meandering recollections

A Nice Day

2010-09-06T21:33:00.001+05:30

‎2 chick flicks, coffee, 3 chapters of 'Never Let Me Go' & sm amazin weather. A day off well spent. Delhi sky looked beautiful today, a kind of biblical look to it in the evening. This seems to have happened after ages! I saw helicopters (extremly fast flying big flies)-- I dont knw wt r they called still; that reminded me of running after them as a little girl in a park near my house. A happy memory that still hasnt faded away. And I hope it never does.
Memories are beautiful things if you dont have to deal with the past. This definitely falls under teh beautiful category.

Hi...

2010-08-23T00:37:00.000+05:30

Heya...

Like the first inspiration to start a blog in 2007, even this one is kinda inspired from The Island Girl, who has come back to the blogosphere and has pressed the refresh button for me too. I welcome her back in her new avtaar. But I will stick to my old fashioned, old blog, with the hope that I will post more regularly from now on. So all those of you who had stopped loitering around in my world of meandering recollections, are welcome back. The only incentive will be some interesting writing and interesting stories to look forward to. Well as I have said before, words are all I have. So a warm welcome to all of you again! Happy Reading.

For you, a thousand times over

2009-11-14T15:28:00.002+05:30

The vague dimensions of life can be overpowering. Hassan's love and loyalty to Amir is certainly a reflection of how innocent and beautiful a relationship can be, without asking for anything in return.
But sometimes i feel this vaccum. A space, when removed would only leave a gaping hole difficult for any one else to fill in. But the satisfaction of 'for you, a thousand times' over is beautiful too. A feeling that defies all odds. A smile that seems to stretch to both my ears and in turn reach my eyes. I hate my blank-eyed stary look.
For you, a thousand times over..

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The title of the post has been taken from Khaled Hosseini's book The Kiterunner. I read this book almost 2 years ago. This quote from the book is one of the best I have ever read.

Little Robin

2009-08-07T01:18:00.002+05:30

Little Robin was busy. The innocent concentration, with which she was busy, seemed somewhat nice. She was busy watching the ants cross the road.

As the ants reached a tree, they started climbing the it. Robin’s attention went to the java plums (jaamuns). She started to watch java plums roll down from the tree onto the sidewalk. Waited for the next one and let the other one roll down and then next one and then next… Then suddenly she started looking at the way a leaf casts its shadow on the tree trunk.

While all the kids played around Robin quietly watched, not giving any attention to the interruptions which mostly were in the form of some extra-squeaky children playing in the nearby park.

Suddenly her mother came calling and was mad at her for not coming back home on time “Robin you got down from your school bus at 2. What have you been doing?”
Robin looked at her mother with her small black eyes. “Why is everything so specific? So different?”

And her mother said “Because God has made it that way,”

But what did not strike me at that time was that I would behave the same way in case of people. It did not strike me that we can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such specific details. There are little details. So specific. Even indescribable. They are minuter than a person’s smile or eyes.

Robin still hasn’t grown up in that sense. May be she should not. Or should it be otherwise?

The Unicorn

2009-02-23T15:36:00.000+05:30

I try to assemble the sound of a gurgling brook and the blueness of the skies, and still yearn for a unicorn. Something that is cool, white and serenely exquisite. Something that glistens and glitters in the forests like an alien.

Eventually I dance naked in the rain with my hands aloft, like a whirling dervish, feel the fat drops sting my skin and horrify the ones in Guccis and Pradas with this blatant and unashamed nudity. I let them put on their Raybans and allow them to try and block me, as they raise their Burberry umbrellas against the purging downpour- drenching my soul, nourishing my mind, cleansing my spirit and leaving it enshrined.

And in this marauding ecstasy I see the unicorn. I see it, till it dies in front of my eyes and the world becomes real and elusive. Its now that I long to jump into my attic of thoughts. I wait for the night so that I can discover castles right under the beds of fantasy, yet again.

The Mêlée

2009-01-28T15:20:00.001+05:30

The longer I strive to take care of myself these days, the more I realise the significance of attitude or approach in life. Somehow, as I have begun to realise, that it is important than reality. The extraordinary thing is we have an alternative everyday regarding the attitude we will clinch for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. The only thing we can do is play on the one little filament that we have, and that is our attitude.
Watching someone leave from my life, (well you never entered it, I just made you a part of my world without realising anything), it does not make me cynical or harsh about certain emotions that I think will take a lot of time to get back to me again. Its just that unearthing them all over again is not the task that is on my priority list now.
Also firsts are always special in life. Apart from that the mollycoddled child that I have been, I am not used to any sort of soreness mentally.
I dislike certain things now. A little too much. I dislike myself for sitting at the same coffee shop and staring at the empty couch in front of me. I dislike my travel because the mind is in a wanderer’s stage then. I dislike being alone.
But there are solutions for everything. I am reading more then ever. I am watching more movies then ever. Listening to music more then ever. Writing more then ever. Shopping more then ever. Watching ‘Friends’ and the daily news a little too much, so that I am busy. Busy with life and its chores. One good thing is that all of it is also giving me the opportunity to become more passionate about certain other things. My family, friends and of course my reading sessions. I am just loving them.
I am converted over the fact that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. So back on the real track might take some time but I am just close.
Also I don’t want to push anything aside. Playing squash is indeed a tough task. I want to move on with some really special and wonderful emotions buried somewhere that deserve nothing more then a lot of deference and respect. I was honest and so were you. Therefore I want to ask for nothing. I just want to look at the stars again, smell the rain again, feel the wind, play with children and fight for my dreams. The fight has already begun and this time with my own self…..

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The title of the post means a fight or battle

The Long Drawn Out Wait......

2008-11-28T15:59:00.002+05:30

O Lord!
In your world, In my world, In our world
Why are hatred and war in attendance?
Your heart is so expansive
Yet why are ours so constricted?

At every step, why is there a boundary?
All this earth that is yours
Sun is what it revolves around
Why is it so shady still?
On this world’s veil,
why do I see blood’s colour everyday?

Echoing are the shouts of many
That pour like hot iron in the ears
Who wants to listen to the talks of love and tolerance?
Shattering are all the dreams
Who is going to gather all these scattered pieces?
Heart's doors are locked
Why are these locks so rusty?

My answer?
I am still waiting……

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A dedication to Mumbai. The mayhem in Mumbai has rocked the entire world.

The Uncertainity

2008-11-11T14:59:00.004+05:30

There is a blur. A haze, that blurs the line between good and evil. So much so that I forget the difference between paranoid and patriot.
I try to run closer to truth. It is like a breathless chase. All of it churns my gut, hurling me against the wall.
A glimpse of it suddenly now and I want to run away. Run away from it all like mad. Madness surpassing any other emotion and live in a virtual dream world yet again. Totally on one side of the blur. But the blur coaxes through its own hoops and wants me to see through. And temptation. Well there is too much of it.
I try and look through, yet again. And the world stops ticking for a moment. Or does it really stop? It doesnt. Its just what I feel.
I hate this feeling. This feeling of uncertainity where I can see things somewhat clearly but accepting it untill things really happen is what I dont want to do.
All I do is request this somebody inside me to please grant me some sleep.

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We women have this bad habit of clinging on to our thoughts believing all that we want to. I hate myself for harming my own self with this. But reality might hurt more and it will. This certainity is killing too.

While my guitar gently weeps..

2008-09-12T15:49:00.001+05:30

While half the world falls in love and half wakes up to get going for work, my heart wanders in search of free days and free nights and indulges in wishful thinking again, as usual....And all I manage is coax it, but the thoughts emerge like a volcano, all over again.

A scorching night and some cold air and I long to hold that hand. And I don’t even know if that hand wants to hold mine.

On a cold wintery evening, on a little hilltop, I want to listen to the silence. I want my eyes to well up looking at you. But I don’t even know if you want to look back.

I don’t know where is this world? I am not even sure if it will ever exist.
And while my guitar gently weeps, I want to lie in possible ambiguity, in the scorching night and the cold wintery night and go across the universe holding that hand, without that hand even knowing about it.

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The title has been taken from one of the very beautiful tracks by Beatles

Go Kiss the World

2008-09-09T17:01:00.005+05:30

It is raining cats and dogs at an hour when I should not be out. Or may be I should be. Who cares? Do I? Anybody else does? I am running as fast as possible in small but still big pools of water, looking for shelter which is to be found nowhere.

I am all drenched up till the skin and may be far inside too, water dripping constantly from my nose, running like a penguin amid a small heard of people and going where all of them are. But a strong urge to not go with all of them and I suddenly take a back turn. Suddenly? No I thought about it for around ten seconds!

I try looking for a shelter on my own in a different direction on a way that looks bizarre, deserted and totally out of place. Well totally out of being a rebel without a cause. But still there is no regret, no guilt mounting up as it used to.

I find a place to stand for a while, one or two people passing by occasionally, somebody even making a pass. I give a bad stare and he shoves of for a while.
I pick up all my bags and finally rush into this Madame shop I had been looking for. The shutter would have gone down in another 5 minutes. Well made it just on time!!!!
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Is shopping a woman’s prerogative? Well not all the time. But its therapy for sure. Try it to believe it!! The title of the post has been taken from Subroto Bagchi’s new book

Singing it Right

2008-08-04T17:02:00.004+05:30

TEST DRIVE

Battling butterflies in her stomach, our correspondent dons the avatar of a ghazal singer for an evening

I have always loved singing, and this led to my parents getting me trained in classical music as a kid. It did come to good use as I opted to spend an evening at the InterContinental Eros in Delhi as a ghazal singer. I met the team of musicians with whom I was going to perform at the the Singh Sahib restaurant in the hotel. This is where our audience of diners would sit. I met my team of musicians for the evening. We greeted each other with the customary aadaab. Our small team consists of Raja Ali on the harmonium who is also the head musician, Mohammad Mobeen Ahmed on the sitar and Shaqeel Ahmad on the tabla. The tehzeeb is unmistakable with these seasoned musicians. Priya Wankhade, the lead female singer of the group, was given an off today because yours truly was taking centrestage!

Becoming a ghazal singer for an evening sounds quite exciting but performing in front of an audience is no easy task. While we waited for people to enter the restaurant we tuned the instruments and kept our copies of ghazal lyrics handy.
It was soon 8.30 pm and here I was all set to start off my first song for the evening. That is when the butterflies in my stomach went into a tizzy. I should have had the pineapple juice offered to me when I entered the hotel. My polite refusal, with “Mera gala kharaab ho jayega” was not a wise decision especially now all I could say pleading for water was “Mera gala sookh raha hai!”

