An Evening

One wall of my living room has been broken down to make large french windows and a glass door. This allows for a judicious view of the world outside. The odd days that I am at home, I dislike being indoors between five and seven in the evening. I often get a glimpse of the dark dusk sky invading the blue of the day. As the lamps are lit, the soft yellow of the 40 watts bulbs mingles with the dark blue of the sky outside.All doors and windows are ritualistically closed, to keep the errant mosquitoes out. All this somehow often makes me feel a little somber, and all I want is to be swallowed by a dark, warm blanket.

Today, as I went about with this routine, I unusually heard a lot of noises outside the window. Beyond our compound wall is a small field, with a few trees. Curiously, I peeked out and saw winged creatures swarming around it. The evening sky was full of them, all probably headed back home. Caught in the dull mechanics of urban existence, I often forget this city doesn't have just black crows and noisy pigeons. As I surveyed the sky, it was checkered with birds of different sizes in hues of black, grey, white, brown and even red and pink ! This evening, one tree was particularly abuzz with a flurry of conversations. I've often heard a stray koel or a crow, but this was different. The members of this housing colony were innumerable green winged beings. Their loud, incessant chirping was accompanied with an ocassional angry whosh of a wing, as someone stormed out of the branches, or someone fluttered back home.

The humdrum of the approaching night and the drone of the electric fan was drowned, if only temporarily by their magical conversations. Indecipherable.Magical.

I think I have found reason to be a little less unhappy between five and seven p.m.

Of Trees

Two trees that two friends sent me :)

Thanks N & T.

Why I like trees

As a child, I never had a fascination for dolls. I was more happy gazing out of the fourth floor window of my Mumbai flat. It overlooked a long, grey water pipeline and tin roof tops of shanties that lay beyond. The view was not exceptional, except for the orange flames of the Gulmohar trees, which shrouded everything else that lay beyond it,with a fiery veil. This was the view from my bedroom. If I looked out of my living room window, I had another favourite sight. The lone jamun tree which stood at the extreme corner of the car park. It had a fat, brown trunk and overstretched arms...the dark green of the leaves spilling over into the next compound too.

I don't know why I recall these trees now. Except maybe, they remind me of how curious they made me as a child. The Gulmohar tree perplexed me with their cycles of orange and bare. I remember eagerly waiting for the bright green buds to split open and ooze out the red and orange. They stayed on for a whole summer, plastered against the pale blue of the sky. When they were doused by the early June showers, they softly dropped onto the wet mud, only to be swept away into a green wheel barrow the next day.

The jamun tree was another story. It stood like a lone pillar, strong, mighty and glorious. The purple of the berries often stained my skirts, hands and teeth. On quiet summer afternoons, children often crept over the compound wall to throw stones and bring down berries. But there was something more to this tree. It looked different every time I stared hard at it. While it's true that I might have been enamoured by Enid Blyton and her wonderful spiel of faraway trees, this tree often made me wonder. Its mighty trunk and overarching branches convinced me much like Blyton, that there was something magical about it. It was like nothing else I had seen around in my  little urban world.

Lately, I've realized that I often doodle trees. I even seem to stop by trees, to keep my palm on a chipping bark. There is a magic which tingles me for moments. I don't know what it is...but it is there.

Watching trees as a kid taught me something. It wasn't just the magic and wonder, it's probably something more...it made me... curious, patient, dreamy? I can't find the right word to say what it taught me, unknowingly.  May be for now I'll just call it... hope.

We all live in a yellow submarine!

Today I heard the song yet again.But this time, it was different.
The citric-sweet smell of oranges and lime did not come wafting back.
Nor did the jaundiced yellow of the walls stick out as a definite memory.
Everything was more a shade of black and white.
Black and white.
It wasn't frosted with nebulous drops of nostalgia anymore,.
Nor entangled in discordant chords of a melody gone wrong.

It's a memory now...not a lingering thought.
Canned. Stored away.
 Manufactured, without an expiry date.

