (falls off the chair laughing)

3. I am ALWAYS on your side. It doesn't matter what happened/will happen. It does not matter that you accidentally killed that guy who didn't pay you on time, or ran over that chick who married that guy you liked for 15 minutes that one summer, I am on your side. I will show up, help you bury the body, and hide you in my basement when the cops come looking. In the less extreme case, I will throw down with the ugly bitch that hurt your feelings over something perfectly trivial like a silly boy. Even if you are wrong, I am on your side. 

4. Since I hate children, I may not raise yours as my own when you are dead, but I promise I will pay for them to be raised as someone else's own. 

5. I will never steal a guy away from you. How many guys have we both been interested in? 1 or 2 thousand. Ah well, never you mind, I will never go for a guy that you are into or dating. There are 3 billion men in the world, but only one you. And I mean that in a not-gay way. 

All these things I will do for my friend is what I expect and believe she will do for me. Which brings me back to my original point, that this is amongst the most fulfilling and complete relationships in my world. I trust her, implicitly, and the number of people I trust can be counted on one hand. Thus the love letter. And while I have stressed the not-gay aspect of this relationship repeatedly, it's likely that when gay marriage is finally legal in India, we will probably end up pulling the metaphorical trigger with each other, mostly because no one else will have us.

At the Bottom of the Bottom

Last week, I hit rock bottom. It was the culmination of months of physical, intellectual and emotional exhaustion. Everything that could go wrong in my life did, and how. Even after a weekend of complete rest and no human contact, I still feel perilously close to a total meltdown. Like maybe just one more stressful event will lead to me being handcuffed and led away in full public view to the loony bin. Even my upcoming holiday has become a source of worry and tension. No matter. This too shall pass.

I Can't Explain This

I'm suffering from the weirdest kind of writer's block. I can't write one paper, just that one. Otherwise, the writing seems to be working perfectly fine. I'm churning out article after article, page after page on demand on topics as wide-ranging as you can imagine. Hell, I'm even helping several others do their writing.

And yet, this one paper, only meant to be a few pages long (maybe 10) is the bane of me. I have notes, links, research, and quotes all lined up to go, but every time I open the document, nothing comes out. This paper could be the most important thing I've ever written in my life, it's what you call a big fucking deal. And still, nothing. Zip. Nada.

By Nature

In a discussion with some people a couple of days ago, I tried to explain that if the situation called for it, I would find it in myself to be part of an open relationship/marriage. The concept was, unsurprisingly, unpopular, especially amongst the married/committed members of the discussion. They repeatedly attempted to tell me that I would feel differently if I had ever been in or was currently in a serious relationship.

Let me start with the fact that I strongly loathe people telling me how I would feel. I am an expert on me, I have a PhD/black belt in Me. I do not like to be told by people who have known me for mere minutes how exactly I would feel in a hypothetical situation.

The larger point here, though, is that I tried (and I think failed) to explain that I do not 'do' jealousy. By nature, I am not a very jealous person. A significant chunk of this, I can attribute to the hippie-dippy, granola crunching school I went to. The school put little stock in things like ranks, marks, grades and exams. Logically extending that myself, as a preternaturally mature child, I extrapolated the general sentiment into most parts of my life. I believed, from a young age, that it made little sense to compare myself with others. What did it matter that the person sitting next to me got 95% on a math test? It only matters to me what I got.

This philosophy is by now so ingrained in me that I can't ever be motivated by comparison. The same philosophy also leads me to be uncaring of people who I like, also like others. When I was in school, I was part of a small group of 3 friends. It was two girls and one boy. My two best friends spent much of middle school, high school and college being on and off in love with each other. While in middle school, I too (foolishly, now that I have an accurate measure of what a truly spectacular asshole this person really is) had an enormous crush on the guy. And even then, it didn't matter to me that he liked my best friend, it only mattered that he didn't like me that way. Does that make sense?

