You and I

we are like stars, 
you and i;
not that we shine
but in that
we stick to our own systems
that happen to be 
in distant galaxies. 
and yet,
on hot summer nights
or cold and frigid twilights
sometimes,
when all else eludes my drowsy brain
you step into the train
of myriad thoughts juxtaposed therein,
as dreams.
and almost always that you do,
i awake with a start
and question myself
who was that again?
the unspoken pieces
of our 'ship brief
come back to haunt me
as i splash cold water
all over my eyes.
and then i find
that you've receded
to your remote galaxy
and all's well in mine.

The Best is Not Enough

As he looked at the crumpled note for what must have been the fiftieth time, Raju heaved yet another tremendous sigh. It seemed to me that his lungs would burst if he kept doing that. “Maybe you should have some water. Or go back home and rest”, I suggested.

“No sahib, I wouldn’t be able to do that,” he replied in a low voice.

“Raju, my name’s Anand, not sahib”, I reminded him yet again, knowing it was futile. He looked annoyed.

“Well, you are in a fancy suit, and you have a fancy title adorning your fancier office desk, so you must be a sahib,” he replied, not without some rancour.

I wanted to say, “But Raju, we are friends, remember? We used to play gully cricket together, not so long ago.” Instead, I keep quiet. It is obvious that the passage of time has implanted a far greater divide between us, than his dirty clothes and street talk ever did, when we were children. Raju made a move to look at the note again, and I hastily plucked it out of his hands.

“This will be needed for further investigations,” I explained.

“Hah. Investigations. What will you be investigating, sahib, that you already don’t know?” he sounds very sarcastic as he says that. I don’t blame him. He has lost his closest friend, the one person he could perhaps call a brother and get away with it, and here I was, talking about investigations into that soul brother’s death.

Raju, Karim and I grew up in the same city. We lived in the same neighbourhood, except that my residence was a lovely bungalow with a huge garden, while theirs were shanties in a neighbouring slum. Raju’s mother worked at my house as a maidservant; she would bring Raju along on school holidays or when he complained of tummy aches or chills. That is how I got to know him. And Karim. Karim was Raju’s neighbour in the slum. He was roughly the same age as Raju and I, but infinitely more mature. A quiet boy, he was always gentle with others and more or less a peace lover. While Raju and I squabbled about incomplete overs bowled, or lbw decisions, Karim tried to restore peace. He told me once that the only thing he even wanted, was to improve his station in life.

“I have had it with this poverty and this hunger, Anand bhaiyya. I want to do become rich. Do you know how?” I was all of thirteen. I gave him some sage advice about studying hard.

“Do you think that will suffice?”

“But of course, look at my father. He is a renowned doctor, and he is rich, isn’t he?”

That seemed to settle whatever doubts Karim had. So while Raju whiled away his time playing truant at the government school they attended, Karim laboured diligently. He wasn’t a scholar by a mile, but he persisted with his hard work and managed to finish school with a decent score at the final examination. His mother suggested that he take up driving lessons and continue with their family tradition of becoming a driver, but Karim wanted to do better than that. When he asked me for advice, I suggested that he study some more. By then, we had outgrown our passion for gully cricket, and rarely ever met. There was an air of awkwardness, and the innocence that accompanied our games and camaraderie in childhood was amiss. Nevertheless, a college student myself, I advised Karim as best and in the only way that I could… to continue to study and work hard. In retrospect, I wonder if things would have been different if he had never asked me for advice.

Three years and a lot of hard work later, Karim was a graduate in commerce. When he came over to tell me the good news, I had felt very happy. At that time, I was a trainee in the police department, having cleared the public service commission exams. Karim had more questions for me. This time, they were about potential jobs for a commerce graduate. I had not the faintest idea, so I suggested that he register at the employment agency. That was the last time I saw him in person. That was two years ago. Today, all that there is left of Karim, is a shattered body lying in a morgue. And a crumpled note that was found next to it, on the railway tracks. I steal a glance at it, and by the end, the tears flow out without restraint.

