my tryst with sins ...

the failed poet

2011-05-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

In a breathless summer afternoon
an implacable sun beneath which
memories seem to wilt
emanating, like some august blossoms
ocher influences, which make the
brain wade and heart wane-
an epical malaria, distinct, as I
think, from roseate melodies,
those murmuring utterances
which I had spotted in
musty springs and winters
of a century ago.

The poet, a vile thing,
wretched and wicked slave of words,
an instrument not feigned
by human genius, but
the procreation of body, who,
instead of affecting the soul,
merely rouses
the debris of nature, she
counterfeits sun-stroked nature
eulogizing cinnabar summer,
her friends praise her effort
she feels summer again—

she destroys the poem.

Duets - revisited

2011-02-02T02:52:00.000-08:00

yearning for
freedom beyond
the covers of
old impossible
romances
magic of
darkening skies,
quixotic emotions
stirred in
low furtive talks
without words,

beside broken
mirrors of
elegiac future
striving through
restraints of
puerile mind
over prurient senses

a breeze carries
febrile perfumes
of crushed roses
faraway songs
agate gleams
plays over
smooth lustrous
crimson of
parted lips,

underneath
star powdered
callous vault of
hushed night
we understand
what happiness is -
formerly
you and I
had played on love;
now love begins
to play on us.

seasonal..

2011-01-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

it is the season of all such quirks, warmth of discourses at the fireside, coffee and smoke: romance has ordained the angels; the biting wind, the mist, the murk, the stupor; in dark long nights and short gray days saturated with wintry phantasmagoria, the yearning of heart and the aching shall arrive in its time..

silence..

2010-12-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

...amidst anxiety and physical greed, I hunger for the night, its bottomless solitude, the dwindling fire-flames; an inconceivable longing for the puerile secrecy and silence of the graves..

harmony...

2010-11-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

There are desires in all of us that weave into skeins of ceremonial or elementary harmony; let your beloved’s beguiling smile and spurious lies amalgamate itself with this strain, the delusive note is struck, discord declares itself, and Love itself, the great Composer, can do nothing in this life to restore the old tranquil tune of pristine days. A lesson we must learn before we and grief grow old together.

the poetry of..

2010-11-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

there tiptoes through this hushed room a fragrance not of flowers or perfumes, but the essence of poetry on the walls and bureaus; these souvenirs of antiquated friendships and erstwhile attachments, shrouded infatuations and constrained longings..

we’ll come across again; to adjoin a raw stanza after the poetry of flesh, a stanza contradicting the rest ..

search

2010-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

You may not be a tweedling swain or I a submissive shepherdess; but can we enter the promised Arcadia..?

neurosis..

2010-10-29T01:59:00.000-07:00

Emily D’s been my alter-ego since early teens when I first discovered her in my Maternal Grandpa’s library.. can’t say if he liked her too as he seldom spoke but there existed a tome full of old verses amongst the dust-laden shelves, wherein he’d marked her words with red ink, which caught my eye.

Some people also called grandpa insane. He lived exclusively on the first floor with thousands of books and the entire family resided downstairs. Even his food was sent to him through domestics and he dined alone. When he had to communicate with the mortals he sent a handwritten note downstairs. :)

His eccentricity did not cease there. If he stopped the partaking of food the mortals knew he was miffed with someone/something and to discover the cause of the infuriation a servant was sent upstairs in his absence to hunt for his journal. If the entry was in Hindi, Grandma figured the reason but when he was madder the text happened to be in English, in that case, one of the kids was summoned to decipher..

I believe I have inherited a part of his insanity.
Sadly all his books were lost due to the neglect on part of my uncles but Grandpa had introduced me to ED allegorically and ‘that’ opus full of yellowed pages with the fragrance of his finger tips, ED’s text indelibly marked with carmine, reminiscent of their alienation, is still with me..
the only book from his priceless collection.... my prized possession..

In the woods..

2010-10-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

I’m still dreaming, even now, this tired old spirit is lying alone, drenched with dew, under the mist entwined branches, soon it would scramble and go off home, home to you..

to the deadly loop that had once seemed familiar and fateful..

and I shall keep calling, even if I get echo in reply, like the chime in chimera which resonates unhindered, gibing the rebuttal of reality. If the worst comes to worst, why, there is pasture in the solitary boulevard for the beast that strays and the prey that is ravaged..

cupid..

2010-10-09T23:15:00.001-07:00

Notwithstanding that I’d been afflicted by ludicrous methods of Cupid before, there prevails ample insanity to not examine scrupulously the logic behind this sudden passion. I am in love, and permitting as much to self, there is an end of remonstration.

eyes..

2010-10-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

I remember those eyes shimmering with light, turning liquid and dreamy in the mellow luster of November moon, confronting me with a vague wistfulness most endearing to behold, and most admirably feigned..

mercurial moon..

2010-09-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

The mercurial moon has abruptly surged like a pallid ghost, poised amidst an impetuous chasm of sinister clouds. Her cold rays, falling on the gloomy stretch; with lucent distinctness alluding to those cryptic milestones, where the journeys of obsolete associations had commenced and where they had left off, never explicating in which new direction they are now heading...

in nubibus

2010-05-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

It is peculiar how exhaustively the sentiments of love, sorrow, friendship and hate expire without a shade of their former existence. Passion dissipates in gratification or transmutes in suppression. I am far more stoical to everything. I expect the bare minimum; passively accept whatsoever gets thrown on my path, less disillusioned when expectations shatter, realizing the worthlessness of certain things we value and assured that most affairs yearned for, would prove valueless and ordinary when acquired.

I am at peace with myself, not in the state of optimum elation but unmutilated by specters of obscured past or the opaque, ambiguous future; past and future are for the moment identically forgotten.

Whenever I looked around I saw life, absolute and replete in all its infinite forms, the life that disclaimed me. This existence wasn’t called living, with mind helplessly manacled and trammeled in events which can not mercifully be wrapped into oblivion but which constantly deter and exasperate you by resurfacing in varied forms even in the present.

Down the familiar chambers of perception, I now sense my sanity ebbing with the compelling movement of currents drawn in by the loss of everything I’d once cherished and across these glittering rivulets of instinct, my resolve, a deplete and stark amateur is torturously attempting to swim, in the process achieving certain degree of mastery and at the same time forlornly abandoned to being transported to the ocean.

Apathy.. ?

2010-04-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the recent storm, there are no intermittent gusts, the air smells of a strange commotion, as if a dynamo at the core of the earth has burned out all vegetation. My eyes have grown used to cornucopia of puppet shows and carousels that life exhibits and I can see how logic fabricates logic, the distant logic inflaming the nearer one. Destiny’s wrath! A nobody who had been somebody is nobody again: the preposterous future of a fabled spirit. The diabolical burning.. tears glistening the creases of being and me, in charge of my own life once again. But there is no ambition in it.

Life thrives best on ancient faith, timeless hopes, and illusions. Once again I can touch that old apathy engulfing me, fresh, sharp numbness recoiling and lulling the senses, determined all by itself to flourish inside.. accompanied by a certain hopelessness which often strikes when you had abandoned yourself to an intoxicating reverie or accustomed your eyes to certain pleasing visions in russet beads, just then .. it declares itself like a gelid wheeze emanating from an immense grotto wherein discords wail, it’s a fixation, incidental, unaided by volition. And then a piercing longing which manifests into the presence of the unattainable… of what .. ?

Each secret longs to be disclosed, each love yearns to be betrayed, everything sacred must be desecrated, heaven and earth conspire that all good beginnings should come to a bad end. End : repeat.. it continues. A bird which wishes to soar above this set pattern should have strong wings. It is a deplorable drama to witness the misfits bruised, fatigued, plummeting back to earth again and again.

Whose fault is this? Rules last only as long as the energy to enforce them. Our emotions are rulers. They assail us like robbers, they mock all our resolutions. What you thought was rock becomes a soap bubble, light and transparent, suspended in the air as its colors are admired and its too late till you grasp its fragility. Melodies fuse together and become the beat of destruction. Where does all music go?

An awful silence reigns throughout these subterraneous regions where a sanguine voice had dropped an octave, those notes are melting into dark grey visions, turning an empty block inside my head as I drift out of consciousness, except now and then some blasts of wind vibrate the doors I had passed just a while ago, and which, grating on the rusty hinges, are re-echoed through that long labyrinth of darkness.. where I have left burning a single tallow candle which would soon begin to flicker…

metamorphosis

2009-12-14T04:12:00.000-08:00

This winter is schedule, delicately shaped, not a life. I can’t say anything about what I want from this season. The sun smiles in a hazy blur, assembles dust, yawns in the twilight and then goes. There is nothing of real consequence to distinguish the summers and winters. The details were once different in the lives of every season. The stories were always the same. Navigating the inevitable differences in the language of wind and the variations of sun and moon, I am forced to conclude that the novelty of December this year resides primarily in the altered mood.

My existence is reduced to a collection of sounds: the whine of the clock’s tic tic, the smoldering sonance of the new brand Gudang Garam, the hum of a lazy day rewinding certain events, the laments of spams in my cell phone while expecting the melody of that ringtone of a certain caller.. In my exhaustion, fear, and pain accumulated over years, I’ve come to treasure these moments when I can just lie down and forget, when no one is hurting me, when I have someone who listens, chattering as if we have endless time, pining for that sound of strong orderly breathing, as though the person on the other end is lying beside me, with lips pressed against my ears. Such comforts is unexpected, we are so intense, so wrapped up in one another.. I had hoped that the sudden passion will burn itself out. I am not so sure anymore.

I had betrayed myself with talents unexploited, voyages never taken, promises unfulfilled. There had seemed nothing left of me until – oh why in my lovers must I always search the broken image of my own self? The setting moon was like the early moon of the dusk, a vaporific bedeviled disc, and the sky draining of dark washed with gray but from distant balconies came the throaty rumble of pigeons. I had kept up my search for someone who could tell me at least a little about the ‘other side’. I didn’t find my informant. He has found me.

Now as I look at the foggy dawn, my heart isn’t cold with the death of love. I no longer wish to create new categories of sins or expand the old ones. I think about order, stability and other extremes, the many small, sad, silly extremes that can make up a settled life. I don’t expect miracles, a faithful reminiscence of certain expressions on that face are more than enough to animate my cloistered life. Missteps can poison the purity of a future, the only reason I may occasionally be less than forthcoming. On bed every night, I think about the dolls I had as a little girl, the homes we’d set up for them, embroidered silk scarves, and try to banish the shadows of panic that I still cant help feeling when I think of marriage.

predicament..

2009-10-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

Both these blogs are two dead things that refuse to stay buried. It’s become increasingly difficult to update both of 'em esp when there is so little to write these days(and barely anyone, who reads). However, every time I visit my own blog (to reply comments et al) I hate to see the same old post. My words have lost that spunk and fire (they never had) and that broad streak of recurring orneriness (bah!) which goes with the nimble drama, getting played 25/7 [sic] inside my head. I wish someone could hear the protracted rumble of this earthquake and loyally map the territory where the major tremors occur.

I feel deluged by the blunt force of existence, the majesty and briefness of life and emotions. I dream of sophisticated disasters- all sorts of mean chemical fires and special catastrophes. I speculate also on my peculiar malady, is it part of what’s happening to our generation? and the whole crazy world? Is it dark forces breaking loose.. ? Such involved speculations annoy me. I’m a simple case, I assure myself, a regular person, somewhat marred but on balance. I had some rough moments but I shook them off. I do my duty, I think cricket and sambhar-vadas, take pride in being alone and single.

In other words, I don’t have much in life to feel superior about and I don’t mind admitting it. I can string words and the computer spells it. I can’t write pious scripture ridden homilies but when I am nasty I can turn it on. Reflection and distance granted me perspectives and wisdom, after every small-long break I returned more assured than ever that this blog and I were perfect for each other but frankly my recent restlessness outside this wretched cauldron has introduced me varied vocations. I have nothing new to crow about. I’ve combed through all that array of junk that I’d called ‘my experience’, ranging from low down, high-octane farce to dark erotic and neurotic language but there seems no truer version of that same old ancient tale. Having a blog you updated painstakingly for over four years being stuck is one thing, but having to kill it is another- that is an excruciating thing for a blogger to go through.

And then there are practical consequences, how to do it cleanly and painlessly, for instance, where to dispose these crazy thoughts? what to do when the urge to spew words had erupted and spread like a bodily contagion. I don’t exactly know what I want, perhaps a man, bookish but not some wimp, a guy who at least plays kabbadi, and somebody with some kind of honesty not some pretender or run-of-the mill suck up. Notwithstanding, is it possible to talk about life anywhere, the way I do here, weaving omissions and lies in a pleasant inebriation? I read somewhere, regret is an unnecessary emotion.. I don't want to regret. In short, I need a life. etc. etc.. there are so many things to take into consideration. …

Fine.. its time to step from this bourbon haze and plunge into a deep sleep, dreaming about the empty spaces between stars…

certain kinds of bloggers

2009-10-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

I am bored and have a dearth of blogs to read therefore I took the burden of ‘discovering meaningful blogs’ on my frail shoulders and after blog-hopping for a while I decided that most bloggers can be classified into the following. Read on.,

1) Copywriters/crafters – They are the ones who excel in copy-pasting. Few lines quoting a poet/writer/philosopher/anyone and 2-3 lines of their own and they are done. There are others who don’t even bother to scribble 2-3 lines themselves. They happily post an entire email forward which all of us are tortured with in our inboxes. (I delete them without reading). An erstwhile friend had insisted that these forwards are their way of showing that ‘they remember’, an easy way to stay in touch. Now tell me, if you get a fwd with 100 email ids tagged along, do you even care that you were remembered ?

But I am digressing .. there are subclasses within them. some post inspirational forwards, others jokes and so n so forth.

2) Letter-writers/epistolary bloggers – They write blogs as if they are writing letters to a gallery of audience. Something like, “I am doing well, so is my mum and my aunt, (who is perhaps visiting) or my girl-friend kicked me” type of things. More or less, starting with “Hi friends, How are you?” then continuing with their oft repeated tales. Their posts are similar with few details shuffled – for ex.. if the aunt was visiting in the previous post, she would have left by now, or if the gf kicked him, he would be sore, so the commentators will continue to sympathize and motivate him to find a new girl.

3) Exhibitionists, the too-much-information types – According to them, its their online journal/diary wherein they jot their day-today activity and are so precise that they might even conclude the post with; I’ve to go pee so the rest of it will be jotted later.

4) The paragons – Some of them are so effing excelled in their respective fields that they blog to make the inept you ‘their equals.’ They will give you tips on how to write, walk, dress, talk, love, and all drat. The ‘womenkind’ mostly inform you that wearing pink stilettos with green evening-gown is a social crime and the menkind who are usually the tech-pros, enlighten you that firefox is the name of a browser and it isn’t an extinct animal like dinosaurs.

5) Movers and shakers – I call them movers and shakers coz they have to keep their blog moving by shaking you into commenting. If they did not exist you might have totally missed the significance of an important day and then they might lose their rank, hard-earned popularity/ pals/commentators so they just write anything to increase their post counts. It can be one line like “Happy Diwali” or two lines like – Today is Diwali. So Happy Diwali. Whatever.

6) Professionals – Their sole aim is to increase the traffic by hook or crook. Someone told them that they can become tatas and ambanis(in term of assets) sitting at home ergo their blog is infested with all kind of ads and they even give you tips on – how to earn through blogs.

7) Brooders – they are usually morbid people and are convinced that blogging has the power to cure their bipolar depression symptoms, and to make matters worse, they are introverts. Their writing has the power to activate your lachrymal glands.

8) attention cravers - They try all they can to grab attention, be it writing on volatile political scenarios, making confessions of their sex lives, instigating you by rabid remarks on a caste, community or gender, city, anything which gets on the nerves of surfers and leads into some kind of heated debate. Their mantra ‘any publicity is good publicity”

9) Flirts – They are here to impress someone from the opposite sex. It’s not their sole fishing territory where they hope to be hooked. They have a shaadi.com profile which they regularly update and a mollycoddling mother who keeps finding them matches. They mostly write about their man-woman hunt or their dating experiences and in the process .. do I need to elaborate?

10) Thinkers, philosophers – they are the spiritual gurus. So what if they do not have a following in the real life and could not mint money by imparting sermons? They assume that they have admirers on the web. They write as if they are standing/sitting on a pedestal and addressing the fellow mortals. If you have the luck, they might visit you and sermonize on your own space. (Some of them are referred as agony aunts/uncles.)

11) Niche band - they are health freaks, fitness gurus, recipe writers, photographers who add varied hues to the emblazoned paraphernalia and have some avid followers mostly of their own kind.

12) Wannabes – And finally, the great poets and writers, who reckon they are the next best thing after Marquez or Byron. They could not find a publisher but once discovered they will cause a tsunami in the literary world and hence for the moment they are wasting themselves on a blog which no one reads.

Disclaimer : - I belong to one, in fact more than one category myself. Its written for fun and if you actually read this crap then kudos.. you can suggest me some other types that I might have missed ..

quest or something like it..

2009-09-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

I feel like an old woman, in black cloak, trying to hold imaginary readers, if any, for half a minute with some long phthisical tale of distress, which they listen to with many a bob of the head, smack of finger tips on the keyboard and other symptoms of impatience, though afterwards I know it was a most faithful and circumstantial monologue, which I forget sooner than the rest. I love this masquerade of a wise woman, sententious; and full of profound remarks on shallow subjects.

I am not alone in this vain exercise; dwelling upon the minute recollections of irrevocable past imparts pleasure. Absorbed in melancholia as I am, I am overlooked here for seeking relief in this manner, however tenuous and temporary, in the rambling monotones. To my blunted fancy these trifles assume an adventitious importance, for they shaped my dubious destiny which soon overshadows us.

Life is far from over and I am not yet inured to suffering; certainly I have to see many similar scenes, much more of the flotsam and jetsam of the human tide. At times passion would be invisible but I’d catch a flicker, burning against the dark hulk of the littoral, modulated by a mist of flying spindrift. Love isn't requisite, it will happen or it won’t, but to gather as many pearls as possible, and to give out as few, is the desideratum ..

remnant

2009-09-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

(of a tasteless life)

Yesterday was inconsequential like any other day but it was my birthday. Apart from my parents, seven people wished me. Yes, I counted. One blog friend mailed a few minutes before the clock struck 12 another friend acquired on blogs called few minutes after the clock struck 12. Three precious pals again from blogs wished me on a networking site.

From the ‘real life’ my latest ‘ex’ sent two-three mails. He can not call coz of circumstances beyond control for another 3-4 months. And then another ‘ex’ who is actually my longest surviving friend for over 12 years gave a tinkle in the evening. He never forgets to wish and I never forget to be surprised, and it goes on..

This birthday was memorable for one reason. I was expecting the 10th wisher to be my sister. However she evaded! I can say I am heartbroken. A half-forgotten life replayed in the mind recapturing happier times. Over the years it was sis who made birthdays special. I could have expected my parents to overlook but not she *sigh *

The day in itself was nothing different from others. Birthdays can be worse than usual days if they remain a usual day. Sachin made the onset of 15th special by hitting the century on 14th and getting MOM and MOS awards. Till about 11:30 pm I was re-living the moments on news channels and was relatively in a happier frame of mind to welcome 15th. The day began and ended but in between was a huge blur. Not like an everyday blur but bleaker, muzzier ‘coz it happened to be my birthday! I nursed this malady with ache and anguish and a curiously satisfying kind of mourning – satisfying in that I had counted and introspected those whom I had lost in my longish short life yet again and in so doing was distracted from this blur. ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be a tad different from 14th and 16th coz it was 15th’ and ‘why was I at home on 15th evening’ were the usual thoughts but I shrugged them off.. aah big deal. After all, it was just another day, which signified getting a year older.

The blur reminds me, I haven’t smoked at all for five days in a row. I needed my alter ego badly yesterday but I pulled it off. How ? I reminisced a poem I had written on ‘her’ (cigarette) by that title almost a year ago – esp these lines -

“when I throw open
‘em benighted windows,
stand in the breeze
preferring to breathe
fumes from within, I know
I can outsmart her
with the aid of logic, analogy
and assorted techniques of
condescension.”

Birthdays can resurrect certain specks and dots like a rumor from the underside of the history. They have a funeral like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring twigs, of shady alcoves and lengthening vistas, which make me feel that rumination is after all an exercise in the stifled air, and can be innocuous if one returned from it with a heap of ashes. The idea of the above verse had occurred to me when I observed a cast away ‘lighted stick’ "burning herself out" I am hopeful I will too .. someday.. some place .. all I need now.. is a spark ..

Phon(e)y Tone

2009-09-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

I am having a terrible time with MTNL broadband these days. However 'these days' is a misnomer. I've had an MTNL connection ever since the dial-up days and it was always pathetic. You switch your computer on then pray to God/Satan/whoever expecting the worst. If it’s in good mood, which is seldom, it obliges you with an uninterrupted stretch of 2-3 hours and if its cranky, which is often, it leaves you crankier. I wonder why I persisted. Of late it's been sheer torture. Every week twice the connection fails altogether and every day for at least few hours the line is knocked out. In short its a waste of time and one reason why I am not able to reply comments. I have to moderate coz of a certain moron who posts filthy messages ergo they need to be published manually and by the time I am done my link is gone and I am too irritated to even consider blog-hopping.

I possess a three year old outmoded cell phone so employing it to connect is another far cry. Till date I've owned only two mobile handsets. The first was seven years ago when I acquired my very first cellular connection which was Idea! Over the years idea became another torment coz of the number of spam messages they sent. I don't like using comical ringtones, hellotunes/dialertones and have always stuck to the good ole tring tring and most unsolicited junks were related to advising you to set your tone to silly Hindi movie numbers or dating services with promises of getting you hooked by the weekend or suggesting to subscribe to cricket scores of matches which India always managed to lose. To make matters worse my poor antique handset stopped working perhaps coz it was sick of being idle as it was rarely used for ‘talking’ or maybe coz it was exhausted as it kept buzzing whole day gulping the spams which I deleted in bunch when they exceeded it’s storage. Then I wanted to sever ties with everyone and disappear completely from the memory of my so-called friends who never called but were listed in my short phone-book since eternity mocking my loneliness.

About three years ago I got a new Airtel number and a fresh handset almost simultaneously. Now there is another small story as to why I opted for airtel. In those days airtel's brand ambassadors were Sachin Tendulkar and Shahrukh Khan. I adulate Sachin and I hate Hakloo errr Shahrukh. I make it a point to not purchase any product that that self-proclaimed(or media-promulgated) Bad-shooh sells on the other hand I try my best to consume the merchandise our Mater-Blaster endorses. Naturally I was in a fix.. eventually I adjudicated that if the Airtel connection manuals and activation cards were beaming with my idol's divine countenance I'll take it and if they bore the other ‘scorned one's’ furrowed mug I'll drop it! Thankfully that entire connection- related packet donned a graceful photograph of my Sachin (I still have it!) in a rather striking pose. I got my airtel with renewed vigor which is also free of spams as I barely get those annoying notifications for useless services.

I have neither friends nor foes in the (un)real world. I don't wish to stay in touch or cut the ‘untouch’ with anyone and none of my old acquaintances have my three year old 'new' number so there was no need to modify the handset since the much needed 'makeover' neither was any need of staying abreast with the new technology coz I am technologically challenged. My phone never rings, I get no spams but sometimes when I am alone I wish I had my old Idea with at least some spams for company but then you can't manipulate everything the way you want.

Coming to the point, I declare, this MTNL broadband should be renamed “FRAUDBAND”. The subscribers should be paid for braving it and I for one should be awarded for putting up with MTNL internet connection in all its variations or rather caricatures for so many years. My variant of fraudband has expired and I have no apt title to grant it posthumously except a heave of cold sigh. I am using my landline dial-up to post this blog. I guess its high time I bid goodbye to MTNL. It should take a couple of days to get a new connection and meanwhile the ole one if it works ..I should be around.. or I'll be back with my rants as soon as I have a new connection .. wish me luck .. that finally my broadband woes end and airtel broadband is as good as their cellular connection though Sachin isn't their brand ambassador anymore...

Euterpean

2009-09-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

On popular demand (have three regular readers and all of them demanded.. hence .. ) I am continuing with this charade, listing my favorite words. As the title suggests, the theme is euterpean, which means relating/pertaining to music. This word is the adjective form of Euterpe, the Greek muse of music and lyric poetry, also of flute playing, joy and pleasure. So euterpean can also mean pleasing.

Then there is an almost obsolete word, quadrivium; subdivision of seven liberal arts in medieval universities, which comprised arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Etymologically it means a place where four roads meet.

Hmm.. I had tried playing guitar twice in my life. I couldn’t graduate from strings to chords despite repeated pursual then I gave up. I christened myself Aria on blogs and found some solace in believing that at least I can attempt to ‘write’ music.

Aria obviously means solo music and Arietta or Ariette denotes a small aria. So if Aria (read me) ever has an Arietta (small me, read daughter) she will definitely name her Aria. I love the word Aria.

Another word I like is chanson, which means a song. Originally it means French song or an instrumental composition which was set on popular poetry and had melodramatic characters. (esp in the Middle Ages)

I guess some of my melodramatic poetrics can be set into chansons. Ahh .. I wish ..

Arpeggio also called broken chord, or a chord played in arpeggio, in which individual tones are sounded one after the other and not simultaneously are common in both piano and harp music.

Roulade, wherein there is rapid run of notes, sung to one syllable.

These two words, arpeggio and roulade and pretty common in classic literature, as there are often references of sirens playing piano or singing chansons in their contralto(lowest singing voice) or soprano(highest singing voice) voice. These two words(contralto and soprano), as you know are used for female voice and the latter of course can also be used for 'baby-boys'.

Talking of literature, one delightful word is Bel canto, which means beautiful singing, and it is also the title of a famous book written by Anne Patchett. I am not a fan of the book but I love that word which has Italian roots.

Another lovely word of Italian origin is A cappella which is a vocal music without any instruments. It of course has modern usage and probably means a vocal performance of varied styles..

I trust that most of us excel in that last form or so we think...

