1. What is your current obsession?
Why I'm studying English, why I can't find naukri, why I have no paisa, where my glowy-ball has gone, my cycle, all sorts of things.

2. What are you wearing today?
Sunday homewear. Tatty tee and shorts.

3. What’s for dinner?
Haven't even got to lunch yet.

4. What’s the last thing you bought?
Fevicol.

5. What are you listening to right now?
Abida.

6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
Tuna is an incorrigible twit, shame I haven't managed to get rid of her yet. Ahona seems to share my fascination for potty. All good.

7.If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
The Himalayas. Living extensively anywhere else is a scary thought.

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
Patience. Deodorant. Water.

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Not enough time. I'd go eat lunch at a country inn somewhere. Germany possibly. Lots of sausages.

10. Which language do you want to learn?
Arabic. The script. Otherwise Japanese.

11. What’s your favourite quote?
"Haan, bas poonch ki kami hai." - Mere pitaji.

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
Prospective employer OR genie OR Dilbert or something. I don't know. No real people.

13. What is your favourite colour?
Keeps changing, I love colour.

14. Give us 3 styling tips that work for you.
Hair tie. Clean scrubbed after-bath skin. Toothpaste.

15. What is your dream job?
Travelling, writing, taking pictures, teaching kids art.

16. What’s your favourite magazine?
I'm not a magazine person. All I've read religiously this past year is GEO.

17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
That's around four point five. I'd go to Himachal.

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
Who cares, there's no such thing as universal good dressing.

19. Who according to you is the most over-rated style icon?
All of them are. Dimple Kapadia in Bobby especially.

20. What kind of haircut do you prefer?
This is where I start getting annoyed at myself for starting this.

21. What are you going to do after this?
Tell myself I deserve it.

22. What are your favorite movies?
Always happy when watching animated stuff, always slightly sceptical when watching others.

23. What inspires you?
Oh man. Inspiration's running at negative thirty now.

24. What do your friends call you most commonly?
Priyanka. Kumar. These are most common, highlight most.

25. Would you prefer coffee or tea?
Tea. I'm picky about coffee.

26. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Go to sleep. Walk.

27. What makes you go wild?
This question's wrong on too many levels.

28. Which other blogs do you love visiting?
They know.

29. Favourite Dessert/Sweet
Caramel custard. Gulab Jamun and vanilla icecream. Elayada. Rasmalai. Cheesecake. Any cake. Coffee pudding. Shorbhaja. I'm so hungry.

30. How many tabs are turned on in your browser right now?
Twenty?

31. Favourite Season?
Winter, followed by monsoon.

32. If I come to your house now, what would you cook for me?
Possibly an omelette. A whole meal only after considering state of fridge and mind.

33. What is the right way to avoid people who purposefully hurt you?
If you're avoiding them anyway they don't get to see you. Hence no opportunity, purposeful or otherwise, whatever. Ignore either way.

34. What are you afraid of the most?
EVERYTHING =D

35. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Hello, fuck, another pimple.

36. What brings a smile on your face instantly?
Other smiles. Lots of little things. I don't know.

37. A word that you say a lot?
Why?

38. When was the last time you did something nice?
I didn't.

39. What would you do if you were made President of India for one day?
Nothing. Presidents don't do jack in a day.

40. Do you Know who Master SHIFU is?
I do now.

Sometime soon the world shall see A. Vasudevan Natarajan Nair, till then he sleeps in my room =D

Padmasambhava. I've been following without knowing for so long it isn't funny. First Nako and then Gurudongmar, I want to go back and I want to go to Rewalsar and wherever else it is but mainly I want to go to a lake. I want to be back like I was at Nako, climbing up dusty hillside till I reached a tree and under the tree I found a skull, dog or fox, can't be sure. And under the tree I sat and held the skull in my palm and thought about the noxious-looking potatoes with stalks sprouting out of them that the villagers had sold us. Carbide the proprietor at the half-constructed guest house was convinced they were poisonous. We were convinced he was whining was because he wouldn't get paid fully for dinner. Mr Carbide had a face I can't remember, the name stays because he was cocksure and explosive and snuck up on us when we didn't expect it. Wasn't my idea, the name.

Also under the tree I remember that moment of indecision, whether to take off jacket or not in the face of mild sunshine getting cloying and warm. Mostly that morning stood for nothing, everyone isn't Padmasambhava. No epiphanies. Just a feeling of invincibility, but in an offhand way, I can't explain. Setting loose pebbles rolling downhill to the lake and then worrying about landslides. Feeling the weight of the skull make my palm all sweaty and worrying about being morbid.

