Over Jumpiness
I want to read three books at a time: The five people you meet in heaven (it’s a BOOK, currently skimming pg 21), David Ogilvy’s Biography (E-lib Book, on page 9), Jeff Archer’s A Twist in the Tale (His short story collection, the Quiverfulla arrows apart, 1 story done) and Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway(just read the preface 
). Oh, four books, I apologise. In the meanwhile, am already dying to read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult (thanks to a beautiful review from a beautiful writer friend, Rehab) and The Undercover Economist. And from what blessed epoch of time will I get the orgasmic pleasure of reading Rushdie? This is a question that’s permanently in the background. Being the complete idiot that I was and I am, I have missed out on the most wonderful, mind-tickling, make-you-reflect-for-everyone’s-better kind of movies the whole of 22 years. Ok, not 22, but college was a brilliant time to catch up, you know. Friends who were/are otherwise as moronic as I am scored on this ground. Bloody big time. So, I’ve got this huge movie list (a couple of trees would have been felled had I made the list on paper, it’s on my brain’s slate) and I decide to catch up a tiny wee bit with the world by watching two movies a day. And unable to decide which to watch first, I unecessarily dilly-dally for two hours, watching bits and pieces of both the movies. Damn it, am anyway going to watch both- this magical spark of a thought never at the right time. And invariably, the first movie I watch after much nonsensical thought, gets stuck at some point where I begin to appreciate the essence of the movie. I bang my head against the nearest wall. Three times. Before even the titles roll (Oh, I inserted the next dvd), I would be nearly disgusted with the stream of thoughts flowing nastily on my mind and decide (for once rightly) that this might just not be a great time to watch any movie of immense intrigue. The tummy sends the hunger alarms every ten minutes, to top it all. So, in between I’d be shuttling between the kitchen and my computer room to appease my tummy. Every four minutes, I would do a maggi log in (read two minute log in) onto orkut to see if somebody remembered me and left a note. Or if some ugly ass had scrapped/sent those fraandship requests. This can be utterly hilarious or downright annoying, depending upon my then temperament. Every seven minutes, I’d be on my mini day dream sequel about my life for the next 15 months at MICA, about how am going to keep my promises to those who mean a world (and more) to me, about how I still wished if some comic transplant could get me revamped into the flesh version of Calvin and so on. These are four minute sequences, which means, after 2 minutes, another new mini dream sequel begins. Rememeber the four minute frequency on orkut for 2 minutes? The four books at hand? The movies am catching up with? The tummy alerts? I forgot msging, washing machining, the express-channel-surfing, the call attending (if any), the ceiling gazing and some more which I really dont remember.
After nearly a year, I’ve got time for myself. The previous year, I would sleep in the littlest of time I could supposedly claim was mine. Seriously, work tooka heavy toll on me. Within months, I was burnt out, frustrated and dead. I dont get depressed for reasons such as working on the trot sleep-deprivedly (oh neevr at all), what was irking was the bloody bare fact that I was doing what I’d never wanted to do. And now, though for a teeny weeny bit of time, I’ve got a lot of time for myself. And am all jumpy about it. When will I steady a little? Seriously, even a little would do wonders.