“I tried hard ammi. I tried so hard, and I tried for so long, to give you the best. I tried my best, ammi. But that was not the best for any of them. Had I known that a college graduate is as hapless as a school dropout when it comes to gaining employment, I wouldn’t have enrolled at college, ammi. I wanted so much to become rich, and a successful person by my own merit that I decided to give it a shot. I am so sorry I didn’t listen to you and become a driver instead. Perhaps I would have saved myself from the disappointment of being rejected countless times because of my inability to speak fluently in English. This college degree that I had hoped would be our saviour, has become the biggest headache in my life, ammi. I hate going to the employment agency and repeating my sorry story about being a commerce graduate to the sahibs in there, every time. I wish I could give up on the degree and the dream ammi, but unfortunately, I can’t…. And so I must go, ammi. Because I haven’t got it in me, to be the best that these people want. My best is not good enough for anybody, ammi…”

The Unfairness Of It All

Unfairness. Everywhere I look, I see that monster rear its ugly head. I see it in the eyes of the hungry child begging on the streets. I see it in the limp of that beautiful girl arduously making her way down the over bridge. It taunts me when I spot an old couple walking down the busy road, holding on to each other as they try to stay clear of the rush hour traffic. Unfair. Life is so very unfair, I decide.

The hungry beggar boy thinks living in a two room shanty and having three meals a day is the biggest blessing of them all. He currently lives in one and has two meals a day; just a little more effort, and he’ll get to his dream spot, he figures. Does he think life is unfair? “Well no, look at some of those other kids who don’t even have a home to go to. My mother works in three houses, and feeds me lunch and dinner,” he says, not without a hint of pride in his voice.

The pretty girl with polio shrugs noncommittally when I repeat my query. “Unfair? Why do you think so?” I am tongue tied; I don’t know how to ask her the obvious, without articulating it, and somehow, I feel she would be offended. Except, she seems oblivious to something that obviously must be causing her discomfort. Or is that a perception of my mind? “Well you know, having polio might have been a dampener,” I venture. “Oh that. Well, it was so long ago, and it’s not polio by the way,” she goes on to give me the name of some other condition, which I can’t recollect now. “One learns to adjust, you know. And one forgets that one has a disability, until someone comes along with a reminder,” she continues, almost with a hint of reproach in her voice. “I don’t remember having felt that it was unfair; uncomfortable, yes. Unfair, no.”

Wow! These people must be Gods. How is it possible not to perceive the unfairness of it all? The old couple looked at me as though I had lost it. “What is this, young man? Some survey, or some joke?”
“Oh no, I was just…. You know… a little curious…”I falter.
“And why do you think life is unfair to us?”
“Oh well, at your age, you should be.  sitting comfortably at home, and someone else should be doing the running around for you. At the very least, you should be driving around in a car, instead of walking, especially when it is so hot” I reply confidently.
“Have you ever considered that this is perhaps what we want? This running around, this walking and holding hands, this companionship?” he pulls at his wife’s hand and they shuffle down determinedly.

“That guy is surely crazy, eh, Radha? Imagine stopping people and asking them such weird questions; nobody in his right mind would do it.”
“Ah yes, Manohar; I think so too… Looks like a fine young lad too. Poor thing, life can be so unfair!”

I notice the old man and his wife look back at me and steal glances before shaking their heads and moving along.

Beautiful Today, Gone Tomorrow

                                                                                      I

There’s a stream that flows through my parents’ farm, a good distance away from the farmhouse. It is of the classic fairy tale variety, with sparkling bright water that gurgles over smooth pebbles and myriad jagged stones as it rushes on merrily. The banks of the stream are no less picturesque with wild flowers blooming in abandon amidst lush green grass. My parents don’t go there often, encumbered as they are with the chores around the farm and the house. The fact that they aren’t growing any younger probably adds to their reluctance in straying from the routine and giving in to idle whims. That stream caught my fancy the first time I saw it, on a visit to their newly purchased farm a decade ago. I was mesmerised by the beauty in and around the stream, and I felt cheated at not having been privy to this bounty when I was still a child.

Each time I sat on its banks, I would pour a bit of myself into the stream. One time, it was the agony of a breakup with my then partner. On another occasion, it was the joy of becoming a parent. I have lost count of the umpteen times when I vented my anger on the various people in my life, into the stream. Each string of abusive words hurled into nothingness would bounce off the jagged ends of the stones in the stream. Each stray tear that fell off my cheeks and into its gurgling waters, blended my angst into its sublime beauty.

