Passive Living

mourned

2012-02-03T00:36:00.000-08:00

It used to be a huge tree. And a rather sociable one too. It reached its arms out in comradely garrulity. It waved often. When the wind came around, it circled its boughs in sweet slow movements like village girls in their lehengas while shadows danced under it. ‘She’ hated it though. The leaves had to be constantly swept away. And the tree kept dropping them like little notes, with scarce regard for her rheumatic or lazy limbs. ‘She’ was the ayah. Avangal. We don't really know her name, she always seemed so reluctant to part with it. If anyone happened to call her by name, she’d shudder - as though trying to shake off an unpleasant memory right off her, like cattle thighs trembled to shake flies off. Once a younger member of the family, in an attempt to be respectful, addressed her as She-akka - ‘She’ slapped the poor child. So that was that - ‘She’ was referred to as ‘She’ and never addressed directly - like some strange God, capital letter in place. ‘She’ hated the tree as much as we loved it.

It was a large tamarind - its dainty mehendi-pattern leaves twirled delightfully down like a bunch of yellow-clad skydivers - somersaulting, somersaulting, somersaulting in the air before they landed with nary a whisper on the ground. During the summer, its cool shade was a screen from the obtrusive glare of the sun. With the tree around, the sun was always well-mannered and knocked politely before entering and never spoke out of turn and was always pleasant company. The wind was always around, swaying on its branches. Sometimes gently, playing mama rocking her baby to sleep and sometimes boisterously, like children on monkey bars, swinging by their hands. The tree was my friend - I loved it when it turned my wall into a kaleidoscopic dance of shadows at sundown. I love its tiny pretty leaves and fat, rude-shaped fruit - it made me giggle and how we could never spice our curries with them. I loved how tall it stood and how fat it was. And then came the borewell.

They carted my friend away - limb by hacked limb, until nothing showed for it having ever been there. Not one mangled root. The leaves, long swept away. The cover of the borewell has a hollow clunk when stepped upon - we don’t have a water shortage anymore. Now the sun barges defiantly. So do the curious glances. “Shameless!”, ’She’ half grunts, half spits every time she catches the boy opposite looking in on our lives. “She”misses the tree. I miss the tree.

Every time I walk over the place where the tree used to stand, without thinking twice about the grave I'm walking on, I look up at my apartment on the first floor and marvel at how exposed it is. I look up at the apartment and think in wonder, “To think that there used to be a big, big tree here! Who would say that now? Who misses it? Is it possible to miss something that used to be there, if you’ve never known its existence? Would anyone walk by and miss a tree when they see no tree and not know why? It’s funny, how a tree could have stood somewhere for longer than memory itself. Only to be pulled out by its roots and leave a nothing, so complete in itself that there’s nothing to show for it. Not, unlike those unmarked graves past loves sleep in.”

mellow drama #2 - floundering

2012-01-29T22:29:00.000-08:00

It was much too dark to see the colour of our eyes. And even if it weren’t so dark, it’s rather unlikely we’d have noticed that we indeed had eyes, much less the colour, shape and size. If they were thickly lashed or if they were, like drying palm fronds in the peak of a really cruel summer. If they laughed or if they were secretive or if they like glass mirrors, bounced off light that if we didn’t watch out, could sear you and cut you deep, maybe in half. It was much too dark to register the promise or gauge the lie or measure the possibilites. We didn’t know if we were beautiful or simply hideous. We were oblivious to the bits of each other stuck between our teeth or seeping out of our eyes or drooling down our chins; if we were clothed or butt naked - for all to see. To see! To see! Did we want to see? See beyond this velvet blindfold that scrunched our separate universes into a two-dimensioned world? One side You. Other side Me. Us. See beyond this warm womb of unreal hopes, where we slept tucked under blankets of expectation?

We slept with eyes wide open with dreams. Dreams, that in the dark, were so vivid and vibrant, that we sometimes blinked in their fierceness. But never once did we see beyond this. Oh, it was splendid, for our lives, our futures, our very existence to be melded into this one circumstance. This so-called destiny. This self-created, do-it-yourself, myopic processor of fates - events that would fall to place, in assembly-line predictability. To have no past or future but this. The house we would buy, the children we would have, the house-of-cards fate we were investing our everything in. This forever and i-hope-ever. Our tongues twisted permanently into the shapes of sweet, delightful nothings. And syrupy sighs. And longing. Oh yes, longing. We were going around in circles, like dogs infatuated by their tails, following their own feral musk. Following our asses. But no matter that. This is what is meant to be. This is true. At least for now.

The darkness in our eyes, as deep as our happiness. The sheer magic of seeing nothing else, but us. Love certainly wasn’t blind. It certainly knew what it was doing and where it was going. It was us that were blinded by love.

5.30 am is a good time for angst.

2012-01-17T02:33:00.000-08:00

shriek me out of my sleep

my reverie, my dream.

time to get up

time to go to bed.

my day, stuffed into an ephemeral parentheses

that conspires with the rising tide of ageing

against man

tick tock

an unseen countdown blaring in our heads

sagging breasts and a drooping cock

dance a tired waltz

with varicose veins and rheumatism in the chorus

a sigh for all the things that have been vs. what could have been.

tick tock

if only we had the time.

for man cannot live on bread alone

but a slice of chewy angst

just about cooked over a fire of

unfulfilled dreams

spiced with the romance of

missed trains, missed buses and missed stations.

masticating over all the bite that's more than u can chew

imploding hearts in our mouth

saliva rolling over a undistinguishable mass of what you

once held dear, but forgot to hold close.

so we sleep tight

betrayal tucked like a novel under our pillows

a soft white breast from the past

held tenderly in your closed fist

while you push the cold body next to you, further away.

do i love you?

oh sure i do.

but if it weren't for the vows exchanged

in front of a crowd that couldn't care less,

and the children sleeping

in beds they were made in,

we'd probably be like magazines in a fridge.

nothing to do with each other

and seriously out of place.

given the choice of time and space

i'd rather be the pink chewing gum in

the slutty girl-next-door's potty mouth.

round and round
dizzy and dizzier
nausea and nauseayer
sigh and sigher
i laugh. drowning you out.
until i fall down.
hush ah busha - shush for now.

unexpected

2011-10-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

No one saw you coming. Not the horoscopes, not the signs, not even the ravens that hopped across the railtrack, and cocking their heads in mock confusion. You were a bolt out of the blue. A freak act of nature. Your arrival even confounded the stars. They shuffled around their confused positions, like fat ladies being jostled around in a packed bus. The tides shifted guiltily for letting this epiphany pass undetected. Epiphany to me, catastrophe to the rest.

Ammama looked daggers at the jothsyan for not seeing you coming. He kept shaking his head and muttering, like that would absolve him of any blame. Amma put salt into the payasam instead of sugar. She was distracted and tense as a mouse being watched by a very sadistic cat. And Acha harrumphed ceaselessly like it was stuck in his throat and he just couldn’t dislodge it. But my bones. They knew all along. They expected your arrival. They coaxed my hands into an unwrenched calm. And they stopped my fingers from tussling each other like unlimbed wrestlers. They sweetened the line of my shoulders into a streamline of calm. I had more carriage than a ship in full sail in perfect weather. They released the tension from my very core, oh they did. Like efficient housekeeping, they opened the windows and aired the dank and dark parts of my soul. They tugged ever so gently at the deepest part of me, that I blossomed like a flower in the early morning sun, one sweet petal after the other. I sat with an expectant knowing smile, hands in a perpetual comradely embrace. Auto drivers looked over their shoulders, uneasy about that smile that played at the corners of my mouth. You know what they say about still waters.

You were trouble from the very beginning. But no one saw you coming. Except my bones. My bones who warned no one. Because unlike my heart, they could never be broken by you.

good heavens

2011-09-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Mary and Joseph would have sued the hospital if there were a hospital to sue. If there were a hospital, there would have been an explanation for this. But again, there was no hospital. And yet, here it was. Right in front of their eyes. No explanation in sight. What were they going to tell the shepherds and the angels in execlsis deo and the three kings from orient soon-to-be-disoriented? They were expecting a saviour. Herod wouldn't lift a finger about this, either. He'd just laugh. It was all too embarrassing. Where was the drama? This couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't do. Every body was expecting a hue and cry. This was just a "Meh". Mary had delivered a baby girl. And there wasn't a nurse for miles around to pin the blame on. No baby exchanged at the crib here. This was definitely the immaculate conception. The Holy Spirit was a tad inebriated that day. This was the only explanation.

They called her Jis. Jis Joseph. A girl had to have her father's name. No fancy second name and all. She grew up tall. She grew up fair. She grew up strong. She grew up smart. But most of all, she grew up proud. When they slapped her once, she showed the other cheek. When they slapped that as well, she turned their women wombs into barren weights. No progenies for women-beaters. When they tried stoning ol' Maggie, she said "Let the one who's not solicited the services of this worthy woman till date, cast the first stone. And if you lie, your nuts will fall faster and harder than the Rapture hailstones themselves." No stone throwing happened that day. Maggie was very, very hot, you see. Then the Devil tried to tempt her. That didn't go so well, as well. For the devil. She did as good as her male counterpart or should I say, alter ego. The female messiah rocked the gospels just as good as the male did. Maybe even better, cause she had to try twice as hard as the Jewish boy-next-door would have had to. When was the last time the Jewish-girl-next-door have anything to her advantage other than her inheritance. And this is before it become fashionable for Jewish girls to inherit bigass corporations. When she preached in temples, the elders patronized her or her assets or both. When she healed the sick, they asked her if she considered a career in nursing. When the children came to her and she told everyone that the kingdom of the Lord belonged to the young innocents, they smiled indulgently, said "oh, you should have one of your own" and marveled at maternal instinct working in not-so-mysterious ways. And then, they tried to get her married.

At the wedding of Canna, they thought Mary had brought her super daughter to show her off. Then she went and turned water to wine. Bad move. They got drunk on her wine and accused her of ulterior motives and loose morals. Then on, healing the sick became the work of the devil. When she touched lepers and hung out with tax collectors, the busybodies in the neighborhood told Mary that this was no conduct for a Jewish girl with good upbringing and no decent jewish boy would marry her. When she fed 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread, they said she might be a show-off but with economizing like that, would make some worthy man very happy someday. "If only she didn't think she was too good for anyone! Poor Mary, you have no idea what she's going through!" When she crossed her twenty fifth birthday, Mary began to worry about her prospects, messiah or no messiah. Who would marry a messiah? Now, you do realize that a messiah is ten thousand times more intimidating than a quintuple Ph.D holding, drop-dead gorgeous, Beyonce. But like we said, she did good in spite of it all. When they told her, she's got to die for the world's sins, she said "Hell, no!" Of course, she got crucified in the end. That's just the way of the world works. BUt she let them know in no uncertain terms, "I'm NOT dying for you. You're going to get what's coming to you cause you just won't listen." Hitler came along and proved her right. But that's just her death. Let's talk about her life.

