Again and again

What's with me and monsoon-sickness? I woke up today and with my eyes still shut against the noise of the world, I could tell that it was overcast outside (well, mostly because dazzling sunshine wasn't trying to rip my eyes open like it usually does. I have flimsy curtains). And for no reason, I thought of how it is when the monsoon finally starts one late evening and it's absolutely divine because the heavens have saved you from the scorching heat. And the lights go out of course, because that's what happens in Goa. It's a natural reaction to everything. 

So anyway, you don't care about the electricity cut because it's raining and it's finally cool now. You slap on some mosquito repellent (anyone else remember the sticky, goopy, thick, pistachio-coloured, strong smelling Odomos cream?) and get into bed, happily lulled to sleep with the rhythmic sound of the rain drumming on the roof.

Do you remember that feeling, when you wake up the next day and you've forgotten that the monsoon started, but then you feel the overcast darkness and hear the errant drops still falling softly from the leaves of trees? I didn't even know that this was a thing, that it was a real, legitimate feeling like the first day of school until I woke up today and felt it.

I must be homesick again, because every time that happens, I start dreaming of family weddings in minute detail. Cousins happily married in real life are made to go through the wedding ordeal all over again in my dream world, houses are exchanged (relatives from dad's side of the family get married in homes from mum's side of the family and vice versa). Last night, it was two cousins getting married at the same time. I guess it can't be anything but homesickness.

Or maybe it's just escapism? The last couple of weeks  have been tinged with an oozing guilt, leaking out of my mind. I still have some time to go before I submit this thesis, but sometimes I find myself thinking if I honestly need that second Master's degree. It's bollocks, actually, I'm just trying to avoid it all.

Started reading 'Autobiography of a Yogi' by Paramahansa Yogananda in an attempt to cleanse mind of bad thoughts. And because I need to read something before I sleep every night. I thought of re-reading Bridget Jones' Diary or The God of Small Things, but then I thought may be I need a dose of spirituality in these troubled mental times.

Also, I finished reading Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, my very first time reading him (brilliant, but not for me) and The Great Gatsby, which was also sort of okay.

Anyway, I have decided to work at home today, because it's raining so perfectly outside. And I'm wearing my tent like night gown and I don't want to change into decent day clothes accepted by society just yet.

I love wearing lazy clothes while I work, don't you? I love being a slob sometimes, I love it.

Raindrops and wisdom,
The Cyniqueen.

When it rains in Berlin

By Anomalily via Flickr

Something finally gives way. The panicked desperation for a delayed spring, still needing to wear earmuffs and thick gloves. Piles of old snow blankets, dirty and tinged with Berlin's black soil but determinedly solid, unrelenting, refusing to thaw. They cling still on tops of shrubs, collected in muddy heaps on sides of roads and sidewalks, on hidden corners of roofs and deserted patches of earth.
The sparrows still chirp, their loud cries defiant, shrill in the unseasonably crisp freeze at this time of the year.

Then, something breaks. You're too warm in that winter coat, so you switch back to your thinner jacket, still cautious, still painfully aware of Berlin's fickle weather swings.

But it stays that way. And then, out of nowhere, snow turns into rain. Not piddly no-drops like you're standing next to a fountain, but rain rain. Drops like spears, crashing on the perfectly smooth pallid roads, barraging on everyone, ratting out weak umbrellas.

You blink around and wait. For that muddy, earthy fragrance when the first drops of rain sizzle on the scorching, wrinkled, thirsty soil. For the wafting smells of hot fried bhaji, pakoras and samosas. For warm, roasted peanuts in newspaper cones. For signs of little stalls crowded with people, squinting at the rain, a rustic glass of hot cardamom chai in their cool hands, blowing on it to cool it down.

You wait for that squelch of shoes in the water rivulets born out of the downpour. For the splashes of water as people on two wheelers, late for work, irritated with errant raindrops sliding through their raincoats and wetting their backs, speed by, drenching hems of Kurtas and pants with muddy water.

It starts to rain harder. I wait for chaos. For street urchins and school children on their way home from school, jumping in puddles. For the loud croaks of hidden frogs. For the electricity cuts that don't happen.

Back in Berlin, the tram rattles to a stop and everyone gets in, irritably wiping the raindrops off their minds.

