Emptiness

(also called "a bit sloppy but it struggled out of me")


Fill it.

Mocking space

Midnight room

With you

With you

Fingers, forearms

Shoulders, calves

Your chest, your breath

You

We haven’t met

But do you remember

The last time we parted?

I’m afraid I’ve forgotten

Where we promised to meet

But I’m waiting

In my

Midnight room

Mocking space.

Save Tonight

Slap yourself silly

And a hut somewhere

Far away

Fell down

But you’re still

Sitting on the bed.

Albeit a bit red.

Things I wish for today:

to hear a song that has every tune and beat and tempo in the world and that makes you swoon and lilt and cry and bop in frenzy. 


to say "i'm popeyed with awe" and then laugh away the awe with the word popeyed.


to sleep in a room that's all blue and changes colour to a lemon yellow from my breath the longer I sleep. and then i wake up bright like a slow smile.


to live another life and remember it - russian spy, that girl with the fierce eyes and pugnacious lips, a sleek animal with silky pelt that doesn't care about anyone but itself and has no conscience, extinct human.


to feel like my heart's pulsing silver again and is shaped like a hotrod.


to have a easier system in place for travel. What's the world coming to when desire isn't enough to take you places?

Musica

There's a reason to keep FTV playing. The music is fab!
Some songs I heard on the channel that I love:


1. Harvest Moon - Neil Young
2. Going back to 505 - Arctic Monkeys
3. Stitched Up - Herbie Hancock featuring John Meyers
4. Hometown Glory - Adele

The Thing With Dreams

From the time we are children we have innuemrable dreams that we remember indulgently.

Like running a boarding school.

Like being Ms. Universe (ok.. some dreams you remember with a cringe)

Like dancing in a broadway show as the main lead.

Like being Head girl.

Like running a huge conglomerate with all your friends.

Getting a tattoo.

And some you fulfilled and some you gladly forgot you had and some slip away while leaving you happy that you had them. You enjoyed the process of building a dream, detailing it, agonizing over it so much, that you don't really mind when it vanishes to nothing. It was special even as a castle in the air. Hell.. it was special because it was a castle in the air.

So Nemesis, the day you called to share your good news, you must know that about 83% of my childhood dreams died.

Food the Leveler

All my friendships have begun with food. A deep shared love for some kind of food. (Freud would comment on this.)

Paris, Alanis and I are different. We would never have hung out at the same clubs (if I ever went to a club at all). I would look on perplexed as Alanis hugged the same people every single day for straight 20 seconds as if she hadn’t just met them the day before. Paris would piss me off with her la-di-lah “I can’t go for a picnic coz I get carsick” ways. But we all loved our dal-chawal-bhindi. We didn’t just love it… it filled our soul. It bound us together in a way that only something that means home can. This shared meal at Mrs. H’s table was what made us sisters.

Another friend from my college days, Shade, was made over college vada pav. We marvelled daily at the sheer perfection of college anna’s vada pav. The chutney was so right… so suited to the vada pav that even I, who like my vada pav unadulterated, loved it. Every day we would wander over to the canteen without thought. Order our vada pavs like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally… “Anna, ek Vada pav, sambar nahin, chutney side mein or ek mirchi bhi.” Etc. We went on to share books, obsessions and a disregard for others.

Shade is now in NZ and I haven’t been back to that Vada Pav. Maybe I will one day.

In Bombay I met Harry. Or she met me. And in our apartment we bonded over oil slicked, takeout Indian Chinese. We were poor. We were struggling and we were stingy. Jimmies Kitchen was cheap and his servings were more than generous. So we patronized Jimmy. Or Jimmies. Grammar not being his strong point obviously. Harry and I also are like criminals who become friends because of a job done together. It started one day when Gaia was really in a temper and cooking. She was banging pans and vegetables around and we decided to cut our losses and get out before we were forced to eat food definitely not made with love. So both of us faked work calls and left 15 minutes apart. We then went to this shady joint on Carter road called Mezbaan and gorged on Alu parathas. It became our escape spot. Our place of flight in case of fight.