Note :
Let me add here that I am an autodidact. I haven’t taken any course in semantics or linguistics. Therefore kindly double-check before using the words I’ve listed here, before, or shall provide in the future. I remember them from memory and try to render their meanings to the best of my ability. Feel free to offer corrections or additions. I am also learning. I hope you like my attempt and enjoy the company of beautiful words...

prolixity

2009-08-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

Since I am not much into writing these days and too much into reading I thought of sharing my passion for words, which is assuming that somebody even has time to read this goddamn blog... however that's not the point.. say.. I just want to compile this small list 'coz I have nothing better to do ..

my grammar sucks but I am proud of my vocab.. this passion of learning new words esp digging the obsolete kind never wanes. These are some of my favorites that I'd love to use in poetry sometime.. I haven't used them in my writing so far..

the first word is subintelligitur ..

it means something that need not be conveyed verbally but is understood all the same.

Isn't that a wonderful word? I acquired it recently. I am subscribing to at least a dozen 'word of the day lists' and this word was mailed to me by some such site, don't remember which. This is quite a rare word as is nowhere to be found in online dictionaries.

nudiustertian ..

what a delightful word! It simply means day before yesterday; is generally used to denote something that is latest. Rarely used, of course.

versipellous -

configuration or nature which changes frequently.

another rare word. I picked it up from a classic book and discovered that it doesn't exist in most dictionaries.

from another classic book I learned the word

flambeaux, which is an obsolete alternate spelling for flambeaus, the plural of flambeau, meaning a decorative candlestick or flaming torch formerly used for nightly illumination.

Words likes these are phantasmagorical and I whim to be transported back in times and behold such charming scenes, a nightly possession of equipage illuminated by flambeaux stuttering beside a turnpike. What a sight that should be!

Lutestring was a type of stout and glossy silk, used by women for dresses or ribbons.

Then again I desire to touch this fabric or watch an 18th century lady attired in lutestrings.

Talking of 18th century attires another interesting word is

roquelaire, an obsolete spelling for roquelaure, a knee length cloak, lined with bright silk or fir trim that 18th century men wore.

and rounding off with my most favorite word.

catafalque - a stand upon which the coffined remains repose during the funeral service.

Eerie! The way it is pronounced and the sound is lovely, irrespective of the meaning.

Do you have a favorite word ?

Inferences

2009-08-15T11:19:00.000-07:00

Things never seem as bad as they were when you are away from them. I feel so .. normal. Normalized me, ridiculous and wonderful. When you return your fingertips are black with old dust, and no doubt new inferences. I am hiddenly flush with the mountain air, memories of the falling quiet, where there was no sky or earth only mist lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the senses and then my favorite hour, when the phantom light of the moon imparted on all objects a shadowy tinge and a somber hue. I was elated to find I’d gone to sleep when the earth was camouflaged in subtle shades of gold and beige and brown and had awakened in a world that shimmered silver.

Even somewhat grateful to be depressed and without anything like the will power to set the mildest fantasy in motion.. I've bought with me a bag full of junks that I pick all the time. I rarely adorn them but its one of those vices I don’t wish to give up. For a few trinkets and linens the fossil might be restored to life and then my acquaintance with living, whatever it had been, could begin anew though with the same old, rusty pain deep inside the chest.

Talking of vices, I am trying to give up smoking for the first time. I gave it up for three months unconsciously and had started again. This time around, I am resolute. There is no reason why I’m quitting 'coz I love the after-taste of nicotine. It sometimes seems to me as if in its nacre-glossed odor one can behold all the sins of the world, passing through your eyes in a cheap display and to top it up with a lovely fog of wine in the brain; exquisite.

The simple cadence of an everyday occurrence, the complex strains and motions we repeat, the monotony of living, sigh sigh .. When you live, you must either in your reasoning start from higher more important places than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their usual meaning or you must not reason at all. So I won’t reason. Life for me would be complete when its both vivid and obscure, full of argot and swelled with archaicism..

Rupture..

2009-07-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

I have been on a roll.. have filled Terminal Moraine with my recent scribblings. Its good that I am dabbling again, after such a long time, but I have no clue why I write. My words disgorge one after another like skyrockets. I play with them. I wish they become symbols, and symbols relate to and develop multiplicity and interweaving of themes, each of which augment on a rotten pile of my quest and confuse me further. Who the hell wishes to find something ? Not me. I wish to get lost forever. Everything is tainted for me and I have given up on retrieval.

The molten July heat was so intimately invasive that it crept into my ears, neck and even my thoughts. It has become pleasanter. It rains, pelts, the drops spewing horizontally like bullets in a shelling, a lead curtain of waterfall blown sideways. The variety of rhythm the patter creates seems to be of a nervier pace, has more edge, more drive. It’s a kind of rain which makes me insidiously anxious, in the way of some recollected alarm, a warning, or turning point. It usually rains here like an ordinary downpour, a thing of chance. I wasn’t waiting. The smell of rain is all around, the heat ebbing out of concrete. I still like the scent of soil but now I hate rains.

More rain awaits me, where I am going. Its going to be a small vacation, amidst great watery sunsets, wild frenzies of blossoming plants, suns colliding with stars, wisps of carelessly cavorting hair. I’ll be back in a week and continue this mundane business of writing vitriolic poetry, if poetry it is.. wishing they turn into exquisite morsels, delicately layered, each crowned with its own maltose, in the form of a tiny flower…

Yawn......

2009-07-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have been blogging for over four years. I always had a knack for finding weirdoes who chased me out, posted obnoxious comments; threatened me by sending emails, some even wrote blogs on me and did funny things to grab my attention. I’d rather not mention each and everything. Then the moral polices were never comfortable with my outlook. I don’t sit here making confessions on my sex-life or the lack of it but I guess there is that something (I can’t put my finger on) which perhaps strikes ‘em raw chords of certain self- appointed moralists or plain jerks who love abusing women wherever they can find them.

Thankfully blogspot so far had been free from unwanted intrusion but keeping my previous experiences in mind, despite repeated requests from certain blogger-pals to allow non-blogger comments I hadn’t budged. I did not want to get into that old rut. I can answer ‘em in the same vein but I neither have time or inclination to waste my time on a lost cause. I’m not the woman who hides from such swines. I am a Delhi woman and naturally have dealt with so many ruffians that I've lost their count. But then there is no point arguing with virtual morons. I don’t wish to turn this page into muck. I certainly got better things to do ergo I’d rather not reform those nitwits who don’t have anything better to do with their sorry lives as they are beyond reclamation.

Anyway, this post is only to answer those numbskulls who have posted certain sexually explicit comments here advising me to look for dicks/orgasms and what not. I deleted those comments simply ‘coz I won’t give those guys the pleasure of beholding their slime in print. I never asked them to drop by here and comment on my lifestyle. I can see that they neither got life nor style. And then I pity such cowards who don't have the guts to reveal themselves, who talk about dicks but hide behind pseudo-names or post anonymous comments after closing their profiles.

I don’t like moderating my meager comments but I am left with no choice. Henceforth, the comments shall be moderated and those sleazeballs - royally IGNORED.

S.O.S (same old shyt)

2009-07-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

I had thought of reviving this blog many times whenever I’d been procrastinating. I miss writing stuff with least effort without the pain of composing, grammar and all drat. Sometimes its enough only to hear the rattling of the keyboard esp when anything meaningful doesn’t seem coming. I felt comfortable here, my first blog, I could just be me but then the façade of poet got the better of me. I didn’t feel like rambling ergo this page stood waiting…

Last six months were tough, too tough. I’d rather not talk about it. The only silver lining - ‘hope’. That too has crashed. Strangely everyday I feel calmer and calmer. Those fits of rage and passion .. my constant and only companions.. where are they? Well then .. perhaps I am maturing ..as the cliché goes, better late than never. These have been my thoughts, and they have been most pleasing thoughts for I feel once again like a woman with her hands on the reins of her own beast.

Not all of us are made to be half of a couple. Happy or sad, I’ve been content on my own.
This saga is never-ending. I never ‘look’ and still.. I end up with identical clowns every now and then. It isn’t even funny anymore. Those moody voices that can well up emotions on command, skilled at making promises never intended to keep. Phew. The familiar aftermath of these repeated shenanigans is sulk. A volcanic drama of repulsion and attraction ensues – bitter cracks, remorseful apologies, sudden clashes, tender reconciliations, educational tirades, furtive fondlings, weeping, embraces, wrenching emotional confusion, and then late one night there came the discovery, the revelation, the breakthrough.

Excitement turned to a sick sensation at the thought of all those evenings being lost, going sour, of having to walk back unsatisfied the way it had come. This time around it’s different. Which had once seemed so full of melancholy and irony now seems to hold only a fixed, meaningless irony. Soon I was overcome with laughter pouring forth from some cavernous core of understanding deeper even than my fears, despite all the unanswered questions never had anybody seemed less of a menace to me or a more pathetic suitor. He struck me instead as a great idea breathing with life. Damn this that and everybody .. for once you can’t bog me down .. I’ll take a leaf out of your book and move on .. or rather run on ..

Only if you can make your parents understand. Then mothers!

“you never co-operate, at least don’t impede.”

So I ponder.. Visions of my future begin to contract and then blur, as I become aware of my age. What the heck! Let them have this pleasure too. I am ready to share those disappointments only if they aren’t my makings, for a change. So go ahead take a plunge

I decide to give them six months.

“Alright ma I give you six months. If you and dad find me a man who is compatible well and good.. I’ll marry but if you can’t then you’ll leave me alone.. let me be and never pester me.”

We sign this unwritten deal. She is already smiling and hurries on to give dad, what she terms ‘good news’

I am happy now. She is happy. And then it’s a win-win situation for me. If it works out this way, why not. Loneliness sucks, after all. I am so very often irritated by my own company! I’ll let him run my life, arrange it perfectly by height and color. He’ll sit in the passenger seat with that censorious expression on his face and dictate every turn I take, and every shift of gears. The anticipation of these late efflorescence seem radiation of the tranquil scene, a landscape of conjugal bliss!.

Hadn’t I thought of giving everything a ‘try’ when I was ‘younger’? I don’t think I am old enough to forget that. Then all this dissipates into vapor, a perfumed vapor that wafts into folds, like draped silk. If this try ends up being another trial.. at least my folks would leave me alone to wander .. anything to get rid of their constant naggings .. as if one can’t survive without companions. I am only afraid of ghosts when I am alone.. the rest I can manage.. I know I can ..

A misty veil like absence stirs even in spacious emptiness above all those imagined times, as if ghosts are playing in the nowhere. Ethereal humming. The noise of nothingness. I’ll be free. I am alone. But I am not alone.
Observed so assiduously from here, trying to sublimate all else, I retrace in memory intensifying a feeling of having traveled to the end, the falling off.

Moving.....

2007-03-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

I'm bored with this blog. I need a new look , something fresh before I lose interest in blogging altogether but I don't want to change this page. This was my first ever blog and I'll definitely come back here to post again.
I've decided to move for a while and have posted a poem here ..

http://terminal-moraine.blogspot.com/

I hope a handful of readers, who read my stuff won't mind clicking here for a change and keep visiting!! :)

Take care and happy blogging :D

A brief fissure of time

2007-03-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

"I am a good confidant. My secret is never advice, just listen. Repeat, ratify, sympathize, query but never give an opinion."

He did not look appalled, when he said that, nor superior, did not scoff, was not bored, did not care to overanalyze her. She was supposed to pick the cue and continue with her monologues. But there really was nothing more to say. They could go on, he and she, sitting quietly in a public park, holding hands, gazing at the sunset, sipping coke, with the streaks of gray broadening on their brows, while the familiar seasons came and went. Her fingers spoke to his fingers independently and in a language only flesh understands. She was ready to cover her sensibilities with a black sheet and give wholly, like a blind person to the sense of touch.

"I wasted my days with dreams, worries, empty fantasies and locked myself in affairs that had no future."
Only now as she spoke, did she realize, how lonely she had been, how oppressed by the fact that she seldom exchanged a word with anyone. He stretched beside her, strangely near and divinely distant, a cosmic illumination of the volume without a beginning and without an end.

"The past no longer exists and the future is yet to come. The conclusion is that nothing exists beyond the moment."
She talked and mused simultaneously, giving him a prolonged view of her meditative lashes. A light from the sunset beyond the clouds played about her hair. So entrancing in fact, was this phase of sentimental suspense. He experienced a new sensation, indefinable yet strong, as he went through an appalling catalogue of her faults, arriving at his conclusion that she wasn’t in the least attractive. And therein lay her charm. She was charmingly eccentric, the woman for sentimental parenthesis, not for commitments. The specimens he gathered into his museum of memories always had some mark of rare and chosen.

He was in his own way a philanthropic, not with money but with love. There was a chill moment of hesitance in her heart’s pulsing when he moved his fingers on her bare arms and she shrunk back.
" I only wish you would obey every whim of mind .."
He, like some diabolic spirit, had seemed to know exactly what her sensitive point was and had gone straight to it, with the purpose of ridiculing her and summarizing her secret self in all it’s foolish yearning. She felt painfully exposed, the fact that she was somehow not quite coarse enough to bow to her desires and yet not quite fine enough to transcend them.

"I want only beginnings .. the lightness that all beginnings have …"
Her voice rolled out in heavily muffled phrases, like something amplified through clouds. The phonetic seduction, enthralling him even more. He wished he had the language to enter her thoughts. We are recreated in the imagination of another person – by entering that person’s life as fully as possible. Entering it – imaginatively, intellectually, physically and emotionally with all the conflicts that is inevitable.

The fragrance of her body, the glow of her hair, the light of her eyes and the sadness of her face. Even she felt a pang of hunger. She had come back to life, with all its needs. A thought stirred in him as he moved closer toward her. He watched it rise in uneasy fascination. ‘She requires a lighter touch, a phrase that could delight and yet contain a barb to remind her that all beginnings have an end.’ She, ignorant of the language of his thoughts thus not distracted by the meaning of what that moment stood for, felt all the more keenly, the subtle bliss.

Night enclosed them in a velvet embrace. Time was imaginary. Hardly in a quarter of hour his words 'obey every whim’ had woven magic passes about her and with timid avidity she had surrendered to the sense of returning life. She seemed at last to cast off her haunting torment and abandon herself to the strange new sense of happiness and safety. That day was finished like the flipped page of a book. It would be ages before they would make it through the evening and back, retracing the way and then turning off.

---
Six months later in the same park, an edge of autumn was in the air. The sky was crimson in the east, a pale blue-gray above with hazy strokes of purple and grizzly clouds that blended into each other like water paints. She was sitting beside him, staring at nothing with the absorbed silence of a child or of a silver haired old lady engaged in memory. He tried to experience the reassuring tranquility of silence and decided, he would eventually have to speak. A word had to crack through the voluminous stillness she had created in their life. He wondered what it would be. The beginning of a new relationship in the same old setting? Everything, including the heap of dry leaves in each corner, proclaimed the world of bare beginnings. He had almost forgotten how soft her voice was.. her face a warm flower ..

He looked around trying to pick pieces of their short past, like fragments in the street. When his expression had grown so thin and so sour that it was about to split, he said in a voice meant to be sonorous.
"I tried to contact you every day, you did not take my calls, did not answer my mails."
She remained quiet and trim with her fashion-blank look.

"Why? Why?" It is not possible to describe how he said that. Half question, half echo, a total wondering what to say next.

Her expression remained calm, as the memory of an ardent winter evening, long gone by, dazzled her eyes … Her future would be burdened with long arrears of remembrance but she had to go. She could not resign herself to seeing him smudge the whiteness of her early illusions ..
"I don’t know why but sometimes I vanish"

A pause like a solstice ..

2007-02-28T05:03:00.000-08:00

My love yearned for betrayal-
an ugly finality
and no decent way -
of its disposal.
My nuances were bubbles
suspended in the air
until you grasp their fragility
and shammed portrayal.

The role of an injured lover -
standing pure in decay
was so becoming
of my rosy complexion
for it is an art,
made up like all others
thriving best -
on ancient illusions.

I can offer reasons
but they would be lies
give different analogies
from art and life
Do not judge me,
I might as well say
that the moon was full
and so I howled.

Where does it end ?
I’m afraid of tomorrow,
of later, of forever.
Of new feelings
fresh, sharp and hurting
springing up like vines
in the branches of my blood.

Hurry, our eternity is brief –
I seek you again
for a role reversal.

The Sojourn

2007-02-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

I’d conceived a dreamy passion to see many places, with my own eyes. I was simply the heart, the great pulsing organ that could bleed with sorrow or make little fishlike leaps of joy. It was a period, the end of a phase. I knew million words, which have since escaped me. I feel lighter in their absence. If those words were still with me, I would’ve been dead by an overdose of vocabulary. The atmosphere of new surrounding is heavy to manipulate. I prefer to remain in my own city. I’ve nothing to do here either but it’s easier to be indifferent.

I stirred with resentment when I was forced to spend two days in the city of x. It could well be called y or z. What difference does it make? Placing this event within a particular time or place will make it tawdrier and more ordinary. For me, it was a decaying town congealed in silence, like phantoms of a fair from vanished time. In it’s unlit & dilapidated streets, nobody seemed ever to be about.

I declined the invitation to stay with a young friend but he insisted to find me a hotel. I finished an entire pack of cigarettes, while he drove his newly purchased luxury car. Each time I started to say something, the words stuck my throat. A few words that I said required no answer. He talked and I hummed. "Why do you smoke so much?" He asked. "It keeps me indifferent." I answered.

---
I fiddled with the remote of an ancient TV-set in my hotel-room. Everything seemed all of a piece with that wretched place. But wasn’t I guilty of the same wretchedness? Life must create more life or become death! Is there no death? Or is there no life? I stepped out for a stroll or a glorious plunge into the unknown. It seemed to me that nobody understood in the least what I felt, but that somewhere just out of reach there was someone who did, and whom I must find or despair. There was warm buoyancy in the air that made me feel young and remember what it was like to skip home from school.

I found myself facing an obsolete joint with gabled roof, columns and ornate door. The air was balmy, dense with scents of wine, olive oil and gardenias. I walked in a trance through an elaborate staircase with carvings and a red velvet banister. A soft music greeted me and I occupied a spot in the corner. The place was full. Then occurred the same thing that always occurred when I was part of a crowd. They all became a family and nobody noticed me. Waiters crossed my table absent-mindedly. I might just well had been a ghost. I waved to order a glass of wine. A lugubrious waiter served with the mournful solemnity of a retired chief of some defeated army.

Then I saw her. Amid such odors, she was sunk in plush chaise with a determined pomp surrounded by the admiring eyes of a middle-aged man. She seemed both young and aging; as if she’d just emerged from an illness or a crisis. It was a face that must have seemed, long ago, cut out for violent, even malevolent passion. But years of abstinence had expunged the passion. I thought, leaving only a few ugly lines at the mouth and eyes and rewarding her with an air of adamant sweetness. The man, sitting across her looked solvent, rested and moral. He was perilously like the phantasms of joy which had mocked my dissatisfied past. It was easier to talk to men much younger or older, I decided. There was nothing serious about it; it was like meeting an interesting foreigner.

I took a tentative sip, not wanting to keep turning around and staring at her but keeping an image of hers in my mind like an all-day sucker, letting it slowly melt out it's meaning. The wine of that long ago summer seemed to be crisping my tongue. Everything I saw and felt then enraptured me. I’d an urge to put out my arms and scream silently. I’d failed to love! But what was there in these words to make the world shrink back, flee, recede or rock with agony? Memories rushed into me and I retreated.

I observed her searching questioningly into the eyes of that man who held her hands. His lips quivered. As he spoke, her swarthy face grew brick-red and her black eyes exuded the melancholy of those who estrange themselves from their own environment and can never be home in another. Suddenly she rose and left. I watched closely and missed nothing. I find those vision blotted out. Returning to that scene is painful.

---
The following day was spent in errands, slowly, vacantly. My thoughts kept coming back to her. Who was she? Where had I seen her? I could not recall. In the evening, someone offered to accompany me, for a tour or pick bargains. I refused. I’d heard of a beach on the outskirts of the city. I’d already decided to go there alone. I did not talk to anyone. For they would say something awful but absolutely true. I’d with me, my companions, those poems about death and love and wine and flames. I honestly took moments of reflection, fatal moments, they always turned out.

I sat on the sand gazing at the contorted rocks, the pines that grew tall among them and the bright lake beyond gulf. The water stank, people shrieked and the world around me loomed and swarmed as ever. We were absolutely alone everywhere. What I went through was a temporary condition of obsession. Temporary, even if, it might last a lifetime. Meantime the evening softened, the water glowed, the glare dissolved. The sun sank into the ocean, leaving a fiery steak. A breeze brought the smell of underwater decay like the dim knowledge of death. In those times I welcomed my own pale version of despair.

I looked around to catch one last glimpse for a future nostalgia when I saw her again. She was sitting not too far from me and smiled knowingly. That smile in retrospect appears as much bitter as benevolent. She’d a look of a sick person’s instinctive resentfulness at any intrusion of her lonely pain. We both got bruised by the sight of each other, but hung together, to blot each other out and soothe the hurt. Soon, the ancient fear of the dark possessed me; the terror that there is evil and it comes into it’s own in the night. The words that I’d made up in my mind to speak stood out in letters of fire against the choking blackness. And as she descended, the silence descended with her – heavier, denser and more absolute.

---
Whenever I left a place, I left with a shrug, too eager to be back in the comfort of home. When I drove away, I said good-bye, believing the places I left to be as ephemeral as I and as fickle. That time I closed my eyes with the image of that land lying fresh and gentle. I took a piece of it, with me.

Whatever had been galloping along inside me for two solid days and nights has come to a screeching halt. Though she still remains with me like a hypothetical presence, a query rather than a fact, I know who she is. We are two disjointed creatures forced into a mockery of union. For in looking at her, in spite of all she does, I catch a glimmering impression of myself.

Wintry Illusions

2006-12-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

I’m through with the mending .. but there is the same curious discrepancy between the freshness of this season and the staleness of this blog. I’m giving a break to my poetic hodgepodge coz I wanted to post an update, positively by tonight ergo I’m rambling even on a Saturday night when I’m a bit high .. I really don’t know what I’m going to write. But I recall, I'd intended to scrawl something about my online life. At this instant, I’ll only say that I can draw a parallel between my online life and fondness for liquor. Both are perhaps related to the social awkwardness that I feel when sober or when with "real" people. Lubricated and with an illusion of anonymity, my truer nature surfaces .. which is as silly, as it can get. Having said that, I’ve misplaced my "true" identity somewhere .. either online or offline, I don’t remember. All the good parts have vanished, leaving simple three letter emotions – sad, mad, bad ..and a lot of empty space.

Anyhow .. I love this weather.. every winter begins with a pleasant resonance that feels like the beginning of love. Though right now, there is nothing in my life that would kindle the most inflammable imagination… a voice inside, slyly argues and through skillful sophistry, it undermines my own convictions. It asks .. will you ever get tired of hoarding bruises like souvenirs? I shake my head like an old woman to the beat of remembered phrases. The voice fades away in the deepening glimmer of soul, where the human breath is snatched away and there are only bubbles.. iridescent and pure.

---
You are left to lose your way alone.. There are these long still spans – nothing happens.. each day is accurately like the other – humdrum, uneventful and then abruptly there is a wham, you seem to be participating in mighty deeds, working on a lustrous future .. and then again life subsides into the backwaters till the next hurricane jolts you. For better or for worse, my life is set in this mould, which it would retain until death. I’m not awaiting an imminent extinction or another hurricane but I’m prepared for anything.. or so I claim. I want to believe that I’m like a child exploring this mysterious castle, and I’m caught here, in this labyrinth.. temporarily, like we take refuge under the shade of a bus-stop due to an abrupt twilight storm or it’s a sudden looming structure at the end of a winding road, that a mistaken turn had led me to follow. The storm will subside, a thin scythe of moon will appear over the treetop and silently a dream will unfold …

---
The whole sweetness of a chilly morning under a warm quilt, the innocence and mystery of the world waking alongside me, makes me wonder how simple life could be, and how easy it once was, to step into happiness, like walking into your own rightful house. Unconscious of the fact that soon you had to discover that more and more of you were diminishing under this placid surface of an imagined warm life. In the crystal truth of the day world, the night was done. The world you were dozing on came back with a whoosh and a bang, but it was not the same world you'd dozed away from, nor was it the one you intended to wake up to or even imagined to be there. Nobody with a dream should sleep cozily in winters. No matter how dead and buried the dream is thought to be, in winters it rises and walks again.

---
The sun finally sets behind the tall buildings and the horizon which burned, few minutes ago like the coals of a dying fire around which you could tell a very good story .. now is brittle with silence. The silence becomes oppressive, and although I’d always loved quiescence, it begins to take on a sinister air. Everything becomes gloomy and melancholy after sunset and I think of the cycle of disappointment, excitement, resentment and desire through which I’d not been forced for over two years. I don’t know what this moment stands for .. coz my eyes are blurred with what I’d been accused of previously and my hearing too has gone with the sight .. but I know I’m clinging on to the world, though barely. This pain isn’t for somebody or something. The pain is mine, active and virulent. It is mine alone.

Certain events, few visions repeat themselves with countless variations but their meaning I cannot fathom reiteratively. Everything within me that once seethed with passion has a wintry numbness. The world keeps spinning and I’m spinning along with it. It doesn’t still anymore to the stillness inside that murmurs to me, I know my love and I belong to my love when all is said and done, down through foreverness and into eternity… and when I get back I just want to be a part of it all .. everything ordinary. All words from the past faded to murmurs, losing outline; as I keep stumbling down, losing even echoes.. I’m alone where I had not meant to be, but for all that strangely detached, elated.
--

The Monument :

2006-11-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

An elongated (absurd) "dirge"

(i)
In an ill-lit chamber of my heart
Where so much passion
had once been felt
There is a beautiful monument
For a wonderful mistake : Us

Practicing a contrite look –
Facing the mirror
I’d prepared these preliminaries
For post-love obituaries
expecting apologies : But ..

Gasping the soot-laden smoke –
which my words belched forth
He looked away yawning -
as if on the verge of sleep
and mumbled : What crap?

I tried not to turn away -
Catch my breath, last it out
and in the end
Simply to survive :
Like insults were sexy

(ii)
Only if he’d tried -
He would’ve seen, yet again
Unconscious of his rejection
Reminiscing those doozie times
The "monument" smoldered :
as intensely as ever.