                                                                                        II

My parents are long gone, and the farm house looks old and tattered. The people in my life have receded to its periphery and I find myself quite alone as I steal my way to the banks of the beloved stream. My fifty eight year old eyes and their twenty year old twin companions must be playing tricks with me, I decide; for the water seems lacklustre and there is no enthusiasm in its journey over the pebbles and the stones as of yore. I miss the sound of the gurgle, and the glint of the sun as it hit the jagged edge of the stones in the stream. The edges have all smoothened, and the water seems older and wiser as it proceeds carefully and listlessly down the beaten path.

I cannot help but wonder whether the years of listening to my diatribes and woes have taken its toll on the stream. Beauty, like everything else in life, needs nurturing, I surmise, as I walk slowly back the pathway to the farmhouse.  

Escapades

                                                               

The sun beats down harshly on my back, as I labour in the fields. Any moment now the skin will peel off my back, I muse. I dip a towel in the water in a bucket placed nearby, and wrap it around my bare back. I can’t begin to describe the relief that sets in; it is so exquisite in its wholesomeness, that I think that this must be the grandest pleasure available to man. Given that I am a poor lad farming on a semi parched piece of land in rural India, there are very few pleasures that I am privileged to. Love and belonging are not on that list. They disappeared the day she walked out on me. Tears threaten to stream out of my eyes when I think of that day, and that moment; and this happens infallibly, each time I revisit that dark corner of my memory.

She was all I had, and I was all she had; or so I used to think. The meals she cooked were made extra tasty by the love that went into their preparation… or so I imagined. When she walked out of the house each day, I felt a deep sense of loss; but I would comfort myself by the knowledge that she would come back to me in the evening, when the cruel sun had set. Only, one evening, she came back to leave forever. When she told me she had to leave, I was dumbstruck. I don’t remember asking her why, but she had explained nevertheless. She wanted to have a second chance at life, she said. One in which she wouldn’t feel fettered by her bond to me. She wanted to feel young and free again, and to feel loved. She reckoned I would survive.

As she walked down the curved path leading out of our tiny hut and onto the fields yonder, she had a spring in her steps…one that I had never seen before. Maybe she had really found love. And I wondered at the power of that newfound love, because it had made her oblivious to mine. She had said she wanted to feel loved, when all of my life, I had done nothing but love her and trust her blindly, as only I could. At fifteen, I had lost my mother forever. And all that remained were memories; but memories don’t bring pleasure, do they?

The coolness of the soaked towel on my sun drenched back though, is a different story altogether. I believe I could work like this forever, if only to have these brief moments of reprieve.

Do you see what I see

                                            

                                                                          I

Do you see what I see? Do you see the misty mountains in the distance, the trees looming yonder, and the green grass under my feet? Don’t mind me asking; sometimes I feel the need to validate the authenticity of what I am seeing. I need to reassure myself that everybody sees the world the same way that I do.

I see the world through my twin’s eyes and I wonder how she would have seen it, when they were still her eyes. I wonder whether she saw the same shades of red on the lilies in the valley as I do. Perhaps the whiff of steam escaping from that cup of hot tea ensconced in mother’s hands, held her attention for as long as it does mine. Perhaps she would have seen the faint twitch on mother’s lips as her mind goes on a wayward journey of reminiscing and sorrow. Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Maybe I see too much, because of the joy of being able to see again. When I stopped seeing things, I was only four years old. Today, I am twenty three. Nineteen years is a long time. A very long time during which, one can forget a lot of things. Like how it feels to lie awake at night and count the stars in the distant sky; or watch a movie on the big screen. I have vague recollections of doing both, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to be able do these random acts of seeing once again!

I must arise from my position on the small patch of grass abreast our humble homestead in the beautiful hills, cross over to the threshold and pass yonder, all the while careful not to make any noise that could break mother’s reverie. I try and avoid her as much as I can these days; just as she avoided me for most of my childhood. When I was blinded by a stray accident at a very young age, everybody she knew, berated mother for not taking me to a hospital sooner than she did. She claimed ignorance of the seriousness of the injury, and the pressures of tending to a young family on her own. Minutes after Mahima had closed her eyes forever, I asked mother whether I could have them. Mother never replied, but the doctor did, and even before they took her away for the last rites, I was wheeled into surgery. Everybody I know berated me for devouring my sister, my own twin; mother stopped talking to me altogether.

