Parched Floods...

Sometimes in love, it often happens:

~ that you can never have enough of your present partner.
~that presence is more than companionship.
~that we approve of flaws that we know, we would later
abhor.
~lose the I and You to become US.
~that nothing lives on - except you and her, and habit that will take long to die.

Sometimes in love, it also happens:

~There are no pretenses
~There are open ego battles.
~Sometimes a man surrenders.
~Sometimes, in love, Athena lays down her shield
~Sometimes the act of love is not in consummation or immolation
- it is in ability and achievement.
~ Sometimes, in love, you do not look at yourself through the eyes of your lover.
~ Sometimes, the light of your lover's personality,
elevates your own sense of being.
~Sometimes, in love, 'you' and 'he' combine forces -
like the mind and the soul and create a lane.

And so Venus lives on,
In soft intense sighs and faking screams.
In silent invisible histories and loud withered romances.

Escapades Of a Drama Queen

In a circus called life,
I am not the ring master,
Nor am I the clown.

I am the trapeze artist
Who falls into the net
When the lights are down.

aven

Pitter, patter ...words scatter,
Humty Dumpty... they are empty.

Love Pinned On A Soft Board

~ A very old and very lost friend once said that K was the mockery of love. K, sitting amidst a gang of 'I know you like the back of my hand' overconfident friends laughed in affirmation to all the blinking fools around her - and they laughed back at her!


Years later, K bumped into one of the fools and his love story with the 'then' girl was long over and as we decided to 'meet again', the talk veered to the old and lost friend.

Fool: You remember the old and lost?

K : Of course, he was such a darling!

Fool: you know, he was in love with you the moment you walked through that college gate.

K: Ya, I know, but he was a friend and I was not in love!

Fool : (Laughs) So its been years - are you not tired of all the dingle-dangle? Why don't you settle down!

K: I would, If i'd find a man worth doing that with!

Fool: You are telling me that you've never been in LOVE?

K: Well, I don't know if all that was or if all this is love - just not my definition bro!And what's so 'real' about love anyways?

Fool :(chuckle) made him stand still. You know, He told the that "Everybody falls in love, but when people like K fall in love, they make history! Just because they are so incapable of it - that when the real thing hits them, they'd burn the world to have it!"

K: LOL, that's a nice theory, he never told me so!

They part ways and she walks along the not so lonely Matunga street, reflecting on how she knows better now. K recalls a time and a man

"Being in love with you feels like being in love with me.- K wanted to say it to him, but being too proud, she refrained. Loving him feels like someone has sinned against a seasoned sinner, when the philanderer falls for a careless widow, and when you are being beaten at your own game.

So here's for him, to know and smile and grin...

~I like smelling of you.
~I like your prolonged taste in my jaw
~I enjoy the string of goosebumps, I get, when you nibble my ears
~I enjoy our stealthy smooches
~The jaw fights
~The punches
~The claws
~I enjoy the sensations my fingertips bear when I run them through your hair
when they linger on your inner thighs, buttocks, your back, your chest
~ I am swelled by the counter sensation of your fingertips rolling in my mouth
swirling on my tongue, your finger imprints, the finger knots, the taste that slowly becomes mine.
~ Your lunar laughter that makes me inevitably laugh
~ Your mischievous threats
~ Your loving hugs
~ Your pudgy fingers as they encircle mine.
~ I like the way you dress and pose, the way you check your neck, chest arms....and the way you laugh when I stand witness to your narcissism
~ I enjoy the way you clench your jaw with a happy irritation that I know you so well
~ I enjoy the way you bully me and the way you let me have my way all the time.
~ I enjoy scolding you as you plead a childish forgiveness, meant to be forgotten.

My sweetest and most peaceful moments are in your arms. Where nothing touches me except your embrace.

My strongest moments are when you cuddle up me like an infant soul in a herculean body, when you snuggle-up, resting your head on my chest and slowly drift into another world. In those moments I could slay an innocent whisperer for the fear of waking you up.

I am a better human being when I am with you. Maybe as the fool said - this is love, the passion to protect us will eventually make history.

bruises ....

I tried to do handstands for you
But every time I fell for you
I am permanently black and blue,
Permanently blue for you.

A day dedicated

lo AwardsFor the Drama King,


"Remember, remember,
the 5^th of November,
the Gunpowder,
Treason and Plot.
I know no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot!"

- Guy Fawkes

Writing by hand!?

What I have missed the most over the years is a letter in my post and buying stamps to send one. I saw the old post man in his Khaki government uniform today after almost a year or more. It's odd how the digital has taken over, I love technology, I indeed do. I am waiting for the dragon speak (or so I've heard people call it) software to launch! Then the talking speed will kill the typing speed and cure people of carpel tunnel syndrome and other disorders related to being restricted to the keyboard.

However, when you've been to a school where they made you write your defaulted homework 25 times or made you write the same futile / fallible sentence 'I will not misbehave in class' 100 times - you will miss writing! Especially the fancy pencils (with rubbers on the back or back- scratching plastic holders; yes, I had cartoon ones as well!) and the fantastic (leaking) china pens!

Then there were those hated summers with the cursive writing books - and gladly they were discontinued during the 'secondary school'. That was the phase I enjoyed observing people the most! Our hand-writings' were developing just as our hormones were charging, our minds were shaping, our idiosyncrasy speaking out loud. The straight arrows in the sky, stuck to each other words or the one finger gutter space between them or the circular pearls that always won the best hand-writing competition. There were also the grasshopper's legs or the large elephant like writing that took-up three words on a line. The long 'g, j,y' loops that ended on the heads of other letters or clashed with the 'l, t, p'. None of them now can be seen, my handwriting analysis course also lays waste.

I don't care for what has gone but what is left of it remains hidden in a questioning poignant space in the mind. When personal quirks of handwriting, the emotional upswings and downswings marked on a page becomes an alien thing; When Times New Roman, Verdana, Trebuchet, Arial feels like an extension of the self, while our own fingers, their handwriting feels like an aberration, an embarrassment, an oddity. Then, don't we lose something- some ability?

I feel it today, know that many do too. A decade from now, I won't feel a thing. I won't miss any of my well preserved stationary.

However, I have to thank my mother for all the cursive writing I've had do. Just feels right to thank her.

Dostana ....

For friends,

Some who are near and seldom meet, for the ones I bump into train compartments, the ones who left in search of a better life and remained virtually very close, the one who were friends and have disappeared since, for friendships that were never meant to be, for friends who became lovers and then hateful exes, for friends who got bore no inhibitions, for friends who always stood by and for the ones who turned their backs, for the ones who got caught in the medley of work pressures and personal hassles, for the ones who gave-up on friendships, and finally for all of them who spend countless wonderful, exciting, comforting, bored, fuck-all moments with me - in class rooms, house parties, poetry sessions, movie halls, on kattas and canteens, with cutting chais and in loud pubs with a dozen empty shot glasses.

Life is indeed made of little moments...

And I bow in gratitude to all my crazy and loving friends for making this life a hell of a spinning joy!

Monarch (U are indeed the worst of the batch devil send on this planet... I am so in love with u!), Shedevil (beyond words...BITCH), Talkathon (i love you drunk), Soul sister (U indeed are a better part of me), Oyster Seeker (Kal ho na ho, Tu aaj BEST hai! P.S If I were a guy, I'd be you!) Drama King ( U are my crazy charioteer), Monk (U are my best bet and my last shot at survival), Black Pearl ( I'd apologise, but I am tired of being sorry - U know I don't fake love.)

...... the ones mentioned and the ones avoided (coz they were too special and I am forgetful)
U make my world.... MMMMMMMMMWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAHHH

Birthday wishes

To,
All the wise and hateful Librans in my life. I love you and envy you and detest you for having killed the joy of the extremes....

Nothing lasts forever - and its never too soon.

Let your balance be achieved and success be relished.

pudgy fingers, wise capitalist, monk with beads, metrosexual womanizer, thin tin...