Sensuous spring, sloppy kisses,
Warm, serene, restless.
It was everything you can call
No word would be the right one
Nor any million words
Maybe one : Ridiculous

As it was barely the beginning
Of my tedious learning -
That might take myriad of years
To find togetherness, a pure love
An uncomplicated gesture,
The perfect kiss : Freaking shit.

(iii)
All forced memories
One-sided excruciating yearning
And that - fancy "monument"
now had a stench.
Of something rotten, ancient :
An eternity weary –
Of being eternal

Desolately - I broke away
Mindful of what happened
Each time I’d looked back -
At our ‘eternal love’
And all that nonsense
I did not : Not again
--

Ablution..

2006-10-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

The sky is ashy
from city’s trapped lights.
But the heavens seem ablaze
with divine conflagration.

An apparition of your frame,
forever mysterious and alluring,
stands in the dying night -
like an altar built
for the worship of senses.

With a piece of reality
and all the elements of fantasy
I’m trying,
it may be,
to paint holiness.

A sublime voice spouts,
aphorisms and paradoxes -
Let the truth come out
in small portions,
as a part of love play.

Before your other life,
with proffered intimacies
plunges me into obscurity -
We will walk again,
to eternity.

For the passive pleasure
of having returned
to the familiar
And a part of us,
sinking languidly.

You are not mine
But I’m still yours
And with me
my love,
Sin is cleansing.

Paroxysms..

2006-09-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

And so …

I’m left with your old letters hence I devour
those trifling cliches and epithets turned sour
Tortuously interpret and reinterpret each dot
Count words, make rhymes, imbibe the odor,
from these dreary witness of a lost splendor.
Spot cryptic meanings in the blank side of paper
Linger on the static and hope to recover
That slice of history, we’d lived together.

Don’t shut your eyes…

The muzziness in the air is not pollution
Its memory, which confirms there is no oblivion
The passion which burns, the sentiments that gnaw
They snipe; they bait, but do not flinch
Before leaving, make sure you expunge the embers
Hush every sibilant, when your heart remembers
And retain this rigidity which is now familiar.

I know ..

We say goodbye, when faced with an implacable
The unwanted parting, heavy, impenetrable
There is no easy choice, without a pain
All thoughts, mere replication, of a former disdain
It is more difficult to end, than to begin
There was neither a beginning nor an end
It was absolute, eternal, without duration
And your silence will not bring redemption!

---

Back-ed out!

2006-09-01T03:02:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why I’d been absconding from the virtual world is – my terrible backache. The moment I sit down, I become moribund. I walk in slow motion, stoop like a hag and groan like a witch. Just as a miser’s thoughts constantly dwell on the treasure s/he has buried far from sight, I think of this ruin, I once termed my back. Over the years a distorted outlook on things may become contagious. Probably my twisted brain has shifted to my back and consequently, every trifle has become a trial.

Yesterday, I’d gone for an eye check-up. Most of the patients who visit that clinic are either too old or too young. Sadly, there isn’t a single eye-tonic in an eye clinic! Despite a prior appointment, you gotta wait for your turn after those disgusting drops they literally "pour" in your eyes for dilation. I took mincing steps, hunting for a vacant seat outside the doctor’s chamber, when I saw an elegant new doctor. I collided with a kid coz of my dilated eyes and dropped the medical file. I closed my eyes took deep breaths before bending down. I was stuck in a "C position" when I attempted to crouch and again when I tried to get up. My senses, endeavoring to fathom this sinuous line became lost in arabesque. The entire ordeal lasted for fifteen goddamn minutes and by the time I straightened my rear, the handsome doctor had disappeared.

Luckily, for the preliminary tidbit, before the regular specialist took over, I was referred to him. I sat facing him; he leafed through my medical history and ordered to lie down on the examination-table. A painful back, dilated eyes and now an elevated couch! On top it I’d chosen to make this visit alone – without my parents. The doctor wasn’t aware of the anguish he inflicted and my helplessness began to churn into anger. I stood there frozen..
"Any problem?" He questioned.
"My back.. I gotta terrible backache and I dunno .. how to …" I babbled.
"That’s Ok .. I’ll help you.." he replied gently and ….. phew ..
What followed wasn’t bad .. Probably that is what they call a blessing in disguise.
For the first time . I’m waiting for my next appointment.

Back home, I lay down, closed my eyes, plummeted. The long drive, torturous examinations, an arsenal of instructions with regards to "dos and don’ts" had put me into narcotic daze. The arduous work felt like an ascetic’s penance and the end of it all, an interlude of bliss. Backache resembled a tingling, as though someone brushed it with feather.
A friend, I’d been avoiding for months, called up with a weekend plan!
"No, not this weekend .. I gotta horrible backache." I said apologetically.
"Another excuse? Whats back gotta do in this? You drop by, sit, drink and leave."
"No, the problem is, I don’t want to stand or sit, I only wanna lay ….."
"You only wanna .. what ??"
"Hehe .. lay down, lie down, whatever .." I giggled.

Everyone bellows in their own way, when they talk to me. On this occasion, I was told to get on with what she called my life and I’m one of those deranged souls, ready to martyr myself for the most trivial of sins.

In the last two and half years, I have had two, "half affairs." I call them ‘half’ coz I neither fell in ‘love’ nor agonized over the ramifications. The first one ended as soon as it began but the second had been dragging on n on for over a year. Every time I think I know him, some new whim pops up. Life has thought me that out of all the snares, two that work almost unfailingly with opposite sex, are lust and indifference. Perhaps this guy thinks the same coz for a week we lust mutually and for another we are both indifferent. If he can be silent for an eternity, I decide to remain dumb forever.

I couldn’t sit, read or watch tv and I wasn’t sleepy. Therefore despite being in the indifferent phase, I sent him a sms and he called in reply.
"A call from you now? You at home?" I answered in a jovial tone..
"Yes .. I’m home early tonight, I have a harrowing backache .." He said.
"Whoa .. you too? I’d been down with a backache myself .." It was most definitely amusing. The excruciating back acquired a soothing veneer coz we shared the same ailment ..
"How I wish you were here alongside me .." He added.
Another surprise! I’d been waiting for this romantic nonsense since a long time. I fed his delirium with increasing crescendos. ..
"And what if I was alongside you ..?" and held my breath, awaiting an equally corny response but..
"Hmm then . .I could have rubbed your back and you could have rubbed mine.. we will call this .. a new improved version of sixty-nine!"
"Duh? Whats with you? A couple of months back you claimed soccer gives you orgasms and now this ?" I sniffed.

The backache had contaminated my funny bone. We fought for 10 minutes, said final good-byes for the sixty-ninth time and slammed the phone. The exchange of familiar rhetoric had left me breathless. If I didn’t die of apoplexy, I’m gonna die of verbatim.

I was cursing him mentally when mother entered my room. It was her turn to get surprised.
"You already on bed? Good .. you should sleep early and get up early." She said thoughtfully.
11 pm and I was soporific..! Backache should be used as a panacea for insomniacs.
"My back is hurting." I uttered sleepily.
She insisted to massage a stinky balm on my back and continued with her views on what my problem was - I was spending the best years of my life in a joyless drudgery! Another old lecture on how I should seriously contemplate getting married and stop being atavistic and start becoming productive.
"Please maa .. not now" I pleaded. She sighed and got ready to exit. I requested her to turn off the air conditioner and leave the windows ajar. She left and I resolved yet again ..

I don’t care to be productive – fuck assimilation!
I want extraordinary experiences, whatever they might be.
I turned towards the window .. the sky appeared mysterious and alluring in the dark .. Stars glowed and twinkled, each with its own heavenly secret.

Placid Reflections

2006-08-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

After a long pause, I return with this tag. Thanks to Priyamvada for tagging me coz I did not know what to write. I wasn’t keeping well for a while and since then my thoughts are completely numb. Every now and then I’ve these “withdrawal symptoms” I don’t feel like updating coz I feel I’m being repetitive. Anyways ..
Priyamvada wants to know the bloggers she has tagged better .. so here I go ...

I'm thinking about...
A delicious evening with some distant relatives, a lousy day spent in the hospital after a gap of three years, a movie I’m gonna watch with mom tomorrow, life in general & the predictability or unpredictability of certain events. Remorse is always powerful with me. An odor so powerful and so elusive that you want to keep inhaling it in order to make up your mind, what it is, foul or sweet. Most of the times, it seems poised midway between the two poles.

I said..
You want something solid; you want something fluid. They could not be reconciled except by a giant leap of faith. Between them prevails, the great paradoxical gap, the miserable pools memories.

I want..
To be left alone. I find it wholesome to be alone, and find even best company after a while wearisome and dissipating. I want everything good, without the evil, if I can have it.
On top of all that - It will be apt to share a mail, a pal sent about Dog philosophy and a quote I loved the most ..
“My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am.” :)

I wish...
To be free from head and heart. I yearn to break away with certain things, which trail me from place to place and are probably more loyal to me than my friends.

I hear..
Old feelings cascading through me and the vibration of placid reflections. Nothing is ever so unfamiliar and astounding, as your own thoughts. Sometimes all the voices run together and everything turns into pell-mell, topsy-turvy and I feel, I’ve lived through the same experiences in a previous incarnation.

I wonder..
What it would be like? The simple joys, of sleeping and waking up on time, having a regular job or leading a marital life with kids … hmm
Those who understand the complexities of human nature know that joy and pain, ugliness and beauty, love and hate, mercy and cruelty and other conflicting emotions often blend and cannot be separated from each other. I replay my life again and again in my mind, the highlights, the major scenes, the tender moments and the surprising ones, all the small incidents and all the minor players and often wonder what exactly I want and where I’m going.

I regret..
Nothing.

I am..
A free spirit, without any mission, but with a taste for disaster. Underneath all my despair, is a passionate woman.

I dance...
Only when I’m drunk. Though I was a decent dancer once upon a time, even pursued kathak for sometime but have forgotten almost everything. Now I just shake clumsily in the firmament of alcohol and that too ..rarely.

I sing...
Here .. on my rustic rhapsody .. the songs of my wrath and wanderings.

I cry..
Easily. I believed in expressing every emotion, at least to the people who matter. But with time I’ve realized, very few people value your private emotions so its best to keep that weak side of yours to yourself. My tears can only move my Dog and that’s the truth.

I am not always..
The whining nihilist sort.

I make with my hands...
Tea and Coffee.

I write..
Mostly when I’m hurt and hardly when I’m euphoric. Believe it or not - even some of my blogs were written after sleepless nights and with tears in my eyes.

I confuse....
When certain people tell me “be the way you are, don’t ever change!” Coz there is so much about me that I wish to change.

I need..
To get a life, quit smoking, lose weight and at least a million other things - primarily emotional or ethereal. I know most of them are beyond attainment but I’m willing to while away few more years in this quest.

And finally..
My life is blue one day and green another, without any perceptible change in the weather. Perhaps it will right itself, arbitrarily, invisibly. I’ve no clue about the future and all roads are imbued with the mystery of travel. The present will stamp upon me in deep satisfaction, neither weighed nor compared with the tricky past. Memories will be incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts. Tomorrow waits unknown; riddled with firm destinations.

As per the tagging duties, I tag some bloggers I want to know bettter ..
Inkblot, The Individualist, Arzoon, Sujay, and Dee Iyer.
Please ignore this, if you’ve been tagged already or if you don’t wish to abide, coz I love you guys even otherwise. :)

PS - One more thing I need to learn is html tags. I still haven’t figured it out :( hence not able to provide the links. But you can visit their blogs through the comments section of my previous post.

Ciphers

2006-06-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write something on the 20th June.. better late than never .. It was the day last year, I posted my very first blog . so its been a year .. some kind of anniversary.

If you want to write, chuck logic, fuck reason, screw emotions and get high on darnest weirdest nonsense – is what I told myself when I began and then most of the times I created something outlandish, which I didn’t necessarily feel. Anguish makes me look away from the present and leads me to nostalgia. The reflection upon my past, the episodes I chose to share, and perhaps more importantly those I have chosen not to share, all led me to a certain place within myself, an understanding that perhaps has always been there, but I never visited those chambers previously, with more seriousness. I can’t say, I’m wiser but what counts, most cryptically, goes beyond that .. so I let it pass..
--

Summer is passing slowly and vengefully. Rhapsodizing my average love has led me to this decapitated state - ghastly, grim and longing to be buried. (where did I read that?) Sometimes walking on the street I feel like a fool lost in the house of grandeur. Amidst the decay of youthful ardor, in search of silver trout, the cruelty of strangers, their own capacity for deception and grief .. I’m cautious about entering the realm of possible, coz I would enter it with the stillness of my heart, the void, the gap, the silence that had been my kingdom. We say a little of what we have to say in different languages – in a painting, a prayer or in an act of knowledge. But silence and words both sting me like the scent of gunpowder and have become like my “love” only a reminder of things I’ve done wrong. If every other love is a fudged copy of the one before, I’m sick and tired of all copies.
--

The only chance I had of reviving my dead love-life got strangled by the game of football. Thanks to the world cup and a man who claimed that soccer is better than an orgasm. I never liked football, at the most I can compare it to a failed orgasm, which promises a lot .. but is lost mid-way. (Sorry football lovers!). Despite that – I thought I liked him. He qualified in the department of my age-old obsession of height i.e. being above 6 foot tall and possessed a voice resonant with amorous reverence. Measured against my own confused desires, he rippled with sun and shade.. there was something unsettled and secretive between us, which lent our casual talks an air of intimacy, of adventure as if his perplexing, irritating coolness and his difficulty were the signs of his high value.
--

I’m alone again and I’m entombed in my apartment - motionless, spent under the foul fabric, sick at the loathsome familiarity of it all. When my parents return, I’m planning a vacation - not on the hills or near the sea but to a desert. The desert offers solitude, and a simple mode of existence: mere survival. Granted this is a somewhat moot point for me, but it acts as further guarantor of my privacy, for the desert could be both swift and merciless in its dealings with the fools. I hope it would be an alchemizing experience and the desolation would stun me with its tragic beauty. Away from the stink and clamor of the world around me, lounge-lizarding, drink, pill and chatter .. all the yammering, posturing, and postulating… I need years, but I would allow myself merely days. I suppose that would suffice.
--

One moment I’m drinking myself into oblivion, another moment I’m a romantic dreamer, or still another a seductress loose-limbed with the lassitude of desire .. You can admire everything if you admire fragility ..

A beautiful verse I read yesterday ..

“Do not turn in loathing from me
O beloved, can you not see
Only Love disfigures me.”

Destiny the most ancient enigma of the civilized world still eludes me and the journey of “ciphers” continues ..

Suxy Six

2006-06-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Inkblot to write 6 weird facts about me. I’m not sure if the following points qualify as "weird" but anyways .. I’m trying. I’ve already written 20 things about me once ..hope this isn’t repetitive.
First of all. I was busy (for nothing!) Hence, Sorry to Ink - as usual I’m late in posting this and coz of that Sujay tagged me again for the same. Ergo I thought of writing 12 weird things.
Ok .. if you are still reading this .. don’t worry .. I won’t bore you with 12 facts .. I’ve settled for only 6 ..
So these are six suxy or sexy facts about me .. the choice is yours ..

1) I have absolutely no plans for the future. It has nothing to do with any pessimism or the lack of that steady ‘someone’ in my life. I’m neither a pessimist nor an optimist or maybe I’m both .. depends .. ;). I wanna live like Omar Khayyam’s verse .. "Unborn tomorrow and dead yesterday .. why fret about them if today be sweet!" My ‘today’ is anything but "sweet" but whatever it is – sweet or bitter I opt to relish it – as it is. If I were able to wipe yesterday, in the very same fashion, I would quit calling myself a ‘sinner’ and thenceforth, announce my evolvement as a ‘saint’. :D

I’m digressing. Coming back to the future. Do we all really know – what we want? I certainly do not! I can’t pinpoint – I want this particular man or this specific job or a palatial bungalow on seashore. The day I know what I want and fortunately or unfortunately have it too – that’s going to be one of the worst days in my life. Weird? I don’t know – according to me ..there is much more fun in "looking" instead of "finding"! The glamour of a voyage and unknown is irresistible. If I eventually have "it" I might not value it. So I would rather spend this lifetime ‘looking’ for something ‘lookable’! I’m as confused as you are – I hope you know what I mean .. phew ..

2) I don’t forget anything easily. I still hate that ugly guy who pinched my back in the kindergarten or that fatso girl in school who claimed her eyes were bigger than mine. I still brood over my first doll, the first time I draped my mother’s sari along with another girl who lived next door and we danced for hours together! I remember my first date, my first kiss, the first comment for my first blog and thousand such frivolous things. I’ve dated innumerable men and have done craziest things but I never took them seriously. The day I found him … ..mmm I better not tread that path or it would take forever.
Its been two years since we parted and I haven’t dated anyone since then. Hehe So all this built-up just to reinstate that I wont forget him easily too. But the day I choose to love someone again – he won’t have any place in my life – even in memories. I’m acute in my judgments & decisions .. if n when I make them.

3) When I’m angry, somber, ecstatic or blah blah and don’t know where to pour my thoughts - I write. I maintained a journal even as a kid. When my mom or dad admonished me or I fought with my sister – I wrote about it.. sometimes in anger.. sometimes in love and felt better. I’m basically a loner .. have very few friends and none of the so-called close friends know my dark secrets! (I have many!) I tried to revive that habit of maintaining a dairy but couldn’t and have - in a way - shifted to blogs – though I can’t write everything here. Invariably, I thought, I could express myself better in writing. Perhaps I was wrong .. and I discerned it only when I started writing on a public domain. Some people exactly know.. what you think you meant ..there are others who depict your writings in completely different manner .. and they could be right too. I do the same – comprehending others through their blogs or comments. Its often amusing – the way all of us react to written words. And coz I have an elephantine memory I can’t forget a comment from a woman on one of my blogs at Sulekha. According to her – "I’m a promiscuous drunkard who smokes like chimney." I would really have loved to be promiscuous if I met some 6 footers frequently. Did I divulge one of my dark secrets? Ahem ..I have this weird fascination for tall men and only a tall guy can turn me on .. :D The exception being a certain Mr. Sachin Tendulkar.

4) Talking of weirdness – I’m very passionate about certain things. For example - my two major weaknesses Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar! When Amitabh was going through his bad phase before KBC part-1 and all his movies bombed at the box-office. As a diehard fan, I made it a point to watch all his movies in the theatre. The only contribution I could make – was one ticket .. so it was symbolic! Once, I dragged a friend along, to watch "Lal Badshah" in Plaza cinema at Connaught Place. Interestingly, there were only 8 other viewers beside my pal and me in the entire theatre (yes I counted). Plaza cinema has now been renovated into a multiplex but at that time it was one old fashioned colossal hall. In the very first week of its release the turnout was so poor that even a whisper echoed. My friend kept cursing me throughout the show and others made fun of me for wasting time and money but I was unfazed. Around that time, Amitabh did his first commercial of Mirinda Lemon. "Jor ka jhatka dheere se lage" I don’t like aerated drinks – I prefer lemon soda served on the street that’s called "bunta" here but I had at least one Mirinda Lemon everyday in my college canteen. The day they replaced Amitabh with Govinda in that advertisement .. I stopped having Mirinda Lemon and haven’t touched it again till date!

Coming to Sachin. I despise Rahul Dravid coz he declared the innings before Sachin could complete his double century in the previous tour of Pakistan. If Sachin had made that double he would have equaled Dravid’s record of back to back double centuries. I’m secretly happy whenever India loses under Dravid’s captaincy without Sachin!

I can share many such stories .. lol but I stop … gosh venting helps..!

5) I wake up at least 5 times during the night to kiss Don (my German Shepherd) He is sucha sweetheart, he sleeps beside me and if you try kissing his face when he is asleep.. he covers his face with his front paws. That makes such an awesome sight. I go all over --- "Fida .." when he does that. If I’m out partying somewhere – all of a sudden I start missing him and run back home. I can never have enough of him.

6) Anything about me is incomplete if I don’t mention my drinking and smoking adventures.. In college, when I started drinking we didn’t have enough money so we had ..all cheap brands like Aristocrat Premium and McDowell’s. For instant kicks we blended beer in whiskey. Our favorite combination was ACP mixed with Hayward’s 5000. Yucks! That was one weird thing I can’t do again. Besides I smoked 502 pataaka bidis. God knows how. Even the thoughts make me puke now.

This is it then. I need to tag 6 people but I don’t even have 6 regular readers for my blog :( I know only Vi listens to me. Therefore, I tag her everytime – I get tagged! Hehe.
Vi .. if you don’t mind doing this .. please.. :) nahi to koi baat nahi ….

The end of a day ..

2006-06-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

I was waiting querulously for my friend in a market in South Delhi. It’s more like a hub for summer bacchanal, full of loud people from every age group. It disturbed my already incoherent thoughts as I kept an eye on the menacing advance of the clouds while the words rose and fell with the screams and lulls. We’d planned to meet in a lounge and I sat on a pavement, outside the place we’d fixed, fanning myself with a melodramatic flair.

The sun was setting against a drab gray sky. The bright neon lights imbued the aggregation with a reverential depth. Slowly, everything around me turned bluish and took on the substance. I fervor lingering twilight.. the streets lush and shadowy. The tearful lights fading into brown-violent dusk make me melancholic; moreover I feel a kind of dreary splendor, an end of something. At last, I have succumbed to a pain more brilliantly intense than any pain before. I realized recently, now I think of him without rebellion or anxiety - only with sorrow that all our exertions should have been rewarded with so little clear emotion.

Intensity does not always mean sincerity and it left me free to slip out unburdened in the sultry evening. A hope, trifling perhaps, had died, a plan for the future, in which I’d borne a major part. Future had only seeds – nothing had sprouted, they were merely a potentiality. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my thoughts. But I’d gone from disbelief to tranquility, to that possessiveness by which one is oneself possessed. I’m trying to come back to the insouciance of my old life of pubs friends and partying. I try to renovate myself knowing it’s only a surface decoration. Inside me - is a ruin of my own being that I cannot demolish. No matter how much I paint myself from outside, the inner is the same - the same old rotten thing.

My cell beeped .. my friend sent me a sms that she was in a meeting and would take at least 40 minutes more. I didn’t feel like wandering purposely or window-shopping. I thought of getting inside and having a drink but I didn’t like the idea of being half drunk when she arrived. If I’m drinking alone, its fine but if someone is supposed to drink with me I always prefer to commence together.
A stranger was sitting on the same pavement – it appeared he was also waiting for someone. He’d an air of sweetness, his head titled by a smug, lonely amusement with the peculiar reasoning of the others. Bearing an impermeable smile on his aquiline features, he turned towards me to ask if I mind him smoking. I smiled back and said I was thinking of having a smoke myself. With a curt "go ahead" he got busy with his fag. I searched for cigarettes in my handbag but couldn’t locate my lighter. A cliched excuse to initiate a conversation but what the heck ..I asked him for a light. He passed me a stylish zippo, so rough that it hurt my fingers. I wasn’t able to do anything with it. What an embarrassment! He handed me the cigarette he’d been smoking. Dang .. I didn’t wanna smoke no more but.. I sighed - a replete sigh, as one might overcome by swirls of incense or opium. I used his cigarette to light mine, and we began talking..

He had a foreign accent, I speculated he was an NRI. He inquired about some places to shop for "traditional embroidered kurtas". I provided few suggestions. Cutting the long story short - he’d come to India for the first time; had no known relatives here but his ancestors were Indians who’d migrated long back. He’d heard a few things from his parents and grand parents so he decided to come over although his wife refused to join. He visited the village in UP, his grandfather often mentioned and had an emotional time there, with the villagers. I’ve read about these kinds of things but being with one such person in my very own city was intriguing. Ergo I kept interrogating.

It reminded me of my grandfather’s story. Once, I was lying beside him after dinner listening to his "real" tales that wrapped me in enchantment. He said that long long back one of our ancestors was travelling in the eastern part of the country along with wife and few relatives. They hailed from the western India - a small village in Rajasthan (he even uttered a queer sounding name) but his wife had a dream. Some Goddess appeared in the dream and told her – if your family settles down here (in the east) they would have her blessings and would flourish. She conveyed this dream to her husband. After giving it some thought they decided to settle there and never went back. In those times, communication wasn’t all that easy hence they lost touch with others back in the west…

The story then drifted to other absorbing things like the history of the formation of our current native village, set up entirely by three or four members of the same family. But I was enthralled by the former part and had some weird dreams that night. When I pried my father, the only addition he made was – some of his uncles visited the said village, traced the lineage and compiled their experiences in the form of a book. I couldn’t get hold of that book but I was after my dad for a long time – pleading him to plan a trip in that area. He made some vague promises "later" and demanding him to let me alone was futile. My sister was the responsible one in his books but she had no interest in this issue whatsoever so my pleadings to her didn’t help either.

I narrated this story to the stranger declaring it was such a shame he’d come from a far off place in search of his roots and I haven’t done anything about it – living in my own country. It could be a non-issue for most of us but it was thrilling and exciting for me. I would definitely visit this place once in my lifetime and he claimed he understood.

Meanwhile the horizon was taken over by some black bellied clouds and the air felt heavy on my face. Soon it was pattering and we decided to move in a shade. I didn’t particularly enjoy that faint drizzle. It seemed the sky poured transparent drops that looked like mirrors. There were millions of mirrors but all of them were empty coz there was nothing else to reflect. Love is the most beautiful phenomenon possible to someone .. but what to do when you suffer from even that… we begin to weave our desires into vision.. we create something on our own and then we miss it – coz its not there ..

The rain wasn’t very heavy but in this hustle-bustle my friend who’d probably landed couldn’t find me so she called. I enunciated the exact place and she asked what I’d been upto. I replied .. I met someone interesting and we’d been talking. "Good looking?" she questioned. "Umm.. yes" I answered. She responded with a ‘ohhhh’ in naughty tone. I didn’t know how to explain what happened in few sentences so all I managed was .. "common its not like that .. btw he is married .." And that made her laugh .. "oye sudhar jaaa .." Sigh .. I couldn’t append anything more and felt like laughing at her interpretation.

