The unblessed ladies

Earlier I used to feel good and comfortable sitting and dining amongst the girls with whom destiny had played the same ugly game.

But now-a-days, my sentiments on the dining table have changed.

I feel bad about them.

This 45 years old, Kannada, Revathi. She looks so happy, working for a School for disabled, but I really see the sadness, loneliness and ambiguity of scary future all alone, layers beyond her smile.

Girls babble that they have heard that the Warden is a divorcee. Her daughter sometimes, comes and stays in her room.

I see the Warden, never going on leave, not getting ready like a married Hindu woman, and smile from her heart, to be specific. Does any of her actions indicate normalcy, except when she yells at the pantry boys.

Then, this short  shabbily dressed wheatish complexioned lady, with henna dyed blunt cut hair, whom I see almost everyday at the Temple street while on my way to lunch. The moment she enters the 300 meters stretch of the street, all the stray dogs run towards her, welcoming her like a celebrity. And, she concealing her love from the world, with an expressionless face, feeds them with Parle- G and strokes their necks- evidencing her sincere, selfless love.

This lady, I don’t know her name. Extremely ugly. Beggar like face and wretched skin. She looks like a punishment to eyes.

She always wears a T-shirt with broad brown lines and an unclean track pants, and is always,  I said, ‘always’ found reading novels and taking down notes from it.

Never have I seen the dining hall without her, and she without a book in her hand. Her frizzy grey hairs add to her ugliness after her wrinkled spooky face that bears a calm expression. She eats like a hungry monkey.

I have never seen the color of her eyes- nor will I ever see, as she always walks with her head lowered.

No matter how much she may hide behind those second hand shabby novels, but she cant do away with the uncut wires of her ruins attached.

I feel sad for them.

I feel sad for all these ladies.

I feel sad for the Warden, no matter how many restrictions she puts and how many times she fines us all and screams at us.

I feel sad when I look at their under-eyed circles and grey-white falling hair and ‘no more in vogue’ dressings.

I feel sad to see their unpainted nails and expressionless actions.

How can the most gracious God, be so cruel?

Second Valentine

By the time the word ‘second’ arrives in your life, life has somewhat already placed you at a different balcony where you see the world from a different, wider and a higher level.

It was my second Valentine alone.

Yesterday, on 13^th February, I knew what day tomorrow is going to be.

Hence, wanted to make sure that I am ‘not left alone’.

Gifted myself a pink shirt, pink pebble ear-rings and snow white slippers (and for a change, it was not a surprise gift, this time, rather I let myself select gift for myself) and made sure that none can judge from my joyful face that my 14^th Feb eve was going to be as normal and un-happening as the other 364 evenings.

Well, as I heard the ting-tongs of mobile sms reaching out to people’s (read girls’) cellphones wishing them ‘love’ on this day, I pretended that my phone was on silent mode.

When I saw those slum kids at signals running after cars, selling bunches of roses, I ignored, acting in concert with my arrogance that I don’t buy or expect my man to gift me a flowers like that. I pretended that I like them properly wrapped with a four digit price tag dangling around it.

When the tables were booked for the sea-side restaurants, I pretended to have been fasting today.

When at Marine drive, hands were held, kisses exchanged and flowers smelt, I hurried up for my class exaggerating how important it was.

Anyways, what you can do is to mentally prepare your mind for lonely evening(or life) ahead..

What you can’t do is to shut your heart up!!

Dil to baccha hai ji…..

Movie Review: Dhobi Ghat

Dhobi Ghat- the name sounds like a rusty, metallic, sepia view of part of Mumbai’s history that runs its present.

The promos of the movie lured one of a web of various stories of life in Mumbai in Mumbai’s life.

Even the beginning and the first half an hour of the movie left no stone unturned to raise the expectations level of  the movie.

Finding old CDs in box, silver ring that entails a past, the non-ghajini psycho painter Aamir etc hinted towards an unfolding mysterious story.

The movie doesn’t give the story of someone’s life, but knits one life in others’ stories.

Aamir Khan (who believes in impersonating the perfectionist. 3 idiots, tare zameen pe protagonisism being instances)

Failed relationships, liberty to choose, and the saliva dripping taste of money. This is what Mumbai comprises of. The movie, but fails to polish the facts with its pen and paper and the color box.

The stories are set up from the lens of a camera-man, painted with the brush of a painter and shot with the spirit of Mumbai.

One finds it unusual for a girl to invite, offer chai, eat out and watch movies with your laundrywala, no matter how handsome he is.

But, as they say that nothing is errant from point view of an artist, so some opine to give that exemption to it.

The story is unfit for the Indian mentality and one step above the IQ of a Mumbaikar, if we talk of artistic sense.

Those who got tempted with the trailers ended up piddling around, after the story(s) started.

Those, with higher level of patience levels, held their sleeves for 90 minutes, without break and added a medal to their shoulder for tolerating the intolerable.

There were some (like me) who waited for the movie to end, after it had already ended, trying to fathom if the Director failed in befooling us or forgot to befool us.

Recommendations: Go with a low expectation level, if you are an Aamir Khan fan, erase the promos seen on TV from your mind, sit back and enjoy the photography.

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.