HAPPYFUCKINGBIRTHDAYTOYOU! Mmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh :D

Man v/s State

Fag's End

Kick the butt... I've heard it and so have you. Statuary warning is different from a government imposed ban. It doesn't fit right, even if you look at the larger picture in the long run. Okay, lets get this straight, prolonged usage of tobacco is injurious to health, just like T.V, porn, the X-BOX, alcohol and food. Excess makes mess, but should we not have the 'right or the freedom' to make mess?

This so called Utopian creation kicks a whole lot more than just a nasty habit. Although, I am neither anti nor pro smoking - it takes a little common sense to observe that non-smokers often treat smokers as a tight-arsed chick would treat a diseased dog. The facial exclamations, the fake cough, the sly asides of 'Oh, my god, I am choking'... all are dirty tricks to ask a smoker to --- go do it somewhere else' . Politely enough, they apologize and move away or stub that butt.

In a recent conversation with the Childmom who detests smokers, she claimed that they had no sense of ethics or manners... and i could not stand that assault on them as I have seen them in the best of their manners - be it dancing in a pub, where the ciggs are raised high in the air to not accidentally burn someone. Or for instance they refrain from smoking in front of kids or old people. It's not the guilt of doing something wrong, but the plain respect.

I guess the ban will set in in a couple of weeks, although I see people still smoking secretly in alleys, parking spaces and cabs. We will get used to making smoking an occasional 'cool tripper' like we do it weed, manali, hash et al. secretly relishing the joy of ecstasy.



Dope Watch

After the dammed ban was announced, narcotic cops raided a pub in the suburbs and found more than 200 hundred people high on some substance. The press claims so, thorugh a random test of their blood reports.

Loud mouth like many others was relishing the news. It is a sadistic kind of joy, on one hand you would condemn it and on the other envy that they are getting all the fun and therefore deserve to be punished. It was a regular discussion that was aborted by his silence. A silence that came from being a puritan.

(yes, i get aggressive with my stand sometimes)

He claimed how people today are nose deep into addictions. My retort was simple - we all are addicted, for starters he is addicted to the morning paper and chai. I am addicted to books and movies. We are all addicted to something or someone. so what if others are addicted to things like tobacco or dope?

Banning or raiding is not going to stop that, it will instill fear and curiosity for the object banned. remember Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. If God hadn't banned the tree of knowledge, they would not have been tempted.

Between, the best decade ever across the world were the 60's when drugs, love, war, music, revolution, genius, pop art and peace walked and in hand...

The only solution is to get-over the addiction... legalize it! People may smoke-up every day and then one fine day get bored of it. Like Beer drinkers in Germany or S&M in Amsterdam - its a no-issue in the country.

Point is - when educated professionals indulge, it must be taken for granted that they know what they are doing. they are not naive like teens in college or school, these people are aware of what they are snorting, inhaling or injecting. they are responsible for the repercussions of their acts of indulgence. So let them BE!

I have a question for our Narcotics Dept and the sensation sellers (who pretend to be news gatherers) Why don't you guys ever raid the Kumbh Mela? test the blood of those obscene sadhus - and find an answer to their devotion. If you got the galls - then do it and see how the gov. reacts. Don't punish us because we follow the law. Selective justice and concern is the most plain face of hypocrisy and a prime sign of a degenerated state.
Bugger off.

Taming Of The Shrew

~Why do men want to bully a woman who detests being taken for granted?

~Why do they have this urge to humiliate her into submission and then breath in peace?

~Why is the phrase 'be a man' applied to a man when a woman fights back?

At the lunchangular K heard the bum-joker mouth "I want to see you cry", she turned to show him her middle finger. However, what ticked her off was the man's desire to see her weak, lost, helpless and as the Oyster Seeker puts it tamed.


What drives a man to feel and fall this way? What cheap pleasure does he derive? Which space does it fill? Why does a man need this kind of a challenge?

In a random conversation with the Oyster Seeker about boyz, he was thrown over in amazement that other men could take a bit of physical abuse from a woman. K understands that he isn't of the kind but the others weren't any 'less-of-a-man'. And what is so humiliating in a woman breaking down a man, when most men do it all the time in the most surreptitious ways?

However, we have known through history, cinema and literature that the man is often in love with the 'idea of being in love with a difficult woman', rather than just being in love with her. Love stories are a bucket-full of bullshit only for this reason. Only for this reason, I do not believe Monarch, Beach Boy, Black Pearl, Oyster Seeker amongst other love me.

What would happen to a Cathrine if she had not given-in to the cunning Petrucchio. What if she would have been too proud to claim that she would not wear a mask of the 'tamed idiot' to fool the world and remain a dreadful and much scorned shrewd?

What would become of her except a fearful, hateful, angered Atossa from Alexander Pope's honest portrayal of Characters of Woman? The old hag that negotiated her way and never compromised her pride, was never fooled by a man and was never loved or cried upon in death.

Machismo, men do not understand is a poor foolish illusion. Resignation, a cheap negotiation to blind these bull-headed fools.

Someday, K going to be very very tired of these gender games.

The Stomach Churn

It's an old unfriendly feeling. There has been a rejection, not because of lack of talent but because of what happened between three women in a trapped terrible situation.

K had an appointment with a new name in her life. Although she was not too excited about it, she wanted to give it a shot. Hope is probably her dirtiest addiction. Things were alright till she faced someone she would not care to otherwise. It was a name from her past and what had trespassed between them went from brilliant to bitter. There were never any direct confrontations, no across the table talks. There were silent negotiations. It was vital that they gradually erase each other from their phones, their social networking friend's lists. No connection ever to be retained.

K knew that if the three women crossed each other again they would not want to stand in the same room, or be seen in the same image or be spoken of in the same sentence. Each one had taken a bad decision, each betrayed the other. Their biggest mistake was to trust each other. K had never regretted standing by the other when the hills were falling - it came as a horrible lesson to know that she was the only one buried under that load.

Suddenly facing her came as a happy and nasty surprise. Happy coz she had moved on, nasty coz there was a clear sense of 'we can't function together'. After crossing her and exchanging plastic hugs, K knew she had wasted her time. The personal would get an upper hand over the professional. Nothing would come out of this, the sad part was that she wanted something out of it. Maybe a way to turn around and say - "If I can fall, I can devil dammed rise!"

For two days, she speculated that hesitant answer, which she knew was a negation. When she heard it, she let out a paradoxical sigh - of sadness and relief.

Somethings are best buried and some people best avoided.

Emotional High

Have been on one for couple of weeks now. Since yesterday, its been a crazy trip. So crazy that I want to hug someone and cry my head off - I am incapable of doing that right now.

Emotional release never seemed more urgent than right now. Spoke with Monarch yesterday, and just when I'd decided to make my peace with our follies - he gives -in. Sometimes, when the arms of the person you've taken for granted are leaving you - you do everything in your capacity to reach out and grab them. That is what is happening with the Monarch and I. We hate hate each other with unmatched passion - and miss each other with the intensity of hell's cold fires.
It's the purest form of love and loathing.

There is an empty space with my heart that no number of friends can fill - a space relegated to the Monarch. A vacuum that I would never forgive.

Dear Monarch, I will be wearing my Armour only to surrender my shield. No apologies for being old fashioned - Saber is still my most trusted weapon.

Begnning, Middle and End

Stories are no more written-in or turn-out to have an Aristotelian formula. I miss that, the feeling of certainty, of a predictable beginning, middle and an end.
Some have an alright/ happy/ whatever/ sad/ haven't-a-clue endings. The beginnings, as I've realized are always 'super'. Like an idea conceived, a project begun, a novel's start, a crazy meeting, however, the fantastic element eventually disappears.

"He had come into my life uninvited and was now unwelcome to leave it."

Like the Oyster Seeker or the Monk with beads... it's the distasteful incompleteness that i wish to avoid.

It often surprises me how friends/ lovers/ foes have moved on, and how I have. The cordial hellos' also do not matter anymore. Only a faint imprint of that relationship is retained, is re-told as funny or nostalgic instances in conversations with random people.

How did I arrive to this? Monarch is in the country, in my backyard and he being himself saw to it that I was oblivious of this knowledge. It was not supposed to be passed on to anyone - especially me. What affects me is not his adamant nature or his nerve, or the fact that hates me now. We will not forget us or our friendship or the hilarious conversations or the letters or the body-art. I know this and hence never bothered to 'feel' anything about his annoyance.