She addressed the original lobbyists and the opinion leaders of the world - the mothers. That revered race in whose wombs grew prejudice, envy, wisdom, love, hate, wickedness, lust, insecurity, need, sacrifice and just about every high and low of the human psyche. Her male counterpart forgot to do that. Her unlike Mary-fame "good news" was terrible news to the heavy matriarchal ego. She let them know that they were in for eternal damnation if they failed to teach their sons to respect women. Not only would they be damned, but they'd be responsible for the damnation of the entire world. Cause let's face it, the world is pretty screwed up a place, mostly because mothers everywhere refuse to let their boys know that they're at best, seed generators in the grand scheme of things and instead, make their precious, precocious little twerps feel like they're god's gift to the rest of the world.

So mothers everywhere, beat the holy crap out of their sons at the slightest hint of disrespect.Sons grew up to be dutiful brothers, loving fathers and respectful husbands. They minded their pleases and thanks yous and their i love yous. And the world was a better place because the women were safe. And they stayed that way, because the men knew that the God of women was one that would take no shit from them.

There just has to be a god for women. The good ones, the virtuous ones, the disreputable ones, the ones who worked their hands to the bone to bring food to the table, the ones who filed their nails all day, the beautiful ones, the ugly ones, the talented ones, the plain ones, the wallflowers, the single ones, the married ones, the smug ones, the divorced ones, the old maid ones, the stupid ones, the smart ones, the enigmatic ones, the vanilla ones, the blessed ones, the damned ones, the good ones, the bad ones, the frigid ones, the loose ones, the generous ones, the mean ones, the sweet ones, the nasty ones, the venerated ones, the victimized ones. There seemed to be a god for every kind of man. One that watched out for him and proved whatever he did to be the right thing. One that makes him my superior. When will I get my god?

NOTE: THIS POST IS DEFINITELY TO END UP WITH THE CHURCH DISOWNING ME. BUT I'D LIKE TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT I'M NOT BEING OFFENSIVE JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BEING OFFENSIVE. I'M SIMPLY MAKING A PARALLEL HERE. AND I THINK THE CRIMES PERPETRATED UNTO WOMEN TO BE FAR, FAR MORE BLASPHEMOUS THAN ANYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN HERE. ANYWAY, THIS POST WAS A REACTION TO SOMETHING MY FREIND MIKI SHARED. SOMETHING I FOUND VERY, VERY DISTURBING.

http://www.newstatesman.com/life-and-society/2008/03/rape-myths-women-stump-sexual

stereotypes

2011-09-01T05:08:00.001-07:00

They were at it again. The full-bodied Pear, the svelte Banana, the buxom Apple and the smug Hourglass. Discussing the weather, loves, children, music, books, governments and figures over pink martinis. Dissatisfaction was their waiter for the evening and he loomed, servile yet efficient, waiting to refill their glasses at the raise of a shapely eyebrow or a manicured finger whichever the case might have been.

"So you're on another diet? It working for you?" Banana smiled over the rim of her glass, knowing very well that it applied to them all except her. She could afford to and was rather satisfied with herself for being the only one who didn't have to constantly keep track of the calories. The trifle puddings and the death by chocolates and the yellow jilaebis slid off her. A cloud passed over Apple's sweet face. But ever so quickly did it pass, that only the observant really would have noticed it. And none of them quite made the cut. Besides they were much too busy thinking of their very own generous curves camouflaged in chiffon, denim, tussar and attitude.

"Well you know it's no contest really between carbs and calorie watching." Apple giggled like a five-year-old into her martini, making it bubble unsophisticatedly "Besides, pasta makes you a more generous person." "Hmmm..generous from the inside, till it spills right out of your seams, if you know what i mean. I guess some people could live with being fat. I'm certainly not one of those lucky types!", Banana shrugged while reaching out for more low-fat meanness. "Umm yeah, you WOULD look like a great big oak tree ifyou did put on weight!" laughed Apple her light voice sparkling with mirth and tease. Hourglass held up her martini glass and her purple velvet voice turned into silk as she observed, "This glass looks like Apple, no? If she grew edges instead of curves?" "Nasty woman!" Apple giggled throwing her apple seeds at Hourglass.

Pear hadn't said much ever since she walked in. She smiled abstractedly at the banter, but her mind was clogged halfway in the kitchen sink back home, along with bits of onion peel, orange juice, soap suds, hair, salmonella, cereal and tears. Even her martini tasted of heartache. A break. A nice long hot bubble bath of a break. Would be good. Should do it, must do it. She was always postponing things. Never really getting down to it.

Banana was having a particularly great hair day and she kept turning around to catch her reflection in the glass window blowing kisses at herself while doing the same. "What are you doing?" Pear asked with a voice filled with broken glass. Sharp. Cutting. Bruising. Scattered. Piercing. "Loving myself," Banana shot back, in a smoothie voice, "You ought to try it. Bread-n-butter. It's good." There was no need to 'figure' things out to love oneself, right?

can i have lots?

2011-08-29T07:05:00.001-07:00

letters

2011-08-04T05:26:00.001-07:00

Dear mothers,

Teach your daughters to get angry. To get mad. To stay mad. Teach your daughters to fight. Back. To dislike. To be okay with being disliked. Teach them to think. And think nothing of what others think of them. Teach them hurt. Hurt them like hell. Teach them to be contentious. To be difficult. Teach them to be not-okay. Teach them to scream. Full-lunged, shrill, ear-shattering screams. Teach them to throw a punch. To hit below the belt. To use dividers and compasses and blades imaginatively instead of looking away and praying that it, they, he would go away. To hate. To poison. Teach them to break things. Teach them not to be virginal. Teach them to make mistakes. To walk into walls. Teach her to rage. Teach her to give as good as she got. If not, better. Teach her not, to be afraid.

Dear mothers, teach your daughters this. For you can’t possibly be sure, without knowing doubt first. If you are, you’re just naive. There’s no virtue in forgiveness without the bloody rage of hurt, anger and disappointment first. In their absence, there is only numb. You can’t really know how wonderful it is to be liked, to be loved, if you don’t know how easy it is to be disliked just because you choose to be yourself . You can’t know the serenity of acceptance without a lost fight. A good one at that. It’d just be acquiescence or worse, cowardice. You can’t be brave without confrontation. Can’t be courageous without wanting to defend first. Virginity isn’t half as important as sanctity. Give her the gift of knowing how special she is. Give her, so that she might cherish it, value it and respect it. Tell her it’s okay to fall. Even if it’s apart. And if she does, hold her together. And maybe, one day, she just might be strong enough to fly. There’s no strength like regained strength, like recovering from hurt. No resurrection without death. No glory in standing tall without being brought to your knees. No safety without being put to the test and passing it. Only complacence. Dear mothers, teach your daughters to love. Without being afraid

on days i hate being indoors

2011-07-22T02:16:00.000-07:00

Dannie don't stay indoors.

The clouds are calling

you out to play.

The flowers and the leaves and

the wind that teases them -

they need a foursome.

Dannie, don't stay cooped up

inside those 6 walls.

The roof and the ceiling

count as well, silly.

They're walls in your topsy turvy universe.

Oh my spirit keeps running out

through the crack in the window

Only to be yanked back

leashed to my spoilsport body

that signs registers and

subjects itself to 8-9 hour exiles.

In what they call the real world.

fuck you, till death do us part.

2011-07-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

how long before you break me?

2011-07-13T23:52:00.001-07:00

you said that I was naive, and I thought that I was strong.

I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave."

but now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you. - Stay; Lisa Loeb.

The first time

2011-07-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

Note: this song inspired this piece. So it'd be great if you listened to it while you read this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj72paG_IoM

Not when i was born. There was too much blood, pain and screaming. Mama wished herself anywhere else but splayed legged on the delivery table. I slipped muddy and slick, into a puddle of flesh and gore. The doctor couldn't care less. Mama couldn't care less. Papa would return from work many hours later and know that he had another son. Or maybe he'd be too tired and would want his supper. Aunt Martha would leave him be. He'd know tomorrow then. I wasn't going anywhere and Papa couldn't care less.

Not when I was a cute toddler. Well almost cute. Mamma was always tired. She hadn't wanted me anyway. Her body refused to nourish me. My siblings resented me. They resented that I took up space. They resented that I had to be fed. They resented that I cried and then papa would be mad. They resented that I was so thick, to not know that it was my fault papa was angry all the time.That I just couldn't get it that they didn't give a shit about me. Resented the insistent grimy, dimpled fists I reached out to them, making it difficult for them to pretend that I wasn't there.

Not when I was a lanky kid at school. The girls laughed at my thinness. They laughed at my pimples. They laughed at the permanent dried flakey trail that snot marked down my philtrum. They laughed at my pants that hung well above my ankles. They laughed when I shyly fished a naked toffee from the depths of my pocket for dear pretty Isabel. Isabel cried. They laughed. Naked toffee, bits of paper and lint, in a sticky coital embrace. Isabel cried hot tears of mortification, cheeks burning with shame. Not ever in school.

Not in class. The teacher hit me every chance he got. Teacher said i was too ugly, too tall, too poor, too dumb, too insignificant to be of any use to the world. I wasn't allowed on the football team. I was too clumsy to field and I was cockeyed. That made me pretty useless as a batsman. Or so they said.

Not at the railway station where i worked 45 years of my life. The men thought me queer and the women couldn't tell for sure where I was looking. It made them nervous that I could look brazenly at the roundness of their breasts and they couldn't catch me at it. The passengers never made eye contact. And if they did, they thought I was deliberately looking over their heads.

Not in my marriage. My wife closed her eyes and her body every time i mounted her. I once got her flowers. She scoffed her most jaded and weary scoff, and threw them out with the rest of the dinner. She complained of a headache later and slept with her back to me. She looked at me with unmasked contempt and she had my children with the same disinterest and detachment as she reared the pigs with. She fell asleep long before I came inside her. And would wake up after I rolled off her, only to carefully wipe herself clean off every trace of me. And then fat, ugly Isabel went back to sleep.

Not as a father. My children were embarrassed about me. They thought me a duffer and a failure of paternity. They feigned respect to avoid eye contact or any kind of contact, for that matter. They imitated my walk and my slouch; they mocked my talk and they crossed their eyes rudely every time they played house or It. I can't remember what they looked like smiling, or the colour of their eyes, the shape of their teeth or the smell of their hair. Even the dog didn't like me much.

But not today. Today is different. Today I'm special. Today my wife did her wifely duties with utmost sincerity. Today I'm the loving husband and she, my faithful wife - my deeply feeling wife. Today my children observed the most respectful of silences in my presence. Today I'm the well-wished neighbor - some of them came by with carefully wrapped parcels of food - assuming that had to be my favorite. One even brought a jar of whiskey. I received them in my best suit. Today they all paid attention to me and only me. I was the star. Today my house smells of freshly washed curtains, clean laundry, disinfectant and good cooking. Today my siblings came by and treated my wife like family. Today there are lights in the sitting room and the vases have fresh flowers in them and doilies under. Today I received the priest in my house. Today I'm the valued parishioner. Today my wife wept bitterly for the life we never had. And the cherished moments, I honestly couldn't remember. Today my children kissed my cheeks voluntarily - with tears in their eyes. Nasty Mrs. Toms, sweet Mrs. Michael and dear Miss. May said a rosary each for me. Today snooty Robert from across the road, Peter from the bakery and the old crook Charlie took off their hats in my presence. Today, is the day i died. And for the first time, I feel love.

random.

