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{Baka, the doll in the middle…}
The Dolls were an attitude. If nothing else they were a great attitude.
Johnny Thunders
A doll is one of the most pressing needs as well as the most charming instincts of a girl childhood. It is one of those acquisitions with a certain prestige value, which little girls could flaunt to the world around, signals control+”I am better than you” status in the early phase of their childhood. Little girls with their dolls tucked under their arms or walking across the park, holding their dolls upside down are treated with mixed set of feelings : reverence+envy+admiration+excitement. ”I have a doll” indicates that the little girl is all set for an exotic trip to the world of fantasy, where what one loves to do, changes moment by moment, its so deliriously unpredictable! To undress it, give it a bath with warm water filled with tiny pieces of flowers-petals under a shady tree, dress it with the most beautiful dresses, always on the look out for tiny yet beautiful pieces of cloth (one more dress for the doll), comb its long tresses softly and gently, take it out for a stroll, teach it a bit, keep it as a little angel who protects me when the unseen-imaginary yet potent devilish creatures pounce on me from all the corners of that tiny & dark library room, where I search for the books - Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Mark Twain etc., give it food, sing it to sleep, pretend as if she is my daughter who I should take care of, who would grow up as a beautiful woman for who I have to search a nice boy, dreaming – singing – tending – sewing lovely garments (which I always wanted to wear, if I could fit in)….such a blissful self-introduction to the early womanhood. A doll in the little girl’s hand means easier an access & admirable acceptance to the gangs of little girls who play games like “Sweet Home-Pujas at home-Doll festivals at home-Sunday Lunch-Picnic-Marriage Procession” etc {games played by little girls from sleepy towns, then, invariably, used to resemble varied actvities that their mothers do indulge in within the smaller circles of friends/relatives in the neighbourhood}. A little girl without doll is as deprived and quite unnatural as a woman without a child…I never liked plastic dolls, have always preferred Patch dolls, dolls made of soft cottons, who have cherubic & warm smiles plastered on their lovely faces, especially chubby dolls (Barbie is too skinny and too artificial). …we were deprived of dolls when we were children, which is a big reason for us to build up an impressive collection of dolls now
{It rains on the Sea…outside my window}
You called me and took me out for dinner on a whim.
I’ve never seen you drumming the table with your finger-tips,
with a song playing on your lips. You say your life is great.
You met a man in his forties, who opened his life to you over
many cups of coffee. You are eager to build a script out of it.
The intense kiss you had previous night appeared, somehow,
on the table. I remembered how painfully, foolishly I was in
love with you. I kissed the windowpane thinking of you, on that
night when you walked away, without leaving a message for me.
I walked many streets, past cheap hotels, popular bars filled with
vibrant laughter and music, talking to myself, building episodes of
monologue on the move, to entertain the defeat burning out my
cheeks and lips. I practiced everyday, with a religious fervor,
how to say no to myself, how to walk with unflinching resolve
in my gaze, across the evenings resounding with the gaiety
of romantic expeditions by the hearts, and how to watch
the inner darkness falling over everything. That dream of mine,
for once, to sleep with you, on a summer afternoon, in a forest,
where no one could hear us, tasted the harsh winds of ignorance,
for long, and now stands like an abandoned town. I am seeing
not you talking happily about the vacation you took last month,
but something that lived between us, that died holding me tight.
I do not know how to explain my silence to you now. 
{An old house that I watch everyday on my way to work}
The front of my head is extravagantly happy and cheerful. My hands are cold, could be due to the air that’s between us lying meaningless and cold. The kind of things that go on there, on my head, with a sense of certainity, most times, leaves me silent. 
{My companion, besides books, the Mediterranean doll, a gift from Munny, has a name Baka :)
{My Room at home}
I enjoy reading stories and poems about them, the spaces where ample joyous moments meet silent webs of loneliness or existential emptiness, “The Rooms”, which, usually, are formed by a combined effort of four walls, a floor, a ceiling and a door. One of the walls, in most cases, has a large or moderately large rectangular open space, the doors of which are opened out to the world outside, i.e. windows. A window allows the external world to enjoy a glimpse of one’s private world, the cocoon that offers an opportunity to the interested to study the moods as cultivated by the room.
I thought of inserting one of my favourite poems written about “The Room or The Window”, but ….now that Sunrise girl responded to me with a poem … I am uploading Cavafy’s “The Afternoon Sun” (which influenced my thoughts, to some extent)
The Afternoon Sun
This room, how well I know it.
Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it,
as offices. The whole house has become
an office building for agents, businessmen, companies.
This room, how familiar it is.
The couch was here, near the door,
a Turkish carpet in front of it.
Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases.
On the right -no, opposite- a wardrobe with a mirror.
In the middle the table where he wrote,
and the three big wicker chairs.
Beside the window the bed
where we made love so many times.
They must still be around somewhere, those old things.
Beside the window the bed;
the afternoon sun used to touch half of it.
. . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated
for a week only . . . And then-
that week became forever.
for a week only . . . And then-
that week became forever.
Constantine P. Cavafy
Like everyone, when I enter a room, I tend to breathe in its essence filled with some kind of light air – a few smell musty, a few carry light floral scent, a few have a faint odor of garden next to it and a few others exude a sense of familiarity and warmth one would love to be part of. I love to stand at the window of my room (at home) or of the flat where I live (the city where I work) and look across the road or the open courtyard at the opposite flats or houses, lose self in nameless warmth offered by brightly lit windows (clinical touch of Tube lights or Warm glow of regular bulbs) and their occupants. I, shamelessly (I admit, but I am not an intruder. I dnot play the Voyeur) watch people sitting in the couches or on the window sills, sharing the evening of their minds, the morning of their freshly revived energies, or the night of their withdrawals, or the light-heartedness of their life by stretching the time over laughing, talking or lazing around in the couch watching some game on the TV etc.
I am not sure who renews who – the rooms revive their occupants or the occupants bring back the joy to their rooms, but I feel, they are not just shadows but substantial light is shown upon the performers and the stage, bright, irreplaceable, inexhaustible and true. The “four-walls” seem to acquire certain palpable vignette charcter of its own, if one stays longer, could reflect the human influence of the occupant or the aspirational image the occupant wants to portray to the world that comes in to have conversations with the room & its accessories. Given a choice, I would prefer the former. The rooms dressed up (do we dress them down too?) in vibrant oranges, browns and reds, or the soothing blues or comforting lighter textures of nature, tend to relax people by removing the harshness of life, the streets from their faces, shoulders, arms, knees and feet. Whenever I encounter that avoidable heavy feeling of loneliness around my shoulders, I prefer to walk across the room, stand near the window, stare at the performance of life floating around, free with a sense of abandonment, people going about their regular activities, offering me some cracks in the walls (do they offer or do I snatch them forcibly) to conjure up a few chapters of their lives in my little head. Perhaps, they feel the same about me, when they watch me working, or standing near the window sunbathing with a book in my hand. At times, someone glances up at my window and makes me realize that he or she knew I was watching him or her. In a dreamy world that’s designed far away from the world of reality, like the one in the film “Bed of Roses”, where she gets an unexpected delivery of roses from a secret admirer who sees her breaking down and crying uncontrollably, a night before, at her window. Developments of such kind (effortless way of finding true love, which is a strenuous one) are quite rare in real life. All of us feel a sense of comfort when we watch people – people do window-shopping or stand aimlessly in the modern citadels of consumption, i.e. Shopping Malls, watching others, we call it human therapy.
People rejuvenate people, people comfort people, as long as their private worlds do not collapse into others’. However, when this happens, a whole turbulent universe of expectations, anticipations, dreams, longings, frustrations, explodes soon with a great momentum, immediately after an initial euphoric trip of emotions. It’s such a bliss if one retains his or her private world, but engages with others’, assuming a certain degree of enchantment blended with a discerning level of aloofness. I ensure that my room stays on as a familiar {I should be able to move around with my eyes closed, without getting obstructed by something during the motion) and comforting space (some kind of language emerges between the room and the occupant after spending mornings, afternoons, siestas, evenings and nights together), with aptly placed ingredients or the accessories that are expected to heighten the “addiction-quotient” of the room. Like the couch in the corner, near the door, the low chairs made of light bamboo, the open shelf painted in red with books, a wardrobe with a mirror where the occupant spends a few minutes to celebrate her feminine graceful charm or to feel the gradual erosion of the same, immediately after those daily escapades with water (I meant bathing), the corner where the bed reaches out to the window, spacious enough for the little head to explore its world of classical assurance - the stars, the dark skies, the rains during which the elements make love unabashedly, or to move into the world where nobody knows her but herself, where lines are written or erased, where profound, human-like unstoppable cravings crawl into the bed, which has not been shared with anyone.
Mornings, Afternoons, Siestas and Evenings are no longer as lifeless as they used to be.
A strip of sunlight streams around and everything becomes still quiet.
A golden-hued revolution unfurls slowly from the corner.
And then it overflows, through the earthen pot, spills over the cloth,
leaves a few stains around, crawls up to me.
For the first time in my life, I forgot to hate my brown skin….
I planned to buy nautical blue-colored curtains,
cream-colored soft pillows, a crackle glass shades lamp
in the corner, just like the one I saw in his bedroom and
some other things for my world. I would have loved to rest
my head against the wall I painted in bright Oranges and
lemon yellows. My window opened into the night would have
turned its head to the steps of a tired looking woman in
high-heels coming down the walk. It would not have minded
giving coffee in a ceramic mug with yellow flowers printed
on it, to the emptiness that drifted in along with her body.
