Life

The purpose of living was surely not to spend most of our time in pursuit of small spurts of happiness that resemble contentment but are too fleeting to be anything but pretence. Dissatisfaction has a foul stench. And jealousy is at the root of every disgusting discourse. Knowing what you don't want eats you up on the inside worse than knowing you what you do. It seems too futile to put into words. So I stop trying. The constant consternantion and erratic behaviour which must be explained to someone day in and day out so that there is a proof of conscience is simply proof of the fact that there isn't. Sometimes I stop myself before it becomes tangible. I wish it would break. So that I won't have to touch it. Always tentative, always watchful, always waiting, always afraid. It's as if I read 'Life for Dummies' and am still too dumb to understand it. I doubt the answer will lie in 'Life for Dumber Dummies'.

Lucidity

Years pass by and yet we still seem to be standing in the same place. It's always just enough time in which one has finished a bottle of perfume. I paint rooms with love. My rooms, his rooms, our rooms. They're fiery orange and red and purple and beautiful mellow yellows in which there are a hundred ifs and a thousand buts and so many words that fall pell mell over each other and form tottering piles of apprehension. We hold all truths to be self-evident. We disregard all that is said and all that will be said and simply believe in that one little gesture that seems to define us. It always remains a part of me. Him. His words, his voice. His thoughts and his denials. His lies are my secrets. I buried them deep somewhere a long time ago and they resurface now and then in rooms full of laughter and liquid amber eyes filled with more beautiful lies.

There are countless songs on the playlist and though neither of us sings well, we sing all of them together or join each other midway. Join each other midway. That's a lovely line right there with so many meanings in those four words : Join, midway, each, other. It reeks of conviction. The sort of stuff that I love to deny when it's day light and I lie with my legs draped over a sofa arm and blow smoke rings at the ceiling. Comfortably languid.

As if life will go on forever. Or maybe because it won't.

Arranged Marriage aur Hum

The marriage mafia presents..: not-eligible match for your idiotic, dim witted, pot-bellied, weird, uneducated bania lump of a son.

Name: Manasi Chatpalliwar

Height: 5'8'' ( yes too tall for your lump, I suggest you not read ahead.)

Date of Birth: 15/06/1988

Age: 22

Views on marriage: If it involves what's described above please kill me now.

Place of Birth : Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania (Will bet you a hundred dollars your son does not know which continent)
Time of Birth : 8.30 p.m. (Non- Manglik - which totally is besides the point but because your brain power is limited to thought processes involving fried food and getting married, discussions on this will help you feel intelligent and thoughtful.)

Qualification: B. A. Honours, History, Pursuing LL.B. - No package (Maybe that will deter you greedy bastards)

Other Details : Girl is a voracious (yes it's a word, yes it's very common) reader. Enjoys Music and travelling (trips to Manali in borrowed Innova taxis do not count as travelling). Family-oriented (towards her own family that is, not yours). Simple, not down to earth - chances are she might bully your son. Is said to be witty, which is a pity because all that humour will be wasted on your blob.

Convent educated, tall and slim.

Family Tree

Father : Government Official

Mother: Government Official

[Neither possesses the capacity to discuss your jewellery, cars and business beyond 5 seconds]

Brother: Possesses more intelligence in his little pinky than your entire khandaan put together and will be immensely cooperative in secretly poking fun at you behind your back after you leave.

Note: If still interested after reading this, kindly note that NO, we will not give your blob gold or a car or a washing machine, or a television set, or a house or pay for bathroom fittings etc. if by some sheer fluke this marriage does actually place.

Yesterday

It held my hand and helped me see,

what I have been and what I could be.

Yesterday just before I went to bed,

it tiptoed up to me and said:

"I'll tell you a secret that nobody knows,

a secret inside me that simply grows.

I can tell you because I know you'll see

that I'm the secret and that it lies within me."

Almost Grown

There were times when I would forget what tears taste like. I'd forget all that I knew once and all that I could know. There are fears that circle like vultures all the while waiting to swoop. Afraid of love, afraid to live. Afraid to even try. Now that we're nearly there, I wonder if it wasn't the most prudent thing to not have been afraid at all.

