Underground...

I feel like giving whatever little I have up and going far away, to go underground.... Untraceable, far from the crowded cities and selfish souls. Far from the world which knows only how to take and never to return. The void and the vacuum of the seemingly infallible life had become a bit much to stand every day. The will to run in an unknown direction and travel in solitude has taken over my soul completely. All I want is a train, a ticket to anywhere, a set of books, some snacks, a big rucksack of necessities and a clear sky above.

Melancholy and excitement

She had been always been a driven soul, driven by her passion and sometimes by her faith. Her recent sufferings had been a strange mix of melancholy and excitement. Melancholy for what was left behind and excitement for what is yet to come. All she had in common with the previous self was the restlessness and the impassioned spirit. Every day we pursue our days with either wasted energy or a tired soul and lose our perspective on our ultimate goal. We never break up our dreams into small daily plans and we all know that we should.

Shiny old stuff

I pulled out old leather folders and bags unused for a long time. They had been gathering dust and nearly growing mould. I sat them down, despite the late and odd hour and carefully cleaned them. The leather cleanser read “clean with a cloth using light circular movements”. The apt cleansers and the right mind-set. The closets- the metaphysical and the mental ones, need an order sometimes- to be able to refer to the right contents, to rid the clutter and the dust. We need to weed out the unnecessary things, sometimes when they don’t need us and sometimes when we don’t need them. Everything in life needs nurturing, occasional cleaning and lots of sunlight.

Drifting

The pain and the discomfort became visible and apparent. She can never mask her emotions. Something always gives it away- the expression on her face or the tremble in the voice. What was once a pleasurable torment had now become the Achilles heel. Only a fragment of her smiling self remained and she disappeared slowly into an abyss that her heart had formed inside her. She felt as if she were hung up by her toes, unable to eat, breathe, sleep... talk... She wanted to wear a farce and pretend nothing happened, but something had. Something irreversible. They say you reap what you sow...

Yippeeeee!

Most of you will read about this tomorrow in papers or see it on the news tonight. We have scored a second big victory against the tobacco industry today after the ban on public smoking last October. From May 31st this year, all cigarette and other tobacco products would have to display mandatory pictorial warnings on their packets. The Supreme Court finally let us have our way (in a limited manner albeit) and has directed the Government of India to enforce the law mandating the display of pictorial warnings which will see all tobacco products displaying images reflecting adverse health effects of tobacco on 40% of the front panel. This victory has been six years in coming and I can’t stop grinning from ear to ear... My first ever writ petition, my first ever draft!

Also

I drove through the hailstorm, the city lights coming on at this time. I saw some shuddering in a corner and some playing gleefully, mindless of the little rocks hitting their bony heads. The accompanying rain flushed the scorched and dusty surfaces clean. The city looked like a newly born life, pretty and spotless. Sometimes we need these storms to invade our private spaces to flush out the inner toxins.
____________
“I wish there was a cookbook for life, you know? With recipes telling us exactly what to do.”...
“You know better than anyone: it’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.”

You cross my path, but I don't cross yours

I sat outside in the balcony in the dead of the night. Alone but not lonely. The trains brought me human company every now and then. The little wheel in my heel was satiated by the thought of journeys that others take. I watched people pass on their journey to other cities, other worlds... Carried by noisy, yet strangely soothing trains. At that time, most compartments were dark and the occupiers in a slumber, yet I caught glimpses of lit up bogeys, people playing cards, children wandering about. So many lives cross my backyard every day and every night. Rich, poor, famous, oblivious of my existence, I of theirs. A mutual oblivion that can never be resolved...

mUjhik association

We were talking about song association last night. I associate most songs with events/places... I associate the song “Mitwa” with Warwick... Sitting in my room, listening to Hindi songs with increasing intensity everyday, as a way of connecting to the mother-ship (home). I lived in a student block called “Lakeside”, the most posh of them all. Yet all we had was a bed, a table-chair, a book shelf, open racks, and a closet- oh and a loo to ourselves. I used to play “Suspicious minds” on a loop too. It was summer, summer in England is brilliant. I had a view of the farm in the back, green land stretching beyond naked eye view. Beautiful... I used to play it in the office, in the International Office where I worked (my first real job) full-time. Listening to it right now in my present office, transports me back to that country. I so miss it. You must think I miss everything! I love today, but yesterdays were a lot of fun too. A wee fragment of what has passed should always be carried forward as a good memory.

Of karma and more....

A single common human desire is to levitate above reality... and mostly, in the pursuit of the profound, we encounter the banal. I had been reading about flower power, hippies, the Nam war, napalm and it all got muddy inside my head. In the manner propounded by numerous new-age self-help books which discuss spirituality that conveniently exists only in the Oriental East, I should want to climb Himalayas, alone, in the search of the “youth fountain”. Or better still, look for a personal guru- an enlightened yogi who would lead me to nirvana. So does the much promised microcosm exist? Perhaps I intend never to find out. Over the last four decades, we have been obsessed with rock and roll and they (read the West) with karma and neo-sanyasism. Maybe a day will come when we consult the West the learn about our culture. I, for my bit, am getting a copy of a Puran that Titli recommended... English version, of course...

