It Might Have Been

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden. My words echo
Thus, in you mind.

I read these words by TS Eliot, for the first time, quoted in the book Salt and Saffron.

And then I read it again. And again.

It was one of those things you come across every now and then that really hit home. An old song that has a special significance, a touch that seemed familiar, a smell that brought back a memory. In my case it was this stanza that brought on the silence, and the memories.

A touch. A look. A word. All that meant so much to me and yet, it turned out, meant nothing to you. The wrong time, the wrong place, the other girl, that disarming smile. The right excuse. Always the right excuse. Maybe it could have been good with us, maybe not at all. But now we'll never know, because it was a passage you refused to walk down, a door you didn't want to open. And now our time has passed, and that chapter will remain unfinished.

Tis true indeed, that, "for all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, It might have been".



Edit: quit asking me who this is about! It's about no one. And everyone.

Coming Home

The whole journey went off without a hitch. Both flights were really really good; Emirates is so much better than BA, and the 13 hours flew by, pun intended. By better I mean the plane in itself. For the staff I have not so complimentary words. A smile once in a while would be nice. Forget the smile, a damn drink within the first 3 hours would have been nice. Apparently that little call light is just there for passenger amusement. After pressing it about 50 times I had to resort to a rather rude 'oi can I get some water please?' to one of the ladies passing by. I'll apologize now (on my blog, where she can't see it) but I was not in the mood for niceties, having almost collapsed in a dehydrated heap. They did have lots of good movies though, and lots of Friends episodes, so I wiled away the time watching those. My sister is such a riot; I texted her as soon as I got on board with a ‘hey nangs, they have really good movies on the plane: golden compass, no country for old men, juno, ps I love you etc’ and she replies with a ‘that’s good. Love you too etc’. I was on the floor cracking up. I could barely reply with a ‘I meant the movie dumbass!’

Anyway, the 2 hour transit in Dubai was hassle free; happily I didn’t have a TLF experience. I also had just enough time to grab a bottle of Pimms, which Darwin raves about. By grab of course I mean buy. I wouldn’t want you to think I skulk around the duty free stealing booze off the shelves. Dubai- Colombo was a quick four hours on Sri Lankan and now I know why everyone raves about the service; it was super. One steward in particular seemed to make it his purpose in life to keep my wine glass full. I didn’t really think there was a need to refill it six times but it seemed to make him happy, so I let him :)

That last 30 minute descent is the best part of coming home. You cruise on past India and then you see the sea (haha), and then the coast line and finally the coconut trees and little red roofs and that’s when you know your home. Unfortunately, this time around the flight landed at 4.45 so it was still dark and I really missed seeing the temples and lakes which are things I always look forward to seeing. There’s something so innately Sri Lankan about the light shining off the serene white temples and the little dirt roads winding among the forests and the little villages with the clay tile roofs that make me think finally finally I’m home. However, there’s always something to be happy about, and this time it was that the sun was rising just as I stepped out of the airport. It had also just stopped raining so there was that fresh air smell I love. I was in a good mood because I had managed to avoid my friend at immigration AND my bags were the first off the plane so I was outta there in record time. AND my father was on time to pick me up. There’s nothing worse than flying for 23 hours and then being made to stand outside the airport waiting for your ride. Of course the humidity slapped me in the face as soon as I stepped out; I could feel my pores clogging and my hair frizzing with each step. And I was bitten by the first mosquito in 9 months. Subsequently I also killed the first mosquito in 9 months, but these things are to be expected.

I’m really glad I made it in time for Vesak season, albeit the latter part of it. It’s my favorite holiday, along with Christmas, so it was great being able to see a few kuudu and pandols on the way home. My father really had done a good job with the whole welcome home thing. There were flowers everywhere and a nice lunumiris and kiribath, which is my favorite meal of all time, waiting for me. He’s turned into a gardener too. apparently. I didn’t really know what to make of his pumpkin plant in the corner, or the miris plants. I’m not too sure what my mother will think of that when she gets here either.

A quick shower and I was back on the road. It’s become a homecoming ritual of sorts, to come home and go for a haircut and meet the girls for lunch. That hair cut is important you see, I wait about 3-4 months for it, and my hairdresser here usually does a fabulous job so you can understand the importance. Then met the girls for lunch and caught up on all the comings and goings and scandals, and boy were there a few! M never ceases to surprise me with her ability to know every single detail of everything that is none of her business. I silently renewed my promise to myself to never tell her anything involving me.

It was a good return in all, and then I slept for 13 hours. And now I’m eating waraka and mango slices. How fabulous!

En route

The final paper was handed in with a silly smile. The kind that starts small and keeps growing. Skipped out to meet O, who had an equally silly smile on her face, and we did the whole haaai faaaive, hug and run around in circles thing. And then we headed to the liquor store. I don’t doubt that none of you are surprised.

Back home, we toasted the end of the semester, the beginning of summer. And then we started packing. I detest packing with a passion that is second only to washing dishes. It’s just the biggest fucking hassle ever. And to make matters worse, I’m one of those people who can never throw shit away, or has to use something 'til it’s down to the last drop. So I have bags full of half empty shampoo bottles, and boxes full of knick knacks and little notes and crap I’ve accumulated over the year that I can’t bring myself to throw away. Hence the wine. It makes the packing not easier, but funner.