We are almost grown. Almost. I stand at the window and look at the coldness outside and the clouds rushing home to where they feel warm. The sun, looks like the way I feel : trying it's best to be, what it used to be.

I love Winnie the Pooh

“I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.” __ Winnie the Pooh

I feel that it's high time I confessed. I feel very much like a bear, who has very little brain, and who is bothered about everything including long words. The Winnie the Pooh I own is tubbier in appearance and a lot more cuter and loves honey etc. but I do genuinely feel that if we were ever to chance upon each other in life, we'd get along. It'd be good.

Modern Day Ghalib

A listless look, an upside down book,
and glasses perched upon his head.
A newspaper, and many other things
in sweet chaos litter the bed.

About Love

Have spent the better part of the morning listening to ghazals- the only kind of music that truly speaks to me. I've been wanting to write these lines down for someone to read for a while:

तेरे बारे में जब सोचा नहीं था,
मैं तन्हा था मगर इतना नहीं था.
तेरी तस्वीर से होती थी बातें,
मेरे कमरे में आइना नहीं था.

As I write, I'm pretty confident I'm delirious with fever and I can feel my eyes burn with the heat from my heart. A friend recently informed me (in utmost seriousness) that he thought that I was a closet masochist. Late night conversations end up sounding quite silly, so I paid no heed. Now that I come to think of it. It may be true. The conversation was meandering it's way through various aspects of love and people. I, obviously, was failing miserably in attempts to reason with his logic.

Beauty is always breathtaking or exhilirating. Anything other than that is just pretty and transient. There is a certain charm to pained love. I think I'm a bit of a psycho and now all those who know me well and actually give a damn have resigned themselves to the fact that I can't be part of affairs that are not torrid or crazy. In fact, I am convinced that I am incapable of loving any other way.

Today

You're somebody's goddess and somebody's whore,

you want everything and sometimes more.

You want torture and you want death,

you want to die with each new breath.

You have faith and you have belief,

you have tears and a little bit of grief.

You are the painter and his muse,

you are the truth and your burdens are a ruse.

Ripped

For when lonely souls grow apart,

There follows a strange ache of heart.

Blood and sacrifice and tears and sweat,

Poured into graves that are empty yet

Slowly filling with love and despair,

Moments of folly and those of repair.

Birds sing of unions forecast in the skies,

And somewhere far away lie dying lies.

Fiery Fairies

When you reach out the spell breaks. Suddenly it disappears in puffs of smoke and the air carries the last vestiges away to rain elsewhere on someone else. Desire that is fueled with wet wood burns with a smell of failure and futility. The smoke cries foul as it spreads and begins to seep into you through the pores of your skin and engulfs you from within. Everywhere there are fires which must be put out and trampled upon. Your own however, must be stoked and allowed to burn magnificently, till the sparks begin to resemble fiery fairies. Then you may get up and leave. For then, it will burn on it's own, dancing and merry and alone.

Besotted

He's wonderful. And he doesn't know I exist. It's strange and happy and crazy and beautiful. For the first time in years I am smitten. My school girlish infatuation with him disturbs me a great deal and is a constant source of amusement for a couple of close friends. There are dreams and fancies and castles in the air and a boy who doesn't know that I exist.

Sigh.

My Ruling Planet

Mercury is a heavy metal. It's quite flippant as well. The moment you touch it, it disintegrates into tiny silver balls which go rolling in every direction. Mercurial people are no different. We're too restless from within. And those who are mistaken with the appearance of a calm surface waste no time in trying to plunge through it. They don't realize that they can't. We simply vanish in anger and disintegrate from within. There's no looking whole again unless collected and stored in a different container. Once spilled, we remain spilled... for quite a while.

