The Empty Song

Do you remember the street bard at San Francisco, who wrote you a couplet, for a dollar... of meteorites and half dreamt dreams of cowboys at the break of twilight? Just when the rain came pouring like silver glitters and the darkness grew insanely thick, your fingers touched the lonely "santoor" and a blue-grey shadow kept crouching in the empty room, reminding you of a forgotten letter you never mailed to a long, lost friend.

Wings and fire - I saw in your eyes. Wings to fly to a distant cloud in liberty and fire that evolves a phoenix out of anything you touch. We started well in the meandering streets, weaving tales of love and life, of men and more mundane things and laughed our sides to an ache on silly anecdotes and innocent rhymes.We dipped our ankles in dreamy blue and stuck to each other with a quick fix glue through all the times averse…

Your love for me or perhaps hate ;) - I figured the nebulae of emotions in the wilderness of your eyes.Indifference was a difficult battle with you.I mentioned some day, I liked the passionate forms that evaporated your body in cosmic clouds.That made everything light as a feather, even deceived time and age.I remember the ripples, we first saw in those dreamy blues between us and in spite of repeated warnings, you let them grow. Nothing could take those stones away from you and draw us near again.The camphor in your eyes were all set to fire.

Some name my passion insanity…some bohemian but like them,what fools you to see only one side of longing after all the way we came? Away, I had been wondering out of my time. Darling,that’s what made me match your time. The doubts in your mind about me, camouflaged my piece of mind.

It’s another light I did not know before. These two lights never meet, so they keep getting away…but my dear, don’t be back. Don’t let me be fool you. I’m pretty sure I won’t

On the way to Christmas...

At the roads and cafes, American jazz and the strike of guitars keep filling me in with every ounce of the pumpkin spiced coffee I drink off the mug, flea market pedlars with colorful goodies are wanton with their words and gestures wooing passersby to their magical goods at sale; colorful orchids, tulips and daisies everywhere tell you romance is high in the air as the extra bit of chill casts a longing in one to snuggle under a warm, protective sheath...and as the sun sets, the reassuring lights on the christmas trees peeping out of all windows, come back to life, as more christmas trees and gifts make way to many more families. Children and adults give away merry cries and cheerfully drink their milk and chocolate cookies. The garage shutters are then raised and young and old industriously work on their christmas decor or packing gifts for friends and kins. The barbeque grills work their way steadily on turkeys and loins as neighbors knock at the door to share a bottle of their pinot noir or scotch, in the interludes. In short, life suddenly feels like a dream.

The Story Tellers

                 The first story teller of my life remains Bonomali da, our gardener who weaved love for Nature in me and a want for stories in life, all the time. He was in his sixties, as I remember him. A tall man, with a chestnut brown complexion and the Independence Movement had strangely left behind marks on his face and body. I always found him in his starched white dhoti and orange kurta, a round shaped set of spectacles to support his weak vision and his steady hands that could feel the pulse of all the plants in our garden and fill them up with life and lustre.
             When he found me, a little girl of three then, standing in a corner, staring at him with my keen eyes, he smiled and excused himself for not noting me before because he was busy listening to the plant right next to him. The plants and the trees supposedly told him stories of their lives. They told him what they wanted to eat, when they wanted to marry and then have children and Bonomali da as a dear friend helped them through their aspirations.
           Then, there were occasional story tellers like the gypsy woman with her pair of monkeys. She danced, played her "daffli" (an Indian hand drum) and narrated strange yet interesting tales of her travels. Later on, an old almost blind man started accompanying her and told tales of the jungle. After they reached the climax of their tale, they'd ask for money and then finally conclude the story. In the interludes of their story telling sessions, these monkeys performed various tricks and the rupee we paid for the shows, were immensely satisfying.
       I remember another Rahman chacha who would come to our town to all the fairs that we had. He had a big number of puppets and organized puppet shows. My first few tales of the 'Rajas' (kings) and 'Maharajas'(emperors), 'Ranis' (queens) and wars were all from him. His puppets wafted our imagination to the discreet world where horses had wings and devils had their lives locked in a bee that lived in a golden box.
        And how can I forget grandmother who always knew my next favorite tale. She was a master in bedtime story telling. My mother was a sharp woman and she decided to immediately harness my appetite for stories to put me to read. She got me picturesque books and allured me to them and I happily sought retreat in them. Next was my grandfather's part as a story teller, who traveled enormously for his work and brought stories home for her grand child. Stories from the streets, Broadways, lands of unknown people, food and habits enchanting me more than any colorful flight of imagination or dreams.
        Soon after I grew up and became a full bodied woman, men with tales or legacies always drew me to a coffee, at the least. A sudden surge to seek more stories drew me to travel across cities, villages, mountains and the seas. I started collecting stories from the piano woman, who sold musical instruments in a lonely corner of the city, the man who sold clocks and antique trinkets, the cowboy who played his flute and took me to deserted portions of the village and told me their stories or the man who kept yaks and narrated tales of the love between clouds and mountains and the fisherman who spoke with the seas, his boat and the fishes.
       Off late, my camera has become one magical instrument weaving stories strangely out of my mundane life. Somehow memories always seem golden through its eyes and what my eyes so carelessly miss, it seems to manage holding back so carefully in the preserves of sprinkles of golden dust.
       However, the greatest story teller of all times has remained life, who with its promise of inconsistencies brings in a different tale every moment and gives every day, a reason to look forward to.

