Attempts

How long will you wait?
I imagine the wrinkled eyes.
The withering effort of sooty years.

Night falls again here.
Today is eternal.
No one remembered you.
No one sighed,
No one mumbled those words today.
But the Moon I know is no longer white.

The Tree looks scarred to me.
My mind.
It is inside it.

From all the words and glances,
I choose a smile,
Sad and pale,
But yours.

That broken star,
I see it does not gaze.
Tie it to the chariot.
Let us now Sunwards go...

The barriers the Sky puts up,
The gaps the Earth digs forth,
I will one day,
Find you out.

That crumpled promise renewed,
The Moonlight burnt,
To shed hopes,
I yesterday borrowed...

With the Night

After they had clipped those wings,
It sat on the old, old tree.

The Night had no dwelling for it.
The Moon looked mercurial,
The Sky too detached
To be with it.

Where could it hide?
Tie its throat down.
Bury that small neck,
Put its husky voice out?

The scene broke its heart,
But, it remembered this
Had happened before...

Then the surrender to
Those soft, round eyes,
Yes, they'd
Weep for it today
As in the days of Yore...

Musings

I am now confident that I could beat Hamlet anyday in a Soliloquy competition. I could even beat him in the "To be or not to be" Challenge.
I am not confused though. My category is often that of the sheer dumb. Often, the most obvious things are not obvious to me. People expect more. Especially, when you tell them you delve in Literature.
But, life doesn't dance in books. It catches you in strange alleys, dark lanes, unprecedented turns. You are just not prepared. Not for change. Not for realizations. One merely hopes the world is getting enlightened. People are becoming wiser. A new path is being envisioned and followed somewhere, by somebody. But, we do not allow these notions to pin us, mark us, as individuals. As a lone human being we go on living same lives. Exact, difficult, unbending, unlearnt.
How then will change arrive? Who will let it touch his/her life? Not me...I am the sheer dumb. I know not. I want not. I cannot. Misery has its ways of becoming a comfort zone. In it these Hamlets shall dwell...

For Narcissus...

There is a song to sing for happiness, they say,
A song for despair too.
For pure lament, nostalgia, love,
Affection, attachment,
Pain, Discontent.

All he sought was himself.
Like Narcissus, he sang the song of self-love,
His own pain, joys, regrets, lessons,
Life's agonies revisited and performed,
Again and again.

Oh, the hours one wastes
Near the pale whiteness of Narcissus's face,
To know the Narcissus in him,
It takes an immense life time, you see,
A string of numb, deceiving days.

To turn now and see the mocking Sun
To witness the irksome garden and rain,
She shall teach her heart, by and by,
That song of sweet Revenge.

The Skies shall see that
Moon-lit hour,
When Narcissus sits and broods.
The hour of a new agony,
Her gift,
When another's pain in his heart intrudes.

Nemesis, she needs you not.
I see that venom, that power
That Song of Revenge
Shall fill the blue air,
When Narcissus walks in that her-willed hour.

All the world's a stage...

We know not what we are made of. I don't...I know. Our claims are our whims. Or, at best, our wishes. There is a satisfaction in thinking of oneself in particular ways. May be, we aren't that. Who knows?
We are not that which we talk. Talk is talk. Its simply a version. May be actions help. But, they carry their own intent- of being seen in certain ways, of making certain impressions, of protraying oneself in a certain genre? Where do we actually belong? When are we out of the play? Off the stage? Un-acting?
Thoughts might actually constitute some kind of inner voice. Things we say to ourselves perhaps are a better reflection of that within us? May be we tell ourselves "act nice", "wear that one...", "he'll like it..", "she''ll approve...", "oh...all this lecture", "they arnt worth it...", "i need to get away...", "one more glance and she'll be in.."?? ;)
May be we act out our entire lives. Say things people want to hear. Do things they would appreciate. Make impressions round-the-clock.
And so we change. For good. For bad. In somebody's good books. Out of somebody's wish-list.
Who do we think we finally are? That which we were trying to be all our life? Or a bad version of our "original" selves. Will happiness be closer then, or Illusion be our new reality? Is that called metamorphosis or self-deceit?
Why do we need to think before talking? Dress-up with an eye on others' taste? Order food and bother about plates and tongues? Why do we need to bring any one around? Live up to any one's image? Or, may be create and live our own? Why do we need to be bohemian, chic, elegant, intellectual, sophisticated, cute, sharp, humoruous, witty,brainy, melancholic, dreamy? Anything?
Being is not enough. Life has its own traps. Living is perhaps that...an entrapment. A desperate attempt to get into Life and then get out of it.
In the interim...All the world's a stage...

Morals of Multiple Stories:

-Ideally, you should help drive the last nail in the Coffin.

-Mistakes can be avoided if you stop ackowledging them.

-Courtesy should be practised. Even to the dying.

-Silence is Golden. Beacuse words are fake.

-Move On. Or be pushed aside.

-You are happy. You dream too much.

-Options help. Even when Option is just a word.

-Life goes on. No time to see where.

-Happiness!? The word sounds cool!

-And...In the end...there's actually THE END.