Because here, in this perfect world so far away from home, not a hair is out of place. Bright umbrellas have popped up everywhere, people scurry past me. No one's cooking food on the street, no crowds have huddled around rickety food and chai stalls and no one is cheerful at the spring that has brought warmth but rain instead of sunshine.

How could they be happy about it, how could they begin to understand, when they don't know what magic monsoon conceals in its muddy, splashing, trickling, cooling folds?

*******

I wrote this on one of the first days of spring a couple of days back, when it felt like monsoon in Goa. In Berlin.

And this song kept playing in my head on loop all day. Sigh.

-The Cyniqueen

A random list of miscellaneous things

Since I think I've sort of been bogging everyone down talking about the depressing winter that REFUSES to end, and also because it's been long since I've done one of these, I'm making a random list:

Via weheartit.com

• Snow and frosty cold in Berlin is a fuckillion times better than boiling heat in Pune or Goa.
• I'm getting a lot of great practical experience in my new internship.
• And it's in this lovely neighbourhood with just the right balance of diversity, coffee shops, cleanliness and quaintness. I've honestly never seen anything like it.
• I scrubbed the floor of my tiny apartment last weekend and it is now back to a respectable standard of cleanliness. Before that, it was so dirty (oh god I can't believe I am typing this even as I type it) that I was too disgusted to exercise on it, because I sometimes do Surya Namaskar, where it's imperative to have a clean floor *hangs head down in shame. And then sees now sparkling floors and feels less bad.*
• I don't posses the ability to pack light. Like if you took all my DNA, pried it apart or wrung it really hard to get every single essence of my traits (dormant and active), you would not find amidst the greasy juice, the trait of packing light. My bag which I carry to work (which is half an hour away from my place) hurts my shoulder because it weighs like 18 kilos. It seems that my prehistoric ancestor should not have survived on account of the giant dinosaur would have killed him if he insisted on carrying all his cave rocks and animal skin-skirts with him everywhere. But then again, I'm really good at raising each eyebrow in quick succession to a beat and it seems to me that evolution decided that the unibrowed Neanderthal should be allowed to pass on this miraculous talent to his progeny. (Okay, Neanderthals and dinosaurs didn't coexist, I'm aware. But two words: poetic license).
• I love wearing kurtis in Berlin. Besides the fact that kurti and jeans is the most comfortable daily wear on the planet, it makes me feel very exotic. I can never, ever wear a bindi on a kurta here, though. Just, no.
• For a while now, I have found this brand of ceylon-assam tea bags that taste like proper Indian chai. And then I found ginger tea bags, which is actually just ginger water. So I mixed both to make adrak chai (ginger tea). Didn't work.
•  Not being able to talk to my family regularly sucks. Internet problems make Skype impossible at times. I love whatsapp though.
• I had started reading Churchill's biography (because I like biographies) but last week, I officially and very guiltily abandoned it because it was too full of military, imperialistic jargon.
• Once, when I was extremely distracted by my own thoughts,I walked into a wall. This happened in class. Embarrassing as it was, thankfully, it happened in Germany. If it was in class in India, I would have tots had a white chuna mask on my face to add to the mortification.
• People sometimes leave garbage bags in the elevators in my building. I hope they crap their pants in public for every time they do this.

-The Cyniqueen

Groping in the dark

Weekend chai mug. Oh Yeah.

Listening to Chansons while trying to deal with impending deadlines.

Trying (ever so desperately, ever so unsuccessfully) to deal with homesickness, that illness whose cure I can't afford right now.

Trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Berlin became my wife and India my mistress instead of the other way around (I want to say husband and lover, but it doesn't convey my point in the same way, does it? Also, this metaphor has nothing to do with my views as a woman.)

Trying to shoo away the recurring gloom that intercepts every sentence and every thought on days like today.

University is like trying to get on a speeding train which decided not to wait for you but expects you to hop on anyway. I still like it better than not having anything to do. 

Being able to have Indian tasting chai in Berlin is funnily the only thing I can orient myself to on some days. Something about the fact that it tastes exactly the same in another time zone, something about its memories with people and places in my life, something about the fact that it reminds me all at once of being at home in Goa and in Pune, of drinking an end-of-a-work-day cup with my sister, the 'open canteen' in Pune, being in the PG (Paying Guest accommodation) with my roommate and being in the kitchen of my grandparents' place is pretty damn comforting.