After hanging up when I started talking to him again, something was amiss. In past one minute, with the aid of my friend, I’d evolved, unconsciously, some doctrine wherein the act of talking to a stranger ..rather a good looking married stranger took precedence over all other sins and was a sign of moral death. These thoughts were even more hilarious. How would dating a married man feel? Perhaps it was a reincarnation of the fruit one ate as a child, stolen, you know, from the neighbor’s orchard, fruit one ate hidden in the darkest recess of one’s compound, surreptitiously, one’s tongue absolutely shriveled by the piercing sweetness of the mangoes, the cruel melting ripe guavas .. Heh ..

Finally she arrived! I introduced her to my stranger. We said goodbye and parted. Her first comment about him .. "he was so handsome .. only if he wasn’t taken .." "All good ones are already taken…" I reminded her "that’s why we end up with scums" she completed my sentence .. and we got ready for some more insular gossip and entered our favorite joint giggling.

Hideous Heat

2006-05-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

No cloud bank looming overhead
the sun blazes, the earth shrivels
and the heat burns away
every trace of beneficence

I wake up during the nights
soaked with sweat and swelter
Yet there is a mood of longing
in this malodorous chamber

Across the strip of melting asphalt
beyond the shades of sienna
The horizon becomes brilliant
With an infernal orange luster

The Western winds along with dust
carry the redolent perfume
with a dark and florid odor
But the most dangerous of all
is the scent of an incandescing body
triumphing over this atmosphere

In the visions full of fragrance
sensations drowned in golden radiance
The world that comes to me slowly
is uninhibited, Devil’s motley

Succumbing to the sultry heat
Swirling in a narcotic daze -
magnetized by the glittering
Walls fall apart, desires blaze
And our skins do the talking

If only - you were alongside me
We would celebrate this miasma
Of vicious scorch and frantic steam
With a long insatiable kiss?

6 years ago ...

2006-04-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

.. wrapped in a petite red and yellow towel he made his way inside our home and hushed into our hearts. One of Dad’s colleagues’ wife, we called her Auntie, promised my sister and me, a pup long back. It had awakened feelings of such excitement and pleasure, as very few events were capable of inducing. We only received empty promises, so we’d given up all our hopes of possessing a pet. Without any fresh warning, Auntie landed at our place, in an ebbing silent night, holding him in her lap striding carefully and we rushed to have a look at the bundle of joy she was carrying. He was barely 15 days old, had sorrel eyes, dark coat but shaded down to a dark brown that spread from his neck through the abdomen area. He made a tour of the entire house like a summer whirlwind, sniffing every corner. When Auntie left he looked bewildered and a bit scared. Though we were happy beyond words we felt trifle guilt. We’d snatched him from his mother’s shelter and god knows how many brothers and sisters ergo endeavored to assuage in every possible way.

Like a magician he drew us into a subterranean world of dream, he was our little angel and we were like his 2 mothers :>) Puppies have to be raised like human progenies on similar care and diet of baby food like cerealac, calcium and tonics under the constant vigilance of a vet. As he grew, he was always ready to sink his tiny teeth into all the furniture, our slippers and rip through the edge of our dresses and bed sheets. Our maid spent extra time brushing tufts of his hair from the rugs and tiles. He snatched her broom everyday, pulled our girlfriends’ plaits, yapped at odd hours, climbed on our beds and perpetually kept us all on our toes. His narrow tongue darted incessantly between his jaws – flicking and licking. Every trouble he brought was bliss and we spent good part of the weekend shopping goodies for him.

We lived in a stucco government villa and had a huge backyard – a lawn surrounded with rubber trees, jamun trees, bougainvillea, shrubs of jasmine and hibiscus. His coat gleamed as he streaked across the park after a chipmunk or a cat or birds. A dhobi lived in the back lane. My sister gave his son, a kid studying in class XIIth some pocket money to play with our puppy in the morning. In the yellow lurid evenings he pranced with delight when his trainer arrived, who taught him and us both, some interesting ways to play together. A small crowd still gathers to watch him springing up on his hind legs to catch the falling toy.

When he was 3 months old, I was travelling and had to stay away from home - for about 8 months. Therefore, I missed some delightful moments of his childhood. When I returned he had grown up beyond recognition, and shortly after, my sister shifted to states for good. Since then he’d been my sole companion. Whenever I feel lonely I enclose him in a velvet embrace and hear his heartbeat pulsating under his chest and I know I’m not alone. When my sister last visited, 2 years back, we’d so much to talk that we slept on the same bed chatting. We found Don squeezed between both of us, sleeping soundly, in the morning. It brought back old memories …

He is one enormous living teddybear for me. It feels so good cuddling against him and kissing his mesmeric face. Most of my neighbors find him ferocious coz of his size but the kids love him for his innocent looks and his charge of energy. We have hired a person to play with him in the evening in a park nearby, coz now we live in an apartment and don’t have the luxury of personal lawn. He tells us – loads of romping kids flock around him, all the time. He loves to play with balls and anything round in shape gets him into the frolicking mood. If somebody visits us and manages to get friendly with him, he fetches all his toys one after the other and prods them to play with him.

His favorite snack is coconut. Like most of us – who need a cup of tea or coffee in the morning to start the day on a good note, Don wants a piece of coconut. His favorite meal is chapatis and milk and his favorite dessert - vanila ice cream. He despises other dogs and hates elaborate dog foods. No amount of Pedigree or other fancy brands can lure him. He whiffs them and flees to hide under the bed. The only dog food he tolerates is the dog biscuits. He is pure vegetarian coz my mother wouldn’t have let him inside the kitchen and on our beds if he ate meat. In spite of that his vet says Don is one of the hugest German Shepherd he has ever seen.
----

I can go on and on about Don ..
Aah ... I know it almost reads like an essay we wrote in school .. but its one of those days for me - I'm so happy and this was the place I thought I could pour my heart.
It’s his birthday today.
He turns 6. I got him, his favorite pastries, cookies, ice cream and a small cake. His lunch was pastries and ice cream and the cake was cut in the evening.
He is my everything – one look at him and I forget the cruel world! The most amazing thing about him – I have mentioned so many times in my previous blogs is – he licks my tears if I ever cry when he is around. He is so special – he makes me feel so special …
He knows – how much I love him.. and no words can actually describe what and how much he means to me ..
Happy Birthday Don …

When words fail ...

2006-03-26T17:23:00.000-08:00

.. they often .. for me. Don’t have anything to write.. just wanted to scribble something. I’m in one of those sore straits – when I don’t feel like writing and reading. Few books are scattered mournfully around me but ..

Embittered by the waste, which I myself authored and invaded with a sense of hideous futility - I’m completely bored with myself! Same old insomnia, technicolor nightmares without plots or coherent scenarios, its all so predictable. With a handful of crumpled stars in my lap.. I have now set my ears against the rumors of future. Its strange coz I believed my life had ended already ..like the Buddhist mantra .. "gate gate para gate .. swaha .." "Gone gone absolutely gone .. let it go to the fire .." I did not know all my tensions would melt into yielding so soon .. and what pressure am I yielding to ..I don’t know that either. Love a person .. and you enter infinity .. did you know - infinity was such a small word?

I keep your name, each twinge, each murmur of slight pain hidden like some treasure and I keep coming back to dig it up. This name has an aura around it like an amulet, some charm that survived from an unimaginably distant past. Your name, it tingled my cheeks, not so long ago. I have opened, closed, lived and died, over and over around it, and I don’t stop. Does that surprise you? Perhaps it saves me from going through, what you made me, all over again. Who has the power to break this transparent wall and approach me yet again?? – you and only you. I have found my way through this thicket in which I’d been entangled. There is no limit to my pearly illusions. I know, in the recess of your memory, I have spent the last two years in virtual quarantine. I have shrunk into insignificance - a sloughed-off matter, incapable of causing even a faint ripple in your successful life.

You were so proud of my words. I could so easily confide in you and you called me your confessor. We could not exist without the other .. and this is the mystery of togetherness. From every pore there opened a vastness, and from everywhere a depth .. I looked at you and there was an abyss. Every contour of your face, I didn’t need to see them – it was imprinted on my heart. The sweet amplitudes of your sonorous voice - I imbibed them, savored them, nourished myself upon them. My intemperate desires surprised me and I marveled at the strength of my pruriency. Did we need words then? A look was enough, the kind that could only pass between two people married to each other through the droughts and hurricanes of thirty or forty years. Did I need to tell you - from head to toes, from scalps to footsoles – I was only yours? I have spent so many nights imagining and wanting within my ribs all of you that it would take another lifetime for your cruelty to sink in.

For once did you make that first move, when you proposed me and since then it was only I. My life was confined to the modest properties of the affection we shared. You smiled at my sweet submissive intonations, were jealous of that unborn child coz you feared motherhood could drift my attention away from you. You invariably found my slurred speech when I was drunk, desirable and now we can’t even drink a cup of tea without stirring up all kind of bitter feelings. Your silence then was gravitates, eloquent, an unspeaking lush of promise. Its barren now – a muteness lined with acid. Why didn’t you think twice before you insulted me through your transient passions and false vows..? All those spoken and unspoken words have ballooned, and are suspended in a murk that can neither be hidden nor be divulged.

Its an eternity since we had been viciously wrenched apart and memories get dented, twisted, scarred. You can’t tell the last scars from the first. I see myself as unadorned rather than bereft .. "I cannot live with you, It would be life, And life is over there, Behind the shelf" There is no good way to bring anything to an end for any endeavor would always leave a gap, an emptiness, when it is concluded and put to rest. Hold me again in your arms for the last time – I want to let go of this silent stationary grief and weep stormily.

To my eyes you are an endless play of shadows, your words are mystifying babbles and your silence a gurgling speech. How could you accomodate numerous distinct selves of yours intact within yourself so skillfully? Its tough to believe we once reached equal tonal scale together – when even the silences between our notes grew electric with desire. There was no valuation – we simply listened to each other in deep love, as if the mind had passed, only the heart heard and throbbed with joy. Now your absence hangs over – like an unresolved chord but if I stumble upon you, you shrug "enuff said" and move away. I break into an exasperated yell, strive to use my words, my silence, to wound you, the way you did … and fail miserably in that too. Do I need to tell you - even that hurts me more ..

dear derriere..

2006-03-14T05:46:00.000-08:00

Things are "dry" on the personal front .. excuse me sere in terms of drinks and I haven’t found someone worth slipping for either but yeah .. dry denotes a lot more .. however you don’t always need a man for pumping your adrenaline. Despite that, everyone around me thinks .. I need to get a life… ! and ‘Get a life’ in their dictionary means - get a man! So they keep throwing surprises on me .. that aren’t always pleasant. My parents have been trying to find me a mate and my friends sometimes try to find me a date.

Last weekend Antara, my girlfriend called up and asked me for a drink. The setting was quiet far from my residence and I hadn’t been there before. It’s really been long, since I smelled alcohol ergo I waited for a bright evening to smile upon my enterprise. I’m terrible in geography too .. I keep losing my freaking ways in my very own goddamn city .. so I kept cursing the venue and the networks of newly erected flyovers as the traffic lights winked on me and arrived good 1 hour late.

I sensed danger when I saw her with two men but nonetheless after enduring so much pain and the final relief of having-made-it-to-the-place however late … I couldn’t have left without my potion. I try to gulp the first three drinks as soon as possible coz after that I feel at least 8 kgs lighter. Then I take my time relishing everything else around me – waiting for that light heady feeling to embrace me and lull my senses. The topic wasn’t all that bad. They were discussing ‘what turns them on!’ in terms of ambience or looks of their partners. But some people are so full of themselves .. naturally they tend to manipulate the conversation to sing their own praises. Especially Antara .. this is one thing about her that makes me yawn. For half an hour she kept talking about ‘her beautiful eyes lips and virtually everything ..the way people compliment her ..’ and what not .. But the real surprise came from one of the men .. he said .. he was ‘adam-teased’ in his college .. and the girls swooned over his awesome a**!

My expression automatically changed from dazed to dazzled. It did sound phony baloney. No doubt.. I have heard a lot about men’s fixation with the rear side of women .. but this was really something. As far as I could recall, the only man whose butt I was remotely interested in, was the Pakistani cricketer Salman Butt! It did make a pretty site ..when he walked back to the pavilion with his stumps knocked all over by Pathan.

For a moment I dismissed him as someone who terribly needed to get ‘laid’ and smiled on my ridiculous thoughts. Some men take at least one trip to the washroom per bottle. He was one of those and everytime he got up .. to my utter irritation I found my eyes slithering on his rear side. Gosh! I hated myself for this ‘carnal malfunction.’ But as I curbed the Satan’s prompting of saying something sleazy it reminded me of a funny incident that happened when I was in school. So bear with me …

I was in Class XIIth and we used to have some extra classes for a particular subject. Those who’d opted for that paper stayed back while the others left when the school timings got over. We had about 5 to 10 minutes break after "chutti" and to make use of that time - some of us stood on the terrace to bid goodbyes to our pals who left the school premises through a small gate just below the extended terrace. After the school hours, in the same building the authorities also held some professional courses therefore simultaneously some really hot hunks made their way inside. So it was like double pleasure .. we said "tata" to our buddies and made passes on some young men.

One day I was standing there with a girl named Koyal. She was .. sigh .. a notorious type .. lol I was busy looking in the direction of a buddy when she almost screamed and pointed in the direction of a strange looking guy .. with a remarkably heavy posterior. Perhaps he fathomed we were gawking at him .. coz he kept gaping up and smiling .. probably thinking he’d bowled over two damsels. He had outrivaled other ardent freebies and wannabees, which gratified his vanity more than he would confess. Now this girl was really naughty and this encouraged her and she started whistling at him. I was so nervous that I ran for my life!

My heart was pounding .. the subtlest human skill is often thwarted by some unforeseen accident.. I wished noone saw me with her when she was whistling. I had a real "clean and clear" studious type of image in school. I’d surprised everyone once by asking what "fuck" means .. and was termed "buddhu" Anyways .. the rest of the day passed calmly ..

The very next day ..Mrs Khurana .. our English teacher entered in our class with a pensive expression. She always had a point or two to make, before usual lessons so we sat and waited. Finally she opened her big mouth and began with a lecture .. on how "young people esp girls should carry themselves!" Finally she blurted she was shocked coz she saw Koyal whistling and that too on a guy. She summoned Koyal in the front of the entire class.. and narrated the entire incident .. with a melodramatic flair.

There was a pin drop silence in the classroom ..the atmosphere was heavy with suppressed laughter. Everyone was exchanging frivolous glances and were somehow controlling themselves ..while Koyal seemed to be in tears and the only person as tensed as her was of course me! In a stretch I remembered every possible name of gods - praying she hadn’t seen me .. As it turned out later .. I’d escaped her eyes and had perhaps made my way inside just on time. By the way .. she was in the last part of her "speech" she glowered at Koyal and barked "tum ladki ho kar seeti bajaati ho!!!!!" (dunno how to translate this .. just means how can you whistle despite being a girl) and this was it .. the place erupted with a loud laughter.

Mrs Khurana was fuming .. she left the classroom with intense detestation mingled with savaged anger to complain to the ‘princi’ and the entire class was punished for that indiscipline. But I made Koyal my "guru" for the rest of my time in school. I earnestly practiced the art of whistling under her tutelage. I turned out to be quite a pathetic student .. and since then I have changed my "gurus" frequently but haven’t managed anything beyond a "shhhh" sound which my friends say is perfect to make a baby pee!

Sadly, I couldn’t whistle on this guy’s assets too and just sighed .. ‘dear derriere’

Gray Streaks ...

2006-03-02T05:38:00.000-08:00

Shrouded with dimness -
Of the day before dawn
Mornings are iridescent -
Streaked by sun and shadow
peppered with guilt
seasoned with the need
of acceptance.
It’s an optical illusion..
Ashen but luminous
I feel false and intrusive
And I plunge through it -
Into a fatal glint of light ..
that muffles the gloom

The lingering twilight -
Suffused with desires
Insinuating with whispers -
Dusk is the magical time
To trespass the secrets
And retrace the steps
through compressed lips..
dreadful huffing of breaths
Exuding an odor of
petty vice and doom

My present canvas is restricted
to different shades of gray
Badly cracked, repeatedly rolled
Withered and in disarray
When the breeze smells of night
Stars hang over the penciled sky
I put two and two together
surrender to subtle bliss
and come up with sins.

Looking out of window
skimming the hungry darkness
in the dull gray infrared
I see them glimmer
Like a stale smoke -
from an unseen fire
Like a dust gathered -
from million journeys ..
The materials of illusions
a shadow of a shadow

In this fabled kingdom
My own territory
Across the barrier of possibility
The feelings are slow moving
subdued and obscure
gray and mottled
swelling and diminishing
But within a surface –
a play of vivacity …

PS – Not sure what was I thinking – when I scribbled this!

strange fit of passion

2006-02-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

Like the flash of lightning in sky
you now exist on a distant plane.
But beyond it’s broken radiance -
survives an enchanted realm
In the honor of your memory

It shines like a small golden beacon
over a pool of subtle darkness -
that intermittently sheaths the sky
before a brilliant aurora ..

The stir of blue sheet ..
Memories of crushed roses ..
Pungent mingled smells
of putrefaction and hope

A forlorn wail mixed with
conversations in smoky lounges –
filled with diminutives
timidity and vagueness

They have all miraculously dissolved
in the frightening pang of losses
But they lap against me everyday
in slow warm waves ..
ruffling away my caresses ..

In an attempt to obliterate the truth
Trace the flight of melody -
I need to go the other way..
a way that eludes me ..

I savor your piercing sweetness
The tartness of broken dreams
And echoes that ring resonantly
underneath their wrecking vaults

Your tainted attentions
were relatively benign
I treasured those small talks
suspended in a bubble of absurdity
It was my tacit and contented vision -
of a failed magnificence

I still have them –
Those attacks of past
Promise me another future
‘coz I still fancy one.
I know you better now
I’ll look out with renewed vigor
For a familiar bleak morning
And I’ll let you go again …

Seven Up!

2006-02-18T13:04:00.000-08:00

Ok ..I was tagged by Shpriya .. and it took me 7 days to compile this list. I’m just a wee bit busy .. so I’m not able to write anything .. but here goes the list ..

7 things I wanna do before I die ..

1) Marne se pehle jee le zara hum .. yeah I wanna live my life to the fullest before I die and that would simply mean just being happy about myself .. going to bed with a smile n getting up with another broad smile .. I dunno if its ever gonna be possible .. If things work out this way .. one day I might give up all my vices and leave for the Himalayas ..
2) Write a bestseller.
3) Learn to play guitar and sing ..
4) Learn Persian. I think Persian is the most beautiful language in the world after Hindi. Yup ..nothing beats your own mother tongue. I have studied Persian for about 6 months but I’m back to zero and I was always pathetic in my classes.
5) Tour Egypt. I have always been intrigued by pyramids n the rest ..
6) Have a baby. No .. I don’t wanna get married but I do want to have a baby - preferably a daughter!
7) Buy a stupendous necklace . .studded with dazzling precious diamonds ..

7 things I don’t enjoy doing ..

1) Cooking .. I simply hate it ..
2) Studying. I still have nightmares I’m back in school or college and I have to prepare for exams .. esp I see myself struggling with my class Xth maths paper again and again in my dreams.
3) Walking. I’m so damn lazy. I want somebody to carry me.. whenever I gotta walk a lot. That’s why I don’t visit trade fairs & book fairs in pragati maidan .. though I would love to .. (I hope my 6 footah can carry me whenever I wish .. :D )
4) Arranging my book shelf .. or cupboard .. making bed .. and those sorta things .. My mom still does it for me .. hehe .. So one can imagine the condition of my apartment.. coz my parents have been away for more than 2 months.
5) Waiting - for anything and everything ..
6) Getting up in the morning! I’m a late night person .. I prefer to get up at 11 am.. earliest.
7) Stitching a fake smile .. n trying to sound goodie goodie .. sweet talking when I’m damn irritated .. coz I’m supposed to - for the sake of cordiality ..

7 things I say most often ..

1) Maarungi ..
2) oh com on yaar
3) huh .. who cares ..my foot!
4) so toh hai ..
5) tum bhi na ..
6) shit
7) Mera Don na .. aisa hai waisa hai blah blah.. just a reminder .. Don is my dog n I can go on n on about him anytime ..

7 books I like ..Hmm there are many .. but mostly in Hindi .. ok some of them are ..

1) The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
2)An obedient Father by Akhil Sharma – I think it was an obnoxious book .. so I read it 9-10 times .. I wanna read it again to comprehend it properly
3) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
4) The stories of John Cheever
5) Sheh aur Maat .. by Rajendra Yadav .. its my favorite book- it should be translated in English.
6) Ve Din .. by Nirmal Verma
7) Sharadchandra’s stories.. esp Srikant..

7 movies I watch again and again ....

1)Dirty Dancing .. I saw Pooja Bhatt’s "Holiday" for few minutes today .. and couldn't tolerate it beyond that ..coz they have lifted it completely from Dirty Dancing .. duh!!!!!
2) Casino
3) Shakti .. Amitabh starrer .
4) Don .. of course ..
5) Amar Akbar Anthony
6) Paakeezah
7) Arth

7 things that attracted me to blogging ..

1) Best way to while away time - that I have in plenty
2) Some good people
3) Some not so good people
4) Some great writings
5) Some not so great writings
6) Getting appreciated for my stupid writings
7) Flirting – sometimes!

7 pieces of music I enjoy .. ..

1) Bryan Adams – Cloud number 9 is my favorite song.
2) Deep Purple - Haunted
3) Enrique – (hes a hunk .. he doesn’t need to sing.. I’m gonna watch him anyways..!)
4) Munni Begum – almost everything she sings .. her voice is awesome
5) Farida Khanum – Mere humnafas mere humnawa .. mujhey dost banke daga na de .. this ghazal was sung originally by Begum Akhtar ..
6) Ghulam Ali – Jab tassavur mera chupke se tujhey chu aaye ..
7) Kishore Kumar - again so many ..

7 people I'm tagging ..
Rays and Ze .. if you haven't done this before .. I tag you both!I have tagged Dooka once .. she has vanished. I'm sure Vi gonna tag Nandu .. so I'll let him go this time .. I can't think of anyone else!OK this was a quickie .. ;) and I didn’t really think a lot!Saturday nights have become my tagging nights ..

Crooked Lines

2006-02-05T04:58:00.000-08:00

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost" (Dante)

I have a large gilded mirror in my bedroom ..the peachy light in my room turns it turquoise .. and fresh cracks appear on it everyday. I cannot look into the mirror without thinking of various speakable and unspeakable acts. In the mirror I see my copious distorted images. Some images have now shrunk into insignificance but some others are as festive as bits of tinsel or confetti .. they enchant shock but fascinate. They shake me like a tempest; I’m bound to them in a zilch of passion that leaves me resisting yet clinging! The signs of aberration liberates an uproarious and potent spirit within me .. something that struggled within me like the genie in the bottle. When I break free, I realize the sweet fluttering sensations; an unfledged bird experiences in her first flight.

A cosmic laugh - unfettered, releasing months of grim remorse – bubbles up inside me .. and breaks the surface. My imagination begins to hum ..it frames my defense against the ‘corruption’ all around me. It’s not unusual to be different person with different men - for all parts are legitimately within - waiting to be cajoled out by one or another .. by one set of circumstances or the other. Some wounds don’t heel, they bleed again and bitter memories resurface at the approach of a new lover. But when I’m with one, I have no desire to taint the happiness I’d found with him with the sordid stories of my recent past. I am faithful to my memories - if faithful is the expression against which you measure every 'other' experience. My years of righteousness ended long back and this is the beginning of my voyage across the frontier - I’d thought was closed for me.

The images turn to yet more tormenting ones – vivid, unbearable. Turning ashen and tight-lipped, I close my eyes and sit there for a long time.. trying to erase the insidious images from my mind. Inside my head thoughts whirl faster and faster until they disappear in an odor of a dark and languid thought. Though I don’t believe in the abstract "sanctity" of the society.. beneath my shifting surface of devious chameleon personality ..I detect this ambiguous longing to work my way back perceptibly into the reverence of the community whose stereotyped morality I’d always scorned. I ache to discard my domino mask and seek this sanctuary.

I’d thought.. By now ..I would be settled in the course of my life, through with my yearnings, turmoil and reversals, a woman, beginning to be wise. But here I am – unsure, unwise, worse off than ever and worst of all, alone. But I do perceive hopeful changes. Am I to pay for the rest of my life for a careless moment on a slippery curve? And whats wrong in slipping again n again? Some outlaws don’t need a modus vivendi..

Perfect Disaster ..

2006-01-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

"Aaine ke sau tukde.. karke humne dekhe hain ..
Ek mein bhi tanha they .. sau mein bhi akele hain .."
One of my favorite sherz .. I love it the most.. in the ghazal sung by Munni Begum. She sings in a voice so soulful that it melts one’s very being.

Rays of Sun has tagged me to write 8 things – I want in a perfect lover. I must add, she wrote an extremely thoughtful post, herself. I'm happy for this tag as it provided me a perfect topic to rant about.

I don’t seek perfection coz I aint perfect myself ..and what could make me fall in love again? What would force me to relinquish the peculiar features of my solitary life ..in these self-denying years… lost in the excessive caution of failed expectations and injured feelings? Nothing less than - another perfect disaster.
I’m as unstable as the weather! Some great impulse.. ruinous and engaging could propel me again …

I am no Psyche, Eurydice or Venus looking for my Cupid, Orpheus and Adonis respectively. I’m not talking about a "perfect husband" either.. coz a perfect husband needs to be a perfect son-in-law, brother-in-law .. and a perfect uncle for my little niece. Rays thought - I would be a "sexy maasi" so the sexy maasi needs a sexy companion. (I should divulge here - my sis had a baby girl .. about 20 days back!) He should at least (amongst a zillion other things) own a massive Palladian mansion overlooking the sea and a Mercedes Benz.

Ergo ..I should stick to the list of - solely a lover. We would live episodically .. without any planning for the future .. as long as we manage to endure each other .. heh ..

1) I’m tempted to say .. he should be a nice person but I have seen even the nicest of the lot turning queer in no time. I would love to have someone who respects women and dares to be just himself - good or bad .. no pretense ..

