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I haven't been writing much recently. I want to write. I want to write something properly. Something with soul and depth and meaning. I want to write something that doesn't involve wrestling or sport or law or music or books. I want to write something that's not "gay, even by [my] formidable standards".

 

I am feeding a few words into this page and, every few minutes, I am feeding a few words into three other windows that are minimised as I write this.

 

Foremost among my thoughts right now - how fidgety my legs are feeling, how the air-conditioning at home is going to feel tonight, what Seinfeld episode will air on Comedy Central at 9 p.m. (in a willing suspension of disbelief, I have chosen not to open that door in my mind that remembers every Season 6 episode in seriatim or, easier, I have decided not to look it up online), whether keeping the rice on for thirteen minutes today will finally, finally rid me of the grainy-hardboiled-or-soggy-mess dichotomy, what they really teach at the M.Phil in Law and Governance at JNU, if there's a problem with the way I speak English on certain days (I've had to repeat myself on three separate occasions and there are days when I speak a lot more when I don't have to do that at all. Do I speak too quickly? Do I not wait long enough for the other person to reply? Do I roll my eyes too much? I know that's a rhetorical question - I do) and lastly - and this has been annoying me all day - how the people at the Airtel store come in in regular clothes but, within five minutes, are all decked out in red Airtel t-shirts. I want to see that changing room they all go into - are the shirts hung on hooks asymmetrically or are they lined up in a clothes hanger a la Dexter in Dexter's Rival? Do they even have hooks? They have to have hooks, it must be like a changing room in a clothes store - how can they not have hooks in a room so small? Where else would they put all those shirts? Or do they all just wear their Airtel shirts underneath their regular clothes and go inside only to remove the top layer? If yes, why can't they do it in the main store area? Sharam aati hai unhe? Airtel ke liye kaam karte hain, isse zyaada sharamnaak aur kya baat ho sakti hai? 

 

I remember I used the expression "tough cookie" during my English book review presentation in Class IX. I am still astonished that no one knew what it meant and I remember I was asked by the teacher to explain it and I said it meant "the same thing as 'a tough nut to crack'". Why didn't I think of a cookie/nut etymology comparison then? I hate cookies with nuts. I love chocolate cookies. Lots of chocolate on those cookies. Chocolate chips, melty chocolate, chocolate sprinkles, all kinds of sweet chocolate. I also like cinnamon cookies. That's the real debate, cinnamon vs chocolate - not freaking nuts vs cookies. Nuts are irrelevant. They're usually tasteless and make you fat. The salted varieties have more salt, less nuts. Might as well eat salt only. Much cheaper, too. The only place nuts are borderline acceptable are in Fruit and Nut chocolate. Actually, I don't even like nuts in Fruit and Nut. They should just make them with fruit. Fruit bhi kya, dried raisins are the only "fruits" they use in that chocolate. Useless. Calling it "Fruit and Nut" is such misrepresentation. Overpriced chocolate with the odd raisin and almond, more like. Saala, uska bhi alag se chocolate banate hain. And they sell it as "Silk" or somesuch. Raisin and almond hai toh say "raisin and almond" on the label, na? Nahi. Hum toh nahi likhenge. Mental only. I would really like to live in a world where they sell dried raisin chocolate and have the guts to call it that. I would buy it. But I won't buy it today. Because Crackle is way cooler and better and it has those crackles which are extraordinarily good, even shorn of their chocolatey context. And I'm totally going to force my way inside that little changing room at the Airtel store next time. 

 

And leave a Fruit and Nut chocolate wrapper in there.

 

Haha.