The Sun

The Showman

Highly condemnable acts! Godammedly censorable words! Extremely weird reactions!

Hello. This is me.

I have become the showman and the audience myself!!!

Christ! I have no idea what the next scene is and how will I perform.

And the growing manliness inside me makes my acts riskier and nonsensical.

It is like I am performing live before myself, in a suspense thriller, with double (read, several multiple) roles and where I ate away the script in my pizza in fury and now, have to somehow manage to keep the show going.

And I surprise myself each time.

Am a multi-talented person J

The difference being the mismatch of the circumstances….

I shout when I am expected to sing sweet.

I grin when a sincere reply is expected out of me.

I shy away when the focus light is flooded on me.

I need an interval badly, Sir.

May I avail a small break, or I might end up breaking myself..

The Soul

I went to church after so long yesterday.
I saw hand painted dove, thermocol flowers and plastic smileys hung in between the windows and ceilings.
I realized- oh, for these people it was a new year. People had celebrated Christmas. For them, the year had changed, and Christ was born. They looked for reasons to celebrate, feel happy.
For me, the new year brought what the last year ended with-solitude.
The Christ didn’t take birth in my heart again, on Christmas.
Keep aside Christ’s birthday, I know how well i am celebrating my own birthdays for the last two years...

I have reached the stage where i feel like even i am leaving my body. I mean earlier, at least i used to talk to myself, used to remember good old moments spent with family, or the painful part of 2009.. I used to smile, laugh, cry and talk with myself.
But now, i feel, as if, I have finished up all the topics, shared all my feelings, remembered all good and bad times, hence, I have nothing left to talk with myself.

So, now wen i walk, or am sitting in my room, thinking, i am absolutely alone.

My soul has left me.
It is out of my body, I mean.
And, I see it sometimes.

I see it sitting on second last bench, in my class, when the lecture is on.

I see it sometimes in morning, in mirror, looking at my white hair.
I see it sometimes at night, on my bed, near the window, gazing at the tall buildings trying to locate the invisible moon.


I see it in office, looking at my PC, when i am writing a blog.

It doesn’t talk to me, but.
We sit in silence.

Last time i saw it wiping its tears when it saw me bunking my boring Friday class, and going back home. It cries, to see me alone. It has a heart too, perhaps, that pains. It feels pity on me.

It doesn’t come when i intend it to.
It comes whenever it wills.
Probably it too, finds me boring, like others.
But, i have seen it standing by my side, each night i hide my face in my pillow and cry.
I don’t turn back, to see it, but see its fingers running through my hair and temple...

The Man inside

Finally, the demons of Loneliness and Depression have almost changed my gender!!!

Earlier, only my thinking and planning parts had become manly.

Now, my likes and dislikes are turning masculine too. (With the exception that I still don’t fantasize sleeping with women or assume the whole world to be my urinal)

I see the idiot-emotional-fool-female inside me pregnant with the thoughts of intellectually awakened focus of reality and delivering bitter facts of life everyday (every evening, to be particular, when I walk back home, alone).

With every penny I spend, with every person I talk to, with every topic that I discuss with my room mate, I feel myself superior that I am out of these vicious circles of relations and relationships.

I feel proud about myself to have standing on that breakeven where I am getting all the benefits of being lonely and lack all the negative points of being into a relationship.

My relation with myself has improved  much.

I think like a man. I don’t curse myself anymore. I take care of myself. I plan finances. I think of less shopping and more eating. I talk less stupid and talk more sense.

I even get the feeling of wearing socks inside my shoes now- a thought that I never got in almost last three decades of my life.

Anyways, even after so much bragging, I feel I haven’t overstated. Believe me.

Well, the point I wanted to share is that I am a man now!!

The problem (or the blessing) is that I continue to feel so. Probably I have none who treats me as a female (except the lady in the lingerie shop).

None gives me flowers or picks up my hot water bucket or helps me bringing down the box kept at the uppermost shelf of my cupboard. None carries my non-buoyant luggage when I change platforms at New Delhi station, on way back home. I solve my own tax problems.

