Stillness but it still moves

The stillness within is like a lull before a torrid tumult.
I am in a time trap that knows no rescue. I cajole, convince myself, it listens but starts behaving like a spoilt child again.
It fancies something and wants it no matter what.
While stillness steels me..something within continues to move in a timeless span..motions of theb heart I mean.
Past makes a dramatic comeback and catches me offguards. While I had resigned to the reality, it confronts me bang bang and leaves me to deal. No big deal. I am used to this, am I not? I am a woman of today who knows that she knows. But the vulnerable in me recieves no love like a step child as it were.
Well being strong or percieved as one is like digging your own grave. You take upon yourself not just your own burden but in an attempt to make it easy for the other you go wham!!
Well this time while past is knocking at my door hard, present is no simplified theory.
Like they say from bad to worse. Present knocks me off with its own intricacies.
I was talking to this friend in Nepal about love.
The fact that both of us at different points declined what we recall as the love we did not recognise.
"Praggie I have this feeling that love will find us at 60,"
We still gush over the godforsaken love.
Though still but iy moves and it will.

life's adrift

Branching out
Life finds a root
Laeves are falling off
To augur the autumn
Yes Autumn it is

Life's adrift
Trying to find it's root
In the sunshine and grow lush

Grey seems hounding
And haunting
I need freshness of the spring

Momos, tea and walk

Fun filled. No strings there. Carefree and casual yet inexplicable thrill..An ease that only long lasting knowing bring along. There is a 'known unknown'. But no cares.

Momos at the busy evening stall, and walk along for another tea stop to random walk and cheers. Normal yet special.

Everyday seems special in a certain way :-)

Alive anew

It's beautiful
Colours come alive
Insanity, sanity
An endless debate

It's the little cheer
In the mundane zingsaw
Which fixes right
Across and downs

Withering willows
Comes abloom
In the autumn
Negating the rules of the game

Branching out
A world anew
Starting afresh
Like the morning dew

Beckons me yonder
A world unknown
A dreamy maze
A am walking in my sleep
To wake to the dream come alive

Feels like love yet again

I thought I had lost it somewhere. But my heart is potentially alive, it beats and skips a beat too.
The romantic rush feels no more sane but yes it does seem to give me a drive.
Should I say, it's just been two weeks and it's growing like how.
If everything goes well we might turn into neighbours.
Well let me explain, I have been struggling with being potentially homeless and looking for a house frantically.
Found a dream house - a red brick duplex with an awesome terrace overlooking the seamless jungle..ah I am still reveling in that fleeting dreamlike state..
There is an urgency to move out by the end of this week. This brings me back to the story where I began this post.
So this new zing has just moved to the maddening city from Bangalore. From the word go it was good. Instantaneous chemistry, something that shook me from my comfort zone.
Like we always settle in our set mould or we set a mould that is too comfotable to move from. And suddenly a zany feeling that tugs you hard and knocks you off the balance you have striven hard to achieve.
A fleeting boundary that sets your head against heart or two logical heads within.
I am watching!

Lilies bid adieu

9:30 p.m 27 February 2009

I thought I had tucked away my emotions after having spent my tears over the last few days. 

Ahem! I was wrong. 

The two men (read one of special significance) disappeared leaving me wondering, "where the hell" only to make an appearance with two choco cake. The 'one of special significance' with stalks of liliies carefully chosen to make a perfect pose of pink, white and green  with many yet to bloom.

He chose them saying "lilies define her", I was told. I was flattered. He wanted something which I could hold close and need I say I did hold them really close.

The day felt special. I was trying to collect the memories in all its details, unedited.

Perched in our balcony, the soiree soon brewed with madness with odd bolly tunes playing on his ipod.

Someone teasingly remarked, " She likes everything about you" which was met with, "I am just so likeable," giving way to peals and bursts.

Oh yes, I am for some odd reason very thrilled with the idea of an afternoon in the bar and he knows it.

Till we actually moved out it was 5:30 and I had to catch a flight towards midnight. I might have risked missing it in my high and happy state. Besides this one offered to tab the time for me.

So there we were three of us at the bar counter and beer came flowing and bonding to go with it. 

I wanted time to freeze as my gaze did suddenly taking note of little detail (under the garb of intent listening) - his hazel eyes, deep voice and taut muscles of his forearms. Errrrrrrrrrr! I was only listening to him and I just told you. Well like they say all good things do end and this did too with a warm hug and lingering longing.

