Some mundane things come with a "pretty forever" tag.

Mundane is bland. Mundane is ennui. Mundane makes us wish life had more Saturdays than Mondays or was a long holiday at the Caribbean where you snorkeled in the mornings and counted stars in nights. You get the drift.

But have you realized there are some mundane things that never tire you out. Like when you smell the aroma of a freshly brewed cup of coffee, irrespective of the hour of the day. Always perks you up, doesn't it? And you yearn for a hot of cup of that frothy awesomeness yourself. Always.

Thirteen years - one month - twenty six days - nine hours and twenty minutes and I still could not help but blush when our irises met and I saw your smiling face.When you entered the cafe after a half hour of vanishing from mid lunch on feigning a phone call, with a bunch of roses in one hand and a set of earrings in the other, my soul smiled so wide as my heart took a leap. The lady from across the table, could not help but and wink at me and I could only offer her a smile in exchange while smiling at myself for the fecund fortuity of it all.

Sixth grade was seventeen years ago. And this wasn't the first time you brought me flowers or gifted me earrings (perhaps the first time you got somethings different than pearls. :) ) Yet, the room lit up with a shimmery sunshine that emanated from you and I. A very mundane thing in our lives. Happens to us everyday.

Some mundane things come with a "pretty forever" tag. They always make you smile. Lift your day, and give that moment a glistening dazzle which you bookmark in the pages of your life and return back to on a rainy day.

Love shall leave you broke.

Scratches and burns,
and shoves and pushes.
Ires and scorns,
and venom and smoke.

Tears will run dry,
and pleas will go rancid.
When silent sobs
ricochet on walls placid.

Colors alter and hues change
they glide and creep and melt and smother.
Strangers one night,
and lovers the other.

Scratches and burns
and shoves and pushes.
the mind's a fool,
the heart's on crutches.

Ires and scorns,
and venom and smoke.
Run, now, while you can
love shall leave you broke.

Ummeedo wali dhoop, sunshine wali aasha.

"Ummeedo wali dhoop, sunshine wali aasha."  (hope tinged sunshine, sunshine like hope)
Isn't the new Coca-Cola ad just lovely?

There is a fecund sense of optimism the advent of a new year ushers, dont you think? No matter what transpired in the year that went by, the worst and the ugliest, every year, this time around - somehow the wind concocts a new melody , which for some reason we would never know smells of an acute optimism, carries undertones of a lustrous hope and emulates the strings of an utopia we seem to never be able to let go of.

I would rather bask in that tomfoolery, if tomfoolery is what it takes for me to paint the reticent sunshine, that glides into my window, in a yellow that looked somewhat orange and talks to me of the fortuity of being here if anything at all, alive and living. Walking on sunshine swathed boulevards of optimism that drips from souls who know what it is to live and believe.

The heart is such a cunning little minx. It will spin and juggle and re-sketch and buoy the same things over and over again, and make it look as though every time it came up with something new, something different. And swimming about those shores we will lure ourselves towards the unknown with the anticipation of new beginnings and the joy those new beginnings will bring.   

Happy 2012 everyone.

There's a crescent on the moon.

There's a crescent on the moon,
from where your face shimmers a smile.
Mellow zephyrs caress desires,
winter whispers modestly beguile.
I see your moon dust drizzle,
and blame this tempest night senile.
Yet still reach out my hands, hoping

perhaps you'd serenade me to your isle.
I reckon they perhaps wonder,
what is she - ludicrous? juvenile?
But there's a crescent on the moon,
and I've been watching all this while.

You make this life beautiful.

You make this life beautiful.

When you switch on the geyser for me, run the water, check the temperature and tell me the bath's ready. Ask me if you could help with washing my hair, for cannot bend under the tap anymore with this big belly I sport now.
You make this life beautiful. 

When you come back from work, plonk your laptop and fold your cuffs, march straight to the kitchen and put the tawa on and help me with the rotis knowing standing is a little troublesome lately.
You make this life beautiful.