Disillusioned

Jagdish Tytler goes free again. Tytler feels “vindicated” because “the case destroyed” his career. After the Nanavati Commission and all the various admin commissions set up before Nanavati, took little or no cognizance of implication of Congress leaders in the Sikh riots of 1984 in Delhi, the last bolt from the Congress before the elections this year was to “vindicate” its tarnished leader- Tytler by giving him a clean chit. Strange coincidence it is then that Manmohan Singh had announced during one of the first parliamentary sessions of his government, that “the issue of 1984 riots will be revisited as there is an existing sentiment that justice did not prevail”. In 5 years, they replicated their previous achievements in this regard. The others, despite clear and pressing evidence, also went scot-free- HKL Bhagat died in 2005. This is the distressing political state of our country- one young and previously unknown leader from the opposition makes communal and disturbing remarks about another religious community while the ruling party vindicates the likes of Tytler who is purportedly responsible, along with Bhagat, for deaths of over 4000 Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. Jai Hind! Long live democracy... and oh yeah.... please vote!
Refer for details to-
Movie: Amu
Book: When a tree shook Delhi- Manoj Mitta and H.S Phoolka

Cut, open and dry

I cut myself up yesterday while opening a can of sweet corn. It was small cut but it bled for a while. I tried sealing the wound with a kitchen towel and when all else failed, I had to run it under tap water. The rush of water caused more pain than before. Funny how it hurt more the further my finger was from the tap, and the closer it was to the mouth of the tap, the less it hurt. The deeper we go, the more it hurts. The analogy of the two processes- an open cut and love is uncanny. Morbid? Yes... But well then...

The Reluctant Loner

She sat alone reading “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” and enjoying her solitude. The life had come to a standstill in the quaint cafe and the world seemed to soak positive energy all around. The setting was perfect, the absence of human company, the cinnamon-maple toasts, the smell of fresh cakes, the nice cuppa earl grey tea and the intriguing book. She explored the pages with increasing interest till three men ascended upon the landing and started conversing in the cafe mistaking it to be a noisy pub. She recognised one of them as someone she had one debated against and lost to at a national debate. Strange how we remember defeats far more easily than our victories. The exit of the men left her to herself again and she could once again be numb in her reading, but she chose to step out for a smoke instead. She felt a hand on her shoulder which startled her. The man just stared at her for no apparent reason and when she asked as to what she had invited his pat; he smiled in amusement and said “to the loss of your recently bought book”. He handed her the book she had been reading, flashed the whites again and waited, probably for an apology or a word of thanks. What he got instead was an offer to smoke with her... She noticed his light brown eyes and the peaky nose more closely than she had before. He seemed to always replace what she had lost. The losses were the crevices in the heart which were being slowly filled back in.

Re-visiting the by-gones

We got off the flight and I nearly kissed everything in sight, including the dilapidated Bombay cabs. The beautifully sordid city has been the last love for the longest time in passing. The sea mist hits you the moment you step into the city, the city which exists in conflict with modernity, while at war with the history, yet sublime in its being. It finds that converging line between the past and the new and stays wonderfully on it. The 7 days spent there were a much needed break from the increasingly boring Dilli. The sights, smells and the tastes of Bombay always make me nostalgic about the one year spent there- the fish stink in Colaba, Karan’s clammy flat, Hard Rock, old friends, old office, they all make me miss the place as if I had left it ages ago. It hasn’t even been a year yet and I cry for the city. One night after I was done with my social calls, I just took the cab around the south on my own- the “town” as its called- went to Muchhad’s for paan, walked around Marine Drive, gaped at my old office from below (it stands 17 floors high), took a tonga ride in Colaba and had strawberries and cream at “Batchelors”. Even made a trip to Churchgate in the morning to look at people queuing up for shared-cabs. Aaaaaah. The city that takes everyone in and makes them its own.

Walking on broken glass

I woke up early today. Unable to sleep and unable to dream, I found myself taking a walk in the park downstairs. I would have imagined it to be full of morning walkers and old couples but it lay solemn, almost deserted. The lack of humanity comforted me no end. The sophomoric behaviour on display by certain people in the fairly recent past had piqued me immensely. From that were borne my own follies and guilt. The putrid thoughts needed instant cleansing; they needed to be scrubbed and rubbed out of the mind and leave it as it were before the invasion. "Snow" is playing in my head and on my i-pod. It has more meaning to me now than ever before.

__

"Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow
Privately divided by a world so undecided
And there's no where to go
In between the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow
Running through a field where all my tracks will
Be concealed and there's no where to go"

Chaotic Fulfillment

Her palace of illusions had been witnessing bouts of reality. She washed her head of all the mess and set off towards her chaotic fulfilment. All the others had come away unbidden, but Shoe had found a way in. A “sue” in the beginning and a “shoe” in the end. Oh and a “darn” in the middle. The messy long name, which sounded perfect. Perfectly stupid, perfectly sweet, perfectly perfect and perfectly adorable man... She had been talking about an ambulance a while ago and it seemed to have arrived, at least the time stood still and the wounds were being sealed, whether they would heal forever or not. Help came from the most unexpected quarter and it lingers in the air above. The heart actually jumped with joy than nag with worry and confusion. She felt like she was falling and this time the feeling of falling was eerily more assuring than scary.

