joie de l'écriture

Life - An open highway

2012-01-28T15:02:00.001+05:30

Every journey begins with a destination in mind. So have our lives. And all travelers would know that it’s not the end that matters, it’s the journey that matters in the end. Man is a traveler all his life and life an endless journey of twists and turns. Long drives are everyone’s favorite and if I were to draw an analogy between them and life there are more than just a few. Your life is yours and yours alone but you cannot decouple it from those of others around you. Just like on a journey, you can own a car but not a road. There are co-travelers, some patient, some unruly, some cooperative, some senile, some innocent, some adolescent. These faces stay for a while. The bouts of anger don’t long last. Their smiles sometimes pleasing, sometimes mocking will disappear like the road during a blind turn. Only they wouldn’t be seen again unlike the road at the end of the turn. You will cross a number of milestones. Chances are you may breeze past most of them. Take a while to breathe and celebrate each of them because when you look back at your journey, the milestones are all you will remember. You may get lonesome somewhere on the way. Ask a friend to hop in and sit by your side. Share a laugh. Crack a joke. Listen to music. Then say goodbye if you may. Fuel up when you most need it. Avoid too many breaks. It makes the journey seem longer. Remember there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Dare to take a wrong turn. Thankfully the world is round. Give way to others. Don’t mistake it for failure or quitting. Uphill climbs are easiest when all luxuries are turned off. There are many traveling on the fast lane. Follow them but be prepared to slow down. Don’t let flat tyres agitate you. Use the time to stop and stare. What is this life if full of care? Let the wind hit you on your face. Feels lot like love. Read signboards on the way. Spot an error and treat yourself to a smile. Get nostalgic once in a while. Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear. Like all travelers you would see more than you can remember but a journey is worthwhile when you can remember more than you have seen.

Why women can't be good managers?

2012-01-27T14:44:00.001+05:30

Because their brains have been wired to focus on details… from picking vegetables in the market to the embroidery on their sarees, from the laces on their petticoats to the shade of their nail enamel. Because they can never read maps nor can create one let alone making an effort to lead you to your destination. They like to simply be on the back-seat and give worthless advice or be on the front seat and doze off. Because they always equate power with ownership and ownership with extreme possession…boyfriend, husband, recipes and ideas. Because they are eternally lost in a pursuit of proving themselves in a role…loving wife, caring daughter-in-law, super mom, cool aunt. Because they have always been told – The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. That behind every successful man there is a woman. They selectively take some words very seriously. They understand humor… too little…too late. They cannot live without their daily dose of gossip and banter - the two most important deterrents to productivity and peace. Because they always consider the penny wise and pound foolish – will haggle with the vegetable vendor but will let their pockets lose on discounted sales. Because they are programmed in binary. Either you are right or them. Because the winds of women empowerment and diversity has created a storm in their tea-cups which are always full of coffee. And too much off caffeine is bad for the brains, especially when you have more of the former and less of the later. Because their understanding of technology is often restricted and sometimes challenged. Because they cannot live or let live without reminders, lists, alarms – you find it everywhere – on their refrigerators, in the knots in their handkerchiefs, on their palms, by their bedside, on their ovens. They like being noticed and love hogging the spotlight. The multiplicity of their efforts is commendable – clothes or sometimes the lack of it, make-up, jewelry, tick-tock shoes, free-flowing tresses, loud ringtones, silly giggles, and conversations at inappropriate levels of decibels. Working women generally carry their work home because they carry their home to work. The reason for the dearth of women managers or must I say good women managers can be best explained like the journey of the Indian cinema industry from the 1990s to the present. We hope 2020 would be the year of coming of age of the women managers when the stereotype associated with them would die a silent death and experience, exposure, etiquette, education and equality would pave the way to change. Until then patience is the key to survival and good appraisals by the biggest nightmare aka women managers!

Page not found

2012-01-17T19:54:00.001+05:30

New years come and new years go. So has 2012 arrived knowing very well that it would be exactly 366 days before the world rings it out and rolls out the red carpet for the ensuing year. It is so much like all the adulation and celebration that happens during the welcoming of a new bride. It lasts only until another one arrives in the family.There's place only for one under the spotlight.

New year and resolutions are married eternally. And on top of the list for me this year is to spend less time on Facebook and more on making use of my chic laptop for other useful purposes. Too many updates from people whom you once knew force benign gestures of a thumbs up or a smiley and then you get notified on every single wink or every single smile that someone shares around it. The juvenile behavior of poking or pricking or even slapping someone fails to amuse you after a while. It definitely doesn't evoke the slightest of interest when you are notified about it through a mail and when it shares the same space in your personal mailbox as your credit card statement.If that was not all, naive users like yours truly cannot see the beauty or the user-friendliness of a completely revamped interface especially when you have to go around hovering your mouse over every single icon and piece of text to figure out a way to log off.

Facebook suddenly seems to have become a way of life. It has become the easiest means to snoop around. And if someone's name search ended on a "No matches found" note then the person seems to be oddly anachronic in this era of being. Funnily enough, those are the people I have begun to garner respect for. They have given way to more honest relations and communication over a few thousand "friends" and silly comments. This bandwagon will not die soon. And when it does, trust me we would have a lot of litter on our wall and would have been poked to death.

Another thing I hate about this place is how perfectly it ruins your birthday... first it notifies people about you coming into existence on this planet this very day (that's the only rule for a birthday wish - that you must remember it on your own!), then it allows them to wish you without the slightest trouble by just hovering their mouse not more than an inch, and then it neatly groups and places all your birthday wishes and voila! you are plagued with monotonic birthday wishes. What's worse I have seen automated wishes going out too.

Those grotesque & gory images of malnourished and diseased babies, birds and animals alike in the name of spreading a word and awareness, only makes you turn away from these like a beggar at a traffic signal. You doubt the authenticity of such cases and every time you see someone share such stuff you wonder are we helping promote this violence. It's the same thought that crosses the minds of many when they drop a penny in the bowl of a beggar.

We were made to believe that it's best to not wash your dirty linen in public. Facebook made us change our beliefs. Tell me once when you haven't wondered why has this been posted here? And these are the same people you grew up with, in school, in college, or even at work. There used to be a bold black line between public and private. Now there's none. Everything is on Facebook. It's the complex cocktail of these two lives that gives many a high which they've always craved for. Honeymoon pictures, baby delivery pictures, you can only guess what's next! Not to mention those numerous updates of profile pictures revealing the narcissist side even of people who are not even close to the P of photogenic. What's surprising is that most of these pictures are so damn posed and so often too bold for the comfort of anyone that it leads to a bigger or may I say a deeper question - what just bit this guy? The answer - Facebook.

Adieu to the madness of Facebook. Thank you all who "liked" me, to those who jokingly "poked" me, and to those who lent me a "smiley". To those who stagged, gossiped and contributed to the filth - you were never on the friends list!

Lost in Time

2012-01-17T09:39:00.001+05:30

Where did we lose the innocence?

Did we leave our hearts far behind?

In the quest for the ultimate truth

Have our souls suffered and died?

Looking back at the days did we see

A hint of happiness or a spark of joy?

Or did with the idea of blissfulness

Our mind could only eternally toy?

Did we make more foes than friends?

Did we mar more memories than we could hold?

Somewhere in the chapters of life

Were we the hero of a story untold?

Do we still have a dream to live up to?

Do we still dare to dream?

Do we still have a heart to dare?

Dreams, dare, heart and desires…do we even care?

The stuff of dreams

2010-12-06T21:24:00.002+05:30

Nature beckons urbanites on a lazy weekend and welcomes them with open arms. Through narrow lanes drawn on tiny towns, over shadowed roads of leaved canopies and along wind swept beaches. Nestled in nature's lap with a bunch of friends and finding the little joys of life. Watching the blazing sun surrender to the calmness of the sea, lending it it's uneasiness evident by the surging waves. Little men shedding all inhibitions walking into the sunset and bobbing along the waves. Lovers meandering along the shore, the wind ruffling their hair carelessly, unmindful they walk hand-in-hand barefoot on the virgin sands leaving behind footprints in time. The bewitching panorama stretching as far as the eyes can see. Like an artist's brush strokes come alive and chiseled to perfection, the landscape mesmerizes the onlooker. Rarely has such proximity to nature failed to evoke a sense of being and belongingness. You look forward to many such magical moments. You look forward to all such days when you would get to pump life into the routine that often saps it out. You believe in the beauty of things around you and the one within. You feel loved and want to love back in return with all your heart. The soothing sounds of the sea, little spotlights from the night sky, and one of your favorite songs playing somewhere in the distance. A frozen moment in time as splendid and as lovely as would a snow globe unfold in the tight grasp of little hands.

Radio Song

2010-10-16T12:10:00.001+05:30

There ain’t no magic since you are gone

No signs of flutter birds or their songs

I sit by the window, the sun smiles at me

Life seems so much like a parody

I walk to the shores, the sand at me feet

Sand that once didn’t just seem to slip

From the hourglass you gifted me

Said like a little boy, “Please forgive me”

Now that it’s broken and so are our hearts

Warmth of the sun is all that I’ve got

The sand slipped away, the sea swallowed it

A box full of gifts and fond memories

Wrapped in a polythene dumped underneath

Out of my sight and yet in my heart

Forever shall stay and can never part

I cry out aloud and ask if it’s true

Is it goodbye forever to you?

“No” I scream aloud, it can’t ever be

You are my reason to believe

As I watch you cry

When you hear me sing

On the radio

Can you feel your heart sting?

Yes I know your heart stings

Yeah I know your heart stings

…

And that smile of yours makes my heart swing

Yes that smile of yours makes my heart swing

Yeah that smile of yours makes my heart swing!

Game Over

2010-09-15T11:44:00.007+05:30

Expanding waistline

Receeding hairline

Stocks on decline

Losses on incline

Stricter timeline

Waiting in beeline

Life needs a realign

Ethical washout

Existence hand-to-mouth

Political clout

Restless bout

Mindful of doubt

Reasons to pout

India Shining a tout

Drunken hangover

Careless hover

Speeding land rover

Death of a lover

Freed by power

Living in tower

Player 1. Game over

Investment Policy

2010-09-14T22:07:00.000+05:30

I like spending quality time. Specially the one that I spend all alone. While am not particularly attracted to loneliness and solitude, it's worthwhile to treat yourself to a break once in a while. A break much deserved from the routine, from the regular and from the rigmaroles. Indulge in youself - a book, a hot tub bath, a 12 hr sleep ... just anything your regular schedule makes seem like a fantasy. A complete rejuvenation of body, mind and soul. Finding peace in bits and parts and then holding it tight in your arms. Eventually you let go, life doesn't leave much of a choice there. Back to work, back to the daily humdrums, back to complaints and cribbing about unhealthy lifestyles, poor worklife balance, sleepless nights, and a million other things that you refuse to accept with a smile. Yet, you cherish the little time you invested in yourself as you redeemed those long hours at work. They say you are your biggest asset. Make a good investment in yourself before the drudgery of life makes you a liability only left to be written off and taken off the books.

My Experiments with Cooking

2010-07-24T16:30:00.002+05:30

Some say cooking is an art. I believe it’s a science. And eating is an art, especially if you are eating something cooked by someone who considers cooking to be a science.

Like all science experiments in school, you prepare for your cooking experiments first with the apparatus – pans, pots and plates in lieu of measuring cylinders, test-tubes and beakers. Then you measure the ingredients in grams, litres or by the more rudimentary ways of measurements - cups and spoons. You deal with fire. You put to use solids that change their form, shape and color. For beginners you always have a handbook to refer to. And did I miss mentioning that like all experiments, cooking always begins with an end in mind, an objective well-defined.

Eating is like appreciating modern art. A connoisseur can appreciate something that seemingly does not exist in the piece of art. Similarly, someone who has the misfortune to be eating food cooked by someone who regards cooking as a science experiment is forced to finds flavors that never exist in the food but are made to exist by the power of imagination and wishful thinking. Eating need not always have an end in mind, it could be to satiate your hunger pangs, it could be out of survival needs, it could be because there is nothing better to kill your time with, it could be because you need it while you watch television, it could be because you just feel like it, or it could be all of it!

You have recipe books. Whoever wrote a book on eating? Anything sans of rules, methods and procedures cannot be anything but art and anything that is full of it is undoubtedly is science. So a poorly cooked dinner is only an experiment that didn’t result into the desired or expected outcome. But a badly eaten dinner only means the subject was a poor art lover who failed to discover the hidden meaning in the work of art like someone searching for the Monalisa in the galleries of Tate Britain.

Organizations and the Challenge of Innovation

2010-07-17T11:16:00.002+05:30

http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles_various/Innovation-in-organizations-210.asp

B.O.B. - Beginning of Business

2010-07-17T10:50:00.001+05:30

Two eyes popped open under a tuft of black hair that carried the smell of some unfamiliar baby shampoo. They had a look that would put a seasoned gambler to shame had the reels in the slot machine come to a jarring halt wiping him of his fortune like how a dab of cold cream could disappear on the skin on cold winter mornings. On one such winter morning, through the slit in the wooden window fixed in an unclothed window frame, a ray of the morning sun arrived into the tiny room bouncing off a million dust particles that floated in the air like figments of imagination that were sometimes conceived in the otherwise dormant brain of the waif. He lay there warming himself in the little comfort that the streak of sunlight offered him. His eyes were transfixed to the dark damp ceiling of the cubicle and thoughts ran in his mind, the speed of those bicycles that had chased him the previous night. Bicycles that carried plump uncouth men in tattered clothes and bunch of steel chains around their sweaty necks that jangled as they rode on the freshly tarred road. He turned around to one side and looked at the blue polythene, the size of a beanbag, stuffed with knickknacks that carried labels of “Made in China”. A new day at work was about to commence for a little life “Made in India.”

The Song of Life

2010-07-17T10:33:00.002+05:30

How are some songs so perfectly written? How can every word in the song convey a thousand emotions that are seldom easy to put across? How can the music weave those words so magically that you can almost feel your heart stir when you listen to it? Why does it remind you of someone, some place or some fleeting moment in time that you wanted to capture and hold on to? How does it, with such brilliant ease, transcend you to a place you heart lost its way in search of? The language of music is universal and some songs just tell you why. The power of words is phenomenal and some lyrics just reinstate that belief. There are songs you never want to stop listening to and you put them in the replay mode because you just don’t seem to get enough of them. It paints a picture so vivid and blissful like the stuff of dreams that you refuse to accept that life would be any beautiful if you ceased to listen to it. Little do we realize that life itself is a song, and we all have our lines to sing…

The same old story

2010-07-17T08:29:00.003+05:30

There's a silent surrender to the drudgery of life. The dreams you once had are now packed and sealed...never to be opened in the portals of your "hallowed" workplace. You see your worst fears coming true day after day. A realization grows on you every single moment you spend at your desk. You are about to submit your desires, your interests and your love for an umpteen number of things just because waking up every morning, stepping into your leather shoes and following the daily routine of attending work is what evokes a mild sense of respect about being employed. It guarantees a paycheck every month to give you a false assurance about your present and about your future that's as hazy as your expectations at work. You retire your day as a tired, tortured, timid individual who has been enslaved by the corporate lifestyle leaving little or no time for yourself or to realize your dreams long cherished. At different points in the day in different ways for different reasons you wish you were doing something 'different'.

You didn't spend all those years in college getting inspired by success stories to assume a meaningless existence. You didn't yearn to grow up only to slaughter your notions of freedom and individuality at the altar of financial security and social acceptance. How many times have you used the word 'hate' before you began work? How many times have you woken up in the morning with nothing to look forward to before you began work? How many times have you wanted to break free? You have survived the toughest of all rules, the stringent of all laws, justified the hardest of all restrictions imposed. But today, your mind is not ready for this. A mind that was built to be creative feels straitjacketed at a place that has little to offer in terms of creativity. It feels sapped due to lack of an intellectually simulating environment. It needs a place to breathe and feel alive again.

To be stuck in the wrong job is a slap on the face of a well qualified individual. A tighter one on that of an MBA. Now how many of those lakhs of MBA aspirants really hit the nail on the head? As a proud holder of a management degree, you realize you are not just fortunate but also worthy... a lot more than the present situation forces you to believe. You cannot forfeit your dreams and aspirations thinking the world is too small a place and it will arrange your tryst with opportunities. You need to breed them. The least a good educational degree offers you is the power to think beyond the limits of the obvious. The one thing it never teaches you is to be brave. It never teaches you to take a detour in your career to follow what you know you are naturally good at. Instead it nestles you under the comfortable blanket of all your educational degrees and certificates, and ushers you on a path that has been tried and tested by the educated and qualified strata of the society. The question is how far will this path take you? Sooner or later any sane person who has not sold his dreams during his ascent on the corporate ladder will be left with an emptiness inside of him. An emptiness that will bite him hard as he stands on one of the rungs of the same ladder, more often than not not the highest one, as his looks back and counts the years that he has lost after having renounced his dreams to conventional wisdom.

Sometimes workplaces demand a certain level of dumbness. While this doesn't come naturally in the first instance, you get accustomed to doing things the dumb way, and over time is seeps into your blood and then you become comfortably dumb in your own frame. This transition from being someone who questions dumb behaviour to someone who sets higher standards of dumb behaviour sometimes goes unnoticed by the eyes of the 'achiever'. This achiever is too far engaged in a chase for the higher and the fatter to realize the sudden increase in his DQ or Dumbness Quotient.

Remember it's never too late to start and it's never to early to give up on things that don't matter. Remember that every person you know has the same fears as you do, and that they don't turn true so easily if you only try not to let them turn true. Remember that faith can keep you alive but hardwork can give you a second life. Remember that you might have the worst job in the world but you might be the lucky chap to have the best person in your arms. Remember that person is here to stay with you forever, through good jobs, bad jobs and no job. Remember to appreciate the finer things in life when you suddenly feel crushed under hammering thoughts. Remember life isn't that bad afterall. Remember that as much as you would like to curse your luck and blame your destiny, there are better explanations of why something went wrong. Take life the way it comes, one step at a time and live each moment - good or bad - to the fullest. Such moments build memories, create experiences, shape your life in a countless different ways and paint it in a thousand myriad shades lending it a brilliant uniqueness. A uniquness that's you!

Life is perfect, only when you think it is or when you don't think at all.

Shallow Thoughts

2010-07-17T08:24:00.002+05:30

Someone pointed out the other day that my poems are too 'deep' to comprehend or relate to. So this is an attempt at dispensing some shallow thoughts. Please be warned that the depth of these shallow thoughts is no deeper than that of a water droplet that lies undried in your bath tub when you return home in the evening. Return from where? Duh. Just anywhere! So the logical conclusion that follows is that I am like a water droplet. Tiny.

And how does it feel to be tiny? Like crap! Tiny crap. I know it from recollections of past when I felt tiny while enjoying rides on dinosaur backs. Those were the days! Oh yes, if the question is troubling you and since this piece is only a monologue you have no other choice but to just listen, without any possibility whatsoever of asking a question. So let me, by the extreme kindness that has been granted by Him, comply to your desires of knowing the unknown. Yes. I was friends with dinosaurs. Yes. They offered my free piggyback rides. Free. Such a boil on the foot feeling in this age of rising auto fares. Dino rides would have been so much fun, but for the parking constraints and the congestion on the roads. Personally, I consider them an intellectual bunch of creatures. I think they deserve a better taxonomical reference than just 'creatures'. But for now let's keep the emotions out and focus on 'shallow thoughts'. So these creatures as I said were an intellectual bunch who left earth for the tiny specs to evolve and become 'spec'tacular with shiny cars, fast bikes, flashy clothes and junk food! Junk food that makes us believe that dinos have reincarnated at the Mc Donald's, the Dominos and elsewhere on street corners. Seems like they have reappeared after being minced into fragments that plod around these places with mouths full of high calorie food. They no longer feel tiny. They feel huge. Like a million tiny pieces glued together. So the logical conclusion that follows is that if it feels like crap to be tiny then to be an amalmagation of tiny pieces should feel like a bigger chunk of crap. Crappier!

Do you make resolutions? Sorry, do you keep resolutions? Have you ever made a resolution to not feel crappier. I just made one before biting into my Big Mc that made me SO MUCH happier. So the line between crappier and happier is so fine that is invisible to the naked eye and definitely not to the stomach and its ever increasing appetite. The mouth always conforms to the abdominal desires and not to the signals of the brain. The brain is left with trapped signals and needs a deperate release. The release is through 'shallow thoughts'. Long live the hunger pangs, longer the reponses to them and much longer the tiny brain capable of dispensing shallow thoughts.

Summer - Bitter and Sweet

2010-05-15T12:46:00.000+05:30

There's something about this season that's appealing despite the scorching summer sun. There's a little joy in having to do away with the usual when schools close down. There's vibrancy of colors, splash of cold drinks, lingering freshness of perfumes and talcs all to fight the season and that's what makes this a season that's much awaited as much as it is despised. It's a love hate relationship. Almond like. Bitter and sweet.