A question that does not leave me is - How could he vaporize all that we put into a 9-year relationship?

I do not want us to end-up in the cold cordial texture that now defines most past relationships. It makes me puke to remember 'the way we were' and the way we have become.

This is a punishment of sorts, I am suffering. I hope he is happy with his decision making skills.

Adios - if that is what we say - then so be it.

Of a Boy and a Beer Pitcher

On a pretentious weekday evening Oyster Seeker and K went out to shop for Enlightened. In an attempt to show the futility of Oyster's challenge, she was wielding her way into killing the mystery that he thought surrounded her.

Truth, as she believed, was a detonator of romance or sexual intentions. As the curtains dropped - it was fantastic to find a shame-less, matter-of-fact person who (at least on face value) appeared genuine. Honest, skin peeling laughter surrounded them as cordial barriers shattered into a million pieces. Aware that he would never see her again in the same light, with the same intentions and the same curiosity of a man walking in wild woods - she gave in. It was a victory over something far beyond a man. It was like facing herself in full mental nudity and liking it! Their conversation was animated and as his hands swung all over the place - she knew she would bite them off someday!

They were sharing naked moments - both had involuntarily stripped bare their inner lives, thoughts, desires and self-concealing worldly acts ... just that one time - there wasn't a gender game being played.

K found the something very familiar with the way they were - like Hank and Dagny. There was raw filth in what they spoke, the way they unconsciously held each other for fractions. There was an open display of sexuality - a challenge of each others smart-ass natures... both weren't born yesterday. He realized that he was in for someone worth the effort. In his abandoned laughter, she saw a man that was and a man that could be. It was a familiar flash that changed the way she looked at a man and the way he looked at himself. She knew he would drown, but that was a story for another day.

While they walked through her favorite lanes, crossing Ravissant, she recalled the first sneek meet and how she had felt as if she had returned to college. The juvinile game of 'hide-and-seek', of stolen kisses, of bum-chum back-slaps... How the familiarity of knowing a different side of a person changes the parameteres of looking at the same person as the one one knew before.

There was a politics she was experiencing - it was what Stanley Fish had said in one of his essays. There was an over looming umbrella objectivity and beneath that a sensual hiding of a secret. A secret caught in a glance while walking across a clinical space. They would look into each other and 'know' the space between the line of vision made everybody around them invisible.

It was a night she enjoyed, it was a night she would eventually not remember, but there was something K did not want to forget about this man. She did not want to waste her time, and he in all probability would turn out to be that - an interesting adventure with no goals to achieve, no point to prove.

For now, she licked her berry gelato and smiled at the thought of Drama King knowing her whereabouts he would be screaming "Pfone Seaxxxxx."

Physical Abuse - Part II

K felt her day was wonderfully spent. Her work was in order, her 'attraction' war with the Oyster Seeker was upbeat and she had met Talkathon without Drama King for a subway dinner, a long walk and line of her fav. smoke. They spoke of sex, boys work and freedom form the shackles of commitment.

Talkathon dropped her to the station and as K walked along the length of a newly constructed bridge for pedestrians, dodging slow and swift walkers who pretended to bump into her, listening to blaring music, ignoring eyes that stared at her chest or a comment that was passed on her butt. K was too happy to let anything spoil a good day.

Then it had to happen -

A haze of shudder crowded her mind. Somebody had whipped her mind into a frenzy, had lashed her skin and blood streamed out of her. Acid hands had moved around her waist, arms, back , arse and culminated to brush against her breasts. Her skin was burnt cold, stretched tight, her stomach churned and her jaw hurt so bad that she wanted to smash herself against a steel rail to ease the pain. In her reflex, she rammed a her Ayan Rand in the face of a man behind her. K did not know how tall, short, feeble or strong he was - she was very hurt to realize any of that. It was senseless act of courage - she was alone on the bridge and she did not care if things got out of hand. K's sense of space, the stretch of lemon yellow bridge, her mode of escape, her ability to run in her shoes - none seemed to count.

K turned around to face him, whack him but he was gone - there was no one. She felt an elbow smashed into the side of her left breast, her fist clenched and she shirked, the last thing that she saw of her hand - was her diamond sparkling in the stale light of a dutifully gleaming tube-light. Then there was blood on it - the fine edges had torn his skin below his chin. He looked at her in pain and she cursed - he cursed her back, trying to grab the steel bar on the side - he yelled "Miane kuch nahi kiya, aap pagal ho..." (I did not do it, you have lost it).

K turned, not believing him, quietly she just walked on - a part of her mind was going numb, she refused to allow herself to think or feel think. She walked straight into the compartment, into the rick, then into her room, ignoring her father's presence. He had waited to have dinner together, he was cooking the whole day and wanted her to be a part of it. K lay on her bed, abandoning herself in strange awkwardness of a street child. He walked into her room, " Hey, I thought you were changing-up or so... let's have dinner, I am waiting. I made your special dal. I wanted you to make my favorite rice - I have cooked it - just give it the tadka I like. You okay beta? You look tired, lost and... what is wrong? Lets talk... " K never liked those words - 'Lets talk' - what was she doing to tell him? Some pervert felt-up your daughter in the most ugly way? That she hates her body and that she does not know why men behave the way they do? He tried to hold her arm but she sat-up with a jerk - "Nah, dad, just closing. work. I am exhausted. Did you enjoy yourself? Give me a minute, I'll have a bath later - lets eat!" K promptly changed into pajamas and tee, instead of her regular singlet and shorts. No part of her skin had to be seen. "What if he notices? Do I have a marks?" She knew it was late... her clock struck 10:30pm and he was late for dinner.

In the quietness of her mother's kitchen - she cooked, cleaned the mess he had happily created and heard him narrate his day. K wished him goodnight and he was reluctant to ask why, and hit the shower. She scrubbed her body, it started to burn and she ignored the redness that was surfacing. K was lying around the bed looking at the white overalls of her walls, her bed linen, blocking all sensation from her mind, she turned around to hold her teddy. Talkathon's call ringing in her face - K cut the call and messaged her good night. She could not afford to put their night to waste.

She tucked herself in bed, but the anger did not seem to go, she could not concentrate on the book, she refused to flirt over the phone. Refused to let another man into her mind. Not that night. He was being kind in the message - wanting to know if she wanted to talk. She did not. He was a man and he would not understand. He would feel bad but the magnitude of hurt, anger, filth and guilt she felt for being born - for being called gori chamdi, for being treated like a cheap piece of meat - he would never feel that. There was nothing she could tell, words would not sooth her - he would not know what to say. Mushy had once apologized on behalf of all the dirty men in the world and it had not helped. Sometimes he was sorry that he was a man, just as K was now - she was sorry for herself, for being born a woman, her her body and her mind and the feeling she felt.

She turned to put her mind to sleep and then she realized the pain in her chest. The elbow.
The chill had started to make her feel awfully cold, she needed to hug someone really bad - someone very strong, very warm and very pure. She missed Childmom. K knew she would need to strengthen her shield. She swore she would not cry. She had to wipe this muck from her mind tonight. It would be unfair to carry yesterday into tomorrow.

Phyiscal Abuse - Part I

Two incidences in the past weeks that made K feel like a Mimosa plant. She shuttled between her moments that had made her feel like a lesser mortal and crouch into a shell that banned every human, every touch and every thought.
~
K walked in a hurriedly over the bridge that was supposed to flow sweet water - which had now turned into a gutter of sorts. Her mind raced through everything that this bridge and the park was supposed to mean and what it now meant. She felt her jaws clench in a thought of the flaming tree that had gone missing years ago and that she had done nothing to save it.

She walked through only to bump into a friendly neighborhood grand father who makes her day by cracking inane 'old-man's' jokes. She laughed with him for a few seconds till his accomplice walked along and she was asked to touch his feet in respect. Politely as K bent, she felt the man's palm on her back, pressed through the cotton garment. He had felt-up her brassiere belt, she wanted the steel hooks to melt into his fingers and leave a mark that he'd have to explain every time he held them in his face. Startled, K looked up straight into his eyes with a fury of an abused child questing "Why?, why did you have to do it?" The man's eyes caught her and he sneered in a distasteful way. A way that lost youth looks at young love - with hateful lust. There was anger for his obscenity and for my youth. Grandpa had not noticed, he was busy chatting with an old woman who had just begun her walks and felt the test of her age and fatigue.

