My phone has no signal. I feel terribly handicapped. What have we become? Slaves of electronic contraptions! Dependents of wired voices!
I think our cell phones are almost synonymous with another limb…it’s like an extension of the self… and a nuisance at times.
I think of all the times I have used the phone to express my anger and depression. I recall the times I have been utterly stupid and dialled a number and lowered my ego.
But there have been times when the conversation courtesy airtel or hutch has ended with a smile or a leap of joy in the otherwise stable heart.
So then I suppose it cannot be such a bad thing. And yet what a nuisance it can prove to be… buzzing and ringing and interrupting conversations, arguments, discussions and sometimes even sex! We have indeed succumbed to the 10 digit numbers. We have been taken over by aliens called sim cards and recharge coupons. We have lost all our privacy and disconnect from the social world and reconnect into a personal world. The world is suddenly such a small place that I sometimes feel claustrophobic – as if a cloth is being tied around my neck and I can’t breathe and then I feel sick and my lungs want to burst.
Look at me!!... I keep glancing at my silver coloured phone…I keep seeing the left side of the screen, checking whether the damn signal has re-entered my life or not.
I am a victim too, I am!
- Oh signal return…phone buzzes…typing ends…talking starts –
Goodnight.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Incompletion
I went to help my aunt and uncle pick curtains for the house yesterday. Fab India – with all its frills at the price tags… I mean this is what I call business…hire the rural handicraft artists and weavers…get them to make all the fancy stuff…sort them in the assorted ranges and then quote the price ten times over if not more. And pay the poor workers one hundredth of the profit.
Yet…I was there, looking at the beautiful curtains…trying to mix and match and get my aesthetic sense on a roll… peacock blue with gold work against a beige-gold printed one… blue and white printed one against a plain white basic looking curtain…and other combinations that we made from the “sheer” section – you know the kind where it is semi-transparent…so that the sun-rays just about come and kiss your feet in the morning and the light at dawn just about sneaks in and stealthily wraps itself around you.
Which reminds me I am right now wallowing in sheer boredom. Its amazing how one word has so many meanings. Sheer curtains. Sheer boredom. Sheer joy.
Back to the curtains – and I don’t know anymore, why I started writing about them in the first place.
‘Snow hey oh’ is playing in my ears right now. RHCP. There is nothing to do at office. My boss is missing. Ah well, its my dramatic way of saying that he didn’t come to office today. Considering what monotony rules my life right now, I am making everything and anything seem of proportional heights…it is called making a mock epic out of one of the chapters of my very normal mortally-limited life.
Song changed to ‘Across the Universe’…did I mention how much I like this song?...let me elucidate - or actually…just read the lyrics if you wish to… or scroll down if not.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass,
they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open mind inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like amillion suns,
it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
- Song ends –
Another song starts – but now I am distracted. I am wondering when can I get out of the office and when I can meet Kartik.
Now let me tell you who he is. He is my adopted sibling. I am the damned eldest one in the family…no cousin is older and no one my age… in solitude of my aged self, I have grown up, always being prodded to set an example for the “kids”…for gods sake… I like being human… I like being lazy and sleeping all day too, I like my beer outings, I like lying in a hammock all day with a book, I like going to crowded, crazy concerts…I like being wonderfully flawed and fun… I don’t want to be an example… if they need an example, they can go look at the autobiography of Gandhi or something… I can hardly be a good mould for any of those children to melt and set into.
So back to Kartik and why I wish to meet him today and have a nice chatty dinner time together…I need to talk…I need to figure out some things in my head and he helps me do just that…and with an amazing amount of patience… I need to know if where I am right now is the right place to be…I need to be sure of what I am doing and if my decisions are, in any way, going to affect other close ones.
Messed up I am….messed up is my head… and I am so bored right now… and I have a book…but I am being greedy…and only a few pages are left that I want to finish in the train…it is a train read and it started that way and it shall end that way.
And I suddenly realised that I started talking about the shopping spree and never ended that… It feels like such an incomplete piece….this random scribbling…but then again… I don’t know why I started talking about it in the first place so now I won’t bother to go back to it… let it be incomplete…like most of us are anyway. And in this utterly incomplete sense of being…I shall stop writing now. Full stop? Comma! Ellipses? Whatever.
Yet…I was there, looking at the beautiful curtains…trying to mix and match and get my aesthetic sense on a roll… peacock blue with gold work against a beige-gold printed one… blue and white printed one against a plain white basic looking curtain…and other combinations that we made from the “sheer” section – you know the kind where it is semi-transparent…so that the sun-rays just about come and kiss your feet in the morning and the light at dawn just about sneaks in and stealthily wraps itself around you.
Which reminds me I am right now wallowing in sheer boredom. Its amazing how one word has so many meanings. Sheer curtains. Sheer boredom. Sheer joy.
Back to the curtains – and I don’t know anymore, why I started writing about them in the first place.
‘Snow hey oh’ is playing in my ears right now. RHCP. There is nothing to do at office. My boss is missing. Ah well, its my dramatic way of saying that he didn’t come to office today. Considering what monotony rules my life right now, I am making everything and anything seem of proportional heights…it is called making a mock epic out of one of the chapters of my very normal mortally-limited life.
Song changed to ‘Across the Universe’…did I mention how much I like this song?...let me elucidate - or actually…just read the lyrics if you wish to… or scroll down if not.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass,
they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open mind inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like amillion suns,
it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
- Song ends –
Another song starts – but now I am distracted. I am wondering when can I get out of the office and when I can meet Kartik.
Now let me tell you who he is. He is my adopted sibling. I am the damned eldest one in the family…no cousin is older and no one my age… in solitude of my aged self, I have grown up, always being prodded to set an example for the “kids”…for gods sake… I like being human… I like being lazy and sleeping all day too, I like my beer outings, I like lying in a hammock all day with a book, I like going to crowded, crazy concerts…I like being wonderfully flawed and fun… I don’t want to be an example… if they need an example, they can go look at the autobiography of Gandhi or something… I can hardly be a good mould for any of those children to melt and set into.
So back to Kartik and why I wish to meet him today and have a nice chatty dinner time together…I need to talk…I need to figure out some things in my head and he helps me do just that…and with an amazing amount of patience… I need to know if where I am right now is the right place to be…I need to be sure of what I am doing and if my decisions are, in any way, going to affect other close ones.
Messed up I am….messed up is my head… and I am so bored right now… and I have a book…but I am being greedy…and only a few pages are left that I want to finish in the train…it is a train read and it started that way and it shall end that way.
And I suddenly realised that I started talking about the shopping spree and never ended that… It feels like such an incomplete piece….this random scribbling…but then again… I don’t know why I started talking about it in the first place so now I won’t bother to go back to it… let it be incomplete…like most of us are anyway. And in this utterly incomplete sense of being…I shall stop writing now. Full stop? Comma! Ellipses? Whatever.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Losing My Monotony
I had left living. Left what I loved the most. Left my world of fantasy and imagination. Abandoned my world of words and wonder. Forgotten my world that I weaved with poetry and knitted with prose.
And to my utter surprise, all this comes back to me in a local train – the train that I take daily from home to work and back.
Morning: Platform no. 3, Grant Road station. Borivili train. Ladies first class.
And then a half hour journey. So to kill the boredom what do I do – I pick a book – random book that I wanted to read once upon a time – The curious incident of the dog in the night time.
Night: Platform no. 3, Andheri station. Churchgate train. Ladies first class. And the read continues.
Now I wait to hop on to the train so that I get my daily slot of reading.
Immersed in a world of my own…occasionally glancing up to make sure that I don’t miss my station…sometimes being interrupted by a lady selling an assorted range of accessories, sometimes being poked by a beggar girl…amidst the heat and the crowd and the rush of life in Mumbai… I sit with my eyes glued to the book…happily flipping one page after another…feeling that old me return.
I have come to realise the importance of my time…”my” exclusive time…my train time… if I’m not reading, I’m listening to music…if I’m not listening to music, I am thinking… and I think I’m sorting my head out.
So do I know now what do I want out of life? Not really. But some of that horrid confusion and storm in my head has ebbed… some focus has come about… or atleast some strange sort of peace had regained itself in me…I think it’s the reading…I think its my own time slot in the train…when I am alone and no one really exists around me… the rambling and bumbling ladies aside, the humidity that ruins my hair aside, the sweat, the grime, the terrible traffic aside…atleast I have rediscovered reading.
It gives me peace. It sorts me out. It makes me happy. It makes me think. It’s a welcome break in my otherwise monotonous life.
If nothing else (yet), atleast Mumbai has made me lose my monotony. And beautifully so.
Back to Mark Haddon and his book. It is a wonderful train read!
And to my utter surprise, all this comes back to me in a local train – the train that I take daily from home to work and back.
Morning: Platform no. 3, Grant Road station. Borivili train. Ladies first class.
And then a half hour journey. So to kill the boredom what do I do – I pick a book – random book that I wanted to read once upon a time – The curious incident of the dog in the night time.
Night: Platform no. 3, Andheri station. Churchgate train. Ladies first class. And the read continues.
Now I wait to hop on to the train so that I get my daily slot of reading.
Immersed in a world of my own…occasionally glancing up to make sure that I don’t miss my station…sometimes being interrupted by a lady selling an assorted range of accessories, sometimes being poked by a beggar girl…amidst the heat and the crowd and the rush of life in Mumbai… I sit with my eyes glued to the book…happily flipping one page after another…feeling that old me return.
