Why should I look back when a new era has already begun with new hopes and promises? No, I will not go back the past no matter how much your impulsive teen self want me to be. But we shall still sing to the tunes of Ben E. King’s Stand By Me. 

Empathy

What is more painful? giving up on yourself or giving up on someone? I am too much in love with myself to give up. If there ever is a sin then it’s quitting. I’ve had those Christian lessons burnt in my brain through twelve years of morning prayers in my Protestant alma mater.

But you and you. Not a week goes by when the thought of giving up on you doesn’t cross my mind. Then I remember waiting for you on sweltering Delhi heat with a Mountain Dew in my hands and I realize I really can’t. I am incapable of throwing in the towel. Not because I am paralyzed, not because I’m afraid of the consequences and definitely not because of fear of pain but I choose not to turn my back on you. And that is, my dear, love.

But you. I have thrown my hands up in the air a long time ago. Now you’re on your own. Welcome to the exclusive club where every member is a colossal disappointment. But there’s still hope for you.  It’s never too late and there’s always hope. It’s easy to give up. Quite easy, in fact and you should know it actually pains me, and I cannot believe I’m saying this but it does, to have given up on you where I should be perfectly happy reveling in the schadenfreude.

Lollipop

I want to be more than a habit. I want to possess every little corner of your mind and soul like a dreary miniature black hole. Your mind would be that pixelated Yellow Giant I saw in Discovery Channel revolving around the black hole unable to escape its gravitational forces.

On second thought, I do not really want you to be a imprisoned star. I’m being greedy. That was you in your previous life. The life that you left behind, the one in the darkest and sunniest little rooms of your memory. I want you to be a satellite. Yeah, I think I like this analogy.

I was watching the last 5 minutes of Stand By Me on Youtube last night. Nostalgia has never been used so effectively in the silver screen. Ever. Period. I have to confess. I cried the second time I watched the movie, in its last minute, when Richard Dreyfuss typed in his old ’80s Mac “I never had friends like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”

I exactly know how Dreyfuss’ character felt. God! I exhale a sigh of nostalgia everytime I even remember that line.

On third thought, the title of this post have no resemblance to the content. Talk about randomness.

Mind games

So the funniest thing happened the other day. Okay, to be honest, not so funny to other people concerned but what the heck. I logged in to the Skype account of Galadriel of which I know the password. Now I admit it’s not a cool thing to do. When a guy/girl is given a password s(h)e’s supposed to take it as a sign that s(h)e is trusted but not s(he)’s not actually supposed to log in, well, not at least frequently. But let’s not get into the philosophical discourse on 21st century cyber etiquette.What can I say, I’m a really bad bad man.

So I logged in to Skype and see that the Drake is online. Now I have done this before,guilty as charged but the guy on the other end have never picked it up that it was not the person they think they’re talking to, which is not to say that I’m an excellent virtual doppelgänger. But this time I made some gigantic strategic errors. The Drake is smart, one of the smartest as they come. Besides he knows both me and Galadriel pretty well to figure out how we converse over the internet. However, that’s not really it. I wasn’t thinking through things and I was casual.  By 5th line he knew it was me. And by 7th line I knew that he knew it’s me on the other end. I kept it going for a few more minutes till boredom took over. It’s no fun if your identity is compromised.

Of course the aforesaid incident brought embarrassment to the Galadriel. Not good. So next time I become a cyber doppelgänger, which by the way is rare, hey I’m not that bad, I will pay more attention to the dynamics of everyday conversations between Galadriel and the said person, whoever s(h)e is. I have been too careless and more importantly in this instance, ignorant. It will not happen again.

Mr. Banerjee is learning.

Premonition

I have one which keeps me staring blankly at my alarm clock and keeping “what’s up” scraps on social networking sites. That one day, twenty years from now, I will be saddled with a ho-hum suburban life with a long list of failures and what ifs and worst of all, with fading memories of the days when I was young. And I would be alone, with no way to sharpen those blurring mental images. The frontal cortex is a big faulty camera.

That is why I keep leaving those “what’s ups” to people I know from the school days, so I always have someone to go back who’d remind me of who I was and I won’t lose faith in meself.  Also ’cause, to paraphrase Stephen King/Rob Reiner, and people have heard me say this before, I never had friends like the ones I had when I was 13.  God, does anyone?

The above line speaks volumes about my social awkwardness but that’s another story.

People move in and out of our lives, it’s all well and good but I don’t want to wonder what happened to them or where they are years from now. People slip away from us, more often than not due to prejudices and whims of the warm young blood. We’re all going to be lonely someday and I for one won’t let any more people slip away to oblivion from my social network.  Which reminds me I have work to do this summer rejuvenating the alma mater’s alumni networking organization.