radio ga ga

I am a self-confessed radio junkie. Between full-time work and a boisterous eight-year old, my music listening happens while driving to and from work and often during late nights on weekends. I guess I have to thank the Galvin brothers for that. I am lazy enough not to organize my CDs and MP3s to make the songs easily accessible and I like to be surprised, so radio works for me. I am a sucker for the retro shows. Mostly because I don’t have to wonder about the words! Ok, now about the two songs this morning…

Black Velvet by Alannah Myles. This has been an old favourite (1989 is positively retro). There is something about her raspy voice that oozes languid insolence. It is so refreshing to hear the opening score of the song. I had spent hours imagining myself in those leather boots and felt hat singing and strumming in front of Elvis-crazed fans. Sigh. That was the only time I wanted crinkly hair.

You Found Me by The Fray. Débuting last November, this one is comparatively super-fresh modern. This song has all the Nirvanasque angst and melancholy minus the guitar riffs. Despite the depressive lyrics that talk about the hopelessness and disappointment that life offers, it is a strangely uplifitng song.

Listen in…

coming back to life..

They played 'our' song today on the radio. It took me by surprise. They never play anything like that so early in the day. The RJ said, 'Roll up your windows and let the music fill your car..' Good for him. What does he know. Silly, really. To be holding on to a song when you have to let go of the person. Then maybe that's how it is meant to be. That is why the song a classic.

wake me up inside...

For the last few weeks the highpoint has been the radio show on Thursday afternoon called ThinkTank where the callers quiz the RJ on music trivia to win sponsored goodies. Usually some rare trivia gets shared which makes the show interesting. Regularly, I leave office at 6 just to be able to tune in while driving back. Speaks a lot about my life doesn’t it.

Anyway, the recent psychometric test found my score to be highest on spatial-visual intelligence followed by musical, intrapersonal and linguistic. I scored lowest on logical-mathematical which comes as no surprise. I remember only two telephone numbers and both of them I have had for the last several years. Once, in school, I had drawn bicycle wheels on the entire math notebook to find out the number of revolutions required to cover an asked distance. Precisely then, I guess, my parents gave up their dreams. More on that later. Only now, I have learnt the multiplication table along with my eight year old. In university, all my applied statistics used to take shape schematically on paper napkins while my partner crunched the numbers. My kith and kin are well aware of my severely challenged ability to comprehend anything numeric. I do not remember the silly SMS numbers that flash on TV to vote for the even sillier shows. I even skip the numbers in an advertisement and read them as ‘blah blah blah’.

Then again, I am the most illogical person around with impossible wishes and irrational reactions. Therefore, unlike DA, I cannot erase people as easily as their telephone numbers. For me, a person, thing or moment is tagged with a multi-sensory memory and filed in the deep crevice of my conscious from where they are impossible to dislodge. Then for years afterwards, I will relive those memories, often painfully, when triggered by a familiar phrase, a well-remembered tilt of the head, a similar posture, snatches of a tune, whiff of a perfume, a certain warmth of voice, a shared joke.

It would have been so much easier if I could put people in numeric context. His bank balance. Her shoe size. His height. Her age. His address. Her phone number. So much easier to erase when required. But that wouldn’t work for me. Unlike the old couple in the paint advertisement on TV, I will recall the colour, texture, smell, taste of all 'our' memory. So, for those I have lost through fate or frivolity, what remains are the myriad hued memories and of course the songs. ‘Our’ songs that will always remain even after the ‘our’ is rendered redundant.

exhale

scared of being left alone

with the unspoken words

that hung between them

she fills her day with unending chores

the faintly bitter hairball of emotions

rising in her throat reminds her of

the emptiness he leaves behind every night

he walks away in her sleep

will she ever be ready to let him go?