I have come to realise the importance of my time…”my” exclusive time…my train time… if I’m not reading, I’m listening to music…if I’m not listening to music, I am thinking… and I think I’m sorting my head out.
So do I know now what do I want out of life? Not really. But some of that horrid confusion and storm in my head has ebbed… some focus has come about… or atleast some strange sort of peace had regained itself in me…I think it’s the reading…I think its my own time slot in the train…when I am alone and no one really exists around me… the rambling and bumbling ladies aside, the humidity that ruins my hair aside, the sweat, the grime, the terrible traffic aside…atleast I have rediscovered reading.
It gives me peace. It sorts me out. It makes me happy. It makes me think. It’s a welcome break in my otherwise monotonous life.
If nothing else (yet), atleast Mumbai has made me lose my monotony. And beautifully so.
Back to Mark Haddon and his book. It is a wonderful train read!
Black Bombay
Its like an invisible force. Like black magic. Evil. Foreboding. Yet tempting. Pulling me towards itself. Giving me unnecessary hopes, inculcating in me, a resigned indifference, asking me never to expect from people – for it is, paradoxically, a selfish but warm, rainy but sunny, expensive but cheap, crowded but personal and a hateful but likeable place. This is Mumbai. I am returning to it – yet again. Except last time was shit. There was illness in the air, hatred in the blood, tears in my eyes and so much of a mental void.
This time – I like to think – that I am stronger, more level headed, rather determined and yet most impulsive.
I like to think people are good. I like to give everyone there, the benefit of the doubt. I also think though, that I like to get hurt – and sadistically, many times so. I like to fall and rise – and bruise and heal – and tell myself…I survived again!
Limitations of a human being …but more than that…limitations of an AV student. Oh why tell me, did I take the blasted course. It taught me more about life than about a job. It made me wary of trusting, depending, and being blind against the malice of many. It taught me, no doubt, little bit of editing, camera and lots of bullshitting. But most of all it taught me – that we make choices … good choices, terrible choices…but at the end of the day we live with our choices and no one else…not our mothers or fathers or lovers… but the individual who made a choice.
I think I make a lot of wrong choices. I think I am rather impulsive and stupid. I also like to think that some good will come out of all of this. I think positive. Well…looking at the really optimistic side…atleast I think!
I haven’t slept well in the past month. Come 6:30 and my eyes snap open. Automatically!! As if an external force is prying my eyelids open and asking me to stop dreaming and start living…reality bites…and it really hurts.
Wishful thinking keeps me going still… I wish I am happy again…I wish someday I have the power to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch again. I wish my dark circles disappear one day. I wish I were pretty.
Rain and muck and crowd and locals and leopolds and odd working hours beckon me again – or may I say, yet again! But will it be that bad? Could it be worse? Could I again be sitting at the window sill finishing a pack of Marlboro lights in a night listening to Bavra mann? Or would I be reading something and eating watermelon while productively doing something out of my life? How much have I wasted…haste makes waste, no?
And yet again – this has been a hasty decision – and only my wishful thinking hopes against hope that it is not wasted this time…that I am not wasted this time…that my joy isn’t wasted this time.
I’ve had enough. Truly had enough. I’m going to give happiness a chance. I am not going to wallow around in hollow, self-indulgent pain. What is a city? It’s an area of land…with roads and houses and some people who don’t even matter. Let’s try to live for a change…and live solely for myself. Let’s defeat black magic. Let’s triumph over Mumbai!
This time – I like to think – that I am stronger, more level headed, rather determined and yet most impulsive.
I like to think people are good. I like to give everyone there, the benefit of the doubt. I also think though, that I like to get hurt – and sadistically, many times so. I like to fall and rise – and bruise and heal – and tell myself…I survived again!
Limitations of a human being …but more than that…limitations of an AV student. Oh why tell me, did I take the blasted course. It taught me more about life than about a job. It made me wary of trusting, depending, and being blind against the malice of many. It taught me, no doubt, little bit of editing, camera and lots of bullshitting. But most of all it taught me – that we make choices … good choices, terrible choices…but at the end of the day we live with our choices and no one else…not our mothers or fathers or lovers… but the individual who made a choice.
I think I make a lot of wrong choices. I think I am rather impulsive and stupid. I also like to think that some good will come out of all of this. I think positive. Well…looking at the really optimistic side…atleast I think!
I haven’t slept well in the past month. Come 6:30 and my eyes snap open. Automatically!! As if an external force is prying my eyelids open and asking me to stop dreaming and start living…reality bites…and it really hurts.
Wishful thinking keeps me going still… I wish I am happy again…I wish someday I have the power to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch again. I wish my dark circles disappear one day. I wish I were pretty.
Rain and muck and crowd and locals and leopolds and odd working hours beckon me again – or may I say, yet again! But will it be that bad? Could it be worse? Could I again be sitting at the window sill finishing a pack of Marlboro lights in a night listening to Bavra mann? Or would I be reading something and eating watermelon while productively doing something out of my life? How much have I wasted…haste makes waste, no?
And yet again – this has been a hasty decision – and only my wishful thinking hopes against hope that it is not wasted this time…that I am not wasted this time…that my joy isn’t wasted this time.
I’ve had enough. Truly had enough. I’m going to give happiness a chance. I am not going to wallow around in hollow, self-indulgent pain. What is a city? It’s an area of land…with roads and houses and some people who don’t even matter. Let’s try to live for a change…and live solely for myself. Let’s defeat black magic. Let’s triumph over Mumbai!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I Do Love Home
I do love home. Yes I do…inspite of all the arguments and the fights and all the tans of anger and the verbal splats…I still love home.
I leave dayafter – not for college, not for comfortable cash inflow from dad…but for work, new life and my own money. Wow… I might as well say goodbye to all my big chill indulgences, the Loreals and the Benettons… I will be amongst the “less-fortunate” ones. *looooooong dramatic sigh*
What a silly song is on…It must’ve been love by Roxette. Ah…and I am being silly and relating to it. “But it’s over now…..” – I wonder, is it? I mean I am not that emotional anymore when it comes to him…that weak or stupid for that matter. So much thinking seems to, for a change, do me some good. What use is the term “moving on” if you cant apply it? Distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or out of sight, out of mind? Pix says it is the second syndrome where he is concerned. I wonder now, is it true? Yesterday a mail from him hit my inbox and I was taken aback… I think that’s because I have truly stopped expecting anything from him. He is married to work, he says. Then how can I even expect him to stray with me? *grin*
Oh and I was thinking of that corny movie “My best friends wedding” yesterday. I admit, sheepishly though, that I like that film very much. It’s such good time pass. The karaoke segment is my favourite…I think that’s when I started liking that song by Nicky Holland, “I just don’t know what to do with myself”…oh wait, let me just find it on my winamp.
Ah yes, it’s playing now…and I am swaying happily. And voila…I switch to Moby and feel all swingy and floaty… I miss the weed-ed wonders of life… ah college life and other such sinful nights…!
Music is so amazing. It makes me feel better about almost anything.
-Phone call-
Ah it was my 2nd brother from college, the lovesick heartbroken C.J. Just finished giving him a whole lecture about moving on and staying away from what and who makes you upset. Felt so mature. Made me think about my own personal problems… have I applied it in my life…can I really?
I haven’t been upset where the man in question is concerned in a long time now. No more am I harping on the fact that I want to wait and be with him. His commitment phobia has finally put me off so much that I’d rather also just be friends now than keep trying to make him realise what we had. I mean if he can’t see it, he must be blind and I am tired of trying. Such hopelessness makes me resign myself to hopelessness. But I am really proud of myself and that I am capable of getting okay! Yay delhi here I come…!!
-Loo break-
Ya okay…I don’t feel like typing anymore. I am bored and I don’t feel like rambling on anymore. I will try sneak out the car for a drive now. I will grab some fruits for lunch. I will send my clothes for ironing. I will go for a walk. I will miss home. Oh yes I will. I do love home.
I leave dayafter – not for college, not for comfortable cash inflow from dad…but for work, new life and my own money. Wow… I might as well say goodbye to all my big chill indulgences, the Loreals and the Benettons… I will be amongst the “less-fortunate” ones. *looooooong dramatic sigh*
What a silly song is on…It must’ve been love by Roxette. Ah…and I am being silly and relating to it. “But it’s over now…..” – I wonder, is it? I mean I am not that emotional anymore when it comes to him…that weak or stupid for that matter. So much thinking seems to, for a change, do me some good. What use is the term “moving on” if you cant apply it? Distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or out of sight, out of mind? Pix says it is the second syndrome where he is concerned. I wonder now, is it true? Yesterday a mail from him hit my inbox and I was taken aback… I think that’s because I have truly stopped expecting anything from him. He is married to work, he says. Then how can I even expect him to stray with me? *grin*
Oh and I was thinking of that corny movie “My best friends wedding” yesterday. I admit, sheepishly though, that I like that film very much. It’s such good time pass. The karaoke segment is my favourite…I think that’s when I started liking that song by Nicky Holland, “I just don’t know what to do with myself”…oh wait, let me just find it on my winamp.
Ah yes, it’s playing now…and I am swaying happily. And voila…I switch to Moby and feel all swingy and floaty… I miss the weed-ed wonders of life… ah college life and other such sinful nights…!
Music is so amazing. It makes me feel better about almost anything.
-Phone call-
Ah it was my 2nd brother from college, the lovesick heartbroken C.J. Just finished giving him a whole lecture about moving on and staying away from what and who makes you upset. Felt so mature. Made me think about my own personal problems… have I applied it in my life…can I really?