So much, I wanted to do. You see, my life is too dull, with
no events. The weekend crowds would have whispered over
foaming mugs of beer, there she goes after work, to her car,
gives a brief smile at those leaves fallen around, a brief flash
of her thigh as she bends on her knees to collect a few for her
book, goes for a brief shopping to get a fresh loaf of bread,
a pack of Italian pasta.
A Poetry Reading Love After Love by Derek Walcott {thanks to my commentator - The Sunrise Lover}
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
– Lord Byron (Extracted this Gem from the post written by adorable creature - Rakesh. His review of “Into the Wild”)
….I want to burst into tears…I want to burst open the windows and cry out loud to the skies. At times, grief that’s felt is so deep and personal that it can’t be explained through tears. Life, though engrossing, scares me sometimes, especially, through those “Disruptions”, which make me realise how unknowingly, yet willingly I have become so “helplessly dependent on someone”, who I’ve never met, and with who there would be no chance encounters. People say it’s quite exciting, it’s unique, it’s almost like a full-time commitment that’s understood and completely imbibed into the system. I could not but agree with this view. The thorny limitations run down my face, and it’s dreary. Life is shared in terms of “Daily Headlines” with the face-less stranger, honestly and religiously, and secretly desire for the same kind of transmission from his side, which usually does not happen, and I, the tough-petite creature, do not see it as a factor that causes a sensory dissonance. It does hurt me, sometimes, when I have to walk, determined and stern, through an exclusive cubicle that focuses my life in a hypercritical manner, at the end of which I find self entangled in layers of painful realisations. Life is devoid of music, fun and excitement, longing kisses on lips, on nape, long and hard bites on the cheeks. A constant movement has to be sustained without losing my heart to someone who I come across on splendid journeys, long walks have to be maintained with a gritty frown on my brow and when a rebellious mood strikes at me, I have to stare at the spiels of rationalisation & justifications that are pinned up against the wall. Its Tough to be in love with, to stay engaged with someone – a faceless stranger. Unusually long sequences of silence are celebrated on the window sill – a silent performance about inexplicable physical suffering. You may conclude that I am a loser, but I consider it as a great human effort to stay committed to something that lives, breathes on carefully structured strings of words, a firmly held belief about a possibility & an encounter in the breast, a gentle effort to wear a child-like curiosity and innocence about a world that appears so familiar, yet so far away and out of reach, a comforting interpretation of a hopeless world. I can feel the self-pity seeping between the lines, reaching out to the teary-rendition crawling across my cheeks. And I cannot forget the most essential behavioural possibility that the faceless stranger could terminate the conversations across the wall just as easily and effortlessly as he had started them. The fear is excruciatingly painful, its intensity changes every day, some days it is dull, some days it’s just a plain pain that throbs around in every corner. I may be ignorant in many ways, but I am not stupid. What keep me going in this daily game are the dialogues that I have with him and with myself. They are Pure, Genuine and Raw, devoid of any manipulative or deceptive acts.
{The Arabian sea outside my window, 5.30-6 PM, Sunday, Mumbai}
The sea which stretches before me changes its colours, silently, from an almost discernible pale blue to a refreshing pastel blue to a robust bluish green to dull grey in dense shades. Its pleasant smiles, its calmness, its restlessness, its agitation, its gentleness, its delightful dialogues, its playfulness, its joyful exuberance, if you observe closely, each mood comes in various shades. You have to come out of the confines of your room to brace the salty smell of sea breeze, and sit by the sea and lose self to the rolling waves of water that rush across the sea. The sun’s warm rays and the kiss of a gentle sea breeze takes you far away from the world that you live in– a world full of many events that you had participated in, but were left idle or untouched for some time. I feel, that’s what many others do sitting on the parapet overlooking the sea, slipping gradually into their private worlds, mingled thoughts and unrecorded observations…
I, certainly, have no strength to capture the sea’s moods and its ever-changing demeanor. I am incapable of presenting to the world, my view of the sea, what happens to me as a human when I stand in front of this overwhelming stretch of the watery world of blues and greens. Each time, I leave a piece of conversation with the sea, I may wait for it to respond to me, linger for a while or leave the piece there at its feet for it to read or go through it when the sea finds some time for me. But every time, interestingly, I feel so light-hearted when I am walking back to my room. I am sure, most of you would have read a few works of Iris Murdoch, a well known Existential Philosopher, especially, The Sea, The Sea (1978), 
perhaps Murdoch’s finest achievement, which is a tremendously powerful and moving work about the pathologically self-absorbed Charles Arrowby, who, after a career as one of England’s leading playwrights and directors, retires to a cottage by the sea only to find the sharpnel of his entire existence returning to wound him anew.
