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.”

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you. ~

Ahem a vice called alcohol. Well think I am the last person who should actually be talking about alcohol considering the fact that I didn’t start drinking until I was quite old. Na I never got drunk during my first few years in college. On the contrary I was the one who hadn't had a drop of alcohol ever. Everyone would be drinking, making merry and be all happy while I was the one who was completely under the iron controls of sanity and my senses would be wide alert doing a double take. All those years I’d wonder what makes my friends act giggly and even mellow after drinking. Strange as it sounds I didn’t even try experimenting as most young college goers would until much later well into my early twenties. However I’d be lying if I do not accept that sometimes I’d actually feel a little out of place because so many inebriated people around you when one is in a solemn state of mind does make you wish that you could feel the same. I’d have a few sips here and a few sips there and make faces like a child does and say "Arghhhhhhh".
But there were intoxicants I did try eventually. On my 20th birthday I got stoned for the first time in my life and wow that was such a hilarious trip I. I can still hear myself screaming “whoopsie daisies” at the top of my voice and the look on the faces of my surprised friends. No one had ever seen me inebriated before. I didn’t hear the end of it for the next few years. After that day I’d smoke up once in a while and enjoy my hiatus to the other world. I remember the craving for anything sweet after we were stoned and also a particular incident when this guy I smoked up with got me chocolate at 1 at night just to satisfy my sweet tooth. Those were heady days; we were students, perennially broke and counting pennies all the time. Maybe it was the state of our minds at that time in our lives that made us want to try weed and the likes of it. I recollect a time when I had one too many a joint and it was a wild, crazy trip when I felt I was flying. I remember distinctly lying on my bed and that uplifted feeling as if the bed was soaring high into the sky like Alladin’s magic carpet ( now I know that it definitely wouldn’t be as much fun as it does look like in the animated film)and I was praying to god so hard saying “Please please I promise not to smoke up for a long long time .”

I didn’t touch weed after that for a while. The next time when I did start smoking up was a hard time in my life when I was trying to put a part of my past behind. Weed was my way out, made me forget those feelings that didn’t seem to go away in the light of the day, feelings that haunted me and made life miserable for me. So I’d smoke a joint everyday at night and go to sleep with this heightened sense of superficial happiness that faded away in the brightness of the morning sunshine and made me feel all hollow and empty from inside. I’d do that day after day, I’d be all cuckoo at night and in the morning I’d be in tears trying to hide my sobs under the quilt. That phase of mine ended too when one fine day I confessed to my Mum about how dejected I was and she took it so well. She asked me to stop and come home for a bit. By the time I came back I was a different person. I realized smoking up was never the answer. I’ve seen too many people destroy their lives due to their addiction to weed. I’ve seen the smartest of men just waste them selves doing substances.

Drinking on the other hand has been amusing. Drunken soiress can be quite comical.Yeah sometimes I do drink a wee bit too much and I am woozy and happy and such a kid. The last party we had just before we graduated was a lively affair and I was so drunk, I’d been drinking with my best friend and her boyfriend and and I was on top of the world, rather the zenith. I gave a peck on the cheek to all the guys in the pub that night needless to say the next afternoon when I bumped into a few of them they had those secret smiles on their faces. I felt sooooo silly. I refrain from acting in such a ridiculous manner now but darn I do fail every once in a while. I have to mention all those phone calls one makes to your loved one(one sided) under the influence of alcohol. Damn in the recent past everytime I have done so all I have heard from the other side of the line is "You are drunk again.Don't drink too much.What is wrong with you? What are you doing with your life?"Huh!Where did that come from? My life is going on mighty fine. Thank you but your concern is totally not needed.I resent him for making me sound like an alcoholic.Men give themselves entirely too much credit.Seriously it isn't always traumatic as they would like to believe. I might be the cocktail queen , what with my fixation with bloody mary's, mojitos and strawberry daiqris in different periods and very recently my love for wine but hell i ain't no alcoholic.

Who can ever forget the drunken singing, the drunken bonding, the confessions et al. It is another story that in the morning one would get up and all of that would appear downright ludicrous hahah! I took a sabbatical from drinking in the middle and apparently I’d become quite spiritless and stodgy according to my roomie. No body is as cute and entertaining ( in a nice way mind you) as me when drunk so I don’t deprive my friends anymore. Cheers to all of you :).

Now, I just want to play on my panpipes,
I just want to drink me some wine,
As soon as you’re born, you start dying,
So you might as well have a good time

To You

To the you I knew then

To the you I know now

To the you who made me deliriously happy at 18

To the you I shed tears and tears on

To the you who did not talk to me for 4 very long years

To the you who smiled at me one rainy day

To the you I got to know all over again to my utter surprise

To the you who fell ardently in love with someone who was so dear to both of us

To the you I pined for yet once more

To the both of you who were gloriously happy together

To the you who has this uncanny ability to make an appearnce in my life unannounced

To the you who astounded us all by pulling of no ordinary feat

To the you who is going through a trying time

To the you who is such a child at heart

To the you who is one of those very last one woman men

To the you who giggles at the most inoppurtune moments and thwarts my perfectly silly attempts at trying to make you smile

To the you who deserves all the joy, laughter and sunny days

To the you who can be the man I know you can be

For that you I wish for majestic lights in this dark night

For that you I say a silent prayer

Up, Up and Away

Minty did not want to sleep, not one bit, not at all. But Ma insisted that she slept for the customary 2 hours every afternoon. Poor Ma, the thought that for those two hours her very own, wanton of an elder daughter would be asleep leaving her with a few stolen moments of peace were a haven for her. Minty was irrepressible, a joyous concoction of energy, wit, mischief, and playfulness all rolled into one. All of 8 years old she was a voracious reader and often surprised her mother with her vocabulary and not to forget the seemingly endless questions.

“Ma is Grand Mamma 100 years old?”

“Who told you so Minty?”

“Raghu said that since her hair is as white as Cinderella’s Godmother in the fairy story then she has to be a hundred years old at least.”Ma hid the beginnings of a smile on her face as she turned her face away and replied rather nonchalantly “Yes Minty she is 100 years old.”

“If that’s what makes her happy.” Thought Ma.

It was a hot summer afternoon and Minty couldn’t think of a single reason why Ma would confine her within the four walls of the house when the whole world seemed to be beckoning her outside to come and play with them. If not for Ma she could climb the mulberry tree in the garden that lead to the roof of the garage and sit there all afternoon eating mulberries to her heart’s content, till her lips and hands turned purple with smudges of the violet mulberry juice and make faces at the ugly Pomeranian next door. She loved throwing stones at him and provoking him from the roof, getting a thrill out of the fact that he couldn’t get her and would have to be content barking at her while she did a little dance for him . She could have also run around the neighborhood in the dead of the afternoon when all the grown ups would be enjoying their siesta after a meal of fish curry and rice, and happily ring various door bells in succession and run away. What followed after that like a knee jerk reaction was a unanimous shout sounding like “Minnnnntyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”.

The whole neighbourhood knew Minty. She came down each year to visit her grandmother at her huge and ancient turn of the century house during summer holidays. She breathed life and joy into the 70-year-old mansion that had weathered many a storm and stood at the corner of the road living its twilight years. Grandmamma adored her elder grand child but couldn’t quite comprehend where her restlessness and naughty ideas originated from when neither Minty’s mother or Grandmamma herself had been particularly mischievous as kids. Grandmamma remembered rather proudly about the model little girl she had been except for an aberration here and there, she had always listened to her parents, praying twice a day, wearing sarees as soon as she turned 10 years old and playing houses with the china figurines her father gifted her from his trips to London.