The blue maqbara

So here we are contemplating new twists, turns and hopefully pleasant ends. Negotiating happiness with life has become the order of the manor. What else would you rather negotiate? I was driving by the blue maqbara again and wondering who lay there, or if anyone lay there at all. The spirit must be anything but lonely with thousands of cars crossing it by every day and night. A strange roundabout it had come to be. A strange afterlife to have... It led to - Humayun’s tomb, Hazrat Nizamuddin’s Dargah, the Lodhi Road with its gardens and India Gate. All places where either others were buried or commemorated. The blue tomb is one of the prettiest, it looks stark in the orange dusk light. The nomad in me yearned not to love the city yet, not to grow roots, to move on. But the transition had started already. I loved the old monuments and the lovely food, I had made peace with the errant drivers, the annoying fellow north Indians, the pesky rickshaw-wallahs and the lack of sea. I am not a convert yet, from being the Bombay-loving-self but Delhi exuded a romance which Bombay may never be able to exude in its money-making rat race.

Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar, bus ishq mohabbat pyaar....

Thank you Arpit!

So in the middle of my whining tirade, a friend cheered me up... This is what he wrote:

U know they built the great wall of China to stop RB from entering..
They failed miserably.
RB can set ants on fire. With a magnifying glass. At night.
RB did in fact built Rome in a day..
RB can judge a book by its cover.
RB once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants today are known as giraffes.
RB Doesn't wear a watch. She decides what time is it.
RB's Pulse is measured on the Richter scale..
RB had to stop washing clothes in the ocean.. The tsunami's were killing people.. She just said oops.
RB cannot be found through google. U simply cannot find her. She finds you.
RB can watch an episode of 60 mins in just 22 seconds..
RB can sneeze with her eyes open..
RB doesn't own a house. She walks into random houses.. And people just move..
RB can smell, what the rock is cooking.. Coz the rock is her personal chef.
RB can divide anything by zero..
RB had counted to infinity. Twice.
RB doesn't go on the Internet. She has every Internet site stored in her memory. She refreshes web pages by blinking.
RB uses pepper spray to spice up her steaks.
RB is the sweetest friend of the fuRBall. Period.

He tells me these are popular over the net, but anyways.... A BIG AWWWWWW.... Thanks ARPIT, you are the sweetest :-)

Bangla Sahib and the urge to leave

The little girl was dressed in red overalls and a white tee. She couldn’t have been over 3 years of age. Her mother tried to keep her steady, but she bowed down three times in succession, to allow her forehead to gently touch the marble step which lay before the holy book. The golden bandana on her head, rode up, revealing several brown curly strands of hair. I watched her, perplexed and fixed, admiring the sweet soul of a child and her simplicity. Zing’s eyes were still closed in prayer and concentration, prayers which were being recited in a language that she didn’t understand, but brought to both of us, the calm and the peace that we needed. Before going to pray, I had just rushed out of my office, all my books, my snaps, my files tucked under my arm, my laptop packed, determined not to return. I don’t remember when was the last time I did something this impulsive. This time the impulse was strong and honest. The wish never to return was more resolute than ever. One can work for human rights all they want, but there is no compromising one’s honour, integrity and self-respect. I want to be like that little girl, keep my faith and bow, but carefully, and avoid hitting the marble too hard. How possible is that?

Heartless Dilli

Zing and I were out midnight cruising and came across this huge road block, cars lined up bumper to bumper at Lajpat before the Defence Colony flyover. Two massive Metro construction trucks had slowed down the traffic. Suddenly the sound of an emergency siren boomeranged through the stretch and an AIIMS ambulance came buzzing by. We pulled over to the left to allow the metro truck to park on the left, so that traffic stuck behind it could be eased out. Others just kept at their positions without budging for the man in need of emergency medical care. The Camry in front of the ambulance did not give space for 10 whole exhilarating minutes. Those 10 minutes could have been a life saver, someone may have lost one of his family last night, those 10 minutes could have eased someone’s physical agony. It is at times like this, that one feels helpless, disheartened and still amazed at the lack of humanity in those who walk among us. Delhi doesn’t fail to surprise one; where indolence and apathy are concerned, Delhi-ites win hands down.

Big Fish

Its one of my favourite movies- it has everything... magic, love, mystery, loss and happiness... I had found my “Big Fish” and it did not even need a wedding ring as bait (reference to the movie “big fish”). It just took my heart as bait and clung on to it for a long time, without caring for it.

She mended the broken fences with fresh white paint and nails, but there is only so much that cosmetic corrections can do. The fences are important; they decide for us who to keep out and who to let in. They act like a moat around our castle, the ditsy fall into the water, unable to climb up to the land and the strong come through, riding the water. The broken fences and the dry moats symbolise a guard down, a wish for death and the inability to recover. The big fish left an impact like none others, the guard down had begin inflicting slow mind numbing poison into her soul. The impact, that would last forever.