It's been a long week of introspection ...

I was bewildered when I realized in school that people were two-faced. I assumed things at face value until their deceit showed up. Even 5th grade onwards can prepare you for the deceit in life.

I was annoyed last year when Lifford came to Dubai the second time around. I never got to meet Jo alone; it was like buy Jo and get Lifford free.

I was secretly 90% amused and 10% flattered when someone I didn't like asked me out. The flattered part came in only because before that no one had shown any interest in me. Other than wanting to copy my fucking notes.

I was humiliated in school when I was about 14 years old, when a group of boys coming in for their afternoon shift followed me with taunts of "Fatty" and catcalls.

I felt cheated when I was told that Mom had given birth to a boy. I wanted a girl to play with. I felt even more cheated when he was diagnosed with autism.

I don't think I've experienced such excitement lately as when I went to UK this year with a group of friends. The independence was heady and intoxicating even.

I was crushed when I found out that even someone you trust 100% can hurt you and make you feel hollow inside, and made me wonder if I can ever really trust anyone in this world.

I felt I was a dirty little secret when Kazz admitted once he didn't want to accompany me to MoE one time that I wanted to use a voucher I had because someone might spot him with a girl.

I felt completely loved when I found that Stained had my car filled with pink balloons one year on my birthday.

When someone told me 'I love you' I cried. I never heard that person say it ever again. I cried some more. Then I stopped.

I know I can count on Jo for anything; more than I can count on anyone else.

I feel college has dumbed me down. Even the English I speak has become of a lower grade to accommodate the people who claimed they couldn't understand the - and I quote - high-funda words I spoke. There are only a handful of people in this world whom I feel I can talk to as equals in that sense.

I miss talking to people at night. They just don't realize how much.

I hate someone for how he's ruined the life of someone I love.

I aspire to be one amongst the most important people in the lives of those who are most important to me. It breaks me if I feel I'm not.

And to end on a lighter note ... I laughed when my doctor told me to eat more chicken.

This was on a card that we received as condolences for my grandfather; I really liked the wordings so am sharing it here.

His Journey's Just Begun
by E. Brenneman

Don't think of him
as gone away-
his journey has just begun
life holds so many facets-
this earth is only one...

Just think of him as resting
from the sorrows and the tears
in a place of warmth and comfort
where there are no days and years.

Think how he must be wishing
that we could know today
how nothing but our sadness
can really pass away

And think of him as living
in the hearts of those he touched...
for nothing loved is ever lost-
and he was loved so much.

I'd never attended a funeral of any sort before. Until yesterday that is.

My grandfather was cremated yesterday, in the Hindu crematorium in Jebel Ali.

Kazz was right...it IS hard to see the lifeless body of someone you love very much. I'm glad Jo came. She was tremendous. Not only did she just be there for me, she also helped look after my bro when we all broke down. Love ya Jo ...

He would've been 76 this August. He would've also celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in Nov 2010.

He was a good person. Oh he was hard to live with I think; he could be exceedingly stubborn, terribly gullible, and prone to shouting at the top of his voice when he got angry (I never bore the brunt of this...I was his precious granddaughter, his first grandchild). But he was a good person. He always thought of other people's needs and wants, put them first. He never grudged anyone anything. He was the sort of person who knew everyone, right from the owner to the least paid worker of his company, and spoke to them with equal respect and camaraderie. Perhaps that's why there were so many people from his company at the crematorium yesterday. His colleagues, his superiors, the factory workers...all of them turned up. A few of them were even wearing the shirts he'd donated to them when he realized they didn't have much money to buy new clothes.

Special mention to my bro. We were all afraid of him acting up, perhaps creating a scene. He was an absolute ANGEL!!! He didn't cry, no even when we removed his shoes to go into the pooja area to pay respects to my grandfather, he placed the garland on his body like we told him to, he even stood quietly in the heat in the cremation area... all without a fuss. It was almost as if he understood that there was a seriousness in the air... love ya bro ...

And I'm off ...

Happy Birthday!

