Recreating nani house in Paris

When my grand mom passed away, with her went the ancestral house, our old lands which we grew up around. The summer holidays, the smell of fresh milk, banana leaves, dessert melons, the wift of wood fire cooked simple meals, the wet air from a dessert cooler, the endless banter and fights with cousins, it all came to an end and relegated to a distant memory. Now those sweet memories have been replaced with phones, gadgets, Whatsapp groups, but nothing metaphysical. I found that sense of belonging, that endless banter again, in my house in Paris when the mother came visiting with the aunts. And now that they have gone, it's that emptiness of loss again. But now I know how generations get replaced, what my grand mom was to me, my mom and masis are now. That simple understanding took me 9 years to get to and it had to happen so far away from both my homes. It's memories not places that last forever. Another reason to love Paris, for bringing me to my knees and making me love small things about life again. 

One life...

Feeling poetic today. Almost at the end of our longest trip ever, all I can think of is poetry. Sometimes that's what every emotion flows down to. Poetry. Rolling hills, food that pleased all senses, endless blue ocean, warm hearts, happy faces, loud exciting fiestas, it's bound to bring out the poet in anyone, specially one that already is. We lived our dream out, we have been doing that off late- kind of a bucket list.

Live your life, accomplish your dreams, for we get this one life. And what you do, defines you.

The traveller moves on, to find new pastures, to meet new people... A new world beckons.

Of wishes fulfilled and dreams coming true...

This post marks my longest absence from my blog. Too much has happened too fast in this past year. The love of my life moved to Africa to pursue his dreams and we have been living apart for 10 months. This was interspersed by constant travelling. This year a dream came true.

We travelled to the other end of the world and set our feet on new shores- those which took us to Machu Picchu, Nazca Lines, the Moai on Isla De Pascua and the beautifully perfect volcano- Villarica. Having wanted to see these places since the past ten years, it was my ultimate travel dream fulfilled.

I am going to write more on that soon enough…

I plan to make the time to get going with the website and I plan to make the time to live my life.  

Of the rains...

The rain pounced on the window, streaking the water and forming tiny prisms. At once the prisms refracted the lights in the night sky and blew up the beauty outside. It’s splashing away, the water drooling down the glass... She felt alive again, after a long time. The confused mind and heart decided to rest and instead let everything else around it go... letting the time slip away like the small prisms. Rain washes down all the strange and nurtures the parched earth. She was looking for cohesion and all she found was disdain. The clouds will bear fruit and yield the yellow again. 

Strange

“Anjaane” (Strings) remains the one song that I can listen to anytime, anywhere and I fall more and more in love with it each time. Falling in love with music makes for such an ambient relationship, no expectations, only fulfillment. The song talks about falling in and out of love, but the only thing that I can imagine while listening to it, is a man walking down a desert road, a clear blue sky and a guitar in his hand. No love, no woman, nothing romantic… Aah the contrasting perceptions and the reflected glory of romance. One would imagine me to be nothing less than a die-hard romantic, but that romantic is also a nomad at heart. Roads, music and the sky, and nothing before and nothing beyond...

The zoo of modern workforce... and Delhi, of course

After spending nearly four years here, I think I have figured the city out. It took a painfully long time, but here is the verdict which is a solo word- “Contradictory”. Delhi is a twisted concoction of contradictions. A city built over another, time and again. The vestiges of the past live on, albeit on the sidelines. I never get the opportunity to pop my head around to watch the sidelines while driving to work. But a twisted ankle means princess treatment and translates into being driven to work. As soon as we hit the airport flyover on our way to Gurgaon, I saw the rot below the flyover. The shambling buildings, the resigned-to-fate roofs, and the indolent muck everywhere... And we were on the modern giant cement snake, snaking its way to the brand new city. The sidelines are like the small town India, most people don’t care to know about it. Most city dwellers don’t know about it. We trudge on each day, carried in our mini transporters to the zoo of caged workers typing away the black into the white and cribbing on a daily basis. The zoo keeper has not fed us enough, the zoo management does not treat us well, we feed their mouths- who will feed ours?! The banalities of life have taken over again. Time to break the curse and be free again...

The Delhi that can be a put off....

The ambulance stuck on Dilli roads, yet again. Where is our humanity? Did it evaporate in our self consuming rage? Did we lose it in our stressed minds? Did we leave it behind in our childhood? I suppose we did. We extinguished it from our lives and made space for something more useful- anger... the anger which we spout at every next being (not human anymore) on the road, the anger which we express without solicitation... I wish for these Dilli-wallah's (oh wait, I am one of them now) to grow a heart and let it beat, and not just for themselves. Sigh.

