life... where it comes from and where it could go...

I escaped last week. I escaped from the questions that the city life was posing before me. I escaped from the people that were coming too close for comfort and I escaped away, far away enough to think about what was keeping me from breaking the walls.

I wasn’t escaping permanently, but just for a time enough to catch my breath and come back and deal with my life. So off I went- best friend, sister, and sister’s best friend in tow- to Malvan. A small town in Sindhudurg district, Konkan.

My relationship with Malvan has been a strange one. Although my family came from this place, I never went there for 9 years. When I did, I was a pesky 10 year old obsessed with Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. So there I was, in the backseat of the car, singing along to the songs, observing the trees passing and asking my grandfather some silly questions.

On that trip he told me that we all face same situations through our lifetimes, how we deal with them, is what differentiates each life story. On this trip, he could have ignored me, treated me like a kid but he didn’t. He treated my questions with integrity, answering them till I was convinced.

Soon, I didn’t have to ask any questions. He told me of his childhood, his mother, his father and a life full of poverty. He told me of his restlessness, to move out of the small town. He told me of his life in Mumbai, his struggles. He told me how he became a rich man and then bankrupt again. He told me how he tried to fight his bankruptcy and rise again. He told me how he succeeded and most importantly he told me how in his success he also failed.

I came back, the same pesky 10 year old, but I knew a lot more about my grandparents. And the narrow streets and thatched roofs of Malvan stood as a symbol of the story.
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The whole village seems abuzz. The streets that once saw not more than one or two cars a week, were experiencing traffic jams. The street, on which my grandfather played Veeti-Dandu, is full of halogens as we approach a Ganesh mandir. The bright exuberant Mandir is decorated with flowers, lights and devotees.

An old man wearing bright orange robes walks in with an entourage of 10-15 people. And at every step, someone touches his feet and seeks his blessing. He smiles and walks. He stood before the golden Idol, bowed his head and stood again, looking at Him with love. It was a different kind of devotion.

He walked back and sat by the edge of the Mandir. People from the village, from outside the village came and paid their respects to this man, who’d grown up on this very piece of land. This man, when he was a boy, struggled to keep at school. His father was a simple man who was passionate about Ayurveda. Though the family lived in limited means, this boy grew into a man rich with curiosity. He struggled to start a handwritten magazine. He may have dropped out of school, but he read and soaked up the knowledge books had to offer. He learned Sanskrit and astrology. He soon started wondering about the world outside the boundaries of this village.
He went, he struggled, he conquered, he lost, he struggled again and now, he was the man who commanded respect with the way he walked. Tall, elegant and serene.

In a village, where once he had been too poor to be able to afford simple joys of life, he had built a grand Ganesh mandir. In a village, where school masters wrote him off for dropping out, he built a school. And even today, the money doesn’t matter, he continues to be rich with curiosity.

Don't gimme red!

Ok so it’s the time of the year where TV, radio, newspapers and magazines start harping about love. All the shops are coloured pink and red with merchandise and all the couples around you start planning dinners, gifts and what not.

Yes, Valentines’ Day is around the corner and although I haven’t been in Mumbai for the past 2 years, I haven’t been untouched by the pink phenomenon. In fact, the last two valentines’ days spent abroad have made me tolerant to the Mumbai Valentines’ Season!

In 2006, I was a desi student at University of Sussex. While the under-grads, changed their boyfriends every week and took periodical breaks from dating and coochie-cooing, it was sacrilege for them to be single around the second week of February. And those who didn’t bother with the dating through the year, miraculously pulled their heads out of their labs and libraries to check out other singles. All to ensure a date for Valentine’s Day!

My best friend at the Uni spent most of her year missing her boyfriend, but she didn’t make any bones about Valentines’ Day, one of the reasons why I love her so much. And I didn’t give a damn. I was busy with my thesis, my sister was going to arrive in a month and I had to save up for a grand French holiday. I’d rather damn the Valentines’ day. That was my Valentines’ in Brighton.

