ghost

I saw you last evening. In someone else’s eyes. The slight tilt of your head, while staring at me as the seconds passed. I had learnt to hold that stare without squirming in my skin. Instinctively, I held his stare till I realized it wasn’t you. The chin was all wrong as was his mouth. In a familiar airport, over the brim of my ice float, I watched you disintegrate into someone else. For once, I didn’t wish for it to be you. Then, I wouldn’t have savoured the sweet sensation of a frozen moment from a life lived long ago. Our magic, will remain ours till eternity, precisely because it can never be recreated in some other place or with someone else. No one else can ever love me the way you did. The way we completed each other’s thoughts and our passion that overwhelmed every common sense, it was never meant to last. That electric moment, reminded me of how you opened the joi de vivre that's now all mine to savour through life.

 

Toska

Another airport, another city, another country. Same old feeling. Restlessness and wistfulness mixed with a longing with nothing to long for. It feels strange yet calming. She gets lost once again in the human cacophony and the mundane soundtrack of other people's lives. 

obscured by the clouds

She watches the ocean in silence. It always invokes a sense of longing in her. If only she knew what for. It’s a familiar restlessness that rises in her chest and falls with the rhythmic beating of her heart. It’s not painful, but she winces a little inside with the tide of emotions surging and abating with precision. If only she could deduct the reason for it, she would wrap this up neatly within a moment’s notice. Was it the call of a faraway land. Was it the willingness to seek anonymity in an unknown crowd. Was it the emptiness of unaccustomed feelings. Was it the inevitable numbness that follows a short lived excitement.

 

saucerful of secrets

She has never been afraid to love. The exhilarating dizziness of giving herself completely to that one feeling.  She doesn’t do anything in half measures. The complete submission to that quivering happiness and the unknown trepidation that is at once bitter and sweet. It had been love that had finally set her free. Free of all the fears that were holding her back. It was love that like the delicate kite string, let her soar, yet held her gently to her reality. In it she found her freedom, as the spaces within her soul stirred a familiar music, the rhythms rising and falling with the swaying heart.  

fistful of stars

She poised briefly, to reflect on the year that is almost over. Then she realized there was nothing truly to reflect on. Truth is, that the year was over and another one was waiting to break dawn. It doesn’t surprise her that there is nothing to wish for anymore. She has everything that she will ever need. The familiar joys, the little heartbreaks, the momentary flush of happiness – she can hold them all in her soft palms and cherish the known sensations. No she doesn’t have anything at all to wish for. She has never been greedy and has always accepted life’s gifts with humility and hope. Most importantly, she knows she has herself and that is something she will never ever lose again.

passing ships

They meet for the first time during a business visit. He is curious but reserved. She is intrigued but detached. Through the day they share polite banalities of their work life.

 

At the end of the long day; 

Interesting dude: Thank you for taking care of everything and sorry for all the trouble (smiles broadly, shaking her hand)
Clever dudess: (smiles) My pleasure really! I am used to chaperoning. (failed attempt at humour)
Interesting dude: (still holding her hand, still staring)
Clever dudess: (wonders why she had to make an ass of herself!) 

And the moment passes. Chances of meeting again, zero.

conquering the last frontier

The trouble of staying independent is that you have to constantly over come your fears one way or another. Be it the bank account reconciliation, understanding an investment portfolio or getting new tyres for your car. Now the real trouble begins when you are independent and lazy. I have been postponing the replacement of my car tyres for the last couple of months. Everything time something or the other came up and I figured those were more important. So then, on the first morning after my return from a fabulous holiday in Singapore, I am greeted with a flat tyre of the front left wheel. Apparently it had sprung a leak earlier and while I was happily carousing in Singapore, it puffed out its last breath of air. Tubeless tyres and our roads are not a happy marriage I suppose.

So after cursing myself, I sheepishly ask dad for his car keys since there was no time to haul the dead tyre to the repair shop and anyhow the repair man doesn’t start his day that early in the morning. On my way back from work, I decide to visit the nearest tyre shop and find out about replacement options. My car was custom fitted with Michelin XM1+ tyres which at that time seemed like a very good idea. The car dealer convinced me about its superlative qualities and I buckled in for the trade up. To be honest, it wasn’t a bad investment at all. It saw me through the tumultuous years of breaking relationships, moving home, invading sadness, changing jobs and the innumerable doctor’s visits for the family. It has kept all my secrets and never let me down. Never a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere. No engine trouble, ever. Other than a few rough scratches and small dents, it still purrs as quietly as it did the day I got it home. Not that I have taken good care of it. Over the years I have forgotten to get service done on many occasions. Postponing at times, out of the dread of inconvenience of having to pencil in one more thing in my chaotic life. But it has got me through most of my life’s troubles.