Old-Fashioned

If you skipped today's daily, news is that I was recently called old-fashioned by somebody. Details are not to be revealed as the case is currently under investigation. But, this comes to you directly from the horse's mouth, so you better SIT-UP-AND-TAKE-NOTICE. (Hope you have by now!).
I did not react. Not much. One cannot, sometimes. Yes, even if 'one' is me.
My patent strategy of part-mockery, part-overconfidence, part-stubbornness didn't rescue me. Something penetrated my skin. Just deep enough to be a bluish, bad prick.
My wise, old heart has begun doing the damage-repair. It tells me there are a zillion ways I could justify I am a NEW WOMAN (but..but...but..can women be new? or, only girls are that??). I talk, think, write, live in ways that are incomparable to the bleak tag of being old-fashioned!!May be, if I tell you all my ideas (even the ghastly, guarded ones) you would think I am well ahead of my times, like all great thinkers are.
On the other side, whats so bad about being old-fashioned haan? It just makes you a rarer species around..the nostalgic-wostalgic, "value"-loaded, guarded, obscure, crazy, antique types...adjectives, I don't really mind!
So, either way its a win-win situation for me you see. The case is in my bag. (no, I wont say kitty!!).
Question is...how are the guilty to be punished?

:)

Certainities

The last time that a dream knocked,
I was busy counting leaves
Falling from the brown Eucalyptus.
I never could make way for Hope
To drop by on a Sunday afternoon,
When nostalgia and loneliness
Would descend to fill my home with
Their heavy murmur.

There is nothing to know,
Let all of them be.
Like our usual
Forevers
There is a 'you' left.
And there is half a 'me'.
Between us is the melting bridge,
Built of sunshine and dews,
On that evanescent rainbow
We woke up too
Late to see.

Will

Even if nothing lasts,
You will.
It isn't about believing,
I Will.

And now some (urgent) almost-quarterly resolutions...

I will not sulk. Not, not, not.
I will not regret. Not at all!
I will check pages before collecting photocopies.
I will make sure my cell is sometimes switched off!
I will not have un-occasional ice-creams.
I will say no, no matter what who feels.
I will not miss breafkfast.
I will be a patient listener, let others talk!
I will stick to two teas a day.
I will reach my targets each day.
I will go on impromptu walks, like before.
I will love myself even more! :)

Two Ideas...from childhood days ;)

With nothing to do one evening, one blessed evening, I was plain thinking. So I thought of why I do certain things and do not do others. Two odd memories crossed my mind...both peculiarly ME...

As a five-six year old, I would often wonder why Maa never dressed in a tip-top way at home, or never tried looking her ravishing best outside. She had the permission na! I didn't!...I would think to myself why, just why on earth would she not try matching her bindi with the saree, the nail color with the make-up, wear pink-white bangles, for pink-white sarees, apply lip-stick each day...when all this was ALLOWED to her, contrary to my state of frocks and hairbands only!!! Didn't she see Madhuri and Sridevi in movies or what!!...;)

Thought no.2...Often on a bright day, the sight of white, clean clouds stretched across the Sky would look very tempting to me...Tempting in a way only I could imagine!...I always thought with better infrastructure, resources, tools at my side, I would climb up on a ladder and scoop out a chunk of a bright cloud, as it might make for good Vanilla ice-creams! ;)

Moral of the Story- I now know why earrings are imperative to my scheme of things...and from where my love of ice-creams comes!=)

This thing and that...

Seven minutes to three...p.m...and there is a very pleasant breeze coming in with the curtain. Seven minutes before peace abandons me and I begin my marathonic paper-writing session. There is a calm at least in this little moment. A small dot of serenity before madness sweeps across. Enrique keeps coming in now and then..."Do you know?" the Ping Pong Song pouring in from another part of the hostel.

On pausing one might sometimes notice how extraordinarily moments are stringed into an oridnary life- moments good and bad, of various colours. With time they all become rainbow-coloured, with time one knows they had meant more, even been precious.

Each thing, each person possesses his "being-ness", uniqueness, essence, may be something like Hopkins's idea of Inscape. How do you replace the icy, orange, excessively sweet taste of the orange-bar clinging to a bare, thin stick? Bad example, I guess, but its fresh in my memory so... :)! Two ways: You think of the next thing on your l-like-list, or, you simply take any other flavour, it doesn't matter that much...

A third one?...Either the glistening, orange-wrapped, tangy sweetness of your dear orange bar...or nothing!:)

Vague, sense-less deliberations!

Well...Seven minutes are over!!!!! ;)

Dull-Hour

Something is missing. Sounds cliched, hackneyed, deja-vuish. Almost. Something is lying unattended in a corner of a small, silent room. Something that does not call out for help, but sits still. Eyes closed. Something is ticking away like a time-bomb gone defunct. Something has gone wrong. Hopelessly. Predictably. Something is sinking deep, in a brown, dirty rut. Something says life will not be the same again. Something says its angry. Red and arms-crossed. Take it or leave it. Its walking away now. I see it crawling on the road of life again. Wise, sad and dirty.

Turning Away.......

How good are dreams? How useful? They sometimes stand as stark contrast to the Real...or they define all that one would hope to obtain on one's journey. I wish all that I love was part of a dream. Because dreams have possibilities. Reality is bare.

To dream is to turn to the unreal. To dream is to run away. To dream is to obtain relief from the pain of all that is so obviously impossible. To dream is to let Fancy berserk. To change people, places, circumstances. I wish you were a dream, far away from the jotted realms of my Life. I wish this grass under me was of a brighter shade, the Sky a little bluer, the Sun a bit more orange. I wish I could erase mistakes, unhurt myself, bend my choices the other way.

To live is to dream of dreams that elude perpetually. Like a deep sigh that forgets why it was born, mingling into smaller sighs released in memory of Life's multiple sorrows. To dream then I turn for discovering a faint whiff of all that has been smudged and stained forever.

!!!

Life's Unfair-
One has to Love and Hate the same things!

Him...

"I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is." — Albert Camus

Parallel Lines...

"Walking away is not my tag-line...a style statement...its an acceptance of the absurd life we live..."