Coffee stains and old wishes

Coffee stains, a white mug, leftover sugar and a cookie. We enjoy our moments and then put them away in dusty corners for storage. We never take them out, dust them and re-use them. We need to... Like the empty coffee mug, enjoy the coffee and re-use it to fill it up with more of something, later. I am re-cycling a wish today. I have been walking the grass with my eyes closed, don’t know where I am headed. I need to look for my path, the path that will lead to where my heart belongs... I know where my heart belongs. How splendidly blessed I am to know where it belongs, unlike people who spend half their lives searching within themselves for the feeling of belonging and spend their other half trying to achieve it. I have known since I was 17 where I wanted to go, I have spent 11 years walking in circles... it is time to walk to the road less travelled... winding and full of thorns, but promising as hell- the promise of fulfillment.

New beginnings

Smoking her pipe, singing "country roads", wondering where home really is. Displacement brings her happiness and permanency is a bore. Rain excites her, those clouds must have travelled from a distance afar, carrying sounds from another world, folk lores from the yore... they burst where they feel like... they live how they want. Wish she was a cloud and cloud live her fantasies out...She taps her feet on the patio, waiting for another season to end and for another to start. Endings generally bring new beginnings...

"something for everybody"

She stood there, watching him while he tried to grab the passing crowd's attention. He was screaming "something for everybody... NYC has something for you, what do you have for me?". He had a mesmerising voice, it stayed with her for a while. What made a real impression in her heart was the line "something for everybody".... She could smell so many different things: fresh pizzas, curry, taco's... Wandering through the streets of the Big Apple, all by herself, she found peace, love and warmth in the most unlikely of places. Her gypsic soul felt the love where others find fear.

There are so many big cities in the world, but the ones that take you along with them are the ones that are the most visited.

Where is the love?

Today, while driving through the mad rush hour in Delhi, the music system started playing "where is the love"? Where is the love, really? Every driver on the road is out there to get you or to get themselves hurt... The love has disappeared today, it may reappear tomorrow it may not... But I feel like it left my spirit and went wandering elsewhere for the meantime. Not to worry, the heart unlike the mind knows no bounds.

Return of the angst

The angst was slowly coming right back. The uncertainities were settling back in. Ah, this is the territory she is the most familiar with... the bliss couldn't have lasted forever. She needed this to be able to write again, and here she was clicking the black away into the light, cherishing each moment of her newfound pain... The contentment stemming from discontent, was the most beautiful of its kind.

Shubhra's wishes

This post is not by me.. It's by a dear friend, my mad Shu wishing my dear husband Sudhanshu birthday ... And it stirred up a gazillion beautiful memories of fun, love and friendship... so much that it had to occupy some space forever on my blog.. love u girl!

Dearest Darling Shoe ( and yes, you'll always be 'shoe' cos I beat you to 'shu' ),

Goa. July 09. You walked out of that airport and gave me this big warm hug. It was the first time we'd met. I immediately felt 'welcome'. You see, it's a strange thing with friends - when you've know someone closely for a substantial period of time and have seen them through love, sickness, happiness, break-ups, weepy ex-boyfriends, psycho ex-boyfriends, ex-boyfriends you didn't quite like etc etc, you sort of feel a little protective about them and also a little possessive. So each time someone comes along, you back off a little, give your friend space and try to not get into protective-possessive zone. With you, I felt strangely protected-possessed myself. Almost as if, what you felt for Rach spilled over and extended out to me. It did. And it was this big warm comforter kinda feeling :)

Shu Thinks: I likey.

Mumbai. July 09. You call me to say you've booked a domain name for me. You have no idea how touched I was.

Shu Thinks: I likey very much.

Delhi. Dec 09. By now, I've lived in your face for a month. You're driving me to work. I'm an hour late already. You're driving at 20 kmph. Why? Because you're discussing, in great detail, an issue of great importance to Rach.

Shu Thinks: Even Superman can't multitask.

Shu Also Thinks: I love him.

And since then, Shu has loved him a little more each day... through all the wedding shopping and the cocoberry tubs and those six moths in delhi and the last six months of being underground, Shu has loved him. A little more each day.

Happy Birthday Jizooo. You ARE the best.

Shu

New story

PATIALA, AMRITSAR, CHANDIGARH, PUNE, COVENTRY, LONDON, MUMBAI

October 7, 2007

There was a street I once knew, there are roads I can’t forget… there are riverets I sat by as ducks swam and there are nights I wished I was home. Yet it all, is so finely etched in my crystal memory that the shadows of the yore beckon me… Nomads don’t know where their heart lies, the bustling city or the solemn village.

This city of teeming millions winds you unto its own and you surrender to the pace and sometimes to the sheer lack of it. Every bit of the city screams for attention- for the beauty or the ugliness, you come to love it nonetheless.

