I've always hated weddings. Even back in school I can recall trying to wriggle out of attending ceremonies that my parents were invited to. Partly of course coz teenagers are embarrassed to be anywere in the visible radius of thir folks. But largely because I found them depressing - always ended up feeling sorry for the brides in question. How could I not feel pity for someone whose face was doused in Red lipstick, Red bindi, Red eye-shadow, Red cheek blush, and Red in every other remaining nook and corner as well. And just in case the beautician had missed a spot on the visage, her embarassment and glaring stage lights were enough to cover the remains, also in Red. What a way to begin a new life, I would think, and almost weep.

Thankfully I was young, and could easily avoid most occassions by pretending to be in the thick of studies and narrowly avoiding failure in the next exam. It worked like a charm right through school and college, and even university. But it hardly sufficed against the big daddy of them all - my own matrimonial marathon.

As expected, I look as Red as Christmas. Resembled a witch straight out of a bloodbath. [Somehow, my husband thinks I look cute as a doll, but then he has strange tastes, Or he's a liar, Or deeply blinded by love. whatever]

I would show you the snaps, but I don't enjoy writing lengthy disclaimers for heart patients. Plus I don't have the pics with me any longer. They're housed in my parents' place, where I intend to keep them despite their protests. They wanted the wedding. They can keep the snaps. I wanted the marriage. I'll keep the husband.

Ghosts

Today is dedicated to the reading my old diaries. To the hundreds of good looking guys that littered Delhi's streets when I was young and hormoneful. To the thousands of times I fell in love with at first glance, and out of love two weeks later. To the mllions of times I felt that it was the best day of my life.

It's just that I am unpacking my bags for my new house. And in the middle of the mess is my box of memories - useless stuff such as old movie tickets, college rock show entrance cards, school uniform remains, pages from diaries - useless stuff, yet priceless... all souveniers of a time when I was really alive. When everything, just everything, mattered. When every smile could be dissected into a thousand meanings ('He likes Me!', 'How dare he sneer!'. 'I am super duper funny!', or as was most often, 'He is so Sweeeeeet!') Yes, every feeling had an exclamation mark, every mood was heady, and there was nothing that inspired nothing. Life was a Bollywood movie. An inconsequential Helen-Sridevi-Jeetendra movie maybe, but a movie nevertheless.

Here's a scrap of something I then wrote:

Speak those words
that your eyes say
everytime you look at me
After all,
it is just a metter a time
before you cease to look at me
and I cease to understand your silence

Coz that's what always happens -
Things end.

So say something,
coz words I can remember
and words can soothe,
but memories blur and fade away,
and tomorrow I will not believe
in what I think I saw today


Interesting in hindsight, (and enchanting when you are living them), how chemicals irridescently colour our world. And funny even how "adolescence is the most difficult period of your life" according to my mom, but it is the most beautiful. So wonderfully exaggerated, so brimming with emotion.

I would gladly live that madness again.