Beautiful people : My Daddy Strongest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=8F0DkM76iq0&feature=related

We all have loved the advert. There was something more to it - something that every child has for her/ his father, for example - my dad and I smile infectiously. We look-up to our dad/ daddy/ baba/appa/ papa/ poppsy very subconsciously. Today I talk about him, the cool Mr. Bennett, in the background, who gets very little space in the fore front because he's ensuring a smooth running backstage.

Last night I made dad cancel his weekend work trip to meet a very pushy boy from 'boy watching'. I liked the boy (for a change). Dad heard me out with patience, looked at the guy's credentials and flatly refused. I, being as bull headed as my dad, insisted that he met the man in question and then make his judgment. Things did not go as planned and the boy in question decided that I was 'too much for his family and him to handle'. The whole dynamics of financial disparity and conservatism got to our throats.

So it was time to tell dad that the meeting would never happen. I expected him to be furious, irate at my hasty and over confidant decision. He quietly rescheduled his trip and left the house. Returned twenty minutes later with my favorite breakfast and a movie. We sat and all he asked was, "Tell me, what went wrong?" I did, for whole two hours. He did not flinch, did not take his calls - just sat and heard me out. Then he spoke, patting my hand. 

"I can not possibly tell you what happens to a man when, he knows he's borne a daughter. More so difficult when the man is me and the daughter, you. When he sees his daughter grow with a mind of her own, with mood swings, with boys as friends, with activism that will make him the answering machine to all the relatives and a shield for his daughter. For a father, his daughter is everything that he strives for. With a son, maybe I would have been more relaxed. However, the love of a daughter is unmatched. Every father struggles through it all to make it to the top, only because he wants to give his children a better life.

With us; you were different, even as a toddler. You once got nine puppies and hid them under the bed from your mom. Silly girl, did not realize that they would not possibly stay there. When we questioned you, you said, " they did not have a house, we have a big one, so I got them here." You also brought random people home for lunches, fought for what you thought was correct - even at the age of 11; when you threw the duster back at your class teacher and we were called to school. You were a little angry idiot who understood that people could have two nationalities and there were people living between borders with no nationalities. You did not know the terms  - 'migrants, no mans land, dual citizenship'. Your fool of a teacher hit you for her incompetence and your arrogance. I knew your school was killing your IQ, so I got you books. You devoured them.

You were going to be my 'teen' nightmare. I knew that the boys would hound you, so I had my defenses ready. But you turned out to be a very responsible - and a very aggressive one. Your college activities, Poetry awards, morchas, NGO's, the Eunuchs, and other-kind of friends worried me sick. I knew you were right, but such proud exhibition of individualistic thoughts was going to get eyebrows raised. I've blamed myself for getting you into the habit of reading and latter, writing. I did not expect you to read all the books I got you, and did not expect you to continue from the 'travelogue' writing days. Your mother often complains that my encouragement of your education has led you to become a free spirit that no one can marry. What she does not realize, is that it my proud moment. It is what every father wants, that their kids become more than an extension of their personality.

I am not afraid for your future, not even that you will choose a wrong man. I won't let you. You have held every pious aspect of this family, you are an annapurna in your mother's shadow, you have raised your niece, and seen more struggle than any 28-year-old I know. You have risen, time and again, with lesser flaws and a stronger will. As a father, I have done my best to get you everything your finger pointed to. I may have been indulgent, but it is because I never wanted you to grow up with a lack of anything. You were not much of a materialistic child, I remember gifting you your first Rushdie and you said you'd treasure it for your child. You were 19 then. That was a time when your sister was buying a new outfit everyday, your cousins were comparing bags. You were happy with Midnights Children.

I never forgot you were a girl, and that you'd catch up with them. You have your share of gold, diamonds, shoes, bags and clothes. However, you are more than them, and that is what I am thankful to god for. You my princess, are not cut out to be an ordinary wife, a nagging mother and an old woman haggling over grocery prices. I see you writing, lecturing and being more inspiring than your younger counterparts. I want a partner who would, like me, know your value and give all it takes to keep you happy. I will keep refusing, till I find that man for you. It is my duty as a father.