I have entirely stopped questioning why people don't like me, or love me, or find me attractive and so on. It matters so very little that they do feel all of those things for someone else. How can I possibly control what someone else inspires? Logically, therefore, I can not possibly be disheartened by that same person's attributes, right?

I can hear the chorus of 'wiser' emotional beings yelling at me about logic having little to do with feeling. To that, I counter with this: Logic has led me to temper emotion to suit practicality. I have spent a quarter century in the pursuit of practicality, of the matter at hand. Given this, am I not then the perfect person to figure out how best to root out a useless emotion like jealousy...in me? Jealousy has no practical purpose. It will not solve the problem, only cause more.

So here's the thing. Instead of telling me how all this will change once I truly grow up (or whatever the fuck it is that these people think when they deign to lecture me about anything and everything), why not accept that this is what it is? Jealousy is not really a factor in my life, it has never been until this point, and given my nature, it is unlikely to be in the coming years.

My Wasted Heart

To me, you are perfect. And my wasted heart will love you...

10+1

Ten years has turned into eleven. It's not a landmark anniversary, for sure. It's not ten or fifteen or twenty or twenty five. It's just eleven. Still, I hope if he were here today, he wouldn't think we, I have forgotten. I'm going by later to an orphanage to give some money, buy some food, maybe clothes and books too, plus anything else they might require. I feel like if he were here, he might like that I did that. That's all.

And I'm glad my 'bestie' is who she is. Everyday, I am glad for her. She remembered and called me today, it means more than I can say. All the terrible things over the past 26 years, I'm glad she and I survived it. I think he would have liked that too.

Try a Little Tenderness

In the hustle of the day, we're all inclined to miss... Or so sings Frank (as in Sinatra) in my favoured version of the song 'Try a Little Tenderness'. Such has been the case, with my poor blog receiving the stepchild treatment at my hands. I feel bad, I genuinely do. That's all. Back to my other, better-loved children.

Adulthood

I often worry about growing up. I worry about paying bills, and completing my education. I worry about not being able to snap back into shape once I start putting on some weight. And yet, it struck me today, that maybe there are two versions of adulthood. There is actual adulthood, replete with ailments, debt and responsibility. And then there is 'adulthood' as viewed through the prism of childhood and adolescence, what kids and teenagers believe adulthood to be.

While I did not have a conventional childhood, I did have friends who did. And when we sat around to discuss how our lives would be as adults, we always spoke about being independent, having our own money, coming and going as we pleased, dating who we wanted. I find today, I have all those things. Obviously, that is not the sum total of adulthood. Commitment certainly is important, whether it is to a career path or another human being. A vision for the long term also is. Thinking beyond just tomorrow's lunch, next week's movie plan and next month's vacation. Real adulthood means making plans for the long term; where do you want to live for the next 20 years? At what age do you want to be married? Do you plan to have children, how many? The questions are endless. And as children of a traditional Eastern culture, we don't just have to think about ourselves, our spouses and our children, we also have to worry about our parents.

I haven't committed to a person. Other than that, somewhere along the two years, I have become a full-fledged adult. I haggle over prices now. It's all very.......boring, mundane, quotidian. Very adult.

I don't have a giant point here, no 'so here's the thing' moment. Just observing. That's all.

My Kingdom

My kingdom. My kingdom for a chance to cry into a pillow for just five minutes. But for now, chin up. Things need doing, and only weak people cry.

Summer Means Summer Movies

I hate arty movies. Long, meandering, thoughtful mood pieces that contemplate the humanity around us...and blah blah blah. I loathe those. Give me an old fashioned romantic comedy or a nice buddy cop action movie I'm a happy camper. So I look forward to summer every year as Hollywood, ever so reliably, brings out the big guns, the Iron Mans, the Hangovers and the Proposals. There are a bunch of other movies I am likely to really enjoy releasing this summer: romantic comedies, capers and animated flicks. I can't wait to see the second Hangover, Kung Fu Panda-2 or Fast Five.