I have but one life to live. A life that stopped being colourful too soon. I could not live like that forever, not when the stars in the sky beckoned me in my dreams, and the beautiful heroine’s dusky eyes from a long ago memory seemed to penetrate my unseeing ones.

And so we carry on this song and dance of pity and guilt, mother and I. She leaves a portion of the meal in the vessels, while I clean the dirty clothes and utensils lying around the house. The pain in this house is palpable; I am sure I’ll be able to touch it sometime soon! It is that real and alive. There are many things that have been said, and many others that have not. I wonder if we can ever forgive and forget. Surely, she sees the tears flowing out of her precious daughter’s eyes? So what if the cheeks they grace are dark and ugly? So what if the hands that wipe them off are bony and flawed? Surely, there is something in these cheeks, and these hands, that remind her of Mahima. Or perhaps they don’t, because Mahima was beautiful; I can see as much from the picture that hangs on the wall. But surely, she must remember the kicks in her burgeoning belly as she carried her twins; they were not from the pretty Mahima alone.

I see so much now, and not just what her eyes show me. And I am glad I can see as much as I do, for all these things put together are the building blocks of the remainder of my life.

                                                                            II

 The cup of tea in my hands has practically changed seasons in the half hour that I’ve held it. From a fiery summer, it changed into a wet monsoon and thereafter to a frigid winter; much like my life has, in the forty years that I’ve lived it. The carefree childhood is long forgotten, and the brief marriage is but a distant dream. My twin daughters, one fair and beautiful, the other dark and plain, were the biggest constants in my life. Mahima with her ready smile and hearty laughter, a spritely child, so full of life! Poonam, the little baby who crawled late, walked late and spoke too soon. What she couldn’t do with her legs, she overdid with her little mouth. She could talk up a storm even before she turned one… or maybe two. I don’t remember. But they were such a joy to have around me in the dark days following my husband’s desertion. The dainty china doll and the rugged rag doll; a motely pair, if ever there was one. And yet, they were mine. They were all I ever wanted. They are all I’ll ever want.

Poonam’s little unseeing eyes stared in the direction of my voice when I sang them lullabies. How heart breaking they were, those little pools of blinding darkness. They followed me around when I tinkered around the house, darting hither and thither with every little noise I made. It is surprising how much a mother sees, when her little one cannot. Mahima made up for her sister’s blindness by taking her around wherever she went. She would tell her of all the sights along the way, and little Poonam would smile every now and then at her twin’s descriptions. Our life was not idyllic, but we were happy; there was never any doubt about that. Mahima and Poonam spent their evenings talking to each other, while I fed them rotis with daal. Our dinner was always the same, but the girls never complained. Mahima did complain about my prolonged silence at the dinner table, but Poonam didn’t notice it I suppose. She never complained about anything; not about the noises I made while working on the sewing machine that sustained us, not about the lack of colour in her life, not about the unfairness of it all. In a way, that gnawed at me. I wondered what she felt, on all those long drawn out mornings when she and I were cooped together in the house, while Mahima attended school. I couldn’t talk much because of all the work I had to do, but she never complained. I wonder why she never did.

 Mahima’s accident was a bolt from the blue; no, that is decidedly an understatement. No one could ever understand what I felt, when they told me she would lose her legs. I crumpled. I stopped talking to the children. I had never been much of a talker, I had preferred listening to them talk. And now, I didn’t know what I could talk to them about. I failed Mahima in her moments of deepest anxiety. I failed to comfort her. I did not tell her that she would be fine. I forgot to remind her that she was still there, and that there was a life worth living; a life that was hers to keep. I failed her and so she decided that life wasn’t worth living; she decided to put an end to it. Just like that. On the same hospital bed where she lay, recuperating from the accident. And all that I can remember thinking of was, what good was the education, if it could not have shown her the possibilities in life? My uneducated, invalid, ugly daughter was still alive, despite all the heavy odds against her. She had never thought of ending it all. And yet Mahima had, after a fortnight of being a beautiful invalid. I could not mourn Mahima’s loss; I believe I had no feelings left in me. I had been mourning all my life and the latest blow was just too hard to deal with.