I want a better man for you, a man who'd be just as proud to be a part of your life, as I am. I refuse to share your love with someone less worthy."

Ornate Love

Love is always adorned, complicated and ostentatious. It can not be otherwise.

And it is wonderful when people are in love. it is often the only time when they are most accepting, generous, forgiving, brave and utterly selfless. Mind you, it lasts briefly, but it shows us what we are capable of.

Oyster Seeker, I shall be punctual.

Love: a concoction of passion and pity

{an odd feeling rises in her when he messages. there is something between them, like bitter gourd soaked in honey. The hitch is, only in it's purest form can the gourd be relished. Ergo, she tortured him, with her brunt brass eyes, then her impudent passion, then the lack of it and then with her frozen soul. he had been full of love, love that would make butterflies feel safer, she was an echo less abyss.}

~ she does not want to hold him,
^ he does not want to be held.

^ he had called her a home-breaker, a mistress, a raw green chilly.
~ she had asked him to bugger off and go lick some sugar coated frostie.

~ she had missed his verse,
^ he had missed her, in every act.

^ he had called,
~ she had thwarted.

^ still love you, in spite of you
~ still do too, in my own way

^ maybe we shall cross our paths sometimes. I will see you then.
~ See you when our paths he cross. Not before, not after.

^ Guess somethings will never change. I do not miss you.
~ I know.

^ I know.


{he returned, repeatedly, sans ego. his liquid love could never fill her mind. her body was a thousand pores, every drop of love would be absorbed and then drained away. he had a lot of love to give, and he had wasted it all on her. his passion for her made him dark droll man, and she wasn't an inch wiser.}

- - the conversation was left there - well rounded. they thought of the past, the cursed present, and an hopeful future.

the maybes' in our life can hold us ransom, either by our throats or by a fragile sun beam.

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...

Yes, Yes; Love To You Too!

This post may sound like a paradox. Though, I am a romantic beyond repair, Mills and Boon is not my idea of romance, so is Valentine's day or the epic play Romeo and Juliet for that matter. Guess what did i do on the V-day? Absolutely nothing! I ducked Drama King's invitation for the fear of being compelled to meet and wallow in the deluge of love songs. I ignored Beach Boy's calls, for I could not cough up a good excuse to avoid meeting him.

In the afternoon, Demeter and I got talking about love and sex in B'bay. {The city is divided into the colorful evil and the colorless evil - B'bay and M'bai respectively. It remains evil though and I love this devil of a reclaimed land!) The B'bay part loves to party, make love, romance, fart with art, cry in the opera, eat smelly cheese, work as if they would get fired, and live like today was their last day on the planet. Though most of us shuttle between the two worlds, I largely grew up in the 'duh and dude land', so my sense of morality is convenient, confused and chaotic - almost like the usage of the word 'fuck' or 'whatever'.} 


Demeter on the other hand has her world divided into 'I believe and I can't fathom'. Love for her should be penguin-like, so Byron's loves are not love at all. Chilmom was raised on the diet of 'one man, many wolves', so for her, 'her man' is the only man she'd every give any thought to. For Childmom, love is duty, a moral responsibility.

Demeter and I got on into a heated- 'love is not this - not this either' discussion and concluded that love has many faces. Each face is as true and honest as the other one.

I can't really define love anymore. For Demeter it is her unconditional trust in the penguin. She was lucky to find her soul mate at an early but I am unsure if I will settle for that 'soul mate' thing. (Though I definitely believe in it and desire one too.) I am wary of the magnitude of compromises that one has to make to sustain all this. She gave up her study scholarship to be with him.

The G-girl gave up her 'full bright' South Hampton scholarship for the donkey she is now married to. Does love demand all this? Is it worth it, in the end? G-girl was my biggest disappointment - I openly jilted her, when she broke the news. I only remember her sad helpless face, pleading me to 'understand'. I wish I had drowned her then. And later when I received her wedding invitation, I wished I had done it instantly. Surrender was her definition of love, she had risked it all, for a disheveled man she wanted to wake up with for the next 50 years of her sordid life.

