(no subject)

[raven]

It was still foggy when I woke up this morning. I couldn't see more than a few metres down the street, and next door were only visible as a few shadows through a kind of overreaching blur. Nevertheless, my mother still tapped her foot, said what time do you call this, the maid wanted to clean my room, I was going to be late, etc., etc. I wasn't going to be late. I didn't have anywhere to go. That said, I should be studying for my finals, and I can't do it at home because people are always coming in and visiting and besides, our generator isn't working and the AC is better in the library. Didu was doing her morning puja, so I dropped into the mandir just for prasad, and she couldn't decide whether or not to complain about my clothes (jeans, a nice kurtha for a change, dupatta) and then I went and caught an auto. (No car - there's no parking at IIT, these days, and I don't really like driving when they're digging up the roads again.)

Got in, went to the library, my cell rang immediately - my mother, wanting me to stop by the Bengali Market on the way back - had a couple of hours uninterrupted study. Which is more than I would have got at home, I suppose, but it does get a little tiring. I won't have the weekend for studying unless I make very good excuses - a wedding, which I'd rather not go to. The panditji looks at me in a very knowing way, and taps his feet, and says things about auspicious days and years. I'm lucky that my parents weren't married at my age, but the aunties are starting to drop hints.

I did get some work done, but rather than go straight home, in the end I took a roundabout route, picked up mithai at the Bengali Market and went via Dadu's house. He was happy to see me - he always is - but said not-entirely-false things about my never having time for my old Dadu any more, and I sort of agreed to stay for dinner without thinking about it. It's very bad of me, but one of the reasons I like it when they ask me to dinner is I can have chicken and fish sometimes - it's not that Baba really doesn't want me to have it, but it couldn't be cooked at home. Dinner was lovely, as usual - puri-sabzi, but also fish - and afterwards we went to India Gate and bought ice-cream, and he told me embarrassing stories about how I used to beg for ice-cream when I was five. It was just the two of us, and we were talking in the nice comfortable way we sometimes do, and he asked me, what I want to do after my BA. The truth is, I don't know. I want to go to England, or the States, and I know my father wants me to go. But it will bankrupt us, and of course Sunny wants to read medicine in the West. I don't know, I said to Dadu. He said, Bhagwan janne, and I guess that's right.

Back to work tomorrow. Life continues, if not quite well, okay.

Happy April Fools' Day, dears. The meme, nabbed from deathbyshinies: if you so choose, write a post from one of your parallel lives, the ones that could have happened, but didn't.

Comments

[speccygeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

xD! You had me SO confused. I was like, "When did Iona go to visit India? Did I miss something? Wait, WHAT?"

Totally forgot that you have tomorrow four hours before I do. xD

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I just had it done to me, and couldn't resist. Also, Wikipedia have also started being silly to mark the occasion, and they're such an esteemed example to follow...

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's amazing; perfect and believable and just right.

It makes me quite sad that our parallel-world selves would probably never, ever get to meet one another.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That makes me sad, too. Thank you for reading. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I liked this! And I may have to nab the idea.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Please do! They are great fun to read.

[sophiahagia.livejournal.com]

I had to scroll up to see who was posting this, oh, three times or so while reading. Was so confused.;)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

:P :P I confess to having enjoyed this far too much.

[icepixie]

I totally just snagged this idea.

This was so believable! I loved all the detail.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And yours was kind of AWESOME. Aliens, dude.

[icepixie]

When in doubt, go with aliens. Thank you! :D

[msilverstar]

Wow, very possible, very subtly done!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is lovely and rather stark (and reminds me of sitting in an Italian restaurant in NYC discussing Our Possible Parallel Lives--didn't we do this?)

...And thinking about it, I find this to be a terrifying meme. I'm not really sure I want to try it!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I remember that, yes! It was a really interesting conversation. And you're right about the faintly terrifying aspect...

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Thought process:

"Wait - Iona's in India? but I thought we were having dinner with her and Kat tomorrow night? Maybe I've got mixed up and Glitz meant... a different Iona and Kat? Or maybe this is fiction. Or something she wrote ages ago and has only just posted. Or... going to England? ... oh, it's Iona-AU!"

I love this!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee! Thank you, and I will indeed see you tomorrow!

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this!

(The post immediately before it on my flist was April Fools related, so I twigged more or less immediately. It read absolutely beautifully, though).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* You're welcome!

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

"This doesn't SOUND like Iona's other posts about being In The North...

...Ah. Right. That would be why, then."

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The north does change when I'm not here, but not, alas, this much...

[marymac.livejournal.com]

That took me way too long to cop to. Awesome.
(Am not currently present-based enough to make an AU self, woes.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

:P I think my parallel selves are very well-defined because of how stark some my parents' choices were, to be honest. It's not something I'd wish on anyone.

[marymac.livejournal.com]

True. If I want that level of decision making I have to go back a generation or two.

Could do a Victorian AU very handily, but won't. Because it would be depressing :D

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

I was a bit confused because I wasn't aware you had a maid!
& I did get very confused as well. Then twigged that the lj news post was also april fools related. I hadn't realised it had passed midnight yet.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I had to work at getting the maid reference in somehow. :)

[tau_sigma]

...so confusing. Until I got to the cut. Then I had to reread to understand it in my sleep befuddled state. *g* Awesome. Beautifully written, and a little creepy, that you could have had an entirely different life.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

These things can be very creepy, I find - there was a meme a few years ago of the "five things that never happened to you" type, and it was really rather scary.

[tau_sigma]

Funnily enough, I was thinking about that meme a week or so ago, and considering resurrecting it, only with a more lighthearted feel. (ALIENS. There should be aliens. And superheroes, and world-saving, possibly.) When I did it, I was horrendously depressed, so all mine are rather morbid and unhappy. I'd like to change that.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

Sadly I opened this straight from my firefox notification this morning, so saw the last sentence first, but this was still a lovely read. <3 It makes me selfishly count my blessings, too.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I get the feeling, sometimes, that my parallel lives are very well-defined and present because the wealth of detail is just there for the taking - my parents really did have very stark choices to make.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Beautiful words.

I'm using the Lee Ann icon because she's the parallel universe (well, numbers-filed-off universe) Soolin, so it somehow seems appropriate.