Sorry I don't have anything right now to give you (it'll come soon :P) and sorry I can't come over to meet you ... words are all I have right now ...

Love ya...

My grandfather passed away today ...

I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. Kazz said that in a way I was lucky not to see his body as it would've been too difficult ... but I couldn't say bye. I'm glad Mom was able to do so ...

I miss you Gappa ... love you ...

I like to talk to people at night, even if it's only for a few minutes. It's the time when I'm alone (well my bro does sleep in the same room but his sofa bed is only slightly higher than the floor when it opens up, plus when he's sleeping it counts as me being alone) and not doing anything and I'm usually in an introspective mood. Usually, I like to talk to someone when I'm lying on the bed ... it's comfy and all the lights are off; the only thing I can see as such are the glow-in-the-dark stars I've stuck on my ceiling. Peaceful really. And so silent.

Lately ... there's been a problem with this quirk of mine.

I have no one to talk to.

Don't get me wrong, I have my friends. But...
I don't talk to Jo at night...I just don't; we talk in the day. Plus she's usually knackered (read: tired) after a long day at work and if she had college that day, she's zonked anyway. And sometimes she doesn't answer the phone...actually most of the time ... and she hardly ever replies to my sms's anyway, so those are useless :P So I've given up calling or sms'ing at night anyway. Basically, Jo is not my night person.
Kazz...well, it's been a long time since we spoke at night. Sometimes if I'm REALLY REALLY lonely I do call him, but it's my luck if he's not busy, or if he even answers my call, or if I actually have credit. This is a rare occurrence nowadays and I think I've made my peace with it. Not many sms's now either. Again, a rare thing to happen. It's not that we don't talk ... just not this way anymore...
Fud ... we don't talk as much now anyway. And not at night. I don't sms much either, and neither does she. So that's another friend down for the night.
Stained... can't call him at night, and he used to sms me a lot (read: a year or two ago)... but it's lessened considerably now, and sms's at night are not so common either.

(When I say sms's, I mean the type which begs the other person to respond, not the ones like, "I bought 25 books today. Bye" or "I was driving to Timbuctoo so I didn't answer. Talk to you tomorrow" ... and when I actually respond to ask what books or why he/she was going to Timbuctoo, I get no reply.)

So I'm stuck.

Who wants to be my night buddy?

Note: Applicants note you will have to start work anytime between 10:30pm and midnight; calls can last between 5 minutes to 60. Even sms's will do (it is mandatory to reply to my sms) if you have no money or if I don't have any, to make calls. Apply at your own risk.

Rather than two words that just happen to rhyme, 'sorrow' and 'morrow' refer to the lines: "Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow" from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet (bit o' trivia: me Mom played Juliet in her school play when she was about 15 or 16 years old).

Okay, why the Shakespeare reference? I was talking to Jo today and I mentioned I'd be back in Dubai only by the 3rd week of December 2009 after leaving in September 2009. She wailed and said, "ONE MONTH AFTER NEW MOON RELEASES?!?!?!" Erm ... well ... yes! Anyway, New Moon (Twilight sequel to the uninitiated) chatter aside, it really did hit me.

I'm going in September.

SHIT.

Okay, don't get me wrong. I want to go. I do. From what I've seen till now, the university looks great, the town is great, I get to do my Masters, I get my one year of independence and fending for myself, I get a shot at getting a good job for myself (wherever it may be, I do believe my Masters will help me get it)...

I just hate parting with people, however short the time may be. I'm so not worried about whether being apart (distance-wise) from the people I love will affect the relationship in a detrimental way. Case in point, when Jo went to India after 10th grade...well she stayed there for 5 years before coming back to Dubai in 2007. Sometimes I wouldn't hear from her in months. Hasn't mattered one bit. (Of course, I can give you tales in which people DID move away and communication became kaput and meeting each other after months of silence was awkward really) Apart from her, there are one or two more friends in Dubai (and two is stretching it :P) whom I'm not worried about i.e. to say, I feel certain that the distance apart won't hurt our friendship.