"Which is precisely my idea of your escapist handling of things...you walk away from it all...or you live for today...indulge and splurge...or you choose to sit on a pile of melancholy and grudges...claiming to have moved one...an enlightened soul..."

"That's your perception...the one you're trying to force on my life...One need not act all the time...one cannot know it all...who knows what is right, what is wrong?...the important thing is not to be judgemental..."

"By which you imply that I am being hasty, judgemental and critical?...Demanding, Rigid...and the lot...?But I don't see how your liberal living and free thinking is bringing any happiness to anyone you know...apart from your great self of course..."

"Lets not turn ourselves into Gods...sitting on high thrones...allocating happiness.What's a standard happiness anyway?...In the end, we will all live and die...How can one talk for all? We will have to live alone...gathering our own experiences..."

"And so you sit back on your bed...?Abandon all the stupid lot...them all?...except of course those faithful bottles in your room...the crumpled clothes denoting all thats absurd...? Walking away is indeed not a fancy tag-line...its a wise way of life."

Birthday...Another One...

November...the word makes me happy. There must be very few souls in the world who are so much in love with their birth-month. Come to think of it, its a mad fascination...narcissisitic, un-called for...absolutely! But, I love the sound of "November"! Makes me as gleeful as a "hurray!" :P

Birthday..important...very much!!! So the smell of the new kurti and those anticipated, much-awaited calls..that quick, ceremonious, early-morning encounter in the temple with Gods...those messages of 'long-lost-but-never-lost' friends, the smell of cream and choclate on palms all day...those surprises unrolling warmly and the happy tiredness of having smiled and been the 'good-girl' all day! :)

Gifts, friends, treats...
An older, wiser soul? I wish!! :)

Dim...

This blue pain is benumbing,
The one I often recall to wipe grief.
I have stiched those days into
That gray coat I put on at dusk.
Night falls on my skin
Bringing flakes of a sad lost dream
So I surrender one more time
To that orange nostalgia
Tracing it in the Sun by my window,
Till you come to me
With your boat towards the promised horizon.

Over-the-top! ;)

I can frequently be the dazed, dumb, moody type you see. Too much attention embarrasses me. If you smile at me all the time, I might feel like pressing the magical button and opening the umbrella on myself. Not that it means I do not wish to acknowledge, like, attach myself to people who, lets say, are fond of me. Or, I do not care for people and their affection in my own way...It only means, the knowledge of being liked, unconditionally, good and bad, day and night, unsettles me...

Like too many items on a ricketty lorry!;)

Misgivings...

If blogging is addictive, not-blogging is even more so...Its a new phase this one, when I simply do not have words at my disposal, forget about the right ones. Not just a writer's block I think, but a phase of numbness, passivity of the mind as a human being. Indifference, like a bad cold, is infectious...and it lasts longer. Simply living life, from day-to-day gets to you, the routine of breathing in and out tires the system. For once, people do not matter to me that much...some hang around the scene, like the set, indispensable characters of an old novel, others come and go depending on prevailing winds and whims.

I only wish for some calm now, the kind that comes from entering one's damp cocoon...Time can keep moving...

Crashing Down

Intolerable pauses,
Unimpressive Metaphysics,
Six unanswered messages,
A couple of ignored calls.
That dry conversation,
Those weak words turning into flakes.
Wriness- cold and certain,
Predictable cynicism,
Fresh-grown smirks.
That slight whiff of contempt,
All those assurances
Etched in white on white...
And Condescension, Whim, Stubborness?
Please do not forget them.
Them All...
They are Ours.
Only Ours,
Forever.

Yellow Hibiscus

And then I found you,
Yellow Hibiscus.
That very yellow...the assuring one.
Not pale, not too bright.
Just that calm,
Just that sensitive enough.
I love your vulnerability,
Your not-smelling smell,
Moves me.
Gives me a little hope,
That you won't smile,
That you won't frown,
That you won't want,
That you won't command,
You will last neutrally
Just that long,
Yellow Hibiscus...

Candid...

People are frank sometimes and I appreciate that. A friend recently remarked, how bland the personal side of my virtual life appeared to him. He was referring to my relationship status of course on social networking sites, taking it as a measure of what he presumed, the "colourless" personal life I had. I smiled an unconvincing smile, and ended up laughing at myself as one belonging to "the old school" ;)

On second and third thoughts today, his remark appeared to me as a reflection of the sensational personal lives people wish to lead these days, with "fun" relationships. Different people, different choices, different attitudes. Ackowledged.

Let me be frank too. Its not the old school-whool. The concept of "relationships" bamboozles me totally yaar! Whats all this hubbub about relationships anyway? I believe in love! :) Idealistic, simplistic, generalized, hasty, sweeping as it might sound. But I do not understand these compulsory columns to be filled in...with a sensational use of relationships that end up dying after their short short short expiry dates...People make-up, break-up, lament, lose, and don't even cry! ;) They don't hum songs thinking of each other, nor do they get nostalgic in busy offices!....Won't do...at all!

It should touch you, move you, change you, build you, and last...last longer than anything you've ever experienced in your brisk Life! :)...Not that "committed" relationship! I am talking of Love! ;)

Wake Up...

There are memories standing

In a crooked line behind you,

And there are moments waiting outside

Your door...

Knocking and giggling.

Let them in. Them All.

Look at those rays of gold

That stretch on your window,

Call them in too.

Bend them into a crown,

Or, wear them as your little Halo...

Why should that unsure hand support?

Go, get yourself that iridescent dress,

That Rainbow...

Wait no more for uncertain clouds

To shed those warm, clear tears...

Go out bare feet

And wash your precious Self,

The happy rains are here.

