Toasties and Cheese

Drift

2011-12-13T23:09:00.001+05:30

How about I just slip away
And yet stay anchored at the shore
May I ?

Lasting memories

2011-09-24T11:57:00.005+05:30

... And then there is loss

Which doesn't explain itself.

Some kind of silly arithmetic logic,

Division that partitions lives.

But boxes don't hold bodies,

And fires don't swallow flesh.

Souls are immortal or so they say

like mummified containers filled with anti-death preservatives.

But whose to say it isn't already dearly departed.

When breaths become a mere measurement of ventilator puffs

And the mind begins to disconnect from limbs..

A picture in my mind will forever rest,

A memory box will sketch a new stick figure - -

Of flesh and skin and blood and bones and hair and fingernails.

A creature fueled by a soul.

Immortal in spirit, frozen in time.

When curls were brown, breath was regular and mind secure.

When the heart beat in rhythm to unpolluted seasons.

When Kasauli and Rauni were homes alive with shrubberies not weeds.

When cancer and bipolar were definitions only medical manuals explained.

When songs, dance and long walks was the only prescription drug for the day.

A reflection in the mirror that no breath can cloud over,

Lucky few can see the bloodline alive in them as I do.

You meant life Nana Nani, more alive than the picture on the wall.

The clouds hold your lives now, as children of the sky.

RIP

Sukh Sekhon

Sohan Singh Sekhon

One drink too many

2011-07-22T20:40:00.002+05:30

Fuzzy and smokey, creamed and strained
Clap on, clap off, cornered and drained;
Seeing is sawing, kneeing and gnawing
Hammerhead rhythm, red herring brain.

Do you want more sentimental sleaze?
More fat kids, diseased?
Perhaps Superman will fly in and drink Gin
With you and your Uncle's mad niece.

I like my flat swept, my Vodka strong
My ghosts to stay dead, my wood to last long.

Slippery and slimy, or scaly and dry
Cankered and cancerous, bloody well wry;
Being's believing, but knowing is fleeting
Fifty steps down to the what and the why.

Would you like more sentimental drudge?
More holier-than-thou septic sludge?
Perhaps Baba Ramdev will cure your homosexuality
And leave with a wink and a nudge.

like brats to stay online, my demons in bottles
My kittens with cream and my train at full throttle
I don't want your soul, but I'll take your body.

Just

2011-07-06T18:24:00.001+05:30

Long time coming
Fleeting moment

New job
new life
new confessions
new honesty.

Come undone

2011-04-18T21:10:00.002+05:30

Somewhere, in the recesses of my memory, is a half finished song - it was blues, till it became too pop, turned metal with range. Right now, in this moment, its a piano solo against Joni Mithcell's voice. Only I can't remember the tune anymore. It's half a melody in the mind.

Along the way, I've learnt to mimic relationships - feelings, togetherness, respect ... only endurance is a big-word and nothing can mask a loner's heart. Not even a half-hearted love.

At some point in time, I befriended words. They seem to know me more than I could comprehend. With every strike of the spacebar, another word would scribble itself as if my sub conscious was talking back at me - chiding me, describing me to myself. Lately Ive been filling empty gaps in newspapers as writing. Half voyeur.

This half being has managed to fill a certain half emptiness, making it look half full. Once in a while, I lose the connect. All I am now doing, is half living.

An interview with Buddy Guy

2011-02-10T15:52:00.004+05:30

Buddy Guy mid song at Mahindra Blues Festival, Mumbai

'Shh…I ain’t finished yet'

Hip-hop, blues, BB King and Eric Clapton …are just some of things five time Grammy winner Buddy Guy is all about

In the audience of a blues legend, you do feel him all around. At the just concluded Mahindra Blues Festival, ‘74-year young…’ Buddy Guy (like his song) walked through the crowd, talked to his audience in melody, played his guitar with the drum stick, his teeth and even holding behind his back. He even indulged us in a small duel with his pianist Marty Sammon. The oldest soul and blues musician held the crowd captive for nearly two hours and kept saying ‘Shhh…I ain’t finished yet’ every time he felt the pulse of the crowd dip. We spoke to the showman beneath that fabulous hat.

That was a fabulous performance over the weekend. We loved the way you kept saying Bombay in your lyrics. Are we aiite for Buddy Guy?

Well I had fun. Now see I knew I hadn’t played here with my whole band before. It was great to have Marty (Sammon on keyboards), Tim (Austin on drums), Orlando (Wright on bass) and Ric (Hall on guitar) here. They are solid men. I liked working the crowd and people here knew of me, my new album Living Proof. Some of you had heard about it. Then Shemekia (Copeland) and Jonny (Lang) joined me on stage and we sang them blues.

Speaking of Living Proof (buy here), congratulations on your Grammy nomination this year. Are you hoping of winning your sixth?

Well I don’t know about that, but where I come from, every little bit helps. BB King and I have been great friends for over 53 years. BB and I did a spiritual song for this album on ‘Stay a little longer.’ We were both excited. Before all of this technology, we all would listen to the spiritual groups from years and years ago. This album is Living Proof of the old times, of our old times.

Are there plans of playing with Eric Clapton soon?

You know, Eric (Clapton) had told me that the last Crossroads (Guitar festival) would be his last one, but I think he had a lot of fun at this last one. He’s coming back on tour this summer. I’d a said he said he’d change his mind. We are going to have one more.

What do you think of the new blues talent?

Well I think everybody is playing hip-hop now. My youngest daughter is playing too and she’s been opening for me at festivals. I still think there is fire in these bones. The new singers are alright too. But it’s like the era of BB King, Les Paul, Muddy Waters needs some reviving. You still hear their songs when you go to hear good Blues. I still play there songs. You can’t evolve blues. It’s the song of the soul.

Keep the gap

2011-01-06T13:25:00.002+05:30

Between six suns

There’s still space for shadows

Between five moons

There’s still space for light

Between four rivers

There’s still a gush before the delta

Between three tables

There’s still some waiting

Between two of us

There’s still lot unsaid

Within me

There’s still shadow of the beast.

Navel wrap

2010-09-28T19:08:00.000+05:30

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in apathy.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the lethargy.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in abstraction.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the inaction.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in indolence.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the quiescence.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in laziness.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the craziness.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in attitude.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the latitude.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in reflection.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the connection.

Meet the Enthusiast

2010-09-11T20:02:00.009+05:30

Self definition: That is pretty much the reason for any sort of being or a ways of seeking a purpose to living isn't it? It could be as basic as the daily morning ritual of washing clothes (seriously I don't know why I have that OCD) or the way a certain word skipped scale in the second verse of that awesome alternative song (and why can't I just listen to music like a regular fan and not break it down to notes!)

Point is, we all need and constantly seek ways to evolve ourselves in order to add a word or phrase to 'who we are.' You know there is addition, when at every given occasion to define yourself you constantly keep adding designations to yourself! From being a professionally defined (or not!) someone - you also become a comic collector, a culinary zealot, a professional farter . . . (how the last one made it? I blame Twitter for it) oh there is also a new one, frequently incepted (Yes I blame Chris Nolan for it).

But think about it for a second here. If the crazy researcher was right, maybe we are all incepted from time-to-time. It is literally a thought you wake up to almost everyday or at every mouse click. I think we are losing ourselves in a self-created and self-advocated matrix of pop culture objects. Inanimate things have a way of finding 3D animation inside our minds and hearts and we somehow begin to live that new Sweedish Thriller (MUST on the noveau thriller circuit), genre-bending world cinema titles (too many to enumerate), Mad Men-esque sitcoms, webcomics, trending topics, music (electronic rock and indie yes) and of course revival of the kitsch. . . it's honestly exhausting.

An idea is truly potent, yes I agree with the dream theory and I think my domino-effect-crumbling architectural flaws in designs are quickly replacing new sights, smells - in my senses leading to greater shift in inspiration than ever before. Fine, I agree I am the flawed searcher of self-definition. So much so, that important people, numbers and dates have begun to fade from my random access memory. You see, my mental hard disk is supremely cluttered and for some reason has started auto deleting past memories to make room for new information. It struck me when I was making a mental wedding guest list and every few minutes I added someone I had forgotten earlier - you know those people called friends who have lasted you through thick, thin and the debauchery (mild!). Not that I am walking down the aisle, just the thought of it!

Seriously, I draw a complete blank sometime and at those times I am only praying that my mind is rebooting with a new installed mental app. Anyway, where was I? Yes, self definition. Till a few years ago, I was simply a journalist. Since then I have begun to say writer when asked what I do and get into this mini mumble lasting a good one-minute of what 'kind of writer' I am.

Recently I had a conversation at a much-needed, de-stressing smoke break with a senior at work and she happened to narrate a certain business jargon mumbled by another someone describing one's boss to be a 'dynamic variable.' It was like a mental click. A light-bulb Homer Simpson moment if you were to call it one. While I agreed with her, bosses are variable dynamics (meaning people who can't make up their mind) But it is true. Self definition is a variable dynamic.

I drew up a list today of the things that I think defined me. Sure enough I hit some 21 points and I knew quite well some are just goldfish-memory akin variable dynamics (yes I will use the phrase again and again thank you) So I cut the crap, talked to my Ma (totally at peace with her self-definition. Mother) and as painfully boring as it might be, I just came out with one - Enthusiast! (and you thought I'd say journalist. It's gotta be a little more cooler than that!)

But it's true. I am an enthusiast, a modern culture bred enthusiast - with the fleeting attention span of Spiderman on speedy pills. I'll find a new like as soon as you go to the mental press with it (some journalism in me) But what is intrinsic to me is that I like discovering new things. I am supremely curious by nature, so I will rummage through the trash even if something finds my fancy. I'll make it popular, till it isn't alternative anymore.

So here's to discovering myself - cheers to the inner Enthusiast! (vanity is pure contamination, but gets you through a dull at-home day!)

Transcribing an interview with poetry

2010-08-24T15:48:00.002+05:30

My day job has put me to task to interview and transcribe a million and more famous people. Here's something from a meeting from a half-remembered dream

Good morning Poetry, please, sit down,
make yourself comfortable.

Q: You look tired yet fresh faced, how old are you,
if you do not mind my asking?

A: How old is time!
How old is the first breath of the multiverse!
I am as old as existence, as young as now.
I was there when this universe was created,
dancing along the veins of fiery lines.
I am as young as a newborn baby,
a brand new thought leading to the keyboard.

Q: You seem to be everywhere in the world,
what are the things that inspire you?

A: I am everywhere in the world. In a blade of grass,
unseen in the wind that laughs breeze above it.
Inspiration, the dreams that linger on the eye, waiting to float.
The colours which drive beauty into verse.
Life and death, smiling inside the circle.
Inspiration is but a whisper away, my muse is my breath.

Q: You mentioned colours in your previous answer,
if you could be a colour or a scent, what would you be?

A: I would, indeed I am; every colour in the rainbow,
swirling into each other, grinning like a pot of gold.
As to scent, fresh baked bread, morning coffee,
the decay of vegetation, of flesh in a field,
I am all of those and everything that is.

Q: What are your thoughts on prose?
Do you ever get angry with her?

A: Anger, joy, fear, love, hate, jealousy,
all the emotions harbour me, I roam their intensity,
push and pull their waves - prose, I am prose,
the underlying matrix of words.

Q: Don’t chide me for this question.
But do you poetry use drugs?

A: Ah! The sweet labour of nature.
What are intoxicants but aids to obscurity.
Defy them, they still come to me in the night.
Take them, they still lose my expression.

Thank you Poetry, for being so candid here in this little chat,
perhaps you can help me with my cantos later?

Poetry smiles, takes off her microphone and drifts away.

To Depression with Love

2010-07-21T17:06:00.003+05:30

Depression secretly loved Suicide,

every day he would sigh and pine

for her quick slicing, painful touch,

but she never saw the rhyme

floating casually through the haze

of his dark, hungry scented gaze.

Suicide was in her own world,

leaping from building's tall ways

in her mind's soft blue clouds,

falling in Love's splattered days,

but he just looked through her heart,

never noticing her lips gently part.

Agony was killing Depression,

Suicide vowed to take Love's life

while Love sang songs of hope

to the warm night's starry-eyed strife

at missing the light of the dawn

by just a single moment's yawn.

Suicide undressed with shyness,

Depression submerged his head

under the fragrant foam, hoping

for the much longed for escape.

She quickly took off her panties

and pulled Depression up

from the depths of the water,

holding him close, feeling

his scarred skin rub her mood.

Suddenly Depression brightened,

he pulled Suicide down,

laughed as her head hit bubbles.

She spat a grin out and kissed him

passionately, her heart beating

promises of love; until death do part.

Depression smiled as Suicide blushed

her love across the ripples of gloom;

saturating the room's fragrant smiles.

Suicide caught hold of Depression's grin

as he dropped to one knee with a sigh;

fluttering through the candle's soft flames.

With a voice clear yet full of sorrow's wisps

Depression asked for Suicide's sweet hand,

hearts merged inside of cool nervousness.

The song of delight sprung from their souls

as Suicide's answer echoed off old scars,

Yes - the note was pure brilliant white light.

Musings

2010-07-01T19:11:00.001+05:30

Pause. Breathe. Halt. These are perhaps the most belated words in the human vocab. Well, atleast mine. Its clockwork. To run. Am forever chasing, what I like to think, are cobwebs. You see I, like most thrill-seeking folk who believe they are alternative citizens, believe in keeping life complicated. Its a completely different matter that spiders weave straight lines.

Anyway, its monsoon. Its Mumbai monsoon and its supposed to have created a clutter of chaos. And there is that much more urgency to fight for time to weave my web. But today time waited for me.

I walked. I like to walk. It was my absolute favourite thing to do back home. You see, I'm a small town girl. I had no cobwebs to weave back then, my life was plotted in sectors. But I took the occasional long stroll back home, something that was alternative in the hamlet-ghost town.

Here I'm a rootless tree. Challenged to walk mindlessly anywhere, to any corner without question or direction. You see, in Mumbai, every image even resting in the corner of your eye, inspires. This is the city acid flashbacks are made of. These are the colours that spirals in a cokehead. These are the musings of an lost artiste.

Today I walked. I didn't wait for the cab to take me home. The highway, the whizzing cars, the irritable lot stuck in traffic, the conjunctions of chaos stuck in my head quitened. White noise. I wasted time.

The milk stop, the soul street, the dazzling sign boards, the vegetated lush green of wet earth, the cottage-roofed homes - I saw the city transition to smiling faces instead of cluttered conduits of frowned pollutants.

