Fingers Crossed

Dakota Skye made  me wonder about making choices again.
Was I letting things happen to me? Or was I making things happen?
Same thing whatever.

Sometimes, it looks like a weed caught mid stream in a gush of strong currents.
It sounds like wind howling through a scrawny forest
It feels unnervingly, impatiently exciting, ridiculous, scary and right. All at once.
It's possible.

I might have found Happiness. Involuntarily blessed with something people spend their entire lives searching for.
Lucky me.

Wisdom for the Day

Smile on a Monday morning, because who knows, by the end of the evening you'll be frowning again.

Do not call a spade, a spade.

Mundane conversations with strangers are better than arguments with  your mother.

No matter how much you decide you won't let something bother you, it will bother you.

Ignorance is bliss, only for a while.

It all adds up...and the answer is never 42.

It takes more than a happy-songs playlist to put the spring back in your step.

Hopeless as we are, we always peg our hope on Hope.

Give me Hope, Joanna!

Of this and that

 There are some things I think I will never be able to let go of. One of them is the memory of this shade of sun kissed green.

It stood by the road silently, watching the world go by. Its only friends, the corrugated tin walls and the parched earth.

And my fascination with trees continues. This one - "Droop dead gorgeous"

:-)

Published!

I believe I'm modest. Quite so.

But I'm taking this one opportunity to be a little immodest.
For shameless self publicity.

(Yes, I can already see some of you out there gawk at my first statement! Hold your tongue!!)

Sharing a link to an article that I wrote, which got published as a cover story in an Indian magazine on School education in India.
http://www.teacherplus.org/cover-story/thinking-about-teach-for-india

Happiness mingled with a small sense of achievement.
Bliss.

No Sunlight

I wake up at 6 a.m.to yet another gray morning.
An hour later I hobble towards the rickshaw stand.
Below the overcast sky, everything wears a brooding look.
Or is it menacing?
...

There is not a rickshaw in sight.
...
May be, it was menacing.
...
Half an hour later, I am seven minutes late for my usual 7:48 CST local.
The bloody F-O-B is throbbing with bodies.
Bodies, bags,umbrellas,fish,vegetable, beggars,peddlers,TCs.
...
It could have been menacing.
...
I'm still on the bloody F-O-B as the 7:54 CST local pulls into the station.
The sea of bodies suddenly gathers more momentum.
Bags jostle against backs, baskets drip over heads, peddlers elbow beggars.
Someone trips over my long, black umbrella.
Aye Maddamm! Dikhta nahi hai kya?
...
It was definitely menacing!
...
Push,pull,nudge,jump.
Miraculously I'm on board the very crowded 7:54 just as it begins to pull out of the station.
...
We hang on to the edge of the bars, like leaves on a bough.
As rain and wind lash us, soaking every possible thing exposed to it,
Co-foot board traveller1, "Umbrella hatao, my raincoat is getting wet."
Co-foot board traveller 2, standing beside traveller 1,
"Pressure mat dalo, you want to push me out of the train kya?
...
Forty five minutes later, I've survived another breezy foot board journey.
I waddle through mucky water strewn with rotting leaves and paper and plastic
The 8:35a.m. bus no.167 is just limping out of the depot.
Gone.
The black clouds have burst open once more,  with more vengeance.
...
God! It's so menacing!!
...
Seven hours later, again on the foot board,
Soggy and damp, disheveled and worn out,
I muse about crossing over, switching sides, changing jobs,
About chauffeur driven cars, high heels, expensive cotton,
And the sun.
When will it be out again?

(Im)modest Proposal

Spitfire the sweet faced, from the East, thought of me after a after a long time. It was a welcome surprise. "What's happened to your blog?" she said, among other things. I wondered too, what had happened to it? I'm tempted to say "life's like that" with a nine to five job and some more. But that's bull shit.

So Spitfire, I decided to make a feeble attempt to resuscitate it back to life. Thanks for being my muse in a way, you've been good (for a change :P).  I dread looking back to see these pages splattered with monochrome. It would be cooler to see something tinged in a hue of pink and yellow, red and green.

During this longish hiatus I missed writing about the first rains that left the city smeared with some more muck and grime.
Of the early morning train ride with raindrops and raingear.
Of the black tarry road which glistens with an unusual radiance.
Of lazy strolls on cobbled sidewalks.
Of cutting chai and piping hot vada pavs
And of course, some of my favorite people.

(I'm sick of all of you leaving my city.)

So if the rains haven't reached you yet, you know where you can find some showers, made more wonderful with chai and me! 

Confessions of a compulsive consumer

The silver on my  toe is chipping.