Something struck in her. K with out a word walked back home. The thought of being late for work and the that things more urgent awaited her presence, she just walked thoughtlessly, strolled into her house and walked into the bathroom. Her mother was questioning from the drawing room, she heard sounds - not speech. The water trickled down her body, hot, holy water. She needed to clean her body of that touch, she needed to wash it out of her mind. She had to head to work and with a clear head.

Why do we need John Galt?

I have been drowning in the whirlwind of question marks... but there is some kind of security in utter chaos.

~Why do we attach so much importance to a published word?
~Why does it hurt you the most when it is actually supposed to comfort you?
~Why are empty hugs as painful as an expected parting?
~Why do we nurture dreams and then challenge them?
~Why does the twilight/dawn sea make you rethink, revision and reconsider the nonsense called 'Life'?
~Why do we know certain things are worthless in the long run, but still work towards gaining it?
~Why is it so difficult to find love, and why is it so easy to lose it - over and over again?
~Why does happiness not become an addiction like grief?
~Why are momentary joys deeper than a long term commitment?
~Why are ambitions so blind? ~Why do they drive you like nothing other?
~Why does everything appear futile - just when the impossible has been achieved?
~Why do we often bring success to others and foul play ourselves?
~Why when 'one man' can stand-up for himself, it hurts the most to see him do it and say -
"See, I did it!"
~ Why do listing your inadequacies help your self- confidence no more than what sugar-free chewing gum does for your teeth.
~ Would GODOT have come if V and E had waited longer?
~ When things aren't right. What is wiser - do we wait or do we change tracks?
~Why do we need a John Galt to explain our relationship with the universe?

Silent Betrayal

Nothing Happened.

It was her 5:30 am alarm, K woke up and found herself drenched in tears. She did not understand what was happening to her, what had gone wrong, so suddenly, so much unbearable pain... where had it all come from?

As she sat-up in her bed, tracing the light from the slightly parted curtains, she was clueless. Then her cell snoozed a reminder. Turning to silence it, she opened her message box and found an Adios from an international number. She read, re-read and shrieked... "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, HE'S GONE!" She kept looking around, as if searching for an invisible sin in darkness. Heat surged her lungs and they went breathless.

It was like an invited stab, one aimed straight at the heart. She held her phone close and crushed it in her bosom...instead wanting roses with thorns, slyly sinking into the skin. "How could he?" "Why did he?" He was going to do it, you knew it all along, why are you so upset now?" . K didn't know whom she was more angry with... herself or him. He thought he was being sweet in the sms, being thoughtful that 'he'd cherish everything...' she knew he would, but it did not matter if he did. It did not matter right now. Too much anger, pain and a sense of expected betrayal filled her head. Her nerves beating at her wrists, her neck, her ankles... her knees heavy with pain. She wanted to release them, relieve the pressure, let them flow-out and calm down.

K looked into her wardrobe mirror and saw a doped-looking woman with horribly pale
complexion, swollen red eyes with blood lines appearing - like stripped naked roots, cursing red lips... A ghost out from nowhere, going nowhere... The tissue box emptied out, she had spent 45 mins crying, visualizing him on the airport, in the lobby with family, possibly a female friend, with bags tugging along, a packet of Benson kept handy. His face - straight, cold... expressing spurious affection, conveying heavy goodbyes. The aircraft taxied over the muck of this emotional volcano called Bombay, sometime before dawn, at the sinful hour when Lucifer rises and prepares to torch the skies.

It had been less than a week when they had met. K wanted to avoid him but wanted to see him in an elusive way. She called-in to postpone and then cancel, but changed her mind. She knew it could be their last meeting, in all probability. He was late, she mocked him and he accused her making it her habit. He had hugged her unrestrained for the first time in years, she felt it. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she shouldn't have felt so terrible about him going. They traveled together and when about to get off, he hugged her again, in an unsaid finality.

K didn't think of it as a finality, till all weekend plans stood paralysed in the face of his packing-moving-organizing scheme. She called him, then messaged him with urgency and he spoke to her in his atypical concerned tone, a tone used to talk to retarded children. She knew then that it was done... she mailed him in his 'style' and bade adieu.

Crouched on the floor, she recalled every word, every touch, every hurt... he was a cruel man. And he would continue to abuse her mind, with his presence and especially his absence. She wanted to call people, scream into their ears - scream into her unbelieving mind that he was gone! Not that he had been around so much that his going would've mattered, but what she felt right now was something ugly, and it was only a surging Amedee.

K was late for her yoga, the sky was turning saffron, the neighbour was talking to his dog, below her balcony, behind her back. She rolled out her mat, finished her pranayam, her yogic positions - blocking everything from her mind... Recalling random Bollywood songs, concentrating on her counts. The tough positions failed to cause any aches, she had pushed her threshold and could now hold her ankles bent backwards. The pain had left her body...

Arsenals of Truth, Beauty and Joy

How much do we know each other - K and MIMI combated.

K's side of the story:
TRUTH - Not me. Never me. I like to live a lie. A very happy lie. That is my truth.
BEAUTY - Monica Belluci, Paz Vega, et al. beauty is me on the vogue cover.
JOY - is having what i want, when i want it and the way i want it.

MIMI's quotes on K :
TRUTH: K is sick. been that way for a long time now. she's getting better but she's still sick. She laughs when she is depressed, she dresses the best when she's suicidal. It's either that or shes wearing uncomfortably fancy heels.
BEAUTY: Bottles and bottles of body lotions and lip balms - it's not a beauty tip - K has very dry skin.
JOY: She'd be happy if she knew how to be. K will either die of a broken heart, in an asylum - if she lets her true self take over ever, or will die the moment she is filled with joy. K is incapable of digesting happiness. Period.

MIMI side of the story:
TRUTH: I like life the way it unfolds. I'm very positive about it, the best deserve the best.
BEAUTY: the within reflects without. u could be everything and nothing to someones eye.
JOY: smile and let go - yesterday is gone, tomorrow i don't know and today is just as good.

K's quotes on MIMI:
TRUTH: Optimism is a Godot. MIMI likes to wait in inactive hopeful insurgency for what may or may not happen.
BEAUTY: Fat. Short. Inadequate. MIMI camouflages her paunch with long kurtas and is extremely insecure of her body.
JOY: MIMI is a sloth that lives on leftovers (material as well as abstract) of other people.

K and MIMI haven't spoken to each other since this little game. They are hurt by each other's honesty and ashamed by the fact that they know each other so well.

another embarrassing test - darnedest

Okie - this one is not my fav, but a nice person sent it to me and when i turned down the offer to shoot reply and post it up here; she (in her true blood) reminded me of a favor that i owe her.

*P, you shall not be forgiven for this.

Here it goes reluctantly:

10 MATERIAL THINGS (AND THEIR TRUE MEANING) ABOUT YOU THAT PEOPLE WOULDN'T OTHERWISE KNOW.

1) love solitaires. Seriously, want to epitomise everything a diamond stands for. (yes, yes... gold digger!! i have no scruples and no soul and would not marry 'a nice man' who can't afford them. what a shame, i know.)

(2) know more about 'heels' (the most important part of a shoe) than most professional fashionistas. (yes, i take pride in the most useless frivolities of life when there are millions who lack the opportunity to even choose footwear... and Saint Marie Antoinette says - eat cake!)

3) secretly smell a guy before deciding to go on a second date. (yes, me, bitch, me!)

4) collection of ganjee & shorts. black or white vests paired with pink floral ones, red soccer ball ones , etc... (i am juvenile, girly, silly.)

5) beauty: sunscreens, moisturisers, body lotions, hair gels, bath accessories, blah, blah, blah ( self indulgent). Make-up: Kajals, lipsticks and lip balms of six different types. secret wish is to wear cherry red lipstick in broad daylight without appearing tacky. (geisha's also got sex appeal!)

6) enjoy floral scents and musky nauseate me. (yes, i do not use them even if they were gifted.) P, ur hugo boss lies unopened - do not complain, u asked for it!