Itd been a while. I'd been watching life passing by like a back seat driver. Collecting used and dampened match sticks in flip flops at a rain thrashed drizzling dusk. Chasing fire flies in the muddy vegetation off a polluted side-walk. Their abode hides the grime of the metropolitan, tales etched into the memory of the concrete beneath the soles of the walking denizens - narratives of the obdurate elves who pretend to live and work in the expansive cloak of what could be their motherland but is their relative land.

Passing a shop window, I caught a reflection. Glee rested in my eyes. I sensed happiness.

So this is to you Mumbai. I've loved you, hated you, gotten to know you better. You've found me, accepted me, changed me, made me a family, broken me, abandoned me, homed me and given this spider a space for her cluttered cobweb. You let me know its ok to be different and its ok to be like everyone else. You've freed my soul, like a helium baloon, keeping my extended string tied to the displaced ground. I keep losing the shifting focal point now and then, but you leave me directions by my bedside.

So thank you lover. Now back to the many more straight lines I must weave.

Expendable

2010-05-01T20:26:00.004+05:30

I won't crash

But burn like a cinder

Keep that fire ember-ed

Won't let it die out.

I won't get lost

But walk through the walls of your mind

Dissolve the window and pluck out the hinges

Won't let the door cave in.

I won't feed angst

But will play with fury

Let you rape my mind

Won't let my sanity slip.

I won't vegetate

But let the cancer plague

Grow a mountain of sorrow

Won't climb the Everest.

I won't sink

But will lose the compass

Fall prey to the Kraken.

Won't sail into your void.

I won't peep

But will snake around your curiosity

Lead you to voyeurism

Won't lose virginity.

I won't crumble

But share the pie

Let you shred the paper

Won't sign up for recycle.

I won't die

But let you tease open wounds

Bleed till the last cell clots

Won't let out a last sigh.

I won't colour

Stay within the lines

Pick up all crayons

Won't let the white smear stain.

I will live

But will will you to kill

Yell and watch murder in your eyes

Will still will to love

When Dragons Whine

2010-04-19T18:44:00.002+05:30

I am the product of your throwaway words,
My mother's burned-out candles,
A violent, beautiful world,
An unprescribed strip of TCA, nightly.

I am much less than the glue that holds society together -
I am a vine, a weed creeping through the preexisting cracks.
I pretend the streetlamps are the moonlight,
And I feed on last month's newspapers.

I could be the buoy you cling to, keeping you up,
Or the rope pulling you deeper below the surface.
I will shrug the salt and debris from my shoulders,
And board your sinking ship.

I am knotted together with complexes,
Shielded by my opinions,
I hold wit as my sword and pull no punches,
And wear burn-scars as war-paint.

I don't believe I can change the world,
I merely want to shatter the silence.
I will break hearts, I will break bones,
And I will have my dreams broken in turn.

I'm safe where I am, and jaded,
I am weathered and accustomed to being the ground beneath your feet.
I never realised how important I was until then.
And I despise it.

But enough about me.

PS: I hear dragons whine when I sleep.

Chordance

2010-04-10T19:09:00.000+05:30

Silence of the Words

2010-03-20T12:29:00.003+05:30

I have no damnable words to make my voice
fit the sorrow. My heart had the audacity
to open, and then beat itself to life.

There isn't enough suffering to make anything.
pieces of beautiful scattered and kept both and I
have no room to belong to his smile.

.We
.Or maybe just I
are not breathing and the night
never ends. Nothing changes,

These eyes used to see imagination's miracles
trembling; motion; moons; hands; leaves.
infinite.
Buddha. words.
water. colours.

often I speak dreams now useless and how love
must simply sit waiting so refined and unadorned.
but I become undefined and more unclear.
and I blur in his eyes.
and I cant focus.

I move. Grow old. Die
Unbelieving. eventually unfeeling. body at rest
but soul imploring more...

of anything.......but distance.
hate.remorse.pain.fear.ache......elation.
anything.........but

. .there is a voice i hear
incessantly....caught in my hair.

It takes me to again.
and over. and over.
simplicity.

I know we have already died numerous times
unrequited. and unknown. and these words feel like cotton.
feel tasteless and pointless.
but they are words, and words are all that stick to my skin.
after all the places he touched. my God, i am treading air.
living is a chore. loving is a risk.
and i want to rip everything
away from the world except the truth.
which always resided in him.

remember ..............
depth is endless.
the end is nothing.

and if i can bear the quiet,
maybe the residual fire will keep me warm enough
to teach me that silence is not so terrible;
it is a language that could resurrect us all

Warped & Twisted - IV

2010-03-16T03:30:00.003+05:30

Slit it open

like a device of pain.

Fill its crevice

with an imploring disdain.

Cry out asunder

let no one hear

Boil intravascular

let your blood bear

Damage permanent

create scars deep

Keep healing at bay

may gore gashes peep

Happiness is a drug

Romance pain and torture plug.

Suicide

2010-03-01T19:01:00.004+05:30

Here: Nothing has changed. It's morning and it's light. She wishes her eyes were glued so the sun wouln't stream through her eyes so. It's morning and she's got nightmares stuck under her fingernails and crimson stained lips from the night before. It's morning and she doesn't remember the night before.

Here: She only likes Spring. She only likes the smell of Jasmine and she only likes white dresses with lace. She says I'm tired, tired of the snow and isn't it ironic February takes so long? She says I want birds. I want birds outside my window. She says I want to wake up, and I want to smell fresh warmth. She says, I don't want to remember the last time I felt warm. She says, I can't pretend anymore.

Here: The white walls of her tenemant are really doorways to other empty worlds. Places where everything is the same colour - cocaine/bone/teeth. She stays away from the walls, afraid sh'll crossover, afraid Alice will find white oleander wonderland, afraid she'll never find her way back. Afraid she won't want to. The floor looks like it should creak but it doesn't. The windows look poetic frames and maybe she wants to jump.

Then: She used to sing at the balcony. She used to dance in the kitchen. She used to write letters everyday. She scribbled her life. She hashtagged her soul. She poured thoughts in 140 characters or more. She couldn't write anymore. Pages went empty. Links died. He used to watch her, she remembered. He used to let her veins tear and stain the paper in words that made it all poetic and pretty, he said. You see, he thought, it was art. He told her it was the preetiest thing in the world. But now he isn't here anymore.

Then : It's morning and her skin doesn't feel as soft. Her eyes aren't limpid and brightly honey-dew. The cieling fan isn't spinning. It's morning and there are empty pages strewn on her white floor. It's morning and she opens her eyes like she's been asleep. It's morning and it seems like it's always morning. It's morning and the windows talk to her.

They call and then she jumps!

Cheers Darliing

2010-02-25T03:33:00.003+05:30

To Love

To lingering sense of wonder

To abandon at martinis

To leaps of faith

To seamless peace

To peals of laughter

To urns of sugar swept joy

To rudderless sailing

To mirth

To graying edges and wrinkling skin

To hangovers

To music

To grunge chords F & G

To memory

To Tiny Dancers

To Desire

To the road

Letter to the Tattoomaker

2009-12-29T22:30:00.004+05:30

Ink me a scar

O, designer of pain.

Make it deep, dark, intricate.

Add colour if you may.

Let it whisper my tale from afar

Of that love's stain.

It's never too late,

For all the things I couldn't say.

It could be that fallen star.

Brightly shinning in vain.

Befallen to ill fate.

While it shone on many a day.

O, won't you mix in some tar.

Dark as Hades mane.

Put in a drop of blood as bait.

Red - to tease that tear at bay.

I'll look at it - as a melody cut to a bar.

Sing the song of that lover's lane.

Where I walk now in numbness - not love or hate

Carve, pierce, fill - so it forever on skin will stay!

Ghosts of Convenience

2009-12-18T17:39:00.005+05:30

O, most convenient Ghost: I find

I entertain you in my mind.

So come and sit, we'll chat a bit,

Your cup will overflow with wit.

Trying though you are, my friend.

I like your haunts, they shall not end.

We waltzed once to 'Hope, Disbanding.'

Now we dance to 'Understanding.'

That's your cappuccino, there.

Need more sugar? Take your share.

Nothing's worse than bitter drinks --

Except, a bitter heart, methinks.

Time : the greatest sinfree sweetener

Rightens things misthought before.

One nervous, gnawing night in bed.

I knew: I'm living in my head

Recovery Mode

2009-11-26T20:16:00.008+05:30

Woke up for the first time the animals were gone

It's left this house empty now, not sure if I belong.

Yesterday you asked me to write you a pleasant song

I'll do my best now, but you've been gone for so long.

I can't remember the last time sleep put my senses in a coma. Almost every morning I wake up with a teary-eyed blur. It's nearly as if I spent the night moaning and whinning. But strangely that's the part I never remember in my disturbed slumber. I don't even toss and turn so much as does the turbulent fluid in my brain. The slightest whisper in the alley beneath my third floor windowsil or clang of the iron gate brings instant recognition. I even hear the 5am Aazan wafting in kilometres away or the cackle of the irritable pigeons. I smell the filthy blood from the butcher across the lane and the frying paranthas from the kitchen exhaust downstairs. I feel the warming wind by the morning sunrise, the pillow spooning my back, the thin cloth under me. I yearn to find some music in this periodic reverie of everyday waking up, but all I hear is nothingness. All is feel is arrested numbness.

The window's open now and the winter settles in

We'll call it Christmas when the adverts begin

I love your depression and I love your double chin

I love 'most everything you bring to this offering.

I love winters. I am a complete snow baby. I was born during the coldest recorded winter in the subterranean Himalayas. There was rains, sleet, hail, fog and floods. At the crack of thunder, I cried. It sounds dramatically romantic, like a Hindi serial. But the cold sets in a sense of belonging to time. I feel warm within the more the mercury dips. It's a strange body reaction, but the bile within seems to rest merrily. I glow like a woman pregnant with life. It's almost like first love again. High school perkiness. It's been a while since I've seen winters. It's been a while since I've given birth to joy. I've been mothering loneliness for way too long.

Oh I know that I left you in places of despair

Oh I know that I love you, so please throw down your hair

At night I trip without you, and hope I don't wake up.

'Cause waking up without you, is like drinking from an empty cup.

You know that sense of completeness when you put the final full stop at the end of a never ending story. The sense of freedom. The slight sadness of letting go. I love romance. I truly think all historical romances were written about me. All Greek tragedies and Godly oracles and mystics were characters God made me play. I live in a constant dream sequence that will never end. I don't seem to want to wake up. I don't want to put that final full stop. I'd rather extend the dot in a coma.

Woke up and for the first time the animals were gone

Our clocks are ticking now so before our time is gone

We could get a house and some boxes on the lawn

We could make babies and accidental songs.

I recently discovered a truth about myself. I don't know how to mourn. I am so generally consumed by the lightness of my own being that loss evades my senses. I am the original gypsy heart that'll flock away when love settles in. I'll wear your clothes and be yours to keep, but before you leave the tent, I'll sing you a song, give you a kiss run to the sea. I swim all to well that I'll soon forget you existed while making love to the waters that surround me. At that time I won't be able to seperate from the tears and the ocean around. The longing and the loss all at once.

I know I've been a liar and I know I've been a fool

I hope we didn't break it, but I'm glad we broke the rules.

My cave is deep now, yet your light is shinning through.

I cover my eyes, still all I see is you.

Last night I slept. I really did. It just came. I just dropped and woke up with a slobered mouth. I still smelt of body shop, my nightcream. I didn't feel the morning warmth yet and I could hear music from the I-pod I forgot to turn off when I fell unconscious. I had slipped into coma. I could fell an inkling of the winter chill - more one running down my spine as I struggled to peel myself all too quickly away from the bed. Head Rush, it must have been. I missed the Azaan and I had a blank mind. I didn't remember my dream from last night. I had no reference point to begin my story of the day. For a while, I couldn't even remember my name. And then it hit. A wave of pure emotion. Those tears just came. The flood within rushed on a crack of thunder. I laughed and I cried. The sound mixed. I made music and I grieved. It's been a year and ironically it's been a little over 24 hours again since the last attack. I'm finally growing a lover's heart.

(lyrics intersperesed 'Animals were Gone,' by Damien Rice)

Meeting you

2009-10-22T22:57:00.002+05:30

we treat each other with exceeding courtesy;
we make love each time we meet

our tigers drink milk
our hawks tread the ground
our sharks have all drowned
our wolves yawn beyond the open case

our snakes have shed their lightning
our apes their flights of fancy
our cats exchange their licks, paws and lives
the bats flew out of our hair long ago

we fall silent in mid-sentence
all smiles, past help
our humans
don't know how to talk to one another

Entropy

2009-10-12T23:44:00.003+05:30

“I probably need new sheets,” I thought to myself

“Yup! That’s it. Fresh off the Laundromat.”

“White light too,” I switched on nervously.

“The orange is making things a bit too yellow.”

“Maybe it’s the settled dust,” I reached out for a rag.

“It’s taken over my senses. My mind is registering dirt.”

“I’ve got it. It’s the floor,” I frowned in inspection.

“The broom will whisk those monsters from under the bed.”

“The curtains, the curtains,” I tore at the filth swaying heavily in the breeze.

“It’s always these drapes that breed and hold the demons.”

“These clothes,” I looked down and gnawed at my skin

“The sweat, the grime is polluting my body.”

“I need Valium,” I thought to myself

“Yup! That’s it. Fresh off the shelf. For a new whole me.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I need love," I cried to myself silently

"I can't kill this entropy."

Abortion

2009-10-08T18:38:00.002+05:30

Last night, a giant moth pregnated

And laid its coccoon over the fields.

Covered the mountains and the plains.

Close knit to the ground a nest

For its young to be born in.

The next morning the Sun and the man

Bore gaping holes in it.

Chordance

2009-10-04T19:07:00.001+05:30

Amiss

2009-09-26T16:17:00.004+05:30

My own solar system blows apart,

Now the debris of my world floats aimlessly.

The rest of the planets going nowhere.

They are leaving their paths

No more sun to keep balance,

Or to sustain life.

If I left myself float on,

Memories are painful.

My fellow friend now gone,

And where I do not know.

/-\ B |_| S !E !)

2009-09-21T15:47:00.008+05:30

Monday : You are a canvas, and he decorates you

with grotesque shades of fresh magnolia red and prussian blue.

Tuesday : One look at the always-honest mirror to see there are

vomited bruises all over your reflection. It never lies.