2011-07-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Don't go in there. There are ghosts.

sleep

2011-07-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

She fell asleep a lot.

She fell asleep during drives.

Long and short.

She fell asleep in between movies.

She fell asleep on his shoulder,

She fell asleep on his lap,

while he traced her dreams in her hair with his fingers.

She fell asleep before dinners

and after them too.

And she fell asleep in his arms.

She fell asleep, and she fell deep.

She should have been very, very worried.

She'd even fallen asleep in between conversations.

But she wasn't.

For, before he happened to her,

She stayed awake all white nights long,

dreaming dreams of sleep

sour puss

2011-07-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

To think, he could have been the Cheshire cat.
If only he'd have an attitude adjustment.

mush fish

2011-07-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

i love you so mush!

the alice syndrome

2011-06-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

twinges

2011-06-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

You're so easily happy.

It takes so little

to put that smile on your face.

We're so easily happy

You, me, she, him,

we, us.

So very little.

And yet, we go to sleep

hungry.

Is it fair?

if only

2011-06-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

"There's nothing like love, is there?" "I guess not."

During the monsoons, the sky's one big maternity ward.

2011-06-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

Morning genius

2011-06-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

I love cooking. But i love being lazy even more. So when ho-hum oats is all I can muster time and energy up for in the morning, we need to get more imaginative. Ladies and gentlemen (do they still call them that?) I give you Oreo Cookies. Oreo cookies have been making the world a better place, so effectively for so long, that they could use Michael Jackson's Heal the World as an effective ad soundtrack. So why would they treat my oatmeal breakfast any differently?

Oreo cookies are to my breakfast what black stilettos are to the most boring meeting during the most boring afternoon on earth kinda outfit. Instant, unhealthy, glamour. So let's have some instant, unhealthy glamour, please? Crumble and sprinkle generously over the oatmeal for some morning magic. I'm yummy-happy!

OH MY GOD! Slash is a WOMAN!!!

2011-06-21T23:40:00.001-07:00

Addicted to love

2011-06-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

Your lights are on, but you're not home

Your mind is not your own

Your heart sweats, your body shakes

Another kiss is what it takes

You can't sleep, you can't eat

There's no doubt, you're in deep

Your throat is tight, you can't breathe

Another kiss is all you need

You like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough

You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

You see the signs, but you can't read

You're runnin' at, a different speed

You heart beats, in double time

Another kiss, and you'll be mine a one track mind

You can't be saved

Oblivion is all you crave

If there's some left for you

You don't mind if you do

You like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough

You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Might as well face it, you're addicted to love

-Robert Palmer

Love me like you do. Always.

2011-06-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

I love silly things. I love quirky things. I love many things. And I love sharing them. Even if you think I'm a little off my rocker!

For Sanaa

2011-06-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

spooked

2011-05-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "My great granddaughter is terrified that she might see a ghost?"
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "That makes her great? She's great cos she's afraid of seeing a ghost?"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "No, you nut, with a brain deader than my 43 year old corpse. I'm talking about my son's granddaughter. That makes her my great granddaughter, like in great is a part of the noun and not an adjective! The silly girl is terrified of seeing a ghost!"
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "You mean she's seen one? Interesting!"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "No. that's the thing. She's not seen one. Well, not yet. Though i have a good mind to reveal myself to her."
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "I wouldn't recommend that. It's not nice to see a spook flash. I mean, I do find you hot and all, but them living 'uns like a lil skin, bone and flesh..and err...jiggly bits...aaah.. i miss jiggly bits!"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "Not like that kind of reveal, you stupid dead bat. Reveal like in show myself to her. So that she would know that it's not a big deal to see a ghost."
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "But if she hasn't seen a ghost, how does she know she's scared of seeing one? She might like our company, for all she knows. We're darned better than the company she sometimes keeps!"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "That's exactly it. The silly child is in the habit of fearing things in advance. And then most of the time, it's never as bad as she thought it would be. Meanwhile she's spent enough sleepless nights, wasted enough time and lost enough hair doing her I'm-so-scared-shitless routine. And then after the event, she's like "Aiye! Only so much? THAT's what I've been scared of all this while?" And then she struts around as if she's swum the English Channel with a handicap and does her Jhansi-ki-Rani-oh-I'm-so-brave act. Happily forgetting that it was all in her head."
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "Oh that is very silly indeed! But i find her rather amusing, ...errr... I meant intriguing, I swear, I meant intriguing. Tell me more about her and her silly ways. I've forgotten how silly human girls can be. "
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "You deadbeat jerk, I'm not having this conversation with you to entertain you with the capers of my featherbrain descendant! I'm at a loss what to do about this girl! ARRGH, she makes me so mad. She sets my long-worm-eaten-teeth on its long-worm-eaten edge. When she was little, she used to be terrified of bridges, water, the witch in the well and the monster family under her bed. Now I think her mum ought to be afraid of the boys under her bed!"
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "REALLY? You're great granddaughter is a racy one? OOOHH"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "I WISH. The child who is not-so-much-a-child is commitment-phobic. She gets her hands burnt on nothings and then claims to be scared of the real thing"
Dead-for-as-many-years-colleague-in-death: "She's scared of that also? Let me guess, not tried that either?"
Dead-for-many-years-great gran: "For once you've gotten something right! I wish she would just stop being so afraid and just live for once."

**My greatgranny was supposedly a feisty one. REALLY FEISTY. Apparently she would stop at nothing, and I guess having a silly goose like me for a great granddaughter must make her somersault in her grave, ever so often. I'm not so afraid of seeing a ghost anymore, just like I'm trying to get over my fear of a lot of other things. So here goes everything. :)

:)

2011-05-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, look here. Look here. LOOK HERE! Tch! SIt now. Sit, sit, SIT! I told you to sit, no? Where you going? Come and sit here. come here, Come here. Come HERE. Beating, for you. You want beating? SIT! Okay, now, look here. CLICK. Oi..don't move so much! Why can't you just sit here!? COME HERE. No, NO, DON'T JUMP ON ME. Shee! You nut. Okay, now you'll sit? Sit, sit, SIT…where's the stick! I'll BEAT YOU! Look here……arrrrgh! No, no don't move. Sit properly. Okay, now stop scratching your balls. Sit still, no? Enough! Stop scratching them, already. EYYYY stop licking them..... Sheee! CLICK! Look here, okay? Shooooo sweet you are. STOOOOOPID FELLOWWWW Don't jump. BEATING FOR YOU! Eeeek stop licking me. Get off me. You're heavy. Sit DOWN. Okay, be good and sit, okay? Awww…so cute you are!! My sweetie pie. Love you so much.**

**Photo sessions with my nutty dog.

looking back

2011-05-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

Must these priorities shift so much?
Only for the right decisions
to metamorphose into trivialities?
People, whose features shift
into wallpaper and furniture.
Career that swells with the
nothingness of an empty belly.
Wombs filled with placenta and
regret.
Sleepless nights and cholesterol traffic.
Sleeping around and glorious
dissatisfaction.
Thankless bosses and spouses.
Bodies abused by the light
and weight of ephemeral manna.
Love. Oh, love!
The years, crawling with the
termites of redundancy.
investments turn into rubble.
And rubble into precious things,
we lost along the way.
Living forever, specters in a fist-sized
pound of regret, ebbing within you.
A steady motor, keeping you alive.

reminders

2011-04-29T07:39:00.001-07:00

Between lunges. Between laps. Between falls. Between beatings. Between desperation. Between kisses. Between bitter words. Between lip synching. Between pouring your heart out. Between contractions. Between laughing. Between racking sobs. Between skipping a heartbeat. Between losing your mind. Between crumbling to nothing. Between putting the pieces together again. Between breakdowns. Between making love. Between your routine headlong crashes. Between role plays. Between shifting shapes. Between flying. Between sinking. Between sips of coffee. Between gulps. Between scalded tongues and. between getting burnt. Between messes. Between spring cleaning. Between chewing more than you can bite. Between being stifled. Between smothering. Between panic button pushes. Between paranoiac fits. Between adrenaline rushes. Between going blue in the face. Between unforgiveness. Between loss. Between delirium. Between freedom. Between dancing. Between catching up. Between highs. Between lows. Between building. Between wrecks. Between repair. Between fights. Between accusations. Between salvaging. Between salvation. Between damnation. Between thresholds. Between limits. Between being right. Between mistakes. Between scandals. Between humiliation. Between redemption. Between faltering. Between courage. Between losing your way. Between coming back. Between abandonment. Between hesitation. Between haste. Between getting wasted. Between before and afters. Between in-betweens. Between bottoms-ups. Between upside-downs. Between letting go. Between holding on for dear life. Between screaming your lungs out. Between ennui. Between act 1 and act 2. Between the moment you decide to jump off the edge and the moment you actually jump. Between having the time of your life. Between everyday deaths.
Don't forget to breathe.

6 am and There, there by Radiohead!

2011-04-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

The Cockroach stuck its ugly non-head head out of its hidey-hole. Feelers going all over the place, sensing. Antennae seeking. Threats and treats. A weird, ugly stealth machine. So redundant it seemed, all this unnecessary care, considering how brazen these ugly things could be. But still, a little precaution never killed anyone, did it? Or maybe it did. The Cockroach thought of another life, with the twingiest twinge of sadness its non-heart heart was capable of feeling. Nostalgia, the colour of pretty blue and silk black stockings. Butterfly wings fluttering in the sun. Flitting in and out - like a thought tossed in the winds of a drugged stupor. Green cough syrup bottles with sleep floating under their screwed-on caps and potential death that slept in sleeping pills. Wake. Wake up. Wake. Whose wake is this? Whose turn was it to wake up? Corpses of sweetness lay in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. Cockroaches could survive them, apparently. Unnaive. No nectar, thank you. let's feast on some scraps and left-behinds. Sláinte! To health! The Cockroach scanned its precincts with its super-sensory, ultraviolet, ultra-some-more-shit-infra-red goggles definitely ugly compound eyes. "Is this a good time to get out? Will those bastards try to squash me?Again." it was getting rather tiresome, this dodging business. It just couldn't seem to go anywhere without someone or the other trying to stamp it clean out of existence. Green goo and crusted mud on the underside of someone's boots. Enough of that. The Cockroach pulled its ugly non-body body out of its hidey-hole. "Let's get a breath of fresh air, already."