She writes….”the sea glows rather than sparkles in the bland May sunshine. With the tide turning, it leans quietly against the land, almost unflecked by ripples or by foam. Near to the horizon, it is a luxurious purple, spotted with regular lines of emerald green. At the horizon it is indigo. Near to the shore, where my view is framed by rising heaps of humpy yellow rock, there is a band of lighter green, icy and pure, less radiant, opaque however not transparent. We are in the north, and the bright sunshine cannot penetrate the sea. Where the gentle water taps the rocks there is still a surface skin of colour. The cloudless sky is very pale at the indigo horizon which it lightly pencils in with silver. Its blue gains towards the zenith and vibrates there. But the sky looks cold, even the sun looks cold….’”
Intelligent and Sensitive, Is not her expression? each moment with the sea is spectacular and vibrant, but sadly, the human expression runs short of doing it full justice in required a level of intensity. The words alone may not be able to fulfill the role, I think, certain load of emotions to be brought in so that the world of imagination gathers enough substance to express what we felt then with the sea, why did not we feel like revealing certain unpleasant developments to it, or to express the complete awe. The Sea shimmers in the evening sun, which drenches everything around, through its final glance for the day - the trees, the leaves and blossoms, the buildings, the crowds, the cars, the dogs, the light shadows creeping across etc etc. , before the young night takes over ….
{The Bed in our Room : Pleasant Blue-shaded Pure Khadi Bed spread is from Fab India- Colaba. Priced at Rs.1200 . Lemon Yellowish & Deep Copper Bluish Tiny Pillows are from Aneesa’s collection. Her Stuffed doll- The Lion, Leo, and my stuffed doll - The Middle-East Peasant doll, gifted by Munny….All the images are captured, spontaneously, by Nokia-N series}
But the little things they make me so happy
All I want to do is live by the sea
Little things they make me so happy
But it’s good it’s good it’s good to be free…….(Oasis)
I’ve always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live more simply……{Dido}
When I told my close friends that I, finally, for the first time ever in my life, decided to move out of my cocoon to work in one of the largest and top-rated advertising agencies in Mumbai, the cosmopolitan city with an indomitable spirit (sounds familiar, isn’t it? Most of us do not even hesitate a bit to reiterate this much-bandied-about term that differentiates Mumbai from other cities in India), their response was miles away from being encouraging, i.e. “you, a South Indian by DNA, can’t survive the highly competitive life. You are not a pachyderm, your intelligence does not work there. Those smart asses, further reinforced by long limbs and treacherous seductive smiles will gobble you up…”, “you have no rigorous individually designed strength to face those unavoidable bouts of loneliness which come and slap one violently across each cheek before disappearing. You may turn suicidal…”.
I did not raise any riotous carnival against this, but remained silent and adamant over my decision to move to – the city which is rated the 7th dirtiest city, a majority of its population remains insensitive to the world around on almost all kinds of occasions, with the deadly, invincible monsoon rains being the exception, when the whole Mumbai world, collectively, gathers the strength to rise out of the testing season, the city which continues to be the hot-bed of excitement and career enhancement in Advertising Industry. Well, I survived, and feel good about self for being a lot more disciplined, and levelheaded to the rigmarole of everyday life in this city. It feels great to take care of self, to feel responsible for self and ensuring everything so that the system works like a well-oiled machine, a sense of pride for managing things on my own without being dependent on anyone. The other big factor, “Urban Loneliness”, which everyone talks about, did not hit me hard, as I am highly-conditioned to enjoy many a pleasure of solitude - feel comfortable with self, instead of being emotionally dependent on others or the society that one likes to move around with. I feel, I lead a far more comfortable life than most others {considering those who live in the slums and shanty clusters) who struggle through the energetic pace of life, the resultant stress, inferior quality of life, the unhygienic environment filled with dirt and grime, the deafening clamor of urban existence (I don’t want to say Life, at this point of time). I watch them silently and admiringly, blending with others, to form a huge invincible territory with a tag “CROWD” and fight with other CROWDS for a foothold in the devices on which the city thrives - local trains, from the taxi I travel in everyday…. It is, indeed, a stimulating sight! The evening mandi sights relatively are more endearing…. Old women, middle-aged women and men display and sell the daily fruits, vegetables and other merchandise in a roadside stand, or in the space created between the pavements and the road. I love the hustle and bustle of buyers of daily produce (Modern Retail formats like Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha, and other upcoming ambitious Retail brands including the ruthless EDLP Always giant Wal-Mart have no room for the Indians’ penchant for bargaining, striking conversations while buying essentials for their homes? Bargaining and negotiating on price, quality etc, as moms and dads do, is an admirable trait, which, we the younger generation always want to get a grasp of …Biyani’s Big Boxes may come closer to the ethnic milieu, to some extent….), the colors around, the artificial lights coming up, the lingering intense smell of certain fruits, the dust, the earthiness, the garbage filled with wrappers of all kind, the all-encompassing and all-inclusive Sweat journeying, effortlessly and silently, from its origin – a human source to the other of the same kind, only to mingle and grow more intense and thick, the daily wage laborers, the rag pickers, the restaurant boys, groups of children in dirty rags, embodying naivety across playing around, the irreverent street language with a defined tone ….