None sends surprise birthday cakes on my birthday.

None even offers me seat while in train (as it is a ladies coach…huff!!!!) or bus  (the oldies ‘claim’ the seats if I get any)

None tells me that I am a beautiful woman (except the peeping Toms on road) and that it rains flowers when I smile.

I buy the shoes that are strong (and not fancy) and I buy them because I need to wear them (and not just that they match with my skirt).

The words like ‘flat 50% sale’ have become French for me. I find it important to read the news in the newspaper now. I surf for news channels, like Dad, when i get T.V. remote in my hands. I am not aware of the new movies releasing or the new baggy pants in vogue.

I always see the watch before I start anything (and then when I end).

I don’t care what I am I wearing or how am I looking when I enter the class-room.

I don’t panic if I realize that  forgot to spray a cologne today. None bothers to smell me.
I have forgotten the way to beauty saloon from  home. I think it was summers when I last visited the lady coiling a hair dryer around her neck, applying red color on somebody’s hair and dabbing white cream on someone’s face.

Huh!!

I take short walks, after lunch, alone. Just like Dad used to, in winters.

I sit mute for ten minutes and ponder some manlike thoughts before going to bath, just like Grand Pa (he used to do so after shaving).

I budget how much to put inside the envelope when invited on a wedding.

I don’t feel jealous to see a stunning babe. Rather, I appreciate her beauty.  Unbelievable, but true!!

And, last, but final proof- I wish I too had a dumb Indian wife, to cook and dry, like other men.

Oh F….k. ( I silently said, O Freak!!!!)

The Summer Surprise

While waiting for a bus, I sniffed something unusual, something new, something pleasant..

Bingo !!! I was standing under a mango tree and it smelt fresh blossoms, indicating the legible knocks of the approaching summer.

 

Summers of my childhood- ‘1 June to 15 July summer vacation time’, when the kids made sure that the English cursive writing home work was completed by 31^st May night, so that we enjoy the uninterrupted 45 holidays, where parents lost  the right to ask us to come home early to finish up home work.

The times of longer glistering days and shorter glittery nights.

The afternoons were silent, while parents instructed that the kids don’t play in the summer loo.

After all elders had slept at home, the children would peep out from the windows, and call each other to play in the verandas.

Skipping, marbles, doll marriages, hide and seek and bicycle race were the most favorite events. They were not just games, then!! Winning and losing them mattered much. When we used to think that all those with whom we are playing, will remain with us forever.

One of the afternoons when Dad would ask me to help him bring the shutters of air cooler to the Sector 22 Market, where the man sitting in the children park street used original khas for the shutters, which will fragrant the room for days when the electric pump would shower water on the shutters. And while the man was busy installing khas sheets on the shutters, Dad would slip some coins on my fist to buy ice cream from the vender standing near by. 25 paise for Cola flavor, 50 paise for mango and orange flavor. Chocolate ice cream could be bought only for a whole one rupee. Getting five rupees was a bounty.

In the hot evenings, everybody will gather around the fountain park and enjoy the moist breeze in the dry weather, while children will try to enter the fountain, full of water and play there driving the watchman on duty crazy. It was fun to see the watchman with a stick running after you with a stick. We had not learnt the words like ‘self esteem’ and ‘ego’, then.

At nights, during dinner, when Dad used to declare a curfew when Geetanjali Ayyar used to read the News Bulletin from hand written pages on Doordarshan, Mom would slice ripened up mangoes- Dusshehri, Langda and Safeda (my favourite).

I would pick the biggest and run out in the fountain park. After Mom and other ladies were done with the dinner, they would come out for ‘after dinner walks’. Saunf, meethi supari and jaggery were shared amongst everybody. There were no problems between saas’ and bahus’ and hence no week-days’ serials too.

Mommies would discuss how costly the mangoes were that season (that was a statement for every season) and the best bulk buy deals in fruit market Chandigarh.