Poonam can see now. What relief it gives me, the thought that my talkative little baby can finally see. I have heard some of the harsh things that people said when she received Mahima’s eyes. One of these days, I’ll have to tell her how happy I am that she finally got to see the colourful world from Mahima’s childhood tales. I hope I can snap out of this silence soon. I hope I can embrace her, and kiss her soft, dark cheeks. I long to take her scarred hands in mine, and hold them close to my heart. 

We have played this song and dance of silence, pain and mourning long enough. I believe it’s time I welcomed her home. For it must all be new to her. I hope it will be almost like old times. I think I’ll enjoy teaching my baby to live, and see the wonderful things around her the way they ought to be seen.

the free bird

raghu watches her walking around with a broomstick in hand, ostensibly to sweep the floor, and he wonders what thoughts lurk in her brain. half an hour ago, she had dropped a bombshell on him when she said she was leaving him soon. his first instinct when he heard those words, was to strangle her. the disbelief when he had seen the picture in shyam's laptop was replaced with intense anger; and a bitter sweet longing for the past that now seemed mythical. accepting the truth was going to take some time and so he decided to accost her with some uncomfortable truths. wasn't it just a couple of weeks back that they had had that romantic dinner at the rooftop restaurant?

"hey sheela, what about that romantic dinner we had a couple of weeks ago? don't tell me you were mad at me back then. hell, we had so much fun and you didn't give me the slightest inkling of being unhappy."

"romantic dinner, eh? two weeks ago? let me see, oh yeah, the famous dinner that almost never happened, thanks to your business call. and when it did, what was romantic about it? the candle between you and me that the hotel staff had put there to charge you a few hundred more rupees? you call that romance? hah!"

"you needn't be so sarcastic. back in college, candle light dinners were very much your idea of romance."

"candle light dinners for what they meant back then. not for having a lighted candle on a table top and huge pockets of silence and discomfort all around. raghu, listen to yourself and you'll understand that we have drifted apart."

"really? where? how? i don't see that. i don't want to drift apart. i want us to be together."

"there, it had to come out, didn't it? what's with you and this controlling nature? you want us to be together. there's never any question of what i want!"

"okay hold on, there's no need for any shouting. i mean, we can talk things out calmly, can't we? i just said that i would like both of us to be together for the rest of our lives. i mean, that's what we wanted when we decided to get married, right?"

"so that was four years ago. i don't think like that any more. i want more space. i am moving out."

"you want more space? what for? look, what's gotten into you?"

"nothing, i just realize now that we were not meant to be together. we never were. it was a mistake. i don't love you, i never did."

his eyes welled up then, when he heard her say that. he wished she would be tearing up too as she said that, but he knew she wouldn't. he wished there was some inexplicable reason why she was doing this, some kind of irrational fear, some superstitious stuff, even some disease for god's sake. but he knew there wasn't. he knew now that the twinkle in her eyes in that photo his friend shyam showed him the day before, was very real. oh there was love, a lot of it infact, but none of it was for him. shyam's neighbour's friend anand had stolen his lady's heart and she had become a stranger overnight. hell, one thing she couldn't beat him at though, was pretence. she was making a fool out of herself with all this talk of him being a control freak. her eyes belied her own distrust of what she said, and it wouldn't be long before she would be forced to own up to him. he would wait until then, watching her and provoking her with these conversations. he knew that she would buckle under the relentless pressure eventually.

********************************
she hadn't been able to believe it herself at first. when anand teased her that she was in love, and not with her husband, she had retaliated.

"dude, this is just friendship. we are good friends, that's all."

"oh bull, don't give me that load of rot. you know as well as i do that you love me; good friends don't sweet talk for hours into the night while the rest of the world sleeps. that stuff is for beyond just good friends. so what if you are married? love knows no rhyme, reason or season."

"but that's just not who i am. i can't be dishonest about love for god's sake! what about our wedding vows?"

"well what about them? if you were to stick with him and pine for me secretly, that would be emotional infidelity, wouldn't it? and do you think that would be honest? would that be very much like you?"

"is that sarcasm? how do i tell him? how do i get out of that house?"

"well you could be honest about it and tell him the truth as it were. which would be dicey. you may end up postponing the event for so long that you eventually don't bring it up at all. the other way would be to shove some of the blame up his sleeve. tell him he doesn't care for you. that you've spent anxious hours waiting for him to come home and that you have grown tired of it all. something like that. baloney. lies. they help always."