I'm also a huge comic book fan. Not in the same way as someone who, say, hangs out all day in a comic book store and can name every secondary and tertiary character in every obscure comic book ever. But as someone who grew up reading a lot of Batman and X-Men, not to mention a whole bunch of other comics that don't exactly qualify as 'graphic novels', I love the worlds that this art form has managed to conjure up.

And a good comic book to movie adaptation will unfailingly get me to the theatre within the first weekend of release every time. This summer, I have Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and X-Men: First Class to look forward to. Not to mention Priest and Cowboys and Aliens (although the latter isn't a comic book movie, it very much feels like one, non?)

I'm super excited about Green Lantern, Captain America and X-Men: First Class. Green Lantern is one of the first on-screen adaptations of a comic book hero, in the last few years, that spends a lot of time in outer space. (not counting Superman here, I hate Superman. Plus the 2006 version didn't actually spend any time in space, it was about Superman returning to Earth.) The second trailer, in particular, did an exceptional job of giving us a good idea of the exact scope we can expect the picture to take. And since the Green Lantern Corps has some 7000+ members, we can hope sequels and prequels will include more of them, perhaps even centering on some of them.

Captain America's first trailer has me really pumped. I love the vintage-y, earnest feel of the movie. I was worried about Chris Evans fitting into the role of Steve Rogers, aka the titular hero. And since he's the leader of the Avengers, I was worried the usually smart-alecky Evans would not be able to pull off the sincerity and gravitas of Captain America. As of now, I'm at least convinced of the sincerity.

Finally, X-Men: FC looks just fantastic. Matthew Vaughn was a really unusual choice to direct the movie, and I love what he's done with it. The trailer makes the movie look really 60's, very hedonistic, almost European in its sensibility. And I love, love, love Michael Fassbender. The movie's got a whole bunch of acting pedigree, so it really remains to see how it pans out.

The one movie I'm not excited for is Thor, despite the fact Kenneth Branagh is the director. First of all, unlike Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, I don't think Chris Hemsworth has the ability carry off a movie of this scale. He seems to have the brawn part of it down, he's bulked up to an unimaginable size for this movie. But the charm, the wit, the humour and intelligence that the other four guys are capable of displaying seems to be missing from him. He just looks like a beefy gigantor. Not convinced by the trailer or the presence of Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman either. It remains to be seen if this gamble will pay off. Since the Avengers movie is a lock, the studio needs both Captain America and Thor to do really well.

Those are my summer movie plans as of now. If you are reading this blog, please leave me a note about what films will be getting your butts into theatre seats this summer.

Fingertips

Gooseberrie's lovely new blog: Fingertips

Someone Like You

I have spent the last 2 days listening to Adele's new album 21 on loop. When I like something, and this applies in particular to food and music, I have to eat/listen to it repeatedly.

I'm struck by how beautifully this young musician has managed to condense the end of a relationship into an album. I mention the word young because it is truly remarkable how lived-in and wistful the songs are, by turns angry and sorrowful.

Three songs stick with me, and I want to bring them up. The first is Lovesong. For The Cure fans out there, you should skip the next few sentences. I am not a huge Cure fan, I find their music too emo. Which is why I was surprised to have been so captivated by Adele's cover of their song. The chorus, where she repeats the phrase 'I will always love you' will remove any traces of the emo rendition from your head.

The second song is called I Found a Boy. It begins a little like an old jazz standard from the 1930s or 40s, and then progresses into a song that could fit into any decade. Delightful, like something out of an old movie. I must warn you that its likely that I have the previous thought because I watched The Philadelphia Story again, around the same time I started listening to the song.

While I Found a Boy is my favourite song on the album, undoubtedly the most moving song on the album is Someone Like You. In the song, the protagonist has dropped in on a former lover unannounced, and then attempts to rationalize the fact that he has moved on to another woman, and is happy now, by singing, "Never mind, I'll find someone like you". The lyrics, the melody, the soaring vocals provided by Adele, all combine to make the song something that will stay in your head long after you've stopped listening, not unlike an old love.