I haven’t been upset where the man in question is concerned in a long time now. No more am I harping on the fact that I want to wait and be with him. His commitment phobia has finally put me off so much that I’d rather also just be friends now than keep trying to make him realise what we had. I mean if he can’t see it, he must be blind and I am tired of trying. Such hopelessness makes me resign myself to hopelessness. But I am really proud of myself and that I am capable of getting okay! Yay delhi here I come…!!
-Loo break-
Ya okay…I don’t feel like typing anymore. I am bored and I don’t feel like rambling on anymore. I will try sneak out the car for a drive now. I will grab some fruits for lunch. I will send my clothes for ironing. I will go for a walk. I will miss home. Oh yes I will. I do love home.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Tan of Anger
What happens when you wake up with the same ol’ same ol’ raving and ranting of motherhood, the silent but subconsciously concerned silence of fatherhood and no appetite for the otherwise very appetizing Sunday morning breakfast? It leads to a tan.
So u see my arm…its double shaded…a patch of skin with such a straight line splits the uniformity of my arm – its such a funny sight – as if it belongs to two different mannequins and is clubbed together by mistake! This is a result of going for an hour long drive in anger in the very strong sunlight of my hometown – the sun rays that are hardly blocked by pollution or smog, clouds or fog – it’s a clear day…sunny and warm…bordering at hot even – and I, so sick of my mother’s constant pestering on the issue of marriage and the love interest I had and which led to nowhere, chose to bathe after waking up with another range of arguments and in an attempt to dodge more such accusations, took the very manageable beige Maruti which is my only means to peace and distraction, and left home.
So many thoughts, so little time…so many cars, so little space. Now Shimla has narrow roads that snakes itself around the hillsides – sometimes being comfortably inviting, sometimes betraying that sharp bend where a truck comes zooming in like nobody’s business. Nevertheless, I go on… I still hate to reverse… and I don’t like to take anything but U –turns to return to some place…but these are the hills with the never ending valleys on one side and the intimidating towering mound on the other – and yet I keep driving… take a round of the whole town…watch some guys on roads and some male drivers give me the dirts (of but ofcourse – it’s a small sexist town and there are not many lady drivers you see)!! ‘Blinking Lights’ by The Eels run in my head – I was listening to them just before I took off…
“Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees
Blinking down a morse code signal specially for me
In a rainbow, in the sky, in the middle of the night
But the signal’s coming through
One day I will be all right again…
Blinking lights on the highway cars
Stopping one by one
Get a look at the accident
Didn’t see that one coming
And the doctor in the sky
Going to bring his chopper down
Going to bring me out alive
Set me on the ground once more again
Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees…..”
With the song replaying in my head again and again…I keep the tyres rolling… “But the signal’s coming through …One day I will be all right again…” …the sun shines and streams stealthily in my car…on my right arm… I don’t notice… I only wince once in a while trying to hush it away when it tries to creep into my eyes… and I keep manoeuvring the steering wheel with the course of my thoughts… it all seems to be in tandem…there is harmony in the world again.
Until I reach home and park the car...glance and my ‘ebony and ivory’ endorsing arm and rush in to rub it with the old and reliable recipe of lemon, besan and haldi… but well, the hour has baked it enough… I now have the tan of anger and an inability to wear short sleeves for atleast a week! But tomorrow the drive will happen again – and the tan of anger shall be shielded by sunscreen!
So u see my arm…its double shaded…a patch of skin with such a straight line splits the uniformity of my arm – its such a funny sight – as if it belongs to two different mannequins and is clubbed together by mistake! This is a result of going for an hour long drive in anger in the very strong sunlight of my hometown – the sun rays that are hardly blocked by pollution or smog, clouds or fog – it’s a clear day…sunny and warm…bordering at hot even – and I, so sick of my mother’s constant pestering on the issue of marriage and the love interest I had and which led to nowhere, chose to bathe after waking up with another range of arguments and in an attempt to dodge more such accusations, took the very manageable beige Maruti which is my only means to peace and distraction, and left home.
So many thoughts, so little time…so many cars, so little space. Now Shimla has narrow roads that snakes itself around the hillsides – sometimes being comfortably inviting, sometimes betraying that sharp bend where a truck comes zooming in like nobody’s business. Nevertheless, I go on… I still hate to reverse… and I don’t like to take anything but U –turns to return to some place…but these are the hills with the never ending valleys on one side and the intimidating towering mound on the other – and yet I keep driving… take a round of the whole town…watch some guys on roads and some male drivers give me the dirts (of but ofcourse – it’s a small sexist town and there are not many lady drivers you see)!! ‘Blinking Lights’ by The Eels run in my head – I was listening to them just before I took off…
“Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees
Blinking down a morse code signal specially for me
In a rainbow, in the sky, in the middle of the night
But the signal’s coming through
One day I will be all right again…
Blinking lights on the highway cars
Stopping one by one
Get a look at the accident
Didn’t see that one coming
And the doctor in the sky
Going to bring his chopper down
Going to bring me out alive
Set me on the ground once more again
Blinking lights on the airplane wings up above the trees…..”
With the song replaying in my head again and again…I keep the tyres rolling… “But the signal’s coming through …One day I will be all right again…” …the sun shines and streams stealthily in my car…on my right arm… I don’t notice… I only wince once in a while trying to hush it away when it tries to creep into my eyes… and I keep manoeuvring the steering wheel with the course of my thoughts… it all seems to be in tandem…there is harmony in the world again.
Until I reach home and park the car...glance and my ‘ebony and ivory’ endorsing arm and rush in to rub it with the old and reliable recipe of lemon, besan and haldi… but well, the hour has baked it enough… I now have the tan of anger and an inability to wear short sleeves for atleast a week! But tomorrow the drive will happen again – and the tan of anger shall be shielded by sunscreen!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wedding Bells Toll – Let the Cameras Roll
What a waste of time! What a waste of good news time! What a waste of tapes! What a waste of broadcast value! What a super waste of sensibility! But definitely not a waste of TRP’s or money or the amazing amounts the ads must have put in each channel from the very masala-driven Aaj Tak to the apparently sensible CNN-IBN (that I am going to join in just a weeks time)…boy, am I glad the wedding aka tamasha business finished before that, or I could almost visualise myself banging my head on the sparkly walls of the office and wanting to walk out.
A child in Kailash Colony got killed. Some fiasco happened at a hospital. Some political stuff must have also happened (and I am being vague purely because I, at this moment, have the right to be vague about it) – blame it on the news channels where hours of a “LIVE” baraat procession is on…for lord god’s sake – what has the world come to? And if not that, then there is the repetitive footage of the other woman who claims to be heartbroken and has cut her wrist at the perfect time (I mean really, what could give the media more pleasure than getting such a scandal out on the big D-day…or should I say small B-day!)
Now I wonder, who needs to know who is on the guest list and what colour is the brides wedding attire…and why only concentrate on Whatever Lulla’s detailed designs, if there was any scope, then I am undoubtedly sure that they would want to talk about the colour of her thong too!! (But oooh the thong would be an issue for the RSS and the Bajrang Dal right…I mean, according to them, doesn’t that also go against our so very sanctified Hindu ethics and blah blah who choose to ignore the ancient erotica and the ajanta-ellora’s) – So that would make another headline “Party shows protest against bride defying Indian culture by setting thongs on fire publicly (and maybe its enlarged versions too) and pelting stones on all lingerie stores”...never mind that they all want their wives to be a sati in the kitchen and a slut in bed! And more than that never mind if another criminal mind is working his twisted head on another victim – he is almost sure that, amongst the band-bajaas and the shehnais his crime will hardly be heard!
Double standards apart, I really wonder if TRP’s all that drives today’s channels. Everything is commercial, isn’t it? And being idealistic so passé…so ngo-type? Isn’t it?... lets all indulge in spending hours of our days watching the details of one wedding – something that is so personal made into public entertainment and why only news/ entertainment channels…lets also give reality a new face by putting cams on their post-wedding activities…hah they wish now, don’t they! I’m most sure they do…and why not…anything for money…when have we ever learnt where to draw the line?
A child in Kailash Colony got killed. Some fiasco happened at a hospital. Some political stuff must have also happened (and I am being vague purely because I, at this moment, have the right to be vague about it) – blame it on the news channels where hours of a “LIVE” baraat procession is on…for lord god’s sake – what has the world come to? And if not that, then there is the repetitive footage of the other woman who claims to be heartbroken and has cut her wrist at the perfect time (I mean really, what could give the media more pleasure than getting such a scandal out on the big D-day…or should I say small B-day!)
Now I wonder, who needs to know who is on the guest list and what colour is the brides wedding attire…and why only concentrate on Whatever Lulla’s detailed designs, if there was any scope, then I am undoubtedly sure that they would want to talk about the colour of her thong too!! (But oooh the thong would be an issue for the RSS and the Bajrang Dal right…I mean, according to them, doesn’t that also go against our so very sanctified Hindu ethics and blah blah who choose to ignore the ancient erotica and the ajanta-ellora’s) – So that would make another headline “Party shows protest against bride defying Indian culture by setting thongs on fire publicly (and maybe its enlarged versions too) and pelting stones on all lingerie stores”...never mind that they all want their wives to be a sati in the kitchen and a slut in bed! And more than that never mind if another criminal mind is working his twisted head on another victim – he is almost sure that, amongst the band-bajaas and the shehnais his crime will hardly be heard!