"oh my, this is not what i had expected. how could a friendship change into love overnight? and why would it happen to me, a married woman of all people?"

"hah. does a legal status change the desires of your heart? face it girl, you are not happy with him. and that's why you found love elsewhere."

"maybe. but this is certainly complicated."

she had taken the short cut and decided to accuse raghu of being inconsiderate and aloof. a part of which was true, but she knew that it wasn't because he didn't love her. it was just that he had responsibilities at the workplace and a household to finance. she knew that she was at fault. but she also knew that she had no desire to feel trapped in a place where she didn't feel happy. her mother would have warned her of the fires of hell that awaited her after death. but she wanted to be happy in the one life that she had and knew. everything else was uncertain. the lure of happiness makes you do strange things. like go against the tide and walk out of a once happy life. not that it was by any means an unhappy one now. just that there was no happiness in it anymore for her. and while she had a chance, she wanted to get a share of the happiness that life with anand seemd to promise. she knew raghu hadn't bought her story of him being a control freak. but so long as he didn't know the truth, she was fine.

***********************************

"love is a funny thing. it never allows you to be in control of yourself, much less over others or situations", raghu thinks. "if i were the control freak that she accused me of being, i would have tied her up and locked her in the house. no, i am the large hearted guy, the one who lets the bird fly out of the cage to see whether it returns. if this bird does return, i'll break its wings and maim it for life, for sure i will!"

"look, no word of this to our families until we sort things out, ok?"

"there's nothing to sort out raghu. i told you what i want."

"okay, atleast give me the time to tell ma. until then, let's behave as if nothing's amiss, could you atleast do that for me?"

"okay, but do tell her soon."

a half hour later, they walk out of the house together, a picture of perfect love for onlookers. she turns back and gives him a half smile as she walks towards the bus stop, while texting anand "i think he bought it. hopefully, i'll be a free bird by next week, whew!". he returns her smile and starts for the subway thinking of a gameplan to trap his bird.

if wishes had wings...

and so the results are out and i didn't make it. does it make me feel sad? to be honest, not sad, but a little bad, yes. i hadn't expected to make it through, after gauging the impression of the panelists; they were on the lookout for someone who had a similar/related background, not an engineer with 8 years in IT. having said that, given my performance in the interview, i had a vague ray of hope hidden somewhere, that lulled me to sleep on hot nights when the chugging ceiling fan reminded me of unfulfilled aspirations.

there are some who say, "good luck for next time". i wonder whether there will be a next time. i doubt. i don't trust myself to give repeat performances in arenas that have rejected me once. i'm reminded of the medical entrance exams circa 1999. sigh, that was another era and another story altogether. would i have made a better doctor than an engineer? i doubt; infact, i can almost decidedly answer that in the negative. i may have made a good one, but hell, i am a good engineer too.

then why the need to change to public policy, of all areas, and why now, they asked. as do others, albeit discretely, behind my back. to the latter query, my answer was, and always shall be, "there is no use before date on education, and there never should be". they were reasonably amused by that, i could say, and hastened to assure me that they had no doubts of my ability academically. them grades came to my rescue i believe (sardonic chuckle). as for the former query, how does "i want to improve my country and make it a better place by some measurable standards" sound? perhaps too altruistic, eh? i believe so, though i say it myself. honest to god though, i do want to make this a better place to live in, and raise my kid(s). i want these kids to feel good about something that happened in their country courtesy their parents' generation, instead of read wistfully about the halcyon days when people sacrificed and laboured and died for freedom.

does that sound too idealistic? maybe, but hey, didn't i always tell you that i am not run of the mill? :)

definition statements :)

some things define a person like no other.

it could be the smile, or the crinkling of the eyes when she smiles, or the funny gait, or the wild gesticulation while speaking, or the pulling on the chin while mulling over something deeply.

essentially, it could be anything.

it could even be the way the person reacts to a situation, the way he manages to convince the people around him always... or something equally significant, or perhaps insignificantly mundane.

there are those however, who choose to be defined by stranger quirks; such as their blind hatred for certain people or certain communities, or their predisposition to violence and hatred and further justifying such actions with some or the other religious or communal beliefs, or their snobbishness, or their looking down upon everyone else in the world, or their religious adherence to some belief system without being open to any other possibility.

i pity the latter category.

i think it is infinitely better to scratch one's behind while in deep conversation and thereby make a definition statement about self, than resort to belittling others or shutting them off as imbeciles who account for nothing, or kill them in the name of god-alone-knows-what.

god bless us all :)

Life, as I see it

Some people waltz into your life,
And some come breezing in;
Tempestuous storms some others bring...
Occasionally a melancholy tune one ushers in,
Another, a lullaby;
A few come in silently,
A few others riding high...

