Happiness Denominators

Foot board travel on a fast Mumbai local,
Cool breeze slapping  your face,
The noise of the inside is not cacophony for a change,



And a little beer buzzing through your head and veins.

Of course, you remember to hold on to the bars.

Matches

There are the usual things to remember people and places by, photographs, conversations, bills, tickets, sms-es, souvenirs, letters. That's one way of preserving a memory.

But, aren't there times you wish you could just pack all  memories - of the colors, smells, flavour, taste, time, touch, all of it into a box? A tiny little box, out of which you could sieve a memory out, little by little, and savour it in pinches.Sometimes may be a bit of the blueness of the sky. Sometimes maybe the coolness of the naked rock tipped over by the icy cold stream. Sometimes maybe the softness of a nimble fingertip.Or may be the warmth of steam from a cup of coffee which bumps against a numb nose on a cold morning.

I'm living under no illusion.So I'm doing the next best thing I can. I'm collecting match boxes instead.There's one in blue and silver from Shillong, another in black and red from Hyderabad. CB gifted me one, a keep sakes from a trip to Lonavala, and another "Ship" maachis, a souvenir from a nondescript tapri somewhere on NH 4. There's also a hand me down tiny box of wax matches from Himachal.

I'm waiting for more from other people and places.

Those of you coming back to my city this Christmas, you know what to get me :)

Five reasons why I want 2009 to be over

1. Because someone I know WILL get married!
2. Because then Dee will be only seven months short of crossing over to the other side of 25. Getting older, and shrill-er, but no wiser.
3. Because CB will be out of B school and the C grade campus and get a real job with a big fat pay check. And then henceforth sponsor all my drinks and dining. Did you mention a holiday too?
4. Because I'll have done my little vacation with 4 people who once couldn't stand each other in the same room!
5. Because (fingers crossed) February 2010 spells freedom!

2010. It seems a long way off.
Phew.

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.