I was driving home from work the other day. Well, I was going in a cab from my office to my parents’ house. And as we reached the traffic signal on Worli Seaface, I was hit by a strong whiff of sea air. And I longed to go to Goa. To lie on a sun-warmed beach and do nothing. Nothing at all. And yet, I was not unhappy being in Bombay. I had had a good day at work. I was going to meet a friend. I had just spoken to my husband. A dear friend is getting married in a week. The weather is getting better. I finally saw Julie & Julia. I also saw This Is It. I have an idea for an anthology. I have rediscovered my deep love for Hindustani music. I am reading a beautiful book. I got drunk last night. I am suddenly an insomniac but am using the sleeplessness as a reason to be a part of NaNoWriMo. I want to learn how to dance. I want to remember what it felt like to be 18 and think that nothing is impossible. I want to be fascinated with the world. I don’t want to lose hope. Life is hard. It’s been a bitch sometimes this year. But when you smell the sea air, how can you be angry? I can’t. Touchwood. Just thought I should let you know.

We do choose our lives, don’t we? Even when we’d like to think we don’t. We do. I chose this. I chose to be here, with this person, at this time. I took all the decisions that led me here, I made my peace with the disappointments of fate, I rejoiced when destiny was kind to me – why, then, does my heart long for you? Why do I think of you every day, with an ache in my heart? Why does your name still make me shiver, just a bit, with anticipation? Why, when I fall asleep every night, do I think of you in the space between sleep and wakefulness, when I imagine I can invent another world? Another world. With you. Why?

why are we forgetting? the flowers and their perfume. the slick of oil in a silver lamp. the sound of bells at sunrise. their pealing at the end of the day. the smell of the food in the kitchens. the conversation at mealtime. why are we forgetting the days, the afternoons and evenings? the family. the history. the story. the time. why are we forgetting that time?

I turn 30 tomorrow. Oh my.

That’s a big one, isn’t it? And while I’m busy planning my day, supervising menus for my party, worrying about the thousand things that always pop-up last minute, I’m also trying to take stock. Slow down and think about things.

My 20s were so mixed-up. Love, disappointment, commitment, promise, heartache, confusion, resolution, redemption, loss, betrayal – all of it. Especially this year. I got married, as I always wanted to, before I turned 30. I was forced to look deep into myself and deal with all the mess that’s been rotting there. I had to find things about myself I love and use them to deal with the world. I had to learn how to stop crying and whining and take charge. And when I did it was all so easy – saying no, being firm, respecting myself. And in the middle of all this were the external events: The sudden, devastating death of a loved one; dealing with a new family; learning to cope with new challenges. Sigh. Life.

I’m scared of turning 30 but I’m also excited. It feels so huge! I almost feel like at midnight tonight, my life will magically change. I know it won’t but there’s so much to look forward to: Finding my way into the world with more confidence; the life events that are waiting around the Corner…Such promise. All around the world, people find their niches, their little corners, their lives and live them out, some with dignity, some with joy, some with pain and some, well some don’t even think about it and have no time to. On the threshold of my 30s, I know I want to find my niche and make it a pretty one. Here’s to that.

It’s the first time I’m posting a picture, so why did I choose one of a house? Because I think a house is a reflection of a life. And I like how this life looks: Uncluttered, calm but with bright bursts of colour.

(Picture taken from the lovely Desire To Inspire)

i have this insane thought. i think we should make love. not because i would die if we didn’t. or you would die. no. i think we can both survive just fine without this. but i think we should. anyway. just because i’m curious. i think you’re something wonderful. and fetching. and when i see you i smile. widely. madly. unabashedly. because you make me happy. what could be better than making love to someone who makes you happy? not much else, i can tell you. i think i make you happy, too. i can see your eyes crinkle when you see me. and the laugh in your voice when you talk to me. i want to run my finger down your back and feel your breath on my breasts. i want to see us naked. together. don’t you think this would be fun? let’s keep it uncomplicated. we both know we’re seeing other people. i adore your girlfriend. she sent me cake last weekend, which was a generous thing to do. you and my boyfriend play basketball. it’s all good. let’s not mess with it. i think we need to set some rules down and just do this. i think it’s a capital idea. don’t you?

you played with my hair. twisting every tendril around your fingers. placing one warm, pulsing palm on the back of my neck, and the other on the small of my back. making me breathless. you leaned in and rested your chin on my shoulder. whispering into my ear. nestling your body into mine. i closed my eyes and thought about a summer afternoon, many many years ago, when your fingers brushed against mine and i hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how it felt, for your skin to touch mine. and how on this summer afternoon, as you peel my clothes off, i can’t stop thinking about the people we were and what a long journey it’s been, to this bed, to this love-making, to this moment, when your body is lying on top of mine, with startling symmetry, fitting right in, melting into me.