Ere you wonder what brought them
Into your solitary 'stence
Some go rushing out and thence
You muse if it made sense
At all to have them there in the first place ....

And yet, if you would but pause,
And wonder a thoughtful while;
You would see them standing all in line
Gracing your sterile life,
And making it in a signficant way
A little more worthwile!

The Strife Within

Cold winds that blow in from an open window
Newspapers strewn across the floor
A coffee mug from a couple of days ago
Loud music rushing in from the neighbour's next door
She surveys the scene with detachment
Never once dwelling upon the chaos apparent
Turmoil of another kind brews up a storm maelvolent
As her heart seethes in agony of a kind that only she knows...

what do you do when nothing goes as per your plan? sit back and relax and watch...as simple as that!

and then there came the jealousy.

and resentment.

a lot of hurt.

some tears, often unseen.

bitterness.

longing.

a lot of fantasising.

dreaming of what-ifs...

i had never imagined it would come down to this someday.

and now that it has, where is my famous will power? the steely strength that the world marvels at, at times? dont they know, that the inability to show one's fear, one's hurt, one's agony, is a failing in itself? that one yearns to be able to shed the veil of sophistication and the stiff-upper-lip demeanour, if only to be rewarded with some reprieve from the burden that lies heavily upon one's shoulders? can absolutely no one see it?

have i been so bad, so absolutely bad? and if i have, were all those bad things i did, so utterly unpardonable? would goodness, even if a trifle, come in handy to pay the measure for the badness?

will i be able to laugh one day, with head thrown back, hands held wide apart, a deep heartfelt laugh, sans all sophistication, telling the world that my blues have gone? will that day dawn in this lifetime?

i had heard of mutual admiration societies, but increasingly find myself joining mutual non-admiration societies! that's my very own term for those "relationships" (or the lack thereof), between two people who dont like anything about each other, know that all too well, and have to share space for whatever weird reasons.

just when i was thinking that my life's all settled, and that at 29, i wouldnt have to go through that kind of rigmarole anymore, life took a sharp u-turn and i found myself in one such mutual non-admiration situation. it's so yuck, and i thank god that it's over and thankfully (and hopefully!) in my past...

3 days to the 5th anniversary, and i feel very much like a marriage veteran; and so i thought i could dispense some advice for the benefit or amusement or timepass of the unmarried folks (married ones would be busy i reckon ;) )...

beyond the romance and the sweet nothings, lies the reality of real life with your partner... for life! some points you must consider...

if you are an indian and are likely to live in tropical india, please be sure to marry someone who shares your choice for which state the ceiling fan/ac should be in...if not, you are in for some hot nights (very literally, no pun intended!) or cold ones... depending upon what your choice is.

marry someone who shares your love for food...or the lack thereof. it would be difficult for a foodie to be hooked up with someone who is on a perennial diet.

don't prolong a fight; think of the bonus... you make up, and pave the way for another fight and more potential gifts from your spouse as part of the making up ;) but seriously, there aint no fun in a long drawn battle of words between a couple...

girls, don't nag :) boys, don't wisecrack too much; especially about her weight, looks, obsessive compulsive disorders :)

give each other the space to live your own lives... each person is an entity after all, no matter what everyone else says. you can't change who you are, or the person you married; it's better to make allowances :)

i was reading through some of the entries in this blog, and i couldnt find a common vein anywhere... mark of genius, or sign of imminent madness, i wonder ;)

oh yeah, one common feature is the lack of capitals :) i do hate capitals, i wonder who created that convention! as a kid, it was ok... no special effort to write a capital letter, but whew... pressing the shift key every now and then just to make sure your writeup adheres to some dumbass convention...that sucks (look at me swearing; how i've changed...sigh!)