Bitterness is sad, pathetic but sometimes, inevitable. For a creative person, its like poison. It kills the artist in you, depriving you of the tranquility you so badly need for synchronizing your thoughts. For the cheerful and dreamy human being its a sad reminder of the thorns which one needs to fall on in life and how! But for the wise soul, its another opportunity to assess the world around and drain out the bitter potions that deter one's growth as a happy, complete, satisfied individual.

P.S.- And here you have a new preacher in the making! ;)

Life this way...

These are impromptu days of an impromptu life. Packing, unpacking, moving, walking, eating, travelling...impromptu and continuous. The air is light and the clouds sensitive. They burst on you sometimes here, or they weep on alternate days. The Sun is clear yet benign. When I walk the wide roads amidst the green foliage, I sense a harmony around me. I am on my own. It startles me sometimes. Sometimes, I smile at the serenity of independent living. Bonds are nascent and unclear. A cup of coffee together, a session of book-reading in the library, a meal in the cafetaria, and you have mates. Or, a walk by oneself, an afternoon without people, a book to sleep on and you discover yourself.

After a long time today, I walked hand-in-hand through the heavy traffic and rain, ate pastries and had nariyal-paani, took delight in discovering places...like school children on an excursion. Came back smiling at the Sun-set and waving at the ink-smudged sky that promised fresh rains :)

Eager and Enlightened! ;-)

Home is where Amma is...

Independence comes...

I went out to the nearby Gaffar market today, only to be amused by the strange scene there. Packed with policemen and haunted by sniffer dogs, it looked different, of course. Its New Delhi’s way of preparing for Independence Day. Whose independence?... is too loaded a question to be taken up by mortal me. But, Independence Day it is, finally, one more time.

Present in the capital for the first time in the run-up to D-Day, I see the dizziness around me. Even on “normal” days, Delhi is especially aware of your benign presence. Enter into a metro station and you have the security people waiting for you…not arms folded…but arms open indeed…ladies to ladies, gents to gents ;)

Sometimes, I feel sorry for the Prime Minister. Not that he is a figure of pity all the time…but..but..but…As though the controversy on de-linking terror wasn’t enough, he has to bear the sultry weather here, read out a speech on the 15th, and prepare for more answers later in the parliament.

Coming back to Independence Day, can I write about Calcutta one more time? Haan? Yes, I can!...we have this thing for music there…of course everyone knows that...On “patriotic” days, we wake up to the tune of “Aamra korbo joi..” (Bangla version of We shall overcome…)..full-blast on the locality’s loudspeaker…unending, uninterrupted patriotism, dripping from the stereos all day. Time to take out green, saffron, white sarees and of course the flowers in the hair…sing a tune or two as part of the local cultural group…and carry home flowers, pamphlets and sweets to spread more independence...sometimes, even to the extent of ten-twelve boxes of mishti, if your dad is a big-shot at lokaal klub...;)

I remember having sung innumerable tunes with my mates on the harmonium, egged not so much by the fervor of patriotism within me, but more as a silly little girl, overwhelmed by the enthusiastic crowd, parents and family, the stage, the décor, the flowers, the loudspeakers and of course our harmonium sir!...Thankfully, I grew up…

Coming back to Delhi…I am itching to visit Purana Quila, Lal Quila, Qutub Minar, Jama Masjid etc etc. I know I still sound like a tourist…but can’t be helped! You see…I have to see!...The Capital...Its more like counting heartbeats here….the city gearing up for the 15th…not a beat less, not a beat more…the soldiers march on to the sound of the drum…independence…here it comes….

Epiphanies...

To brush aside those
Unclear dreams that hung hopefully
All night by the pillow,
And type, merely type
One’s breath out
All day…

To stare at the blank walls
Of coffee shops on Sundays,
To find in them a mate
That cannot speak.
To memorize smells of
Favorite trees
To sit tight-lipped
And recall the touch
Of a distant breeze…

Can you determine?
Can you think?
No soul, no heart
Not even a hand for you.
Just a whim
Like those
Cigarette smoke and rings…

The desire to parcel
Life off in glass bottles,
Across oceans, across streams…
Disown pain, weakness, bitterness, spite
For that drip-drop-drip happiness
Incidentally, a taste you may not like…

Book-marked

Cause And Effect-

The best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

Charles Bukowski

Sway With Me-

sway with me, everything sad --
madmen in stone houses
without doors,
lepers steaming love and song
frogs trying to figure
the sky;
sway with me, sad things --
fingers split on a forge
old age like breakfast shell
used books, used people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving.

Charles Bukowski

Finally it rained! ;)

Quarter to nine in the night

A rocket-fast rickshaw

One possessed rickshawala

Clouds and heavy drizzle

The wide wide Pusa road

A zillion speed breakers

Half-a-zillion pot-holes

Two cups of boiling tea...

A plate of hot noodles

Three samosas

A Dhokla

Chutney of course

Two crazy girls

And a grand feast on the rickshaw!

Gone with the...scissors...

For all the water she sprayed on my finely combed hair, my ears had become unusually warm. Even crimson…no red. I felt strange sitting wrapped in a white plastic sheet. It was finally my moment of reckoning after good ten months or so. I saw her gearing up with the scissors now. An uneasy smile broke on my lips, as my eyes met hers in the mirror. ‘Don’t chop a lot of the length.’- I made a last minute plea…well almost. Swish, swash, swish…and the first long lock fell into my lap. For once, I reverently admired the strand that was mine…and something welled up in my throat. She was going about dexterously, feverishly with the scissors. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the huge light over me. Too late…too late...

The spell broke with the hot blast of the dryer on my face. Over and out. I looked hard in the mirror finally. Not bad. Interesting. Can I say…good? I was almost pleased.