I’ve a friend at work. We have a quid pro quo relationship. I take her home cooked food and she ferries me around in her car as and when she can and I need.

Some of closest friends are also family. There are a lot of jumbled memories of growing up with them so I guess it’s not just about food… but certainly katha dal with talna, negia, labsi, kadi, badi, bhindi, mirchi, kat, teen belan dal, ghee is in our blood. It is the aroma that brings us home from wherever we may be. It is a flavour we are passing on to our kids and it is a spread that means togetherness. It's strange but friends who are as blood as blood love this meal too! hmm.

All relationships are about something basic I guess. So my friendships began with food – one of the base things on Maslow’s pyramid. And since then we’ve just been climbing right to the top of it.

Dear Diary

One day:

There is joy in me. A helpless kind. The kind that makes you dig up Bryan Adams and bop in front of the mirror. Then kind that makes you buy lipstick and then pout to see the effect. The kind that I want to rein in because I’m scared to feel something that has no meaning.

There is joy in silliness that all the sense in the world cannot erase. It just comes and laughs inside you like a jester juggling in the midst of the King’s court.

One day and then some:

And then there’s sadness. Just like that. Just that helpless.

Baarish is different from Barsaat

There’s something very peculiar about rain. It’s always got its own agenda. The rain that makes you want to snuggle in bed and read a book is distinct from the rain that wants you to snuggle in bed and watch a movie. Then there’s the rain that makes you go into you iTunes and dig out Janet Jackson or some other lost song from the past.

There are days when rain just wants to meet mud and play. The red smell of it draws you to the window and makes you look at a football with lust.

Dull throb rain means to make you as sad as it is. No matter how young or old you are it wants you to remember and pine.

There’s verandah rain and chai rain and sometimes the two go together. Rain that calls for lovemaking plays a softer tune than the one that makes you dance.

Some might think that it’s not the rain but the mind that has feeling. But that’s just silly. It’s a well known fact that Rain is a person and has moods and MPD like the rest of us.

Today Rain is just rain. She’s playing her cards close to the chest and won’t let me in on her plans. So I’m in office. Tomorrow maybe we’ll play hooky.

K.I.S.S

I feel like writing for Paris.

A letter of love to her.

A poem.

A story.

An ode.

A book.

Something that will capture what it means to me that she reads what I write.

That she loves what I write.

That she checks every two days for an update even when I go months without writing.

And I realize as I note these points… that this is more a love letter from her to me than vice a versa.

And I cannot top it with any words.

A Secretive Writer

Blank. That’s right.

Not because I have nothing to say this time.

But because I have too much.

What kind of writer has secrets I ask myself?

Expose yourself

they say

Tell of that time

you

Peed in your pants

Gave 20 desperate calls

Loved and lost

Kissed a woman

Hated your parents

Casually forgot a lover

Wished your dog was dead

Crushed a heart and grinned

Undressed before the mirror

Tell it all

In words

And painful, twisted strokes

In sighs

And anguished murmurs

Laugh as you reveal

Your demented passions

And shallow heart.

You secretive writer

You counterfeit soul

Lie. 

Homeward Bound

Gypsy, gypsy, gypsy

They call me.

Strangers

Call me gypsy.

It’s who I’m pretending to be.

 

 

My Piggy Bank

Tradition. From the Latin ‘traditionem’. Meaning “handing over, passing on”.

Nowadays most often we hear the word tradition in context to religious and cultural practices being hard headedly carried out or defiled- in both cases creating a furore. And in this set meaning on passing on. But I like what tradition means in the present sense. In the now. I like the continuity it symbolizes. It’s like procreating without the hard hours of screaming labour.

Our family has a tradition of spending summer holidays together. The entire Flanagan clan collects at the family home before taking off for a holiday together. Four generations together – children spilling out of bosoms, grandparent throwing tantrums, cousins sharing traumas, one generation misunderstanding the other, lazy days spent hiding under the fan to escape the scorching heat, lazier evenings in a swimming pool and long nights of planned and unplanned adventures. You love, you crib, you enjoy, you say you’re never coming back again, you do come back again, you watch the young ones grow, you avoid your elders, you hug a child close, you try to find a quiet corner, you play cards, you discuss books passionately with your young niece, you kiss each child good night, you mediate in fights between relatives, you wonder how you aren’t deaf yet, you rediscover why you hate and love to be a Flanagan. It is a great tradition.