When you reprimand me because I lifted something heavy like the laptop or moved the dining chair, seriously concerned and flustered for me and our baby, which is so adorable to watch.
You make this life beautiful.

When you just know, why I am staring into the mirror scrutinizing myself, and touch me lightly on my shoulder, smile your fecund smile and murmur tenderly, "You're the prettiest girl I know. Even now."
You make this life beautiful.

When you make vada pao's from scratch at 11.45 on a monday night, cz that was when you got reminded that I'd asked you for them a couple days ago and you'd promised you'll make them in the weekend but forgot.
You make this life beautiful.

And when you dance with me in the kitchen,amidst all the cooking,
and when you kiss me in between a meal, then wipe my cheek and say 'I love you',
and when you touch my leg when we're on a bike to make sure I'm okay,
and when you call me everyday, on your way home from work, to talk and we do until you're at the door.

I dwell on it again and again. And fathom this, and and render me humble.
For just how, you make this life so beautiful.

Hey.

There is a peculiar bitter-sweet feeling in the pit of your stomach when at times, in a moment where your mind and heart could not be more at rest, sated and serene and entirely one with each other gliding in a tranquility not every day brings, you garner unto you glimpses. Glimpses of faces. Faces of people long left behind in this expedition of growing up that you’ve been on since the day you were born.

How life will alter things, in a way you have no inkling about. How it will shove you into the tide, and make you emerge a smidgen different, every time. Actually, is it even tides? Come to think about it, you are not really the same person you were yesterday, are you? Each day, peels off a layer on you and you see a new thing that you never noticed earlier.

We remind ourselves change is good thing. Or better yet, how often do we even pause to betray a glance at how far we have come and what we have picked up or left behind in this weird little basically aimless trek, where we fool ourselves that we have goals and ambitions and dreams to achieve and adhere to so we can keep our sanity locked in a sarcophagus of certainty our deluded life barters with us so we can live.

And in the rare moments when you are at the bridge about to trespass territories of then and now, you meet them. You do, don’t you? You see what they’re doing, how they are, and it makes you happy. You see how you were back then, and even if it doesn’t make sense now, you’re still glad they were there instead of someone else. You see how days wove themselves around you when they were there, and even when you had your ups and downs, now you wonder, there couldn’t have been a better way, could it?

There are moments like today, when I feel like reaching out. You know, just a light touch on the shoulder, a snug little hug, a wave of warmth, a gentle little smile and a kind word of fondness. Not a thank you-for-everything or I’m-happy-to-see-you-happy or lets-give-this-another-shot. No, none of that. Just a ‘hey’ perhaps. Before the wave of logic and reasoning and to-do or not-to-do or it-doesn’t-matter-anymore kicks in, and I wash it down with a cup of practicality and a pinch of the growing up that I have, all I need is just a quaint ‘hey’. And somebody very wise once told me, just is sometimes so much. So ‘hey’.

When you arrive.

There is a curious lil package of happiness
filled with tiny decoupages of excitement,
ribbon tied with tender love, waiting at my door.
Somebody wonderful sent it,
somebody beautiful gave it.
Oh how fortuitous it is, that I get to keep it.
I will keep the tag on top unwritten.
And fill it up, when you arrive.

More than just slumdogs under our bellies.

Two Indians feature in the Top 10 Most extravagant Weddings ever article on Yahoo. Lakshmi Mittal's $60 million wedding extravaganza when his daughter got married, and Vikram Chatwal - Priya Sachdev's $20 million wedding carnival.

I always scroll down to read the comments at the reader's section. If you have not tried that ever, then sure do. You will find some amazing insights, funny thoughts and remarkably intelligent retorts down there. So today, after this reading this article, it was no different. I did what I always do. Scroll down.

This is what I found. One of the responses, just.

"These Indians spent millions of dollars for their wedding and the rest of their country have no potable water? Do they still have caste system in India? Luxurious weddings at the expense of people's lives. No wonder they stink."

I am thinking of two things after reading this.