The word ghazal means, ‘to converse with the beloved’ in Arabic. Here the beloved were a group of hungry diners. Raja Ali knew it was difficult for me to begin, so he sang the customary traditional ‘vandana’. It did help me relax a bit, I then took a deep breath and began with Jagjit Singh’s ghazal Jhuki Jhuki si nazar bekaraar hai ke nahi. A few people from the audience seemed tickled by the choice of song, and smiled at me, I smiled back, but couldn’t linger on the attention. I had to look back at the diary for the lyrics.

While orders for tandoori chicken and paneer korma made their way to the kitchen and liquor made an appearance on the tables, I started on the second song, again a Jagjit Singh number— Hoton se choo lo tum, mera geet amar kar do. Now with their orders arriving at the table, few people were interested in the music. It felt a bit discouraging and I remembered what the food and beverage manager said to me before we began, “You can perform as long as my guests don’t run away!”

I tried to get my audience back with the popular Bollywood ghazal sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Aapki nazron ne samjha, pyar ke qabil mujhe. And well, this time I did get a few approving nods. Then I tried to touch on something more unconventional. I sang a Sufi number, Mere Maula karam ho karam, which was planned to be the last number of the evening. Half way through the song I realized that there was absolute silence around me, no clatter of fork and knives, no din of conversations. I sang this one with my eyes shut. I don’t know who was looking and who wasn’t and this time I did not care. I ended the evening with a Ghalib couplet: Hazaro khwahishe aisi ki har khwahish pe dum nikle, bahut nikle mere armaan phir bhi kam nikle ( A myriad desires were ours, for each we’d life forego. Many longings were fulfilled but too few even so.)

The crowd then finally applauded and there were a few song requests too! The evening was finally a success.
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One of my stories in Indian Express where passion and profession was merged into one

Hi

2008-07-24T19:17:00.002+05:30

Hi people

I havent forgotten my blog. A lot of you have been complaining but I am just a little too occupied with my work. I am going to be back with a story soon. Thank you all of you for being concerned. Its a lovely feeling when people want you back.

Desire

2008-06-13T14:51:00.002+05:30

Want is a terrible thing.
The desire, so difficult to tackle
that it is almost on the verge of breaking the complete inner self
The strange thing is that this desire is so strong that it is ready to overpower your completeness and rise like a deamon, all set to make life more messy. It hurts, hurts really hard in the abdomen somewhere.
Is it love?
Is it fear?
When am I going to feel the air that has the whiff of the bougainvillea (it does not have a whiff)
Its getting difficult by the day
I am going to do something about it soon
What exactly?
Well I will do what i want to
God! Want again!
But the pain has to stop before sleep overtakes me

The Balloon Man

2008-05-28T01:05:00.000+05:30

Different shapes, different sizes, different colours and more colours and my heart surmises.

Looking at those wonderous stuff on the cart, the actual non fiction things that can ride the air and take my messages across layers, wriggling its way higher and higher, with the sun still glinting the effervescent colour, the feeling is incredibly overwhelming.

But mommy tells me to stay away from him. Even Anne’s mommy does. They say he will kidnap us one day. She never lets me buy the balloon myself.

My heart weakens when he isn’t there everyday as he never misses, come what may. The everyday shout, “Balloons.. different shapes, different sizes, different colours and more colours…”

Mouse shape is my darling. And the yellow doll that I get for one shilling

As he huffs and puffs, as his lips touch the balloons and they get ready to touch the moon, I have never seen an iota of ‘its difficult’ on his visage which is not smiling, neither angry, nor upset. The gas ones are the best and cost two shillings but are definitely worth it.

The Balloon man didn’t come today.

There is no wind either.

As I climb up the tree to let go off the balloon that is stuck in one of the branches I am able to stare across the wall.

He sits there with his back towards the wall, looking deep into the emptiness of the air, occasionally staring at a picture in deep reverie.

Our eyes meet and he signals me to enter.

I enter the open houseless porch and he smiles at me. At this point I definitely hope to get one of the yellow doll balloons for free.

He grabs me from my hand, puts me into his sack and all I can feel next is suffocation and two feet that are running hard. All I do is shout for my mommy!
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I trust people. But it doesn’t always go my way!

Nothingman's Birthday

2008-05-11T01:55:00.003+05:30

If given a choice Nothingman would say this- "I don't like celebrating my birthday. Frankly, I don't know what the significance of birthdays is anymore. It's not like I don't want to be reminded that I am old. I grow older every day. I mean I am only one day older than yesterday, not one year. To me, time is a relative thing. It is an arbitrary unit created by quantifying events that happen. Why does an hour have 60 minutes? Why 24 hours in one day? If the people who created the units on Mars, would we get the same results? Mass and length do.

Back to birthdays, I just don't like it because I don't know how to feel on that day. Happy and grateful that I've survived another year? Sad and depressed that I've grown older but not wiser? Angry that no one remembers or cares about it? I sometimes feel alone and I want to be alone. Sometimes I even want to forget that day even. Every year I plan to hide and not be known. But every year I will go through those feelings and I hate that uncomfortable feeling the whole day.

I feel like I want a celebration, but I don’t like telling others my birthday. It is like there isn’t a point in giving out that information because I am not going to get anything. Even with loved ones, good friends, they all don’t remember. I don’t want to be reminding them; that is just blunt.

Others celebrate their birthdays by throwing a party and inviting a lot of people. I don’t do that anymore. I used to give out sweets to everyone in class and close friends on my birthday because that is the thing to do. My last biggest celebration was when I was 10 when even my father’s friends came. I have no idea why. As I grew older, the parties got smaller, even to a point of just a wish from my family. We used to be able to pick our own presents and nothing was ever a big surprise. From the kiddie toys to the story books, everything was what I wanted. In my teenage years, my gifts became more like everything I needed, practical items. This, was always given by my sister. In the end, whenever I get gifts or receive any, I would prefer something more lasting. I don’t like perishable goods, like chocolates or candy.

For the past few years now, I didn’t get any presents for my birthday. I am just getting used to that. Then it hit me as to why… it is just another day.

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Sourced from the Internet. But this time Nothingman gets this on his birthday as somewhere he feels some part of this (That's what i think) But anyways Many Happy returns of the day

To You, With Love (Part 2)

2008-05-02T03:39:00.002+05:30

Kirrin has got a job and is all set to start off. However Sam does not stay with his parents and sister anymore. But things have genuinely improved. It is surprising that now gifts are exchanged. Of course monetary gifts can’t fill the vacuum that has existed for so long. But it is a start for sure.

She smiles while talking about him and ya is looking forward to good things happening in his life, so much so that she has found the middle ground and made a little compromise even in her career, of course other reasons beckoning her this decision.

Things are nice, hale and hearty but with a lot more scope to perk up and get better. It is just that both of them do not want to say things to each other. As of now they are just trying to do little so that it is not apparent to both of them.

Today its her turn to handover the envelope as he waits for his flight. All it says is this

Everyday I want to fly, stay by my side
Everyday I want to dream, stay by my side
Every morning I wish I could just play
Wish the mornings were just days!

They both look at each other, smile, somewhere a little teary eyed but not showing off, (the bull is strong I know) and live happily ever after. (Happily ever after is not always a technicolour dream that Bollywood is getting tired of. Its for real at times!)
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Well brothers! The uncanny lot! But things always improve for better. Well all I can do is adore and cherish the relationship that I have seen growing in spite of knowing just one side of it (that too in bits and pieces.) This one is gift for someone and this is not a repetition of the same subject for making emotions to overflow. Hope haven’t taken too much of liberty but had to give this honest and final post. Lemme know if the removal of this one from here will make you more happy….
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The 4 lines are curtsey Vodafone commercial.
* a little edit by the future sub editor:P

Finally Fifty!

2008-04-23T01:01:00.001+05:30

It has been a little over 1 year (13 days to be precise) that I began with this blog and this is my 50th post on Meandering Recollections. And after all this hoopla that I have in my mind about my blog, I feel that I should have devoted more time to it. But the best part about my blog was that I wrote when I had this burly urge for writing, something unlike Nothigman who is really devoted towards churning out a new story every day, or unlike Island girl who would keep on writing things in her diary and post it when she has the time or unlike occasionally like Sid who would write about his everyday chores, now and then like Crazy apothecary who just disappears suddenly, sometimes like Random Ramblings where one liners are in abundance.

But one thing that I have realized is that my blog occupies a special place in my life. It hasn’t just made me a little more aware of the cyber world, the blogosphere has bombarded me with just so many emotions, so many write ups, verse, so many styles, a world where there is freedom in abundance, a world which is so unrestrained that concept of constriction does not apply.

Right from choosing the template which is black and grey (yes it isn’t white!) because i wanted to use the starkest of the contrast that exists but since life isn’t black and white, I used grey to write things that I never thought would see the light of the day and would have gone in the trash can (recycle bin to be precise, I hate my habit of not writing on the paper now and directly on computer) It has all been extremely special.

I thank all my readers- Nothingman, Island Girl, Zedekiah, Kindawierd, Impressionist, Codger, Crazy Apothecary and everybody else who visits my blog and posts comments have been looked after. Criticism or eulogy, I have enjoyed them all because for a comment to be critical or eulogizing, or for that matter a comment to be even there in first place, the writing has to be provocative and stimulating enough- good or bad. A lot of my stuff has been weird too but that’s how I am I guess.

As one of my good old acquaintances from Seattle had pointed out sometime back- “Journalists have a heightened perception of things.” (well he is going to pay for this one!). I just want to say that they are a little too sensitized towards issues which should not be equated with heightened perception. I have been fanatical about every word that has gone on this blog (except for a few)

Anyways, keep coming back and this blog is going to be there till the time I am there (I don’t say things that I don’t mean!)

The Corpse- Living and Dead

2008-04-16T02:02:00.000+05:30

Jeanie’s body had a lot of fun today, the crudity and coarseness of the passion that the body sleeping next to her had showered, adding to her share of ‘fun’. The soul did not cry. It just kept on staring in the vacant. Unlike the difference of the body that would maul her everyday, this time things were quite unlike. She had been noticing the similitude for the last few days now.

