The Tree of Life

Watched a queer movie last night with dinosaurs, bursts of light, shadows, erupting volcanoes, too much silence and too many whispered dialogues.

The movie was too still for me, and queer even to the other audience, who weren't quite sure what was going on.

I was hoping to take away a heart wrenching story, but returned terribly disappointed.

Found a quote, I'd want to keep though, "Help each other. Love everyone. Every leaf. Every ray of light. Forgive"

a dreamless sleep

Every time I wake up in sweat, another dream of a ghastly downward spiraling plane crash, I wish I'd had a dreamless sleep. The images are vivid- the sharp turn upward, the unexpected plummet into moist earth, the crash, the burn.
I always come out alive.
I'm the saved, I'm the saviour.
I rush to the burning debris, I aid the media. Some nights, I am the media.
I look for my mother, and father, the man, my sister. I even look for my lost luggage. In marketplaces, in glass buildings, off seashores.
I weep, I wake up.
I wonder why I have recurring dreams of plane crashes.
I think I now know. (After a bit of research: http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/dreams/symbols/accidents/planecrash.html)
It's because I'm so afraid of losing you. And, there's nothing I can do about it.
Mama. Papa. Priya. Rohan. My friends here and back home.
I don't know what I'd do without them.
I don't know what I'd do if I lose them. That too, without warning.
Perhaps, I'll have a dreamless sleep.

Another battle to wage

Of course you’ve heard of the bomb blasts in Mumbai by now, and of course you’ve read the government-bashing, Rahul-gandhi squashing, BOMB-ay declamation posts doing the rounds. I’ve even seen friends squabble over a post from Delhi that belittles Mumbaikars (calling them insects), and a rant and rave that proclaims: “I’m apathetic. And, I’m not sorry.”  Words also gotten around that Mumbai is made up of the callous.

Indeed, dear world, we’re sorry. We’re sorry for not reacting appropriately. We’re sorry the terrorists seem to pick us, and NO we don’t think it has anything to do with us.

It has nothing to do with our apathy.

It has nothing to do with how we let our lives roll on.

Yes, when I hear of a terrorist attack, I still remember being one train compartment away from the bomb blasts in Mumbai, 2008. I still remember my hands shaking. And, I still remember going back into that train within a few days.

But, then my thoughts move on. Go on with my work-drive to home-life afterwards routine. I call my mother and laugh about nothing, speak to my father and plan my next investment. Even send my sister an unimportant Whatsapp, then crack a joke with a friend.

I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do, dear world. I send out a prayer. I dwell over our turbulent times.

I think about how important it is to be happy.

But mostly, I think about how we have just a brand new battle to wage. One there’s little we can do about.

Like cancer. Like making it to work on time. Like ever affording a house. Like insecurity. Like rape. Like the drunk driver that rams into your pretty white car at 3AM. Like death itself.

That’s terrorism. You can’t keep fighting it. And, you can’t let it overcome you.

And, we, Bombay have been struck enough times to learn that.

Nobody said life was easy, did they?

tactless on tuesday

You know, this is just the kind of thing that makes me feel like a tactless bitch.

I’m standing in the queue, waiting my turn in the office lunch line. Along comes the friendly canteen guy, whose company had the contract for last week’s lunch. I complimented last week’s spread, and then began to tell him how this week’s food was rather unappetizing.

Just then, the slightly round man in charge of this week’s lunch comes along and looks at me quizzically. He knew I wasn’t saying flattering things about the food, but didn’t say anything. I felt terrible.

I tried to make myself feel better. I told myself I wasn’t one among the people raving and ranting at the different round tables. But, I had still managed to offend someone who came across as incredibly harmless and terribly naïve. (This is such a rare mix in wretched Gurgaon.)

Indeed, he didn’t even have anything to do with the food, and was probably stuck working for the wrong company.

I absolutely believe in making someone’s day.

Every now and then, I manage to do just the opposite.