You blindfolded cobwebs-all-over-your-sad-brains, who thinks India does not have potable water to drink. Look at your own backyard. That will tell you how many of you are swimming in the same shit.There is murk lying everywhere you will see. Oh, but you'd need to remove that blindfold first.

Is this what our portrait really is? No wonder movies like 'Slumdog Millionaire' always win Oscars. Hordes of idiots come visit our Dharavis and snap our ghats and go back home after a cheap stay and a cheaper ride feeling less of the salt they have slicing their mouths.

Just to humor yourself, have you ever typed India in any search engine toolbar and seen the images. Just the images. You will find inadverdently the Taj Mahal, Rajasthan's elephants and the palaces, Kashmir's shikaras, Kerala's backwaters, Bangalore's clubs, Mumbai's Taj Hotel, a Hindi movie poster, Lutyen's area - Delhi, Goa's beaches, a sanyasi by one of our ghats, a dirty runny-nose ragamuffin, rangoli. Its such a variant picture.

Perhaps you have forgotten(threatened by?) the fact, that we simply are fast going back to where we were.

Off the tangent read this comment :

"so many poor and suffering people and so much money that could help them just thrown away on something totally unnecessary... ): "

I appreciate this person so much more than the dimwit who could not stand the fact that Indians have more than just slum-dogs under their bellies. Pity you.



P.S : Don't you just love the picture of the adorable lil girl with all her colorful gear? Some people will only see the sand on her hands and the dust on her face. Sad.

Stay.

Dont leave tonight.
Stay.
Stay here, and talk.
While chrysanthemums sway,
and the zephyr idles and runs.
Let the ambiguity that is love,
leave notes on this night.
And the kisses yearn.

Stay.
And whisper.
Let your velvety voice,
from miles away,
undulate the radio waves
that saunter between us.
And let me long for you,
like you long for me,
in this prurience that we cleave to.

Dont leave tonight.
Stay?

Today.

Today, stop and stare.
And behold, peruse and glare.
Walk back to me, to here and now.
Pick up the pieces, from here and there.
Today, lend the world some grace.
Halt and pocket some time and space.
Stretch your lips at the corners
And light up your face.

My Vintage photograph

You are my vintage photograph,
where our years stand yellowed and green.
A country swept dewy zephyr you appear,
wonder what you did intervene.
There was a sweep of gold dust here,
I saw the sun's foolhardy preen.
I  would sing, but I dont want the pixies to know,
where we hid all that sepia sheen.

I am negligible.

Infinitely negligible is how I feel when I look around the world I am decadently fortuitous to live in.

The millions of inspirations floating about, boundless ideas that regale me and at the same time tell me how ignorant I really am. And that I have so much to do, so much to accomplish, so much to learn, so many ways I can apply  myself in, so many dimensions I could be in. And that knowledge, is frightening and overwhelming and inspiring all at the same time.

Perhaps a bit baffling too. Baffling for not having known about that one new thing I came to know now, baffling to see all these frogs in the well around me who tell me I am being stupid when I tell them I would like to this, I would like to do that, baffling not because they think I am stupid, but rather because of the fact that they donot perceive what I do, baffling because they are so buried in their non chalance soaked tombs, stenciled with watermarks of 'this-is-the-best-i-can-be', that they donot feel the necessity of looking up and about and just notice.

Just notice! You donot have to go anywhere to find inspiration, to find how the world is so much more devastatingly glorious than what you thought, to realise that you are actually nothing with what you think you have or can do, and that the trek from what you are, to what you can be is endless. Abysmally Endless.

Sugar Sprinkled Cinnamon Doughnuts.

Some days are like sugar sprinkled cinnamon doughnuts you're tending to your senses with, after a long and tiring day at work. They're not special, as the other days or planned getaways that you look forward to. They're just those random moments that breeze by and usher comfort into your arms. And you know everything's alright with the world. That life is fun. That there are some things that never change. Somethings that always cheer you up. And the fact that you don't need too much to cheer up. Some days make you realize, happiness does lie in the simplicity of it all.