The routine was set everyday but at the end of it all, what felt bruised was the actual Jeanie inside that Jeanie. It felt as if he would extract out the heart everyday from deep underneath her bosom and squash it in his right hand, the blood oozing from all sides of his hand and no clamour in the backdrop. The satisfaction would reach up to the level of absolute bliss for him similar to a baby getting what he wanted.

One day, the Jeanie inside that Jeanie was too bushed to handle it all. Today, she wanted to extract the heart. But the moment she tried to squeeze it, she was pushed into the next room where a burly giant with dirty teeth had a chef’s knife that shined in the dim light of the room.

As their lips rubbed against each other, Jeanie pulled the trigger of the little something that she had carried with her. The blood was splattered and in that pool of blood lay Jeanie.

After staring at the chef’s knife in her spinal cord, He smiled at the burly man saying, “How could you kiss her. I don’t share my women. ”

The trigger was pulled again and a body fell next to the pool of blood.
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I am generally not too gory with my stories. Just felt like adding a little blood this time. And ya you are free to make your guesses in concern with the last part.

Air...Its Ours!!!

2008-04-07T02:34:00.003+05:30

This post can easily go back 2 years back, to my group discussion and interview day in the Mass Communication Dept. The topic was Sex Ratio in Haryana and Punjab. Well I can’t be modest here and can without doubt say that I was outstanding in the 1st round and knew that Iwould qualify. Another girl with braces on and nervousness hounding on spoke well and I knew that she was my competition in the group. Well she did make it and was always called the Sonia Gandhi of the class (she mimicked her really well)

On the first day I met this cousin of one of my batch mates from college, and ya we did hit off well enough to last forever (at least I can hope so). She thought that Nothingman (an extremely tall senior of ours) was a girl! Then there was this group of 4 girls from Carmel (well they all are a little too proud of the fact still, and it is a little irksome!!) A few more days, me and this cousin of my batchmate also became a part of this gang which comprised the gold medalist of the 1st year- a complete tomboy though girly at heart, a doe eyed beauty, a hard working girl with the perfect bun and the ‘kasauli cottage’ and last but not the least a devout Christian girl with loads of guy friends (chuckle!).

A Delhi girl who’ loved’ Delhi, literally was also around the group, her camaraderie and clashes very off and on with members of this gang of mine.

Then there was this guy who was the PR of the class. I chose him for my documentary and ya did we fight? Well like cats and dogs. All money collections for all parties, he was always out with a list. (Please read this post and return my fabindia folder.) This PR guy had a dusky Bong girlfriend (well I used to get a lot of compliments from her). She still remains the smartest Bong girl I have ever met.

Also there was this artiste, an amazing cartoonist and a pleasant person. Well apart from a dose of everyday hug, patting my nose was like a ritual. This artiste friend had a huge crush on this girl from sports quota. Amazing sportsperson and more then that somebody who knew how to lose gracefully. The sportsperson used to hang out a lot with one of her friends who was equally quiet but came across as an extremely nice person.

This artiste had a friend who still is known as the Mastermind of the media festival. His girlfriend, also called as the first lady of the festival (she also won Miss Mass Comm recently), could never really be my type of friend, though I knew her for 5 years. She may be happy in her own skin but I still feel that her pretentiousness was too overpowering for me to like her. No judgements here but ‘To each his own I guess’. I anyways wish her all the best.

Then there was this chick, the one, all guys would literally scuttle after. The one with a sexy dressing sense and perfect straight hair falling over her eyes and cheeks all the time, well man! In the words of guys, “She was hot!”. She had 2 friends, one a baby who had just not grown but had exceptional writing skills and one extremely tall girl who was too humble to be true but ya sweetness in profundity.

The media fest guy that I was talking about, also had an ex girlfriend. Well that’s not her identity but ya she was a little uncanny for me however extremely passionate about what she wanted in life. This uncanny friend used to be found a lot with the tallest girl in my class (She was 5 feet 8 inches and I used to tell her that I might ultimately end up with a guy as tall as you…and laughters!!). Her intrepid questions with conviction in MK’s class are worth recollection.

Then 2 girls I used to hang out with a lot. One a little too plump a girl (well that’s a cute way of saying that she was fat) and one so thin, that she looked like a malnourished child but ya we did spend some memorable times together.

Also there was this extremely cute chink guy who loved Rock music, a chink girl with mind blowing dressing sense and another chink girl with a Punjabi brother-in-law!

There was a guy who looked like a criminal (he was also our DR) and an extremely tall guy who had 2 kids at home but still wanted to be in the department (I still am unable to decipher as to what was he really upto.) Then there was my laughing partner who always cribbed about her ‘PG wali aunty’ and her plump and cute friend- her hi in the morning would brighten up quite a lot. There was also an extremely quiet girl, who I really became friends with towards the end of 1st year. Miss Serenity, extremely hardworking, but sweety, take a chill pill at times!

The girl who is getting married to the ‘Hawks’ guy, ‘aadha chammach’ and ‘sone’ girl, curly hair girl who loved to laugh aloud, another sportsperson, who has a 24 lakh per annum worth a job offer from America, a chamba girl, the décolletage girl (well the farewell day reminds me of that) who had a surd boyfriend, a sociologist with a weirdly sensual and sluggish talking style.

Gosh! At the end of it all, I am going to cherish everything! To count the number of memorable events is tough in this nightmare-cum-fantasy filled sleep which had lasted up till today. I lived through it all, and every moment left a deep impact in me. It isn't all about sadness, but about letting go. About committing the same mistakes, about not growing up

And yes in the end, my favourite line, I loved and unloved it all at the same time.

But the air in that department is definitely ours….Its going to be difficult not feeling it anymore!
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The last time I had written something like this, it was titled, ‘Air…Is it ours?’ and was a dedication to my seniors but this time as you see, things have changed. Dunno how true is the title given to me ‘Miss Intellectual’ but as I look at the mug which sits pretty with my teddy, it doesn’t take much time to go down the memory lane in a flash.

That One Moment....

2008-04-02T02:25:00.002+05:30

That one moment, the ecstasy of touching those little fingers, making life a prospect, worth not just a glimpse but ‘pestering’ to see the entire landscape, tickling those soft feet, that gurgling with pleasure, every little sound like music to ears, as gentle as the rain that falls, as calm as the dew on the grass, like brightness in the night…..

Like that moment there would be no another, for somebody who became a father of a little baby girl today. The pride, the joy, the peace and the love, was oozing in the voice like blood from the veins, the weariness so muddled up with zest, that apart from him touching beauty today, surprisingly I ended up feeling it and yes……The conversation so cosmic and rich in texture that I felt guilty about talking about my life in the middle of something so special… !

Sometimes, somethings are just so honest and chaste, the untaintedness so overwhelming. That you can’t help but appreciate and value them.

Have you touched beauty? Ever? Not literally, I mean, But in any form, a way not tactile enough? Something not palpable and physical but still leaving a streak behind….

Well, I did that today. Sitting five thousand miles away from the source of joy.

………………………………………………………………………
A dedication to a somebody special who became a father today. Somethings just don’t change and remain special!

The Long-drawn-out Wait…

2008-03-28T00:27:00.002+05:30

O Lord!
In your world, In my world, In our world
Why are hatred and war in attendance?
Your heart is so expansive
Yet why are ours so constricted?

At every step, why is there a boundary?
All this earth that is yours
Sun is what it revolves around
Why is it so shady still?
On this world’s veil,
why do I see blood’s colour everyday?

Echoing are the shouts of many
That pour like hot iron in my ears
Who wants to listen to the talks of love?
Shattering are all the dreams
Who is going to gather all these scattered pieces?
Heart's doors are locked
Why are these locks so rusty?

My answer?
I am still waiting……

A Temporary Matter

2008-03-13T00:34:00.001+05:30

I see
a gap in the door that swings
on the outskirts of the heart
I want to bury the lie in there.
But it makes a new appearance
This time more vivid
More stark
So much so that it hurts
Somewhere in the abdomen
But the boiling sea water
boils more
and leaves it for the vultures
I don’t let them harm me
Well, vultures were never strong enough
But the gash bleeds for a while
And will stay for sometime before it heels, never completely…….

………………………………………………………….
Public Disgrace is intolerable and trespassers will be prosecuted !

Strings for Peace

2008-02-13T18:23:00.002+05:30

Music is a meta- thought that transcends the borders of consciousness. It is somewhat similar to a child's innocence, having the capacity to retreat just anyone in the world of absolute joy and beauty. The art form today held a beauty of its own as one could see the wonderful amalgamation of swar and leya. It was time for some pure music for the city denizens, full of extraordinary brilliance and spiritual magnitude. Never before has one seen such perfect partnership in resonance as was witnessed this evening.

In command was none other then the legendry sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan whose culmination as an artiste seemed at its acme today. Heralded in the concert by his two sons Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan, the seventh generation of Senia Bangash Gharana, the Ustad without doubt ruled the show embellishing it with his stupendous expertise in the instrument. As he began the evening with the very familiar Vaishnav Jan to the Ustad transformed the space into a sanctified sanctuary exhilarating the rapt hearts of the packed house with soulful ecstasy. He then went on to play 'Raghupati raghav raja ram' and made the audience dive into the Bihu tunes from Assam from where his wife Subhalaxmi comes from. The evening tunes according to the maestro are endowed with special notes to bring you closer to God and all that is pure, as you pray at the sunset. As if in a contemplative reverie, and with a masterful touch, the maestro let his fingers orchestrate the strings to sing, construe and embellish the classical ragas and familiar prayer songs.

It was Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's supremacy of vocal expression through the instrument that kept the audience enraptured throughout his solo session. "Swar hi ishwar hai. Language creates barriers. There is no need to understand the symphony, you just need to feel the music." Said Khan sahib. As if the beauty of the Bihu was less, Rabindra Sangeet further enriched the surroundings forcing all profanity into oblivion.

Before this, Amaan and Ayaan showed their bravura skills on Sarod with raag Raageshri. Listening to their music was also quite an ordeal as they surpassed the test of artistic creativity incredibly. They exhibited quite a lot of authority, exuberant energy and striking stage presence.

The concert's delight also laid in the fact that every instrument occupied a temperament on stage. Abetted by the maestro in presence, as the affair between men and music reached its summit, each instrumentalist brought out his best skill to present the raga in a handsome way. The young masters indulged in playful combats with their father, so did the superbly gifted Tabla players Mithilesh Jha and Sandip Das.