Wednesday : Someone took your rosy coloured glasses and now you have your own rainbow

black blue black blue black red purple.

Thursday : "I didn't mean it. I'll never do it again. I love you,"

his lips are talking.

"I love beating you. I love possessing you,"

his white knuckles are whispering.

Friday : True beauty is real pain: true pain is real beauty.

(by these standards, you are truly gorgeous)

Saturday : A is for abrasion, B is bump, C is for contusion

The A-b-c of how he loves you.

Sunday : Body Shop, paint job, red rouge.

When exceptional plastic features look ordinary.

The artists canvas be fresh for the next week.

Shied Wisdom

2009-09-07T17:02:00.003+05:30

Flowing off a tongue, words seeped in soul contemplation

a thought stored in heart, voiced in constemation;

for meaning, greater than a hollowness in a mute enounce

wrought through by doubt, of why they should so resound.

Spoken in that twisted language known for it's unknowing

captures whispering word, of another's thoughts bestowing

it upon a limited and descriptive, burst in quite verse

there lays a beauty, in truth shyly locked away in time.

For all who may doubt, the winds of thought so brought

despair in one's seeeking for more than sould thought words

a clarity is that said, which comes from heart not head

truth, quiet shouted nouns or verbs, so completely read.

To waste away and forget on one moment's truth and shame

is to face, one more daring and fear filled day to come

for a word to become as closed, within an unspoken soul

is to languish in a void, as one's true thoughts unfold.

Flicker

2009-08-18T19:00:00.004+05:30

Three candles are lit with a spark

Each one does fade away the dark.

Each one shows us the way

Each one turning dark nights into day.

The first one gave me a smile

She said, "I’m going out in a while."

I say, "when you die where do you go?"

She said, "I’m going to fall with the snow."

The next one looked into me

She said, "where do you wanna be?"

I said, "I wanna fall with the snow.

But where do you wanna go?"

She said, "I’m gonna fly like a dove,

Through this world to search for my love."

Last one dances while dies.

She says, "when the turn comes you will fly."

I say, "what if I fly the wrong way?

I’ll need you to turn night into day."

She said, "I'm gonna shine with the stars,

So Ill always be where you are."

We’re joined with the soul of the world

Found in every boy and every girl

Ever tree, every sea, every hill

And in all of the men we kill.

Every bud, every bug, every stream

In all of the sins we redeem

Its in all of the songs we sing

Its found in everything.

The Gypsy Heart

2009-08-16T20:12:00.010+05:30

Sinful simple sins :

(in) countless cluttered cobwebs

Laboured loathsome lies :

(are) raging riveting riots

Barren banal broken :

(is the) hoping harboured heart

Spirited solid semblance :

(has) jolted jaunty joy

Uncouth unreal unsteady :

garish gradient (of the) ground

Pricking patient pain :

inverts insipid insanity

Dreamy delightful doubts :

teases tangible trance

Love livid life :

alive acrid aspirations

Faint facsimile fantasy :

weary wanton wonders

Ornately operated organ :

throbs torments tarnishes

(Yet) Pride pretty praises

nonchalantly nudges 'nhappiness

Mimicking madness mind :

(like) generous goblets grin

Wandering wilted when :

(commits) sinful simple sins

(image courtesy Jatin Gandhi)

Obscure

2009-08-15T19:30:00.002+05:30

This circle bleeds without an edge
As sanity deprived of thought
These fingers grasp a shifting ledge
Of ice
Of melting frost
Of one blank page without a plot

This drifting orb of silence dwells
As a finger brushed ‘cross lips
Froth of enmity laps darkened swells
Of lies
Of broken truths
The blank page folds and rips

These nails of darkened earth reside
Blind as mountains’ sight that’s felt
Resigned that autumn’s leaves confide
Of loss
Of memory thawed
This page lies smote by snow’s first melt

Creaking leather aches, recalls
Bones of dusty corpse of earth
In shrouded cloud, a roiling pall
Of love
Of burning love
The page there smolders in broken hearth

When read again, one line remains
A line, no thought, and only pain.

Post-it for self II - Disoriented

2009-07-24T15:50:00.004+05:30

Sight

2009-07-11T21:23:00.001+05:30

Variegated Hues of Magenta,
Bounce off pupils blistered,
Raw from too many days wandering,
A bleak twisted terrain,
Ghostly apparitions swirl,
Above the surface, waiting,
With baited breath,
As the last shreds of this reality,
Slip quietly away,
The moment of reckoning is drawing nigh,
Falling helpless, prostrate,
Before the mirror of life,
Staring death in the face,
Until sweet darkness descends,
Into welcome oblivion

Wake me up when it's morning...

C () !\! T /\ ! !\! !\/! E !\! T

2009-07-06T17:01:00.009+05:30

In the Valley, o'er the hill

I heard a folklore that made me still.

Sturdy to scurry, too scared to flee

It reeked, eeked, creeked of moments to be.

Visions - they play constantly on my mind

Of memories, to memories I must myself bind.

An aged tale - a rickety brick

Cememted - yet betraying like a prick.

Fearlessly treading, righteousness on shoulder

Hate, angst, love, passion make the heart smoulder.

Containning life, holding memories

Sliding, but never releasing out of symmetry.

I see colour, I confess with pride

Hues and rhtyhms, taken with every stride.

The King's possessions be not dearer to me

As the slaved nobel locusts, angels, demons can never be set free.

The meter may go endlessly unwinding

But can light really be that blinding.

Wish I could let out a scream, a yell, create a brawl

But I'm only a well, a rope, a drawer...

Image courtesy the sketchbook of Sameerkulavoor

Lonely Hearts Club

2009-06-10T14:07:00.001+05:30

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

For sometime now, I have been waking at the crack of dawn. The first ray of light is about to hit the skies and its still not day yet. Just the anticipation of it. The moon is still glowing but I know the moment I shift and dig out my head from underneath my pillow, there shall be light. The tenement window that peaks into the open skies ,with the thick palm tree grove that is my boundary wall ,will twinkle the sun in my eyes and I will have to stir out of bed. Every morning, I wait for that moment. I have been beating sunrise. I have been awaiting sunrise.

This is for all the single people
Thinking that love has left them dry
Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

There's a theory to this. I am convinced. A law of proportional dimension. Can't decide if its a direct or an inverse. But I completely believe that if u will it, it will. I have bad knees. I trip all too often. They bear those permanent scars of childhood adventures indulged in. The left one is melancholic and leaves me on many occasions, till I weep and will it back home. Age, they say, will fade them away -the scars? Only, I need to grow up and stop falling.

The relentless heart tries too often. It wills too often.

Well, Im on my way

Yes, Im back to stay

Well, Im on my way back home

Geese flock together. Twigs branch out from the same tree. Glue naturally sticks to something. Gravity invented touch and attachment. Flowers bloom out of a seed. Bricks need cement. Doors need hinges. Music needs an ear. It takes two to tango. You get pairs of everything – shoes, socks, legs, curtains, pillows, screws, glasses, eyes, buttons, quick fixes… But my arithmetic always starts with one. The calculator seems to be broken and home seems too far away. What was it again? How many steps backwards? Home is lost in translation.

This is for all the lonely people

Thinking that life has passed them by

Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup

And never take you down or never give you up

You never know until you try

I have a mirror that shows two images. A magnified and the regular oval shape. More often than not I choose to see the regular one, after being conditioned to the distracting magnifying glass. It’s on the left and my line of vision betrays it each time. I choose to look right. Its deliberate training and it works. Ignorance, they say is the easiest way to kill love and perhaps even will your flaws away. But what if the flaw itself is to kill love? It’s like that tooth that aches but you tongue it to feel the pain anyway. The poking hurts irritates but you poke anyway. The knees are week but you try anyway. The heart is still bruised, but you finger it anyway. One still needs another, so you add anyway. Home is still far, but you walk anyway. Will end up alone at the altar of judgment, but will hope to keep company anyway. It will be daylight soon, but my head will dig out from under the pillow and steal a glance anyway. You know you will fall but you love anyway.

(lyrics interspersed 'Lonely People' by America)

Vodka Straw

2009-05-26T13:25:00.005+05:30

I think,
when the light goes out
reality twists.

A million ants in this ant hill.
Whatever career fits.

Stumbling past neon lights,
thinking of chances I missed.

And I wonder.
Maybe there's love somewhere
haunting my dreams,
a figure with sturdy hands
longing to find me.

I know.

My stomach twists and turns,
I haven't slept in days.
The sky turns a purple haze,
waiting for a brighter day
when this crystal city crumbles.

I'm coming to find you.

I stir my vodka with my straw
and I'm sure we both know

That doesn't seem like me,
does it?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
when disjointed lines come together on a scale for poetic disturbance on inebriated nights. My version of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind...

Soundtrack

2009-05-16T18:45:00.000+05:30

Lost in creativity, I hear no other sound
The music flows freely and holds no bounds
I can hear you in the melody guiding me
Showing me the chords patiently.

Gently moving my fingers into shape
You keep me playing though I blister and ache
Teasing out the emotion inside of me
Until it expresses itself in harmonies.

You show me the notes to sing away my blues
B minor the chord I choose
Then when the music stops and I have my song
I reach for your hand and realise it’s gone.

Rhythmic Rant

2009-05-10T15:19:00.006+05:30

Shuffle! on the sunday afternoon and the seemingly spirited shred of the violin streamed through the weekend workstation. Remnants from last night and I suddenly smiled. It was the same song, with the same guitar riff that lead into the same mellifluous voice reciting the same verse. 'Mysore se Ayee.' It was Raghu Dixit's playful barritone and I was ready to dance again, without ghungroos even.

If music be therapy and new age yoga have found its perfect guinea pig - then I offer my testimonial. I have healed. Twenty four hours, in the grasp of music and I am finally beginning to hear my heart skip a beat again. My skin is awash with tenacity and my mind has goosebumps. Muddled up senses - just perfect. Too many verses from too many moments and too many lines are coming together. My mind is writing disjointed poetry and my heart is watching them jump on a scale. I am writing again.

And it all happened with a morning meeting with a former popstar who is singing again. "If life be art," she said, "then I am living it." The settled gleam in her eyes and the certain smile made me believe. I smiled back and for a moment, hours later in the local back home post a plate of Reshmi kebabs and sweet lime gorged on on the side of the historical cricket pitch, the line held me in a pandemonic trance. A volte-face. Like I was somehow carrying the legacy of the heroes and heroes that will be. My mind had begun to hum a raw melody and my fingers instinctively formed chords. The afternoon humid flush on my cheeks made for an excellent cover-up.

In a city of cubbyholes, carcasses of plastic, colourful horadings and cultural cosmos crowding roads - to hold onto a muse is the toughest thing to do. Every corner inspires and every sound grabs attention. In this matrix of images, a lucid interval doesn't exist long enough to take it all in. But my melody in the tropical heat did find its harmony. And it happened at the Channel V Concert for Change. Three new bands will committ their original sins and four artists will hone their stage. And it began. First with a baul-grunge band from good ole' Kolkatta. Cassini's Division and their interpretation of fun. With Reverse Polarity who gave masquerade madness a whole new carnivale of meaning with their deep throated guttural angst and their incindiary-notice-my-anguish heavy metal squeals from the lead, the bass and the drums. And later with a humble fade out by simplistic genuity by Faridkot when they sang to you.

But the best dwindled between the many. The Raghu Dixit Project. The songs gave me my harmony. The sarangi, the guitar, the bass, the drums, the ghungroos and the voice - and I believed. The men smiled, wore their lungis and drove in a wave of emotion. They felt each note and sang into the sunset. The Helium globe dipped and Raghu sang folk, sufi, qawwali. There wasn't a face in the crowd that wasn't looking up, not an arm that didn't rise, not a voice that didn't sing along. He conducted. We perfromed.

For someone who visits concert halls, campus grounds, open-air-arenas and festivals with a raised eyebrow, through the worst and the best of all - I wouldn't call it the moment for it wasn't. It wasn't mind-numbing and it wasn't the brilliant sound that would hold you in a trance. Rather it was the familiar sound of an instinctual learning, a deja vu from within. Even though the thousands were only a few hundred, music had been made. Art had become life. My heart was ready to skip a beat.

... And it did.

Waiting for Normalcy

2009-05-03T23:19:00.001+05:30

Amiss...
the bud
the ache
the love

Unmoved...
the leaf
the muscle
the heart

Tattered...
the branch
the will
the soul

Forgotten...
the trunk
the touch
the life

Numb...
the earth
the eyes
the organism

Cup of Tea

2009-05-01T11:59:00.002+05:30

The tea you pour is black and strong.
It doesn't taste like tea to me;
I must have been away too long.

It isn't Assam, Suleiman, oolong;
It tastes like an apology—
This tea you pour, so black and strong.

Where's that old fork with the bent prong?
What happened to the hemlock tree?
Have I really been gone that long?

I think I hear the saddest song;
It has no words, no tune, no key.
The tea you pour is black and strong.

You're careful to say nothing wrong,
You seem too eager to agree...
Yes, I've been travelling far and long,

And now it's clear, I don't belong.
I watch you sash your robe, as we
sit, sipping tea that's black and strong.
I went away too far, too long.

U !\! ! !\! S P ! R |E !)

2009-03-28T16:17:00.005+05:30

See the tree, the brown leaves fall.

Be the flea, the clown seems tall.

Ride the clown, the circus fool.

Hide the frown, the mirthless mule.

Donkey ride, the shoreway treat.

Wonky slide, the broken feet.

Aching legs, sit on the grass.

Breaking eggs, and breaking glass.

Shattered window, open door.

Scattered hedgerow, oaken floor.

Wooden planking, dance away,

Hooded monks in chapels pray.

Ask for peace, thank for gift.

Masked police, tank for rift.

Tear the curtain, look for me.

Bear the burden, see the tree.

Alcoholics Anonymous

2009-03-17T17:09:00.006+05:30

The vodka bottle sits on the dresser

half empty,

half dead.

The setting sun reflects off the smooth glass,

creating a prism of rainbow light.

It could almost be beautiful,

almost be perfect, if you don't stare too hard.

don't get to close.

No one would ever know

that the stale smell of liqour sat so thick

it seemed to seep through the paint in the walls.

No one would ever know that empty bottles

happened often around here,

as if they grew from the weeds in the yard.

And no one would ever know

how often those lips kissed those bottles

in a romance all their own...

She sits on her bed,

half empty,

half dead.

The setting sun reflects off her smooth cheeks,

making her skin glow abnormally warm.