The year after that, I had moved with bag and baggage back to Mumbai and was visiting UK for my graduation. I extended my trip and was going to be in London for Valentines’ Day. Immediately, a couple of my friends concluded that I had got together with someone and wanted to celebrate the day with him. I didn’t need that lame an excuse to extend my stay in UK. I love that country. It was my home for almost 2 years.

But it was that valentines’ day that has made valentines’ season in Mumbai much bearable for me. Everywhere I went, there were people holding red roses. Every store’s window display was red and pink and hearts were in abundance. On the bus, tube and on the streets, everyone was kissing and whispering sweet nothings. I am sure, Cat Stevens was in London around the Valentines’ season when he wrote ‘Love is in the air’.

Some of the couples seemed genuinely sweet, but from my experience at the Uni, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these people were genuinely in love! Like my SRK says in a film called ‘Dil to Pagal hai’- How many of these people will even bother to see each other beyond this hyped celebration of love. Is it that, these same people may celebrate the next valentines’ with a different person in their arms?

By the time the Valentines’ season wound up in London, I was asked out by some 5 random men, I was tempted to buy myself a gift for bearing through this unbearably sweet celebration of love with gritted teeth and I realised that Valentines’ Day is the season to segregate those who are single by choice for this occasion and those who hook up to avoid being alone on 14th of February!

And yes, if you don’t hook up and do end up staying in with Tesco finest pre-cooked pasta and a glass of cheap wine- don’t worry the TV will remind you that the world outside rejoices being with someone by playing the mushiest films, mushiest videos and the mushiest episodes of popular television series.

The romance-cynic in me is happy! It’s the 3rd of Feb and nobody’s bothered to tell me that I need to be with someone this season… How I love Mumbai!

Short on Money, head to Mani’s

If you’re running out of pocket money but need a good fill of food, don’t think twice before parking yourself into this modest eatery at Matunga. Mani’s lunch home has dished out crispy vadas and soft idlis to many college students for over a couple of decades.

There are three seating areas to choose from. There is the classic Udipi bench and table set-up inside, there is the open air seating on plastic stools and kattas outside and the third section is the comfort of your own car.

The most sought after section is the one on the footpath! Yes you read right, the footpath. The plastic tables and the marble lined kattas are a hot favourite amongst the college kids and those looking to revisit their college days.
The car service bit is rather popular with families. All they have to do is park by the curb, and Anna will bring you your order. Eat up and drive away!

The Annas can’t be called waiters. They don’t treat you as customers. They treat you like they would treat a guest at home- insisting on another cup of coffee, bringing you extra sambhar and chutney without you having to ask. Try the Mysore Sada Dosa, a crispy dosa with a soft, chutney lined centre. If you’re a health-freak demand steamed Idlis, dunked in the sambhar which is just perfect in consistency, not too spicy, not too sweet and not too tangy. Just perfect!

If you’re feeling a bit adventurous, check out the chalk written board for specials. Bondas, banana bhajiyas and sheera are absolutely delectable but are very oily. “No problem,” says Anna in his signature south Indian accent. He disappears and brings us a cup of coffee. The aromatic filter coffee washes down the oil and pumps up the adrenaline to hit the road. All done in a little less than half an hour!

You maybe are wondering why we’ve not mentioned the price. Well, at an average cost of Rs.10/- per dish, you can eat to your hearts content for just Rs. 50/- , so who wants to watch the bill. “Order karo khata jao,” advices Anna as we move away.

Mani’s Lunch Home is located near Ruia College, Matunga-400019 and is closed on Mondays.

random babble

Writing and rewriting

I am a writer. It is just a sentence but it weighs a ton. Every time someone asks me what I do for a living I say, ‘I am a writer.’
What does being a writer mean? Does mean you write? What do you write? Novels, poetry or just plain emails?

The writer in me doesn’t let me be unless I write something. She needs to justify her presence. She makes sure that the writer is not forgotten in the endless chores through the day. Being a writer, is a full time profession. Even if you’re not looking for it, something inspires you each day and then you feel the itch. You can’t sit still till you pen the thoughts.