Burning Out

Looking through the archives of this blog, I have recently realized that 2010 was my least productive year on the blog. This isn't because I was suddenly the busiest I have ever been, although this is the busiest I have ever been in my life. I work a full time job, I live alone, so I cook, I clean, I buy groceries, I pay bills, I do laundry and I wash my own vessels. I also work 2 separate part time jobs from home. I have a few friends who I am close with in this city, so I usually make at least one outing per weekend. I have taken on extra work in order to save up for an enormously expensive trip that my best friend, Gooseberrie and I are planning to take. And of course there are all the phone calls home to my mum, my brother, all of the grandparents, with at least one set of aunt + uncle thrown in each week. Honestly, I have no time for absolutely anything else in my life right now. And yet, this is not the reason I write only sparingly on my blog of late.

The reason is that I think I've started to burn out. Even just writing this blog post, I have no literary eloquence in me, no playful re-arrangement of the English language, no whimsy. Just plain boring text, words arranged in the same patterns as they have been for years. I write hundreds of pages of content every month. All of my jobs, full time and part time, are essentially writing jobs. I research, I analyze, and then I articulate or opine. That's the basic definition of all my work. At the end of all that, there seems to be no creative juice left in me to come onto my blog and rant.

A close friend called recently to bemoan the lack of activity on the blog, and more importantly to her, the lack of angry, inspired ranting, my supposed trademark. Looking back, that seems to be true. The only heartfelt, unfiltered blog post I have written recently was You, and that was born of a deep sorrow and pain. I don't want to have to feel that in order write well, or uninhibitedly.

The latter factor has also begun to worry me. As my jobs require me to be an educated analyst, I have stopped writing freestyle. Everything is constructed, planned, structured to deliver the point with supporting evidence. There's no room for bursts of inspiration and wit. I am now mentally exhausted even at the thought of writing.

So, here's the thing, I'm worried. And tired. And worried. And most of all, I'm burning out, fast.

My Homie From the Hood

I love food. In good times and in bad, food has never left my side. Which might explain my larger than genetically appropriate size at present. Which is why my close friends also tend to be foodies, people who enjoy food, cooking it, eating it, experimenting with it, the whole lot. I really quite dislike people, especially women, who delicately peck at green things on a plate. I don't mind working out extra, but I don't think I could completely cut out yummy food from my life.

The latest member of my inner circle, my 'homie from the hood', my fellow food geek is Flavours. She has started her own blog recently, chronicling her love of food, and it has been a joy to begin this journey with her. Here's to a hopefully long and food-filled journey ahead. Check out her blog here. Today's Flavour Is...

You

I have things to say to you. But you are not here. So I've just been left to think them, and not say them. You know me, I can't keep quiet. I have to say, not just think, it's almost compulsive.

There's a You-shaped hole in my life that I can't quite seem to fill. I have tried. I have also never been so hurt in my life before.

I let you in. That was my fault. And I let you become important. That's on me as well.

It galls me.

Almost every other day, I miss you. I think of something, I want to call you and tell you about. I eat a piece of food I think you will just love. I read a book that I want to recommend to you.

How is it possible you don't miss me at all? Why is there no Me-shaped hole in your life? Was I so dispensable? So easily replaced or forgotten or discarded?

She seems hurt as well, I don't know that she has the space in her head to be as hurt as I am. She's always been better at cutting off than I am. But she is hurt, this much I know.

Maybe at the back of my head I'm thinking, you will read this. And then at least you will know how I feel. But then at the back of my head I also know that you've stopped reading, stopped caring. So you won't ever know.

It's been nearly two years since things went rocky. And if I'm being honest, they were bad for quite a while before that. We never came back from the time that you abandoned me when she did. She and I came back. You and I never did.

Somewhere I think, I was just a convenience. I loved her, you loved her, so you took me on because I came with the package. Now that I think about it, there was never anything special about you and me, no timeless bond, not according to you at least.

I don't do this, I'm not this girl. I dislike this vulnerability, this flowery, precious writing in whimsical verses. I am coarse and angry, and always protected by my own paranoia, bulwarked against all manner of emotional pain.