2) My first ever crush was a 6 footah. I was about 5-6 year old then. Those innocent reveries of childhood .. I didn’t even know .. what crush meant but as I grew up I realized he had always been at the back of my mind. I carried his memories through the exorbitant worlds of love and danger and I’d been obsessed with tall men, for that matter tall people… since then. The only exception being – Sachin Tendulkar. So my perfect lover should certainly be a 6 footah. Height is my biggest "turn on" ..

3) Whenever I see John Abraham on the idiot box .. I feel like singing … "aap jaisa koi .. meri zindagi mein aaye .. toh baat ban jaaye .." He is awfully manly .. macho .. he looks like a dream – I could wholly sink into without any fretful hankering of getting up. How could someone be - so perfect? If I have him .. I would ‘just lust’ ..
He looks terribly sexy in the Pepsi and Bombay Dyeing commercials. BD ad says .. "all men are same .. some just have a better suit" .. uhh .. who wrote that silly line? All men aren’t the same .. n he definitely looks better .. without that damn suit. He should be- even better without any single piece of clothing. When he smiles n says "Go Play" in the Pepsi ad .. my heart nearly bursts with its own beating… wanting to be held within those strong arms. Those luminous eyes . finely chiseled .. fresh mouth - ready to be kissed ..the deadly stubble.. beguiling expression .. awesome body .. sigh ..

4) My perfect lover shouldn’t be a teetotaler and he should be pure vegetarian. Tough I guess .. but that’s the way I am. I have had my share of frowns .. "you drink n smoke.. and you are a veggie?" . Yes sir/mam . .whats the connection between all three ? None at all.
We gonna get sloshed every weekend .. n we gonna quit smoking together .. :)

5) I don’t like "gentlemen" .. Btw .. Do they exist ? If they do .. they are a passé. I would prefer to go with a brute ..any day. Perfect guys make predictable swains .. I take delight in imperfect spotaneous creeps. If he is really "perfect" he should be the curious amalgam of both!
Prudent people who shave before a date, regard doing something unexpected as foolish, who think driving all the way to the India Gate in the middle of a cold December night .. just to have an ice cream is crazy ..aren’t my type.

6) He should have the patience to hear me coz I perpetually have so much to chatter about. He doesn’t need to talk a lot. He has to blab in his deep sonorous voice ..only when he needs to tell me – How beautiful and sensuous I am ..n how special I make him feel.

7) Sometimes I have this overwhelming desire to share the dull agendas of a daily life with someone. Probably someone who enjoys cooking meals together .. go to the theatre and watch any nonsense take-out-your handkerchief kinda mushy mushy flick with a tray full of popcorns n coke with me .. calls me a dozen times .. only to keep me in good humor .. fights for the Sunday paper but lets me win every time.. enjoys walking and playing with my dog .. I can go n on ..

8) He should be a good kisser. Kissing is my favorite part in lovemaking. Talking of kisses – the perfect image that comes to my mind is that of Enrique kissing Anna Kournikova in the video of the song "escape". That sort of smooch, I assume should be better than the actual orgasm. :D

If these are disembodied images that would never coalesce into a single entity .. I won’t mind 8 different men with one quality each .. The more the merrier ..
Perhaps I won’t need any of them – if my man.. loves only me and doesn’t find any other woman – worth a second a look. If I have a man like that …who cares for even John Abraham! It takes so little to please a woman :)

This tag has to be passed to 8 people ..
I have already passed one tag to 1) Vi & 2) Gingko .. Would they kill me if I do that again? I need to pass it to 8 people .. so besides them ..naturally I would like to tag 3) Dooka 4) Shpriya .. 5) Nandya & 6) Bhole.
I think.. most of the people who visit my blog, have already been tagged on this. I’m tempted to tag 7)the individualist and 8) anushka (I’m not sure if they visit my blog regularly.. in case they do) coz they always have conflicting views – that’s gonna make a helluva interesting read.

I believe in democracy .. so if you guys don’t wanna do this – you don’t have to ..
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Gingko tagged me .. to invite 6 people for the dinner ..
I’m inviting them individually … three from my blogging life .. n three from my "other" life ..

1) John Abraham - for obvious reasons. I’m a foodie but if hes with me .. he would dwarf the food. I would settle for him as my dinner .. till breakfast ..

2) Zaheer Khan - hes another hot guy. I also like Irfan Pathan but he looks like a kid … So I’ll let Pathan grow and gonna invite him for dinner ..maybe after 3-4 years.

I should mention here – my favorite star is - of course Amitabh Bachchan and my favorite cricketer is no doubt Sachin Tendulkar. But I have always believed them to be visitors from the realm of legend .. who have only followed a whim to dwell with the mortals for a short while. I don’t ever wanna meet them for real and risk a heartache that might result from the shattering of a certain larger-than-life image - I have for them.

Coming back to the dinner ..

3) "R" Bhaiyya .. I called him bhaiyya coz he was at least 9 years older than me. He was that 6 footah – I’d crush on .. when I was 5 year old. He always addressed me as a kid .. and could never know ..I’d harbored such feelings for him. I have no idea .. where he stays and whats he doing. He should be married now ..with 2 kids. (I’m sure he believed in family planning.. lol) I met him last - when I was 13 or 14 max!
Upholstered on a leather chesterfield sofa in some old fashioned lounge.. sipping beer from a cut glass tumbler .. I still desire to tell him .. I love him in my own way ..

4) I recently had a virtual dinner - the one Gingko hosted .. with most of our ‘old’ blogging pals. Still I wanna go for a private dinner with Vi .. Though I haven’t interacted with her beyond blogs n comments .. I don’t know why - it seems I have known her for a very long time..

5) Dooka - I wanna know more about her .. have been touched by her writings .. her blogs.. comments .. she gives me.. certain intimate vibes .. all the time ..

6) Sweetmirchi - those who aren’t from Sulekha …can’t be familiar with this id.. and I don’t think even those.. who frequented Sulekha.. remember her ..but how can I ever forget her? She was a certain mystery woman - who commented only on my blogs. I’m always gonna miss her comments.

I find this tag kinda boring .. So I’ll let it pass to John Abraham and Zaheer Khan.
Hehe ( I love laughing on my own silly jokes!)
Its Saturday night and I wasn’t sleepy. Taking cue from.. some others – I decided to complete both tags together!
I’m gonna head for my soft sheets and warm quilt - all ready to dream about a romantic dinner with my perfect lover .. I won't mind any disaster .. before or after dinner ...

Redeemed?

2006-01-18T05:45:00.000-08:00

Does it matter who you are with .. when you aren’t with the person you’d pictured alongside yourself in your dreams and in the reality? No matter.. who is by your side... if ‘that’ person isn’t with you .. you are always alone. The same city stinks of somnolence.. of dejection .. where once ..your love had bloomed and the birds had sung. Where you had most passionately set your heart and mind ..you inflict injuries. You want to retrieve yourself – but every door is closed ..and then you redeem yourself through your own sins.

I met him .. don’t ask his name .. in the ghost city of my past. He wasn’t from my past but he held no future either. I turn myself off and revisit the haunted chambers of the life gone by. Isn’t memory more appealing than facts? I look around .. in the ‘Valley of the Kings’ ... my ‘Wadi el-Muluk’ .. where I buried my pharaoh.. my King of romance .. and I’m buried alongside him there .. with all my sins .. my only possessions.. my sanity and my love… in the tomb named .. ‘trust.’ I close my eyes and listen to the voices of my past and they whisper to me. I’d lived there once .. in my emotions and in my vanity. Where I saw charm and security once .. I now see dilapidation and imprisonment. For a long time I lived as a recluse thinking about my losses ..for a longer time than my pride would suffer but I gave up. Now ..I ransack that faint touch .. that whit resemblance of my past... and flow like a cheap liquor. I cross from sin to sin. Pain and pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy .. I’m addicted to both.

I found him there. He’d the glimpses of my past.. thunderous sophistication .. passion etched upon his noble features .. an unadulterated amalgam of a sinner and a saint. His fierce grey eyes had shimmer of mercury that melted me… a sweet melting melancholy ..dissolving shadowy sweetness of vague regret and dim longing. His passion for colossal went hand in hand with his love for the minute. Like Cupid he seemed to be carrying two sets of arrows: one set gold-headed, which inspired love, and the other lead-headed, which inspired hatred.

I’d read somewhere – love is the only game in this world in which there are only losers. A word without meaning .. not a rock but a whirlpool .. the emptiness that sucks down the soul. You get dumped or you dump – in either case.. you are a loser. I think the difference is.. if you are in the former category you take some time .. you need that time to accept .. and then you can easily get sympathy. You just have to tell your ‘sorry story’ with a sprinkle of curry powder… to someone and then you can fool around. I took my time likewise .. to yield to the bitter reality … I confided in him in murmured sentences .. punctured by long silences - I was dumped. My fault? I’m not sure .. perhaps .. talking .. giving .. trying too hard to please .. endeavoring to seduce. I didn’t need any ‘cooking’ .. my curry powder is untouched in the kitchen ..– that’s the truth .. In a smoky lounge we raised our glasses.. the wine glowed like rubies.. with an amber fire in my eyes I told him .. I’m only gonna marry a stranger .. coz a stranger would take at least some time to discover – where my soft nerves lie and then hit upon them ferociously.

We walked together in our castle of debauchery. The castle was no longer.. a colored picture of the Arabian Nights I’d once ventured as an innocent child. It was a familiar place full of old details that still required some digging. The Roman god of dreams and American impresario of spectacle .. were our Aides. I didn’t love him ..I’d promised someone I wouldn’t love again but I never promised that ‘someone’ I wouldn’t lose myself again. I wasn’t losing this time .. I wanted to gain .. a new flame .. that spark of life I’d lost in that ‘someone’s’ eyes when he walked away so numbly. I wanted to undergo a change or even vanish altogether. That secret ingratitude .. in one sense disturbed me and in another pleased me immensely. Look .. I didn’t break any promise .. I made a new beginning without any promise .. A few months of diversion .. to sample the joys ..this peninsula had on offer ..and as every good or bad thing ends.. this experiment ..ended too ..

I’m tired .. yet again ..I want to escape.. I seek redemption... I’m exploring a new territory. Is it my final frontier? My Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine? The mirage of a novel journey excites me.. the glamour of voyage and the unknown thrills my senses.. as the wind snaps on my long hair ..whopping it into knots that would perhaps.. take a lifetime to untangle. I don’t know how to embark on this journey . .with tenderness or with rancor? I’m marrying a stranger tonight ..as I promised myself ... I look at this stranger … as if across a chasm .. I detect a myriad of faces ...But why do I feel.. I have been dumped again?

PS :- Fiction! After a long time.

Are you alone?

2005-12-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

#My alarm was ringing in the morning around 5 am but I was so so lazy to get outta my quilt that I kept ignoring. Finally Don (that’s my Dog’s name) lost his patience n started licking my nose .. His eyes look so different in the morning – they are still misty but the light of awakening is in them …I sprang out of my bed n looked for my jacket, his jacket ..socks woolen scarf .. Gosh .. waking up in the morning is a big pain, even on a normal day n in winters .. sigh :( Its darn cold, fog envelopes the city streets – whether it is due to the dust, the exhaust of tired, snarled traffic or the cold, one can’t tell, but the trees and hedges loom like phantoms, the street lamps are hazy.

I was a bit late today – so by the time we were done with our morning stroll the sun was rising .. now the sky was streaked with a strange color – some kind of bleeding pink ..

#I haven’t been able to update my blogs regularly. Apart from the lack of interest, life’s been strangely busy for me.
Me n Don are alone these days – its been almost 20 days .. my parents left for states .. to be with my sister .. coz the baby is due .. soon ..

I’m excited .. the only regret is, I’m gonna be the only one "missing" in the celebration. It was really tough for my mother to leave. A daughter saat samundar paar needs her but for that she had to leave another daughter behind – alone for months. But I’m a big girl .. n this is the time to prove .. :) I’m feeling ‘old’ n responsible for the first time ..

So everyone – has the following questions for me these days .. " mom dad .. both are gone?" "you mean you are alone?" "when are they coming back?" "you gonna be alone for so long?" "why didn’t you go?" "how couldn’t you go?" "you don’t want to see your sis’ baby?" blah blah .. People people – its already tough for me .. don’t make me worse .. but sadly they don’t read my blogs – so there ….

#I had big plans .. the things I was supposed to do … when my parents are gone .. but nothing materialized. I’m basically a loner – have very few friends n they all are busy when I need them .. hehe .. probably they have the same opinion about me ..

In summers I walk Don in a nearby park – buy him an ice- cream.. but all ice creams wallahs have disappeared coz of winters. I still enjoy that walk .. in the evening .. The park is usually deserted in late evenings but the air still bears the scent of dusk, dampness of grasses n the murmers of people who must have left .. just a moment back. You can see so many distant lights .. through the luminous mists .. we sit there n watch stars.. the moon passing over it’s nightly path .. quietly .. that moment is so perfect .. sometimes there are floods of colors like crimson n purple giving the glimpse of another world than this- somewhere .. there is depth of quiet .. rest .. n love. We don’t even move .. even Don is strangely quiet .. as if a single careless move is going to topple it ..

#I made a list ..
Things I think I can’t do alone ..
1) I can shop .. but I can’t buy clothes on my own .. coz I need somebody’s opinion ..
2)I can’t go to a restaurant n have a meal .. alone. Can have a quick bite ..burger .. coffee or get the stuff packed n leave .. but can’t have a full meal ..
3)I can’t watch a movie in the theatre – alone ..

So I decided .. I’m gonna do all this ..
Started with clothes .. the easiest one. It was quiet a pleasant task. These days – with a dozen sales-people around you .. you are never short of opinions .. "mam this looks really nice on you" "mam the color compliments your complexion" the outcome was – I ended up buying more than I’d decided...

Then .. I planned a romantic dinner with myself .. but I surprised ‘me’ .. When I thought about it – I concluded – I haven’t ever ventured out alone in the night. Maybe long back – when I was in post-grad I was taking guitar lessons in the evening ..
Of course I have worked in the past till 11 n 12 .. but then I just had to walk outta office n slip into the car .. while my driver waited. If I’m alone on the streets .. n it begins to get dark .. I start shivering .. The only time I dared to come back home alone around 8:30 pm I had a terrible accident ..

Ergo .. I thought its better to have a romantic lunch .. and I set forth with much grace as if I’d been a veritable guest to my own self…

That was another hialrious experience coz the waiter placed 2 menu cards on the table. When I placed my order .. he confirmed .. "One plate ??" I smiled n said .. "yes, I don’t eat in 2 plates" After a while – there were 3 waiters attending me .. giving me every detail .. of their specialties .. n the dishes I’m gonna love the most ..
It was fun ..n I tipped them handsomely ..

Third – is the toughest. I’m dying to see"Ek Ajnabi" for past couple of weeks .. I’m postponding .. but I’m sure I’m gonna "do it" next week .. ":D

#Life’s not a room .. it’s a road .. a road going nowhere . on & on .. meaningless. No turning back .. no stopping . no end .. no goal .. best to go alone .. allowing no claims ..

"Our own posessions – though our own
’Tis well to hoard new –
Remembering the Dimensions
Of Possibility"
(Of course by Emily Dickinson)

Pandora's Box ..

2005-11-26T16:59:00.000-08:00

I’m supposed to write 20 random things about myself. Trust me – its tough. Though – I only blabber about – "me myself and I" on this blogsite - this "tagging" seems like a big ask!
First of all sorry Mani ( Ze Exaggeratorr!) for being so late in fulfilling this obligation. These days, I’m at my wit’s end so forgive me if I’m not able to do full justice with this tagging. You wrote an awesome post but I - of course can’t match your chapaats :D

All the readers are warned! My taste is avaricious and vulgar.
Reading this list can be injurious to your sensibility coz I’m about to ajar - yet another Pandora’s Box! So here goes - my list of evils and sins -

1) The first random thing would be – I have lost that initial charm, I had for blogging. I have a sequel to complete but I don’t feel like writing anymore. At the same time, I have connected to some amazing people through this medium so I don’t want to give it up altogether.
I need a break .. I’m not sure from what .. from myself n from my writings too. I’m not a writer but whatever I do at least I try to do wholeheartedly. I seriously tried to write everything with all my feelings but somehow my previous blogs sound - all wrong and fake to me. I think I’m through for the time being. Perhaps, I need some fresh inspiration for my "impressionistic prose-poetry!" Heh!

2) I’m very shy! Trust me I am .. docile nubile nimble humble simple (I can think of at least 20 adjectives but I don’t like singing my own praises :P) If things had gone the way I wanted – I would have been married by now with two kids (twins) ;) I’m sure, I have every quality to become - a purrfect homebreaker . .err maker!

3) On a second (or third!) thought, I don’t wanna miss this golden opportunity. I have been told my voice is heart-stirring - both spiky and silky and my laugh rings resonantly .. ahem ...

4) I have a dark side that very few people get to know ;) I only feel like myself when it begins to get dark. I’m basically insomniac!

5) I’m obsessed with my Dog. When he greets me with his tail thumping, his claws slithering across the floor in his excitement as he dashes out to me – I feel I’m the happiest person in this world. I know - all dogs do that but my dog is really special. He licks my tears when I cry, tickles me with his head when I laugh, nudges my feet with his claws - when he wants to play. I’m blessed to have him in my life – he is inseparable from my very existence.

6) I have an astounding collection of lipsticks and nail paints in weird shades – from fuchsia, shocking pink, blue, green to black. You name it - I have it. I haven’t tried most of them but I keep stocking!

7) Off late, I lost 8-kg weight! I’m feeling damn good about myself and I’m on a shopping spree.

8) I’m a chain smoker for ummmm past almost - 5 years. (I’m aware of the ill-effects n I hate sermons. My favorite quote is – smoking kills you slowly – whos is in the hurry anyways!). I’m darn loyal to my brand. Theres a very sweet verse on cigarette by Amrita Preetam, the famous Punjabi/Hindi author. "Ek hi brand ki akeedat aashique hone ki nishaani hoti hai" loosely translated as " addiction to one brand is the sign of being an ashique" I dunno the angrezi of ashique! (help me!!)

9) I kiss my TV screen at least once during KBC dwitiye. I adulate Amitabh Bachchan. I try kissing Sachin Tendulkar too but he gets ‘out’ - right before I can accomplish the kiss!!! :(
Currently, I have hots for Johm Abraham. (Its better to fall in love with a celebrity or a virtual character, I’m not gonna meet for real. Theres no danger of heart-break or getting lurched.)

10) Tall men (6 footahs) and good booze is my weakness. Most of the time I’m 'non compos mentis.'
I’m one of those who - welcome the good news in the firmament of gin, drink away their sorrows in whiskey pegs, gulp rum in ghum when they are lonely, clink mugs of beer when they are celebrating with friends, hold goblets of champagne when they are acting classy or gobble from the bottle when they are rowdy and sip cocktails when they want to be sober.
Romantic dinner without red wine .. is a big no no.

11) I’m hopelessly single these days. (hint hint for a certain 6 footer – if he is reading!)

12) You can get me but you can’t keep me. If you manage to keep me you can’t get rid of me ;)

13) If there is anything I detest, it is weak-minded sentimentalities – all those melancholy people, who out of an excess sympathy for themselves, miss the trill of their own essence and drift through life without identity, like a human fog, feeling sorry for themselves.
Disappointed in themselves they build whole cities, whole creations, empires and principalities, of tear-wet disappointments. It is doubly painful to admit – I’m one of them - myself :(

14) It’s been a week – I haven’t cried. :)

15) When I was 6 year old I fought with my dad and wrote in my diary – Papa I’ll never talk to you and I won’t become a sanyasi. Heh! My father is a Osho follower and he wore only saffron clothes back in those times. Everyone in the family was silently opposed to his "way of living." I was too young to understand the intrinsic details so I was his sole supporter. Now I think – I might end up on the himalays pretty soon!

16) I flunked in mathematics when I was in class 7th – for the first and the last time n delightfully bid goodbye to it - after 10th. Hehe I’m still pathetic in this subject! The lesser said the better – about this.

17) My ultimate dream is to play guitar someday. I have tried a few times but gave up. My soft fingers bled profusely coz of the cuts from the strings. The first song I wanna play is – Cloud number nine by Bryan Adams.

"so baby tonight let's leave the world behind and spend some time up on cloud number nine .. we can watch the world go by – up on cloud number nine"
Gosh I’m a hardcore romantic and this song gets me into one of those moods when I swing in ecstasy.

18) The last movie that I saw in a theatre was Mughl-e-azam! Call me ancient?? .. naah it was the colored version – I saw at least an year back.

19) I love my city. I don't wanna live anywhere else in this whole damn world. 2 weeks is the maximum time I can afford to stay away then I want to run back. Driving in Delhi is always an immense pleasure - through the regions of immense jamun trees, large low villas shrouded with magenta bougainvillea, yellow stucco buildings between rubber trees, multi-stories, multiplexes, smooth hedges, closed gates, sentries in sentry boxes, and parakeets in flamboyant trees……
I’m totally disgusted when people talk shit about my city. Yes it isn’t the perfect place in this world but nothing and noone is perfect.

20) I’m a dreamer. I hardly sleep in the nights. Therefore, I call myself, day-dreamer! I dream about lavish castles in the moonlight and a river with willow trees all along the edge, passionate nights, expensive holidays in most lavish hotels in Europe and Australia, islands, sea, mountains etc etc ..(I have covered most of my mindless fantasies in the blog "my wishing carpet")

Wow! I’m done! Yipppiee.
Ok its morning and I should catch some sleep and I think I can rest peacefully now!

Another tough task is – I have to pass the tag!
I would like to pass it to – Vi and Ginkgo :D (please don’t curse me!)
I won’t be surprised if they don’t comply. :)

The Astral Body ...

2005-11-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

This happened a day after, my father had spelled out some meditation techniques. I don’t remember exactly, how the conversation drifted from one topic to the other. It perhaps began with the discussion on my insomnia. No matter how tired I am - I’m awake throughout the night. I manage to sleep around 6 am for a couple of hours - till the time my mom screams yells and wakes me up.

As a kid, I remember, when my dad meditated, just before going to bed and I bugged him to tell me a story - sometimes complaining, I was not sleepy, he apprised me, to observe my breath. "This is the key of meditation.. mind is a bundle of thoughts.. witness your breath…it’ll unrestraint your mind and sleep gonna embrace you." But I can’t free my mind with thoughts .. in fact I cant – I cant concentrate on anything .

I contrived to persuade a friend of mine – his brother is a doctor .. and he promised to get me some sleeping pills. Overprotective that he is – he discerned he would hand me only 5 pills every month. This arrangement had slipped outta my head like sanity – but since a long time he had been supplying the pills regularly. I never took them but hoarded them. They are addictive – I’m told, and I already had, more than one addiction, to take care of.

On the said night .. I was drunk .. groping the charms of a life gone by, wanting to free myself from the spell of certain conversations that kept hovering around me. Weary and teary, I could not focus and found myself in a dilapidated dream, in which events repeated themselves. Aftershocks of frustrated desires were swaying my blue-curtained bed as I twisted, turned and tried to cling on to something ..that wasn’t even offered. I’d taken a warm shower, had just finished reading a book by Osho and had on my softest nightclothes. I’d wept in order to empty myself of self-pity and remorse, burnt incense and had taken every pain to secure serenity in my room. I was now.. striving to gather the best years of my life and finally resorting to concentrating on breath, I comprehended, nothing worked and I was failing as usual.

Ergo .. I looked for the pills. My mind was jumbled with thoughts. I’d been nursing a sterile desire .. I had so little in my life ..hopelessness inundated me again. I’d read something about it just a moment back .. "with the object, misery exists; with the desire, the miserable mind; with the demand, with the complaining mind, the hell." dang .. I gobbled a pill. I wanted a curt regression .. nothing happened . . "you are so much engrossed with the object, that’s why you cannot look within.." I swallowed another one.. "Always, you have been surrounded by darkness. With the awareness moving inwards, there is light, and in that light you come to know there has been no darkness" …n then one more .. more n more. Sleep .. still eluded me. Exhausted by this hard work, feeling dizzy but still not sleepy .. I endeavored to concentrate on my breath again ..

It worked this time. I was floating in an invisible sea, warm, ecstatic, silent ..there was beauty, balance .. harmony .. it was a dreamless .. comfortable sleep. I assumed the daylight was breaking in .. coz I heard my mother’s voice. Invariably, she wakes me up with a cup of tea and I don’t like drinking tea without brushing my teeth. The taste of nicotine from the endless cigarettes I’d smoked, the previous night, in my search of sleep ..is stale in my mouth when I get up ..

Half-sleepy, I headed for the washroom. My mouth felt scorched with tobacco smoke .. I started brushing.. rinsing and splashing water on my face ..

When I entered my room again – wiping my face … I was shocked ..
I saw myself on the bed .. still sleeping …
I dropped the towel on the floor n started shivering. How was it possible? The figure lying in front of me .. on the bed .. was indeed me ..

My father, a determined man with puritanical sensibilities had said, sleep is some kind of unconscious meditation, while meditation is a conscious sleep. I was certainly not meditating. I was only struggling to follow a technique and was hoping .. it could put me to sleep. I whacked my brains harder n harder. I was vaguely thrilled when he had mentioned "Astral Body and Astral Travel." Astral body is a tool of the self, to perceive other frequency realities, one more form of our consciousness, just like our physical body. It can come 'out' of the body of the ‘meditator’ and then one can see her/his own 'physical body.' It makes one understand that we are not just body and mind, we actualize we are unlimited and have other dimensions. It was amusing - how could I come out of my body with this fragmented knowledge and no practice? I elicited taking pills after pills. How many did I take? I had lost count .. It suddenly occurred to me that it could kill a person. Did I die in my sleep?

Quiet in contrast, my "physical body" lying on the bed was free from intangible thoughts and manifold sensations. My robust face was calm, my long straight glistering hair was spread on the blue pillow like a stringed musical instrument. My left leg was visible under the slit of the rainbow colored wrap-around .. the solitary silver anklet that I wore in my left feet .. was glittering .. Aah whatta waste of beauty and youth.. I wanted to live I knew that now, but everything else was unclear.. I was sitting beside myself .. and was mourning my death!!
I could not bear the site of myself .. so quiet and helpless ...