I am falling in love with the 'likeable man".

I reached home with totally disconnected concerns - rush- rush, pack-pack-call the cab. Phew!

As I scurry through and ready to leave I turn around and look at those lilies. I smile.

Lilies will be abloom when I get back.

The hero never dies

And thank God for that. And thank bollywood that optimism triumphs when cynicism gives a tough fight.

And you dont want good looking heroes to die even on the silver screen, do you?

Delhi 6 revs up emotions and if you belong to female fraternity it makes all go drool and moon over the AB baby..Ooh la la

There half the job done and half the time fancying envy with the one who shared the screen space..I want to be a star too (thats an open secret dream ;) in my teeny weeny heart). Well I will give it to the girl as well..hmmm. By the way Rakeysh happens to be on my FB friends list too. Don't ask how :) but feels cool. hehehhe

And my dear Hanu does some sky antics too in the film. And yes there is a 'kala bandar' too and funnily so fits seamlessly with the film stirring ugly and happy moments. Go watch it to know how.

I am watching it again. No points for guessing why I will. I am single and can wear my heart on my sleeves.

So that said the day was no less filmy. Entered the office which looked deserted due to some shit meeting happening. So there I was waiting for 'some' people (read one gora) to at least show up.

Yes he did and we sat with our coffee in the balcony; he with cool star sunglasses and me with my smoke stick between my fingers of course enjoying the strong sun.

Then a couple of more people trickled in and the lull demanded some action. Least we could do was have some music. By the way the 'gora' has an amazingly good assortment of world music including some shit home grown (bolly bolly). One that stand out ' wada na tod, tu muh na mod' to my utmost shock.

So we were all in a frolicy mood and frappe flowed in to make a perfect after lunch addendum.

This someone wanted to join us for the film, ignore the fact that he can't follow much of hindi, but enjoys our flicks all the same. 

Well he didn't. Is suffering severe blue on the thought of leaving Our Bharat Mahan. India has that effect and you will see it doubling up in Delhi 6. So he did'nt though tickets were bought and hoped he did come. Well he is feeling low and and multiple mysterious emotions.

By the way he has been clicking pictures of the balcony, his work station and of me too though with no obvious intent. He is making memories, I am already living mine. 

Listening to Maula mere maula from Delhi 6 on my stereo. On that note I sign off. 

Mind and multiple mosaic

Long day it was. While I am yet to join the new assignment in less than a week, I am neck deep in work in my current position so weaning away has not happened as they say. That said I am getting sucked into the new job with constant emails seeking inputs this that and the other. 

Peace and focus is divided and diverted. 

I get up with a start in the middle of the night confused whats causing the clutter. I want my peace back. But how?

Present are so deeply woven with the past that we can jot the dotted lines backwards  but not so much with the future unknown and unclear but yes will connect in continuum.

Little green balcony that we have in office is a little haven overlooking a green canopy of lush tress where we sit with our smoke, coffee and lunches. Balcony is a metaphor for the collective and the personal and both equally comfortable in its co- existence. This is where the day starts and includes the quick stand-up meeting and where the day ends with a round up which is incomplete without a shared puff.

Something that has become an integral part of me. I will miss this space.

A colleague and a teammate, someone I started with on a very tempestuous note, not very comfortable and a lot more edgy.

I am surprised at how that has evolved over the time gone by. A deep friendship that will stay.

Someone who is driven by immense passion for life, his wife and two adorable kids. Someone who will be a friend forever.

I will miss you and the work energy that we share.

How can I not mention the bunch of women of all age range from 50 odd years to 20 somethings which makes me the youngest and hence most pampered in all quarters including the men at work;). Mornings are incomplete without a quick debrief of the evening before, randon banter silly jokes and assortment of fruits that kick starts the day. We get through the flurry of activities in mere five minutes. 

I will miss the quick hellos that I drop to everyone on my way up to my desk. 

I am making memories at work, I never realised. I will allow it to sink in.

An ode to love

Having grown up on classic English fiction and love of yore. And of course the legendary Mills and Boons, I am a die hard romantic at heart. 

Legendary Knight in the shining armour emerges and sweeps the damsel off the floor. The mush rules and love conquers. Perfect. And live happily ever after. That is the cosmic cliche' connection.