The Cockroach wasn't always ugly. Hell, The Cockroach wasn't always a cockroach to begin with. The Cockroach was once a butterfly. Fragile, tissue paper wings. Kissed by the sun and loved by one. Flitting in and out - like the sweetness of love. Such sweetness, you could mix it in your morning mug of coffee and still have enough left for your black tea. And for many more mornings to come. And put it under your pillow, to have the sweetest of dreams. And then it happened. The wings tore, the body dropped like a petal from the sky. It lay dying. sweetness crumbling into smudged colored dust on the hot pavement. God appeared. A humorless God. but pretty cool, even if He was dressed in fatigues. And blew a shrill whistle in its ear. God gave it a choice. To die a martyr of love, with books written about it, glowing epitaphs and history-creating eulogies - but dead. Or to be reborn. Ugly. i chose to be reborn. as a cockroach. not pretty. But nevertheless, a survivor.

tenets

2011-03-18T09:57:00.001-07:00

They told me i should be good. That i should be obedient and that i should never forget to say my prayers. My granny told me that i must love and respect my parents. My daddy told me that I should be humble, for I was much too proud than what could possibly be good for a little girl. The Ten Commandments told me, along with a lot of other musts and must nots, that i shouldn't covet my neighbour's wife or commit adultery. My teachers told me that my pinafore must reach below my knees and my socks should never be rolled down. Text books told me that i must look right, then left and right again before crossing the road; that the fork went in the left hand and the knife in the right; that 10 times 10 made a hundred and don't let nobody tell me any differently.
Mummy told me i should be careful of men thereon, when that blood splotch stained my panties for the very first time. My report card told me that i could do better. Always! And I think I took that to heart. It's followed me like a specter from my childhood. In all my performances. Work, writing, pay checks, boy friends, character, love. All of them have had "Can do better" scrawled all over them in invisible ink.
Society told me I must act like how a girl was expected to act. Catechism told me i must save myself for the man i would marry. Proverbs told that procrastination was NOT the mother of invention and honesty was the best, but unfortunately slow like government policy. The church told me that Jesus was coming and that i must be prepared for the judgement day - lest i be measured and found wanting. So much like school and scary school principals. My boy friend told me that i must not be a troublemaker, that i shouldn't speak my mind, that I should take it lying down, or nobody would like me. my doctor told me that i must have my babies before 35 or there'd be complications. My body told me to panic by 25. My dentist told me i must brush my teeth twice a day. My priest told me that i should say three Hail Marys to absolve me of my sins and my uncontrollable rage.
The law told me that i must part with with my hard earned money to pay for roads that are not there. My uncles and aunts have told me often that i'm a stupid, arrogant girl who had it coming and that I must listen to my parents because they've been through life and that they knew better. Really? Dear mum, dear dad, what did you do when your entire world crumbled? How did you survive being flung to the jagged rocky shore of heart break? How did you survive failure? How did you live through humiliation? The farce of everyday life? Please tell me, cos i haven't a clue. And how did you deal with fear? Have you managed to lock it behind a closed door? How did get past the feeling of wanting to die? How did you deal with your suicidal and homicidal tendencies?
I've been told, advised, warned, ordered a good many things. But no one told me that one thing that ought to have been preached from every pulpit, engraved over every board, taught in every school, hammered into every skull and told to every child sitting on every knee. No one told me the first thing i needed to learn to do, was be true to myself. And that whoever had a problem with that, should be told to go fuck themselves.

spaces

2011-03-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

I need more cupboards
i simply must have more cabinets
with secret stashes aplenty
Make them dark, deep and cavernous.
Big enough to store a lion, his family and his secrets.
I need a huge wardrobe - more stowaway spaces.
For safekeeping of things, better lost than found.
A cryptic closet
For all the skeletons i will have
once I'm done here.

illict habits

2011-03-18T09:24:00.001-07:00

Munching sugar
in between meals.
Munching sugar
when I ought to stay clean.
Sweetness between my teeth,
after I've brushed them at night.
Ants in my house,
ants in my bed,
ants in the dirty corners in my head.
Those nocturnal dream-parasites,
crawling on the insides of my face, upside down.
As i see you in psychedelic colours.
Cotton-candy pink and boiled-candy orange.
Hot yellow and scalding neon green.
So i sit here munching sugar.
When I really should know better.

Nana Maria's strange day

2011-02-25T23:16:00.000-08:00

Nana Maria knew something was amiss that morning. For one thing, she took a leak standing up. At seventy-four, there just wasn't any reason for her to explore new and challenging vistas in taking a piss, for thrills. Second of all, she said, "Holy Fuck!", when she realized that she was taking a piss standing up. Now, she never said Holy Fuck! There was nothing holy about Fuck - which in her mind, was a thoroughly disgusting act that had to be endured to conduct God's holy decree of making more Catholics. "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth."

So that's how Nana Maria knew that something was amiss. So assured she was about herself, that it didn't even occur to her to be scandalized at herself. You're only scandalized with yourself when you aren't sure about your morals and the ways of your conduct. Which she wasn't. So in Nana Maria's head, this strange turn of events, was exactly that. A turn of events. a sleight of circumstance. It had nothing to do with whim. Something, had altered in the universe. Something vital, like the something vital that had caused other things to behave differently from how they normally would - like the parting of the Red Sea, for instance, or the immaculate conception or the lions uncustomary behavior with the prophet Daniel. The Bible was filled with such events. Manifestations. Yes, Nana Maria believed that this was nothing short of a manifestation. The end of the world had to be near.

Next thing she knew, she was craving for a smoke. Her tongue itched for the coarse taste of tobacco. Oh for one drag, one blissful drag! She felt her lungs heave with want - the distinct pull that twisted your stomach into a knot. The last and only time, she felt like that was before her first child - back when she was still treasured virginal hopes, when she was still in love with her husband, when she was silly. Desire that once, made her clench her insides. Gasping and staggering, like from the impact of a heavy blow. White, hot passion scalding the inner walls of her body. Wasn't she disgusted with herself for that! As penance for such unabashed weakness, she spent the entire afternoon dragging her knees across the cemented floor of the outhouse, one rosary bead after the next. That's how, for the rest of her life, carnal hunger came to be associated with excruciating pain - helping her stick to the narrow path with plenty of success. Until today. Her innards begged for the lusty feel of a cigarette between her lips. Body drawn in, cheeks taut with tension, lungs full, chest caves in and then, like a bow setting an arrow free, the sweet release. Wanton desire tossed inside Nana Maria's body like a ship in a storm while her mind tried its best to rein in this rogue, but potentially catastrophic, situation. Nana Maria had to get to the church before this demon, that seemed to have possessed her, cost her soul.

So to the church she fled, while litanies followed one after the other like ants on parade. Inside her, the craving grew spherical and physical in certainty, till it was heavy as a cold, massive, marble in her stomach. The devil touched the small of her back with icy fingers. Shivers and goose pimples. Bringing to life the huge, cold marble inside her. Unmentionable, involuntary responses from her body. Slowly it uncoiled its serpentine being, till it stretched along the length of her spine. She was certain that her desire was right there in plain sight - there for all to see. On her face, on the surface of her skin, between her nails. The dogs could smell it on her. It attracted flies like an open ripe fruit would.And it made her skin peel with the ignominy. Fear of being judged turned her face a sickly shade of green. Bile in her mouth. The midday sun turned the folds of her skin moist and sweet with sweat. And inside her, her heart skipped beats like a clumsy awkward dancer. She stumbled blindly into the somber half-darkness of the chapel.

The smell of burning candles gave her the comfort of being in one's own turf. Fervently making the sign of the cross, she hoped being in God's house would help quell that unholy feeling that still grew inside her. And yet, the need for a drag jostled in her head among the joyful, sorrowful, luminous and glorious mysteries, like a fat person in a crowded bus. Thankful for the darkness, she cringed with the ache that nearly throbbed inside. Hot. Wet. Alive. And, then, he walked in.

All of twenty-four, lithe, cherub curls and coral ears. Beautiful. Nana Maria took in Brother Peter's beatific countenance with the raptures of an epiphany. His hands, his hair, his mouth, his neck where it disappeared into the collar of his cassock, his ears. This is what it was like to be a dirty, old woman. "I'm a dirty old woman, that's what I am. A filthy hag." Nana Maria blushed for the first time in forty five years. "What's happening to me?"
There was no way Nana Maria would know, or believe even if she did, that her psyche, weary from feeling nothing, had swapped half of itself with that of her husband's. She had no idea that inside her, a mutated androgynous entity had taken form. Nor did she know that her husband at that very moment, was feeling terrible repentance for the very first time, after leching at young Cynthia's tits a million times before, and was as confused as a pygmy in the city about it. "Why suddenly? What happened? Such a sin to God - she's but a child!" All Nana Maria knew was that something was amiss!

on love. again.

2011-02-15T19:28:00.001-08:00

Love takes up space. Large and small. It makes us claustrophobic in cubicles and fills up a large room, like light from a chandelier or even music from a harp. Love is abstract and yet, you can see it. In people's eyes, in ordinary things, in purses, in between sheets, in between fingernails and in between legs. In the folds of their skin, in the folds of their clothes, under train seats and in between sofa cushions. On tops of tables, in photoframes, in dreams, in phone memory cards, in shoeboxes buried in cupboards, in incomplete sentences, in lost and found boxes.

Love takes up space. Solid space. And when it leaves, it leaves behind emptiness - palpable, visible emptiness so thick and so hard and so huge, you wonder, how emptiness could ever get this heavy, in the first place.

crib, crib, crib

2011-02-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

Mummy: Dannie, eat your crow and stop complaining.

Dannie: But mummmmmmmieeeee…do i have to? i hate crow!

Mummy: Stop fussing child and be grateful that it's warm. so many children don't even have that. And you are hardly a child. You're a stupid, unmarried 27 year old.

Dannie: Now, don't bring my age into this.

Mummy: (mockingly) Yes, yes princess! Of course i will bring your age into this. At your age I had two children.

Dannie: (muttering, but not quite soft enough) Ooh some accomplishment, that!

Mummy: What's that? see? This is why you end up like this. With a mouthful of horrible tasting crow. Stubborn, arrogant little hussies like you deserve to eat crow all day. Eat it now.

Dannie: (whiningly) AAI HAY-TE CROW

Mummy: And yes, you have a choice, right? Be thankful you still have the option of eating crow. it's not too late. You can still make amends for your stupidity, idiocy and arrogance. But remember next time you're tempted to do something really dumb, your elders know better. And listen to us! remember how you yourself fell with your face in the mud - all your fault, ketto? If you've learnt your lesson, well and good for you. Sit there quietly and eat it fast, it's getting cold now!

Dannie: (To myself, softly this time) oh geezzz…like crow isn't enough, she has to top it off with gyan and butter it with those godawful I-told-you-so's. Damn you, ex-boyfriend. I hope you fry in eat-crow-all-day-hell. It's your fault i'm being subjected to this. grrrrrr!

Mummy: Well, since you're eating all that crow, you might as well eat your own words. There's a whole lot of them leftover. Eat them fast, before more people get to know about your foolishness. For once your big, fat mouth will be of some use.

Dannie: ( meekly. very, very meekly) yes, mummy.

*** and this is how i feel about being inducted into the great proposal thamasha slash circus. Now i know why people throw in the towel and say "Go ahead, oh great parents, and find me that perfect person who has been evading me all this while. I'll be the dutiful son slash daughter and do as you say. i fall at thy lotus feet." The peace and quiet, as promised in the brochure of dutiful children and arranged marriage, is tempting, i must say. As long as they are busy finding people, they stay occupied enough to stay out of your hair and will quit complaining. Aaah, bliss! So here i am, taking back all my words, and giving the parents the green signal. But ha ha..conditions apply :D

one more letter to docomo and i'm done!