With an expression of deliberately controlled hysteria on my face.. I walked passed the living room .. latched the main entrance of my apartment n went outside. I sat on the bench in the lawn brooding under the russet colors of early November sky. I sat there for a brief time and listened to the world around me in the silence of the morning. This silence roared in my ears .. in my eyes and in my heart. I realized I no longer belonged there ..I had no place there .. I was dead..

I strolled.. amongst the apartment buildings faltering their upper storeys across the way as if in conspiracy against the sky. I stumbled morosely in the sunrays striking off in aqueous light, few voices around me of people taking their morning walk and walking their dogs. I wanted reassurances from them .. but there was none to offer me that. It was tough to stand alone and think where I stood and even tougher to contemplate where I was going. I was barefooted .. but nothing was hurting me .. the pebbles .. the concrete .. everything was normal .. I wondered- what would people conclude if they saw me .. dressed in a Technicolor outfit .. sauntering without slippers. I hoped they thought, I was an ultra ‘hep’ woman .. and it was some latest fashion. Or an artist who had discovered the trick to emulate Hussein, and was about to paint a horse sexier than John Abraham!

I completely forgot that I’d died in my sleep last night. My emotions were cool now, as if insulated of. My feet took their own direction and I was home beside my "corpse" again .. I was now estimating all my friends, acquaintances, relatives. It was queer how you met and passed souls thus and a few of them left sweetness with you… you passed one another n parted.. it might as well be forever and yet there remained the touch of sweetness and of pain. Who all would mourn my death ?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I can overhear my parents talking in the other room .. My mother has finally decided she gonna wake me up and is brewing tea. They are going to discover in a few moment … I’m no more. Another exciting thought has just crossed my mind... everything is over.. everything is finished .. gone .. but nothing has finished ..nothing is done.. and I must go on.. I’m dressing up to attend my funeral .. errr .. cremation…

TO BE CONTINUED.

PS – Pure imagination! I’m back.. alive and kicking .. Gonna keep updating my blog .. that would now contain – the tales of my new life ;)

The Mean Streak!

2005-10-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

"You look like Heracles!"

"Now who is Heracles?"

"Ohh he was a character in Greek mythology, popular for both comic and tragic material"

"What do you mean .. I look like a man?"

"Yeah that too"

‘Is he the same man – I loved?’ She asked herself jeeringly.

"Btw I was kidding. You can take it as a compliment coz he was a great mythical hero and carried many solitary exploits. Believe in yourself n quit this shoulder-hunting." He added abstrusely.

‘Huh .. I’ll show him ..’

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I want to don a new look.. do anything you like .. I’m at your disposal."

"Well ma’am .. to don a new look .. you should always begin with hair, it changes the way you look.. your outlook .. everything".. the beautician replied, combing her lustrous dark hair.

"I have very straight sparse hair .. n its graying" she sighed.

"How about having some blonde streaks . .it’s the ‘in’ thing .. isn’t it ? So many people are getting their hair highlighted. I’ll make it brownish to go with your dusky glowing skin ..and that’s going to cover the grays too."

"Ok!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------

She was now contemplating her new reflection in the mirror. Shoulder length hair, with some brownish-blonde streaks had completely changed the way she looked. Her scattered hair gave the semblance of a Black Sea with golden flamboyant ripples. The streaks made some outrageous angles as they turned twisted n ended abruptly. They were horizontal at one time and vertical at the other. Sometimes they ran in different directions with a crisscross creating an optic horror - of confusion madness n mania.

In the morning she got up and the first thing she did was to look in the mirror. Her tangled hair shrouded her face in tense ringlets. The streaks appeared like yellow patches of sunlight - something that proceeds the dawn. Some patches of dark .. some bright patches - combination of various disposition ..creating some kind of motif on a Persian rug ..

In the afternoon they were torturous coz they looked lurid in bright sunlight. The luminosity blinded her for a moment as they formed thoughtless gilt hexagons ..n then plunged into the darkness. When she reached home after a maddening day on polluted streets .. her hair took the guise of coal-smoke with bronze flames. In the evening the streaks turned maudlin with her mood .. configuring different arches everywhere on her head. The scheme was melancholic, suffused with sadness - some careless lines drawn by an unsuccessful painter. The images seemed disconnected n they faded with the night - the way children play hide n seek …

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"What is this?"
"My new hair style… you like it?"
Venetian lamps and the soft light in the room had created a certain dubious impression.. on her head full of varied shades of blonde brown and black. It was a dim-lit restaurant with floral wallpaper. She was sitting across him with a tilt on the left side on a plush maroon sofa.. her lips half arched .. n her aureate hair falling carelessly on her anomalous face ..

"I have told you many times .. this is not working .. don’t think about me .. and don’t consider my approval in anything.. we are not meant for each other."
"I don’t want anything from you .. don’t you see how much I love you?" Her voice was edged with a sharp silver need.
"Love? Do you know what love is ? Its not about changing your hairstyle .. what matters here is our lifestyle .. and we don’t gel"
"I’m only doing things that please me .. I try to please you coz it pleases me"
"You are pleasing me with this? You know how this looks? It demonstrates all the traps you have in your head to lure me .. to hook me .. and bind me .. it seems your cabals have grown out of our head .. in the form of these mean streaks!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"The world is illusionary .. its maya .." she heard the voice of someone.. she had heard long back but could not seem to recall. "The world that you have created through your interpretations and accumulated memory is what that surrounds you all the time and you carry it wherever you go" Patanjali says .. ‘Nirvitarka samadhi is attained when the memory is purified and the mind is able to see the true nature of things without obstruction’ He says, ‘Nirvitarka mind puts nothing, it simply looks at whatsoever is the case’"..

"Why do you need to ask him – a favorable reception? Do you look beautiful or does he think you love him? Don’t you know it yourself? Why do you want to run behind an illusion that exists no more? He is gone.." This was the voice of her best friend.

She was flipping the channels of the idiot box .. ferociously – as if there was something under her fingers that obeyed her command and she can manipulate it .. dictate it ..
A bearded man in a saffron robe was saying on a channel – Osho says .. "If you can become a child again and can look at reality without any obstruction, experience, knowledge, expertise then…."
She switched it off.. big words, kibitz, everywhere ..

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"You like this sorry feeling don’t you ? You have to blame someone for your present incapacity and past negligence so you chose me" He was firing his verbal volleys again ..
"But you loved me .. what about those commitments and promises .. of honey and milk."
"I loved you .. but now I don’t .. everything changes .. so did I .. now move on.. find someone else!"

She had that dream again – her face was wrinkled, ridged ..in depression ..the decaying skin had camouflaged her youth. The blonde streaks had transformed into stacks of gray .. few black hair on her head were falling. Her face was shrinking slowly into an ersatz of herself - covered with wispy white hair ..

Her mother was thumping the door of her room and was taken aback when she managed to open it with a thrust, "What’s you doing here alone?"
She was crawling in the room ..holding a teddy in the left side ..

"Are we capable of an emotion only if the forgotten language of our childhood.. that tenderness and forgiveness .. is made real again ?" She asked her mother innocently.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

She bumped into him again ..
"Will you marry me? You promised me .. didn’t you?" She rolled her eyes ..
"You ask me zillion times .. the answer is NO"

Something was swinging inside her and she was feeling as light as a kite ..something was egging her on .. to break the shackles and explode. She gathered all the courage that she had within herself.. n slapped him hard ..
He held his face n gave her an astonished probing stare ..

This is what you call mean streak and she had accomplished her solitary campaign successfully.
She came home ebulliently. There was none to share this joy that she felt .. but the dusty room strewn with .. books clothes and junk seemed to be greeting her like a friend. She had kicked that interlude n woken up to a real life. She was beaming with this newfound jovial pride - that heady cocktail of love anger and hurt.. as she faced the mirror again n murmured to herself.. "I’m Aphrodite – the Greek goddess of love and beauty!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------

#This is a story (?).. that I'd written - for "Experimental Writings" section at Sulekha but they have scrapped the section so I never sent it and it could not get published. I would call it "mental-writing!"

Rum-Scented Evenings

2005-10-18T04:18:00.000-07:00

In rum-scented evenings
I attempt to reach you …
My befuddled eyes grapple
Your multiplied images -
intensely unfamiliar, distorted.
There are still secret yearnings,
eternally unresolved between us ..
Your perplexing indifference,
old impulse of refusal ..
doesn’t let me go ..
doesn’t let me stay ..

Those days of togetherness-
were sheer magic ..
With a wave of wand you appeared
even before I sought you.
Now bitterly enmeshed
in my sylvan loneliness,
looped sharp pangs…
I try to enamel your picture
but your memories sap me.

Besotted with intemperance
I long to be loved ..
to be held ... to be cuddled -
under the lavender scented sheets.
The fabric pulsating above us,
in vibrant shapes of mortal joy.
In shimmering psychedelic trips-
my heart tickers again
and strives to please you.

In these misty evenings,
suppled with remorse n desire ..
I wish I vanished altogether.
The great ones go beyond time
to spurn the unthinkable ..
I grabbed the perfect moments -
squandered them dreamily
‘coz I was sure I’d thousands more -
beside you, unerringly.

Stuck at a Red Light!

2005-10-12T05:04:00.000-07:00

In the afternoon (today!) I was stuck at a traffic light in South Delhi for about half an hour. As usual.. everyone around me was honking ..I think some imaginative plebeians have found the very essence of fun in this mundane activity. They probably are bored n think honking is some form of entertainment or they think they can manage to irritate the lights – n the lights might turn green if they continue.

Anyway, I was bored too n was looking around for something to amuse instruct .. or simply interest me. I was approached by 3 women dressed in typical haryanvi ghaghra .. I habitually looked away .. thinking they must be beggars .. But two of them were holding the woman in the center with a dolorous expression. The one in the middle was groaning n looked sick. The other two said – she was pregnant n was in labor pain so they needed 100 rupees to catch an auto n take her to the hospital. I stepped outta my car n told them to occupy the back seat n I’m gonna drop them to the hospital or wherever they were going. They declined n insisted they wanted only money.

There was a young girl in a car adjacent to mine .. also stuck there. She waved at me n came over .. She said she was a student of Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) n took the same route everyday. According to her she had spotted those women a few times before.. n the first time she saw them .. she had made the similar proposal of dropping them but the women had refused. Within seconds the tragedy queens became bandit queens n bombarded us with all kind of abuses.

Now there was a small time 'tamasha' happening there . .some other people came over .. even the traffic police guy came .. I did not intend all this .. n was feeling so stupid. Some intelligent men full of awe n pity started giving me n the other pretty young thing .. their wisdom that we should ignore these people who are creating a menace on the street. The women meanwhile left the scene - cussing! There was a curious contrast of tragical n comical events within 15-20 minutes n I’m sure whoever was around took some mental notes of both touching n ludicrous events.

I was feeling giddy.. but it reminded me of an identical event. I was a student then .. n our bus was stuck at a light somewhere. A man dressed in traditional Rajasthani attires got inside ..stood in front n gave a heart touching account of his misfortune. He had collected some money .. landed in Delhi - to find a job but all he could manage was getting burgled. His luggage was stolen .. he had no money consequently he could not go back. He needed only 50 rupees to get a return ticket to his village. No one moved. I was hardly 17 then .. n was somehow touched by his story. I had barely 100 rupees in my pocket but I gave him 50. This was one of my first ever sacrifices .. I had given him that money out of my pocket money. ..50 rupees was no less than a treasure back in those times. After about a month I found the same man in my bus again - giving a similar chronicle of his misfortune. I was dumbfounded then but later when I told this to some of my friends ...they made fun of me that it was a usual site in buses.

Well I’m not a Tata or Birla - born with a gold spoon in my mouth thence can't afford to squander money the way I please. Despite being the favorite candidate for spinsterhood in my own circle I still haven’t booked my tickets for Nirmal Niketan, Kolkata to become a nun. I sometimes have those fits of magnanimity when I look back at my sins… then I do feel like helping someone genuinely. I know there are many sensitive people who exist in the same heartless city .. but with all these frauds around .. its really tough to decide . .whos what ..!!! Repeated experiences of these kinds have extinguished my enthusiasm.

A law was passed a couple of years back that whoever gives money to the beggars would be fined 100 rupees... but it was withdrawn before half the people came to know about it! Its not only beggars … there are some others who sell varied items n do silly antics. Once I was in an auto ..I was all decked up going somewhere in the evening. A man selling incense actually placed his head on my feet. He was almost begging me to buy the incense. I was in no mood to buy but he refused to lift his head. I finally gave in n bought two packets. I was carrying a small purse n couldn’t fit those packets there. I didn’t want to go to a pub or a movie with two packets of incense in my hand. Therefore .. I had to gift those packets to the auto wallah. :(
Ok .. this is it for today ..
Wrote this in a jiffy ..

Formal Goodbye to Sulekha Weblogs

2005-10-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

This isn’t my first blogging anniversary. Still I felt like reminiscing.
It isn’t actually possible to write everything about my blogging experience at Sulekha.. coz in a short time I had such an amazing sundry adventurous ride..that it would be like rendering the impossible itself ..
Still .. I wanna try ..
I think I posted my first blog on Sulekha in June. It was uninterrupted fun for some time coz I got overwhelming response n then I thought I could write so much more .. being myself ..whatever came through my mind .. lots of stuff… from cerebral flights to workday experiences. I love good words .. some people could be against flowery language .. but I’m not! I like lyrical descriptions .. arresting metaphors .. something that breaks my heart .. or something that binds me with the rest of the world …
Blogging was an escape from the harshness of the world .. skirmish of daily life ..into a pleasant heaven with a seductive combination of pleasurable diversity n deplorable absurdity ..that was itself a little world with some carefully controlled excitements of its own. Some people completely ruined my flow .. by calling me various names . .accusing me of playing with multiple handles .. so much was lost in this fight of ravenous egos .. Schism turned into strife .. n strifes into chaos ..Disgusting things were said about me… n others .. I didn’t know I could be affected by some online handles passing judgments on me .. that ranged from my personal life to online life. The funniest thing was a woman calling me promiscuous.

Later on.. when I reflected .. I actually smiled … phew ..
Wasn’t blogging still beautiful coz majority of the crowd was sensible? There were some bloggers who had similar problems that’s been haunting me for a while .. There were others who wrote such beautiful inspiring pieces .. that stirred me at one time or simply delighted me .. There was so much to learn .. so much to relate to . .so much to observe ..a kaleidoscope of settings n themes ..
In sucha tight space most of the time .. I felt I had undergone a memorable experience ..
There were times when I closed comments for my blogs .. I was exhausted .. thought of giving up .. huh .. I write to make myself happy not to please anyone! I was admonished .. warned .. advised .. mocked .. appreciated . .abused .. loved ..hated chased ..everything happened in just 2-3 months . Sometimes I’d to fight my impulse to blurt out nonsensical .. Tardily I just watched the proceedings like an impervious amused onlooker ..

It was like baring myself with all my hidden emotions .. I could so naturally talk about the man I loved .. without the fear of being watched by my parents - who thought even by mentioning him I was torturing myself. I still loved him ..wanted him to hear me .. but I’d become a cacophony for his ears .. an impediment to his vision n growth .. completely avoidable ..
But here things were different .. I was excited by a promise that I’d no name for ..
There was a girl sweeetmirchi .. I can never forgot her ..
God knows what she found in my writing .. that she supported me so much. I remember each n every word she wrote in her blogs . .or comments .. that was richly evocative ..
To quote her ..
"Flower-fist-bestial-wail, I connected with the beautiful words you wrote, you seemed to be hurting so bad & that pain flowed into your blogs. You have a way with words , use that to get over your hurt."
This prodded my wounded conscious to think again ... I probably was writing .. to get over something .. or to re-live something .. that’s no more … perhaps I found joy in something that I’d already discovered .. n knew it was mine ..I was nostalgic most of the time .. the spatter the swirl the dabble around it filled the void in my heart ..n to see someone pinpoint that .. sigh ..
Shes always going to remain in the intimate region of my memory .. even if I don’t hear from her again ..

Despite writing for my own self .. it made me happy when people appreciated me ..
Well any criticism of my writing was most welcome .. not personal attacks . .coz I drink or smoke .. or whatever .. that’s me .. I’m not the only person in this world .. who leads the life of a sinner .. if that’s sin . .alright . .I am .. hideous ..unsettling or maybe even dangerous ..
As a writer you can have the pleasure of being anything .. an apotheosis of morality or a virtuoso in lewdness. A writer could be an intrepid explorer of the unseen and invisible.. or unflinchingly realistic. I think the business of writing is to probe the tender spots of an imperfect world .. which is where we live write n read ..
Something again .. that sweeetmirchi wrote ..
"You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew"

Grr .. anyways I didn’t intend to write all this .. I’m writing this coz the layout of Sulekha Weblogs .. has been distorted completely. I’m fortunate that most people I could connect to .. are still in touch with me. Thanks to all the wonderful people who take the time to read my blogs here n comment.
Day before yesterday I thought I should check on sweeetmirchi .. therefore I left a message ..on her first ever superlative homage for my ordinary writing. I thought of checking today ..if she had replied .. but what I saw has raged me .. The layout .. the colors .. the site .. everything is so crappy .. but do we have any say ? I’m never gonna visit Sulekha Weblogs again.

The Slutty Handbag!

2005-09-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

One of the worst part about gaining weight is .. I don’t feel like shopping. Its atrocious to enter a dim-lit changing room loaded with all the splendid apparels.. only to discover with vexation that I hardly fit into any. Whoever said shopping is the best therapy .. finally I settled for picking up some stuff that saved me from this trauma – funky stilettos, gauzy scarves n a crescent shaped red handbag .. that my mom didn’t like at all .. "Are you sure ...you want to buy this? Its so kiddish .. the color n everything" But I was adamant ..

It was sucha major consolation.. when I was sliding my toes in a red leather slingback and uncovered that despite all those kilos ..I had accumulated everywhere .. my shoe size is the same…ergo I came back home kicking my kitten heels forgetting for a while.. about all the unsightly bulges n waited for an opportunity to flaunt my latest collections. Sigh .. one of those sordid times ..when I miss having a man in my life.. I so dang want sometimes ..Ok forget it .. lets not get into every detail ..

Thankfully just a day after (last Sunday!)..my girl friends A and S ..called up n we planned a rendezvous at the Hookah Bar. So there was I .. displaying my bargains with panache … fluttering my floral georgette scarf n twirling my Hobo bag ..
I was fishing for some adulation .. but what I got made my eyes pop out in amazement .. S was holding my bag n saying .. "Ohh whatta cute slutty bag" When she saw me battling with that "compliment" she started laughing .. "It was a compliment" she insisted. I had no other choice other than accepting. She is 3 years younger than me.. times been altering swiftly ..its more like a generation gap .. these younger ones flabbergast me with their "rich vocabulary"
I’d been staying away from drinks n all the extra calories. I curbed my urge to have beer and placed my order for Fruit Daiquiris. I don’t like vodka based drinks ..white rum n fruits should be ok.. I mostly round off with tequila shots .. so maybe one more Frozen Margaritas.. that is all I promised myself ..
But my eyes were stuck on the food part ..a yummy preparation completely knocked my socks off..(forgot the name … now who cared for calories ..)

My friends wanted to dance .. but with all that food in front of me .. I did not want to budge. They were swinging somewhere .. while I kept relishing my food ..all by myself..
After about 10-15 minutes a suave looking guy came over my table n asked if he could sit there. I thought the place might be crowded .. so I nodded n plunged again into the delightful aroma of cheese jalapeno .. salsa .. n blah blah ..
Meanwhile.. quiet unconsciously I was trying to conceal the "slutty bag" with my scarf.. sucha frightful adjective it was ..

After initial discomfort this guy was trying to get cozy with me ..
Another shock awaited me .. I had forgotten .. how to flirt. I so wished he could leave me alone ..
But I gave myself a mental slap .. for being so uptight ..sharpened my claws .. n inspected him ..he was well dressed but had a diamond stud in his left ear .. eeks I hate men with earrings .. but all in all he wasn't bad ..
My only criterion when it comes to men ..I barely know is – height .. a tall man with good enough physique is a turn on.. he qualified ..
Another put off was his first question .. "what do you do?"
I really think its high time I should find a pleasant job. I keep scrambling for an appropriate answer .. if a blogger asks me what you do ? I say .. I blog .. if a chatter asks me what you do .. I say I chat .. but this is real . .what should I tell him ? I thought for a while n said .. "I’m a homemaker"
Obviously he frowned .."you mean you are married ?"
"Ohh yes I am." was my reply
"your husband …?" he stuttered ..
"Well hes outta station ..n I thought I should unwind .."
I gave that picture perfect smile .. the kinds perfect homemakers give in TV commercials with a disinfectant in their hand ..
I kept blabbering.. I’m not sure what .. coz by the time my friends returned I was 3 drinks down .. a state when even dismal ragamuffins transform into recumbent heroes ..n my smile had morphed into that of a seductress ..
He was surprised to see them .. coz he thought I was alone…but he moved .. subsequently
It was time for me n my pals to chatter . I had completely forgotten about this guy. There was so much to talk. S always manages to date the oldest man working in her company. According to her she has ‘something’ for 40 plus men .. this intellectual orgasm crap is beyond me .. but her stories are always hilarious. I enjoy them while A gives enraged looks .. shes our moral queen .. It was very much like old familiar times .. I hardly have any stories to share these days.. so I was the patient listener ..

When we came out .. I was stumbling to find my chauffeur .. out of nowhere the guy I was flirting with appeared .. it actually took me a while to recognize him… coz he said Hi again. I was thinking .. I had seen him somewhere ..
He was stammering again and slowly tried to hand me a card ..
I gave him a suspicious expression .. so he said .. "ohh this is my card .. just in case you feel like dropping by my place .. I live alone .. you know .. till the time your husband is back in the city…"
LOL .. I wasn’t embarrassed .. I could not control my guffaw.. while I tossed the card ..
My friends are always the ones who find my driver n car .. coz they don’t drink like me .. They had discovered my driver who was ogling at femmes in shorts somewhere n were back in time to rescue me ..
The poor guy almost ran away ..
It was my poor red handbag .. or my insanity ..I’m not sure but was surely a funny day ..

PS - My humor attempt ;)

Sprinting alone..

2005-09-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

I had been reading some old works by Women writers and came across an essay by Louisa May Alcott titled "Happy Women" written in 1868. She is conceived as an ambidextrous writer who led a "double literary life." The book I’m reading is a collection of the works created by her "left hand." Her right hand accomplished the genteel domestic and moralizing side of her works such as the best seller "Little Women" and the left hand had been attributed for producing a series of pseudonymous sensation stories, a comic memoir of her family’s failed communal experiment and numerous historical and feminist essays.

In this particular essay she appears to be talking in person - with all young women on the threshold of deciding a future for themselves – they should get married or stay alone n pursue whatever makes them happy. In this process she accumulates a brief - in her own words - "I put in my list all the busy, useful independent spinsters I know, for liberty is a better husband than love to many of us." This list according to her is "composed of the superior women" who remain single due to various causes and are as happy as the other women who are happy in their choice of being "married women with husbands and homes."

It’s remarkable in the sense that even in 21st century many women are confounded with this question and many seem to be scratching for an appropriate answer. I don’t necessarily agree with Alcott, coz these women exclusively can tell – they are happy or not. But a woman writing in those times is so sure of herself (at least seems to be!) that she writes in the concluding paragraph "If love comes as it should come, accept it in God’s name and be worth of His best blessing. If it never comes, then in God’s name reject the shadow of it, for that can never satisfy a hungry heart."

I thought of sharing this coz I’m myself grinding my brain (& read some other blogs related to this theme) on this topic - what should be my next move? I don’t blame my parents for pestering me to get married coz corresponding to the age-old adage.. its their filial duty - to get me married and that indistinguishably is the best solution for my problems. My own dilemma is different and at this point of my life I get repelled by the very idea of marriage but when I think about the rotting silk saris and jewelry my mother and sister had been collecting for me over the years – it makes me sad!

The city I live in – isn’t the safest city in the world for single women. I tried to show something of that sort in my blog titled – "A Spinster in Delhi?" But as usual what I wanted to say was eroded due to the other stuff in my blog coz I mentioned "drinking" and someone started arguing with me that - women who drink cant be virgin. Anyways that’s another stereotype probably he was right in his own understanding but that was just a reflection of the mindset some people have for women who make "choices" that according to some is "unconventional" but for many others it could be pretty normal.

Even in my blog I had written that everyone scares you - you might turn out as a hag in the absence of husband children and family. I was amused to find that the first line of Alcott’s essay is - "One of the trails of women-kind is the fear of being an old maid." Probably life hasn’t changed much since 1868 ..at least some emotional problems remain the same.

I’m reminded of one of my mother’s colleague instantly whenever I think about an unmarried lady. I’m sure even other people who lived in the same locality or knew her, associate her with this issue naturally. She was my mother’s contemporary who taught Physics in my mother’s college. A very loving woman who loved me and all other children, she often tried to scare us by – "where is your papa .. tell him I was looking for him." Though we were too young to know the joke behind this statement, we knew she was kidding. She apparently wasn’t happy coz she kept blaming her parents for not marrying her off at the right age. She shuffled between her other relatives and some pals during vacations. She was infamous for her hot temper in the college amongst her students and colleagues. Everyone thought she was too demanding - coz - 1. She was an old spinster and her work place was the only zone where she could vent her anger and frustration - an inherent result of her loneliness. 2. She could not understand the plight of other co-workers coz she lived alone and had no family of her own. 3. She envied other endowed young women who had unending possibilities ahead of them in terms of marriage n blah blah

Whatever - she was beautiful even in middle age, she was successful even professionally so there was no reason for her to not find a pertinent match if she so desired. She loved all the kids profoundly and at least the children had nothing to complain. It seems she could not suppress her maternal feelings altogether. Still she is famously remembered as the benchmark in her circle – for being an unsatisfied spinster who longed for her own family.

Though I have remotely come across many other women who have remained single, she is the only unmarried older woman I knew personally and perhaps better than the rest. I have read the conflicting accounts of many other single women writers, artists, celebrities etc and I believe many would have been pleased with their evaluation. Alcott has compiled the list of some women with miscellaneous profession, tastes and looks – reportedly they were all happy with their volition. She herself makes an appearance in the line-up as a writer "who in course of an unusually varied experience has seen so much of what a wise man has called ‘the tragedy of married life’ that she is afraid to try it." This is "the line" I could associate with. However Alcott herself has been said to be regretting the sacrifice of sexuality and motherhood - to work until her death!