All the stuff about Geminis and birth signs is crap. But our ruling planet is Mercury and that isn't crap. We're little silver balls rolled into one and till yesterday I didn't realize that inner strength has nothing to do with how fragile you are on the outside. You can collect it all in one place but you can't change it's nature or it's reaction to temperature changes. The volatile defense mechanism in which we give out small pieces of ourselves rather than the whole thing is because we're scared someone will be tempted to spear the unstable surface and leave us to disintegrate. We're afraid that we'll be unable to put it back together again.

Mercury is a very heavy metal but it lacks depth. When you bring all of it together it'll look whole and good but it's always ready to fall apart. It lacks resilience but is quite cunning. It makes itself smaller and numerous to withstand the necessary prodding and touching until one is forced to give up. But that's the thing with mercury. You can't give up on it. You can't leave it to exist as a small version of a bigger blob or in tiny silver balls underneath the fridge. It's a very broken metal. But it's always eager to be put together again. All you have to do is find a way to contain it. In one place. And it reaches out and puts itself back together again for you. As good as new.

Bright and Shiny

There are some ties that are made in an instant. There are some that are broken and repaired so many times that they're unbreakable even if you want them to be broken. There are silly moments when you want to sit curled up on someone's bed with a newspaper and do the crossword with them. There are rituals that were meaningless before and have become something of a keepsake.
One shouldn't have to escape within oneself. Mornings before college is when I do that. I indulge myself. I walk barefoot all over the house with my cup of tea and then stand alone at the window nursing it till it's lukewarm. The window that used to be a balcony. It used to be the place where I searched for playmates down below. Now I just look across to the other building and beyond that towards the horizon. At nights too I stand there. Hiding behind the curtains. Listening to conversations meant for me and without me. I thought I was bright and shiny. I'm not too bothered that I am not. The ties that I make are not bright and shiny either. I'm very bothered about that.

Shrink Sessions With Kangaroo Babies

There is nothing wrong. With anyone. Education comes easy and love doesn't. We screw up, take wrong decisions or we just lose ourselves completely and make a royal mess of things. We get irritated and grumpy. We are young and we are wasted.

They're people who'd rather focus on your handwriting rather than what's written on the page. They will not appreciate that you can read fluently in four languages but would rather mock your accent instead. They'd rather make fun of your physical attributes than appreciate that you're the one person they come running to when they want something from the top shelf. They'd rather smirk at your sweaty hands rather than try and understand what it's like to be constantly in need of hydration and how the Indian summer screws you over more than most other people.

You're living with people who refuse to grow up. Who can't stop being petty because they'd have to face themselves. You have to pretend about caring to remember birthday and events in their lives while they pass you by. When you pull away they claw you back into their lives as if you matter and always did. You do not and never will.

In the midst of all of this, despite the blogging like angst filled teenagers you have nights of laughter and disdainful humour and still manage to somehow be.

Blah Blah

It's become a tug of war. With people and events. By the end of it you wonder if you even care.
A few weeks ago I received an email from someone I have spent years hating. I read and had nothing but disdain and contempt for them. The fact that I still had some sor of feeling was disturbing. I knew them at a time when I was just out of school and trying to grow up right. I gave that up a year ago. Now I'm just growing up in a lopsided manner with messed up views and staunch principles.

Experimentaion. Seems to be the rule of the day these days. This is what some of the most annoying conversations sound like:
"So you don't drink?!!" followed by weird contortions of the face in astonishment accompanied with a lopsided judgemental grin. As if I've suddenly grown a tail.
"Not really, I don't like the taste." I say honestly. Because I am stupid. This is met with more judgemental snickers. In my mind I have already stopped bothering because I realise that I'm talking to a dumb fuck. He persists however. As is the habit with dumb fucks.
"So nothing at all?! What do you do to get hammered?" His face is ugly. I want to punch it.
"I don't get hammered." I reply and start examining my nails.
"Shit, dude.. you're some chick... !" He drawls. I really want to punch him. I want to see if the various rings I'm wearing will leave a mark on his face.
"Are you retarded?" I ask.