2011-02-09T11:16:00.000-08:00

dear docomo
It's true, it's only been a few months since we made each other's acquaintance. But as my service provider, I think we should cut to the chase and get to first name basis. Pronto! So I think I'll call you Doc! Like that? Knew you would. Wow, are you feeling this like i am?

Anyway enough of pleasantries. Now that we know each other a little better there are a few things I'd like to tell you. For starters, I DON'T want to wish Barbara Mori a frikkin Happy Birthday at only Rs. 50. OKAY? Have we got that straight? It's not like Ms. Mori is going to see my message and go "Hmm..Dannie reeemembuured (mexican accent, people) my birthday. How thoughtful of her!" Dude, that's some scam, you're running there. How many idiots blew fifty bucks on that stunt, huh? I'm curious about those figures. Okay, moving on. Stop barraging me with messages about sizzling chicks having fun. If I wanted to see one of those, there's something called a mirror, hello!? So stop it with the twenty-five service messages, already? The ratio between real-people messages and docomo messages is depressingly skewed in the latter's favor. KNow what that makes me feel like? Super shitty! And what's with the chick-stuff? Blonde babes doing aerobics, dazzling models in gold swimwear (Oh help, where are my shades), unlimited download of most desired Namitha, mobile wallpaper of south booties, sorry, beauties Mamtha and Aishwariya (BARRRF), FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! You think I'm some kind of dyke? WOMAN here, people! Send me something like beautiful young men playing rugby in bare minimum, and THEN you have my attention. All this chica stuff, not happening! You're barking up the wrong tree. And is Rambo Forever video games the best you can do for me? Now I'm offended. How sexist are you, Doc?

So tell me, who writes your messages? The alliteration…whoa, too much. February fantasy, January jiggling, December ding-ding, November naaansense! You guys more cheesy than a double burst pizza, i say! And you send these messages during workhours. Don't you have any sense of ethics? These are man-hours that people are paying for WORK not for DOWNLOADING PICTURES OF SKIMPILY CLAD WOMEN FOR 30 RUPEES, ONLY!

And you must think me really dumb, no? Expecting me to believe when you tell me that Mr. Arun No-second-name and Mrs. Rani-no-second-name-again has won twenty seven mobiles each and it's my turn to win fifty android phones by answering how people at Docomo think, with a) their butt b) their brain. PUh-leaze! If you think I'm so stupid as to fall for that and part with three rupees to answer that, you are mistaken my friend. Such a dumb Doc you are! I mean, when you bullshit, try and bullshit a little convincingly. Give those people second names. and give those messages a little credibility with the benefit of punctuation ad grammar. Your messages read like this now, "Ms. Leela and Mr. Ramesh have won a mobile, wat u waiting for: Rose is a) Flower b) Alien." Do me a favor, save it! I know, to actually do something about it, i must dial some customer number, which i have no clue of, because you've not done anything useful like sending me THAT, oh no! But even if i dial some number, I'm afraid the CR person might try to force some horrid caller tune down my throat instead of helping me by ACTIVATING my Do no disturb profile. Doc, you must o something about this.
Yours most sincerely
dannie

the undoing of me

2011-02-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

I willed myself to ignore it. And it, in return, willed my eyes not to waver from its disgusting being. But this was me - dannie - who could refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything like it, without the slightest twinge of guilt. I could walk by its types, oblivious to their presence. But no, here i was, visibly disconcerted by it. Something had changed in me, and it made me as twitchy as jerry mouse being eyed by tom. I was entranced. It stuck to my thoughts. It grabbed me by my face and made me look at it like a forceful husband. It was a fingernail running down a glass pane and it wrecked my morning. Me, who was curled up on the sofa with a hot mug of black coffee, going about the business of having a good morning - basking in the mellow sunlight, now stared fixedly and stupidly into space. It was an itch, placed squarely and inconveniently in the middle of my back. And i was in unholy agony with the need to scratch it. A fly in my soup. A needle in my spring mattress. A little black ant in my perfect tide-detergent-white heaven!

Thus ensued the war of wills. Me still in denial (but failing miserably). It still stubbornly following my thoughts like a former lover-turned-stalker. It stared fixedly at me, making me look at it, against my wishes. I look the other way, it crashed a crystal vase inside my head. I directed my thoughts to something else, it overtook me and waylaid me in my getaway, like a cop in a seedy crime thriller. I distracted my self with a sip of coffee, it startled me with a yell. It was uncomfortable. And i was getting jumpy. But no, i refused to budge. And it refused to give up. All the while, it beckoned to me with its index finger, like seductresses do in movies. Wow, it even had well manicured, red fingernails.

Finally, it became too much to take. My resolve broke. I placed my cup on the floor and huffed to the kitchen. Got a rag. And wiped that miserable smudge off my perfect white floor. That stupid thing that had practically ruined my lovely morning coffee. Me, Dannilla, erstwhile reigning queen of unapologetic super messes, who could be blissfully unaware of hanging cobwebs, dust balls that one could go bowling with and colossal messes that could give the colosseum a complex, was getting affected by a tiny little spot on my floor. Oh heaven help. What on earth is going on?

Talking corp, talking crap. Poet-ate-o! Po-tah-toe!

2011-02-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

Corporate talk has officially gone COO-COO (that's cuckoo for you uninitiated twerps) All this acronym business has gone out of hand. What is wrong with saying “For your information”? See when you talk business, you mean business. So if you opt to talk business in ambiguous acronyms - you're asking for trouble. Like FYI also expands into Fuck Yourself Immediately or Fuck Yourself Imbecile. Nice! I can just about imagine a nice email to the boss that reads… Dear Sir, FYI here are the figures you requested. See? Told you? There's just too much left to interpretation. Now if I were the boss, I could tell my dear lowlifes (cos that's what you are if you aren't the boss- anything below the boss is a lowlife. Take it from a lowlife) to spell it out. No ambiguity with me. Thank you very much. Not just that, FYI is so incredibly rude. I've only used it when I’m bickering with someone. And whenever anyone mentions FYI in their emails, I'm thinking "God! What did I do to piss you off, NOW?"
The experience of having someone throw abbreviations and acronyms at me, is not unlike searching for one particular song in a 100 GB iPod. Without a search button or a helpful happy doggy pawing the ground. Oh, I’m getting my OSes mixed here. But you know what I’m talking about, don't you? I have to jog my memory to place WTF is he/she talking about. Like when someone asks me "What's the POA?" I used to want to ask back "POA? If I knew what POA is, in the first place, perhaps, I could enlighten you about what THE POA is." But the first rule in the book of corporate rules is Act like you know - don't ask questions. And do it well. So I act. And give vague answers. Or simply act difficult. Which BTW, I don't have to do any acting for, because by nature, I'm difficult. So difficult, I could put it on my CV. But since it’s not like me to brag, I try to be modest about it. But thankfully, now I know what POA is and I see no chance of misplacing my POA. So, yeay for me!
So we were saying - acronyms. Funny how it sounds like paroxysm, no? For some reason, ASAP always made me think of Kiss my Ass. I refuse to think that has anything to do with the inherently difficult person that I am - but with the structure of the two - too much relation going on. Like they're first cousins or something. But it's poetic don't you think. It's almost like a knee jerk reflex. Someone says ASAP to someone else, to which someone else thinks 'Kiss my Ass'. If the someone else is a little politer, 'In your dreams', would be what they'd think. By ASAP somehow awakens the green hulk monster in most of us and the aforementioned someone is treated to an ugly green rear end.
Then you have POVs which sounds like something you'd stuff up people's rearends, if their corporate rearends weren't so stuffy already.
and PFA which sounds like a choice south Indian abuse
and CTR. This one had me look at with my head tilted at several and different degrees. Every time I saw it on my joblist, I'd freak out. CTR? What the hell is CTR. Am I in trouble? Am I in trouble. Mayday. Mayday. Where is the damn papercup? Then i stopped panicking. Cos Client To Revert looks a lot nicer on your jobstat than "this lazy ass hasn't begun work yet!"
and BAU Business As usual, people. The corporate jungle is like a prison movie and we're all just bitches. So let's hear you say bau bau!

and then there are not so common ones which are very, very entertaining if not anything else.

AFLO - Another flipping learning opportunity
AHYOA - Asshole of the Year award. The award which probably holds the world records for its sheer number of contenders. (including yours truly, heh heh)
BEER - This one's just asking for trouble. Imagine this baby popping up in the 72nd slide of a 300-slide PPT? You might as well have a farewell party for your attention span. You've lost your audience. Rush to the "Thank you" slide with the dufus smiley and do your good deed for the day. Sad though, considering how pompous and grand sounding its expansion is in factuality - such promise it had. check out what i found on the net. Behaviour, Effect, Expectation, Results. The headings by which to assess performance of anything, particularly a new initiative. A great discipline when working with a team or delegating another to conduct a review, when it's important to keep the review focused. HA HA HA that's wishful thinking!!

But now for the mother of all stupid corporate acronyms. An acquaintance I made last week. And since I heard it with my own ears, I know it's in circulation among the who's who of the biggies. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you BHAG - pronounced beehag. I'll give you a moment here. I know! I know! It’s a little too much to take. Smarties who have heard of the term before, don't show off. Stop doing your ho-hum routine, already. Okay now, back to our lesson in strange corporate talk. (Geez, imagine how these corp folk would pillowtalk. Ugh!)
Back to BHAG. No, it has nothing to do with that bitch slash hag some of you might call boss. And it's not a term given to the boss-shagger. You have to admit it brings to mind 'shag'. BHAG is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. WTF, i say!! Why God, why? In this age of degeneration..there is such degeneration. Big Hairy Audacious Goal for crying out loud!! It brings to mind, at least my mind, a viking with bramble bushes for armpits. Why viking? Cos somehow it reminds me of Hagar the Horrible. And it brings to mind many other things. But it certainly doesn't make me think of any Audacious Goal. It makes me think of things too gross to mention. Ewww. To think in these days of political correctness which renders every conversation a potential landmine, it's alright for BHAG to be part of the vision/mission/dishum dishum statements!! Like I said, it's all gone COO-COO!

P.S. My apologies to all of you who will be COOs someday.

morning blues

2011-01-25T04:22:00.000-08:00

Feeling hungry first thing in the morning sucks. First thing, not like in, when you just wake up. Then you can do something about it, like have breakfast - for instance. But feeling hungry well after you've shined your shoes, done with your first round of cribbing and griping about having to go to work and officially begun your day - reconciled to the fact you must earn your daily bread so you're sharpening your pencils to write some piss-in-your-pants-great copy - that sucks. How on earth are you supposed to focus on the aforementioned history creating copy when your stomach is staging its own dharna and non-cooperation movement inside you? It hogs the media space of your attention span. But of course, you're made of sterner stuff. So we steel the nerves and put up resistance. Mental police do the danda and lathi charge and the teargas thingy. And then things start to get dirty. Very dirty.