Photo courtesy : Debarpita Mohapatra

Mask.

There is a mask on your face,
and one that you hide.
One under, one above
and they effortlessly glide.
You think I know not, but oh I do,
while you are letting your airs ride.
Behind the world's invisible back
and jeer and smrik and snide.
There is a mask on your face,
which you don and look above
ruminate the irony of a sacrilege,
that you need to call it pride.

Guilty.

Disturbed.

Why do most people with money but no education deem themselves invincible? Treat others as garbage? Witnessed somebody I am related to be really insensitive to somebody I donot know. I could not say a word. Did not, rather. Cant stop thinking about it. Feel guilty. Stand guilty.

This Republic Day eve can I take the privilege of asking you all to pledge that we will be more sensitive and more receptive. Wont snob. Remember manners. Not forget where we come from. Be nice. And be cultured. To acquaintances. To strangers. Build some spine and have the voice to tell somebody that they are wrong, when they are.

What nation is a nation that has got the riches but no culture? Arent we supposed to a country that swims in heritage and culture? Guess we need to remind ourselves of it.

Happy 26th of Jan everyone.

Fluttering and flying.

So we run and hide behind the sleeping sycamore tree,
and shake it and climb it to watch the dusk depart.
Far off in a violet and ochre sky swallows hasten home,
and we gaze at the sun and her light glide lazily apart.
You impishly wonder if its the wind or the sky,
or your fluttering and flying love drunk heart,
winking as you do you lean again, and somewhere
a mellow zephyr smiles, then laughs with a start.

Crimson Words.

People die.  And with that they leave behind an abyss. In one room, amongst sob and shock and stare and a sinking feeling looming large your world would have fallen apart. And nobody knows. 

Nobody ever can. The cynic smirks when they offer you words. 

What were they thinking? Don’t they know that moment words are just sounds, echoes of a redundant now, which simply glide above and around you, and never through you? That moment all you have passing through you is just a colossal barrenness, engulfing your blood pumping machine which resonates with the raucous white noise of a simple truth. People die. 

Words never seem shallower. More crimson. I don’t know what helps. I merely silently stand. Alongside.   

If you must know.

If you must know,

there’s rarely been a moment

Where my slender hopes have not been met,

with an ambition, stunningly audacious

 that comes from the dawning that you’re here.

And you shall forever be.

We swap places when life makes us.

You’re the sturdy one sometimes,

and I am, in others.

If you must know.

When we fetch each other light,

I think to myself, and agree 

I'd rather bask in a tomfoolery

and think utopia exists. 

Then I see you smile and conclude,

with a clarity I rarely have,

I’d rather not do it any other way,

but to hang on to you. Forever.

If you must know.

You are where my world is.

Talking about your wedding with your mom is a weird thing. As you are discussing the time, jewellery, the events, the works. Listening to her talk to you about how you should equip yourself to handle new responsibilities, the way she sees right through you and knows that when you say you dont want to get married just yet, you actually mean you dont wanna shoulder the responsibilities all the new relationships are gonna bring.

She tells me " aur kitne din nishchint chidiya jaise udegi? ghar to zameen par hi hai na?", to which I grin n quip "buddhi hone tak." She retorts as effortlessly as it can be, in her typical poetic demeanor and verbiage; "jitni bhi buddhi ho ja, kabhi to ghonsle me aana hai na? apne jaisi ek chhoti chidiya ko udna nahi sikhana jaise maine apni chidiya ko sikhaya?". And just like that battle lost.

The journey of a  mother and a daughter is such a queer one. Its as if you both metamorphose into womanhood together, side by side. Learning from each other, sharing each others feelings as though you are just friends, taking each others advice, sometimes fighting and then quickly making up bcz you both share the tendency of not being able to stay angry with ppl you love for too long. And you realise, you never wanna leave her womb and see what they call 'the world'. For that is where your world is.

You are where my world is.