Minty’s best friend was the gardener Nathu’s grandson Raghu. Nathu had worked at the Guha household for years together and Grandmamma was particularly fond of him because he knew just the right way to take tender care of her dahlias and managed growing her favorite green roses every winter. Nathu and Grandmamma shared a history too as they had been playmates when they were children. Grandmamma had been forbidden to play with boys as a child when one day she and Nathu were seen reenacting a wedding scene whilst going round and round an imaginary sacred fire. Grandmamma’s mother had freaked seeing that comical scene and thinking how her somber and solemn husband who had been bestowed with a particularly serious disposition, would react to his only daughter playing with a servant boy. From that day onwards-poor Grandmamma saw Nathu every evening only from her veranda roaming around in the garden all alone, cutting a sorry figure of a little boy missing his playmate while Grandmamma looked longingly at the garden and then at Nathu.

Strangely Minty and Nathu’s grandson Minty forged a friendship when Nathu got Raghu along with him to the house to help him with the chores in the garden. Raghu challenged her to climb the tallest tree in the garden and Minty never said no to such challenges that questioned her ability to outdo boys in any field.

“Of course I can climb that tree. I’ll climb it and show you, I’ll go up, up and away.”

“No you can’t. Girls can’t climb trees. Girls are sissies.”

“Just you wait and see. I’ll go up, up and awayyyyyyyyy.”

Minty followed by Raghu close to her heels frisked along the cobble stoned path and made her way to the jackfruit tree that stood in the middle of the garden towering over all the other trees. She surprised him and the whole household by climbing the highest branch in a matter of minutes and before long there was utter chaos as one of the servants complained to Grandmamma who rushed out to the garden to be greeted by the horrifying sight of Minty who had now been joined by Raghu entertaining the entire army of servants by their acrobatics of jumping from one branch to the other.

“See Grandmamma I am going up, up and away.” Minty shouted as she swung from one branch to another.

“Minty and Raghu come down right now at this very moment.”
Grandmamma was appalled by the public spectacle her grand daughter had made of herself.

“But Grandmamma we are having ever so much fun. I don’t wanna come down and nor does Raghu.” Minty looked at Raghu and he nodded in approval.

“Minty please come. God will punish you. Pious little girls do not climb jackfruit trees.” Wailed an exasperated Grandmamma hoping to instill the fear of God in Minty.

“ I am not scared of God. Besides I am sure he’d have fun too climbing this tree with me.”
“Minty come down right now or else Ma won’t let you play for the next 5 days.”
Now that was a possible threat and Minty couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to play for 5 whole days. Her little soul shuddered.

“Okie I’ll come down but only on the condition that you’ll make my favorite rice pudding with cashews and raisins and that you won’t tell Ma a word of this. “

“Yes I shall make the pudding and won’t tell your Ma either.” said a harassed Grandmamma. Minty and Raghu finally made their way down and received a hero’s welcome with shouts and claps as they were united with mother earth . Grandmamma took her grubby little grand child indoors and shooed the servants away asking them to get back to their work. Raghu was sent off home only to receive a thrashing from his nagging mother who had been at her wits end wondering where her son had vanished. Later that night after dinner content in her little world, Minty sat on the steps of the veranda with her bowl of rice pudding trying to find the raisins and cashews. She thought heard she something and she looked up at the sky just in time to see a shooting star zoom across. She smiled and softly whispered into the night “Up up and away.”

MYRIAD OF THOUGHTS

A myriad of thoughts running through my mind. Have to finish writing all these articles before that idiot pounces upon me yet again. I even have to finish drafting those unexciting lease agreements. Why does work seem to increase by leaps and bounds everyday? Wish I didn’t have to do this utterly ridiculous web content writing but I really need the money. I wish my salary was enough to suffice all my needs but sadly it ain’t and so I am compelled to do free lance writing that too content writing. It’s not even remotely close to the sort of writing I’d like to do. I earn peanuts compared to my former college mates and don’t even ask me why. I don’t have any rational answer to that. Oh I got an E Book of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and I am eager to read it but it has got to be at the cost of my eyes. Sigh! I am short sighted. My Mum was aghast when I called her up oh so gleefully in the morning telling her about my latest find only to be lambasted by her yet again saying “You’ll ruin your eyes. As if having bad eyesight wasn’t bad enough and having to sit online 9 hours a day besides all the hours you spend writing and surfing the net wasn’t worse now you wanna read a 638 page book on the desktop. You seem to have made semi blindness of your eyes a personal mission” I kept my mouth shut. I was of the opinion that Ma being the Harry Potter fan that she was would understand my jubilation but it was not to be. Sometimes it is just so pointless arguing with her and trying to make her understand that hell I cannot afford to shell out a thousand bucks in buying the book and that the e book was a boon from heaven. I was looking for this all time favourite quote of mine by Khalil Gibran, I found it all thanks to google. Sometimes I marvel at the amount of information available at the click of a mouse. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for us to work without google, especially in doing the work I do when I have to sift through information day in and day out google is a blessing.

Very recently I fell in love with Sylvia Plath’s poetry and it is beautiful. Sadly she got all the recognition she had always craved for during her lifetime only after her sordid death. I was intrigued by her life with Ted Hughes . Assia Wevil’s entry into their picture perfect life changed it forever. Sylvia and Assia’s Dance Macabre was tragic. Anyways I am off now. My thoughts don’t seem to be following a particular pattern today.

Damn I have to go to Chandigarh today for arbitration and there was this particularly fun party I was looking forward to and it just happens to be today. I mean every Saturday I call up my house mates and say “Woman I can’t come out tonight since I have so and so work in office.” She doesn’t force me as she knows it is futile and so many of those times I actually sneak out with my college pals to TC or some other place. But this Saturday I actually wanted to go for this fancy dress theme party. [ yeah yeah call me a kidL]I wanted to be a gypsy woman with my colourful skirt bought from Pondicherry and a bandana with tassels and a peasant top. But no now I actually have super important work and I must say life is unfair. Why oh why sometimes does it seems that some people have it so easy while I seem to be running a race against time trying to manage so many things at the same time while I know a couple of people who do nothing but “drink wine and make merry”. No I wouldn’t wanna do just that ever. But sometimes, just sometimes I wish I was born rich. No not cos of the wine but for other dreams, that are oh so dear to my heart, dreams which if actually shape would get me where I want to in life. Yeah but drinking wine along the way definitely wouldn’t hurt ;).

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

Sigh! I love Pope's poetry. Good Byee people. Hope you have a great weekend.

Daddy, Lover, Bastard

 Disclaimer: This is strictly a piece of fiction. Has no resemblance whatsoever to my life.
She didn't wanna go home. As the day went by the shadows loomed past as if stalking her with their darkness. Blackness spread its tiny claws around her delicate neck. What the night would bring terrified her.

" I wish I could stay back in school."
" I wish I could play hide and seek with Sasha."

She hadn't been able to play hide and seek with Sasha . It scared her. Closed , dark places reminded her of the nights, the endless nights, suffocated her thoughts with the bad dreams she had promised not to tell anyone ever.

" I wish I could see the blues, the oranges, the pinks and the lilacs like Sasha always did."
Lilac was her favourite colour.
" Why does it all seem colourless?"
" why does everything resemble grey?"
" Mommy why are you gone for such long long times?"
The school bell rings and with every chime of the bell the sense of doom grows closer and closer. Daddy picks her up from school.