Hunger takes the guerilla warfare route. And attacks you where you least expect it to - far from the source of trouble. Aaah, very sneaky! But this is guerilla warfare, remember? Expect the unexpected and all that jazz! So while you're sending reinforcements by focusing mental energies to the most obvious place like every other fool government in the history of guerilla warfare has, hunger launches its line of attack elsewhere. Begin grenade attack on the prime fortress where the king and queen and the prime minister are. And you have a fucking headache. Now you're superscrewed. For, now you have two things to focus on, instead of one. The head's not working so good anymore, people! So with this lack of judgment, you make a lot of unwise decisions - like being prompted to try drinking the gook they pass off as coffee in the flask. BAD MOVE! God in heaven, have you felt this pukey before? Now you know what battery acid or Surf Ultra water probably tastes like. Only thing is, this new experience doesn't work well on an empty stomach. AND THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT TIME FOR EXPANDING YOUR HORIZON OF NEW EXPERIENCES. Malayalees the world over call this the "Veyndairunnu" situation. It's your regular SNAFU situation with a good measure of regret.
By now you need your fingers to count all those things you're trying to counter - hunger, headache, pukey-feeling and Veyndairunnu (inclusive of regret). As you might have noticed, work or deadlines or a sense of duty don't even come in the picture. Not that you have any business countering those sentiments at work. Let me make this clear - they don't pay you for that. So you're bereft of any enthusiasm to work and you feel like shit and you've forgotten about history-making copy. And to top it all off, if you're anything like me and have a clinical condition of being distracted, you might as well shut down your system and call it a day. At 11.30 am.

silly poem time, people!

2011-01-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

i found 'em goody-two shoes
And i tried 'em on.
I found 'em goody-two shoes
And boy, I shouldn't have tried em on.
The beastly things pinched much
tore my ankles and ripped my toes.
Scalded my soles and turned them into mulch.
They were uncomfortable, and
I couldn't take two steps without wanting
to throw them far, far away.

Those goody-two shoes,
well they didn't get me far.
Those Goody-two shoes.
man did they scar!
I yelped, winced and twisted in pain.
So bad, that i thought i wouldn't walk again.
I tried em bloody goody two shoes
They were the tightest things ever.
Worse than constipation and worse than having my nose stuffed with cotton wool.
And sweet lord, it was even worse than Sunday school.
Them shoes, with their ugly buckles
and their tattle tongues
trying to fit me in places where i never would be.
shoehorning me into a typecast - someone else's idea of who i must be.
Those goody-two shoes with their sensible heels
made me shorter than everyone - so that i would learn to feel less than my self.
Those horrid shoes, that belonged to everyone else but me.
My supposed lesson in empathy.
Fuck em goody two shoes.
Give me my good old, worn ones -
covered in the dust of all the places that i've been.
Give me my terribly but unapologetically dirty ones.
Those size 4s you'd recognize anywhere as mine,
Be it heaven, hell or hunoswathallidisis!

the cold

2011-01-12T05:10:00.001-08:00

during those days, the cold would wedge its icy fingers in between windows and doors. Making them so hard to close, that people often choose to leave them unlatched. Locks never clicked into the assurance of safety, bolts never reached the protecting embrace of their other halves and latches, despite their best efforts, despite stretching their desperate arms and reaching out, failed to find their way home.
Yes, during winter, the cold was an unwelcome guest, an intruder,who found its way into houses. It settled under sheets, jammed cupboards and chilled bones. But the real vileness was that, in winter, the cold wedged itself between people, making it impossible for them to get close. Half-closed, unsecured, intrudable. Left open to the outside world. The cold settled between people, making them fall apart with a jump and thud that startled a deathly quiet room.

quizzical

2011-01-03T05:09:00.000-08:00

I’m dying to do a lot of things. I'm dying to be famous. I'm dying to travel all over the world. I'm dying to make the best cheesecake in the world. I'm dying to have my own place. I'm dying to shove a grenade up a certain-someone's ass. I'm dying to go on an all-girls trip. AGAIN. I'm dying to eat some fried sardines. I'm dying to be richer than death by chocolate cake. Okay that's a lot of dyings. I'm sure you got the message! But one thing I’m really dying to do is meet someone who has won one of those moronically simple SMS contests. I would really like to meet one in this lifetime. What are the odds huh? First of all, that someone would be sucker enough to reply to those messages. And then, winning something other than an education in why-you-should-never-answer-easy-questions-cos-easy-things-come-with-a-bigger-catch-than-a-cardiac-arrest! Remember how in school, our teachers would get so offended and bark at us "Don't ask me stupid questions!" And someone would be actually, truly, genuinely be having a doubt if the colour of the sky is blue or purple. Colour dyslexia wasn't fashionable in my time! Anyway..stupid questions never had too much of a career. Have you seen Amitabh Bachchan doing his "Bol raha hoon" act about whether TATA is a manufacturing giant or a way of saying bye-bye? No you haven't. Forgive that stupid question there, but I had a point to drive home! And here you are, bombarded by fool operators with questions like this.

Hmmm…so i get this SMS. Sachin Tendulkar is :. A construction worker. B: A cricketer. Answer this question and win a brick of gold. Oh, that is a toughie. Who is Sachin Tendulkar anyway? After much scalp-searching, sorry scratching… I venture Sachin Tendulkar must be a cricket player. Why would there be SMS contests about construction workers? Unless he lays bricks at the speed Asterix beats the shit out of the Romans after he's drunk Getafix's potion. since there is no potion, it must be genuine talent and he deserves to be VERY, very famous, no? Oh damn. Now I'm in a fix!! And i want to win that brick of gold so bad. Only three rupees it'll cost me. Yesterday also i let go of the chance of winning a diamond hawaii chappal by not answering if TV stood for Television or Terrorist Van. I was at such a loss. What do these people think? Everyone prepares for the civil service exams? SO WHO IS SACHIN TENDULKAR, dammit! Can i call a friend? Or could i have a clue? ONE TINY CLUE? Please, please, oh pretty please! And i simply must know the answer to this. Is New Delhi or Pattikad the capital of India? And is the Red Fort red or blue in colour? Now this one gave me sleepless nights. Is the tiger of the cockroach India's national animal? The cockroach isn't even an animal..but it's seen more often than the tiger. A lot more often. Can you imagine, the prize was a platinum nose-digger!! An actual discover-your-platinum-moment-of-love platinum nose-digger! And how many days are there in a year? 365 or thirty five thousand seven hundred and two? Help me. I’m so confused!

I'm honestly eager about meeting one of these 3-rupee costing stupid SMS contest grandmasters. Like I said - SIMPLY DYING!

sin-ster

2010-12-31T05:21:00.001-08:00

okay..so this song is like a terribly sexy song. and ever since i heard it on the soundtrack of "love actually" it's driven me crazy. it's what inspired me to write the piece below. i hope it reminds you of that someone or something that reduces you to nothing. i say something, cos right now in my life, sin and temptation only pertains to oreo cookies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAwFFRd8xO0&feature=related
listen to it while you read it :D

It's sin and you know it very well. And you know better that you're going to give into it. There could be hell to pay. You dangle the choice like loose change in your pockets. Your breath is a demented prisoner, caught somewhere, tangled and mangled in its own delirium. The blinding flash of desire. You let your self melt away into the moment. Doubling over with want. Your fingers chase the restless spiders in your hair and an icicle makes its slow, painful progress down your spine. Deafening pounding in your ears and your chest tightens till you think you'll explode with what you contain within yourself. sweet lust. the buzz in your head and your silly palpitating heart, flailing like a fish out of water. that delicious moment. words reduce your stomach to water. will becomes a weak would. knees made of melting wax and veins flowing with white heat. better than chocolate. better than ice cream. better than the warm amber of whiskey. forever waits like a foolish lover in the rain. the moment is all you know and you care. and you felt alive, like never before! The moment you touched.

Hell hath no fury like the types of me scorned

2010-12-31T05:18:00.001-08:00

I'm in trouble. Big trouble. No I'm not pregnant with the immaculate conception. Christmas is over people! Enough with the falalalala spirit, already! Ok-hey….this is how it goes.
Recent events have seriously jeopardized my status as chief family rebel. Okay maybe not chief… but certainly vice-president rebel. i, who was supposed to make people gasp their entrails out by doing something scandalous is now being looked at askance by the younger lot. My parents are just waiting for the cue to breathe their sigh of relief. Well they have been holding their breaths for three years now. And now, with some people doing the i'm-a-rat-i-desert-this-ship act, my folks have all the reason to see hope in me. OH NO. how does that make me feel? it makes me feel THREATENED. Like a tiger who's misplaced his dentures. What will they expect me to do next? Jump over hoops of fire? Oooh ..that appeals to the dramaqueen in me. Like you know, hoops of fire being a metaphor for arranged marriage, into which I'm expected to make the leap of faith …..ooh too much! And then what? Fall flat on my face? WHAT THE HELL! JesusMaryJoseph..what have i become? There's every chance that I could wind up being a shining example!! Like the conduct-chart superstar I was with. And that is quite mortifying you know! Mum holding the ex as an example to be emulated. Suddenly the enemy is the golden boy? "See look at him. Such a nice boy. Listening to his parents and giving them no grief" Ooohlalallala….rub it in my face like it's a facial, won't you? See the thing is, when a boy or a girl comes across as a family boy or a family girl, there's every chance that they're a HIS FAMILY guy or a HER FAMILY girl. Which means D.U.M.P.E.D for those foolish enough to be in a relationship with them.

So what went wrong here? The person or the event that was supposed to make my dad turn around and glower like the armless dude in Sholay (with the requisite jang-jang-jang music in the background) and make my mum put her hands to her head and cry out "Naaaahi" like Hema Malini, turned tail and chickened out. Squawk Squawk. And is now brand ambassador for the matrimonial columns. Soon we might be subjected to the privilege of seeing his mug (with the missus, of course) with curly-wurly fonts proclaiming them to be a success story in the newspaper. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mr. and Mrs. Dutiful son. Such a story for a film! NOT.

Things have come to pass that even my friends have dared to mention the "A" word to me. Not adults-only, you dimwits. ARRANGED MARRIAGE!!!!! and some more exclamation marks, if you please. My little cousin, she asks me straight out, "Are you going to embarrass us all by going for a typical manoramamatrimonials marriage? Nanakaedu. (which translates into For Shame! Only thing is, in Malayalam, like most things in Malayalam, the effect is multiplied by the gazillion - that it's strong enough to peel paint) Arranged marriage are for wimps, man. Marriage should come with plenty of drama. "No certainly not" "She's older than you" "He's younger than you" "I won't consider it..not with someone who doesn't belong to our faith" "Whaaaaaat? you want to marry an infidel?" "Are you saying you want to marry a terrorist?" "But she's of a lower caste!! Certainly not..especially when the sun shines out of our caste's ass." "Out of the question..she's a she and you're a she!! HAVE YOU LOST IT!!" (I don't know why, but as i'm writing this, I've got this eerie deja vu. I suspect, that it COULD be because this has been my pet subject for a while now… nah i don't think so.) So my problem is…. I have a reputation to maintain. The scalp scalloping red indian CANNOT turn into a missionary priest. the very thought gives me diarrhea. All of you dear people..appeal to the gods and the forces that be…that such a cruel and mortifyingly embarrassing fate will not be mine!