Today I have nothing that I feel like penning; but the itch is still there. I feel like writing, writing and writing. But about what? Should I write about the butterflies I saw in the morning. Nah. Too clichéd. Should I write about… Hell I want to write about nothing. Nothing at all.

If wishes were horses

Everyone’s going on and on about the brilliant film that’s TZP, and finally I saw it. Not once, twice. The first time I was consumed by the story and performance. The second time, the story continued to amuse me, but I was a little less involved in the film. So yeah, it was time to observe. The theatre was full of parents who had enthusiastically brought their kids along to watch this film about kids.

It scared me to see these older kids who could understand what was going on but yet did not have the sensibility to distance themselves from the plot. The truth is many may just start believing that they too have a dyslexia, they too may be like Ishaan Awasthi. I saw a risk of over-awareness there.

That risk aside, the awareness the film attempts to create is essential amongst parents and teachers and hence its a must watch. They will not only connect with the demons of their past (the drawing teacher who hit you on the knuckles) but will also realise how they themselves are creating problem children without realising it. My aunt always says, “There are no problem children. There are problem parents and problem teachers.”

This film justifies her statement. How many teachers make an attempt to understand why the child behaves in a certain manner? How many parents try to understand why their child is misbehaving before hitting them or punishing them?

We just see the kids’ behaviour and label them. What the kids need is a bit of understanding. In the entire rat race to get high percentages and admissions into the best colleges, we force these kids to forget the concept of childhood. We force them to grow up early and bury themselves in books.

We stop nurturing the feeling of sportsmanship which helps them deal with failure. I know for a fact that housing colonies that buzzed with the cackle of youngsters every evening less than half a decade ago, are silent now. Kids prefer lonesome computer games to the community based lagoris and pakda pakdis.

Worse still, some kids prefer not to play at all, because they want to finish at least 4 revisions of the portion before the first unit test.

We go on happy with the high marks assuming that every child must walk down that path, irrespective of whether or not the child wants to, until a film like TZP comes along. It opens your eyes and makes you realise that it is not the child who’s going wrong. It’s you, the parent or the teacher.

In fact, from personal experience I could say that one loves subjects that are taught by pleasant and caring teachers. And a strict or a violent teacher puts in a terror that makes you hate a subject.

I am glad my English teacher encouraged me to write more essays, I owe my existence, my identity to her. Even though my essays were mediocre she encouraged me to get better, appreciated my little steps towards getting better. She made me want to try harder.
At the same time, I wish my drawing teacher didn’t believe in humiliating me for drawing human beings that looked like crows (can’t forget the whole class giggling at my sketches that he held up). I wanted to be good at drawing but he made me believe that I never could be. It was not his place to do that to me or to any child.

I wish all schools have a Nikumbh, who splashes a bit of childhood into a mundane life weighed down by heavy bags, never ending homework and ever dreaded exams. I wish….

... where are we heading?

I have missed pondering on my keyboard for quite sometime now and it feels good to be back on track with it. I haven’t uploaded my blog for a long time, and I apologize.
I just started working as a journalist for a new newspaper and the job put everything else in the backseat.
Finally, the paper is on the stands and hopefully I can claim my life back, bit by bit. The mundane life of a novelist is on hold as an exciting life of a journalist takes over.
Every day is different from the day before and I love it. There’s a chance to meet new people, make new contacts and get a perspective on the world.
I suddenly seem to have an opinion about everything, and beware, they are volatile opinions.
But yes, each day leaves behind a distinct imprint on the book of my life. Some days are exciting, some ordinary, some unnerving and some just depressing.

One such day was the day that followed Adnan Patrawala’s abduction and murder. At 11.30 pm, I wound up my Harry Potter and cosily hushed myself to sleep under my blanket. I was ready to be lost in the world of my dreams when my work mobile tinkled. I knew it was an emergency. I cursed and answered it. It was my editor breaking the news of Adnan Patrawala to me. “We want you to try and find out about the boy. Since in such cases, they are more forthcoming to women, will you go to Andheri early tomorrow?” I nodded and said yes.

I couldn’t sleep all night. That boy left home with friends and suddenly, his dead body’s been found.

