You're my bad habit

Why are 'bad' things always the most delicious ones?

Bad habits

• Naps that pull you in and sink you into perfect oblivion.
• Doodling in class (my latest penchant -- writing German names and words in the Devanagari script).
• Surfing rage comics on my smart phone.
• My smart phone.
• Eating that one last morsel of chicken curry even though I know I'm full.
• Hot chocolate (for when it's cold).
• Talking to myself.
• Not being able to decide Indecisiveness.
• Midnight "epiphanies" that you know are just a way to avoid studying.
• Venting your anger at the elevator button. (It's like you want to hit the STOP button on something else).
• Making too many lists.
• Letting the dishes pile on a little longer than necessary.
• Slipping into tawdry, remarkably shameless tardiness and running around like a tornado trying to restore the place to some basic accepted standard of cleanliness when you're expecting company.
• Not letting go easily enough.
• Thinking too much.
• Shopping too little.
• Chai.
• Stationery.

Life summary - The end of a hectic semester, the beginning of a promising internship, the reevaluation of goals and right this second, almost ground-shaking thunder. I never understood why those kids in The Sound of Music were so terrified by it. Doubt cleared.

Berlin has been hot and humid since a couple of days. Not particularly sunny, but a cloud of heat floating along everywhere you go, making your clothes stick to your skin, emanating hot waves of air from your scalp, making your face sweat and your skin burn. Feels that way, in any case.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying every second of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, which I'm currently reading. Next stop, The Little Prince, as soon as Amazon decides to actually send me my copy.

And here is a lovely new venture from a friend of mine who wants to bring an online reading community together. I really love the idea and the enthusiasm that people are already showing. Do take a look!

Thunder and suspense,

The Cyniqueen

'Cause growing up is awfuller than all the awful things that ever were.

Narrrr, sometimes I hate pretending that I'm a grown up. Think about it, really. Someone back in the prehistoric day decided that in order to grow up, you had to stop being a child. And truth be told, I don't see what is so terrible about childhood, that golden time when it was really really hard to be sad.

The truth of the matter is, we are all one hobo-trying-to-grab-your-hair away from snapping. Which happened to me at the subway station a few days ago. The hair grabbing attempt, I mean, not the snapping. The snapping is currently hidden away in the folds and curves of a looming screeching university deadline, which has assumed more urgency than other things like losing your mind.

And I must also, while I'm at it, tell you about my epiphany about work/homework/procrastination related stress. We're never actually stressed out about our tensions and problems. The thing that causes the stress is the stress itself. Take that away and you simply have that assignment you have to write or those pile of dishes you have to do. Take that burden off your shoulders and you're light enough to just do the thing that's getting you down. I realized this and was all woooooaaah, but as it turns out, setting this theory to practice is a bit stressful. Heh.

It was almost 30 degrees today and it's so so surreal how 30 degrees in India is like tralala but here in Berlin it just feels like a furnace. Time to buy that fan, I think.

Har har

This profound meme I found captures how I've been feeling for the last few weeks.

Oh well. It gets better, right? Blogging always helps.


Waiting for Godot,
The Cyniqueen


P.S - If you didn't understand the title, you absolutely must listen to 'I Won't Grow Up' from the Peter Pan movie. You must.

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

Oops, I did it again

Hellew blogosphere!

Le bullet points:

• I just finished a spring internship 
• University just resumed 
• I have no time to breathe 
• Creativity is being throttled by aforementioned breathing difficulty 
• My face has surrendered to acne without the slightest struggle of a fight. Yet again.
• Last night K. and I video-recorded bits of a concert by an awesome band called The Legendary Lost Mojados. It was a part of university work and felt very hoity-toity, what with lugging the camera and tripod around and getting asked for our business card. Heh.

A bout of self-doubt seems to have left me creatively-paralysed as it were and all attempts to resuscitate my fading writing-abilities have been disappointing.

Until I figure out what the hell this phase this (and hopefully have some time to work on the idea for a new blog that has been fermenting in my mind) the posts might be scarce. Or there might too many for you to keep up with.

Flowers and spring love from Berlin,
The Cyniqueen

Keep calm and leap on

Things could have ended badly for her. They usually did. She hadn't spoken to them in months, may be even a couple of years. It was hard to keep track of these things when you were on the road.


It was hard to remember the smell of burned toast on a Sunday morning and the sudden start of the old taps sputtering blasts of cold water on your skin with no prior warning.


When she was on the road, hopping from one city to the next, flying to different countries every week, drinking precisely 3 cups of chamomile tea a day and singing exactly 8 songs every night (except when she got an encore), it seemed easy to treat it all like an unreal haze. Especially if you counted all the heroin.


She'd squirm, when out of nowhere, a pale, glowing evening sky would remind her of the creaky porch at home and their old blind dog who sat there in the evenings slobbering unceasingly.


Today, she turned 29 years old. Her phone rang and it was them. How could she not say yes? How could she not leave it all to go see that dog that slobbered, the porch that creaked (even when no one was sitting there), the taps that startled and the blackened toast you treasured more than any cheque?


She boarded the plane with shaky hands. In a less sane world in a big city, the bosses were furious. Her phone kept ringing. But she had already answered the most important call of all. Keep calm, she told herself, and leap on.


The plane crashed exactly 40 minutes after it took off. When they found her body, she had the faintest smile etched upon her face.


The traces of heroin in her body which actually killed her, they found several weeks later.

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Too morose? This is a part of Fantabulous February started by this talented blogger. Last day today, but waiting for more bloggerly awesomeness from Soumi.


Love


The Cyniqueen

Like a drop of ink in a glass of crystal clear water

Set yourself free

Setting yourself free is more than just physical boundaries.


It's more than being able to buy what you want. More than the freedom of deciding that you want to watch a movie at one AM on a weeknight. More than getting the haircut you want because you don't care if he/she doesn't like it. More than saying yes to fun and no to homework. More than taking a cab one day because you had no patience to wait for the bus. Even more than trying something new. More than doing something because you can. 


Setting yourself free does not mean being free of love.


Setting yourself free means being unencumbered enough to look beyond yourself, to do something for someone because you want to. Because you can.


The Cyniqueen


Kanika says day seven of Fantabulous February is going to be a good one. I agree :)

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