" Baby see what I got for you." She turns around to see the doll starring back at her, it had lovely golden hair and was wearing a satin dress with satin slippers. She takes it from him and turns away to look out of the window listlessly. In the confines of her room, all alone she strips the doll of the pretty dress, tears it away viciously, the tiny satin slippers are cut into bits and pieces with nail scissors and the doll is hidden away to the back of her toy cupboard that she rarely opens these days. The clock strikes 12 and the candle light has illuminated her corner of the bed, where she awaits him. He comes each night, night after night.

"Where are you Mommy?"
He says she will be punished if she doesn't do what he asks her to do. He commands her not to breathe a word of this to any soul she knows. He tells her that if she does so then they will think she is a wicked girl.He curses her and calls her names when she doesn't pay heed to his instructions.

" Why does he do this to me?"

" Why can't I tell Mommy about this?"

" I feel dirty from inside."
Knock Knock! Its him. She stands up as she hears the creak of the hinges. She can see his sooty profile against the ebony of the night.

" Little girl its me. "
She stays rooted to the spot.

" We are gonna have ever so much fun." He whispers softly as the shivers run down her spine.
"Open your damn clothes." He hisses like a viper into her ears.

She nods silently and mechanically opens one button of her nightdress after the other.

" Why do you look scared you conniving little whore?" He says with a glint in his eyes and they widen as they watch her undress.

" You revel in this as much as I do.Don't you look at me with that holier than thou look. You'll do exactly what I want you to do. Do you understand that?" He screams aloud.

" Yes I do Daddy."

" Come closer. I want to feel that silken skin of yours against mine."
He feels her, touches her all over, devours her life out of her.

" Why would my very own Daddy do this to me?"

" Why oh why does my Daddy hurt me so much?"

" Fucking bitch. Seducing me with her innocence. She thinks I can't comprehend the desire in her eyes. She made me do this to her. I'll wring that tender neck of hers lifeless like the way she treats those dolls I get her everytime ."
She can't breathe, she closes her eyes and tries to imagine she she was somewhere else. She saw the blues, the oranges, the pinks and the lilacs again. She tries to reach out to them but like each time they vanish.

The sound of running footsteps on the staircase. Someone is coming.

" Hide, hide, hide Daddy."

Silence and the door opens, bright blinding starlight, sunshine amidst the dark dark night. Mommy takes her away covering her wounds with a sheet and the veil is lifted.

She saw the blues, the pinks, the lilacs again.


Lilac her favourite colour.

But she never saw him again, never saw her Daddy, her lover, the bastard.

HAPPENSTANCE

She didn’t know what changed in her that day. Now when she looked back it dawned upon her how her dreams started taking substantial shape from their nebulous existence sometime that evening in the midst of meeting a stranger after more than a decade. She found the trail to the air castle her thoughts kept building. Things began to seem more crystal clear; goals became more concrete, milestones more important, the path to get there a little more visible. The mirage that he’d be there waiting for her at the end of the road just so that they could be fellow travelers sometime in this journey was her sun beam on dreary days, days when everything went wrong, silly misunderstandings, fights, failed deadlines, mayhem everywhere.

They kept in touch rather sparsely, but rarely were they not in touch. In some way or the other she’d know what was happening in his life. Long periods of silence were interspersed with a “Hi” one day or a “Hullo” a month after. When she’d want to feel close to him she would read his blog that were reflections of his thoughts over the years. His writing made her laugh, cry, giggle and sigh. She almost forgot his presence but then he’d appear out of nowhere almost magically and fill every nook and cranny of her being like never before. A midnight conversation with him made her cup runneth over and for days after she’d be smiling secretly to herself. Smithreens of his words kept coming back to her mind.

“Okie we won’t ever talk about this again. Try and forget that anything ever happened. I’ll try and forget too.”
“ Where are you when I need to hug you the most?”
“ Just when you think there is no one better, someone comes along and sweeps you off your feet all over again. There is only one soul mate though and that’s the one you should be looking for.”
“Can you cook? Oh you can. What a comforting thought.”

Childhood memories of him would resurface at the oddest moments. Like the night she stood at her window looking at the moon to be reminded of a moonlit night years and years ago when they had gone to the fair together, the smell of smoke in the air and their childish banter as they sat on the lone two-wheeler in the parking lot. How they had fought all the way during that journey when they’d gone with their families visiting their Dads at the base and how their Mums had to keep both of them away from each other as they nearly ripped each other apart. The hours and hours spent playing Houses and she could almost hear his boyish voice teasing the little girl she had been.

She closed her eyes and saw the man the boy had become, the man with whom she had shared fleeting moments of enchantment, the man she would never meet again. She’d never tell and he’d never know.

“I closed my eyes and the world dropped dead.
I think I made you up inside my head.”

Islamophobia

This entire hullabaloo about the failed bombings at Glasgow and Indian muslims being implicated in the United Kingdom for the first time in connection with terror activities got me thinking yet again. I am sure a lot has been written and debated upon by the media around the world including the clerisy, not to forget the common man, where Islamic Fundamentalism is concerned and shall be continued to do so. All this while most of the public was under the misconception that only poor muslim youth take a recourse to such anti social activities ranging from suicide attacks to bombings as it is their way of attaining martyrdom[incidentally I read somewhere that Islam says such martyrs have 72 virgins waiting for them at the gates of heaven which reminded me of this post by Evil Spock :)] and after their death their families are given a lump some amount of money by the terrorist outfit they had been a part of. This is true till a large extent; poor kashmiri youth are lured by outfits like lashkar-e- toiba and on the pretext of fighting for Islam what takes place in the Madrasahs is a complete brainwash where any semblance of sanity is systematically removed from their minds and the main goal in the life of these youth is battle against the non believers or plain old Jihad. That is the tragedy of Kashmir where true peace and harmony is a dream. Ethnic cleansing has turned this state to a graveyard of the dead.

9/11 ofcourse didn't make the situation any better and now it seems that the last 6 years ever since that fateful day in September 2001 the world has been gripped by this fear of Islam popularly known as Islamophobia. Muslims are discriminated everywhere, be it in England where they come up with proposals like muslim women should choose not to wear the hijab or France which goes a step ahead and bans headscarves in schools altogether and not to forget dear old United States. George Bush the self proclaimed Big Daddy of the world and his faithful battery of followers take personal pleasure in inculcating the fear of Islam in the western world. He calls it " War against Terror" though by the likes of it , it seems it is " War against Islam". What happend at Glasgow and London last year was just an after effect and the result of a major portion of the world trying to alienate the followers of a particular religion and insisting of labelling them as fundamentalists and insurgents. Muslims are looked upon suspiciously everywhere in the western world. Try any busy international airport be it Heathrow, or JFK you'd see the world of difference in the way a white man is treated and the way a bearded muslim is treated. It is these small prejudices which could be one of the reasons why educated muslims like Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed[brothers from Bangalore, one is a doctor and the other an engineer] resort to such drastic anti social activities like an attempt to bomb the Glasgow Airport. For them it is a vent out for all the frustration they feel towards the mass change of opinion this world has experienced after 9/11, it is a reaction for all the injustices done by the Americans and their allies in Iraq. Bush gets to carry out his agenda in Iraq, destroying the governmental machinery piece by piece and a certain section of the troops even indulge in perverted fun on the way[not to forget the incidents at the abu ghraib prison] to ravage and ruin a country which has already been wrecked by a three decade rule by an eccentric dictator.
We shouldn't blame Islam for all these mishaps, it is our own making, the fact that we did not raise our voices against all the injustices at the right time , the fact that America chose to bring Bush back to power even after the disaster in Iraq, the fact that we continue to be oblivious of what the true message in the Quran and very conveniently blame the religion for fostering terrorism. It is ironical that two men will be probably be put behind bars for the rest of their lives for failed car bombings which only caused harm to themselves at the end of it while Bush will continue to walk on this earth with his head held high proud of the fact that he carried out his " war against terror" successfully. This saga will continue, it'll be some other educated muslims expressing their anguish over the discrimination taking place and we humans will again and again choose the path of doom hurting none other than ourselves.