7) like wearing skirts (i'd wear them shorter if i didn't have a web of sliver stretch marks on my calves) and d classic white shirt and blue denims with a broad brown belt! (my ancestors were apes, i have no shame in admitting so!)

8) a hoarder of antique jewellery and traditional pieces. (hoarding everything that has resale value. apart from that i'd not have to buy anything for the next generation ... this 'passing on' will not be looked down upon. u see it has multiple benefits)

9) wealth - ghar, ghar ke aage balcony, balcony ke aage garden, garden ke aage samundar (sea), samundar main ek chotisi ship, ship par a chotasa helicopter, etc... (Fav cardinal sin - GREED)

10) with all my love for shoes (neatly stack in boxes and cloth bags), on any given day i'd prefer to wear running shoes or keds (if i do not have to look at my feet) no jokes, they protect and keep your feet in shape. I envy men for the same - they rarely have tanned feet!

Moral of the exercise: i am an honest person and I keep my word.

Desensitized

...me.

Being physically unwell - makes me needy, cranky and cold. Being mentally unwell - makes me... let's not bother.

scene: morning, rain, me walking out of Mahim station. a horse.
K (aside): - a horse?. OMG, he's wounded, look at his legs, the blood's oozing out. Where is his owner? I should call SPCA. Is the lady standing there going to be of any help? Why are these people just looking at the horse - idiots. Hey his feet are getting wobbly, is he going to sit. Is he left to die?

What does K do? She walks away. She does not turn around. Nope. Not even once. No voyeuristic pleasurez. Nope.

scene: after reaching the crossing, K turns to look for vehicles that can blow her up. However , the road is empty.
K (aside): Let the horse die. I wish it dies, right now. How cruel could you be? You should call for rescue. How is the hospital going to be? Wet, unclean, dark, dingy, white walls or blue? terracotta or marble tiles? What will they do to him? What if it is in his fate to die lonely - on a humanly crowded, spit over, rainy street?

K enters the office building, follows a woman with long silky hair (whore) and enters the elevator with her. They smile, she reaches her floor, walks in through the glass doors - meets an annoying colleague (sipping lime tea in a large mug that can pass off as a soup bowl), who exclaims that she isn't drenched! (Oh what a wish he has, filthy scoundrel.) Moves to her seat - forgets to wish her colleague 'happy birthday' till his birthday card arrives and then hits WORK ONLY button. She spends her day over her long fulfilled deadlines = wastrel day = headache, terribly written Photokina piece, irritated over the ever-busy-designer and the zero-prompt-boss.

K, in more ways than one, hates herself but pretends that she is still her favorite person.
K is a fool.

Mumbai. City. Obsession. Catharsis.

.... and this dark secret love will thy life destroy.
- Blake

Traveling by train every single day makes you a sensitive and a selectively sanitized person. Once you've elbowed, pinched, stamped your way into the compartment; squeezed your butt on the fourth seat next to the corporately dressed lady (with tarty red lipstick), with immense sense of pride - you have duly become a Mumbikar (or a mumbling Bombayite).

A true Mumbaikar travels in trains, the class doesn't really matter. The daily commute is often claimed to be strenuous, suffocating, friendly etc., it can be all of the above and none. But what it can not not be is uneventful! Every single day, you will either witness a fight, a business deal, a lesbian kiss, a death, a swollen jaw, hickeys on necks/backs/ arms, frowns (multiples of them), people reading an array of books from regional literature to Russian porn, breakfast parties, sorry tales, consistent adjustment of breasts within the bra or the blouse, or women sleeping carefree with their mouth's wide open.

Mumbai, as it is a city of trains, it is a city of sewage or gutters as they are fondly called. Drama King often calls Mumbaikars as 'we are all in the gutters, mademoiselle; only some of us are staring at the sky and dreaming of the stars.' The city without much surprise has more than a dozen hundred gutters, most of them are rivulets from the largest river called Mithi (read: sweet, small). Once upon a time, in a fairy tale Byzantium, this lean water source was the only source of fresh flowing water. Now it is a stink line - the pulmonary vein amongst mineral water arteries. The living symbol of Mumbai's health.

The river is at the mercy of monsoon to wash away the clogged plastic, steel, and diffusers into the ever embracing Arabian sea. The citizenry is ruthless to these gutters and swamps: it has allowed too many people to survive suicides in them, too many have thrown away enemy carcasses or flowers offered to domesticated 4-inch gods. The gutters are malleable warriors fighting survival, squeezing through the clefts and the breeches left by builders who conspiring to sink the city. Gutters are like people who sit on the forth seat, grow iceberg lettuce using the same water, packaging them in polythene to sell in train compartments to seemingly rich women obsessed with health food.

Gutter's and gutter dwellers celebrate survival; of not allowing plastic or carbon mono oxide to choke their existence, or stop the steel fringe sculptures from the blown-up train compartments, from going to work the next day. Prima facie, Mumbai is a city of the young and bold, on the inside it's a body infested with over-working, multiplying carcinogenic cells ... the city is dying, gradually sighing out, wreaking and lying. Like a dying woman, it has become exotic, historical and wanting to gulp a cup of hot chai at a go - it is fighting against time, against death.

Mumbai's losing it's taste, it's mind was always a wanderer; now it's pulling-up the keel, raising the mast and girding to sail in an iceboat.

Random Conversation

Scene: Post walk to the juice center from the spa.

Him: K, you are expensive!
K : Don't blame your lack of ambition on me.

*#&^@*.....

Obstinacy of vacant undesired spaces in relationships feels like a prized clutch trapping pure air.
You can neither duck your head to breath in and nor can you let it merge with the smog.

Thermocol love

Bombay weather, books and nothingness provokes the not so good elements in me. After mulling for a while, I concluded -'what the hell? It happens to almost everyone!' So here I go...

"We had been careful, you had not left anything behind" - Hema, Going Ashore. Unaccustomed Earth.

All you now remain is a name. Just a name, a name that does not even look like you. A name that sounds fundamentalist, a name with a beard and blood-shot eyes.*You had mahogany eyes.

A name without a face. We never took a picture in those two and a half years; it surprises me now that we didn't! *We weren't even the shy, unfriendly types, then how come I don't have an image of us or you?

A name without a face or a location. You left B'bay for Padua, then moved to Vancouver, then to New York - it took you 4 years to come back and ask about me. When V met in a stray street relishing his beer - he wanted to know if I had a word for you... I knew, once he had spoken with you, you would've been ready to move again. *However, fate refuses me to budge from this constant catharsis of a city.

A name without a face, a location or a number. There is little I can complain about not being in touch, not taking your number from S when she urged me to. *S, being the idiot she is, didn't leave it on my desk - things never strike her! I have no way to call you. Would I have called you, if I had your number? I am unsure.

All that is available is a mail id that came with your last mail months ago; reading "this is the deepest secret that no one knows... I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)" *Quoting Cummings, I thought was very sick trick.

You'd always known what to say and do, all that I would avoid confronting; saying things that I knew but never wanted to hear. I have never had the will to press 'reply to sender'. Hunting for your whereabouts will take more courage than I claim to have.

I am never sure if you are awake or asleep or working when I am thinking of you; like now. I wonder whether you get hiccups? And do you, like me, recall everyone only to await my name and then the hiccups magically go away. Do you, like me, relish that moment, knowing that I could too suffer that bitterness of silence?

I yearn for what we so actively absolved, not realising then, the curse of long-term-memory. *I have become forgetful in an attempt to forget those moments. Silly me, I fictionalise, birthing them in ways less obvious - it's the cheapest attempt to keep them alive.

Sometimes I look for signs. I could see them like glaring errors when I walked into Regal or in Leo's, or on the Town Hall steps or at the NCPA corner or in the University's library .... I almost relived our Sartre-Beauvoir fight. Btw: the glass lamp shades haven't been changed, just as you vouched. Nonetheless, for a while now, I have been quietly thankful for not unconsciously finding those signs...

I live around these cluttered memories, while you, after a long time, have successfully vanished....
We had been careful to not leave a proof of us.