Control is love for V, he believes that love is malleable and the person in love like a swaying blade of grass - Control the wind and the grass will bring you all the fragrance you seek. That is V's definition!  

Adventure for Style Icon is what love is meant to be - he enjoys that edge, the tight rope, the second guessing, the mind game, the 'daily crises management' situation. 'Now, that's love' is how he often puts it -

 For the Wise capitalist it is barter, equalization. Love is something that completes you, you must seek and be with a man that fills in all your blanks and vice-verse.

For Black Pearl it is madness - a violent madness that surpasses every emotion.

For Mushy it is solitude, he'd often say, ' You know you are in love when you share your silences in perfect nudity of emotion.' I have come to understand that, the skin and the barbs do not differ for most devotees of this form of love.

The Drama King's love is an acetic mix of horror and plight - he is a freak magnet to begin with and that defines his love. All his women are a little off the hook - be it the bald artist who is making an ice boat and will sail in it in the Arabian sea, or the cold, crazy Cat-woman or the pimple infested health expert, or the twangy ' i think i love you - but hang on, maybe i don't' woman (I can go on ...).

I can't point out a singular common aspect amongst their loves or lovers. They all are so different, so unique and its still 100% love.

Torch and I had our ways of loving and getting over. It doesn't take much for love to happen or fizzle; and it doesn't mean that the way we felt about 'the' person before that sublime moment was not genuine. The Metrosexual concurs with us. We three are as authentic as any human can be, just that we stop feeling the 'feeling' when we cross a certain threshold. We are yet to figure out why?! Our excuses often are ' I'm a whore, I'm a bitch, I'm a man' - respectively.  

The V-day was a disaster for Torch, she was packing when I called to inquire if she needed some chores to be done. On her cuss word marathon, she was audibly upset and desiring to put up a garage sale - of the men who thought they loved her. "I can sell each one of them, and what is worse, they want to be sold by me! Almost begging. I hate this day, I feel I am so unfair, a heartless whore. I'm so F-ing harassed by this love business!”

In sync, we wanted to burst the heart-shaped balloons, feed fancy cakes to street urchins, rob every ones dinner and wine money, and save them the heart burn of  'fuck me - fuck you' aftermath that would follow months later. Love for Torch is in freedom, in the wind in her hair and no backpack on her back.

For me, as I am yet to figure - I often feel love is slipping under someones skin, more comfortable than yours and leaving a little of you that can never be claimed, rejected or pulled out. Like diving in a rising wave, at that 3-second magical moment, much before it caresses the shore and sucks itself back in, to dissovle into the sea.

This Bullshit Called Love

While chatting to Wasabi today, I felt a need to defend my belief in love. And for the weirdest reason I did. Later in the day, I spoke to Torch and she went on a trip telling me about the 'reality behind looovvve'. I am a pragmatic but suddenly the disbelief made me want to reiterate - and as I did, she shot back vehemently, " Love talk coming from someone who hasn't fallen seriously in love or found true love?! K you are such a sham! Why don't you fill those feather shoes you advocate so much?"

We were short of laughing at my predicament and before pinning the final bubble on the bubble wrap of my love life, she claimed - "What is this bullshit called love anyway? Get into a bed darling, its about time you did - that's where all the love is!" Apart from her 'successful one-night-stand' jokes; Torch follows super mart love, that comes with a 'definite expiry date'. "Who has the time? And I get all the action I need". She bought Pepper to dissolve her need for a companion - "Just two women. We are so in harmony, we even bleed on the same date!" I like to see the way this girl and her bitch bond - almost like soul mates. But in the colored corner of my mind; I want her to be with someone.

How can one disillusion a disillusioned lover? Why when a spell broken can not be worked back? Here's to Wasabi and Torch:

Love what do I do with you?
Sometimes you are just a leftover morsel from the alphabet.
Sometimes you are more intense than the word eternity.
Sometimes a synonym to hate.
Sometimes the drabness of an overused wash cloth.
Sometimes you are the space that fills I and You
and at times you become a distance between Us and Them.

