I used to always wonder why they called you "Curly" and then I realised how to spell it properly. And I kicked myself.

Dear Mr. Smile.

I tried calling your home in the morning and it rang and rang and rang...to eternity - twice. I cut it just before the recorded message could play - hate those recorded messages with the anonymous woman. She creeps me out. Like the over-happy air hostesses in an aeroplane. I was going to be the first one to wish you see, like you were the first voice I heard on my almost-sort-of-kind-of Birthday last year. But then my sensibilities caught up with me and my propensity for over thinking a situation when I don't need to (and disregarding thought when I do need to) took over, and I berated myself for almost daring to wake your whole entire house up just to shout, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" at you over the line. 

Yes, I did afford you the opportunity to hear my awesome voice today (you're welcome), but for reasons I can't yet explain, I didn't even get in half the reasons for why I called. I rambled on and on and on incessantly  about the elephants and their tears, and Liverpool: their unpredictability and my undying love for them, and 505, and the coolness of Biology, and amazing India, and the day in Gateway where I did a bad (really bad) imitation of a Hindi movie scene (it was totally spontaneous and one of those 'disregarding thought' moments I mentioned earlier - I was not lucid I swear)..and a whole range of other topics which did happen to include my Grandfathers kidney. 

But, as exciting as the kidney story was (I know you were riveted), there were more important things I wanted to say that got stuck somewhere between your explanation over astro-turf and my recollections over an afternoon in science (where the Siv, high on sugar I suppose, tried to convince me I was a "chubby wubby baby face" or something to that effect), all my important words got lost. 

See, I was going to tell you a story (yes another one)  - It's the only thing I know how to do properly you know, tell stories - about a boy I met in 2010 (that year will forever be etched into my mind as the Year of Possibilities). Granted, I met a lot of people, all of whom have left an indelible impression on my life...but there are a few who reached right into me and gripped my heart with such familiarity and acceptance for everything I was and (more importantly) everything I was not, that I wondered how I had never even had an inkling that these people actually existed before life threw us together.

I have so many memories of you, tucked away in my mental albums, all laced with the knowledge that startlingly from day one of our cyber-space conversations in that summer break before year two of campus, you adopted me into your world, sharing with me little bits of yourself I would never have expected you to, while at the same time drawing out parts of me I never expected to share with you. You didn't merely share, but you listened too. And not many people could with such carefulness. It used to seem almost as if you were concentrating so hard on what I was saying, so that just in case the wind decided to blow my words away, you'd still have heard them all. I used to feel uncomfortable by such silences, but I came to appreciate them, because it made me feel like you really were interested in what I had to say (even if I was just being my absurd voluble self).

You see, Dear Mr. Smile, you are one of those people who I simply cannot fathom a world without. And it's not just because nobody else I know has a mega-watt grin to match, or because you would generously and unselfishly share your fruit with me, or because you patiently taught me how to play poker, or because you would endure my mood swings and vicious cravings for chocolate and games of squash, or because you were the first person to phone me on the morning of the last year of leap-year-less-ness before I turned 5 and you walked with me in the battering midday heat to KFC on that same birthday where I thought that nobody really cared and then all the way back up again (despite the presence of air conditioned transportation available), or because you would readily take us to get an ice-cream, or because you would uncomplainingly bear through entire lectures with me rambling distractedly by your side (when really, and I'll admit this freely, I had no business to be there at all), or because you one day broke out, without warning, into your own rendition of Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl with my iPod earphones in your ears and a stunned expression on my face which you never got to see (and to be quite honest, you were rather entertaining in your oblivious way), or because you were one of the few people who remembered to call in my year of absence,...or maybe, it's because of all of these things. Most likely it is.

So this is my Birthday wish for you: I hope your Life holds in store happy-hours that overflow, with all you’re wishing for, and I hope the days that follow it make up a year that brings everything that you deserve, a million happy things. 

Your 3.14% sister, friend and smurf sincerely (and forever) in retardation,

Dash.