Double standards apart, I really wonder if TRP’s all that drives today’s channels. Everything is commercial, isn’t it? And being idealistic so passé…so ngo-type? Isn’t it?... lets all indulge in spending hours of our days watching the details of one wedding – something that is so personal made into public entertainment and why only news/ entertainment channels…lets also give reality a new face by putting cams on their post-wedding activities…hah they wish now, don’t they! I’m most sure they do…and why not…anything for money…when have we ever learnt where to draw the line?
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Writer’s Block
I am suffering from a writer’s block. And that’s why instead of letting a thought compel me towards the keyboard, I am trying to get the blank screen compel some thoughts out of my head. And still – no feelings, no statements, nothing even remotely profound or for that matter flippantly shallow even. I don’t remember the last time I had a writer’s block – words usually trickle out of my head very easily and seamlessly.
I remember the last time I was writing regularly was the time I was hurt and terribly let down by someone. It was anger that made me write – anger and vehement questioning. And this time, when that someone very easily washed his hands off the entire affair, nothing is coming to me – no passion that makes me write in fury, no feelings that I have to necessarily manifest through words. That’s why I am even more surprised at my writer’s block.
Sometimes random thoughts do come to me – I mean, yes I still “think” and all that – I haven’t been mentally retarded so to say – but they are so fleeting and momentary that I either don’t want to pen them down or don’t think its worth the effort. Or do I not think anymore that what happens to me in my personal life, worth the effort to be recorded?... I don’t know – I am feeling terribly blank right now and don’t even know what my next sentence is going to be.
Ah yes – I remember the last time I drew and analogy of sorts – between my hair and his feelings. Its rather simple – there was a phase in my undergrad days when for some strange inexplicable reason, my otherwise curly hair had suddenly turned poker straight – ideally I should have been delighted – I think initially I was too, but in a while I started to miss my curly hair. Come season change and it went back to their curled state – and the straight phase was over. Now I own a hair straightener – I wish I had straight hair, I try sometimes to tame the mop of curls I usually wake up with – cute nevertheless, but unruly and unsatisfactory. And now I think of the straight hair phase and wonder why I wanted my curls back to badly that I tried atleast 10 different shampoos to restore it to its natural state. Its simple human psychology at the end of the day, isn’t it? We always want what is difficult to get – straight hair that came for a month wasn’t appreciated and rather cursed while I had it, and now that it is gone, I possess an artificial hair straightener – and sometimes think about the guest appearance of the straight hair that was.
Is he like that too? Want something once its gone? Appreciate the one who’s not easily his? And why just him – I think of my straight hair tale – I think I am like that too – we are all humans, and we are terribly stupid at times – take for granted what is there – not know the importance of it until its gone – its like water, I didn’t realise how much we take it for granted until one night there wasn’t a drop to drink at home and we had to sleep thirsty.
Have you realised that the most indispensable thing is what we take for granted the most? – air, water, food, home, family, best friend? And what if one of these go – how difficult or impossible is mere survival? Its problematic, isn’t it?...that the one we need the most is the one we don’t appreciate at all – unless its gone ofcourse. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? But why do we have to wait till the absence takes place anyway – why don’t we realise the importance of that person/thing/support when its right there – how stupid are we as human beings? How retarded is human psychology?
I learnt my lesson once. I don’t think I want to learn it again – I don’t like to take for granted anything – I want to feel every moment, every instance, every element that makes me the person I am and appreciate it while its here. But I also want to record all of that – every sentiment, realisation, appreciation – and how do I do that now…now that I have a writer’s block?
I remember the last time I was writing regularly was the time I was hurt and terribly let down by someone. It was anger that made me write – anger and vehement questioning. And this time, when that someone very easily washed his hands off the entire affair, nothing is coming to me – no passion that makes me write in fury, no feelings that I have to necessarily manifest through words. That’s why I am even more surprised at my writer’s block.
Sometimes random thoughts do come to me – I mean, yes I still “think” and all that – I haven’t been mentally retarded so to say – but they are so fleeting and momentary that I either don’t want to pen them down or don’t think its worth the effort. Or do I not think anymore that what happens to me in my personal life, worth the effort to be recorded?... I don’t know – I am feeling terribly blank right now and don’t even know what my next sentence is going to be.
Ah yes – I remember the last time I drew and analogy of sorts – between my hair and his feelings. Its rather simple – there was a phase in my undergrad days when for some strange inexplicable reason, my otherwise curly hair had suddenly turned poker straight – ideally I should have been delighted – I think initially I was too, but in a while I started to miss my curly hair. Come season change and it went back to their curled state – and the straight phase was over. Now I own a hair straightener – I wish I had straight hair, I try sometimes to tame the mop of curls I usually wake up with – cute nevertheless, but unruly and unsatisfactory. And now I think of the straight hair phase and wonder why I wanted my curls back to badly that I tried atleast 10 different shampoos to restore it to its natural state. Its simple human psychology at the end of the day, isn’t it? We always want what is difficult to get – straight hair that came for a month wasn’t appreciated and rather cursed while I had it, and now that it is gone, I possess an artificial hair straightener – and sometimes think about the guest appearance of the straight hair that was.
Is he like that too? Want something once its gone? Appreciate the one who’s not easily his? And why just him – I think of my straight hair tale – I think I am like that too – we are all humans, and we are terribly stupid at times – take for granted what is there – not know the importance of it until its gone – its like water, I didn’t realise how much we take it for granted until one night there wasn’t a drop to drink at home and we had to sleep thirsty.
Have you realised that the most indispensable thing is what we take for granted the most? – air, water, food, home, family, best friend? And what if one of these go – how difficult or impossible is mere survival? Its problematic, isn’t it?...that the one we need the most is the one we don’t appreciate at all – unless its gone ofcourse. Absence makes the heart grow fonder? But why do we have to wait till the absence takes place anyway – why don’t we realise the importance of that person/thing/support when its right there – how stupid are we as human beings? How retarded is human psychology?
I learnt my lesson once. I don’t think I want to learn it again – I don’t like to take for granted anything – I want to feel every moment, every instance, every element that makes me the person I am and appreciate it while its here. But I also want to record all of that – every sentiment, realisation, appreciation – and how do I do that now…now that I have a writer’s block?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Dying is an Art
Just finished watching Sylvia, the movie. Made me think – do all great writers necessarily have to have such tragic lives? Is this tragedy that feeds creativity into their works? Is sadness the greatest catalyst for passionate ruthless outpourings? Is loneliness, infidelity, heart breaks, insomnia, nightmares the driving force behind great writings? Pained verses are touching, strong ranting prose effective? So to be able to produce such works, does a personal failure prove to be a necessity to be a writer?
Woolf? Plath? – the two icons of their times – my Goddesses, my idols, my inspirations – both women with tragic lives – both women with mental tortures – both women clamped personally – both women dead early – for they could not carry the burden of their genius in this unfair world?
What is reason and what is passion? Poetry is passion. The power to be able to manifest your entire self in a few “not-rhyming” verses is poetry – heart rendering lines from the self is poetry.
Tragedy and sorrow – the food for poetry? Joy too – but mostly the former.
I look back at my tiny collection of insignificant work – I look at the words, the feelings, the thoughts behind it – I pour over them slowly, I think about them – I recall the context, the subject, the time in which I wrote – and sadly, it shows too – sorrow had brought out the best in me – through words I could manifest my anger, my fear, my anxiety, my hatred. In joy, I could not ever do it so well. Joyous poetry has always been flimsy – so is my happiness shallow and is my sorrow deep? I wonder…I think about myself and in my fancy, compare myself to those two – I relate to them…strangely so. Surely many others too – but I do strongly.
Genius requires certain madness – an insanity that is not visible to the world. A slow machine whirring in the head – with all kind of thoughts – real and surreal – dreams and nightmares – subconscious and conscious thoughts – all intermingling and running furiously through my head – like a storm that is brewing – that shall only ebb once I die.
When does this storm get deafening? When does it block out other noises? When does the world become an enemy? When do you become alone – you and these voices in you head – sense that is nonsense to others – logic that is senility to the world, a philosophy that is not yet been recorded in great thick books of Russell and Decartes, a passion that Rousseau hasn’t yet talked about? Is that when you leave some thoughts behind – on paper and in parchments for the world to read and recognise later? Is that when you decide to not live in the make believe social world anymore? Is that when you die? Like a legacy, leave behind your words and perish? And influence and inspire, amateurs like me, readers and dreamers – who are a little different from the rest –slightly mad, slightly sane, slightly alive, slightly dead – who wish to think, and write – to be read, to tell others the beauty of a poem, of words, of art, of verses…of an experience that is called life itself? And then dying would not be an end in itself, but a beginning of another story – more words, more poems, more genius, more insanity, more drowning, more pills – and yet in Plath’s words:
Dying is an art,
like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
Woolf? Plath? – the two icons of their times – my Goddesses, my idols, my inspirations – both women with tragic lives – both women with mental tortures – both women clamped personally – both women dead early – for they could not carry the burden of their genius in this unfair world?
What is reason and what is passion? Poetry is passion. The power to be able to manifest your entire self in a few “not-rhyming” verses is poetry – heart rendering lines from the self is poetry.
Tragedy and sorrow – the food for poetry? Joy too – but mostly the former.
I look back at my tiny collection of insignificant work – I look at the words, the feelings, the thoughts behind it – I pour over them slowly, I think about them – I recall the context, the subject, the time in which I wrote – and sadly, it shows too – sorrow had brought out the best in me – through words I could manifest my anger, my fear, my anxiety, my hatred. In joy, I could not ever do it so well. Joyous poetry has always been flimsy – so is my happiness shallow and is my sorrow deep? I wonder…I think about myself and in my fancy, compare myself to those two – I relate to them…strangely so. Surely many others too – but I do strongly.