The final moments of the concert were impromptu encore as ripples of sound originated from the reunion of three sarods in a glittering parade of reverberation. Together they sparkled, formed melodic fireworks, and enchanting crescendos charming the listeners into unadulterated emotional heights in turn giving a measure of their tremendous talent.
The finale was made perfect by raag Khamaaj with a combination of alaap, bandish, jod and jhala that created a unique disposition in the air leading the concert to perfection. The invigoration, sensual pleasure and the spiritual brilliance that the concert had will be long remembered for its sweetness.
The recital was thus not all about rigorous classical music but playful extemporization of the symphony, in turn winging it to greater heights. Strings for Peace ruled the day

..........................................................
Well im not following my passion currently- journalism....but this is how i would have reviewed the show....it was just fantastic.......not because of any 'other' reasons but the fact that i thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.

Brew it Right!

2008-02-08T11:55:00.000+05:30

Selfishness is so subtle sometimes but yet so much there. It is just there likr a spineless jellyfish and hasnt spared any. It differs in magnitude for sure. 'You are a nice human being' you told me the other day. Well modesty is somewhere down the line definitely my virtue but all that I could think of today was,'You need to learn alot from me!'
Bonds can be shaky at times inspite of appearnces being strong.

Public Relations all the time can really get on your nerves. There is nothing called nobelity around. Its not about image building but about alot of other things alot of time.

Its difficult to get but It should not be about the froth that sits at the rim of a coffee mug full of coffee. It has to be so many times about the coffee itself that has to be brewed in a way that it does not go extremely bitter.

I hate the coffee that is too frothy and with too much of chocolate at the top that even the sweetness starts irritating.

Adieu 2007

2008-01-01T02:21:00.000+05:30

As the clock just struck 12, I have entered 2008. Well as the world dances the night away I sit here in my room like many others on this planet and write this post.

Well, as always, in a hopelessly practical world, the year went past in a jiffy and as always it was good, bad and grey with undertones of awkwardness, embarrassments, shocks, weird feelings, experiences, some really happy moments, meeting some of the most amazing people, reunions with people who are really special now……All this including the embarrassments were special in their own way. Man I can actually playback this year so clearly like a movie reel!

My course formed a very important part of my life. I think mass comm does that to you. It just keeps growing on you. I loved it and unloved it at the same time.

Apart from that my thoughts kept on pacing back and forth like a sort of tornado that kept surfacing whenever I breathed. Some people just can’t go off the mind. Maybe I don’t let them. Abstractions….so many of them..huh!

I have had my share of bouquets and brickbats in 2007

2008 is going to be one of the very significant years as this year I take some of the most imperative decisions of my life. I hope you treat me well – 2008 as I bid adieu to 2007 and enter this New Year with memories that mean a lot.

Revolta

2007-12-22T01:32:00.000+05:30

Seeker or Believer? He wondered in a combination of dismay and gladness.

A distant roar threatens to overwhelm the familiar noise, drawing closer every minute. Today Jack just wants to climb the flyover, hit the road and finally merge into the traffic in his green car to reach Revolta- the theatre that plans to stage a musical in a few minutes time.

He takes two tickets and does not wait for his guest to come, instead he enters the theatre alone, with a full blown enthusiasm, a sort of blush on his face that reaches his eyes, making them gleam.

He takes the corner seat and puts the second ticket on the seat to his left, not waiting for her to come.

The lights go off and the musical begins. As it progresses, Jack smiles, laughs, cries and reacts to each line of the musical, the way he had done when he had first seen it.

The musical ends and Jack sees a beautiful girl dressed in a black, who comes up to him and looks at him in deep astonishment and surprise.

“What are you doing here Grandpa? Grandma died last night! You are not behaving like a grieving widower should!”

“I wasn’t here tonight to see the musical. I came here to feel her, the way I did forty six years back on our first date. Revolta was never this beautiful.”

…………………………………………………………………………
Well, don’t know from where this came from……….

Birthday

2007-11-29T01:32:00.000+05:30

What you want to be, you become.

In a hopelessly practical world

I turn 22 this Saturday.

Today it seems like Meandering Recollections Day

I can almost look past the 22 years

It has been a beautiful journey full of sweat

Well, guess it wont have been beautiful enough without the sweat

I am what I appear to be

(Except for a very small part of my life that I don’t like to talk about)

For you become, what you want to be.

………………………………………………………………………..
Some people call me atypical. But what to do, there is a contradiction in my birth date itself! I mean it is the first date of the last month on the calendar! Unlike a few other people, I like birthdays and receive bday wishes warmly. This one is to all the Sparkling Saggitarians.

River in the Boat

2007-11-22T23:29:00.000+05:30

The monster cant hurt me if I keep dancing.

My feet dont hurt me anymore as I am used to moving them in so many directions, balancing them in such a way that i dont give them enough time to hurt.

How I want the present Alesea to die and a new one emerge. My everyday plan just does not work on field. Well strategy was never a forte!

But how much i want, she remains there with her own choices, not bothered about what others have to say.

I am not proud of her today. She was scared of her own self.

Today i want to love her enough to let her go.

..................................
The title is a chapter's name taken from 'God of Small Things'

A Tryst with Kasauli

2007-11-13T00:47:00.000+05:30

The night is beautiful today. The sky so cluttered with stars that they seem to be pushing each other for space. The coffee mug and the warm wrap keeps me somewhat tepid but it is quite freezing.

What is more beautiful is the calmness of this place. So much so that, I clearly hear my breathing.

The white and the black ‘Ruby’ runs around here as she has smelled milk. But my attention is already clutched by the enormous giant who stands far away from me, his hands sprawled and his eyes twinkling in a manner reminiscent of small bulbs. With a fright of its own the scene is as beautiful as it can get. The mountain looks at me directly in the eye.

It feels cold. Not freezing but cold. The warmth of the coffee reaching inside me through my hands. And ya the idea of romance does flash in now.

I look up, above in the sky. And like diamonds in the sky, the stars are sprawled beautifully but jagged in such a wonderful way. My analysis is broken with somebody calling me inside for dinner. Well that’s one of my friends calling me.

Kasauli is a nice place. Not a typical hill station but a small little place, lets call it a mount; to relax and unwind. Surprisingly, a small part of it, that I saw still is untouched. In the state of a burgeoning real estate boom, a part of it looks as perfect as a designer’s cuts.

The dinner and some self introspection apart from philosophical talks about few other common people in our world (read as bitching), the sleep lingers for long and finally enters me.

And now its time for the ideas. They can kindle to life amid a melody of chaos. Dreams- well they seem to be far away and I want to climb up the rooftop and touch the star.

………………………………………………………………………………..
The experience was so much like ‘The Daffodills’. I mean I can actually recollect emotions in tranquillity. Not to forget, the place where we were living. A beautiful and cosy cottage owned by a friend. Luxury Personified!

The Shout

2007-10-28T01:36:00.000+05:30

Sometimes from atop tall buildings that graze the sky one can view not just teeming cities crawl, walk or run. At times these cities also stagnate and take notice.

I stand today at one of these and shout loud,
So loud that my heart pounds thirty beats in five seconds,
So loud that the thirst gets unquenchable
So loud that I sweat inadequately,
So loud that the black of the night stares at me,
with moon making the droplets near my eyes gleam,
So loud that the cute guy I met today is washed out of my brain completely,
So loud that I want to throw out every flaw of mine through this shout,
So loud that hunger and desperation levels can be increased
So loud that nobody can hear it.

Formula Won!!!

2007-10-19T00:35:00.000+05:30

At the entrance to this place, the air is charged with a clamorous anticipation, as if some grand nocturnal pagan ritual is about to begin. But that is all inside the head. Outside it is all calm and serene. I enter with a bunch of friends to dance here. (I hardly know how to dance. Though my training in music does give me that rhythm sense.) The best part about this place is its richness and fresh air to breathe around and chill out. Beautiful sculptures with space sprawled before the eyes. But the dandiya hasn’t begun yet.

Guess we are early today. All thanks to the island girl. She is just a little too punctual, not at all understanding the travails of the standard timings.

So since we are dressed up in nice ethnic ware we click photos, pose variously, eat chaat, check out jewellery and suddenly rinita has lost her phone. Well it was an old phone and she is shortly going to buy a new one but who feels good about the cell getting lost when we practically live with it. I think, more than the boyfriends today, cellphones have started to get the cream of the crop treatment.

Anyways, the mood is totally gone and we are on a search spree. Calls are made and it keeps ringing. Suddenly it is picked up and we finally end up getting the phone from some guy in a red shirt who is profusely thanked by all of us. He tries to flirt a little but to no avail (Polite smartness pays.) And then there is blaring music all the way. We try and tap our feet a bit in regular gujrati style, dandiyas trying to hit the hands, more then themselves. But overall it was fun time surrounded by around 200 bodies, enveloped in traditional gujrati music, swirling around without really knowing how to!

I think it’s the complete feeling of getting elevated that works wonders. Forgetting everything regarding everything. Giving one’s own self a chance to just open up and have fun with one’s own self. Being a seeker, rather than a believer. Just letting it go Believe me it works!!!

Rude Awakenings

2007-09-29T02:16:00.000+05:30

As for me, words is all I have. Words on the table, some spilt on the floor, words in the air, words yet to be born, others dead cold in the trashcan. Some of them get committed to print, enjoying a brief life in the sun, while not many stay in my head as I like to be clean and clear before I go to sleep.

Well let me confess something. These words haven’t helped me much in case of my relationships with everybody. Not just my family and friends but practically everybody.
I have been grassed on by every friend of mine, at least once. Not in all these years that I have lived, have I had somebody who has accepted me the way I am. At times, the people you think you are the closest to you can have split personalities. Well who doesn’t? Even I have it.

But I value people because I think there is nothing more to value in this world. It does make you fall flat a lot of times but that’s the way we are. Social animals Huh!

And aren’t there any friends in the world? Are they an illusion? Well one of my fellow bloggers’ believes so. But I still differ to agree, but there are times when I feel he is right.

As of now I want to go for a swim.

…………………………………………………………………….
This world isn’t a bad place to live in. And contains some of the best individuals that have been created. This is the chain of thought that just took the direction you can read here because of intensity of the day and the night

Admit Two

2007-08-28T15:49:00.000+05:30

The breeze blows as I sit with a notepad in my hand to jot down a few points regarding a class assignment. The clock ticks, its sound totally drowning in the fan’s noise.

These fans create so much of noise, but the sound so much becomes a part of every night, so similar to a clock’s ticking. Though a ticking clock can irritate a little too much at times.

