Mystic Dunes

Mystic Dunes

How mystic are the dunes?
With swirling and swelling figures
Both human and animal
Bursting the bounds of normal anatomy.

How mystic are the dunes?
That I see with my naked eyes
The sufferings and simple joys of life
Straddling an exquisite mastery of line
Provoking emotion, ache and anguish
All at the same time.

How mystic are the dunes?
The ones that mirror the tragedy of human condition,
Yet showcasing colours of creativity
through new forms of expression.

Striking a balance between you and me
Coercing the final frontiers as I look into the eyes of thee
With fury and the sound of ivory bangles
The caravan moves as love dangles.

As the potent cocktail
Goes down the gullets,
The world revolves
And the storm hitting me
intently with bullets.

As the night shrouds its veil
It gives me a chance to avail
The meandering recollections that you left with me………

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The title is inspired by the album 'Mystic Dunes'. I had the chance of covering its music launch in Delhi during my internship. It is all about a musical journey into the mystifying landscape, though my interpretations might be a little vague and different.

10th Anniversary

It is an image that transcends time, as the adage says.

He has been a part of my life since really long now. Though my parents had started to hunt for him at a very tender age as they thought I am going to be helped and he is going to satisfy me but I dreaded spending life with somebody totally unfamiliar.

The first visit in this case was at the age of 8 to Srivastav Uncle in Janak Puri, New Delhi. Uncle looked at me and gave me some cookies to eat. They were chocolate chip cookies and their exquisite taste still remains with me. Anyhow I met him and at the very first glance, did not like the look of him. After all I was trying to perceive according to what I saw (Gud lord, theories of mass comm., not again!!!). He was dark, resembled coal and yes the features were also awful.

Srivastav Uncle told dad “She is quite young as of now. Lets not burden her at such a tender age and as it is, the need is not so urgent now. We can wait some more years.” Happy that this one would not be a part of my life, I was reassured.

But dad was not to be content with this much. He had to look for other options. For the next three years i had to meet so many 'hims', every two months. But the things were being delayed because the problem was negligible. So after three years Dindayal Upadhyaya was the next destination. I think it was a terrible time and I don’t know if I was crying more looking at him or more while looking at dad. I looked dreadful with him. He was just no match to my pink dress and a beautiful handkerchief pinned to the left hand side of my dress with a blue teddy bear.

‘What will my friends say?” I told my daddy crying. “A window case or defective piece or what not. I am not going back with him”“Baby you look as pretty as you are. Rather you look smarter now. And your friends will love you the same way. They love you, not your appearance. If anything happens then let me know” Dad reassured me.

And here I was walking down the ramp of Dindayal Upadhyaya Hospital (Well, the hospital is in news these days for all the wrong reasons.) with my first pair of glasses that I never liked. The next day in school was equally ghastly as my classmates laughed at me. “Hey window case, can you see me” Rohit said aloud. With hot tears in my eyes I frowned at him and went off.

After all I was a sharp contrast now to the existing pretty girls in my class, especially 10 years back when pursuit of vanity had become increasingly public with media blitzkrieg sending beauty into overdrive. It was an era of Aishwarya Rais and Sushmita Sens being crowned, fluttering their faux eye lashes, displaying décolletage and the world lovingly tending the beauty harvest, parading with confidence. And therefore looking good was the mantra among all the teeny weeny girls of the third grade of my school.And here I was with this weird thing sitting on my nose I staring into his eyes all the time and the world (atleast I would call it that way) staring at me.

But the days ahead have not been very tough. My nose has got used to him and he has got used to me. Though in the due course of the next so many years I have changed a number of ‘hims’ but the remnants of the first pair still remain lying in a dusty case.

I wear contacts now. But nothing can beat the comfort level of my lovely monocles and the ease with which they have understood the routine of my life.

The other day I wore them to the university because of shortage of time in the morning, I was greeted again. A friend laughed saying, “Hey you look different today”

“Thanks”

“Is this a new style statement?”

“No I couldn’t wear my conta…..”

“Nah! You look raelly nice and hmmm like an intellectual…” and roars of laughter.

But this laughter wasn’t a mockery. In those 20 seconds of laughter I recalled all the years that I have spent with him.

Happy 10th anniversary to ‘him’- 10 years of sharing the same nose!! 10 years of reading alphabets in the wrong order. Less then 10 years of putting my chin on that machine and looking at that red light. (Computerised checking wasnt available untill the last 7 years) 10 years of clarity and complete lucidity.

After all its all about loving one’s parents…..oops, glasses!!!

Ice Cream- The Five Minute Wonder

I love ice creams. Talking of these long languorous summer days, one thing that not only makes me feel breezy but boosts up the energy charts is Ice cream! and I have just finished eating my favourite Chocobar right now! Well that’s precisely one reason why I wanted to write about it.