The prince charming who kisses the enchanted sleeping beauty and she comes out of the spell and ever after follows.

From as long as I can remember we are taught to dream a perfect dream and learn we do to believe in them.

Then one fine day reality dawns and grossly detached from our innate understanding of what and how it ought to be. 

But love as they say, does exist. Happily ever after may not.

Love happens once, they say. You fall in love more than once,  I say. 

Dream never dies and hope remains alive. On that note, an ode to love.

Cheers!

Letter to the most loved

Dear 'S'

To start with I have moved on. But have I really?

You still remain the one I loved most intensely and honestly. I still remember January 11 when you said "What if 'we' get married?" My reponse may have been not so conencted with the question but yes deep down it was the happiest moment of my life.

You left to take up a job in another city and over the months that followed our relationship traveled more 'downs' with your emerging doubts and more 'ups' with my gut to hold on and make things work. Time for me froze in those words you spoke and my dreams started weaving you and me together happily ever after.

I was willing to put all at stake all that I held on with my life - myself and all that made 'me'. Even started looking for options to move to the city with you. But apparently all of it was not enough to move you.

For the first time ever, I was willing and ready to give you the reins of my life. I let go of the guards that defined me. All my armours fell. Yes you made me feel like a woman. 

The 'boyish charm' of you swept me off my feet and staccato moments started becoming linear memories.

Your playing guitar on the phone sometimes your eagerness to sing your favorite numbers and also some on demand for hours together made my heart go out to you. Yes I was willing to nurture that child in you and more.

The first time we met did not seem like the first at all. There was something that decided the pace something I could not decipher.

Imagined you as the man in my life and it brought alive the dream and desire to have you around all my life as mine.

You were not here but you presence was vividly etched in all of me and my life. I was weaving a dream.

It was a beautiful dream only if you were dreaming the same with me we would have made it a living reality.

I am happy for you and your new life with another someone. 

Love you still the same. Love doesn't change but gets buried and rusts with time when sudden flashes turn it green and alive in the dream unlived.

Love always.

Yours

Frozen memories come calling

The raw emotions, as they are, weave the true feelings, as they say.

Tired leafing through some pages, I closed my eyes. My silent phone beeped, "As the day is coming closer I am getting nervous and don't know what to do or who to go to :(. Am scared to death"

Astounded.It took me a while to register who it was. As I do, closures for me means erasing all forms of links established including the number as the first step in the least.

But memory recalled anon as my ex's number who is 'tying the knot' this month. Hence "scared to death."

I have moved on but harbour no bitterness or hate at a human level.I respond of course with some words hoping would ease him. 

"Want to talk", flashed another on my screen.

He called pronto. For someone who rarely expresses I knew he really needed a friend to talk. We spoke and I tried giving him a little of what I understand of marriage, of companionship, that he should welcome the  significant other with openness, without dread of what it will be.

He wants me to come for his wedding which coincides with my work trip out of India. Well timed.Hmm.Then he requested if I could come for a little ceremony a day before the wedding. "It would mean a lot to me. Please come."

Ends with "You are special and will always be. Someone I respect as none else. If I could show it would be nothing less than kissing your feet." (I felt a little odd hearing this last line. Blame it on his happy state.)

I am blank really. Some flashes from past come alive like an album of memories, as snapshots -no longer a part of my present, but a thing of the past. 

Frozen moments come alive and freeze again. Yes I have moved on.

Saint Valentine and I

Voila..with all the hype about the Valentine day, I seem to be enjoying some quiet, peace and content.

Strange but true never had any buzz around the day by misleading and second hand default. Though I have had my share of love, lover and so on but valentine day was never a cause celebre'. Either things had fallen off the hook or been with non believers who felt "why mark a day with tokenisms". hmmm deep to shallow both kinds I have met and seen.

But through all this one thing has remained the same since I can reacall. On every Valentine's day I express my sincere and unflinching love for myself - have bought flowers, music or indulged myself with something that gave me pleasure. 

After all I have kept the love and promises to myself alive. And trust me that's a thrill of another kind.

Yes I am looking forward to the day and waiting to pamper myself. A bottle of wine. Ummm Cheers! 

The day that was

The weekend is getting over as the day wears on. A day is never without events as it is. At times it is the happenings around you and at the other it is the churnings inside. Both qualify to be the subject of events.

And yes by the logic of above lots has happened.

