Monday Musings - 32

As I write, this Monday, I am sipping on some tea liqueur (red tea, without milk and sugar) watching red flowers sway at an arms' distance. Flowers are in bloom in orange, and white, and yellow too. There are a countless stars up in the sky. By sunlight too, the moon is out. The sky is often flawlessly clear, except for today, when it was swirled with strokes of white. I am in Silchar, Assam. About a ten hour ride, from Shillong, which you may have heard of.

We are staying at beautiful, colonial era white-washed bungalow at the Aenakhal Tea Estate. Acres and acres of tea bushes surround us. In Assam there are bamboo, and paper plantations in abundance, too. Along drives, we find paddy fields, and vegetable patches, and cows, and buffaloes, and mud houses, and ducks, and rivers dried up from time. There are few churches in Assam, there are many temples- the Tea Estates are often named after Hindu Gods. We learn, little by little of the thousand tea estates in the area.

Each function like a self-sustained town. With a huge tea garden, its land amassing small cities, and a factory. Managers, and Assistant Managers, and laborers all have houses according to their salary structure. Much of Assam's infrastructure remains unaffected through time...

Managers stay in bungalows the size of club houses, with tennis courts, and swimming pools, and lush lawns, and fifteen servants. The crowd meets at the Longwai Valley Club, where they play Lotto off the same circular dispenser used many years ago. There is a cot, with a net that is as many years old...and the washroom too bears the exact resemblance to the luxury it held many years ago...the card tables come with glass holders.

And, there are fireplaces, and snooker tables, and towel racks, and slouch chairs, and swings...characteristic of the British era in India. There are even books riddled with termites, and dust, and signatures from the time...

We take many cups of chai, as we savour this beautiful, new place. So many legacies, and so many stories lie behind a humble cup of chai...And, so many picturesque sunsets too, I think. As we sit upon a hillock and watch the sun go down the horizon..disappear into the surrounding hills...

...I realize, this Monday, what a beautiful, unfathomable world we live in...

[More Monday Musings here ]

Monday Musings - 31

Some Mondays aren't beginnings, but ends. Ends to another beautiful week in the city of Mumbai. Ends to a road long travelled. Ends to the familiar. As I say goodbye to yet another friend vacationing in Mumbai, I leave a little part of me in this city. A little part of us in the city. Down a jagged, over familiar street in Bandra. By a narrow, dark street in Oshiwara littered with stray dogs. And, a little garden...our favourite night haunt. Friends, they make life so joyous.

And, then I think about how friendships evolve over time. Even as sometimes we are afraid as distances and circumstances change, I think it will be alright. I see my Father, and his closest friends from long ago. He has such special, unique equations with each of them. One friend who lives many miles away, and him keep in touch on Email. An Email a day, for the last 15 years. And, another he finds just where he left off, at the Derby- young boys watching horses gallop to the finishing line...

But, life comes without a finishing line, doesn't it? There is no one goal we are chasing. I wonder if we realize that. With money too...

On Friday night though, as I am sitting...the chatter of an oncoming weekend fills the air at a local restaurant. Kebabs on skewers, and dying fires flurry themselves about tables...and here is a meal that costs money. A quiet, comfortable evening with family that comes at a price. And, I think, what a humbling moment. And, what a moment to learn that even money does help us share happiness, sometimes...

I find an unexplainable joy in being able to share money, just sometimes...especially with the very people who've allowed so much of our lives. Will I be able to ever give. No just give back...but give at all.

I do not know. I do not know many answers this Monday night. I am perhaps in a whirlwind of emotions...a flurry of goodbyes...and off to a promising holiday to the hills of Assam.

Chai, anybody?

[More Monday Musings here ]

Monday Musings - 30

And, so it is, a beautiful Monday, in a brand new year! I am all kinds of delirious today. Delirious from the wind that blows through rickshaws, and celebrations for friends that are leaving, and ones that are still here, and from weddings of childhood sweethearts.

There is something all too beautiful about watching true love come alive. Watching it culminate, and begin again in the promise of marriage. Our friends from Australia, R and C found each other in 1998. Their love blossomed, survived the trials and temptations of time, and ten years later, they came to India to marry.

At the ceremony, the groom's father among other things said: "There is no greater force in this world than the force of true love." It is true, true love can conquer all. Fears, and boundaries, and cultures, and everyday life, and troubles, and sadness, and what not. I am often tempted to believe otherwise, but there is something about watching the father of the bride, a couple in love, and their smiles and tears...and knowing that there is a such a thing as true love.

But, what I really want to tell you about is the brother of the bride, 24-year-old Ro. He is autistic. He and I became friends in the summer of the same year R met C, 1998. We did a lot of whatever he liked to at home in Brisbane, Australia. But, he doesn't remember.

