Day 6 : Eye of the tiger

My brother has this fascination with Rocky and there was a time when he'd play survivor on the loop (that's how he was preparing for board exams. I think). Anyway so the song has become the background music for my first 6 days in "Singaland". The survival began the day the SMRT top up machine sucked in my money while the Chinese lady behind me said "tch tch cannot". I never saw those 5 dollars back but I did beg random strangers to top up my card for me, got blocked out of the entry bars because of insufficient balance in my card and then decided to man up and try that money swallowing machine one more time. And Success!

I am taking over the public transport ninja crown from PG (who apparently championed the London tube), pfffft please. There's Maya in office who's from London and claims that the tube is a breeze when it comes to the SMRT.. purple, green, red, orange whoaaaa! Oh and did I mention that almost every MRT station will lead up to a frikking mall? How the hell am I supposed to go out in the streets when you lure me to shop every time I reach a place?!

Getting lost here is easy, you just have to ask someone the way to the place. They will misguide you with so much confidence and nod so much that you have to believe them. This is an extremely global community so you will find people from all parts of the world on the streets and they all think that they know the streets of Singapore so well, even though they've probably moved here last month. Plus they will be polite and even smile. Now you must follow their direction and go to the completely opposite direction.  One girl asked me to go straight for Moulmein road and all I could see straight was a tree and some bushes.

Also standing in line to get a cheeseburger for 30 mins is so not cool, just because the samurai burger is back in town. If you have waited on a similar line at the McD here you know what I mean. I appreciate the enthusiasm and all, but I wish people would react or rebel a little bit more, like back in Kolkata - chakkka jaam! How did I survive? I quit the line and had rosti with smoked chicken across the road.

The coffee machine threw up on my mug at first but then (survivor playing in the background of course) I read the instructions CAREFULLY, used the right combination of coffee pouch thingies (texture, flavor etc)
and nailed it! Bitch please, you are just a Nespresso machine and I, well I'm a survivor!

Also, for the record (even though I love you now nespresso) but you give me toooo many options. Do I want woody, floral or fruity, lightly roasted or decaf! Really now? do you want me to create my own unique coffee or should just go down to Starbucks! Ok don't hate me, I love you now.

All in all, I guess I've survived the first week and kick-assed for the most part of it, but I'm following the "Do not insult the mother alligator until after you have crossed the river" rule.

Love it! hate it!

So I've reached Singapore, and goes without saying that I have been feasting on the local cuisine since Saturday. For a sea food lover, it doesn't get any better than this. But wait it does, an office with a view of the bay.. wait what! Oh yeah, the white sail boats do distract me a bit at work, but then that's a small price to pay for an arrangement like that. I conquered the public transport bit today, checked out all the green lines & red lines and what not and managed to reach office on time without getting lost at all. Cockiness aside, I'm loving the streets, the clean green effect, the sky high concrete and the food of course. To sum it all up, I am miserable really. All I want to do is head back to my apartment in Delhi, pull on the covers (eat Peppy tomato chips) and watch Bigg Boss with my boy at 9pm everyday. Reality check - this might have been a bad idea after all. No verdict yet, the love-hate continues. Maybe, I miss him more than I love this place.

#Homesickness#extremeblah#can'ttakesomuchclean.... Nooooooooo!

A blue flower

A blue flower he gave me once, to keep it safe, bright & warm.

Gentle & plain, infinite as love

It stays with me for times to come.

Withered... a petal or two I fix it with haste, secure it back up to it's former grace

This day it came with a scroll on thunder

It seems unreachable now, this destiny of ours

Why seemingly there on a spiral grey tower, within reach... it could be ours.

Together we climb, but alone I fall. Over and over until I stall.

This I tell him, we must preserve, save it now before it withers.

The blue is fading as I make this chase.

So I let it fall and shed a tear on his face.