And yet this has pierced through all of that. I can not believe I have allowed this to happen. How could I?

I just told someone that this is my attempt to unburden, this touchy feely letter to the internet, so I that I am not some bitter, jaded shrew somewhere down the line.

I am already that, aren't I?

I felt indifferent before, but now I am a mixture of angry and upset. Deeply angry and deeply upset.

I should be used to people going away by now, 'Life sucks and then you die', right? Everybody else left, why should you be any different.

You are different, you were one of very very few, one of my own, my people.

When I left you, for a little while, I told you why, I let you know how much I loved you. You just stopped responding, stopped calling. Do you even know how long it's been since we've spoken?

You just disappeared as if I wasn't even worthy or deserving of a goodbye and a reason.

I don't know what else to say. I know these feelings will subside, will abate, all in given time. And the You-shaped hole will be papered over with other things, with scabs and daily routine. I know that this will one day just be another fact of my life, like my giant feet and my brown eyes. That in itself is a painful fact.

Honestly, I really did not think that it would all end this way. Or end at all.

Udaipur

NOTE: THIS POST WAS WRITTEN MOSTLY IN DECEMBER AND IS ONLY BEING PUT UP NOW DUE TO REASONS OF IDIOCY. I APOLOGIZE PROFUSELY FOR THE QUALITY OF WRITING.

Normally, I do not enjoy travelling. My idea of a vacation involves room service and a flat screen television. The larger the pool of humanity I have to encounter, the lesser the amount of fun I can be expected to have. For this reason, I avoid tourist destinations, I avoid holidays in which I have to have a detailed itinerary, with lists of things to do and places to go. When out of town, I like to take a relaxed tour of sights and sounds. My must travel places do not include night life and large monuments. The entire time I spent in London, I did not visit the London Eye once, despite living right across the Thames from it. When I went to Geneva, I did not go to a cheese factory or a ski lodge, I visited the UNHCR and ICRC headquarters. In Edinburgh, I spent most of my time in the National Portrait Gallery and the pub right next to my hostel, and maybe 2 hours at the Edinburgh castle.

For the last 2 months, I have waited for December the 8th to arrive, so my friend AV and I could leave town for the wedding of our colleague and close personal friend,....let's say ST. It was to be my first out of town wedding, my first full Hindu wedding experience, and my first time in Rajasthan. As the title suggests, the wedding took place in Udaipur, Rajasthan, widely considered one of the most beautiful tourist spots in the world. Which is also the reason I was filled with a tiny bit of apprehension. December in India is wedding season, particularly in North India. I was warned in advance that the city would be bursting at the seams with wedding revellers, as well as a surplus of the usual tourist crowd, December also being a holiday month.

By the time the 8th had arrived, my friend AV had fallen quite ill, and had to refrain from going on the trip. Which left me, my bags packed, standing at the Bandra Terminus in Mumbai city, ready to board a train that would deposit in Udaipur at the end of nearly 17 hours. I had been prepared for how cold it would be in Udaipur. So there I stood, at 11 AM on a Thursday at the tiny Udaipur station, waiting to be picked up while wrapped in a scarf and my ratty old pullover. From there, it was onto the festivities.

I'm not sure how many of you have been to a traditional Indian wedding, be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Sikh or Parsi. I'm sure weddings in every part of the world are elaborate. Indian weddings, however, are long (often lasting days or even weeks) and filled to the brim with rituals. I come from a non-traditional family and had, until this time, not been exposed to the full array of ceremonies that accompany a Hindu wedding. Let me tell you, it is quite the experience. Every single ceremony has hosts of aunts, uncles, neighbours and friends offering what they believe to be the absolute right advice about how things need to be done. In fact, random passers by, staff at the hall where the wedding is taking place, musicians who are being paid to play at the wedding and the cooks that are catering the event will all also feel absolutely free to jump in and lecture the parents of the bride on the right way to perform a ritual. It's a giant free-for-all.