So here I was, a bit daunted at the sight of the service station. The men, both the mechanics and the owners of other cars getting serviced, give me a dismissive look and ignore me completely. I finally work up the courage to speak and say that I am here to buy new tyres for my car. They point to a spot surreptitiously  behind the station to a flight of stairs that leads to their office. I manage to climb up the dark staircase and enter a dimly lit room stacked to the ceiling with tyres and filled with the smell of new rubber. On one corner there is a table with a laptop and no one seemed to be around. I kept standing ready to run at the first sign of trouble. My CSI-fed mind working overtime!

Finally a short puny man appears from nowhere. He doesn't smile and just stares and I tell him that I am looking to buy new tyres for my car. He asks about the size and I am stumped. I do not have the answer. However, I tell him the make and model and told him to suggest options. Here is where it gets interesting. He rattles off the details and prices and looks at me with a disrespectful grin. What he did not know is that I have done my research on the internet. Apparently, people are buying car tyres online! My father would be mortified. But here I was negotiating hard with him on the price, once I had agreed to an option. This surprises the man. He gets defensive and started saying why the price that he is quoting is more than the ones being offered online. So I tell him that is it fine I will buy them online – I am in no hurry and I turn to walk away. He calls me back and offers a price that I wasn’t expecting. So round one to me. We fix up a time for fitting the tyres and I leave. Of course, this doesn’t impress my dad who is convinced that for the discounted price he will give me used tyres. But then, we will just have to see about that.

addicted

I have pursued pleasure and I have pursued pain. At times I couldn’t tell one from the other. Now, after so many years they seem like signposts that define my life to me. They have left me hurt, broken and strong. Have made me older, wiser and saner. Given me dreams, dare and scars. So will I pursue them again? Hell, yes. Only this time maybe one more than the other.

No, I don't think so...

The most bothersome part of a hospital stay is the complete shedding of identity that begins the moment you register. You become a serial number on a file and your entire existence there revolves around your ailment and the treatment there of. Here, you are your illness!

Determined to remove the very last vestige of your dignity, they make you change into those awkward and unbecoming gowns that no one ever thought of adding a bit of cheer to. The dullness of it all is sure to kill you before the illness does.

 

Then of course, the practised politeness of the surgeon and his team. Just get the job done well boys and girls, don’t bother with all the niceties. To add to the misery, you discover that the anesthesiologist is a rather handsome man who insists on smiling charmingly as you lay there butt naked with your senses leaving you in a hurry.

 

Knowingly, he asks, how are you feeling. I have been better Doc, I try to croak through the fogginess. But why bother asking me, if you are going to crank up the IV before I can even shoot a suitable riposte? The truth is - I feel terrible, lying here at my most vulnerable, with tubes poking my arms and chest and whirring machines all around. Yes, I am a bit scared and more ashamed-to-be-scared. And I am embarassed. Since you have seen more of me than any man, lately. I hope never to meet you again Doc. After this indecency, I cannot imagine us sharing a drink to cheer good health. So yes, as I lay here as Exhibit A, please, just do your job and I pray you do it well.

So as Dr.PlayGirl (or maybe the serum makes him look that way!) keeps asking me to relax, I wonder why could we not have met under more pleasant circumstances. Now, I cannot imagine flirting with a man who has seen my innards, literally. Sigh!

perhaps

Another birthday approaching, bro. And we continue to live in our existential void where one day folds into another without even a whimper. Our life seems to have fallen in this regulated rhythm of a life support machine. While it supports life, there is not much living in there. We will again go through tomorrow like we have since you left. Ma’s silent wet eyes, fresh garland on your photo frame and Baba desperately trying to hang on to any conversation that doesn’t mention you. Sometime, I want to shake them up and get them to shriek how much they miss you. Maybe, that will ease my guilt somewhat. Maybe, it will also ease the strain of nonchalance. Perhaps then, I will be able to hold them again and tell them that everything will be ok, eventually.

not now

You say the guy you once knew may not exist anymore. The slightly sentimental, never-settle-for-less-than-perfect, sometime-self-flagellant-and-sometime-bratty, brilliantly-witty, scared-of-creepycrawlies-braveheart has changed? What has life done to you my friend? What has life done to us....