Friday was the day of speaking, shouting out my heart through the technocraft and text message. Sorted. 'Friendship triumphs'. 

While I write this a colleague just pointed to the article in today's ToI supplement written by a dear friend's mother, a friend who died in a  car crash in June last year.

He definetly was more than a friend but cannot define what it was that bound me to him.

As I continued to read the article something within me travels back to the days of knowing him. He was a journalist and a poet with fierce zeal for life. I did not even realise how smoothly he and his daughter became a part of my life. A borrowed life in default. 

Oxford bookstore, mandi house, dargah of nizamuddin, music concerts few places which contiune to haunt me and as it has happened they have ceased to be a part of my life and so has he.

A sufi enthusiast and his love for sitar which were a regular do at all the gathering in his lovely, warm home. His company was infectious and zeal contagious. A poet who would always want an avid admirer in me to accompany to the Delhi Poetree Club.

Now that I look back, I realise how ruthlessly I severed all that was 'us' with a sudden realisation that was nothing short of treading the rough path as the attachment grew. 

Afterall a borrowed life it was. But life happens to us in strange ways we fail to decipher when it is passing us by and it is only in afterthought that it dwells.

It was a friend and his colleague who broke the news of his accident to me. I was sleeping when the phone beeped and I was jolted with utter disbelief. 

I had not been in his contact for half a year before the news was brought to me. It was beyond any redemption now, I had been cruel to dismiss his calls and text messages and requests to meet not to realise that the moment would never come back. But as they say knowledge is fleeting and eludes you in most desperate times. 

He is gone. No longer a part of many lives he touched with affection, zeal, love and much more.

Someone who made me feel special. 

Relieved like how

After months of edginess inside, feigning calm exterior, I finally spelt it out.

I am feeling very light. I am glad I did that and ready for the consequences as well. 

That said, what I definetly do not want is the freindship to change. I will be happy with the status quo than upsetting the balance in that.

Yes, we have spent lot of time together over the last year and a half of his stay in India.

Beautiful friendship that I never thought would be when he first arrived. All we had was verbal banters.

Oh ya, when we were all in Johannesburg for a meeting. A friend seeing our interaction remarked, "Two of you are like characters from a novel where it starts with fights and eventually ends in love."

Well at least for me it is like living that prophecy. 

Life always throws siuations at us and leaves us to deal with it. Can we ask life to be more fair.

Lets see how it unfolds in the coming month that we will be in the same organisation. I move to another organisation and he back to his country. Ahem

I bid adieu

Shutting myself to the past windows

I decide to move on

I close the door

To all that is left behind

I turn back

To take a last peek into

All that was

And all that was not

A catharsis

To bid a final adieu

To all that was never mine

Happiness in lease I lived

Castle that blew to the wind

And dreams buried alive

You are gone

You are gone...
And my world came crashing down

You were not there
to see the ashes of burnt dreams...

Love hurts and hurt it does

When you have given all to that one
who never realised what he lost...

That aches and writhes, only i feel
my heart cries, only i hear

A lone battle
i lost all, but nothing in you
for you were never there in this journey with me...

A blank canvas i want
to paint a dream again

Waking up by your side,
with your smell onto me,

Morning tells the tale
of the night before,
in a flashback as i recall

Wrinkled sheet, cigarette buds,
wine bottles, strewn robes
You and me, picture of love

As i turn around, i see you sleeping like a child
a little peek of ray playing on your face

I steal a moment,
from the life's closet

Running away into
the landscape beyond

Moments waft like smoke
from a long lit cigarrette
That remained clenched
between my fingers forever

Ah a long wait tis been
before i had a li'l steal from life

midnight meetings
frenzied moments

aah, it felt like love
an eternal bliss
that's all i would call it

sweet nothings
when even the silence spoke
there i was melting in his arms
a smile enough to tickle me pink

it snapped with just one gust
leaving me with memories galore
a lurking melancholy, in the fleeting glee
i wanted you forever
when you were mine only for the moment

i look out of the window and see a falling leaf
drifting with the wind
like a rudderless boat
that;s how i feel now
listless, drained, empty
painting a blank canvas
with the colors of pain

Citadel of joy
I create

On the debris of pain
A lease of life
Like a bird
It flies, it soars
with limitless flight

Forget the sorrow
as it lies in peace
'neath the debris of pain