The shock was to hit me worse the next day. All the newspapers carried a profile on the Adnan case. ‘Adnan was a spendthrift’ ‘Loved zipping around in cars’ ‘Adnan was reclusive and spent too much time on the internet’. I felt numbed by these reports branding the boy.

What’s more, an email briefing me about my report awaited me. My colleague had gone on to mention that this 16 year old sported a bottle of alcohol in his hand and hence was a ‘spoilt-brat’. I shook with anger. I remembered the picture with a breezer. Why was the media justifying the cause of the killers by branding this juvenile boy as a spoilt brat?

The journalist in me ached to find the real Adnan. I set off to Andheri and made way to his residence. It was a glum place, as my article mentioned. Plastic chairs were lined out in the compound to make place for the male relatives. Women scurried through the lift to console Adnan’s family. I ventured inwards, and started talking to people.

“Please go away,” one of the members of the family requested. I nodded and made my way outside. I couldn’t bring myself to explain to them that I was there to try and help them. I knew I was lying.

I had become one of the lots. I had encroached into the privacy of a grieving family to prove that I was good at my job. What was I doing?
In the depressive state I walked into Adnan’s college. I told the principal that I wanted to know who Adnan was. And contrary to the media reports, the pained principal described the 16 year old to me.
Adnan was like any other 16 year olds. Only, he was given the financial liberties that he could not deal with. Sure, it was his parents’ fault but what price did they have to pay for it? Was it fair?

Not in the least. The thirst for money forced Adnan’s killers to plan his kidnapping and then to murdering him in cold-blood, and no I don’t think the killers are to blame either. I think it is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. It is the increasing need for money to be able to eat at fancy restaurants, wear swanky jewellery, carry least gadgets and afford designer labels.

Adnan’s murderers do deserve a harsh punishment but we as a society have lead to young Adnan’s murder… Think about it.

The Shadow

These days the shadow that thrives on my happiness has gotten darker. It has gotten darker to the extent of being indestructible by the feeble lights I flash on it. The shadow only gets darker each day. The shadow eats into my happiness. Every time life gives me a reason to be happy, the shadow creeps up from behind the walls like a hungry dog that has smelt meat.

It devours the juicy meat, sends the pieces of flesh flying as its teeth rapidly sink into it. All that is left behind is a bone. The reminder of the shadow’s existence. A reminder that the shadow needs to be fed. A reminder that there is nothing that can be hidden from the shadow, it will come to demand. But why? Who gave the shadow that right.

I am going to run away from the shadow. I run through the dark alleyways, onto the swarming streets. The shadow only gets darker. I run run run to find daylight. The daylight which might kill the shadow. The shadow is yet darker. The next moment I turn, the shadow is starting to grow its own eyes and nose. It has a face…. It has acquired a face. The shadow is no more a shadow. It has broken free of the chains to be its own self. And then the shadow looks down at herself and smiles. Her solid hand reaches to me and feels my face, neck, hands as if I were a toy. Her fiery eyes bear into me and I feel my form dissolve. I become the shadow.

...Starfish

While walking down a clean beach early one morning, I came across an almost dead starfish. It was stuck in the sand, stagnated. There was an urge to pick the fish up and take him home, and match it with the starfish in the book- 1001 words. But as I went down on my knees to pick the blue-grey wonder, it moved its tentacles, begging for another chance. The sea must have heard it; the chilly early morning sea wave splashed its transparent self onto the beach and washed the starfish back with it, freeing it from the sand that held it. The sea must have wanted me to have him too; another wave splashed on my foot a tickling feeling. And there it was; the star fish at my feet, resigned to its fate, stuck in the sand, motionless.

I picked it up, and stared at it. I decided to walk with it on my palm through the waking village. They later told me that it was very rare to find a starfish in Malvan. I saw no meaning in it. Until the angel who was taking care of me then whispered to me, ‘It is here to remind you my girl, that no matter how big your problems seem to you, they will always be small as compared to the universe. Look at this little starfish and think of how big his problem was, being stuck in the sand. Look how small it was to you-his problem.’