This saturday morning

Growing up by the beach, makes you crave to get out of the sultry humid climatic insanity of a town as soon as you can. Well, just realised that it is only until you actually do.

This lazy Saturday morning, I am thinking of that hustling little beach town I grew up in.

I am thinking of the infinite early morning rides, in dad's scooter to watch the dawn glide down that part of the earth's sky, dragged out of the bed and lured there by the thrill of a cup of tea that is served to you by local chai-wallas who walk around the beach with their tea stalls on their shoulders.

I am thinking of the mundane days made not so mundane, by my gang of cousins, when we sneaked out of the house, cycles under our toes and nonchalance up our sleeves, ready for a riot with the waves, having rosogolla, taking pictures by paying the tourist camera guys and in the end coming home to a royal wash down by the moms and dads and bou and bapa.

I am thinking of the honeyed evenings when a mutinous wind spoiled your hair and the beads of sea caressed your face, you were laughing your dusk away with friends over mudhi masala and thums up.

I am thinking of post dinner soirees with mom n dad where dad would lie down resting his head on the handkerchief laid on the sand, mom with her cup of ice cream and us two running around, talking of everything under the sun as the air kissed our hearts, until the cops came n said it was time to leave.

This Saturday morning, with a cup of ginger tea in my olive colored vintage mug, legs inside the blanket and a lazy winter sunshine donning my walls I am thinking of times soaked in sepia stained faces and nascent dreams that birthed in their lungs and changed our lives forever. This Saturday morning, I am thinking of an ebullient childhood that makes me who I am and tells me what it is to live and laugh and love. This Saturday morning, I am thinking how thankful I am for it all.

What are you thinking of today?

Add a 'pathetic' to that, will ya?

Mundane.

I absolutely utterly irrevocably abhor mundane.It shrivels my spirit and clips my zeal. I dont know how people do it. For years and years and years of their lives. Wake up - rush for practically everything - run - grab - reach - allow the day to pass you by. Just like that.

And a day of your life is gone. When you didnt create something beautiful. When you did not pause to admire how wonderful the petunia tree in your lane looks today. When you postponed calling a friend. When you did not write. When you did not read. When  you did not do something that makes you happy.

I am so whimsically mad of drawings and layouts and lines and papers. I love it but gosh I hate it when you're forced to be creative! Creative cannot be forced. Didnt you mama tell you that?? Hello!  More importantly why?! 54 hours a week. Thats suicide. Why the hell would someone prefer to slog like that?!

How do people do it? Oh well they are not people. Yes. They are zombies. I have zombies at work, who come early and leave late, donot take lunch breaks, and almost shove their heads into the haywire lines on the screen to the point that I am sure I could hear a voice from inside the system crying out to shut her down, talk talk and talk into more zombies on phone, and judge me since I happen to have other things that I like to do with my life and time. I secretly smirk. Commoners. What do they know!

In my world there's Neruda. In my world there's a rerun of Friends. In my world there is a book. In my world there is a dreamer. In my world there is a laugh as to how stupid I sometimes am. In my world there is no fear, from anyone. In my world there are words. In my world there is poetry. In my world there is you.

Gah. But you love mundane! For you argue that there is me.Point taken, love. You score brownies! Yay!

For the others, *straight face* how do you do it?!! 

p.s : The pic is way off base I know. But 90% of you don't care what pic I put up. So for those who do, its up because I just needed something to cheer this bitchy post up. Didn't help. :(
Yes, I am pissed tonight.

There was never really another way without you was there?

Delightful little butterflies seem to twirl around my waist as I woke up this morning into a prussian blue dawn, that was raising its reticent little head from the farther corner of the horizon ~ translucent, silvery, glorious.

Have you waited for something for so long that you dont remember when it all started, spent infinite moments picturing it, rewinding and playing it in your head again and again and again. Tireless. But when its finally in front of you, circumnavigating the borders of sweet fruition; you're filled with a trepidation mingled mirth sort of sensation in the pit of your stomach, you're unsure it is happiness or excitement or fear.