It is not a good feeling to feel tired at the age of 22. Emotionally and mentally sapped of all ability to care. It's the one thing I used to have in abundance. The ability to fret. Now, I just give up on things. There are no more tears. No more angst. And it's a strange high to be done with people before they're done with you. The one with the nice smile I was done with two weeks ago. The one before that with the long fingers just wouldn't let go. So I left him standing in a busy street and walked off. There was one yesterday who pretends to know these things. Women and all sorts of things. I think I'll let him pretend and be done with him today.

Disengage

It is mindless, mind numbing and boring. I think I have begun to pity him. I hate that he looks spent. There are no more conversations and the words seem broken. All that I feel is wasteful. Wasting and wasted.

Over and Over

ONCE
I inhale a new scent. The fingers are longer and tapered at the ends... Entwined with mine they look strangely new. There are fireworks and smiles and gasps and cries. There is ecstasy and pain and caresses. There is light outside and yet we remain in the dark. Breathing. The room is filled with the smell of smoke, fear and pain. Take care, he said. I will, said I. I am careful to close the door gently on the way out.
____________________________________________________________
AGAIN
There are children playing in the courtyard below . The sky looks like rain. There are swarms of dragonflies in the air and higher up, the eagles. I watch him smile. I want him to smile again. To speak and to laugh again. I watch him drink the tea I've made. As always it's too sweet. As always he drinks it anyway. I begin to let myself feel. Happy.

Crash

When the first plate smashed to the floor with a resounding crash it felt good. So I slowly picked up one plate after the other and smashed them all to the floor. There were some glasses. I smashed those too. I didn't scream or shout. The noise created by the destruction of china was enough to raise hell itself. It was strangely calming. Then, I stepped over the shards and decided to go to bed.
There were people saying something but I was drunk out of my wits to care. Someone grabbed my arm and I pushed them away. Hard. I wanted to fall. And I wanted to never get up. I wanted to do something so drastic it'd make me forget that bone deep love which you can't because it's bone deep.
I stared resentfully at no one in particular and when someone told me to lie down, I did quietly. I was hoping I'd sleep. Sleep didn't come. Visions did. I hated myself then. I hate drunk people. I hate all drunk people. It has always been so easy to hate. To hate yourself and everything you love.

Darrrrllllliiiiinnnngggg

Interesting realisation today while listening to a song on the radio as I drove to college: I am totally that girl. I am not refined. Do not wish to be. I am just slightly afraid of new people and am actually not that stuck up. And I love with gay abandon! People. Things. Everything that takes my fancy.
The song in question goes something like this : Munni badnaam hui.. darling tere liye!, Item yeh kaam hui darling tere liye.. and in the end she loses the plot completely and says le jhandu balm hui.. darling tere liye!!
Totally not a catharsis inducing song for most, I know. However, as I said. I can totally imagine dancing to this with energetic thumkas, numerous winks and lip biting. I can imagine most people reading this and rolling their eyes. I don't give a flying fuck. I am totally the girl that makes guys hug their pillows!

L'amour

"I love him." She says. And she says it over and over and day in and day out.

Makes me think of the lyrics from a song I used to sing a long time ago: "Where is love? Does it fall from skies above?"

I've been accused of not understanding it. To scoff with disdain at the futility of dates and silly simpering stares in coffee shops. Guilty as charged. Dating is not love. Setting a date to meet up and then going frantic waiting for the day to arrive when you wash your hair with the good shampoo that makes it bounce, and then turn up in something you think you look good in but which the guy will barely notice is not love! It is however, one hell of an effort!

What I think love means...

Time. It means having all the time in the world to give and waste. To count hours. To count minutes or even seconds before you get to see them. To ponder over days or weeks or months. To spend together countless years and decades perhaps. To live in moments big and small when everything seems to unfold as if only for the two of you.

It means long walks in absolute silence on lost roads and warm hands with entwined fingers. When you stop looking for stops and signs and transport and conversation.

It means caterpillars, moths and butterflies, the works! It means a warm fuzzy feeling at the goofiness and the intimacy and the hugs and scents.