Title from Philip Larkin’s Why did I dream of you last night?

and when morning comes, it comes slowly. unsurely. it’s almost as if light is hesitant to break, the sun isn’t completely in the mood to rise, the moon has had such a lovely run, it doesn’t want to fade out. the city wakes reluctantly. the first door – uncle abraham’s – opens only past 8 am. i walk past it at a measured pace. i like to stop a minute, peer within and see the five dogs gambolling on the soft grass. his house has high walls but a very low gate. in the evenings, uncle abraham, aunty susan and their son, david, sit on the lawn, a table between their low-slung chairs – it is always piled high with newspapers, bordered by multiple, stained cups of tea, and occasionally knocked over by the dogs. they sit there from 4 pm to 7.45. i sometimes join them for a chat, or just some quiet time, or a romp with the dogs. two steps away from his house is mr dinshaw’s. he isn’t someone anyone refers to as uncle. he’s very correct, and very polite but very guarded. his gate is locked with two padlocks. i don’t stop. there isn’t much to look at. the garden is manicured, bordered with seasonal flowers. no dogs. no children. one wife, now dead. mr dinshaw keeps to himself, except on new year’s, when he comes around the colony, rings every doorbell and wishes the entire family with stiff, correct handshakes. this january 1, he even shook my three-month-old daughter’s little hand, even as she slept.

every year seems momentous in hindsight. wherever i am on the night of 31st december i take a minute, close to midnight, to think back on the 365 days gone by and every year, i wonder how so much could have happened. and so soon. is it just me? or is every year flying past much quicker than it used to? tonight, i know that when i look back on 2008, it’s going to be unpleasant. some good things have happened this year. i was, and remain, in an office that i am very fond of, with colleagues i adore. i got engaged and am planning a wedding. i spent time with people i love. i reconnected with old friends. i finally visited egypt and fell in love with it. obama became president. muntadar al-zaidi threw a shoe at bush. there. i counted the blessings. much of 2008, though, was clouded. the constant terror attacks. 26/11, which i can’t even begin to speak of without bursting into years. gaza, which is battered and bruised and crumbling by the minute. i hope 2009 is kinder. that it allows for healing. that the citizens’ movement that is inching it’s way into being in bombay takes on a strident, powerful form and actually achieves something. that india votes wisely in the coming elections. that at the end of 2009, i won’t have to look back, tearfully, and with a heavy heart.

I remember Delhi from childhood. We lived in a tiny outhouse somewhere in Saket and on winter mornings, my mother would wrap three-year-old me in four blankets and hold me close as I drank my cup of Drinking Chocolate. There was also a DDA flat we lived in for some months; I remember the market near it, where we bought brown bread and a single flower every day, and a park where I watched people play Holi for the first time in my life. That was one year. And then there were scattered trips. The urban jungle it was in the 1990s. Dirty, chaotic, aggressive, smelly. Not a city I felt connected to. Not even a city I had friends in. Not a city I wanted to visit. Particularly. Not a city I was fond of.

And I stood outside Daryaganj Court some weeks ago, waiting to be granted permission, in triplicate, by the government, to marry. And there was a certain smell in the air that I remembered from 26 years ago. There was that nip. The cadences of the way Hindi is spoken. The food. The smell of the food. The taste of the food. The city. Its maps. Its buildings. I do not belong. Yet. But I am not an alien. Either.

As a Brahmin from a traditional family, I’ve been raised to believe in the concepts of runa. Debt you accumulate over the cycle of births, and that you pay off over the cycle, too. When I told my mother that A and I want to marry, she said I was probably karmically tied to Delhi. I had some runa in that city. I had to honour it. Growing up, I tried not to believe in all this. I tried to convince myself that it was all nonsense and your life is what you make of it and you can do what you like and the stars are not really governing you and the lines on your palm are just lines. At the threshold of my thirties, I can’t dismiss this as easily. I’ve repaid my runa too many times, to too many people, in too many inexplicable ways.

There was a moment. In that crowded marketplace. On that wintry evening with the cold wind setting in, with the people milling around, with the dark descending like a prickly blanket. There was a moment when I wondered why I was there at all. Why I was in this city – nearly alien, nearly familiar. Why I was with this person. Why I wanted to please. Why fate brought me there. Why it was there, only there, that everything seemed to be falling into place. Why there, while a thousand emotions ran through my mind and everything was overwhelming and nothing seemed good enough and I didn’t seem good enough and everyone seemed a stranger and every question seemed a criticism. Why there, why then, did you seem more mine than anywhere else, than any other time. Where that belonging come from? When did you become such a part of me? When did I learn that in your silences, in your gentleness, in you, there lies the succour I’ve sought all my life?