Thanks Melody

Yeah, we are at yet another new year. I have been trying to recapture the highlights of last year only to realize the year passed by in such a dizzy speed that there isn’t really time to isolate the highlights.

This year begins with a lot of hope. Unlike many others in the past. And I already see glimpses of it in life’s trivia. Like last evening, out of a whim and in complete aberration to my nature, I requested the RJ for a song while driving back home. Lousy drivers, loud honking and mad traffic do incite unnatural behaviour. Or so I told myself. One would least expect such a request to be played since the cynic in me knows that the radio stations and their RJs pamper only regular listeners who pour out a lot of mush on them. But lo behold. The radio starts grooving my song. And then as the song ends, the RJ mentions my name over the airwaves. There goes my quarter-of-a-second fame. Grin. So one of the resolutions for this year is not to snigger at folks who bare their personal lives over the radio. Like the lovelorn Romeo who begs the RJ to convince his Juliet to forgive him. Like the husband who wants the DJ to play his wife’s favourite song because it is her birthday. You are saying, aww so sweet. But I have always wondered dude, if it is your wife’s birthday, do I need to know? But in the day and age of Facebook and Twitter we are all wannabe rockstars trying to claim our fame by living as public a life as possible.

The couple of other things in my list for the year :

1. Laugh more
2. Read even more
3. Save for a rainy day
4. Stick to the gym schedule
5. Improve my impaired motoring skills

Not an impressive list but this will do for me for now. So Cheers. Here's to another year of living and loving.

come as you are...

Nothing like a large dollop of Nirvana on the way to work. Despite the gloom-doom lyrics, it never fails to make me feel alive. It must be because it reminds me of you. The gigantic boom box that occupied a large part of your room and from which emanated the most distorted cries of obscure rock legends. According to Ma these were screamathons. According to us this was elixir after being raised with genteel, soul stirring, peace loving music of our parents. Therefore, these angst soaked mayhem appealed at a very different level. I remember how we would shut ourselves in your room and listen to our gods and escape to a world of our own. Ma was certain we would impair our hearing sense before we finished college. We both finished college, however, with our hearing intact. She still doesn’t know about the weed we smoked in abandon, inside. On hind sight, those pots of weed kept us so thin and on the go, that it makes me wistfully look at my college pair of jeans and wonder how ever did I get into them! Mind numbing or not, one could not ignore the sheer forceful energy of the music. It is this energy that is infectious and makes you want to scream along and yes, live. Well, Kurt Cobain is no more and neither are you. But the music lives on as does the memories.

midnight moonlight

There is a certain pleasure in waking up in the middle of night to discover everything bathed in silvery moonlight. Then to watch the moon float across my window to hide behind a sinister grey cloud. I keep the curtains open at night, to be able to fall asleep while watching the night colours play across the wide expanse of the heaven. It is my communion with the world outside of me. I have always hated closed spaces and restrictive geography. Apartment living allows for little space but the thing I love the most is the big window that lets me star gaze lying on my bed. It reminds me of our summer nights when we slept on the terrace of our grandfather’s house. The feeling is the same now, but minus the mosquitoes!

may it rain...

Today I wished for the rain from a few mornings ago. The sky had been a canopy of grey stretching endlessly and the rain fell in a soft spray, settling on my lashes, in tiny glistening beads. On his head, the infinitesimal dewy drops shimmered like liquid crystal. We had both turned up our faces and closed our eyes to feel the soft caress of the wet wind. Then we smiled. At each other. Secured in the knowledge that this moment was ours alone. The unusual morning rain prompted the others to scamper for the forgotten umbrella and pull their jackets a little tighter for warmth. The two of us, only had each other. He squeezed his hand in mine and we stood smiling till his bus arrived. When he left, I realized I was still smiling.

Paint the next phase of your life with the colours of your mind - says the prediction for the day. First, I am not a 'predictions' person. And I am hardly predictable considering my mood swings. However, this caught my attention. Yes, I would like to paint my life. A vivid shade of blue if possible please. But how the hell do I go about it? Buy paint as a friend would advise. But something tells me it isn't that simple. Right?