She could almost be beautiful, almost be perfect,

If you don't stare too hard, don't get too close...

Rusty & I

2009-03-05T22:56:00.005+05:30

He was as soft as rainwater - the day he came to our house. He came in our car, snuggled between my mom's arms. Just a little over 2 months. The most incredible deep dark brown flesh, peering through greenish brown eyes. We called him Rusty, the same day.

It was monsoon of 2001, I remember. His jittery paws were hesitant on the gravel and his little body jerked a little every time a new pair of legs approached him. "Surprise Sherry. We got someone for you," my mom's mischevious grin got me on the driveway. That's how I met him. He found the middle of my arm as his anchor and looked at me expactantly that he was home. Was I his new mumma, sister, brother, master??? He was pulled out of a pile of puppies, nestled next to his mom. In alien, non-furry, distinctly two legged environment; this was his first moment.

He didn't like the car at all. Especially when it moved. Movement to him was four kegs or maybe two. He had not yet invented the wheel. He would lay behind my neck in stoneage despiar, not rigid, but heavy, as his bladder would empty each time even later, and the black leather seatd were puddled under puppy rain. He would always stagger out the same way, as though it were the hold of a slave ship and hm left aboard for six months or more. And it still is a task to pull him in. His size may not be manageable, but in mind he's still two months old.

The tug of war and the reverse fetch is still his favourite sport. Mariah Carrey is his favourite singer. She sings him to sleep even today. He sleeps outside my room even though I am not there. He hates being left alone and tears up his world apart in protest, finding the naked floor his sleeping companion often. Storms and Diwali nights are distinctly hated. He loves to whistle and he is amazingly good at it. If I'd known better, I could swear he's a Janis Joplin incarnate. He rebels, growls and has the most guttural barks. But he loves endearingly. He still meets, greets, awaits everybody the same way. Gravity, head down, feet up and Rusty on top - always. He still snuggles under our legs, one at a time, after taking three customary rounds under them. He slumps, slouches when he doesn't want to eat or walk and maybe sit in the green a little longer. He still shies away at eye contact or if you kiss his nose. He still calls you traitor if another dog smells or takes a fancy to my hand. He's smell, investigate and sulk till you hug his frame and say, "Sorry Rusty!"

But at the heart, he knows he's grown older. His limbs crack a little, everytime he tries to move a little more enthusiastically. He's still a crazy diamond. His face is greying and the corners of his mouth are drooping. But call cat, good ole' friend Brutus just once and he comes running straight for the leash yearning to be lead out. Rusty will be eight this April and its been six months he's grown apart from me, instead of together. This time, I'll let him lead me out the door for our walk to water the greens. I hope it's monsoon again. Rusty loves the rain. We ponder and prolong the rain in our heart and have let the floodgates open together.

... In every life, some puppy rain must fall.

A day at the Movies

2009-03-01T01:28:00.001+05:30

Some days you wake up with a resolve. To put things right and to bridge the gap from acquaintance to family. To marvel in sincity and hold wonder in abridging visions into a montage of feelings. Amidst cups of chai, coffee, smokes and some overdue Goa sand, S&I, found two moments of celluloid that would go down in the annals of Z’s history.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for afternoon, with the hope of finding a faith in an uncertain tomorrow. What an incredible story – and how well extraordinarily told. A life of a commoner, a riveting tale, of life in the reverse. A blueprint reeling backwards, all portrayed in the graphic texture, rewound. Like Mr Gateau’s reverse clock at Louisiana Train Station. Or the boy, born with arthritis on the day the World War -1 ended, who dies of dementia as a one year old wrapped in a crocheted shroud. An ordinary life lived with an extraordinary gift and the ability to watch many dawns on the pier.

Milk, the story of a queer revolution that made you believe that fate can be altered if devotion and belief be by your side. Nothing could be more endearing than to hear the silent rumble of a many thousand rising in a single echo of recruited fervour. When boys were boys and handsome butt cleavage all too pretty!

Now back in my insulated ivory tower away from the great revolution, thinking of the 7th lightening and hoping for thunderstorms within the self. Thanks S, for the love, movies and the sand. Jim Carrey can wait a day. :-)

Rubber-Band

2009-02-15T19:59:00.004+05:30

Crack it open like an oyster. Let it ooze out

the way it should, scoop it up, then shuffle it

in a deck of cards too stiff to handle.

Make it call you by your name, learn the

features of your face as well as any friend.

Offer promises you might never keep. Become its

blood brother, a cut along its edge touched to your

small cut, sealed together, pressed with need.

Bend it backward then forward, then shoot it like a

rubber band--a green one from the grocery.

Let it sing off key, tell a white lie, say that it has

real talent. Don't wait around for it to skip a beat,

take it down fast and hard, bury it in days of wonder,

nights of fever. Feed it fruit and chocolate and slow

sips of tea until it knows not the order of its day,

its rhythm shot straight to hell, its left from right

gone terribly wrong. Do all of this to your own heart

and you will know what it has been to love you

PS: -

Roll Call

2009-01-29T01:35:00.005+05:30

Trapeze artists show perfect composure. At the height of their long, graceful, winding fall – they dive with passion, compassion and with purpose. Each stride in the air and leap into the unknown is piqued with the pride of trust in the anticipated abysmal nothingness. Yet there is the faith. The knowing smile, the calm eyes, upturned chin showing and the proudly arched back and the nodding head that revels in the knowing - there is a safety net at the bottom.

Days come and go. the shadow of the sun dial chases out the daylight. At the end of even an imperfect day - perfection seeks its head out. Abstinence from regularity is just a wild call away from reality. Wish for some randomness and it truly does seek you. That is something I learnt this year when 26 became more than a step ahead of the quarter mile. I run the main league now and sooner than later, my days might be getting outnumbered already. A-process-too-complicated-to-explain is no longer a guise I can hide behind anymore. Answers are supposed to be coming clearer now. The heart be more in sync with the mind. The knee is supposed to be in place and not wander away and well courage needs to be Dutch now.

It's the year of big realisations. I need to get a grab on the trapeze and fall knowing there is a safety net. If only I could see it...

Jugni

2009-01-22T17:47:00.005+05:30

Jugni ja varhi hun pardes
jithe pa leya usne nakli bhes
Hun meri aa ve jugni
Tera ghar tu kyun vichora!

Jugni dasdi mainu kuch gallan
Apne pinde te usde ehne kaniyan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Tainu duniya ne samjheya khidona!

Jugni rondi saanh phar phar ke
Sun na sake koi usdi lambiyan cheesan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Teri nas nas wich ghul gaye tere aason ni!

Jugni raat raat buha kharkhaundi
Kis nu sunda nahin ausdiya haakan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Tenu bhul gaye loki vasan toh pehla hi!

Jugni baithi lassi rirhkan
hatan di lakeeran mittan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Teri kismat da kaagaz vi kora si!

Jugni bhul gayi apni reetan
Tambe te glassi vich kuch ohne peeta
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Nashe wich lidh teri khilkhilahat!

Jugni di rooh kache dhage wangu phathi
Jadon phulkari di chadhar vich simti
Hun meri aa ve Jugni Tere
ishq ne pheri apni kassi ni!

Jugni pajhi, navin raaha takke
Paara di pajeba ek dujje nal laddan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Sansar di raahan ne tenu maari thokkar ni!

Jugni phaj aaye vaapis us hi tobe '
jithe mileya ohsnu oh moti suche
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Ohne baha te apne saare ratan ni!

Jugni hun sutti saari raat ni
Apni kothe te littaa ohne saa ni
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Akhan toh girl gaya aakhri moti vi!

Sanitise

2009-01-14T12:38:00.003+05:30

a long laundromat hour, an old fade, a familiar slide of time;

soap in boxes, machines of it; a

sign begs, "Keep this place clean."

outside, the bars are so wetly lit

in their silent huddled storefronts;

buses pass by in the rain with

their peculiar leviathan sound noising the night.

electricity hums along wires

strung above the street, fine web of wire.

i wait to be inhabited. smoothing laundry,

feeding the tumbling with coins,

buses swim along the street, sighing those metal sighs.

there isn't a thing i do today

that does not have your name written, sounded into it;

sounds like something maybe looking for air,

breaching above the wetness,

maybe calling a name out into that dark, folding sky.

I let out a sigh, or wait a name;

how many washes more to wash you away

Orange!?!

2009-01-14T01:25:00.002+05:30

It's the need to be truly rhetoric.

To fall and rise

and let fate despise.

To be inebriated

and constantly sedated

self-obsessed traumas completely unrelated

yet simple verse finds a meter unprepared

words Id rather keep in than share

for with each sigh, a wound lies to the wind bare.

Keeping the glow, the hue all in

they say it will ride me through the sin.

Christmas Lunch at Taj

2008-12-26T12:01:00.002+05:30

A month after the terror attack, I brave an x-mas lunch at the Taj

“No Photos Please!” the hostess of the Shamiana smiled the warning in while a German couple tried to steal a click. For a brimming Chirstmas afternoon, South Mumbai’s most famous coffee shop for banoffe pie and Christmas struttle is eerily mute and empty. There are no carols and no magnanimous buffet spread either. A few visitors have taken place in meek corners, which have erupted post the restoration, of the Taj Mahal Palace and Hotel’s most prestigious eatery. The cream, silken tent is missing and the hollowed roof structure that was completely destroyed in the spate of the terror-attacks has been restored. But the golden gleam of the Shamiana Chandelier has dulled. This is my first lunch at the just-restored and barely-recovered Taj. The Hotel by the bay, that had its own TV show on a popular channel, came under siege when armed terrorists stormed the Hotel – destroying, killing, stomping, torturing and uprooting the faith of a fearless city. Hundreds lost their lives and the Taj burned in a Magnesium filled air. Pellets of bullets burned holes into the walls of the aging building marking our lives, visions and hearts with fear.

But just shy of a month from when the terrorists first set foot in the Taj, a part of the hotel is now taking orders and reservations. Constant music is filling the gaps of the constant hotel murmur that previously filled the space. Few talk, silent whispers resound and the lobby leading to the Shamiana, is eerily dark even under bright halogen glow. For a newly restored Taj, the place is far from being crowded. 268 rooms have been booked in the Tower, while the Heritage section is still under construction. The opening ceremony was grand, but post that the doors to the Taj have been again closed. The Apollo Bunder, sea-face side and the Bombay Electric entrances have been barricaded again and to get a mere glimpse of the activity around the Hotel, one has to walk through and peer through the fence again. The Taj, it seems, hasn’t recovered from the siege and as the restoration process is still underway, the doors are open for select few. The guests at Taj include fewer foreigners than ever before. “There have been cancellations understandably. And all the new bookings have been fresh as earlier we were booked till January end when we have a lot of people coming in from Germany and UK who spend winters in Mumbai and Goa. Because of the terror attacks, all bookings were nullified. We only opened for the same a week ago. But we do have a couple from Germany staying in the hotel,” Vinifer, the spokesperson for the Hotel described.

But the Taj has recovered. Much of the drapes, carpets and linen in the 268 rooms have been replaced, and new sets of crockery and glassware adorn the tables. Any signs of the havoc that was unleashed on the walls, ceilings and flooring have been painstakingly eased out.

The only reminder of attack is at the base of The Tree of Life, where an inscription carries the names of 31 people who were killed here. The artwork itself bears no trace of having survived the grenades and gunfire on the sixth floor of the heritage wing. In the rest of the hotel, too, it is business as usual a few days after it was opened for guests.

“Nothing seems to have changed except, maybe, for the fact that the food tastes a bit different,” said Ogilvy and Mather Vice President, Production Vikram Bangera, sitting with his mother in the Shamiana eating fish and chips and a slice of strawberry struddle. “I stay at Matunga but come to eat at the Taj at least twice a week. After what happened I will come more often now if possible,” Bangera’s spirit is undeterred, echoing the thoughts of the 178 staff members of Taj, at work in the hotel right now and the 300 some guests being catered to in the various restaurants.

While the staff is warm and welcoming, they are wary of talking and disclosing too much. “Lets not relive the past and wonder too much about the future. For now lets just celebrate the season,” said a Taj employee, insisting on not being named, while shrugging questions of when the full hotel will be functional and whether he witnessed the terror unfold. An intrigue filled curious reporter seeks questions. And a gore loving sadist would love graphic details as another regular on a table nearby prodded a smiling waiter what all he saw and how he got over it. The man, standing with a jug of water, is shaking his head and smiling – eyes focusing on the jug.

Maybe that’s what one should do. Appluad in the recovery of the Taj a month after and pray for normalcy, with a hotel that is still scared to open all its doors. The food for the day is on the house. Eat all you can. A tribute or welcome? One is still unsure. “This is Shamiana’s first holiday celebration. We had limited reservations, so we decided not to charge out guests for the food. This is our Christmas cheer,” the waiter on duty smiled when the cheque was called for. Surely not the last meal.

Inheritance of Loss

2008-12-22T13:53:00.004+05:30

Wild eyes, left astray,
absent within their own dismisal.'
Grips of sanity, lucid pain,
unheard to the negligent victim.

Locked on vanished, past events,
that stumble into relapse.
When all is done and all is good,
we are hit by fatal traps.

Savage and brute, untamed upon touch,
sold on feud and vendetta.
Vein and bent, stares in the mirror,
but who looks back is fiercer.

Wondering won't help, the deeds been long done
Innocence instantly vanished like never there.
Their screams I hear often, stuck in a melee of aimless stupor
if only I could reach and shoot one.

I feel their loss, though I know them not
Some profound humour in terror-struck tragedies
My heart, it weeps and feels the anguish
Of the child who lost his religious parents
Of the friend who lost his companions
Of the young son who lost his father.

Lying in their final resting place
Lives, that were perhaps lost in an instant
I see, I hear, I feel -the sound of each heart break.
Though I knew them not...

RIP
Apoorva Parrot (was found in the staiwell of the Oberoi Towers, in a pool of blood, being dragged down between the 8th and the 10th floor. His son, Siddhartha Parrot, stood amongst us in the media enclosure behind the Hotel anxiously waiting for his father to come back safe )

Gavriel and Rivka Holzberg (the Rabbi and his wife were tortured and gunned down, while standing in front of the fourth flour window of the Chabad House, Colaba after being held hostage for two nights)

Amanaette and Jeaquess Mannayatte (the husband-wife were eating their dinner in Tiffins, Oberoi. The husband was sho through his head and the wife took the bullet through her stomach. Both the bodies had to be identified with their clothes by a friend who waited and cried anxiously standing outside Oberoi)

Hostage situation

2008-12-01T13:08:00.007+05:30

A flat dead face

where emotion cannot stick

but slides off

and is lost in nothing.