The mangoes tasted new every season and yet filled same sweetness in life always.

Ah! the good old days!

Prayer

Born brought up in a Brahmin family, I was taught to pray everyday.

Praying is a compulsive behavior now.

I pray everyday.

The basic Indian style of praying is- praising god.

That’s what I do too.

While this Christmas, on my way to the Church, I asked myself, what actually is a prayer?

Is prayer, a begging before the God? Is prayer, a selfish mode of soliciting the memorandum of your wants?

At that time I realized…

There are three possibilities:

1.       Perfect possibility (something that is sure to happen, without efforts involved. Falling night, rising Sun, changing seasons et al, hence we never pray for it, just thank the lord as a whole)

2.       An absolute impossibility that Is utterly non questionable (An absolute impossibility is what we never pray for. Have you ever prayed to become a girl, if you are a boy, or the vice versa. We never pray, to live forever.)

3.        Something that we want to become a possibility- an imperfect impossibility.

We pray for a longer life for our beloved ones, we pray for beauty (as girls) and wealth (as boys), which is a part of the imperfect possibility.

Hence, we never encroach into absolute impossibility part, and the perfect possibility. The praying area prevails between these two only- something that lies above possibilities and below impossibilities.

Probably it was designed by the Almighty this way itself, so as to leave an area of life uncertain in between- just like it is designed between the earth and the sky.

What is on ground and what is beyond the skies is certain.

Rest is a horizon and a myth and a prayer…

Latent desires

Finally the exams are over (again).

The joy that they (exams) leave you with, with their departure is more than the fear, anxiety and tension they bring with their arrival.

Joy, my dear, weighs more than a woe.

I am not sure whether I' ll pick up another course after this one is over, but this 'exams are over' ecstacy is what I love the most.

Somebody asked me, why I picked up 'Journalism' course as it has no relation with my current profession, to which I replied that the whole life I studied what was important for me, so now, having finished the 'significant', I am doing what I always wanted to.

Though I am in no mood to take up another year long course, any further, but three things attract me:

1. Leaning Urdu. 

I always wondered why people learnt a new language. One cousin did one year course in French from Panjab University. A friend learnt Spanish, giving statistics, that there are more Spanish speaking people in the world than French. 

Until one day I realised, how much I loved 'Urdu' and there is a possibility that I can invest time in learning it too now. Oh, I always wanted to learn this beautiful language. As per me, this is the most sophisticated language, closest to a human being (and God) and is the most suitable to express your happiness, pain, wit, respect, humour and the other similar feelings aptly (Pl ignore if you find it exaggerated, but i really feel so) and Mirza Ghalib was the person who perfectly portrayed its beauty, while keeping the head held high for the language.
The pronunciation, the meanings and usage..dont u think it is just superb?
Ok, my second plan could be-


2. Learning Web designing

I know, having a dream of learning Urdu is digestable, by a CS who completed her LLB last year, who is on verge of completing her Journalism course, but from where does this 'web designing come from??

Have patience, buddy.
You know na, how sanki I am...

I love creations. And, how great it feels when you are given the pen and a box of colours to draw an image on one the biggest media channels- internet.
Wow!! I still get excited to think about it.
I always wanted to be a Creator. A Producer. A Maker. An Owner. A Provider.

I wanted to know how things work, so that I never indulge in 'fault finding exercise', but be a part of  'solution provider'.

I love the technicalities involved. I love the 'how' part of it after knowing its 'what' and 'why' parts.

 3. Learning fashion designing.

As you know me, how much I love dressing up like a 'girl'. Mom is a creative designer too ( for me only).

I love experimenting with colours, fabrics, and designs.

I think this too, being creative in nature attracts me... so no wonder if I end up being a rival to Manish Malhotra.. hehe

A tryst with solitude

They say, the more you run away from girls, the more they come near you...
Solitude, I infer now, is exactly opposite to that...
More than enough I have ran away from it..but it looks like never leaving me
So, why not, for a change, pause and let it reach me...as they say, no one should go unheard.