Genius requires certain madness – an insanity that is not visible to the world. A slow machine whirring in the head – with all kind of thoughts – real and surreal – dreams and nightmares – subconscious and conscious thoughts – all intermingling and running furiously through my head – like a storm that is brewing – that shall only ebb once I die.
When does this storm get deafening? When does it block out other noises? When does the world become an enemy? When do you become alone – you and these voices in you head – sense that is nonsense to others – logic that is senility to the world, a philosophy that is not yet been recorded in great thick books of Russell and Decartes, a passion that Rousseau hasn’t yet talked about? Is that when you leave some thoughts behind – on paper and in parchments for the world to read and recognise later? Is that when you decide to not live in the make believe social world anymore? Is that when you die? Like a legacy, leave behind your words and perish? And influence and inspire, amateurs like me, readers and dreamers – who are a little different from the rest –slightly mad, slightly sane, slightly alive, slightly dead – who wish to think, and write – to be read, to tell others the beauty of a poem, of words, of art, of verses…of an experience that is called life itself? And then dying would not be an end in itself, but a beginning of another story – more words, more poems, more genius, more insanity, more drowning, more pills – and yet in Plath’s words:
Dying is an art,
like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Ideal Idealism Idealist Idyllic?
What is ideal? Is there something as ideal? The first meaning in the dictionary is “perfect”. Now I went to see the meaning of “perfect” and it said ‘excellent’, ‘faultless’. Now before I thought of going to the meanings of that, I realised it is just one big circle. One word means the other, the other means another which in turn means the first one. So do we actually have a meaning at all? Real true meaning of anything?
Plus even if we understand the meaning of ideal – that I also think is a subjective word and differs from person to person – but for a minute, lets just suppose, if we, within ourselves understand the meaning of the word “ideal”, is anything in life really ideal? As humans, as hungry insatiable mortal beings, aren’t we always vying for something better than what there is – so nothing is really ideal, is it?
Idealism as a concept is totally screwed up. There is no utopia (unless ofcourse, in the clichéd sense, “you make your own utopia”). There is no perfection. Nothing is perfect. And then again, when I look up at the serene sky and watch that globular masterpiece of nature hang lazily, I think of perfection within imperfections.
No then can we say that perfection, in it complete self, doesn’t exist? And that we live all our lives struggling with imperfection – so is our continuous strive for perfection a never ending quest? So is perfection just a distant carrot on the stick,that the closer we get to it, the further it goes? Is perfection some wapped word that is man made and that is an impossibility?
Is any form of art perfect? Is any piece of art perfect? Nothing can be perfect if we cannot define “perfect”, right? So should be delete the word and all its brothers and sisters out of the dictionary? Should we delete ideal, idyllic, best, etc etc etc?
Is it a depressing thought? – to think that perfection may be nothing…a strive towards a theory that does not exist? But yet, in Alanis’ words, You live, you learn. I am very confused right now – I cannot decide whether the realisation that perfection is nothing should be upsetting my hopeful utopic ideas or should I celebrate the fact that as humans, even in imperfections and in the simple walk towards the horizon of perfection that shall never be completed, we are happy – we live, we learn – we make our imperfections our perfections … and in this thoughtful quest, I humbly manage to bewilder and dazzle the readers with my amazing capability to confuse? But then again, did I ever say I am perfect?
Plus even if we understand the meaning of ideal – that I also think is a subjective word and differs from person to person – but for a minute, lets just suppose, if we, within ourselves understand the meaning of the word “ideal”, is anything in life really ideal? As humans, as hungry insatiable mortal beings, aren’t we always vying for something better than what there is – so nothing is really ideal, is it?
Idealism as a concept is totally screwed up. There is no utopia (unless ofcourse, in the clichéd sense, “you make your own utopia”). There is no perfection. Nothing is perfect. And then again, when I look up at the serene sky and watch that globular masterpiece of nature hang lazily, I think of perfection within imperfections.
No then can we say that perfection, in it complete self, doesn’t exist? And that we live all our lives struggling with imperfection – so is our continuous strive for perfection a never ending quest? So is perfection just a distant carrot on the stick,that the closer we get to it, the further it goes? Is perfection some wapped word that is man made and that is an impossibility?
Is any form of art perfect? Is any piece of art perfect? Nothing can be perfect if we cannot define “perfect”, right? So should be delete the word and all its brothers and sisters out of the dictionary? Should we delete ideal, idyllic, best, etc etc etc?
Is it a depressing thought? – to think that perfection may be nothing…a strive towards a theory that does not exist? But yet, in Alanis’ words, You live, you learn. I am very confused right now – I cannot decide whether the realisation that perfection is nothing should be upsetting my hopeful utopic ideas or should I celebrate the fact that as humans, even in imperfections and in the simple walk towards the horizon of perfection that shall never be completed, we are happy – we live, we learn – we make our imperfections our perfections … and in this thoughtful quest, I humbly manage to bewilder and dazzle the readers with my amazing capability to confuse? But then again, did I ever say I am perfect?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
In boredom, do what the bored do.
Listening to Black Eyed Peas. Such mood music, aren’t they? Most fun. Jumpy. Silly. Fun fun fun!!!
All alone at home. Not because I don’t have an option of going out but because I don’t feel like. Pmsing, am I? Maybe. I don’t know. Confused. Restless. So writing right now.
So many things to do. Like read this new Atwood book I have bought dirt cheap from a second hand bookstore. How kicked was I when I got it. I should read it, no? I love Atwood. And surprisingly more than anything, I love her short stories. “Rape Fantasy” was one of her finest – so plain, so direct, so simple, yet so beautiful. The last few lines say:
“… Like how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, rite? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand”
For reasons inexplicable, it hit me harder than any other literature on rape or child abuse. Harder than Virani’s Bitter Chocolate even. Maybe because of the flat tone – no anger, no menace – just flat and dulled and matter of factly.
---- spoke to Pix. Spoke about what’s to come, life back there. Joy. Smiles. Content. Happy sigh -------
Where was I? Was I anywhere at all? Nowhere I think. Just somewhere randomly rambling on because I have nothing else to do.
And I have been thinking, yet again, about him. He is scum mostly. Not because he has done something. But of the way he is as a person. Double faces. Multiple personality disorder, surely! So different when with me. Such a pretentious creep when with his gang of friends. Trying to do what? Prove a point? Be someone he isn’t? and even if that’s who he is, then why all the pretence when with me. Who is he really? Bah – again – I don’t wish to know.
I cannot stop counting. Parents are going to be disappointed if I am in Delhi with a lower pay pack. But what’s more important again? – money or warm honest people? I prefer the latter thank you very much. I am not him, I will never be.
I can’t decide whether I am a good person or a bad person. I mean ofcourse I know “shades of grey” and all that jazz. But no one can also be perfectly grey I think. You have to have a shade tipping towards some side – white or black…where do I fall? I would like to think it’s the lighter side – but people here definitely seem to think otherwise. And then again – when did these people start to matter? These, who I will not stay in touch voluntarily with. These, who I don’t like and who don’t like me. These, who don’t like me because they don’t know me and that’s supposed to be my problem? I care a hoot. My bracket stays intact and life is good. Entries closed. I think I have enough pillars to fall on albeit in other cities – but 8 weeks is hardly any time compared to what I have been through and how much. Internship taught me a huge lesson – don’t even trust them who claimed once to be your closest friend, for after under-grad, it is all one big façade and I don’t want to be a part of that masquerade anymore.
Definitions of happiness is also so subjective right? To find someone whose definition and ideas match with yours is a blessing. I am still waiting for my boon to hit my head!
Told my childhood friend today “I want to get married” – he reacted by saying “don’t marry someone you don’t love”. I like his optimism, his hopeless belief in the idea of togetherness and unconditional love. He has been blessed – he is the lucky one, I may not be. Who knows? So do we keep waiting? And for how long? Don’t we take the easier way out and marry convenience? Aren’t we all human? And on top of that I am also worried that beauty, the transient companion, shall cheat on me - the hair shall fall and fly into space unknown, the eyes shall be gifted with everlasting bags, the boobs shall not defy gravity anymore, the arms may not be as taut as they were, the voice as youthful, the tummy may turn from plateau to mound – and then marriage shall also be something you waited for all your life. Will I become Miss Havisham? Except that the only thing that would cheat on me would be hope and age? Sigh! I don’t know. Overthinking. Overanalysing. Overtyping maybe? Exceeding the limit? Boring you, is it? Do I care? No, this is my space. Let me scribble. Let me type. Theres nothing else to do right now, except another number from the Black eyed peas.
What a name to have? Bizarre sells, doesn’t it? Black eyes peas. It is almost graphic. So vivid. I can actually imagine peas peeping out of their pods with an eye each. Yuck. Gross. Scary even. Aberration of normality. But what’s normal? – yet another subjective bugger?
I am hungry now. Hungry and angry. They rhyme? No? Sort of?...hungry….hmmm …angry…mmmm? No! They don’t. Bah! Just like everything else – nothing is in a flow anymore, not even words.
I think I am bored now. And arms seems to be getting tired. Non-stop this excursion has been – except one break ofcourse, that I have humbly mentioned. This is bad though, I mean do arms tire so fast or it is just the beginning of this phenomenon I dread called ‘age’? No! No! No more shall I think so much. And as always, go and grab the moment – or atleast some grub.
Tummy growls. Dinner beckons. Song ends.
