Settling Scores

These days when my eyes are not blinking, all they see are black, white and red. My calcium deficient nails carry a guilty red smudge every once in while. It doesn't go. The whitener works only on paper.

I'm settling scores. First I rip them apart and then add it all up.
Yes, paper correction is not an easy, fun task. Its arduously, painstakingly, long, monotonous and exhausting.
(Its one of the things I think I will permanently dislike about my job)

Your story

Did I tell you?

Today, I walked down the same grey stone curb where you'd rudely pulled me away from the mass of moving bodies and whispered a recipe for magic in my ear. After that we gazed at a red bus stop promising each other, we'd meet again only at a similar bus stop, a year later, when you would have sprouted more hair and me, more wisdom. We laughed at the two pairs of shuffling feet behind the bus stop, one jeans clad, one in a bright yellow chudidar. Then we sat for over an hour at the same place having a lovely conversation about nothing. When I said I have to leave, you nonchalantly muttered 'stay'. I didn't. I took your nonchalance too seriously.

I've wondered a few times if I should have stayed.
On second thoughts, I stop wondering.
You wouldn't have had a story then.

At a station.

The black beads of her mangalsutra glistened in the light of the noon sun. For a moment her worry knit eyebrows relaxed as her lips creased into a fleeting smile. Sometimes she allowed herself the indulgence of footboard travel, she liked the wind ruffling her hair. The subji she had prepared that morning had turned out to be a little too salty. Varun, her son had complained, as always. Nonetheless it had gone into all three dabbas, Varun's, his father's and her's. They would have the same subji for dinner too, when they all returned home after a long day. She couldn't afford extravagance. As the 1:10 Churchgate local entered Dadar station, she gathered the pleats of her startched cotton sari , held on to her bag and prepared to alight. An arrogant sunbeam caught a thin silver strand in her hair. She swiftly alighted and walked towards the foot over bridge.
Just as the train blew its whistle and inched towards pulling its serpentine self out of the station, a young man came rushing down the bridge steps. In his pin stripe pants and crisp white shirt, he wore the look of a successful professional. There was a rush of heady determination in his gait. With his eyes fixed on the train that threatened to move any moment, he did not see her in his way. He ran, his arms flaying in the air. She tried to dodge him. Unsuccessfully. They collided.
He twirled her around with his flaying arms now enveloping her in a disarming embrace. Neither knew what was happening. The unwarranted, amused stares of curious onlookers broke the spell. He rushed to hop on to his train.
She was still wide eyed with the joyful excitement the twirl had whipped in her. She coyly smiled as a young bride would, trying to hide from the gaze of the amused bootpolishwala, the chaiwala, the paperwala and others . She didn't yell at him or slap him. She only carried the happiness he had unknowingly passed on to her in those brief seconds.

What's on my Calendar

It's already a week into the month of March and I dont feel particularly resolute about anything. Except, flipping my calender maybe. It's a month when my city begins to scorch under the glare of the sun. The land turns dry and skin just melts. It just forewarns us that yes, "April is the cruelest month." March in my head is a friendlier month. It is a month which(for me) spells sunshine, happiness, color and freedom.
This month my calendar has to remind me of something that makes me go light in the head and happy. As I sat thinking about color and happiness, a film I love flashed before me. I want to bring a spray of color and a dash of life on a mute piece of blank paper. So, my calendar is going to carry a poster of Won Kar Wai's film Chungking Express. Its a film that can just scoop me out of the darkest shell and coax the cynic in me to shut up. The film is a melange of things I love ; food, a soap bar that cries, music, a gritty gun wielding blonde, a towel that weeps, a can that preserves memories, dark alleys, yellow sunshine, a simple girl who dreams, a silly man who whines, lovers who come without an expiry date. Everything about the film is a reaffirmation of life, as it is, a riot of goodness peppered with the bad,sad,mad and ugly.
It is going to be a colorful year, a few clouds, laced with a lot of happy sunshine.
What say?

The Gun Shot

He softly pushed the stray locks of her hair behind her ear. His hand trembled a little. It wasn't his first time. His fingers had still not gotten used to the coldness of the metallic butt. The delicate curve of the trigger sent a thrilling tingle down his spine. She cast a fleeting glance of uncertainity at him. He gave a weak smile of reassuarance. Then, he softly dabbed the tip of a black felt pen on her lovely ear. He took aim. He squinted in the incandescence of the white light that the mirrors were reflecting. Her eyes were shut in anxious anticipation of a single numbing moment. He inched the barrel closer to the soft cartilage. He tightened the grip of his slender fingers around the trigger. Her eyes were still shut. He pulled the trigger. There was a loud Click. For a brief moment her face crumpled as she winced. It was over. She opened her eyes and smiled. The jewel shone on her now red, left ear lobe. Before leaving, she thanked him and appreciated him for his perfection.

He never told them that even he shut his eyes before every puncture he made. It was always a shot in the dark.

The crooner and his aide.

We begged and pleaded. Finally he relented. "But you will have to wait for forty five minutes," he thundered. We burst into a toothy grin. We would wait. He lumbered up a wooden staircase and disappeared.It was well past the time for the last order. The smell of vinegar pierced through the warm night air.
A lone couple sat on the corner table, their heads hung in silent meditation over a bowl of noodles. A gentle drone of the electric fan was the only musical accompaniment to the occassional clatter of the cutlery. Vhiner set his lips in a pout. He wanted to go to the outlet of mass manufactured sandwiches, across the street. Papayaflakes had raised her eyebrows in exasperated impatience. She didn't have patience with food or people. Now, she dropped a fork only to stir up the silence.
A short pudgy man suddenly popped up from behind the rather tall counter. He looked around the small restaurant, alarmed. His pixie like ears had tweeked up in fearful anxiety. Seeing us, he recovered. Longlashes flashed him a dramatically heartfelt smile. "We'll get our food faster" she whispered through her teeth.He disappeared behind the counter once again. We turned our backs and resumed our wait.
A few moments later a voice boomed cheerfully from behind the counter, "you like Elvis?" He waved out a couple of cds in one hand and a mike in the other. "YES!" we almost answered in unison.He was elated.
He whisked out his mike and switched on his jukebox. For the next thirty minutes he seranaded us with Elvis' soleful melodies. When Michael, our grumpy waiter finally returned, he too was smiling, a heap of momos stacked up on the plate in his hand. Michael and his boss, the man behind the counter, loved Elvis.
The steaming momos he served us, were soft and delicious.