I want to create many more. I want others to make their own and make me part of their pacts with life.

In the past year, this thing called Life and growing up has taken its toll on a lot of India’s crowd. Everyone’s working, juggling no less than three sets of families they have to satisfy, trying to be comfortable with who they’re maturing up to be… as well as eke time out for each other. Things are different. Alanis worries that being married and moving to another country is going to tell on her connection with all of us here but the sad truth is that just living in different suburbs seems to be enough. Because a girl’s life is made of immediate things and tiny joys. A great hair day, an impromptu middle of the night walk, a song that made you cry, a moment of desolation that came and went before you could hit the dial button… and unlike in college when all of us lived in the same house and shared every passing minute… now we’re lucky to meet once a month.

But I’m rooting for traditions to combat modern life. That’s what they’re supposed to do anyway right… join people together across time and place in a joint activity, feeling and hope?

So here I am making a bunch of traditions. To quote: Some traditions were deliberately invented for one reason or another, often to highlight or enhance the importance of a certain institution. Traditions may also be changed to suit the needs of the day, and the changes can become accepted as a part of the ancient tradition.

1. The first of these was made years ago with Harry – a weekly dinner table conversation. And Christmas eve together. We’ve managed to keep to this more or less.
2. An annual holiday with the Four… so far so good.
3. Always, always kiss each of the children goodnight and talk to each individually about whatever they like.
4. Dropping by Frederick’s uninvited for a surreal evening of abrasiveness, affection and a fuzzy reality that is quiet and says nothing.

I want many, many, many more… with Paris, with Mars and Paris, with Sky, with my home as the centre of a tradition… If it’s Christmas we’re going to India’s. And then a fortnightly dinner plan at someone’s house. A monthly weekend away with friends – old and new.

That’s another thought. Everywhere I go I meet people that I like so much that you feel like you’re just making so many friends when you don’t even find time to bond with the one’s you have. There might be a balance to strike but there’s joy in growing a family. And it’s a lovely feeling when someone new seems to meld seamlessly into a circle you’ve already built.

I just want to end on a memory that Paris and I were thinking about yesterday.

It’s the old millennium. Paris and I have just met a month or so ago in college. We’re part of a larger group that hangs out together and movie plans have been made. It’s great. It’s a new youth flick, we’ll be going in a fun large gang, eating pop corn, hooting, going out for dinner, etc. College bonding with people you’re thinking you might be friends with.

And then by the time the day rolled around, everyone dropped out for some reason or another. I don’t remember why.

So there we were, two relative strangers thinking, ‘umm… should I offer to postpone the plan when the whole group can be there and when it’ll be fun?” And we didn’t. We said, “to hell with it… let’s watch a movie.” We went and made fun of a shitty film and found that we didn’t need other people to make a plan fun. In fact we didn’t need other people to make a plan. That was true when we were ‘relative strangers’ and I’m guessing that it will be true now… when we are, for lack of a better word, friends.

A Short Story

The Importance of being Earnest
“I love you.”
“hah hahahhaahha. You’re such a joker kid. I love you too.”

As You Like It
“How many kids do you want? Where do you want to live?"
"What about you?"

Great Expectations
“I bought new lingerie. I did up my room real nice. You wanna come over?”
“No.”

Crime and Punishment
It’s been ten years since I loved.

The Idiot
It’s been ten years since I loved.

The Glass Menagerie
Where’s Sal? And Quinn? And Smith? And Shade?

Wuthering Heights
And in my heart there is a place that’s vast and bare, ravaged and quiet, dark and watchful; that cannot be heaven because it is so used to hell.

Time Takes It's Own Sweet Time

To continue a tradition I started last year, I’m just doing a quick recap of year 2008.
At the end of last year I said and I quote, “2007 for me was the year of friends and beginnings. In a very God Shiva sense. Things got destroyed and were regenerated.
Something paramount happened in almost everyone’s life this year and I can only wish that 2008 sees it all through happily.”

