I've been waiting for that bright sunshine to show up and shine in my back door someday.

Yesterday was probably one of my lowest days in the recent past. I got up in the morning with that sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. That makes you feel all gloomy and morose, as if something is going to go wrong very soon. I hate those feelings, cos they are almost always correct or rather I like to believe it is. My first thought as I opened my eyes was how the hell am I supposed to last one whole day in the office feeling the way I do. I felt miserable that my castle of cards that I’d built with so much love is going to come crashing down very soon. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my tired face starring back at me, I had dark circles under my eyes, more so because I hadn’t bothered to remove the kajal properly the night before, my hair was tied untidily and my skin looked sallow. I couldn’t see even a trace of the rosy glow on my skin, which everyone had been talking about. I didn’t feel pretty. But again this isn’t about me being disappointed about the way I look. It doesn’t take too much of an effort to look nice really. A good shower and hair wash and its done.. I was content looking as haggard as I was looking. I felt depressed about my job. That thought has been eating away a part of my mind consistently for a while now. I am supposed to get confirmation of my employment after a year of working as a trainee and as the end of the week approaches I am getting jittery about being sent away to some other city. I don’t want to leave this city right now.
More than anything I am not in love with doing what I do and I find it hard explaining it to people that even though it doesn’t sound too bad I just do not like dealing with inanimate objects day in and day out. I have been getting nightmares about being handed my transfer orders by the end of the week. I was wondering if I should just look for a new job and I keep hearing about these tempting jobs that are offering so much more than I am earning. But changing jobs and starting from scratch again scares me a little. I know I will eventually. I cannot imagine working here forever. I wonder whom have I been trying to fool the last one year. I keep telling myself I like what I am doing. But I do not.

To top it all I have been on a hiatus to a different world lately. It was most unexpected. Its like bumping into some part of you which you didn’t even know existed. Someone that makes you get through the week. Like a treat that is yours for a brief period of time but is somebody else’s forever in reality. It’s a glorious feeling, its there but not there. You don’t want to loose it but you know you shall. The end was decided a long long time back. You wonder why do you feel the way you do. You question yourself and leave it at that. Doesn’t matter really. So if the first wretched thought in the morning also includes loosing the “happy and cheerful you” you have discovered then it does seem like life is so meaningless. What am I living for? Disappointing job, bye bye happiness, hullo loneliness. I don’t know how many phone calls I made last morning just trying to get over the morning blues. I called up Boss and said “I am not feeling well Sir so would it be alright if I don’t come in today.” He says “Yeah it is alright. Anyways what am I supposed to do if you aren’t feeling fine.”

How rude was that. Mind you I have taken only 8 days off the entire year. That made me doubly dejected. I called up Mum but she was in the midst of a class and cancelled my call. I sat and moped around all day, cried lots and lots, sent the longest mail to my best friend in Dubai pouring out my heart to her saying how I am about to loose everything that matters to me right now and I don’t even know how to build it all back. Can anyone teach me how to make sunshine, really the kinds that keeps you eternally happy? Would I need shine only or should I sprinkle some fairy dust into it too and a dash of happiness and a dollop of laughter, some gossamer too? I listened to “Romeo and Juliet” all morning like a complete fool only to realize that probably the song is making me feel even sadder. However as the day drew to an end making way for the evening I realized enough is enough. No more reveling in self-pity had to be woken up someday from this reverie and today had to be the day. I am going to face whatever has to be faced. If it means a change of job then be it, if it means loosing sunshine then be it. I’ll find some more some day. Someday I’ll come face to face with it again. There has to be a teeny meeny bit more sunshine hidden somewhere in this world. For dreamers like me there has to be more sunshine…

There Is Something In The Air

There is something in the air these days, wonder if it is the slightest bite of the nip. Yeah I can feel the winter coming, can feel it in my bones. Summer is finally coming to an end. Oh the hot and steamy summer, the blast of the heat, the endless sighs and whines, the shimmering whites,the pretty pinks, and the the cooling greens.