And then, as I walked out, I saw those many strands lying abandoned on the floor. Poor souls. Brown and fine. I touched my hair…recalling their smell and their touch. Gone… :(

Embers...

Those embers aglow,

Uncertain, Unsure...

There...just about it.

That sad hostility,

Mocking that confusion the other feels...

No lessons learnt,

None left to teach.

Why does it happen this way?

I wonder...

Annihilating together,

Perishing asunder...

Lets begin again,

Set them properly to fire,

Or put out that whimsicality,

Their half-stitched, orangish attire....

Gifts

Take a little hope tonight
And keep it in your fist
Till I open it
The next time.

We could sit and talk for a while,
Leaving the Sun to rise and set
A hundred times,
Smile and think of floating memories
Of happy days,
Of happy hours,
Of Journeys of thousand miles…

Draw for me a new sunset then,
With rays everlasting, truthful, fragile…
I will carry for you my bag of moist colors
To weave that promised, new sunrise…

Fragments

The wind that blew through the heart of the sky
Breaking the clouds into a dozen
Anonymous pattern…
Tells me to let go
And trace the scattered pieces of Life
Wherever they lie…
To just keep a handful of Time
And live uncounted days
Like eternity’s happy embrace…
Here it is…life…always.
There…it never was.
To breathe was never enough,
The rest I am incapable of….

Songs...

Stepping into the cool, bright metro, I instantly felt happy…very. Like good old days back home. Lucky day…I found my head-set and a seat…and in came Ronan Keating, Darren Hayes, Lionel Richie, singing those tunes into my ears after many many months. I started smiling to myself…when the guy opposite to me returned my smile, I realized people were indeed getting ideas. I switched to day-dreaming and reminiscing…wondering what the caller tune must be…now…scolding myself for that last bit…going back, back, back in time, till I came down to that Roja song…and then another unreasonable smile. And then a kid tugged my shoulder…

The train was empty. Thankfully, Dilshad Garden was the last station…

Each Morning...

Each morning, the soul feels heavy, with the burden of what I didn't do yesterday…the incessant dripping of Time and the continuous loss of all belief…its Life in painful circles, tied down with misgivings...whose is the onus?…I ask you, ask myself and the blank, thin crack I notice in the opposite wall…do I need to say?..I am not merely an option, a choice, a name?…I am a heart and a human being…I should have been at least a feeling…as you are…much much more...I know my 'self' and I almost love it with all its flaws...Its just that at times, I type, type, type, and this stupid feeling does not recede...I walk out into the dawn…and seek another numbness in the bare, green, long grass…

Dilli-Willi

It’s a colorful city…Dilli…but different, very different from my Calcutta. There is literally too much of color here…one wakes up to the howling of car alarms…and sees multiple of them lined up and glistening in the sun…so very different from the coconut trees and rickshaws that greeted Calcutta mornings…as always, I love some things, and I hate some…no middles please…

I love the wide, wide roads, the chat and paneer tikka, the green, lush parks with the Dhillon and Bindra aunties in chiffon salwars and Reebok shoes…the slim, slim maidens with baby clips and i-pods intact…markets full of lovely earrings, shoes, bags..(err…here I go! )...all very colorful indeed…to the extent of a slight overdose…

But the breeze here hardly picks up…like the mad gust in Calcutta…there are hardly any road-side golgappa shops…rickshaws aren’t that great either…and there are of course no Calcutta-mark Mishti Doi and Rassagolla available...These are testing times I say!

Chopra Aunty is great! I love her temper and her jhappis...The only problem is her Tommy (Tommy dear, I have been with many sweet pets…but you’re the rowdiest of all Tommies I have ever seen…)...her son comes a close second…read my blog you…(did anyone say moron?)…and see how I can’t stand you for some reason…

I have just about begun loving this independence…the impromptu cooking of French-fries at 2 a.m., the rounds of carom all night, the discussions, agony-aunt sessions, confessions till dawn, learning up the varieties of mangoes and buying them after haggling too!...not to forget Chopra Aunty’s recipes of Butter Chicken and Dahi Chicken, which, by-the-way, I don’t need being a veggie…

I am of course the same…though I did land up here thinking I was a naayika straight out of a Sarat Chandra novel…going to live stoically, quietly, in self-exile…but some things never change…so here I go…jabbering again…working, shopping…cooking….of course putting up with neighbors in florescent-orange night-gowns…and Chopra Aunty’s recipes and lo!...I hear our dear, ol’ Tommy barking again…

Misgivings...

And I wonder where Life’s headed…
A blank question I often exchange
With my soul
That nearly chokes itself
At the sound of those tainted songs…

What else will matter
Here on…?
When it all blew away steadily
And the carcasses of memory
Now stand as dead paperweights?

How do others smile?
All the time?
Heal and hurt by turns
And still survive?

How does one empty
The obstinate mind?
How does one relieve
The burdened soul?
When Life questions you each day…
When barrenness greets each breath
Like never before.

They stand now….darkly…
Those happy, belated days
Like the blueprints of what crumbled
And died…
Were we always weak?
Or were they unreal days?

Let me pretend to live on…
Let me pull up the curtains
And bring in the light…
But I see the sorrows hanging
All over the walls…

They speak of the unalterable
Unchangeable defects in my Life…

Senti...Sigh...Sigh...

I have been like a pensive, wandering bird these days... simply breathing in the air, letting my wings spread...too numb to think of those I bade goodbye to...of things I had folded up and locked in my nest...

Your call made my day! Your voice took me back to my old skin...those days...the bustling city of colorful buses, the campus, the bridge, the green grass, the umbrellas, the corridors...I could smell the air of the canteen again...our trips and misadventures...tales of sorrows, jealousies, misunderstandings and heart-breaks...old love and old wounds :)

When will I be back? The only thing you wanted to know...so do I...