Much Ado About Nothing

I don’t exactly like all this fuss about being tagged cos then I have to come up with 8 facts about myself. I don’t wanna sound like some pompous, self obsessed woman. But nevertheless by the end I am sure I’d sound like one. Oh a certain maker of doggerels tagged me or should I just say plain and simple Doggerel Maker is compelling me to reveal 8 things about myself. So here goes the list of 8 hitherto unknown abstracts about me.

That I am not as innocent and gullible as I look. My unconscious Miss Goody Two Shoes look fools people very often before they actually see me in my real elements.

That I was an ugly duckling in school, very quiet, not confident at all, bloody shy and no not that I grew up to be a swan but a lot of people don’t recognize me now cos I didn’t quite turn out to be what they’d thought I’d be hehehe!

That I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was all of 11 because I was passionate about history but alas realized that in my country archaeology has very little scope hence had to settle in for something conventional.

That I when I was a kid I ran through a glass door whilst playing hide and seek and while trying to hide from my the then crush I ended up running through the glass door and in the process landed in the hospital with 57 stitches and life long scars on my legs.

That I am hooked onto this song called High by Lighthouse family at the moment and have been driving my housemates a wee bit crazy cos I wanna listen to it all the time.

That I love pink. [Tsk Tsk ….how cliché am I ], I have a pink phone [fluorescent pink mind you], pink bags, pink shades and on a given day you’d see me clothed in pink from head to toe. However I am forced to adorn black and white professionally:(.

That I am attracted to tall men, really tall men . A la’ Daddy Long Legs. I can't relate to people who are aimless or without a goal. I'd love a go getter and not some lost soul who doesn't know where he is heading.

That I love body splashes with fruity smells, I smell of strawberries, or all peachy and lemony. Sometimes people say I smell “yum” heheh!

Okie enough of me and since I happen to be the proud owner of a happy disposition today I shall not name 8 other bloggers who have to carry on this chain. Cheers people! Lemme end with the funniest quote I found the other day J

“If they keep crashing stuff into the moon, the moon's gonna get pissed off, and the tides'll change, and all the women'll start PMS-ing together. Then you guys are going to fucking regret it.”

By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, Something Evil This Way Comes

“Rape's not something where you just go, "Well, get over it" or "Believe in love and peace, my child, and it'll all be over." Well, fuck you, that isn't the answer. It's a great thought, OK, but you can go and stick crystals up your butt and get on with it. I'm all for love and peace, but that's not the side I work on. If somebody would talk about it, or worse, joke about it, I would be ready to kill. That's not healing. It was a very long time after that before I was able to be with anyone again. And it has never been the same as it was before”
Tori Amos
Famous words by American pianist and singer-songwriter Tori Amos. The reason I chose to start this post with this quote was another blog I stumbled upon the other day. I love blogging and in the process end up coming across a wide range of blogs, some are nameless poets, some are mystic storytellers, some are passionate activists against the war, while some are regular people like me who are a comfortable mish mish of a little bit of this and that. But this girl was different. I found this particular blog and what I read disturbed me. She was unusual, wrote with a certain aggression, an unexplainable force, something pent up inside, simmering on the surface but difficult to pin point what exactly it was. I read on and saw signs of a dysfunctional family but curiosity had got the better of me until I finally reached a particular post where she had described her nightmares. She’d written about a dream of that heinous act of rape, which had taken place when she was only 13 years old, and how it all keeps coming back to her in her dreams. The nightmares don’t seem to end and how she just wished that the girl next door who looks ever so happy would just stop smiling because she cannot stand to see someone else so gleeful and without a care in the world cos she can never be like that. Tragic, isn’t it?
The author of this blog was a smart young woman with an amazing job. This girl oscillated between from being brilliant to being the angry feminist to being downright eccentric. I liked the way she wrote, one moment she was a human rights activist advocating the cause of Muslim women and how the purdah and hijab should be abolished and next moment she’d be making downright fun of people who smoke ultra milds cos she thought they were gay cigarettes. However throughout her writing there is always an underlying sense of pervading doom. Why wouldn’t it be there? Some man did the unthinkable to her when she was only a child and he killed her soul, buried her very existence , her sense of wonder, her happiness and gave birth to another being.
Rape is an unspeakable horror and for most of us it is something we read about in newspapers, or see in movies or news channels. I know that in today’s world it is very much a reality. Statistics prove that every half an hour some woman is raped in our country. The irony being that now we can’t constrict the term rape only to women. Men are being raped; small boys are also victims of this heinous crime. I can only imagine how tragic it would be, how violated one would feel. It would leave terrible psychological scars that are sometimes almost impossible to obliterate.

This girl lives in the same city as me.

She is in the same profession as I am.

I might have passed by her sometimes.

She has this garb of ordinary on for the world.

But no one knows about the tormented existence she leads.

The voices which grow louder and louder, the monster who doesn’t go away and the horrible memories which haunt her.

Would I have grown up to be such a cynical and dark individual if I was raped as a child?

Would I have let that rape define my whole life, dictate my thoughts forever?

I don’t know, don’t know at all.

But what I do know is that “You know that saying, bad things don’t happen to good people?. That’s a lie.”

It can happen to anybody , we have been lucky , damn lucky and to those who have gone through this,and come out of it hats off to you women. You don’t need my pity or for that matter anybody’s pity but darn you have some strength of character. For all those women who lost their lives cos they became the victim of some filthy bastard’s twisted thinking may your soul rest in peace.

As for the rapists, sexual abusers and every category akin to them , well they should be bloody castrated, then blinded and have their hands and limbs cut off. I wish the Indian Penal Code had death penalty for rapists but in our country life imprisonment itself amounts to 14 years in prison. 14 years is too less for this evil to die. We should have multiple sentences like the kind they have in the United States where the convicted murderers and rapists are given life terms comprising of 100 to 150 years in prison. They make sure that the beast rots in prison and dies there. Hope even hell doesn’t give shelter to such hideous criminals.

“I don’t want to know about the constitution of the rapist—I want to kill him! I don’t care if he is white or black, if he is middle-class or poor, if his mother hung him from the clothesline by his balls: I only want to kill him! Any woman who has been raped will agree.”

An Ode To Daddy Long Legs

As I sit here on my brown and fawn colored desk, white tube lights, hushed voices, the clicking of the keyboard, sterile environment, I think of you as you give way to the unknown.

As I stare at the computer screen hour after hour trying to make sense out of these insipid contracts somewhere half the way across the country you are intent on making innumerable lists of what to take with you, what to throw away, what to keep hidden within the labyrinth of your mind forever.