The smooth, creamy, melt in mouth, and absolutely divine confection has always topped the list of my ‘Food I Love’ since childhood. Right from my childhood days in Delhi when every summer day used to be an ice cream day and dad used to take me in the evenings near the C4/E market to the ‘Kwality ice-cream wala bhaiya’ to buy me a ‘Vanilla Cup’ (Papa had brought me a cone once and more then me, my blue frock had savoured the ice cream. So more or less he used to play safe after that.) to the choicest of the confections that I have tried now like 21 Love, Chocolate Chips, Manhattan Mania, Zaafraani Badaam Pista, Bannana Splits etc, I have enjoyed every bit of it.

Nirula’s, Chanakyapuri, has been another witness to my ice cream sessions. I can never forget my much-loved Kesar Pista there. (I developed a taste for it because of mum. She did not let me have too much of chocolate ones for avoiding my much dreaded visits to the dentist.) This time, when in Delhi for my internship, I actually paid a visit to Nirula’s, to go back 13 years down the memory lane and in spite a lot of options available and no dread of my mommy around, I tried Kesar Pista.
Perfect and Pleasurable indeed.

I don’t know but ice cream eating is a kind of give up act, a resignation to which no amount of pessimism can have an effect. We let go of every control that we have over our senses while savouring the delight. Indeed in those five minutes we become the slaves of our own senses.

I had done a restaurant review some time back and the first thing I asked was, of course, the dessert they served. “Honey and Figs is our new addition, would you like to try” said the attendant. I gave him a big bright smile and the three course meal started backwards and ended with the same, the lovely Honey and Figs. Well the restaurant ended up with a passable review but with a special mention to Honey and Figs!

And how can we forget ‘softy’- the most romantic form of eating the ice cream. Those quick short side to side movements of the mouth, the love making to the mushy mass of cream on the top of the cone can actually transport one in the world of some absolute ecstasy.

But there is another aspect to this creamier taste. Ice Cream is sweet and its here that it becomes sinful. And if you add the lip smacking chocolate to it, we are more fanatical to break the principals of morality in a more extravagant manner. But why worry about calories if it is all about ‘Sieze the day’ with no offence to my friend who tells me that ‘sometimes the day seizes you’.

In this world that has become so jarring and dissonant, where we all are so fussy and finicky about small little things in life, where innocence is non entity, Ice Cream remains a true means of reviving oneself. One can actually go back to one’s school days and nurture this wonderful feeling of having an ice cream where pleasure runs barefoot.

The Tombstone (Part 2)

And suddenly Becky felt stalked. But soon she realised that it was shadow of the trees and ‘nothing’ and ‘nobody’ else.

As soon as she was assured of nobody around, she started digging the grave with the plough that she had got with the flowers.

Once she reached a considerable underground, she stopped and sat down to rest, panting and puffing her lungs away.

Becky looked around. A decaying coffin and a few scattered bones were the only remnants around, apart from one or two graves that lay bare.

Ignoring everything she got back to work again with certain urgency in her movements with the plough.

She finally reached the coffin, looking at it with a high level of accomplishment and achievement.

She looked into Joseph’s hollow eye sockets and stooping a little picked up the round shard of bone. The skull was massive. She put the bones of the complete skeleton in the plastic bag and started to get back home with her shadow, that had witnessed her every act.

She reached her home and started to sew the bones by way of tight threading them, so that they formed a carcass that looked real.

She hanged it right in front of the full length mirror where the bunny rabbit stared at it in awe

“Finally my own personal skeleton is ready. The science lab just has one for all the students and that also they don’t allow us to touch.”

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What had you thought that she was some cannibal or a ghost? Lolsss

Think of a better ending if you can.

The Tombstone (Part 1)

Becky stood in the cemetery wondering about the people who were buried there. The idea had seemed quite fascinating in the beginning. But undoubtedly it was turning out to be scary now.

“How interesting it would be if people’s biographies were written on their tombstones to reveal what kind of people they were and what course of life they followed.” She had thought sitting in her room with beautiful turquoise blue colour on the wall, a lovely vase with deep pink orchids, a big bunny rabbit and a full length mirror.

Now the thought seemed creepy and totally sinister. The garden of remembrance seemed to be all around her. The tombstones stared at her in a way that they wanted to dance with her.

But she was in no mood to dance. She followed the straight path ahead that led her to the tombstone she had come to visit.

Joseph Haddon
(1845- 1866)

How young had he died? She wondered.

An angry voice made her jump. “What are you doing here?” growled a man who stood before her looking furious. He was a tall flint eyed man with harsh features.

“I I juusst came to lay these flowers…” she said.

“Don’t you know the time is already over? Get out” he growled again.

Yes the time is over. It had got over 10 years back. She thought to herself

To Becky’s surprise, the man turned abruptly and stomped off. She stood their puzzled wondering what to do next.

……………………………………………………………………….
I have something abrupt in mind but will end this soon. Happy thinking!

The initial part was something that I have been thinking for quite some time. i.e., thinking of standing in a cemetery but it is intimidating indeed.