I feel the way you feel...I feel the pull of our happy bond...the days of vanilla skies and fresh dreams...the happy happy group of dreamy souls...the maddening urge to pour my heart to you all...and to listen to your little/not-so-little stories, tales, joys, anxities...

This is for you my bestest, caring friends...and my dear Alahomora...I see we are in the canteen again...or lets say...City Center? ;)

Do I need to say how I miss... all the time?

Love...

Ponder:

"Quietism is the attitude of people who say, “let others do what I cannot do.” The doctrine I am presenting before you is precisely the opposite of this, since it declares that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, and adds, “Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” Hence we can well understand why some people are horrified by our teaching. For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, “Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions.” But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. The genius of Proust is the totality of the works of Proust; the genius of Racine is the series of his tragedies, outside of which there is nothing. Why should we attribute to Racine the capacity to write yet another tragedy when that is precisely what he did not write? In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait and there is nothing but that portrait. No doubt this thought may seem comfortless to one who has not made a success of his life. On the other hand, it puts everyone in a position to understand that reality alone is reliable; that dreams, expectations and hopes serve to define a man only as deceptive dreams, abortive hopes, expectations unfulfilled; that is to say, they define him negatively, not positively. Nevertheless, when one says, “You are nothing else but what you live,” it does not imply that an artist is to be judged solely by his works of art, for a thousand other things contribute no less to his definition as a man. What we mean to say is that a man is no other than a series of undertakings, that he is the sum, the organisation, the set of relations that constitute these undertakings..."

- Jean-Paul Sartre (1946)

Red and Yellow

I dreamt of the fountain today.
The fountain we were watching...
Red and Yellow,
Red and Yellow....
Were they symbolic?
The Lights?
Did they show me your colour and mine?
Red and Yellow
Washed down the fountain,
Or was it up and away that things went?
Things that buried our yesterdays,
Tainted the tomorrows.
I sat alone by the fountain today...
Clean and healthy it stood
Dancing at me,
Mocking at me,
Laughing at me,
The white of its calmness in tact...
The water safe in its furrow.
I know, I know
We took with us the Red and the Yellow,
The today, the tomorrow,
Burnt, scathed, scarred
Aplenty,
I now hoard the orange sorrow.

Here...

That which was there yesterday has changed...

You can ask me, but can I tell...

May be its just the new,yellow air, or the unfamiliar smell of eucalyptus.

May be its my heart again, or the senses feeling a little perplexed.

The faces, the rooms, the lanes and the noise...

They add up to something I cannot call mine.

Only your words remain, your voice and your name

To take things along...things I need to call

My Life.

I follow you Ashar! ;)

But I'm afraid the picture isn't very nice! :(

Adrift...

The audacity of your weak attempt,

The feebleness of the YOU in you…

I can clap hands, I can shout, I can walk out, I can laugh aloud,

At you...

And at myself.

My boat is adrift.

Thanks to the radio silence you supplied

On that weak weak day…

(Your patent analogy of Pearl Harbor mocks me.)

The dark signal that broke something….

That anchor for sure, and a lot of other things I presume...

A heart or half was also dashed I think….

The perversity of circumstances we say,

Or, lets call it of character.

The equivocator in you, the fool in me?

The generous waves call out

Time to abandon that shabby cloak

The stained abode

And drift away from agony…

To a sadder, clearer shore…

MOvie-thon!

The last five days...I have seen about a dozen movies...like a woman possessed...after work, at night, on weekly offf, all through Sunday....whenever I could....! God knows when will I get a T.V. and a dvd player again!! Here's a precious peep... ;)

99- first time

Sliding Doors- first again

27 Dresses- first time

The Secret Window- second…

Notting Hill- (second...I think so…Hugh Grant….rest don’t’ quite rem…)

Hitch- second

Forrest Gump- (200th)

Monalisa Smile- err…third…

Oceans Eleven- 2nd

Jerry Maguire- 5th time I guess

The Departed- 2nd..don’t know why I saw though!

Alex and Emma (200th show!)


P.S. - My deepest prayers…may I always have movies around me!! :)

Beginning...

I can do miracles I know,
I need not run with others
I can make it being slow.

I can count on myself
All the time
There’s no balm
That my own hands cannot provide.

No joy, no pleasures,
No hopes that need to be denied
Only some milestones waiting
Till Life is again on my side.

I prepare again to dream
I will not trudge
I wish to fly this time.

I will tell tyrant Time…
The decisions I make now.
Epiphanies I provide…

I can hear them calling aloud
My Happiness of yore…
Desires that are there again
Winds of change waiting to blow…

Just this night to pass
Just this narrow road
And then the wide wide path
Of a new Sun, new morrow.

I will join you Life,
I will embrace you too…
I call out to you World…
I will build my home anew….

Rescued?

A ride in a big, white, Whiteliner through the bypass has always done wonders to me. Somehow, I had always half-feared, half-wanted, to fall asleep in these buses and be driven to a far-off tourist spot…Digha or Ranchi or anywhere…I boarded one that day...feeling low…and soon began enjoying the ride through the rain-washed stretches of the V. I. P. Road…I felt that the rain, clouds, trees, bus and even the driver were being extra kind to me…So perfect and refreshing it all felt… Staring out of the bleary window…I felt a pair of eyes glued to me. A well-dressed, middle-aged man sitting on an adjacent seat was looking at me…Nothing out-of-the-world about it I thought. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the numbness of the chilling, uncontrollable air-conditioner….I could still sense his attention in my direction…half-an-hour…and I was in snooze-land, when I felt someone standing right in front of me. It was the same, sturdy, somber-looking man with thick glasses. Before I could expect anything, he placed a laminated piece of post-card on my bag and got down from the bus.