ashes

This year is proving to be very expensive. It has taken more than I bargained to lose. It has taken away my grandmother. The only person I have known who refused to feed the left over banana skin to the milkman’s goat believing goats should be treated fairly and given the banana and not the discarded skin. Also, the one person who NEVER forgot my birthday. A devoted follower of Krishna she believed He would take care of her and her loved ones unconditionally. Through all the many tribulations that Life offered, her unwavering faith in her Lord, remained firm. She decided to live the last 6 years in an ashram renouncing all that was worldly. At 76, she was the healthiest person we knew, with none of the complaints that the generation younger to her suffered. Her eye sight hadn’t dimmed nor had her conviction that forgiveness is the only power we possess. For a young widow with limited formal education and confined to a conservative household for most of her life, her worth was expressed in the tears of people whose lives she had touched. It was at her demise that we knew of the number of people who benefited from her meager pension. Of the many deprived children whose education she took care of. Of the wretched girl during whose wedding, she gave her gold bangle. Of the sightless-abandoned-old-widow whom she had adopted as her mother. It must be the Lord’s way, when death came swiftly as she slipped into a cerebral thrombosis induced coma while saying her morning prayers. It has left my mother with the guilt of not given a chance to do anything and a reaffirmed belief that for the truly faithful a peaceful death is the Lord's gift. For the faithless like me, she has stirred a desire to seek goodness in this godless world.

I wish I was less of a wimp and more offensive as a person. I have been cheated, stolen from, abused, duped, taken for granted and I haven’t ever hit back. Except once. It was on a 31st December night when we were chased by a few loafers in front of Oberoi Grand. I had ignored till the point when I could feel the guy’s breath on my neck and his hand trying to grab indecently. I lashed out, complete unexpectedly. Surprising even myself. I abused and hit one of the men on the face with whatever I was carrying on my hand. A few tequila shots can do wonders. They froze in shock and fell back as we kept walking. My brother put his arms around me and said ‘You are the man’. That lightened the mood. On the ride back home they kept teasing me on my vitriolic vocabulary. That was just once. Never again have I ever confronted wrongs like the way I should have. Like when a person cut the queue and got in front of the line at movie theatre. Like when I found my airline seat (as assigned on the boarding card) taken by another without even an apology. Like when a co-passenger in a train promptly made her bed on the lower berth when I stepped out to use the restroom expecting me to climb and take her upper berth seat. Like when an old school mate turned neighbour went around saying the most obscene of lies about me. Like a co-worker who thrusts her company and takes a lift back home almost everyday but conveniently forgot to invite me to a gathering at her house where the rest of the office were. Like the acquaintance who invited me for lunch and ignored the bill when presented. All I did was glare at them when they were looking elsewhere or off late castigate them on harmless blog posts. I hate my ‘bhodrolok’ ways, where we are civil and well mannered even under extreme provocation. Now, it’s so well ingrained that even if I try I can’t shake it off. I hate my fear of disharmony which leads me, often to keep my opinion to myself to deescalate a situation. I hate my keenness to forgive that saps my ability to retaliate. I hate my fatalism that prompts me to accept things easily. I hate my fondness to be friends with even foes. So this year, it is going to be different. God willing!

moony

Last night, I woke up with a start somewhere close to midnight. Ro shaking me awake “Mommy, look at the eclipse (he said 'eelips')! Someone has eaten the top part!” I opened my eyes muzzy and without my glasses. And yes, sure enough the eclipse was in full swing. The biggest perk of living where I do, is being able to watch the night sky while lying on my bed. I never pull the curtains at night and on full moon nights it is akin to sleeping with a cool white searchlight on your face. And I love it. I wake up several times through the night and I know the time just by looking at the moon. With nightfall, the moon creeps through the top left edge of my window and dives to the bottom right before disappearing at dawn.

I mumbled a translation of Basho's haiku 

“My house burnt down.

Now I can clearly see, the rising moon”

 

“But, our house hasn’t burnt??”

“Okkkk! Go to sleep now..."