Feels like summer holidays

2010-05-15T12:38:00.002+05:30

Freedom means different things to different people. For some the closest encounter with freedom could be while having the TV remote tightly clasped in their hand. For some others it may mean a few days away from the routine. Today, I experience this freedom. Every time I log into facebook there's a blank text box asking me "What's on your mind?" Everytime I made an effort to answer that question, something else painted my mind's canvas. Today the canvas reads just one answer in big bold letters - Feels like summer holidays! And that's my definition of freedom. The power to choose, the desire to explore, the strength to slow down and the humility to accept that life feels good in the slow lane.

North-bound

2010-04-18T12:18:00.003+05:30

Muttered prayers deep inside

Just when I thought hope had died

Bowed to a mesh of fingers, eyes shut tight

Scrambled towards the ray of light

Suddenly the sky opened up and it poured

And with it shut a hundred doors

Thunders muffled the voices in my head

And two weary feet returned to bed

The sun rose and it wrapped me warm

The rainbow smiled and it stretched an arm

And I returned on my journey, north bound

Just the way the earth couldn’t cease turning around!

Wanderer in the Woods

2010-04-03T23:45:00.005+05:30

There is a face hidden behind the hood

Fearless and aimless yet lost in the woods

Finding the way to where the sun sets in the sky

The maze in the woods serves a perfect alibi

Every night when the stars fill the heavens above

He knows there’s bliss with him right there right now

And yet when the sunrays blind him through the trees

He knows he’s being fooled by the randomness of the breeze

The birds span the distance in search of sweet berries

The heart follows the path traced by human vagaries

The silvery moon wraps the world in celestial wonders

And the earth turns to the music of the midnight thunders

He’s walks alone with a dream the size of a drop in the ocean

Smiling and painting it with the hue of every emotion

Mind map

2010-03-22T12:05:00.000+05:30

I don't seem to understand the complexities of the human nature. The same people who can gauge the magnitude of tumult in your heart by a mere tone of words can sometimes completely fail to understand you. Your fears, your worries, your desires, your wishes are sometimes all yours. These are born with you. They live and grow with you but may never see the light of the day. They are your and yours alone.

Why is it so difficult to let your own people know that you care for them, that you wish to be alone for a while, that you have your own choices to make, that you want to slow down a little bit, that you may not understand what they say but respect their opinion nevertheless, that you are not trying to impose, that you have little fears that keep bothering you, that you have your own beliefs, that there are things that bother you but you trust them nevertheless, that they aren't the only one sacrificing, that you always want to see them happy, that you have been moulded in a certain way, and that it hurts to hurt them?

Is it okay to beg apology in hindsight, it is okay to refuse something on its face, is it okay to bury certain fears and yet not be able to hide or think about them, is it okay to beg something happens your way just because it will make you really happy, is it okay to excuse oneself from certain conversations, is it okay to let go, is it okay to hold on and never let go, is it okay to be uncomfortable with yourselves, is it okay to ask so many questions?

In a world full of differences and a city full of doubts if I could ask for a little space filled with harmony and people that matter would life refuse to oblige?

Mile

2010-03-16T14:13:00.001+05:30

“The longest mile is between two hearts

That have seen everything but the truth

The smiles are fake and the love is false

And what remains is but an empty waltz

Hand in hand we’ve walked the path

We’ve chased our dreams on the way

No matter where life takes us now

The smiles are here to stay

No matter how close or how far you are

I know you feel me somehow

And across the distance I can hear you sing

Or is it my heart that’s filled with love?

I am afraid to seek answers

I am afraid to even try

For the truth could be stranger than fiction

It could be more than I can buy!

Sleepless nights I have spent in my bed

Shed tears for reasons I didn’t even know

Woke up to find we’ve parted ways

I am lost; I know not where to go!

Come hold my hand, lock my fingers in yours

Let’s listen to our favourite song

Let’s walk into the sunset

As I listen to your sweet nothings all along

The shortest mile between two hearts

Is a smile from cheek to cheek

Heartfelt and true

And this time I am smiling

Just by thinking of you!”

Every thing you do

2010-03-16T14:02:00.004+05:30

It’s a promise made in time

Every word you say

No matter how time turns

Your words are here to stay

It’s a treat to a worried soul

Every smile you smile

Bids adieu to worries

If not for ever, for a while

Makes up for loss of words

Every sign you give

That’s how they fall in love

When it’s hard to believe

It’s a triumph of a sort

Every lie you hide

Until it belies the conscience

In which you confide

It’s a design of destiny

Every fear you face

When in doubt, remember

To have faith in His grace

The Grand Design

2010-03-14T11:08:00.001+05:30

The wind plays foolish games

And so does this little heart

The wind can cease to blow

But the heart just cannot

The clouds drift and wander

And so do thoughts in the head

The clouds can shower and thunder

The thoughts sleep with you in bed

The sun rages with passion

And so does the heart’s desire

The sea calms the burning sun

The heart is left to the pyre

The trees are parched for life

And so is a soul that breathes

Every summer promises a spring

What soothes a soul that seethes?

It’s funny, His grand design

Created with utmost care

Blesses one with an ability to inspire

And gives other the strength to bear

Life in words

2009-12-10T23:07:00.002+05:30

There is a silent surrender

To the drudgery of life

And yet on a day like this

There’s a difference of a kind

From where life begins

And till the time it ends

Few are there people

For whom the heart melts

If a story were to be told

Of what it means to be free

No matter how it begins

It’ll end with thoughts of thee

I’ve tried and I’ve failed

And yet I don’t regret

‘cause all through the while

There were people that I met

Faces that were there for a while

Memories that would last for life

And no matter how hard I’d tried

Couldn’t heal wounds that cut like knife

And while this odyssey still’s alive

And while there’s life in my heart

In search of dreams I shall wander

Until destiny do us part

Early to work

2009-11-06T12:57:00.002+05:30

There’s something uniquely special about being one of the firsts to arrive at work in the morning. It’s amazing how the same place you left last night cursing it for the amount of pandemonium that dwells within every inch - in and across – the its tiny cubicles transforms into a peaceful space sans any signs of upheaval. It looks like a battleground after the war has ended. The temperature is low enough to make you shiver a little bit. The array of lights makes a vague pattern on the ceiling. The printers buzz as they warm up for the day. The faces of the early birds, spookily lit by the incandescent glow of their screens, are occasionally visible behind the stunted walls of their cubicles. While the faces remain unperturbed their fingers hit the keys on the keyboard almost at the rate of the spoken word. A symphony of mouse clicks and key strokes fills up the air. The chairs that otherwise have heavy bottoms glued to them are plump with air breathed in after a few relieved Pascals. The quiescent telephones and the soft murmur of early personal calls on cell phones paint an atypical picture in the room. The world hasn’t woken up from its slumber as yet. The number of unread mail for the day confirms the hypothesis. It’s tough placing a finger on what makes these wee hours of the 12 hour work clock so blissful? Is it that one needs just a few minutes by herself to appreciate the beauty in little things or is it that sometimes you find joy in the most unexpected things that fall out of the routine?

Lived a life

2009-11-05T22:56:00.002+05:30

Lit a fire with my thoughts

Burnt a hole in my heart

Shaped a destiny with believes

Crossed an angel on my path

Wished a dream on a star

Washed my sins on the road

Bled tears from old scars

Broke promises that were made

Stole a kiss from the girl

Laid a soul to its rest

Stitched a smile on a face

Etched a name in the oak

Sang a song for the poor

Danced a dance for the rich

Prayed a prayer for the helpless

Wept a tear for the rest

Fought for a cause

Lived for a reason

Blamed the world

Changed the lanes

Sailed the oceans

Danced on the waves

Wrote a book

Read a face

Risked a life

And lived the best

Why...

2009-11-05T22:04:00.002+05:30

· Why does life suddenly seem ripped of a goal when only a few years back even submitting an assignment on time added vigor to it?

· Why does junk food suddenly seem unhealthy when until a few years back it didn’t evoke the slightest concerns about calories?

· Why is it so long since I last had a chat with my best buddy when until a few years back we had all the time in the world to text each other a senseless joke?

· Why is it so difficult to spend time doing things I love when only a few years back I had juggled everything on the agenda to cram in some time to go dance?

· Why has music disappeared from my everyday living when until a few years back listening to songs on Love Guru was the most relaxing thing in bed?

· Why has TV lost its charm when only a few years back surfing aimlessly like a couch potato was my idea of relaxation?

· Why has my wardrobe changed from reds and pinks to plain pastels and stripes?

· Why are there more black shoe liners than white sports socks with a familiar check mark on it?

· Why have they replaced funky plastic click pens with heavy metal ones to make notes in branded notepads and leather-covered diaries or is it just me?

· Why have days become longer than nights and weekends truncated to just a Sunday?

· Why does the past seem more blissful when until now the present was all that mattered?

· Why does education and all the degrees suddenly seem to have gone waste when only a few years back you prayed to get into the best schools and etch a fantastic career path?

· Why do songs remind me of people and places when until now all knew was to sway to the the music?

…maybe life has suddenly become real after waking up from a dream!

Just for you

2009-10-23T00:19:00.003+05:30

A smile is all I ask of you

A gentle word is all I need

Hug me tight in the darkest night

Lest my soul would bleed

My eyes may do a restless dance

But in my heart dwells a silent prayer

And come what may, I know it would

See us through this endeavour

The journey together has just begun

And we have miles to go

But on this road am not alone

It just feels nice to know

Dreams may fade with time

And wishes may not come true

But life would still be perfect

‘Coz I wished all my dreams with you

A moment in time

2009-09-07T02:36:00.000+05:30

It’s the kind of solitude writers have spent their lives searching for and yet the closest they got to seeking it was only by writing about it. It’s that moment in time when you can hear none but your own self. The same self that otherwise engages in an endless strife with the alter ego is today exceptionally tranquil. There is this same surreal tranquillity gripping the air. The high rises towering outside the spanking glass windows shimmer like mirrored disco balls and yet the city assumes a mystifying calmness the kind that rests on the dance floor when the last pair of shoes walks away from it. A melting pot of cultures and temperaments has been frozen for a moment and within each moment rests the vastness of an eternity!

My pet peeve

2009-07-12T20:20:00.006+05:30

Boredom has always been my pet peeve. It has amply proved itself to be a motivating and stimulating feeling that has often pushed me far enough, out of my cocoon of laziness to grab the keyboard and fervently punch the keys to liberate thoughts in my head. I am afraid this is one of those liberating moments.

My vacuous mind keeps discovering syndromes that speak highly of me as someone suffering from an OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). These symptoms pop up as casually as spotting pasta in a bowl of minestrone soup. I have immense regard for people who, by their very nature, cannot step out of the house without having a bath but can stay indoors for days on end without meandering anywhere close to a bathroom. I strongly believe each one of us has our own way of conserving water. Shopaholics are in my opinion the happiest souls alive and are pivotal in imparting a thrust to the crumbling economy. They are the alpha and the omega of the word ‘Demand’.

While Shakespeare earned enough fame for himself by scripting “What’s in a name…”, he has been unsuccessful in convincing his audience the importance of the same. Trying to recollect the name of someone about whom you know everything but the name, is as bad as engaging in recollecting the name of a movie that some jingle or song belongs to and as irritating as a shred of broccoli sticking in your teeth.

The power of the sub-consciousness is phenomenal. Imagine you step out of the house and there is this lingering feeling that you just don’t seem to get rid of. It’s like this little voice ringing in your head and telling you “You’ve left something behind!” You do the usual checks – wallet, cellphone, keys. Yet, the feeling stays.

Every night before you retire to bed you perform your regular rituals and just as you take the last sip of a glass of water, your face ghastly illuminated by the radiance of the refrigerator bulb in the kitchen, your eyes involuntarily travel to the knobs of the cooking range and do a quick check if the knobs are turned off. You shut the door, and almost as if you trust your sense of touch more than your trust your sense of sight, your feel the plastic knob with your fingers in the dark and return to your bed to count the sheep.

Morning Raga

2009-05-09T15:37:00.000+05:30

At the break of dawn

The songbird sings

And the sun peeps slyly

From behind the hills

And then it sprays

A gust of golden dust

And dabs it with a cotton puff

Of flossy clouds that drift along

While the songbird in the woods

Sings its morning song

The dewdrops shimmer

On needle leaves

Splintering light

Like crystal beads

The wind then plants a gentle kiss

On the rosy cheeks that lie in bed

Underneath the silken satin sheets

Black almond eyes awaken

Like the first blossom of spring

And with them unfold

A thousand dreams.

Graduation - In a lighter vein!

2009-04-23T23:36:00.003+05:30

It’s funny that these have to be called the commencement speeches when they have to be delivered on a day that officially stamps a ‘The End’ on your academic mug shot. The benign intention behind the use of English language does help to deliver a touch of euphemism to a stark reality. While some may want to reminisce the splendour of the past and fill up their minds with memories that would be engraved in their hearts forever and maybe choose to leave the hallowed portals of the institute with moist eyes that would keep those images of the last cutting chai at the bistro or the last look at the green board or the last walk through the group-work room last a little longer, I would want to keep my eyes void of these and rather keep them wide open, as twinkling as they were when I stepped in for that is the least I can do to do justice to the word ‘commencement’. There’s a new life ahead of us and it’s been waiting for some time now.

Two years is a long time. Maybe not long enough to know how to make your assets match with your liabilities, but definitely long enough to learn about things that don’t feature in the course outline. 2 years of B-school life have given me a vantage that is beyond the ken of an MBA aspirant and from where I stand I have realized that if I were to revisit the list of all things that I have learnt being here, very few, if any, would overlap with the things I had set out to learn when I first stepped into this institute. B-school life is like a jack in the box. You never know what will hit you in the face.

From this moment on we would be cast into a stereotype – the MBA; the kinds that make a subject for some clean humour on cheap sites often visited by MBA grads to seek that lost sense of subtle humour and take pride in being eligible for the office/professional jokes category. Let’s take a solemn oath to live out of that conventional image. If an MBA was really about ‘management’ we all would have been here on time, with more money in our pockets, and a little less pissed at us for whatever reasons. Time, money and anger management, when did we last take lessons on these subjects?

At the end of two years I have come to realize that I am only professionally and socially more acceptable. I feel I belong to a fraternity. I have a few friends who are much more than just that. I have a couple of memories and also a couple of bad grades. I have a few impressions and a few opinions much of which are of no use. I have seen the tip of the iceberg called the ‘real world’. I have the ability to confuse if not convince others. I am a jackass of all and a master of none. I have a whole bunch of business cards that I can use no more. I have too many contacts in my phone. I have an extra email-id to keep checking, an extra password to remember, a few more groups to join on social networking sites, more passwords to remember, GBs full of digital waste on my laptop, a waistline to match with the ‘broader perspective’ that I earned after coming here, a few timestamps that would be remembered and celebrated for a few years before the enthusiasm dies out, a few more tee shirts to add to the wardrobe, and last but not the least 30 kilos of untouched wisdom in hardcover!

I pray that we let our minds be as free as the tassel that is dangling from the corner of our mortarboards and our hearts leap in joy as high as our hats as we toss them in the air! Let’s timestamp this moment and raise a toast to new beginnings!

Kaboom

2009-03-17T20:17:00.002+05:30

Right now I feel as claustrophobic as a thin piece of pepperoni slice inserted between two pieces of stale bread. It’s that feeling of boredom that begins to crawl all over me like a tin of cockroaches popped open on a floor. My mind is behaving like a switch that’s turned off and later refuses to toggle. As I begin to count the imperfections that surround me I realize I have a long drawn list. This is when I feel miserable and home sick for two reasons - because I cannot go home and because I cannot go home. This is also when I have bouts of frustration accompanied by interludes of mood swings to go with a few busts of depression in my otherwise perfectly mundane life. That adds another to my list of perfections. My life manifests the perfection that a Zero embodies. The vignette on my biography, if my life ever ceases to be as uninteresting as it is right now, will undoubtedly have me in one of these moments when I run out of everything under the sun that could keep my mind occupied, so much so that I could be sculpted in time for my motionless and meaningless temporal presence on the face of the earth. Even my spam box is more active than me right now! I envy the animals in the zoo and the flowers in the botanical garden for they are looked at with a lot more awe and admiration than I am appreciated for my honest confessions about my incognizance about life. Sometimes the mind has to deal with the other polar situation when thoughts seethe in your mind like water bubbles in a pot of boiling water; like fractals of thoughts enveloped in an intricate tapestry of uninvited mentations or like a quagmire of cerebrations you plunge into. If only the brain were a muscle, could have sprayed a relaxant!

P.S.: I know I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, but it's striking that the text does not budge when I try justifying it...almost like the thoughts in my head!

Prince of Persia

2009-02-23T21:50:00.002+05:30

15 years is a long time. A lot has changed. Degrees of comparison as defined in Wren and Martin have moved from the classroom to the real life – taller, wider, heavier, (loser is not in the comparative form!). But some things in life are eternal and such etched are some memories that they remain with you forever. By the unwritten rules about childhood games, girls play with Barbie dolls and guys play with GI Joes. Girls play games that conjure images of cotton candies and frills and laces and ribbons and fairies with gossamer wings. Guys are tough, with caps and bruises and little men with guns hiding behind heaps of mud.

The advent of a computer in the 10X10 blue walled bedroom, that today could have fetched a fortune for sheer obsolesce marked the beginning of an age for two kids at home who were suddenly too learned to operate the gizmo. The best compliment that was showered upon the little girl was too much for her to take. She played Pac Man with both hands as opposed to the naïve way of using only one. This ambidexterity was a sign of a sheer genius in making. So beguiled was the young lady by the responsiveness of the machine to the cryptic commands that she equated art with the geometric traces of the turtle on the screen. Prince of Persia, albeit slightly overrated by yours truly, made its debut and was here to stay in the heart of millions of kids who manoeuvred the little prince clad in a funny outfit, fighting with a lone sword against the guards and the skeletons, drinking ambrosia, through dungeons and gates and mirrors and thorns, as the beautiful princess awaited her prince in no shining armour to come and rescue her from the clutches of the Jaffar. That was the era when a series of grey scale pixelated bitmap images defined superior animation. This was a chapter bookmarked in time.

15 years later, I reopened the book to find that the love for the game still holds strong. Today’s sophisticated animation techniques are capable of offering a virtual reality that can transcend the player into a completely different world. However, there is something mystical about the crude animations of the days of yore when imperfection had a bit of magical touch that delivered a gripping madness to the game. Prince of Persia was much more than a game. It’s amazing to note that it still is. It is one of those childhood memories you want to lock up in your drawer and simply keep them because they are indescribably special. A little folder on your desktop with a DosBox alongside just about does the job!

Confessions about life

2009-02-14T17:25:00.002+05:30

Confessions about life

The cane chair suspended from a hook in the flaky ceiling perfectly adjusted its swings between cold brass railings on one side and a flawless white wall on the other. Its creak faced a silent death in time and was reduced to a mild squeak before the chair stood motionless almost as if captured in a frame. The euphony of the wind chimes that swayed to the tunes of the breezy interludes to a standstill silent evening added dramatic overtones. The moon scattered its silver rays liberally through puffs of cotton clouds that drifted lazily in the sky. The jingle of the last soap on the television playing in the background was subdued not so much by the distance of the balcony from the television set as much as it was by the aloofness that she could so easily let herself into. Her feet dangled from the chair like those of a little girl on a swing. She rubbed her palms and then embraced herself in their warmth. Her charcoal black eyes glistened like solitaires. Her loosely tied hair, the colour of cappuccino whipped her on her flawless wheatish skin. Her vibrant face was illuminated by the glow of the halogen on the street and by the exuberance of the new day that awaited her an hour from now. Fireflies orchestrated with the stars that twinkled and shimmered like the trail of a magic wand. It was a night filled with perfection. It was a night filled with the subtle undefined joy of being in harmony with oneself. It was a night of finding answers to thoughts that were never crystallized into questions and therefore could never be posed. Her tryst with destiny that had shown her the glitz and the glamour of the city of dreams was to end with the last swing of the pendulum which swayed with the same monotony that had greeted her when she first arrived after leaving the cosy comfort of her hamlet nested in the hinterlands of the Himalayans.