Still bleary-eyed, I saw him outside the window, waving a bye to me…What for? I turned to the post-card. Three Gurus lined-up…one after another…in sacred...pass-port size photos…Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ram Chandra Paramhans, and Baba Lokenath…or so I later identified these bearded/unbearded,/turbaned men to be…

I did not know what symbolic meaning lay ahead of me…what journey…what revelation…the whole day I kept waiting for something strange…bizarre…new….to happen to me… in the market, on the road, in the bus, at work, in the library, home, kitchen….anywhere!...and bed-time came too!...Nothing happened…


And I am still waiting….;-)

Heart of the Matter

I can’t emote in the same manner for everyone. I am not always ready with a set intonation in my voice. It varies from a smile to a laughter, from a neutral ‘hi’ to a warm ‘hello’. I don’t have the same set lines for all. That is how I am programmed. I am frequently short of the right phrases. No striking lines, sighs, winsome sentimentalism. Sometimes, I can be downright boring and extremely plain.

Perhaps the sweetness of renaming people into pet-versions is also missing in me. I take you as ‘YOU’. I do not want your meek, weak, fragile version. Nor do I give you mine to carry. May be that does not provide the right amount of angst. It might even dangerously bring in some happiness that is so unsettling to that nature. A happiness that is ever so plain, non-euphoric. Yet it remains unpalatable, uncomfortable. It’s the vague, irresponsible, ‘pain game’ that should prevail…

Of course, I have always cherished being there. I can love in my own way. Through the seasons of pain. However, I do not want fragility and gloom as conditions for giving my affection and support. I will give them always. Just like that. They have always been there. Without the right lines. Without the histrionics. And perhaps that makes them invisible, unnoticed, unacknowledged, insignificant. It is not gift-wrapped. It cannot be…like the Sunshine that just intruded in your room- unnoticed, unasked and unwanted.

Dear friend, you say people bring about painful circumstances for people…uncaring and slightly self-centred perhaps…so you pay…No. I chose, wanted, shared, went through…My judgment, my choices, my foresight or the lack of it….Self-critique, Accountability, Lessons. Yes, they will do the work for me. Always.

Even the empowering ink couldn't make the finger taller!:(

Alone...

After a failed stint with a pet gold fish and our coup that liberated their birds, our neighbors brought in two rabbits. Sweet, round and self-indulgent. They were placed strategically in a sty-cum-kennel-cum-house-cum-rabbit-inn…that was kept in the common passage of the fourth floor. I noticed them…obviously. One thin, a bit quiet and calmer fellow…the other healthier, chirpier, more agile. I grabbed the opportunity and got familiar with them….No prizes for guessing that the healthier one and I got along….birds (?) of the same feather etcetera… etcetera….

Not that my life began to revolve around them…but they became an integral part of the scene outside my flat. So while climbing the stairs, I would imagine them jumping across their shelter with ears standing up…and I would tap my shoes and see them go round and round in a tizzy….a fond ceremony it became….I could feel they anticipated my antics each time I was around….

But more than me, they were busy with each other….the fatter one burnt his calories by chasing the thinner one…I sometimes felt it mumbled to the other about each passer-by….Didn’t they get bored in there…of each other…of chasing round-and-round…of talking?...What garrulous…lost…busy souls! They went on and on and on in each other’s company….Phew!


And one day, as I came up…there was just the thin one there….sleeping, I thought. May be, the other one was hiding behind…may be it was freshening up somewhere…may be it was eating out…may be it was snoozing...may be. But, I soon came to know it was dead. And a closer look at the thin one made me realize it was shell-shocked. I tapped my feet…clapped unceasingly…made a dozen faces…antics… all that I could think of… it just didn’t move.

I came home…I will not say my life was shattered….but I felt a strange discomfort …an unrest…a heaviness…time and again I would put myself in the shoes of that lonely rabbit and try feeling the difference in its life. I couldn’t even do that…I didn’t want to be in its shoes. It was too scary. It was overwhelmingly sad. What will it do now? Where will it go? Whom will it talk to? There were too many bad, empty, painful questions. So, I let it be.

We have an understanding again…I don’t tap...it doesn’t respond.

The Right Card....

I feel like the most important person in the country presently. Yes, elections are precisely the reason…no...not a party ticket…I got my voter’s ID Card done! And getting it made was no less an ordeal than campaigning for any big-shot, small-shot party-warty or neta.

One sultry afternoon I landed at a dingy sarkari make-shift office in far-flung part of Calcutta. Even as I approached some Babus enjoying a bidi-adda session in their chairs, I could see their expressions change. It was the most heinous crime I could have committed, arriving at three when they were supposed to call it a day at five! “Heavy late!..heavy late!”…two of them mumbled….

“Ei Baba!...Photo nei?” one of the five officers gasped…looking at my Id form….The job of putting the photo there was optional, I tried to explain… "So Bhat?”- another replied, if they don’t see my face, how would they locate me in the area list? But wasn’t I in front of them already?...I exclaimed, exasperated. Surely I was being logical??

It had been some 7-8 minutes already in that dingy, hot den…and I could feel the drop of sweat tricking down my cheek, as the portable fans were turned exclusively in the direction of the babus. No more formalities. I pulled a chair and sat down. And soon paid the price. They handed me down about 10 sets of voter lists of separate blocks of the municipality, and asked me to hunt my name out…written obviously in chaste Bangla! Me poor soul….having bid Banlga bye-bye in the 8th standard…tried conjuring mental images of the bangla alphabets that would form my name and began my mad hunt through those maddening papers….ten…fifteen….twenty…thirty minutes and I saw my name written in all glory!