Calender

              As a little girl, I looked forward to the start of winters all the time. Winters would always mean, yellow packets coming in the mailbox, that brought colorful calenders of various sizes and shapes for the oncoming year. My room would be filled with them, some on the walls, some on the table and some as book-markers tucked inside the pages of my books. The older calenders would not be discarded. The pictures would be neatly cut and filed and more importantly treasured like vital documents. The happy colors of the calender brought me a lot of sunshine and a lot of air in the gloomy room that my family could afford for their child's play and study space.
        It was a little space beneath the staircase and my mother had put on an old, slightly worn-out tablecloth to separate my area from the entrance doorway. Naturally that space had no window but had a big sized picture of Rocky Mountains, out of a calender of course, just in the place where I would have wanted my window. I had also managed to pin enormous number of calenders on the table cloth. I enjoyed watching the dates graduating to the next. Cause each day, brought in a fresh dream. A dream of visiting one of those destinations in those pictures.
         I do not quite remember, how and when these pictures ceased to have such a vital space in my life. Perhaps when the innocent optimism was killed and I stopped believing, I could ever be in those beautiful landscapes or own those wonderful things in the pictures.
        ...or was it because some strange desire took over like a momentary infidelity of looking into the eyes of a stranger, until met with a scowl by his escort. May be it was soccer with the local boys or was it swimming or books I can not say.
         My mom had however preserved them all and now when I travel and click pictures and send them home, she diligently brings out a picture from that entire lot of old calenders, bearing close similarity with a recent shot of mine. Perhaps she does this to preserve her daughter's faith in dreams. It is her manner of saying that dreams turn real.
(S smiles, takes off her reading glasses and admires her table calender. Off late, the calenders have sprung back to her life again.)

So, people suffer, toil and dream
Hope this winter fills you upto the brim.
And when difficult times draw your breath
Remember, you have strong teeth  ;)

Wake Up Call!

Wake Up!


