Counting the Years

It's either very late, or it's very, very early.


My living room lights are set to a low setting. There is an odd combination of Hemant Kumar and Joan Baez playing softly on my laptop. And while I sip a glass of red wine, I write this post.


Because today, it is my 31st birthday.


I've never been much of a birthday guy. Growing up, birthdays were mostly small, private family affairs. We never did big public celebrations. As the son of parents with a hectic social life due to my father's professional responsibilities, family celebrations were characteristically personal. There would be a cake (quite frequently Black Forest) with candles. There would be presents, but never elaborate ones. Small, discreet, tasteful. There would be fine china laid out on the dining table (always impeccably dressed up itself in my mother's finest linen) and there would be your favourite food as part of the meal. But I can look back at all my birthdays growing up as being incredibly private affairs.


Things have changed recently though.


For the past few years, my birthdays have become a bit of a "thing" on my friends' social calendars. Coming as it does in January, there has been increasing pressure over the years to make it count, and to make sure that it is spectacular enough to overcome the January blues. And so they've become bigger, bolder, more fabulous each year. 


There was the year when I took a massive group of friends out to a Vauxhall nightclub for that uniquely British thing - roller disco. Oh, how they all mocked, groaned and scoffed when the invitation was sent out. Only to be recorded in every photo taken that night grinning like a child as they careened across a wooden floor, vodka & tonic in one hand, other arm outstretched as they clung desperately to a balance that could escape at any second. (There might have been some bruises the next day)


There was that other year too, when the only way to bring in my flirty thirties was to organise a Bollywood-style fancy dress party. There was the friend who came and DJ'ed the whole night. There was the coordinated dance routine. There was a Santa Claus. There was even a Ukrainian belly dancer. All in the name of Bollywood.


And even I, the eternal melancholic, has to admit that things could be worse. 


So here I sit. Hands on my laptop. Sipping some wine, and drinking to my own health. It is a night I ring in another year, a night I look back at the year past, and celebrate, amongst many things, the fact that I've survived another year on this planet. Which, given how horrible this planet can be to people, is not a bad thing. 


But it is a year that brings with it much promise. The promise of change. The promise of hope. The promise of despondency. And the promise of... life. 


Which is not something to be taken lightly.


Perhaps it is a consequence of old age, but I have become even more introspective with age. And so, oddly enough, the first thing that came into my head as the clock struck midnight was how I've lived my life. 


And again, I cannot complain.


There are things I've done that I'm incredibly proud of. There are things I've done that I cannot decipher, but that I am very glad I've done. And then there are things I've done without quite figuring out to this day why I did them.


So here, in no particular order of importance, are ten things I am proud I've done. 


1. I went backpacking. On the cheap. If ever there was a stereotype, it's that the best way to see a place is to do it on the rough. And boy, can I tell you, doing Asia on the rough is... ROUGH. I think that at certain angles, my butt will still feel the impact of a bad seat in a ramshackle van and the worst of Java's roads. But also of the fun that came with it.


2. I've skinny dipped. Not being someone who lives in either a C-grade porn flick or a bad Hollywood horror movie, this is not something I ever thought I'd do. But it's amazing what the combination of a wedding by a lake in upstate New York, poisonous amounts of alcohol and a warm July night can do.


3. I've had random, hot, sweaty, anonymous sex. Not once, not twice, not from a relationship perspective, but the ultimate in rough & tumble slap & tickle.


4. I've had dull, boring, it's-a-Sunday-morning-and-you're-here-in-bed-well-why-not sex. Which, though not really exciting, can be incredibly satisfying. Especially when you're hungover.


5. I've been to a movie premiere. In London. With real celebrities. Sadly, my own celebrity status was not appreciated.


6. I've got street credit in some awesome cities. I can get into high demand places in Barcelona, New York, Hong Kong and Berlin. Just because. 


7. I've had my heart broken. Badly.


8. I've cried in public in an unhappy place. It was in Auschwitz. It was horrible. It was important to see.


9. I've cried in public in a happy place. It was in Angkor Wat. It was beautiful. It was one of the best moments of my life.


10. I've broken into song & dance in a street. Because every so often, it's important to do that. Even if you don't live in a Bollywood movie.


None of which is spectacular, or exceptionally awesome, but is actually pretty fucking cool when taking collectively. Or so I'd like to think.


And so, I think it's fair to say that it's not been a life I can regret. Or resent. 


So I guess I can say this now: Happy Birthday to Me.

Another Year Past

The fireplace flickers in the wind.

Long, undulating tongues of yellow flame, deep blue hearts inside, leap up against the cast iron flue as the wind rushes down the chimney. In front of it, almost impervious to the furnace-like heat, he sits. Pensive, he gazes into the flames, the glass of Bordeaux by his side slowly losing flavour as its absorbs the heat radiating across the room.