Sorry about bringing up the tiger example again. It IS getting a little repetitive, I know. But as long it doesn't lead to more dwindling tiger numbers, I don't see what's the harm in using its name in vain…which by the way, isn't in vain, cause i'm making a parallel to myself. That would make me vain, wouldn't it….. eerrrr…where were we? Oh yes, the tiger. So all these years, I've made a lot of noise and gung-ho and played the you-can't-tame-me-cause-i'm-a-feral-feline act. And now after all that dolby-effect, mighty roaring and show of claws, if I meow like a little kitten and jump on someone's lap waiting to be stroked? How am I supposed to live that down? (Speaking of which, I wonder if a grown cat ever gets over the childhood trauma of being a playful little kitten)
So if i do end up this way, this post is my anticipatory penance slash bail. Cause, like they say, Que. sera sera! damn you sera..whoever you are.

P.S: And yes, after a brief sabbatical, the sarcastic bitch is back!

i miss the sea

2010-12-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

The sea reached out to me like a benevolent mother. The ebb and surge of the tide were notes of her ceaseless lullaby. Somehow she knew where I hurt and she reached out to those places with certainty but without presumption or brashness. Standing on the promenade, I was a hesitant child – knowing well that my precious hurt was but a particle in her dark fathoms. But when the sea sings, you cannot but listen. She holds the burden of livelihoods, the demands of plunder and the prayer of hope. And the infiniteness of death.
Her constant disquiet can still even the severest disturbance. With the mellifluousness of poetry, she awakens the deadened soul, thaws the numb heart and restores the sense of wonder with her cache of simple treasures. The whiteness of the sand that meets the water with open arms, the exhilaration of the sweet-tinged breeze as it skims the sea’s surface, the inviolate, creamy hearts of the sea shells. The purple flowers that grow silent and voluptuous – a sensuality of which sweetness hasn’t been drained out yet. The silence that only the sea gull’s cry, distant foghorn echoes and fisherfolk sound can be. They go on around you, but all you hear is the sound of stillness inside you as your distraction folds its wings like a bird retiring to roost. The sea always heals. And I left her side with the taste of her salty kiss on my lips.

blindness

2010-10-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

The bat is blind. It nevertheless traverses the night sky, swooping from tree to tree in search of nectar, it sucks the flowers dry of. Unfeeling, they settle upside down, violating the flowers in their 69 positions with the insufferable stench of their breaths. Their rat claws imprison the flowers in a dirty old man’s caress. The flowers wilt and die. But the bats see nothing for they are blind.

The lamp post is blind. It stands with spectral stillness, unseeing and unfeeling. Outside the pool of yellow, viscous light it sheds, unmentionable things happen. It casts shadows outside its territory. Shadows where the sadness of events long past lurk like dangerous men in alleyways. Woe be you if you step into the night alone. The lamppost sees not the shadows it creates. It’s oblivious to the medium it becomes to the darkness. For can there be shadows without light? Outside its halo under which moths fly like disoriented owls blinded by the sun, infinite hurt forms an energy field that nullifies even the smallest happiest thought. It presses against your chest and rings in your ears. The black clouds your eyes and permeates into your soul. They stick to you like leeches, slipping into your shoes, into your collars, inside elastic bands, inside you. Going straight for your heart. Yet the lamppost sees nothing. For it is blind.

Love is blind. It is sometimes a blind samurai. Brave, proud but still blind. Sometimes it’s a blind whore. It sometimes reveals its tits to the most inappropriate people, like the priest, the adolescent schoolgirl or even other blind people. Then, love goes purely by the sense of smell. It can smell the pink of vitality, it can smell the purple of a bruise and the red of lust. Sometimes love is a blind whore, who opens her body wantonly to anyone who can pay. It doesn't matter if they are not in her league. She cannot see. But most times, love is a blind thief. A mean, old blackguard who steals things when you aren’t looking and breaks you when you’re asleep in its arms. A thief who takes without needing. One who takes whatever it can lay its hands on. It stuffs hair from drains into its bag, it pockets stale flowers, it steals hearts right out of people’s chests and forgets where it left them. Leaving behind an empty, vacant void of a void. Hearts it has no clue what to do with, but steals them all the same. A blind thief who goes by audio cues. It listens with the ear of an animal. Keen to every sniff that punctuates a paragraph of tears, pouncing on every sigh and grabbing every piece of a heart as it begins to crumble. Vulnerability. Weakness. It strikes in the giddy blindness of a kiss. It drops a blanket over your head. Knocks you senseless and very carefully carves your heart out. You’ve lost it forever. And you try to fill the void of a void with tears. But even if he so desired, it cannot restore your heart back to you. Love knows neither who you are nor which heart belongs to you. For love is blind.

who moved my processes?

2010-09-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

One day I died. And I found myself in front of the pearly gates with nothing more than a rosary and a whole lot of “I’m dead now, I’m so cool” attitude. I marched right over to St. Peter who looked like a frazzled flight attendant and less like the HR head of Heaven that he was. I had every reason to expect a grand reception in heaven. In my opinion I was nothing less than a perfect angel, an example-to-be-emulated daughter, a wonderful friend and so on and so forth. That other people begged to differ was and is of no relevance to me. I didn’t pore over those self help books and morale-boosting literature for nothing, hell-oo! (I should find a new way to spell that. Won’t do to mention hell in heaven and all. Not very politically correct.) So when St. Peter gave me a surly look and asked me if I had my papers in place, it came as a rude shock to me? “It’s very well that you’re dead and all, but there are processes to this place.” he said with a smug government-official face. PROCESSES-o? Shock was to my inherent malluness, what super-effective laxative was to unrelenting bowels – a sudden appearance situation and a lot of embarrassment. How did processes find me in eternal life? I have evaded processes and successfully so, most of my life. That would make me something of a helter-skelter with less organizational skills than a spilt bag of marbles. But still! It has no business following me to paradise. I heard somewhere that hell is living through your one mistake or failing or whatever, day in and day out for the next one million years or so also known as perpetuity (apparently, I should have listened more to this know-it-all) So if someone with ice-creamophobia is judged to eternal damnation, his hell would be filled with giant ice cream scoops of pink and white and brown and honey nut crunch and all the 31 Baskin Robbins flavours. That sort of a thing. But I’m in heaven. What’s processes doing following me to heaven? I must meet the redressal forum.

That’s when I noticed a longer line than I had seen at any passport office or embassy or ration shop or BEVCO outlet extending all the way from the Pearly Gate No. 2 to kingdom come. What’s more..this line had a strange homogeneity to itself. There were only women in white bridal gowns and men in monkey suits. It would have looked like a mass wedding if it weren’t for their noses stuffed with cotton. So then I stopped and asked an attendant angel who looked as bored as a government office peon, “It’s true then? God is a Catholic God after all?” To which he gave me a “Where the hell are you from anyway?” look, followed by a “What else can I expect from a stupid mortal, anyway!” look. With exaggerated patience that DID NOT become a seraph, he tells me, “This is the Catholic gate, you fool.” He then took a look at my white gown “Oh Catholic, eh? Did they like give you last rites? Personally, to me these duds who have their last rites in place are worse than prima donnas. They think they can just wave their certificates in our face and we’ll be impressed. As if! It’s not like they donated an organ or something. Now that would speak for something! They just don’t get it that we have processes (there’s that horrid word again) in this place.”

Considering that there wasn’t much love to be lost between us, I ventured, “So why do you have processes in here?” He glared at me and I honestly thought I had received a look that COULD kill and would be burnt to a crisp. But I remembered that I was dead and I couldn’t be crisped and so I glared back at him. “Because of the way He is. Don’t you know God’s schizo, man? The old fellow’s been around for a really long time. And you dimwits on earth don’t make things easier for him. You silly mortals think ‘aah my God is THE GOD. My religion rocks. blah blah blah’. Conveniently forget that you’re supposed to know that there’s only one of Him around for several billion intergalatical eras, which, by the way, is all of space and time. So you go about inventing new religions every week. One day if He’s wearing his strange Yahweh nightgown, the next day He’s got his Buddha cornrows, then the next He’s all thou-shalt-this-and-that and then He’s all Holy Spiritey and then yet another day He’s the great Jihad propagandist, then sometimes He’s an absolute nuisance dancing all over the place and spouting rivers from the top of his head. Sometimes He just gets silly and wears His Elvis suit. The devil, lucky devil, he’s just the devil. Always was, is and always will be the Devil. Our Dude has so many names. It’s confusing” The angel’s sounding really resentful here and I’m thinking “I’m screwed. No way he’s going to let me jump the processes. A resentful angel will not give me a processes break. And as if he’s read my mind, he says in a voice that reminds me of being deep fried in coconut oil, he continues, “So why don’t you get in line? Please remember that we process only one entry at any given time. We have over 15,000 gates, one for each religious sect. Ha ha… our revenge for your schisms. One entry would require a complete assessment of the life they’ve lived. Then our computer of computers will tally their numbers and we’ll slot them on the basis of credits and discredits. Then St. Peter will review their papers. And we decide if they go to heaven or hell or get recycled and sent back to earth. Recycling is tricky, cos sometimes memory isn’t erased properly and they remember things from their past life and end up institutionalized for being delusional or a schizo. But then again, you mortals deserve it all that’s coming to you. For making us up here look like complete jackasses who can’t implement the greater good. The Devil can’t get his smirk off and that’s just embarrassing. That Perry pastor incident was such a dreadful fiasco. It was an evangelical pie in our faces. And you know what He had to say about it? “THIS I’ve got to see”, that’s what He said. We even had some minor disagreements in here. Muslim souls vs. Christian souls.” I think my eyes must have glazed over cos his voice gets all clipped and he says, “So why don’t you get in line, hmmmm?” “But this could take forever” I wailed! To which he said “like you’re going somewhere huh? FYI (for the record, I don’t like angels who FYI me) this IS forever. Oh imagine an Afghani with a skull cap and a beard and speaks no English trying to clear immigration at Newark? Multiply the time he’d take to do so into 10. That’s about the time you’d take to enter the pearly gates. My dear child this is the heaven of heavens and belongs to the God of gods, what else can you expect here but the process of processes?”

*the word processes gets my goat, cow and my entire barnyard. I CAN’T STAND THE WORD. It drives me insane when someone brandishes the word in my face. I’d rather have someone call me a ditzy mindfuck than have them tell me mind my processes. Therefore this post.
** God here, is all those versions of God people seem to have. My God on the other hand wears no nightgown, yawns while He listens (attentively, nevertheless) to mass, inspires people to do cool things like invent Bose speakers, write songs like Stairway to heaven, make awesome movies and fudge and cheesecakes and stuff like that.

tragedy!