The softness of its body had changed into hardness within a day as the experience in the world outside the ocean dried it up. But it sat there, to remind me of my negligible existence in the universe!

I want to write
Breaking free from the chains
That bind me down
To me

I want to float away
Far from the reach
Of these constellations
Into a land of my mind

I want to break open,
This cage of my soul,
And explore new horizons
And let the writer be born.

Born free of me,
Free to tell the stories,
Some them my own,
Carefree…

Free of my existence,
And existence of its own…
An existence without a face
An existence defined by the constellations
Of the stories I wove.

In my cave
Deep beneath the ground
I wait for inspiration to strike
Amongst the muffled sounds…
Sounds of thumping feet,
Sounds of muffled speech,
Sounds of dying music
And of the music that has died
Life reaches me
Seeping through the ground,
I don’t want it here
And in my cocoon I crouch
I dive back into my thoughts
Thinking of the music
Thinking of you, me, him, her, us and them
My heart flows to my hand,
And I bring it all alive,
Into the world of my words.

Plain Jane

I don’t have the long pretty hair,

For you to lose yourself in.

And my cheeks aren’t that fair,

That your touch would make them pink.

I don’t have those deep blue eyes,

In which you might want to drown.

I don’t have the long lashes,

To flutter up and down.

I don’t have a sweet, melodious voice,

That might melt your heart away,

I am not even a tender angel,

That in your arms could sway.

All I am is what you see,

And I am no poets dream,

No fairy tale will tell a tale,

Of the plain-Jane that is me.

I have tried hard and now,

I am tired of this game.

To be a muse, to be a woman,

I don’t want to change

Try to love my smile,

And try to love my frowns,

Try to love my crazy hair,

And my cheeks so brown.

Love me for being who I am,

Else it’s not worth the hype,

I’d rather lose your love my man,

Than be a stereotype!

...A moment

His eyes are full of hope

But sometimes that hope just can’t cope

With the realities that he perceives

Perceptions deceive,

Until his heart grieves

For he begins to think he cannot…

The mind races with the heart,

An intense argument starts…

Hopes and fears, start shifting gears…

They are at war…

Deep blues of the iris deepen,

Open shut. Shut and open

Assuming this weird motion,

His mind resists, yet the heart has spoken.

A touch, a smile, a hug

Takes the conversation,

Beyond the realm of emotions

A bond that can’t be broken…

A bond with me, a silly girl…

What would I know of his woes?

He thinks,

She’s a girl and I am a man

She can’t understand.

I don’t, yet I hold him…

And to him all of a sudden,

I am a woman!

First Attempt at Hindi!!!!!!!

Not particularly proud of it.... but its my first attempt at writing Hindi....Feedback pls....

Ankhon me jo chehra tha
Aaj jaane kahan kho gaya
Shayad yahin kahin hoga
Kya tumne use dekha

uske Ankhon me ek chamak thi,
Muskurahat me koi jadu tha,
Aur uski ek nazar,
Meri zindagi ka har gham bhoola deti

Aaj achanak ankhen mundi maine
Who muskan, who nazar,
Jaane kahan thi
Wahan the to sirf tum

Aur main tumse poch rahi thi
Kya tumne us chehre ko kahin dekha hai?

Legal system

'How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just cannot see?' These Bob Dylan lines came to my mind when I read that Jessica Lal’s murderers had been acquitted. A girl shot twice, at a crowded party for refusing to serve drinks, because the bar was closed. And years later her murderer goes scott-free. Why? Because he happens to have a powerful and rich father. Newspapers and social activists are blaming the hostile witnesses and favourable judges. But it is us Indians in general at fault, it is not just the system, but we who let people take advantage of the system that are at fault. How many times will we see the country’s legal system, being twisted and turned around to deny justice to the weak of the society it is supposed to help. How many times will the rich and powerful get away unscathed for their crimes.

People show apathy to this news, because for them Jessica is dead, and that's all there is to it. But a day will come when someone important to us will be left hungry for justice and we will bleed to see people being apathetic. The important thing is to understand how this case can encourage the rich and the powerful of the society to take law in their hand. Eventually a day might come when it will be a crime to be poor and weak. And any criminal act of the rich and powerful will be pardoned by their position in the society. A democracy that is a servant of money and power…. That’s what we will be reduced to!