It is late at night; the footfall and raucous chatter of the tourists from the nearby hotels that dot Bayswaters’ period squares have fallen silent. Only very infrequently is the silence on the streets disturbed by the sound of a London black cab driving another reveller home after a night spending money – whether hard-earned or not is irrelevant in London’s overpriced venues – to go home for rest, and possibly recuperation for another day, another drunken revel.

The silence, and the lassitude that envelops the neighbourhood could be depressing. For someone naturally melancholic as him, though, the quiet stillness that fills London streets during the Christmas holidays is restful. For the first time in days, he has had time to think.

And to reflect on another year gone past.

Professionally, things could not have gone better. A pay rise of almost 60% over the course of a year is nothing to complain about, especially in this economic climate. He’s always restless, but there’s nothing new about that. Better to be restless than to be complacent, in any case, right?

Travel – a long standing love – has been good this year. It all kicked off with a week long excursion to Bali with friends, followed by New York in February. There was a brief hiatus in spring, but following a weekend away in France for a friend’s wedding, it’s been a (primarily) European rollercoaster – Berlin, Amsterdam, Athens, France again, Ibiza (for the first time) and then a week long adventure in India in November. And now, here at the end of the year, he has a weekend in Berlin to look forward to and to welcome in 2011.

Love. How was that in 2010? It could have been better. But then, it could have been worse. Much worse. Perhaps the greatest thing about his love life in 2010 was learning to love himself, to learn what was and was not acceptable, and to be honest. To the other person, but most importantly, to himself.

And so with little to complain about, and a great deal to be thankful about, he gazes into the fireplace, saying a small prayer of gratitude to the gods for the decisions, and happy coincidences, and accidents of circumstance, that have brought him to this place.

And that allow him to hold his head up high and look forward to a new year, and look forward to it with hope and excitement.

Dear reader, he bids you a very Happy New Year!

Self-Centred Introspection

A half moon rises over the high rise council estate flats of Notting Hill.

Deprivation.

The moon is blood red. Dust in the air, prismatic reflections of pale light. Wisps of cloud fleetingly linger over the semi-circular cusp of reddish-white in the air.

Il pleut toujour sur les maisons de Londres a minuit.

My heart - the half that remains with me - cries with the weather. The other half, the half that I gave you; the half that you wrenched away from me - rests with you. Happy, sad, uncaring, I know not.

Do you stay awake at midnight, wondering if I'm thinking of you, the way that I do, standing here at the window of a garret room in West London, staring at a moon that stays suspended mid-air, close enough to reach out and touch, far away enough to be just out of reach?

I don't want to fuck up anything. I just want to be with you.

But its too late for that. I've already fucked things up, taken it to a point where we're beyond redemption. And now all that is left to me is this moment, standing alone in a cold room in an empty apartment, where all that is left to keep me company are my memories.

And this, a blood-red half-moon, lingering in front of my face, the way that you do.

Just out of touch.

Travelling thru' the Big Apple

(The following posts are excerpted from my trusty Moleskine travel diary that I carried around in my backpack and wrote in occasionally while backpacking. The excerpts below were all written when I was in New York or Philadelphia in August 2009 for a week.)

Time flies when you're having fun.

Life in the crazy Big Apple is hectic, busy, stressful, not so cheap. Fancy bars, stylish restaurants; Brooklyn / Fort Greene is the new hip, Chelsea / West Village is getting jaded. Meatpacking is SOO pre-recession darling.

So we get to new places. Everything is transitory here. 230 5th, Plum, all of them are 2007. 2009 has a new list of places, new cool spots, new cool looks. Looking pretty ain't worth shit if you're not looking pretty in the right places.

Everything is transitory here. But everyday, you're not here. Every instant, I mutate into something else.

Where're you from? They all ask me. What's your backstory? What makes you who you are? It's a series of questions asked with a strange blend of uncaring casualness and somewhat discomfiting curiosity. New Yorkers aren't supposed to care. They've seen it all, remember (after all, everything happens in New York, doesn't it?)

So when they ask, not out of a habituated boredom - just the closing verse of a well-rehearsed liturgy - but out of a genuinely actuating desire to find out, it's much more uncomfortable.

Perhaps there aren't that many brown multi-lingual ex-bankers with a pierced eyebrow and a serious sense of personal style in this world after all. Not everyone can be glamorous, you know.

*********

I haven't stopped thinking 'bout you, you know. There have been times that I've wondered what it would have been like to have gone travelling these past four months with you. What if you had kept me company, if you had been there?

Fantasising about you sticking around is never a good thing. It's not going to help me get over you, now is it? But did you think that I'd have moved on, so quickly?