ST's parents and sister spend the entire wedding weekend rushing from one spot to another, performing duty after duty, taking care of the most minute of details and generally doing their best to not resemble chickens with their heads cut off. Her poor sister had so much to do, in fact, that she looked like she hadn't slept in weeks, which to be fair, was probably true. The bride and the groom, in the meanwhile, spent most of their time smiling broadly at everything that was said to them, in a daze. Everyone felt the need to stop and make some bawdy remark or the other, or make at least one comment on babies.

I know I am making this sound like it's some terrible thing I am trying to describe, when it is actually the opposite. I am merely attempting to paint a picture of the chaos that weddings bring. In the midst of it, you also feel the warmth of family, the tears of not only the parents at their children's joy, but also of the assorted relatives, who all believe that happiness in the family is happiness for themselves. That's one thing that I missed while I lived abroad, the sense of extended family. The day I get married, my uncles and aunts will be as moved as my own mother. Family doesn't stop at Mom and Dad in India, cousins, uncles, grandaunts and nieces are all integral to weddings.

My friend, ST meanwhile, was shockingly calm, like an unwavering flame in a raging storm. She sat quietly through all the ceremonies, the heavy clothing and jewellery weighing her down. She smiled and laughed at the jokes and the slightly absurd rituals she had to perform. She strode confidently through the reception, greeting friends and introducing her husband to them. She played with babies and received blessings from all the elders present. She even took time to enjoy some food. If and when my time ever comes, you can fully expect me to lock myself in a room, refusing to leave it, and demanding that plates of food be pushed under the door.

After all the wedding stuff was done, I still had half a day to kill, which led me to doing a touristy thing, after all. I visited the Udaipur City Palace. The Palace belongs to the royal family of Udaipur, the Mewars, who run it as a museum. From the City Palace, the famed Lake Palace of Udaipur is also visible, although us mere mortals are no longer allowed to stroll through it.

I love museums. They are giant repositories of information. And if it weren't for the hundreds of shoving tourists, the dozens of screaming infants and toddlers being dragged places by their annoying parents and the smilingly aggressive tour guides, I would have enjoyed myself much, much more. I did get to learn a ton of interesting stuff about the city and the royal family, and the history that surrounds the utterly lovely Udaipur.

After that, my travelling companion chose to race off the some famous temple or the other, while I begged off to enjoy myself in my own way, strolling through the bazaars at my own leisure, not really buying anything. From then on, it was back to the train station, and another 17 hour journey. As Mumbai came into view from my window seat on the train, my heart jumped just a little bit at the realization that I had begun to consider the city home. The feeling lasted barely a second, as I jumped off the train and disappeared quickly into the beaming, bustling chaos.

Appy Noo Ear

I am currently in the process of writing another, much longer post about my trip to Udaipur, but since it is the end of the year, I felt I had to write down something quick about what kind of year it has been.

Frankly, I am almost always filled with melancholy at the end of things: movies, years, ages. Surprisingly, I am not sad to see this year go. I don't feel like I have just sat in one place with little movement this year. Which is not to say that it has been the stuff of legend. From afar, it has still been a remarkably quiet and lonely year. For everyone who knows me, I have been more active than many years past.

My passion for both reading and writing has returned in strong form this year. As has my ambition for work. I still loathe the company of human beings, but friends will attest to the fact that I have tried my best to be more social this year.

Change is meant to arrive in increments. Very few things in life change radically. Given that, I think this year has mostly been a step towards something. At least, I hope that it has. Beyond that, I am still unsure. Which is maybe not such a terrible thing for someone like me.

One Year Older, One Year Closer

The 'closer' in the title I am referring to is not 'closer to who I really want to be' or 'closer to who I really should be', but 'closer to death'. I know, I realize, I'm being glass-half-empty girl. I'm only almost 26, I'm somewhat healthy, I have a job. These are things that the majority of the world's population does not have. I know this.

And yet, I can not help but be depressed once more. A part of it is the natural trajectory that this day takes for me. I can never ever be joyful on this day. My birthday is not a happy day, this will never change. The other part of it is the annual reminder of just how old I am, and just how little of what I wanted I have achieved. And a grim admonition of how much closer I am to being a has-been.