{The stuffed doll, belongs to Aneesa, finally, got a thourough bath. And he, here, is seen enjoying the Sunday sun, hanging from the window, to the max} 
{One of those Middle-east stuffed dolls, which Munny gave me, provided some kind of comfort when I felt a bit lonely….well, of course, my books!}
am fortunate enough to find a comforting place by the seaside – to follow the moods of the grey-colored Arabian sea, across the window, which usually laps gently at the rocks {it does get into its exciting outbursts of mumblings, at times….} and lull to sleep by the relentless incoherent musical mumblings of the sea, every night…. . Coming to terms with a vibrant new city that I travelled to, earlier, frequently, but never stayed for longer than a few hours (most times). Staying far away from the Cocoon, Mom and Dad for the first time ever in my life. Waking up to a fresh morning feeling the absence of Genie and his soft and comforting presence……a glimpse of tastefully {minimalist) laid out bed by Aneesa {gorgeous young woman, a fabulous human to the core} and self….. the city grows on you and a few strangers-turned-good friends did make the move seem easier….and Aneesa definitely features in that set
{my walking-companion by the sea…}
{Our Sunday Lunch} a starved stomach, usually,
does not pounce on the food, It enjoys the smell and sight of a simple, healthy yet delicious food. …………..one more interesting life like insight - when you are in the company of a bewitchingly beautiful company of a woman, like my roomie (I acquired a new pet name - The Clown) or the snooty-n- snobbish handsome man who I sat next to, in the morning flight to Delhi, who urged the sophisticated lady with a generous beaming smile walking across the aisle, to “top-up” his coffee, repeatedly, you tend to lose both state of mind and presence of mind. I admit, beautiful people weave some kind of inexplicable influence on other mortals, and the victimised mortals, under which, tend to get clumsier and portray some other act, which could be hilarious, a bit embarassing…..Delhi’s landscape is going through the fag end of the winter
{Delhi trip…I saw many of such leafless trees, fully covered with Crimson Red flowers. And they certainly are not soulless, they are so beautiful. I felt the temptation, as usual, to stop and collect the twigs and fallen flowers. Should thank Nilanjana and the cabbie for entertaining my request.}
..A closer shot of this flower….
Every winter,
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -
Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.
~Charles Kingsley
Amy left this beautiful quote for me as an offline message.
{Updated on 30th Dec, 2007)
I am, as always, drawn to the silence of evenings, draped in the darker shades of earthy colors. Certain degree of depth, the mother nature appears to extend willingly, to someone who prefers loneliness, walking down the streets, contemplating many an event in one more year, she managed to survive in this world. I should say, “An Adventure within”.
There were moments when I felt the pulse of the pain, caused by others. There were moments I felt like moving far away from the world, not as a coward, but as a woman who was aghast at the fact that people who write great things have no ability to appreciate others for what they are. Amidst the seasons of angst, a few moments of realization thrilled me to no end that I have actually become stronger an individual than I used to be. It’s truly endearing how the seasons highlight changes in one, which would have happened under the prevailing influence of a reflecting mind in the middle of the night. It’s like admiring the power and determination accumulated around my arm muscles after a spell of weight training.
I have not gathered many significant achievements in this phase of my life, about which one would love to run into the street to blow an unseen trumpet. But to my comfort, it’s getting better, may not be in terms of lifestyle – the house where I live, the car I drive around, the activities I long to be part of, the kind of guy I like to flaunt to the world etc., but a few strips of thought provoking, original work I managed to pull through at my work. Genuine personal achievement. A sense of maturity is caught within the thin lines of fixed expression on my face, smile remains as bright and garrulous as it’s been since the beginning, yes, of course, they have become unbelievably reluctant – they do not appear so easily on the fantasy streets : TEARS.
It’s not a glorified message from life, but a fact - It does not matter what you do for living, how much you managed to amass. What matters the most is what kind of picture you’ve managed to create in the minds of those who think that you exist, somewhere, in some corner of the world. Most do not know how clumsy and disheveled you may look in the mornings, how intolerably irritable you could be when things do not happen just the way you wanted them to happen, someone chides, forever, you have no people skills. As long as you have the courage to be what you are and sustain that sense of activity around you, the world does not mind turning back to take a second look at you!