And now O’s gone home, and I’m sitting in the middle of an empty room pondering sleep and reminiscing, before I have to catch a multitude of trains and planes to get where I want to be.

It’s bittersweet, the end of this semester, the end of this school year. The last week was insane. I’ve never drunk so much in 3 straight nights before, and then had to get up at 8 to study for a final at 2. M obviously picked a bad time to be born, right in the middle of finals week. But when a man turns 22, goddamnit, we must celebrate in style.

I’ve been here one year now, the best of my college years by far. If I believed in fate, I’d blame it on that, but I’ll go with chance and luck. It was chance that my cousin picked this school and so I decided to go too; it was luck that O’s old roommate decided to do a study abroad the very semester I transferred in, and chance that I got this room and met her; luck that she turned out to not only be a really great person, but a really great person I can get along with, and those are few and far between. It was luck that she had really great friends who’ve become my friends; it was luck that I met Sags and Shobs and the rest of the ‘brown crowd’; luck that I really love what I do and who I’m with.

So enough of that. O had an interesting proposition for me. After senior year, her parents are giving her an apartment in Brooklyn and she wants me to come live with her. I’m tempted, oh so tempted, to say yes right away. A subway ride away from the city I love, where everything and anything happens! Just tell me when. But of course there are minor inconveniences like money and jobs and graduate school to consider. Not to mention the parents, who won’t be too thrilled about it, I already know. My mother still hasn’t gotten over the condoms incident.

So there’s a lot to do and consider over the summer. Grad schools to apply for, an internship to do, touristy stuff to be done with the Shobster, bloggers to meet, a study ethic that needs to be seriously reevaluated, plans to be made, and a minor detail that needs considerable thought and then, possibly, action. A journey halfway across the world gives me plenty of time to make lists and plans, and make a few decisions that may or may not have bearing on how the immediate future turns out.

Well then, let the games begin!

May 16th

is apparently National Piercing Day. So happy piercing day to fellow addicts Pissu and Sach, and here's to many more!

Image from here

Ok back to work. Sigh. Exams how I hate thee.

X

Because tis the season to procrastinate after all..
and GF, I'm peeved I didn't get a little comment within parentheses *frown*

In no particular order, except the first, which is numero uno in my book:

Sri Lankan food. More specifically, food made in Sri Lanka, including Sri Lankan Chinese and Sri Lankan Indian.
Good music, good books, Disney movies and jigsaw puzzles
The sister, my grandmother and the rest of the whack jobs.
Friends. The real kind and the TV show.
White Wine. Especially a nice fruity zin, makes me very very happy.
Good jokes and quotable quotes, and the laughter that ensues.
Water. Oceans, water falls, streams, thunderstorms and everything in between.
Shoes and cute guys. Preferably cute guys in nice shoes.
Traveling. The people, places and cultures that have been seen and are yet to be seen; the magic of the discovery.
The satisfaction I feel when I know I gave something my all.
Last but not least, the illegal 11th: Alone time.

I tag The Duckling and Vindi

Ahem, note clever roman numeral as post header.

Reality Check

Last night I drank with some friends, in a desperate bid to overcome my recently developed distaste for alcohol. A rather nice Riesling, too much Jack and coke, and a beer later, I made my merry way home, temporarily cured. I went to bed at 4 and woke up at 10 to this. In the 6 hours I was asleep, close to 10,000 people had died. My heart did a quick jump, skip and stop; a close friend was in China. Then I remembered she’s safely home now; resume beating.

This and Burma... nature is really not on our side. The relief efforts, from what I’ve read so far, have been more successful than in Burma, thankfully. I get the shivers when I think of all the people trapped in the rubble, broken and bleeding, dead and dying. May whatever god they believe in be with them.

Eat, drink and be merry peeps, for tomorrow we may die.

Sir, his suit appears to be flying

A spur of the moment, ‘let’s take a break from this crap’ decision saw us at the 12.30 showing of Iron Man. You know its finals week when there are no more than 10 people at the movies on a Friday night. All the better for us, we got prime seats. The movie in itself was really good. I wasn’t really expecting much but, much like the Transformers movie, it gets an E for exceeds expectations. I swear super hero movies are on a whole new level these days. The graphics were amazing, no, jaw dropping, and I’m no car buff but they really weren’t playing around with the cars in that movie.

As for the actors, well Robert Downey Jr. was just ridiculously delicious. I was confused when I heard he was starring in it; I really couldn’t see him as a super hero, but the beauty of it is that he isn’t your silly pretty boy type, so he adds that much more depth to the character. He’s witty, he’s charismatic and he wants to save the world to boot. And he looks pretty fucking good in a suit. And while we’re on the subject, Faran Tahir who plays Raza is totally bad ass. He has that whole smoldering, sexy terrorist thing going, with the accent and all. Gwyneth Paltrow, as always, looked outstanding. If possible she’s even skinner and prettier than ever, and her hair was fabulous. And someone’s gonna have to teach me to run in heels the way she does. Even though I don’t see an occasion requiring that talent coming around any time soon. And last but not least, Terrence Howard, as good looking as he is, needs to fix the way he talks right away. That whole whispery, girly thing he’s got going on, well I can think of a few roles he’d be good for, but none of them are in the military.

