The List of Things You Should Know If You Are Considering A Long-term Relationship With Me

My parents have been pestering me on marriage for some time now. Their stand being you find yourself a mate, or we'll find someone for you. It has got to a point where they are threatening to take unilateral action. Viz. putting an online posting about me on a matchmaking portal. Now, this makes me wonder what would constitute fair disclosure. Since my parents are the ones who will be doing the posting, they are likely to carry some perceptions that they have of me, that I haven't got around to correcting yet. So I thought to compile The List of Things You Should Know If You Are Considering A Long-term Relationship With Me:

• I drink, I prefer Scotch.
• I don't smoke. I used to, I quit many years ago.
• I am lactose intolerant.
• I have chronic trouble with my stomach, makes me very leery about food.
• I am allergic to dust, pollen and react poorly to sudden temperature changes.
• I am prone to severe headaches.
• I have decided that if I lose a significant amount of hair, I'll shave my head.
• I want to keep a dog. A German Shepherd. And I will.
• I find it impossible to stay awake in the passenger seat of a car.
• At some point, I may quit my job and jump into something new. At this point, I really don't know what.
• I am easily distracted and easily bored. Not just with the small things.
• I really doubt it I am 'stable' or 'settled' in the conventional sense, I still crave for change. I still want to live in different parts of the world, for example.
• An unchanging status quo makes me lethargic, slows me down, puts me to sleep.
• I appear to have only two modes - hyperkinetic, or knocked out.
• I am ambivalent about having children. I am doubtful if I have the knowledge, patience, inclination or skill to take on such a responsibility.
• I think I have poor memory.
• I can not stand cricket. It is advertizing masquerading for sport. If you like cricket, well, you're wrong.
• I idolize Lance Armstrong.
• I can not stand mainstream Hindi cinema.
• I can not stand mainstream Hindi fim music.
• I have little or no appreciation of the 'oldies' in Hindi film music, to me they just sound like poor production values and screechy voices.
• I am agnostic. I do not believe in organized religion. I do not believe in the caste sytem. I do not believe in horoscopes and the rest of it. I'd rather believe in Harry Potter.
• I can wax on. If you want a longer list, you know where to find me.

Sometimes, the picture *is* perfect.

Hotel rooms are advertised as blissful heaven. You can shed your worries, slip into the comfort of a luxurious bed with down pillows, climate control turning the room into your most cherished destination and drift of into pleasant dreams with nary a care.

But does it work? Does it, bollocks.

Not the advertising, that works alright. But the promise of perfect rest, that's as elusive as the quest to find the Unicorn.

But sometimes, your luck kicks in. Like mine today.

As business trips go, I prefer to travel alone and avoid gatherings of large numbers of people I know and work with. If I wanted to spend time with the lot of them, I'd rather stay in at work. But, it doesn't really matter what I want, does it. So here I am about to spend the next three days in the company of those whom I spend most workdays with anyway. And going by that I should be right hacked off. I was too, till I got here that is.

And now back to my point – hotel rooms. Sometimes, they do deliver.

It's nearly 7'o clock on a fine August evening, I am in the balcony of my room with my feet up and soaking it all in. The hills that surround the hotel, dark laden clouds touching their tops, the gentle rush of the waterfall cascading by, a gusting cool breeze, and when I close my eyes - the sheer absence of anything human.

It's not quiet, but it stills me inside – reminding me where I need look for silence in the madness around me.

It won't last but a little while, but here and now – the picture, it's perfect.

A writer needs a table

I don't think I know anyone who doesn't want to be a writer in some form. I know I want to write. I often make fledgling attempts. Well intentioned, if poorly prepared. I sit down, think, open a new file, the white empty screen (the digital equivalent of fresh parchment, I think if I am feeling particularly philosophical or pretentious.)

I start out pen an idea and spend some time articulating it – but then find myself drifting off into trite banalities, rather than exploring the depths I set out to. It isn't rare either, or confined to creative writing, seeing how it often happens when I am just faced with an email.

Writing, no matter how ordinary, often brings my brain to a grinding halt, unable to tell my fingers which keys to peck. I think about this often (though neither long, nor) before deciding that I need another cup of coffee. This goes on so that by about four in the evening its hard to tell if my phone is vibrating, or it's just me.

And all this caffeinated thinking has led me to one very important conclusion - a writer needs a table.

Let me to me explain.

We are surrounded by distractions everyday, every waking minute. There are appliances everywhere - ringing phones, singing cellphones, noisy neighbors, beeping, whirring printers, yelling psychos - you name it, we have it. In the midst of all this our brains, well mine at least, becomes incapable of handling any complicated thought. If I'm lucky I can manage a coherent conversation with one individual, while typing a roundabout reply to another. Anything that requires more focused thought is well beyond my reach.

Adding to this is the ubiquitous modern workstation. It clubs together many interfaces, telling us to explore our creativity. This is ridiculous. I can't be creative and focused at the same time. If I am being creative my mind is wandering, weaving rainbows, concocting illusions and brewing the philosophies for a new world. (A religion and world view based around Duct Tape for example. I will explain later.)

And having a work station which offers you books, pads, colored pens, phones, a computer hooked to the interweb, a white-board, a soft-board - which doubles as a dartboard - is really not the ideal environment for me to 'focus'. I do anything but. Trying to see if I can hit the bulls eye on Nemesis A on the soft-board with DIY darts, making a thought map on the white-board using colored markers to highlight, using the pad to make paper airplanes, getting more coffee. Just about anything.

And that's why past generations could write great literature, and I can't. Hemingway only had a typewriter, and Shakespeare just parchment – and one thing in common, a desk.

I think to write, the most fundamental need is a desk. Something you can sit at without distractions and disruptions. Where the blank parchment, sheet of paper or screen is all that is in front of you. And that is precisely why we see large, forbidding desks, set in dimly lit chambers throught history – to discourage those who try to have an annoying conversations with you. The moment the coffee shop came around, literature took a nosedive.

You see without that, the best we can do is trite, annoying 'copy'. For example, a rant on the importance of desks in writing, written from a beanbag with a laptop set on an exercise ball in front of a television while watching Pirates of the Caribbean and drinking Red Bull.

I bet the guy who wrote the screenplay had a desk.

dreams i would rather not have

I get the most biazzare dreams. I blame the travel desk and their new and the training on their new travel portal. stupid thing. i dreamt that i needed to make a trip, and i kept forgetting to pack things. first my suit, and i had to go back thrice to get it. and then my shoes. and then my belt. i was ready to hit somebody by the time i woke up. Better than a mate though, he apparently took a elbow to his wife's nose in his sleep. Sure, that's an excuse that will work. Can you spell 'full love embargo'?

i shit you not

I know the picture is on its side. No, I won't fix it. Yes, we can go to that store.

Breaking News?

'nuff said.

Elevate

Sign outside the lift in my apartment block. They were trying to say that the lift is being painted.