All alone at home. Not because I don’t have an option of going out but because I don’t feel like. Pmsing, am I? Maybe. I don’t know. Confused. Restless. So writing right now.
So many things to do. Like read this new Atwood book I have bought dirt cheap from a second hand bookstore. How kicked was I when I got it. I should read it, no? I love Atwood. And surprisingly more than anything, I love her short stories. “Rape Fantasy” was one of her finest – so plain, so direct, so simple, yet so beautiful. The last few lines say:
“… Like how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, rite? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand”
For reasons inexplicable, it hit me harder than any other literature on rape or child abuse. Harder than Virani’s Bitter Chocolate even. Maybe because of the flat tone – no anger, no menace – just flat and dulled and matter of factly.
---- spoke to Pix. Spoke about what’s to come, life back there. Joy. Smiles. Content. Happy sigh -------
Where was I? Was I anywhere at all? Nowhere I think. Just somewhere randomly rambling on because I have nothing else to do.
And I have been thinking, yet again, about him. He is scum mostly. Not because he has done something. But of the way he is as a person. Double faces. Multiple personality disorder, surely! So different when with me. Such a pretentious creep when with his gang of friends. Trying to do what? Prove a point? Be someone he isn’t? and even if that’s who he is, then why all the pretence when with me. Who is he really? Bah – again – I don’t wish to know.
I cannot stop counting. Parents are going to be disappointed if I am in Delhi with a lower pay pack. But what’s more important again? – money or warm honest people? I prefer the latter thank you very much. I am not him, I will never be.
I can’t decide whether I am a good person or a bad person. I mean ofcourse I know “shades of grey” and all that jazz. But no one can also be perfectly grey I think. You have to have a shade tipping towards some side – white or black…where do I fall? I would like to think it’s the lighter side – but people here definitely seem to think otherwise. And then again – when did these people start to matter? These, who I will not stay in touch voluntarily with. These, who I don’t like and who don’t like me. These, who don’t like me because they don’t know me and that’s supposed to be my problem? I care a hoot. My bracket stays intact and life is good. Entries closed. I think I have enough pillars to fall on albeit in other cities – but 8 weeks is hardly any time compared to what I have been through and how much. Internship taught me a huge lesson – don’t even trust them who claimed once to be your closest friend, for after under-grad, it is all one big façade and I don’t want to be a part of that masquerade anymore.
Definitions of happiness is also so subjective right? To find someone whose definition and ideas match with yours is a blessing. I am still waiting for my boon to hit my head!
Told my childhood friend today “I want to get married” – he reacted by saying “don’t marry someone you don’t love”. I like his optimism, his hopeless belief in the idea of togetherness and unconditional love. He has been blessed – he is the lucky one, I may not be. Who knows? So do we keep waiting? And for how long? Don’t we take the easier way out and marry convenience? Aren’t we all human? And on top of that I am also worried that beauty, the transient companion, shall cheat on me - the hair shall fall and fly into space unknown, the eyes shall be gifted with everlasting bags, the boobs shall not defy gravity anymore, the arms may not be as taut as they were, the voice as youthful, the tummy may turn from plateau to mound – and then marriage shall also be something you waited for all your life. Will I become Miss Havisham? Except that the only thing that would cheat on me would be hope and age? Sigh! I don’t know. Overthinking. Overanalysing. Overtyping maybe? Exceeding the limit? Boring you, is it? Do I care? No, this is my space. Let me scribble. Let me type. Theres nothing else to do right now, except another number from the Black eyed peas.
What a name to have? Bizarre sells, doesn’t it? Black eyes peas. It is almost graphic. So vivid. I can actually imagine peas peeping out of their pods with an eye each. Yuck. Gross. Scary even. Aberration of normality. But what’s normal? – yet another subjective bugger?
I am hungry now. Hungry and angry. They rhyme? No? Sort of?...hungry….hmmm …angry…mmmm? No! They don’t. Bah! Just like everything else – nothing is in a flow anymore, not even words.
I think I am bored now. And arms seems to be getting tired. Non-stop this excursion has been – except one break ofcourse, that I have humbly mentioned. This is bad though, I mean do arms tire so fast or it is just the beginning of this phenomenon I dread called ‘age’? No! No! No more shall I think so much. And as always, go and grab the moment – or atleast some grub.
Tummy growls. Dinner beckons. Song ends.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Nonsensical thoughts of a bored hungry chick
This morning while I went about ransacking the kitchen for some food, a thought simmered and presented itself to me.
What’s the big deal about going out and eating together when you are serenading a creature of the opposite sex? And if you actually sit and think about it deeper still, every meal seems to have a different connotation. But I shall refrain from making generalised statements and my sample study area would be my dating scenario and my friend’s days of wooing wonder (past and present)!
Coffee constitutes the first few dates of “getting to know each other”…the baristas and the coffee days of the world seem to be thriving on this initial phenomenon of gender interaction. The attire will be casual yet sexy. The mood will be light yet some flirting will prevail in the air. So when a guy asks you out for coffee, a thought floats in the air along with that caffeinated aroma – is he interested?
Then comes the crucial dinner date (that is if you like the person enough to graduate onto that level) – dinner speaks for two things –
1. I am seriously interested in you.
Or
2. I am seriously interested in sleeping with you…
Smart women know one from the other while few assume the first and that, for the guy, is the easy licence to step onto the second thing.
For me personally, dinner used to be a marginally big deal until I came to this city where I never got free before 8 so even a casual outing constituted for dinner and hence it lost its novelty and importance. But from the past experience, the prelude to the grand dining included the whole dressing up just right – u know the not-too-flashy yet not-too-casual styles, spritzing the right amount of fragrance, as to not take it over the top and choke the guy, do the whole subtle yet obvious technique and all that jazz. And at dinner – throwing the right lines, not giving away too many details about yourself, never touching the ‘ex’ topic initially and definitely not even thinking remotely about the future! Dinner dates sometimes follow the infamous coffee, sometimes the lingering kiss, sometimes (and mostly in my case), a firm handshake and a wide smile followed by a message maybe. But whatever the case may be, dinner dates are detrimental for further alliance with that person!
However, I think that a breakfast date is more intimate than a dinner date (and I surely don’t mean breakfast in bed) – I think that it takes a certain comfort level to set in to be able to make an effort for an early Sunday breakfast, the whole scrubbed clean fresh morning look when yellow dinner lights are not there to hide your facial flaws, when eggs and milk and juice and pancakes can be gorged upon without any qualms and when a bad hair day doesn’t bother you as much.
Lunch, for me, is the stage when a certain closeness sets in – enough to make time for lunch or rather make an effort to get out of work for an hour (for I am the kind that advocates canteens and deliveries at the place where your daily routine holds itself)
But in all these cases, dates are essentially made of food – dinner, lunch, breakfast or coffee – food builds up relationships – maybe because the tastes may find itself in commonality – or maybe because taking out time apart from the routine things are increasingly not possible – so if a date can merge itself with one of your meals for the day, then why not.
I don’t know why are dates and food so related – convenience or the burgeoning restaurants and diners that create the mood? Common hunger or the fact that full tummies are equivalents of happy moods? – I don’t really know and do I really care – as long as my tummy sings of multi-cuisinal joy and my head has been replenished with some entertainment of sorts, let the mocha flow my dear friend, and bring on the main course!
What’s the big deal about going out and eating together when you are serenading a creature of the opposite sex? And if you actually sit and think about it deeper still, every meal seems to have a different connotation. But I shall refrain from making generalised statements and my sample study area would be my dating scenario and my friend’s days of wooing wonder (past and present)!
Coffee constitutes the first few dates of “getting to know each other”…the baristas and the coffee days of the world seem to be thriving on this initial phenomenon of gender interaction. The attire will be casual yet sexy. The mood will be light yet some flirting will prevail in the air. So when a guy asks you out for coffee, a thought floats in the air along with that caffeinated aroma – is he interested?
Then comes the crucial dinner date (that is if you like the person enough to graduate onto that level) – dinner speaks for two things –
1. I am seriously interested in you.
Or
2. I am seriously interested in sleeping with you…
Smart women know one from the other while few assume the first and that, for the guy, is the easy licence to step onto the second thing.
For me personally, dinner used to be a marginally big deal until I came to this city where I never got free before 8 so even a casual outing constituted for dinner and hence it lost its novelty and importance. But from the past experience, the prelude to the grand dining included the whole dressing up just right – u know the not-too-flashy yet not-too-casual styles, spritzing the right amount of fragrance, as to not take it over the top and choke the guy, do the whole subtle yet obvious technique and all that jazz. And at dinner – throwing the right lines, not giving away too many details about yourself, never touching the ‘ex’ topic initially and definitely not even thinking remotely about the future! Dinner dates sometimes follow the infamous coffee, sometimes the lingering kiss, sometimes (and mostly in my case), a firm handshake and a wide smile followed by a message maybe. But whatever the case may be, dinner dates are detrimental for further alliance with that person!
However, I think that a breakfast date is more intimate than a dinner date (and I surely don’t mean breakfast in bed) – I think that it takes a certain comfort level to set in to be able to make an effort for an early Sunday breakfast, the whole scrubbed clean fresh morning look when yellow dinner lights are not there to hide your facial flaws, when eggs and milk and juice and pancakes can be gorged upon without any qualms and when a bad hair day doesn’t bother you as much.