The plot was solid. I haven’t read the comics so I don’t know how congruent the storyline was, but I thought the whole thing fit together pretty well. At first I thought it was going to be another one of those brown guys as terrorists, white guy as hero type stories, but then you throw in the evil partner with his own agenda and the story gets interesting. I actually found my mind wandering along a US-Saddam Hussein angle.

My biggest gripe was with Paltrow’s character. Over looking the fact that her name was Pepper Potts (who was thinking what when they named her??) she was, quite possibly, the silliest, dumb blonde type executive assistant any super hero could have. All those squeals and wails were not necessary. It would have made the story much better if she had been intelligent shown even the slightest hint of a brain. That last bit, “Pepper push the button!” “but you said not to push it!” “just do it!” “but you’ll diiie!”, killed me. For the love of god woman, PUSH THE BUTTON! Also, that sex scene with the reporter... holy crap! Is it just me or was that the most unarousing sex scene you’ve ever seen? Yes fine, throes of passion but it looked like she was eating his face. Yech.

All that aside, the absolute high point, or points, of the movie is when the suit comes on. The graphics are superb, the way it all ripples across his body to fit seamlessly. I could probably have spent a couple extra hours just watching him get in and out of that suit. Yes, boys, even you will be turned on.

Three and a half stars. Go watch it.

Ugh

Whine whine whine. 6 hours of sleep in 3 days, I'm soo tired! I hate Plato. Socrates too, for that matter. This coffee suuuuuuuuuuuucks, I think its gonna send me into an epileptic fit. UGH.

On the positive, as soon as I hand this in I can sleep all of Friday. And most of Saturday too. Next week is going to be straight from hell.

NAS is playing on Saturday. Sweet. We’ll be there, substances and all.

A Lunge to Remember

I promised myself I wouldn’t blog until exams were over. I just pulled the first of many all nighters to come and I’m dead tired. But, honestly, I have no self control. This’ll be a quickie, I promise.

So now that its spring and all, everyone brings out a whole new wardrobe. Everyone including me. The jackets and boots are packed away and the breezy tops and the skirts are brought out. And this pair of jeans. It had been lying around a tad too tight for my liking, but now with the gym and all I thought ok, lets give it a try. So I put em on and they were decent and wearable, so I washed them and dried them and put them on again. And they had shrunk. Now I didn’t wait a whole season to wear them just to have to wait some more. So I did the only thing I knew to do. And mind you, I don’t know much about stretching out shrunken jeans. The logical thing seemed to be lunges; the hands on hip, gym variety. So lunges around the living room it was. Try not to picture it for your own sake.

Midway, the door opens and my suitemate S comes in. Now she’s seen me do some pretty weird things so this shouldn’t have phased her.. except she wasn’t alone. She had her whole posse of Indian friends with her. And these aren’t the straight from Bombay, Indian accents and curry types. Oh no, these are the Queens Indians. If you’ve been to Queens you’ll know what I’m talking about. All the girls are in stilettos with Coach bags and the guys are gangster with more bling than 50 cent.

Now if you’ve ever done lunges you know it’s not the kind of thing you can pop right out of, like a jumping jack or something. Oh no, once you lunge, you make a commitment to that lunge; It’s all or nothing. So there I was, mid lunge, committed to my lunge. Standing up was not an option, I had gone too far. I could do two things. I could either fall forward on the floor or topple sideways. I did neither. In retrospect, I probably should have fallen sideways and pretended I was having a heart attack, but none of my options were really the save face type anyway. So there I am mid-lunge, T in the head lights, in skin tight jeans and one of my hand-me-down shirts that was probably a good 15 years old (it was a rag, basically), and there these kids are, perfectly groomed down to their pedicured toenails, staring at me.

Hi guys! I said, high pitched and bright.

Its not like I didn’t know them; we’ve hung out, gone drinking and dancing and whatnot. But I didn’t know them like that, you see? Not well enough for them to catch me mid-lunge for sure.

::awkward silence::

T, what the fuck? Says S, with her usual subtlety.

I’m umm, its my knee you see. I think I’ve umm it hurts mumble mumble stretching mumble.

At this point my brain kicks in with a get the fuck up dumbass! So I stand, not gracefully, as you can imagine, and all these kids are still standing in the doorway staring at me.

Umm so I’ll see you guys later. Umm yeah. And hasty retreat back to my room.

I console myself with the fact that a) I've only got a year left and it's a big campus. Run-ins can be avoided b) none of the boys were cute (you'd be amazed at how many problems can be solved with a simple at least he wasn't cute) and c) at least my jeans fit now.

And no, I will not be re-enacting it for you on a later date.

Crunch Time

5 finals

2 papers

1 extravagant surprise party

2 weeks, 2 days

see you on the other side!