Yesterday's Thoughts

Fuck the night joint. I'm way too sleepy and tired by the time I return home, and somehow defeated, to really let the drug stimulate my thoughts. The morning brings with it a wonderful wave of contemplation, so morning joint it is.

So while staring at the spirals of smoke, and in the many long-drawn minutes after, I was steeped in thought, of varied things. 


*****

Going easy on myself has had disastrous results on my money management. I have completely eaten into the savings my grandma painstakingly built for me, and I'm left with 1/5 of a lakh now. It's pathetic. I can't live within my means :( I intend to bring it back to the original amount, if not bring it on par with where it would be if I had let the interest accumulate. 


The Flatmate is currently the likeness of a saint. He is finding the strength to always do right by himself and is enduringly pure. He's a real inspiration, if you are looking for it. 
The city noises on the cab to work are gratingly present, each and every day. Sometimes, you hear the voices behind the noises, the urgent alarm of the ambulance, the bored persistence of car horns, the buzz of the beautiful rains. 


Being a non-vegetarian also changes your personality. The way food is attacked, and the defensive response that one evolves in response to allegations by vegetarians makes one develop a different attitude in life. In other news, Woodside's BeerNBurger festival is great, and Ireland's corned beef burger was amazing. It didn't even taste like meat. Just like a really well-cooked and flavoured patty, with smoked bacon. Mmmm. 


I should not smoke so much if I want to sing. It's not good for my voice or my lung power but it won't even let me practice, because getting stoned makes me unable to approach music a little detachedly. But I get so restless just to think of being by myself sober. 


Ze Stick will be coming over in a few weeks. I will have to sort out my room and get an internet connection and stuff by then. Where will she stay otherwise!

I can haz gourmand syndrome

Rule 34 may have to be amended to throw in the word lolcat somewhere.

So I'm in maximum city. And every weekend has been a weekend of fun and frolic, some of it forced. But I've eaten at some fabulous places and have a lot to say of food, drink, ambience and service. In this post (since I don't have a food blog) I shall tell you all about interesting things I have been eating and also, cooking.

Went to this nice Italian place on sunday, called Quattro in Lower Parel. Now I'm not one of those underexposed comfort eaters who rely on potatoes and cheese to give them a global food experience. But I'd like to write about this place because the service was very good. Of course, I also went to Fenix last week and the service there was overwhelmingly good, yada yada, but you really pay through your nose for that kind of attention, y'know? The prices at Quattro are certainly reasonable by Bombay standards.

We ordered a cream of mushroom and leeks soup, siciliano pizza and gnocchi. I didn't have my camera with me, so no photos. The soup came with a few interesting breads and were very subtly and freshly flavoured. (I notice how I've been gravitating towards fresher flavours, even if tossed with stir fried something or a heavier sauce, as an alternative to heavy, spicy, overly rich food.)

So here's a list of the interesting things I've eaten over the last few weeks:

• Gado gado salad (Busaba, Lower Parel)
• Tuna carpaccio with orange, walnut and vinaigrette dressing. (the abovementioned Fenix, Oberoi)
• BLT with cheddar and pesto (Salt Water Cafe, Bandra)
• Beef Bulgagi Maki Roll (Busaba, Lower Parel)
• Mediterannean Salad & Caesar Salad (Kala Ghoda Cafe)
• Gooey Chocolate Cake (Cafe Churchill, Colaba)
• Emmenthal and Pesto sandwich and Olive and basil tapenade sandwich (Moshe's Cafe, Colaba)

And oh, I fell in love with Mediterannean food in Himachal. Now, the list of interesting things I've made (I realise this is extremely tedious without pictures):

• Quesadillas (spring onions, cheddar etc)
• Risotto rice pudding (drenched in mangoes and nutella :-p) 
• Two varieties of salad with Greek Yoghurt dressing. 
• Mushrooms on toast.

And the gourmand syndrome? It's for real. I read a story about a snowboarder, Kevin Pearce, who had a near fatal accident, and re-emerged post severe trauma with an inexplicable craving for basil pesto. Now, I wouldn't generally attribute this to syndromes or afflictions, I can completely understand a craving for basil pesto, with its creamy cheese and fresh basil and quirky, crunchy pine nuts, but he was quite indifferent to the food before.

Pesto is, indeed, the best-o.

Within every extrovert, there's an introvert screaming to get out.

I've been an extrovert for far too long. So long that I have little clue what to do when I do find myself alone. <cue jokes about jilling off> More often than not, I spend my time dilating my pupils and retreating into that passive wonder-world which also, apparently, obeys the economic dictum of the law of diminishing marginal utility.
It's getting difficult to shake off this state, where there are always things to do, but then you always have so many choices - and you know, YOU get to make the right choice for yourself, the overwhelming knowledge of the fact that your freedom is your responsibility - that I get stuck with what Stephen Fry called options paralysis. Truly, I need to spend more time just doing my own thing and getting the hang of it. Not that I didn't, in the past, but really developing it, honing it and making it my own. Even 'doing my thing' feels like a borrowed pastime.

But really, the way to get unstuck from options paralysis is to reject everything. The most peaceful place in your mind is where there is nothing. Try as you might, 'nothing' is an exceedingly difficult state of mind to achieve. So, the next best thing follows, one thing. But to really do that one thing right, and do justice to it, you have to die first. Die completely. Leave your half-hopeful ambitions, your distant dreams and your exotic-for-the-sake-of-it choices. Let go over the cliff, as the zen monk says. And then your own fears and lethargy and false hopes will never deceive you. Maybe I should give it a shot.

Oh, and hat-tip to ol' Prufrock for that line in the title. It's true. 

It's been a bloody long time since I blogged, but I'm not going to dwell on that.

I'm not going to dwell on much, actually. Except to say that I have come back here, because it reminds me of a time when I looked into myself to understand my thoughts and to find sense in what I did, and so, who I was.

Even if I am not that same person any more, as would be the case with anyone after 5 years living an unchronicled, pretty much unhinged existence - I want to reconnect with this dear old identity I had. One I may not entirely recognize, or appreciate all the time, but certainly, this is still me. Somewhen.

And, I have been gripped with a fear that I will slowly, but surely, start losing my voice. Literally and metaphorically. I intend to seek out a music teacher over the weekend, (does anyone in Bombay know who's a good hindustani vocals teacher anywhere in central or south bombay?) and to find what I want, and say it the way I want to, with the words I used to covet as mine. If it is my opinion, and an interesting one, it won't just go on chat windows or into a ear and out the other.

And hopefully my writing will improve as well. It will feel good once I hit publish. But then, I should get down to changing the template and all that shizz. You'll be seeing more of me. :)