Well… 2008 - the reality.

Audrey Jane did get married to her Bingley. The wedding was a fun affair for all of us but her. She’s made a cozy little nest and is in jobs that keep her out of home so much that she doesn’t get a chance to enjoy the nooks she has created.

Bee got hitched too… a lovely resort wedding. And I just have to hand it to her - she was one chilled out bride and really meant it when she said that all she wants is for everyone to enjoy the wedding. There were no feelings of pique that all of us were hanging out while she sat thru pujas. She was rather cute in her gajras and as matter of fact as ever. If Bee is ever anything but less in control of herself… I want to be there to see it.

Mars quit his job and got one as a freelancer. He’s also in talks to set up a business of his own with a friend and another with India. He still comes on TV, still gets to test awesome bikes and go on trips but he no longer has to burn the midnight oil.

Paris is sailing along. They’ve moved to a new house and she’s happy with the bigger space. I’m sure yoga will help her achieve further nirvana of the old soul.

Titania has taken the reins of Mr. H’s factory. She knows no other enjoyment and wonders at us mortals talking of meagre things like love and fresh air.

Sky’s movie is all but ready to go on floor but recession has pushed it by a few months. This gives her time to get fit, look hot right in time for all the press she’s going to get.

Sytar and her husband moved closer to where India stays and there have been many lazy evenings spent over movies and board games and teas of various flavours.

Alanis got a registered wedding done in London with the DR. but we’re still due our Indian affair. She’s happy with her choice of man not so much with her man’s choice of country.

Kat got her certificate that qualifies her to teach dance and is happier than she’s ever been. Now if only her family was happy that she was happy.

Sal is going strong with his girl.

Aldair’s grown up but doesn’t like to admit it. Once upon a time India took him at face value but now she’s reading between the lines.

India doesn’t know how her year was. In this moment it was a dead year… her skin has mottled, her animation is mechanical, her hair is lank and she wears plum lipstick to hide the rest. But ask her tomorrow.

a new year is never the answer. a new year will soon just be the old year.
S'lainte.

Make Just One Someone Happy

It's been a really long time since I wrote here. I felt like I didn't even remember how to log on.
Anyway… there have been a lot of things on my mind and nothing concrete really. It's probably the first time I don't have a "peg" or a central idea to why I’m writing.
At least not yet. Maybe as I continue rambling something will emerge. Actually there is something that I have been thinking about a lot... Home. Having One. Doing one up. Feeling the need to go back to a place.
What does "home" mean to people? Comfort? Security? A place where you have no obligations? Where you're free to do as you please because it's your space? A place you can turn to without feeling burdened by gratitude? A place where you're always welcome?
I guess all of the above. I've felt some of these things at some of the places but never all in one place. It's a strangely vagrant feeling. Like some part of you or maybe even all of you is not in your body but looking for contentment in a place it hasn’t found yet.
And when I do I’ll always have fresh flowers in it. I’ll go buy daisies and gerberas and carnations and roses in pinks and yellows and whites and reds and peaches everyday and have them grinning about the house.
The greatest romance of my life will be finding a home.

And You Thought All We Care About Is Money.

The process of meeting single guys is fraught with he-could-have-been-the-one-if-only-he-didn’t-something type of conditions. I’m pretty sure every girl has her own set of standards for The Man. Some more predictable than others – smart, intelligent, funny, drop dead gorgeous, rich or getting there, etc and some that are unique to just you. So I asked around and got some interesting answers.
My question was simple, “What is that one elusive thing, almost a subconscious thought that makes you want to meet a guy again?” (this basically means anything that is not a given, the proverbial X factor infact)

Here is a list of x factors women came up with:
1. If I think I can fart in front of him I meet him again
2. if I can picture him as a CEO (simply picture.. the guy could be a NGO activist for all I care but he should look like he could be a CEO)
3. I imagine the kiss and if it doesn’t gross me out I’m in for the second date
4. I think about walking into a family wedding or a party with the guy and if I feel good/ proud about that thought, I’m okay with walking into a coffee shop for a second time.
5. If he has a pulse.