Reason- Everybody conducts themselves in a different fashion. It is this behaviour of the various kinds of people that makes me mull over the fact that even in similar situations we all react differently. How will Becky react….Lets see

The Cheese Wrap

She heard noises of different kinds. She saw colours merging into each other in front of her eyes. Undefined noises that were piercing her ears with their stabbing excellence. Colours reuniting with each other in a way reminiscent of a speedy cardiac unit.
She sat in her dark room trying to avoid either of them. But they all came back and this time even more jarring and intense to the core.
“Why me?” She said to herself.
“Why am I the chosen sufferer?”
It was a small little sob. But she wanted to scream loudly and let this lump out of her. Like a quivering mass of jelly she sat in that corner and tried hard again, not coming up to even scratch the distension, down her gullet.
And suddenly the massive monster enters with a cheese wrap in his hand and light enters the dark room after quite some time.
6 feet and handsome to the core, the cleft in his chin and that incredibly cute posterior could have launched a college cafeteria of girls into convulsions of craving.
Standing at the door he says ‘Hey Bitch, Wanna grab a bite?’
She looks at him with those ever beautiful amorous eyes and gives a big bight smile. Though finding it a little hard, she gets up swiftly and runs up to him like a train engine eager to reach its destination. She clasps him firmly and kisses him in a deep frenzy and a passion that she herself had never known.
Not parting from him, her hands move to the table with the hour glass and catch hold of the handgun placed right next to it.
The gunshot is fired. And she falls down in a pool of blood lying their like the quivering mass of jelly.
“So when did you start getting smarter then me baby!”
“This is what you get for acting like me.”
“But things change, life change and I had changed… for better”. And he walks down biting his teeth into the last bite of the cheese wrap.
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I am not a story writer. This one was just an effort to fuse fact and fiction.

When I am amidst a Volley of Tears

When I am amidst a volley of tears
And my heart ponders over the fact
That there is nobody near,
I try calling out-
‘Is there anybody there?’
No one answers,
As the tears flow, unchecked.

Everything is muddled
my past, present and future.
My dreams shattered, my heart broken
My belief in divine, completely shaken.
I try calling out-
‘Is there anybody there?’
But no one answers

Then suddenly,
I hear a sound-
like a glimpse of rainbow
in the clear blue sky;
like a shower of rain
on the patch of land dry;
like a glimmer of light
in the dark cloudy night;
like a gust of wind
for a struggling little kite.

It is- the sound of my soul;
The sound of my heart;
That says-
‘No questions too big,
no answers too small.
Just ask God in faith;
He’ll answer them all
Not always at once,
So be patient and wait,
for God never comes;
too soon or too late.’
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Everybody has problems, but at the end of it all, no problem is too big that it can't be solved.......
This one goes to Nothingman.....

The Virgin Sculpture

The other day I entered the outskirts of the Fine Arts Department to meet a friend I tried observing my surroundings (well I have been taught to look and not merely see). Well there is a parking lot to my left which looks a little deserted. Hey Wait! Did I just see two figures trying to fit themselves into the ‘confined spaces’ of that grey Santro. Well placement has always been a problem, but killing the journalist in me I move a little forward. (we have been taught not to intrude into other’s privacy).
I can hear some chitter chatter from my right. Of course. I must have reached the department. But wait a minute, isn’t this department supposed to be the quietest of all. And here I find three kids engaged in recreation, unaware of anything happening around them. I advance near them and think of offering them a packet of chips that I have in my bag. One of the kids in absolutely rugged clothes is chirping at a gap of 2 seconds, looking through a hole. He signals me to do the same and I get down to see as to what is he tweeting at? And through the fissure I see the Gandhi Bhavan. All of it. One piece. Not an inch here and there. (Gandhi Bhavan is a monument in which is highlighted on the map of Chandigarh and is indeed eternal beauty to look at)
How many works of art are chosen within the paradigm of the universal acceptance of the obvious Indian imagery? The very evident answer- Many. But not many of them have a combination of strategy, maths and ingenuity which places them into the category of eternal work of art. The sculpture outside the Department of Fine Arts is one such example. This figure in the lawn of the department is just there, not drawing many eyeballs at the first glance but speaking volumes about its authenticity. It is as if its saying, ‘Hey check me out, I am true.’
But is it just its strategic shape and position that makes this sculpture special. There is another aspect to it. This was thought of to be a sun, a sun placed on earth.
The best part about his one is that it does not possess any pretentious baggage. So much so that even a small child can understand and avail the services that this sculpture has to offer.
A beauty of its own, this piece gives something extraordinary.

A Start Up Line

We may not be aware of this entity that sneaks upon us unannounced in the middle of a situation that demands utmost calm and balance. With a little love, attention and presence of mind we can befriend our other self...................The most important thinh that i have learnt in the past few days

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This goes to a few very special people in my life who have helped me deal with things that i felt absolutely helpless about....