But saying bye to so many things ... it's hard to think about sometimes. Materialistically speaking, my room with it's 40-odd photo frames all over, my car (btw a 2006 Hyundai Getz up for sale in September; any takers?)... among other things. Non-materialistically speaking, I lose the privilege of my mom and bro, my fistful of friends (my way of saying my friends can be counted on one hand's fingers; the rest are just acquaintances dearie...)...in general, my life in Dubai ...

But like I told Jo, I won't miss Dubai per se (okay, except for the toilets...I LOVE THE TOILETS IN DUBAI!!! WATER SPRAY! Nuff said!), but the people who remain there.

You know who y'all are...I will always love y'all and will miss y'all soooo much!!!

So my bro's passport is expiring so we decided to go today to get it renewed. This obviously became a family outing. My father to handle the official paperwork, my mother to take care of my bro, my bro had to be there as the applicant, and me serving the dual purpose of making sure my dad didn't mess up the official work (like today I saved him from giving them the wrong address, and my bro's false age...he can't remember unimportant details like those) and helping Mom with seeing to my bro.

We conveniently forgot that the Indian consulate does not handle passport renewals anymore, having outsourced it to an external (i.e. not within the Consulate) office to do it. So after finding out at the Indian Consulate where a passport renewal centre was (one is near the Karama Post Office), we headed there. Bro still in good mood? Check.

I'd like to add here that me and Mom wore high-necked t-shirts and jeans so that if he (my bro) decided to pull at our clothes, the t-shirts are expendable and it'd be harder to give a free show of our chests that way. Doesn't always work. As we found out today.

Anyway, we got to the centre and took a token, and they had to take a photo on the spot for ID purposes, which of course was quite silly, coz he refused to look at the camera. So the ID photo that they have is of my bro looking towards the ground and my hand on his shoulder trying to keep him from standing. The admins then pushed us into the next booth ahead of our token number coz they realized it was quite imperative they get done with us fast. The guy in the form-filling booth was terribly useless though. The expiry month was denoted by a "6" in my bro's old passport; that moron happily inputted it as July, and only after me and my dad pointing out to him that 6=June and 7=July a few times did he change it. And when we gave him our address, he was asking such silly questions, I lost my temper. Anyhoo...

...then they had to take fingerprint scans etc, so my bro decided that NOW is a good time to pull my Mom's clothes. And managed to pull it quite wide. The people on the same floor weren't treated to it, but a complete bum walking up the stairs decided that HEY, a guy is pulling a woman's top wide, let's look DOWN the stairs towards what's going on. I managed to catch that voyeur's eye within a few seconds of him looking down towards my Mom and stared at him with my dirtiest look and he walked off hurriedly. Ah well, like I tell my Mom: always wear good lingerie inside, so even if he pulls our clothes, at least we look good! (My grandparents don't approve of this view, but hey ... my bro is how he is. We're trying really hard to get him to stop pulling our clothes, but he's currently doing it. Instead of crying about it and whining...we choose to laugh about it, because if we didn't find little pieces of humour where he's concerned...we'd be quite more depressed than we already are. And till now, only people who have the same problems find this view of mine funny and have ended up laughing their heads off; the others think I'm shameless or just don't get it.)

But once we got him inside, he gave his fingerprints quietly and 5 minutes after that, we were done and outta there!!!

Mom and me did have to employ Phase 1 of our tactics; The Stare. Thing is, when people stare at my bro, we stare back, as if goading them to say something. Most times, this shames them into silence and they look away. Plhase 2 only happens if someone says something rude or derogatory; then we talk back (case in point, a truck driver who screamed at us once to tell my bro to shut up; I put my window down and told him to shut the hell up...I was 17). Phase 1 was employed today for one of THOSE Mothers. The ones who only wear designer clothes, iron their hair and have D&G's perched on their head. Erm, hello, keep your eyes to yourself! Bitch. Although there was one VERY VERY nice woman there, who had a girl with her, standing in front of us for the photo ID thingy; as soon as she realized we can't afford to wait for too long, she just moved aside and told her daughter, "Beta, let Bhaiya go first okay?" Awww.

Operation:Passport to be continued after 10 years!!!