“Blow a kiss at the woman in the mirror, slip into soft cottons, grab a thin woolen coat, walk into the street to face life, smile at the sun, watch the leaves falling down to the ground, and let the breeze through your skirt….everyone is on his own, on her own…”
…The sea could be perfectly flat, rich cobalt blue that shimmered and glistened in the sun’s rays. But I am so far away from that quiet little village. I do not even have enough money to travel down to the village, picture of which is stuck in my eyes for longer than a year. I could just stay here, staring at the bare wall, the empty space around me to write a few lyrics, but not so meaningful, on that village which has whitewashed houses, an old church, its winding streets filled with thin layer of dust, the sea crashing wildly against the rocks, defining a deeper meaning of Blue to the onlookers. I could just stay here, to feel the complete tranquility of a tiny gallery in the village, situated on the main shopping street, choc-a-bloc with shops displaying different kinds of bracelets made of seashells, precious stones, prayer beads, garments worn by local people, statues, local sea food packed in boxes etc. I could just stay here, but place myself relaxed in a small house, which overlooks a beautiful countryside, its windows stretching their hands to hug the sea breeze, a front garden with flower beds, a tidy patio area…just the right kind of space, anyone would love to indulge in a fresh start – a stranger with a decent past, who does not know how to communicate with the locals, but who knows how to smile gently and beautifully, open to any kind of work, prefers to work at the Village tavern which plays soft music throughout…….am many thousand miles away from the village that I usually dream of . It is quite an ambitious adventure for me, but whenever I thought of it, it allowed me to enjoy an internal change of perspective with renewed freshness.
Winter has always kept me tucked in under its influence….my earlier posts!
…It came. And sat by my side. Caressed my face.
In the dead of night when ghostly shadows whizz along the streets.
I stared at the tag around its slender neck.
It says “Won’t you Kiss me? We have so many things to do. But before that…”,
….We hear stories, sometimes, which talk of certain incidents or those casually woven threads of life, when we meet strangers, whose existence we are blissfully ignorant of, till that moment, and with who we participate in ”Acts of ephemeral-yet-playful madness Or Flirtation-The Minimalist Conspiracy with subtitles in subtle body gestures or body language”, as if we were goaded by the moment to cram ourselves into such seemingly tch tch “forgettable developments in life which have no second chance”.
Such delightful encounters with humans from the world of opposite sex, enable us to relish a new quality of life, insisting that it could be, and must be discovered and savoured by everyone. Not everyone endorses this concept, but hardcore romantics like me thrive on such moves within life. The moment I awoke with this delightful discovery that “he looked at me, threw a glance of admiration, or he did have that gumption to lock his eyes with mine for a brief second and sustained that joy throughout the journey till the termination point, after which there was no turning - looking back, but to vanish into the crowds of the city”. I stumbled upon a great joy that I did not know how to describe; it was, undoubtedly, the joy of feeling myself alive, with him, in a world that has Azure skies (GREECE has such skies, playing in contrast with Virgin White sandy lands), whole, healthy and serenity, but it was something more: the joy that other people exist, they live, they move around with their friends, they enjoy the lighter side of life with them, despite being embroiled in the pressures of mundane life, that they admire a petite woman who walk elegantly and tall in mustard brownish green cotton sari, in the sea of “denim humanity”, that there are different seasons and that no day is just like any other…that, on the street, in the airport lounge, during the flight, one could enjoy the possibility of feeling immense joy and bliss of life (which unfortunately and invariably comes in tiny doses). With returning glances, he and I sensed that we were participating in an intense human space dedicated for playful souls, that we were part of this beautiful world, where strangers meet for a few minutes, for a few hours, admire each other subtly, unnoticed by the world around, it’s almost like both are in some kind of conspiracy of penning a short love story and then leave each other with one more vibrantly-hued meaning to life, to relationships, to silent conversations-blended-with-glances that happen between a pair of hearts. In some mysterious way, I am sure, we both are , now, feeling pleasant about having been admired by someone, having gathered yet another beautiful memory of a journey, which would have illuminated us internally, and there’s a still a tinge of blush on my cheeks.
And We would continue to remember vaguely, like some half forgotten dream, that this same thing had happened to us once before; it’s a story, which even the authors had felt intrigued about, at least once in their lifetime, and would have had gone through some kind of struggle as to how to terminate the story - the man meets the woman, or the woman tries to search for him or some other situation would soon be created so that silence between then-strangers-now-a-bit familiar gives way to a few smiles and a few words. What could be the best end for such stories? We may feel the urgency to know how it would turn out, if there is one more chance, so that we would sit there, in the same park, on different hard benches, and watch the swing of emotions……It’s human to fall in love with someone for a moment!
{to someone, a stranger who I met, who I glanced at, who was with his friends, travelling to Mumbai on 20th Nov, 2007. The flight had been delayed an hour and 45 minutes}
You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.
You’re beautiful, it’s true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don’t know what to do,
‘Cause I’ll never be with you.
Yes, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don’t think that I’ll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last ’till the end}
Travelling across the countryside. On work.
“Oh public road … You express me better than I express myself” - Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”
You can hear the beckoning call of the open road, only if you free yourself from all those arguments you were part of behind the closed doors, near the windows left ajar, in the corridors, across the coffee tables, in the parking lots etc etc. And you feel like responding to the music started by one of many channels run by the open road.
You feel much stronger, all of a sudden, you wake up in the centre of a town with its winding streets and cobbled, crowded alleyways. A few stepped pathways with intricate steep designs lead you to beautiful old houses, a few corners of which, you run into the possibility of meeting someone with romantic interest.