“Here”. I stood up, handing the paper, trying to sound as pissed, miffed, caustic, sullen as possible… "where?” one of them accosted me as I tried leaving….Oh yes…I was forgetting to get my photo clicked for the card. There stood a reed-thin photographer in a pink shirt with the saddest looking digital camera in the world!...Already out of patience, I wanted him to simply go through the motions…but, but, but…. “Your hair…madam…” he pointed out to the few misguided strands…”your complexion”…he pointed to the drops on my forehead…trying to do a Mona Lisa… “its perfect!”- I almost stamped my feet…and then the blinding flash came down…and I left….

I saw my ghost finally when my card was handed out a fortnight later. But, but, but…I got it done people!

Truth

Being great is easy, being generous is easy, being scapegoat-ish is easy, and being a martyr is easiest….It saves a lot. A lot of truth, a lot of pain, a lot of bitterness. But being honest is becoming increasingly difficult. Why don’t people open up and walk the road I wonder? Me included. Me even more so. Shedding the burden is not easy you see. One gets used to the acting. One cannot give it up. It’s the other skin, the role, the mould, the part, the other identity. One lives it out each day hoping someone will notice the blood that oozes, the sweat that screams out, the anguish that pricks. No one does. And you keep dragging it- inside out….outside in….and the days are passing by.

Farther Away...

One loses to a number of causes….one ages for different reasons…one dies through multiple symptoms. You wake up one morning and realize you have lost those cells that carried those few drops of love in your system…

How weird it sounds…unreal, ‘out-of-the-world’ kind… Yes it does. But I promise you its true. You can look into the mirror and see those fine wrinkles, those dark patches under your gray eyes, a witness to the toil you do…a toil you no more have a reason for… that’s death. Silent and growing.

The dreams have abandoned your sleepy brain as you simply notice the dirty sheet you wake up on and that clock that pushes you towards oblivion. The scariest part is to lose those important words. They are naked now…barren…single-colored…eliciting no response. He doesn’t clap, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t notice. And you move just an inch closer to death.

It all passes by you each day. You begin to wonder how you lived in those belated days, when the breath came easy and the smile reappeared often. It makes you bitter. The falsity of the effort grows. The purpose of the talk fades away. And you clutch that finality. The finality of standing on the nadir. You can clap.

Weekly Off!

Initially, the idea of getting a weekly off pained me. No Happy Saturdays for me then? Sulk…sulk…sigh…sigh….life seemed bleak and miserable…Sunday is not a fun-day actually…one just oils the machinery for the grind that follows through the week…what bad luck, what misfortune! How it tortured me to see people waking up late on Saturdays, enjoying a lazy meal and catching up a flick or two…and then I had my revenge! ;)

Suddenly on a hot Tuesday morning, they would spot me snug and happy in bed till ten!...I would stroll deliberately in front of them with a cup of lazy tea. “My chutti you see…” and they would give me red, hostile looks and move on…the peace, the contentment that I felt….to see them rush out of home in a mad dizzy, crib about the heat and dust outside and return late tired. And then I would narrate my grand account of merriment on a comfortable day. The books I read, the movies I saw, the impromptu meal I rustled up, the unplanned, multiple naps I caught…blah and blah and blah…it of coursed irritated them, some even threatened to kill me…but there was no taking away my sense of victory! How I look forward to my weekly offs now…just hold my temper and work on bleary Saturdays…and wait for the manna dew that lands in my plate on a Windy Wednesday, Tangy Thursday or Filmy Friday! :)

Holiday home…its a battlefield! ;)

Passing By...

At Dawn...

Her eyes opened to the patter of raindrops outside the window. The room was unnaturally dark for that hour…one of those Calcutta days when the dawn imitates the dusk. She couldn’t bring herself to leave the bed. The clean white blanket won her heart all over again and she hid her face deep into it. It was indeed the hour of contemplation; the early morning breeze, dampened by the rain outside, invited reflection. The calm of the violet dawn and the twitter of unprepared birds moved her soul.

Staring at the ceiling, her mind traveled back to the events of the last week. She could now think of it as a whirlwind that had culminated in the storm last night. And now this placid morn. How far they had traveled from each other, in a matter of days. Years had crumbled into nothing. Simply nothing. One of those swaying, powerful stretches of time that take away memories and emotions, feelings and sentiments, foresight and forgiveness. It was a battlefield all the way. They had turned themselves into brainless warriors feeding on false pride and reasons. Nothing could hold them back then. They had geared up to carry it far…just a little behind the Greeks and Trojans. She sighed deeply, closed her eyes and murmured to her battered soul-“it would be fine; she was right”…and then the soul betrayed her. Her pillow was briskly dampened by those heavy drops that gushed down from her eyes. She felt bitter. Not with the world, not with him, not with them. It was simply a heavy, self-critical heart. And she despised her tears. To come out that early! At dawn…

She got up and walked to the balcony. It stood deserted and dark. She had abandoned it these days. There was no need to hide in its corner and scribble. Letters weren’t needed anymore, songs never sung. It had been weeks since she had peeped into the nest it its roof, or been in company of the lazy cat. Its all gone. She told herself. The best and the sweetest part of my life. I have cut it off. If only she could say these without the watery response from her eyes, without that sinking feeling in her heart. She knew she would be fine then. That was indeed the sign. Pitying her melodramatic soul, she tried to scrub the sentiments out of her face. The mirror stood over the washbasin. And for once, she couldn’t smile.

“I will be back.” - She said to it and sat down to write.