A sad year and a smelly dog

There is a certain symmetry to begin the blog with a photo of Bruce Chatwin and to end it with one by him. I am happy with how the blog looks now, none of the hard, definite colours there were earlier. But the vagueness, like how I want to be, and the greyness, which is what the weather makes of the environs and what the state of my mind is.
The smelly dog is F, she hasn't had a bath in a month and smells very dog-like. Kukur kukur gondho, as we say around here.
The year is indubitably sad, but is made happier and bearable by the presence of my mother and dog.
We got the AC installed today, took less time than I thought, more money than I'd hoped and messy as I expected.
Sitting at home, I am wondering whether the year MUST be so sad, whether working elsewhere was such a big thing. After all, this is Delhi, that is why one comes here: because there are options, if nothing else, in numbers that can never match your home town.
God, I do hate this city so.

But then, searching for Chatwin and Edmund White for the blog made me remember stuff I liked, of happier times, of knowing Chatwin for the first time at the BCL library, such a refuge in summers, so many hot, hot afternoons whiled away reading nothings, always things not meant for coursework. Of Oli passing on Chatwin's notebook, or was it that book of photographs off-handedly and I think I did teach myself to like a new thing, and now the picture of that door and that abandoned trailor somewhere in Latin America, or was it the Midwest, from What Am I Doing Here, brings back such warm memories, of myself. And the title, it has always echoed my state of being at so many different points in my life.
The only difference is, this torture is self-inflicted.

Apparently, celebrities are passing off manic depression as bi-polar disorder. Am I manic depressive?
And to think, I was supposed to check out all the birdwatching sites in Delhi. So many things I had meant to do here, and none is happening.

There are moments in my house in Delhi when I get a sense of home: as I walk through the small passage between the living room and the other room in the darkness, and know ma and my dog are asleep nearby.

Living on the top floor has a freedom I have never known. When I lie down on the floor and look out through the windows and see only sky, the glittering moon at night, and the pigeons flocking through at daybreak, I know no one can see me. And I feel free, almost invulnerable. I feel free in Delhi, then.

Watching House gives me strength that I wish would last. He, the people in it, shore me up to face life even when it gets so tough you think the strength is being wrung out of your muscles. I see them survive each day that is as tough as that and it gives me strength. Sadly, I don't see House before I leave for office, so by that time, all the strength has seeped away and I am left with dread at the prospect of another day of being wrung dry.
But the serial has such heart, it speaks so close to what really happens and how incredibly people find the resources to go on.

My boyfriend and I speak of marriage these days. He seems accepting of it, I have more or less accepted it. We are happy.

It has become very hot over the past few days. I will rent an AC. Someone is supposed to come over about it today.

The meat almost went bad and my dog vomited the other day. My mother says it is because of the heat. She also needs a bath, and her rabies shot.
Did I say, I was bitten by a dog right after I returned from home? I met the dog last week and went up to it. But it totally changed demeanour after it sniffed my hand. It began growling and showing its teeth and started to chase after me. I shouted and hit out with my big bag and got away, but I think it meant to have a go at me and it really shook me up.
I felt really scared then, and I felt angry that it should be this way with me, and I wished I could harm it, that it would die. I don't know why it hates me so. Also don't know why dogs here are so very violent with outsiders, considering they are well-fed etc. They aren't this way in Calcutta. I don't think I will be able to take my dog out while I am in Delhi. I dare not think of what might happen.
There is a lot of work for today, my off day. There's fish and milk to be bought, gas to be filled, my kurta brought back from the tailor's. And we also planned to go to a mall and eat out. And I haven't even begun to sleep.

Well, it's kinda long time-no see. Ma and dog are here, have I said. As are lots of mosquitoes. I am afraid it's a situation developing here with the mosquitoes. There are nights we barely sleep thanks to their numbers and coils and repellents seem to make no difference whatsoever.
Apart from that, of course, it is what I do to earn my daily bread. And earn it, I do, by God. I feel the price I pay, the toll it takes and how money is needed to keep the daily bread coming. I sense it when I go to the market twice a week, when I buy chicken for my dog every three days, and I feel it when my mother throws away vegetables that have gone bad after lying too long in the fridge.
But I can't keep doing this. I can't, please. It's too much. Earning a living can't be this bad a thing? And there is no time for anything, and I am always so exhausted, mentally and physically.
I look at people in their houses and I tell myself this is home and hearth for them, this is it, there is nothing beyond. And I feel a little surprised, since Delhi is so intrinsically a place for transit, for me. I can't imagine what it would be if this were it for me. Home is still Calcutta in such an immediate way, maybe more so because I am having such a hard time here and it's hard to want to return to something that holds no pleasant memories.