Lunch, for me, is the stage when a certain closeness sets in – enough to make time for lunch or rather make an effort to get out of work for an hour (for I am the kind that advocates canteens and deliveries at the place where your daily routine holds itself)
But in all these cases, dates are essentially made of food – dinner, lunch, breakfast or coffee – food builds up relationships – maybe because the tastes may find itself in commonality – or maybe because taking out time apart from the routine things are increasingly not possible – so if a date can merge itself with one of your meals for the day, then why not.
I don’t know why are dates and food so related – convenience or the burgeoning restaurants and diners that create the mood? Common hunger or the fact that full tummies are equivalents of happy moods? – I don’t really know and do I really care – as long as my tummy sings of multi-cuisinal joy and my head has been replenished with some entertainment of sorts, let the mocha flow my dear friend, and bring on the main course!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Ode to my Wall Collage
For five hundred and ninety two days
You have hung on the wall beside my bed
38 snapshots of bliss
Shocking colours of elation
Mellow smiles of celebration
Faces looking at me searchingly
Trying to whisper some word of the past
Acting as a window to peep into utopia that was
Still frames out of the cinema of my life
Actors out of the core of my existence
Urging me to relive the true me
A catalyst to my rutted weeks
Potent in its muteness
Complete in its fractioned self
People and places
Painted through the lenses
Occasions so obsolescent
Yet moments so immediate
Holding within themselves
The power to tug a smile
The potency to well a tear
And holding delicately
The icicles of my frozen past
For five hundred and ninety two days
You have hung beside my bed
38 snapshots of my head
Brought warmth in your constancy
And coursed life in my numbness
You have hung on the wall beside my bed
38 snapshots of bliss
Shocking colours of elation
Mellow smiles of celebration
Faces looking at me searchingly
Trying to whisper some word of the past
Acting as a window to peep into utopia that was
Still frames out of the cinema of my life
Actors out of the core of my existence
Urging me to relive the true me
A catalyst to my rutted weeks
Potent in its muteness
Complete in its fractioned self
People and places
Painted through the lenses
Occasions so obsolescent
Yet moments so immediate
Holding within themselves
The power to tug a smile
The potency to well a tear
And holding delicately
The icicles of my frozen past
For five hundred and ninety two days
You have hung beside my bed
38 snapshots of my head
Brought warmth in your constancy
And coursed life in my numbness
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Dilli Duur Nahin
The smell of momos at Dilli Haat. The clappity clippoty clop of the brainless high heels at M block. The sheer dynamism of Habitat. Pix’s green and yellow room. Just Pix herself. Trips to the fabric piles at Sarojini. Wiping our nose and eyes from eating the sevpuri at LSR. LSR itself. Mushy gooey squidgy cake of Big Chill. The mufflered winter. The intellectual fecundity at BCL. The smell of coffee and “herbs” at Village Café. Random walks to N block. Sticking our tongues out at the designer stores. Lapping up the joyful Janpath. Strolling along CP. The whiff of reshmi kebab at Khan Chacha. Inhaling the intoxicating aroma of old books at Book Bazaar. Being shoved around effortlessly on a Sunday at Lajpat Nagar. Waking up for an early cheap weekend movie at Chanakya. The horde of cows and buffalos at Zamrudpur. The air conditioned window shopping in the 45 degree heat at Ansals. The delectable food and delightful music at Turquoise Cottage. The bangles of Chandani Chowk. Parathe wali gali. Poetry reading. Mental peace. Emotion satisfaction. Bacon and eggs at American Diners. Walking out of a horrendous GD with Pix. Chaat at Kailash Colony. Followed by corn and pastry. Airy breezy rickshaw rides. Ice golas that stain my mouth orange-red. Crossing the road in front of college. Paying homage to Red Bricks. Still loving its memories. Pure unadulterated joy. Hating the overdone Mocha. The drinking on the sly. Sharing and talking it all. Dressing up with the Sadist 5. While dappling in life’s entangling complications that eventually combed itself to a solution – for we all stood by each other and shared all this. But reality check – right now it isn’t the tiny pretty room I had, or the roomies that was my family, or the best friend who is my pillar, or the mere overnight journey to my home – right now is that one yellow light that glows ominously – I am in an alien city with alien people - but the same grey blanket covers me – and I slide under it – and feel like I am enveloped in my old life again. I try to sleep – I try to dream – I take a trip down the trodden lanes of my life – “Its just 5 months”, I tell myself – Dilli duur nahin !
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Life is Beautiful
Life is beautiful. Did I say that? It is amazing how suddenly a change of heart can brighten up your day and fill you with that inexplicable urge to hug the world and shout out and say that “I am okay!”…
Today was a brilliant day – one of the best days I have had in Pune. I cribbed and I cribbed and I keep cribbing! Today, I smiled and I smiled and couldn’t stop smiling. Something just happened to me. People usually say this when they fall in love – I. however, just fell out of it. If love is a disease that bogs you down and rots your insides, then I don’t want to be in it… and if falling out of it means happiness, here I come !
Life is beautiful. Atleast mine is. Lord bless my soul !
Today was a brilliant day – one of the best days I have had in Pune. I cribbed and I cribbed and I keep cribbing! Today, I smiled and I smiled and couldn’t stop smiling. Something just happened to me. People usually say this when they fall in love – I. however, just fell out of it. If love is a disease that bogs you down and rots your insides, then I don’t want to be in it… and if falling out of it means happiness, here I come !
Life is beautiful. Atleast mine is. Lord bless my soul !
Saturday, October 21, 2006
You Brought Light in my Life and I Will Always Love You - A Tribute
This diwali will be the diwali I will remember the most. This diwali is the first diwali that I didn’t celebrate. But strangely enough, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on something. It was a rather beautiful quiet moment I shared at home with my father, mother, brother and grandmother.
My grandfather died a few weeks ago. We feel his lack and I, more so, for I was terribly close to him and loved him with all my heart. Watching him disintegrate physically through his illness was the most agonising experience for me. Watching a 6 feet tall man who was an epitome of power in his times, slowly lose his mobility was most heart rendering. I can never forget that one line he always taught me from The Gita: “Karm kar, phal ki iccha mat kar”…loosely translating to “do your duty and don’t expect anything in return”. In today’s materialistic selfish world does this even make sense? I don’t know… but I like to think it does… I think it is one line that makes me the person I am today and I am grateful to my granpa for that. I can sleep in peace when I know that I have shown my genuine concern to someone who is unwell, knowing well that he may never bother even if I am in the hospital, I feel at ease with my otherwise constricted heart when I don’t harbour bitterness and malice against someone who has wronged me, but instead forgive and move on. Why expect? Expectations lead to disappointments. I think our grandparents are a storehouse of wisdom that, to many may seem like utter crap at this point of time, but later it will be the only thing that will make sense and the only worldly wisdom that they will carry on.
I miss my grandfather…miss so many things about him…like sharing fruits (he always bought kilos for me and himself and we sat together and gorged on them while he told me a little story from his life), going on walks with him (we always went on walks and carried with us 2 oranges that we sat in the woods and ate)…during my board exams, he woke up in the middle of the night to make me tea so I stayed awake to study, he showered me with such massive amount of love that I felt I could drown in joy, he called me “sona baccha”…he called me “Indira Gandhi”, for he thought I was rather bossy and could be a politician one day (and I also had really short hair that time)…I was his favourite grandchild…I am the first grandchild… I was the constant name on his lips when he cried in pain during his last few days… and I feel miserable now for I think I could have been a lot more with him but I didn’t… but he always knew I loved him and I still love him and he is like this presence keeping a watch on me, asking me and telling me “karm kar, phal ki iccha mat kar”…
It was a quiet diwali, I missed my grandfather…I shared a sentimental moment in my grandmother’s arms while tears involuntarily welled up my eyes, there were no words exchanged…but yet there was this silent understanding…that he was a wonderful man and that we were lucky to have him in our lives…he enriched my life, he made me a better human being, he taught me that if you love someone, say it… I was his greatest fan and still am… for me, he is the best grandfather I could have ever had, and still is… and in the whispering, shimmering diyas and in the hazy smoke of incense, I feel his warmth and his protective embrace… and though we are not technically celebrating diwali, I am festive in myself, in the ethereal glow of the night and in the memories of my darling grandpa.
My grandfather died a few weeks ago. We feel his lack and I, more so, for I was terribly close to him and loved him with all my heart. Watching him disintegrate physically through his illness was the most agonising experience for me. Watching a 6 feet tall man who was an epitome of power in his times, slowly lose his mobility was most heart rendering. I can never forget that one line he always taught me from The Gita: “Karm kar, phal ki iccha mat kar”…loosely translating to “do your duty and don’t expect anything in return”. In today’s materialistic selfish world does this even make sense? I don’t know… but I like to think it does… I think it is one line that makes me the person I am today and I am grateful to my granpa for that. I can sleep in peace when I know that I have shown my genuine concern to someone who is unwell, knowing well that he may never bother even if I am in the hospital, I feel at ease with my otherwise constricted heart when I don’t harbour bitterness and malice against someone who has wronged me, but instead forgive and move on. Why expect? Expectations lead to disappointments. I think our grandparents are a storehouse of wisdom that, to many may seem like utter crap at this point of time, but later it will be the only thing that will make sense and the only worldly wisdom that they will carry on.
