Summer of '12

I'm sitting here in the boring room

It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon

I'm wasting my time

I got nothing to do

  Well it is not really a Sunday. Nor an afternoon. Not rainy either. It is actually a Tuesday. But the room is indeed boring. I'm in my office, sitting in this fancy-named-cost-cutting-solution mobile workstation. The wasting my time part is also true. It is one of those days when my playlist is drearily boring and I realize that the Lemon Tree has long since stopped playing and I haven't even clicked on another song. Boredom brings with it its evil twin, thoughts.

  These days I am getting better in my goal of mastering the art of steering thoughts away from dangerous territories. I cross the 'where is my life headed to' part quite fast and even skip the 'life sucks' part. I have thought and written a lot about my Batman brooding, so I will refrain from it now. What else can I think about safely? Great, I am back in the thinking about thoughts zone now. Like Rachel, I love it and I hate it. Frustrated, I look outside, a hot breeze blows lazily, the parched trees in front of the parking lot dance slowly and it seems to me that they know exactly what I am feeling. A dust storm comes out of the half-faded-green half-already-yellow grass and my thoughts ease on to what I shall, just for the heck of it, call the story of Summer of '12.

Three of us found ourselves in Austin

Starting our careers in the land of Atom

Chance brought me to two ramblin' wrecks

You can call it internhousing.com if you like. 

For a million bats we waited in vain, instead I found something delirious 

Something I did not imagine happening in my wildest dreams

I was talking to a person about Aaron Carter!! and Daniel Bedingfield

And reminiscing about a lone guy playing a guitar in a moor.

United we were in our love for the Batman

We watched and talked and read about it for days at a stretch

Between us there was very little irritation or exasperation or looking like 'are you nuts'

'God, how do they make him!' brought out empathy, surprisingly! 

Guided by Gemini moons out of that abyss of addiction

We cursed the movie that marketed the good name of our dear Holmes 

We welcomed the hobbit and the number 42

Arthur and Ford may have come and gone, our pillars always stayed - Friends and Harry Potter.

Long walks in the Texas sun and longer lunches goaded by a daily 'baito na'

Sneaking to the cafe for a cup of coffee, invariably meeting the one who must not be met

Some fireworks and a potluck with mango ice cones on the grass by the lake

Jogging in Central park, stopping by for some live music

Reaching great depths while kayaking, and losing a phone in the process.

When it was not movies or sitcoms or books, it was food

From "fine dining" PF Chang to roadside Naan Stop

Pancakes at Kerbey Lane to mango ice cream at Bombay Bistro

Trudy's, Misal, the HEB brownie and Madras Pavilion 

Were all stops in a delightful journey that witnessed a mushroom convert,

Much to the happiness of a certain somebody, or so I hear.

Leaning on the Congress avenue bridge one final time

A weirdly delicious combo of espresso and pineapple

Blending marvelously with almonds and yogurt chips

The heavenly feel of the cool wind prods me into more thinking..

Life is most unexpected, thrusts unto you what you least expect when you least expect

When all the things familiar scorned at me saying are-you-still-frickin'-counting-on-me 

Weeks of wretched solitude was what I was preparing for

And yet, here I am, with the most eventful summer in years.

To the summer of '12 (nope, no stopping that) and to Mayura and Ankita :)