shift delete

I dig through my old notebooks, i sneeze. I run down to get some fresh air, or a fresh perspective. I rummage through the drawers trying to find some medical bills. I dispatch a new bundle to the laundry. I dream of blue seas and white washed homes. I read. Nothing gets through though. It is like a strange sort of vacuum that separates my skin from the nerves that carry the sensory signals to my brain. I can't feel a thing. I do not know if i live. I try to do all the right things - smile, enjoy a meal, a brisk walk and the flowers. Again, that feeling of watching my life unfold from a distance. I have walked these paths before. It has been a while. Am not sure how the map pans out from here on. A bend ahead, i know not what lies beyond. Or maybe i do. That ought to explain why I'm taking my time getting there. Utopia. The whiff of lunacy. Oh no no, it's just the sea breeze. Maybe that should tell you you're here. Truly here. Breathing in this moment, basking in the sun's light... Reaching out to people I knew helps lesser and lesser each day, the gap is widening. They know the person that used to be me. I don't know that person anymore. I look back and critique her naivete, her optimism, her desire to find herself. It has been a long journey, some things learnt, some forgotten. Identity. The loss of one, the embracing of another. Snake skin, shed today, a new one now - shiny, temporary. Pebbles, stored away. Memories, blotted away... Trying so hard to forget, I haven't had the sense to pick and choose the fate of them. The good have fled with the ugly, maybe that is why i feel empty. Who am i? I ask again, and again. What do I want? I never felt so detached, from my own life. Always cared about who i was, how i was, what i thought. It's all gone. In one single swoosh! A vague recall, of smiling eyes.

love...lost and found?
has anyone ever?

I don't know a soul
who went back to being the way it was..
before the beginning to the end.

I can't remember a friend or foe
who tried it all and still kept the hope
of finding a better tomorrow out in the sun...

With the same one, i mean...

Survivors galore,
Old wives folk-lore
But really, really all alone

We walk in unity they say,
Even in our solitude
When we are forlorn, lonely and lost

But beyond today
After tomorrow
the courage to face another sorrow

That's what being brave is
Just doing the thing that feels right
When the ground you walk on
Shakes beneath you toes.

bubble wrap (BrE) (NAmE Bubble Wrap ^TM) noun [U] a sheet of plastic which has lots of small raised parts filled with air, used for protecting things that are being carried or sent by post/mail

©Oxford University Press, 2005.

can you bubble wrap me, please?
of course i wont be sent through mail, but i need it. i am rushing off at breakneck speed. through life. it is passing me by. i feel like a spectator looking in from the outside. a strange sort of disconnect. i care very much that i don't care anymore. maybe this is the beginning.

driftwood

Am floating. Yet again. In my own thought bubble, a thoughtless bubble actually. I am blank. I think this is what hitting a nadir is like. Putting down this thought helps.

And the thought that things can only begin to look up after this. But then some wise guy will say, there's always horizontal motion, that won't get you anywhere. Ha! Well I can't help it. I was born an optimist and education has yet to make a complete cynic of me. I still believe in the power of good thoughts. Of things getting better. Of the law of averages. And most importantly, the power of retribution.

invisible soul

We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.
- Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I sat on a bench at Wadala Road Station, trying my very best to hold back those tears, searching for chewing gum in my sack. Anything to keep me occupied. A lady spoke near me, she was asking if the ladies compartment would halt near there. I looked up, and her shocked expression has been burnt in my mind. I answered her, and went back to searching. All I could concentrate was on telling myself to keep breathing.

In this city of Mumbai, there is great comfort in anonymity. Every new member who comes from elsewhere in the country, is embraced and feels the power of this throbbing heart. But sometimes its so difficult to get a few minutes away from the melee. Its like being watched, constantly. Suffocatingly close faces and arms and hair. The assault on the senses of clean soapy smell, music on loud speaker, suburban woes and victories - all in a short space of an hour is sometimes more than the spirit can bear.

I walk home from the station on days like these. Just the twenty minutes before another world comes hurling at me, and hits me between the eyes. Home. The walk home, in the cool evening breeze is better than any other picker-upper. Ofcourse unless someone actually picks you up. Its the time when I just walk, music buzzing in my ears, a zillion thoughts flying out before I grasp anything at all.