It means pain. It means heart wrenching sobs which tear you up on the inside and which you still do for that one person. It means an ache which grows and smoulders within.

Love lasts. It's as simple as that. You either know that feeling or you don't. It's not a story or a fairytale. It doesn't always have happy endings. It's as simple as the feeling of warmth.

Us, Girls

Quick to judge and quicker to love. That's what we are, us carefree girls. Careworn too sometimes. Seemingly innocent, with shadows of doubts beneath our eyes, we get lost in our own various defences.
My trail of charm is different than hers and hers and hers. Maybe someone picked up the wrong scent and traced it back to the wrong girl. We hold our heads high in our fathomless mistakes made for and by others and secretly flounder.
I know I am always slightly confused and secretly alert. As I watch the others I know that they are too. All of us are on the lookout for the signs from each other about our own trails and travails.
Sometimes the most innocuous of words become infested with a plethora of meanings and then we ponder and think and construe.

Praha

I miss Prague. Some things more than most.

- Snow outside. A few hares on the football field. All of us in Mr. Ackerman's stifling hot room strumming away on our guitars. Blueberry muffins on the table and hot steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Me, the expert in taking picks out of guitar cavities and the seniors always wanting to attempt "Smells like Teen Spirit" even though we're meant to be perfecting "Scarborough Fair" (Simon and Garfunkel).

- Grossetos. This amazing restaurant off of Dejvice where we'd land up after school and order a pizza each. Followed by grape ice cream with whipped cream. Begimai, the scatterbrain, Ayla, the GAP wearing artist and Eileen, the prim and proper Singaporean with the numerous music lessons. We were so oblivious to everything else but us. I miss them.

- The tennis tournament. Where he turned up to watch and promptly got escorted off the courts for yelling at someone in Russian for dissing on me.

- Phys. Ed. Class and softball. A spectacular catch by anyone's standards ruined by the fact that I threw the ball straight at Sharkey's head in an attempt to get another out. Him lying sprawled on the ground while I sprint for an ice pack and come back to find a frantic Begimai trying to get him to count her fingers.

- The architecture. Beautiful.

Romantic at Heart

To Alex.
You're so far away. And I never told you. I never told you that I cared. That you mattered. That you made me smile and still do. I never told you that those roses I left in a lonely bush on my way home from school were the most beautiful flowers I have ever received. I never told you that I was scared that it would go away. That perhaps you'd finally see me properly and realise something I never wanted you to. I never told you that you made me happy. And now, when you sit oceans away and cultures apart, now when I know that we will never meet, I feel that you should know what I never told you. I never told you that I think I always loved you too.

And So It Begins

I stare at my lap. Look out of the window. Stare at my lap again. Look out of the window again. I have never been this nervous. Or perhaps I have and don't remember.
He seems fine. Drives. Smokes. Drives.
I wonder if he's smoking because he's nervous too.
"Is it the music?" he asks.
"No." I am mortified. I curse every single Western musician silently under my breath and then myself for never having been able to understand or appreciate it!
I'm actually very proud of myself for keeping so quiet! I guess he notices as well.
"What's with the silence?"
I smile. I feel like a retard but I smile.
He gives me this huge grin and I realise I'm fine.
It begins to rain and I gather up the courage to fiddle with the radio. I give him a sideways look to see if he minds. It doesn't look like he does. I feel myself suddenly relaxing. I smile again.
A long drive and a bit of rain and a little bit of music.

The Time When I Was Married To A Cook!

Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen.
The queen as horrid as the king was mean.

They lived in a castle near the hills,
and signed their cheques with rotten quills!

Their children went to the local school,
and spent most of their time on the dunce's stool.

The prince was named Iore,
and the princess was Daisy,
He was a bore,
while she was plain lazy.

The prince and princess had been in school forever,
part of the reason being they weren't very clever!

The queen spent her days writing a book,
while the king spent his time learning how to cook...

In the kitchens, the king reigned supreme,
even though he insisted on serving chicken with cream!

The royal children came home one day,
saying that the school had sent them away.