As I watch him, across the green grass...the sprawling lawns just before the winter sea, I wonder if maybe, just maybe he remembers? And, I wonder more so, if he knows. Knows that his beloved, beautiful, affectionate sister is leaving her house, for another. Does he know his sister is getting married?

The next day, it is as if I have found my answer. A ceremony of sorts concludes...and the couple are congratulated and blessed. And, just as the announcement is made, Ro claps. Restless, pacing ..he now claps. The crowd roars.

It is as if he now knows. As the evening goes on...and my thoughts meander from the beauty of true love between the couple, and the selfless love for a handicapped child... I find Ro again. He is no longer pacing...but is now seated alone in a corner...affectionately holding on to passerby's hands. Perhaps, he does know, I realize...

And, I smile.


[Last year in Monday Musings here ]

Pause: Of last thoughts..

I want to tell you how I began the year 2009, because someday you may begin a year like that too. Alone, aloof, afraid...almost broken. Hoping for one thing, one dream.

And, I want to tell you, how I feel today, because perhaps, it will fill you with hope? It fills me, too. And, despite the fact that I lost the one dream I started out with...

Here I am..smiling, content, excited, pensive on the very last day of the year. There are just a few more hours to go...

And, I am thankful for the new friends I made this year. The old friends I found. The new-old friends I made. Such a year of people, 2009. And, such a year of writing too. There was Love Letters, and Monday Musings, and 30X30 and Pause. And, after reading other Pauses, I wonder if it was a time in our life to learn, and let go, and find ourselves...

Difficult, but beautiful. And, satisfying, for me at least. I always pen my last thoughts before a new year. And, then on, I am always in a fleeting hurry to embrace the many little strings left to tie-up before the year ends...

But, today I have time..time for that one last run...the wind against my skin...just before the celebrations begin..the celebrations of a year well lived, well learned, well found...

...and the countless blessings I am grateful for. Everything isn't always the way we want it to be...but we have a choice, to be happy. And, to run...and still savour the wind.

Thank you for staying with me through the year. For those of you who did, thank you for pausing. I hope you have a safe evening. And, an absolutely miraculous twenty-ten. With love!

[ Pause is an ongoing series of reflections by writers (enlisted alongside) come together to capture people, places and moments from the year 2009. Pause ends on 31st December, 2009]

Monday Musings - 29

And, here I am at the very last Monday of 2009. The last, little bits of the year are still to come...and there isn't even enough time to tie the loose ends, or so it seems. I wake up each morning, with a song in my heart. Some days it's a happy, yappy dance song..some days it's slightly sombre, and sometimes even a little bit sad. Because, this year has taken so much from me. But, it has also given me so much more. And, this week, it's been such a lovely week!

One of those weeks where you make friends with strangers, dance to 'Can't help falling in Love with You' just the way you'd like to, listen to Christmas carols, buy smiles, and pretty little dresses you otherwise wouldn't afford, and eat chocolate mousse with bread crumbs at 2 AM while watching everyone in glee. When you never sleep before 4 AM, because you're welcoming a friend into town, and then another one, every other day. Where dressing up is fun, because friends come over...where phone calls are quick two-minutes just to say, "Hey, I'm thinking of you," where food is divine. Soft roomali rotis, served with a spicy chicken bhuna on plastic tables. And, for some on car bonnets.

Where, the wind has gathered a swirl, and tugs at lonely hearts. Where the wind carries no answers, only a song, and joyous hearts. Where we think back at the year and how it began, and try and remember snatches of 2009. January, that started off slowly, and February that I cannot remember, and March that I need snatches of my writing to recollect. I can remember working late into many nights though. That was much of the beginning of 2009. April, beautiful for the sun, the sea, the frolic...May for the end of salsa lessons, and June for Goodbyes. Goodbyes aren't necessarily nice, unless their celebratory, and unless you know that this is just temporary. And, this too shall pass.

I can remember July, for Goodbyes again, and August, for Goodbyes too. This time around, it was farewell to a company I had breathed, lived, loathed and loved for two years. September, I said Goodbye again. To the city of Mumbai, and then, I wasn't sure when I was going to be back again. But, I was back within six weeks, and then October I said Goodbye again, to a city I had fallen so much in love with.

November, I said Goodbye to two friends. None easily done, but what must be, will be. And, here I am in December, ready to say Goodbye again. To a year of Goodbyes, and hellos...because I must tell you that in 2009, I found so many friends. Even friends left behind, their friendship never forgotten.

It has been such a year, hasn't it. Changes, and trials, and goodbyes, and new love, and mostly a feeling of I won't back down. It has been so beautiful too, full of new experiences. I learned salsa, and went camping, and traveled, and lived alone, and stayed in a hotel room where I was so terrified of being alone, and watched three sunrises in a row, and danced all night, and lost love, and wrote, and had a slight happy brush with the publishing business, and read poetry to an audience, and made so many new friends. And, I even kept with my tradition of making movie lists, and book lists, and watched theatre too. The joy. But, most all, somewhere in the middle of 2009, I began to write every Monday. And, that to me, is the most beautiful thing of 2009. Because, there's something about delving into yourself each Monday.