Toast with me

A toast to tea

Gloom be damned,

The Cyniqueen

Epiphany

Because in the crisscross craziness of life, when one moment meets another, magic happens, sparks fly and everything comes together like a rainbow on a sunny day. Like yesterday, when the sun shone so prettily on the fresh, shining mounds and drapes of snow, nothing else mattered.


This is a part of Fantabulous February for Kanika's awesome blog. Go take a look!


The Cyniqueen

Snow big deal

I woke up to my first proper snow day today.The dry tree branches were drooping with it (as you can see in the picture) and the cars parked by the road were draped with an impeccably symmetrical white blanket. 

I stomped in the thick snow and stared wondrously at tiny snow flakes that settled on K.'s black coat. I clicked pictures of snow in heaps and snow on bushes and snow on tables and chairs (which had been left outside, for some reason). And snow mixed with mud and snow stuck between the tight, hexagonal spaces on a cobbled sidewalk.

Oooh, and yesterday I saw condensation on a window which cold wind had turned into big, shining, magnificently opulent looking crystals.

And I saw some soft, white snowfall, which danced and swayed gracefully to the ground like a performance.

I love my first European winter!

Soft ice and snowflakes,

The Cyniqueen

A minute too late

Only for the longest eternity, I want you by my side 

Just for a minute I want to close my eyes and forget that I have a magazine to conceptualize and a radio-program manuscript to write.

Just for a minute I want to sip on hot ginger chai (with whole fat milk).

Just for a minute I want a clean room, an organized study table and a devilishly beckoning unmade bed

Just one for a minute, I want to feel the hurried impatience of turning the page in a book I can't put down.

Just for a minute, I want to read as if there's nothing else to do.

Just for a heartbeat, I want the hollow, crashing sound of the waves resonating in my ears.

Just for a minute, I want nothing else to matter, except the peace I feel when I'm lying in bed.

Just for a minute, a lingering minute that does not want to leave, that shuffles it's feet at the door and keeps looking back as it's walking away -- just for that little diamond of a minute, I want today to feel as Saturdays should -- lazy and free and bed-lounging and jazz-playing, with the glittering promise of a sloth-y Sunday right ahead.

Sigh. Such is life.

Yours longingly,

The Cyniqueen

P:S-[Photo via weheartit]

Quick Post (Because I miss you and love you)

The you in the title is you, dear reader. The me, on the other hand, is a bit ashamed at not having posted for a while. I find it very hard to post when life is happening at a fervent, bursting pace as it is now now. So, where does that leave us? At bullet points, of course, I am tempted to say, but I mustn't be lazy.

So. The coolest thing happened to me last week. I was running to catch the train  (descending down the steps of the subway train station). The train was in sight when the alarm signalling that the doors were about to close sounded. But the driver saw me and STOPPED THE CLOSING DOORS MIDWAY. I couldn't thank him, but I sent a lot of happy thoughts his way. Love small, silly, happy moments like this :)

Also, there's still no snow in Berlin. I saw snow once and was terribly excited about it, until people pointed out that what I saw wasn't 'real' snowfall and it's normally much thicker and prettier. They say it's one of the warmest winters in Berlin this year. I'm scared of minus temperatures, and I'm a little paranoid about whether I'll survive, but dammit, I want to see some of that white wonder.

University has been a little crazy, with lots of work and classes. I'm trying (hard) to organize my thoughts about what I want to do in the future. Sometimes an option glows before my eyes like a volcano sputtering fire. And the next day it dwindles to a tepid ember, impassively waiting its end. For how long can this back and forth-ing of career options go on? I can only hope it yields something fruitful.

And now, I have to go watch a film and write a critique about it.

(But before that, some indulgent Roadies 9 viewing online. Teehee).

Love and purple feathers (because that's a nice image, isn't it?),

The Cyniqueen

Because sometimes, jazz flows through me like the current through a river

Going through a huge jazz phase right now. Even though it's always been right up there with country music and swing, these days its been ticking inside my head like a thought that won't go away. Scratch that - like a thought that you don't want to go away.

You guys, I have so much to tell you. Like the fact that the approaching winter can be a pain and rock at the same time.

That Austrian cheese "aus dem Bergen" ("from the mountains") and Glühwein from the Christmas markets here is magical.