The king declared a war was in order,
even though the school was inside his own border!

The prince and princess got ready for battle,
and being very dumb replaced cavalry with cattle.

The people of the kingdom rose up in revolt,
and ceased to supply the castle with salt.

The king in the kitchens was not amused,
since salt in cooking just had to be used!

The queen meanwhile, panicked and fled,
taking with her all the king's bread!

The prince and princess followed in her wake,
stealing as many of the cows as they could take.

The king in the kitchens was left all alone,
and became a cook after giving up his throne.

Now he had salt and lots of bread,
and didn't give a damn if the queen was lost or dead.

Iore and Daisy who'd followed their mother,
were turned out on the street after she wed another!

As for the queen, she finished her book,
it was called: "The Time When I Was Married To A Cook!"

Oohs and Aahs

Orange and gold bangles,
mist in the air,
big strong hands
and kisses everywhere.

I spent the better part of the morning wrapping a present in blue and gold handmade paper and then tying it with pink and gold string. Beautiful. I keep looking at it and feeling happy. It's a good week. There are countless messages on my phone and lots of plans to make with lots of people. Not to mention the weather is fricking awesome! Just the kind for long drives.. which we managed to do last night! I'm slightly concerned about my phone addiction though. Sigh.. I'm in the mood to write letters..

Two and a Half Men

How do men do it? How do they always have their radars reading signals that are not even there? It's disappointing. Some things I'd like the men to know:

1. When we call you up to get someone else's number it is not an excuse! Honestly we're just not bothered enough to find a better way to do it.

2. Also if we call you up at a certain time of the night there is no need to read too much into it. Most of us are insomniacs and sleep during the day if ever and need someone to stay up with them.

3. If we laugh at something you say it is not because you are funny but because we find you and your sense of humour pathetic and ridiculous. Most of us who are above 20 no longer do the seductive giggle tactics on the phone! Especially never to prolong sleepless nights!

4. If you think you are witty and you are not please do not try to drive the person up the wall by simply repeating the thing you think is witty in different tones!

5. If you are aware that your wit is below average and your humour stale, resist the temptation to tell a well practised joke. The chances are that you will mess that up as well.

6. If you own a goldfish and somehow never tire of talking about it, marry it. Do not invite the person you are talking to to the ceremony.

7. If you have past girlfriends that were just like you, marry them and chuck the goldfish. Do not obsess about them to the other person over and over until they wish to kill you both.

8. If you think you are like any of the characters in Boston Legal, keep it to yourself. Constantly saying "Denny Crane" in little bursts does not give you the right to be so annoying.

9. If you think certain parts of my anatomy are appealing try not to make it obvious by staring. When I catch you staring do not try to stare me down. It is not polite.

10. If you believe in getting laid simply say so. No one is going to judge you. We will judge you if you declare you do not believe in it, because then you're just a weird guy.

Today

Last night was painful. My rage wouldn't let me sleep. So I tossed and turned and went over a thousand things in my head. Whatever justification I gave, the hurt inside me lingered and distorted my behaviour. I was tired. I was exhausted with what I thought I could resist and what continued to persist. So I let it wash over me.
I let myself feel guilty for a good five minutes and the pain too. I remained totally miserable for a good 25 minutes and then I let go.
I'm different. Was different and always will be. It is not that some things are pointless. It is that to the things you are not the point.

Small Things

Yesterday was a good day. I met someone I used to know and was pleasantly surprised to see that he had changed. Gone was the swagger and the weird lilts in the voice. It had all been beautifully replaced with calm, courteous charm. Except the eyes. They still danced.
It was as if nothing had changed. He asked me if I still had a flaming temper and I retorted by asking him about his pathetic taste in women. He grabbed me into this gruff hug and nearly lifted me clean off the ground. As I stood back shyly he grinned and said " still doing your whole reserved deal huh?"
"no I'm not!" I scowled back.

