ice cream

So shes walking down the road
V/o explaining her state of mind
where shes at right now in her life
where she comes from and
where she plans to go and
if she plans on going

visuals of people crossing her path
old fat punjabi lady with
shopping bags at crossroads
auto guy waiting near his ride
girl with ipod with bag walking home
couple arguing
traffic passing by
parking lights on
the smell of freshly rosted peanuts

music of the latest hindi flick
from a house
as she crosses the house she
notices white and blue balloons on the gate
There’s a party
She notices a father and child walking to this house
the kid is all dressed up, bow in her hair
she carries a big present,nearly1/2 her size
the father, looks flushed, he’s probably
thinking of all the pending chores back
at work

visuals of the party
balloons, kids, party hats, maybe even
one of those Mexican hanging donkeys
Oh no! kids today aren’t into those
It’s more about exercise for just the fingers
click mouses, playstations, x box
The party is good, that’s coz its an expensive one
The parents had to get an event co
to organize it. Has to be good.
“I’ve never partied like that.
I’m glad.”

So, the roads look festive
Everything is lit up for the
festival of lights
Trees have lights on them
Did they ever imagine they would spread the light
Did they ever imagine

The shops look like cherubic money eaters
sucking in all the aunties in the city
sucking out all the money from
fathers with flushed faces, like the one we
saw earlier

so she entered the atm
withdrew the money left in her account
stares at the guard with the big
moustache outside the atm
And continues walking

There are people all around her
with their stories
The beggar in his tattered clothes
dirty hair, bare feet with his unclean
toe nails, mutterng something about the world
Well, he could just be a detective
all in disguise
she read about this in an article
in one of those cosmopolitan
newspaper supplements
It was published with photographes
of the reporters in disguise
The photographs boost the mystery
The spies are hired by some
wealthy flushed face father
who pays him to spy on his wife
coz the father does nt have the time
for her
The guilt raises suspicion
An affair is what he fears
“I’m glad I’m ignorant to insecurity”

She stops to buy a smoke
she craves paan, oh the flavors
The paan walla looks at her and
asks if she wants a Calcutta
special paan
She nods and smiles
He tells his friend nearby ‘ I knew she was Bengali’
She gets that a lot
She isn’t Bengali

She stubs the cigarette
Enters the store to pay her bill
Leaves

They are having a conversation
They as n she and her friend
something about the moon being
closest to the earth in a 1000yrs
that day being today
She takes the katti roll, pays the guy
Sits by the road, deep in converse
When her friend points out to a dog
There he was, all puppy face
With a surprise down below
It had to be a dog

As she walked on by
She realized why she loved this city
This city wasn’t her home
but it gave her moments
The smell of the orange flowers on sale
The traffic jam on only one side of the road
The side that is homeward bound
The arguments, on two cars colliding
The old man listening to the score
over the radio
Everyones living a story

She buys an ice cream, flavored
tender coconut
That’s the highpoint of her day
Visuals of her eating the ice cream
talking, smiling, laughing
People cross her. “so how was your day?”
She asks her flush faced
boyfriend when he gets back
home that night.

namesake

I took and auto with my aunt to see her off at the airport. Got off, had one kappi (Nescafe!), smoke and conversation before she went in. I walk upto three auto guys and tell them where I need to go, each didn’t want to go in that direction, so, I waited for another auto guy for about 5 mins. Nothing in sight! Finally one of the first guys I had asked started his auto and drove upto where I was standing and said ‘bhetiye madam’ (please sit). The only thought that crossed my mind was that,if I had been in chennai(purposely using chennai coz that name is what makes me indifferent to that city – madras is home, it’s a place I know but chennai is a city I don’t relate to) then I would first have to argue with an auto guy for a rate then he will finally decide he doesn’t want to head in that direction and if I had been stuck waiting for another auto, he wouldn’t ever think of just taking me where I needed to go. he would just park up next to me and be completely indifferent to my anxious wait for another auto. This guy offered to take me where I had to go and ritually turned the meter. This is the real Bombay. It does have a heart.
You need to live here to realize it the mumbai the rest of the country or metros read hear or see is just a percentage, that plays minimum role in giving this city character but that what the rest of ‘em get to see and therefore stereotype the city to what they see of it.
I cannot generalize and say that Bombay is this and madras is like that. Both cities are made up of different kinds of people, each city with its share of past, different politics and different lifestyles. It’s the lifestyle you lead in both cities that makes the person and not the city . the spunk of Bombay is that it enables you to live the way you want to based on the choices you make but with madras your choices will be a neighborhood discussion. Since Bombay gives you the freedom of choice, it carries extremely different people who have learnt to live and survive independently and just co “exist”.im not pro Bombay and I love madras, but im just sick of listening to so many friends and people complain about Bombay without even living here and just base their theory on people they have met from Bombay (who apparently they don’t like). Yes!, this city is bizarrely humungous and travel and getting around is quite an experience to get used to. this also being one of the reason that people don’t have time to just spend time with each other or just probably catch up for a smoke or just do sunday afternoon beer. So invariably everyone is alone and being alone makes you hard. Being hard not necessarily means your soul is dead. The auto guy had soul. He is also mumbai.