This city gave her the unbounded joy of living on the cusp of dreams and reality. From the sanguine bricked houses to a plush apartment in the heart of the city was a long journey of 700 days interspersed with a potpourri of human emotions that chiselled her very disposition; a disposition she had to leave back as excess baggage before returning home as it bore nothing more than a niggling relevance in a life she was about to embark upon; a life characterized by simplicity and genuineness. She had refused to admit to herself how she had let her life revolve around green bucks what was traditionally considered one of the seven vices in her village. How often had she been struck by the irony of chasing ducats when the folklore she grew up listening to spoke of the malignancy that creeps in on chasing materialistic pleasures! She had started living a life of contradictions and although she didn’t feel particularly dismayed by her decisions, the guilt of failing to see the relevance of her childhood teaching in the rat race slowly caught up on her. Had she outgrown those days and their sweet memories or was it that she was seeking justice in her actions too afraid to be proven wrong? She found herself alone as she stared at the loftiness of the mountains, the depth of the ocean, the vastness of the sky and the completeness in the rainbow stretched across it. Tomorrow she was to fit that last missing piece in the puzzle and complete the jigsaw of her life. It’s funny what you search for sometimes only lies within you!

2008

2009-01-04T01:47:00.002+05:30

Ideas that marinate from pickled thoughts in the head carry with them the true flavours of life. A year is a vat full of Baskin Robbins ice-creams; one flavour for each day! It’s only at the turn of a year that the line of demarcation between life and philosophy becomes an illusion. It’s only at the tipping point that man identifies the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, as easily as separating the rotten apples from the basket. It is only now that hope finds more meaning in his life than ever before. It is only now that regrets take a back seat and he has new beginnings to look forward to. It is only now that he gets a chance to revive lost ties, to let go and to relive, to make up for lost times. It’s a new year that awaits him as anxiously as he awaits the clock to strike at the midnight.

Takeaway from 2008
· People change. They don’t need a reason. They just need time.
· All sweet times get caramelized
· Mood swings are inevitable
· Family and friends is all that matters
· Friend is an overused word
· The worst fears never come true
· It helps to sulk a bit as much as it helps to pamper yourself
· You are your biggest obstacle
· Don’t let your life revolve around one single thing
· Everything has a time and place
· Life is too short to regret about it
· You’ll get what you deserve
· If you don’t have it, it is not meant for you

The Quest

2008-12-14T13:11:00.005+05:30

The Quest

I sought solace in the crowd
Of unknown faces
That came and went
Like the seasons of the sky
With words that broke
Like a string of pearls
Slipped and strewn on marble floor
And promises that lasted
The life of the morning due
Little soothed a burning heart
A dainty dream broken apart
Until I stopped to look around
And discovered bliss in solitude
And since then my heart
Has little known
Man’s quest for happiness
In a world forlorn
Begins and ends with him

...and him alone.

Chunks of HappYness

2008-12-07T00:05:00.008+05:30

You never know what could make you smile. Some of the biggest chunks of happiness come from the smallest pies of life. The most unthought-of reasons could make you believe in the power of simplicity!

A bunch of colourful gas balloons waiting to escape the grip of the vendor bobbing in the air as he plodded on the street

A perfect family of four, with the eldest member dressed in loose brown khaki shorts, colourful floral shirt, with thick glasses and an equally thick frame supporting them, silver hair and a thick silver moustache, other dressed proportionately funkier to their age, clustered at the edge of the road and waving out fervently to the rickshaws

1.06 GBs of evergreen songs by Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar amongst others

Mining a particular song I fell in love with thanks to the special singing abilities of a particular fellow commuter in the suburban trains

Lectures getting cancelled when it was least expected

Biting into a mayo-chicken roll and biting into it yet again while the minced chicken and the liberally added mayonnaise blended and melted in my mouth.

Looking at old snaps and laughing over how time changes everything from waistlines to people themselves!

Reading funny stuff about zodiac signs

Receiving a Fortune Cookie that said “You are the greatest person in the world”

8 hours of sleep at night

Good food, good ambience and a great friend for company over dinner

Realizing that someone can sing and can really sing well

Surprising people by excelling at things that were never my cup of tea

Shaking a leg in the privacy of myown room knowing perfectly well that none’s watching

Knowing that I was missed

Listening to old numbers in a restaurant from an era almost forgotten

Bringing home a pile of crisp ironed clothes
Walking in a shop that houses aassortment of pastries, cakes, cookies, biscuits, breads and other confectionaries – little pieces of heaven!

Inadvertently spotting someone you long lost touch with and beginning a conversation

Admiring a celestial wonder
Getting a hair wash in a saloon

WYSInWYG always

2008-12-02T22:34:00.002+05:30

For someone who has always dreamt of a knight in shining armour to come riding on a white stallion and taking her away into the ‘happily ever after time’ not much can be done to heal a heart break when the knight comes galloping on a stallion and just as she throws her arms open being sure of being lifted like a maple leaf by the summer breeze, he passes in front of her dreamy eyes over to the greener pastures while the stallion kicks dirt on her face. And like all heroines in the perfect love stories she believes in the power of true love and waits for him to return thinking he had a problem gauging the distance, or maybe the momentum wasn’t enough to carry her along, or maybe he had an alignment problem, and a million reasons women are capable of coming up with to complicate a simple explanation. Moreover, stallions do not have a reverse gear, and so it might take him a bit longer – the turnaround time is more…literally speaking!

What’s laid out here is my theory of expectations hypothesized by what life has offered me and more importantly what it has not offered me so far. The more you expect the greater are your chances of getting disappointed. Let’s say you are told by this friend of yours about this restaurant where they serve a scrumptious meal. Now, while the expectations would largely depend on the limits of your imagination, the ground reality would be what it is at the end of the day – ground reality! As much as we would want our expectations to converge with reality, facts and reality are stranger than fiction. People don’t turn out the way you thought they would, you feel betrayed and used like a tissue paper that’s popped into the dustbin the moment someone has wiped his face. You feel you have taken a wrong turn on your career path, to reach a point of no return. You had wanted to be at the other end of the pole, in some other city, on some other job, with someone else, looking different, living a different lifestyle, seeking answers to more important questions in life while you are reading this. Belied expectations and the best laid plans going waste, is something that all have the misfortune of experiencing. Why is it that some people seem happier than others? Did they get the larger share of the pie? Did they never fall prey to unmet expectations? Has WYSIWYG been truer in their case than that of others be it with people, career or even movies?

I believe everyone has a downfall of expectations. Everyone falls prey to it. But only a few get up and pretend as if nothing happened. Some take time to get back on their feet, others are quick and agile. That is what makes all the difference and if you were to ask me of the last time my expectations went for a toss I would say – here. This piece is nowhere to close to what I wanted it to be like. The least I expected it to be was a decent read for those who have been checking this space for updates and a compilation of thoughts that would a little sense to yours truly if not to those who would have the misfortune of reading this piece purely out of expectations of something worth reading.

Comical tit-bits

2008-10-18T10:51:00.006+05:30

Comical tit-bits

I am in the position of the lady in the Kappa logo, of course with no man behind me (who ever heard of a man behind every successful woman?) In lieu of the guy, I have the sturdy back rest of my bed. A new day is born behind my back; I can feel it on my neck, the warmth of the rising sun. The room is dazzling, bathed in a golden hue sprinkled straight from the heavens above until it becomes hot, and I feel like an over baked cake in an oven. Sauna for free in the comfort of my own room! Strangely, not once I look back to admire the rising sun. Instead I choose to admire a 1024 X 768 image of the ball of fire on my 12.1” widescreen laptop, needless to say, made in “The land of the rising sun!”

I am reminded of the footer on my school diary - Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. And it is rightly said so. “…makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise!” In a male chauvinist society like ours, very little has been thought about the fairer gender. In fact the thinking is just stuck at the nadir and is confined to the limits of the colour of the skin and culinary abilities. Human thinking is facing the problem of ‘locality’, in the parlance of artificial intelligence. Ironically, my mom’s cooking in the kitchen at this hour and I am turning my back to the sun lest I might develop a tan; a tan that at its very least finds acceptance only on the ramps; a tan that would pose the same questions that would surface if suddenly a zebra walks out of the zoo with polka dots on his body. At least the zebra is lucky enough to be unanswerable to such high level of inquisitiveness!

The clock is ticking and my mom sends me more vocal reminders. Laziness is not well accepted either. So this is where I shall continue on returning…

Yes, I am back. I am back to my world of bits and bytes after being tested negative for vigour. All the ideas that floated in the void of my head condensed and precipitated in sub zero temperatures of the glass cubicle at work, before sublimating under the oppressive heat of the day. The confetti of people that the day threw at me was amazing. And some of them really stand out for they symbolize the blotch on the landscape of a civilized society. Paying no heed to the presence of such social animals which have failed miserably in assimilating mannerisms that are widely accepted as befitting the societal norms only promises me the wee bliss of ignorance, for the savage acts of tossing orange peels and crushed chip packets out of the rusty windows of the suburban trains cannot escape the discerning corner of my eye. Stuffing used tissues, a half opened ketchup sachet and a paper bag that once carried a sumptuous extra cheese burger in my Christian Dior handbag does little towards moral suasion.

People just stick to do what they have been doing. Those who choose to take the road less travelled often aren’t wary of the obvious fact that such roads only lead to research labs where you spend your life falling in love with theories, getting married to assumptions, giving birth to unacceptable ideas, divorcing social beliefs, and die with the world still obdurate. Suddenly some smart Alec decides to go back to the future, reads your thesis, the tectonic plates of beliefs shift and a new order of belief is born. You are awarded posthumously, the idea is christened with your name and his, and you have a statue erected on which pigeons crap or which brings about communal riots.

All in all, life is like a never ending comic book. And we are the main characters, laughing at ourselves yet hurting our own jaws!

Pink is Evergreen

2008-10-10T23:12:00.005+05:30

Pink is Evergreen

Attribute this to my muliebrity or to some therapeutic property of its wavelength, but there is no denying the fact that for me, Pink is Evergreen. It has come a long way from being associated with the fairer gender to being an irreplaceable part of the name of a rock band. If numerology had any science behind it, Pink Floyd would be the last one to dismiss it. Pink was in when Orange was out. And we are not just talking about a colour here. We are talking about an aura; the aura that entailed customer loyalty; the aura which was passed on as a legacy to the world’s largest mobile phone company. Pink prevails.

If this world bathes in pink - candy floss clouds, raspberry seas, fuchsia flowers, pastel fields and magenta tree tops - it would still be as pretty as ever. If we had a pink flag it would match with the colour of our national flower. If we had pink eyes we would have seen the world through natural rose-tinted glasses. The positivity that is embodied in this gentle hue would not have been less significant even if history didn’t introduce us to the phrase 'in pink of health.’

While pink reminds me of everything that is remotely feminine, it also reminds me of anything that is dipped in honey-sweet innocence like cute dolls with pink frocks or cute frocks with pink dolls, of pink Barbie sets and pink purses, of pink slippers and pink hair-bands, of pink pearls and pink watch straps, of pink passion and pink shock (shades of nail enamels), of pink candies and pink gems, of pink night suites and pink floral bed-spreads.

Pink is the colour. Pink is the style. Pink is for every age, for the young and the senile.

Morning Hues

2008-09-23T21:44:00.004+05:30

Morning Hues
The first stroke on the white canvas
A scarlet red ribbon cast
From a blob of holy red
Onto the landscape
Serene and untouched
Against the backdrop
Of the virgin sky
The bright hue slowly bleeds
Into the satin fabric of the sky
A plum and peach pattern
The color of the Cupid's cheeks
And like from a painter's pallet
Splattered on a careless jolt
A vat of gold
Spills over the emerald hills
The sunrays bounce off
In a prismatic display
Of Nature's perfection
From the glass curtains
Of the waterfall
The earth shimmers
Bathed in the choicest hues
From the twist of a kaleidoscope
And a new day awaits
Sketched perfectly
With the first signs of hope...

Anachronism

2008-09-13T22:04:00.001+05:30

Technology has engendered an endemic race of young adults labelled as the “GenX”, a race that has far surpassed the puerility that characterizes childhood. The Charles Darwin theory on the survival of the fittest was never so obvious than today. A whole generation is metamorphosed to the extent that yours truly, just a couple of years elder, feels like a living anachronism. Generation gap is no longer between kids and their parents. It is what surfaces between you, born in 1985, and your cousin, born in 1988. Like how a jeans-clad lady in a small town makes conservative women turn their heads followed by slurry of comments on the degradation of the Indian culture, a bunch of these mutants makes me stare at them obnoxiously while wondering if the world started spinning faster after 1985?

I symbolize the taxonomy that had the fortune of being born in an era when communication wasn’t equivalent to an SMS. When my best friend left for another town, I remember the exuberance of sending and receiving handwritten letters. And we did that till college. Then technology came into our life. I don’t remember going for a movie in a theatre when in school. I trust my memory. The definition of ‘hanging out’ as a kid was to go the public park, or play zany games in the backyard and in the teens to go out and ride bicycles with funny baskets on an open road. Those were the days when entertainment on the television sets comprised of ‘Small Wonder’ or ‘I dream of Jeanie’ and we were happy living in this fantasy world. Looking back, it somehow seems more real than today’s Reality TV shows that the new generation follows so religiously. Those were the days when party wear clothes did not mean a size ‘S’ of the latest Kareena Kapoor outfit. They just meant more frills or more laces. Those were the days when birthdays were celebrated at home, when friends cramped into every corner of your living room decorated with festoons of crepe paper and balloons, over bunny faced cakes and Monginis wafers singing the birthday song to have a good time. They weren’t about going and ringing the bell at Pizza Hut.

The generation is moving ahead, full throttle. Their age is grappling to keep pace with their maturity levels. These mavericks worship a new Lord. Some may dismiss it as the generation gap. In my humble opinion they are just putting the cart before the horse. It’s a perfect case of the tail wagging the dog. This race against time would only mean losing out on the little pleasures that you and me have experienced as children, the ones which we yearn to live all over again. It would be trying to reinvent the definition of childhood and teenage. And anyone who has lived these phases of life the way I have or anyone born in early eighties has, would be unconvinced of any progressive ideas of having fun lest they would taint it all. It’s true that the best years of life are realized only in hindsight.

Mrs. Fritzee (Chapter 1)

2008-08-29T10:57:00.004+05:30

Chapter 1 : On a Christmas evening...

The old café played the music that I have grown up listening to. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee still lingers in the cosy little shop that has stocked the most tempting cookies and breads, stuff I have never seen even on the cover pages of recipe books. Mrs. Fritzee used to pack them neatly in cellophane paper with little hearts and delicate ribbons. On prom nights, children used to flock at her little cottage to cherry pick these delicacies. She used to drop in handwritten notes in each of these baskets. That made them more special. She had a way of winning hearts of old and young alike. In her silk frocks with her signature white frilled aprons usually stained with cookie batter, waving her wooden ladle she used to scurry out of the kitchen door with her boisterous laughter to welcome her guests. She was all of an old woman with grey locks and thick glasses with a singular aim in life of forcing people to eat more than they could digest. If she wasn’t cooking you could find her talking. And when she talked she used to sprinkle magic in her words. She was like a fairy god mother, someone you could run to and offload even the pettiest of things that worried you. At the ripe age of 62, she possessed more sensibility than any woman I have ever known in my life. And the lesson she taught me on one cold evening, when the world outside was busy singing Christmas carols and little bulbs danced over glass windows wishing everyone “Merry Christmas”, when the roofs were covered under a blanket of soft snow, when shops displayed SALE placards, and happy families laughed together on the way to the church, when Christmas trees dazzled at the turn of every road, when Santa roamed around with his big red sack stuffed with presents, when people were celebrating the birth of Jesus and somewhere an old lady was wiping her tears while looking at pictures dumped in the old attic. The lady was Mrs. Fritzee. The tears glistened on her wrinkled face against the soft light of the yellow lamp in the otherwise poorly lit attic. She picked up her embroidered handkerchief and quickly wiped her tears as if she was setting her mascara right. Yes, she wore mascara. She even wore scarlet red nail enamel with sparkles; said it was the colour of the season. Mrs. Fritzee was never too old for anything. But she was just too ‘not herself’ to cry. And that night she was crying alone. Alone, for her rather wholesome attitude towards life. Alone, for the rather Christmassy flavour in the air.

Both of us stared at each other and thought the moment would just pass away. But the obnoxiousness of having to see an old lady behave like a young woman having her first kiss, made me uncomfortable. What she tried to hide, was too obvious to go unnoticed. Her little nostrils flared and were candy pink, as tears swelled up in her tiny turquoise eyes. I stood there like an iron post on a lonely road too dumbstruck to even move. We tried hard to let the moment die; she by turning into a darker shade of pink and I by letting a tombstone silence envelope the small room where both of us had the misfortune of finding each other and both wanting to believe that it is just an ugly nightmare that wouldn’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t be true. She pursed her lips hard before letting them tremble to form an unfathomable combination of words and emotions inexplicable to the human heart. I’d never seen her like that before. I am sure nobody had.

The Canvass

2008-08-29T10:44:00.001+05:30

The Canvass

God dipped his magic brush in the rainbow palette
And drew a stroke on the canvass of the pale blue sky
With puffs of cotton clouds, and vanilla swirls
Sprinkled with golden dust from the sunny rays
Staircase to heaven from the seas to the skies
Red tiled roofs bouncing off the golden streaks
The morning birds chirping in the misty woods
Little children watching the cedar boats
The restless river running down the hills
Cutting through the tapestry of lime green weeds
Gurgling with laughter with the boisterous wind
Little shingles in pearl white lacing the way
The sonorous church bell echoing in the valley
Of delicate flowers the colour of ripe lemon
And it showers again, like ice cold sprinklers
From the garden of heaven
And life is beautiful…yet again!

Will you remember me when I am gone?

2008-08-08T03:21:00.004+05:30

Will you remember me when I am gone?

That’s a tough question to ask someone. I mean what are the odds of a person giving you an honest answer to such euphemism? Either you’ll end up getting repartees that you would only consider it wise to dismiss them or you would inadvertently end up confronting the other extreme of responses which go on to dig into what is otherwise considered atypical of a person with no psychological imbalances. I believe life can be measured by the number of people who made a difference to your life. For the world you might be a single person, but if you could, in your entire lifetime, find even a single person to whom you mean the world then you can safely assume that you have led a life of meaning. It’s said people may forget you, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And if this adage carries any ounce of wisdom in it, it wouldn’t be difficult to conclude that the only people you would remember are the ones who made you feel special at least once, even if later, by fate or by choice, they digressed from being themselves.

“When X-mas bells are ringing
Over the fields of snow
I hear sweet voicing singing
From the lands of long ago
And etched on vacant spaces
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish
And love we used to know…”

It’s tough for anyone to deny the significance that these simple lines find in our lives. As kids we have strong opinions, good, bad and ugly of things around us. We dread the unknown. We fear the dark. As we grow up this fear doesn’t die somehow, instead it grips us even more and extends beyond simple things. It extends to people whom we encounter in our walk of life. The idiosyncrasies of the human nature simmer under the actions of these men and women who by birth are not just considered the most rational example of any life form witnessed on the face of the earth but are also grossly over rated in terms of being able to make a conscious decision based on pure emotional logic. That’s the stuff that makes little sense, if at all, in books on cognitive science. There are models and theories and people that put their heart and soul and blood and brain into explaining the rationale that underlies the quintessential human absurdity in most of life’s situations.

Not wanting to digress beyond this point, let me reiterate the same question. “Will you remember me when I am gone?” I am not a father figure such that a mere mention of my name should arouse in the minds of people the sort of reverence that’s apt for these more noble souls. I am an ordinary person with all the flaws and incoherencies of an average individual susceptible to be driven largely by emotions and rarely by cognizance. And I realize so is every person around me. If some people like me, they just do. If they don’t, nothing that I say or do is going to change their opinion about me. The human mind is like porcelain. Once molded it stays. So you have just once chance to impress the people around you. The irony is that this opportunity always goes unseen. Have you ever noticed those folders with tiny little tags sticking out that allow you to conveniently organize your sheets and avoid the mess? The human mind is engineered to function that way. It labels people without second thoughts and what are born are preconceived notions about individuals that live and die with them.

Should you beg others for a chance to explain to them what you are and bridge the divide between you and their opinion about you? I strongly believe you shouldn’t. If they didn’t understand you the first time, there is a very high probability that attempting to do it by giving them a second chance will only make matters worse. They just lack the capacity and the astuteness to deal with certain kind of people, you being one of them. Accept it. Life is too short to be spent on correcting such maladies.

So while you keep musing over the possibility of someone being able to know you enough to remember you even when you are gone, it might happen that you would miss out on that little kid waving at you from the glass door of a school bus. A sight that could take you back to you kindergarten days and remind you of your favorite teacher who taught you the cooler way of learning the alphabet…someone who must have long gone, but for all that she was to you, you would miss that anonymous faceless enigma that has lived and grown with you in a way you will never forget. Strange as it may sound, you'll never know who was watching you while you were busy worrying about the other things… and secretly fell in love with you for the most inexplicable reasons…just to remember you…even when you are gone.