As I pen my thoughts down on this torn piece of paper you are trying to fit in your whole life into a couple of suitcases and bags but alas a few tears spill over, so do a host of giggles, some sighs and a collection of dusty old dreams.

As I cross the road trying to make my way between the ugly huge bus and the swanky new Mercedes, lost in my thoughts, you are opening new doors dreaming of a blinding sunshine.

As I go about doing my mundane daily chores you finally finish packing the gamut of memories in different compartments.

As I remember every tiny detail of that long ago august evening, coffee on 100 feet road, the conversation, the music, the feel of your arms on my shoulders, the long drive, the starry sky, the midnight walk, the laughter, Romeo and Juliet, you say farewell to this life and tip toe your way to new avenues, hesitantly at first but confident with every stride.


As the rain comes pouring down cooling the parched earth, I rush outside to feel the spray of raindrops on my face and tonight I spare a single fleeting moment to think of you wondering how pensive your thoughts would be as you sit by your window watching the last misty rain which has become a mere drizzle by the time it reached your city.


As you traverse a new pathway, and hop, skip and jump down the yellow brick road I am reminded of the small boy I use to play with, and somewhere across the oceans, thousands of miles away I am biding my time to get ready for my travels hoping that I’d be able to see your footprints, hoping that sometime along this journey I’ll turn around to find you by my side….

Dedicated to one who must not be named, to one who said he'd love a dreamer, he'd love someone independent,he'd love someone who loves late night coffees and over night phone conversations,to one who'd be delighted to be woken up at 4 am in the morning by annoying messages,to one who knew the lyrics of my favourite song " Romeo & Juliet",to one who'd love traveling as much as I do,to he who'll never ever understand me...

Fly Away Again.....

Yeah I am feeling bloody impatient today. It seems everybody is getting to where they want in life but me. Last week I was on the “ I don’t know what I am doing with my career” mode, then I switched on to “ I am the only one who isn’t in love with her job” mode, and after a lot of afterthought and contemplation I finally settled on “ Everything in life has a time” mode. Someone I know had his visa interview today and he should’ve got it by now. Yeah he also seems to be leaving for the Promised Land on my birthday (sometime in august). I called up my eternal whining partner in Chennai and started complaining about how every soul I know is going somewhere but she and I. It just so happened that she was also accompanying this friend of our’s to the U.K visa office. I was like “ Shivi what the hell? Even Vaish is going to Brighton, Thri is going to Pennsylvania, P is already in London, Parag is going to Leeds and that nasty Fatty is going to Washington D.C to do a course I always dreamt of doing and here are you and I just stuck in the middle of nowhere. Doing something we ain’t even in love with.”

That’s the story of my life. Stuck in a job which isn’t bad but hey I am not exactly enjoying it. I keep weaving dreams and building castles in the air wondering when will my time come. Shivi and I have made at least a million plans of how she is going to study in California and I’ll be in New York.. We’ll go for a holiday to Venice one summer or Greece maybe. We’ll meet up when she comes down to NYC or I’ll go visit her in L.A. Then maybe we’d catch a shuttle and go to Ohio too for a bit. Sigh! I love traveling; I can’t stay in one place for too long. Can’t help it. I have lead a wandering life since I was a kid all thanks to my father cos he was in the army and hell I hated it at that time. I always had to say goodbye to all my friends and change schools and start afresh all over again. I just wanted to stay in one place and often wondered how does one feel when you are born in one house and live in that house half your life until you are an adult. I don’t know. I have changed so many houses, been to so many places, made so many friends, bid adieu to most of them.

Finally when I was 10 years old we settled down in one city and I stayed there till I was 18. Those 8 years were probably the closest I have come to stability and being rooted to one place. I got out for college at 18 and I have been on the move ever since. I could have stayed at home but I chose to move out. Till date I don’t wanna go back and lead that easy life of comfort. Living at home is a luxury I think and I don’t wanna get used to that. There is soooooooo much to do, so many new places to go to, interesting people to meet ( not to the creeps though). That is why I get this itch when I hear someone is heading out to UK and someone to the US. Last week I told my Mum on the phone that I wanna go work in Afghanistan. I was serious. I checked up job positions in Afghanistan[found something in Kabul Municipal Corporation;)] for women and they did need lawyers and human rights activists but apparently I am too young. She went ballistic saying whats with me and this wandering streak in me. Why can’t I just lead a normal, peaceful life like most sane women my age would? How am I supposed to explain to her this feeling of being stifled as I sit on my table doing my monotonous job day after day, dealing with buildings, structures, bricks and mortar, corporate ventures and contracts. This is not me. This job is so far away from what I dream of doing. I didn’t go to college thinking I am gonna be doing this after I get my degree. It just happened by chance cos my other plans didn’t materialize. But that doesn’t mean that this is what I am gonna be doing for the rest of my life.

Finally after a lot of arguments my Mum agreed to the United States. There is no way in hell that I am gonna be allowed to set one step in Afghanistan as long as my family is around. I guess I’ll just have to wait for my time. I shall go away too someday.I'll go everywhere. Go do something I can be passionate about, get that degree I so wanna get, study some more. I'll go to London and roam around this one city I have heard so much about. I'll go to Greece and wanna see the Acropolis, and how can i forget Paris, have a cup of coffee on a sidewalk cafe .I'll go to Prince Edward Island in Canada so I can finally go see all those places mentioned in "Anne of Green Gables". I'll go to Istanbul and Mongolia and my favourite Australia.Sigh! Till then I have to bid farewell to all my friends as they go on to greener pastures pursuing their dreams.

So Thri, best of luck. Hope you get that teaching job you’ll be so perfect at.

Vaish I hope you finally learn how to be independent and stop hankering and getting worried about stupid relationships.

Fatty I envy you woman, I am so jealous. But wish you all the best nonetheless.

P I miss you soooooo much. Someday you’ll be arguing at the International Court of Justice. Knowing you, I am sure you’ll get there.

Parag, my monkey I hope you manage to get the CFA degree you so want and kick Willem’s butt in South Africa hahah!

Mister Daddy Long Legs you’ll be leaving really soon for _____. I want you to be really really happy and hope all your dreams come true cos you deserve nothing but the best.

Shivi darling you are in the same boat as me but maybe some time soon in the next few years you’d get a job at the HARPO studios as a producer.

As for me, I’ll just have to wait for a new day till my time comes to fly away again.

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies..."

Dancing Eyes

It was a night out at a friend's place when she noticed him making conversation with someone .She wanted to to go home and was thinking of ways and means to get them to drop her home before they decided to go out partying but somehow she got talked into it and before long was heading to this new nightspot in the city. She was muttering under her breath “ Damn I hate, so hate these late nights.” She entered along with the rest and looked around for an interesting face only to be greeted by the same old pretty faces with a jaded look and an empty head to compliment that perfectly.

“I wonder how they do this week after week. Dress up to look all sexy and beautiful and make idle conversation with a couple of flighty people whom you wouldn’t bother to call or keep in touch besides meeting up with them in these so call happening places.”
“ Yeah isn’t it painfully and excruciatingly tedious to make polite conversation.”
She looked around to see the new guy standing behind her with only a tiny hint of a smile on his face.

“God I do have a big mouth.”

She had spoken her thoughts out aloud which she seemed to do pretty often these days.


She asked almost scornfully,“ Who would you be?”

“ Oh I forgot to introduce myself. I am Akaash’s cousin .”

That is why he had tagged along with them.