I considered myself modern and emancipated to an extent. This sense of being modern reflects in the many values and beliefs I hold dear. Perhaps not so importantly, it has repeatedly echoed in the impressions of people who know me well and those who don’t. My middleclass upbringing didn’t have any special favours or concessions for me being of a particular gender. I therefore, learnt to value my freedom (even with its veiled limitations) and expected the society to treat me equally if not fairly. So, I wear my independence like a badge and have indeed judged others who believed themselves to be the ‘weaker sex’ and in need of special consideration. I sat pretty on what to me was an evolved state of being. In fact, if you meet me you would think I am superbly in control of my life and affairs and in a haloed state of midlife contentment. Why then, do I have a deep-seated need to feel special? Why do I often feel disappointed when people I care for, fail to recognize this need? Why did I find my eyes wet when the ones who made an effort to celebrate my birthday are the ones I least expect to. Customarily, my father forgot the date. My mother, was distracted with the morning chores to have the time to wish. My son has not developed the skill to remember dates so I reminded him and received a hug. My significant other remembered and called. My best friend did not wish and I called to remind which is when he said he was still annoyed with me for something that isn’t in the scope of this post. (It’s another matter that since then we have exchanged only two-word mails - ‘howz u?’ ‘the usual’). In the course of the day two of my cousins and few ex-colleagues called to wish. A dozen email wishes were there too in my mailbox. Some from people I don’t even interact with regularly. My boss hugged and wished with full fanfare leaving someone to comment why the men in office don’t get similar hugs. So finally, it was up to a few of my workmates to surprise me with a lunch. I was touched the way they chose a steak house despite many of them being vegetarian. I will be forever grateful for their thoughtfulness. Of course, my mother had made ‘payesh’ a customary sweet dish for special days. Her way of letting me know when I got back home, that she hadn’t forgotten. And of course I received a message from my father saying like usual he forgot. As the day got over, I thought of all the times I had bought movie tickets when I wasn’t invited, paid someone’s phone bill, traveled half across town after work to cheer someone up, surprised someone with a stray gift, sent flowers on birthdays, gifted chocolates on a whim, spent time when someone needed company. Nothing that will earn me a place in Guinness Book but it made someone happy. They say what goes around comes around. Maybe that is true. The last gift I received was a very expensive one. But I would gladly trade it for an I-Love-You said more often. I cherish the time I was surprised with a box of chocolates and a bunch of fresh flowers. I am not into diamonds and posh dinners et al. They make me distinctly uncomfortable. A timely hug, a simple card, a holding of hands, a flower from the terrace garden, a home made cake, a heart-shaped keychain works for me. I confess I am a sucker for nostalgia. I have horded every card, every scrap paper, every gift I have ever received. I have a slam-book from junior school where one wrote inane things like ‘drink coffee drink tea, when you burn your lips think of me’.

I finished reading Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger late last night. It left me feeling uncomfortable and sore. It is dark and grim, but that was expected from the reviews. However, I did not find anything in the book to ‘like’. I am not impressed by the style, narration, depth of portrayal or the imagination of the author. But most of all, I found the story too fantastical to be able to elicit a positive response from a reader. It appeared to me to be an elaborate scrap book with snippets from my regular daily, hashed together to form a story. But that was yesterday. Today, as I read a scanned page from a regional daily covering a foiled kidnapping attempt of an eight-year-old boy by three young men, I am not sure if the book is indeed too surreal. One of the accused, who was caught by police after being chased in a coffee estate, is someone I know in my line of profession. Someone I have known to be hard working and honest and cited as an example of fortitude and ambition. Someone I have reccomended for higher responsibilies recently. This will be the end of what was till yesterday a promising career. Legal just informed that it is a non-bailable offence and the penalty is either life imprisonment or death. It fills me with a strange sadness to know of another life lost.

at the end of another year of my life…

I wish I could feel your warmth next to me when I wake up.

I wish I could cuddle in your arms and just be while you play with my hair.

I wish I could take off from work on a busy day and hold hands at the mall.

I wish I could see you fall asleep without even completing the sentence.

Loving you is…

the surety of being loved for who I am and not being judged for who I am not.

the delight of knowing that you can laugh at all my quirks and queerness without ever hurting me.

the smugness of knowing that we belong together.

a dash of yellow

in an otherwise drab day

dipped in sunshine

beside a dusty path

lifts spirit

but hurts the eye

or is it

some other stray thought

that grain the inner

eye

unexpectedly

the bleep and the bloop

I am in ‘Satyam’ land. Hyderabad has definitely mellowed. A locality like Banjara Hills looked desolate at 7.30PM on a weekday. Strikingly different from what I had experienced last time. And here’s fool proof evidence of market nose diving. I call it the Auto-Con Index. This time to get to the hotel from office (less than 1km) the autorickshaw driver politely asked for 15 rupees. On my earlier visits I shelled out 30 rupees for the same distance, that too after a lot of cajoling! So that’s a straight 50% discount on the 'extra fare' and the politeness was a bonus. First I thought it was an one off lucky aberration. But same thing this morning. The first driver I asked was willing to go and all for rupees 15. Wow! I hope my fortune lasts next week when I am in Chennai. That will be the acid test!