“One sweet thought my soul shall cherish
Till this fleeting life has flown
This sweet thought will cheer when I dying
Someone will miss me when I am gone…”

Hide N Seek

2008-06-03T01:29:00.003+05:30

Hide N Seek…
I never particularly liked that game as a kid. I used to hate it even more when I had to seek. I had a fear I would always be overthrown by the smarter lot and the rules of the game were unacceptable to me as they favoured the hiders more than the seeker. It was unfair. Fifteen years from then, the game finds its way again into my life. This time it’s about seeking little pleasures that hide behind the most obvious things. The rules still govern supreme but now I consider them more justified than ever before. The pleasure no more lies in hiding but it lies in seeking. It’s that intriguing search for the Zahir.

Little children chasing soap bubbles on the beach, the pinwheel spinning at the command of the wind, the lazy flight of the gas balloons, the gentle bob of the fisherman’s boat anchored near the shore, the meandering train engine through the woods in the valley…everything around seems to be restlessly and obsessively engaged in the idea of seeking that one single thing so neatly carved in the mind that not thinking about it would mean doing injustice to the power of thought. The earth itself seems to be excited by this unearthly desire as it spins around its own axis in perfect synchrony with time.

The quest is like an abysmal vortex. The more you try, the deeper you go and the deeper you go the more you try. The moment of revelation may never come, the verdict on the existence of your grail may never be declared, the thirst may never be quenched, but the journey is an experience of a lifetime. If life was to be measured by the number of moments that took your breath away, here you would witness a thousand reasons that left you gasping for breath.

I have sought nuggets of happiness and bits of pristine pleasure all my way. I am still in search of that moment of exhilaration when life would serve me on a silver platter the feeling of having reached the pinnacle of the best that it can offer. Till then my Zahir beckons me from a distance and I run towards it like a deer towards a mirage in the desert of life. It’s hope that keeps me alive. It’s like a playing hide and seek. And this time I am game.

Twisted Agony

2008-05-20T20:52:00.005+05:30

Twisted Agony

I walked bare foot on the soft green grass, the brightest shade of green. It tickled the rough surface of my feet that had not seen a pedicure since ages. It was the twilight hour, just before the break of dawn on a warm Sunday. The place was unusually quiet. The tranquillity in the air was disturbed by the anxiousness in the heart, and then the tipping point arrived. I ceased to see the golden rays of the sun that painted the brick red roofs of the houses. I failed to admire the beauty of the pearl like dew drops that laced the needle thin leaves of the trees in the park. The river suddenly flowed with less vigour and enthusiasm. It was kind of indicative of the amount of verve that was left alive in my ordinary life with extraordinary events that could make a good story for a comic hero. It was that phase where you feel betrayed, heartbroken, and like you have lost everything that you ever wanted. People around me seemed pretty unmoved by the obscure thoughts that filled my tiny brain for some weeks now. Whatever I did, whatever I tried, I wasn’t particularly unsuccessful, but it didn’t give me the kind of eternal satisfaction that life has the seamless capacity to offer. My wrecked life seemed all the more miserable with every passing day until today when I spent the fourth consecutive sleepless night. I felt stifled by the wild thoughts in my head and ran out gasping for a breath of fresh air and ideas. I wanted to look back on the years that I had lived for the joy of reminiscing the days when there still was hope for better times ahead. There weren’t too many occasions that I could recollect from my rusty memory. When I tried to count the number of times I had laughed ever since I came of age, I could not go beyond four. That’s not what happy people with simple lives do. I knew I was far from that clan of happy souls and yesterday was the last time I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t.

She came to see me for the last time yesterday morning. She said it was all over. I knew it long before. There are some things that are best left unsaid. The past two months were painful not as much as for her as they were for me. She was the only one I had. I knew living without her would be easier said than done. From what I have learnt, there are things that we seem to take for granted, until one day when we wake up to find out they are gone. That’s when we know how much we had in life, and how little we cared. Time is the greatest healer. I tried finding solace in that thought. But certain things just make up for great quotes with little or no relevance for things as real as life itself. The future seemed foggy than ever before. I am the kind that prefers a noose to a slow death. The unpardonable offering of life that I had just encountered was more of the latter. The hardest part of which is the fear that preludes and the shame that follows. I was brave enough to fight the fear. Braver than ever before I thought for all the positivity that my friends filled me up with at those endless conversations over tea and the much hated Marie biscuits. Now came the hardest part. The part where I accept without retaliation how I made a fool of myself at all those arguments over the pettiest of matters and which not once ended in my favour except for the one where I decided to put my foot down. The fight was always one sided and the one where it wasn’t, she gracefully accepted her defeat and left. She left me in a life of solitude with no traces of her existence whatsoever in this house. She left leaving me in a quagmire of uninvited thoughts, unprecedented agonies and unrealized dreams. She also left me with a dozen unwashed dishes, a bucketful of dirty linen and an unpolished floor. Like a thunderstorm she disappeared behind the slam of the door and the clang of her jade coloured glass bangles, blowing incoherent words in the air. A defeated mistress, I kept staring at the door that was still shuddering by the impact and waited for the noise to die, first the reverberations of the slammed door, then the rattling of the window panes, then her crackling voice and finally the almost audible pounding of my heart. Kantabai quits and I live the worst fear of my life!

Life's Blurb

2008-05-19T19:09:00.001+05:30

Life's Blurb

I picked up a book
From the olive shelf
And swept my hand
On the dust jacket
To reveal a blurb
Etched in gold
That spoke fancies
Of stories and tales
The book had to hold
Between its bound covers
Front and back, Yet
Very little was told
Of the hero
Who was born
Between its pages
As they unfold
Very little was spoken
Of the life he lived
And how he changed
From the start till the end
So I pray to thee
That upon my grave
Where I’d rest
In peace one day
To the traveller who sweeps
His wrinkled hand
Over the blanket
Of leaves
Yellow and green
May much be told
Of dreams I’d seen
And those
That came alive
In the dash that holds
Which in gold
He would find
Between the year
I was born
And the one
In which I died

Because I choose to...

2008-05-06T23:44:00.010+05:30

Because I choose to...

This post is dedicated to those rare individuals who believe in the power of following their dreams. It is for those who have made their aspirations see the light of day. It is for those who have taken the road less traveled and are still going strong without a bit of remorse or regret. Not every man is born with a heart of steel. This is a salute to those who have had the courage to live off the track and know that there’s more to life than simply living it!

Taking that small step to follow your heart is like stepping under a cold shower. The hardest part is just before you allow the cold water to hit you on your bare body. The tickling fear that sends chills down your spine is something you cannot avoid, not as a child, not even as a grown up. It’s like living the fraction of that very second before the bomb bursts in Diwali while you, pursing your lips and looking meekly from the corner of the slit of your eyes, see the tip of the wick lighting up in bright orange until …wham its all up in smoke!

In the mosaic of the million possibilities that life offers, one can take years to know what truly inspires him and transcends the soul to a completely different untainted world and help it rise above the earthly desires of money and fame. Living a life less ordinary is a matter of choice than a matter of destiny. The finest things in life, God’s most beautiful creations, and the pleasure of living a life of choice always come without a price tag both monetary and emotional. No price is too heavy to pay to move from what the mind thinks to what the heart desires. Its never to late nor is it too early to know what gives you a high and what you would truly enjoy doing even in the middle of the night, on the highest mountain peak, on the remotest island and in your bedroom before you retire to bed.

There was a time when I jumped on the bandwagon of those who considered selling off one’s wealth to explore the world on foot as nothing more than a cheap gimmick to come under the spotlight for a jiffy only to disappear in the dark shadows of their own deeds. Today, if I were to imagine myself getting caught in the web of ordinary people with mediocre desires and commonplace ideas I would only curse myself for not looking beyond the obvious and not seeing the wood from the trees. I fear there’s lot one could miss out on if one is not sure what one is searching for.

I am blessed to have encountered people in this short span of my being, who have lent different strokes to their life and made it more meaningful than ever by listening to their heart’s desires rather than painting it in the dull shades of gray. I am lucky to have a few friends who have identified their passions and devote a serious amount of effort towards it. It’s difficult to rekindle the fire of passion if it dies out due to negligence. With this piece of scribbling and the hope to keep an iota of interest for writing alive in my own heart, here’s me paying a tribute to those who share the same opinion and honor the unbounded reach of free will.

Spur of the bygone days

2008-04-27T17:13:00.004+05:30

Spur of the bygone days

Will the dust in my eyes
Reflect the grief of a goodbye
Will it cherish the laughs
And remind me of jokes
That were never so funny
Until a day like today
When I am leaving the world behind
And carrying but an empty heart
With little memories of
The times we shared
And dreams we had
To return to a life
Oh so ordinary
Unlike when we were
A bunch of kids
On their school trip
All merry and gay
Like fresh strawberries
From the fields we passed
Like luscious apples
From the orchards we saw
And today as I return
To just another day
A déjà vu haunts
And talks recoil
On a summer afternoon
When the world is busy
I am lost in thought
Of the dream that I lived
And the smile life had brought

On Entrepreneurship and Beyond :: Save the Weaver

2008-04-24T22:35:00.004+05:30

On Entrepreneurship and Beyond :: Save the Weaver

The weavers in the valley are lost in their own cubicle of time and place. In the attempt to preserve a rich tradition and art they have missed out on a plethora of opportunities that are beckoning both in India and abroad. What hitherto remain untapped markets and unsought customers, can usher the industry into a new realm altogether.

As of today, very few societies have the muscle to cater to the foreign markets. The trade currently occurs with foreign customers by means of international exhibitions that are held in countries like Germany, Singapore, UK, US etc. The government provides assistance in this regard by reimbursing 50% of the expenses incurred. The society equipped with sample pieces and having hired a professional designer awaits bulk orders. Once an order is procured, a number of challenges loom large before the society ranging from availability of enough workforce to meet the demand on time, availability of raw material from Ludhiana that matches the required specification and adhering to the design requirements. One should not assess the quality of a handcrafted shawl and a machine made one under the same lens. There is a need to position handloom in the minds of the foreign customers in a way that would help them appreciate the subtle imperfections inherent in the products. The cost for procuring an order, the risk of being unable to cater to it and the fear of rejection makes exports an expensive affair for the societies causing them to shy away from it. A conglomerate of weavers from across a wide cross section of the industry could be formed that could focus solely on foreign markets. This body will act as a facilitator by procuring raw material, providing information on the latest trends in design and colours in foreign markets, ensuring quality standard of the consignment and distributing the order amongst smaller groups as per their capacity.

As far as urban markets within the country are concerned, they too have different tastes and trends. A better way to reach these consumers would be by opening the industry to privatisation and inviting well established stores like Fab India, the Bombay Store etc. to assist the industry. This would not only help organize the sector to a large extent but also bring the industry under the purview of entrepreneurs and add a new dimension to it. These initiatives at a macro level can help pump life into the industry that’s has been experiencing a silent stifled death in the valley.

Join the campaign at : http://himachal.us/category/save-the-weaver

Is Ignorance Bliss? :: Save the Weaver

2008-04-24T22:01:00.004+05:30

Is Ignorance Bliss?:: SAVE THE WEAVER

The folks in this valley are just plain contented. Either they have very less aspirations or very high levels of self satisfaction. Either ways it is indubitable that they are not harnessing their true potential. You never know what you have been missing until it arrives. This adage can’t be more apt than for the weavers here.

According to the 1995 census, Kullu district has 28,500 weavers. 12 years since, there has been no track record about these weavers. Officials can only approximate the number to have plummeted to 11,000. Is the industry dying? The bitter truth is that people have begun to opt out of what has always been their part time occupation as other sources of livelihood are found to be more lucrative. The wages paid to the workers on a piece wise basis are meagre. The irony of the situation is that there has been an exodus of weavers from Kullu to Ludhiana which is posing a threat to the handloom industry on the home turf. Little do these weavers realise that the wages are no better in Ludhiana than they are in Kullu. The only difference is the work culture that prevails in the two regions. Those at Ludhiana follow a strict regime of 8 hours of work per weaver per day while in Kullu it is left to the weaver to decide his work hours. As the weavers exercise their right to free will they put at stake their earnings and end up with a measly sum of Rs. 105 per day at the rate of Rs 15 per basic shawl woven. The low turnout of workers makes it cumbersome for the society to cater to the demand in the market, resulting in low profits, which in turn results in low wages and few incentives for people to be associated with this profession. The vicious circle continues.

While some associate the inherent lassitude among Himachalis to the climate here, some others believe that for a state which thrives on tourism, quick alternative sources of income prove to be more attractive to the locals. A basket of fresh handpicked apples can fetch them more money than can a day’s work on the handloom. The face of the industry changes with the turn of the season. The maximum production happens in the winter when other avenues of income slow down. Moreover, the hilly terrain in itself poses hindrances for the weaver to reach the work place. The state government could be forthcoming in this regard by providing concessional passes to the weavers for commuting from the nearest bus stop to the work place. A scheme on the line of Mid-day meals can be designed for these weavers that would help them devote more time to weaving.

In spite of the multitude of schemes that have been introduced by the government for those organized as societies and self help groups, how well have the benefits been percolating to the grass root level is still a matter of concern. The awareness level about the welfare schemes is low among the weavers themselves. There is a dire need to disseminate information about the schemes and the local melas, festivals and the traditional street plays could be used as effective channels. The exploitation of the weavers by the defunct societies by confiscating their handlooms, delay in payment of wages etc. can be curbed by unionising the weavers and by making the existing Weavers’ Association more active.

The future would continue to seem bleak until the concerns of the weavers who happen to be the lifeblood of the industry are addressed and they are given a fair chance that they duly deserve.

Join the campaign at : http://himachal.us/category/save-the-weaver

Institutionalised Training :: Save the Weaver

2008-04-17T00:07:00.003+05:30

Institutionalised Training

The only thing that is permanent in today’s world is change. We need to move with time if not ahead of it and that calls for a new entrepreneurial outlook, a zest to explore foreign markets, the gen about how technology can complement traditional skills, the vision to undertake initiatives and up and above all the drive to think big and execute ideas whose time has come. While most business today are engulfed in thinking about the ‘Next Big Thing’, the handloom industry in Kullu lacks the much required technical knowhow that can alleviate the ailing industry of its problems.

The art of weaving is something everyone in the valley masters at a very early age. Each family has a handloom in their home and traditionally they have been involved in weaving shawls at home for the winter. Presently, the weavers who are associated with societies can avail training facilities through government schemes. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has initiated the STEP (Support to Training and Employment Program) project for training women. Weaving is an activity mainly carried out by the fairer gender here. Some major societies take assistance from institutes like National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and National Institute of Design (NID) to keep abreast with trends in the urban and foreign markets. However, such vital information that offers competitive advantage is beyond the ken of the local players due to the associated costs. The Integrated Cluster Development Project has been instrumental in providing technical assistance to the weavers registered under it as Self Help Groups (SHGs). On the flip side with little vigilance on the authenticity of the SHGs formed there is scepticism that the benefits of the government schemes are enjoyed by power looms. With 50 self help groups registered every year, each comprising of 12 members on an average, the scheme has its own limitations of reaching the weavers at the grass root levels. The government training workshops too draw interest only due to the stipend that the weavers receive on attending these. The training provided is substandard and the inclination to learn is at the minimum.

The industry needs to adopt a model that emphasises on bringing about an educational renaissance. Sustaining the weaving industry does not imply that it constitutes solely of weavers who sit and weave shawls on the handlooms every day. This tunnelled vision needs to change and one needs to look at the broader horizon. The government can be forthcoming in this regard by establishing an Indian Institute of Handloom Technology (IIHT) in the district that could play a pivotal role in changing the face of the industry. It could give a fresh impetus to talent in the associated fields of textile design and structure, fabric analysis, laboratory testing, history of costumes in the country and abroad, apparel production techniques, merchandising and marketing, fashion photography, event management, computer design systems, wardrobe planning, technical writing, workshop training etc. giving a holistic thrust to the industry for it sustenance. It would also make the industry lucrative to the next generation which is moving to greener pastures due to increased education levels. To bring about an inclusive development, primary schools imparting practical knowledge on weaving could be started for the kids of the weavers. Different aspects of weaving could be inculcated in the course structure for different grades. Such an educational model can be expected to be sustainable as opposed to the one-time training workshops for a handful of weavers that neither instigates in them the willingness to learn nor propagates the necessity to be educated in this field.

To be a part of the campaign or to know about it visit us at http://himachal.us/category/save-the-weaver

A Litmus Test for Authentic Kullu Shawls :: Save the Weaver

2008-04-16T23:59:00.006+05:30

A Litmus Test for Authentic Kullu Shawls

The scenic landscapes of Kullu beckon the avid travellers to visit the hinterlands of this small town. Shopping does take a top priority on the itinerary of these tourists from all across the globe. It’s observed that most foreign tourists acquaint themselves to the location by investing a great deal of time in reading about it through books like the Lonely Planet and Thomas Cook travel guide. The internet has also recently been one of the popular medium through which tourist information is disseminated. The natives on the other hand usually come through package tours and are spoon fed by their travel guides. There is no exception to this rule even when it comes to picking a store to buy a shawl. Most tourists are directed by the travel agent. They seem to be least aware of the fact that the hub of the shawl weaving industry is Kullu and not the more popular tourist destinations of Shimla and Manali. The general perception is that one would get better variety of woollens and knitwear in these locations than a small town like Kullu. While this may be true with respect to sweaters and other knitwear, they are uninformed about the cultural linkages and the magnitude of weaving that happens in the valley, the reason being ineffective marketing initiatives.

While most tourists are misguided into buying machine made shawls from outside Kullu some others are lured into buying them at bulky discounts as high as 50-80%. The economies of scale that can be achieved on the power loom and the reduction in the cost of raw materials due to the local presence of processing centres make it possible for Ludhiana and the neighbouring areas to influx the Kullu markets with elaborately designed shawls, with finer fabric, offered in a wider palette of colours at throw away prices. The tourist with an urban taste and the intention of taking away a couple of these shawls as souvenirs are definite customers for these shawls. But the problem that looms large is about tourists being unable to distinguish between a handmade shawl and a machine made one even when they value a handmade shawl. A litmus test for such tourists is to see the reverse side of the woven garment. If the design appears the same either ways, that’s an indication that the shawl is handcrafted. The government of India has also introduced the handloom mark which is a certification that the product is handcrafted and not machine made. The mark costs 60 paise per unit. While some major players that are organized as societies do implement this mark to establish their credibility, there is a major slack in the implementation of this mark as a large cross section of the weavers considers it to be an added cost due to unawareness amongst the consumers about the importance of this mark. The bigger players also have acquired the international WoolMark certification that establishes the quality standard of the raw material used. However, the exorbitant fees required to acquire this certification has kept others from applying for it. Thus, although the raw material is sourced from the same location, the presence of the WoolMark on the shawls of some of the influential players attracts a major population of the quality conscious consumers to these branded shawls. In order to combat competition from shawls that are sourced from outside and labelled as ‘Kullu Shawls’, the district has acquired a Geographical Indicator (GI) for the Kullu Shawls. The GI mark signifies that the product has been handcrafted in the Kullu district. A violation of this mark would include a monetary penalty of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 3,00,000 and/or imprisonment for 3 years.

For the common consumer the difference between the handmade shawl and the machine made shawl is apparently subtle. However, a closer look at the two would bring out the merits and differences between the two. The finish rendered to the handmade shawl is comparatively coarser as it helps retain the warmth of the wool. The designs on the handcrafted one are typically ‘Kullu’, like the ones found on the caps of the men here. The dyes used are organic, eco-friendly and are non toxic for the skin. The acrylic dyes used in the machine made shawls, which makes it possible to weave myriad hues in the fabric, are identified as carcinogenic. Moreover, the original properties of the fibre are maintained in the handloom as it is subjected to lesser tension and stress as against the power loom where the yarn becomes brittle leading to breakages in the fibre. This consequently reduces the life of the machine made shawl. The design of the handcrafted shawl is born purely out of the skill of the weaver and is impossible to replicate on the machine.
It’s believed that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. So for those who can perceive value in the exclusivity of a handmade shawl and appreciate the efforts that go behind its making, a conscious decision to make a deliberate choice between the handmade and machine made shawl is only natural.

An Eye-opener for Tourists :: Save the Weaver

2008-04-16T23:47:00.004+05:30

SAVE THE WEAVER
This is a series of articles dedicated to the Traditional Kullu Shawl Weaving industry. The art of weaving is a part of the Kullu tradition and pride. Many here believe this art would die with the turn of the generation as it is no longer considered lucrative by the locals here. In our efforts to revive this industry we present a hotchpotch of views, ideas, opinions, facts and ground realities.

An Eye-opener for Tourists

For tourists from across the globe, the hilly terrain of Manali-Shimla is a shoppers’ paradise for woollens. Little are these tourists aware that the heart of the weaving industry is in the small town of Kullu, 40Kms away from Manali. As one enters this scenic valley, colourful traditional Kullu shawls dot the sideways of every market street and huge signboards on tiny shops flash ‘Traditional Kullu Shawls.’ This is bait to the blind crocodile. Many of these shawls are not even handcrafted let alone the fact that these are sourced from other towns in the country.