I need to ask more women. Unfortunately all my non-single friends claim they didn’t really have a criterion. Ha.

Where there's a will, there's a word

So Paris texts me this morning saying, “If you cannot be the poem, be the poet. Nice na?”
I get suspicious. What is she implying? Huh. I could be a poet if I wanted.
If I wanted to
I could say boo
To scare you
Or I could coo
To comfort you.
I could write a line
With a pen of mine
I could write nine
They would be fine.
See? Explains a thought in rhyme. Poetry. Poet. Ha.
Having comforted myself with this jiffy rhyme I text her back.
It would be lovely to be someone’s poem. It’s like being someone’s song only without the tune.

If you could be a poem which one would you choose? If you could be a song which one would you be? If someone was to read you a passage what would you like to hear? If you could command words from a mouth that you love what would they be? If an artist were to come to life whose Muse would you be?
I take Dali. I’d like to imagine that all my restlessness and motion and mobility of lips, eyes, hair, hands would be his fluidity of brush. (I write for myself all the time as you can see.)
If I could hear a passage, heck, even find someone to read it to, I’d pick Wuthering Heights – Catherine’s talk with Nelly.
If I could be a poem I’d like it to be one written for me. Good, bad but mine.

Wisps of Smoke

I feel like talking about cigarettes. Everything I can think of about them.
When I was in school I used to judge guys on whether they smoked. Not harshly but I preferred a non smoker over a smoker. I guess when you’re busy defining yourself at that age you come up with these list of dos and don’t. Nice girls don’t being the most popular. So I thought nice boys don’t either.
But then came the other defining realization. I don’t like nice boys.
I think it started with dating Aldair (who gave up smoking or claimed he gave up smoking for the period that we dated.) But he needn’t have bothered. I no longer care if guys smoke or don’t. I’ve grown up to bigger don’ts.
There was this para in Atlas shrugged on smoking that I love…

"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

I remember I mailed it to Aldair and he didn’t appreciate that I was encouraging him to smoke. But I wasn’t really. I just appreciate words like fire and man and force and tamed and burning strung together. Heh. Freud would have a field day with me. Or actually I’m too pedestrian for him.
The other thing I read about cigarettes that I like the imagery of is that the writer Amrita Pritam was madly in love with this man and they would meet and sit in silence while he smoked and after he left she would smoke the butts he left behind to inhale him. In fact she has written a few lines on that:

Ek Dard hai

Jo maine cigarette ki tarah piya hai

Kuchh nazmein hain

Jo maine raakh ki tarah jhaadi hain...

There’s an English translation that I don’t really think is right. Either way I just like the story behind it.
The only story I have with cigarettes involves a night long smoking session. Kat’s sister had a house party and the clean up involved her getting rid of cigarettes from all over the world. Somehow that packet landed with me as the best candidate to regulate contraband. So it lay in my cupboard for months with Mars and Salvatore trying to convince me that they’re smoking anyway so I might as well save them some money. I could have I suppose but I was pain in the ass sister.
And a good thing too. One night Paris and I had nothing better to do. We got into Lauran Bacall mode and smoked every single brand in that packet. More, Marlsboro Light, Classic Mild, Nice, Gudang Garam, Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Benson & Hedges… that was it I think.
There’s a cigarette brand called Elixir (pretty self explanatory) and another called Romeo y Julieta… isn’t that interesting? I wonder why they named it that and what it tastes and smells like. A little sweet, a little tragic?
That was it for me and cigarettes. In later years when some classmates in my post grad course urged me to beat the stress with the sticks I was amused and disinterested. Without wanting to sound condescending I can’t believe that’s why people smoke or start smoking. When I think of myself smoking I feel like a poseur. Like a little kid playing dress up in front of her mom’s mirror as she clanks around in heels too big for her. And now that I think about it I never played dress up either.
Cigarette aficionados can tell the smokes apart I’m sure but even to a non smoking, weak olfactory nerved person like me the smell of a cigarette is the most definite thing. It’s as distinct and strong as the smell of my first heart break.