The concluding line of her essay is - "Be true to yourself; cherish whatever talent you possess, and in using it faithfully for the good of others you will assuredly find happiness for yourself, and make of life no failure, but a beautiful success."

My Wishing Carpet ...

2005-09-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

My wishing carpet ..
If I had one ..
I so desired as a kid .. I could own a palace - that looked like a gaudy picture of Arabian Nights. It would have been packed with chocolates…dishes of raspberry candies.. colorful candy suckers wrapped in shiny papers with twisted ends - spread all over. A colossal playground – bursting with children, surrounded it and we played every game on my terms! I would have owned a bakery that produced …pastries full of chopped peaches.. chocolate n fruit cakes .. apple pies ..strudels .round the clock.

I wished I had a tree-house in my backyard - I could have sneaked in there - when my mom scolded me .. or dad admonished me to study. I would have hidden my dolls here.. n dressed them elegantly in charming prim and puritanical dresses… stored my tiny trinkets .. music boxes ..vivid crystals.. shells.. n every junk that I found bewitching..
My own wardrobe would have been abundant with soft muslin floral dresses in baby-pinks lemon yellows .. with patterns of peacocks ..plants and trees .. embroidered collars .. laced hems .. yes another cupboard overflowing with fairy tales ..n stuffed toys ..
I would have had the strength to beat up all my competitors (literally n figuratively!). I would have punished my teachers .. n scored 100 out of 100 in Mathematics!

Ohh these were still childhood scruples …

I wanted a different nefarious palace in my teens .. crowded with hunks .. preferably 6 footers. I would have sensed that secret adventure . ..transient passion ..of something intimate and slightly dubious that must never be spoken of .. something dusky and hidden that at times made a tremor ripple across my stomach.
My wardrobe would have been imbued with scented evening dresses.. ruffled silk parasols scarlet sandals .. stylish rough long boots ....hoses .. straw hats.. faded jeans .. strapless tops.. shocking shades of lipsticks n nail paints.
Life would have been a merry merry dream .. that was clear n precise in certain respects but was weakened by small failures of imagination..
Food now was spicy n tingling .. all the time.. mostly street foods - aaloo chat.. mixed chat . .samosas .. chole bhature .. golgappas .. all junk foods ..even the silly chow-min n manchurian ..n the music was loud n deafening ..
I would have traveled around the world – perhaps wouldn’t have cared to come back home!

In early 20s (n now!)..I would have fled with my veritable King of Romance in an exotic tropical world. We would have built a warm lighted abode beyond the clouds with tapestry curtains …prismatic rugs n huge paintings ..ceramic bathtubs ..billiard rooms.. pools… more exquisite than the palaces of Venice. It would have housed the imagination itself! We’d had a roof top garden impregnated with subtle fragrance of purple and red flowers n a huge ivory swing .... a dim lighted private bar - with a great glass aquarium of fishes and crabs.. overlooking a lake.. or sea… the bar loaded with translucent liquor n stylish goblets.. strewn with calm n cozy furniture with velvet cushions. .. we would have sunk in here n talked pleasantly. A music room with an aristocratic piano .. consisting almost every music from techno to hip hop .. from films to ghazals- for varied moods. A small library – replete with mahogany bookcases with glass doors .. and a reading chair upholstered in silk damask beside an incandescent lamp – where he would read me stories in his resonant voice ..

Now I wanted sarees .. silks chiffons ..flimsy negligees.. pearls diamonds rubies .. French Perfumes..(much much more!)
Food .. umm Mexican Italian .. pizzas pastas etc etc .. plentiful with cheese sour creams .. jalapeno ..olives .. tomatoes .. onions n blah blah .. served on a tabletop inlaid with silver ..fresh flowers .. n doilies ..
And of course Indian – all snacks of potatoes .. with mint chutneys .. n every damn paneer preparation along with butter naans stuffed parathas n fried rice!
We would have taken after-dinner stroll …under the moonlight hand in hand ..in gay gardens rich in oaks n well kept shrubs.

Our nights would have been spent in Mediterranean yatchs .. amidst champagne red wine and misty darkness .. sometimes we would have disappeared in the forests of bohemia.

On a second thought – If I had a wishing carpet I would have asked only for two things – make me 10 kgs lighter n gimme my man back!
I’m so self indulgent .. If somebody else had a wishing carpet they perhaps would have treated it as God’s divine countenance. They could have thought about doing something for the world, street kids, women .. eradication of poverty ..n so on ..
Others would have had dreams of a glowing career ..or they had venerated academic achievements above anything else ..
But that’s how I am .. sigh ..n that’s precisely why I don’t own a wishing carpet!

PS – Sorry.. for this vague malaise .. I was bored n rambling coz I’m starving on two fronts – hungry coz I’m dieting .. n craving coz I’m missing my man :( (he isn’t mine anymore – still!)

Diamonds and Rust

2005-09-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

My life revolves around just one word – rejection ..or rejected ..
All this self-pity and tears .. is taking me nowhere .. but I don’t have nowhere to go. May be there ..I was looking up into the ineffable blue of the sky .. over which in intervals spread ..great white clouds in shape of wings ..

It has been raining for 4-5 days .. I was peeping out .. n I saw the good angel of my life .. standing in the rain .. looking at me with a scornful laugh. So – another year has passed .. n what have you done with your life .. she seemed to be asking . An old wound bled again .. all the bitter memories arose .. n choked me ..with tears in my eyes n a smile on my lips .. I drew back with a sigh ..

"Hot and electric .. a love story waiting to explode" .. her friend winked .. when she displayed those first pair of diamonds triumphantly. "Its just a birthday gift .. com on" she said shyly .. "Ohh diamonds are indeed a girl’s best friend.. so just watch out - where it leads you" her pal winked again .."Ummm …" Suitable language came to her mind .. but not trusting herself to deliver it without revealing her fears .. she just evaded the topic.

"So did you like the earrings?" .. he asked .. with a cheerful hope .. "Didi said you don’t like studs …why didn’t you tell me ? I’ll get you dangling earrings next time"
In the moonlight .. he crept out of the airport .. and she was waiting .. "I’m here in your city .. heading home.. ciao tomorrow" the voice ringed in her ears ..
She went to see him buoyantly in the wilting afternoon sun ..n he waved ..
That heavy bag .. was full of incessant gifts .. finally when he gave her everything .. he smiled . .as he held those dangling huge earrings in his palms .. "Do you like them?"

Augury of a delightful future had already taken possession of her .. as she dressed to meet him again. The room was full of every dress she had in the wardrobe.. scattered everywhere. She needed something to match those earrings. She kissed those first pair of diamond stud earrings he sent her on her birthday .. her first diamonds ..n kept it back .. in its exquisite box redolent with lavender & sweet clover.
A savage joy had engulfed her .. it was too perfect to be feigned .. time just flew . the music .. came floating up to the elevator n greeted them. Her head whirled as she stepped into the corridor with him n sank in a comfort zone by his side. The smoke the lights .. the crowd ..the chatter the perfumes .. the bewildering medley of colors .. it seemed nothing existed .. between them .. n they were .. sitting with each other coz they were destined to be together. They were traversing this solemn journey with soft-footed silent care. "You look beautiful in these earrings"

As she reached home .. n got ready for bed .. something was missing ..
"One earring ..gawd .. where is it" as she looked at herself in the mirror. Another one was still dangling in the left side .. but the one on the right side - was gone .. "I dropped it somewhere" n she woke everyone up in the middle of the night and made them search ..

The phone was ringing again "Goodnight sweetheart" he said .. sweetly .. but she was crying uncontrollably "I lost one earring.. I dropped it somewhere" .. few words spewed out of her .. "Ohh .. so what .. I’ll get you many more" .. no he doesn’t understand . .it means so much to me … n she kept crying .. but why did I lose it ?? For an hour he was yawning on the phone and telling her to relax n sleep .. but she kept crying even after hanging up.

"It’s not possible for anyone to go to prayer without going through love, so don’t be scared of love. Through love many more hope arises. Don’t feel hopeless about love.." the sage’s words were making her oscillate between joy and pain .. Jesus says "If the salt loses its saltiness, then how it can be salted again?" Some thing rose inside her ..as hope from despair.

"Total despair is needed. That despair is called ‘dukka’ by Buddha. .." said another one. I can’t decide hope leads me to despair or despair lead me to love.

Joan Baez, was playing in my mind ..
"Well I'll be dammed - here comes your ghost again! But that's not unusual;
its just that the moon is full, and you happened to call!"
Ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks: you bought me something,
we both know what memories can bring, they bring diamonds and rust!"

"What do you want for Birthday this year?" Vivek asked me .. when we were sipping our drinks quietly -the day before. I have always loved rings .. I have a huge collection from – American diamonds to gold silver n oxidized metals. Long time back Vivek had gifted me a beautiful gold ring. Since then it was just a part of me .. along with three other rings that enamored my fingers. About 3 months back – my maid stole them all from my room. That’s another story .. sigh ..

I don’t know what I want but I just wanted to stroll by the jewelry shops in the area and I was looking at some diamond earrings again. So Vivek asked me if I wanted to try them .. but I shrugged. "I have vowed.. I won’t ever doll up diamonds."
"Your heart is worth gazillions diamonds .. in fact .. much much more" He was probably trying to console me.
"But its rusting" .. I thought to myself .. I still have that solitary earring in my handbag .. though I have returned all the diamonds .. It’s rusting quietly .. alone .. like me ..

So He called again - not on 15th but on 17th .. to tell me "you do not love me .. you are only in love with the idea of being in love with someone" .. the words were hitting me like a hammer ..Was there a still more humiliating answer to my perplexities?

I hid my aching heart yet again .. praying for him the tender prayers.. meant for those – whose sins are all forgiven for love’s sake.

Good Morning Heartache!

2005-09-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

Misery loves company n who else can be a better company.. than music? There are songs for every mood .. not just misery and its amazing how easily one can relate with music .. some songs seem as if they were written only for you. They don’t say "no" or "maybe" -when you seek their company nor do they ask anything in return ..other than your open ears .. sometimes heart .. that you open willingly .. naturally ..
Some mushy songs that I doted on earlier . .sound so strange now .. they remain constant .. probably they are warming the hearts of other lovers .. n I have moved on to a new set of favorites ..

This one I had been humming with the relish of a connoisseur ..since yesterday .. an oldie .. from Billie Holiday.
".. Wish I’d forget you ..
But you are here to stay ..
It seems I met you when my love went away
Now everyday I start by saying to you
Good morning heartache .. whats new ?"

I said good morning to heartache again .. after a sleepless night ..
I cant sleep .. why ? Nothing I can place my fingernail under .. just a losing sense of ground. The residue of this loss seems to accumulate everyday - in a way that I cannot control.
A longish dry spell has just ended .. it has been raining for 3 days in a row ..
Another dry spell of a different sort – ended just before that. But this makes me even more thirsty and parched. It leaves me in a labyrinth – wherein my troubled soul gropes n falls. He called me up after ages… to wish me for my birthday in advance. When the phone was ringing and his name flashed .. I kept holding the cell for a while. It seemed so unbelievable. His voice isn’t the same – that whispered sweet nothings in my ears .. I don’t know what I want from him now .. a peculiar sense of fatality hangs over a devoted place – called heart ..

I don’t get calls from him anymore – but I still call him up sometimes .. during his office hours n listen to his answering machine. This is the only way – I exhaust some talk time on my phone. It’s so odd - now I give blank calls around the same time when I wrote him mails… a couple of years back. In the morning (his mornings and my late evenings!) we used to chat a bit while he had his coffee n instructed me to be a good girl n sleep after dinner but I couldn’t. I got up many times in the night to write him – and he kept checking my mails occasionally in the office.

Anyway, so he called n I couldn’t even complain – a desire to perhaps scold or annihilate this desperation ..at least to pretend that the suffering he has caused me required an apology .. an explanation to win my forgiveness – some instinct like that … has preserved me – but I only asked him if he gonna call me up on 15th again to wish me. He said – yes if I leave a message on his machine to remind him. Hence I called – somebody else picked up. I remembered that some old time buddy of his has moved in with him. I was so jealous of this buddy. The apartment was supposed to mine – I would have moved in there with him .. though I have never seen the apartment – I probably won’t ever but he had described me everything and it almost felt.. I had been breathing there…

Funny why I still feel like a little girl as soon as the month of September begins.. Anticipating my Birthday – I’m usually lost in the innocent reveries of childhood n whirl of thoughts. Sad thoughts and sadder misgivings – undefined yearnings and ungratified longings take a flight for a brief moment. My sister and Brother-in-law have sent me lotsa money ..to shop n drop! But I was just making up my mind – shopping alone by myself isn’t my favorite activity. In these times how I wish .. my dog could accompany me everywhere! Today I decided I have to break this monotonous morbidity... I ll get some new dresses .. some new shades for my nails too. In the evening I was waiting for my chauffeur n he calls up – that someone in his family died . .so he wont be able to come today!

Ahh why me ? I was so irritated .. but I hate auto rides especially in this weather n messy streets. Idiosyncrasy of this city is smoke- it gets worse after the rains when humidity, smoke, dust, mud, traffic jams .. everything combines. No I’m not feeling romantic this time – rains have failed to create any emotions whatsoever! I thought of calling a cab – but I completely lost my mood. Why was I shopping anyways? I have nowhere to go! None of my girl friends have called yet .. mom dad .. had been apologizing over the phone for past few weeks - next year .. they gonna be with me! Next year – baahh .. what about this year .. but hey .. I’m just aging so I should mourn maybe.

But sigh .. at least someone remembers .. in fact "some two" A defense officer pal of mine posted on the border especially sent me .. chocolates n some offerings from Vaishno Devi .. through courier via Jammu. I got it in the evening .. n just after that Vivek .. my only friend for over 8 years - he can never forget .. though I often forget him .. called up. The first line was – so where are you treating tomorrow? I really thought of him this time – n I was sure even he gonna forget. If he had forgotten I wouldn’t have blamed him either – now he has a wife.. a 6-7 months old daughter .. but he still remembers .. tears kept rolling from my eyes .. I couldn’t say anything .. I don’t have anything good to wear .. my hair looks awful ..I’m feeling so aberrant . ..but at least I have somewhere to go .. we fixed up something for tomorrow evening .. I’m gonna get sloshed for sure ..

Cacoethes Scribendi

2005-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hi ..
This is me right ..
Had been writing as flower-fist-bestial-wail on Sulekha but the site crashed!
I was given flower and bestial - both sorta treatment on Sulekha .. heh ..
Enjoyed the time there .. n intend to continue my journey - here ..
Was tired of a long handle .. n ppl conveniently called me ffbw. This time I have decided to have a shortest possible handle - that I like ..

I had been saving some of my favorite blogs here. Feel free to browse if you haven't read them earlier. My blogs are called - "my tryst with sins" coz the only sin - I think I have ever committed - I loved someone dearly ..
The woman's heart asleep in my childish demeanor - was vaguely thrilled by a delusion of love. Some premonition of the great power stirred n swayed me .. so vigorously .. that I'm still jolted. Basically its the jilted lover that talks here ..

I call myself aria .. I always dreamt of writing poetries but I couldn't.. so .. these posts are like elaborate songs . .in my *solo* voice .. right .. I'm alone .. can't say I'm loving it .. but thats how it is ..
I recently read a story called - "Cacoethes Scribendi" .. it implies - an uncontrollable urge to write ..!
Its the uncontrollable urge to write and read - that has enabled us to get back with each other. I hope we will continue to pursue our common interest here .. n have a great time .. All the best to everyone!

I have a passion for writing .. n to quote from the story .. "there is nothing so tranquillizing as the occupation of writing."
I'm just an amateur writer. "... but 'tis a spirit...."(Shakespeare)
Its been a long time ..I haven't written anything worthwhile .. so its just a short note to welcome everyone who drops in ..
I'll try to keep you all interested in the future ..
Bear with me if you can :)
ffbw

Solemn Moments ...

2005-08-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

“Too solemn for day .. too sweet for night ..
Come not in darkness . .come not in light ..
But come in some twilight interim ..
when the gloom is soft .. n the light is dim..”
(William Sidney Walker)

I have often wondered - why should “day” be too solemn .. though I love this little verse .. read it in early teens - in one of my favorite collections of assorted classic poetry in my (maternal) Grandfather’s personal library. He had a huge collection of books from around the world .. n he occupied the first floor of our huge ancestral house alone - amidst books. In the afternoon.. after lunch.. all of us (me n my cousins) .. used to go upstairs n read n read .. quietly.. while he just looked at us solemnly - with all the warmth n affection .. he spoke very little .. but as the twilight approached .. he told us to leave :) coz that small village seldom had electric supply ..n it could hurt our eyes ..

I love the waning lights .. when the day subsides - giving way to the premonition of hushing night .. n rest .. Though I can make any time in the 24 hours .. my ‘solemn moments’ or hours (depends!) .. don’t even have any preference for making love at a particular hour .. coz it solely depends on the solemn company .. ;)Naah .. I aint gonna be outrageous this time .. will let the sanguine me talk for a change ..n unfold some(!) brittle pages - trying to discover some sweet solemn moments.. as I look back with mildly sorrowful reflectiveness... between the flashes of pain n pleasure of an otherwise dull life - hoping I don’t open another Pandora’s box this time .. ;)

As a kid .. (I insist!) I was a modest prudent girl who never feared failure or notoriety (I think – this has changed!). I loved listening to stories. My mother was an exquisite storyteller then – she narrated stories of old n young.. grave n festive.. lively n severe.. which I listened with eyes as well as ears - lying beside her. Those were the solemn hours … my favorite stories used to be - of Emperor Akbar. I still remember one referring to Tansen - when Tansen sang Raga of Agni .. the flames of a thousand clay lamps had leaped into the air and the dry leaves on trees had burned to ashes. It even set Tansen’s throat ablaze .. and his daughter was forced to sing the raga of rain - to move the heaven to tears! (I recently read this story again – somewhere!)

My sister had a cupboard full of story books - collected over the years and consisted everything from fairy tales.. Russian folk tales .. amar chitra katha .. champak .. tintin .. Archies .. n what not. All neatly bound and arranged.. but she strictly kept me away from this treasure (coz of my erratic ways - I’m told she had another cupboard full of delightful terracotta toys. I had smashed them all - by one by one!) .. n the solemn moments where - when she was away n I could attack it under the careful supervision of my mother ..

My school was very close to Connaught Place. Sometimes we ran away - during the lunch break… to dine at Wimpy’s n Nirula’s. It was the hottest spot for young people then, as we didn’t have McDonalds or Pizza Huts. Once we ran away n landed at Chanakya Theatre to watch Basic Instinct. It was my first “A” film .. heh .. The theatre was almost empty n there was a couple sitting behind us in a corner - enjoying their own solemn moments. We were giggling n giving each other (four of us!) the looks of merry malice. If we wanted we could have caught another Basic Instinct .. aka KBC dwitiye .. ummed se dugna .. !!!

In college .. the solemn moments were finding our U (University) special buses on time .. n even better if we could board them. They were heavily crowded all the time ..n guys used to hang from every possible place - from windows to the door! Most of the girls could only stand n watch .. as the buses came .. stopped n went away. Once I discovered an L special (Ladies special). It didn’t stop near my college .. so I had to walk a long way in the afternoon sun to catch this bus. If I managed to board - the solemn cordiality inside .. of chirpy girls .. wow .. was a bliss. Once a poor guy.. got in by mistake. All the girls flocked around him to make his life hell - till he literally ran for his life at the next stop!

Two years I spent in Hostel during the masters.. had its own fond memories. I was discovering newfangled tastes - from swirling of vermouth n gin.. to pungent smell of rum n whiskey ..
Innocuous flirting .. flings .. crushes were like an everyday affair .. Cupid worked overtime n the air was always full of odorous sweetness .. but once I found my true love .. I got ready for a solemn life ..as the solemn air touched the life of the girl – who had been waiting for some tender touch to discover her hidden warmth but was too pretentious to exhibit her impulses.. or her aspirations had slept till some potent voice awoke them. A couple of years back on a valentines day .. he sent me a diamond pendant in shape of a heart. I wore it around my neck .. like a solemn promise in my old ornate gold chain .. it was a triumph I found too hard to conceal. When the promise broke .. I returned him the pendant ..but in this frozen unfamiliar present.. the chain is still like a talisman of a past - when future seemed comprehensible!

How can I forget my dog - when I talk about the solemn hours? Five years spent with him .. are full of many. Just watching his canine innocence is enough sometimes .. he has been an equal partner in both harmony n discordance..

In this period of soul-starvation .. time n again .. I have lamented my ignoble destiny – quizzical about that one human being - I loved n solicited to gain one look of real heart-kindness from him .. n now again crave for some solemn moments. Stripped of any expectation ..solitude was the best healing emollient I could bestow…on myself .. as unsatisfied longings for something which I couldn’t attain often clouded of what otherwise could have been a bright day…

I have waited for a good news with latent hope in all this time - something pure n beautiful..Just a few days back .. my sister said .. she is expecting a baby (I have an augury that its she!). Finally - after ages we gonna have someone younger than me in the family!When she called up – she said .. its time for me to “grow-up” and played a tape recorder .. I could hear the heart-beat of the baby on the other side .. while my own heart was pounding .. with a solemn intonation..She waited for good 4 months- to tell us.. we gonna have a fabulous baby in December :D

The most solemn prophecy the world has ever known .. is the arrival of a new life - a fair promise of the day that should surely come…My parents gonna be off to states.. away for a few months - to be by her side .. n I have to wait for some more time .. alone again with my dog..but the solemnest moment will be - when I hold the first member of the generation next in our lineage .. soon .. kiss her rosy cheek.. press her dimpled hand n chubby fists.. stealing warm caresses n leaving her in peaceful dreams - of a life full of sweet sunshine .. n dulcet springs ..

Memories..and Taj..

2005-08-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

My favorite time-pass these days is gazing at the empty sky. Last evening again I was staring above at the crimson sky ..The very vastness of the sky is its beauty n mind seems so puny before it… probably I try to gauge the emptiness inside me against the vacant endless sky. Its getting hot again .. few birds were chirping which sounded more like an empty cry – a desolate sound of a rainbird thirsting for water. Feeling the desolation, wild melancholy, forsaken songs rose latterly.. from that frightful aerie. In spite of the sludgy bitterness in my veins - I tried to feel all the music - ethereal and distant. My solitude is already crowded with distant memories ..but slowly the voices grew faint in the fading warm late sunlight which dimmed further into darkness n I came back to the reality.. I thought ..

Some distant relatives were planning to drive down to Agra last weekend n see the Taj. I declined .. mainly coz I had a funny dream a couple of weeks back. I pictured myself before the Taj, all alone in the night. There was no moon but it was a beautiful starlight night. Taj looked abandoned lonely grieving its solitude. During the day .. so many visitors so many people visit the Taj .. and it forgets its turmoil.. forgets the pain of bearing the memoirs of long dead ..celebrating the love of two mortals resting within its premises. But it waits for the night .. when it stands alone .. reminiscing.. I don’t remember how I arrived there but in the starlet moment I felt like an intruder in its moment of solitude. I kept gawking at the Taj in frank obeisance between the shadows of death and brightness of eternity. The Taj seemed in tears .. suddenly it started tottering n everything around me was quacking. I got up trembling .. but my bed was shaking coz .. my German Shepherd .. sleeping beside me was panting .. staring at the a/c. There was a power cut ..n only fan works in the society’s generator but he can’t sleep without a/c .. lol n whenever there is a power cut .. I’m woken up by him .. coz he is damn restless. I got up n gave him few ice cubes to suck on .. he got busy playing with the ice cubes – he looks at the cubes as if the cubes hold a secret - similar to the Rubik's cube that had perplexed us as children.

I searched for my picture taken a couple of years back at the Taj. I saw Taj for the first time when I was only a kid ..so I don’t remember much .. but the second time was a few years back. I visited Taj with a group of rookies, some drawn from the group of Canada World Youth .. n one firang woman was complaining - the Taj isn’t “as beautiful as” she imagined. I was absolutely disgusted by her comments but time n again I have realized one thing – its useless to argue with some people. I broke away from the group n sat all by myself breathing in the air of Taj. My own understanding says - nothing is beautiful or ugly .. they exist intrinsically … its our own ideas that make things beautiful or ugly.

Whatever - the picture is a mundane one. All of us got clicked one - by the photographers hovering around in the periphery.. fixed at a spot raising one arm .. giving the impression .. of holding the dome of the main part. The savage heat n hot wind blowing across the stone parapets had made my skin prickle.. I had to chop off my long hair for the first time .. then .. coz I had been travelling n suffering from major hair loss. I don’t look great ..in the picture .but. of course the Taj with all its grandeur dwarfed me in any case.

Taj these days .. has a pale yellowish look .. but in the picture it looks pearly white.. calm. I was in a bizarre mood n was moved into tears ..beholding the Taj in the picture - but I don’t cry in front of my dog .. he gets even more edgy .. n sits besides me to lick my tears .. gosh .. how could I survive without him!

I slept finally . but the next day .. I glanced at that picture many times.. everytime I looked .. Taj appeared different ..It had varied emotions of anger, pride or defiance. It somehow turned into His face ..His familiar face now looks obscured - it demeanors that ruthless love .. which makes no concessions and no allowance. Something like Taj – which is left with no will to question or protest .. in the process of enduring the torment – existing in an aura of agony.. innumerable conquests, weather, dust, crowd ... It stands erect eloquent with the love that even death could not conquer but ..rigid .. absolutely unmoved .. despite the fact that lovers pay a visit .. it refuses to budge now ..

I have spent a long period of my life knowing the mystic and solemn strength of an all-absorbing love. All the years spent before this - faded into this misty past which saw kindling of my eyes, the quick flushing of my cheeks and the wild throbbing of my heart at tones of a voice that soothed me like a spell, with a curios mixture of pleasure interest and admiration but which has long since then - hushed into the stillness of death. Deeply wildly passionately.. I had loved .. only to wake up from this ‘dream of beauty n delight’. I’m trying to beat this pain n rage into some form - when you are accepted by someone .. you feel valued.. you have some significance …but without love .. you sometimes become afraid. But why not be thankful of what you achieved in this time -.A gratitude just to “be” is so beautiful n ecstatic .. its like prayer . .when you don’t demand anything .. you are simply thankful.