Is it that one doesn’t care enough to make an informed decision while buying or is it that one fails to see the value in a handcrafted product? I am afraid it’s both. On the one hand the tourists have little or no time on their itinerary to walk to a local store and are always directed by their travel guides or the local rickshaw drivers and cabbies to one of the numerous bogus shops that sell machine made shawls at hefty discounts that are as high as 50%. A setup of a few handlooms in the periphery of the store serve as perfect alibi to sell the machine made shawls. While the tourist walks out of the store with discounted shawls, the local guide walks away with his share of commission, thus making this whole act of money making a farce in the name of tourism.

On the other hand, as consumers we fail to recognize the value of a handcrafted product. The value of art does not reside in the price we pay for it but in the efforts that have gone into making that masterpiece; that masterpiece which is born out of the dexterity of the weaver, his eye for weaving an intricate design from his own palette of colours, the long hours of adeptly crossing the warp and woof to create kaleidoscopic patterns on the fabric, and create designs which by no means can be replicated on a programmed machine that churns out a batch of immaculate shawls at the press of a machine in a couple of minutes while the weaver spends on an average four days to weave an elaborate design on his handloom. We must learn to appreciate the beauty of inherent imperfections in a handcrafted product that renders it its exclusivity. No price is too high to pay for unadulterated art, be it for the purity of the wool, the sanctity of the natural organic dyes or the simplicity and genuineness of the heart of the person who is making it.

To be a part of the campaign or to know about it visit us at http://himachal.us/category/save-the-weaver

Save the Weaver

2008-04-16T23:05:00.006+05:30

Are we crucifying Art at the altar of Technology? Are the benefits of development restricted only to those at the top of the pyramid? Are those at the grass root level being exploited? Do we as consumers bestow enough faith in the genuineness of the product that we buy? Do we think twice before we buy? Do we value the beauty of a handcrafted product?

These are the questions that remain unanswered in the valley even as thousands of weavers spend days on their handlooms, in their tiny houses, in the most inaccessible corners, with unparalleled dexterity with the warp and the woof, creating the most exquisite traditional designs. For a weaver the challenges are many, the possibilities infinite. The problem lies in the fact that illiteracy makes these weavers oblivious to the extent of their own capabilities and skills. With the meagre wages, the inaccessibility to market, the threat from power looms, the lack of entrepreneurial drive, and the exploitation associated with illiteracy, an average weaver has a hand to mouth existence. Slowly but surely he is being pulled deeper into the spiral of poverty. For survival he has started exploring greener pastures which guarantee him a quick income.

SAVE THE WEAVER is as much about securing the source of livelihood for the locals here as much as it is about preserving the rich heritage of handlooms in the valley. The art is dying, and with it will die the sense of pride about an Indian tradition. These weavers don’t want your sympathy. All they want is a fair chance to prove themselves and weave colour back into their life. We urge you to come forward and help us create awareness about the problems faced by the weavers and restore the lost glory of the art.

To volunteer in the drive, leave a comment here or visit us at http://himachal.us/category/save-the-weaver

Shimla - The Summer Refuge

2008-04-13T03:19:00.004+05:30

Shimla - The Summer Refuge

A city that awakens and falls asleep to the hoot of the sprightly red engine and deep green wagons that seem to break the ever prevailing leisurely hours at the railway station with tiny white edifices laced with deep blue arches, is like a chapter of the history text book turned into life. The trip on the narrow gauge train, The Toy Train as it is fondly called, is an experience every avid traveller should find a mention in his travelogue. The miniature locomotive lazily cuts its way through scenic landscapes, picturesque valleys, and lush-green patches of step farms with splashes of fiery red Rhododendrons while whistling its way through the peppermint cool woods. What lies beyond the station is a world trapped in its own cubicle of time and space to preserve what I would like to call ‘the innocence of the human spirit’.

The warmth of the pale skinned people with apple-red cheeks, easily identifiable with their peculiar way of speaking, razor sharp noses, rosy lips and hazelnut to coffee brown eyes, make up for the dip of quick silver in the thermometer. If I were to describe this city, which in fact is far more than just that, in one word I would say ‘Royal.’ And I say this being completely aware of the fact that the British ruled this province long enough to imprint an indelible British touch to the life as well as the lifestyle of the locals or maybe it is out of my interpretation and admiration of this unique diaspora. It’s wonderful to see how two cultures from different hemispheres of the globe have blended together to give birth to a new ethnicity that holds its roots of values in the Indian system while the shoots of mannerism have followed the direction of the West as the sun. A city slicker is bound to get mesmerized by the tranquillity of the place, by the serenity that the simple sight of the hills and the pine trees has to offer, by the absence of any sound but for the gentle whispers of people who stroll on the Ridge Road or at The Mall, and by the childlike joy of watching colours dot a plain white street as people meander on the streets in their vibrant woollens, by the magnificence of the brass statues and the associated legends and stories that have almost an era frozen in them, by rediscovering the secrets to simple pleasures in life like getting your name woven on a woollen tag or taking a picture in one of the traditional attires against the backdrop of the hills, watching the clear blue skies drift as the sun shines on you with all its brightness and the cool breeze gently blows kisses at you or even by a breath taking bird’s eye view of the city from a vantage.

The cafes play songs you have long forgotten and believe me it feels beautiful to refresh your memory with the sweetness that’s intertwined in the lyrics, the touch of folklore in the music and the ever romantic symphony of the saxophone. The linen, the curtains, the upholstery, the silverware, and even the font on the menu card are just so exotic! The architectures seem to be straight out of the fairy tales like the castles where once lived pretty princesses before you retired to bed. The guards have an awe inspiring aura around them with their smart uniforms and chivalry looks. The aroma of fresh bread from the local bakeries, the tempting creamy pineapple pastries and chocolate cookies, the whiff of Irish coffee that lingers in the air and the dainty shops lined up on the edge of the lanes that stock their goods in every colour and every shade that the human eye can come close to recognizing is like the capstone of all the beauty that the city derives from its proximity to the hills.

The eternal beauty of the Gothic structure of the Viceroy’s Palace with delicate wild shrubs in a feminine mauve and a bright lemon yellow hugging the rustic stony castle pillars with intricate carvings is, by the opinion of yours truly, the finest epitome of architectural grandeur. The castle overshadows lush green lawns bordered with flowers with the rarest combination of hues that smile at you from a distance because that is how Nature has painted them from its canvass of colours. ‘Mickey Mouse’ flowers I like to call them. The palace is one of the best maintained heritage sites, which has successfully preserved history untainted by time and visitors. One gets the feeling of flipping through pages of a history text book as the doors are thrown open and the guide ushers you from one majestic hall to another. Snapshots from the past chronicle events that have laid milestones in the history of the nation. I personally have found immense awe and admiration for this small town lost in time and I revere it for the very fact that not all is lost in the name of ‘development.’

The Willow Tree

2008-04-13T02:16:00.006+05:30

The Willow Tree
The willow tree has parched and died
Barbwire dresses its coffin now
Engraved with rock were a million promises
On its trunk, nowhere to be seen now
They are gone like the willow tree
That has withered in the sultry sun
In whose glory it had once basked
Stood tall with its arms open wide
And beckoned birds from faraway lands
To come and rest in its shade for a while

Metal teeth that jammed in the bark
Scars from thunderstorms that struck
The weeping willow trees in the meadow
Knew not the different strokes to the life
Of the willow tree that died in pride
For the love of the land on which it was born
For the love of the birds that chirped on its barks
For the love of the free spirit of the highest lark
For the love of those who made promises under it
And etched them with the sharpest stone on its bark

A carpet of chrome leaves lies at its foot,
A skeleton of twigs in midnight black
Against the canvas of the pale blue sky
Alone it stands on the deserted land
Blazing at its funeral while the sun smirks
At the hideous charred remains of the burning soul
Now back into the lap of its mater
As she mourns over dreams of her child gone awry
And the scurrying wind stops on its way
To offer a silent prayer on the death of the willow tree

The Impossible Trinity

2008-04-13T00:59:00.002+05:30

The Impossible Trinity

There is a reason for each of us to exist. I am not sure if I have found my reason and even if I have, if it is a good enough reason to be. But I am sure, whatever be my raison d'être, I have lived for someone and that someone is none other than me. I am not trying to paint a self obsessed disposition, but in my opinion every person has the reins of his life in his hands unless by will or otherwise he decides to ‘outsource’ it to someone else. How many of us can define what our hobbies are? How many can distinguish our hobbies from our interests? Moreover, how many can separate it from our profession, from our education and from our routine. I strongly disagree with people who try and mould their profession around their hobbies for the belief that you can be good at something only when you like it. You think my mom loves cooking? Yet she makes the best cottage cheese vegetable in town that could send all the eateries on a run for their money. Hobbies, interests and professions are three completely different things although there does exist a grey area between them. They form what the economists call the impossible trinity. Before I mess economics with philosophy and create unintended humour on paper, let me KISS. That’s the shortest way to glory. It adds that much needed geeky touch to your persona when you want to cast yourself as a high-flier, jet-setter, sophisticated high profile guy who has everything in the world from a swimming pool in his bedroom to a limousine in his backyard but falls short of time to talk. And for those who are still a little alien to this make believe world of ‘un’professional banter here’s a little secret; KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid! As you can see I am not so good at it myself.

Sometimes I wonder if profession is a conscious decision or some just make it appear to be such. Wouldn’t that mean they could be better actors and therefore are themselves in the wrong profession? One of the most powerful ads that hit me in the face read ‘Almost followed her friend to an MBA’ with a ravishing supermodel in a jade green gown walking on the ramp. That’s what good marketing can do. Make you think. Think about the larger issues in life although you are as much a part of the rat race as anyone around you. Do you realise that even if you come first in a rat race at the end of the day you would still be a rat? The way I see it, profession is something you would ‘not hate doing’ for a livelihood. So after the elimination of some of the infinite possibilities one is left with what he might pursue as a profession to earn his bread and butter. Something that is dignified enough for that person to put on his business card, something that is considered distinguished enough to introduce himself to a group of strangers, something that is the profession of the decade – it’s like the colour of the season. Soon the fairer sex might be subjected to the vulnerability of the disclosure of age through profession. Office politics, long work hours, demanding boss, work load, work pressures are all different ways of stating the one prevailing fact of life. At the end of the day work sucks! It does as much for a supermodel as much for an executive. That is where the boundary of ‘profession’ slowly dissolves and ‘interest’ comes under the spotlight. You very strongly believe that you were born to be nothing but a photographer. You think about this while in your clinic looking at the X-ray of one of the remotest organs of the anatomy. You are left with no choice but to thrive on the faint remains of the resemblances between the two professions. An interest however is like a mirage. You are pretty sure of its existence until you reach there. It’s also so much like a balloon. You blow too much into it and it flies off. It’s like a piece of gum. You chew too much into it and it saps the flavour out of it. Interest is something that comes to birth and dies by the whims and fancies of the verdant human mind. It is like the sunset, a different hue by every passing hour. The pleasure lies in toying with different ideas that seem impossible, things you couldn’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t but always wanted to do.

But something that really reflects the kind of person that you are is the hobby that you pursue because hobbies cannot be forced, they cannot be compelled, and they cannot be thrust upon an individual against his freewill. It is like the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. It is like the first droplet of the rain in the summer sun. Refreshing and relieving. It’s the feeling that a claustrophobic gets when he is out of a dungeon. A few strokes on the canvass, a few twirls on the tip of the toe, a sonnet written on hand made paper, a charcoal sketch of the winter landscape, the city skyline captured on a Polaroid…the countless possibilities for a human mind when it seeks solace from a materialistic profession and from the maddening and flickering interests, to reach the fossiled remains of innocence in the deepest corners of the human heart!

Thoughtlets

2008-02-03T20:09:00.001+05:30

God does exist and in subtle ways he hints his omniscient presence to mortal souls who are too engaged in the drudgeries of their life to even think of Him. I believe in the power of miracles. I believe in coincidences. I trust intuitions and gut feelings. I am not orthodox, but I am not a maverick either. I am not a human being intrigued by the power of the Almighty but rather one who is intrigued by the power of believing in it. I don’t preach. I rarely practice. But I have opinions, I have feelings, I have questions and I have a conscience. I am to others what others are to me, good, bad and sometimes ugly. I have a sparkling reflection that stares at me in my face. I also have a dark shadow that grows tall behind me, that refuses to show me the faintest details but perfectly sketches me in a silhouette. I like to believe, it shows me the bigger picture of who I am. I am not afraid of heights. But I fear the dark, the deep and the unknown. I tend to get claustrophobic. I don’t think of Him unless I need him. I am selfish or maybe that’s got something to do with the human nature. I don’t need a reason to be happy. I need a strong one to get angry. I like being with people. I have a clear definition of people. I may be choosy, fussy, picky and reserved. I prefer that to being a social animal wagging his tail before everyone and then bark behind their backs. I like to hum songs in the rain, I like to whistle in the sun, I like to bite into ice-cream during winters and soak myself under the October sky. I am a little weird sometimes. Some are of the opinion that ‘sometimes’ is more often than some times. I like cracking senseless jokes. My sense of humour is deplorable. Yet, I make earnest attempts to make people laugh. And I know deep inside, people miss me when I am not around. I like talking about myself. I don’t like to be talked about. I like spending quiet time with myself. That doesn’t make me feel lonely. At other times I crave for people, I yearn for conversations. I can be low on confidence. I am not my best teacher. But I am my best judge and my worst critique. I have a world of fantasies I like myself to be in. I am capable of weaving more dreams in broad daylight than in the night. I am times confused. May be it just proves that I am a woman. I don’t hate anyone. There aren’t many that I love either. For me life is like a sunset at the horizon. There’s more to it than you can see. I am like a traveller. I take the longest route. To me the joy lies in the journey. The destination is just destiny.

The White Line

2008-01-20T22:42:00.000+05:30

‘In vacant or in pensive mood’ goes the line. I am not sure which one best describes my state of mind right now, but all I can say is that I feel a little poetic. However, for the lack of a strong inspiration, the words don’t seem to come easy. It’s better with prose. The words don’t have to rhyme and if you can’t think of a word that best describes your point you can use long winding arrays of words that revolve, rotate and spiral to the idea finally. The sunset, the flowers, the hills and the valleys are enough for any sane poet to scribble an ode. But from someone like me, in the middle of a messy room with the lemon tree song throbbing my ear-drums, you should have very little to expect if at all you do. I am not even sure if the previous sentence follows the rules of grammar. My friend says, “Sentences don’t begin with conjunctions!” But then the Queen’s language is a little weird and like most of the weird things around you, which I choose not to mention, you have learnt to live with it over time.

Weird! Now that’s a word that I overuse. It’s mainly because I can spot the weirdness around like how moms handpick tomatoes – instinctively. That’s a skill that’s far too cool! Or I assume so, for there are not many skills I possess, which I can brag about. Who knows, I might soon turn into a legendary character for the amount of surrealistic deeds that I do! Alright, I see I have been exploiting the advantage of prose against poetry to the fullest. I believe there’s a bit of insanity in each one of us. For some of us, there’s a bit more of it. Now it’s important to identify the white line between insanity and weirdness. Insanity is good. Weirdness is bad, in fact it’s ‘weird’! Weirdness is when you take the stairs and not the escalator at the mall. Insanity is when you try and climb up a descending escalator. Weirdness is when you have a cup ice-cream at Baskin Robbins. Insanity is when you go for a triple sundae on a chilly night. Weirdness is when you don’t call up your friend on his birthday. Insanity is when you arrange for a surprise party with cones and whistles.

Weirdness is when you keep secrets. Insanity is when you share them. Weirdness is when you go out for a movie and weep. Insanity is when you behave like a bunch of hooligans during the sweetest movie of the season. Weirdness is having sleepless nights. Insanity is waking up in the middle of the night to watch your favourite sport. Weirdness is the fear of being ridiculed. Insanity is about being downright ridiculous. Weirdness is about doing things that you enjoy too often. Insanity is doing the wrong things and then cribbing about them. Weirdness is singing a song in the bathroom. Insanity is singing at a public place when you know even the hungry street dog is better at it. Weirdness is calling dance a hobby. Insanity is kicking your shoes off and dancing as if no one’s watching. Weirdness is carrying a map in a new city. Insanity is the joy of finding your way out by sharing a conversation with the people on your way. Weirdness is a way of life. Insanity is a reason to be. Weirdness is about believing that life’s too short. Insanity is about believing that life’s too short and making the best out of it!

Within and beyond

2008-01-09T22:00:00.000+05:30

The bunch of assorted white flowers on the table, neatly tied with a fancy white satin ribbon in a flimsy transparent cellophane paper, tiny yellow hearts splashed all over it, sprinkled with freshness, the last drops of water just trickling down the sides of the paper in staggering streams…the incandescent glow of the scented lavender candle brought the warmth that was missing in the cold winter evening and in the memories that were clouding the mind for some time now like the fog that refused to yield to the passing hour of the night outside the French window draped with laced curtains daintily pleated, in ivory tones with mauve floral embroidery, royal silk cushions and gold crochet, arranged in perfect symmetry. I marvelled at the intricately carved silver photo-frames on the mantle that dazzled brilliantly under the ambient lights. It was hard to believe that the loneliness that had gripped the air wasn’t enough to evoke much of an admiration for the people in it. I felt like Alice in Wonderland as a magical charm enveloped the room when floating lamps in the crystal bowl rained glittering splinters of revolving refractions on the wall - enchanted yet lost! The soft melody of the saxophone must have been playing for the umpteenth time now and yet it failed to vex these ears. It was like one long euphony that was composed to last an eternity. The curio on the mantle appeared to stare obnoxiously at me, the rocking chair seemed to have frozen for a moment, and the unknown faces from the biographies on the rosewood shelf made attempts to strike an unspoken conversation just to keep me company. The Christmas lights danced merrily outside the window to assure that the world beyond the patio was either unaware or was unmoved by the distractions in a restless mind. The warmth of the new stockings on bare legs, the lingering taste of balm on the lips and the smell of naphthalene balls wrapped in old woollens brought with them a peculiar sense of déjà vu. Life had come a full circle and was giving yet another chance to live the lost moments that slipped away carelessly like sand grains from a clenched palm. It was time to weave new dreams, hope for new miracles, smile over little nothings, unravel the mysteries of life, share secrets and make promises. It was time to look back at the footprints in time and sprint towards new horizons. It was that ephemeral moment between the past and the future that seemed longer than ever. It was when I found myself lost within me. A rendezvous with Solitude and life unfolded before me like how a rose would wake up to the kiss of the morning sun. The pendulum of the vintage clock suddenly swung with a life-like vigour and the hands met in unison! - 00:00:00

Boredumb

2007-12-06T19:41:00.000+05:30

I feel like a can of soda, juddered and then popped open to let the fizz burgeon out of the tiny mouth of the tin container, I feel like a storm cloud that has wandered across miles to finally burst into a downpour of hydraulic whiplashes, I feel like a snowball accelerating down the deep valleys of the Alps. I wish I could save myself from the efforts of trying to articulate my thoughts through these bombastic figments of imagination and simply label them like how a child labels his creations on a drawing sheet. It would have been so simple to tag your feelings – A for anger, J for jealous and S for sad. I feel like a tooth-paste that’s squeezed out of the tube and which cannot by any means be squeezed back. So it lies there, with that peculiar mint flavour lingering in the air, feeling hopeless having reached a point of no return. I feel like an inflated balloon that escapes the grasp of butter fingers and goes rocketing in the thin air, helter-skelter, void of directions, mindlessly running like a lunatic after a prison-break, like how Archimedes must have scurried out of the bath tub after his path breaking discovery and before he made life hell for physicists. I feel like a slice of bread that by the law of nature always falls on the buttered side. I feel like a licensed version of an operating system that is incompatible with the available software; slick, nice and expensive but useless! I feel like an expired strip of drugs that you forget in your first aid kit, like the old skirt you throw away when you clean your closet. I feel like a pair of old sport shoes, laces half untied that faithfully carry smelly feet on a trek, only to be disposed of thereafter. So much for loyalty! I feel like yesterday’s newspaper. I feel like the hero of a cartoon strip. I feel like a boomerang that comes back to square one, no matter how far it flies. I feel like a self help book. I feel like a poorly written piece with no paragraphs, like a song without melody, like a dance without rhythm and like a heart without a beat! Lifeless!

Honest lies

2007-11-07T22:21:00.000+05:30

Honest lies

Dimpled chin and rosy lips,

Like the teacher’s pet in the nursery rhymes,

One last look and I knew she was mine,

My daughter whom I last saw when she was six

Quick bucks, he said he would keep her neat

I last heard from her on her 16th birthday

Said she was in a black limo, her gift for the day

Time passed on, like it always does

I saw her photographs in the antique frames

Hoping someday she would come running,

Throw her arms around me and say,

“Mama I love you, I thought of you every day!”

