Ten years hence--A Story

She had been to the mall with Simi. Lazy Sunday afternoons, you know what they are like for a person like her. Simi had almost coaxed her to throw away the novel she had been trying to wind up for the past three months (thanks to her job!) and help her shopping for her (Simi’s) wedding.

Browsing through the bookshelves, reading the epilogues of books she had always wanted to have, she saw something. She saw someone. Someone who reminded her of what she had been like. It brought back her face, ten years younger than today. She realized that she had not been imagining it all, it really was him. The same man, tall and spectacled. Hair, slightly longer than normal that fell on his cheeks…that stoical indifference in his eyes. That inane shyness. Hardly anything had changed about him. The man she had desired at some point of time stood just two feet away.

She saw him coming her way, and hid behind, something…she hid because, being her true self, she had always wanted to keep certain things to herself. Some secrets are between just ‘me and me’ for her. So she would never let him know that she had come across him somewhere…and went unrecognized.

The passionate days of her youth had passed. Giving way to faint wrinkles that now showed on her face. Many of her haughty and cynical girlfriends had begun too look out for men who could equal their charisma. But she never grew up to that age actually. Age doesn’t matter for poets. She had stopped growing when she was eighteen.

She heard Simi shouting out to her for something, and afraid that he just might get to remember her name if she calls her yet again, (Simi had yelled loud enough already!) she joined her.

When she had been an early twenty something, or younger, whenever things as these happened, she craved for a listener, immediately, but now she didn’t. She wasn’t as excited as then. Thirties had taken their toll on her. Time passed slowly for her…now.

She tried to choose between the bad and the worse dress that the unusually short and stout Simi had chosen for herself. Amongst Simi’s numerous questions like “ How’s this Dini, How’s that? Will this make me look taller?” and the types…. our Dini wanted to believe that she hadn’t seen him. At all!

The wound had been uncovered. It was nothing like she loved him or anything. But the ‘rejection’ came back to her. Those nightmarish experiences of being sidelined by someone she had been awestruck by, had shattered her confidence, and made a thousand streams of tears flow… It had taken so much time to heal.

But then you learn things in life and move on, don’t you?

She thought of all this, before Simi asked her to get inside the car, they were leaving…and for the umpteenth time, she sighed, “I’m just alright!”

Wildflower---A Story---

It has been raining since morning. The way it rains in the hills. I have been born and brought up here; even then, the way the drops of water slide down lively green leaves brightens my eyes.

Today, early in the morning when I was asleep, Sony left. Grandma tells me, she couldn’t afford to see my face. She couldn’t have been able to see me, helpless, this way, when she was going away for ever. Daddy says she is away just for two years, to get her Masters done. And after that, we would have her back; things would be like before, four of us, Sony, Daddy, Grandma, and me of course.

But no one comes back from the land of immense opportunity, does she?

Sony only charmed her teachers; by the way she studied, all through school and college. I had seen her burning the midnight oil, night after night. She always wanted to make it big. As big as Daddy did. She switched her timings efficiently enough to spend time drooling over books in the library, to reading bed time stories to her perennially ill younger sibling, that’s me. The swiftness with which she ran about in the house amazed me. The amazing bounds to which her beauty grew and the first day she brought Sisir home, to show him to me and Granny, I remember everything.

I never saw school after sixth grade, though. Even being taken out for a stroll in the garden was life at its best for me. My thoughts never crossed the boundary that cut off our house from the rest of the world. The world that would never belong to me. The one in which I would never be able to walk without the help of a Granny.

Due to the accident in which I had lost a mother and a leg, feeling the wet grass shy away under my feet, had become an unrealistic daydream. Strolling in and about the vast backyard of ours with my mother was some age of my life; I could never go back to. I wasn’t easy to convince myself, that I would never have anyone like Sisir walking straight into my life.

Initially, for a few months after the accident they had arranged a tutor for me, Daddy didn’t want me to stay an illiterate. But I overheard them talking in the study, Daddy and Teacher. The teacher coaxed my father to understand that my mind was hurt more than my body. The shock I had earned out of losing mother had numbed all my senses. And so I would never be able to study. I wanted to kill him that moment. But I knew, it was all true.

I would look at the oaks stand tall near my window pane. Its hands reaching heaven. Birds defying margins. The horns of the vehicles, that hardly ever penetrated the jungles around our home, always called me. To roam around in the city, like people do. But you know, I am such a problem for my folks, seating me in a car needs a sturdy person. Granny can’t do it anymore. I have seen her grow older day after day. And she has seen me become more and more dependant, vulnerable and helpless.

Oh god in the heavens, I know you exist. Take me out of this world, my world, your world. Give me a hand, take me into the light. Let me touch the seamless brightness that is there, somewhere a little beyond my limitations. Lend me one chance to dance in the pouring rain. One chance to walk talking to the green mountains, singing to the trees as if I were one amongst them. Climb up to the roof on my own, and talk to my dead mother, who is one among the stars…

Lend me one life, without my wheelchair…

To someone not so special---

To the someone who ceased to exist for me:-

I shall be waiting your way to return
Sans you life is not that much fun

Colors go pale
And its things look so stale

Eyes with expectations galore
With every moment, they grow more and more

Every gust of passing breeze
Makes my heart freeze

May be it is you again
I unlock my door, but all in vain

Waiting for you maketh no sense
Oh! I am filled with so much vengeance

That agony of rejection and betrayal
Would never fall short of such a portrayal

Your smile, your love, your sense of humor
Thinking of them now, fills me with rancor

But your, memories don’t leave me alone
And I am always stranded in the days bygone

Soulful music doesn’t satisfy
And all borders does my heart defy

The past gives me a painful spasm
Your void has filled me with sarcasm

With you gone forever
I can’t even respond to any other admirer

But you have to take things in your stride
In order to live and not just survive

To India

‘It would be a real injustice to bracket India within the underdeveloped world. It sure, would become a world power very soon. We have sons (and daughters of course) of our soil running things of indispensable importance world wide…’—this is what many of us people think these days…be it the IT industry or our business conglomerates procuring international giants, or the escalating stock markets. But let me have my say. Stated below are three incidents that shattered (yeah, shattered…I’m not exaggerating in any way) my ideas of India growing out of that bracket:-

1. You heard about that couple from Karnal? (Karnal, the place so famous as the hometown of the martyred Kalpana Chawla.) The guy and the girl loved each other. They belonged to the same gotra (clan). And marriage within the same gotra is considered evil. So after they got married, the panchayat got their hands and legs tied up. They were fed pesticides, and thrown away in some river. Pinch yourself, this is true. This is as barbaric as barbaric could be…

2. There was this news about a Muslim couple from somewhere; they had their twenty-third child on the twenty-third year of their marriage. And this is the way the celebrity couple tackle the intense media glare, on their tiny little happy family—children are Allah’s gifts and we don’t have the right to stop them from taking birth. He creates them; he will take care of them. Allah will make your children literate enough to sensible humans? Allah will feed them? No, dear man and woman, He wouldn’t. You should, because you are the unfortunate reason of their worthless existence. Where can ideas like these lead us in time? Only backwards…

3. The news that Lalu took the Indian Railways a long way from being a tattered organization to one profit making empire, felt good. But now they include it in their private property. There is this brother-in-law of Lalu’s. He, asked the Rajdhani Express to pick him up from the platform no.1 instead of platform no.3 because that would be more convenient for him. He delayed the departure of Rajdhani because he was not accommodated in a first class AC or something. He was heard saying “I am Parliament”, what he meant was “I am a parliamentarian”. Never mind. But what the hell was that?

People, you can say India is becoming rich. 8% growth and crap. But I have seen the poor sink into abysmal poverty. Whenever I hear about India shining, one memory comes back to me.

We had been away on a picnic. Our destination was very far. It took us through numerous villages. And just as our bus passed a village, I saw a bunch of four urchins; all of them pitch black, without a thread of fabric on their bodies, jumping in the shower created by the crack in the pipeline. They were gurgling out laughter. They were screaming out ‘bye-bye’ to us…waving to us, till we drowned below their horizon. May be they had eaten nothing since morning. They compel me to think India has a long way to go. We have a long way to go…right?