The electric pair of silver mojris carries a wisp of dusty Hyderabadi grandeur. Tired creases on the insoles spill a tale of worn feet.
My electric pair of silver mojris sadly, has lost its sheen.Beyond redemption.

The humidity laden Mumbai air plays truant with the carelessly strewn silver earrings.They've steadily gone from sparkly silver to gray to a dull black.They now face an uncertain, pasty fate...the yearly ablutions with toothpaste and water.
The hundred bucks buckled belt from Causeway now shows it true colors. Unlike the earrings, the silver buckle doesn't metamorphose into something old but pretty. It ungracefully bears orange stains of rust.This orange now slowly spills and spreads all over the white body of the belt. Cancerous.  
The silver of the stainless steel cutlery looks dubious.The shiny silver is too shiny. Can it be?
The thin line of mercury in the thermometer is a relief after the shiny silver. It comes closer to the silver of my Hyderabadi mojris.Erstwhile silver of the mojris.

Encased in the tube it looks placid and cool. While the mercury in the city rises I'm tempted to pour out this beautiful, thin strand of mercury.

It is the perfect shade of silver I'd like on my toe.

As always, I'm left a little more saddened at my compulsive consumerist status.

A Catalogue

Unreasonable

Dominating

Infuriating

Irritating 

Illogical

Petty

Obstinate 

Annoying

Autocratic

Hypocritical

Nerve-wrecking

I have it in the same measure as you.
Measure for measure.

Speculations anyone?

"You're still the same! Just as you were in Junior college." She said with no hint of incredulity.
"Really?" I ask, stunned.

Cringe.
Cringe.

Brain doing a mental check:
Should I let my hair down and show her how wild it can get?
Should I rattle off unsavory invectives I've picked up over the years, in different languages?
Should I flash her a packet of goldflake lights?
Or my shiny new credit card?
Try getting her into an argument about Mumbai v/s Bombay or Obama's policies?

She's judged me. 
But she tries to be judicious


As an after thought she adds, "No but I'm sure there's lots more up there now." (Pointing to the wonderful brain inside her wonderful head)


"So do you still attend the Music fest in college?" (the college I left five years back)
"No" I say.

It's her turn to cringe now. That's it.I've confirmed her speculation .
I exit, so she can be happy about her judgment.
 
I wonder why I stopped by to say a hi to her in the first place.

In this country, speculations are a national pastime. Or so I speculate and comfort myself.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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

What's on my calendar?

Prufrock said,
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?," and, "Do I dare?"
Time to go back and descend the stair.
[...]
Do I dare disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
April?
Is not for decisions.

Henri Bresson “Hyères, France, 1932″

What's it going to be then, eh?

Philosopher once told me, "It is also about empowerment. Your decision empowers YOU. If you don't decide, someone decides for you. You don't have the power -THEY have the power over you. You are forced (into a position). You have to learn to make that choice.. It is your freedom."

His words come back with a fiery determination to me this morning, as I put down Burgess' Clockwork Orange and got a call from my work place asking me about my commitments for the next academic year. I said I might want to quit. I thought I was finally making a choice. But they said, we could negotiate. We don't want you to quit.
I'm back to square one, I dislike making choices.

But after reading Burgess' book I'm forced to retract my statement. Burgess says, without choice man ceases to be man. It's worth reading the book or watching Kubricks sensationally notorious film for people like us who live in democratic, yet State controlled societes. Choice is important. To the state, like Auden says in "The Unknown Citizen", we are merely a number. With our power of choice taken away, we become mere clockwork orange, like Alex in the book. Some lines from the book that intrigued me:
'Choice,' rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. 'He has no real choice, has he? Self interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self debasement. His insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrong doer. He ceases to be a creature capable of moral choice.'
'These are subtleties,' like smiled Dr. Brodsky. 'We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime-'
'Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog? Am I just to be like a clock work orange?'
'What's it going to be then, eh?'

Some kind of wonderful!

A wonderful Parsi gentleman unknowingly bequeathed me a treasure. He left me not just his rare collection of books but also pages of his life still fresh with the smell of his memories and the faded blue ink of this fountain pen. I can't wait to write about my Sunday in a garage piled with what I love...old, moth eaten, dusty, mouldy books. It was a heady Sunday well spent losing myself in the cacophony of dusty, old books. He had all the books I've possibly always wanted to own..Kerouac, Flaubert, Ionesco, Waugh, Graham Greene, countless English and American Anthologies, Indian writing, Brecht, Wesker, Chekov, Miller, Fitzgerald! (A catalogue will be up soon). I also found some priceless editions of Life magazine, old editions of the Encounter and the London Literary Magazine. I cannot even begin to tell you about all the books this man had! Right now my room is overflowing with his treasure...here's just a peek from the crime site.

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?

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 :)