Moments

My needs surprise me, and the way I deal with them amazes me even more.
Can someone be stupid and wise at the same time?

realization - reconciliation

It takes courage to pack your bags and leave never to be taken for granted again.
It also takes courage to step back and live it through, knowing every single day that you were capable of a different life - only you chose not to live it.

Yesterday, after a long conversation with the monk, I realized why Loudmouth had let go so many opportunities; for the same reason I had let go mine.
I do not think the monk is capable of doing that. He is lucky in ways and very unfortunate in many others.
Thank god for small mercies.

Bonding

Women rarely bond; they may converse, ramble or critique but not really bond, they never slide under a skin. It is often a 'She and I', identification, comparison, complain, etc. Rarer are the silent understanding of the other person - (I would often conclude that because the gender is so obsessed with the opposite one they never see themselves in any light). Nonetheless, we all have had chats with other people whilst travelling on the local train. I have had conversations while reading a book - a hangover from college that I refuse to shun. It often starts with a question, remark or compliment; and I do my best to read 'intelligent' books with a Booker, Nobel, Penguin, Frankfurt backing them (some justification for my choice of books). If you are reading a Sheldon or a Forsyth, they'd look at you and turn away and if you are reading kitch the *sigh* is just not ignorable!

Yesterday, after a finishing Unaccustomed Earth, I picked-up a Mills and Boon 'The Executive's Surprise Baby' (honestly, they aren't as ridiculous as their reputation), a joy that I have very recently discovered. As I comfortably snuggled into the tote, half way through the book and blaring Roja music; bevy of irate women got in, urging everyone to make more space. In that bustle, I happen to notice that the girl beside me was reading as well. I did not bother to check what she as reading as my protagonist had just discovered her fiance's infidel nature, and she being 7 months pregnant - I knew there would be a major twist in the next paragraph.

She politely made space for me to come closer in order to allow the lady a comfortable fourth seat. Then she spoke
She: "Mills and Boon, you too?"
Me: (jostling with the guilt of being caught) "Ya, I know it's trash!"
She: Ya, but it's just time-pass, sometimes it's okay (certainly re-negotiating with her Id and Super ego.)
Me: Ya. This one isn't that bad.
She: Yes, mine is just about okay, as well.

For a brief moment I looked into her eyes and there was something unspeakable, something that was understood. It wasn't the 'Desire series' that incidentally we both were reading. It was something beyond that, an understanding of allowing the pretentious, polite intellectual her raw space. It was a reconciliation with one's primeval yet silent needs. Emptiness fell back in and moments later she alighted, leaving me guessing. How many onion skins does one need to peel before really knowing the other's never expressed desire?

Sometimes

Sometimes life seems so wrong. I seem lost, out of tune, fat and partially blind.

Sometimes stagnation hits so bad that it feel like a listless, spineless leaf ... turning to the breeze to direct my life some where.

Sometimes, one is just sitting and waiting for things to happen... this sometimes seems every time to me.

Sometimes, one is so unhappy and jealous that a smile won't break out ...

Sometimes a terrible void gets created that a pair of Ferragamos won't fill.

Sometimes all hope seems false and all 'arts' of living farcical.

Sometimes saying good bye is more painful than any pain ever experienced. Silence is the only one that will block this pain. The pain of knowing that it hurts you more than it will hurt the other person - because sometimes you remember friends in ways that you can't expect them to remember you.

Sometimes sleep and dreams are futile refuges. Sometimes you don't want to wake-up after you have put yourself to sleep. A perfect time for sleep to start avoiding you.

Sometimes the refrained risks, the walk aways, the shunned loyalties just feel like a slap in the face...

Sometimes cliches do not sound funny. Just as sometimes your odds are not cute, they are pathetic.

Sometimes the most difficult thing to say is, "I am so happy for you."

Sometimes you don't mind walking down his street in midnight rain only to attempt to make everything right and everything disappear, however sometimes the mornings are just not so bright...

Sometimes the cosmos avenges you for not warming a friendly heart, for selfishly leaving a flawed love...

Sometimes it gets cold, very cold.

Sometimes, irrespective of how desperate you are to settle for less, you won't do it. Simply because you were not born that way.

Sometimes it's time to remind oneself that this too shall pass. But sometimes it feels foolish to even believe so....

The Other Within Us: Women

I am obssessed with this plural. Mine is often a love-hate relationship. I applaud at the intensity of courage and craziness that women display. Squirm, frown and scowl at the core of their characters. The paradox is sometimes just too contradictory to fathom.

Women in general are fickle and unpredictable - they are more farcical than most male comedians ever born. Although, I want to refrain myself from 'generalizing' the gender, I am rendered helpless. And here, because it is my space - I am liberally forgiving myself for making sweeping generalizations. My closest friends are men, only because I can not trust women, only because I know them too well, only because if I were in their shoes - I would bite the other person raw.

Still, (paradoxically) every woman in my life has a special place, her wit, beauty, arrogance, courage, surrender and love has taught me more about living than 25 years of my living. They are the kindest and the coldest - and are best at being both. However they are very unreliable, especially when it comes to the men they love. Their sense of achievement, their pride, their values - everything can be tossed out of the window with the blow dryer. Time and again, close friends, siblings, acquaintances behave and react in ways that would make me doubt their level of common sense (forget intelligence).

I can now firmly conclude (after enduring women bosses and HODs) that women can not handle power - every time they raised to the position of responsibility and power - they became tyrannical. They fret and exploit and get more insecure, apart from the emotional part - professionally they take up too much responsibility to prove their mettle. Never heard of biting more than you can chew? Ahhaan, that does not mean that they will not complete the task, they will - even if it means tearing their hair and everyone else's!

Incidentally all world's evils are rooted in mothers - they teach a whole lot of drab shit to their kids, including yours and mine. The lessons may seem wise and right to us especially now, but gradually when you see yourself as a decimal in the cosmos - you know it's an abysmal pot hole that you will have to fill.

At a recent ashram visit- I met this global philosopher who was enjoying being treated as a god man. He is talking of Karma and that everything happens for the good. Amidst the questions, an old lady comes to him and says

Old Lady : "I have spent all my life behind my child, I taught him everything, cared for him, loved him more than myself. Today he left me at this Ashram's main gate to spend the rest of my sick old age."

Philosopher (a little enraged, stares at her and questions) : "Whose fault is it?"

Old Lady (with tears in her eyes) : "My son's of course, what kind of question is that?"

Philosopher : No, It is you. Didn't you always tell him to have everything for himself? Did you not forbid him from sharing anything of his with fellow students and colleagues, be it a silly school lunch box or a toy, his poor troubled friends or his study notes or his work. You, for years and years over taught him to exclude everything - now he has excluded you. He has done what he was taught.

The lady went hysterical, and so did the crowd. I have no clue, nor did she as to how he knew about it but that is not important. The fact remains that mothers' do this and a whole lot more. The moment I thought of this - I had a list of parents who had, have and would say it to their children. So many times my mom has asked me to 'have it all', don't give, don't trust - silly goose!

I do not know if it is the right way - the Wise Capitalist believes it to be so. I am as usual caught in constant conflict.

Revision

The couple of months have been quite a tutorial. So many things in my life were revised, so many ideals thrown in the bin - so many new rules...
Then of course there are the ones that I always practice but was never really so kicked about them. Now I seem to be prepared, patience and persistence are quite the golden rules for me to follow. I am reassured in faith, in karma and the fantastic pragmatic belief of paradoxes, cosmos and tit-for-tat! Interestingly, I get calls from friends or a silly update in the otherwise insignificant Horoscope or a random one-liner appear like post-its and sign-posts.

People somehow never mattered to me as much as I have made it out to be - but it's not them that is what I realise now - it's me! We all look for bits and pieces of ourselves in people and the ones around me are the temples of everything behind my fence.

I have also discovered silence, the peaceful silence, the anticipating 'yes or no' silence, the gnawing 'pick-up and talk to me' silence, the military unyielding silence, the insecure silence, the practiced 'I will say nothing' silence, the never silence, the 'maintain space' silence, the warm hug 'crazy friends' silence and the understanding silence. Silence also in ways makes me feel a better human being than the others who talk too much. Also I have recently learnt that you can hold more with distance and silence than you can with anything else!

