Don't stop believin' ...

Some part of me is still in shock. And this may not be a coherent enough post because inside of me is a jumble of thoughts and feelings and emotions and the churn is chaotic enough for the words to come out all messed up - but my friend Aparna's thoughtful post (you can read it here at http://findyourspot.blogspot.in/) finally got me writing about Cory Monteith's death.

I'm a Gleek - out and out , no holds barred, no shame in admitting that I love the often cheesy, corny, and sometimes downright insane plot lines coupled with the musical shenanigans of this seriously talented bunch of 'stars'. They're all 20 - somethings playin' at being your typical high school teens and they manage to pull it off oh so well (atleast I think they do)! And the music is, well, it's a constant play on my everyday playlist. And now there's the sad, sudden and totally shocking in a nausea inducing manner news of Cory Monteith being discovered dead in his hotel room - and I've been trying to deal with the news and my own reaction to it for the last 3 days. After all, why should I care? I never knew the man or had any likelihood of knowing him in any manner except onscreen through Glee and anything future roles he might've ended up playing, we weren't friends or acquaintances or even remotely connected beyond the Glee watching of Finn Hudson and his journey through high school and self discovery. He was just another celebrity in a world filled with celebrities and in the last 2 years there have been enough of them dying (RIP Whitney, Jagjit sahab, Dev Anand sahab) for me to feel so connected, as if I've lost someone I knew and I know that I will miss them.

But then, Cory wasn't simply just another celebrity -  he was a small town guy from Vancouver with a troubled childhood, a history of substance abuse and a great singing voice who managed to make it big with Glee. He didn't have famous parents or a lineage to back his acting/ singing skills, he didn't know anyone who knew someone who knew someone - he was just another guy playing bit roles who sent in an audition tape and then a second one with vocals so that he could win a spot on the show no one knew then would prove to be a worldwide phenomenon. On Glee, he played Finn Hudson, a jock turned singer who crests the highs of jock-dom and popularity with the lows of being an integral part of what's seen initially as a club of misfits and nerds ranked super-low on the social index. His journey with Glee is so much a journey of teenaged self discovery - from changing dreams and priorities to sex and love and breakups and make-ups and unexpected friendships and betrayals, bad choices and the kind of profound insights only teenagers get at times. Finn is like this weird glue that holds the club together despite difficult odds - witness Season 4 and the initial loss at Sectionals - and his stepping into Mr. Shue's directorial boots was like finally seeing him grow up and start to come into his own - like a boy turns into a man kinda transition. And now, he's gone.

Cory was 31. That hits wayyyyyyyy too close home for comfort.
He was 'my generation', had no elite-celebrity-upbringing or sense-of-entitlement/lineage whatsoever and was making his way up the fortune and fame chain with sheer talent and hard work. He had a drug problem but was working towards getting better - and his off-screen presence was so quiet so as to be almost non-existent. He was talented, motivated and seemed focused on making something more out of himself than another in the mold of a Charlie Sheen/Li-Lo/Culkin styled disaster. And then he died - and this isn't what he deserved. This finding of his dead body in a hotel room and suspected overdose - no way Jose - this just isn't how the guy who poured so much intensity into the opening lines of 'Don't Stop Believin' that he made it sound as if he was singing his own life's story instead of an epic Journey hit is supposed to go. This isn't just Finn Hudson on Glee who's dead, this was an incredibly talented boy from next door Canada who was beginning to make it - who had a family and friends and a girlfriend who loved him - onscreen and off of it.

I'm no psychic so I won't say that I'm channeling Cory as I write this - but in his death perhaps is the message that it doesn't take much except hard-work, genuine talent and self - belief to make your dreams come true. That drugs are not a recourse to turn to at any point in your life because while you may choose rehab later, there's never telling when and how the years of abuse might come back to bite you in the gut (literally) and that too at a point in time when you really do not want to give up on life and dreams. That life does move on beyond the angst of here and now, and it does get better - as long as you don't stop believin' !

R.I.P. Cory. You will always be missed.
Kids - don't do drugs.

Old Shoes

They died today.
Those old shoes - those well worn, scuffed, much abused companions of so many journeys. In the minute that I looked down to see what was wrong with my stride, I saw how they'd come apart, ripped at the seams, beyond saving.

Grey with a smattering of pink thoughtfully placed - like dawn's rosy hues breaking the dark of a receding night. The grey was for you; white dirties easily, black was too boring and the all pink/ all blue shoes were deemed too girlie for 'your girl'. The grey was a happy compromise, made stylish by the pink that was for me - for the 'babe' I was rapidly turning into (according to you anyway - really! You wanted me in torn jeans and grunge tees forever???). We paid a bomb for them at CP's Reebok on a regular weekday evening made memorable by the splurge on shoes and the impromptu dinner date you took me on to celebrate.

"Think of them as an investment in health", I said.
"Yeah well, I'll make you run a mile every night then - we'll start a couples only workout plan", you quipped. And so were born the shoes that died today.

As I looked at them, surprised at their sudden demise, I began to notice things I really hadn't paid much heed to before - the cracks in the seams, the eroded rubber on the tips, the near vanished treads. Even the fabric looked as if it was held together by sheer will - that of a pair that didn't want to go just yet. A pair that had seen its days of a thousand strides - in mountain climbs and river crossings, at the local park and atleast 3 different gyms in the city. In a million steps, big and small, within the city and without. In rain and shine alike, at Corbett, Bhagsu, Goa, Mumbai and practically every place I've traveled to in the last 5 years - my tireless champions of tired feet, my constant companions in every mile of work and play. They looked like they'd been through the wringer - and all the signs of impending demise were there. Its just that I took them so much for granted that I never noticed the cracks and the scuffs, the ripped seams and the holes in the fabric. And that they held for me, a last happy memory of our last shopping trip together - a memory I think I didn't want to let go of.

Perhaps, that, then, is the true nature of pain. It molds itself to us, much like those shoes fit my feet - as if made to exact size. It walks with us, a constant companion that we grow so accustomed to that we take it for granted, it carves out its own niche in our hearts and becomes a quiet part of our lives - in waking breaths and sighs of sleep alike. And even through the passage of years, even when it starts to lessen, we don't realize that it's time to let it go - that we're ready for the pain of past memories and times to fade, that it is no more a fitting companion on this journey we call life and that the time has come to bid it adieu. Until, one day, we have an epiphany - some of us do and move on; some of us don't and hence carry around the corpse of that which should've been cremated years ago.

I was en-route to the gym when they came apart at my feet. I turned and went to the nearest shoe store and asked for a pair of their best and sturdiest workout shoes - the kind that would survive a daily dose of cardio+strength and a mishmash of exercises and tasks. A fresh pair in black and peach, to be tasked with walking, running, climbing, pacing and fitting itself to the shape of my foot over the years to come. And as my feet said 'Hello' to their new best friends, I asked the salesman for a favor - to drop those old, dead and gone forevermore grey and pink shoes into the nearest garbage bin (and maybe take along with them, some of the vestigial attachment to the memory of a certain shopping trip).

And then I promised myself that I would learn to let go of that which has lost all meaning in the here and now of my today and the promise of my days to come...that, perhaps, will be a story I'll write another day.