noise

its raining outside
the girl beside me chatters
dylans singing
a kid hums
my stomach growls
phones crying
cars reversing
chair squeaks
mom yells
aeroplane flying
footsteps
coins
drums
all these noises in my head

mine the donkey last

living in two worlds
mine and theirs
the gravitational force contrast
creating a vaccum in between
a space thats home to nothing
empy bliss
parallel lives
switch on to live in theirs
switch off to live in mine
but it is always mine the donkey last.

read

i sat down to write today and this is wat i wrote, please read :-




























thats all i could think of.

grey

Once again i packed a suitcase and left - 14 t shirts and two pairs of jeans, my laptop, a copy of Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" and a couple of thousands in the bank (thank you mom and dad). Until my flight was about to land, it hadnt hit me that i had left home, well, it never hits anyone 'cause ive always packed my bags and just left - im like the visiting relative in my home. so, blah!
3 weeks of job hunting and i get one,congratulations to me, but thats not what i wanna talk about. This blog is just random thoughts.

"God helps those who help themselves"- Hezekiah 6:1
"Love your neighbour as thyself" - Romans 13:9
Well no offense meant at all but from the first verse God sounds like a capitalist and the second makes Him sound like a socialist. This makes Him like a confused economist. To quote Toffler - " the year 2000is closer to us in time than the great depression, yet the worlds economists, traumitised by that historic disaster, remain frozen in the attitudes of the past. Economists,even those who talk in the language of revolution, are peculiarly conservative creatures. If it were possible to pry from their brains their collective image of the economy of say, the year 2025, it would probably look very much like that of 1970- only more so. Conditioning to think in straight lines, economists have great difficulty imagining alternatives to communism and capitalism."

As a kid, i was taught right from wrong. There was always a right way of doing things or talking to adults and about respecting people and then there was the wrong way. So, there was black and white, i had heard about the grey and i tripped on to that path a couple of times myself and i abused the services of white lies, but invariably i would get back to the right track because i found my comfort zone there (also i could sleep peacefully). The earth, im learning, is not a blue planet but a grey world(what a dull colour) and i fear the 'greyization' of me. i hope i find the strength in me to keep pushing myself back into my comfort zone when im with people i care about and have the ability to don the greyness when need be! and i pray that i can sleep well!

im going away

my hands are weary
i suffer from fatigue
let me breath
before i suffocate
please dont fall again
stand up straight
take one step

i have to leave you today
dont be angry
but i have to go my way
our journey thus ends this day
its time to bid adieu
so i beg you, dont fall
for i will not be around to catch you

break on thru to the other side

So whats going on?
whats that look in your eye?
do you need to tell me something?
its been awhile since ive seen you
and i know youve been hiding something from me

im your reflection
i see you in reverse
so, lets rewind
unwind
tell me my story
tell me how i live on that side of the plane

nothing ever seems fine when i see you
your eyes tell another tale
your lips are sealed
your smile lies
talk to me , let me
break on thru to the other side

to a friend

watch the distant horizon
the youthful waves beat against the shore
shades of blue. shades.

goodbye my friend
farewell
find your place on another shore

happy or content

Why am I here? Am I escaping something? Maybe I am, but on the other hand isn’t everyone? Too many questions and all the wrong answers!
Im here because I crave change. Am I not happy with the life I have or am I not happy with who I am? Happiness, does it exist? Every emotion (rather state of mind) exists if you want it to!
So, what do I want – I want reality but then again what is reality. Is reality what I feel or does it have to do with all five senses. What about the sixth sense? Reality, therefore, for me is what I want. Imperfect for me is real, and therefore, when something perfect stares at me I deny its existence. So, happily ever after does not exist. A moment of happiness does. Therefore im happy at moments of time and content forever. Is it normal to live, therefore, only to be content with life?

Everyday I meet different people, all only content with their lives and almost all oblivious to this fact. Each suffer their own moment of happiness, anger, or pain. Each don their mask at points of time. Each at the center of a game of tug of war between happiness and contentment.

Are you happy or are you content?

Mud

Why did I sculpt? Did I want to sculpt? The only thing I was aware about was the fact that we sculpt ourselves everyday – that could sound deep or just very corny, but , think about it – right from setting one’s hair to stay the way you want or putting just the right amount of kaajal for the mood of your day to just sculpting oneself and one’s emotions – we all are sculptors!

The first time I touched clay I must have been in kinder garden. Messy hands. Round fat cats and extra long caterpillars. Fond memories.

When I touched clay again at 21, I smiled. I could play God and make a world of my own, it was not the power I loved but the world of my own that I love.

Mix the clay. Mix well. No externalities. Take away the stones. Take away the obstacles. Take care.

Now, you sculpt. What do you want to sculpt? Improvise. Experiment. If things go wrong, you can make them right. Million cups of coffee. Hours together – just mud and you. Once done then days on the shelf, patience till dry. Finally baked and served. If things still go wrong then as a friend said ‘Fevicol hai naa’.

The mud became my God and my favourite companion. I made a friend and my friend made me smile.

me

I will be who you want me to be
I will tie my hair up neat
And I will wear white on Friday eve

I will speak when spoken to
And refrain from profanity
I will be just what you want me to be

I will not entertain nicotine stains on my fingers
And I will cut my nails
And scrub behind my ears
I know its all good for me

But when I look into the mirror
And I don’t recognize myself
Then there will be two of me staring straight
And, ironically, no me!