Also the power of desire and letting go is by far the best thing that has happened to my fractured and protected mind. All of this is come from the cosmos of thoughts and people around me - the ones that make me insecure, jealous, fragile, very sad, the ones that make me laugh and very happy!

Tryst

Now this post may seem absolutely random, and maybe it is.

I have discovered that the urge to be free is most paramount in man, followed by the urge to make history (power, immortality). However, the uncertainty of what lies behind the change dictates this leap. It may bring fortune or misery, and thus sometimes it's better to patiently serve in Heaven than rule in Hell. And more often than not, our preparation and our attitude to the change dictates the course of fortune.

Time is often right when the mind is prepared, and when the time is right the word on the scrabble board spells itself.

I await that moment.

flood in a papercup

Writing about rains in B'bay is the most hackneyed thing to do-

But every monsoon is different and yet so uncannily similar to the one I enjoyed almost a decade ago. I at 25, after a darned mundane day at work, stepped out in my shorts to enjoy the 1st showers, like i did when I was 7. I love rains in b'bay - (that apart I love B'bay). Everyone cribs about everything - the puddles of water, the delayed and cancelled trains, the endless lines of traffic, the open man-holes, the water-clogging and when there is water every where, there is not a drop dripping from your home tap.

Nonetheless, never mind the muck, the tempers and the disgruntle sighs ... b'bay looks most beautiful in the rains, like the heavens have given it a bath, scrubbed it clean lovingly and like a reluctant child the shoreline fights back the stones... SEA is what most people miss when they move-out of B'bay.. and it is also amongst the things that I often miss - samosas, chai and cigarettes on the worli/ marine/ nariman/ carters sea scapes or when in a special mood and a loaded wallet - guzzling down a bottle of red wine, listening to poetry, watching vendor-kids bargain for bright rainbow stripped umbrellas.

Or simply walking down ... be it Ruparel, Podar, Xaviers, University campus, NCPA back lanes, Ballard Pier, BPT gardens, Lions gate, Mahim Mougal Lane, Vasai village road, Mazgaon Docks, Nariman point promenade or mount Mary road ... or national Park.... every place is beyond beautiful.

I remember every soaked, cold shivering walk, remember sitting hungry in the only cafe open at 6 am - the coffee never tasted better, stale keema pao was bliss and the stares just never mattered... I miss those memories, of wet cats and odd trips, of cozy hugs and warm, soft, lingering fragrances....

B'bay is a state of the heart rather than a city - and in the rains it's just filled with love, lots of passionate volatile love.

Emails conspired

There is so much to write, so much to tell, so much to read, however I am stuck in a phase - a phase of doing the wrongest things - being in a wrong mindset, wearing the wrong set of clothes, saying wrong things, and worst of all reading the wrongest book at this point in time!

Here is something that transpired between the Monk and I last evening. He too is familiarising himself with the emotion called 'being frustrated with oneself' - I for an unwanted and not understood reason excel at pissing myself off.

All that apart - this conversation was what I call interesting!

MONK: Sometimes we take things for a given, while others don't ...Please do check this forum link discussing the fundamentals - http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=55334

K:
do you know ?

- the best in the world will tell you that all reality is actually factional - it's like a gossip whose meat is little and the masala more.

- the concept of time is as genuine as your last night's fantasy

- history eventually echoes mythology

- the world works in circles - we discover, comprehend, modify, absolve and turn around to discover it all over again (with the same enthusiasm).

- most things are arbitrary. like calling your comp - comp, or yourself human.

-there is no logic to human communication - example: if 'x' can be y, z, and q in three different languages, and cultures (mahsa - in Marathi is a fish, in Turkish is the moon) (the moon in English is feminine, in Hindi masculine) - then you can call it anything you like - mahsa means lover, and moon is a mirror. The world around you was created from imagination and fantasy, creating your own will only add to it.

- you can walk into a different life and walk out of it - at this very minute, if you want to.

- all action is destined and modified every second - we live in parallel realities of ourselves, we call them opportunity. when you move from one to the other, the story line stops there and another starts at that very minute.

- you encounter the same kind of people everywhere - and by the way, there are no people in this world, only thought processes. Brutus and was suffocated every day by Cesar's tyranny. history is his-story, and who will be the demon and hero depends on where 'his' loyalties lie.

- that brings us to the myth of 'objectivism' - of truth, love, and beauty.

- there is nothing like past and future, before and after, it is a figment of your imagination. Everything is in the 'present' - for the present is eternal.

If you buy all the above then I think you may buy this one as well -
- I am not as silly, as I seem.

MONK: Every ones perception of reality and fantasy is a compilation of experiences, circumstances and instances that has eventually led the mind to conjure a particular set of preferences that it feels is comfortable existing in. Perceived images of others are drawn from conclusions based on projected circumstances and reactions, which are often misinterpreted, sometimes by choice and sometimes by mistakes. Whatever perception or assumed perception you might have of me is not entirely true, for I unfortunately have moulded my projections, reactions and communication on a myriad of influences that have affected me.

These influences have been strong- direct and subliminal, evoking a mixed and confused reality and imagery suitably projected. I in my reality exist (not live) in a world entirely not my own and alien to my core, a belief that is inconsequential to my daily effects. Abandoned and lost for long I have secluded to a space that I often find both suffocating and safe.Constantly periled by contradictions, I am often torn between the various identities that are a vivid and real part of my Psyche.It was tried by a few to de-link these earlier, but all failed for I refused to given in.Hurt and lonesome I did not allow anyone to come hither.Although I seek to resolve my torn world, the vagaries of my life disallow any such move.This is probably more than I have ever confided in any.It may sound like the incessant babble of a child, but it is the cry of a lost soul.
You may laugh or you may cry, but this is I....

K: I wish you could have a little more faith. what I wish even more is that he could have a different life, different eyes and a different soul.

Cat(atonia)

there are cat people and dog people. essentially a cat woman will not like a dog woman. that is not because they do not respect qualities attributed to the dog, but they are wise to know that the cat is immortal and almost divine. She dances between the heavens and the hells, she is also godly- and godless at the same time- almost schizophrenic. I am one of those.

Unlike the belief that cats are self-centered, place worshippers, cats have an essential strength of character. they often mark the people they wish to be loyal to - unlike the dog who will wag his tail at a stranger - the cat tests waters before slurping, a dog will just slurp! Cats are epitomes of hygiene, a dog will chase a butterfly around the muddy garden after you've given him a bath. Also dogs defy logic - they will jump out of the window when they know they do not fall on their paws, they chase cats, hens and other random animals for no apparent reason - to beat that - they chase vehicles, when they cant bite into the steel or the man inside the car! The smaller the dog the more idiotic he/she is - once I saw a one foot pom bark at our neighbours 4 feet tall and incredibly fat German Shepherd, one wack with the paw and the pom would be history.

Also dogs can never conduct themselves gracefully in public. A cat on the other hand teaches you the subtler lessons of attitude, silence, distance, self-esteem and charm. Cat lovers eventually grow-up to become reliant and caring but never dependant, whereas Dog lovers remain like dogs - a little wonky in the head. The last one I met dressed his dog in a cowboy style- with a cap, scarf, shirt and shoes, another one had to rush home coz his dog would not eat without him. I gladly said 'scurry ho...'
---
an old incident

'Once I had a cat,
fair, lean with Topaz for eyes, spoke her mind with every sway of her tail.
Had pledge her place in our home. On the television top- was for her night's sleep, the varanda swing was for afternoon siesta. one could dare not occupy her chair, the brave hearted who did- have her marks to prove their valor. She loathed ignorance and stupidity
- "OH what a pretty cat" - her look at the guest would remark, "What did you expect, Ugly duckling, a mirror of you?" She abhorred disrespect, and once while asleep upon the TV set with the match running.
the sound of cheer infuriated her, she got off her abode, snarled, and clawed - that was her end in my father's house. He picked her up by the neck and swung her off the balcony in the courtyard - we never saw her again neither did another cat walk into our house.
---

By her brush you and you shall live, by her snarl you shall repent, the wise have learnt and so shall you, never call a dare, for the one is with a magic paw!

In conversation ...