I agree with a good number of you, who've been sincerely writing to me that  I must  get back to my blogosphere and so here I come. The one obvious question which was put to me by some darling pals is what kept me from it all this awhile and the reason being my thought goblins. Writing allures these goblins to open up my eyes, clear all blockages of my ears, dilate the pores of my skin - in short carve me a world unto myself and thus engage my focus. For the world, I end up becoming, self-centered, opinionated and a ruthless hell. Trouble is in spite of living in an ecosphere preaching individualism in schools and eloquent speeches, all the while, what essentially keeps knocking back at you is communism as Thomas Friedman would have described with his wry smile,
"If we can't go richer together, we all go poorer together".  So living in the matrix of the laid down formula of the world just makes things less cumbersome. It begins from the day we are set onto the world. By the manner of our wail and frequencies, we are known as good or bad, troublesome and irritating or wonderfully charming and then as we grow up, we have many more such familial formula hitting upon us. (S loosens herself on a bean bag now with a cup of strongly brewed Irish coffee and casts a look through the shut blinds of her room's window before she continued this real long list of instances.)
It begins with a wake up call one fine day, "Gosh! you're three plus already and time to frequent a kindergarten or pre-kinders now." No matter how much one doesn't want to go there leaving the safe haven of more acquainted surroundings, be it home or grandparent's countryside place, school is the place to be, is nailed firmer than a death sentance. I am still not sure what difference does it anyways make to get the child started a couple of years later, a little more comfortably. Now there goes, clear your boards by seventeen, hit college by eighteen, graduate and in the meanwhile fall in love or just figure out a someone and get married and settle down, have children and bring them up and grow old. Wow! and if you've done them all unquestionably and at all appropriate times and the appropriate ways, you've been the best man on earth. Here man is an abbreviated version of an earthly manual, unwritten and set to traverse generations with its principles of right and wrong, good or evil, assuming all human productions  just equal and thus the old principles apply universally to every body.      
Well, if you're someone like me who always sits right next to the driver's seat at the bus to catch a glimpse of the hanging clouds that take me to the little villages I discovered amidst the hills or never mend my chimney cause a sparrow keeps frequenting every now and then; if you hardly shop brands and prefer writing than calling people and every time the tangerine sky lends an uncomposed music, a nubile nymphet sways in you, well I'd say,  "Good luck Bad soul, cause you have a real uneasy path to charter and real long way to go!" :)

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain...

After a thirsty stretch of summer, the rumbling clouds came pouring. They released that capturing fragrance of mud that charms us more deliciously than rich, dark chocolate. The dazzle of the distant setting sun behind the perforations of the plum or coconut tree leaves allure us like that yellow candy - the love of our childhood. The geese flap their wings in cheers to this setting sun as the horizon threw a riot of colors in their waters from the usual dirty greenish blue to a vermillion, purple,yellow and gray.
As the city romanced dripping and drenching under colorful brollies and parasols, doling out an extra helping of love and kisses for sultry flickers in the chilly air; the ladies bearing the fountains, sat white and cold, bristled by the showers.

Life's little joys

There are certain things which still make me smile when I remember them.

One of them being riding an auto rickshaw in Varanasi and the rain swishing by. Envying the girl drenching herself on the bike right in front and later learning from a brawl she picks up with our driver that she hated getting wet. Strange humor of life! It offers one with a luxury one would not know to enjoy.

The extremely sugary tea my partner brought to bed on our first day together. One of his friends had mentioned to him, "Bed Tea" is a big way to a woman's heart. The color of the flower was his choice and the cover up of the slightly distorted half boiled eggs was not too bad either.

After a night of rain, a green leafy creature looking up from some nook of the brown muddy heap.

The frills of a sharpened pencil :)

White Flowers. They make my day!

...and many more. I'll keep coming back to this post for fresher updation.

Adoring a childhood favorite movie scene and a teen favorite song

Adoring a childhood favorite movie scene and a teen favorite song. Somehow, they've both managed to last this long.






After all I've come to know me, and the ways of my heart,
And the young man that I once was would have torn our love apart.
When you're young and always looking at the far side of the hill
You might miss the fairest flower standing by you very still.

A letter arrived from Dida (my grandmom). I've always looked forward to these little envelopes of magic since I was a little girl and even in my university days, these have remained more important to me than my then lover boy's mails. Quite queer of us, we have a whole set of differences betwixt us and we do not agree on most of the things, yet at the end of every month, both of us sit down pen and paper in hand writing out whatever comes to our mind. Sometimes, they are even little sketches that appear like emoticons and we keep gluing toffee wrappers, petals of the first flower that bloomed in our garden, tickets of a just watched movie or concert and many more and they all sail to the other part of the world...and for all this she would never sit in front of a computer and speak to me on a skype or g-talk. Neither would I :)