(It's not easy to comprehend a life amongst the dead. I don't know how to take those images away. I don't know how to silence those screams. I don't know how to exist in a world where they don't exist.)

So it is

2008-11-26T19:05:00.008+05:30

I wish there was some rule book for intimacy. A guideline that told you what and what not. A map to guide you while you walk your way in and around your own and your significant other's heart. It's easy to blame it on love. The same way it's easy to be a 2-year-old and be unable to colour between the lines.

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time

I wonder if I've ever been there - on the top of a pyramid and be reaching to that perfect Northern star in a symmetrical line. Isn't that how the Egyptians made their peaked triangular towers? Their need for perfection and allignement to pay allegiance to their Kings reflected in their architecture of their tombs. Have I been in love so deep to endure the pain of perfection? My galaxy is splashed all across my cieling and I still can't touch the stars.

And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I have been in love, I think. I've wanted to breathe and been left breathless many times. I have felt the touch, the race in the heart, the blood boil and the flush in the cheeks. Red's been a favourite colour and 2 the perfect number. To gaze endlessly at filgree cups and wonder. I have been a victim of beauty. When nothing else - not a word, or a sigh; a sight or a flicker looked as timeless as him.

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

A lucid interval - when time stands still. Does it exist? Can it linger? Will it stay? Forever? Never ending? Do I still believe in fairytales? Does the butterfly really die in seven days? Do hearts really break? Does sleeping beauty fall asleep again? The sky, Earth, wind, water and time doesn't really stand still does it? We live not forever do we? Love doesn't endure life does it?

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time

I swim. When my heart breaks and when he leaves and walks out the door. If it's jarred, he tears it apart. If it's locked, he breaks it down. But if it's open, he doesn't even make a sound. And then there is the flood of water through that door and I must swim if I don't want to drown. I hold down till I can and then I push and fight myself to the surface. At the end of it, the tears that never came fills my world and all I can see for miles are the tears that drowned me all this while. I think my heart stops beating for a while. But I just don't forget to swim each time. I survive and reach the shore somehow - each time.

And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

It's the hate, it's the cynicism. It's what they call being practical and it's what Freud called a super-ego. I call it freedom. I have this fondness for birds. I have this belief that if I really want to, really really put my mind to it - then I can fly. Meet the skies, let it escape beneath my wings and talk to the sky - face on. But it's only when I'm asleep and dreaming. Most of the times, I suffer from insomnia.

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to?
Leave it all behind?

Confessedly, I am a relentless romantic. I have faith and my heart never leaves my sleeve. I wonder when it'll come back to me, but it rarely ever does. I believe in fairies, I do know how to fly. Truth is I don't swim too well and don't mind drowing every now and then. The door is always open and I think I must've lost the key or broken the lock in some era. I do have a knack for perfection and I must've been an Egyptian slave who built that pyramid stone by stone. If only I knew how to quit 'You', I wouldn't be a word or a sigh.

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

(lyrics interspersed 'Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice)

Finish Line

2008-11-14T15:35:00.001+05:30

You are a champion
When you ran
The ground shook
The skies parted
And mere mortals looked up
Wrapped with a wreath of flowers on your back
When you came to meet me in the winner’s circle

Nana

2008-11-07T17:12:00.007+05:30

From the corners of memory
erupted a faint image
words, coffee mugs, sanitiser, daisies
orange, rum balls, mud bucket, chistle and a pick
The walking stick, now a constant companion
Faint blue kurta pyjama - his uniform
Nani's hand knit brown cable wool
Scrawny, tired, but firm hands
Perfect grip..
Feet in synchornised strut
through Snow View Cottage towards
the meandering cobbled paths and back
Haystack brooms, pinewoood smell.
In the evening - chestnut chessboard and plum jam.
Always on the breath - the stale smell of Marbolos
Ashtrays greyed
Faded and ashen with the smoke
Now - just a memory.
Makes me full again.
Favourite bedtime story and
written verse on scattered paper
remains yellowing in a closet somewhere
Yet he is everywhere.

Cannot Find Server

2008-10-22T23:20:00.003+05:30

A fidgety attempt to put the edges of two bangles together.
A viewfinder to an object that just doesn’t hold two eyes at once.
Losing focus and can't locate the self-analyser
The knee displaced and need met with ignorance.
Broken slipper and burning vision
Imbalanced fngertips writing disjointed poetry
Stabilty prized with uncertain compassion
change resisted with a condition - mentally bipolar.
Meanwhile structure eludes for the first time
And a song asks coyly - A lil more wine?

I drink again!!!

The Perfect Drug

2008-10-18T17:10:00.004+05:30

In gasps and sighs, it comes and goes - these shards of absolute nothingness. A vacant empty bounded cover, with wordless pages inside. That night, standing at the edge of the ocean, all ties swept away. The cool, clean, yellowles, dark waters washed my feet and my wounds. The salt soothed as it stung in deeper to this feeling of complete freedom from pain. What happened after conjured no emotions. I have no metaphors, no deeper meaning to represent what happened. To me, it didn't signify anything. Husks of people floated face down in what usedto be rice patties. It was only a minor detail, like the clean smell that permiated everythingor the cola stained floor of the bus. The heart is full yet it doesn't seek an outpour. At the abysmal bottom, I don't know what hurts more - the unknowing or the unfeeling.

Years ago, I wrote a verse, when I fell in love for the first time about the feel of a feel. How I romanced the idea of a seduction of senses. The search seemed over then and the secret of the Universe stood revealed. The answer was 'YES.'...

So much has passed and the shoulders have drooped with the weight of - nothingness.

Denial

2008-09-25T23:17:00.004+05:30

Ever heard the oft quoted cliche, Denial is not just a river in Africa!!!
It's an ocean. So how do you stop from being swept away?
...
Gossamer skin
Like a gunshot to the vertabrae,
Forgotten all been wanting to say.
Love has been llike a dying gasp,
never catching on a grasp.
Lace stays white for just one night,
then yellows with age.
Just like the books waiting,
for mildew on the page.
And all the thoughts are dead
dreciting poems in a strayed head
Leading one to temptation
and then what follows...is utter regret...
--------------------------------------------
Denial is not just a river in Africa...It's an ocean and I'm getting swept away...

After thought???

2008-09-12T02:37:00.004+05:30

All constructs of reality blur at this odd hour and music being top of mind has hit home again...

Just two lines tonight
Music seduces me ...
And as always I succumb.

All this post script to Soulmate live in Blue Frog....

The relentless Insomniac

2008-09-01T22:44:00.007+05:30

There is a ringing in my head. Like a pleasant cackle that amuses and then annoys. It comes and goes in sudden pangs of noise and vanishes. It's been three weeks and now the swollen eyes refuse to even try to shut. There's been a trip and forced escapes from reality have just boomeranged me back to where I started from - leaning on the headrest of my poster bed.
All I'm doing is negotiating sleep.Well, not all. Also writing stories, chasing deadlines, making up stories for the movies, putting paint to the canvas. Aimlessly I'm gazing around for a spark of inspiration and it comes in the form of random emails and Youtubed Michelle Obama speech. My heroes have left me and fallen from a state of grace.
It's been indifferent weather. Un-rainy, un-windy, un-sunny, un-hot, un-cold. Sheer numbeness. I hear shuffling footsteps in the corridor. Or I'm imagining them. The disquiet and Zakir's exalt of the tabla - is all that remains. Slowly, a desire surfaces - to stay put. On the crumpled night-sheet, with the remains of a conversation killed unawares.
Half-asleep or half-awake? The maudlin citizens and the obdurate elves. All reside within me.After the downpour, a cloud is left. That forgot to burst. And now by itself, is wandering, with the weight of rain in it's veins.
Somebody join the dots. Somebody rescue me from my second verse. It's not ending making way for the third. There is sheer confect.
While there is turmoil in my heart. In between somewhere there, I do say my prayers, tidy up the room, will the bad leg to walk, shed an inward tear and put up a smile. And a random a 2-minute poetry project every now and then.

As Shireen Nada Rashid...

2008-08-21T22:15:00.002+05:30

The morning wore a chill, cloaked in fog and damp air that drifted in light-circles against a grey backdrop; streetlamps flickered, some already dark in places where a sliver of autumn sun burned through. There were sounds, but they were not unfamiliar: the hum of a patrol car, the crunch of gravel under Green boots, the echo of commands barked in a harsh out-Kashmiri accent. Huddled together for warmth, our breath betraying our position, we stood with gripped hands and attained a steely resolve, resigned to take our first step. This was our walk through Greater Kashmir in Pandor, as not an outsider but as a Kashmiri. Deep undercover, this would be the first time I looked, spoke, dressed and felt Kashmiri.

There is a road that separates enemies from friends; it looks like any other road in any other city, lined with small shops and houses protected by lace curtains; there is a butcher, a masjid—a postal place on the corner. Look more closely, however, and you will notice the subtle hints of something off: an outcry in green Gaeilge marking a window or door, a man with a machine gun standing across the way. The man, most particularly, is the oddity—but only to you; for us, he is as permanent as the broken upper story window of the Anwar's Boardinghouse: cracked, a blemish, never to be fixed and yet familiar in its imperfection--comforting. There was a difference on this day, however: he wasn’t alone.

The night before last a policeman came to our door and armed men searched our house in the name of secularism. He did not find what he was looking for (save a new doll for his daughter), which was a relief; last night Saffadullah and the Rakim were beaten bloody and left in the gutter for the grave sin of being Anti-Amarnath. The state is burning, only this time the terrorist is communalism. Today, the Troubles had returned. Today, we were walking to school with an escort, frontrunners on the battle lines. The children were out of class.

There is a point on this road where Pandor becomes Khatir Ganj and, not two blocks more, an old Shiv Mandir stands as a vicious reminder of a time when this street belonged to another page in history. Crossing this line in fear, as we did every weekday, we clung to each other and our mothers—and this day we looked over our shoulders at the blurred vision of our fathers and brothers, kept behind a line of smartly-dressed policemen (for their own protection). Long before we’d learned that tears didn’t help when they fell, pooled as they were in our collective sorrows; today we were learning a lesson in glassy stoicism and thin-pressed lips.

Not three steps across that territorial line, I stumbled too much with looking back and my primer slipped, clapping the concrete and startling the silence. It was not a sign but it was taken that way, and we heard a man shout before the first stone was cast. In a panic we scattered, suddenly alone on a crowded street, deafened by the angry cries of deprived freedom. Two jeeps came—or maybe three—and the wagon; men were taken away against a gunfire soundtrack. And on the steps of that old school a second-year gripped tight the railing as blood trickled and stained her new white shirt.

There would be many more times when walking to school would erupt in violence—but every day we made the walk. We were prisoners of our situation in a conflict that no one truly understood, grasping at the straws of freedom with every tentative step.

Far removed now, back in my own reality and from war-torn memories, what the true value of an education is. All I can tell them is that it’s worth a scar, pink and time-faded, on an eight year old’s forehead.

Second to None

2008-08-20T01:39:00.007+05:30

Self expression is on an all time high. And I fear some of it has already been lost on an undelivred message that will sit in my outbox for days. But courage, like I've said countelessly before, comes with a ticking bomb. And as on many such stupors, parting through a melee of insignficant and perhaps some too significant moments...the upward and tortous climb to my appartment has left an afterthought of random words. For the record, I have survived being termed an Anglo-Indian, hit on by a couple of band members who mistook me for a groupie, a bloated foot and knee thanks to prolonging childhood revisiting injury (this time she promises a longer visit) and of course life in the live world and fighting that incredibly urge to form connection with the one-at-the-moment . There is a moment in time, that psychologits term the lucid interval, when time stands still and one is expected to translate self's feelings and confirm other people's thoughts in a nod or a shrug. Mostly this is one of those disclaimers : Very drunk rambling ahead I talked about earlier. But heart in displaced territory is echoing a tune, even the bad knee (dislocated and all) promises support in jig and I'm feeling 15 again.

So much has happened. So many faces in distant lands have provided a sense of comfort, reality and Kahwa. And too many near and dear ones have had a dimming. Having a first of many more to come. Hic...

After Hours

2008-08-11T01:23:00.000+05:30

The Emergency room at Uri

2008-08-07T15:13:00.002+05:30

The sanatorium looms over the metropolis,

Stinking of bleach,

To conceal the scent of vomit and blood.

Yet I can taste them in the air,

From the children's ward,

Were we receive the needle’s flare.

To the emergency room;

Where the careless are stitched up.

I sit now in the waiting room,

Envious of the 7 year-old,

The one with the shaven head.

For she knows not of the enemy

Crawling in her blood.

Only of the smiling nurse

Who says she’ll get well;

And the child believes her,

Because that’s what children are for.

Perhaps she will recover,

The girl with the shaven head-

They caught it early it seems.

But I sit and become rancid,

I decompose in the padded chair.

The unknown case,

The basket case,

My head spins with every theory;

Every hypothesis;

Every possibility and,

For my whole body is ailing.

I pray for a medicine,

One that will do its work.

I pray and pray,

I smile at the girl with the shaven head,

And she smiles back.

Rebirth

2008-08-03T11:53:00.001+05:30

Family

On the way home last night

2008-07-31T16:16:00.004+05:30

In God's Own Country

Amongst God's own Men.

I found my Eden..with a touch of brown and grey....

...Kashmir

(notes from Omar Abdullah's private golf course)

By blur

2008-07-27T23:31:00.003+05:30

Deliberation and Angst came over for dinner tonight. We three dined over melting drama and glasses of cheap Sula wine picked at the last harvest in Nasik. The lights fluttered in the shadows reacting to the exchanged emotions amidst the silence of clinking spoons, forks, bone china and masticating noise. Any moment now, the plates will be empty and there will be no food dodging the inevitability of the evening. The cheap Sula’s last dregs had been emptied. The candles on the table were dying out and what seemed like the longest supper of the longest night at the smallest dinner table in the whole world, closure would'v been a fine aftertaste. Cloaked in the comfort of lose linens and satin sheets, the threesome would finally come out tonight. After the last morsel was forked off the plate, Deliberation let out an exhausted sigh. There was to be dessert, of course, for the prolonging. But for the lack of Purpose’s wisdom, he mentioned it before. “I just can’t find that cheesecake.”