.... I will agree to that - similar feeling that I hype everything, when it actually is just a passing phase; too much involvement into other things, people, thoughts, etc.



...darling - it ain't kming - never ask a journo her source - its sacred
i will be dammed
understand
:(

.... I wish I'd live life like the way I wanted to often! *SIGH* neway, I had a good time, that's just what I called to say!

.... Why can't you be like the rest, look at them - they have children, you have nothing! NOTHING!

.... I have to go, it's a need - I can't take it any longer, I have to go!

...this country sucks, its people suck, the family sucks, my job sucks, b'bay is so freaking hot - it sucks. KD, I suck! HELP

.... Man, so many realizations in so little time, I tell you none of them are nice; but I am just happy that I have them! now I know my direction...

.... C - it's breaking me
K- don't tell me
C - you know, i didn't want to hear it, i didn't take up the topic. She said it.
K- you should have told her 'Thank you, but I do not wish to know. I have no interest."
C -how can I say that, it is rude.
K- letting it gnaw on your mind is rude and making me listen to it when you know it will affect me equally is 'cruel'. you should stop this.
C- sorry, but I cant keep it in mind. It will burst, I had to say....
K -Not to me, god dammit - I don't want to know, it fucks my mind.
(K slams the phone. C sends an apology. )

...I had a dream that a lizard bite my big toe. 'Ewww, why of all things, a lizard'. How would I know.

An Evening ...

I refused, pondered, made calls and decided to go to the Loquations almost after six months (or more). I missed the lady and the reading - above all I missed the memories - NCPA memories, sunken garden memories, Monaco memories, crowded memories, flirtatious memories, memories that carried a beacon assuring there was more to life, Baudelaire memories, Jim Morrison memories, my feet on wet cold grass memories, Fat cat on broad steps memories, Q memories, Tenzin memories, old woman with onyx, sapphire and penthouse without an heir memories, memories of sane men succumbing to depression, losing sight, losing wives - and finding refuge in arguing over other dead people.

My teeth are sunk too deep in this addiction... I leave, drift apart and return to feel these random ones - like the evening at Leopold's with half of me stepped over with two others and half of me left behind with three young faces.

The knowledge of now has often been the knowledge of what I had, and what I can have.

Getting Over Hurdle

Purple Pain
Hot Rain
Empty Cuddle
Boiling Despair
Parched Aspiration
Flickering Dream
Hateful Haste
Doubting Shadow
Steatopygic vacuum

Silent Smile
Reining Surrender
Sitting Quiet
Building Search
Garnering Warmth
Ceasing Despotism
Dusting Knees
Holding Breath
Counting Back-ups
Steatopygic Faith

Literary Quotient dictating your life ?

It subconsciously does mine. Proust, Rand, Chekhov, Pushkin, Bronte, Kafka, Milton, Cope, Eliot, both the Wolf and Woolf (not to forget Albee) and Pound and Neruda and Shelley, Rousseau, Ginsberg, Wells, Plath, Achebe, Anatrajanam, Shidhwa, Greenberg and Pope and -

I don't expect anyone to quote or anything - but please say - say you have heard of them, if not read them!

For that matter, hows art? Picasso (I haven't found one person who could tell me why he liked Picasso's cubism except for saying “what kind of a question is that?'or why they like Raza's work - and its needless to mention the Cubits haven't really heard of Braque.And are unsure if Raza is alive or dead.), Rembrandt, Gabriel Rossetti... Please say that you know that Art for Art's sake lead to progressive modernism and we are very grateful to the Romantics who sowed seeds to the quote 'form follows function'.

Monk, Drama King, Loud mouth, Talkathon, Childmom and I - can't stand people who are not in touch with fiction or art (no matter how useless it maybe). Talk about Tanjore Paintings or Carvings or architecture and most look at you as if you were born on a shiny disc - there was a time when I was giving - up on the monk - till he spoke of Konark and I knew he had hope!

However that does not dictate our friendship. On one of our salad dinners - I asked monk the same and he cringed - 'YES! You are with me here coz you have some intellect! Coz you read! I have tastes - and like a woman who appreciates Steve Martin.' So you can't really be his partner if you read pop-fiction of Sidney Sheldon - That second, I wished aloud that this literary snoot falls for a girl who reads Mills and Boon or Sweetville!
And he was on the verge of ducking my head in the salad bowl! Those are his scariest nightmares - a woman who doesn't read sense.

I would agree to all the above [(though not to this extreme) Mushy's three musketeers in literature were Camus, Sartre and Kafka ( His highness is not married and has no relationship] - coz a partner who doesn't read or like movies is a problem area for me - and what I hated the most about Black pearl and I was that - in spite of never being asked to 'not do - or go to', I just stopped going to movies at Y.B and got slower with reading - he has my books and no matter how many books (or of what kind) i bought him - he did not read them. The last book he read was - an Arseholes guide to chicks - REALLY, what future can anyone have?

However - Talkothon and her Darling (yes, he is quite a darling!) get along fine (till date) - and he is the biggest ignorant literary or artistic fool she has ever met! He doesn't know anything about anything - it is that silly! She on the other hand can rip apart a scholar in East African literature - and our man has no clue - that there exist an East Africa! I rolled out with laughter and was completely astonished but she quickly replied - 'I know the world through the books - he knows it through the streets!' you know he hasn't read a single book - including his text books - and i am in love with him! Even as I assuaged her - I was laughing at fate and how 'love' just happens -regardless of one literary preferences!

But can you live forever with someone who disturbs you when you read or wants you to fast forward a silent movie you are watching? I get annoyed when I am reading an interesting twist and someone wants me to get up and get going about cleaning the room or do something equally senseless.

However, it doesn't annoy me when people don't know the things I know - I mean it's okay - you don't need to know everything (i don't know shit about most things either) or share all my tastes - just respect them! For example - my fetish for Greek mythology - if Black Pearl didn't know - we sat with a story telling session.

That is also something that is gravely wrong with Wise Capitalist and Chameleon - they are uninterested in everything that is remotely related to books, planet or painting. (their knowledge of geography like childmom's is howlarious. ask them to name the 5 oceans and they will say - Arabian sea, bay of Bengal and Indian ocean)! Seriously, no jokes. They often frown and discourage everyone around them who are keen on reading, visiting an art gallery or talking about (off-beat) movies - that is unacceptable and irritating!

Empathising with them - they get crazy bored when people just sit and read when ideally they should be spending time with them - making the friendly bonds stronger! However this also proves that if one does not know things about art, culture or ideology - it really doesn't matter that much!

Although it would be nice to have a partner know things - resting your relationship on the same is being very lame.

My Greek God!

I have never ogled at a man, and I am very proud of the same! It adds certain dignity to a woman and some inadequacy to a man.

Although I have helplessly fallen in love with men for what they do - be it writing, photography, painting, theory, money, architecture or politics. They weren't good looking men, or if they were, I didn't notice - it was an added ' ya, okay, whatever', the physicality never seemed to matter.

Today, something happened, my dearest vengeful god very loving pushed me off my snooty edge, my Master Craftsman for the month, with whom I have been conversing with for weeks - send me his image and I froze -

I found my Greek God (Mars himself), my crazy romantic Heathcliff hero, my lion with golden mane! I could hold his hand and elope if he asked me to... ( Yes, I feel that way right now! yes yes, too much of blabber, very lame and we both know, I will never date someone who looked or dressed like that...)

He is actually the only 'man' I have seen till date - absolutely no apologies for calling all the men in my life unmanly. My only grouse when I saw him was - Why don't they make such men in my backyard? Why dear god, why?

why still sit at the table?

when
black heart
blue wind
yellow water
bustling dust
red muck
a bird struck
tar rolled over humans
melting smelly flesh
questions answered
thirst quenched

NOW GET OFF THE TABLE!

et al.

People do not die of broken hearts any more - what a shame.

Conflict

The author of this blog is most upset with herself, for feeling the feelings that she doesn't feel she should feel.

The author of this blog is also feeling very fortunate (as usual) for been given the opportunity to read everything that precipitates positive and irreversible change in her thought process.

A new lesson to be followed : "I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it's safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of adversaries ..."

- Kira Argunova