Your multiple forms confuse me -
the wild wind,
the cruel mirage
the glass mannequin
Cold droplets of rain
the black speck in a brown eye
the caramel on a stale pie

My dear how can i tell the world
that you are the hope of a blind eye
the warmth in a comforting curve
the strength in a finger
the passion of a hungry claw
the silence in surrender
the dust on a forgotten Urn

How my friend can I contradict
that you are the knock on a deaf man's door
that you are the power trapped in a diamond
that you are the blood spilled in a miscarriage
that you are the cyst in a cheated woman's eye
that you are a tourist walking dreamily in the

abandoned lanes of human habitat
that loftiness in poesy is courtesy you.

How do I glean these leftover paradoxes to make a collage?

How can I make people fall in love with you, love?

- Child mom said something very sweet :) (a bear hug is on your way), after my blabber on losing hope in love - "Love my darling is quietly placing a comforter over the sleeping shadow. And K, chill, you have brought a million comforters for us - he will take care of yours!"

Inshallah!

love becometh

For my upset, child-like Monarch,

--

brown fell the rain,
into the manholes and the pipes,
it drowned fears and desires
it made muck all around.
it aroused the pleasantries and concerns, it jammed the wireless networks

bodies was soaked and souls drenched, the feet were cold and wrinkled.
the rain flood the streets, the vendors flew.
the rain aroused a hundred emotions when,

it fell on the head, arms and shoulders.
we dripped from our eyes, cried for the water around

--- so much water but our throats sore from crying n shouting,
the water was turning from brown to black
oil, dust dead rats floating.
we walk amongst it-

the force within to cross over, compels our feet to tear away,

to evade the dead, to cease our tears,
our bodies are tired and weak.
tongues dry, stomach churns with hunger sounds
we halt- we give up

and just then
the rain stops.
the water thaws for the land to surface
we halt in peace
we thank the soil.
we sleep a peaceful night

the dawn brings a day of introspection-
the capital clean streets are washed dirty
the muck, filth, the oil,the dead,

decorate the streets that look alien.
they don't really belong to us, do they?
we start to criticize, start to curse
who? why? from where? how?
fingers point, hands fly in fury.
we know that a part of us was pushed beneath the carpet,

into the waters, the gutters--
that filth of mind, motive and soul,
that ingenuity of anger and lust, exploitation and growth
now lays bare- before our naked vision-

torturing us, questing us, demeaning us
Is this what I bred?
is this a part of me-
the child within is upset-
the prize is a fake.
the questions real
the answers unbearable.
our love, aims, beliefs, dreams - conditional
our flaws are washed into bright day light
the sun is shining --

it did rise, didn't halt
it rose for us today.

didn't fear the water, the lightning, the dirt
the sun, asking to see - unmasking us in our streets...
the sun- the unconditional ball of fire

-- that boils but doesn't burn
that spreads light so far that shadows expire
the sun- that sun -- that is what i want.
the cursed mid-day hot balloon that drowns me in sweat
that blinds me if i meet his eye
that wild lover who doesn't favor me- who shines on all
that bulk, who comes for me every single day
and brings me a morning to smile,

to forget that at night it poured and cried --
it dries the hate, the lust, the fears
it leads it to into beauty that will awaken in a smile.
in giving --- and rejecting what is not duly mine.
it gives me light to distinguish and forgive
to love and believe
he is the silent wand of magic
my moron called morning!
love becometh you! And so my lover, it becometh me too.

Hazy Sunday

Talk-a- thon and I had the most fantastic weekend ever in years. And what we did, absolutely nothing ‘fun’ but it was special! She came in early morning from work, we chatted till dawn and then slept- cuddling each other like we used to in college.

Only this time it was little worrying coz my folks were around and I didn’t know how they would react. None the less, we slept that way and I woke up early. Waited for her to do so, strolled around the courtyard, had lunch, watched a movie and then chatted some more.

She just melted with my family like butter in Au-gratin. It was fun and as we said our good byes we hugged and kissed and pledged to meet soon. I was recollecting the day’s events, when she smsed ‘I love u’ and my grin turned to a wide smile. I replied and thanked god for blessing me with loving friends!