Dear Stranger

Now that my holidays are almost over, it’s time I sent away the thank-you letters to the wonderful people without whom it would have never been possible to make my summer break an astounding success as this one. Haahhhhh!!! Here goes the first one…

Dear Stranger,
I am quite sure you do not remember me, but I can’t wipe you off my memory. It was one of those monsoon afternoons I met you in front of Archie’s gallery. It had been drizzling through out the day so far. And the wind was fast enough, to carry away volatile hearts in its hands. And I was there to buy mummy a present for her anniversary. After I got out of the building with the gift, the wind was kind of aggressive then. And my scooty was all jammed inside with some ten odd vehicles around it. I couldn’t get it out of that mess. I called the security guard there, he didn’t budge. And there you were right beside me, chatting away on the phone to a distant someone. All the time you were on the phone, and you gestured to me that you were there to help me. Oh! What a relief. I had been uttering curses to myself all along. You asked me to move out. And as I stood there away from all this lump of vehicular congestion, you struggled for me, and got my scooty out.

And damn! All the time you were on the phone with that ‘distant someone’ talking about train tickets to Warangal. May be you study there or something? I doubt, whether you heard the nearly mute ‘thanks’ that escaped me lips, because you were still on the phone. So let me thank you now…
Yours truly,
Another stranger…you would never know who!

The next letter of thanks is to my CDwallah~~~:D

To someone special---

To the other woman:-

You have a fairer color
A slender figure
And hair never out of order

A smaller face
A gait of better grace
And earrings that heighten his craze

Eyes deliquescent
More intoxicating a scent
With my man, may you never repent

Dexterous fingers, polished nails
And to share with him, a lot better tales

Things very rare
A voluptuous stare
Inestimable care

It’s got something to do
With your lowered gaze
Enthralled, he is always full of praise

About your lips that lure
Your eye balls azure
Your person, so demure

Enough!
Let me cut it short
With you, may he never flirt

May neither heart ever break
I know the ache is too much to take

Take good care of this man…
After all, you will grow his clan!!!

PLAN-'H'

I had big plans for the holidays. Well, my holidays do stretch for more than two months and a half. And you do actually start making plans a couple of weeks before they start. My end sems happen the last week before the holidays, and by that time my head would be over flowing with the thoughts of silent afternoons I would spend in my room, at home, doing all the typical holiday stuff. And now my vacation is on the verge of termination and if you ask me what I did the whole summer, you would silence me. Seriously, I have lived this entire time, without the vivid memories of a single day.

What I had planned to do? Well, wanted to sink my teeth into c/c++/java all over again. Honestly, it would have been my first time. And I wanted to drink all the good fiction written. And I had planned movies also. And e book adventures also. Make myself learn that the internet is made u of stuff better than orkut and gtalk. Blogosphere is definitely, its weight in gold. More than anything, one thing that I wanted to be done with is as follows:

Most importantly, before the holidays, throughout my life as sophomore at the godforsaken college of mine, I at times was made to feel like a misfit. Definitely out of place. Someone who lives too much herself, for herself. So I made up my mind, if it is so, then so be it. I shall shrink more into myself, and expand! But only with better sense. I wanted my existence to make some sense, of all people to myself. I wanted to have an opinion about things in life. Earlier it used to be so that, I was always hung in mid air. I couldn’t say what is wrong and what is right. I felt faintly rebellious at times though, for some causes, but argument always gives me shivers. I run short of points in my favor. So I felt I could overcome this shortcoming by reading like a nut. And getting in touch with what people feel. But to no avail. I never did that. And even today, I feel as if both the warring parties are right at their own positions. Let them fight, and die. What do I have to do between them? I am cool. I shall never improve, I know.

Gradually throughout second year, I have lost my fervor, my zeal to work hard. And the maddening ambitions that empowered me back in high school. Now that I had none of it left within me, so these holidays I wanted to gain some part of it back. I wanted to take the big decision. What after B Tech? MBA? MS? What? Or just any other job? This was what I was supposed to decide, I was supposed to meet people mature and experienced enough to guide me, show me some light on what things are like in the big bad world. I think I did come across people, but I could not boil down to anything, substantial.

One thing I did? There were certain decisions I wanted to be done with by the end of June, about my feelings for certain people. Which ones were walking out straight of my good books, and which ones I was asking to stay back. And I think I am done with that. I have the answers for myself.

And one thing I couldn’t do? I wanted to instill the conviction in me that people do not mean every thing they say. I have to live beyond my naivety. But I have been one horrendous failure at this.

It’s all about becoming self sufficient. One big time, successful woman! And also a lot happy, if that comes along with it…

~honest mumblings~

Me and my life
We have made our harmony
Signed a truce
No more
No more of thinking till it hurts

The touch of the midnight is so healing
So soothing, that all that is past is forgotten
There is peace, despite the turbulence
I am free from ‘growing up’ now

My eyes can sense a coolness
A stability, enough of day dreams
No expectations from anyone
No waiting for the special arrival

I am happy with all I am left with
Not unhappy for what I lost
My inspiration is long gone
Even then I am inspired

Every day I am a step ahead
On the path of self discovery
But all I know is
I am my mystery!

today, it so happened that i wrote the truest poem of my life. here are exerpts from it:

'of the wishes that took birth in my heartdreams that i saw,
eyes wide opendoing every thing that a normal human would
and deep within, being the thorough bohemian i am
i disobeyed rulesi roamed around guardless,thought like a gypsy
i freed my spirit from all chains chains that i found would make me mundane
restrictions that prevented me from living,
living like a thing so porous,letting life through
living like a flower so wild
i stood amongst you all
while my heart flew amongst the stars'

'i tried to get back the past, the shade of the trees,
the dusky breeze, that nostalgia
i tried to live the future in my own way
a future i wanted, fate sent it back to memy dreams of glass crushed,
as if i were an unwanted dollused and thrown
anyway, i love myself, let things pass,i knew they would
and when i could take no more,
i resorted to my pen, to my god, to tears, to crying alone'

'and of love?
i waited for it, all along
got it, lost it
housed an imposter for the lover
despite what i am
i still cherish sunshine, the dew
i love the first rain, the gush of a wind
i love the written word
i even do write a word, which noone reads..'

'i craved for care, for praise
for love, for passion
at times like a foolish frog,
i waited for fairy tales to come true
and even today, when i stare into the depths of my soul
i know, i am the same person
untouched by times
and so it shall remain,
the 9 year old thinker of my memories
will live in the 50 year old wrinkled face of mine'

untiltled

Date: may ** 2007
Time: 7 pm around
This should be the happiest moment of my life. Should be. ‘coz I just got whatever I wanted for quite sometime in my life. If I could, I would have frozen these moments in time. And I am so shocked that I can’t even relish this state of mind. My muscles are ready to jump into the air. I am feeling a little too crazy, and so I cant absorb all the happiness around. What should I do? Thank you God. Thanx a million for giving me these tears of joy. Love you…forever…nomatterwhat…love you..muah!

PS :
And I will just to add this as I end this. When you have been dying for some wish to be fulfilled, and one day it so happens that your wish is fulfilled, you donot feel as elated and hysterical as you think you should have. because the value of things decrease the very moment you begin to posses them. The achievement chains the madness you had within earlier…

just wanted to post this, incase i look back some day...n find this post out, and feel good or bad...i dunno---but let it be there...lemme have a witness to some part of all that i have been thru' :)

monsoon 2 me

Monsoon to me
Means a wet creeper climbing unto my window
While I sit there, devouring a novel
An old novel, with its edges torn
A discovery from my uncle’s a rickety shelf…
Yellowed pages, eaten up by fungus
Sitting on dad’s archaic bed
At my ancestral place

In the nights,
Ruthless thundering
And the fear of a snake sneaking in

Monsoon to me
Means a scooty ride
After a tiring day,
The air clean of dust
The road shining clean…n vehicles rushing home
Me crying to loosen the heart
Drenched in tears and rain…

Monsoon to me
Means the coconut tree near my window
Beating the glass pain…
And it raining throughout the nights…

Monsoon to me
Is waking up
One Sunday morning
To find puddles in my backyard…
Watching news with a cuppa in hand
The rest of the state brimming with floodwaters…

Strange thoughts,
Dreams that would never be true
Frequenting my mind every now
And then…

sixth sense

My sixth sense gives me jitters. There have been days when I have hated having this sense. I can smell death from a distance, I can’t tell you who will die, but I can tell you something very very painful is round the corner. I get to know, if would lose something, and I would lose say an earring that day, I would be feeling down the whole day, and my cycle was stolen…someone would run away with my purse…I would know that we would not have a class someday. Whenever I am told that something exciting is yet to happen, the most coveted of friends would call up, and so on and so forth. Sometimes I hate myself for this, knowing something bad is to happen, but you don’t know how to stop it, it hurts…I cursed myself for having been blessed…or cursed…I gave god a nice scolding one night…thinking that he would never dare to give me a sixth sense ever.