I look around. The world ‘seems’ to be sleeping, at least half of it is!

I often relate to nights very well. And I love being alone during this part of the 24 hours.

But today it is different. A struggle, a want, a very strong desire to feel contented. The inner being feels a little too unaccompanied.

I don’t feel like working at all on the assignment and the only words that I write down on the Notepad- ‘Admit two’.

And suddenly I hear a knock on the door and a beaming smile is what I see.

…………………………………………………………………..

Inspired by a story that I had read as a kid. It was also called- ‘Admit two’ but that involved a murder as well. Hmm can u recall?

Freedom

2007-08-15T23:44:00.000+05:30

Coffee, Books and Music
I love and live to be with these three
And it is this part of the day, which is night
that I feel liberated…, free…
Then comes morning and shackles start to slither on me
But I wait for the night to happen
So that I feel liberated…, free…, yet again.

Hope

2007-08-06T01:03:00.000+05:30

I am still waiting for those thousand splendid suns.

The watch ticks by as not even one of them is visible.

But passion is something that knows no bounds. The zeal is keen to reach the glorious.

I jump high and try to catch the moon. I hold it tight and bring it with me. The first sun rises and there is hope for the rest nine hundred and ninety nine.

Dreams…..i still wait for the rest of them to illuminate me and the rest of the world.

Hope brings life. The verve to get me through and live like melted chocolate.

The Water

2007-07-28T00:56:00.000+05:30

As I look into the vacant today
As I search for the unoccupied
As I wait, lest the unfilled appears
The water flows by.

The mist gets thicker
My head feels heavier
And delusions appear
The water flows by.

Some write about blood
Some write about love
Some don’t write
The water flows by

The vultures stare at me
I stare back
The church bells ring
The water flows by.

Don’t close your eyes
Look at me and come closer
The shutters come down
The water flows by

I hear an opus symphony
Touching my empathy and heart
Moving in peace in the mind’s cart
The water flows by.

The water does not flow by anymore
Well, it must have found other shores
I wait for the incredible to happen
And invite the sea to beckon

Let the day not end
Let my flowing outfit stop the day
Running after the light, I gaze…
The shadow doesn’t touch me.

The Rainy Void

2007-07-24T00:50:00.000+05:30

There are times when one wants to stop thinking about everything. Times when one just wants to put out of mind all that lies within it and look around with no perspective. Today was one such day.

The day was bright and sunny and water in profusion wasn’t really expected. But around 5 in the evening the breeze was indeed perfect. Perfect with my mood.And it started to pour soon.

The best thing that I realised was that I wanted to be blank and gaze. But void could be so good sometimes, I did not know. You just see and feel what is there, unlike other times when the void tries to dig in really hard, crushing the complete essence of existence.

Rain has somehow always given me this feeling of going back to school days. Another thing being that I have always loved to watch the rain, instead of drenching myself and enjoying it ‘on’ myself. I believe that rain reaches within me much more when I watch it. The colour of the day, puddles of water, people playing in it, some others trying to run for shelter.

Looking at rain does bind a lot of things at the same time. Exquisiteness, Fun and search for survival- as a package, right in front of your eyes, together, as different entities, but still going past each other without any concern with one another.

My friends played in the rain while I started to click photos.

But apart from all the splendour of the wonderful rain, the valid became apparent. The distance between void and valid was covered in not more then a second. I realised that I had to get back home from the university with Neha without the availability of the scooter or the car. (Nothing was available with us today.) So public transport was the best answer. But reaching the bus stop from the department was some ride. Water till our ankles, mud getting tossed and huddled under one umbrella with rains thrashing it from every side, we were soaked. To top it all, we had worn white tops today, a wardrobe disaster for the rainy day like today (we all had planned to wear white to demonstrate the solidarity of the batch in front of the juniors.)

What is a bus stop without a bus?

“Anxiousness personified.” Said Oliver Twist. For once he was right!

So a wait for another 45 minutes before we boarded an auto which took a good 30 minutes to make me reach home. Neha had to go further with 20 more minutes.

But I enjoyed myself in a very different way today. Rain and Void are words that are poles apart but this feeling was brought in by Rain and so positively that I just loved it being within me.

Empty spaces can be as beautiful as the rain itself. I am waiting for some more of these.

Air… Is it Ours?

2007-07-17T00:30:00.000+05:30

He smiled at me from a distance and blushed as he said ‘hi’, trying to sound confident and self assured but still a little unsure as to how I would react. Not very tall, thin and rather just a 3 to 4 inches taller then me, (by the way I am quite short. Five feet one and a half inchs to be precise)I had met him in my office and was senior there by 2 years but in the university I was his junior.
This guy was too good to be true. An overdose of genuineness which was quite irritating at times, but he passed of most of the times as a cute guy, who had his own theories of life and liked to abide by them, no matter what.

Then there was this immensely tall guy who would never look at you. Well how would he? I never came into ‘His line of fire’ and when I did for the first time I was scared. He would be seen with a ‘Hide and Seek’ and a ‘Mountain Dew’ most of the times but a chance chat with him once (dunno what prompted me to speak to him) cleared quite a lot. He still remains the wackiest and the brainiest guy I have ever met.

The ‘Hide and Seek’ guy had a stern looking friend whose name, that sounded like toffee was so unlike her. Absolutely no nonsense, I never saw her smiling much. Then there was this most handsome looking surd I ever saw. He irritated me throughout the year by calling me a monkey (Apart from my Madame cap in winters, there is another ‘Red’ reason to it.)

Also there was an ever smiling chubby girl who was too vulnerable to be a journalist but still did a great job. Most of my hugs in the day went to her. Also there was this victim of wardrobe ‘malfunction’ oops! She believed that she had the perfect body on this earth. And yes she did have it. Though a little too obsessed with it.

A full blown feminist was also there, who called herself to be the closest friend of the over genuine guy I was talking about. But seriously I thought he was her baby. Bossy that she was. With me, she was as nice as ever, though even louder then me. (Believe me. people can be louder then me) She had an incredibly industrious boyfriend who added a lot of new dimensions to the department but I still wonder as to why I never saw him on any of the parties.

Another guy I would like to mention here was this ‘Mr Intelligent’ (He loved this title), though a little uncanny. His project on ‘wall newspaper’ is still making waves. His girlfriend could be called as Miss Puckered Brow though. Well she will kill me if she reads this. But it was so rare to see her smile. She gave me a big hug today as I met her in the department. Guess she was in a great mood.

We talk about them everyday. The guy with long hair and beard (I am sure he is going to be a great filmmaker one day), two cat eyed girls. And yes, how can I forget another chap who believed he was practically a woman from inside, never used to bathe, but if you talk about most of the girls from my class, he would make a classroom of hearts flutter like a quivering mass of jelly in a way reminiscent of a speedy cardiac unit.

There was this girl with beautiful auburn tresses and yes a ladakhi superstar. His mole on the lips, oh damn! it was just so sexy.

Well these people are being terribly missed these days as we occupy their position in the 2nd year. As we sit in the law canteen today it seems the surd guy would loudly shout ‘Monkeyyyy’ from a distance, the hugging monster would run her heart to give me a hug, the shy guy would say hi from a distance and the tall guy would be too busy counting the choco chips to look at you.

I had the time of my life with you guys. Miss you people, as it is difficult to settle in your classroom.

The air is just not ours.

..............................................

A dedication to all my seniors.

The Ultimate

2007-07-15T01:17:00.000+05:30

Kiera stared at the moon. Right in its eye. The crescent shaped beauty appeared a little dull today as compared to all the times that she had seen it before.

But the high tide didn’t give a damn about it.

It was at its regular best, rising in a lofty and elevated surge that would depart towards the sky, making a swooshing sound and would come back to the ground with an identical vigour. The tide tried so hard to touch the moon, but a monster named gravity would pull it down without any ado.

Kiera stood at the shore and ‘shouted’ a laughter. However, her voice seemed to drown in the cacophony of noise created by the blue water that looked so black and bad at the same time. She did it again. So hard that her throat nerves ached to tear her throat and come outside.

“Today is going to be the day” she said to herself.

Somebody watched her silently from a distance.

Suddenly the tears started rolling, drenching the already sweaty and beautiful ocean blue gown that she is wearing.

Swiftly but abruptly she starts to reach for the boat parked on to the shore by some careless fisherman. Pushing it into the water she settles herself into it, finding it a little difficult with the feathery gown and starts rowing.

The ultimate is where she wanted to reach today.

Looking towards the shore she shouts back, “Hey you! Follow me. Its not just my honeymoon!”

……………………………………………
A little indistinct I guess, but wanted to write something light this time.

1st bout of Creativity

2007-07-11T23:38:00.000+05:30

Well the credit for the idea of this post goes to The Island Girl. Her insistence and my enthusiasm has delivered this raw post.
We did an assignment on the first day of my masters. It was a creative writing assignment and we had to make a short story including 5 words that did not really have any connection each other.
The words were DOOR, AXE, MIRROR, DRAIN, LEG

A Garlicky Gratis

It was the worst possible start to the week. Someone actually tampered with my morning fix.
At 9.00 am I am in a coffee shop in the suburbs, waiting for the delivery of my drug of choice. I see myself in the MIRROR towards the side of the counter.

The barista shouts out something I don’t catch and places a paper bucket on the bar.

A woman holding a similar cup approaches me and says, “Oops! Sorry that’s mine. I picked up the wrong one.”

She guiltily puts the one she has been holding back. I pick up mine, the one she has been holding back. I pick up mine, the one she has returned and after coming out look back through the glass DOOR. She smiles at me (Ooh, those cherry cheeks.) And I breathe into my divine AXE deo (dude you never let me down!) Her lymph like figure was as ravishing as Tendulkar’s drive to the LEG side

Anyways I reach office. I take a sip and spit it all over my keyboard. In those 30 seconds, that she was holding my drink, she apparently added half a kilo of cinnamon, a slice of ginger and something tangy which smells suspiciously of garlic.

So the coffee goes down the DRAIN. The day gets worse as the coffee machine in the office catches flu and the owner of a small edifice which to a great extent looks like a barn turned ‘chai ki dukaan’ dies (He serves some dreadful coffee, but its coffee..) Things start taking its toll as one of my appointments get cancelled. (Well I was expecting my drink there.) As I reach home at night, I straightaway head for the kitchen. But as luck would have it, the coffee box is empty. All I do is, deep breathe into it.

