This is mostly for me.
2010 has been the most dramatic year of my life. I found a job, found new friends, then enemies, had my location changed at the last minute to Bombay (I am not calling it Mumbai), found fun, joy, laughter- then anger, bitterness & re-found my sarcasm- something the novel had drained me of, for a few weeks.
I saw new sights, heard new sounds, sweated in Bombay’s (so called) “winter”, ate new foods, fell ill- sometimes seriously, learnt the true meaning of stress, politics; got smarter, sharper, came to understand things I hitherto had never deemed worth understanding; found my heart with hope and then had it bitterly crushed.
I am amazed at how far I have come, how much I have changed. I still find it difficult to tolerate stupidity, but I am learning to laugh it off. I have realized that the only true friends you will ever have is your own family and then maybe one or two more if you’re lucky; the rest of the world is just mostly a Facebook Friend. I can cook Maggi, omelettes and other semi processed food- progress for someone who was mortally afraid of the stove. I feel wiser, quieter, calmer- yet my quips are sharper, my wit is more hard hitting; I am burning at both ends of the candle.
I am also more & more convinced of the futility of the human race. I meet and talk to several adults a day and I am constantly bored by their unidimensional thinking, put off by their malice coated in a thin layer of concern. I think good writers tend to be good readers of people and sadly this gift puts me at a loss. Every adult I meet is so… predictable, yes predictable is the word. As kids, I remember, we used to ask each other- what do you want to be when you grow up. I remember I once said “Alligator”. One of my male friends who is now a grown man had said “A pair of socks”; another “Traffic Signal”- all of them very seriously and with valid viable kiddy logic. I wish I was any of those things today than an adult human.