She looked away trying to locate the others in the crowd. They seemed to have vanished. She didn’t like this stranger who insisted on talking to her when her conversation skills seemed to be on a sabbatical.

But then again there was no harm in exchanging a word or two. At least she wouldn’t feel like an outsider. She took a sip of her Bloody Mary[She loved the tangy taste of the tomato juice blended with vodka and a dash of Tabasco sauce and the salt on the rim of the glass, which gave it that added zing]
and turned to look at him.
“ You have a smoke?”

“ Yup I do.”

“ Thanks”

“ So what do you do?”
That’s how the conversation started in a crowded bar between two strangers from two very different walks of life. He was from Dubai and had just shifted to India looking for a job and she was a journalist working in Delhi the last couple of months. They got talking and before long she started enjoying herself. There was something about this guy with light eyes. Not the green catty kinds, but the light brown, hazel eyes. Dancing eyes with a naughty glint in them.As if he had a million questions to ask her and a million stories to share. He made her laugh with his silly jokes and anecdotes.He had travelled a lot, born in India, grew up in Dubai, studied a bit in Chennai but finally landed up in Adelaide. He had gone backpackking all over Australia, shared a nightcap with a moonshiner, had a meal around a campfire at an aborginee settlement, made friends with a kangaroo, been scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef and he liked his marshmallows all gooey and syruppy with hot chocolate in the middle of the night .
He wanted to know why she liked a fruity peach perfume and if she wore kohl everyday.

He asked her why a Bloody Mary and not Long Island Ice tea and why Benson and Hedges lights instead of Marlboro lights.


He wanted to get her an apple juice of all the drinks she could possibly think off.

“Apple juice. Wonder why apple juice.”
He’d go talk to Akaash when Akaash wanted to introduce him to his friends and come right back standing close to her but still not close enough. He’d insist on lighting her smoke each time she wanted a light instead of just handing her the lighter. They didn’t have the conversation of a lifetime that evening, they didn’t even have a heart to heart chat. It was just two strangers who initially started talking to keep monotony at bay.But those few stolen hours with him felt like a lifetime transported to another world.
The party got over and Akaash came over to bid goodbye and he told her how his cousin was looking for a job. She heard Akaash out patiently but her eyes kept wandering towards him. He was standing in one corner alone, with a smoke in his hand lost in his thoughts.

“ I wonder where his mind is?Is it in the endless desert somewhere wandering on a caravan or is he out on a moonlit night riding through the outback? “

“ He really needs a job. He is 29 years old and has his wife to take care of.”
Had she heard him right? He was married. She didn’t exclaim her surprise or regret and nodded saying “Oh. Yeah I am sure he would need to support his wife.”She looked at him one last time before she got into the car. She thought she saw him starring at her with a forlorn look on his face. It didn’t matter. They drove away.

She did meet him again a few times. They never had a conversation again except for an odd sentence or two. She never tried to talk to him too. She’d ignore him but sometimes their eyes would meet and just for a fraction of a moment she’d see something unspoken. She would turn her gaze away. She didn’t want to look into those dancing eyes again. Those bewitching dancing eyes…

Isabella

“So you’ll stay with me?” she asked me with a drowsy look, her kohl smeared eyes half open and speech slightly slurred, I could smell the wine in her breath. “Yeah if it suits my budget I shall.” I gave a non-committal reply and took a sip of my drink. That was the first evening I met Isabelle and within a few hours of meeting me she suggested we go for a drink. Isabelle looked like one of those women who had a lot of friends and acquaintances and her social diary over flowing with events. I was taken aback because she didn’t look the sort who needed the company of a stranger she had just met. The prospect of spending one more evening all alone at the hotel room disturbed me and I was only too glad to comply with her wishes.

I had recently shifted into the city, a result of an impulsive decision to take a new job and start afresh. There I was in Delhi spending the first few days within the confines of the four walls in the hotel room. Having precious little to do it seemed as if the walls were closing in on me when I got a message from an old friend, who was settled abroad, asking me to give Isabelle a call. “You’ll like her. She is friendly. You could meet her for a cup of coffee. Besides she is looking for someone to shift in with. So she could help you out with accommodation too. I told her about you and she is waiting for your call. Just call her up.” said Ayesha on the phone. She was feeling rather guilty that she wasn’t there to show me around. Ayesha had been begging me for years to come down to Delhi permanently and when I finally got a chance to it wasn’t Ayesha’s home anymore.

It was rather hesitantly that I called up Isabelle that winter afternoon, my mind full of apprehensions. I almost decided not to but when I saw the sniggering glances of the manager of the hotel I realized that I couldn’t stand to sit in that room one more day flicking through the channels on tv. Isabelle sounded quite friendly as Ayesha had said and she quickly gave me the directions to a coffee shop where we planned to meet. I reached first not knowing whom to expect because I didn’t know what she looked like. In walked a young girl dressed casually in jeans and a full sleeve white cardigan. She was small, not even 5 feet and her hair was tied up rather untidily in a bun giving her the “just out of bed” look. But she was pretty, looked like one of those dolls we played houses with when we were children, the kind, which had pink chubby cheeks, and eyes, which would open and shut.

“Parineeta?”, “Isabelle?” we said almost in unison and nodded our heads simultaneously. She giggled and I couldn’t help but do so too myself. The ice was broken that very first instance. That’s how I landed up with her at her favorite pub that night, 4 drinks down and quite happy with life cause suddenly Delhi did not feel that alien under the effect of alcohol. It was then when she mentioned she was looking for someone to shift in with. I was in two minds initially as I thought I wouldn’t be able to afford paying really high rent and Isabelle did not seem to be the type who would stay in a place, which is less than posh. But surprisingly she agreed to my budget and said we’d find a place in a nice locality.

It suited me fine and yeah I had been right about the locality being posh. She found this beautiful little house in an up market area and insisted paying three fourth the rent while I paid a quarter of it. Those were hard days and I was getting a meager salary. Isabelle turned out to be my woodwork angel. She wouldn’t let me pay for any of the expenses at home accept the rent and life was much easier all thanks to her. She was so generous that sometimes I wondered “Hell why is she so nice to me?”

Isabella baffled me in more ways than one. I knew she had a past which she wasn’t too comfortable talking about because every time I back from work in the evening I’d see her sitting with a glass of wine starring wistfully at the sky. I’d join her once in a while but mostly I avoided alcohol on weekdays. One day out of curiosity I asked her
“ Why were you named Isabella?”
She smiled “ Didn’t I tell you?”

“No you didn’t.”

“ Hmmmm! My father was a professor of History and was particularly fascinated with the history of Spain. I was named after the Spanish Queen Isabella. The one who granted Ferdinand Magellan the permission to sail around the world.”

Her friends called her Isobel and they would be out every night at some pub, lounge or a bar drinking. I couldn’t afford to lead such a lifestyle and I wasn’t too much of a night animal. So I’d be off to sleep early and many a day she’d wake me up to talk to me. One such night in a very matter of fact tone she said “ Oh and did I tell you that I am going through a divorce.”

“Oh! Ok!” was all I could say. Nothing I said would sound apt at that moment so I chose to keep quiet.

That’s why she’d spend hours and hours just sitting quietly and looking out of the window or go for long drives in her car with a bottle of wine as company in the middle of the night .Those times I would have no clue where she was and when she would return. There were men too who’d come in at the dead of the night and leave at wee hours of the morning. I never saw them but heard fragments of voices sometimes.