....................................

As 2nd year begins tomorrow, its showtime again!

2 + 2 = 4 or 22 ??

2007-07-11T01:02:00.001+05:30

At times there is this feeling of being hammered. Right in the head. Rationality seems to be a clear answer but there are these ‘wonderfully’ close people in your life who just won’t be able to see clarity with naked eyes. Well it is not their fault also. But any elucidation also does not work. And you end up feeling distraught, hysterical, rebellious, nauseated and stupid all at the same time.

Complicated nature is what beckons me most of the times but sometimes the simplest of the things can create enormous, ogre like dilemmas that are easy to understand but difficult to explain. So much so that the swollen and sleepy eyes don’t feel like sleeping and be dead with the world

You feel, for once, that life could be easy and less knotty if we were all geeks and nerds, in the literal sense, who wont just have this something called ‘beliefs’, In other words, ‘judgements’, In yet other words ‘any sense of understanding things in the way they personally feel is right’.

I have never said this before. But logic and rationality seem to be so right at times. My sensibility regarding the fact that there can be a number of answers to a question and truth is nothing but a myth, is totally shaken for once, as there are some definite areas which can be called white and black. After all ‘grey’ is a mix of both the two.

The crystal clarity is not seen by those whom you want, should see, not even when they try and look for it. Maybe their mind just does not allow them to.

The situation can be maddening and provoking at the same time. You try so hard to simplify a geometrical problem which just does not get ‘Hence proved’ for its answer. Things aggravate and there is a complicated answer in the end which is not right.
AB=BC, BC//AD,
Hence AD//AB which is not possible
Hence not proved.

Maths- well I was never too good at it. But for once I feel this need of making people understand that two plus two is four in maths and not 22.

I am still trying to solve the vicious mathematics which has always scared me. For people who are masters of it. The only difference is that this time I am being commonsensical and coherent

Liberation

2007-07-06T00:42:00.000+05:30

Jenny sat there. Totally spent out. But she did not regret anything. And why would she?

After all liberation was the answer to all the queries that her mind was trying to solicit at present.

“What the heck did you do?” The mind said

“Nothing……eh?” she said trying to hide the guilt.

“But why?”

“At all times, there is not supposed to be a reason for everything” And she turned away from her mind that always used to introduce her with the enduring principals of life.

She looked outside the window, into the sky and gazed for a while to search for something.

And she saw enduring happiness existing in the darkness of its own kind. Beautiful and magnificent as it was.

Suave, extremely vocal, equipped with immense clarity of thought, most of the times, she now sat silent with a turmoil that was eating into the conscience, blurring the voice of sanity and killing the spirit of tolerance.

“Help me lord! I didn’t have a choice.”

Suddenly the beast sleeping next to her got up with a start and next moment the vegetable knife was dug into her throat. After approximately thirty seconds, a lot of stuff was left popping loose from her gullet.

“So less today? I can tolerate with nothing. But adequacy and appropriate quantity should be provided. After all you had nothing but your body. Damn you man…you were good.” And he winked, looking at her.

Yearning

2007-06-26T00:47:00.000+05:30

As I wend to the shores I know not
As the mysterious ocean rolls closer
As I eavesdrop to listen to the dirge,
The voices are slaughtering.
I hear a resonance of cries
And many dead leaves together.

I yearn for
Thunder showers and the spirited rain,
Wind in trees and melodious strain
The rainbow and the swinging slide
Dragonflies hatching with a hearty pride.

The gaping sun tucking stars to bed
Glistening water flexing its muscles ahead
A mischievous breeze that toys around the sea
and through the casing of clothing touches me

I yearn for
A world where I can be me
A world where I can hear the church bells
A world where my passions have an answer
A world that does not block the sun for me

I wish the canvas was stark
And colours mine
A life
Which scorched, yes, but enlivened too.

I am still waiting

The gulls perch on the rocks
Mocking each other idly
The sea enraptures the body and the soul
But I don’t follow the rule of the sea
And move forward with all my might.

Anxiety and The Sea

2007-06-21T14:44:00.000+05:30

Restless and unrelenting, the waves crashed onto the rocks and boulders with frenzied regularity.

She stood there. Unaccompanied. A visage with a bareness, a porcelain complexion that was complete contrast with the majesty and mood that spread in front of her.

The only movement was created by her white dress that was fluttering high in the wind which also seemed too unfit for today and her not too long tresses. But there was no choice; she had come directly from work.

The cliff on which she stood was more or less stripped from here and there, though there were still some blades of grass, some life left on that clag.

She was breathing. It was relatively easy to breathe in then to breathe out. Well it has always been painless to suck up, then exude an upshot as to what all you have suck up. But the current thoughts- they were becoming as knotty as they could get

The dazzling blue coastal stretch tinged with foam at the shores and she suddenly felt an irrepressible urge to do the act that she was here for. As it is there was nobody around. Nobody would notice.

She took off her white dress and looked at her body outline.

In a sudden movement she jumped from the cliff and landed in the water for a quick swim.

………………………………………………….

Our truest life is when we are in our dreams- Awake

I don’t know how to swim.

Rude Awakenings

2007-06-18T18:24:00.000+05:30

‘Come the year of three nines and one unit, and this world shall disappear before thine eyes’- Nostradamus

Regina sat staring at these words, on her otherwise blank computer screen.

“The world was to end in 1999. We know, that for once, the French guy missed the bull’s eye because today we are in the 21st century, seven years into the second millennium after Christ.” She said to herself.

She heads for the kitchen, makes herself a hotdog with extra mustard sauce and returns back to her room.

She stares out of the window to check up on the gory details. She sees nothing though. A clear road with not a soul.

Suddenly a genome flies near her and stops so close to her that she feels the stench from his big mouth.

“So what have you brought Ruck?”

“London, Egypt, Mumbai, New York is already done. You are the last one.”

“Not yet. So lemme give you a goodbye kiss”

The lips rub against each other and he falls to the ground with a loud thud.

She maximizes the volume of the music system that starts blaring- ‘I wanna break free’ and mumbles “But I don’t.”

She gets back to the computer screen while biting into the last bite of the hotdog and types in a hurry.

‘May the human race see good sense the next time. Amen!’

.....................................

I am an optimist but there are reasons that definitely make us think- Multiplication of population and the resulting congestion, global warming and many more. U.S.A possesses enough nuclear weapons to blow up our earth sixteen times. Will we ever be able to take a U- Turn? Try thinking of a better title

The Window

2007-06-13T17:53:00.000+05:30

I see through that rectangular fissure which is unusually perfect in shape.

I see people running for their dreams like rats so that the rats don’t howl in their bellies. Some end up running slower than the others, thus annoying the rats a little too much. Well a half hungry lion is more harmful than a totally hungry lion. But we are talking about rats here. Are'nt we?

I see the moral fibre of the natural world as it changes its attire everyday. I ask the natural world, “Fashion conscious. Are you?” But it utters nothing although still enlightens me with a cold smile by the wind which is as sarcastic as it can be.

I see technology on the road governing everything, the geek world trying to tame it, but still failing in their measure in trying to identify with the fact that it was made by them.

I see colours and sounds merging into each other. I see cultural sabotage.

I see paradise and then I see hell. I just have to divide the window into two halves. And there it is, straddling an exquisite mastery of line. The line in between- Dreams?, Mysticism? A new world? Or is it a farce? I don’t know.

I see a lot of grey around and then I see myself running to accomplish my dreams. I see the crimson gore of the slaughtered dragon’s vice.

I see you. I shout loud with my parched lips and a parched heart, “Take me along. Don’t leave me here.” But you sprint away as if assessing what is right and what is wrong and my voice drowns in a cacophony of other similar bellows.

I wait for a while and then kiss the dragon.

The Stun Gun

2007-06-10T02:16:00.000+05:30

At first encounter, she struck me as an AK-47 with red nails firing her way to success. Sitting quite close to me, she gave me an eerie feeling, as her loud conversation with the man in red tried to take my attention into custody.

She did look at me once, but I got back to reading my book (obviously faking it), a little restive and twitchy after her frozen glance. Her mannerisms that were so cerebrally challenging seemed closer to babe lade-meets-rollerblades.

What made her so riveting- other then her ‘handsome’ looks- was the fact that while her quest was all about internal tranquillity, she attacked it with the ferociousness of a warrior queen.

Her abiding obsessions were coming alive right there where she created an atmosphere suitable to herself, Like- ‘I want it this way which is my way.’ In other words she was trying to make her own music.

After much commotion, she got what she wanted, the perfect unify, the ideal merger and gave her front teeth to bite into the cheese dripping olives and jalapeno pizza with extra olive oil while the fizzy drink stared at her and so did I.

………………………………………………….
I hate olives and jalapeno pizza

Blue Rose

2007-06-03T13:27:00.000+05:30

Sarah used to write a letter everyday. Nobody knew what she wrote and to whom. But everyday, after coming back from school she would sit down on her study table, take out her notepad with a blue rose on every sheet on the left hand bottom and write the letter.

After finishing, she would put it neatly in a blue envelope and paste a stamp that would take her thoughts to their destination.

Sarah never received any letters. Ever afternoon she would wait anxiously for the mailman to deliver her mail but nothing ever came on her name.

“No mail for you even today sweetheart.” The mailman used to say.

At times Sarah gazed into the sky. And then set down to write her next letter with an impelling drive that was more then ever before. It was this verve in her that kept her going.

Today is an extremely cold winter afternoon. But it looks as if the evening has already set in. A nip in the air giving an arctic feeling beckons her back into the house after waiting for the mailman for almost three quarters of an hour.

As she set out to write her umpteenth letter, the doorbell rang and Sarah rushed out. The mailman was on the door with a big bright smile on his crumpled face with more wrinkle lines then the hair on his head.

“Mail for you”

“Thanks.”

She opened the envelope with a lot of curiosity. After all Graham had written to her for the first time.

“Graham doesn’t stay here anymore. He has gone to stay with the stars now. But I have kept together all the blue roses that you have sent in the last five years.

Graham’s mother.”

She kept on looking at the plain white sheet with a few words, for the next 10 minutes and sat down to write her next letter.

……………………………………………….

It seems that we have forgotten to write letters. Neither have I received nor written a letter in the last 10 years. And why not? With the availability of emails, cell phones, we don’t want to take the strain of writing a letter. But letters have their own whiff- of ink, of paper and of thoughts…

Tagged!