There is something in the air these days, wonder if its contentment. Maybe it is because I laid to rest a lot questions and made peace with the riot of emotions that threatened to spill them selves out of the maze of my mind. Or is it something wholly inane like how beautiful the old peepul tree looks in the evening time in light of the dying sun from my veranda.


There is something in the air these days, think it is autumn welcoming itself into this world grown weary with the summer. From the part of the world I left behind I can almost hear the approaching sound of the “dhak”( drums) and the priest’s voice chanting hymns aloud as the teeming millions come together to pay homage to the Goddess or maybe its the musky smell of the incense stick that overpowers everything that comes its way.


There is something in the air these days. Wonder if it’s magic or is it you who makes me so happy? Maybe it is the endless hours spent trying to be around each other or looking for excuses to be with you, feel your touch, or is it the conversations we have away from the prying eyes of the harsh world, revealing bits and pieces of our selves slowly and steadily or maybe it is the laughter I share with you and the dreams we weave.


There is something in the air these days. Wonder if it’s the shadows growing longer. Or is it the colorful pictures you keep clicking and transforming them into mellow sepia? Or is it me trying to live life to the fullest knowing that very soon this sojourn into my dreams will be over and we’ll go back to our ordinariness left with nothing but fragments of old forgotten conversations, and sepia tinted memories.

They Said

They said she was an adorable baby, apple of her mother’s eye, daddy’s darling.

They said she was a pretty kid blessed with a sunny disposition, mischievous, playing a million pranks and getting into a soup ever so often.

They said she was an awkward child with spectacles, her nose glued to the books, a stutter that showed its ugly face in every sentence she uttered.

They said she stammered and they ridiculed her in class. She’d never answer the questions asked despite knowing the answers. She didn’t wanna be laughed at.

They said she was unattractive, quite a dunce, flunking in Math and Chemistry with regularity. But she was passionate about History and Politics, had a love for English Literature. But that went unnoticed.

They said she was plump, graceless and uncoordinated and she can’t play basketball. She believed them and never tried.

They said she could barely talk without a stutter and showed no signs of any belief in herself. They didn’t know her who’d spend hours reciting Robert Frost’s poetry in front of the mirror, trying to perfect the art of talking in public without the stammer that put her down all the time. They didn’t know that she loved to sing too.

They thought she’d be a nobody. What would she do? She wasn’t half as smart or pretty as them.

And so they thought. Years passed by.

They saw her the other day. They couldn’t recognize the laughing, cheerful her. The one who looked so sure of herself. The one who seemed so different.

They don’t know and never will but she does stammer still, very slight. She struggles to accept the fact that she was born with a tiny speech handicap. But she tries, tries to overcome it. Maybe it’ll always be there. Paradox that life is, it did not stop her from going ahead and giving herself a chance to achieve her dreams. She did fail a lot of times. Adversity would always be there. However she charted her own course of life. Now she is trying, trying really hard to create that perfect balance. Most don’t realize that she stammers slightly. When she points it out to them they say it wasn’t conspicuous enough.

But its always there in her head, it’ll haunt her forever maybe. The resounding laughter of a bunch of schoolgirls echoes in her ears. The bane of her existence, the biggest chink in her armour. Sometimes she wonders if people notice the moments when she has to repeat the first half of the word twice or if they realize how breathless she gets during an argument. She strives to disguise it well, but was it good enough.
She detests it, loathes this weakness in her with a vengeance that is hard to understand. Some say she has a nice voice, sounds attractive, that she is witty and makes them laugh and comes across as someone oh so confident of herself. But there are bad days too, days when she feels miserable, days when everything threatens to fall apart, days when she feels that she’ll never be able to make it through and conquer this. On days like this the stammer takes on magnanimous proportions overshadowing everything happy in her life.

Words are a comfort, her pen is a balm on the mind that has grown old and tired trying to tame the speech that refuses to make peace with it. She loves writing, she has complete command on the words. She needn’t halt ever, she designs her own tempo, writes at her own pace. She ardently wished her speech could be like that unhindered, free, independent, fiery and tempestuous.