Well, of course, the weather is kind enough to consider the fact that you still are not warmed up to some other man in your life. There is nothing wrong in coming back in the evening, exfoliate your tired face, and bury your little head in a book. First, you need to respond to the music of the open road.
Outside the speeding car, the monsoon, gradually is withdrawing, but the sweet smell of rains is still hung heavy everywhere. The raindrops are streaking down the windows, the world outside is still blurry. Everything is trapped in a wordless hum, while those raindrops left behind by the monsoon, are accommodating themselves to the new curvatures they have been introduced to, some time ago.
You sighed like a drama queen, lay back against the seat with your eyes closed. A thin air of sadness engulfs you, which you have not felt that before in the recent weeks. You turned back to stare at those cars and trucks coming up behind your car, trying to catch up with you fast. You looked at various other things that you left behind, which would vanish in the next moment – people tramping through puddles, the raindrops enjoying a free fall from many types of surfaces they clung to, filling the puddles with tiny circles of disturbance, vehicles splashing the collected rain water on the roads onto those unsuspected walkers-by, the fully drenched office buildings, houses with huge courtyards, breathing in all that fresh moisture.
But you appear so far away from this moderately high-profile celebration around, your lips stir annoyingly over the bitterness that was left by a cup of coffee you had in the flight. Or is this bitterness caused by the dinner you had all alone previous night? Ah, much to your chagrin, you are out of control again, thinking about some walks you shared with someone. If one can write a book on how can on forget someone who came in and vanished like a season, with minimal effort, you may end up buying the book on the first day itself. …………….
Each moment strives to be better than its predecessor. Each moment collapses either under the deep shade of Tamarind trees or on the top-most branches playing some game with the breeze or on that Village-woman in parrot green colored sari with her small child slept against her breast, a huge earthen pot flled with drinking water at her feet or on teams of villagers in their local dresses, in varied hues basking in sun-kissed splendor, squated wth their baskets of fresh farm produce : Guava fruits plucked away along with their respective branch-homes, Tender coconuts bunched hung from the branches as if little wicked kids are undergoing some kind of punishment after having got caught amidst one of their pranks, sweet little corns in their pale green jackets etc, ………….or through or under or over…the journey is speckled with surprises in human and non-human formats.
I search for the bookmark to establish a pause for the book. Each moment dies in front of me draped in such a luxurious fabric of life. With people who I never met before or I would never meet again in life. A few brief smiles tinkled across and shared with the other pairs of eyes. With green fields shivering in the sun, throbbing fervently with excitement for something unknown……
My life, these days, all of a sudden, appears to be a tapestry of decisions
of tiny physical stature, draped in personal warmth. Like what to prepare
for Saturday breakfast table, not to get distracted by recipes for Spaghetti
and Lasagna in the book, resist the temptation to prepare Spinach and
sun-dried tomato pasta sauce or to fix a pair of sandwiches with a thin
layer of mildly fluffy scrambled eggs with cheese or to stand near the
kitchen window staring blankly at the picture frame or to think about
the man who sent me a picture of his breakfast – sausages, fried mushrooms
and onions with feta cheese, creamy baked broccoli;
just to lie in the bed
graffitising the wall with the messages about a revolution that escaped
from the softest spot of my heart, or to crawl out of the bed to grind fresh
coffee, fill my frail lungs with its fresh aroma and sit around waiting for
the pot to boil and then sit down at the window-sill with the strong brew
to watch the performance of the sky glowing warm and pinkish orange
even after the sun sank below the horizon ; or to look back over my shoulder
at the dreams arrived at the old dilapidated station, as the darkness fell around
them like a blanket; Where to go, should I take that tree-dense street to feel
the cool wind on my face, or should I sit around with little children immersed
in a street-game that I played when I was a child; or to stand in front of the
old street-musician with my eyes pleading silently for a sweet sidewalk song
on me; or should I forget driving down to my meeting, stand wordless to
watch the beams of sunlight lancing through the trees; should I strike up a
conversation with that bunch of a half dozen squirrels chomping berries on
the high branches ; or should I slide under the branches drooping low under
the weight of raindrops, to cry out that dull throbbing pain scrubs my face every
night? Should I go against the DNA that defined my core so far in this life,
*a sentimental fool who tends to murmur “I feel that our paths are beginning to
part” at times? or retain certain flavour of it, but walk down the narrow lanes
of local baazar to acquire a hard-bodied mask that simply say “we are tired of each other”!