2007-06-01T00:21:00.000+05:30

I have been tagged for the first time by The Island Girl.

Rules
Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write posts in their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

1) I am a short girl (about 5 feet 2 inches, to be precise 5 feet 1 ½ inches) with a short temper, but once I get a reason for things (however vague and illogical it may be), the temper just vanishes as it comes.
2) I admire sleeping and totally believe in Dalai Lama’s mantra followed by The Island Girl ‘Sleeping is the best form of meditation.’ However if it is all about spending time with my loved ones which includes family, friends, books, writing and music, I can sacrifice it, of course to complete it later.
3) Music is my biggest passion in life apart from Reading. I am a trained classical singer and have been a part of quite a few reality shows that we see on T.V. these days (Don’t jump of your seats I could never go beyond the zonal finalist stage which was the last stage to enter the finals) but no doubt about the fact all these experiences remain special.
4) I get bored easily. That is one reason why I have to keep on doing new things everyday. Something as simple as learning a new song or know about a new book or maybe gather some new information.
5) I like creativity in any form. What appeals most to me is the human spirit to constantly try and excel, specially in painting, sculpture, writing and for that matter anything done with a different touch.
6) I talk a lot. And “a lot” within double quotes. I am the perfect example of somebody who can talk endlessly for hours. Most of the times I am not too boring but at times my friends can get cantankerous because I can be too boisterous and noisy. But there are times I like remaining with my own self and just be alone.
7) I don’t forget things easily. I can remember what somebody had said 5 years back in what situation. However I don’t like keeping grudges and try not to be too unkind, however human tendency might overtake things at times.
8) I can get unusually tense in certain situations and can cry easily. But one talk with a good friend and somebody just giving me that last minute advise can work wonders. That is one reason why my friends are quite special for me. However I can be unnervingly chilled out in professional situations.

I am tagging the following fellow bloggers since i dont have many blog friends

As i see it
Nothingman
Random Ramblings

Sleepless in Seattle!

2007-05-28T01:28:00.001+05:30

I am quite sleepless tonight. That is precisely one reason why I am posting this post.

But I am not in Seattle! Because as far as I know, only nerds and geeks reside there. And how can somebody as ‘creative and colourful’ as me be a part of the world which is all about pairing down of all frills and flounces.

How can I be here? A world where silicon rules. And yes even people stay here. And yes different people with different viewpoints but still members of the geek guild. It is well-known that they would love to watch Star trek reruns then go to the college prom. Though I am still trying to maintain an objective viewpoint and preserve the fact that geeks are the most resourceful of all. After all, the complete world today stands on them. But I think life did change for the computer when geeks happened to it or vice versa.

But silicon? I can’t do without it but more then that I can’t do without looking at things with so many different dimensions. Well I don’t choose my thoughts and emotions sensibly and go according to what I feel is right to whatever degree. I have never ever believed in the Feng shui fact that clearing out the clutter in my living will clear the clutter in my life. Because I feel everything including the clutter is a part of my life and can be used in some or the other way. I don’t like to give away clothes and things (books, my old bylines, wrappers of gifts given to me, old birthday cards, kiddie friendship bands) that I haven’t used in the last few years because of my emotional connection with these things.

But how the hell can I see Mr Bill Gates in his grey business suit entering the Microsoft building.

“Hey Mr. Gates, How are you?”

One look at me and he says “Who are you?”

“Well I have read quite a lot about you. How about a cup of coffee?”

He is shocked at my randomness and thinks that I am some crazy admirer of his. (This is quite evident from his face.)

“But who are you?” he repeats himself

“I am illogical.”

“Well those people can’t set foot in my company.”

“So you think that all the people in your company are logical, rational and coherent?”

“Without a doubt, Yes.”

“Cool. So what is the reason behind chips and cookies, as in calling them by these names- such regular features of our computers? Well! So much for the love of food?”

“Nah, there is some other reason to this. Mike??”

“Well Mr. Gates, everything does not have Yes or No as its answer. There are things which don’t have an answer. Do you like computers?”

“Of course I do.”

“And flowers in your garden?”

“Yeah. They are pretty things.”

“How about the sky?”

“Well I don’t know. It can be different at different times.”

“Try checking out the drawing that your daughter made with her wax crayons today. It’s a landscape with a grey sky, winging eagles, buildings that are black and its written at the top- ‘The world today’. But don’t you think that the sky is supposed to be turquoise blue with pretty sparrows in the sky (By the way I haven’t seen a sparrow in ages), elevated glass buildings. One thing is common though- ‘The world today’.”

And I laugh like mad and fly away like a genome into the sky. Well I am yet to meet the eagles. I enter my room and go back to sleep.

Sleepless? Not anymore.

My Encounter with Justifications regarding Temptations of Flesh

2007-05-22T02:08:00.000+05:30

I am quite a feminist when it comes to my personal views on women and their empowerment. So while writing what I am just going to, I hope I do not ‘greatly’ rub up the wrong way and offend any feminist sensibilities of my fellow blog readers and more then that my own self, when I say that politics and statecraft have been, and are predominantly male domains.

Somehow I hate meeting politicians and bureaucrats. Though I haven’t met many in my short freelancing career of two years but whoever I have met has ended up giving me some or the other reason to detest the complete bandwagon of the political and bureaucratic system.

I had not planned any formal meeting today. The hot and sunny day today had to be all about doing a fitness interview with one of the finalists of Miss India contest, a story for the campus page and another something on relationships.

But as they say, what you don’t think in your wildest dreams happens. I bumped into this tall hefty guy, roughly about 32 years of age, who asked me about one of the correspondents while going downstairs.

“Towards the left,” I said.

The correspondent was rushing for his story and asked me to interview this guy regarding one of the front page issues in the paper. Though the interview wasn’t very important since, he had to give me a few justifications on the behalf of the administration, which was only going to bind a few strings for that correspondent’s next story.

He was a bureaucrat with the administration though not at a very high post but at a level where he knew what went on in the government and he being a small part of it was here to meet the correspondent.

The interview hardly lasted 7 minutes and by the 8th minute it was all about his off the record views which lasted for the next 15 minutes.

“Well don’t quote me on this one but things are not as bad as they seem to be. Its just about making a few mutual arrangements these days.” He said.

“Well I know that and I believe we all, including the citizens know that.”

The discussion carried on for a while but his last few justifications were mind-boggling. Though we are quite familiar with these things and read about them in papers but such directness in my face? I had never faced truth in such a naked way. It seemed as if somebody was continuously throwing acid on my face and I was just sitting there watching him, neither able to run away, nor able to hit him back.

“Well madam, the hours are long, the work is demanding, the routine monotonous and the pay poor. So where do these politicians and bureaucrats go for leisure. I think they are very human and prey to the same temptation and lure of flesh that afflicts us mortal men.”

The word ‘us’ was another surprise in his kitty and I actually pondered for a while as to Was it true? Afterall this guy had so much conviction in his tone.

Not paying heed to the conflict inside me he continued. “Thus there is a sharp, short, tactful extra marital association with the lady of the night, one who is easy, decorous and well versed with the art of pleasing. She is not necessarily a whore but, admittedly she has no great moral pressures about lending her body in return for the dubious distinction of mingling with power. And let me tell you women journalists are in great demand.”

“What?” I could not stop myself

But he went on, “And I think it is ok also. The men who are guiding the nation need to be the men of the world in their widest sense of that term. I think the amorousness can be justified because these men shoulder immense responsibilities. If his carnal appetites are full, of course he will govern better.”

With this he ended his ‘speech’ and went away leaving me staggered, surprised, ‘enlightened’ (pun intended). A somewhat putrid feeling overcoming me. With such simplicity he had justified everything.

What the hell is happening? Is it right or is it wrong? And more then that what can we do if at all we think it is wrong? Who is this man of power cheating on? His women and family? His country or for that matter nobody (since it is his personal life). I am still raking my brain and trying to get out of the trivia that has suddenly overcome my mind.

The only answer that comes to me is that we cannot have a right to confront any ‘man of power’ who has a mistress tucked away somewhere, but if, with this he preaches morality and his personal liaisons have an effect on his professional conduct then the citizenry and the fourth estate has every right to brazen out at him.

But the complete effortlessness and ease with which this guy justified everything is something that remains with me.

2007-05-19T01:41:00.000+05:30

The Moment before Ultimate

The world snoozes in a deep slumber
While I lay awake in bed
And think of - sunshine
Grasshoppers hatching and flickering across the countryside
The lustre stippled rocks embossed with the finery of a guide
Swollen peaches exploding as their splits give life to a newborn
Spangled in front of my eyes, are massive fields of the golden corn

Enthused by the atmosphere
The dormant passion in me rises to formidable heights
And an entirely discrete world inside me,
tries to penetrate the veil and fly like a kite
I now become aware of the power betwixt me and my soul
All I need is, to harmonise and channelise it towards my goal

As a girl finally tries to morph into a woman
I rise, elevated, to touch thee
The world suddenly gasps, and sits wide awake to see
While I wait for the final frontiers to coerce
The ice of human apathy starts melting under the heat
It seems that there is no place anywhere for the unkind deceit

That one moment, before the ultimate
Fills my being with hope and pleasure
A moment, like which there will be no other
As gentle as the dew on the grass
As passionate as the rolling ocean’s class

But suddenly I see myself falling back from the cliff
I pass the dew craggy leaves hanging limp
With drained, riveted half-shut eyes
I pass, the plum trees splashed
With a crimson gore of a slaughtered beast’s vice
I groan and shout my heart out
All beneath the dark wrapper of a creepy night sky
But my voice sinks in a cacophony of cries

Although, the only thing that I still recall
Is that one moment before the ultimate
I see the sea that beckons and charms
The unfathomable that delights and beguiles
Embracing the mysteries of the deep
The sea lulls the soul to a peaceful sleep.

.................................................................................

According to The Alchaemist, 'the darkest hour is before dawn' which according to me is not entirely true because that time can be as beautiful as the dawn itself.

Wanna Go Soul Selling?

2007-05-15T01:08:00.000+05:30

I had just gone to sleep when suddenly there was a sound that startled me. It seemed as if somebody had fallen down on the thick mortar area with a loud thud. I looked inside me and checked the soul, it was intact.

As I ventured out into the balcony of my room I saw a man get up from the ground, in perfect shape and walking without a limp, as was expected.