Two things struck me yesterday. First, was a call from a girl who I knew was getting married last evening. The circumstances have panned out such that, bound by protocol, she was unable to invite me for her wedding. Over the last few years, despite her family’s disapproval, she has stood by my side. I completely understand her predicament and had earlier assured her to not get worked up over such trivialities and concentrate on her upcoming wedding. What I had not expected was for her to call me, just before she was to enter the ‘mandap’, to apologise for not being able to invite me and to take my blessings before the auspicious occasion. What is more, she made her groom, to say hello and invited me to their home in Hyderabad where they will be moving soon. From where I stand, she doesn’t have anything to gain by persistently maintaining cordiality with me. A few years back, when the certain family was talking ill about me and making me sound like the lowest scum of the earth, she had on her own, called me to say that she doesn’t believe a thing the others were saying and that I had taken the right decision to walk away. After last evening’s call was done, I was thinking, she must have liked something in me for her to consider me this important because I cannot remember doing anything significant for her ever. I wouldn’t have held it against her ever, if she had not called. Infact, it never even crossed my mind. It affirms my belief that I would rather live with a handful of people who have faith in me, than to live by trying to appease the whole wide world.

The second instance was while watching a movie last night. Michael Douglas tells a young Mathew McConaughey - the power in a relationship lies with the one who cares less. I have been thinking on this ever since and my entire cleverly constructed stance on relationships cracked through the middle. I do believe that the power of a relationship is love. A love that is deep, intense and unselfish. A love that is tempered with understanding, respect and faith in the other person. I believe I am not built for moderation where love is concerned. So this caring more or less doesn’t make sense to me. But it would be untrue to say I have never wondered at times of heartbreak, whether if I could have cared less, I would feel less pain and whether then I could have moved on with more ease. Then again, I would rather love once. And with everything I have. Sigh!

flashback alert!

It's been raining since last night in Bangalore. I woke up with a haze outside my window, only to realize that a sheet of rain has wrapped the city stretching till the far horizon. I smiled and snuggled deeper into the comforter. In my mind I was back to early 80s Kolkata. One year, my school had shut down for a good whole week cause of floods. We were allowed in, only after the entire building had been disinfected and all the rooms had a fresh coat of paint. We spent the entire week at home, making paper boats and floating them on the muddy stream that used to be our street. It didn't bother us one bit that if the water didn't receed soon, we may have nothing to eat at home since the shops were flooded and provisions were running low despite my mother's obsessive hoaring tendency. We were excited seeing the swollen leeches that stuck to Romeshkaka's feet who was our manfriday and who had ventured out, wading through waist-deep water to search for provisions. We raced eachother to fetch the salt which when sprinkled on the leeches left them wriggling on the floor.

Earlier that year, I had pestered Ma to buy me a red raincoat. Yes, red. Like Red Riding Hood. I used to have a red woollen coat with a cape back when we lived abroad but my mother gave that away when we moved back, knowing I would never need that in Kolkata. So I pouted endlessly to get a raincoat of the same colour. My brother had one with a weird green pattern. We used to wear our raincoat like a cape and prance around in our open terrace pretending to be superhuman. Till the raincoats tore during one of our most daring adventures. Ma was furious ofcourse and we didn't speak of another raincoat again and made do with my grandfather's black umbrella that looked like a sulking wet vulture.

Still fuzzy from the reminiscence, I was woken up rudely by Ma's voice. It is a Tuesday morning and life as we know, has to be orderly and organized. Sigh!

blackhole sun....

I am dying. I am closer to the end with every passing day. A million cells die inside me everyday and fewer and fewer regenerate everytime. But that doesnt worry me much. I have seen death from close quarters. Old people and young. People I thought I couldn't live without. People I hardly knew. People who mattered and people who didn't. In many ways I have seen it all.

But what I fear is that something in me has died already. My ability to feel happiness. My ability to be content with myself. My ability to find that inner peace that has been my guiding force all my life through personal hell at various crossroads of life. Through displaced childhood, fractured youth, misunderstood desires, serial dissappointments and unfullfilled expectations. All I have had is myself to hold on to. That calmness inside, I believed nothing could touch or destroy. But suddenly, after all this time, there is a void. A vast emptiness that is all new and radically unpleasant. A cessation of feelings. An emotional blackhole. It is sucking away the vestiges of my innards. Every emotion I have known seems to be collapsing inwards into this terrible endless recess. Is this therefore the end of me?

random images...

The full moon morning captured from my window @ 6.10AM on 4th Nov 09 A malaylam film shoot in progress captured from my office @11AM on 29th Oct 09