muhahaha!

The web of desire, or usually in my case, any web that holds me in place as part of the human universe, is scattered, across the globe, interested parties are miles away from each other. If not by distance, then by time. Signposts and milestones are placed between them. Each knows its place in my head. Different neurons are fired (woman, man, ex, new, dark, fair, brown, funny, academic etc.etc.). The paths are clear. The air traffic control in my head knows when to wave its table-tennis-bat-like-thing and at whom, which airplane should be left circling the airfield indefinitely, which one parks immediately and always has access, but is mostly in the hanger and we all know that landing is the good part. The little man/bunch of neurons in my head waving the bat know what to do and with what time gap and distance to allow the planes to land.

And now that we've mutilated the landing strip metaphor, enough, let me say.. yeah, right! If anybody's neurons have misfired, bounced off the wall and landed on some other planet, then welcome to mine.

Webs of desire are not new, they are interlinked and generally part of a much wider web (say facebook). Ofcourse strangely this one has provided more occasion for hilarity than most. Others have caused skulking. I remember circling around my hostel building crouched low on a fast run many years ago, to avoid being seen by the 'other' girl leaving the hostel with the man she was interested in. What distinguishes webs of desire from ordinary deceit, is the fact that everything is in the open. In other words if she had seen me, both of us would have been forced into friendly conversation, and neither the conversation nor the friendship would be strained, and yet the moment would be and hence avoidable for both of us.

Some have led to kindness, strange friendships and the best memories. I still remember inspite of the web of desire, sitting for hours with Hope-of-male-species near the basketball court, teasing out all possible elements of amusing paradoxes from the web that we were then a part of. Almost ten years later, and adjacent to that same basketball court, here it is again - the web of desire, which definitely leads you to think, how relevant will this be in another ten years, months or days..

Ofcourse life is such that if I walked out of that room or just into a different part of it, there is a whole other web waiting for me. Man, those spiders have been getting really busy. And then there's the web you weave, which has all the things that you want, need or look for.

Walking away from the web of desire yesterday for a moment of get-me-out-of-my-brain-into-a-quieter-one, I ambled down a lonely road with an ipod and a thankfully dead cellphone in my hand (cellphones are the impetus to webs of desire, infact some webs exist only on cellphones). From the distance I saw two people from the web of desire approaching. A streak of white, announced a white shirt which was the jumpstart for anxiety and desire that day. In a moment of panic, I considered backtracking from where I had come, ducking into a strange Brahmin's house in an area that has been described as the compost or arm pit of Bangalore. I could think of it as a tsunami of embarrassment heading my way, and climb a tree. Get suicidal and jump into the gutter. As the mildly hysterical train of thoughts flitted through my head, I decided to be sober (act my age for Christ’s sake) and continue walking and to deal. Appropriate casual sounding statements issued in my head, with the right tone and right words to indicate an inner deep sense of well being that (no, no, never) the web of desire would not be allowed to fuck with.

And as I walked closer, the slim white shirt dissolved and I could see the two figures slow down, morph into two very amiable, large well-fed cows, one with a handsome white streak on her forehead. As my laughter shattered the quiet road, I swear both looked at me with sweet laziness, as if to say - Multiple connections, girl. Don't worry, we've been there too..

And go back and just get drunk...