The day never came until his funeral,

When she was there to read his eulogy,

She hardly wept but I could see she was hurt,

Deep inside she knew, she would miss him so much

He never had time for his little daughter she said,

But he kissed her goodnight everyday to bed

When she was a teenager, he gave her allowance

A raise often came before she could ask for one

One day she spent it on a roll of cigarette

Today she realized she had made him infuriate

“I would never ask you sweetheart of what you want in life,

I know you would get it all, all right,

But if I may ask you, would you a promise keep,

Never lie to your father, not unless I sleep…”

And they both had cried that day by the fire place

He in the rocking chair, she wrapping him in her delicate arms,

“If ever I lie to you dad, it would only be to get mama back to you,

I miss her dad”; “I miss her too…”

And they both spent the evening fighting back tears

As they flipped through the pages of her scrap book,

“To our Sweetie, with lots of love- Mom & Pop”

Read the snap,

In which we kissed her on either cheek,

It was her last birthday in the old apartment,

Old friends, had come to say goodbye

And then one by one they had left, me too

Never to return until that day, she always wondered why?

She ended her father’s paean on a very touching note,

“Dad always said I would meet my mom, when he is gone,

And he was always a man of his words,

I know you are there ma, somewhere in this crowd,

But I am my dad’s daughter too, and I shall keep my words

I had promised him I wouldn’t lie, but to bring you back

And he’d asked me to be truthful until he is gone,

Today we meet again, on the occasion of his death,

And if he had just one more day,

I would have stolen him from you for a moment

And whispered, “Dad, just for you I lied under my breath…”

Unfinished tales...

2007-11-06T19:16:00.000+05:30

Unfinished tales…

Like how a caged bird yearns to fly in the open sky that seems to beckon it, enticing it with different hues- a yellow sapphire, a glistening gold, a shock of peach, sometimes a pale azure with puffs of cotton clouds, or even a blazing red, a vibrant pink with streaks of royal purple, and at night a dazzling black - so have I attempted with little success to write about the myriad experiences that have lately weaved colour in my fabric of life. I can hardly tell if I attribute this to lack of time or to an uncanny unwillingness to transliterate these conversations in the mildest syllables of life into something as real and as tangible as words themselves.

Not everything that these dull eyes see evoke a tear, not everything that these vexed ears hear provoke a thought, rarely has a human touch been so powerful and little are we blessed to see in a lifetime death and life being juxtaposed like the two facets of a die that is set rolling on the table while the rest of the world watches the die come to a staggering rest with little interest. The stories of the destitute and the ill are always told with brimming emotions to sensitize us towards their problems and it only follows that we develop this inherent capacity to sympathize with the ‘underprivileged.’ But for these same ‘underprivileged’ that have chosen to emerge from the abyss of social stigma to embrace a new life, like how a phoenix rises from the ashes, we are completely oblivious. The reason I believe is man’s constant endeavour to prove his supremacy to his ever-struggling inner self and blinding himself from reality. We live contentedly in a world we believe we live in. Are we any less impoverished then?

I doubt if all of us would be endowed with the opportunity to meet living legends with awe-inspiring stories about life that have never found a mention in history journals because these were not about sacrifices and philanthropy. These weren’t stories about a famous person going overboard to express his love for the nation. These were in fact stories of people who had to first search for an identity in the very world that had conspired against them. These were stories about human rights being sacrificed, hope being trampled by a dogmatic society, voices being stifled, and humanity being crucified under the juggernaut of mindless acts by the human race. The fight was not so much against others as it was with the self. It wasn’t about proving one’s worth but about convincing oneself that all is not lost. To find hope when the darkest hours cast their ugly shadows is one of life’s toughest challenges which only brave hearts can survive.

The vision of one man can create a renaissance and rekindle the fire of optimism and self-worth amongst millions. An iota of kindness can have such a powerful impact in the lives of many, imprinting permanently an indomitable spirit to excel. Befitting this realization is one of my favourite songs, “I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean…” Everything I’ve done, whatever little I’ve achieved, everything I see people striving for, the biggest names, the greatest achievements…suddenly seemed measly. The place carried an aura of purity, almost like they talk about heaven. It spelled the ‘garden of bliss.’ It was simple and soothing, where honesty of character and genuineness of deeds found haven. It was where the homeless found a family, where the blind understood the colour of love, where the mute learnt to express it and the deaf could listen to the heartbeats. Some things just happen to touch you like how a dew drop rolling off the edge of a leaf stirs ripples in the heart of a calm pond. This was one of those.

Birth of Bliss

2007-09-13T22:59:00.000+05:30

Birth of Bliss

Silence of the night
Lit by the silver moon
A perfect crescent
Hiding behind the purple clouds
Fireflies dancing a Macarena
Twinkling stars smiling back
A moist kiss of the fragrant air
And a tiny bud comes to life…
Like a brilliant display of fireworks
Shooting stars dazzle in the open sky
Cranberries shower in celebration
The stream rushes its way through the rocks
Twisting, turning and gurgling with joy
To see the embryonic beauty come alive!
Christened as the midnight child
Heaven’s own descendent dressed in white
The little angel opens its arms to embrace
Mother Nature, waiting to hug it tight
Clenching it to Her heart, she weeps
Tears of joy, as pure as the driven snow
From the lofty Himalayan peaks
Happiness that no words can tell
Enchanted, bewitched, there’s a magical spell!
And then her tender heart melts with love
Blessed by the warmth of the sun, she glows
A new day beckons her, she has miles to go
To color a life from Her palette of rainbow!

Defining moments

2007-09-05T00:30:00.000+05:30

Defining moments…

The sun renders the Midas touch to a dying day, spreading soothing hues of gold over the balmy evening sky and a wave of spirituality strikes at the shore of one’s inner self. There is only a moment before the subtle tones of the evening turn into deep dark shades of the night. What lies between this spectrum, is that one defining moment which has the sublime power of transcending a tattered soul to greater heights of blithe…

A walk into the sunset with bare feet on wet sand, music of the waves along side, the chirping of the birds as they return home, baked silhouettes in the golden sky, the wind that smells of the saline sea, kissing her brunette tresses as she walks by, there’s something magical I feel tonight, she completes the libretto missing in the euphony of the flute vendor behind me…

Spinning pinwheels anchored to a pole, billboards with a shock of lime green, splash of vermillion, smoky white and misty rose! Little angels building castles from the fairy tales, tiny hands with the magic wand of hope and desire, dainty crêpe paper flags plugged on the top …childhood memories flash back! The unruly school-bus ride, long summer vacations, chequered uniforms, candies and colas, popsicles and surprise gifts in ribbon tied boxes, teddies and Barbie dolls, when wishes are commands, when you are the little princess of the good night tales, and there are dreams you don’t want to wake up from…

An old couple sharing a silent moment watching the sun sinking at the horizon, silver hair and reading glasses, parched scarlet rose in a dog-eared book, reflecting on life, seeing it all in a distance, misty eyes, clear memories, cherished times and bitter sweet fights. Chapters in the book of life, authored by two, read by many, unturned pages… given a chance to read it all over again this is where they would love to begin from, bookmarked by a mesmerizing feeling at the twilight hour…

Like a twisted kaleidoscope, at the break of every dawn, life gets painted with a new shade of emotion; at the turn of every age it gets repainted with a new outlook, acquires greater wisdom, finds a new reason and discovers a new meaning to it…and the quietest moments of life speak all about it!

Breakaway

2007-07-28T23:36:00.000+05:30

Breakaway...

Silver stones hail from the skies
Moon drop bliss and my heart takes flight
To the land of love and lust
Of shooting stars and shimmering dust
Silent horizons jewelled with dreams
Ivory blessings pure supreme
Bathing in the warmth of smiles
A rainbow stretched across the miles
An arpeggio of life and destiny
I find, Everywhere I turn to see
There is life pumped in the wind;
I sense a spirit in its gait
I know I am almost there
Like the wind I know I cannot wait
I have seen myself grow, I have seen myself reach
Beyond the limits of self, beyond the ken of what they preach
Like a bird that finds its way in the vastness of the sky
I have spread my wings and I have learnt how to fly…

To BE or not to be

2007-06-12T19:11:00.000+05:30

Looking back at these four years is like peeping into a bioscope because everything seems like in the movies, where boys turn into men and girls age with grace, where friendships bloom, where people come and touch your life in a way that you are no longer the same person that you were. Lives change forever! Friends and acquaintances, the fun, the fights, the doldrums, the arguments, the unanimity over trivial matters…you would miss it all alike. But what you would miss the most is just ‘being you’!

It’s funny how first impressions can be so deceiving. (I wonder how the ‘love at first sight’ notion even exists!) Maybe you were just being a little too judgmental and seeking refuge in yourself - the only self you knew or at least you thought so then. Fresh out of junior college with the school airs still gathering storm clouds in your head, you had definitions of what’s ethically sound and right and going against which would be next to the original sin. Lines of morals delimited your every single action and dictated all your thoughts. So it wasn’t hard to see why some titles were conferred upon the unknown faces that literally flocked the classrooms well before time. We had the bookworm, the bold, the beautiful, the arrogant, the confused, the sincere, the genius, the smart, the silly, the spoilt, the silent, the sensible, the aggressive, the diplomat, the effervescent all coming together to complete the mosaic of the freshman class.

Before you knew you were losing yourself to adapt to this cult of VJ Comps. It has a set of unspoken rules and unwritten traditions. It believes in the rules of the thumb to get around with things. Sometimes, rules of the other finger work as well. Boundaries disappeared and differences faded. Everybody had to take that crazy walk on the wild side of engineering life and run on its treadmill. Everybody turned out to be like everyone else. Cribbing about the same things, sharing the same sorrows, rejoicing for the same reasons, believing in the same rumors, whisking away the same fears, shedding the same tears, laughing over chestnut jokes, speaking the same lingo, and fantasizing the same miracles. Lifestyles changed. People did. Habits too. No longer was it about seeking the truth and doing the right thing. It was about simply getting it done and moving ahead. Been there, done that was the catchphrase.

The fine line between sense and sensibility was first redrawn and then erased forever. Confines of craziness and limits of laziness were redefined. The wackiest ideas of having fun were found. The pleasures in doing simple things were rediscovered. The barriers of age between maturity and juvenility were broken. When we sold our souls to the drudgery of life it was this madness that bought it back for us.

It’s said that all good things come to an end. I believe they don’t. They just see a new beginning. You know it’s time for one when suddenly you see yourself indulging in talks brimming with emotions. Your don’t delete messages from your inbox because you are afraid that you wouldn’t see those names flash on the screen again. You feel a sense of leaving back something when you have a look at the 'Kodak' moments. You sit and wonder if life would give you a second chance to live these moments again. You know the bitter truth. The people who taught you to laugh would go spread happiness elsewhere. The jokes would sound unintelligent and the worries would seem insignificant. But there is a time for everything and that was the time for it. A time that was as special as ‘special’ is. Never to return, just to be lived and relived through reminiscences.

I wish all my folks the strength to pursue and live the dreams we weaved back here. I also wish them faith to believe in themselves. I hope they don’t allow themselves to be blinded in the chase of things that would last for a while but instead sprint in the pursuit of true happiness. The days I spent here is my bit of happiness and I’m glad my folks helped me find it!

6 DOF

2007-06-05T21:45:00.000+05:30

The carefree white bird in the cerulean blue sky
The toss of the vegetables in a chef’s pan-fry
The twirls of a ribbon from the gymnast’s wand
The skydiver’s weightless escape miles above the land
The hoopla whirling to fade colors of the rainbow
The groove of a couple dancing to the waltz so slow
The flight of a frisbee off a kid’s best shot
The aimlessly roving mind void of thought
The vibes on the dance floor to the music beats
The swing of a trapeze in the circus feats
The trail of a jet plane in the spotless skies
The ride on a roller coaster, the screams, the cries
The dance of victory and the football anthem
The liberation of thoughts and the lyrical poem

Hence defined - Six degrees of freedom!

Feel it

2007-05-03T21:42:00.000+05:30

Feel it

One of the most inspirational lines that I have come across says, “The more you plan, the harder destiny hits you.” Life is really like sitting at the roulette table and spinning the wheel…you never know just how hard you should spin to find the right slot! And when you do find it you just can’t get enough of it.

The element of happiness from the ‘happily ever after’ sometimes just secretly seeps into your ‘just another day gone by’ life before you even realize it and then comes that one day when you can fall asleep even on the other side of your bed because you just lived one of the best dreams that you’ve ever had. Miracles happen and they happen when you least expect them.

‘Happiness’ then ceases to be a mere state of mind. It becomes your raison d’etre and that tiny little spark kindles the massive fire of being passionately in love with life. It shows in the smile that creeps on your face for simple nothings. You feel it in the bounce that dictates your walk. You breathe it in the air of blithe all around you. You know something’s changed for good and is here to stay.

And then something larger looms on the horizon. You cannot wait till dawn. Tomorrow may never come. Today is all you got.

Time for retrospection…those little voices echo back. Nuggets of wishes that were once thought to be in the pot of luck across the other side of the rainbow are finally all around you…real, for true, to be touched and felt and spoken about. Is this how it feels to be in complete control of your life? Is this what fulfillment is all about? You don’t know…you are just plain happy. A true sense of unadulterated joy!

It reminds you of misty mornings when the sun comes up from nowhere and suddenly the haze disappears to reveal the hidden paradise. A beautiful landscape slowly develops. It was worth strolling through the mist, the leisurely walk in search of an open space. It was worth the wait.

The journey has begun through the woods. The twilight hour is yet to come. The songbird has still not returned to its nest. The path is less traveled. The leaves could be trodden. The gravel could hurt. But the path would unwind to reveal new secrets of the woods and finally lead the songbird home. There’s hope in the air and faith in the heart and the songbird is already flying!

She...

2007-04-18T22:09:00.000+05:30

Music in her soul,

A poem in her talk

Twinkling stars in her eyes

A groove in her walk

Essence of charisma

Honey sweet innocence

A fizz of enthusiasm

Grace and elegance

Fresh as a rosebud

Playful as a kitten

The most beautiful

Of poems ever written

Tranquility of the moon

Warmth of the sun

Depth of the ocean

Second as none

Songs of the valley

Hues of twilight

Dance of the raindrops

Flawless as white

Mosaic of moods

Pastel touches

Gentle mild thoughts

Strokes of brushes

Fairy from the tale

Angel from the Heaven

A fantasy come alive

Wonders Seven

Rare perfume

Fresh as a flower

Wild and free

Dreams like a lover

Childlike chuckles

Million-dollar smile

Happiness in nothings

Laughs for a while

Heart and soul

A sacred space

World of her own

Moves with grace

Whims and fancies

Lucky charms

Belief in miracles

Shooting stars

Unspoken words

Lyrical sonnets

Fragrant presence

Blossom of violets

The inspiration…

For the potter’s mold

The spirit…

Of the painter’s soul

She’s the lady

I dreamt to be

And woke up to find

She is me!

In-Complete

2007-03-28T22:01:00.001+05:30

The fiery cherry-red globe,
Passionately combating the last strife of letting go
Burning with vehemence of lost battles
Allowed itself to be dropped in the lap of the sea,
Too insipid for feelings, too cold for emotions…

Unparalleled alacrity surfaced to embrace it
Eyes shut tight to hide the trickle of tears,
And arms flung open wide for a warm hug
No mighty waves soared; no turbulent tides arose,
Just serene ripples, as it soaked the fuming fury…

The sun, accidentally coloring the pale water
With tints of saffron desires and gold dreams,
As the purity of the sea, anointed it off its fears
The sunken sun and its reflection in the peach sea now meet
In harmony, a perfect circle, spotless and complete…

You are beautiful…it’s true!

2007-03-19T00:50:00.000+05:30

You are beautiful…it’s true!

Life is full of ups and downs, but the graph of life doesn’t follow a discrete path. Instead it traces the path from the peaks to the trenches with as much agility as does the fluorescent green beam on a CRO, especially on the ones they have been using in all the electronics labs I’ve had the misfortune of attending. And just like that gizmo, life too is difficult to comprehend. So it doesn’t take me by surprise when sometimes I wake up to a day to find the spice zapped out of my life- a bland day like someone forgot to add that pinch of salt in my cup of tea. Yeah, I know I should have referred a cookery manual!

Let me drift into that tinsel world where everything is perfect, because around here things neither have been particularly commendable enough to brag about, nor does the average life of an ordinary girl evoke any intentions from even a cartoonist (Laxman’s common man has already stolen the cake. It’s a man’s world after all!), let alone scripting a documentary that people accidentally would end up watching due to a title that turns out to be a misnomer. But then I know the feeling of being the ultimate fantasy of a painter’s imagination, or so I would like to believe. It was one of those ‘is this me?’ reactions that most women on the celluloid claim to have asked when the anti-ageing cream worked wonders for them. That brings me to the point of ‘beauty’ and all the hype that surrounds it; about it being skin deep. What does that mean? Adorable pancreas?

When was the last time that you turned your face away from a good looking girl, refused to smell roses on the way, found the black and yellow cab more enticing than a sleek red sports car parked next to it, shooed a white yodel with a red ribbon around it’s neck just like you shooed a half-hungry street dog the other day, didn’t choose a black and silver cell phone because even a pink and brown looked as classy, thought of calories before devouring the dark bitter chocolate pastry liberally sprinkled with tiny little chocolate chips and aptly titled ‘Devil’s delight’? There’s no denying the fact that what looks beautiful may not always be so, but since when has that held us from appreciating it?

The thin filmed soap bubbles that split white light into the hues of the rainbow when blown out of the loop and then sail on the breeze, wandering aimlessly, up and down, a new kaleidoscopic pattern and a new reflection on every little twist…don’t they make our hearts light just like them or spread a smile across our grim faces when we see children chasing these little magical bits of happiness? Isn’t this beauty too? How about that pale peach gown you saw in the store that day and couldn’t stop dreaming about? And then your unruly peeping neighbor lands up for your own birthday party in that exquisite apparel looking like a square peg in a round hole! But that doesn’t stop you from complimenting the finesse of the garb unless you have a tooth for sour grapes. Had it not been for the connoisseurs of beauty, art in its variegated forms would have never taken birth because art is the result of the holy matrimony of beauty and aesthetics.

Beauty has the power of appealing to all senses. A beautiful melody, a beautiful scenery, a beautiful feel of the pashmina shawl, a beautiful scent of some rare perfume…how often we find ourselves using these terms. Lata Mangeshkar, Princess Diana, Mother Teresa are all beautiful because they epitomize the beauty that appeals to the ear, the one that appeals to the eyes and the beauty of human touch. If beauty were skin deep, how would you have ever known that it even existed? We talk about ‘beautiful’ sunny days that bring with them a fresh start to new ventures and rekindle that iota of hope and faith. We talk about ‘beautiful’ moments spent with loved ones that are more than a just a day gone by. We dream about a ‘beautiful’ holiday on exotic locations. We also wish to be noticed and complimented with a ‘you look beautiful’ when dressed for special occasions even though we may not be any Britney Spears material or anywhere close. We talk of ‘beautiful’ gestures of someone helping the blind lady cross the road although what just passed by was your last bus back home. Then there are those movies that don’t fit into the stereotypes of eyesores but are instead a unique masterpiece of music sheet and canvas on screen where ‘beauty’ comes alive.

The ‘beauty’ of a silhouette in the sunset, of an autumn carpet of ochre and red, of a fiery turbaned villager against the sandy dunes, of the roll of the wheels of a limousine at the tongue of a red carpet, of a bride tossing her bouquet, of a baby chuckling with twinkling eyes, of sailing on a larger than life yacht, of the shine of medals and badges on a proud soldiers chest, the sparkle of a solitaire, the austerity of the village folk, the poise of a ballet dancer…the book of life has ‘beauty’ in it. And that is where Life comes from!

The God of Unseen Miracles

2007-02-12T23:09:00.000+05:30

The velvet touch of the silken air
On a putrid ochre maple leaf
Lifts it for a waltz to the whistling woods
Amidst the mild perfume of sandalwoods

The frosty midnight breezy air
In the cold thick darkness of the night
With the smell of crackling cedar fed to flames
The canines somewhere playing wishful games

The balmy morning zephyr gently kisses
With the warmth of the peach sunrise
The tinkering chimes which offer a sweet euphony
That slowly fades in the day’s cacophony

A faceless enigma, unseen and ethereal
Yet full of Spirit, bounty with Life
Like Him, who would always be there
To raise us to new heights when engulfed in grief
Caring touches, gentle whispers, when hope dries up like the maple leaf…

Earthy woes

2007-02-12T22:40:00.000+05:30

Tell me why should I save thee asked Her son to Mother Earth
‘Coz my son I’m parched and barren and of minerals there’s a dearth!