Tug of Wants

Sometimes, memories creep up on you when you least expect them. It's difficult to decide whether the nostalgia is sweet or sad - maybe, it's both. I sat on the crest of our driveway, elbows hugging my scarred, dark, tucked up knees. I smiled at the lines and patches where the skin was forced to grow back, each time getting rougher and splotchier as if in protestation of its numerous abuses. Even from up here, you can hear the Ocean pounding the shore, I close my eyes and pretend that its playing this harsh and oddly simultaneously mellow symphony just for me.

But then, the music disappears, and even the wind seems to still...and I find myself back to another time, and another place, on a hot summers day, in the back seat of a car. It seemed as if there was too much space, and too little all at the same time. I was oddly tired, even though my brain was hashing out a hundred possibilities all at once. Ssssh, the little voice in my head admonished. And everything went quiet. We were sitting in silence, not knowing where to look or what to say. It was the uncertainty of friends who felt a change they didn't quite understand. Eventually, I sighed and spread myself out diagonally, all that space may as well be put to use. So tired. So tired of uncertainty and unwarranted silences, it was the little voice again.
"Ssssh," I'd whispered.
"What?" he asked.
“Nothing,” I replied groggily. Berating that little voice silently.
I closed my eyes. I heard his breathing. A wave of sadness rolled over me. The tide was coming, but I was too tired to scramble out of it's way. It seemed okay to be swallowed up.
He lay back beside me. I liked him there, but didn't turn my head to look at him.
When I was nearly asleep, I sensed him moving beside me, and then I felt his head on my stomach. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? He let the weight of it settle on me gradually, asking permission in his own way.
Was he giving in to me or getting ready to torture me some more? Maybe both.
I felt a forlorn longing for sleep as it ebbed away. It was just like him to wait until I'd given up. I felt the sad acceleration of my heart, a misbehaving organ if ever there was one. I  knew he could hear it too.
I felt the weight of his head relaxing into me comfortably. Heads were heavy. I breathed it up and down. I reached my hand out involuntarily, let it rest on his ear, his forehead, his cheek. I wasn't sure if he wanted more from me, or if he wanted less.
Maybe it was both. Maybe it was always both.

I opened my eyes and inhaled the salty taste of reality. The memory lingered just long enough to remind me how much we used to be like the Ocean: always creeping up to caress the shoreline, then slipping away before it could grow too attached. Wanting and concurrently rejecting what it was not complete without.

Happy Birthday Pinus!

Can you believe it's been a year? A year since I've been spewing my guts onto the world wide web. A year since (amazingly) people started reading the random gibberish produced by the mind of an over-imaginative (and sometimes alarmingly disturbing) 4 year old - I'm almost 5 mind you; though some will argue 19 and almost 20 : what came first I ask? The hen or the egg? It was the big bang, duh (or not?) - don't you just LOVE puns?

I can't remember when I first posted to the Pinus and in all honesty technicalities matter little (and really I'm just too lazy to go back and check the birthday of "Salute to the Chinaman"), the point is though (because as you might have come to realise, there is always a point to the seemingly nonsensical rambling), that it's been a while. The Pinus may be a baby in the limitless world of blogging, but its my baby, and I'm immensely proud of it. So you can bet your first pay-checks that you'll be reading a lot more absurd (and sometimes genius) chapters from the unfinished novel in my mind.

2012 has accosted us, and personally, I don't think the worlds going to end till Hollywood can come up with a better excuse for the worlds saviour than the Drakensberg mountains (which are lovely don't get me wrong, but....seriously?). I have a feeling the year ahead is going to be more exciting than when Darth Vader blurted out in his epicly creepy voice that Luke was really the bastard child of a Sith Lord (and no, it's not the false optimism that comes along every new year when you've had so many shots you've lost count and even your grandma's cat seems like an acceptable make-out buddy - because I don't drink see); it's this feeling I have deep in my bone marrow (yes, that deep), that stems from it being a Leap Year: this year, the 29th of February is an actual day on the tacky Spar calendars that we get every single year. No year that features my absolutely rare and exceedingly special birth date can ever be a bad one. That's a Pinus Promise (if it turns out to be the year from hell for you - that's  your issue with Karma my friend).