But then in split second, he floats upwards towards the balcony, as if without any mass and steadily floats right in front of me, 6 stories above the ground.

“Wanna meet the vultures from downtown who are sitting at that big tombstone in the form of church that you see, giving some dashing smiles?”

“Nah” I said

“So how about the dogs in the third street? They like to sleep.”

“Sorry, not interested”

“Well, there is another option. Gold and silver pieces. Just meet the bats.”

“Thanks but no thanks”

“Bitch, what is the attitude for. Well anyways it is going to be difficult for you to survive till tomorrow.”

“That’s ok. I know the rules of the rat race. But whatever you might say, at the end of it all I am still going to be a rat.”

“Well you can be a classy rat who is ‘well healed’ and satisfying. And yes you will be the first one to finish.”

“Get the hell out of here”

With a big bright smile amid a snarl that is soon transformed into a grunty laughter, he floats up another story.

“Knock Knock, Wanna go soul selling? We go soul searching and buy you a new one. Something that feels better and makes you look better. So how bout the dogs??”

“I am game. Lets go. But hurry up. I have to be back by dawn. Wont be able to sleep at night tomorrow so will have to sleep in the afternoons.” the male voice answers right above my head.

I sit on my bed and look inside me and check the soul.

I go back to sleep. It is sound and beautiful then ever.

…………………………………………………………..

Dreams, in sleep and out of sleep, more of them coming these days because of a liberated mind that was occupied by so much other stuff sometime back. It is becoming the time where soul and mind are processing the path of quest, to understand one’s own self in a totally different way.

The Starting Point

2007-05-11T00:40:00.001+05:30

I laughed.

I laughed again.

No I had not gone crazy. I was just trying to make myself secure and comfortable with a fraction of me or let me put it this way, fractions of me, which I did not know about.

The regularity of this feeling is becoming hard for me to handle. And let me make it clear, laughing also isn’t helping much.

But why is this sensation striking me?

I am not in love. I am still going by Island Girl’s Tantra Tee, ‘Single and Unavailable’. Nor am I depressed or hating my own self. (This happens by the way). I am not extraordinarily happy also. All is happening the way it is supposed to.

Once I laugh, its hard on the stomach, its hard on the throat, it is hard on my fundamental nature and it is becoming even harder on my worth.

There are voices that draw closer from different directions and give me the talismans I don’t want, or may be I don’t need. The voices that are adoring, typical, run of the mill, cynical, scathing and then there are no voices. Absolute hush.

At times when I don’t hear voices, I see smiles, that are bonbon, polite, wicked, impious and then there is a time when there are no smiles.

If its not smiles I see frowns, that are contorts, puckered brows, scowls and then there is a time when there are no frowns.

So I can’t laugh.
But do I need to mull over and cry?
Or do I need to gnash my teeth, and shout at the top of my voice?
Or do I need to just chill out and let things pass?

Well all these are tried and tested methods that have not helped anybody. So how can they help me?

Is mysticism an answer? I don’t think so.

I try and concentrate on what I have gathered, slowly and painfully, adding to it, amending it and yes, like being the way I am.

Remembering the starting point can let me savour life in a better fashion.

All this was triggered by a statement that was made some time back, “As a woman you are too pure to be a part of the profession that you have got yourself into.”

How bout some Mountain Dew??

2007-05-11T00:40:00.000+05:30

Its Green, its clear and it has a fizz which you don’t see right away. Once you take a mouthful of it, the tang straight away wallops, hitting you at the right spot…..almost in a way reminiscent of a speedy cardiac unit giving thumps at irregular intervals.

If I am in...

An awful frame of mind: - It helps to cheer up the mood in such a neat way. Not like Vodka in which you can immerse yourself, but by being what it is. Unadorned, with no frills and a matter-of-fact. No airy-fairy.

An absolutely fine mood: - During its consumption, at times things don’t change much and at times they just don’t want to change out of reluctance and at times all pre-concieved notions just fall flat and one feels bound to change.

A ‘no’ mood (neither awful nor fine): - Then it gives trance. As if you are busy exploring your own self while savouring the delight. Or at times you are busy walking around the world, with ‘it’ trying to give a hard time to the think tank. Or an abstraction leaving you to explore a new world- ‘Dreams’

Providing a conduit: - It is a feel good factor, providing a conduit to things that are going wrong ‘with me’ and ‘in me’. Reason- the ingredients of it remain akin, wherever and whatever place you try and put them and still not minding the surge of the current.

Well, not that I am trying to advertise for Mountain Dew but try a proxy as ‘Nothingman’, or ‘A Story a Day’ in place of ‘It’ and things will be clear

..................................................................................................

Its Nothingman’s friend’s birthday today but any disentanglement of both the two will lead to a total fallacy of the essence of ‘it’ that I just tried to put in plain words (However vague it may be.)
Many Happy returns of the day….We are dying, as you say, but lets have fun till we are alive. And yes the world might go off anytime with a big bang so keep your music and Mountain Dew handy!!!!

And ya..next time we meet, how about some Mountain Dew???

Cheers!!!

And for those of you who have been wondering what is Green for, then find it out yourself.

Me and Martha

2007-05-08T00:26:00.000+05:30

Blending the acoustic of his accordion with the percussion of his drums, David seemed quite worried.

‘How is this going to happen? My first show ever and that too with Stivens Merrick.’

Martha was watching the very handsome David’s face. “He is worth dying for.” She thought to herself.

The people had already adjusted themselves in their seats and were waiting for the show to begin. All eyes riveted towards the stage, with apprehensions equal on both sides.

Sitting near the refugee camp, east of Africa, a seventeen year old poor boy with a baby in his arms seems to be distressed. His sister’s ‘rape baby’ looks at him with his intent eyes and gives a loud cry as if saying ‘I am hungry’.

He looks at him. “You are the outcome of an incident that has dragged life out of my sister, but you will live to see this world.”

And suddenly the baby starts howling again.

How treacherous can life be. At this point of time, his promise made to the baby seemed to be slipping out of his hands. Hands that were holding him, a mass of flesh and blood- starved and all ready to die.

But where do I buy you milk from. His poverty and refugee status was a clear answer to his situation.

Control over life by man seemed to be such a farce.

Then like a gust of wind for a struggling little kite, a beautiful dark woman appears from nowhere and takes the skeleton from the boy’s hands and takes a look at him.She gives a deep cry, of ‘mercy’ and presses the baby to her milk swollen bosom. The baby starts suckling like a gluttonous little monster.

The boy looks at the woman’s face, an expression of fulfilment and being absolute, garnering all the expressions together.

As the strumming of the guitar begins Martha sees David all lost in his world.

And then, abruptly there is an announcement on the microphone. “This one is for Martha, the woman who has allowed me to grow, literally.”

And he begins with the song,

“As I grew up…I saw the shadows that stalked me
As I grew up…. I saw people who mocked at me
But somebody just knew what I wanted
Like a lighthouse for the men lost at sea
Like fragrance of a flower for a hard working bee
She gave me the nectar called life
thanks mom, thanks to you….”

There was no applause when he finished- that set the seal on his success, he bowed and withdrew amid silence. Still none moved in the hall, until after some time, it was filled with thunderous applause.

The word mom filled Martha’s heart. ‘He is worth dying for’ she thought to herself.

Plunged in reverie she leaves the hall to finally tell the world that ‘her son had grown up.’

"But neither me nor David's mother will ever forgive you Peter."

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I am not a story writer.
I had thought of sending the story in the competetion that nothingman had mentioned, but checking out such good entries there i felt a little out of place...anyways this one will adorn my blog only. Also it was supposed to be called 'Growth' but now i am going to call it, 'Me and Martha'

To You, With Love

2007-05-03T20:42:00.000+05:30

Kirrin had her 2nd final exam today. A little snappy, a little anxious, a little scared but still kinda relaxed; she headed down towards the breakfast table.

Today Sam, her brother, was supposed to drop her to school. As he was cleaning his bike in the porch, the shrilling whistle which was trying to completely annihilate the ‘Summar of 69’ made her feel cantankerous like never before. “Bryan Adams would die if he heard this ‘adaptation’ of his creation.” She thought to herself.

She frowned and ate her breakfast.

A few minutes later he gave a jolted start to the bike and waited for her, honking every two seconds.

She came, climbed and the next moment the bike was airborne.

They had almost reached her school when suddenly another bike was in front of them, all ready to ram into kirrin’s brother’s bike. And as luck would have it, BANG!! It did ram into the bike giving Kirrin such a joggle that she fell down with a thud.

As she was trying to gather herself and her stuff with a shocked open mouth, she heard her brother’s bike take a screechy turn and the next moment- he was gone.

And here she was with a bleeding knee and here he was, her brother who did not bother to look at her, forget taking her to the doctor.

So many years have passed, where turmoil has been a part of the relationship. And it is said that when all is in the state of turmoil, singleness of purpose becomes very important that goads you to achieve something in life.

Kirrin is still waiting.

Her birthdays, so many of them.

Her first job.

Her first salary.

The wait has prolonged a little too much.

Today Kirrin is all set. Sitting pretty and ready, waiting for her knight in shining armour to sweep her of her feet.

Somebody’s jaw trembles as she jumps into her guy’s car.

As the car is about to leave, he comes near her and gazes into her deep brown eyes. He gives her an envelope which says, To You, With Love.

As she opens the envelope, there are 3 words written on the piece of paper, as white as his face and as blank as his eyes,

‘I DO CARE’

She looks back in reverie, and thinks of all the times that she had spent with him.

With tears and frustration there was somewhere a satisfaction of him being around. But when I was sitting on that road all alone with a gash, why did he go away.

She still can’t answer that. But knows that the only man in her life who loves her as much as that knight in shining armour is, him.

………………………………………………………………………………

Brothers can be a little uncanny and we might find it really hard to understand them but they DO CARE. I hope somebody is listening………..!! Don’t mind if I have taken too much of liberty.

Mystic Dunes

2007-04-28T11:52:00.000+05:30

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………

......................................................................................................................................................

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

2007-04-23T22:31:00.001+05:30

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

2007-04-15T01:29:00.000+05:30

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)

2007-04-12T19:24:00.000+05:30

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.”

……………………………………………………………………….

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)

2007-04-10T14:36:00.000+05:30

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

2007-04-10T13:08:00.000+05:30

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

2007-04-08T18:40:00.000+05:30

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

2007-04-06T15:33:00.000+05:30

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

2007-04-06T13:42:00.000+05:30

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....