Heaps of unattended plastic, and tons of baloney
Clogging rivers that once flowed with milk and honey

Concrete jungles mushrooming having slaughtered verdant landscapes
And poisoned waters coloring the pristine clear lakes

The day isn’t too far when wildlife would be learnt through the encyclopedia
‘Coz who really cares about the endangered species, the flora and the fauna?

It’s a plight- the ripping boundaries that go running crisscross all across me
Scattered bits and pieces of tiny no-man’s-land is all that I see!

The craggy wrinkles on the dry skin of a dying mother ring no alarm
A spit here, a dump there, poaching here, fishing there, what’s the harm?

Although vicissitudes loom large about the future of dilapidated heritage sites
The air still trembles with deafening decibels and piercing flashy neon lights

Undeterred I witness- tremors, storms, eruptions and hurricanes,
My tears like the rains have dried up and my heart has hardened like the rocky terrains

Don’t pave my path to the gallows son; do vouch for my life son‘Coz what would hurt a mother more than being crucified by her own son?

Deep-Water

2007-02-07T22:42:00.000+05:30

The lady in her turquoise marine gown
With pale pink pearls from the ocean
The gentle swirl of her flowing robes
Like the rustle of waves in motion

Bathing in cool showers from the Heavens
Her wet long curls like a brook in the rock
The tiara bejeweled with beads of snow
Shimmering night sea- the sequins of her frock

Her reflection in the clear mirror pond
Flawless beauty as tranquil as its waters
A veil drawn over the face sets it aglow
Like how a fall of gushing water sunrays scatters

A murky blotch now on the turquoise garb
The robes marred with a slimy daub
The pink pearls slipped off, never to be found
The rustle replaced by the engines’ roaring sound

A spell of acid rains is all that precipitates
A sooty whirlpool in the sea now gyrates
The tiara tarnished, the snow flakes thawed
Dyes, dirt, debris have made her a slipshod

Bottle green mossy ponds, reflections trapped within
Ringed ripples – the silent cries of the wrinkled queen
O come, all ye slayers and bestow back her gurgling laughter
For she’s ailing, Latis - the Alpha of Life … the Goddess of Water

Dream a li'l dream

2007-02-01T19:34:00.000+05:30

When yellow dreams are shattered
Like a broken string of satin pearls
And the eye sheds a silent tear
Like the first dew drop of the misty dawn
When hope disappears behind puffs of clouds
In the clear blue skies
And everything looks surreal
The unanswered prayers, the truth, the lies…

When yellow dreams fall apart
Like autumn leaves fallen in the woods
And ripples of despair drown mighty wishes
And a storm of unwieldy thoughts ruptures the soul
Like when a thousand and one rain drops
Pound on the unyielding icy cold floor
The heart longs to hear a reprise of unsung melodies
The resonance of crystal dreams crashing no more…

When yellow dreams seem to be obscure
Like when spinning on a swing, this way and that
Like when counting the tiny sparkles in the night sky
Like when taking the wrong turns on forbidden roads
Like when watching through the molten air above the bonfire
Like when trying to count speeding poles on a driveway
Like when walking through revolving doors in a hallway…

...It's time to wake up!

The Meltdown

2007-01-22T21:28:00.000+05:30

It stood on the mantle, Trim and neat
It’s body a slender lilac
With white rose buds at its feet
An essence of violets dipped in dew
Coiled with ribbons in silver and blue
A wick so fragile in pale off-white
A figurine on the left
A medal to the right

Jeweled pride…
Crowned splendor…
Jeweled elegance…
Crowned beauty…

On the strike of a matchstick a spark ignites
Obnoxious fumes stifle the lilac air
The brilliant little flame
Embraces the off-white wick
Too reluctant to glow
At the hands of an ugly stick
With a black bead now ablaze
The fire gradually reaching the tail
Charring and drooping the body frail

Jeweled humility…
Crowned life…
Jeweled duty…
Crowned death…

A burning soul, a scorching life
Slowly melting to meet the dust
The agonies of a conceited queen
Growing from worse to worst
Uneven trickles with ungraceful gait
Smeared the slender sides to settle in blobs
Blistered shapeless remains of a beauty that was

Smoldered pride…
Thawed splendor…
Smoldered elegance…
Thawed beauty…

The soft radiance of the flickering flame
The ribbons dazzled in the incandescent light
Even as they mourned the flawless beauty’s sad demise
As it continued to radiate the wrath around
Light everywhere but a dark shadow underneath
To which her life’s earnings she had to bequeath
And when the last bit of her went up in a spaghetti smoke
Her last remains were scrapped with the burnt stick that broke
And together they were returned to from where they came
Dust to dust and ashes of the flame

Smoldered pretences…
Thawed masquerades…
Smoldered veils…
Thawed masks…

Closest to Heaven

2007-01-07T21:52:00.000+05:30

Closest to Heaven is where I chose to be
So there I was between two palm trees
On a hammock swinging to the music of the wind
The breeze playing with my brunette tresses
And the palm leaves naughtily joining in
Now shadow, now light
In solitude I took delight
As the white sand stretched
As far as my eyes could see
The beauty untouched and as pristine as it could be
Footprints in sand nowhere to be seen
I wonder if so close to Heaven someone had ever been?

The stony gray rocks overshadowed the lazy lagoon
A slice of rapture to devour on a warm sunny afternoon
With a cocktail of ecstasy, mirth and bliss by my side
Raised a toast to the blushing bride
The fair sand as it stood in its white wedding gown
Pearls from the ocean
Confetti from the skies
Champagne from the sea
Music from the waves
A shock of fuchsia orchids amidst the bushes of green
A plumage of prismatic colors to crown an altar so serene
I wonder if so close to Heaven someone had ever been?

The emerald green waters and the clear blue skies
Met at the margin of the bay that my eyes defined
Where the pearl-white flock of birds with ruby-red beaks
Cried and leapt at the sun, warmed with its streaks
Ripples of water shimmering like the facets cut on a crystal
The school of fishes - a splash of colors spilled in the sea
The waters as clear and as virgin as they can be
The corals on the floor like a splatter of paint from His palette
The oysters in the sea like cherries on a charlotte
A place of which the poets sang and the lovers dreamt
But not a soul to be heard, not a face to be seen
I wonder if so close to Heaven someone had ever been?

The uncommon Common Life

2007-01-07T15:40:00.000+05:30

The alarm crowed. A lusty king of the farmyard cock-a-doodle-do. He shut the mobile up. One hour and five minutes was all he had before his day began. He would steal five minutes from that. Look the other way he told that frowning creature in his soul. I do it all the time- a little corruption, a little bribery. I negotiate with the world 24/7. So why not an extra 5 minutes of sleep, he told himself and buried his head under the pillow. And so began another day in the life of an Indian…

Life lately had been very melodramatic for this thirty something with a hairline that seemed to recede at a rate more alarming than that of his stocks- a life more mediocre than his job, a job more demanding than his wife, a wife more cranky than his kids, his kids more ill-mannered than the dog next door, the dog more ill-tempered than his mistress and it’s mistress…Love thy neighbor!

Today’s date was suggestive of something that was as difficult to recollect as the last time he had had a breakfast on the table. So off he rushed, tucking the newspaper under his arm, a slice of bread in his mouth as if to assure the canine next door of brotherhood in the neighborhood, polishing his shoes by brushing them against his trousers, as his mobile guffawed at him with attractive alerts about tarots and hitting the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow amidst a host of reminders, meetings, memos and anniversaries. And what he had been trying to recollect for so long suddenly mushroomed in his mind that was fertile with a thousand unwanted, undesired but nevertheless unavoidable thoughts – It was time he bought a new season ticket for his daily commute! The penguin on his happy feet was close enough not to be evaded and though our hero’s scruples warned him, his hand involuntarily reached out for a crisp note as the paragon of truth smiled almost ironically on it and it was slipped with great dexterity and ease to the right person to instigate a nod of acceptance.

The other three quarters of the hour were peaceful amidst the gang enjoying over their daily game of cards, in dire straits dealing the deck with the forlorn hope that the tables would turn one day, the peeking toms, the zealots who tried to bridge the gap between the Heaven and earth with their operatic performances as pleasant as rubbing your nails against the blackboard, the blind man crying his wares, the ragged urchins with their delicate dirty hands tapping feebly only to be offered a deaf ear, blind eye, a scorn or worse - apathy, the white-collared people juggling their business papers and their phone calls, the college goers- the grown-up kids, people who haven’t met before and will probably never see each other again but still have more in common in that half an hour jaunt than any propinquity could boast of, with the railways bringing people closer literally, as they elbow, push, hustle and bustle their way, discussing why things are the way they are, with a feeling of being in the middle of every controversy strongly rooted in their guts, of being a victim of crimes they haven’t done and living a life they don’t deserve…a motif of variegated thoughts, beliefs and conversations to serve as an excess baggage to his workplace.

You have 13 unread messages…that is how he’s greeted there! He quickly scans his inbox to find a mail from a dear friend, who’d left in search of greener pastures. It speaks of missing the life he’d once run away from, of wanting to have conversations beyond the rigmaroles of the e-mail, with people you can accidentally bump into while strolling on the road, of wanting his kids to imbibe values that cannot be taught, of wanting to curse the system and yet be completely in love with it, to feel rejuvenated by the glow of the sweat on sultry days, to be at a place called home and feel at home for home is where the heart is! Our hero silently accepted the fact that you never know what you’ve got until it’s missing…so much so about a day in the life of India!

The year that was...2006

2007-01-02T03:16:00.000+05:30

The best time machine one can own is one’s self. It conjures up eclectic images from days of yore to make a collage so pristine, transcending the traveler above the joy of witnessing the reality while cruising through the lanes of nostalgia with it’s twist and turns on a magic carpet of memories. And when one whole year has gone by, you’ve seen much, witnessed another chunk of life, introspected on another dimension, known more than you think you know, touched many a hearts and lives without the slightest clues and been affirmed that we all are children in God’s garden, the musings that come along as the year wraps up embracing me in a blanket woven with warmth as the warp and bliss as the woof, it’s time to put it in words as the weather outside - the mentos cool breeze, the virginity of a brand new year in the air and the splendor of id ka chaand - only accentuates the fact that life is beautiful!

The year, as I see it through the rose tinted glasses, has been in one word - ‘more than fulfilling!’ There I go! Each passing moment adding a new hue to my personality, coloring me with all shades of emotions, sketching timeless memories that would last a lifetime and to crown it all, painting in myriad colors lessons about living without regrets, a chapter of 365 pages is now closed and all that is left are glances into it’s fluttering pages.

This was the year that tossed the pleasure of exploring new lands in my basket of joy, of visiting exotic locations and discovering patches of paradise, of how we are all the same and yet so different and you are what you choose to be, of realizing that what you hate back here is what you miss the most. A year that gave plenty of room to grow on a personal front, to hone skills I never knew I possessed, to cross the fine line that separates being afraid from being proactive, to learn to live with people of all temperaments and knowing that there exists a good and positive side to all, to know that there would be times that hit you hard on your face but the only way out is through it, to know that nothing can be more tranquil than being in harmony with yourself by at times letting the heart rule over the brain.

It has proved that nothing can be as eternal as trust and friendship and that it’s difficult telling them apart, that distance can strengthen relationships and make them fonder, that there would be these angels without wings who would glide you through the darkest hours, whom you can call up for no reason and have the best conversation ever, that everybody has secrets no matter how silly, that people would always remember how special you made them feel, that one day people would recognize you for what you were to them and not how you seemed to be, that actions speak louder than words, that miracles can happen on wishing upon the shooting star of faith and desire, that you get the most when you expect the least, that it is an amazing feeling to be appreciated for the little nothings, that you can give unconditionally and feel not a wee bit of loss, that you can be happy for others, that truth still triumphs, that you would be contented in the corners of your heart for being a nice person or for someone thinking so, that there’s only one thing other than crystal that grows more precious as it get clearer and it is your conscience and all it takes is confiding in your loved ones.

What's more, it has awakened the nocturnal beast in me, made me join communities that promise to connect me to millions of ‘friends’ (if only they could redefine that overused word), seen me being successful on my first ever attempt to cook something which is both edible and palatable at the same time, made me host my very first blog (oh! Do you know about it? Here’s the link http://shilpakendre.blogspot.com/), had my very first night out, was offered my very first job, …okay coming to what you probably must be wanting to spot on this ‘very-first’ list … sorry, no love at ‘very-first’ sight!

The hourglass has been turned for 2007; the dune at the bottom is a day old. The yester year ended on a positive and sanguine note to fuel yet another free trip around the sun for all! So here’s my little prayer to the giftie to grant more peace, bestow more love and make understand the meaning of universal brotherhood, to provide societies with the magic wand of education, to reduce nature’s fury, to make everybody feel less miserable, to teach everyone to be more forgiving, to make people more proactive, to bless them with tons of well being, to keep the mood cheerful so as to be able to ponder back a year hence and know that life just kept getting twice as much better with each passing day and that wishing that there were more than one 1st of Jan every year to ring out the old and ring in the new! (Swoosh...there goes a silly one...as they say, "Many people look forward to the new year for a fresh start to old habits!")

Angry Kya?

2006-12-26T20:25:00.000+05:30

Here’s a quick fix recipe to deal away with the blues of an overtaxed day, one that leaves you bamboozled about life with a deep feeling of emptiness inside. I’ve resorted to it time and again for it not only curbs those hunger pangs and tantalizes the taste buds but also effectively revives and teaches what life is all about or rather offers a paradigm of it from a chef’s point of view!

Let mom create magic with her secret culinary formulae presenting you with a dollop of freshly kneaded dough filled with oodles of love giving you a chance to manifest your culinary skills just like He has created us with the same basic but mystique ingredients and given us all a fair chance to make the best out of it, never caring about issues like origin or race because no matter how the dough is baked- round, oval, thin, crispy, over-baked or even chewy- it would still be a pizza base!

It’s about choosing the right toppings to make it a mouth-watering, lip-smacking, delicious, delightful food fiesta. First, you make an assortment of all the flavors of life. ‘Spicy’ for the heated conversations and for times that made your blood boil with rage; ‘Tangy’ for all the naughty pranks you loved playing as a teenager; ‘Cheesy’ like when your heart melts out of pity; ‘Mellow’ when you’ll ripen with age and sit back in your rocking chair pondering over the good old days and ‘Mushy’ to raise a toast to the beautiful moments so filled with love, mirth and ecstasy that time seemed to stop.

So often things have left us feeling dejected, helpless, vulnerable to circumstances, compelled to bow down before the situations posed with absolutely no options to choose from. Just like that, reach out for all the vegetables you can find in your refrigerator, then slice them, dice them, toss them, grate them or chop them and while you sauté them you’ll be gripped with apprehension as in most of life’s situations. But just keep holding on and it wouldn’t be long before you’ll savor the tempting aroma. After all everything comes in a passing phase!

Once the pizza’s done, garnish it exotically and cut it into eight pieces, four for the diet conscious. Call your chums over for a pizza party and enjoy a hearty conversation. They don’t say ‘Good times start with great pizzas’ just like that! And after relishing it all, there would be crumbs still left on the plate. That’s how life is. You pluck a cord and the melody continues to linger even when you are gone!

That’s one of my favorite dishes- a pizza. Something I cannot resist to devour before it’s even set on the platter. It’s not just an epitome of ‘Bon Appetite’ or an outcome of Italian serendipity but every bite of it is a celebration of something larger, something real. Something called LIFE!

Mind and Matter

2006-12-26T03:07:00.000+05:30

A perpetual gaze at the distant horizon,
A ceaseless stare at the crimson sky,
A zephyr sweeps the restless mind,
A drapery drawn on the mortal world,
A pristine moment of solitude,
A close proximity to Him…

A soul clenched to vacuity,
A pure spirit levitates,
A radiant body unperturbed,
A heart calm and unruffled,
A soft glow from the halo,
A clear azure firmament,
A likewise mind…

A flash upon the inward eye,
A blurred vision of wants and longings,
A tapestry of unfulfilled desires,
A hallucination of lost opportunities,
A figment of towering wishes,
A haze cast out of nowhere,
A likewise mind…

A mirage at a distance,
A wrinkled forehead,
A twitch of a muscle,
A throb in the heart,
A spasmodic leap into reality,
A zap into to the earthly world…

A moment of ephemeral placidity,
A fleeting time gone in a jiffy,
A fidgety mind wanders again,
A dodging dream it chases,
A withering body bears it all and,
A soul swallows suffering…

A trice of proximity to Him,
A rejuvenation of spirits,
A rebirth of hopes,
A fire of vigor kindled,
A state of dynamism reached,
A thrust towards triumph gained!

Identity

2006-12-26T03:03:00.000+05:30

"I"

They stand at the gate to welcome us in,
Greeting us without the slightest signs of a grin,
And when someone tries to break the ice,
Has to pay too heavy a price,
The cold response only leads to conclude,
They have had their sense of humor surgically removed!

Once again there is a heroic war of words,
Between the laathi armed gentlemen and the bunch of nerds,
The latter rack their brains for a king size whopper,
To somehow escape wearing their Medals of Honor,
Rules they believe are made to be broken,
And always the authorities for granted to be taken!

The game begins at nine, at the bugle’s blow,
Not far beyond the horizon does their network follow,
Blinding which the wittiest hero rises,
A victory over a thing the cult so much despises,
He roams scot-free having crowned a brave winner,
He, The Czar of all dungeons and a whole 16-acre!

Unlike his comrades who succumb in vain,
To the ‘Wear you ID-card’ campaign!
Who’ve called it everything from dog tags to name plates,
An embarrassment that every morning awaits,
Its funny and strange and also a pity,
The changing phases of the student mentality!

Slurrrp!

2006-12-26T02:54:00.000+05:30

Dreamers can fascinate about the shooting stars, poets can immortalize incomplete love tales and painters can paint their imagination. But mediocre people like me (I doubt if I qualify for even that for I’m an engineering student!) who can live a lifetime in that much awaited day after every grueling paper, can only pen down the real world (That’s a concept you would be privileged enough to learn if by misfortune you happen to be a computer professional) and believe me unlike the assignments which are yet another way of honing your writing skills, this one’s the original master copy! So here I was at the Indian bistro- Urban Tadka. And yes, it deserves every bit of sizzle in its name!

They say, ‘Winners don’t do different things, they just do it differently!’ That is the success formula of this very ‘Indian’ restaurant that’s become the hot favorite of foodies like me. Good bye to dim lights, spanking white linen, fresh rose buds on table, a maitre d’hotel whose tie is better matched to his shirt than in your case and that sweet saxophone music playing in the background amidst the chime of crockery (almost a sedative when I was kid) coupled with clandestine whispers of people who are fervently battling against the last grain of rice armed with half a dozen pieces of cutlery! Let’s get wild. Let’s do away with pretences. Let’s celebrate! Let’s smell the soil of Punjab and feel the pulsating vibes of the land of makkai di roti and sarsoon da saag! Oye chukk de patte!

A narrow alley with sawdust in lieu of a red carpet welcomes me to this tinsel world where dining is truly an ‘experience.’ From behind the mysteriously huge heavy wooden door a whole new world waits for this aesthetic with wacky tones in her idea of beauty. And try as I may, I can’t help but flash a spontaneous ‘kya aap closeup karte hai’ smile on my face while admiring the knick-knacks that embellish the craggy walls- sewing machines, kites (not of the bird kinfolk…thank Heavens for that!) and tawdry posters of movies that are best suited for stumping your opponents in a game of dumb charades! The magic just keeps unfolding at every twist and turn of that lane (a crazy walk on the wild side should I say?)

This tavern-like restaurant will take you back to simplicity with all opulence and lavishness! Sounds antithetical, doesn’t it? (It was meant to be!). All those elite kids who have been born and brought up in bustling metropolises to mutate them into city slickers to the extent of being tired of the cliché hangout zones of coffee bars and pizza parlors could definitely buy the idea of substituting a glass of refreshing chilled lassi for a cup of lip smacking hot mocha or a stuffed paratha for a stuffed thick base extra cheese double topping (are these meant to be tongue twisters?) piece of Italian cuisine (and then of course dig into it with fork and knives…why not try chopsticks next time? Globalization on the plate! Don’t know about the world, but the plate sure is flat enough to prove the point!) And all though you must have steered you way to this place in your Mercedes Benz, the ambience would leave no stone unturned to make you imagine you have your ‘horn OK please’ parked just outside. Let me refrain myself from enlisting all the curios and animated culture that one comes across here, for although some may have told more than they can see, I can see, feel and experience more than I can tell! And about the ‘Meenu’ etched on the wooden slate you can ‘seafood’ like rotis and kebabs and enjoy ‘child bear’ too amidst some desi foot-tapping Punjabi ‘musik’ with a touch of folklore interspersed with the sound of drums which in my opinion are a cool way of replacing the bell at the pizza parlor and yes the Punjab-de -puttars in their colorful jazzy jacketed kurtas offer the Ritz Carlton pause too!