*both the distinct philosophies are drawn out from Turgenev’s finest work ”Fathers and Sons” . I have been a Sentimental fool, and the world has been taking me out for a grand ride in the skies, over the Mother loam, and I enjoyed it as a “Celebrity who so ridiculously believes that everything is designed for her happiness, which in reality is not so”
{link takes you to Abhishek who interrupts everything, albeit with a pleasant touch :Within my reach, I could have touched that dew drop sauntering soft across the purple skin of a bloom}
Fort Minor’s “ Where’d you go”
{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zBybdnDQCI}
……She said “Some days I feel like shit,
Some days I wanna quit, and just be normal for a bit,”
I don’t understand why you have to always be gone,
I get along but the trips always feel so long,
And, I find myself trying to stay by the phone,
‘Cause your voice always helps me to not feel so alone,
But I feel like an idiot, workin’ my day around the call,
But when I pick up I don’t have much to say,
So, I want you to know it’s a little fucked up…….{a part of the lyrics!}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s no point in lying in the bed,
in a room darkened forcibly, motionless,
and empty of words. Every part of my body is
protesting against something silently, too little
time and energy is at my disposal. I know,
it would consume me soon. I may not be there
to wish a fresh morning. I am fighting a battle
with the history of grief, marching past the grim-looking
trees whose feet are stuck in the carpet of fallen leaves.
Tears piled high up in my nose, there must be severe pain
streaked across my face in the most clear and honest strokes,
the world may feel sympathetic towards it someday.
With a thin cotton white shirt open over the soft and
treacherous plots of my breasts, and my legs curled up
tight and firm in that new pair of denim jeans I bought
last week amidst bursts of fake laughter, I may be a model
with stunning looks for the world, which watches grim
realities on TV. Around me hung a mild fragrance of
moisturising body-wash, which I want to run away from
in a great haste to the raining skies breaking open above
the houses, or to that warm afternoon taking a siesta
on a sun-baked bed across which a rusty-brown coloured
quilt was spread, and a soft breeze from the lemon tree
parked self in one of its corners. To lie lifeless is :
to speak to the memories, to take silent walks through
grief-struck streets, backyards filled with random growth
of vines on the trees, troubling stretches of wild grass.
To lie lifeless is : to let the hand walk across the bed
to his side hoping it to find warm.
To lie lifeless is : to stay dumb to the thoughtful gestures
of mom, dad and my pet dog. Not to think of my sisters.
To lie lifeless is : To entertain a mind-numbing decision
to hug someone who does not want to be held.
To lie lifeless: to stay meaningless!
—-Jyo (I am really really sad. I took a brief pause off my Critical Reasoning Test, looked at the branches of trees swinging in the afternoon breeze. To stay happier is such a simple thing, but why am I not able to grasp that lesson? Laughing used to be effortless a task for me. Then. I seem to be losing my firm grip on this ability as well. Why do people come and take away something so intrinsic to us ?}
“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees.”
– Marcel Proust
{Courtesy : Advertising community-Toronto,am not providing the blog URL}
“get dirty”, “get mud all over”, “do some dirty dancing”, “get down and dirty”,”it’s time to burn your bras”, “you slog your butt off, get some fucking life”, …..well, my dear folks who I work with at LOWE, crammed me with messages of such kind. I have been a very sincere girl at my work place and in my relationships (where I nurture high-decibel expectations) but….life has different a spin for me, all the time, always! While I am at my presentation, I received this update (containing the image and the wise saying by Marcel Proust) from the blog driven by a team of Advertising professionals in Canada….I,especially, loved the image, while lost self in the pearl of wisdom…umm, that reminds me I still have not finished Proust’s Swan’s Way….“get some fucking life” drove me wild, as I recalled the bad boy, the Hell’s Angel, the rebel without a cause, the Iconic Harley Davidson.
One of the brand’s historical campaigns that - forced the audience to consider a Harley ‘today’, not just ‘one day’ and differentiated Harley from the imitators with a campaign that only Harley-Davidson could produce 
At the crucial stage of the strategic development, the team viewed one of many videos on the history of the Harley-Davidson, for further inspiration. Within it lay the excuse. A section of the film featured the life of a late US H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) Chairman who died in a motorcycling accident. The inscription on his gravestone read:‘Whilst he was alive, he lived’
The excuse for overcoming all the rational barriers was time – the fragility of life, the fact that this is our one and only chance. Life is too short to keep putting off the Harley you have always promised yourself, to let rational thought get in the way. Can you guess what’d inspired the creative team that was working on this campaign then? A poem
I’d pick more daisies
If I had my life to live over, I’d try and make more mistakes next time.
I would relax.
I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I know of very few things I would take seriously,
I would be crazier.
I would be less hygienic.
I would take more chances.
I would take more trips.
I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets …..
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I am one of those people who live prophylactically and sanely and sensibly, hour
after hour, day after day.
Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so
many years ahead each day.
I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute.
If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have.If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.
I would play hooky more.
I wouldn’t make such good grades except by accident.
I would ride on more merry-go-rounds.
I’d pick more daisies.
Nadine Stair, aged 87,Lewisville KY USA
Inspired by this simple yet life-revealing poem, a well crafted brand proposition beamed at the world -
“Every day of your life without a Harley-Davidson is another day wasted”