No one seems to get it, of course. I just come off like an ungrateful curmudgeon, which I probably am. There is nothing to celebrate though. And I wish everyone would leave me alone to crawl into my bed and pretend just for a day that I do not exist.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Happy Birthday, Me. Try not to fuck this one up.

Godless

Christopher Hitchens has cancer. He says he will be extremely lucky if he lives another 5 years. Christopher Hitchens, if you did not already know, is a world famous atheist. What about this is newsworthy? Well, for starters, he remains a committed atheist even after his diagnosis, and has resisted all pressure to 'convert', or to begin to 'believe'.

I am an atheist. I have been for more than a decade. In my opinion, there are two ways to argue the idea of a 'god', or for that matter, any other belief in the world. You can argue it logically, or emotionally. When a logical argument meets an emotional one, I don't believe that there is any scope for discussion or discovery. One is based on a dispassionate, rational premise, and the other based in the inexplicable realm of feeling. Really, that's like comparing an apple to an orangutan.

When it comes to logic, the atheists have the victory. Neither religion nor faith can really convince us that their side has any basis in logic, whatsoever. It is when people describe their faith emotionally, that we falter. In what possible way can we counter when someone explains to us, often eloquently, what they feel. How can we argue against a person who describes the joy they feel in prayer, or in the firm knowledge they possess that there is someone or something that is permanently on their side?

In this same way, when I find that people attempt to convince me of the existence of their 'god', I have both the logical and emotional explanation. Emotionally speaking, there is no god. When I am happy, or sad, or unspeakably alone, there is no one in the dark, holding my hand. I feel no presence, or light or joy that others describe. And I am completely and utterly happy with that status quo. My mistakes are my own, my conclusions are my own, my vision is my own and my success is my own. No one handed me anything, and no one guided me. No one, and nothing.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this little piece. Why would Hitchens suddenly start to believe once he has been told that he will die? It infuriates me that religious people consider our atheism merely a stance or a phase, one that will fade when truly terrible news, like impending death, is delivered to us. It's as if they do not believe that our belief system offers us a way to cope with the end of life. I believe, when I die, I will be dead. My mother will cry, my best friend will be lost and my brother will claim all my things for his own. And I will be dead. That will be that. That particular conclusion does not fill me with dread, it does not terrify me, and it will not, in the distant (or perhaps near) future, send me running to the church or the temple in search of 'meaning' when I am faced with my own mortality.

So, here's the thing, I am happy to be a passionate disbeliever, to call people out on the utter nonsense that is the idea of a god. And I really do wish you would let me be.

A Letter To The Editor

This morning, the cover of last month's Spectator magazine was pointed out to me. I found it so offensive that I immediately typed out a strongly worded email to the Editor of the publication. The following is the letter, and the image that provoked it.

Dear Editor,

I must admit, until 15 minutes ago, I had not heard very much about your publication. From my cursory research, which basically involved me checking out your website, you seem to be a respectable publication, with a wide area of coverage.

This is the reason I was appalled at the cover of last month's issue of Spectator. For an article written by Jo Johnson, your cover story, you had the picture of David Cameron as a snake charmer. It's not that we as Indians don't enjoy racist stereotyping by our former colonizers, it's that we think you could do so much better. Why go back to the old snake charmer bit when you can use the 'all Indians work in call centres' bit, or perhaps the 'all Indians are cowherds' bit or maybe even the 'all Indians are computer technicians' bit. Wouldn't your article have been much more attractive to the average buyer of your magazine if Cameron was playing cowherd to the stubborn brown native cow??

I haven't read your article. For all I know, Jo Johnson has cast all Indians as saints who have cracked the meaning to life in the article. What I do know is that hook that you have used to get a consumer to buy your publication is an offensive, racist and colonial stereotype. And you should really be ashamed of yourself for propagating the same views that the British believed entitled your country to enslave and exploit mine for several centuries.

Regards