As the definitions of life have been recetly changed for me, I realised, I am now, getting more attracted towards solitude and its reated stuff..

Earlier, when i used to roam at the beach, i used to get amused to see the couples holding hands, laughing, kissing, hugging and playing..
But now, i feel like getting more attracted towards the singles..of all age groups...of all sexes..of all creeds..of all social statuses..
I have observed that people who stay single are more healthy, more independent, more smiling, choosy and seem like being proud of themselves..
They work as an insignia of human race.. i may be wrong..but they look like so powerful from inside
Probably when we are alone, we are assured that we have got nothing to lose, hence we feel contended, happy and secured

Initially, when i encountered solitude for the first time after separation from my partner, it symbolised death to me...gradually i realised that staying with solitude was not a compromise, but a blessing as it taught me how important i was for myself...and it really taught me how to love myself..

But gradually, as per the law of diminishing utilities, the love for myself, after reaching its height started to diminish, and at that stage, i felt like giving clues to myself that i was decaying..

As a matter of fact, I am going to complete 6 months of the exile period now, and i m passing through so many questions, probabilties, some larger uncertainties and some self framed lessons of life...

The season of tears, in between, arrives every two months..ha ha
I have just finished over with it..i m allowed to have a tearless smile for another 2 months now...

By staying alone, I realised that there are 26 hours, and not 24 hours in a day..
And i know every single hour that i live with during the day, now-a-days.

The days are long..especialy sundays
Nights are grey..they used to be sparkling black earlier
Mornings are patchy and pale yellow in color.. they used to be orangy red earlier

Meanings of life have changed substantially

The things that used to look big in years to come in life, smell smaller and vice versa
Life used to look so planned, just like a passing affair...
Time, similarly, i took as a weak warrior
I am contented to know that I am wrong, before wrong actually happened to me..

Solitude has made me realise my mistakes and my potential and answer the questions for which i never was able to shell out time..strange, but true!!
It has helped me to suggest myself what all do i need and at what time to fill up the vaccuums created within me..

It has helped me know myself, as a being, as a female, as a growing woman, as a professional, as an individual..

At the same time, it has uncovered the bitter variances of life that I used to assume as constants in my equations...

I am reminded of Joseph Konrad's saying...."We live as we dream- ALONE !!"
The new law of my "Individualism" replaces "we" by "I" and "as" by "and", thereby making it...."I live and I dream- ALONE !!" 

The Ghost

Ghost- A derivative of borrowed apprehensions.

A ghost derives its powers from our own impotencies.

You are not sure whether actually ghosts exist or not, but you still get frightened of them.

Till the time, somebody is accompanying you, you smug, having a reason to console yourself. 

Ghost is an uncertainty, a feeling of helplessness, a cry, a strong feeling of needing somebody by your side. 

Yes, that’s what I wanted to say. 

Solitude is like a ghost.

It stays in your own heart. 

It feeds on your conscience in your sub conscious..

Till the time somebody is by my side, life looks as normal as it is.

But, the moment, the heart realizes that the person besides me is about to make a move, the ghost from the corner of the closed walls, suddenly appears from nowhere and starts dancing by your side…

Neither parents/ siblings nor relatives/ friends can provide you company. Yes, you are absolutely alone. Your ego too, leaves your body. 

You lie in your bed, like an injured rat, whose life is as unimportant as its death. 

An acutely severe phenomenon- that tears you from inside and keeps on scratching your wounds. 

There is no escape. You are a well defined prey…meant to suffer. 

The Request

“It is a black and white picture. Not clear. But you can see it moving ”, said she, telling about her observation on seeing the baby inside her womb in ultra-sound.

Thank God, we were conversing on chat, otherwise she would have noticed my teary face or heard me groaning in pain, to miss that part of my life.

