The Going.

So,it is with a misplaced need to unbelong that I step off the train that brings me back to Bombay. Six months in Manipal. Perhaps Bach felt the same way when he wrote his first composition. Who knows? I'm taken aback at the weather here - it is chilly, and it is a welcome respite from the weather I'd encountered back there. A porter's throaty baritone jugs my mind to the present and I start walking towards the exit.

As I start to walk across the footbridge, stray memories jostle for my attention. I will be honest. There were times I felt like screaming and tearing at my hair, there were times when I lost myself in the subjectivity of an eighteen-year old's emotions, there were times I laughed till I cried. No emotional roller-coaster, really. More like an emotional Ferris wheel. I never did the math, because I never felt like doing it. Because that would involve being stoic, distant and detached - which, by the by, can never be practised in Manipal, and because it would not allow me a chance to observe, to ponder, to reflect. I'd rather amble along here, although, frankly, it's not a bad idea any longer.

I hail a kaali-peeli. Shove my bags in the rear and myself in the front-seat, and head towards home. Looking at the faces whizzing by.

Go, Tamerlane, go.

As the football spins in the mud, and I careen around the center-back to meet it, I realize that in this noisy moment, when my striker is telling me to pass the ball over to him, and I am working my pace gradually, threading my way through the defence, I will find my serenity.

The ball misses the goalies outstretched arms by an inch, and I'm in. I kneel and feel the hands of my teammates hoist me up onto their mud-caked shoulders. And the rain fractures my quadruple identity into a million little pieces of hope and hesitation.

Something of a discolouration.

This from a fellow blogger - Katie West. She's very talented. Really talented, so to say.

Where I decide to throw you overboard,.

I am the woman who deserves so much more than you. I would’ve been the greatest woman you should now admit to never giving a chance. The woman who would have done your laundry, and baked for you. The woman who would have sucked your cock in the back seat of your car and fucked you better than anyone ever has every time you came to town. You could have stared at my perfect body, my disarming eyes, my soft skin while I read in coffee shops and discussed with you the theory of getting what you want. I would’ve kept you safe and made you feel loved. I am more than everything you ever thought you needed. You would’ve thought I was too good for you.

And you would’ve been right.