(I think this might be part of a Pensieve tag where in I write all the associations I have with a particular word. You are welcome to throw me a word.)

picture's from flickr

Never Say No

This has been going on for days. In the quest for a better lifestyle, better skin, better work output I decided to start sleeping early and waking early to put in some serious solo writing hours. But it isn’t meant to be. Everyday something comes up.
Just last night I’m practicing deep breathing to relax my body into sleep when I’m nudged awake.
“Come on sweetie… wakey wakey.”
“No. Go away. It’s late. It’s already 12. I should sleep now.”
“But I’m up and I want to do it.”
“I’m tired now.”
“Oh come on! I’ve got some great new ideas I want us to try out.”
I am tempted. I am caught. My silence is taken as compliance and I am wooed. Soft words float over me, powerful words arouse me. A magical touch lingers in my blood taking over my thoughts, my mind is coming alive and compelled by a greater force I feel my hand reach out…
It hits the clock.
“Listen to me. I am tired! Why don’t we do this in the morning? See? I’ve set an alarm. We’ll get up and do it then. All fresh.” I try for a jaunty tone.
“I may not be in the mood in the morning.” The threats really fly.
A little worried I change my tone to a wheedle, “Don’t be like that. We need to break patterns and I’ve been told early morning is a really good time.”
“Really? Good for you. Let’s see you do it on your own.” Bang. And gone.
Damn. Now I really am screwed.
Come morning. I open my eyes and sit up. I wait. And wait. I decide to start on my own. But I’m not able to hit the right zones solo.
That’s when I give up. You can’t mess with the Muses. They’re Greek. They’re on a different time zone. I have to work on their schedule. I utter a silent apology, pull up the covers and go back to sleep.
Moral of the story: When you’ve got the energy flowing forget routine or you’re definitely not going to bed satisfied.

Work In Progress

I spent the best part of my childhood living in a place that would be something between a village and a town. Our house had made its place near a river. The water wasn’t clear but a deep green like water moss. Groves bordered two sides of the house – mangoes and guavas. Two separate gardens were carefully maintained by my mother. We hung tree ladders and clambered on walls, ran because we could and played with our dogs. Evenings were spent taking walks up a nearby hill or playing on jumping grass. It was perfect for children growing up on a diet of Peterswood and Kirrin.
And we had our own set of adventures. Floods and missing dogs and an angry workforce that necessitated police protection. And we didn’t think they were extraordinary. The lives we led were regular like the books we read.
Now years later, when I’ve become an aunt, children read a different kind of book. They read about special children who do miraculous things. Who are not ordinary. And I wonder if what my kids are learning is just a deep restlessness with who they are.
And if I, their aunt, will add to it with my own restlessness - do everything, be everything and go everywhere in this one life.
The other day succumbing to the lure of the thought – I started thinking about whether I’d like a super power like in the TV episodes or the many books I read. And I couldn’t find any that seems like it would be mine. I’m not really the kind who likes to be invisible (ha) or a flyer or see through things. I suppose I could really go for snapping my fingers and being wherever I want to be. But then I guess that’s one power that anyone living in Cesspool would kill for. I think I’d really choose memory. I’d love to have a memory that remembers the moment I was born, what I thought when I was 4 months and what I felt when I was 2 and I’d love to remember the time I was a Chinese or that lifetime in Prague or that moment when I floated like a wisp being nothing…. If I remembered everything I have been then maybe I’d find some answers for who I am.
I go back to the past I do remember and I am wafting above the river near my old home. I remember it well still. The green with a hint of brown, its lazy flow as if it wasn’t in a hurry but was moving nonetheless for lack of better things to do, the bend and then the bridge above it. Wait… I didn’t remember the bridge earlier. But it was there and the new me marvels at the dullness of the child me. Why did I never cross the bridge? Why, I didn’t even think of it! And I wonder if I can go back and cross that bridge. But if I did it now to make up for then I still will never know what I would have seen then.
I can never cross that bridge.