She had a million whims. She bought fresh flowers for our house each week. The first time she came home with flowers she wanted to surprise me and when I opened the door all I saw were flowers cause Isabelle being so tiny looked like a fairy hidden behind the bunches of flowers she was carrying. She cooked like a dream and made the most delectable Thai curry and till date in spite of it being more than a decade the smell of the Thai Red Curry reminds me of her.

She liked the smell of incense sticks and so we always lit incense sticks after she smoked a cigarette in the living room. In the morning the faint traces of the strong smell would still be in the air. With her around there wasn’t a single fleeting moment of boredom in my life. This one time she forced me to come for a drive with her at 12 at night with a bottle of Pepsi mixed with vodka and that entire journey as she drove all around the city we sang “ last Christmas” slightly inebriated maybe at the top of our voices.

Isabelle had a fetish for shoes and must have owned at least five hundred pairs. Each night when she got ready she’d ask me which pair would go the best with the outfit she was wearing and she’d strut in front of me with her six inch heels gleefully and ever so confidently that I’d be amazed how could she survive wearing them day after day. She had innumerable earrings and beads kept in these lovely traditional Indian jewelry boxes. I would have a fascinating time just fiddling around with them, as she got dressed. She ‘d say “ Parineeta they are just earrings sweetheart. What is so fascinating about them?”

Starved of such feminine vanities and trying very hard to make ends meeet, I replied saying , “ You won’t understand. “

Isabella drank too much. She drank each evening and sometimes I almost felt like asking her to stop but you can’t ask a 25 year old to stop living a life she wants to. It was a path of self-destruction. Living on the edge. Going out night after night, drinking binges night after night. Sometimes I wouldn’t meet her for days altogether cause our routines were so different. One day late at night I had gotten up for a glass of water when I heard the sound of sobbing coming from her room. I walked tiptoe wondering what could have possibly happened when I saw the door half open and Isabelle lying down on her bed with her long hair all-open .

“What happened?”

“ He left me. He doesn’t want to be with me. Said I was a whore. Sleeping with different men each night. He doesn’t’ understand. I am breaking from inside. How long am I supposed to put on this façade of all is fine. How long? They make me happy. They make me feel beautiful. All these men. At least for that night I fulfill every fantasy of theirs and I feel wanted, needed. Unlike the way he belittles me time after time.”
I saw the envelope containing the signed divorce papers from her husband. Isabella had hoped that he would change his mind but he hadn’t. Somebody had told him about the colorful life his now separated wife was leading and that was the final nail on the coffin. The result lay in my hands. I didn’t know how to console her. What could one say? A part of me wanted to be all blunt and tell her that she got it upon herself but I couldn’t be that heartless. I just held her while she cried herself to sleep.

Next morning she looked perfectly fine, as if that incident at night time had never happened and she was back to leading the bohemian life she did without a hint or trace of regret. I never said a word about that again. She continued living in deliberate oblivion of the reality. After a little while I shifted out and except the occasional phone call heard very little from her before we altogether lost touch. It has been a long long time now and sometimes I wonder where Isabelle is? What is she doing? Is she happy? Does she still have that glass of wine sharp at 6 in the evening? Does she drive aimlessly in the middle of the night as she use to? Does she still cook a delicious Thai curry? Does she still look at the sky for hours altogether with a wistful look on her face?

Wherever you are, I hope you are happy Isobel. Hope you finally laid the ghosts of your past to rest. Hope you found your Bohemia.







.

It's Just A Book

I read about this particular incident on a blog(http://always-a-musing.blogspot.com/) recently and it disturbed me. It made me realize that the world I was born in was a different world and I am not even that old, 23 to be precise. This small incident, which I am about to relate, took place in Kansas City, U.S.A. But it is something worth sparing a few moments and thinking about.

The owners of a small bookstore called Prospero in Kansas City took a drastic step on the Memorial Day(don’t ask me what that is ) weekend. Tom Wayne and Will Leathem have always believed in the power of the written word. Mr. Wayne also runs a small publishing house. It was the love of reading and the feeling of something amiss in their lives, which made them open the bookstore in 1997 and it was the same love, which had prompted them to buy second hand books from students and wandering families who couldn’t afford to carry the burden. They thought that instead of these books being wasted away they could make sure that somebody makes use of them.

However as the years passed their stock of second hand books only increased due to a sharp decline in reading books in America. The numbers of people reading were decreasing day by day and so were the sales. They had accumulated over 50,000 old books and there weren’t any buyers. They tried every possible way to do something about these books but to no avail. When they wanted to donate these books to correctional institutes they were flatly refused. Even stock clearance sales did not work as well wishers who’d buy some of the books would the next day deposit the books at the doorstep of the store.

A few weeks earlier frustrated by the grim scenario and finding no other way to express their anguish they did the unthinkable. They built a bonfire outside the bookstore and to the surprise of the bystanders and passers by they burnt a few hundred of their books. These two men passed a cultural statement, which has sparked of a debate amongst the clerisy and the common man in America and has sent all of them clamoring to take a stand on this issue. Most people are of the opinion that this is an appalling way of attracting the attention of the nation. But Mr. Wayne and Mr. Leathem believe that if not this then what would have stirred the nation. This is a nation where hysterical women are more bothered to carry on an agitation to get Sanjaya kicked out of American Idol, a nation where in a matter of days front page news becomes page 5 news.

Nobody uttered a word when they were making tireless efforts in trying to make the best possible use of these books. Now who are these people condemning their extreme step as an overtly melodramatic act.

I was saddened after I read about the book burning in Kansas. To think these are the desperate measures these two bookstore owners had to resort to just to make the common man aware. We are apparently living in an electronic age and take pride at having devised means of communication at lightning speed. This is not just about decline in reading in America. It is about decline of man’s power of thinking the world over.

We don’t have time. It is a rat race out there. We don’t seem to have time to spare even a half of an hour to be alone with our thoughts, to be open to the possibilities of imagination, to want to know about somebody else’s experiences in life, feel happy in their joy, sorrow in their sadness, to want to know their plight, to let ourselves be transported to another world and live another life. Books are all this and so much more.

Imagine a childhood without princes, princesses, dragons and knights.

Imagine not having spent endless hours with Famous Five and the Five find Outers.

Imagine not being conversant with Pip’s struggles and Estella’s heartlessness or Oliver and Fagin’s saga.

Imagine a naughty 10-year-old boy without Hardy Boys or a tomboy without Nancy Drews.

Imagine not having spent all those times reading Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes at break neck speed trying to guess who the murderer is.

Imagine not crying at Heathecliffe’s sordid life.

Imagine no Pride and Prejudice and no romance between the outspoken Elizabeth and the proud Mr. Darcy.

Imagine not having known Howard Roark’s resilience and Dagny Taggart’s persistence.

Imagine this world consisting of just us muggles, no magic, no Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Imagine you as not you and me as not me.

Imagine a world without books.


I've traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books

Anonymous

Of What Was, Whats If's & What Could Have Been's

A summer night way back in 1991, somewhere in a small hill station. The conversation between an 8 year old girl and a 7 year old boy.


Girl [pointing a finger]:- Look up it is so pretty.

Boy :- What is there to see? It is the same sky and the same stars. I see them every night.

Girl :- But here the sky is darker and the stars shine so much brighter and there are millions and millions of them[smiles!Trying very hard to make him understand]

Boy :- Uffffff! I don't wanna see. Can't you see these multi coloured pebbles I am trying to collect? I wanna have the biggest collection of them in school.