And sometimes I feel like shrinking into nothingness myself. When I saw a girl wipe away a tear once from her swollen eyes. When I saw kids from municipal schools hawking notebooks after school hours on the train. When the flyover sidewalk was interspersed with old people sleeping on the benches or when the fledgling who had fallen out of nowhere stilled its flapping, forever.

wordiest balah!

I am awed by all the blogs i just read. How, I say to myself, how do these women manage to say exactly what they feel, think and believe? And even if i do not identify with everything they have to say, i still read, as if under a spell. That surely is an enviable talent.

It been ages since i posted, yes, i have said something to this effect before. But i have been writing, not getting very much better at it, but i have been penning down my thoughts. Its just been either so disconnected or so raw, its not given me enough gumption to put them here.

But really, how does one write of all the thoughts that just pass through all day. Some flit in and out, some take root, some just linger long enough to give company with a lonely coffee.

I travel for about four hours everyday. These thoughts are my constant companions. I hear my voice all the time, even if i am reading or listening to songs which are someone's favourites. I havent been good at recalling music, or lyrics ever. It just refuses to get hardwired into me, unless its really bad music, which unfortunately for my friends i can start spouting with not too much provocation. And yet, everytime i hear his favourite songs, I learn to love them, effortlessly. No forced conditioning, i just have to hear them once to warm up to them, adapt and make them my own. So everytime my earphones burst forth a song, i am taken back to some memory, some vivid occasion connected to the song.

I wonder about where life is taking me or where i am leading it. But I am almost always alone. Alone while i commute, alone when in a group, alone at work, and alone at home. Home too feels temporary right now. For some strange reason, i just havent been interested in my home. In my head its a transient phase, right now stretching longer than i was prepared for it. I still dont have a good, spacious cupboard. I share a room with my sister, but i am loathe to take responsibility for it. I spend just a few waking hours in it, a stray weekend when i dont go gallivanting about town and a semi comatose existence trying desperately to find meaning.

I cant even make up my mind if i like tea or coffee, in my head i cannot belong to both clubs, i have to pick! I walk into a mall, and walk out without a single thing added to my collection of junk. I wonder if age is catching up at 26. Maybe because i feel older, tired and bored as a widow. Life's charm is taking its time weaving its way back into mine. I aint properly, completely miserable even.

Its a weird sort of floating. No water to touch base with, no wings to take me higher to touch the sky. Words get caught up in the bottle neck called our throat. No where to direct them. Comfortably superstitious in my early days, either I do not remember them, or I couldn't care less.

If by now you havent already realised, my post is going nowhere.

blip

numb. plain and simple.
brain-dead, dull, unimaginative, boring, lull.
a will to move, squashed out fast.
growing roots, wherever i stand.

I breathe in, exhale, breathe in again.
focussing on this, makes a whole day pass.
everything else, flits in then out.
its my life, on my time.

i look around, for inspiration.
it comes in small measures
like a cherry on top
i can live with the feeling of that.

When i write i feel so hollow,
like there is no feeling, there is no sorrow
beginning a day, while feeling low
its the lack of a hope, that i cant swallow

ray of sunlight, bother me not
i really don't have a reason to wake up,
to trot.
let today pass, let it go
it's taking so long, i can't

Somethings-in-between...

Some call it the lull before the storm, some call it the inaction before the war, but i call it somethings that are just between new beginnings and old endings. A chapter that began but 24 months ago has slowly crossed over to being the past. The everyday things that heralded another beehive of activity have changed into things that i did when i was at MICA. My geography has changed, my co-ordinates uprooted and scattered across the country. Physical distances seemed to matter only at term breaks, and those were few and far in between. But today i wake up to a new reality, that hop-skip-and-jump was an alter-reality. It seems like in just two years, i have compressed a lifetime. Of friendships, of growing up, of being right and learning from wrong, and of loving and losing and learning to love again.

When i went there i was more a child than a girl. More sure of what I wanted and how. I emerged a lil older, somewhat wiser, and definitely more open to seeing what i needed and coveted. I met not just people who understood and accepted me for my quirks, they had enough of their own to know, but also learned me better. Things black-n-white blurred into a blissful grey and sometimes emerged in bright pinks, blues and copper. I found my own pace, a lil faster than some, a lil slower than the rest. A long 24 months that now seem to have whizzed past at break neck speed.