Did I tell you when I get my sixth sense working over time? When ever I prayed, and I would be desperately begging god to keep all well, safe and sound, (I do that), some silent voice picks up from the boundaries of my brain and conveys me the message…earlier on I was excited, but later on as I have told you, it was too much of a burden, power means responsibility also , you see…so I gave god that nice scolding and was glad that I did not get those sixth sense warnings for a few days, and then they were back to ma again…

Today morning, I was told that I would meet someone good. So I was brimming with expectation, you see. Someone would march into this parched life of mine…had my oracle class in the morning, my ‘fantabulous’ teacher left us early, so I thought, this is just because I can meet the special person, me and a friend went shopping. I looked around the mall for the special person…grr…him….he was nowhere to be found. Met a school friend gossiping away with his girl friend (who is also my junior), felt like an old woman there. Definitely this was not the special Him, I said to myself. Tried to keep my spirits high. The whole day went by, did orkut somewhat, saw the remaining part of godfather three(I am watching movies in bits and pieces), loved Al Pacino all the more. Now Al Pacino (well no doubt he is just too good) couldn’t be the special person. Made 3 to 4 new chat friends. None of them were the special Him I am talking about.

So what? I called it quits with my sixth sense. Nothing doing, how come it was wronged? Anyways, never mind, there always is a next time. Mum surprised me, “get ready, we gotta be going to some party” . now what would I think---same good old colleagues of mum—same good old namasteys, hi’s and how’r u’s, n which year are you in? how’s the food in the hostel…why r you going thin? Is the study pressure killing you, my child? Blah blah! Well I was all set for it, was also kinda looking forward to dad getting back home soon so that we would be able to make it the party before almost everyone leaves(this is something we are used to). And waise bhi, I would be going to a reception after a good one year or so…

Went there, and met a girl--jewel. A reflection of what I was, four years ago. Though she has better eyes than me. :P just fell for her. When wavelengths match, what else can a loner like me ask for? It’s the soul’s counterpart we are all craving for at the end of the day.

So kids, what do we conclude? We wind up today with the conclusion that my sixth sense stands strong and sturdy and tall (can’t omit that word, everything tall is so good—I hope you are getting my point :P) my special someone for the day was not a Him but a Her…oh! woteva!

to that couple

I never realized that greenish brown was such worthy a color, before I saw her wearing a shirt of that color. It suits that kinda figure, you see, slender, yet not bony. And somewhat err..tall…

And look at the guy beside her; he is thin, bony to be exact! My college senior, I guess…(it’s the ‘senior’ part I am guessing because he is not my batch mate, and with all the knowledge he is stuffed up with about oracle, I am sure he is a final year-comp science, he can’t be a sophomore ).

I see them –this couple-(that’s the only thing I do) at my oracle classes these days. Love birds. Also we have one fantabulous teacher there who must have promised some dying girl friend that he would never ever smile; one of the following posts will be about him.

Coming back to the girl, she does not hang those long earrings, coz she hasn’t pierced her ears yet! Must be around 20, so when is she gonna get them done? Shabby hair, I mean not like the one they show in the adds, its curly, short cropped, just a tiny pony…and look at the way she sits, one leg on another, her chappals neatly on the floor. All set give the corporate world an earthquake the day she steps into it! Her voice exudes confidence…

The guy! Not that pleasant a face to look at, a thin one at that. Wears those strange caption wala Tshirts. Has some kind of an attitude! And is full of knowledge as I have told you.

And they are boyfriend and girlfriend. ‘Coz they sit together. Could be siblings, could be pals. But I wouldn’t let them become anything else but a couple.. They are a couple, because I want them to be one. I like the way they talk, both of them slightly bent over their notebooks. As if those two chairs made up their home. Most probably, they help each other clear doubts…the girl goes demure, the moment she faces her guy.

Once, in the lab class, there was just 1 seat left, and both of them chose to go to another less privileged lab( you never get the teacher there)…because they could not bear being separated…

I will keep posting such crap, to vent the frustrated female locked up in my body!
Kudos to my observation skills!

'night'----A story

It had been raining all day. But that couldn’t stop the traffic bustling at break neck speed in the dead of the night. It had been like any other night, every other night. And there she slept on the couch, in their living room. Curled up like a puppy in the cold, her nightdress shining in the dim light of the TV. That is the way it is every night, she would wait, to have dinner with him. And every night, she would doze off in the couch itself, with the TV glaring at her, loud and bright...On some nights, she would sleepwalk to her room (yeah, it was always ‘her’ room and ‘his’ room, they wanted to live like individuals even after tying that knot, a year ago.); and sometimes she would spent the whole night on that couch itself.

Today, she had decided that she would talk to him, yeah, discuss their relationship that was going down the drain. See, you need to put in voluntary efforts to keep your marriage running. Our good old love, doesn’t work these days. But even then she couldn’t put up till he came back, tired like a child, she was.

He tip-toed into the house, saw her fast asleep. The clock said 5 minutes to 1. 1 in the morning!

He didn’t want to wake his wife up. He felt pity for her; she was sleeping like an orphan! He picked her up and took her to ‘her’ room. Lay her on the bed, covered her with the quilt, and was about to leave, when he heard her, “When did you come?” he turned back to find a sleepy girl, rubbing the sleep off her eyes, and trying to get out of bed. “I will just warm up your dinner, gimme a minute. You go and change.” “No, not hungry, gotta catch some sleep…, goodnight!”

This was another part of the daily story, he would dine out, forgetting that someone could be waiting at home, to sit across the dining table together once in a month and revive the dying emotion they called love.

‘This was too much! She was waiting to talk! And look at the way this man, was avoiding it all.’ she thought. “You aren’t hungry, but I am.”, she yelled back at him. Taken aback by this kind of an unexpected outburst from his always-so-calm-n-composed-better half, he walked back to her, sat beside her. “Why haven’t you eaten anything? When did I ask you to wait?” he whispered.

‘This man deserves to be kicked out of my heart, look at his guts, man, I am hungry, get me food first, you ungrateful idiot!’ she thought.
He read her mind, ‘There, she is fuming, the pressure that had been building for months, whistles off tonight.’ “Wait a sec, sweetheart, I will get you the stuff in a minute!”

‘Sweetheart? My foot! I am too old for you flirtatious tricks my dear husband! I am your wife, I know you only too well!’ today, she would give him a piece of her mind. Years ago, in college, the way things worked, when they were friends, friends too shy of each other. She had always loved him. Was unaware of his feelings though. She took the utmost amount of care to see that he wouldn’t get to know of her undying love and crap! A girl should never tear her heart open. She had her mind all set, to do away with him as another silly yet serious crush, she was so sure, he wouldn’t reciprocate. But one day, it took him a truckload of guts to put aside his ego and tell her that he wanted her, as a pre-requisite for his life ahead! Too much in love, to wait and listen to the rebuke of wailing parents, they married despite the differences that arose…And here they were, in this two bedroom apartment crammed up in some collapsing metro in India, with jobs in MNCs, drawing decent salaries, and not in love. The ‘Workaholic-moneyed’ !