As I looked at him, I picked out the familiar mixed with the new. He wore a scent I didn't recognise but his smell was still the same. He always ended up laughing at his own jokes before he even finished telling them and I loved that he wore a shirt with a collar. He still hadn't grown up though. As I talked with lots of hand gestures and lots of big words thrown in for good effect, he smiled at me the old way, tilted his head to one side and declared: "your teeth are still crooked!!".
It was the first time I'd laughed in days. And once I started I couldn't stop and then burst into tears (I was probably hungry and sleepy and everything else combined). He somehow managed to laugh at that too and I sat there and sulked.

When I got up to leave, he held out a pencil. A brand new beautiful pencil with an eraser on top. I smiled. I love stationary. And I loved that he had remembered. It was so simple. Small things.. that's all it takes.. small things.

Prescience

We are born with a thousand realizations. In that first moment when we open our eyes and stare at the world the first blink is always that of understanding. Perhaps that's why most of us start bawling at the top of our lungs. We are horrified at the million possibilities and the countless expectations. I'm pretty sure all of us want to go back inside our mother's wombs and simply not be part of that sudden drop in temperature (15 degrees) environment.

When I was small I was told I was meant to do great things because I was born legs first and they were crooked. The fact that my dear mother somehow managed to straighten (and lengthen) them convinced a few people that I was different. I believed it too for a long time. I saw it in certain things that happened while growing up. I became from one of the stupidest children in any room to a person who could hold conversations and get good grades. At some point along the way I stopped being the ugly duckling of groups. I never realized any of this until I started looking back.
Every single day a thought flits into my already very crowded head. I think it's all the realizations I was born with that are gathering up every moment that I am older. I wasn't born coiled up like a spring on the inside. And today I feel that all of my realizations knew that too.

music

main tennu samjhawan ki
na tere bajo lagda ji
tu ki jaane pyaar mera
main karaan intezaar tera
tu dil tu yoon jaan meri

i really really like rahat fateh ali khan.. there's something about the way he sings that makes me experience a state of catharsis.

Not mediocre

I have exams... And I'm not worried. Because something else is taking precedence. Something that consumes me from the inside out. Sometimes it meekly walks away. Sometimes it snarls and keeps up the torment. Somehow it is always there. These days it's a little insecure...seeing as I am winning.
They told me to write it down. They are stupid people. All of them who claim to understand. To feel and to know. It is always one against the world. Only the world doesn't want you to know that anytime soon.
These days I have dreams of those that I never saw before. Atleast not clearly enough.
I am thankful. For today I have made up my mind to live. To push and hustle!
I'd lost the faith. I thought someone took it with them. I had lost it. Not the faith though...

To you and you and you

"Ooooohhhhh.... I'd love to be skinny!"
"Give me your metabolic rate!"

I never knew thin was the cause of such envy... A certain someone told me they'd die to be so thin... I tell them often that I'll probably die because of it... :-)

I'm envious too.. of raging appetites and risky lifestyles..

IF I COULD I WOULD:
vodkas with cokes (more than half a glass) and
dhaba food and
sweet concotions and
chocolate milk! and
maggi, maggi maggi! and
chicken sandwiches from subway and
chhole kulche from roadside vendors and
momos from obscure carts and
glasses full of coke with loads of ice! and
ice creams after every meal and
chicken!! rolls, gravies anything!

This is for all of you.. who can eat and eat and keep it all in.. savour it! fuck the weight issues! they're dumb and stupid!

Here, There and Everywhere

It was high school. I was ugly. I saw it every day in the mirror before leaving for school. I remember walking down the longest corridor, with sweaty hands clutching a binder tightly to the chest as I tried my best to slink past the group of senior boys without getting noticed. Of course, it was not to be. I was the weird Indian girl, the one who read all the time curled up in secluded corners and ate her lunches alone because she was told Indian food smelled. One of them winked as I walked past and my stomach lurched. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right there and then. I hated them. I guess they didn't like me very much either. It would have been the uncool thing to do.