Groups Continued

I have said goodbye to all those groups and to life and I have been dead into another group. I cannot tell you what group this is, because it is useless having any knowledge whatsoever of it before you die. You hear a lot of stories of what happens after you die. Some say you go on to another world, some say you can watch over the world, over your loved ones. Like I am trying to watch over you… What the stories don’t tell you is the pain of watching your loved ones go wrong, seeing them fall into a pit and then being helpless to tell them what you feel… That is the first rule of this group, we don’t communicate explicitly with your group. You need to have a higher power to be able to do that.

How can they expect me not to communicate with you, a part of me, a part of my soul, a reflection of my life. You learnt your first words with me. You learnt to look at the outside world through me. Eventually, you helped me see the outside world… And now I am in a different world, one that you can’t see or feel, but it is there. From this world I can see the dangers coming to you, I can tell your true friends from the false ones, I can see the mistakes you make but I cant tell you. I cannot break the code. It is like going back to your teenage years when I wanted to tell you about the mistakes you were about to make, but you didn’t need me. I felt helpless then and I feel helpless now. You sit by your bed every night looking at me, frozen in that little photo twenty years ago, and tears well up. I can almost hear you call me as if I were lost or hiding from you. I wish I could whisper in your ear, ‘I am right here’. I feel the urge to cry, to weep, to stretch out my hand to you in distress like I did on my deathbed, but now, there are no hands to stretch out, and there are no eyes to weep with, no voice to call out with. All that remains is an essence of my being. But I see myself in you right now… I see your daughter hold you and comfort you, just the way you comforted me when your grandmother left us. I am alive, in you…

Groups

A group is a set of people having things in common to do, to say or just have common goals, a group is made up of you, me, she, him and them. Eventually with time these hes, shes and thems become us. You begin to belong to the group and the group starts belonging to you.

We live our whole life in groups, a family is a group, our friends are a group, our school, our education, our profession, our social position, our income, our culture, our religion, our gender, our age, our language, our music. Everything in life is divided into groups. Everywhere we go we look for a group to belong to. Sometimes when you realize that some person belongs to the same group as you, you feel excited, because you have at least one thing in common; the group. Many relationships in life are built on this foundation of a common group.

Sometimes you leave a group, or sometimes time comes for the group to leave you. It is like birth and death. You are born into a group of people, your family and when you die you say goodbye to an extended group, which is the universal group of all the groups you were a part of.

Crushed in Movieland

Shakespeare said that life is a stage and all of us are actors. But I object; I say life is a set in Universal studios and I am the leading lady. Yes it totally sounds moronic doesn’t it? It sounds moronic to me too. But then I have lived many of those eternal love stories of Hollywood. Only, in my case they turned out to be not so eternal. Through my phase of obsessions with movies and guys I guess I forgot to differentiate between both altogether. My first crush was Shah Rukh Khan. Yes the actor. Now almost half the nation was in love with Shah Rukh at that point of time and I am sure, they are still, so I had to do something to stand out amongst those millions. Well I met a friend who was equally in love with Shah Rukh and we decided to be two special ones amongst those millions. We didn’t mind sharing SRK at all. So we started with skimming through 65 Filmfares that I had managed to collect and cut out all the possible pictures of SRK and yes there were fights because most of the times we both wanted the same picture. Finally we had our own scrapbooks ready but my partner ditched me and left for her school. So it was I all by myself to win Mr. Shah Rukh’s heart. I wrote poems for him, I went and saw each one of his films, only to realize that half the nation was already doing that. Any new way I found to win SRK, a million people would already be doing that. Finally I decided to quit and try to win the heart of some less sought after person. In the complete madness of school affairs and giving advice to my girl friends about their boys and giving my guy friends advice about their girls and setting them up, I fell in love with one of the boys in the school. Now boys and girls weren’t really allowed to mix a lot in my school. And the funniest part was, till date I have never spoken to that guy. Heck of a clueless love story I tell you.Chatting with Ajnabis was the in-thing and I started off too. I made a lot of friends online and a couple of them became my phone friends too. But one among them became special, why? I still ask myself. Again thankfully, this movie was incomplete. And I was bored of having crushes for more than an hour. So a guy on a bus stop, a guy at McDonald’s, a guy who comes for a jog to Shivaji Park everyday at 5 pm, went on to be a part of the historical list of my crushes. Now came a time to start another movie because these trailers were too short to to teach me a lesson. So I started a new movie again. This time it was my own version of Best Friend’s Wedding, only there was no wedding and I wasn’t trying to break them up at all. Basically I fell in love with a very very close friend of mine, and here’s the catch he was in love with someone else and this chick wasn’t giving him any ghaas or even phuss for that matter. But I managed to somehow get him to fall for me, or so I thought. Now after the mahashay turned his affections to me, the chick realized that she loves the mahashay. Ab meri prem kahani mein yeh naya twist aa gaya. Bass after cracking a million brain cells over it, this particular movie didn’t have the usual vanilla ending. But the moral of the story is this last movie that I cast myself in, has taught me an important lesson. Now I shall only be a casting director and watch the fun during both the making of the movie and the movie itself. Cause love stories are synonyms to disaster stories…only for me though.