He returned with the stuff..grr..dinner! Placed it on her lap, as she kept staring into his eyes, as her eyes shone with tears. Once upon a time, he had fallen for these eyes! Unbelievable! He tried to enliven a sleeping sentiment in his heart, tried to feel their love. But to no avail. “Do I cook so awful, that you have to eat out every other night?” He kept mum. Stoically put a morsel in her mouth. Chewing it slowly, she asked him again “Why? Answer me? Do you even remember when we had talked properly, the last time? I leave this place, before you are up, and you come back to find me asleep. Is this the life we had promised each other?” Tears rolled down her eyes. He kept feeding her. “What’s wrong with us? Why can’t we live to be happy? Content? Like my parents do? I will be moving out in a month or two, and god knows when will we get to live together again, why are you doing this to me?”

And when he was done with feeding this unruly girl, he moved out into the kitchen. She wiped her tears, and called out his name, one last time, loud enough to wake the neighbors, clinching her fist like an irritated kid.

After five minutes, when he returned to her room to switch off the lights, he found her already dreaming. Food had quietened the hungry kid. He noticed the way she had changed in a year, she had grown a lot thinner, he remembered the way she died to shed weight earlier. Girls generally gain after marriage; his wife had contradicted all theories. This city and pollution had given her than tan also. She was no gorgeous beauty men run after, but her eyes! Man! When she closed them, they looked like two leaves put to sleep. And in the midst of all this lovelesness , it dawned on him that he still couldn’t do without this pre-requisite for his life…

And he hurried to bed. He wouldn’t budge from a bed before an eight-hour sleep he knew!

~she~

Beauty!
She witnessed beauty, today morning…
Her face, her own face…
Shining with oil, and the sweat of the last night’s warmth
Tip of her nose glowing like gold
Eyes, almond like…
Smeared with the kajal gone astray
Eyeballs lost deep in thought, remembrance…
resembling two pools of black!
Hair, coiled, long…
Twirled up, covering the sides of the face…
Tresses caressing her lips…
Lips, thirsty, dried up, yet inviting
She licked them up and kept staring at the mirror…
While someone gazed out of it…incessantly
Sleepy, yet beautiful…
A face lustrous, with the remnants of dreams of the night bygone…
Blushing with all the love showered!

untitled01

Once is enough in love,
One touch,
One kiss,
One whisper,
One confession,
One meeting, when I can see eyefuls of you,
And cage you for the rest of my life
It’s unfortunates like me,
Who can’t afford it more than once

Because, every time you talk to me,
It gives me fuel for a few more days,
Fuel to live…and replenishes the fire
That’s glowing the walls of my heart,
With my love for you…

Every moment I spend with you,
Is one that I want to live another hundred times over…

And i can't let my eyes meet yours,
I am afraid you would see the love pouring out...


Love-that flows in my blood…
Love – that’s unsaid,
I could never open my mouth to say ‘I love you’,
Because every time I breathed,
It was ‘I love you,’ left unsaid,
Only you didn’t pay heed
An idiot that you are
Stupid!

on death

Death is a tragedy that diminishes everything else. Every time I witness death from close quarters, my life should become dearer to me. I should count my blessings, thank god for how safe and cozy I am, away from the hold of death.

But the fact is, none of us can be far from death. Death is more close to us, than we are to ourselves. It can happen anytime, anywhere. And it is the suddenness and the brutality of death that hurts. The inability to digest the fact that someone would never get up again, someone would become a non-existent entity from now on, that someone would remain just a memory, makes me feel sick.

And when you can mourn death properly? You can feel a lump in your throat, a weight on your heart, tears frozen in the corners of your eyes, and yet not cry. The state of shock doesn’t leave you, and you cannot grieve, the sorrow thrusts the walls of your heart, shouting to be shown a way out, but you can’t help it. You can’t cry, so you cage the pain within. It’s more than horrible…

You beg for someone who could help you cry, who could help you release the anguish…and let the shock not overshadow the profound sense of loss that death creates, and the void that it leaves behind…

anniversary

today, my blog completes a year...exactly 365 days ago, i had grown emotional enough to pen down a poem for someone special. i published it. no one read it. and then after, i blogged about everything i felt strongly for,...n lemme tell you, blogging feels good...doesn't it?

couch tomato

May be it’s a little more than unusual, but I don’t watch the television. Not at all. The latest craze, talent hunt contests, make me feel sick. It is a childhood syndrome, I can’t take in failure. (Doesn’t in any way imply that I don’t fail. In fact failing is a part of life now.) I can’t see people loosing it out there on the dais, weeping and crying back to their home towns. It makes me shaky. Makes me go loose. I can’t take the sorrow of the fellow who gets thrown out of the contest. It goes beyond my comprehension, why the judges behave the way they do, ruthless, indecorous and cold. Don’t they understand that the person, who loses, wants their consolation more than the rebuke? Who doesn’t want to win? Every one does. I can’t help but loathe the way Anu Malik behaved with the contestants, in the sole episode of Indian idol which my pals (who are nuts about the series) dragged me watch. Uncivilized, “ape”ly, I would say.

And about winners, people who ascend all the way to the throne, I get a complex from them. Why? Because, I don’t sing well. I cant shake a leg like them. Because I can’t drive the crowd crazy like them. Why can’t I? So I hate this talent hunt stuff altogether. You know what, earlier on in life, I hated looking up the papers, the next day after results of any examination were declared. That vision of spectacled, toppers ogling at me from that newsprint made me sick. And tutorials claiming responsibility for their success! Sick man!

And I am sure non of you watch the Saas-bahu crap. Do you? So wouldn’t talk about them here. But one thingie. A tiny nothing about me. Loved kutumb when I was a kid. I loved the way they hated their way to love. You fight the person, you know you can’t live without. I had day dreams about Pratham and Gauri. What could be better, they are a real life man n wife now!

News channels? Mushrooming around! How many of them actually do make sense? Every shitty new thing is always breaking news. Damn! Don’t make an issue out of everything. But yeah, I love sting operations, no matter whose privacy they intrude. I remember having confessed about wanting to become a journalist, much to the pleasure of the fellow who happened to take my interview some day. And one day, I will become one, after I have truck loads of money, for the rest of my life. Yeah! I know I can’t kick out all the filth from this country, at least as a journalist; I can expose some of the dirt.

What do I like about the invention of Baird? I like sensible documentaries, by sensible people. And at times, staring at nature(well almost my first love…grr…), via NGC. And watching a serial called Arohan…every time it’s shown and re-shown on DD National, another serial, in which they hated their way to love :P.

sea and me

These waves, they have seen everything. Man crawling on his knees. And wars and bloodshed. Even Asoka and Akbar. And dissolved the ashes of the dead, who chose to be cremated beside the sea. They have been beating these sands for an unknown number of centuries. God knows how many. Zillions of windy evenings like this one. Creamy tides follow one another. Waves, each wave, coming closer to me than the previous, violent and virile. And distant lights, of trawlers, light up the horizon. And I try to feel the fear, of the fisherman, at deep sea, playing life and death with these dark waters. And the agony of the wife waiting, at home. The full moon, which was looking like some white ball floating in mid sea, rises, higher and higher. And there is this different kind of a pleasure that I derive by letting the wind play with my hair, and entangle it as much as it can.

I am staring into the dark, deeper and deeper onto myself. Gradually I forget, where I am, the purpose, the grudges I have about life… there are no lights and the entire beach is dark. Thanks to the municipality that has not paid up the bills of the electricity department.

And then I look at this couple. Yeah, they look like one. The girl, is in a all new red sari, with golden zari work on it.(Imagine! Tucking that entire garment up to your knees and kicking around in the water) And she is all drenched in gold. (lemme show all I have to the sea…) and they are holding hands and talking. Or may be just looking at each other.

And then there are these vendors, selling everything you would like to commemorate your trip with. God knows how much they earn. Many of them know English too. But then there are kids amongst them also. (Street urchins being my specialty).

And I can’t imagine, staying here, for more than a day. Wonder why my parents want to live here, when they are old. The air has more salt than I can bear, and the heat! The sweat! The breeze that blows 24*7 doesn’t suffice.

Staring and staring, my mind moves on to the more complex things in life…

tiny nothings///

so deep are the scars on my heart, that i can't give joy a tight hug when he is right at my door, mumbling ," knock knock! take me in!". and i think happiness is but an illusion. a mirage that will give dissapear into the sands the moment i show him the way into my heart.

on my life...

