All is right with the world

Yesterday was strange – I felt thirteen instead of twenty six, blushing as a child bride before her brand new husband, tormented, in the eternal words of Madonna, ‘like a virgin’. I had these Pangs of Longing, my very skin keening to be caressed again, by his hands. Yesterday, love was like a constant tummy-ache.

Today it’s a different movie! Are minds this fickle always? Today, I’m all geared for work, all tickled with ridiculous articles in ridiculous newspapers, singing songs in my head, and generally happy. It doesn’t matter today, unlike yesterday, what it Meant, if he’s Thinking about it, what will Happen. How can such different states of mind happen to the same person who lived yesterday and today both? I don’t get it baba.

Anyway, it seems my heart has moved West on the river. I left home an hour early this morning, just. Consequently, I was on the tube 45 minutes before I meant to be, and would reach the office 35 minutes before I needed to, or desired to. So I got off at Westminster station, and decided to take a peek at said river. The Thames in SW1 is more green than brown, and sort of completely unglamorous, as it flows by under the Houses of Parliament, with Big Ben looking down at it. Westminster Bridge seems not to notice that it runs over a river, but only emphasises that it carries shit loads of people and traffic from Lambeth to Westminster, in a noisy, hot, bothered kind of way. Its handrails are green copings over concrete or brick parapets, on which old carvings lie unnoticed, superceded by new ones saying ‘Chris and Rachel’. I tried my hand at carving 'Wendigo and Wendigo', but my nails are very short just now. (Though they’re prettily buffed! I bought one of those 4 step buffing kits for me nails. How girly.) 10 minutes of communing later, I had ‘Baanwra Mann’ start up in my head like it hasn’t in a While. I’ve tried to sing it, you know, in cheerful pretence, but it wasn’t heartfelt like today. Ah.. We, the song and I then sauntered gracefully down to Parliament square, laughing at the tourists and smiling at the protesters in their small tents and their 3 metres long (by law!) piece of Resistance artwork. I still had about half an hour before I needed to be at my desk, so I decided to Dereeve (no clue how you spell it, correct me?). Now Dereeving is a French art form, similar to Flanerie, the basis of present day urban sociology. In Flanerie, you go to a pre-planned public place, and observe people. Most of my posts and really, most of my life in London, is about that (yep – I’m that crazy stalker type). In Dereeving however, you aim to get lost. You try to read the city differently than it is presented in a map. To make it literal, the frenchies, so I hear, used to cut maps up, stick them together haphazardly, and then try to follow them. I like my A-Z too much, so I simply employed the technique of wandering aimlessly, turning away from anything that began to look familiar. Oh, lovely walk, past quiet squares (with cute boys in black suits drinking coffee on church steps), not so busy streets where taxi drivers flash their lights to let you cross, weird government buildings that I didn’t know existed, and several hidden away pubs. On this walk, thoughts which may have been simmering came to my conscious mind. First, a wistful one, about how really good times remembered from my LSE days, with Flanerie type activities, may have been coloured through nostalgic rose coloured glasses. Maybe it was just me. Then an inward smile at the thought that the quality of Friday’s um, encounter, was definitely not just him. Most importantly though, as the skip and trip came back into the step, I realised that often, there’s no company better than my own. Yep, I am seriously cool. Too fatheaded, gentle reader? Oh well :-)

Baanwre se mann ki dekho
Baanwri hain baatein
Baanwri si dhadkane hain, baanwri hain saansein!
Baanwri si karvato se nindiya kyu bhagey?
Baanwre se nain chahein, baanwre jharokho se, baanwre nazaaron ko takna….
Baanwra mann dekhney chala ek sapna.