I absolutely and very clearly remember, Mr. God, when once, while crossing the bridge you had implanted the thought in me that you won’t leave my life empty and  I am too, your dear child. I’ll also get everything that I ever wanted….just that I should wait with some patience. If you remember, I had agreed on it happily that evening.

But, why this strong pain. I never wanted to be a mother. And, now, I just want to be a mother only.

I request you to define the word “patience” that you often use, in our conversations. Yes, you heard it right. I want you to quantify and define how long and how much pains in my struggle for life I need to go through.

Please explain.

You have given me a good, attractive and a healthy body. You have made me a master in my field that I get respect for my work and am able to work for my living for the rest of my life, with pride. You have given me no liability and only peace at heart to enjoy the bounties you have bestowed upon us.

I thank you for all that. I am really grateful to you, for that. I mean it.

But, now, I want you to bless me with that concept that gives me the strongest feeling.

I want to be a mother.

You know it.

I want a baby of my own.

I want to reproduce.

I want your blessing inside my womb and that I see it growing every day and night.

I want him (am sorry, am becoming gender specific) to be created inside my body.

I want him to look like me, and do all that I did…and all that I couldn’t.

I want to live life again- through his eyes.

Please god, I know you are listening to me..i know you are there… I know that you are seeing me crying.. I know that you will. Please give me more patience to wait.

First time in life....

They say, there is always a first time in life.
My questiom to them is what if all these first timers arrive in your life simultaneously, and that too for the first time in life.

I had a booze, ....all alone for the first time in life
I jumped down from a running bus, for the first time in life 
I watched a movie, .... all alone for the first time in life
I bought a handphone, , .... all alone for the first time in life
I came back from the Air port (without anybody waiting to receive me) .... all alone for the first time in life
I had a overnight journey in train, .... all alone for the first time in life
I ate a strawberry ice cream in my style of closing the eyes after every spoon, , .... all alone for the first time in life in a busy motel

I decided to buy that costly short frock for myself, , .... all alone for the first time in life
I abused a bastard who tried to pinch my butt, .... for the first time in life
I went to the High Court, .....for the first time in my life
I wore a brown blouse,...for the first time in life
I wrote a blog, ...for the first time in my life
I shared my poems, for the first time in my life
I bought blue flowers for myself, .... for the time in my life
I managed a massive financial crisis,.... all alone for the first time in life
I booked a train ticket from a reservation counter, using the "Ladies only" counter, .... all alone for the first time in life
I have imagined to live a life all alone,... for the first time in my life.............

Prostitution

When a thing is used, it doesn’t make a difference as to how you use it.
You buy and use.
Consumer Protection Act differentiates the use.
You are not a consumer if the goods you buy are not for your own consumption.
So, if you are a Vendor selling grapes, you must not complain of your own grapes if they are sour.
This was a commercial transaction. 

Law, has no other option but to legalize and devise such definitions. 
I had never realized that ‘sex’ was a commercial transaction too. 
Where your own body, doesn’t belong to you, but, to those who pay you for its use.

It is not that I have come from Mars and I don’t know what prostitution is. 


I have seen in movies and read in newspapers and magazines; even got involved in girly gossip team about conjecturing a particular ill famous girl as a whore, and staring at a skimpily dressed non attractive girl on the road at night, but had never seen a ‘confessing and admitting wench’.

As they say, knowing is knowing, and doing is doing. I did. 
The Pill House experience was not as light as had expected it to be.
The lady on All India radio at 100.7 MHz updated, that after the fresh downpour, the air carried 100% humidity. 
Later, I realized that certain things, which the air carried along, she was not informed of.

The air carried the filthy demand for lust, the cruddy business of petty money and the foul smell of flesh, and yes, the economics of impuissance.

Not just the women displaying what the eyes of the hungry men wanted, the brokers of the ‘commodities in demand’ were on patrol to give you the best material at the best negotiated price. 
The moment a taxi slowed, a swarm of the agents would gather to ask your taste and budget.