I began to dread opening my locker. On Valentine's Day everyone had a red carnation sent to them by someone or the other (school initiave) inside their locker. I opened mine to find a bunch of smelly socks and a note which said : you won't notice the smell anyway.
I think I still carry that rage somewhere.

A year later. I had another note. It said: "You're beautiful". I mistrusted it instantly. I imagined a bunch of people were standing around waiting for me to smile before they started jeering. I threw it in the trash. The next day there was a red rose inside. I went to the school counselor to ask her for a lock for my locker becaues someone seemed to know my code. I cried at night. I couldn't understand why someone would mock me so.

What happened afterwards is a blur. I was in love... with the way he felt. I was everything I wanted to be because he could see me that way.
Seven months later.. there was another note: "I don't think you're pretty enough to be mine".
This time I smiled. It was the longest prank anyone had played. You had to give some credit.

I came back to India. Outside my car window a small child held up a rose and grinned. "Aap bahut sundar ho didi". I smiled. I loved my country instantly.

Full Circle

Complacency with lack of...and high horses and defensive yelling.. all seem to have such a simple explanation.
I was right about certain things in life being pointless. There are too many people on this planet. Not to mention in this country alone. You can sit in your room and have endless phone conversations with someone and be blissfully unaware that there is someone out there who got in between.. or maybe got there first.
It happens to people. In fact it happens to them right under their nose and they're busy worrying about stupid things like lies and hurt and doing the right thing.

Faces aren't easy to read. Not even when they're close enough for noses to bump. You can look into someone's eyes and see your own longing reflected back and happily accept. Even though there will always be visions of midnight kisses with others and perhaps more...

Purge

I wish I could scream. I wish that there was some place that you could go to and then just scream it all out. It'd save a lot of people a whole lot of trouble.

There are impressions of me that do not match. There are definitions that do not fit and there are lies which are sometimes so true it's insulting to have to believe otherwise.
Every single day, there are voices in my head and it's like they killed my angel and buried it somewhere so that all I can hear is myself and them.
I wish I could scream. I hope that when I finally do it, I will be understood.

Choke

"You leave me with a foul taste in my mouth."

I begin to plead silently for little parts of me to erode away into dignified oblivion somewhere..
By the end of it everyone is a stranger.
The space fills quickly with reverberating echoes of rancor and hate.

Rime

When they were newly married, they'd sleep in positions which ensured physical contact throughout the night. Sometimes, they'd be face to face so that their foreheads would touch, sometimes, he'd put his arm around her waist and draw her close. She would always end up saying his name out loud in deep sleep.

One morning, she awoke to find him looking her and was thrilled that he'd been watching her sleep. He kissed her on the nose and then lay back looking forlorn.
"What is it my love?" she asked.
"Why do you say his name every night, night after night?" he whispered sadly.
________________________________________________________

I hold his hand for lack of something better to do. The distance between where we are and where we should be is immense. The restlessness, anguish and pain of both our beating hearts creates a cocoon inside which we exist in each other's solitude.

If I find what I am looking for, I fear it may be something that will be the manifestation of my vilest most horrid beliefs.
His rancor, through which I have discovered a void within myself where I wish to be buried alive, has made my soul splinter into little pieces which do not feel complete anymore.

They say live... with it.... and without it...

I wish they'd tell me how.

Red Shoal

Stifled within yourself. An island in the middle of a red lagoon of pulsating nothingness.
You're mesmerized by the thought that the mind carries the body and not the other way around. In your case which carries which has never occurred to you.

There comes a certain moment when you manage to humiliate yourself and feel such degradation so deep somewhere that you begin to hate with this fiery intensity anything that makes you think.

Whenever you will pick yourself up and dust off the failure that others have piled upon you, there will always be others waiting to pull you back down again. Those that claim to love you are the most capable. You will let them think for you, all the while remaining an island and at the same time will try to float into a pathetic merged existence with them.

There is no respect. For you, or for your scathing resentment of all that there is around and beyond. All this while you never realise, that more than anything else, you have this need to destruct.

When you peek over the edge of the island. The red is shallow and your reflection is upside down...