A simple desultory Philippic: November 2007

It’s a strange feeling. Like coming back to a house where you once lived. Perhaps when you were a child. Or at least many years ago. Remember that scene in Yaadon ki Baaraat where Dharam Paaji finds the toy gun? Like that.

But you can never go home again. It isn’t there.

So once in a while I open up the Philippic and check the dwindling footfalls. And read the last comment and wonder whether I have the energy to respond. Then I go 'Pbbrrrrttt, boogeritt' and look at the clock opposite and go back to work.

This last month or so – ever since my laptop was stolen – I’ve had good intentions of taking time out to post on this blog. Or the other one. Hasn’t worked. Camera-phone pics of an omelette are … well, nice, but not really a post. I can’t write a post any more. Because I don’t have my laptop. Such a stupid dependency.

The other reason, of course, is that work is climbing up my a … ummm, my walls? (Right, we shall take a short break for the libertarians to fall about laughing at the idea of a gorment paarsen WORKING. Quite done? Good, so where were we …) I’m beginning to hate having to work for a living.

I lie. I have always hated working for a living. It’s just that now THIS particular kind of work is really getting to me. 'Nuff said. End of whining session.

It doesn’t help that the city now has the most beautiful weather. As I tap away right now, I can see the ugly buildings off Park Street smiling in the evening glow. Like, say, Antara Mali photographed by Probuddha Dasgupta. Know what I mean? We KNOW they’re not really good-looking (at all at ALL) but man, they can be made to look good. This kind of a November evening, I should be out on the street feeling the city blowing in my face. Converting the moment into words that scroll through my mind’s eye like a teleprompter. And I can feel the old writing urge welling up in me but there’s nothing to say. Because that requires THAT chair and my laptop and a half hour to myself. Whereas all I have is this office and deadlines and a consuming feeling of guilt and tension because this is NOT my work. Bgrrrtttt.

Not that life has been bad. My brother-in- … arms is in town after half a decade (yes, I know I could have just said 5 years, but this is MY blog so sneck up), we’ve been having a series of bachelor nights that have left us exhausted, we’ve found what is possibly the only all-night coffee bar in this city and we have a huge stash of Bandel cheese and sossijis. We’ve even had the obligatory boys’ night out. With three young men, a black Scorpio, pub-hopping, drunken declarations of male bonding, loud tuneless chorus singing in a public space at 3 in the morning, large coffees with THREE shots of cream. Hell, one of the young uns is nice enough to drop by my office and give me a neck rub when I’m feeling chewed. Life should be good.

Which it kind of is.

But I miss my virtual inglenook. Where I can mumble to myself and tap away and then hang it on the line and wait for the gang to turn up. And eventually nice people like the Prof and the kids from jheel paar and nice ladies and maybe even A Goddess and the Smart-Asses from Stateside and the Funny Men and the Goo-roo and the Bombay Brigade and the Aphrodites of Angst and the Dervish from Delhi and the People without Names and the People who are Just a Bunch of Keyboard Characters and … well, all of you is what I mean, you know it, I wait for you to drop by and say Hullo and I can stir and wave my pipe-stem at you with a ‘hurrr hurrr gorblimey’ kind of grunt and then settle back into a tobacco doze.

That’s what it is. I miss my addiction. I miss my blogs. I miss you guys. And I’m out of green apple vodka too. Damn.