Rituals and rhythms, conversations over the nth cuppa chai, cheese paranthas with butter on top, french fries wid mayonnaise simply coz it looked like rain, and the marathon walk to Shela lake. Peacocks that broke the silence with shrill mating calls and squirrels that were gunning for certificates at gnawing perfectly at swing ropes. Mad langoor chases, the lone bicycle ride in the dark, shooting stars by the canal, birthdays fit for a queen. DJ Abhijeet with the beautiful people dancing until dawn. Lectures sometimes interspersed with interesting CP and DCP. The people in the last row, authoring their debut piece of work and artists capturing more than the eye spied. Formals shrugged into with the determined look saying, you got me for now SPC, but just wait until they're gone....

I will start work soon. But right now is a something of an in-between. The hyphen before the next word, imperative, but pondered about for its true meaning and worth. It was a good hyphen though. Worked some, played some, did things i always wanted to. But that was part of the plan for the summer. Now is another tiny in-between, a semicolon, a pause to conjure up more images of what the future holds, what i want it to hold and a sackful of hope. Every bit of this journey has been worth it, time to move into the next phase, bohemian or not, you gotta get with it, blend in with the folds, learn to breathe in a different world.

side-walk

Sometimes i wish really hard that i knew where life was taking me. Whether the paths i have chosen will take me closer or father away from my dreams. I need a new perspective almost everyday on things i see everyday! Its almost as if what worked last night, its oh so not working by this afternoon. Its all a collossal waste of time, this figuring out the solutions. They work only for the moment, and sometimes not even then.

Life of course has its own wicked sense of humour. The more i distance myself from events, the harder it pushes me towards the demons. I run sometimes, sometimes i hide. But not for long. I dunno if its my nature or my destiny, but i cannot not resolve matters. They have to be dealt with, sorted into neat little piles in my mind. Some stashed away for posterity, others put through the shredder. And when i move on, i fool myself into believing that i have truly forgotten all that i wanted to be left behind. Alas! Life catches on. Memories that were never meant to be, oh they come rushing back. But i destroyed them, i say. Thrust them in a bottle, shoved in the cork and flung the bottle far out to sea. All life does, is smirk at me.

And i know, its a battle lost. Again. Its like life itself is pretty bored. So it weaves these patterns and throws in colours galore. Shades of primaries, tints of greys, dollops of sunny yellows and fresh greens. Blue, well its sometimes the colour of the season, but if you've been around the block and back, you know there's magenta waiting ahead. It takes its time finishing the art, sometimes its scratchy, sometimes its not. But all i know, is this bit of truth, its all beyond us, sometimes its fluke.

Ah! You ramble yet again. I stop myself, avoid the pain. Angel of laughter, birds of flight, i crave your company, I miss those times. Every one of the little monsters are back, i try to fight them, i use a new tack. Climb atop the mountains, swim the seas, dig a hole in the ground and tunnel through trees. I wish i could just, rush away, stick to my guns and refrain from sway.

When i leave this home of mine, i want to carry the sands of time. Clutched in the palm of my hand, the map to never, neverland. Cloudy and sunny both at once, makes me feel, like the class dunce. Figuring out the map out of here, I cannot not face my fear.

Its been a while..

I began a journey almost a year ago. I carried in my backpack little but hope. A dream had been realised, a hope had been fulfilled. I was on my way to begin my first year at the school i had been raving about for a little over two years. Finally, i said to myself, finally i had come where i belonged. Exactly the place that will embrace me. It did. And i fell in love...an ongoing lovestory was born.

MICA has given me so much more than what i came here with. It has taught me so many things, helped me heal and carried me along when i needed to be. I found so much here, lasting friendships, my own space, and yes a whole lot of difficult-to-deal-with moments. But i survived... got thru to the other side. I never thought i was capable of the colossal amounts of insanity that i displayed during the time. Maybe it helped me survive. Maybe it brought me trouble. But maybe, at the end of it all in some twisted way, it was worth the shot.

