the past two weeks

bhaubeez at c22/2

diwali at c8

anniversary dinner / lunch party

oberoi

tanay at home

if i had the language to write like salman rushdie i would tie this all together in a fever dream of words and images. i awoke from my late morning nap with his house on malabar hill of the ‘moors last sigh’ completely inhabited with ghosts of my own. the climbed the walls, found their way into the garden and even crashed from the balcony into the sea. 

i dream the books i read as i read them. in these dreams i make parallel and intertwine the life within and without. in both of last weeks american dream gone sour novels; joyce carol oates’ ‘we were the mulvaneys’ and philip roth’s ‘american pastoral’; i was alternately the bystander watching young women being eaten away by beauty and guilt- and sometimes i was them cornered in a place i don’t want to be and violently struggling to break free. 

was that the reason for my violent outburst the other day at dinner? i shocked myself by the suddenness and the violence pf my temper. my parents are so used to me being the well-behaved boy in family dinners that they worried about my health and for decency’s sake asked me to apologize for losing my temper. i refused only because i don’t believe there was any reason for me to. i was not going to apologize for having an opinion on gujarat’s ‘progress’ in the modi years. 

in self confessedly liberal families you are allowed your own space for freedom as long as it does not rattle the cage built on politeness and good behavior. meanwhile there have been other dinners and parties that have been so much easier and relaxed. to state a most obvious fact - friends are so much easier than family.