“Marvelous meal! I haven’t had okra cooked in vinegar for a long time. My compliments to the lady.” Deliberation smiled vehemently. I absently smiled and kept my gaze strategically away from meeting his eyes. Madness you see is like gravity. The eccentricities of Deliberation would only require a little push to instigate.

Scowling in one corner, Angst sat and studied her subjects. She knew them only too well and too quick. A deep-set frown on her forehead, Angst shrugged her nose in silence and stared down Deliberation and me. And then, it began…

… after it was all over, I sat examining the empty table and the upright candle. The bone-china sat perfectly shiny and immaculately placed around folded napkins and bowls of food waiting for the guests to come and chose their naked surfaces for the grand feast. Just like virgin skin. My carefully ironed and spiffy red dress draped my feigned glow. I’ve waited for this day for far too long and months of chasing have brought me to my supper table. This was my one chance at finishing my long search. Dreams and Ardour are coming for dinner tonight. In the corner of my ear I could hear, “I just can’t find that cheesecake…”

PS (there are bottles of beer in the freezer)

Drunker stupor

2008-07-26T01:13:00.007+05:30

Usually such posts should come with a disclaimer, but courage comes with a time warranty things follow their own steam. Very proselike rambling, only this might read more confessional than concluding. I have no message and no knowledagble epiphany or after thought ODed over to dstribute. There is just this buzz in my head that won't stay with me and has aimlessly directed me to this webpage. So one would write like one has always been. Only tonight the verse has gone missing and the words are not coming by easy. It's just the wisp of a lingering melody in my head that will see fulfillment on the six-string. The seduction is back and I have a sneaking suspicion this time it is going to stay. I seem to be saying that a lot lately and for obvious reasons. But Paolo has packed his guitar off the cobbled street, and left for a grander stage. I don't think I have it in me to be Priscilla to my Elvis. And I am a bottle too down to bother the chase. Hic.

The oft visited dream

2008-07-24T17:36:00.000+05:30

The Last Kiss

2008-07-20T03:03:00.002+05:30

Long long time ago in the land of Pixie-sweeps, Rapunzel let down her hair. The knight instead played double sweep on the poker table. No one came to her rescue that night. She pulled back and swept her floor of all the waiting, straight into the chimney with the piling dust of yesterday. In the corner of her memory, a mellow tune filtered in. Somber, mournful and melting within...she heard bagpipes and the tin flute. The sharp playful shreik of the Harp made waves through her soul. A single hand plucking the acoustic lifted hee heart and plopped back in her chest. A tear floated at the back of the iris. The tattoo maker was writing invisible sheet music on her bare skin.

The yearning for a perfection, seemingly absent.

The yearning for love, picture-perfect and melodious.

The yearning for the last kiss, if only true love climbed the golden hair.

(Un)likely Fairytale

2008-07-15T14:08:00.002+05:30

OK! So my last few posts have been somewhat dreading towards heightened romanticism.(and I've been made aware of that time and again..thanks to B) No matter how happily single I profess myself to be, a girl can have her moments. The truth is, life is a corny lover's bubble and blame it on oxytocin.

Some days I think I should have been born during the medieval days when honour and chivalrous knights ruled...okay, so that's the romantic view most of us choose to have of that time, in lieu of the violence, black plague and serious lack of personal hygiene. It's the act of chivalry that I believe has all but disappeared, becoming crumbling empty shells of history, much like the once majestic castles dating back to that era. I'm faced with this reality every time I hit the roadduring the daily commute. Amazing how the moment you step foot out and find no more empty seats, no empty taxis, packed elevators and not to mentione shoving queues. Feignng sleep rather than make eye contact with you. Now, mind you, I do my share of being courteous. If someone is right behind me as I go through a door, I always hold it open for them.

Doesn't matter if it's for a man or woman. That's called manners...plain and simple. I've given up my seat on the bus to elderly folks or pregnant women, too. But, no matter how independent I am, I still enjoy having a man hold open a door for me, pull out my chair (preferably not out from under me), let me enter or exit an elevator before them, etc. Heck, it makes me feel special, and what's wrong with that? :-) I'm a romantic at heart. That said, I felt pretty darn good this morning when I was approaching the front doors of my office building. A man was also approaching, but he was still at least 10 feet away compared to my 1 foot. As I reached for the door, he darted forward and said, "here, let me get the door for you!" Seriously, he actually ran to open the door for me and it wasn't as if I had my hands full. How nice was that? It's one thing if you're both there at the same time, but to run for the door? Major brownie points, dude! ;-) Just goes to show, you never know when some guy's latent knighthood will wake from deep slumber, puff out his chest and say, "after you, m' lady."

Notes to Self-II

2008-07-10T01:00:00.003+05:30

My room has stars. The last moments when sleep takes over and darkness sets in, they whisper the last goodnight. Their florescence make me smile each night and I ponder somenights gazing endlessly into the fligree cups running amuck in the window of my already dreaming mind. I haven't even slept yet and the weaving has started. I imagine small elves sprinkling glittery sleep dust just like in the children's book that said so on New Year's first night. I recede and let the twinkle settle in. I sleep. I feel the stars looking down at me through the eyelids. I feel safe. I still hold wonder in my heart.

Shadow walker

2008-07-05T09:33:00.006+05:30

Smell of malt whiskey, stale beer and tempered wine. Murky yet somewhat dapper. It's everywhere. I can sense him everywhere. In the train, on the platform, in the car navigating me, in the kitchen teasing my culinary senses, in the bed beside me fighting for pop corn at prime time, hugging me while I fondle with the six-strings, paying intent attention while I talk to myself; make my hair; iron my clothes... follows me to the garden of thought as I pick lilliams of wonder, resting his back on mine as I talk perilously for hours and gasps in animated wonder at my quivering super-sonic reactions, breathing down my neck as I write - even on this confession box...
My shadow doesn't seem like my own lately. It's been telling me things I yearn to hear but would rather not know. It's bigger, longer and seems to be able to engulf me. The bitter scent is back again and I feel a deep longing. My heart tells me its not alone anymore. If only I could disagree.

Pyschedelic trippin

2008-06-27T17:06:00.005+05:30

someday, I said,

I want to meet you again.

I want to find you in the middle of a crowded empty coffee shop sidewalk,

and write on your hands;

we'll sit at a little table with french iron lacework with our little cups of sophistication and knowledge,

discuss sports(yawn) music (perhaps even make some), the meaning of life even.

and you'll give me lollipops-(lots of lollipops?- yes)

My tongue will change colours- fifty different colours! I'll speak rainbows for days,

instead of goodbye,

and you'll part from me with memories of blue trailing from your violet thoughts while red and yellow trade places with green between your palms as you squeeze orange through your fingers. And our lips gasp swivels of pink on cheeks, necks and foreheads.

(our thoughts are peculiar ribbons of indigo)

Backpedal

2008-06-27T14:02:00.002+05:30

Love 2, circa 2008

Congregation of Faith

2008-06-26T12:59:00.003+05:30

It's a tricky word...hope. Seems to be irony's biggest ally. In the battle of happiness, there are no sure winners. But the demon persists. If only the feeding would pause. Life is a joker's paradise. There is jest in every move and the tune of an satire on each pair of lips. I only wonder in the ultimate war, when did the battle of the skeptic and innocent take place. Was I even there? Where was the war- zone? And what I'm still figuring out...who won?

It's hard for me to fall in love. But each time I re-learn to let go, I feel I'm in the midst of a war of the worlds. If only the Beatles were singing All you need is Love right now, I'd listen intently and follow them across the universe in search of answers. But I wouldn't want the song to fade away on I love you yeah yeah yeah...that remains as an afterthought. It leaves hope, a dumb glee, a growing blush and a heartbeat - what if.

It's best to avoid the verse at all points. Kipling's poem is lost in a corporate jungle somewhere where performance managers continue to drive the mumbo down endearingly. Only my life is unroutinely chaotic to follow the consistent meandering. But I still wonder. The regret of loss is probably the worst feeling. But it revisits often.

Three days, three calls - still one lonely heart. Learning to adjust!

Love...again

2008-06-23T17:49:00.000+05:30

She stood at the edge of the ocean. Talking to the waves as she had done on many occasions. This time there was ferocity in the waters. As if they mirrored the violence in her heart. Her face gave nothing as she peered into the distant horizon - that would be at day break. The night had become her favourite companion to accompany her on her moonlit walks across the lands that meet the sea. Only this time, light was threatening to kill the darkness. She was waiting for the eventuality at dawn break. Her dream was dying and she watched as a shallow outsider. Too scared to mourn, too proud to fall, too weak to hurt. Ironic. The freedom she longed for was right beside her in easy company, yet hope planted the seed of love. How easy, she thought to let the pain take over and float with the southbound waves. How righteous to stay on the edge and gaze. Numbness. Irony. Love. Freedom. She made a mental note. Her life’s thesauras needed another update.

Perfect Word

2008-06-01T15:25:00.000+05:30

Silent echo
A muffled wish

Deep gash
A salted wound

Deadly sojourn
A still journey

Feverish pitch
An unheard cry

Black tea
A balming concoct

Vodka straw
An invited misery

Simple life
A distant memory

Home town
An online blimp

Size zero
A soulful state

Calendar Girl
A jaded reality

Happy tune
A misleading lie

Summer house
A Facebook profile

A little less conversation

2008-05-24T19:41:00.003+05:30

Apologies to the King,

but not everday one has an encounter with 'Action' Call

Keep reading www.mailtoday.in

.unknown application

2008-05-21T16:58:00.006+05:30

The scene has been played over and over

Each re-run perfectly timed and rehearsed

My life has the perfect plot

I just need the cast

Sinfully tempted

2008-05-19T18:50:00.003+05:30

I sinned
like the faithful standing
at the foot of confession chamber

I sinned
like a melody distorted
through an amp and a loop

I sinned
like a googled name
wished to spring live from webpage

I sinned
like holding hands
lingering beyond an innocent navigation

I sinned
like being tempted
with a promising kiss

I sinned
like being swept away
to Alister Crowley's magical lair

I sinnned
like familiarising with
all that makes me Zedekiah.

Arabic Sojourn

2008-05-12T13:21:00.005+05:30

On the Sheikh Zayed Road

find more photos on picasa

SO you're headed to Dubai for shopping is it? Electronics and gold? Beware of the customs," our wary and suspicious friends had interrogated before we (my Punjabi family & I ) boarded the Air India flight bound to the city of Middle East mysticism and commercial capitalism. True. We were headed to upgrade the wardrobe and the locker with new Dubai rich gold.

But the arrival gate at Dubai International Airport offered sights, sounds and smells that made a solemn promise of serving a great concoct of urban Arabic culture curry. The Namaz was being recited and miles away from the heart of the city, the distant voices from a mosque nearby was welcoming one to the United Arab Emirates. This virgin tune in Dubai would re-visit periodically for the next 10 days through malls, hotels, road-side cafes, SUVs, safari, art fair, the derby world cup, museum visits, trial rooms, rest rooms, clubs, dhow ride, at foot of the tallest building in the world and the place we called home in the Indian neighbourhood of Bur Dubai.

Situated in the heart of the free port, Bur Dubai, is as much a tourist touchdown hotel spot as it is for the brown immigrants who made their home in Dubai in the early seventies. The surrounding areas of Al Karama and Al Maraha with its distinct Lebanese, Indian, Chinese and Mexican aromas rising through market corners and squares makes one feel at home on the foreign port. A row of houses lined in bricks and mortar that make for cubicle housing societies, each some stories high give away tell tale signs that Indians and Pakistanis inhabit it: clothes hanging in balconies. There is nothing distinctly foreign about Bur Dubai for an Indian. Not even the electronic gates or the lines of Hummers, Camry taxis or Lamborghinis. Not even the Sheiks on duty speaking crisp Hindi while in their flowing white Kandhuras.

Visiting relatives and borrowing their Toyota Camry, we drove out of Bur Dubai, which is also home to Dubai's only source of history, the Dubai Museum placed next to mud walled art galleries in the square of the trader's textile market, we drove onto the grand Sheikh Zayed road. Wide-laned, spacious, weighed under mutli-storied, multi-angular-shaped, tall glass skyscrapers (some still under construction)…the highway that links all of Dubai to the other emirates, is as royally proud and grand as the former ruler it's named after. All along the expansive highway, besides the grinding breaks and accelerating engine noise of the latest models of four wheelers on the road, the uniquely coloured tiles making way for the underpasses, the faces of the royal family plastered along the highway at brief intervals that truly made you feel a part of the middle east.

The angry looking Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, his young son Sheikh Hamdan Bin-Mohammed Bin-Rashid Al Maktoum and endearing daughter Princess Nada escorted you, probably guiding you to their majestic commercial empire.

They say Dubai is the commercial capital of the Middle east thanks to his endeavours, with the maximum numbers of cranes in the world and also the prospective tallest building in the world, the Burj. The bearded man in the East is rising and fast.

On the way to Jumeriah, home to Dubai's poshest sheikhs and global businessman, the villas start crowding the streets and lanes. Texan in size and crisp Persian in architecture…each home is a miniature palace complete with Golden horses, lush greens and ingenious fountains welcoming the cloaked fortress in the distance. And then luxury in its finest. The only approachable fortress to mere mortals. The Madinat Jumeirah, that vouches for European splendour. Dubai's grandest hotel, Madinat is Venice in fortress, completer with a Gandola, cobbled pathways and riverside rooms. Beisdes being the Sheikh's former favourite home away from home (before the truly ostentatious Burj Al Arab came up, the seven star hotel in the sea that needs you to shell out 350 Dirhams to grace the lobby), it was also this year's venue for Dubai Art 2008, Asia's biggest art fair that had showing from 150 galleries around the world. The artists got richer as Indian and Pakistani art flew off the walls. This was the year when Rana Rashid, Sundaram Tagore and Bose Krishnamachari were talked about in the hallways of Dubai's rich and finest. And while all this took place in the lobby of the hotel, a tired Pakistani crane operator took a nap, wearing his kurta pyjama, on the wheel of a machine. Dubai is a city of contrasts and the social disparity made for a great culture calling.