Now, as I was slicing onions for mamma’s chilly chicken, I was thinking. If my life were a river, I was thinking how it had meandered through. Some day back in school, I used to be weak at studies. That was way back in forth standard. I remember, I was new to this city and this new school I had joined made life worse. The traffic, the pollution made me feel nauseous everyday in the school bus. How we used to be packed, like sardines…sweating and stinking.
I had no friends, and to worsen it a big communication problem with the kids in the class.

One such fateful day, my English teacher had announced to the class that she would be taking a test the next day. I don’t know how, I never slept off in the class like I do now, but somehow I didn’t get to know of it. The next day, I saw kids tearing off sheets from their class work copies, to write the test. I didn’t know what was happening around me. I felt like crying, a test in the next few minutes, and was unaware of the damned chapter’s name. she took the test and I scored a 9 on 25. My eyes went blank. Felt as if, that was THE END!

How would I reveal this to mamma? What face would I show her? As I got down from the (zoo-like) school bus of ours, the first thing I blurted out was my humbling 9 on 25. And I had my set of excuses ready, “I didn’t know of the test”, “I don’t like the teacher”, I wantta change the school”, “next test I would try and score passable marks”. And I was taken off my feet with the way she reacted. She said it was alright. Though I don’t remember clearly, may be she had kissed me also…I forgot the ordeal I had undergone at school. Even today, my parents surprise me by the way they react to certain things I do. The way they feel contradicts my expectations.

And from then on, seven years in that school, and things changed for me. I grew so attached to it, that I shed endless streams of tears in my farewell. I would be away from school, and besides everything else, I wouldn’t be able see my crush. I had one in 8th standard. (When did you have yours?)Ohhw! Painful! My first love would go down the drain, and he wouldn’t even know…

And I have changed leaps and bound after that. From being a silent nine year old girl, who sat pushed to the corner, to the nineteen year old one, who gets to hear the maximum number of comments in the class. And to not having crushes anymore, I am an old woman now. I have outgrown so many things, in life.

At the end of it all( lemme remind you that I was chopping onions at the beginning) , I find out that I am chopping capsicum now. And that the onions had given me a mild, cold

with time...

I can see the wrinkles. No one else can. It’s not my face that has wrinkled, my mind has.

I will just give one instance. My eyes can sense less color these days. It’s rare that they find anything pleasing. Earlier I had typical feminine eyes, I was crazy about dresses. I was obsessed about them. And now, I walk through the malls like a zombie. I can’t make myself to like anything, anywhere.

Recently I went out shoe-shopping with papa. I went to some 20 odd shops. I liked none. From one shop to another, time refused to pass by. In and out of those air-conditioned rooms, into those sweaty, dusty lanes, I dragged my body along. Every half-hour passed by, more sluggishly than the previous one.

I was feeling more frustrated than usual. I wanted something. Anything that could please my eyes, my tongue. Gupchup wala!!! It was like a rescue ship for the marooned me. It was then that I felt relieved, the sour and hot as if enlivened my taste buds and all my senses along with it. I got into the last shop of the evening-got the first pair of shoes that could engage my eyes for more than 20 seconds. And got done with it. Ha!

of earhones and novels...

It’s a hot Saturday morning here. (Yeah, mornings are anything but hot. Every day I get up cursing the sun for having burnt up one half of my face. Changing sides and getting back to sleep doesn’t exactly work out. And of mornings and afternoons, the lesser I reveal, the better.)

Anyway, where was I? It’s a hot Saturday morning. And I come to realize that I have eaten up almost a month of the two and a half month summer vacation. And I know that my semester results are going to be out on Monday that is the day after tomorrow. I really really want to spend these last hours of my life in peace.

And lemme tell you what I am up to. I listen to FM all day long. FM, forgot2tellya, is the latest craze in my city. Wherever you go, you will find people tuning into the three radio stations that opened simultaneously a few weeks ago. So most of the time of the day, when I am home, with earphones plugged in, I would be peeping into a novel, and sitting right in front of the AC (as if it’s a TV or something. but AC is like GOD for me these days). And all the bloody time, I try think of anything but results.

lovelorn

Last night was a long one. I slept for the longest time in weeks, and gradually dissipated all my fatigue to the darkness. And now I realize why I didn’t get up for so long. Because I was dreaming of my love. Of my love having come to the place where I live. And he meeting the guy next door. I saw him first, and it took some time to sink in that it was him indeed. And of me freezing that moment. And then recognizing those same eyes, that hair standing like that of a porcupine, and of course those long legs and he almost towering over the rest of the world. All the same as I had imagined. The same thing that had been disturbing my thoughts relentlessly for years was now standing right in my front, eclipsing the rest of the world from my sight. And I stared into his eyes like a lost, innocent child who had found a parent after a day’s long search.

But then, my vision went blank. As he smiled at me. Indifferently. And then it occurred to me that he was smiling at the walls, so brashly whitewashed and all cracked up at places. Was he blind? And dumb? And deaf? He never felt the call of my love? I was a part of the crowd for him. A limb all that furniture in that room. It was then exactly that I froze. Everything in me froze. Even the tears in my eyes, waiting to ooze out any moment did. I went limp with helplessness. And got up.

quota?

Every time I think about the quota thing, I end up a little more frustrated. I belong to some upper caste. And somehow I am safe. I mean, at least I wouldn’t be unemployed, in near future. But there are many, who, have been underprivileged by birth, and have been born as NON- STs STs and now OBCs.

My tryst with quota began when I got admitted into engineering. I was frustrated with the branch I was allotted, in my college. May be it was parental pressure, peer pressure, or simply the want to get a better pay-package, by studying a (so called) better branch…and blah blah! And I saw, many people, who had ranks way below me, had been given better branches than mine. Just because, they had surnames that came under scheduled castes and tribes? Many of them belonged to the same city as I do. I had almost grown up with them. They went to the same tuitions that I went to. They stayed in houses like mine. Their parents owned cars. Then tell me how are they underprivileged? Did they deserve a quota?

I remember, I had cried my eyes out, for hours. On the phone, talking to mum, I didn’t even know how to vent my frustration. It was like biting my own pillow.

Even today, the poor of our country are sinking down the infinite abyss of poverty. Why? Because, we would never think about anything else that vote-bank hungry, ugly, cheap, sectarian politics. Politicians- shit on your face!

Whatever statistics say, whatever that slugging growth of GDP says, I don’t give a damn! And lastly, if I could, I would have dragged Arjun singh by his collar… ( heard me grinding my teeth?)

xpress urself

Heard about that Baroda university case, haven’t you?
Well! I have nothing much to say but about all that happened:
*it’s a shame to that university (came to know that it is nationally recognized for fine arts and blah blah!
*it’s a shame to Narendra Modi and his baseless hindutva…
*it’s a shame to that VC (fellow called Manoj Soni) who was made the VC at a mere age of 40( not that I’m saying you cannot have a young VC), by Modi-the great, just because he’d authored some bloody book: Third Space on the Gujarat carnage of 2002 with a staunch hindutva tilt.
*a shame to that unscrupulous group of VHP activists (that MOB to be precise!!!!) who claiming to be the moral brigade of a free n thinkin’ India vandalized the premises of an educational institution.
*a shame to the media which cashes on such incidents.