Everytime a vinegary pungent smell wafts through the air and Elvis croones "Falling in love with you" I fondly remember Michael and his boss. And of course the momos.

I'd like to

stud your skin
with
a thousand pins
just to hear
you utter
a word.
Perhaps.

Rad is the word!

My dad is a man of few words. Actually, very few words. But as a kid I picked up every ‘cool’ word from my dad. Somewhere along the way, I grew up, life sped past, telephone call charges soared and gradually conversation seemed to cease. We still have our moments. Just a couple of weeks back, he blew me over at the dinner table. He quoted some lines by Samuel Johnson. And then, some more by Somerset Maugham. Was this my dad?!

In the last few months we’ve started a new practice. Every time he comes back after a trip he pulls out a magazine from his bag, The Week and hands it over to me. I take it and keep it on my desk. Sometimes I flip through it. Mostly it just lies there, till the next fortnight when he brings home a new one. He came back yesterday and handed me a new one. “Do you even read it?” I always thought handing me the magazine was an act of getting rid of the raddi from his room. And in the process if one more person benefited, well, Halleluiah! I mumbled something about how I don’t really like The Week. “Oh you must read “Wicked Word,” its usually good.”

“Wicked Word” ha? I was intrigued. I ran down to my room and turned to ‘Wicked Word,’ a feature that takes a look at the English language in a humorous vein. This one was titled ‘Comings and Groins’. An excerpt from Jayaschandran’s article:
Noam Chomsky teaches universal grammar when he isn’t hitting the White House with a sledgehammer. Very few people understand him. He says babies are born with grammar in their brains. I think they are born with the grammar of the groins. We struggle with grammar because grammarians are frigid and testy. They need spectacles to find their testicles.[…]
Verbs never cease to arouse interest: these are action words, like ‘fornicate’. To fornicate is to have sex that is not adulterous. In the bible, adultery is a sin you commit; there is no commandment against fornication. You don’t commit it- it is no crime, you just do it with delight. Do no mix it with formication, which is a neurological feeling of insects crawling all over the body: just ensure the partner is not a creep. Architects can fornicate at work; the adjective ‘fornicate’ means ‘shaped like an arch’.
The verb ‘ejaculate involves an exclamation. Most men ejaculate in private. It wasn’t so in the past. In novels like “Wuthering Heights” and “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”, characters often ejaculated in public, with their astonished mouths.”

The rest of the article continued in a similar vein. Much like Catherine from Wuthering Heights I ejaculated in joyous surprise. My dad was so cool! He had no qualms handing over a write up liberally strewn with innuendoes/words/ideas/acts that most parents would be squeamish about and squirm away from.

Of course this was my dad!
In between growing up and collecting degrees I’d forgotten how cool my dad was.
He still is.
:)

Khaali Pretensions.

A cool February evening. Scrap metal gods riding in on cycles. Tall plastic pyramids rising over the art deco buildings. Mobile toilets the city carries on its feet, railway tracks and pavements. Centre stage: a smorgasboard of culture to tingle your senses. Books, plays, films, art, dance and more. A riot of color. A heady mix of pavements, people, pretensions and paisa.

Amidst this cacophony that was the Kala Ghoda Festival, seated on a wooden pedestal was an urban hermit. A grubby beard that ended in colorful rubberbands adorned his rather emaciated face. A Jansport backpack carried the burden of his worldly possessions. His hair was bundled up on the top of his head in a bun. A few stray matted locks hung over his forehead. When he jumped off his pedestal, his pants precariously hung on somewhere in between his waist and feet. He bore a sign. He was giving away something. FREE! The moment I walked up to him he opened his spindly arms in a warm embrace and greeted me with the most cheerful smile I'd seen in weeks.

I din't know him. He din't know me.
I was free hug number 61.
Those were the most honest three seconds of my evening.
It drowned the din of all the pretensions that floated arounded me.

What's on my calendar?

As I sat wondering what should go up on my calendar for the new month, I tried to guage my mood. I wasn't particularly elated or dejected. That gush of excitement and feverish anticipation of a new year had given way to a placidity that bordered on boredom. The Spartan Tree had lost its sheen. I needed color. The month of hope couldnt fizzle out into a shorter month of complacent acceptance.

That's when I thought of one of my favorite paintings by Waterhouse, "Gather Ye Rosebuds". She's Ophelia. Shakespeare's Ophelia who sings her last song and gives herself to cold waters.

But Waterhouse's Ophelia is different. She's not like Millais' helpless Ophelia who is carried away by drifting waters, with an orgasmic sigh escaping her lips. She's definitely unlike Hughes' demure nymph who looks back at us beseechingly one last time before singing her last song.

She is stunning. She is determined. She is sensual. She is alive.
The rosebuds in her hand spill over....hope spills over. maybe

February: dogged determination?
Two days short of a new month, MNG aka shorty said to me, "we're gonna have a sorted year or atleast a year where we makes leaps towards sortedness..."
Surely Yes :)