I do deserve this four-hour-and-unending toothache, don’t I? I do.

And, yes I know what it feels like to be working with the wrong company.

(P.s. attempting to consolidate my blogs)

-3

There are many Goas, and I wonder if I can remember them all. The Goa at the swarming Colva Beach, where a little shack looks over Indian populace in bundled up salwar kameez. Fluorescent orange stands brighter than the sun. There is a Goa in the rain. Seawater lashing narrow roads, and sarongs dripping off salt. A Goa where the song and dance never end. Bodies clung together at Titos, and Cape Cod, and Kamakazi and other such queer names.


There is the ordinary picture of a Goa with the sun. Languishing on beach beds, watching the sea roar, and nibbling on French Fries. And there is a Goa where I almost didn’t see the sea, desperately following the smell, one last rainy morning onto a sandy beach. A Goa in a resort, where I spent an entire week holed up in a hotel room, with a swimming pool. Collecting shells on the beach. Reading by the sand, under a night sky. And, when I was young, use free hotel-room matchsticks to burn ants by the sill.


There is a Goa where the swimming pool meets the sea. A Goa with secrets, a Goa without stories. Where you breakfast at Infantaria, tell me you’ve been there. The prawns cooked in recheado masala, and the crunchy and well-balanced date and chocolate tart are worth an arm and a leg for. There is Curlies, where my head always throbs to the tune of mindless teenage trance. The glimpse of the sea is unimaginable though. Which reminds me of a Goa at the village. The exotic, otherworldly five-star Goa nestled among other places at the Taj Holiday Village. I remember chasing Saching Tendulkar for an autograph; I remember the cricket-hero romancing his then fiancé.


Suddenly, I cannot remember another Goa. Oh yes, Panjim City and the church, Brittos and cashew nuts and Feni. Drinking in the sea-air, and drinking; I can remember the giggle-fest one January early morning. How many places that you have not grown up in, have watched you grow up?


Goa, I had forgotten how you stir my soul.



-2

There's a little quiet, and a little la-di-da when you enter Hauz Khas Village. A book store, up the stairs, too tiny for poor literature. A lake down the stairs, and the littered path, too quiet for us restless sea creatures. (Bombay, how I miss the smell of your sea.) There's a little hole in the wall that sells curious cushion covers. And, many stores, lined one by another, with designer make-believe to take home. I step into none. Too expensive we assume, and too pretentious, and much too intellectual. There is furniture we want to take home. Posters we want to peel of their hooks, the yellowed ends notwithstanding, and leave on lavish white walls. Old, antique knick-knacks we have no use for. But admire nonetheless. (Delhi, how I marvel your history.) Then there is Naivedyam, much too grotesque, much too magnificient for tiny Hauz Khas lanes. We lap up unsightly fried idlis, still. And down the lane, we follow the trickle of people into Gunpowder- up a flight of stairs, with a view of the lake to behold. We do this time and again. We hardly take our eyes off the well-greased prawns, and curried fish with little white appams and crispy brown malabar parathas though. We do not linger at the lake at all.

Food can bring such tragedy.

-1

The trouble with writing now, is that everyone thinks they are a writer. The trouble with writing a book more so, is that everyone is an author. If you spend a little time with the books on today’s shelves, I hope you are disheartened. I know I am. Do you, and I, aspire to be a little known name on that shelf? You write your first book, and then what? You are lost in a sea of bad writing. Then, you know longer know what good writing is. Good writing isn’t good grammar, gah! Not to say that bad grammar is good writing, at all.

All winding up to the fact that in the past few months, I have been facing what you could call a writer’s crisis. I lost my font. Trebuchet MS 10 no longer works. And, everything I want to write is too trite, or too trivial, or too mawkish. The weather has been fussy too.

Now, however, the smell of winter is here. They say winter is a good time to write. Cambria Size 12 seems to do its job, for now. Let us see where this one goes...