Girl :- "Fine you can keep your pebbles to yourself."[ walks away with a huff and a puff]( thinking -"Whats with boys? I don't like them.")

Boy :- I am glad she is gone. Girls are quite strange.



Present Day :-I was going through my inbox and found this one mail written by me on a crazy day amidst a busy schedule to a friend about someone I’d had a thing for sometime back. My friend was of the view that I have a penchant to get besotted with the most unsuitable men. So came this mail elucidating my position. Felt like a lifetime ago. Time flies and maybe sometimes we have these unfinished chapters. Sniff* Sniff*

Yeah I know I attract the wrong kind of men.Well I have known this guy as long as I can remember. Almost all my life but yeah liking him in itself has been quite a surprise for me. You don't meet someone after 14 years one evening and by the time the night is over you are left wondering what hit you. But he is such a charming mix of nerd and the fun types. In fact he is more of a nerd. He prefers sitting at home during weekends and doesn't like the idea of partying every Saturday but he went to Goa for New Year's and had a ball there, got a tattoo{dragon if I may say so} on his arm. Most of his time is spent in front of his laptop because he is techie and even at home he is always doing something or the other on the computer, be it web designing or playing some silly game or the other.[ men i tell you are fundamnetally different from us] He wouldn't take me out partying on a Saturday night but took me to this real chic’ restaurant with live music, for a candle night dinner. He loves blogging and I am in love with the way he writes. Till a while back there were articles on the net, which referred to the posts on his blog. He is not overtly nice to me ever. He is cocky when I expect him to be sweet, surprisingly sensitive when I am expecting him to be rude. He is laziness personified cause he won't even get me a glass of water but so chivalrous that he always opens doors for me, even the car door. Never lets me pay a penny. He’ll take offence if I do. Has such a short temper but insists on dropping me home and won't get angry even if I can't tell him the way home and we have been roaming around in circles for more than an hour trying to figure where I stay and I don't have a clue. Most of the times when we talk he would be telling me something happening in his life and I'd b feeling that damn I know him more than he knows me but suddenly he'd mention some small detail I about me and I would be taken aback cause hell how does he remember everything in spite of trying to act that he doesn't listen to half the things I say. He says the funniest of things and makes me laugh. Even his rudeness is tinged with humour. Damn I am totally at sea with him and he looks like a giant {he is 6ft 4}. My sister says he and I would look like a couple of idiots together. I really couldn't care because he is the one I like and kind of want to be with. Though I won't get a chance as he is leaving for the US in August and won't be coming back so its pointless getting into anything now. We’ll never get to know each other even if he and I were childhood buddies. I mean almost. That’s ____ _____ for me. Damn think I said too much. But guess I can tell you.

I am glad things are working out for you but they aren’t the same for everybody and its not always wrong choices but just the circumstances. Things don't seem to fall into place. But it’s cool. Life goes on. Darn!!!!!


So that was it. It has been 6 Months ever since. Life has moved on and I haven’t even had time to look back except for stolen moments like this one and a lingering feeling of what could’ve been? Sigh!

Love


A Soppy Me

Sister of My Heart

I remember that hot summer afternoon when I was finally taken to the hospital to get a glimpse of my much-awaited sibling. I had a baby sister and in my five-year-old mind what was of utmost importance was that now I had my very own playmate at home. My father and I waited outside the hospital room for a few minutes before we were ushered inside. I walked in and ran to my mother happily; even those 2 days without her seemed endless. My mother said, “Come meet your sister”. I tiptoed and walked over to the cradle when I saw this red woozy ball with black hair and eyes closed. I bent down to touch her and as her eyes opened all wide I saw the thick-fringed eyelashes and her shining black eyes looking back at me. I think it was at that moment I knew that I found my best friend , my buddy, my lifelong partner in crime .

My sister and I have been a trial for my mother. We were a pair of monkeys and the stories of our escapades are part of the family folklore. My father being in the army was not around too often during our growing up years so my mother brought us up almost single handedly and it must have taken some strength of mind to bring up two such naughty and stubborn children who got out from one trouble only to get into another. My mother saw to every little thing, be it our school, to our meals, our clothes, down to the last tee. She was very affectionate but there were times when she would loose her cool cause her daughters would get into some soup and there is only a certain limit till which one can be patient. Like the time when we drove the neighbor’s young son up the wall with the incessant cat calls or the time I refused to attend my tutorials and locked the door of my house shut and went and sat on the terrace till the tutor came home, saw the locked door and went away. This other time when my sister hatched a plan with the maid and they got together and threw eggs on the innocent passers by who couldn’t quite figure who was chucking eggs on them. My mother who was also a schoolteacher came home that evening to be greeted by my grandmother’s perplexed face.

Bonu [my sister’s name] and I weren’t scholars either. On the contrary we hated studying and Ma always told us that this is the only route to doing something worthwhile in life. We were forced to spend time with our schoolbooks all out of the fear of Ma’s anger. I loved reading but when it came down to Math’s or the Sciences I dreaded having anything to do with these subjects. I almost did not make it to 10th grade, a consequence of taking it too easy and I had to pay a heavy price for it. That entire summer Ma saw to it that I did my sums regularly and read my biology and physics from the very first chapter till the last. To the surprise of a lot of people I did not do too badly in my first public exam all thanks to Ma of course. My sister too was no better than me. I left for college at 18 and she was left alone with my mother. She often complained saying Ma is so over bearing and bosses over her.

In my second year of college while I was studying for my final exams I got a phone call from Ma one evening saying my sister had failed her 9th grade exams. Ma was heartbroken. Nobody in our family had ever flunked an exam before [though I had almost done so myself but got saved] . My mother was an English teacher in a reputed school in the city and it was a let down for her and more than anything it was humiliating. My sister did not speak to me that day, apparently she cried herself to sleep that night. Thus started another tribulation for my Ma. She had always had to listen to outsider’s complain about the both of us or people expressing their doubts on how could Ma let me go away to college in a far off city at the age of 18. There always seemed to be people who would come and talk about how well their children were doing while my mother would be having a tough time making sure we stay on the right path. Ma was determined though that we would do well for ourselves and that’s how she dealt with my sister’s setback. She never let my sister feel that she had lost out on something and always told her that “ Let this be a lesson. We are going to work really really hard. Even if the world seems to be coming to an end now. Circumstances will change”. My mother and sister formed a team and they systematically got around to changing my sister’s academic skills. Times did change but very slowly and gradually, one little step at a time.

Yeah it has been a step at a time. I finished with law school last year and finally started working. My mother’s belief in me paid off .It has been 4 years since that fateful day when I got that phone call. My sister is 18 now. I got another phone call a few days back. My sister’s school leaving results were coming out on the net. I was waiting for Ma and Bonu to call me that afternoon and couldn’t pay much attention to my work in office. The phone rang and as I picked it up apprehensively only to hear Ma’s sobbing in the background and my sister’s anguished high pitched voice saying “ Didi I got a 88%”. I exclaimed “ what?” I could not believe my ears. She had passed the exam with flying colors and could not now make it to the best of colleges in the country. My little sister whom every body had written off had done amazingly well and could now go to the best of the educational institutions. My mother was in tears. She was overwhelmed as it took some time to sink in. Later at night while speaking to her I said, “ Ma your two little failures, didn’t do as bad as everybody thought they would.” Ma laughed and said, “You are my daughters and I knew both of you the best. I always knew that you were never failures. It was just a matter of time.”