How do you live with so much hate? I hate three people right now, all men, for all of whom I have had varying degrees of affection. One broke my trust, another was cruel, the third callous. I am always loathe to let go of people until they have shown themselves conclusively to be pricks, bastards, unworthy. This takes repeated acts of bastardiness and unworthiness, until there is a final straw which convinces me that the time to close this book is past. I've closed the book for the first two, I am considering doing it for the last, because I don't want to suffer repeated disappointments.
Two things: 1. That one does this on principle at a certain point in an association, even though feelings ask otherwise. You can take more shit, but you choose not to, to preserve your dignity, self-respect.
2. That you can't live feeling this much hate, totting up the list of people you feel this strongly against, and then feeling that your heart is full, and there is no place for light, happy feelings. That you therefore, willingly choose to let go. Let go of people you have loved, some people you still care about. Remove them from your heart, for them to do as they will.
Is this the way of life, for human beings? That you strew people by the wayside as you go along? Is this the lesson I am supposed to learn, another of the mysteries unravelled, another thing my unworldly parents didn't tell me about, that I am to figure out theke shikhe? I will learn, sure, but I wish it were neater, that others, and I, played by the rules.
If you associate with someone, you don't just shut them out suddenly from your life. It's common courtesy.
Thank you - Welcome. How are you? - I am fine: that kind of thing.
You don't break people who have opened themselves to you.
You don't hurt people where they are exposed.

This whole leaving people, it's a wholly different way of life. It means spending time with people you don't particularly care for, a casual friendship with many people who you can therefore let go of without the need to look back, because they didn't give you anything worth remembering. It also means letting go of people who did give you something just as casually, those people who you want more of.
People who incite my curiosity are the ones I love getting to know the most, far more than the troublesome attractions, where there might be nothing in the head worth sharing, or where the interesting stuff might be obscured by sex or feelingy thoughts.
All of this leaves one rather lonesome. I don't like being lonesome. I like my company, but I also like to meet people. It means going on alone if someone doesn't fit the bill, not staying with a motherfucking bastard because you, in the longest rope that you have given a person for that one act of kindness, decide to swallow the terrible things s/he does and because s/he means company as opposed to lonesomely trudging on some track, or not getting to go someplace because there are some places you can't go alone. How will I go to the salt pans of Kutch, I wonder, let alone spend the whole night under a full moon? Desert trek is not happening. I can't go and watch a Rang de Basanti type freakshow in its place, can I?

The summer, as promised, has been lovely. I came back from L. Much fun was had, the meanness notwithstanding. I saw the Mulbek Maitreya Buddha. I was thinking in retrospect, though. R is not very nice either, is he? Why do I keep associating with people who I am not convinced about?
Amazement: at the typicalness of male behaviour. K has made perfectly random attempts to get in touch. You want something once it's out of your hands.
Mes projets pour l'hiver include:
desert trek, Jaisalmer, Khuri
the Rann, Dholaveera, Lothal, Pavagadh-Champaner (too much for one state, if you ask me. It's starting to sound like those crazy family vacations covering an entire state that people take)
Varanasi for noo year
MP, and a wedding
L

There is a possibility I will be heavily disillusioned after it all. You know, finding out that people are all the same, often irredeemable, and that travelling doesn't change you one whit.

Yesterday, I met a condescending prick who made me rush back to the shelter of family. I felt so grateful to have ma and F. People are mostly like this prick, niceness is a rarity.

I am (again) planning to buy a DSLR. But apart from everything else, I have to wait for next month's salary to replenish my coffers.

Nick Hornby is so neurotic.
Cadbury's Silk is yum. Finally, a local chocolate that you can eat. And, um, Gold Flake.

What else? Kolkata somewhere in between all this, though after yesterday's encounter, I feel loathe to let go of ma and F. They are my cocoon, my cushion, I am scared of what it would be to live here without one. I'll get them back after I am done with all my projets, of course.
One should leave as little as possible to chance, because chance is all round you, right, waiting to throw your plans awry. But a lot of what I am planning rests on chance. I have no foresight on how I will be after this. I am hoping for a very good time and not too many brickbats, at the very least.
And to smell of the road, to smell of the road.