Life takes you back to where it started and leaves you stranded at that corner… Not knowing where to turn, just walk to where the rainbow points.

DELHI

June 15, 210

I found this file after over two and a half years and sit here smiling, staring at it. A friend, and he is the only one, claims that I hated Bombay. Well here is my example that I could never bring myself to hate the city that fed me, nurtured me and taught me more about life than any other place ever could.

Now, the Delhi tenure has come to complete a total of two years and life has taken a settling turn. The nomad still hates the permanency and continuity, yet she has learnt a valuable lesson… one that of marriage. A marriage changes your ways, in so many ways... I can’t leave a city on my whims and fancies. I have another life that I am spiritually albeit happily bound to. All that I can hope is that my soul mate finds his own gypsy and we can take another great journey, another move together. My soul has no roots, not the geographical ones… but yet I find myself rooted to him. Eternally.

Clarity through storm

There are very few things in life which make you forget all the miseries in the world. The distant war, the harrowing cries of children, the love of your husband, the lack of direction.... The antidote to everything miserable is this constant, unabashed rain which is lashing out in front of me. Sitting on the floor and typing out, a little mindful of getting my dear lappie wet, I think of myriad things. Suddenly, though the blurry visibility, everything seems to come out clear. The leaves, the roads, the sky and perhaps the people too.

Moving out of the old into the new

I am sitting quietly, alone, or perhaps is it the song that is keeping me company? Listening to “Suspicious minds”, for almost the first time since I last heard it on the day I moved into this house, I realise we all have suspicious minds- suspicious of others, of ourselves, of the future, of the past... Elvis passed, the song will stay forever, meaning different things to different people. I distinctly remember that day, the day I discovered the wonder of train sounds and rain tapping the windows. This house, will soon be a thing of past. This beautiful wonderful abode where I have shared countless memories with close ones, lived a pretty carefree life, set up home in Delhi... The eyes wet up thinking of the goodbyes to the walls, rooms, corridors. One has to let go of the old things in order to acquire new ones. There is seldom space in life for both.

I haven’t known in a while where I am headed- the direction is mapped out but the wheels keep taking me elsewhere. I don’t meet people I should be, I am not doing the work I should be and sometimes I think I am merely a shadow of my earlier self. Despite having shed the unsure life, the blinding lack of accountability and having accepted to take the baton of the one tie that binds one for life, I find myself in a sea of uncertainty. The only difference from all the previous times is that this time I am not in this alone. I have wonderful hand, holding mine and helping me grow into a better person.

The frame

Robert Evans: There are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each one differently

The mirroring image on the outside was picture perfect. No spots, no dust, no misgivings, no faults, no cracks... Her world seemed so content to the outsiders. No one knew that she wanted to scream out of her frame... She wanted to break the bondage of pain and self harm. No one ever understood her. No one ever will.

"'The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.'" — Salman Rushdie (The Ground Beneath Her Feet).

Settling in and moving on...

Her whole life flashed by in a matter of seconds. She stared quietly at the green outside. Boundless pastures and fields that filled her window and view. Thatch-roof huts, wide fields, small riverets, peace, lack of waste, lack of crowds- it was the neo-paradise. The travelling soul was not ready to settle, geographically or mentally. She searched for her roots but couldn’t find any. The home was far behind and far ahead. In the middle were patches of uncertainty. She did not know brick and mortar, she knew canvasses- to paint and to live in and to love.

The body was bound but the mind was free....

Small only in size

The city to city hopping had made me forget all about the small town India. All that remained in the name of small town memories were in the form of second hand information from the book – Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. It had been 8 years since I went to my parent’s native town and even longer since I visited a village. So the rude shock of road travel in U.P took the mind screaming through small shops, clustered and congested roads, crowded side walks, solitary bakeries, numerous chai stalls, painfully slow life and big dreams. Big trucks loaded with hay, urea, men, women, beds and even hand drawn carriages.... Where else in the world will you see such a sight? I wonder if one day there would be a city to village exodus, whether we will all one day go back to our agrarian roots and farm for a living. What an utterly delightful idea for a soul tired of city nuisances!

I feel my will to write fading as soon as I hit the Delhi airspace. Gone, I can feel it leaving me, like a ghoul.

The vines had bloomed, the grapes were sour. In this line you will find a positive and a negative. But she chose the bloom and the positive, hoping that the grapes will sweeten with the passing of the season. She had been fighting new demons off late, surfacing every now and then in the mushrooming web of thoughts. She wore a mask of impenetrable loneliness. She could not address the most obvious; she thought that the problems may iron themselves out. Like when it is cloudy outside, and we yet refuse to carry an umbrella.