So, the only way to be distinctive is to be you. Do not jump on to the bandwagon and follow a blind alley for what may look like a light at the end of the tunnel could be that of an incoming train! See what makes you special, what you can offer to set you apart, to be recognized, to be known, to be heard, and to be understood by others and most importantly by you yourself. We all dream, but how many of us wake up to live them? Furthermore, let’s stop bickering about everything and anything Indian. No, I wouldn’t mention those great Indian achievers and contributions, which flood your inboxes and you still have no clue what they talk about. Personally, I haven’t read them either, for it’s time we stop rejoicing in our past glory and work out the present to change the picture of what seems like a bleak dogmatic future. How can a nation that has half a billion people without an ounce of vanity, ever make it big? Of denizens who would know what the 50 stars on the flag of the US of A represent but are oblivious to what the 24 spokes of the Ashoka Chakra are for?

Confluence of ideas, cultures and practices never demands the slaughter of nativity and self-worth at the altar of foreign hysteria. Why can’t it be hep to go out for an evening of classical dance recital once in a while rather than to groove at a discotheque so regularly? Why do our souls no longer spiritually connect to the beats of the tabla but follow a rock concert so religiously? Why have we stopped watching the national channels on the television, which once got us so addicted to the He-Man series and the Mahabharata? Why are we unaware of the importance of the red-letter days on our regional calendars except for that they guarantee a day off? Yes, agreed that the grass does look, and may be at times even is, greener on the other side of the fence. But while we kept looking there, we forgot to even scythe the one our side! All it calls for is a self-renaissance, to have a vision of our own, a mind that can think rather than blindly ape, and most importantly to search within than to search around. Well that restaurant quite provided me with food for thought! Burp!

The Antithesis called Life

2006-12-26T02:46:00.000+05:30

A gush of emotions felt again
As another day comes to an end
The dawn of a night awaits
And I drift into pensive mood…
I look back upon the day, if only I should
Wondering what made it special,
Wondering was it anywhere close?
In a swarm of indifferent faces and ignorant existence
Living by the clock, hurrying for patience
In a race against myself
I run again, faster and harder
Sailing upwind,
The tide doesn’t cease
Ravaging, it blows, the violent breeze.
The shards, they splash,
The waves, they soar,
Teardrops trickle
And in torrents they pour.
From whom am I to hide?
What am I to seek?
To where am I to escape?
Captured in illusions, a blinded self it is,
A broken heart never at ease.
The nadir of self-esteem reached
The acme of dissatisfaction conquered…
And now the soul comes to life
Forgoes every whit of truth in the lies
Lays bare the spirit of being me,
Of living each day as it comes
And finding Heaven right within;
Soaking up the joy that each day brings
Aim not to achieve something big,
Life, I’ve realized, is made of small things!

If you may…

2006-12-26T02:39:00.000+05:30

You may stop calling it a rose,
But you will never forget how it smells…
You may stop believing in fantasies,
But you would still hear Santa’s bells…
You may stop loving and caring,
But you would always know how it feels…
You may stop admiring the beauty of Nature,
But the sun would still shine from behind the hills…
You may want to be anyone but just you,
But your shadow wouldn’t ever change…
You may question your own faiths and believes,
But there are truths you cannot challenge…
You may stop listening to music,
But your heart won’t change its beat…
You may find the sky too far,
But at the horizon, it’s bound to meet!

Thank You Baby!

2006-12-26T02:26:00.000+05:30

Words they don’t come easy,
When I most need them
But it’s just my heart,
Who else am I to blame?

It keeps vacillating, weighing
The rights against the wrongs,
In an endless search for codas
For unfinished songs

Songs of euphonious melodies,
Intertwined with euphoric memories,
With smiles and laughs that interlude
Sounds of chimes and violins

What would I be without these,
But a listless a cappella,
That I don’t have the courage to say it,

Is sheer mea culpa…

Midnight fantasies…

2006-12-26T02:18:00.000+05:30

11 o’clock in the night
My mind’s filled with a thousand thoughts of you
As you lie next to me
Dressed in sparkling white, with blue sequins
Looking as mysterious as ever
Waiting to be explored
And I wish to hold you in my arms
But my hand just can’t reach out
My heart has decided to just let it go
And my mind…it doesn’t even have a say.
I look outside
The world’s asleep
I don’t want to end it all this way
Here we are, just a crease of a bedsheet apart
And yet so far
While you are lost in yourself
And am caught in your thought
Spending a sleepless night
Tossing and turning
With no memories of holding you close
No hopes of doing it ever
No dreams
No fantasies
Just reality biting back.
The clouds now drifting over the moon
The cool breeze gently kissing me goodnight
One last look at you
And I dim the lights
I have no regrets
But yes, I do have a confession to make
When you happen to be a fat 904 page book
You are simply too much to take!

~Eyes~

2006-12-26T02:05:00.000+05:30

Personifying vigor, exemplifying courage
They are the soldier’s eyes
So filled with rage
No martyrs too brave
No sacrifice too great
He sees it all,
And names it fate.

He sees no light, the darkness haunts
Tipping his stick
Through lonely lanes, lonesome he jaunts
He knows no fear
He knows no sorrow
He feels the warmth and names it ‘morrow
A shallow life, a deep sixth sense
Stranded in the crowd, filled with reticence

They see the future, a Xanadu they envisage
Past the fear and the stigma
The world they would change
They are, the eyes of the visionary,
Lost in thought
To end this disgrace they have ought
The cynics as they are,
At these thoughts they jeer
To value whose worth it takes many a year

Low and sunken, they hold no hopes
His estate and his pride
Is now on the ropes
Indebted to the last count of a penny
A painful guilt now pricks his vanity
Having played foul games to make big bucks
In a cocoon of embarrassment he shamefully tucks.

The eyes hold nothing but the blatant truth,
With the twinkle of childhood
And the spark of youth
With a glint of happiness,
Sometimes a speck of penitence,
Tacitly reflecting the heart’s silence.

…Show me the meaning of being me…

2006-12-26T01:46:00.000+05:30

Yellow attendance books, black lists, blue days…who ever said life isn’t colorful? So as the world keeps spinning (along with my head), the night giving way to the day (taking it from an optimist’s point of view) and the black hair giving way to the gray ones (some experts believe it’s due to ‘stress’, the next step towards old age that sets soon after you blow those 21 candles on your birthday and see it all go up in smoke and after battling the bahmbahmbahm effect) and I have to face yet another evening without the internet, I sit down to write what am best at…pure unadulterated nonsense!

After contemplating for long if I should buy Peter Norvig (sorry to the fellow author for I couldn’t mention your name, it’s always that when one’s under the spotlight, the other has no option but to settle for the shadow) or some tech-max book (how we love the Indian authors…ardent supporters of swadesi ideas aren’t we?), I finally marched to the bookstore today; giving him the details, the author, the semester, the branch and the subject and I waited. Then I waited again. And finally after waiting for some more time he bangs a book that reads Instrumentation Sciences!!! That is when I realized that IS could mean different things to different people! And at that point of time it spelled Irritated Silly! And as the ‘uncle’ went back into his lair of books a girl drops in…she had stopped on her way to the moon with her shuttle driver not ready to wait long…and the ‘uncle’ decides to preempt the hunt for Peter Norvig’s. She had come to get a 12th std. Hindi guide!! Such a thingy!! I wait there admiring the fat books and more so the ones who had all the time in the world to write them for those who always complain of not having the time to read them and still have no alternative but to buy them!! You see, a foreign author’s name that you manage to pronounce with that added dash of indianised syllables just sounds too hep during the vivas! Chirp chirp!! Oh she was talking to me! “So which standard are you in?” Did I look too young to her? Well going by the latitudes, maybe I did? But this tired face couldn’t be of a school going kid! No chance. No way! Hmm…girlie was trying to be funny :-/! “What…uuh?..am doing engineering…final year”, I snap back. “Ooooh!” comes the reply. Now what’s that? Kiddo! Wait till you get into an engineering college I curse her! And she disappears. With a screwed up face I ask again for the book. Yeah, right, the book is unavailable! Life has become as predictable as the K-series sagas! So try another store…when one door’s closed knock on the other! No use! Talk about knocking on the wrong doors??

So after that earnest hunt for Peter Norvig…I return empty handed and empty headed! And this is the best way to pour out my emptiness!

Hanging on in the over crowded trains, confronting the pig-headed ‘aunties’ who refuse to budge and the taxi-wallahs who literally don’t miss an opportunity to take me on a ride, the whistling ‘watch’ men, the mundane lectures, the stuffy labs, the undefined practicals, the quantified assignments, the pains of eating deep fried noodles with a spoon and those of eating half fried chips in a state of trance, the dilemmas, the ever prevailing predicaments, the days when even the radio stops playing my favorite songs, the ones when I begin to question the very path am traveling on or should I say pulling on, the days when everything seems topsy-turvy- you and the world around you, trapped in a whirling spiral! Gimme a break!!
It’s weird. The world’s set out to sail on the same boat. Nobody has had the time to carry a compass! We are lost! When will we stop living in the past and stop wanting to leap into the future and never live the present? When will we start writing in our diaries about the unknown faces that offer us a fourth seat in the train or about the little girl who amused you with her questions, about how it felt when you saw the rainbow stretched across the sky, of how it feels to fall asleep listening to the rain outside or how it feels to wake up to put your best dress on, how you felt when you sat by the window looking at the peach sunset, how it felt to have danced all by yourself when no one was watching, how it felt when you read all the good things that filled your scrap book, about the reminiscence that the old photo albums bring with them, of how it feels to lick at the melting hot chocolate layer on a chilled vanilla ice-cream, of how it feels- the soft touch of a woolen blanket as you snuggle inside it on cold night in the light of a burning fireplace, mesmerized by that old song you always love to listen to? When will we learn to do away with the to-do lists, the schedules, and the reminders? When will we learn to shun the violence, the hatred, the jealousy, and the pathos that we ourselves are responsible for? When will we start living a life that matters…that we can call our own…that we can cherish…that we can look back at and just smile from cheek to cheek! Time is ticking! :P

The Stroll

2006-12-26T01:40:00.000+05:30

Through the frosted glass window
Draped with plush upholstery
She reckons a green paradise beyond
From the flawed silhouette of a tree

Loneliness she incarnates,
For seclusion is her companion
Solitude she personifies,
And freedom is an illusion

The Mozart of splintering raindrops
The delicate scent of wet clay
The outside summons, she declines
For indoors she must stay

A picturesque world lies somewhere close
Of olive meadows and vines of sweet smelling rose
Of crystal clear ponds laced with shingle
The hope to be where still hasn’t stopped to linger

To follow the trail to nowhere
And tread along the winding riverside
To chase the fleet of birds in the sky
And reach the fields after a tiring stride

To leap over timber fences
And step into puddles on the way
To skip over hurdles of tussocks
And hop into the bed after a tiring day

A ballet with the whirling wind
That rattles the window pane
A tango around that very tree
In the invigorating rain

But in a strong mansion walled against delight
She lay ridden on the bed day after night
The room may be pretty, full of grandiloquence
But her mere presence there, hints of reticence

She gently closes her soft hazel eyes
A tear rolls off and mercilessly dries
She feels within, the freedom of a thousand doves
Even as she lies there anchored to her woes

She paddles with great vigor against the turbulent tides
For the body may wither but the spirit never dies
In search of an unseen miracle to free her from the clutches
Even as she lies there unmoved, as lifeless as her crutches…

The Last Goodbye

2006-12-26T01:10:00.000+05:30

The road ahead was an uphill climb, but not once did I whine
'cause all through the endless ride you were there, my sunshine!
Having walked a few miles together, it's now time to part
Pick up the emotional baggage and leave with a mellow heart!

I would hate to leave this place dear
Where I found friends for life
I would love to just be here
And freeze it all in time!

It was here we took our friendship vow
For testimony stood the dome
Who would know me so well now
As they did back at home?

We've seen them paint it all- blue green and red
We've seen it getting washed with the very first rain
But on the desk and on our hearts what we once engraved
Will stand the tests of time friend and forever will remain!

Pens and chalks won't be swords
And cows and bulls will go into slumber
For in the grid the 9-lettered words
Would now always spell 'I REMEMBER'

And when we meet next pal, would there be time enough
To share like the good 'ol days a cheerful hearty laugh?
And when we meet next pal, will it the same ever be
A warmer conversation over those hot cups of tea?

This hand would still wave out to all planes that go passing by
'cause in one of them would be my friend with success soaring high!
You may never see me again and chirp a chirpy 'Hi!'
But deep inside I'll be happy, having said The Last Goodbye!

What lies inside the VJTI dome? (fiction)

2006-12-26T00:44:00.000+05:30

The crescent moon shone brilliantly from it's celestial abode to hurt the vanity of the gurkha's just sharpened khukri at the mortal hands of a nearby churriwala (which he admired for long moments before allowing himself into a trance), with it's edges defined with impeccable perfection, carved against the velvet black sky but somewhat marred when the pinnate and wedge-shaped leaves of the tall mysterious trees that circumscribed the vicinity of the architectural grandeur cast their ugly shadows on the achromatic beauty. The wind moved as if to manifest the uneasiness that had begun to ferment in one of the trio as they slithered in through the narrow opening of the cracked creepy wall with grim growths spreading across it creating an eerie mosaic of little leaves, ruddy roots and tendrils that probably had never made it to the labyrinth of botanical jargon.

Man is a strange animal. He intermingles his pettiest desires with surmounting dreams, with his ignorant existence gives it the buzz word karma and sets out to achieve the unfathomable goals with a homogenous blend of insanity and mindlessness making life less life-sized. But this trio had always taken the road less traveled (Is that why their elbows were brushing against the crevices of the damp wall?) and had set out to unravel the small mysteries that dotted their everyday lives and answer the questions that bid a subdued adieu with the dusk but never failed to resurface with the break of every dawn. Tonight what they were about to quest would leave one less question for the following dawn. It's amazing what a bunch of sophomores in their salad days can do!

While one of them had sworn to just touch and go because he had taken up the gauntlet, the other two knew they were on a ride of their lifetime. In the cold dark of that night as they traced their way to the first floor, almost with an instinct, they could hear the faint howl of the canines in the background that were as much a family to the familiar surroundings as were these young men. The howl was soon muffled by their own breaths as they gasped for the thick air filled with the peculiar archaic stench. They stood at the foot of the winding rusted staircase that coiled mysteriously before it disappeared somewhere in the darkness of the poorly lit and flaky cathedral ceiling that probably was never mended since the time it was built in the early 1800s. They let a moment pass to capture in their minds the last visions of the enigmatic structure which had baffled them hitherto and whose secret path they were now about to explore. Curiosity thy name is young mind!

Then they took it... the first step on the dilapidated stairway, one small step for them but a giant leap for the curious mind! As they ascended the stairs the metallic creak of the forbidden stairway reverberated and bounced back on their ears as if the echoes had no where else to go. The snaky climb of a good 20 feet had left them feeling vertiginous in the abysmal darkness they were led to. The place smelled dusty, damp and dizzy all at the same time. His nose twitched. He knew it was coming. An earsplitting sneeze that sounded like a cannon that had been fired at them point blanc. There was something unusually different about the echoes they heard this time. They lasted longer and sounded like the entire town hid itself in the pitch-black darkness and unanimously sneezed to scoff at the frail figure that couldn't take the smell of dust that had settled there just two hundred years back. Even as they whispered they felt that a million microphones were hung from somewhere to amplify every single syllable they uttered and broadcast it on the radio to make the world aware of what three curious extraordinary minds had set to discover on that ordinary night and how the truth they were to ferret out would not astonish anybody as much as to even raise an eyebrow. They knew they were there- in the heart of The Dome! The gargantuan, majestic, mastodonic, colossal architectural masterpiece!

His hand fumbled into his pocket and dropped a dozen things that would have tinkled and rattled on the stony floor had it not been for the soft carpet of dust, till he gripped the torch and switched it on. The beam could not penetrate any deeper than a few inches through the thick air that was misty and hazy with clouds of dust and when it did it only revealed the intricately weaved cobwebs that were carefully set to play cat's cradle with anybody who dared to venture that far. There were queer looking canvass paintings of wealthy aristocrats that seemed to live to dress dandily in cropped coats and high boots. Peeling off layers of dust to emaculate one of those art works revealed in fine print
Proprietors- Victoria Jubilee Weaving Mills 1889

It was a warehouse of arcane artifacts that seemed eager to tell a tale about the mystic and obscure past after being silenced and shut in the dark corners for an aeon under the eclipse cast by nothing but time itself; so enormous that archaeologists could spend their lifetimes digging into the treasure and one day add up to the archives themselves. Neatly lined against the arched walls were lofty chests of dull tarnished heavy metal with embellishments that promised to encase nothing but rich heritage and untold secrets. Ignoring the established belief that opening boxes out of curiosity had always plagued people, he advanced, with the same amount of curiosity which Hera had given Pandora, casting on the trunk his eyes which were now heavy having fought the smoky air just like his choked lungs and signaled his accomplice to give him a hand at it.

Lo behold! A thunderous outburst swept them off their feet like a storm lifts a maple leaf, out of the squalid confines of the dome, back tracking the path, dashing against shafts of tall pillars, thumping against bricked walls, squeezing through narrow slits of ajar doors and broken sashes of fanlights, rolling on rusted railings of old staircases, through dingy corridors, at neck breaking speed traveling through space and time, defying boundaries of the fourth dimension, catapulted in a split second to land on a wooden bench, staring at mathematical derivations that looked like encrypted messages received from outer space just when the words "That's all for today's lecture!" fell on the numb ears and brought the wandered mind back to the present. He looked out of the window and it stood right there in broad daylight, looking as enigmatic as ever and a thought crossed his mind... What ever lies inside that dome? Surely, a thing of mystery is a haunt forever!

Enthusia '05 Jingle

2006-12-26T00:37:00.000+05:30

Life seems to take a new meaning
When it’s time for Enthusia
Like a refreshing summer breeze it comes
This sports mania!

It promises fun n endless excitement
On every participant’s agenda
So get yourself noticed
And become a super nova!

And there you may be trying to ‘escape’
The blitz of the media
Just like any other sports star
Need mention Anna Kournikova?

So flaunt your unfurled flag and hold high your mace
Come be a part of this amazing race
Let cool jerseys dot courts and placards create a maze
Let slogans shoot up to deafening decibels
And cheerleaders add more grace!

The best lay their lucky hands on trophies so strongly coveted
Winning and losing is part of the game,
Only participation leaves you elated
Ups and downs sportsmanship foster
Do you have what it takes to ride ENTHUSIA
-The rocking roller coaster?

Only Sports. No games.

The Art of Living

2006-12-26T00:33:00.000+05:30

Time flies away and before you even know,
The moment you've been waiting for, is now no more!
Moments add up to what we call History,
They leave behind a trail of junk in the memory;
Something we cling to all our life
We weep and we cry and nothing in it seems to be right!

From this very moment make a fresh start
Live each moment that forever will last
And stop brooding over the old, wicked past.
Let the winds of change storm your heart
Take up living as a work of Art!

An inside voice you soon will hear
That will fill your heart to it's brim with cheer.
Life would be enjoyable as if a sweet song,
And nothing in it would ever seem wrong!

Struck

2006-12-26T00:30:00.000+05:30

For him it must have been just another ordinary day,
In the vast ocean of time, those moments must have simply drift away.
But for her they were golden moments that she'll always cherish,
They are now a part of sweet unwashed memories!

He came up to her on that day so lovely,
Sang his heart out truely, madly, deeply.
Suddenly there arose a riot of glee
They shouted,"You successfully completed the dare given to thee!"

Life since then was never the same,
She too was then a part of the foolish lovers' game!
Little did she know that she had a crush,
And everytime he was around she couldn't help but blush!

Never had she imagined she would fall for someone
But she did 'coz he wasn't just anyone.
He seemed to her what worlds failed to hype,
To her he was simply larger than life!

That sudden outburst of infatuation
She feared would be a fatal attraction.
At a time of life like this,
She didn't wish to mess up with prorities!

So all those feelings she's hidden in deep boxes,
Would only open when time provides the keys.
All over again she'll face the cupid's attack,
And she's so sure someone would 'dare' to come back!

Without you...

2006-12-26T00:14:00.000+05:30

Lonely and alone I sit in the dark
Try as I may, those memories do come rushing back..
Of the times when you and I were together
We had sworn we would make it last forever!

It was only destiny that did us apart
And shattered into million pieces this fragile heart..

But there is something that keeps me going on
The faith that we won't be apart for too long!

An angel would come for me as for you it did
And of this pain I'll once again be rid...
It'll take me to the place where I'm meant to be
To the Heavens above...just you and me!