Pang of Depression

Feelings of inadequacy
Sense of insecurity,
Belief in myself shattered,
Dreams lost; uncertainty.

A fuzzy picture,
Of the future,
The past a distant mistake,
Putting their faith at stake,
In the current present.

Storms and fuzzy gray skies,
Leafless trees with green highlights,
Raindrops lashing on the window,
Freezing cold stinging the skin.

Fight the cold,
Walk along,
Open the window,
And face the storm…
No matter what just walk on.

past, past...zoom into the future...

When I was 6….Life was much about the others. I went out with my parent’s friends. My grandma took me to the market and she bought me sweets. My grandfather narrated stories to me. Dad told me right from wrong. Mum taught me how to love. They made the decisions for me, they worried for me, they thought for me, and I was a carefree little child. These people surrounded me and I was doing things they were doing, completely unaware of life beyond them. It was my own little world and I was their world. They were a window and the world outside was an alien universe at which I looked through these windows.

When I was 16…It had all changed, the center of the universe was still me but I was dying to do things my own way. And I had just started believing that the things I was doing were the best option and I could never go wrong. I was meeting ‘my’ friends, I was going to the market and buying myself whatever ‘I’ wanted, I was choosing the stories to hear. The alien universe outside seemed tempting and I wanted to explore it at any cost. Even if it meant jumping out of the windows and running in the meadows till you have left the windows far behind. I wanted to make my own decisions, and yet leave the worrying to the ones who loved me. I wanted to be selfish and expected them to make sacrifices for me. I wanted to take on the rights of being an adult and shun the responsibility… I was only thinking about me.

When I am 26… I will be radically different from what I am today. And I will be disappointed if I am not. I will have seen the world and faced a few difficulties. And have learned from them enough. I will be holding the hands that once showed me the way and taught me how to walk, remembering that I must not hurt them. I will be their window, to look at the new world. A world that has changed as their little girl has turned into a woman. I will try my best to keep sorrow away from those eyes that looked at me with pride all the time and I will make them prouder. When I will be 26, I won’t have to think about these things or plan them. They will come to me naturally, and at the right time. There will be no place for regret arising out of late realizations like this one. When will I be 26?

the valley and the sun

If they ask you who I am,
Just say I m a scent…
That reminds you of the moon
And makes you want to flow
With the springs in the valley…

If someone asks me who you are,
I promise to call you the first ray of the sun,
That feels like a warm fire in the cold of the winter…
If it snows, I'll write your name on it to melt it away…

When you smile, the sun comes out…
And when I am in your arms,
The sun hides behind the clouds…


When we meet tomorrow,
The warmth of the sun will always glow,
And the valley will look brighter,


But never tell them my name,
And I promise never to tell them yours…
And yet, I will never hide,
The wonderful feeling that is, You