Indi novels and the lessons in them

There's been so much going on, and so many paralell thoughts traversing my mind right now that I wouldn't be able to sound coherent if I started rambling on all of them. Let's try the "slow and steady" or the "one at a time" strategy.

I read two books by Indian authors in as many days, in the last week. While the first one was decidedly amusing and "fresh", the second one didn't come right up there on my charts. The author's an MBA (and from IIM C, no less) so maybe that's why she put in such an elaborate plot that involved an MNC and professional ethics and competition and all of those things that basically sap the energy out of you at the end of a working day...so maybe that's why the novel didn't particularly appeal to my senses. I mean who would want to be reminded of the mundane stuff in her life when she is trying to find solace in something unique and out of the world? So yeah, please don't read "Piece of cake" unless you want to know how a product manager for a cake would promote her product (or launch it, or whatever it is that Minal Sharma was trying to do in the book).
Now the other book "Almost single"... it's another piece of cake altogether (pun intended). Read it and savour its deliciousness, that's all I would say :)

So that brings me to dwell upon that quintessential question that springs up when you read both books... what is it with Indians that blocks their mind to accepting 25+ year old single females as smart, good looking, moral, sensible and caring human beings? Why is it that if you are older than 25, you have to be married (and preferably have a kid perched on your hip), as proof of being a nice human being? (nice = someone who cared enough to "allow" her parents to get her married off at the "right age").

And no, I am not a feminist! It's just that I think that the Indian system sucks somewhere. Just take a rational look at it, where you probably place yourself in a frame of reference that's apart from the one where the parents and the kids are placed (think high school physics)... so you have parents that mollycoddle and spoon feed their kids all through the kids' childhood and then when the kids grow up, the former seem to forget to let go of the reins; so they proceed to decide when the "kid" should marry and when she should procreate, and where the "kid" should live, or what career she should pursue or if she should have one at all (and this is not true for female offspring alone, though they do seem to be more "susceptible" to such parental treatment) . And all our movies and serials and reality shows try to promote this as THE most important national value!

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I must say, that that kind of interference sucks; and it's time we accept that the great Indian culture does have some gaping holes!

P.S: I haven't based all of what I have written, on two novels alone. Like most other "normal" human beings, I think too :)

swine flu and other maladies...

one cannot have a conversation, watch the t.v., read the newspaper, or even surf the internet without chancing upon that most dreaded term "swine flu", these days. dreaded, not because of its potential to induce fatality, but mostly because the topic's been beaten to death and frankly, has become like an eye sore that won't go away. i think i need vaccines to sanitise myself against monotonous discourses on swine flu, causes and symtoms, death tolls, preventive measures and what not.
so the in-laws would like us to stay cooped within our house until god knows when.
and the client wants to implement a bcp.
and i am sure the government will declare emergency if people put up the same pressure for another 2 months.
in the meantime, we have scores of people passing away because of our negligent driving, or because of potentially far more fatal diseases like malaria, dengue, AIDS, and several others. but no, we must let the swine flu have its day in the sun, mustn't we? and forget about everything else until another dreaded disease decides to have its share of attention...

after a long time...

the monsoons are here atlast, or so we comfort ourselves. nothing fullblown like last year, but it's wet and drizzling most of the time. dad's happy with that bit; he was starting to get worried about the 7 hour powercuts that my sibling was having to put up with.

it's strange how parents never seem to stop worrying about their offspring. the sibling is all of 33 years old (well almost!) and dad still frets over him and me as though we were still the school kids prancing around the garden, playing gulley cricket and head-ball (my brother's innovation, haha) or sometimes on rainy afternoons, bus-bus (strange little game where he would be the bus conductor and me the passenger) :D perhaps dad now feels, subconsciously, that he needs to do double the worrying (mom's share too).

i don't suffer from bouts of nostalgia anymore... or if i do, i am certainly not aware of it at a very conscious level. thank god for small mercies... it doesn't serve much purpose to reminisce about a homestead that now exists only in one's memories, and of a time that can never ever come back!

i am kind of looking forward to this weekend, but i do have gigantic butterflies in my stomach too. i hope it all goes well... wish me luck, someone :)

what is wrong with the self righteous folks? i mean, can't they get a life? open their eyes wide and look around and realise that the world does not revolve around them? truly, that shouldn't be hard, considering that the ones i know are all reasonably well educated and men/women of wisdom! bah...