And, then on, something about reading your comments, and your thoughts and most of all your kind words...

[The year in Monday Musings here ]

Pause: Of time, and its turns

Roundabout every Christmas, I begin to reminisce childhood Christmas parties (fetes with Santa Claus, and yellow Moonwalkers jumping up into the sky), teenage party eves (fancy dresses and secret Santa gifts wrapped ever-so-delicately) and more recently Christmas from two years ago. It was my favourite Christmas time. And, I reckon it will always be. I will perhaps, hold onto it like a slice of time, always beautiful.

Time, of course reminds me of my teenage years. Like any other girl, I had the usual tussle with Dad over the telephone. The instrument seemed so precious then, sneaked into bedrooms for endless conversations. And, when it was invented, we had conference calls too. Cackle, cackle, and cackle like only young girls could. We would sometimes solve our homework on the phone. And, when we tired, play our own little version of Truth or Dare. This was when my parents were out to dinner, and I had the telephone all to myself. Without worry!

Until, it was the end of the month- the horrid little bill time of the month- when I always looked for a good place to hide. Daddy, seldom yelled, but always looked at me. And then on began another month of telephone chasing, and hiding, and trying ever so hard not to make that call.

Especially, not off our cheap, pre-paid telephones- like shoestring budgets for a time of life suited only to telephonic frivolity. Three hundred and forty-nine rupees, to talk and text, each month… with a little extra forty-five-rupee recharge scrounged from the week’s leftovers some months.

And, then came the time of internships, and when I started to work. And, I generously supported my monthly recharge with a little bit more, but the darned telephone deal was always a squeeze. Until at last, I received that second raise- and like a perfect, long-awaited gift, I treated myself to a billing cell phone account. Whatever the bill, I could take you on! IT was exhilarating.

I’m savouring that feeling as my father walks into the room last Sunday. “What are you doing,” he asks. “Writing a cheque,” I say. He looks over, enquiring, “How much is your cell phone bill?” I quote an approximate amount. His face scrunches up in disapproval. But, in my head, I smile.

2009, I think. The year, I could finally let go. And, afford my own telephone bill. One of the little things that makes growing up enjoyable. Even if sometimes, you’d much rather sneak the chord, than write the cheque…

[Pause is an ongoing series of reflections by writers (enlisted alongside) come together to capture people, places and moments from the year 2009. Pause ends on 31st December, 2009]

Monday Musings - 28

It's such a beautiful Monday afternoon - it's snowing where you are, and where I am the sun throws more than an occasional glance. It's also the second last Monday of the year. Wow, just taking that in, leaves me breathless. The new year is now, one Monday away. What is the new year going to hold? At this point, I can barely tell. And, I can't even imagine what picture to paint. That just leaves a white, empty canvas of a year waiting to paint itself with time. I have never before begun a year like that. Have you?

I've been spending a lot of December reading, writing and being a culture-vulture. December always does that to me. It makes me very, very upbeat about people, and places and life. Look, there I am sifting through paperbacks arranged neatly in wooden shelves at the little Prithvi bookshop. And, then letting my hair down to loud, hip-shakin' music. Then, tuning into the radio, listening to carols till it's much too late (Tune in to 107.1 FM, will you). And, even putting up with people with different summers. Oh, December makes everything beautiful. Even the niggling worries spilling over from all the other horrid months of the year.

It is almost as if I want to remember the best snatches of the year. That night dancing in Goa, that evening languishing by the rocks at Carter Road. That last dinner together. That morning at the airport, waiting for the flight to Delhi. That evening I made a friend at the airport. That night I got all my family, and friends to play Taboo. It was such a riot. That lovely evening, when my parents celebrated 25 years. The day spent talking outside office. We were a fun team. That evening staring at the sea for ever so long, it could have swallowed me up. And, some of the times I swallowed what I really wanted to say.

And, now I don't know what to say. For it's the first Monday, I'm not looking back, I'm looking ahead. I'm looking at this evening in Bandra, and tomorrow evening in Colaba and the day after in a coffee shop. I'm thinking of Christmas eve, and Christmas. It won't be white, but it certainly won't be blue. I want to go carol-ing into the night. I'm thinking of lovely evenings by the sea. There are going to be many, yes. And, I'm thinking of all things girl-y. Books hurriedly read, and movies quickly watched...to cram a little bit more joy into this marvelous year. Oh, there are more friends to welcome back into this city.

I'm thinking suddenly of Decembers gone by. There's something about December, ainnit. Something about the song in the air, the joy in the step. Irrespective of the sadness your nursing, the love your yearning. And, irrespective of that sad song in the poor boy's eyes. In December, he too is dancing... Have you noticed?

[More Monday Musings here ]