Woh tujhse milna purani dilli mein
Chod aaye nishani Dilli mein
Balli Maraan se Daribe talak
Teri meri kahani Dilli mein

~frm the movie Bunty aur Bubbly

i just got a call from this phone company (reliance). they insist that there is an outstanding bill in my name for the phone services that i used. god only knows how many eons back, this (reliance) guy was literally after my life to have this reliance connection in my home. i obviously said no, as i already had a landline, apart from my mobile. he kept calling me, insisting that reliance had come up with this scheme “especially” for the area i was staying in, and that according to that scheme i can use the services free for 3 months, and then continue with it as a regular service if i wished, and they were giving a free instrument. i tell you, he hounded me for more than a month, before i eventually said ok, for what i thought was free phone service for 3 months. i say it right now, that he never mentioned that i’d need to make the effort, in case i did not wish to continue with it, to get the connection terminated. and now, god knows after how many ages, i get a call from reliance saying that i owe them 1000+ something. that is so pathetic, and i told the guy so.

all i was told initially was that i was being offered a free service for three months. i took it. period. i noticed that the service was still there even after 3 months, i kept using it. i just assumed that they forgot to switch it off.

for reliance, one simple professional advice. train your agents adequately to have enough sense to not force the service on people. that guy gave me the service on a platter literally. came home and took my signature and all. since i didn’t put any effort in acquiring it, i will definitely not put any effort in getting rid of it.

you insisted that people use your “free service” for three months, its your responsibility and duty to call the people up at the end of the three months and ask them if they want to continue with the services or not … and terminate the connection if they don’t. please don’t expect the people to do it.

i feel they are fooling me into paying them all that money now, when i never even wanted their stupid connection in the first place. its pathetic that they lick your ass when they want you to join and then just forget about you, and if you wanna get out then its your own goddam problem.

last night i was so pissed. i was pissed at the homeopathic doctor i used to visit in Delhi for my rhematoid arthritis. i was so pissed that i wish i was in the US just so i could sue him. although he’d told me that it cannot be cured, he did promise me almost normal use of all my limbs. after about 3 years of taking that medication, i was nowhere near normal. i still had recurring pains in my entire body, and it hurt like hell. i had forgotten what it felt to be able to run, or just plain crouch … and lets not even discuss the top position.

but what pissed me off most was the way i spent the days when i visited my parents last in abu dhabi. i was visiting them there after a long time, and maybe for the last time in a long, long time as it has turned out. it was a horrible, horrible visit. i used to be in pain most of the day, and in the evenings, just 20 minutes of being out used to completely fatigue me, resulting in terrible pain in every pore of my skin. it was horrible. i couldn’t enjoy one day fully. but i kept my faith in those little sugar pills hoping that i will be ‘normal’ again.

i eventually gave up that hope after more than 3 years, when i moved to mumbai. as a working single parent i needed to be in good shape, both physically, and mentally. and that was when i realized what a complete waste of effort and huge amounts of money had been my devotion and belief in homeopathy. no, i am not saying that it doesn’t work. i personally know people that have had great results after using homeopathy consistentlly. but it didn’t work for me.

and i miss those days i (didn’t really) spend with my parents.

the past 9 months have passed like days. wow!! but i don’t know if i like it, cos i am ageing as fast. :) that evening seems so not far off, the new year’s eve, when P had cooked some yummy chilli chicken, (S was in Delhi), and TP had dozed off on the (dining) table. hehehehe!!! those were the days. my powai days. and how i was so determined that i will never leave powai … mumbai. wow!! how life slaps back your words in your face. and this is not the first time this has happened to me. i mean, i utter the word never, and end up in a situation where i do it, soon enough. hmmm … i should start telling myself that i will never have a 26″ waist now.

i will never have a 26″ waist.

:-)

obviously, i never honestly tried out the freelance stuff. maybe people who start freelancing are the settling types. they create a (home) base, and then want to settle in that cosyness. nice thought. me! i yet have not been able to decide where, how i wanna settle. .. or even if i want to. i will have to soon though. cyra will start serious school in another 2-3 years, and before that i should have a home-base.

i like pune. God, be with me.

i had vowed that i will never go back to mumbai. i had visited mumbai for the first time about 13 years back. it was more of a transit between chennai and ellora. i was back-packing through the south of India with a cousin. i think we spent about a day here. and i absolutely … didn’t like it. i remember we had got off the train at VT (now CST), and thought that we’d look around the city. that was the first time i got introduced to this silly habit of bombayites to call a distance of a good 2 kilometers, as just around the corner. asking for directions to the gateway of india, which, according to whoever we met on the street, was “just 2 minutes” ahead, we actually walked from VT till the gateway lugging our huge back-packs. used to wider spaces of delhi, i had found the “town” very stuffy. i still do. for all the charm the town holds, i love the bandra and beyond area of the northern mumbai suburbs. and now i think that its these areas that have become the true heart of the city. i have spent some of the best times of my mostly wasteful life in the last 1.5 years just sauntering away on carter road, sitting and watching papaji puff on the cigarettes, wasting even more precious life-time.

i had vowed that i will never leave mumbai. and as bryan adams says it …

here i am, this is me
there’s no where else on Earth i’d rather be

i sit in silence
i think and i wonder
what i lost, and what i gained
where i have come in these huge 3 decades
what made me smile and what pained

i lost happiness, joy
an innocence that made me high
i gained a sad peace
this silence, this saturation

i lost that perfection
that illusion of me being God
i gained this understanding
that i don’t understand at all

on a sadder note:

i lost my mommies breasts
the secure protection my brother gave
i gained this lonely existence
a pretence that i am alright

yes, i have lost that lightness of the heart
that smile that on its own came
i gained these sad tears
that never reach the eyes; just hurt my throat

i think of that place i called home
where suzy (our deceased dog) pulled and pushed me
i wonder that was life
the life i lost when i died that death

that death that brought me here
here in this space; empty and vast