For god’s sake, can we leave the artist alone, and let him express himself. Who’s asking you to agree with him? At least, let him have his say…

confessions of a girl

Hello, i am also a human being. i can also have a crush. i can also get infatuated to people. aren't you? why is everyone taken aback, when i happen to talk about these things in the normal flow of the conversation i generally have with people.i can sense that hiccup and i am told" it's good to hear a girl tell that". Goodness gracious, where am i? Which century do peeople live in? Gawd!How i wish i could whistle like you guys do...

holiday blues

the semester exams are the hardest time in the entire semester. literally, i would find no time to breathe. As our holidays start the very day the sems get over, i knit plans from the blue, for my holidays. We guys get a two and a half months as summer vacation.{enviable naah!} this i know, is the last proper summer vacation of my life. next year, i would be training somewhere. I dunno where.and the next year, i would be stepping into the 'real' world. i would hopefully live a life of my own. forget that. So where was i?
Yeah, i was talking about the grand plans that i make for the holidays. i plan to read, read, anything and everythings.{last time i had almost done that, i was do damn drowned in fiction, that, it made me sick}...Khushwant Singh's obsession with *** {u know what} and Shobha De' s compassion for monotonous page 3, particularly responisble...
Anyways, i also plan to watch movies. But my dream of finding that dream- CD wallah in my locality, who keeps good CDs of my-type movies, will never materilaise...
i plan out long solitary rides, at some break neck speed in these highways. i plan to observe the way my city has grown. but, i just can't do that...mum's return time rules are more stringent than that of my hostel... :(
i plan evening walks but find no companion...ehhhhhwww!
i plan not to gain any holiday weight, i plan out yoga and stuff. plans, remain plans for ever, particularly these ones. Also going back with the same err... figure i came with, is beyond my domain. Mum'z fault again :P
i try not to lose my temper on my kid brother, who no longer is a kid :D, i think i have been able to do this...
what els? let's see what things look like, i l keep you guys well informed...take carezzzz

the rag picker

Today while I was walking my way back from the institute, I saw a child. Someone whose resemblance matched that of the rag picker of my thoughts. I don’t know how old she was. Anyways she is starved enough to look half of her age.

Dark. She had hair that hadn’t been oiled for years. Stunted and small. She wore a green skirt which was too long for her. She walked with a gait that told me that she had never held anyone’s hands. Her tiny feet had no chappals. The road I knew was burning with the afternoon heat. May be that is why they were hurrying away. They- my rag picker and her mentor. She had a man who walked beside her. He hurried her along the way a shepherd leads his sheep.

I tried to keep pace with them. And then they halted. She wanted to see the children of the well-off do karate. That amused her.

Those kids had everything she had always wanted-clothes, food, comfort, love, a future. She didn’t even have a present. She lived on the streets—like an animal.

I waited for her to turn her face. I wanted to see her eyes, pale and small…I wanted to read her mind.

But as I walked away other thoughts meandered into my mind…

xxx

My heart doesn’t beat like it did
Tears have stagnated
Emotions are deep asleep
I have become so stoical
I have forgotten to fly
I am myself
Always alone
I am almost dead

before death

i might die in a few minutes. i am having a terrible heartache. if this is a real one, my heart might succumb. and then i was thinking the way i will be burnt. and then of the way, i will be gradually be wiped out of people's memories. of the things that are exclusively mine, like my cell phone, my computer, my bed, and many things alike, what would happen to them? there are many things that would die along with me. things that smell like me, things that have so much of me within them. people would fear my ghost. and who knows this is the last time i am blogging...

on love...

We ended up discussing on what love is. Su, Kasby, Annie, n I.
Su’s and Kasby’s view:
That person has to care for you right from the beginning (without you having any feelings for him). And then when you realize the extra attention he gives you, you begin to reciprocate. An understanding takes birth. And then you begin to trust him. Then love. And then you commit. Then marry. This is when you suppose that love is a two-sided machine. You can’t love someone, who doesn’t love you.

Annie’s and my view:
Love is something more instinctive. An inner call. It is something right from beginning. Neither a process, nor something, which has a thousand intermediate states. It’s a one-sided affair. and irrespective of the other person's feelings. Love is passion. And it’s reasonless. It’s not about commitment and marriage. People can definitely more than once, twice, thrice and so on... It’s not a once and for all kinda affair. And also that love is a rare human feeling that can't be explained. Wotcha tinkin'?

We are girls. We like not to make an issue out of anything. No matter how serious the matter is, we would never let it take up huge proportions. We would like it to die, suppressed. Why? Just because we are girls. We fear being known. Known for having objected to things that were wrong. We are born to shrink our shoulders and dig our eyes into the earth as if we were searching for our feet lost on the floor. We let obvious questions that we should ask this society; die unanswered, in some ghastly corner of our saintly hearts. Let ourselves rise above everything inferior we attach with being female. And all I am asking is why can’t we retaliate?

xyz

piya rey, piya rey
thaare bina laage nahin maara jiya rey...

xxxx

It takes more than just time to heal the wounds of love. It takes hours and days of sitting alone, and staring at the sunset. A thousand silent words of consolation. Which you whisper to yourself. Streams of tears let flow relentlessly. Memories to be left behind. Memories, that gathered here and there, like layers of dust. Pages of confessions of love in that diary, to be burnt alive.

many moods...

Just a few days more,
Then you will be gone, I will be gone.
That tiny speck of time
When we fell in love with each other,
Will become a part of the past now.
Love will be dead forever. Forever.
The things that we shared will
Run for cover…
The road we walked on
Will die barren
The trees beside it
Will never flower again
And for who will the breeze blow?
For who will the moon shine?
When our love will
Sleep forever, die forever?

@crazy

Today I was thinking about passion in my life. Or rather the lack of it.

My gender is so horrendously outnumbered, that we have very less exposure to everything. We kinda shrink into our own worlds, where there is more of monotony than anything else. Fostering a passion is generally considered abnormal. Being abnormal is considered insane. But you know what? I love being abnormal, because I know I am. I am insane according to healthy human standards. I am frustrated about life in my own kinda way. I am gratified about it in my own ways. Happiness for me a momentary state of mind. Long-term goals are an obvious no-no.

Basically, I am an observer, of things happening around me. Of these co-inhabitant homo sapiens. Yeah! I love to drown myself, observing these people. Whenever I see a new face on the street, all I want myself to be doing is to run to that person and ask him, “ will you tell me your story, your history?” I know that could mean being beaten up. I would also wanna ask, “ will you pose for my camera?, I wanna capture this moment, when I became a witness to the happenings of your life?” I would never get bored/impatient waiting for someone or something at a busstop/cinema/café’ shop etc etc. all I do is sit/stand quietly and merge myself with the background, and dissolve myself observing…

So we conclude that “observing” is one of the passions of my life. And I do have other passions like grabbing hold of any readable material. And writing. Off late, blogging. Biting my nails is another. And staring into the dark is next. Plus who doesn’t die to go for long walks (preferably alone)?

hair...

Having long tresses like those of shakira would be so sexy, right? Wet and entangled. Hair caressing your waist. Spanking awesome. My hair would show the free spirit I am.

The second thing you notice in Jiah Khan after her long legs, is the hair. Wild hair…not the silky shiny locks they show in shampoo adds. But hair that I ne’er cared to take care of…Hair that has been abandoned. Left to flourish in the vagaries of nature and life. Hair that speaks about the life I spent, about the person I am…

But you know what? Every time I decide to let my hair grow, I end up cutting them shorter. I am afraid; I would end up with no hair someday…

This is yet another of those challenges of modern day living…Long hair, for me, remains locked in the silver screen, or in that niche I carved out for myself in this crazy world of yours. God bless me and my hair.

journey...

Feels like
We will be travelling
Travelling and travelling
All along

With bushes
rushing past,trees
and trees and trees
by the road we take

Smoky vehicles
running ahead
leaving my rickety one
behind,far behind

I feel giddy
Besides there are
nausea and nostalgia
to be tackled

oh! I how much
I despise being
Nostalgic for the bygone
Helpless,lonely

Not that I am alone
My companion
dozes off on my shoulders
quiet and numb

S and A broke up. I knew this was to happen some day or the other. But even then, it did matter. Theirs was an affair I saw take birth, I saw them nurturing their bond with all they had. I knew how hard things were between them and how they gave in everything they had to make it live a little longer. But things didn’t work out, to say the least. And the inevitable was to happen. I do not know who the right man for her is, but somehow I always had known that A was not the good guy that S had perceived him to be. And sooner or later he had to show his true colors. Theirs was a relationship, which was born out of desperation more than anything else. I had always wanted theirs to be a happy life, and felt exalted whenever anything good happened to them. At least one of the two wishes was to live. And grow. But that was not destined to happen. Fate had it otherwise. And they did not last. Why? If only this was to happen, why at all did they meet? Why ever did they fall into that so-called trap of love? Why? Things would have been better otherwise. A heart without any scars is a thousand times better than a heart with so many. So many painful memories to be caged, so many moments to be relived every other day…so much of love to be thrown out of her heart. With all the strength that she needs to collect from amongst herself, I just do not want her to become weaker. And of course, I have learnt a lot from all this that happened, I have been an eyewitness to almost everything. Never did I ever have the chance to see something so fragile and real from such close quarters. I have learnt so much; so damn much, about everything that could have happened within just a year… to me….