Life will be different when i get back to campus. Familiar landscapes will tell different tales. Hostels that were abodes to friends, will now be full of new beings, strangers at first, friends along the way, i hope. Another set of buildings will play host to batchmates, once home to people who welcomed us to MICA, now off in search of newer horizons.

One thing i'm glad about, my room still will be mine. Chandni will still be home. The view from my window that turned very close shades of green over the seasons, will thrill me again. The setting sun, the moonlight, the gentle breeze blowing and the tinkle of the windchimes, all i look forward to with a hope in my heart. Moments experienced within this bubble will not be forgotten, new ones i ask myself, will they warm my heart? Realtionships were forged, squabbles were sorted, links were broken and "letting it go" became the catch phrase for a while.

I shared this world, this inner sanctum, let them in, even gave them privileged rights. Broken mirrors, kites scrunched up on the wall, post-its pinned up on my soft board. All taken down and packed away for a while. I now will return to an empty room. A room where i lived a life that feels to me like a stranger's today. As i shut the door i had lovingly painted, each brush stroke painstakingly monitored, again the soft footstep of an idyllic afternoon flitted across my mind. It was with a heavy heart that i walked down the steps...off for only three months but already mourning the demise of life as i knew it.

Of moments...

Another door opened,
What was open shut,
A new begining , or so it seemed
But is there ever such a thing?
A clean slate or is it blank?
Having lived a moment, how can you forget?
There has to be some memory of it, or of
The reason why you chose to forget.
But then, is it truly forgotten?
Is it really a bygone?
Why then, do we try and forget our past?
When what I lived, I loved,
Even if it was for the moment,
Although it was right only then.
Do I say the past haunts me
And destroy the only remembrance held?
Do I deny myself, the treasure of those moments felt?
But, if I do, how then will I say,
I lived.

Destiny.

I believe in destiny. Yes I do. But I don't believe that no matter what you do you can't change your destiny. Nome. Actually I think its the other way around. You can and should try to alter your destiny. In fact you do - with every choice you make.

Life is all about making choices. Not necessarily the right choices. But more like the best choices that you can make given your resources. I think there are more than one single path which any one person's life can follow. And with every decision you take, you are walking down a different path. This one is definitely taking you closer to your destiny, but not necessarily the same destiny that you would have if you had taken the other option you decided not to pursue.

I don't believe in books and movies that show no matter what the protagonist does, he can't avoid the fate that awaits him. Maybe, in the end what happens is a culmination of your actions, thoughts and beliefs. Maybe its plain bad luck. Who knows.

What I'm trying to get at is that someone not lifting a finger to improve his position, will eventually land up with a sorry conclusion. But someone fighting the circumstances will someday rise above his problems. So, it's all about what you decide to do with the resources you have, limited as they are in most typical cases.

While you make choices in life, you are charting a course for your future, and even though in this course circumstances play a hand, ultimately the result will be in proportion to the effort put in. They call it a rule of science. But isn't science essentially about life itself.

Holi the festival of colours!

I still am in the same state of mind that I was in when I posted last. It really is something which you continue to think about all the time....
This Wednesday was the festival of colours - HOLI. Celebrated throughout the country, by people of all religions, sects, classes but I doubt all sexes! Yes, Holi has slowly but surely moved out of the sphere of my life, and many of my fellowgirls'. It is rare that you find girls celebrating by playing with colours outside of a close knit circle of family and friends, atleast the ones blessed with common sense don't indulge in mass holi parties where the entire town comes to antoint each other with abundant colours.

My reasons for being wary of this festival are manifold. I hate the smell of the plastic paints, they give me an itchy rash and I am paranoid about having egg shells lodged in my eyes. (Yes, I know a family friend who was pelted with not just water balloon but raw eggs. An egg shell piece lodged in his eye ball and he had to be operated upon. I don't think Uncle can see very well with his left eye.) But more importantly, I don't fancy being groped by strangers. Or even "close" family friends for that matter. Sometimes, the coloured faces are unrecognizable and provide the perfect cover for these miscreants.

This year I have heard of two news stories that relate to holi-molestation. In one instance, it's blown up into a gang-war of sorts, and has resulted in rioting and picketing. And three deaths by police firing.

