Ratjage

When put forth, some ideas take a life of their own. Two days to move, Nehru and I went to buy drinks as our usual evening walk as we bluffed about ideas of philosophy and studied the behaviour of our mates. The Driver was one of our favourite subjects. I tell him how the Driver reaching 2nd base will slowly fizzle out his relationship. Too quick and you're burnt out. Slowly unraveling a mystery (slowburning the facts) is much more interesting in a relationship than straight up careless fun. 

The Grinch joined us several hours later and we made a joke about how nobody understood him. Sometimes, I wish I did. There's a lot to learn from the grinch. He picks up on behaviour, micro-behaviour of those around him and makes adjustments to hisself. The Driver bought his girlfriend in the car and we drove to drop her home. He implied they'd been spending 'Quality Time' at a local abandoned building where all couples go for privacy. We stop by the drugstore and buy Chikni: a powder that makes you sneeze till your brain softens up. When we get back in the car all of us stop by the slope of our home and snort a line of it. Our eyes well up at first, the powder irritates the nostrils. 

Then we let a soft cry, and so it goes. Twelve odd minutes of loud sneezing draws in the attention of multiple people passing by. In between sneezes, through our watery eyes and drool falling down our mouths we make passes at each other's expressions and laugh. Laugh and laugh fills the cars, then we roll down our windows and spit the saliva collected in our mouth. The Grinch watches as we have our tidbits. Recently I see him staring at his home screen. I recognize the girl in the picture holding the camera facing the mirror selfie. Her in focus. Him being obscured in the background. A real photograph. He'd been looking at it when I suggested we sleep in our car tonight. He didn't agree. Neither did disagree. Nehru slept in the backseat. The Driver in his chair. Me beside him. It rained so the Grinch didn't step out either, he stayed awake in the back of the Ertiga. I think he was watching an old video. Something he made when he met her last. He loves films he tells me sometimes. I ask him to sit the placements like me. Forget all this filmmaking bullshit. It'll get him nowhere. Then I tell him I liked his last film. He asked which one? I say all of them. We sit there like that. With our secret pact. 

Around 4 in the morning Nehru wakes up, his twin's been asking why she wasn't called to the sleepover. We answered the Grinch and I took two places and Nehru and the Driver had their own space. There just wasn't enough space. She uninvited us from the Barbie Screening. Fucking bitch!

There is something mystic about listening to BT music on a drive at 4AM through the streets of a metropolitan. The music is about lonely people. For lonely people. Even if you're a happy person during the day, the default settings include that you're lonely at night. So when that sad song from the heartbreaking playlist plays, you intuitively let your hand out the window in the rain and motion your body according to the rhythm of the music. You let the music drive you.

And you sing at the top of your voice with your friends. Because even if you're not alone, surrounded by warm bodies. You'll always be alone in your mind. I know this, the Grinch knows this too. Nehru is too unempathetic to realize the beauty of loneliness. He's singing for the sake of the music but he too feels it though he can't begin to articulate it. The Driver feels the rush in his blood and holds down the accelerator at the cusp of overspeeding in the rain.

There will always be another night in the rain. Maybe one where we don't feel lonely. But I don't see that happening.