It's a B

I hate the curse of mediocrity...
And weak tea on a rainy morning.

Another Story

It's a simple story, simply told.
There is nothing extraordinary about 'Wake Up Sid!', except may be that it makes you smile and at more than two points makes us twenty something year olds go "Hey! that's like me!" The understated rush of emotions and the honest portrayal of individual struggles, failures and desires struck a chord with me. Refreshingly, its not another 'love story' that Bollywood seems to churn out by the dozen.You're just watching two different people grow, and the love story creeps in almost unknowingly.

The rain catches you unaware, just like love.
The heavy sea breeze slaps your face.
A tiny colorless drop bursts on your eye lash
You are blinded for a moment

I liked 'Wake Up Sid'. It made me wonder what 'growing up' really means.
It's difficult. But, it's not all that difficult after all. It gives you another story.
Go watch it!

She makes me do things I wouldn't

She talked. I listened. Always.

Initially she was that girl who could eat my ears off just talking about anything under the sun. Books, dogs, dads, boys, music,food, clothes, love. Our conversations were the stuff chick flicks are made of. I've often wished I could talk like that! Now, she often pauses to complain how I always manage to divulge the last detail from her, without spilling a bean myself. And then she continues her story. It's her disarming, warm banter that still keeps me hooked on to the phone. It's got to the point of endearing :)

We're opposites...she's social, I'm asocial. I like her honesty, when she calls a bat, a bat and me, a bitch. So the other day when she told me about another friend leaving the country, I just mooted an "Oh."
"Call her," she said.
"Why? No," I retorted.

But another minute and another call later, I was talking to this other friend I hadn't spoken to in years. Though just a couple of minutes long, it felt strangely nice to re-connect.

My friend often helps me add a dab of colorful vigor in my otherwise monochromatic day.
She makes me do things I wouldn't otherwise. And for that I am thankful.

Pencil shavings and paper

The words on the tiny paper seemed to dance to the beat of silence in the room. Fidgeting with the apsara black pencil, her tiny hands burst into a cold sweat. The pencil slipped out, falling onto the mosaic tiles, disturbing the silence. A pair of reprimanding eyes stared at her squarely from the table in the center of the room. She reached for the tiny piece of paper which had been passed on to her, like a fistful of pencil shavings. He had clamped it into her hand. Now, she hastily crumpled it up and slipped it into her pocket. She did not want any roving pair of eyes to stealthily read her little secret. Worry turned into anger. Anger turned into incomprehension. She turned silent.
They behaved like six year olds.

The poor paper was torn into tiny pieces and thrown away with a fistful of pencil shavings. Rubbish-ed.

Pencils gave way to pens and time to memories.

Memories revisited as old acquaintances accidentally met. They spoke of the rooms, the pencils and the people. They talked of how different life is now. They suddenly remembered the paper. Trepid laughter on both ends drowned the awkward silence of the in between years.

They rubbish-ed it once again, as something only six year olds would have done.

After all, the first time he asked her the question they were only six.

the 8:05 fast

I plug my ears to drown the din of
the bhajjiwalimachiwaliearringwalabhelwalipasscoverwalabutterchakliwali
the blind old man singing for alms,
the grumbling fourth seat passenger trying to squeeze her butt in
the lady whose toe just got pulverized under a fashionwali's high heel sandal
the college girls' parroting
the office women gossiping
the house wife bickering
the mother-in-law nagging
the metallic clatter of the tracks
the noises inside my own head
discordant, many,chaotic.
On board the 8:05 fast

I like to do magic

"I had draw this picture because "I like to do magic"



Bhuneshwar doesn't like to sit in one place. He doesn't like to listen to stories.
He dislikes it when I tell him 'you could read this book.'
While the rest of the class was eagerly scribbling away, he just shifted from one place to another...clueless. After a little cajoling I managed to get him to bring his pencil to the paper.
At the end of class he handed me this...a piece of paper, with its lower edge folded.
When I open the flap I see the complete picture...It certainly is magical :)
He is just 10.