But this trip is not without its share of bloopers. Hob asked me to get a Charminar and without thinking (which is fast becoming a habit!) I said, “What! When did you start smoking Charminar?...” His retort, not surprisingly was “Ufff…it’s so difficult to talk to you! Never mind….I wanted a miniature of the iconic….” Not good. Not good at all. Last week he said my ability to observe is poor (I would call it ‘selective’) and now this. Agreed, I present my deficient senses on a platter for him to pick on me, but still….hmmm.

at the beginning of the year...

reading this got me all nostalgic. I have always loved these big noisy family gatherings that were de rigueur since we were kids. Vacation time meant living in my grandparents’ house with our large family congregating from many parts of the country and filling up the large house to the brim. Our regular lives were parked aside and we gave up our privacy as easily as we laughed at the silliest banter. We shared bathrooms and beds. We shared plates and games. We clung to each other through our waking hours like we were joined at the hip. The generational lines blurred as the moments overshadowed the reason for gathering. Even when we met to grieve the loss of a dear one, strangely we were never sad for long. Over the years, parts of the family moved to far corners of the globe, grandparents departed for heavenly abode, the kids grew up but my fondest childhood memories are those spent sharing these moments of stuffy togetherness.

p.s.

A new day and a new year. Thank you for saying you love me. Yes, it does make my day. Everytime. And just like the first time it still leaves me breathless enough to go quiet (well you do have a habit of saying it when I am least expecting....so you see it is really your fault!). One of my neighbours are having a noisy bash next door. A moment back the indipop and item numbers blaring since evening were irritating. Now, I actually did a jig with the music. Life is good afterall. And just incase my words got lost in static...I love you.

today

I had this premonition that the year would end badly. Infact the year had started better than last year with the official end of a tag that had lost its meaning long back. But if today is any indication, I am glad the year will end in a few hours.

It begins with Ma not being well. She is the absolute pillar, I mean, the household just comes to a stand still without her being at the helm. Yes. We are a bunch of throughly spoilt housemates who depend on Ma for everything from the oats for breakfast to mosquito repellant at night. It is another matter that she loves her part and would get offended if we ever learnt to fend for ourselves.

So today, thanks to yours truly, the oats got overcooked and the bread under-toasted (yeah!) and all sat sullen quiet at the table. Then since both the cars decided to take a break (one was out of fuel, the other a flat tyre) I began the task of 'hailing an autorickshaw'. Yes. you got to stand at the side of the road wearing a sorry look so that the auto fella might take pity. But no, they don't fall for it. After begging for half hour one of them said yes. Halleluiah! But joy is shortlived. As it turns out he has a mysterious 'starting problem' half way through at a traffic signal. So began the task of 'hailing' one more autorickshaw. Pain doubled. Finally, an old man agrees.

Despite the trouble I reach office early. For once, much earlier than my boss. Someone should have warned me of the explosives waiting in my mailbox.

Day's not over yet....hmmm!

Everyone is asking what's the plan for the evening. Well. I wonder why we make such a jamboree on last day of a year? Tomorrow we are all back at work, groggy and bored. So why bother? Infact my father had planned to take us out for dinner but I thought the crowd will be noisy. He had given me a 'what's wrong with you' look and walked off. Old old old...that's me.

when we get lost somewhere...

there is always a stray piece of lonely cloud that grabs one's senses. At once everything else is momentarily irrelevant.

I watched ‘Dil Kabaddi’ yesterday after scooting from work early. It wasn’t planned (I hadn't even heard of it till I entered the theatre) but turned out ok. The benefit of recession is that at least in Bangalore one can now land up in a theatre and buy tickets unlike earlier. This, despite yesterday being a holiday for most people. The theatre was empty and the popcorn crisp. I had my best pal for company who turned round and said ‘This is about my life!’ every 2 minutes. I agreed and we promised to write a radio script someday soon. Otherwise a forgettable film once you are out of the theatre except that I LOVE Rahul Bose. Eaah. The dark circles and his slow Hindi nothwithstanding.

Two images from Kolkata.

First was the Jethro Tull & Anushka Shankar's concert in Science City Auditorium on 27th Nov 08. Without exception Tull concerts are lyrically enjoyable.

Second one is one of the many reactions to what happened to Mumbai. 'We cry with you, we pray with you, we stand by you'

I love the taste of stale cigarettes in your kiss. We should kiss more often.

I love the silly banter about my school. We should talk more often.

I love losing miserably to you in Scrabble. We should play more often.