That I rediscovered the Tacheles house (that I've told you about several times before, remember?) last night with K. Met some of the people there, happened to land up in the middle of a Mexican birthday party, got a new cloth bag which says very coolly - Kultur kann man nicht kaufen - which in English means - you can't buy culture. And then there's an asterisk and right at the bottom, in small letters, it says aber (meaning 'but'). Cool huh?

The artist is Tim Roeloffs and his work pulls me out of my comfort zone and makes me think. I also bought this postcard right here. It means 'Berlin - The City of Peace'. I love that little bear and the dove.

And my birthday was last week and it was really good. One of my many lovely presents (from friends I now have, hallelujah!) was the Amazon Kindle I got from G, complete with a book I was waiting to read. Moment of crazy dancing here for the awesome people in my life:

A dancing banana

A dancing cow WITH bananas (and udders for genitals)

Thank you Google images for the awesomeness. Ironically, the cow is smaller than the banana. 

Lots more to tell, but for now, Saturday sloth is calling.

Tata!

Love and bananas,

The Cyniqueen

When you live in Berlin...

The last, crumbling signs of autumn lie dulling on the ground and winter is slowly reaching out its frosty hand, frost being the operative word there. I know I don't usually start with the weather (or do I? Eh, don't really care to remember), but when you're in Europe, you can't not talk about the weather, you simply can't.

See? How can you not talk about it?

More things that happen when you live my life:

• Your language becomes a royally awkward hodgepodge of English and German that makes you fumble and falter no matter what language you're trying to speak.
• You realize for the first time in your life how cold some things really are - keys, door handles, coins, zips, for example- especially when you have to heave your hands out of the warmth of your pockets.
• To your mild surprise, life still has many, many firsts to offer that make you want to act like a child (blow smoke/mist in the air, pick up leaves frosted overnight and stare fascinatedly at everything wintery).
• You listen to old hindi songs on your mp3 player in the train and cherish the secret joy it brings you, surrounded by people who don't know the language and may never understand the beauty of Kishore Kumar or R.D. Burman.
• You click pictures every time you see something novel. Which is all. the. time. Oh yes.
• You begin to want hot chocolate everyday and feel bad about it.You discover that the sugar-less Cappuccino from the vending machine at your uni is surprisingly good.
• You discover the pure, unadulterated joy of cooking Indian food in a foreign land. Of bonding with your mother and grandmother who taught you to cook, and feeling their presence next to you, guiding you when you're cooking something even though they're continents and oceans away.
• You cry a little when you have to write a report on the German political situation that you know squat about. You also snivel at German literary texts that you are supposed to read up on and understand. You wonder at how it is possible to understand every single word in a sentence and still not follow what it being said. You nod obediently at people, even when their German is too fast/thickly accented. You wonder or cry about it later (as the case may be, especially if the German in question is spoken by a teacher giving important instructions for the next class). Basically, you cry a lot. And by 'cry' I obviously don't mean sob. I mean your eyes well up a bit/you want to tear something or scream just a little.
• To put it simply, there are several moments of deep self doubt.
• ...but then there are days you're proud of yourself because you just did one more thing today you never thought you could have :)
• You learn to budget a little better. A little tighter. It makes you feel a little grown up. And then you buy Aloe Vera gel for 7.40 Euro and save like a squirrel the rest of the week.
• You finally stop saying 'Rupees' at the end of every sum and switch to Euro.
• You learn about some huge cultural differences between India and Europe. You can't wrap your head around them.
• ...and some things, like smiling at strangers, you love and adopt as your very own.
• You learn that moving away to a new country means finding new brands of personal products. Which can be a pain.
• You think you're going to miss your train everyday and run... then you bake in your 50 layers of almost-winter clothing.
• You wonder how bad and gloomy January will really be, especially with everyone painting such a bleak, depressing picture.
• ...but you secretly wait for the first snowfall of your life (and hope you can cope with the cold).
• You do a happy mental dance when you give tourists directions to a place in Berlin.
• You feel somehow browner, just a tiny bit. It makes you respect your heritage :)
• You get frustrated at your hair's lack of effort to be presentable in Berlin and its animosity towards the water here. But then, after a couple of weeks, the bounce comes back and you look normal again. 
  