Hans Neleman-

I am in love, it was love at 1st sight. I looked at his work and i went weak in my knees. I flopped in my chair when i read his book Night Chicas and couldn't move. I was enthralled, i touched the curves of his images as I touch a Ferregamo shoe- the divinity I feel is impossible to describe. I wanted to kiss him squarely on his mouth when I met him in Mumbai. he was a mirror image of everything that reflected in his work: passions and feelings - feelings that were frozen, very mercilessly, almost sadistically.

Demeter thinks otherwise, she frowns at his work, unable to connect with the crudeness his lens captures. But sitting on the adjoining sofa, i was dying to hold him, his English was incomprehensible and his 'i am new yorker' made him look like an arrogant prick- although a good, kind hearted one. He put up with the minimals that were offered to him here by the certain group he had km for. My brave self felt bound by the presence of too many people in the same room to do anything that would make me smack my head in future.

Hans is a piece, he has the vision and the mood to capture an emotion that lies beyond the obvious smile or frown. And most importantly he understands and respects art. Art that is so fluid and blurred and Art that is metamorphosing into forms unfamiliar and traversing beyond the boundaries defining us as humans. Be it going back to roots or being trapped in professions, the finery in his shooting an anorexic model with a watch and shooting an anorexic prostitute with a raccoon - zillion worlds apart, is identically passionate and almost sexually satisfying!

The latest 'In progress' book is smooch worthy, it may raise eyebrows but it's pure power. The power we have to deconstruct and reconstruct the way we believe we should be! Have a look on his website.

http://www.neleman.com/

BODY TRANSFORMED
Neleman’s “Body Transformed” explores how body modification, for spiritual, ritual, tribal, or sexual reasons, reflects a myriad of cultural influences, all of which are united by a deeply embedded passion to overcome the human body’s natural limitations and to worship the metamorphosed being. This book documents the growing cult of “transforming” through extreme modifications including scarring, burning, implanting, cutting and amputating. Body Transformed has a classic uncompromising photographic direction with an inspiring sculptural angle, a serene approach to a dark subject matter.
Here are radical subjects who are testing the limits of body aesthetics
through extreme modifications. Driven by complex objectives such as visual ornamentation, improvement of sexual perception and sometimes an exhibitionistic desire to control pain, they worship the metamorphosed being.

‘Body Transformed” challenges our moral boundaries, to ultimately come to a better understanding of this new self.

Gestern, heute, morgan... want more.

Solitaires, peanut butter with honey sandwiches, forgetful amounts of money, comfortable strappy sandals, pani-puri at parle market, shopping at Hill Road, driving in mumbai at night, films at Y.B, trekking in Himalaya, stargazing, no potholes, no 'i want to fuck you' signs in the woman's first class compartment, dawn, dawn at Babulnath, CC's digressing lectures on Elizabeth, free-tight- loving hugs, good strong coffee, friends at the univ, vada paao at Ruparel, katta at Ruparel- University campus in the rain, milind soman running at six around Shivaji Park, morchas to mantralaya, Theobroma's brownie, slimmer thighs- flat tummy, better eyesight, more time, wild desires, more books, more love, Arey's Lassi, Jaffer bhai's biryani, praying at mount Mary, fights with Pj, holding mom, worli seaface, sundance's au gratin, ciggi and soup in the rain, lunch with sis at Tosa, carrying Siya, Pigeons at the Jain temple, soft toys... more, wisdom... a lot more, more smiles, even though my jaw hurts, art musings gallery, cruise ride into the bay, old times at Prithvi- , rupali, reading Cavafy/ Eliot (burnt Norton, waste land) on town hall steps, paao bhaji anywhere, aimless walks around Ballard estate, local trains, Shoba's classes in the canteen, Black BMW, my mini-pink shorts, comforter, midnight snack at Hilton, Darjeeling roads, mount Abu, mute silences at BPT gardens, wine(millions of bottles), Vino with Drama King, listening to Shashi talk on literary history, NCPA sunken gardens and Monaco biscuits, family gatherings, street theatre, love poetry, quiet walks with Vish, plush personified, inane conversations, philosophy with papa and soul sister, improved gait, humour, uncontrollable laugh-a thons while sipping coffee with Sunshine and jaw breaker, everything and more. Yesterday, Today, Everyday...