Me

When I’m talking about abandoning myself to the darkness, I mean it.
I love solitude; I love feeling the mild breeze graze my face and hair.
I love darkness and loosing my existence walking stretches of never ending roads.
I love looking at the mountains merge into the night sky-blue and black
And yes of course, stars are my best friends
I would gaze at them, devour that vision of the star-studded sky till I die…
And talk to trees too…
I’m a nomad at heart

An empty mind is all I need…
A mind devoid of thoughts, memories
Everything fresh and me- emotionally rejuvenated
I want to live a good life-my way
Monotony frustrates me.

A heart sans pain is all I need

that's Me.

why?

If my life were a book, then all its pages would be black.
Of this purposeless existence, and just that, I am tired.
With my bounded horizon, I am about to suffocate.
Of pain, and the lack of a reason for it;
Of aimlessness and the dearth of any achievement;
I am in ruins.

Of un-called-for rains and suppressed tears
Of remorse,
And the lack of love and the feel of being loved
Of betrayal and things unsaid
And with none to hold a hand or to listen
I am running into chaos.

This is not a passing phase,
I know
Nor is this a shade of youth
Rather it’s me-
The person I am.
Why?

Skin like cheese

Skin like cheese
Eyes like almonds
And eyeballs that twinkle like two stars
Lips pink enough to attract many a bees…
A body like an hourglass…
Hair, long hair (I guess)
That gives respite from this heat…
And what more?
Beauty is a great seducer of men…
And so be it!

.

herez sumthin' i always wanted to share...

My childhood was spent somewhere amongst the marshy rain forests. There were tall trees everywhere. They cast a mysterious shadow on my tiny village. The fear of ghosts popping out from anywhere prevailed, all the time. Many a times, my mind goes back to those years, when my mother left me at my grandma’s mother’s place when she went out to work.
I remember going fishing with an aunty of mine. We would perch on the broken stairs of the pond, waiting for a fish to fall prey to our bait.
In the monsoons, when it rained, my world brimmed with luster. I would sit on my verandah. Look at the streams of red, and muddy waters meeting at cross roads.
And beg an uncle or someone to make me a paper-boat or two. I devoured all the joys of life that way…till then. And that was before I came to the city. Lived there like an outsider for a year or so, before it swallowed me in its never-ending expanse of humankind. But gradually city became home…

role model

In the corner of my mind where dreams are knit, dreams of ambition, dreams of distance and heights, of snow and green, dreams of love and salvation, there is a special place for this special person. I haven’t known much of you. But whatever little I have come across, I have been enchanted. I have been floored by the person you are. Your skills are like heavenly. I swear, you are the only female I ever got a crush on. I still remember how my eyes would senselessly follow your steps, wherever you went.

Though now you are not here, I am as much a fan. Hats off to you ma’am. Live long and God Bless!

alchemist

this was some years ago when i ws reading one of the lovliest things ever written...

Wow!!!
i am loving da alchemist,just fallen in love with it.it’s a great book.a book of books.every sentence is quotable.i have reached da significant phase in wich da boy meets da alchemist.n I hav fallen in love,deeply,wid da alchemist-clad in black,from head to toe,his face hidden in a kerchief ,exposing only his eyes-enuf to murder me,his eyes have the strenght of his soul.i can die for such a man.he rides da white horse,a falcon seated on his arm.braving da winds of da capricious desert,tearing all da sand dunes to nothingness,my alchemist is da winner of winners,he is the soul of the world,hez is never gonna die—my latest crush dat hez is more dan two hundred years old.he can drag lyf outta da most lyfless of holes in da stoniest of deserts.da venom of da cobra can’t even kill him.nothing can vanquish him.oh dear alchemist—owner of da panacea/exilir of lyf,possessor of da philosopher’s stone,scholar of the soul of da world,master of the language of da world,guide of da follower of dreamz…luvya

n of cors I can visualise da desert,da thirsty desert,da dead desert,da infinte desert shez just lyk me I hav bn told-shez is a capricious lady n a lot more.i hav let myself know dat da desert can b loved but never trusted.i can form images of da olive eyed fatima,da desert woman,whose mission is to await her man,bravely facing all dat cums her way,arming man wid da courage of her patience he lets him go and win against all da odds dat da desert.da woman of da desert.luv never stops one from pursuing his destiny.if it does den it’s nt a tru1 .

DEATh

Just a few more days
And then
I’ll be gone
Into the clouds

I will become a wind
A part of the waters
that course through
the stoniest of beds
And live forever….

I will be like lost music
The one that constantly murmurs
At your ears
But doesn’t come back

I will become a part
Of the past.
` So free your present
Of my presence.
And lemme go.

Even then
Won’t you think
Of me once
In a blue moon?
‘Coz my love would
Live on…

And one day
there will be
tiny purple flowers
on my tomb

untitled

There is a relationship between a man and a woman, which is neither friendship nor love. But a little of both. It’s hung somewhere in the middle. Yeah! “Hung”! Mostly it would collapse into neither –friendship nor love.
But here is the person with whom you can talk about absolutely anything and everything.
Despite the various innumerable prejudices in our society, I have seen many a relationships as these.
It could be pure fun if it’s sans commitment and long-term expectations. This is the “in”-thing today. I doubt how many of you would agree…
But how you gonna introduce this friend err…boy friend…err.. friend of yours to the world? Gawd!!! I am in a soup!!!

Dear Diary

My life is an eventful one. Why mine only ?
Everyone’s is, I guess…
But the problem is, I don’t remember what I did even the day before yesterday. And I have lived already say a third of my life.
Rather than living a record less life like mine, one should write a diary. I do not want to regret not remembering all that I having undergone. All that life has bestowed me with. The same applies to you guys too.
After say a decade or two, when I would look back and try to recapture my life it would slip away like a fistful of sand. I would hardly have anything.
It is said that we marry not because of love but because we need to have someone who has witnessed our life…But then that’s another story…

Dear Men

Dear men
You and I cannot co-exist. We just can’t. I dread thinking of the future when I would have to work with you guys. Because an all female work place is an impossibility of the nth degree.
I just can’t befriend men. Or rather I don’t have enough of salt in me to. Or probably there are quick bitches who never give me a chance to do so. I don’t want to appear either inviting or available. That tarnishes the A--factor.
I don’t want to confess that I hate you all, but you know I do. It shows on y face, doesn’t it?
I can’t let my eyes see a dwindling number of females everywhere. In this place presently it is a horrendous 1:12 ratio. We live as if we are a part of the walls. As if we merge with the background. I can’t hate anything more than this.
I used to be a great advocate of gender equality. Of men and women brushing shoulders with each other. I am afraid I might turn into a feminist. You and I can’t co-exist.
Love
Me
P.S.

now that you are gone...

Now that you are gone, I am trying to find out your face on these walls.
Now that you are gone, I am dying to hear your voice kissing my ears.
Now that you are gone, I am being burnt to death by our memories,
Sweet and sad,
All my life now feels like a single night, and more like the thousand nights
I spent crying to have you for me, like a kid does for a toy, a woman does
for a lover. It’s the same round faced moon that saw me love you, and spend
my dreams on you, still mocks at me from this window of mine, this rusted window of mine.

a note on love

Love must be a good thing. It would feel great to be in love with someone. To share your life with someone. To care for someone all day through. To feel your heart take his name every now and then. To love that someone, who just filled up all the voids in your life. Someone who is all yours. Love must be something tender yet strong. It must be some real good stuff. I don’t know why life deprives a few people of the charms of love…

Men Who Stole My Mind- Siranjan& Yogi

Siranjan

Many a times I have yearned to be close to men. Men of a particular species. Men, of the kind, if you remember the protagonist in Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja. God kill me for having forgotten his name.

At the end of the day, it’s not the height factor I never stop blabbering about, but the fire I did find in that character matters, for me…

That man had traveled a distance out of the ink and paper. He walked straight into my mind, occupied my heart every single moment for which I had the book in my hands and for many days after that.