So, belatedly, here's a toast: to 2012 and the enormous potential it has to be the best year any of us have ever had. Nothing will ever match up to Vader's revelation, but I'm pretty sure my Leap Year is going to come fantastically close!

And then I went to India

"Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection." (Khalil Gibran). India is growing everyday, she is growing and she is learning and she is progressing. Very soon, India won't be a third world country any more. I am proud of India and I am proud that my forefathers belonged to her, I'm proud of them too for making that great decision to cross the sea to unknown lands and start a new life - without which I would not be here. The slums of India make you realise the strength of human perseverance, determination and the will to live; while the high rise buildings illustrate precisely India's will to reach new frontiers; her palaces and forts remind you that even in the modern world we live in, nothing can replace beauty. 

Mumbai greeted me with its smoggy sunlight, and the minute I laid eyes upon the bustling streets and felt the pulsing atmosphere wrap itself around me in the twinkling city lights at night, I fell in love. Blending Gothic, Victorian and Art Deco architecture into one city, Mumbai makes you feel like you're living through the ages - a medley that  theoretically shouldn't work, and to a degree creates some chaos in the city design, at the same time seems almost fitting. It's a city that never stops; motion is like it's second nature, forever weaving itself into new rhythms and tapping out new beats.

While Delhi may have been the capital city, and Mumbai only the economic capital, the contrast between the two was immediately evident to me - Delhi was the man you always see at the bus stop every day that you pass by, but you never stop to find out where he's going, and one day you think about it and realise that you don't quite care either. I spent my New Years Eve at the Kingdom of Dreams, just outside Delhi, and the difference was palpable almost as soon as we crossed that invisible line to the next state - New Years Eve is now a blur of laughter and colour, flashing lights and a vibrating crowd, a Gypsy Prince, vibrant fireworks, coloured confetti and dancing dancing dancing till the end of the world. Oh what fun, what absolute fun to be an Indian!

I stayed in a palace too! Neemrana Fort Palace, where Veer Zara and Eat Pray Love, among others were shot. What a feeling, to roam through it's narrow passageways and stroll across it's courtyards, I felt as if I was a character in an age-old story! It was beautiful; the palace was enthralling, peaceful. I could have spent days there among the mountains. The air cut my skin, numbing it and waking my lungs. The buildings had me reliving the old world I'd only read about in books and seen dancing across the silver screen. I loved it!

The Pink City - Jaipur was a shock to me (somebody who detests that colour!). To see the buildings iced in that horrific shade had me nauseous (though the dusty air probably had quite a bit to do with it too). Setting aside my pink prejudices though, Jaipur was...intriguing to say the least. The city palace, like all the Moghul's palaces we'd visited thus far, was a beautiful sight.

"Tiger Tiger burning bright, in the fires of the night,", it's what I whispered to myself, when out on my first safari in Ranthambore National Park, an adolescent tiger stalked past our geep. Such a majestic creature! It disappeared into the straw coloured grass on the other side of the road, and I felt my heart brimming with awe, it was so still I forgot it had to be beating for me to be breathing. I shouted after my Sharekhan, "what immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?" almost in delirious glee...his tail didn't even twitch in response. I made new friends there too - the staff. One day, I'd love to go back to that place and spend even more time there: enjoying the sights, the sounds, the delightful food!

I saw the Taj Mahal for the first time through a veil of mist. It was like a mirage. Agra itself is a filthy, chaotic place, but the Taj Mahal is an oasis in all of that - it's easy to forget what it is: a tomb. The architecture was not something new to me, after visiting Humayuns Tomb in Delhi, but the marble work and sheer, unequivocal fascination it holds for the world over, made the Taj Mahal unrivalled in it's splendour. It was sad too, it was just a tomb after all. 

I've read Shantaram, Eat Pray Love, Q&A and so many others to boot - and NOTHING could have possibly prepared me for the overwhelming embrace of India: because that's what she does, she draws you out and pulls you in and squeezes the breath out of you, whispering sweet nothings in your ear amid a cacophony of disorientation, even as you look over her shoulder at the threshold of human suffering she's spinning you about to show you the most amazing sights you never thought could exist!