The remaining days passed in a murmur of more hotel and some great mall visits and one got a glimpse of good oil money put to some grand use. From the rainforest lobby created under the Hull of a ship at the Hyatt, the Arabic Starbucks at the Ibn-Batuta Mall with its Egyptian and Tunisians courts, the ski village at the Mall of Emirates as the outside March heat sore to 38 degrees and the customary visit to the Gold Souk market, where gold ornaments, jewellery and wares are sold in street shops

Of course the dessert safari had to follow near the Oman border. The day-long dune bashing, sand surfing and kababs, sheesha and belly dancing in the dessert oasis camp in the middle of the barren brown sea once out of the Hummer, our choice of dune bashing vehicle, we watched the sun drown in the expansive wasteland. Watching the voluptuous belly dancer entrance the audience, and our Syrian driver Nabeel who roasted kababs and rolled them into pita bread for us and the small box that seated the higher Kandhura clad Arabs…we feared. Feared of the Sheiks who were reclaiming wastelands and turning them into homes for the rich, feared the grandeur that would consume Persia, feared the power and the unsaid discrimination that separated the elite from the immigrant, the oil, the media, the wealth and the Burj.

The day next, we drove to Abu Dhabi on the East and took a ride on the sea side, Corniche to take in the richness and bow down to the massive flag that marked our presence beneath the richest emirate. Sharjah, in the west and Ajman further housed the labour force from the Indian subcontinent that has put their sweat and blood into making Dubai, the Switzerland of the East. I wondered again, are these people who made Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal for him. The slums of the emirates has many diamond shiners. The Mughal empire we lost probably resides in UAE. And it is making the new eight wonder of the world…Dubai.

A prose to be Go(o)d

2008-04-15T18:21:00.002+05:30

What do you say when someone asks you, do you have faith? One could easily curl up a lip, slit out a shrieky and aghast cry, 'of course! I do.' Most people would do that. I would do that to. But this one occassion made me doubt my answer. Before the sub-consciously conditioned response neared my lips, the thought dissolved before it even rose from my throat. Fact is, I'd be lying in saying I had faith. I had none.

Growing up in a middle class Punjabi household, to liberal yet spiritual and God fearing parents, my chldhood has had uncounted visits to the Gurudwara. When I was born, when I turned a new leaf, weddings, funerals, each time a new addition was made to the family - material or man, in loss, in happiness, I turned six in the Gurudwara where all who knew of me - some familiar, some unseen and some very close faces - sat and prayed a happy life for me, complete with a royal entourage that filled the sidewalks and outer skirts of the white marbeled Sector 8 Gurudwara - the neighbourhood I grew up in. Maharaja of Patiala with his beaming begum made their presence felt as did people of prominence in Chandigarh and Malwa Punjab. I was the blessed one.

Close to about two decades later, the dome of eternal bliss sits disembled in my heart. I fear the almighty. I talk to him in my hour of need, I call out to him when in pain - self loathed or otherwise. I chant. My perfectly animated schooling in Carmel Convent, the city's most prestigious school, has instilled values of the church and the Holy Bible in me. And there was a time when I believed in a Heaven grander than this life. Even visited the corridors of a saint, who took to his thrown in all richness and splendour. The one who smelt of roses, granted invisible rosy trailed darshans and was royally driven in a bee line of never-ending cars.

The path of self righteousness and moral science has created a laboratory in my being. Till I learnt how to distance myself from the temple and God. I questioned doubted everything. The need to be independant, alone and somewhat materialistic, I confess, made the concept of worship uncool. When it happened or why I did it, I honestly don't remember. But I know it flew from me. I'd love to say the spirit of God hushed and quitened. That would be erronous. To quiten would be to lower the volume and let whispers slowly creep into your ear. I simply turned the switch off. I silenced him. His will in me dimmed. It was as if someone reached out and pulled the plug of the universe for black night to creep. Just... And I sinned.

Some years later, I find a new restlessness. Years have passed and this noise rings in my ear often. Visions pass the iris of my eye every now and then and I have this newfound need to drink in the sights and sounds. I have become spongebob, applogies to the Nickelodeon patent. There are words on a passing truck, visions on a tattoo on the back of a friend, whispers of chanting in the distance - sometimes I feel I am hearing them out of memory, in the motions of the clouds on a dreary sky, on the traces of leaves made on a lazy mid afternoon from the bedroom window, from amongst the theros of people clanking their religious instruments from a passing train, hidden in songs you've heard all your life and now are astutely aware of, in clubs, late night drives and movie halls ripped through the hands of a DJ or music designer, in books and stories that now line the racks of my house, in the eyes, lips, fingers, rings, chains of people on the trains, taxis and roads. And on visits and travels to distant lands that brings back floods of azaan (The Middle East), sunday mass (Venezualla) and even morning martial arts (Kerala).

I feel I'm returning to the seed of my existence and have learnt through the traumas and joyous moments that perspective is a luxury when your head is constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons. And I wonder, if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night. This is my call from a bedroom on a second floor of a heated pyxexia, located somehwere in a Christian society of suburban Mumbai. Thank you Nana. I know it is you with me.

Faith

2008-04-11T12:22:00.002+05:30

Intensity crept upon
in the early throes of dawn.
That vivid scent of fresh rosesand sweet, yet varied taste
of jujubes covered my enflamed throat.

A couple months whispered through
the morning hours like that
of a hummingbird in search of it's nectar.

Delicate growth stunted to enslave
high noon as hawks soared
in the brightest, eye-catching sun,
while the lowly praying mantis lie
still in grace's preparation, apropos.

The afternoon glided on slippery
wings of prey, as nested fledgling
feasted on imaginary nipples anda
pathetic progression through
love's blinded eye.

As night preened itself and
the moon lit the sky like
a pale beacon of hope, our paths
split in misinterpreted glows of existence,
a clash of thunder and lightning scraped
across the sky as rain drenched truth and
escape became inevitable behind huge pixilated dots;

panned out, the picture, descriptive ...

I loved intense and fell intense,
yet death did not come, as
descent of the moon to horizon;
bewilderment excites possibilities
in charred chasms of warmth and direction.

Like the wandering hummingbird,
my incapability to stand still
in confidence, burden's the
praying mantis and beckons
paranoia when threatened
by aromatic flower petals
curling up for a good night's sleep.

Goodnight my sweet,
may you wake anew
without lingered,
natural scents of me,
so we can start refreshed,
bathed in the purified
sight of fireflies,
in dusk's friendly embrace.

Morning Dirge

2008-03-28T13:53:00.004+05:30

The morning stillness amidst a round of wide roads and rising glass towers, is sharply cut by a booming loud speaker. A hymn resonates through the square of homes around the temple. The four corners sing together in perfected harmony. The voice...steadily quivering through the glade of the rising sun. The dewdrops from the air conditioner unsteaily melt to die in a liquid with the warmth of the morning song. The sleeping mind awakes silently through a sleepy haze... Its morning. Allah has spoken. And I am in the middle east.

Marhaba

2008-03-23T15:46:00.001+05:30

Marhaba. . .

coming soon... some more from Dubai

Avial and tandoori chicken - on the beach

2008-03-10T16:10:00.005+05:30

Zero is my favourite number. The oval, pot bellied, doodle is not only a much relatable figure (ah! the only to familiar battle with the bulge) but also a great value addition. While I constanly forgot the number of zeros my hundreds had in my wallet, I managed to survive a whole month of food hunting on a distant land by turning fingers into peepholes and creatiing imaginary zero-shaped outlines in mid-air in the most remotest parts of Kerala. Appam, Idiyappam and Puttu with rasam was my daily dietry addition and in God's Own Country, which in non-Mallu lingo was the shape of zero. My assignment was simple. A lazy travelogue of the back waters and lagoons of the pristine, serene and crystal waterred moss of Kettuvalloms that were to become my home and caprture the rapture of Kovallam, Veli, Alumkadavu, Cochin, Calicut.

That was the plan...

But as coconuts and rice pancakes can leave an unfamiliar taste, so did my slight diversion to explore Kalaripayattu. The martial arts tribe seemed to be more stimulating than an ayurvedic massage. A chance meeting with a mystic, Arrayappa Devasthanam Kutty got me in hot pursuit. Over rasam and pappad, he told me about this place in central Kerala that have year long camps of martial art training. I don't know if it was the colour of his eyes (black pebbled) or the passion of his speech (crisply accented English) or the mention of some Mangalorian cuisine his Carnatic singer wife can throw up. I took directions, addresses and stocked up on banana chips (gestation: my first lil black book) and headed for Thrissur to explore some Kutty woven magic - a Kalari and some brave Kerala stories. Oh did I mention? Kalaris, traditionally are supposed to be the most desriable menfolk especially for out-of-town distant curious women...or as I would like to believe.

What was to follow was ten days of a dstrict safari through Thrissur. The landscaped plains, the coconut breeze, the inviting sea wind made me a wandering fair coloured gyspie (well in comparison) along Aloor, Chermanangad, Kadalassery, Kodungallur, Netissery and Wadakkancheri. My unpardonable lack of Malayalam and refusal to bring a guide along, had me conversing in ways I never knew possible. Save a remote bus or two that still adhered to my use of phoren language. I found my Kalaris, but my camera refused to capture their spirit. Zero helped me through and a serving of avial at a convent in Netissery made the 1000 odd kms I traveled in four days.

Back into surburbia, familiar Mumbai and a message in the inbox, Mallu power, damn good mallu band avial playing tonight. Deja Vu? Recurrent Mallu hangover? What was this? Decided to mark attendance with good Punjabi friends. S, P, L and I sat in the upper steps of the Bandra amphitheatre and in a Mallu crowd, with Mallu rock music...Avial played. I could almost smell the convent dish...its rich, spice laden fumes and smell of coconut milk would not leave. Was I imagining this, while the lead singer sang of revolution, narrated Keralite poetics verses, spoke to an audience in full agreement with his words. Did he carry Netissery aroma with him. The amateur band and its histrionics converted the crowd. The English speaking lot started talking an almost-now-partly-decpherable lingo. What the heck? I gave in. Stood and pretended to attempt a sorry excuse at lip sync.

Then...from the distance he gazed. The perpetrator of all things - good and sensual. I should wait and talk. But this evening I left. For my tandoori chicken and paneer butter masala sensibilities, Avial overdose was gong to be as good as it gets. Only I couldnt be Jack Nicholson tonight. I bowed. In God's own country, amongst God's own men, the Kalari and now at the Avial Rock show...I found my first culture curry.

Will buy Guerilla-look alike CD cover Avial container. They rocked heavy. Not before last night, S gave earplugs to Mallu funny song - Hotel Keralafonia. Aiyo.

Antara

2008-03-04T13:57:00.002+05:30

मैंने सोचा,
वाणी और साहस
में से किस को चुनो।
वाणी तोह मधुर है -
पर साहस तोह अनमोल है।

मैंने सोचा,
सम्मानमन और प्रेम
में से किस को चुनो।
सम्मान तोह मान है -
पर प्रेम तोह भाव है।

मैंने सोचा,
अपनापन और आज़ादी
में से किस को चुनो।
अपनापन तोह एहसास है -
पर आज़ादी से ही तोह साहस है।

Valium

2008-02-04T19:25:00.000+05:30

A fan, a spectacle and faith redeemed

2008-02-02T17:00:00.000+05:30

He's walking like a small child

But watch his eyes burn you away

Black holes in his golden stare

God knows he wants to go home

Children of The Damned

When was the last time you were in love? Honestly I can't remember. But I do remember the pangs of pain and sheer torment of being in his presence. Things were beautiful, so was he. I felt blessed and maybe even he. That nervous laughter, that flutterting twit, the excited energy, the shaky smile, those bright eyes...the air felt sublime with electricity. Just like the twang of an electric guitar. A beautiful rhythm, a naked riff and an incindiary bass that would seep under your skin and pull you from the inside. Besides all things, I remember most the yearning and angst of torture to possess. A deadly sin. I felt more alive than a livewire

It happened again last night...

He's walking like a dead man

If he had lived he would crucified us all

Now he's standing on his last step

He thought oblivion well it beckons us all

Children of The Damned

...at the Iron Maiden concert. Six men who walk amongst us. Six frames all under six feet. Six arms and voices that make chaos and pain seem beautiful. That is true love. My skin felt awash with goosebumps, arrested in wonder as a child whose been narrated fables. The songs they sang ripped through and through and the gyrating melodies trembled through the core of my being. Everything hit. Bruce Dickinson climbed the monitors, the stage support cranes, changed his costume and waved the British flag…narrating the tales of wisdom, debauchery, anger, pain, treachery and the devil’s tales through their mythological songs…Fear of the Dark, Trooper, 666:The Number of the Beast, Can I play with Madness and a rare treat they belted out a song they hardly play – Seven Deadly Sins on the acoustic. And when they asked "Scream for me, Mumbai." We screamed. We yelled and we sang in perfect symphony. S&N couldn't believe what they saw. With astonished faces they looked, they hugged and they sat back in amazement. Their senses were seduced and I, in a wierd sort of way, felt proud. being one amongst the crowd, I somehow still stood out. I was home and this was my country. These were my people and we all had one religion ; Iron Maiden.

Now it's burning his hands he's turning to laugh

Smiles as the flame sears his flesh

Melting his face screaming in pain

Peeling the skin from his eyes

Watch him die according to plan

He's dust on ground what did we learn

You're Children of The Damned

What hits you first is the disorderly chaos. The strident strumming of the guitar, the wash-and-wail of the bass, the drums alternating between rim shots, rolls and pile driver snare, the tambourine almost demure in comparison, keeping time…and then the glorious dramatic howls of the charismatic frontman. The impenitent tropical pyrexia now chilled with night frost, but the temperature of the crowd was rising. You would have to be a very dull person-a snob, or a sad cynic-not to enjoy this show. The sound is of symphonic scale, and of course there is the spectacle, especially here, on and off stage-the sight of fans, arms aloft, singing every word of every song. And suddenly the media moshpit at the previous days press conference came back to mind. Yes, we were fortunate to share the limelight, extract autographs, talk to them, pose with them and touch them...

Your back's against the wall

You turn into the light

You're burning in the night

You're Children of The Damned

I had been in pious company. I was touched by the Gods and faith had been redeemed. I was the child of the damned. Thanks Bruce, Steve, Janichk, Nicko, Dave and Adrian. Thanks for the irking and shuddered reminder. Love is still alive

Like candles watch them burn

Burning in the light

You'll burn again tonight

Children of The Damned

(lyrics intrerspersed from the 1982 Iron Maiden album, 'Number of the Beast' - 'Children of the Damned')

The Witch of Webstock

2008-01-22T19:03:00.000+05:30

A magic potion, some frog legs (and heads), ashen spice, toppled red wine, a brewer's guide and the dingy pire - and the mind has alrady spread the web for the perfect conniving plot. The outcome has been lived over and over again and the satisfied Gringe-like-grin has been viewed through the fully satiated mirror.