I miss my grandfather…miss so many things about him…like sharing fruits (he always bought kilos for me and himself and we sat together and gorged on them while he told me a little story from his life), going on walks with him (we always went on walks and carried with us 2 oranges that we sat in the woods and ate)…during my board exams, he woke up in the middle of the night to make me tea so I stayed awake to study, he showered me with such massive amount of love that I felt I could drown in joy, he called me “sona baccha”…he called me “Indira Gandhi”, for he thought I was rather bossy and could be a politician one day (and I also had really short hair that time)…I was his favourite grandchild…I am the first grandchild… I was the constant name on his lips when he cried in pain during his last few days… and I feel miserable now for I think I could have been a lot more with him but I didn’t… but he always knew I loved him and I still love him and he is like this presence keeping a watch on me, asking me and telling me “karm kar, phal ki iccha mat kar”…
It was a quiet diwali, I missed my grandfather…I shared a sentimental moment in my grandmother’s arms while tears involuntarily welled up my eyes, there were no words exchanged…but yet there was this silent understanding…that he was a wonderful man and that we were lucky to have him in our lives…he enriched my life, he made me a better human being, he taught me that if you love someone, say it… I was his greatest fan and still am… for me, he is the best grandfather I could have ever had, and still is… and in the whispering, shimmering diyas and in the hazy smoke of incense, I feel his warmth and his protective embrace… and though we are not technically celebrating diwali, I am festive in myself, in the ethereal glow of the night and in the memories of my darling grandpa.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Lift please?
You were an accident…
May I say that?
And reduce your existence…
To a mere trifling?
But as though every rain drop
And every variegated leaf…
And as every misted window
And every patch of sun…
Forms the daily of our lives,
You, my beloved…
Formed the daily of my life.
You were an accident…
May I say that?
And reduce my existence…
To a mere traveller?
But as though every distance covered
And at every drive-in stopped…
And as every motel crossed
And every turn missed…
Forms the highway of our lives,
I, my beloved…
Formed the hitchhiker of your life.
May I say that?
And reduce your existence…
To a mere trifling?
But as though every rain drop
And every variegated leaf…
And as every misted window
And every patch of sun…
Forms the daily of our lives,
You, my beloved…
Formed the daily of my life.
You were an accident…
May I say that?
And reduce my existence…
To a mere traveller?
But as though every distance covered
And at every drive-in stopped…
And as every motel crossed
And every turn missed…
Forms the highway of our lives,
I, my beloved…
Formed the hitchhiker of your life.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Hop-scotch
Her smile now lies
In the shoebox of her dreams…
Cluttered with memories
Tattered with age.
And in the dark musty corner
In the cupboard of her life…
Sleeps the dent of her cheek
Away from the salmon sky.
Her life now lies
Within that iota of a second
When the spring of her joy exhausted…
And no one could wind it again.
But shove into the refrigerator
The clock of her ordinary youth.
So let no life touch her
Let no confetti of laughter
Colour her air of indifference
For another heart turned hop-scotch
A game? Hop… Jump… Trample
And another Havisham born.
In the shoebox of her dreams…
Cluttered with memories
Tattered with age.
And in the dark musty corner
In the cupboard of her life…
Sleeps the dent of her cheek
Away from the salmon sky.
Her life now lies
Within that iota of a second
When the spring of her joy exhausted…
And no one could wind it again.
But shove into the refrigerator
The clock of her ordinary youth.
So let no life touch her
Let no confetti of laughter
Colour her air of indifference
For another heart turned hop-scotch
A game? Hop… Jump… Trample
And another Havisham born.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Red
These are a few rather beautiful poetic lines written for me…
My most perfectly detached turned lovable room mate, friend, sister, support in Delhi to who I owe a lot of me that is and a lot of me that I was and am glad am not anymore…
Thank you Deb, for drawing this little painting out of me through words and through the colour I love most…
With my burning desire, let me be red,
The symbol of fecundity…
In its each drop is life…
Ardent… potent… passionate…
Blazing hearts afire…
On the alta smeared feet…
In the niche of all’s existence…
As crimson… vermillion… brick…
Let me be the impetus for change.
My most perfectly detached turned lovable room mate, friend, sister, support in Delhi to who I owe a lot of me that is and a lot of me that I was and am glad am not anymore…
Thank you Deb, for drawing this little painting out of me through words and through the colour I love most…
With my burning desire, let me be red,
The symbol of fecundity…
In its each drop is life…
Ardent… potent… passionate…
Blazing hearts afire…
On the alta smeared feet…
In the niche of all’s existence…
As crimson… vermillion… brick…
Let me be the impetus for change.
Friday, August 25, 2006
The Wooden Room of my Head
An assignment on a dream sequence in class made me think;
Yes, we dream all the time… at the yellowed sight of dawn and at the pink placidity of dusk… in the cushioned comfort of our beds and in the uncomfortable chaos of the daily bus… but how often do we think about a dream… or rather, think what our dream is…
It is a class on visual design. As a film student I am told to think visually. As a literature student I have always thought visually. But my dream lies in literature and in visuals lies my dream.
So there is this room. Small. Compact. Warm with wood. Lined with shelves. One window. And strangely enough I see no door. My perspective isn’t a 360 degree one. My vision encapsulates three sides. The books in the shelves are hardbound and large…heavy and old… gold embossed… making my heart fill with an inexplicable feeling that it wants to burst and spray out celebratory confetti! But they are not arranged in perfection as I usually like to keep my shelves…in categories and according to sizes… yet they are not carelessly stacked. There is a certain complacent sense of regal laziness in them. They are like old people…looking at me with a vault of wisdom and philosophy. They are alive with knowledge and potent with the power of thought. The peculiar smell of old books that is like incense to me emanates from them…yellowed pages… fading letters…with the old english fonts… ornamental fonts, elaborate fonts… stacked together into exquisite sentences. At the left side corner, is a small table… really small… enough only to fit a huge book, an ink pot, and a lamp. The lamp is glowing, yellow light…incandescent and luminescent. There is no other light in the room. It is daylight but it is dark inside…somewhat reflecting me and my multiple layers of hidden self. The single window is large, it is framed with dark mahogany wood…it has a rich royal maroon curtain that is heavy…it is plain but has a character to it…it is grave, almost profound acting like a barrier against the rest of the busied world.
And I sit at the table… head bent slightly, fingers stained with ink, slightly shivering with the anticipation of hurriedly putting down the next thought on paper before it passes me by… scratching and scribbling…yet in a neat beautiful honest writing… the y’s are a little extended and the t’s are abrupt and stand tall.
Through the window and the curtain… a little space is left open, for the sun to stream in… there is a wide ray that seems to be travelling in from some infinite space…and you can see the little dust particles hopping in that light… but if you look closely, really closely… like strain your eyes to a super humanly capacity…and see that they are not really dust particles after all… they are words… tiny microscopic words… floating and streaming through that ray of light… and entering my wooden room… permeating through its every corner… till I can smell the words and feel it in my breath. And I begin to write again… I don’t know what I am writing, but I am writing…and furiously so… the ink pen is making faint itchy noises…noises that are like manna to my senses and music to my ears… and I am happy…in my closed room, I am content. There is a serene expression in my otherwise obscure and inscrutable brown eyes. I am filled with silent joy.
So I thought of a dream. I dreamt of joy. This, to me, is the only complete joy.
Yes, we dream all the time… at the yellowed sight of dawn and at the pink placidity of dusk… in the cushioned comfort of our beds and in the uncomfortable chaos of the daily bus… but how often do we think about a dream… or rather, think what our dream is…
It is a class on visual design. As a film student I am told to think visually. As a literature student I have always thought visually. But my dream lies in literature and in visuals lies my dream.
So there is this room. Small. Compact. Warm with wood. Lined with shelves. One window. And strangely enough I see no door. My perspective isn’t a 360 degree one. My vision encapsulates three sides. The books in the shelves are hardbound and large…heavy and old… gold embossed… making my heart fill with an inexplicable feeling that it wants to burst and spray out celebratory confetti! But they are not arranged in perfection as I usually like to keep my shelves…in categories and according to sizes… yet they are not carelessly stacked. There is a certain complacent sense of regal laziness in them. They are like old people…looking at me with a vault of wisdom and philosophy. They are alive with knowledge and potent with the power of thought. The peculiar smell of old books that is like incense to me emanates from them…yellowed pages… fading letters…with the old english fonts… ornamental fonts, elaborate fonts… stacked together into exquisite sentences. At the left side corner, is a small table… really small… enough only to fit a huge book, an ink pot, and a lamp. The lamp is glowing, yellow light…incandescent and luminescent. There is no other light in the room. It is daylight but it is dark inside…somewhat reflecting me and my multiple layers of hidden self. The single window is large, it is framed with dark mahogany wood…it has a rich royal maroon curtain that is heavy…it is plain but has a character to it…it is grave, almost profound acting like a barrier against the rest of the busied world.
And I sit at the table… head bent slightly, fingers stained with ink, slightly shivering with the anticipation of hurriedly putting down the next thought on paper before it passes me by… scratching and scribbling…yet in a neat beautiful honest writing… the y’s are a little extended and the t’s are abrupt and stand tall.
Through the window and the curtain… a little space is left open, for the sun to stream in… there is a wide ray that seems to be travelling in from some infinite space…and you can see the little dust particles hopping in that light… but if you look closely, really closely… like strain your eyes to a super humanly capacity…and see that they are not really dust particles after all… they are words… tiny microscopic words… floating and streaming through that ray of light… and entering my wooden room… permeating through its every corner… till I can smell the words and feel it in my breath. And I begin to write again… I don’t know what I am writing, but I am writing…and furiously so… the ink pen is making faint itchy noises…noises that are like manna to my senses and music to my ears… and I am happy…in my closed room, I am content. There is a serene expression in my otherwise obscure and inscrutable brown eyes. I am filled with silent joy.
So I thought of a dream. I dreamt of joy. This, to me, is the only complete joy.
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