The picture of him devouring Shakespeare and all the other greats by his dim table lamp keeps coming back to me.

It was the frustration in him that pulled me closer.

His unrealized potential arrested me.

The way he failed to change the world around him made him more glorious in my eyes than a thousand victories could have.

&Yogi

The second guy I fell for was from a short story from some obscure age old magazine called The Mirror ( from my dad’s antique collection of course).

He was called Yogi.

He left home with his paint and brush just because he wouldn’t obey dad!

And all that at just 17!

“Good idea!”…ain’t it?

I wanted to be a real rule breaker then. I wanted to run away. All alone!

I nearly went mad thinking about Yogi.

I was young and kinda vulnerable then…n Yogi had become my mentor.

the tree has more to it...

My favorite tree is like an overgrown kid.
It’s small, but has craters all over.
It has boughs that spread not that far, leaves- rough and far from green.
When the full moon is around, it looks like a ghost.
It’s shadow stretches beyond the reach of its roots.
Yeah! Roots.
The roots- I find them the best.
Hidden in the earth’s breast, roots speak of my tree’s hidden intentions
Plus there is the sense of mystery that in it’s last life,
My tree was a man, a dumb man, who just stood still
There is peace in the shade of that tree…
There is peace even if you just ogle at the tree…
The tree, believe me when I say
Talks to me
The tree has more to it, than being just a tree…

weeknds l neva b da same again

Today we went to a slum. Two guys and two girls. Who would exactly love being woken from a late Saturday siesta…for whatever the reason is…?

Anyways, we cycled down to that place at around 5:30 in the evening, half an hour behind schedule. Actually we out sped the guys and landed in the wrong place, but nevermind, they called us back…

This was the first time I was at that place. We talked to a shopkeeper, who we thought could actually spread the word that we people would be obliged to come down to their place from the next weekend on. We would teach them i.e. we would provide kinda extra tuitions to them besides their school course, and help them out with their home tasks and stuff.

The best part was the response we got from the eager parents there. All of them want their kids to go real far in life, reach out for the stars. There were mothers who demanded some serious attention and called the two of us girls aside. They wanted their kids to be taught computers and all. Well that was costly proposition, we said we would definitely give that a thought…

What are you guys waiting for?

Wish us luck…

We are gonna pick up some social issues as well after we get to mingle with the junta a little better…

What else?

Suggest issues you think we can pick up in this project…

And I am gonna keep blogging about this so that you know, we guys can stay in touch :P

sumtym in da monsoon...

in the world from my window it always rains,always…

the drops dance to the tunes of an unknown music…

and rain accompanies sounds of many a distant bird…

a mild thunder isn’t that rare…

and then there are gusts of cold wind…

veteran trees that don’t budge,boughs outstreched…

but the tiny leaves trembling at the touch of rain…

like a virgin bride…

never ending green,tall grass,luscious grass…

swaying the way the breeze wants them to…

dusky,dreary,gloomy,orange-the sunset sky…

no neat boundaries,and just my hazy world…

just me and my reflections…

as it drizzles away by my window to the world…

an ode to my blog

There are dedicated bloggers, I have come across quite a few. People who update daily.
And then there are people who voice opinions in their blogs, for the likes of Jessica Lal.
Not that I do not have any such opinion nor is it such that I am too short-sighted to see beyond my tiny world of thoughts. I think a lot. I feel a lot. And when I have no one to open up to, (which happens more often than not) I give blogging a chance.

You know what?
Feelings are like instantaneous guests to me. I feel like writing them down that very moment. This happens when I am in the middle of a lonesome walk, or when I am watching the moon peep from behind the trees, when I see a street urchin, or whenever a chord within me is moved when I notice marvelous architecture –poetry on stone or paper. Or some touching music.These feelings get replaced by new ones. So I can never exactly keep them alive for long- they are almost like still-born children. I can never blog them out here, to give them a longer life.

Consequently I rarely update my blog thing. But my blog is like my baby…

And may be some day I too will start blogging to voice myself when I am more that sure about my opinions. And when I am strong enough to justify everything I feel about the world around me with adequate reason.

Till then, you guyz take care!

God's favourite child

I as such do not have any inclination towards for animals as pets, even zoos would not have interested me, but for the solitude and distance they offer from life. I am scared by fierce looking Alsatians. Have stayed in an apartment all my life, and with both of my parents working never had the time or space to have one. And as far as street dogs are concerned, I never gave them a thought. Kept a track of PETA, just for the sake of my general knowledge until today happened.

Finally winter has descended on the hilly (read mountainous) town of mine. Winter is accompanied by beautiful mornings. And I was on my way to college. Twenty minutes behind schedule. I came across one of the nicest things that life could offer a lover like me.

A puppy, a shade lighter than creamy brown in color, that must have been thrown out from the place it slept in the last night by the chill of the fog of dawn. It slept on the road, bathing in golden yellow sunlight, like God's favorite child.

It was a bundle of joy. The way it slept gave me feeling that life is cozy, comfortable and livable! It was life, reincarnated.

I wanted to savor the sight. Store it in my heart for some obscure poem to be written in that undated future of mine. Someday...I told myself.

I hurried for my class.

On my way back, I found it again. Still sleeping. But with arms out stretched this time. Just the way we take turns on our beds. When I turned back, I saw blood oozing out of its mouth. It was gone, run over.

I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

And as I am blogging this out here, the flesh of that pariah must be rotting in that silent corner, some unknown corner of this gloomy world. Tomorrow it will ooze out, making things difficult for passers-by.

Do I care?

May be yes...I will shed a drop of tear, is that all God's favorite child deserved? It wouldn't be mourned for...

I miss a place far away...

I miss a place far away,
I miss home
I miss those cracks in the walls,
The shade in my garden,
The still and silent afternoons

I miss the sleepy siesta
And my grandma,
The new bloom of winter
And the blinding fog

The dad I was dagger heads with,
And the rides he took me out for

My doting mom, my nagging mom
Feeding me, being the motto of her life
I remember how her veins would show up
Working for me
Huh! Did I care?

And the kid bro,
And his tantrums
When my youth carried me away
From the child in him

I miss those tired evenings
I miss being fed
Being loved
And a hand that ran on my fore head

I miss the idols we worshipped
The prayers I said
I miss my past
The present is but a burden

And besides that
I miss so many other things
Things whose shape
I try to feel in the air of this place

I wanna go back
I wanna go back home

I was an individual,
I wanted an identity
And look
Now what has happened to me?

liberated...just now...

Have any of you people ever felt empty-hearted? With a heart with no ones name engraved on it? With no one worthy enough …for that great an honor, I am feeling empty-hearted, right now!
Believe me, it’s good this way! You start feeling so damn free. Wild and free! You can feel being yourself… the person you are. Like an adventurer on a lonely planet. That’s what life should be like… liberated! Enlightened!
When you have nothing to laugh for, nothing to cry for, no joyous memories to be cherished, no future to be looked into. Just a smile, so very complacent that it says et al. Lead the life that a gypsy leads. Trotting around on your own. Your soul being your sole soul mate.
Let your hair grow gray, your skin have wrinkles. Let your bones crack down. Let your eyes go blind. Don’t stop. Carry on. Carry on, the way you are….all alone…an adventurer on a lonely planet. You will love it, I am sure.
But …don’t forget me. For I am after all your mentor, your pathfinder. Don’t forget to retrace your steps and thank me after your are enlightened….good luck.

hav nuthin' much 2 say

It has been quite a few days that I have not written anything. Nothing at all. I have stopped blogging altogether. Today that I am a little lonely and I felt like giving a face to whatever my heart felt, so you have this entry here. That’s what exactly happens. I tend to stop talking to myself when I am not alone. I always lose myself in company and in a crowd, invariably. Doesn’t matter! It’s rare that I am blessed with company of my kind. My soul-mates are scarce, extinct. Well! I am almost an online agony-aunt. Phew!
But recently I met an agony-unc. Someone who did show me some light. And that’s why (most probably) I am lonely now. He isn’t there. The absence of ma agony-unc does matter, I have come to know. And that’s why I fell back on an old friend- ma diary. Just that I have lost track of what I wanted to write…