Only the compartmentalised life has confined one to the walls of a office cubicle and the terrain for the perfect war has been constructed online. I hate to admit it, but I have turned into the online haunting witch. There are stories to be filed, assignments to run to, interviews to finish, people to be met, homes to be found, photos to be clicked, calls to be made and lives to be got. But one sits and spews out venom, spills out hatred and adorns with love the many pages of facebook and the like.

A final settlement with the Devil has still not been carried out and the sodden sorrow of not meeting those lips still lies fresh. So while I wait for the rejection to go stale and I grab onto what I know with viscious possessiveness. In the meantime, a 2B pencil found its way to me and I made use of the printing paper to give a visual to a yet again mooring self. All this while I've finally rid myself of the self-imposed chastity belt that I have been wearing around my left small finger for the longest time. It's winter (or the solemn promise of one) and I still haven't found that warming embrace all season.

But when the cribbing will stop, the frowns will disperse into princess sparkles. Only I'm enjoying the whining a lot more than I usually do. It's the perfect romance with self-indulgent misery. Fascist or narcisstic? I think its down right witchy. Recovering....still... kindly adjust.

Epiphany

2008-01-21T18:35:00.000+05:30

Ponderings from an evening gone wrong.

Are there amends oh Father?

Universe in suspended Libido

2008-01-20T16:16:00.000+05:30

Blue. I love the colour. I don't think I've ever mentioned this before. There's something mildly passionate about it. Like a drink passed around on street corners or that gentle kiss from suburbia that you can almost taste on your moist lips when you sit back and recount it. I saw blue again. Only this time it coloured my screen. A freak attendance at a movie screening got me face-to-face with passion. Those rare times when I dared to mix the withering promise of personal fun with a professional inuendo to be inspired, left me stranded in a universe of suspended libido.

'Across the Universe', a tale that arose from putting the Beatles revolutionary songs together took a skeptical and a lil jaded me through a trip to Neverland and back. At the time, I refused to ackowledge it. But the Beatles injected potency and the latent imagery took me through a flashback on time. Julie Taymor's ’60s musical fantasia reveals its intention to use the Beatles’ catalog to tell two stories at once, one personal, the other generational.

Pscyhedelic, carnivale, repost, art in motion, Bono, Salma Hayek, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin ... if a flower culture pot broke, it'd be through the eyes of a Beatle monger. Somewhere around its midpoint, 'Across the Universe' captured my heart, and I realised that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.

A visceral peak arrived with 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' The screen turned into an artwork by 'Jude' in which rows of bleeding strawberries are pinned to a white surface transmting into a hallucination of strawberry bombs raining over Vietnam. The dreamiest reverie, set to 'Because' begins with a tableau of nine friends blissfully lying on their backs in the grass in a mandala pattern. The circle disperses as Jude and Lucy find themselves in a watery blue sky where clouds melt into liquid, and the entwined lovers are themselves floating underwater. Most fanciful of all is a largely animated sequence in which Eddie Izzard is Mr. Kite, the ringmaster of a psychedelic circus with a dancing chorus line of “the blue people.”

Amid the phantasmagoria are several star cameos. 'Happiness is a warm gun' erupted with five Salma Hayek nurses tedning to the wounds of a disillusioned soldier. Bono, acid guru, Dr. Robert, a Ken Kesey-Neal Cassady fusion sings 'I Am the Walrus' at an acid-drenched party.

When 'Helter Skelter' and 'Walrus' broke onto the screen, I wanted to grab the hand that rested next to mine. Only it was somewhere lost swimming in pop-corn.

The spirit of counterculture goes with the flow. Its scenes, songs and witty roughhouse choreography seem to be spun off from the Beatles’ movies 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help!' And then theatre meets art on screen when those artistic body contortions erupt suddenly as happens when you jump onto the fields... all dissolving into a stream of consciousness with only occasional punctuation. And though I stuck to my distress at my failing date of the much-planned evening, I refused to accept the visual treat and storyline of the narrative. The same way its oh-wow aesthetic refused to adopt a critical distance from the sex, drugs and rock n roll bit of the '60s.

And just like my accidental evening, the movieleaves itself wide open to derision, complaints and endless nitpicking. But it couldn’t have succeeded any other way. The movie is completely devoid of the protective cynicism that is now a reflexive response to the term “the ’60s.”

There is only one constant - love. And non-believers, cynics, bystanders can only gape and sigh. For they too long for the loving lust. For I too long for the same madenning magic that once made me feel so alive. But then again, its all Across the Univese with Jude!

PS: I am PMSing. Kindly adjust

Synonym

2007-12-27T11:23:00.000+05:30

Depressed
Miserable
Cynical
Unhappy
Senile
Philosophical
Tragic....

Lazy.

I saw stars

2007-12-20T20:07:00.001+05:30

My life has the perfect plot, the cast is missing. I have all these stories in my scattered head, the dreams that never came true, the side of the moon I never saw, the faith I couldn't instill, the leap I couldn't take, the life I never made. It's the slip into the beeline of butterfly existence that forever keeps me going. But it's those smiles I'm wary of faking that pull me down. I wait for epiphany to strike and it never comes to me. I seek the company that I can't stand beside to.

Kaali Peeli

2007-12-17T18:58:00.000+05:30

This post was quite overdue and owes all allegiance to an assignment meant to discover Mumbai. The un-cut story Meter Down...

" Three months after shifting to Mumbai, I wanted to know more about the city of dreams. I found the perfect guide in Ballu Jadav, a tobacco-chewing taxi driver from Byculla. We start our journey from Lalbaug’s Chiwda Gali, driving towards Pherbunder in Byculla. “This is where I live,” he flaunts, pointing towards a patli gali.

The skinny streets lead into one of Mumbai’s many chawls. Remains from the previous day’s dahi-handi clutter the lanes. The open square laced within vertical pigeon holes houses disparity. Vegetable vendors sit in a corner, barbers in another, children chase hens and a butcher sits proudly at an end overlooking a mandir. Ballu’s voice brings me back from my stupor, “Have you seen Black Friday? The chase was shot here,” he informs, hoping to impress with his vast trivia on Bollywood.

We head back to his beloved taxi and drive over J J Flyover, zipping past Rani Bagh, Victoria Church, Palace Talkies and Motibai Reading Room. I absorb the altering landscape with alerts from the garrulous Ballu. “I slept here for 20 days when I was new in Mumbai, 12 years ago,” he reminisces about the Rajabai Clock Tower. Renting in the suburbs, this was my first intimate acquaintance with South Mumbai, in all its colonial splendour.

Ballu slows down at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus and introduces me to his friend Rahim who runs the crowded Canon Bhaji Pav stall outside. Licking off the greasy plates, we speed off to the next pit stop. My cabbie’s affinity for storytelling shifts from Bollywood to the macabre. “This is Ajanta Talkies. An encounter took place at the exact spot we’re standing,” he says ominously, hoping to elicit a shudder.

While South Mumbai sprawls, Ballu’s meter hastens and we move to Khushrobaag, a famous Parsi temple. “I get my wife here a lot. She forgets we are Hindu sometimes,” he laughs. Since cinema-hall- hopping is his idea of getting to know Mumbai, he takes me to Minerva next. Driving past Mumbai’s biggest red light district, Kamathipura, Ballu accelerates with concern, “Don’t come here alone”.

He then declares the South Mumbai session complete and we head to the suburbs with little time to spare. Dadar throws up Maratha Mandir, and at Mahim, Ballu points to all the memorable kebab stalls, which feed teeming people who visit the mosque. A ‘townie’ at heart, Ballu has little to sermonise about the suburbs. Skipping Bandra, we halt at Juhu Garden, with a life-size airplane replica mid centre. “You must sit inside and dream that you’re flying,” he philosophises.

Halting at the final destination, also a theatre, Bombay Talkies in Malad, Ballu good naturedly presents a tab of Rs 1,000. He drives of with good tidings, singing Musafir hoon yaroon, na ghar hai na thikana. I ring home and announce, “Mom, I dared.”

Now five days a week, a shared cab takes me down to town each day. Strangers fill the inch space between each other and the touch doesn't feel alien anymore, but alike: Human. The small concave window overlooks the sea and there is that much distance between cramped and vast space. The sudden realisation then dawns as you sit next to new skins each day. There is openess here after all.

Leaky Cauldron

2007-12-16T11:51:00.000+05:30

It's been a week of acitvity, fragments of insipid events stictched into a strectehd fabric of sequences. Some of it I wish I had dreamt. You know what they say about reality being stranger than fiction...I seem to be endorsing the metaphor lately.

It started with the dawn break of true-blue monday morning. (disclaimer: this might not read in one sequence, considering my fish-like memory often troubleshoots when too much happens). An enoying drip-drop woke me from my deep slumber in an alien bed. Too many bedrooms in too many days, I realised I hadnt let my back rest on my coir for over a week now. I missed the pokes of the familiar mattress. Tonight, must sleep at home. Right?Hustle out to work. Today's a date with Will Smith in town. Must reach on time. Fell out onto the street straight to colleague's loft. No deo, no hairbrush, luckily managed to find tooth counterpart, no milk (hope I make it through the day sans lactose and coffee. Sigh!). Run to the train station with a sudden realisation. No laptop. Too late to run home. (which with its overload of women, seemed unfamiliar) Borrowed Su's and caught the legend on screen, not before an escape run into rail authorities (no ticket. Right, must get renewed). Lets chant. Havent done for a month now. Works. Reach the legend in the hall. Coffee follows in barista and then off to work. On one of those bad-look days, I with Su make my TV debut. What follows is a half hour of posing as an offline addict on the Marine Drive. Overlooking the Arabian Sea, the brown mucked and oily haired me sat on my very fat day onto the promenade, gazing into the expanse with my laptop. I was the official wannabe. Right? just when I needed the realistaion that I have no LIFE!

Braving through the day, tuesday came and went in a flurry of action. Books, music, movies, phone calls, actors, impending realisation of non-existant love life, visiting a friends exhitbition, dinner. The usual. Met up with fave industry person. I call him the player and we exchanged a dinner. Some more dirty secrets shared and some glasses of lassi later, we were out of Papa Pancho. That night, I slept at home to the sounds of a leaky tap, spurting water.

Wednesday morning, there was a riot in the bathroom. The rusted geyser had broken into a fountain and for the next three nights, sleep eluded us. I woke between nightmares and pleasant dreams of a walk through Johnny Depp's blood spurting From Hell or the foaming stream of Niagra Falls. Scenes from Thr Ring and Dark Water filled me listlessly and I had offiicially been converted to a morning, daylight zombie. Finally I was getting better at the Zombie fights on Facebook. Bite chump! bite! bite! bite!

Finally met up with Vicky Mama and Mutki Bhaiya for dinner. Two sides of the family caught up and we shared nostalgia over dal, keema and phulkas. In those few hours, faith reaffirmed. Blood is thicker than water and beneath it all we all are lonely megalomaniacs. But the best compliment was yet to come. And the same was in the form of a gesture from a TV production house. The big ass films (I'll stick to the name. No need to hurt the sentiments of the real people involved). In those pancakes of face grease paint, vermillion, over decked garb...I read out the part of a vamp finishing with the summation, "I can't take no for an answer."

Sleepy sunday has me tucked in. Maybe a round of Sex and the City. The geyser has been fixed and all taps replaced by the efficient local plumber, Jaya Ram, whose Mumbaiya held me in wonder (still acquainting self to the spilling lingo). Except for when I sit here, I peek into the kitchen, where a drip-drop threatens to erupt from the water canister. Another week?

Temptations

2007-12-09T12:04:00.000+05:30

What does one really do in a state of surreptious drukeness. Fight battles endearing to Ego vs Soul (somehwat like Alien vs Predator. No winner). But composed on a yo-ho-ho Bottle of Rum (old monk please!) over candlelight and Beatles...ergo!

Saturday Night?
No someday right.
Losing Heat?
No losing feat.
Mirror crackling smile?
No scary look, senile.
Washboard abs and together bosom?
No a scene from Floppy, the Sodden Mom.
Roaring Sex life - love, romance, wine, candles
No aphrodesiac nights over plunered waddles.
Casablance?
No a Fish called Wanda?.
Lovely?
No Lonely
Freud?
Yes Freud.
Ha! I win. We agree to the master
The grandmaster of frustrated potency...we do?

Free Fallin'

2007-12-08T23:26:00.000+05:30

It's finally time to rant. The gifts of an overactive life have slipped in the demon I went to sleep at nights with, laziness. But free wheelin ghosts seldom rest and there is finally steam flowing from the backburner. The cheer is back and so is the Holiday season. After the lights and crackers burnt out the candles through my first moonless night away from mama's nest. The frost-less winter of Mumbai will give me my first jingles through the grapevine of red, green and mistletoes. It's good to be back and scribbling again!

Toasties and Cheese

Drift

Lasting memories

One drink too many

Just

Come undone

An interview with Buddy Guy

Keep the gap

Navel wrap

Meet the Enthusiast

Transcribing an interview with poetry

To Depression with Love

Musings

Expendable

When Dragons Whine

Chordance

Silence of the Words

Warped & Twisted - IV

Suicide

Cheers Darliing

Letter to the Tattoomaker

Ghosts of Convenience

Recovery Mode

Meeting you

Entropy

Abortion

Chordance

Amiss

/-\ B |_| S !E !)

Shied Wisdom

Flicker

The Gypsy Heart

Obscure

Post-it for self II - *Disoriented*

Sight

C () !\! T /\ ! !\! !\/! E !\! T

Lonely Hearts Club

Vodka Straw

Soundtrack

Rhythmic Rant

Waiting for Normalcy

Cup of Tea

U !\! ! !\! S P ! R |E !)

Alcoholics Anonymous

Rusty & I

A day at the Movies

Rubber-Band

Roll Call

Jugni

Sanitise

Orange!?!

Christmas Lunch at Taj

Inheritance of Loss

Hostage situation

So it is

Finish Line

Nana

Cannot Find Server

The Perfect Drug

Denial

After thought???

The relentless Insomniac

As Shireen Nada Rashid...

Second to None

After Hours

The Emergency room at Uri

Rebirth

On the way home last night

By blur

Drunker stupor

The oft visited dream

The Last Kiss

(Un)likely Fairytale

Notes to Self-II

Shadow walker

Pyschedelic trippin

Backpedal

Congregation of Faith

Love...again

Perfect Word

Post-it for self II - Disoriented