It's time to part so we say goodbye but long to hold what can't be mine

A lucid dream, I take a breath and run towards my safest place

In my mind I see so clear

A blue flower, now on the spiral tower.

Unpacking a million times over...

Coherent love or not -

I've been trying to write this post for a while, but with each attempt I realized how hard it is to pen down these thoughts in a coherent manner. So finally, this attempt is gonna be somewhat of a collage of thoughts, random memories and unfinished sentences. It's important to express the love sometimes, even if it's not extremely coherent.

The treasures I dug out -

The love for this city has been growing. From a confused, aspiring 22 year old to a more calmer version of the wild child I used to be. I've loved this city to bits, every single day of my last 5 years.
From the very first day I knew I was meant to be here. New Delhi was my home. I never felt out of place, never felt like I didn't belong, and it was always comforting to come back to Delhi wherever I went. It's breathtaking this city really... it's beautiful, it's big & bold ... and green. From finding love, to making the best of friends, and finally understanding yourself....this city has been my confidante.

I'm packing my bags-

And now that it's time to say goodbye.. I don't know how. A big one on my life list might get crossed off and I knew this day would come. But so soon! Such little time I had, but it seems like I've been here forever. Every little memory etched into my mind. A house I turned into a home. Cooking for friends. Lone walks across citywalk, sitting on the pavement with coffee and smokes watching the strangers pass by with huge shopping bags. Chinese joints, Nizam's kathi rolls, late night movies and 2 am dhabas with egg maggi and chai.

The love of my life -

Leaving behind everything that shaped me into what I am today can never be easy. Leaving behind the person you love most, the people who stand strong with you through thick and thin, the comfort of the home you created sincerely one tiny detail at a time. It seems like a mammoth task right now. Should I pack my favorite blanket? I'm still pinning thoughts and struggling with the finer details. But one thing makes it easy.. knowing the fact that he is ready to follow me into this new journey. When I look back, he'll be right there with a suitcase and a smile. That's going to make this all better. Singapore has tough shoes to fill. This city is tough to beat, these people are are one of their kind. The love is unparalleled.

The mirror to my soul -

I don't where I'll be in the next ten years, and I don't really want to talk or think about it now, but I do know that wherever I am unpacking my suitcase...this city will always be my steamy love affair, my hot cuppa, my late night maggi and the mirror to my soul. I'm still looking for excuses to stay back, and unpacking a million times in my mind.

Madness wins

The unending complications of the human mind is a blessing in the guise of unnecessary evil. Or is it simply madness, and nothing else? It's hard to answer leading questions anyway, but to attempt something which is beyond my purview of basic understanding is not only impossible, but also foolish.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. Well, technically I can't calculate the motion of heavenly bodies. Issac Newton can. And hence this quote of desperation comes from him. So imagine a mere mortal like me, (dragging my ass to a 9 - 5 job - who laughs at fart jokes and barely passed math in school), attempting to crack the code of this madness. The point I am trying to make is - nothing.

Don't get mad yet, there was no point. It was just an observation. I observed a lot of madness around me lately and attempted to crack the reality behind it (read: melodrama, self induced confusion, hula hoops of reality checks & going back to mind-numbing melodrama again). Not that I was just an innocent bystander. No sir. Last week, I've asked myself some pretty disturbingly dumb questions, lost sleep over it, wrote some nonsense posts which I thankfully didn't blog out loud and then questioned the moral integrity of people around me & people I loved most seemed nothing less than blood enemies.

Modern Family helped me get over a lot of it. I love that show, it's all about the madness in people - but the portrayal is so adorable that you end up feeling less fucked up about the madness inside and around you. Heck I wanna be adorably mad too. I wanna ransack someone's house to figure out if the bugger actually did return that T-shirt or not; Cam pulled it off and so can I.

So I am officially giving in to it. Madness I embrace you with open arms, let's be cute together!

Cheers!

P.S - official warning to the boy - I might start crying and laughing at the same time while sleep-eating. Keep it together.