All the times I've travelled with adults I've been to places I want to revisit now because they aren't cities. Being dropped down at 14000 feet versus planning the getting-there bit. Getting permission to walk around alone versus getting permits to cross a checkpost. Maybe I want to go back so I can obsess over myself in ways I don't do here. How long before they miss me? When will they call out? The mountainside's witness to the fact that you may end up a skull among boulders but the mountains will remain, and what if no one misses you, that sort of thing. Not epiphanies but neuroses.

Eight years later all that remain are trigger-words. Padmasambhava. Skull. Potatoes. Aquamarine lake, headache. Ditto for Gurudongmar, only Colder and More Blue and Fluttering Flags and Sikh Shrine. There's always a chance I haven't forgotten how they look, but I won't know till I see them again, landscapes in old photographs always look alien. If I waste this June, P, I'll never forgive myself. But then I miss out on the other lakes I could sit by, that's what it all boils down to in the end, really.

Hello, prolix post, beg pardon.

There are these Junior Horlicks biscuits that are in animal shapes. The sheep are the cutest but the lions look pretty wistful too, plus they taste awesome and last a fascinating five minutes. I christened each one before chomping. Go eat some. It helps if you put a Sir before each name.

Oru Super Paatu

Courtesy Wilbur. My new love.

Gorillaz Gorillaz please download fast please please aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa hollow eyed twitching please please till then it's jack johnson I'm calming myself down so I can be hyper when you're done so fast fast please please aaaaaaaaaaaa please please come on

So x bends down and thinks of possible outcomes - plausible ones even - and weighs the pros and the cons. Much mustered calm. Next x draws imaginary blueprints that shimmer slightly under the ceiling fan, escape plans and and graphs and things that can covertly be pushed under the 'Subterfuge' label. x, however, is a colossal ass and it would do x well to realise that at the end of the day it's all the same crap, if x can't yell back at the world now x never will. No famous declamation, no angry outburst, no drunken confession, nothing. Nothing is a good word, also a good response to questions or queries. Everything is intermittent and this too shall pass, but it's always the same, right, x must never think of being able to share the battleplan. Would it therefore be possible to say that x is a lone ranger? Find the value of x. Six marks.

This comes a day late but I've had it with hiding the secret romanticism.

What is IT with everyone trying to take everyone's trip, it's really pissing me off. I want to sleep. I want confidence pills and I want to overdose on them. I want Plastic Beach now, right now. I want to live in a trailer. I've been watching Wonderfalls all over again, two years down the line I can see the flaws but I'm enjoying it. The occasional over-acting, the random shriekiness, the bad hair, I can handle all of it because the entire series is just so rooted in the fact that everyday things are creepier than nightmares, ditto for everyday happenings, it's a philosophy I completely identify with. Like how last week a girl jumped off the sixth floor of Block Four in my complex in a suicide attempt and fell on a car and had to go to hospital, and every one I told this to laughed, first instinct guffaw, almost incredulous but a laugh nevertheless. It happens, you'd think people would check for cars, or whatever you think the funny bit is. So yeah, tiny animal figurines talking to you, happens, why not. I've always hated showpieces so it fits.

The father came home at ten thirty in the morning all annoyed and walking like a zombie, turns out he tore his pants at the bum trying to get out of a cab on the way to work. I realise I'm proud of my parents at all the wrong times, just like I'm really bad at explaining why I find some things very funny. Pencils with rubbers attached at the end, for example. Or Mata Hari, or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, this is where I go away and pretend I've been writing an abstract for a conference or something.

but really she was ugly I'm telling you I swear

Part One.

For every person I spot with sunglasses and sweat on their face I smirk and think, haha, Loser. There are twenty thousand bags floating around in this market, some weighed down by glittering shoes and clothes you'd get for much cheaper if the sellers weren't so cocky, but it is an undeniable fact, everyone floats. Everyone has lighter wallets and lighter minds and they'd lift off the road if the bags didn't weigh them down, but that's just an illusion, the bags float too. The only reason I see her is because she isn't floating, her hands are bare and her neck is too, and she gets into an auto as if she needs nothing at all. Then she goes away.

But that isn't the point.

Part Two.

For every person I see ordering dessert even after they've belched twice I snort and think, haha, Loser. Then I see her again, sitting unadorned and devoid of fork or spoon, drinking coffee like her bare neck will thrust back and eject her head right off her body if she doesn't swallow all of it at a gulp. She has a foamy chocolate moustache once she's done and I'm timing her to see how long before she realises and licks it off. Maybe it'll get disappointing, maybe she'll pick up a napkin and dab at it, delicately and diligently till it decides to stick to the cloth instead. Then, as it turns out, she looks up and he walks over and laughs and wipes it off with the back of his hand. She still looks as if she needs nothing, she'd order another cup if he weren't there, but it's an undeniable fact, there he is.

That is the point.