A similar feeling fox-trots inside my belly tonight, as I see this breaking dawn, that just got newly color-splashed. And I realize, dreams do come true. You just have to hold on to them, a little longer than you thought you could.

Some old stories and a cup of your tea.

Isnt it so delightfully fortuitous when sometimes the most mundane of things can transcend you back in time? As mundane as a tiny cup of some magical tea prepared by a stranger at work. The moment you take the first sip you are time travelling a decade and a half back. Back to your nana-nani's* place, where tea is not just tea, a ritual instead.

You blink again, and you're on that mammoth terrace, wrapped in that old shawl retrieved from nani's ancient cupboard.You smile for you now can hear the pitter patter of happy voices that are surrounding you there, mingling with the your-kind-of-chilly morning and ushering life into your heart. A reticent sun bathing the air as you look out at the horizon of greenery in front.

You decide to filch a moment then, from the morning that is making you stare at bizarre and haywire lines on a screen. Instead you are gonna glide where your heart wants to, at this moment in your life. And you breathe in and admit a magical sip again.

You watch your adorable maamus, your nana, your maasis and your mom huddled up together on the terrace floor, laughter and nostalgia reverberating their chords as the steaming cups of tea send out wisps of aroma that melts into the misty breeze. Nani is somewhere two floors down at the cow sheds seeing to that the mangers are filled just right.

And here you are - the king of the moment! Why? Because you're at nani's! Tea is not forbidden fruit in these territories as it is back home! Which is why, you're up, like no other day, gloriously perched up on the steps with that delicious-as-delicious-can-be-cup of manna like tea.

You open your eyes back to your non-challant today and realize you've been smiling for god knows how long, and unapologetic, you reckon. Perhaps this is how you probably fell in love with tea for the first time. Things like the tea ritual are one in a million reasons why you always loved being part of and living with a larger than life crazy family, why you love being an Indian, why you live by the rule that there's a celebration in the every moment when life chooses to exist around you. Even tea.


For those who may not understand : nana-nani - maternal grand parents, maamu-maternal uncle, maasi-maternal aunt.

A town named you.

There is an acute sense of resurrection I find from scraps of conversations I chance upon time and again. Conversations let adrift into the space, uttered by souls who are ignorant of my existence, but speak as if it was all concocted for me, just for me.

Have you ever sat up and suddenly taken notice how mere words seem to exude the misty iridescence of sated hearts, like luminous inventories of graceful thoughts that pour out from beautiful minds? And as they tumble down, and alter the contours of your emotions and ordain your weather beaten spirit, you are nothing but humbled to be able to swallow the incredulous beauty of it all?

Tonight I am so wonderfully satiated, sitting here, wrapped up in a cobalt blue blanket, that faintly emanates of a distilled willingness, to step into cobbled pathways that lead me to your fecund homes, engulfed with a rare serenity very few manage to find. And to return ever so redeemed, and ever so alive.

I'm overwhelmed and bereft to say much, hence shall leave you with this : a fragment of my blessed heart, hoping it will reach your happiness stained windows and mirth lined walls, breeze in your kitchen and sprinkle you with some silvery sunshine.

Sturdy imprints on my mind, in autumn touched sepia's hue. 
I am waltzing tonight into a quaint town, that goes by the name 'YOU'.



pic courtesy : A dear friend and a fabulous photographer, Debarpita Mohapatra.
You can see his work at his blog : Archistar

Rebel.

Subtle as vinaigrette is how you crumble in my embrace,
when you betray your ire as you lust for me.
And cackling, just then, that known drizzle drizzles by,
to leave me little choice but to offer truce.
The scorn, the trepidation - go flying through the window;
as the stubborn you wishes he could feign some more.
How I love the way that fire stokes,
vengeful she lungs up - defiant,
to defeat our barren stabs at restraint.
Yes. She doesn't listen. And doesn't help, does she?
Rebel, with the proclivity of one who always gets her way.
Wordless and rapt she has us plunge that river
where a million times we die and ricochet alive.