Omar Khayaam has said “dust unto dust” everything has to return to dust . we live a life utterly beyond our comprehension only to be ended by fire on a pyre and we are ashes for the winds to bear, the leaves to cover.. theres something inside me that can’t go unto dust .. it doesn’t belong to the earth .. it’s inside me ..the remembrance is lightened by the old resilient aptitude of claiming the moments.. mounting with it and finding it all-sufficient ..some unseen hand had been polishing n refining my flesh in which this lovely spirit of memories has found its habitation .. n its my Taj .. built around my accumulated memory ..which I carry inside ..

Cigarette in her hand...

2005-08-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

"Cigarette in her hand .. she feels like a man .. "

One of my friends commented on me once. This line is misconstrued from the famous anti-smoking advertisement, which isn’t on air these days. A man is seen viciously puffing away from glory and the music goes on, in the background – “cigarette in my hand, I felt like a man” and in next few shots he coughs, droops and finally metamorphoses into a skeleton. My friend obviously twisted the meaning to tease me.(Duh!)

I have read some 70s & early 80s vernacular literature, and sometimes (rarely!) came across a woman character that smoked. She hankered to demonstrate - she is unconventional n independent, which made the traditional society uncomfortable. It reflected the mindset of the general public in India, which still has that uneasy feeling for an urban woman who smokes or drinks. Some think they are ‘easy women’ or they can’t be ‘homely’ ‘docile’ must be ‘brats’- anything but normal! Probably they fear the women who smoke – when they see them they see plots, cabals, constraints n traps being laid! !

Then our bollywood vamps - aah who can forget those skimpily clad voluptuous Helens and Bindus. (Despite the fact that sometimes it seemed they were suffering from ‘bad hair days!). These women tried to seduce men esp the hero, who ruthlessly turned down their advances coz they were ‘immoral’. The setting used to be some shady place at the villain’s den –matching their oomph, spirits overflowing, where they sometimes smoked with a long holder, held between those long fingers and manicured brightly painted nails.

I’m not a person who wishes to wile away the endless boredom of my life in a bar just smoking and drinking. Hindi movies taught me to drink away my heartbreak- I tried pulling on the foul taste, a tonic for the bitterness in my heart - blowing smoke against my pulsing anger, headache and desolation. I drank scotch with hope, feeling it would burn down like an elixir. But liquor just made me even more tired. The memories kept rising.. I felt a mixture of anger and longing in my throat and sleep eluded me.

Now I try staying away from loud bars and discs – where they play music with a loudness that hovers on the edge of real pain. I like lounges, dim lights, surrealistic decors where I can relish my drinks, enjoying the twang of bubbles against my palate and waiting for that light heady feeling to embrace me. When the spirit courses through my blood stream, the soft lilting music dulls my senses, I forget my self, sinking into the comforts of a plush leather designer sofa. Or probably I won’t mind sitting in a dingy bar with no music, imbibing alcohol smoke and everything else on offer- alone .. getting inebriated… enjoying the pleasure of the thick cold of a cheap beer, curling in my throat and wondering – why things taste better when you pay more!

A hardcore romantic that I am – when I picture rejoining, I can see myself sitting across him in a lovely peaceful place, sparsely furnished, with dark shadows & with a view of willows and the sea. A tabletop inlaid with curling patterns of ivory and silver, blossoms of fresh flower, scented candles, full with the aroma of aphrodisiacal moonlight, river water and rain. Our wine poured in the palest topaz, in goblets of crystal. We - raising the glasses, sipping our red wine silently with the thin taste of foreign bitterness amidst swirl of smoke. Me squinting through a silvery wine haze, examining the exotic turrets and lovely blue roofs, exchanging occasional glances with him, without touching, feeling the safety of togetherness!

Ok ok . enough .I had my first beer on my 21st birthday. I only wanted to taste things that are forbidden, and smoking and drinking were just a couple of those ‘forbidden stuff’ in my home. If I get curious about something – telling me ‘no’ just makes me believe that there is something I should know about. Another thing – everyone in my friend’s circle smoked, and passed the cigarette butt on to me. I used to take a drag or few thinking I’m never going to get addicted, but it continued .. (quiet usual). Despite my temptation to have a taste of almost everything- I never touched the ‘drugs variety.’ Once I had a crush on a guy – who was wackiest of all the 6 footers I had known! He had that shabby look (stubble n careless!) and smoked grass like chimney. I just had a few drags once and my head kept spinning whole day.

The attitude of most people (who matter!) has changed and women smoking are a usual site in bars.(even the leading ladies in cinema don’t mind drinking n smoking on screen anymore!) Once I saw a veiled woman smoking in a restaurant.(don’t ask me how) She was wearing a glittering black “burqa”. Women in burqa often intrigue me – and a woman in burqa - smoking? I’m sure everyone was wondering who lives under that unrevealing tent. Is she pretty? Ugly? White as milk, pockmarked, one-eyed, yellow-haired, black-haired 45 year old, 22 year old, a drooling cretin or a brilliant beauty?

Outside the regular group, or my university campus, other than the pubs, I usually don’t smoke. In University sometimes our professors offered smoke during tutorial discussions. One professor who was the most magnanimous- used to smoke some imported stuff that his best pal shipped for him every month. I could never gather the courage of picking a cigarette whenever he offered but others naturally made the most of this opportunity.

Mine was a group of 4 girls and we did some mad stuff. Our favorite entertainment was- stepping out of the classroom, after the attendance - one by one and smoking in the loo (slang for washroom!) In this activity we were joined by a lot of other girls. At this point – I’m reminded of a girl named Aparna. Gosh- she was one we were all scared of. She could smell smoke from anywhere and was always lurking around somewhere in the proximity to grab an opportunity to get few drags for free. (miser!)

Coming back to my group, once on my Birthday we planned to venture a pub famous for its fussiest crowd, dressed in traditional Indian way- salwaar kameez, bangles, bindi. That was a memorable experience – when we entered the jammed pub - dressed as typical ‘behenjis’. Everyone was looking at us with the ex-pression – “what are they doing here”. After a couple of drinks we even made the DJ haywire, coz every now n then one of us used to go to him and asked him to play old Hindi numbers. Poor guy – he thought these behenjis are drunk .. !!

I miss them so much – 2 of them are married and one has shifted to Mumbai ..and without them I’m almost friendless- esp after my famous heartbreak – I have mellowed down. Its been ages – I haven’t been to a pub – and I’m cutting down my smoking miraculously. I hope to be free someday – free of everything -all my vices .. including men!! heh!!

Its Raining Men!

2005-08-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

Probably monsoons does it to me.. observing the clouded sky .. and the sun in the background fading away .. it seems as if I’m gazing at the future. My past is accumulating steadily in the form of clouds.. which darkens further .. as the yellow lights recede .. and I’m blinded. But nature is holding its breath .. and the last night’s lightning has struck me at last .. suddenly it starts pouring.

Memories.. darkness and dust ..I’m still haunted but I look away .. all the memories I had of Him ..that were like water and breath to me .. I send it to some dry land in a dark desert.. and concentrate on the rains. It brings a range of emotions .. and I can think of all kind of people …I start smiling.. reminiscing the school days - I sat with my friends near the entrance of the classroom and there was a group of guys that sat at the other end n we used to throw chalk at each other. If it rained during the school hours we made it a point to get wet ..and sometimes we threw chalk in the rain ..

I’m deeply engrossed in thoughts .. when I hear my cellfone ringing. I come inside to take the call and find myself struggling to remember this familiar voice on the other side. Finally when I recognize the voice... I don’t know how to react. Its my old time crush .. we began dating around the monsoons and initially .. whenever we met it used to deluge. I had almost forgotten him but was happy to hear from him after a long time. Thankfully I don’t change my numbers often as most of my other pals do. .so I keep getting surprises every now n then. We talk generally n it seems he remembered me too .. coz of the rains ..We commemorate and laugh… but I brush aside .. the plans of meeting again ..

Naahhh .. no men now .. I shrug when I hang up .. and get back to my own world. I look outside .. this is my favorite time. It isn’t sprinkling now but its heavily clouded and breezy. I think its time to venture outside in the bewilderment of the city .. listen to the hum and bustle.. during the rains ..and so I decide to have a small walk .. all by myself ..
Its messy on the streets .. but I don’t mind .. coz the weather is great .. and I’m in such a dreamy mood .. that I keep walking. The ground moves under me.. rocks and shakes .. as I hold on to it .. hearing the high voice singing inside me .. breathing the breath of earth and sky. I’m enjoying the silence around me .. the sense of multitudinous life behind walls and shutters .. the scent and coolness of the soil. It soothes me .. and I feel estranged from myself .. no longer possessed but emptied. Suddenly the sky is darkened again with a thunderstorm and it starts drizzling ..

I don’t want to get drenched .. just want to peer .. so I stand in a shade. All kinds of things are on my mind .. and I’m essentially unaware of the surroundings. The rain is getting heavier .. and theres hardly a soul around me . I’m loving this solitude. But sigh .. a car stops in front of me .. out of nowhere .. and a sleazy looking character asks me from inside the car .. if he can drop me somewhere .. I give him a frowning fierce look and say no .. but he is still waiting .. I repeat I don’t want to be dropped . .and finally he leaves ..Whats wrong with Delhi men .. Gosh .. reminds me of my college days .. when I didn’t have a car ..every day was a struggle .. even on usual days if a woman is standing alone somewhere .. all sort of people stop and ask .. if you need a “hitch”

The first ever time this happened to me .. I was in first year of my college - just out of school.. and I wasn’t aware of such stuff . New sessions begin in July ..hence .. it was monsoon time .. and I was standing at a bus stop. It was raining cats and dogs ..there were 2-3 ppl besides me .. and we were waiting for the bus restlessly. All of a sudden an elderly man stepped out of his huge car and came screaming towards me .. “Hi! Vibha.” I was puzzled .. I said sorry .. my name is not Vibha. And he was like ‘ooooo .. you look like a very close friend of mine .. her name is Vibha.’ I thought of saying .. ‘fine .. now that you know .. I’m not Vibha .. why don’t you leave’. In the moment of panic I forgot what to say and this pause was like a waiting silence for him .. and he continued .. “you know Vibha is a very close friend..” .. other people at the stop were now staring us. He kept persisting … “Coz you look like my friend .. can I drop you somewhere” Thankfully a lady was there ..also waiting for the bus. She intervened ..and asked him to leave and when he left she gave me a big lecture… “beta .. if you get confused like this .. you are gone …” .. She was the first woman who gave me a crash course on Delhi weirdoes. I still thank her ..

NO .. no .. I don’t want to think about all this ..the world is vast and strange but not vaster and stranger than our own minds. I think and start walking in the rains ..The last time He was here in the city.. when I knew him in the days n nights of peace n pleasure we walked together on this road .. so many times - in the afternoon sun .. in the evening twilight .. hand in hand…. I can see him everywhere again .. in the light.. beyond the clouds .. in the wind .. in the leap of water .. even in the dirt. We never walked together in the rains....If he ever comes back .. we gonna walk in the patter .. cleanse ourselves completely of the bitter memories .. and head for a new future… together again. I look up .. the cloud cover has dispersed .. the sky arches its pure uncolored dome n I close my eyes. I can picture myself .. stroking.. fitting and settling my own pieces .. deftly and unhurriedly ..urging .. caressing .. coaxing and guiding the small fragments into place .. reuniting them .. reassuring them .. ..I’m feeling serene n ..I’m smiling again …

White Wings created a poetry outta this post at Sulekha-
Hope he won't mind coz I'm saving it here - its beautiful!
Thanks WW

Monsoon brings back to me
Sweet memories:Love-chats,
Walking in drizzles,
On road walks.
Hand in hand, smiling
Teasing, hugging, kissing
Seeing in clouds
Lovers moving.
My cell phone rings.
No, it is not him
Some other guy
But I want him.
In my heart
His memory rings.
I want to undress
Not fully.
In choli and bikini
And want to walk
In the rains with him.
Mirabai remembered
The Dark OneI
n the months of rain.
I remember him now
And want him
Again and again.

Ah, no men now!
I am all lone,
Dreaming of him.
I will go out
Walking in the falling rain
Thinking of him,
My first lover
My school mate.
I remember
We threw pieces of chalk
At each other
Sitting in the school verandah
Under the monsoon rains.
Time has washed
Other memories
But monsoon washes afresh
Your memory again.
You were my first love,
My heart throb, my pain.
I keep walking
Hypnotically, the ground shakes
Under me. I cling
To the rocks
To the branches of trees.
I hear the voice singing in me:
I do not leave him
He lives in me.
An opening in the skies,
Clouds receding,
A breeze now blowing.
I am wet in the rains.
Wet, thinking of him.

From chaos.. to chaos ..

2005-08-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

I live with an assortment of lies … behind me in my past .. is chaos of unfulfilled desires n promises .. and chaos is ahead of me .. in the name of future n dreams .. my present is nothing but a hell of hope - hoping something will happen tomorrow... the doors of paradise will open tomorrow... if you are really in misery don’t hope .. coz hope only prolongs misery .. it only gets you closer to death …n I'm walking .. barefooted .. searching for it ..

Nietzsche says that a man cannot live with the truth...he needs lies.. he lives through lies… we go on saying that we want the truth but these so called-truths are nothing but lies…no one is ready to see the naked reality... n so I close my eyes .. I yearn for lies... coz I have to live .. I crave for either my past or my future .. this past that is dreams - memories, remembrance of things that are no more… and my future.. which is projection- again created something out of the past... its nothing but past contrived - more colorful, more enticing, more radiant.. it is past refined...

This journey of lies began .. the day you asked me to wear my bridal dress again ..it was raining that day .. my heart was pouring with unsaid emotions .. and I was wrapped in my red bridal dress .. standing in front of you lowering my red eyes ... I was scared .. how could I see rejection in your eyes .. but you made me beautiful .. coz you looked at me .. with those eyes which said .. “they are the most beautiful red eyes for me in this world”.. I was losing my vision ..I could not share my vision in words .. but my tears showed it ..

I glimpsed my past present future all rolled into one .. in your eyes ..I saw my past .. when I envisaged myself as a little girl .. who pouted .. she can't count beyond 6 plus 4 coz she has only 10 fingers .. a little girl who sat in your lap ..heard stories but always slept halfway ..my present .. when I espied myself as your lover.. your wife .. the mother of your daughter . .we named her together .. “Eternity” .. and yes my future .. when you had wrinkles on your face .. but I had none .. coz you said “I'm still beautiful ..”

Deep within me there was a place that only you could touch .. n I surrendered unconditionally ... it was not a bargain .. it was just my love..When somebody is in love.. suddenly.. as if spring comes within the heart .. the birds start singing….it feels as if something within you has blossomed.. and you are full of redolence.. which doesn’t belong to the earth.. love is the only beam on this earth which belongs to the beyond... .

I do not think of that other realm .where the stars stay still .. where there is no power in my hand .. and no right way to go .. coz no way leads anywhere ..

But I dream of you every night.. and your voice calls .. just to remind me "I'm gone" .. I know the voice is yours .. but I don't want to believe it .. and I look at you again -in your eyes .. this time there is nothing.. no thought no feeling..no past ..no present .. no future .. you simply become void..an emptiness.. end to end.. and into that emptiness falls whatsoever I say and whatsoever I am...I beg you for a moment - that you grant . in that moment I live a thousand lives .. and in that moment I die in your arms ..

Letters to the Dead..

2005-07-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere.. ancient Egyptians wrote letters to the dead when they couldn’t find any exhilaration amongst the living... when I read this it stirred me so much.. that I could not sleep for few nights. I contemplated death and dying .. and pondered over it again n again .. what comfort did they get when they wrote these letters…did they really think .. the dead would read these letters . or it was an exercise to soothe themselves... unerringly

Why do we write? For me .. its more like a bliss .. it heals me .. most of the time when I get lost in the worldliness .. I look for a respite .. some composure ..then I read or I write .. it has a magical affect ..

I lost something about a year back … when I was on some razor edge between excruciating delight and impatience... I’m calling it ‘something’ coz I don’t have no words to describe it .. it was something that someone else and me thought would go on forever but had come apart savagely and with finality. .it may sound ordinary ..as people around me said .. "we have been there .. done that" .. presumably… for them.. it was nothing .. but I couldn’t help thinking about it again and again .. when I watched him go.. in the shadow .. I knew this image would remain with me forever.. this person.. this shimmering body moving away from my life…I felt inside the unhitching of pieces of myself ..things drawing apart and falling away ..I know there are many puzzles in this world and there is no reason to cling on one … this puzzle could best be left alone .. they say .. move on .. so I am moving on .. in my own way ..

More than a year has passed since he left ..and it seems so cruel that time should pass so gently and leave behind long swaths of unremembered moments…. I’m afraid of a memory dying and keep painting pages with my ramble .. ..I wrote him about 250 long mails in that one year we were together … and even after this moving on .. or moving away .. I must have written him at least 50 more .. but I knew my words did not have the same effect on him .. then I thought of writing some letters to the dead .. n I did .. the dead person I wrote to.. is nobody else .. but me ..

"Some people meet their ghosts, and some don’t, but we are all haunted by them."

Virtually.. I’m filled with a longing so bitter that I want to die all over again .. I want to be full of that certain hell of hope and remorse again .. and then I end up with an echoing silence in my own wilderness ..sometimes passion kills love in springtime .. and coz it dies in its beauty .. poets and singers sing its praise .. it’s the love that escapes years …if the bond is so true why break it ? what do we know of eternity but the glimpse of it .. when we enter this bond ..so I have allowed it to survive in some or the other form …
"I could suffice for Him, I knew
He- could suffice for Me-
Yet Hesitating Fractions - Both
Surveyed Infinity"
(Emily Dickinson- my favorite poet)

The cruelty of strangers or friends is nothing compared to what love can do .. it’s a journey of days.. years ..a chronic case of heartache .. the relentless wooing to win .. and then losing again n again …

I was told by some friends to write blogs .. n was warned .. it doesn’t guarantee you readers .. some of my friends said .. they had been posting for eons but they read it themselves.. so my letters to dead were written for my own self .. posted here .. and I thought they would be lost here in the webpages.. the way I have lost ‘me’ somewhere within myself ..

Somebody had asked me ..how would I describe myself .. and I said .. flower-fist-bestial-wail .. it describes me the best .. Nobody has one face .. we all have a set of masks .. I still don’t know whats the real me .. but I have seen myself in all these forms .. I have rejoiced the tenderness . when I saw myself as flower ….then wailed my beastly fall .. but I’m human .. and as I said in one of my blogs .. I’m a sinner :)

Below the surface .. below the belt ..

2005-07-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

This is my "doosra" akka Muralitharan style (not Harbhajan Singh please .. I'm much more lethal) I termed my first attempt as “slogging”… let’s see how this attempt turns out to be and if I come out radiant in winning colors like Sachin Tendulkar… but I still have a long way to go .. and this sounds way too ambitious for a novice ..

Now that I have decided I gotta write .. I’m confounded with silence .. well silence is golden .... “a beggar that is dumb you know may challenge double pity….” ..But Silence doesn’t work in this medium .. and I have already blabbered ..I love words .. and this brings to me a very interesting proposition .. how many of us use words while fantasizing .. heh!

When I use the word fantasizing…. I know most male minds would drift towards .. their buxom beauties they fantasize with .. in their realms of mind ..ahem .... but lets not get into that ... . I’m going to be subtle sublime yet sultry ..all at once .. and save my tryst with sins for some other time … as someone pointed out ….. “Is love a sin ?” This won’t be a bad idea for a whole new blog .. agreed .. but I’m so used to loving it comes more naturally without thinking and I have given this a thought many times… Freud has said .. “awareness exists in layers and there are thoughts occurring below the surface” .. hmmm .. below the surface is my favourite area .. just like some people love hitting below the belt .. but below the surface is a dangerous zone .. Its mostly full of hidden traits … approximately some of us are exactly the same below the surface .. they would be below the belt .. !!

I have drifted from one place to another .. and I have more than a handful now .. so I have decided to give a shot at “below the surface” .. I hope I don’t sound like a prima donna amidst male crooners .. anyhow.. my inner self is tangible to emotions .. it pines for something exotic and uncertain all the time .. and this often lands me into trouble .. but then whats life without uncertainty and tribulation... and after every uncertainty .. and failure to find something comforting .. I tend to dismiss all my loves .. as ..lusts!! and I won’t call lusting a sin … though lust is believed to be one of the seven deadly sins .. for me its natural too .. like loving caring n dispensing.. it succours my heart and at the same time fills me with poignant loss ..

The ones I think I’ve known even better than myself … never cease to surprise me .. in no time at all they turn out to be someone unfamiliar .. probably I hadn’t known anything ever .. I have both attachment and contempt for the superficial life they lead .. as I would love them to be someone they had portrayed to be … but I despise them for what they turn out to be .. whose fault it is .. I don’t know .. I would never like to know .. few things that can’t be disposed should be stored somewhere … beyond this planet .. inaccessible unapproachable ..
However .. what would that be .. the spectrum between Loving and Despising ..? what would you call that something ? .. calm and clinical..? most of the time I tend to paint everyone emphatically .. either I hate them or I love them .. and most characters keep changing this position .. from hate to love .. from love to hate ..

I have been told many times .. when it comes to women .. most men think *from below the belt *… what about me .. ? the ones I loved I have lusted for them likewise .. trust and lust .. it comes in a package … its one deadly combo .. perhaps love and lust are different sides of the same coin .. no not coin .. for me it was more like a bubble .. coz .. both have left me empty handed ..
Every morning I get up .. promising myself to lift my inner self cryptically…all this oomph around me would make me gentler … but I don’t appreciate the quality of being gentle .. I merely prescribe it to myself at times .. the primitive elegance of Elizabethan era .. errrr .. no … I love the way I am .. outrageous .. malicious … vivacious ..

Some body said beauty is skin deep .. though .. hardly anyone has time to go that deep .. we all dwell over the surface .. if someone asks me .. what I am truly .. I would say .... above the surface I’m safe .. below the surface I’m insecure .. over the surface I get lost .. below the surface I find myself ..

I'm a Sinner!!

2005-07-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

I’m a 20 something bored *hag* blogging in this cyberspace for the first time .. or should I call it slogging .. whatever .. sucha ditzy embarkation for my maiden venture !! But I love words.. the only place I got solace over the years was admist the pages of my diary.. any sneak peek of my most loved and private possession by a stranger angered me .. this was THE place I stored my secrets and the thought of anyone reading them chilled my spine and fumed my nerves. Now here I am.. venting my thoughts in an open medium. I have seen some blogs and often smiled at the ridiculosity .. when I saw intellectual mediocrity afloat everywhere in the name of blogs ( some are good though!) I said to myself .. Hey why not me with my cramped acumen ;) ? so this is me doing the same .. I’m no writer but as I said.. yes.. I love words .. love fiddling with them .. love cuddling with them .. how divine n complete is the feeling when you see yourself evolving and dissolving between words . the only time I feel powerful is when I create something .. and the only way I create is when I fly wingless in the space of my mind with words as my parachute.
"Wounded wing .. how strange to fall from blue. Like a fish that suddenly forgets to swim. When men fly they know by instinct they defy. But to a bird, as to a god, nothing’s more natural than sky …"

I wanna sin .. now don’t get surprised by this sudden confession and frown .. why do I need to declare I need sin in my life .. haven’t we all sinned some or the other time .. ?and most of the time when a woman says she has sinned it boils down to sexual confessions prurient thoughts.. moral pain .. I have erred too .. so many times ..with my judgments with relationships with friends with foes .. and yes I have sinned .. but it wasn’t intentional .. wasn’t premeditated and I ended up feeling more like a culprit who was pushed to wrong doing .. feeble broken shattered .. or lemme term my sins as freudian slips ? "Sometimes the truth has a way of coming out in the most embarrassing and unexpected ways." Now I wanna do something to get some fake sense of power .. I can sin too with a BANG! .. now here you go .. I can break hearts.. I can make others cry …I’m always close enough to get wounded but I never do enough to wound ..I don’t wanna get into the lengthy discrimination between venial sin and mortal sin la Roman Catholic views or the original sin which led to fall of man .. errr woman ? nor do I believe in the theory of karma .. its for philosophical biggies who probably don’t have the guts to sin .. haha

What’s sin then ? We have different yardsticks for women n men when we talk of sin .. Eons back when I was stuck by the Cupid for the first time (just a couple of years back which now seems like a time wrap) I committed a series of sins .. loving .. caring sharing .. bonding .. pitying.. compassion you name it and I exhausted it .The offspring of Cupid’s union with Psyche, his lover was Voluptas, that is, 'Pleasure'.. and my experiments with Cupid produced a bunch of sins ..phew !When I glance through those pages .. I stutter .. stumble and fumble over every page .. every line makes me sick .. I’m not a feminist .. NO.. I haven’t turned into a misandrist either ..I do hate men but with all my grudges and nudges I can declare its tough to live without one .. when you had been in a relationship its tougher and if you hadn’t been into one .. you need to discover .. but men and women ..are we different ..? I won’t say my life is ruined .. but it has definitely changed .. since then .. I’m still in touch with him without touch .. all in my mind .. I’m not the same .. groping in my solitude craving to sin .. yet again .. but what about him ? Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics says – what might be right in one situation might be wrong in another. .. so may be he was right and I’m wrong .. hmmmm

But who knew it all then .. each sin was gratifying ..bewitching .. alluring .. its beautiful falling in love .. the ones who look at us superficially can’t imagine how earnest, how petulant how accommodating, how wilful is our quest for something beyond ourselves ..that we imagine with our separate spirits but are compelled to embody together… from condonable sins to cardinal old sin of Love ..Love torments you.. yet contents you ..its very fragile .. it comes with a stream of emotions overpowers you majestically and with the blink of your eye.. its gone .. and when its gone . you are addicted . though you proclaim you have lost faith in love .. lost faith in living .. you search again .. for momentary pleasures .. for some tender touch ..for more n more SINS!!!..

It was probably just a glitch then.. but the only sin I commit over and over again is .. I Love ….
More on my experiments with sin .. later …