• There are some moments that jerk you away from Berlin, from Germany, from Europe and hurl you back to India - to a sight (beige, smooth, sparkling beach sand) or a sound (hundreds of honking cars) or a taste (pani-puri, Goan bhaji, batatwada, hot, soft chappatis) or a person (family). It leaves you bewildered, exasperated and yearning in an incomplete, torn sort of way.
• You try eating a lot of new things and decide you like most of them (except for duck that one time. And 'tropical fruit tea').
• Incense sticks never smelt holier.
• Life was never this stimulating.

More later. Probably. How has everyone been?

Love,

The Cyniqueen

Something More

Things happening/being mulled over presently:

• Autumn  - bites you in the face and produces awesome mist type thing in the air when you exhale/talk. Not to mention how beautiful the bright yellow, fiery red leaves on trees and rustling, whispering heaps of dried leaves on the ground (like in the picture above). I can almost hear my skin cracking gently against the cold. Also, I keep hearing the term 'golden autumn' (goldener Herbst) everywhere. 
• The end of waiting. Almost - My course starts very soon. I'm excited, but have mild concerns about starting out a Master's course in a field I've never studied before and in a foreign country. Oh yeah, and in German. Mild concerns *pulls out hair and runs amok*
• My only friend/confidante/support here moving away for a while. It's going to feel like the first day of kindergarten. Like the time you're cooking something and you realize you're out of salt. Like when you're only pair of shoes breaks when you're travelling, y'know what I mean?
• Upside of aforementioned course - fewer students in each class, which means a higher chance of being able to make friends. Past experience sits on its throne of smugness and scoffs at my optimism at hoping to make some reliable friends (and not the kind to flake out on you in times of need, as has unfortunately come to pass several times before), but I'm planning on dethroning it and being the one who scoffs. With my new friends, hopefully.
• I am soon going to be in possession of some very coveted substances - Indian cooking ingredients! As much as I have come to love Schnitzel and Quark (curious? Go Google), I can't wait to make some decent Goan Sol Kadi and attempt (hopefully successfully) to make chappatis and Pav bhaji and things like that. Yum!

Task for the day - Go listen to Take That's latest song if you haven't already.

An icy, misty, autumny flying kiss to all,

The Cyniqueen

I dipped my heart in sunshine

Via Google Image Search

• I will be in Germany next month at this time soon (ifeverythinggoeswellwiththevisabutIhavefaithanditwill).
• Packing is hard.
• Wrapping up your life in a city (well, country) is harder still.
• Giving away old clothes which are ill-fitting and worn; and to which memories cling like musty smells, is tragic.
• I will miss Indian English Television. And knowing about the latest hindi movies and songs. And Tata Sky.
• And my night lamp in my room in Goa that I love so much (but I will buy another one at Ikea the first chance I get).
• I just discovered the best waterproof curling Mascara ev-er. The downside? I can't seem to find any more bottles. Talk about disappointing discontinuation of much loved products (Which I did here that one time).
• I have had 2 doses of local anaesthesia injected into my jaw in the last two days. A routine dental check-up has turned into one continual hell-session, with me needing to visit every day so as to be done with all root canal-ing and wisdom tooth extracting (uh huh) in time before I leave. Thankfully, I have no dentist phobia, and I'm, somewhat immaturely, I must admit, immensely enjoying coming up with new dental double entendres (cavities being filled, dark places being poked and so on). I share them only with myself though, not with the dentist. Obviously.

In other news, I might be cat-sitting for a friend for 3 whole weeks in December and the prospect makes me tizzy with excitement. Two. Cute. Fat. CATS. You guys! :D

The Cyniqueen

On the sunny side of the street

I'll be popping the bubbly soon, oh yes I will. [via Google Image Search]

As much as I love doing listy posts, I sort of miss posts-posts. So here's some news...ish.

I am probably going to Berlin next month if all the formalities go smoothly. I have a good feeling about it all. In fact, it takes all of my restraint not to dance as I type this (but a little jig never hurt anyone).

And horrid university applications are finally done. You may now join in my jig. Happily. Not like you're being forced. Dooo it.

I have fun lists to do now, namely things-to-buy. Wheee!

Also, the prospect of making new friends in Germany is a great one. Especially when things on that front here in India are not too hot, with about 2 exceptions. Why do some things have to be so difficult? I wish I could say more, but loose lips might sink ships. (P.S - Please go hear the song, it's awesome).

But but but, nothing can get me down right this minute because an official phone call I received some time back takes me one step closer to Germany. Eee! ^_^

The Cyniqueen