So what do people who want to wake up the next day and work towards living their full life term do? Well they stay at home and enjoy the holiday by watching people on TV paint the town red! (morbid? Well take it or leave it.)

Liberated Women?

Sometimes while you surf the net, you come across a new piece of information, a site that tells you all you ever wanted to know about something, a blog that can express all you felt at some point, better than you ever can. Like this one:
Annie speaks.

Reading this one gave me the shivers, it took me back in time to the place where I was twelve or thirteen, walking across the row of shops that I had always walked across. Buying my school supplies from the same shop that I had bought from for years. Passing the same group of "loafers" I had just noticed laughing and teasing girls passing by only a few weeks back. I really didn't know much about eve teasing then, and when I felt my butt being grabbed, just for a split second I turned around, shocked and numbed. It was a strange feeling when there was nobody there. It almost, made me wonder if I had imagined it.

Sad? disgusting? sameful? I still feel like puking every time the memory comes back to me. Well read Annie's blog. It tells my story better. And probably yours too.

Blank Noise Project. Please speak up.

Bumbling along through Life......

Yesterday was nice!
I had a good, interesting day after quite some time. Of course it had the usual mind-numbing regularity, but the irregular was what made it interesting. The infectious laughter that I so love to hear, the impulse buy, the little kitty starting up to recieve morsels of it's favourite food - fish!

On my journey back home, the small guy who sells 'gajras' hopping on to the train, the women gently teasing him to cut off a longer bit of his carefully (sparsely) woven strand of flowers. The running as fast as your legs would carry you to the rickshaw stand, because there will be only three of them at this time of the night.

Sometimes, when we least expect it, Life gives us a special day. It's for us to look at it as different,remember it, carry it on with us. Sometimes when you think life has come to a standstill and has become as predictable as can be,you realize that every day is important. Every day that I live, that I choose to live in a particular way, is what will build up to be my life. Life is all about moments, it's memory and hope of the good ones that keep you going even when the present moment might be the worst point in your life.

I want to be able to have these moments, all of them. The good ones, the quirky ones, the sad ones, the drop-into-a-hole embarrassing ones, the mad-enough-to-kill-someone ones! I hope I'm not being too ambitious.

Back where I started!!!

Ever since the year began, I've had this strange sense of forebooding, a feeling that the year is going to follow the same pattern it did last year. My triumphs would be repeated, but what bothered me was that the failures would be back to haunt me!

I'm yet again waiting for results of the myraid exams I have taken, contemplating switching jobs and yes, bored out of my wits. Story of my life!

Pride and Prejudice

My favourite book!All time!
But if I tell my guy to read it..he phoo phoos his way out of it.
Now since I love this book so much, I really have to defend it..and I mean HAVE to!
Guys label this classic as a "chick book" and go through life missing out on one absolutely worth-reading-at-least-twice kind of a book.
The story open with a refreshing line: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
And you know what? most people put it down at this point, thinking this isn't worth my time.....But really, thats where they go wrong, read on my friends, and if you find yourself toiling to grasp the essence of the first chapter, please labour on until you reach the next...By then the story gets your attention, and if you are the sorts who has to finish what they started, well, you'd be glad you started reading the book.
Classics on the whole are looked down upon by our generation, so called new age books take up most of our reading space, if we do read at all that is. But Pride and Prejudice besides being having an entertaining plot, explores the human psyche in an interesting way. Through the character of Lizzy, it probes into the mind of a mortal...a person with desires, wants and yes evil thoughts..And through the book there are phases when you identify with the character. It's the little things in life that add up to the big ones..the feeling you get is if some things could be clarified right at the start, if prejudices did not fog our thinking...a lot of pain can be averted..
But you know what, as I write this, I feel I really don't need to defend this masterpiece of fiction...if only I have attempted to do so, it is a feeble one..I really can't do justice to my favourite book...really my best argument boils down to :If nothing else... it gives you a glimpse into a woman's mind! And trust me it isn't always pretty.