My curious eyes turned woeful to see the inexpensive gestures of ‘fuck me for money’. 
The road was the market, the hovels were the showrooms, and the commodities available for ‘rent’ displayed on either side of the road, for innumerable gazing customers.

Ladies below thirty, were dressed in tight fitted figure hugging western, single piece, off shoulder attire with plunging cleavage, with a hell of non-professional make up- darkened eyes, glossy lips and untied hair.

The forty plus class was exceptionally non presentable with shabbily powder dabbed faces, black maroon lips, bloated tummies, artificially mended arch brows. Draped in saris with its palloo not on the bosom, but held in the hand, just like the highly paid sophisticated women on Fashion Channels, exhibiting branded creations, they stood in with an unmatchable confidence on the face. 


I caught one thing in common. Amongst all those women. It was, the faces. The expression that every face carried was absolutely ‘expressionless’ but highly ‘professional’. 
They comfortably and convincingly knew what they were selling. To be in, you must be out.
You can not afford to take a break in the peak business time. 

As a customer, you have a choice. 
You ask for it, they have it.
You can go for modern or traditionally clad woman, you can hire black or white as per your skin taste, you can buy either north or south Indian; you can take either a young or an old one, you can enjoy a married virgin or a non-virgin spinster.

You can order as per your budget and requirement. Confidentiality is non questionable. 
Need reference and quality check? Ask the old customers, I mean, the existing ‘consumers’.
My friend asked the Cab driver, “To Bhaiya, ye sab to paanch sau rupaye mein milti hongi?”
To which, he replied, “Array ye hazaar rupaye se kam wali nahi hai..”

For a moment, I took a pause from the scene and asked myself, when the rate of inflation in India is 13.91 percent for last month, the integrity of the woman was still available at a cheap rate of a thousand bucks. 

While the taxi moved towards Congress House that was once a political congregation hall, the degrees of obscenity became coarsely sophisticated. The mall culture, you know. 

There, only the brokers are out. Ranging between 35-65 years of age dressed like 9-5 government servants, they sell sisters, wives, daughters and mothers.

As the streets were going narrower, the business was getting serious and severe. 
This is Mumbai, where you can order Dhokla, Dosa, Dal Makhani and Dolma in one restaurant.

Rent a cab, or rent a lady, it is all, available, at your disposal. 
And, you have the option to select the model that you want to drive.
There is no difference in a cab and a woman. Isn’t it?
Fuel it in and drive as much as you want.
Use it day and night, get bored and then dispose off.
Enjoy till you want, and then sell off. 
Thrash it and throw compensation.
Broke? No problem. Buy a second hand model at throw away price, and feed your hunger. 

My mind didn’t take a u-turn with the taxi.
At the end of the road to ‘heaven’, the taxi stood at the red signal. 
There are red signals in the red light areas too!!! 


From a distance, I saw a college girl, in purple top and black jeans, as if carrying her coaching classes’ books. Seeing the head light of taxi, instead of giving a way, to my surprise, she turned towards it. With her forefingers she sensuously moved the flicks of her hair falling on her face to see the face of the passenger. 

Her probing eyes became apathetic to see a non eligible customer (me, a girl) in the taxi, and she moved on the other side of the road.

What a cheap glimpse it was!! 

I just felt the clinch in my heart. How unsafe it was, walking on those roads, where you were not a girl, not a passenger, not a student, not a lady shopping groceries, but a prostitute.

A chill passed by my spine and in seconds, I felt my soul was stripped off my body.
A couple of moments in the taxi in that area had ripped off my belief in the … and there were those girls, with dead heart, professional female organs, with saleable bodies that dwelled so confidently on those graveyards of crushed morality.

The taxi driver stopped the cab at Saifee Hospital at Churney Road Station on the eastern side.
The meter of the taxi said I had to pay thirty eight rupees for the flimsy experience, for which I was so curious about. 

I just calculated… what a difference. 

The west side of the station is soaked in the salinity of sea and the eastern part was mysteriously overflowing with the bitter uncovered truth of life….