She dreams of a day when she’d be able to address a gathering with poise an élan that was the trademark of many an orator.

She dreams of a day when she’d be able to recite her favourite poetry unfettered, unbound like the swallow in the sky.

She dreams of a day when the remnants of this curse shall release all the words and set her soul free, her life and her being free, and set her spirit free forever and ever.


"They said you wouldn't make it so far a a
And ever since they've said it its been hard
With all your hopes and dreams you will believe
Even though it seems it's not for you
You won't give up, you'll keep it up
Looking to the sky
You will achieve on your knees
You will always believe that


I believe I can
I believe I will
I believe I know my dreams are real
I believe I'll chant
I believe I'll dance
I believe I'll grow real soon and
That is what I do believe"

YOU SAID GOODBYE AND HE SAYS HULLO

You are leaving this week. Seems this is a season of farewells. D left too without a word three weeks back. All he bothered sending me was an insipid reply to a message I sent him. He stopped talking to me slowly and steadily as the day for his departure came closer. I guess I stopped caring . I knew it was futile. Trying to hold on to something that was never there. Now you are leaving too. My best buddy for the last 6 months, someone who popped out of nowhere that day on g talk. I’d never thought that one evening of music, laughter, bloody mary’s and crispy lamb at TC would materialize into countless conversations, silly fights, drinking sessions, discussions on life, philosophizing, dreaming together, arguing, and bickering over trivialities. But then we always knew that this was the way it was gonna be. I adored the birthday present you gave me. You wanted to give me something different and so you thoughtfully bought me two pure silk scarves from the old shop where your grandmother use to purchase her silk sarees from. I am gonna treasure those notes you wrote for me during a drunken reverie swearing your undying affection . You were always leaving and you and I would make plans on how we’ll meet a few years later but this time in New York and we’d go drinking yet again to some shady little bar. Yeah even if you and I are married to different people we shall surely meet up and our spouses can go take a hike cos it would just be old friends bonding. Trust you to come up with such run of the mill ideas P.


The other day we finally managed meeting up after a week of misunderstandings and plans gone awry. I was looking forward to meeting you one last time. For a change I reached earlier and I was waiting patiently outside TGIF browsing through the menu, trying to make up my mind between Thai Spring Rolls and Pork Ribs when you said “BOOOOOO” and I turn around to find you standing; you had your backpack on and your funny shades. You were looking quite adorable although I refrained myself from saying so. Suddenly I noticed that there was someone standing beside you. You introduced him as your friend T and my first thought was hell couldn’t you have come alone since this was our last meeting for a long long time to come. Not that I wanted this to be a maudlin and weepy affair but again a stranger is not welcome at all at such inopportune instances. I gave a quick glance and said Hi as we went inside and sat on our table. I couldn’t really care because I was under the impression he’d be a non-participant in our conversations. Yeah those first few minutes T hardly spoke and I lambasted you for behaving in such a juvenile manner and sending me melodramatic messages. T was silent just smiling now and then. Then he started talking, with an exclamation here, a question there, passing some lewd joke about how much both of you loved each other and then both of you would yell “bitch” in unison to each other. I was so mortified as both of you made a mockery of each other confessing your eternal love in public. ( Feigning homosexuality is the flavour of the season ;) )

Somewhere in the course of the afternoon that wistful feeling in me that arose out of the endless goodbyes was replaced by something lighter and bubblier that threatend to come out on the surface, something that made me want to chuckle in delight as I got the better of T as we indulged in a fanciful repartee or ganged up against you and playfully ridiculed the female attention showered on you and he changed from P's friend to T for me. Bizarre as it sounds but meeting T was delightful , and left me with a smile long after both of you left. I can’t even point out what exactly it was or was it meeting a kindred soul in the last place I would expect to. Ironic isn’t it that our last meeting was the first time I met him. As if unknowingly you left me with a going away present. I know I’ll meet him again, I don’t know if we’ll be best pals like you and I were. But there is something. It is almost as if you said good-bye and he says hullo. Hullo, hullo, I don’t know why you said goodbye he says hullo.”