toodle doo

Every once in a while a new word seems to proliferate into the vocabulary of the masses...nothing derogatory about that term mind you, but really referring to the toms, the dicks and the janes..all of them all....suddenly have a new word to exploit....the most recent one being paradigm...a while ago it was holistic and before that some other neurotic reference to delicate minds..i forget what it was...
Really, what is it with people? Why the incessant need to use the lingo of the month?
Me, I am crazy in my own way....either am stuck with four words or really raring to go and incorporate this one word into all my sentences {an all time low was hit when morbid had stayed around for weeks and then made a comeback few months later!}...and if that wasn't enuff...yes, I have this irritating habit to spell words differently or indulge in inappropriate usage...or just invent newer ways to say the same old thing {do not swipe your access card, beep it, or don't shade the options in the OMR sheet but bubble them in}
Bushisms you say...nah i'd rather you compared me with Prince Charles.....

bug bytes

To all of us who live in Bombay, a trip to any part of the city away from where home is, would entail a joy ride in the signature line of Indian Railways - the local trains...and here I was back from a peaceful weekend at a resort where life had moved at a leisurely pace. Now rush hours can bogg even the hardiest down sometimes, but the litle incident I am trying to get at in this longwinded fashion took place in the bright sunny afternoon, when the population is either at work or snoozing at home/office...wherever. Anyways, as I stood in the passage near the door,a little yelp escaped the 30-something on my left...she then pointed frantically at the floor, letting out a string of exclamations which all took some deciphering. Finally on directing my gaze towards the thing she was pointing out, I spied a cocroach - having nothing short of a blast. The poor guy had probably not gotten this much attention in his life and failing to recognize the protocol, he was going around in dizzying circles...Oops I thought...thats the pits, the trains are going to the dogs, look at those poor women trying to fight for legroom while the bug zooms around their feet...and they are so oblivious to the fact{nobody had taken any notice of the yelping}...and then it struck me...I hadn't moved a muscle, not done a thing - wasn't even warning a person....suddenly I was wondering if this was crazy or just weird...I really didnt care, just standing there neither wanting nor actually doing a thing...{see that is not me really, coz if anything, I have to be apart of the action}This was either a hangover of the laziness induced at the resort or my plain antipathy...and I couldn't care less...
All I could do was be glad about the crazy bug not being a crazy lizard....now that would have elicited a response from me! Atleast thats what I think.

Is it okay?

Only recently I realised that no matter how ancient we grow, the one thing that can stop us from growing old is the desire to learn new things all the time. (Not that am an old goat, actually I am at the beginning of the adventure really!)
Freshly out of college, I really didn't really think anybody would want to hire me for any purpose at all, perhaps I would actually have to pay them to give me work. However fortunately some old friend remembered how I had this crazy way of coming up with perfectly useless ideas, (he actually thought it was creative of me) that he convinced his boss to meet me. The bloke worked in a print media design firm, and having no experience whatsoever, I decided this was a great opportunity to find out what exactly it takes to land some paying job.... Well the long and the short of it was that the boss found my perfectly naive notions about business, ambitions and achievements worth investing in....suddenly I was an employed person, and I plunged into my work..learning the basics, asking all the various questions I thought were relevant....and generally making quite an ass of myself sometimes. The work was fun, I really enjoyed haggling with the vendor to lower the per unit price of printing, meeting a hight profile director of a corporate bank {Corp affairs, rather interesting job profile methinks} and exploring my writing skills with corny one liners and 'copywriting'. Well the other people thought I was good at it any way...

Now not drifting any more from my opening sentence{which I had begun to forget by now}, I continued to learn, grow and all that jazz.
But you know, I think somewhere down the line I got tired of conning myself. Eleven months down the line and I wasn't sure I was learning anything new at all.....redundancy, in any form gets to me....and here I was, doing the same stuff day after day....feeling like this empty space within me was just growing....I began to suffer from what I'd term as "creative exhaustion"...really starved for any bright ideas, no scintillating copy flowing out of me...nothing to drive me to work everyday...
By then not only was I feeling my work wasn't up to the mark, but also totally cut off from the world, getting to a point where I didn't care anymore.
Finally I decided to quit my job, look for something else....I now work someplace else, doing something totally different and in the three weeks I have been there, I have learnt a lot....the feeling is intoxicating...picking up new skills always is...it will be a while before I can really precisely describe what I do at work, until then I am happy to just amble along and learn things at a leisurely pace...

Only one thought though gnaws at my heart, how long until I get fed up again? And is it a disease or is it okay to wander along?