Do you miss me? Do you think of me? मेरे लिए भी क्या कोई उदास बेकरार है?

*********

Last day in the Big Apple.

Hanging out in the Upper East Side. Art galleries, Iranian contemporary painters. Holding myself back from making a deposit for a 55 inches (square!) canvas. Only 35 grand. Yes, its US dollars, but that's still like 25 grand sterling. Not cheap.

I like it here in NY. Not like it was in 2007; hostile, alien, unwelcoming. 2009 NY is like the NY of my childhood, when I felt like I was a part of the city. Funnily enough, NY is not home anymore; not the way it was when I was growing up, and I have a strong feeling that it will never be home; not in the warm, comfortable way that London has adopted me over these past five years. But London is European, English, Indian, worldly; whereas this place is so decidedly one thing: American.

Life is manic here; you feel like the alien that you are each and every minute. Either you conform, fit in, become that most unnatural of things - a New Yorker - or you remain alien, touristy, a foreigner.

I "know" this place; it is familiar to me as an adult in the same way that London was, but whereas London was a place that I got to know through the prism of my first adult debacle, my sorrow and my intellect, New York is what I know from a happy and warm childhood memory; warm, fuzzy, hazy, with big shoulder pads and clashing colours, but still familiar and known.

It helps that this time I haven't been treated like a criminal at immigration. I know that I'm a single brown man, but seriously, how many terrorists have had my good looks and impeccable sense of fashion and personal style?

But this time, I don't really mind. I enjoy being the outsider, living in liminal spaces. I've realised that I've grown up always being on the periphery, so why start trying to fit in? In London I sound Canadian; in the US they're not quite sure, and the poor Canadians keep going, "what the f*ck?"

(Warm and muggy August afternoons in the Upper East Side; Central Park is four blocks west of this Starbucks cafe. The radio plays kitschy American shock rock pop.)

And of course, being exotic never hurts in the bars and clubs. "You're beautiful" is not an uncommon thing to be told, especially here in New York. Random checkouts on the street, in shops. Bearded, tattooed, clean shaven, pierced, twinks, rough trade; all good. The girl on the subway who wouldn't look away; the guy in Whole Foods this afternoon.

Maybe I'll hit the Lower East Side this afternoon. Gay it up a little.

Puddles of green coolant shimmering in the summer haze beneath the white van pulled up in front. Gay rights campaigners trying to get people to care in this, the most indifferent of world metropolises. My Starbucks iced green tea (grande, unsweetened) strong, bitter, healthy.

People are good looking here, but often quite tediously slow. So much effort, primping, preening, pumping, running, plucking. If you're not beautiful, you're automatically ugly. Not much of a choice, but the food here is so super fortififed, the portions so huge, that it's a bit of a default option if you're not killing yourself in the gym.

Puerto Rican shop attendants stunned at my knowledge of Spanish.

*********

So the Lower East Side absolutely rocks. Far grittier, grimier and down-at-heel than the much fancier and trendy West Village & Chelsea area that I'm staying in right now. Perhaps, if I ever moved here, I'd end up trying to live in the LES or East Village. Chilled, relaxed, grungy; immigrants, rent control, graffiti, almost a Ladbroke Grove / pre-trendy Notting Hill as compared to South Kensingon / Mayfair in London.

Note to self: places that are called Chelsea are almost always pretentious and quite expensive. Not that that's a problem; au contraire, its quite nice to have places like that around, if only to keep the wannabe trendy and tres hep guys out of the actually cool and happening places.

I'm writing this entire post in XES Lounge, a fantastic little bar on 24th St, near 7th Avenue. Speaking to a guy who works here called Derek Tod. We both agree that people should do what they want with their lives, as long as it makes them happy. Not a bad approach, if you ask me. But then, I wouldn't disagree now, would I? I quit a job in banking to be happy. Poorer, definitely, but infinitely happier.

New York (or should I say the Northeast) is very recession aware. People are shopping smarter; denial is the new cool. You save today, spend later. Credit cards are soo 2005.

So this is it. I'll go back to the fancy 2-bed Chelsea pad where I'm crashing with a friend, go out for dinner with R&D. We get along, despite distances, in time and space, despite different realities, different world views, different expectations from life. R&D are mainstream; cool, funky, but mainstream. I, on the other hand, voluntarily seek out the periphery. Liminal spaces; always at the fringes.

Peripheral in the straight world. At the edges in finance (you're not supposed to kick the money in the face and walk off, remember?) Liminal in the brown world (not an immigrant, not Indian either). And don't get me started on the gay scene.

Damn. I'm a fr*cking minority. That Polish Jewish grandmother didn't help my efforts at mainstreaming either.