2010-09-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am going to find each and every filmmaker of the late seventies, eighties and early nineties. Separate the ones who have made love stories from those who have not and kill the former. Yes, you heard me. Kill them in cold blood. Why? They’ve fed our parents a whole lot of ill-fated love and unhappy endings that parents believe that all love stories must end in tears. Thus the drama unfolds at home. “Mother, father I love somebody” “Whaaaaaat?” Mother bursts into sobs. Father growls so well that the Doberman considers retirement and starts to squeak instead. “What did you say you wretched thing? Is this what we sent you to college for? Is this gratitude for all that we have done for you?” At this point the mother hits her chest and then hits the girl/boy in question. “Whoa, let’s get a grip here shall we? I just confessed to being in love. Not butchering the priest and wearing his intestines around my head cos it’ll make me immortal.” If parents react like this to a confession of being in love, how would they react if I HAD butchered the priest and wore his intestines around my head because I thought it would make me immortal? I bet it would make for a scene in some Ram Gopal Varma movie. Hell, I'm not even in love with the priest! Now I know why directors thank their parents over and over again in award acceptance speech. “Thank you for filling my life with so much drama that has always kept me inspired to make all these movies that fill the audience with so much hopelessness that they want to kill themselves with a pencil sharpener.”
This is all the influence of the movies. Ironically, while I was growing up I heard a lot of “life isn’t what you see on TV.” “Really now? YOU don’t say!” is all I can say, in retrospect, of course.
So now that the confrontation is over and it all looks pretty much useless, I must now cry and throw myself on the bed and bawl my eyes out that I look less like me and more like a basset hound. These are very important lessons. Pay attention. There is a method to everything. So all these movies. I was watching a perfectly wonderful movie the other day. Chithram, for all you Malayalees out there. It kept me laughing throughout. And finally when the heroine and hero take the trouble to fall in love, we discover the hero is a fugitive and he’s slated for, not surgery, not imprisonment, but for fucking capital punishment. The end. Finito. Ever got a resounding slap after being ticked to death? Same feeling! Now what was the point of the movie? Other than leave you with the same feeling a balloon feels when it discovers it’s got a hole somewhere. Inevitable deflatedness.
My mum used to love “Ek dujey ke liye” as a young woman. That horrid, lurid Romeo and Juliet-esque movie where the heroine gets raped and dies and the hero goes and dies as well or something, gets her all dewy eyed. Till date. If that isn’t bad news for me, I don’t know what is. And she speaks absolutely NO Hindi, mind it. So what is it about the whole movie that’s gotten her fancy? ILL FATED LOVE!! God and all the residents of heaven, ..whatever happened to the 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 thingamajig on love, huh? Like love is forever, so all who stands in its way fries KFC-style in hell, hmmm? Not in the Bible? Dang! Just when I thought I was getting somewhere with the scriptures. All the fault of these stooopid film makers. They should have stuck to their “Meri paas maa hai-dishum dishum” routines. All the shaking flowers and the butterfly wings and lovers behind them should have NOT happened. And while I’m at it, I’d also like to ask, why are the modern-day heroines falling in love with either terrorists or vampires? Whatever happened to normal men? Oh, I forgot, they don’t exist. Might as well fall in love with a tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park. Now that would appeal to the family, I bet!

lessons for a second woman

2010-09-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Scene 1
You. Me. She.
I. We. She.
She is the only thing constant in this relationship, isn’t she? You and me, we’re just variables. Even when it’s about us, she takes predominance and precedence as the first person and we’re pushed into the third person. But that’s just how it is, isn’t it? It’s never going to be about us. It will, and always be, she and you. She’s always going to be the one. And I with be the other woman.
But ‘we’ happened. Deny it all you want. But we still happened. We weren’t supposed to, but since when do we go by the supposed to’s? Supposed. Suppose. A hypothesis. But we were real. A fact. History recorded. So all the pain I’m left with isn’t a theory. Nor is it imagined. It does not get less legitimate in the jurisdiction of all factual events. I’m entitled to this hurt. It holds valid.

Scene 2

“Do you love me?” “You know I can’t answer that.” “It’s a straight, honest question, isn’t it? Do you love me? Can’t you dignify it with a straight, honest answer?” “Sigh! Why don’t you just get it, woman? Why do you have to complicate things so? You knew what you were getting into. She was first. Before you. As much as I want to, I cannot change that. I can’t possibly hurt her, can I? And what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her, can it? You won’t tell her, will you? If you do, it’ll make her terribly sad. I’ll lose all I have that I call my own. How can you possibly be that selfish? Now why are you crying? You’re saying all this is my fault then? You didn’t seem to want it any less then. Now two years later, you’re acting so strange. You knew I was committed. But when you came into my life, I couldn’t help myself. Mistakes happen. No. I’m not calling you a mistake. Please be okay. Oh god! Please don’t cry. Please. I’m not calling you a mistake. It’s a huge mistake that we can’t be together. It’s a huge mistake we ever happened. But now that it has, I need you. But I can’t be with you. No, I can’t let go of you either. No, I won’t. How can you possibly do this to me? You have to be my good friend, someone I can always call. But I can’t give you me. Why are you complicating things so? Can’t we just let it be? Stop crying please. Or I’ll leave now. God, stop crying dammit. Fuck! My head’s about to burst. Stop it. Please. I can’t take this. Please. You know you mean a lot to me. Please. But I can’t be with you. I must marry her. I must be with her. I want to be. I don’t know. I must. God, my head is breaking. Must you be this difficult?”

Scene 3
Me in the mirror: You know you’re pathetic, don’t you?
Me on the outside: (Mumbling) “Yes, I do!”
Me in the mirror: Did you just admit to that? God you’re worse that pathetic, you know! You’re so far gone. (Mockingly mimicking) “Yes, I do!” Indeed!”
Me on the outside: (Begins to cry piteously)
Me in the mirror: “Stop crying, you wimp!”
Me on the outside: (Blubbering) “But I love him so much”
Me in the mirror: (Disgustedly) “You go cheap, don’t you? God! Don’t you have any self respect?”
Me on the outside: (Crying) “What’s with you? You want to kick me when I’m down? Is that it?”
Me in the mirror: (Softly) “You call yourself the other woman. Why would you do that? Get up, girl! You had nothing to lose. You aren’t the low life here. There are rules to this game, you know! You need to know that before you go baiting someone’s man.”
Me on the outside: (Interrupting) “But I wasn’t baiting. He came to me.”
Me in the mirror: “Yes! Yes! I know! The typical one thing lead to another. Yada yada. But Rule No.1 is never fall in love with somebody else’s man. Take him. Use him. Leave him. He’s nothing more than a condom. Now, who gets sentimental about a condom?”
Me on the outside: (Horrified) How can you call him that? He’s more than that. He’s a good person, and wonderful and kind….
Me in the mirror: (interrupting): “..And, yes… That’s why the two of you have first class tickets to the sunset, I suppose? My child, Someone gets used here. You or him. Your choice you gets to be the condom. No sense in turning a feel-good exercise into a crash course in self-loathing. So you are desirable! Great. Wow! Good for you. Believe me, a man like that isn’t a keeper. He’ll never know happiness if it spread its legs in front of him.”
Me on the outside: “Ugh!”
Me in the mirror: “Oh, now you want to go prude on me? You’re welcome to your heartache, Miss Prim, I’m-just-a-piece-of-flesh! Sit and cry for your douche bag for all I care. But I’m telling you, you need to get your lovely ass moving. There’s greatness to be achieved in this time you waste moping around. Look at you wasting your lovely but inevitably disappearing desirableness on this loser. Move on. Move on. Get your groove back on girl! Break some hearts, already?
Me on the outside: (Hint of a smile) “Thanks, I needed that. I try to tell myself this but I never listen you know.”
Me in the mirror: “Well I’m going nowhere. You know where to find me when you need some sense knocked into your head.”
Me on the outside: “Hey babe..we never got to rule no. 2.”
Me in the mirror: “Rule No. 2? I thought you’d never ask. There’s nothing much to Rule No.2. Show us some love, lady? Lean over and give us a kiss, hmmmm?”
Me on the outside: (To herself) “And just like that, as I leaned over to kiss my reflection, I learnt to love the person in the mirror before anything else.”

holey moley

2010-09-02T17:16:00.001-07:00

This morning I faced considerable amount of difficulty trying to down my breakfast. Without too much announcement, it just got lodged in my throat and unpleasantly so. I was like Godzilla with the Empire State Building stuck in its esophagus. I was grunting and groaning and making a noisy nuisance of myself. Not that I’m not a noisy nuisance otherwise, but why go into irrelevant details here? I tried all the conventional methods. Drinking water, stuffing my face even more, even tried gluing myself to those agonizingly mouthwatering cookery shows they have on Travel and Living so that a giant tidal wave of a gulp would send it down. Nothing.

Then I went online. And the headlines of the day knocks the bejesus out of me and my rest of my breakfast down my gullet. Ah, the magic of the daily headlines. It clears a safe and clean passage down your throat, so that food may be ingested the way it ought to be. Such, my dear friends, is the power of the daily headlines. So what was this all important piece of news that was of immense consequence that its ignorance threatened to make havoc in my breakfast’s normally predictable route to my tum tum? The state of Kareena Kapoor’s thighs. Yes you heard me. No, it’s not a new state in India, but the condition of her thighs. She’s got, .. Wait a minute, the dramatic gasp should come AFTER I tell you what the big deal is about, right? Not before. Sorry about jumping the gun there! Anyway.. she’s got cellulite! Now you may dramatic gasp here, if you please. Can you believe that? Can you believe this? Such decadence. Thank goodness for such eagle-eyed journalists who keep abreast with her thighs. Why give a damn about the ridiculous amounts of taxpayers money that will go as salary to those jokers we call MPs? Aaah…trifles, my dear, trifles. And boring trifles, at that. Some stuffy old men who are always dissatisfied. The bottom line is that Kareena’s Kapoor’s bottom is out of line. She is answerable for this and it’s our duty to bring her to book for such irresponsible, errant behavior. Shameful. That’s what it is. Cellulite, people. Of all the things. After all the time we spent praising her size zero. Think about the insult she’s giving yoga. So many centuries of our culture and heritage she’s defaming. Where is the culture police’s number? I have to call them now. Isn’t the credibility of yoga in pieces now? What will the foreigners think? How many of them must be cancelling their tickets upon seeing those cheese thighs up for brazen display in a miniskirt, crossing her legs too. The selfish, inconsiderate hussy. I shudder to think about the cataclysmic drop in tourism this is going to bring about and the consequences on our economy. Who wants to spend a lot of money and effort to twist themselves into a pretzel only to end up cheesed off? Not flattering and far from healthy, I say. The sheer callous irresponsibility. I’m thinking she should be debarred from the society of yoga. At least till she’s willing to face the pivotal role she has in endorsing our nation’s cult export. Thank God for Yahoo headlines. I could have missed out on something so important and relevant. To quote the worthy journalist “it’s not done for someone who claims to practise yoga”. Tsk tsk.

girly love

2010-08-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Love is impatient. Love is unkind.
Love is a poison that weakens the mind!

“No balls, that’s what it is!”, they snickered. They called him an indulgent lapdog. They mocked him and said that he was kept. They said he was a sissy and that he was bullied by her. They whispered behind his back and called him hen-pecked to his face. He couldn’t care less. When they felt threatened by her they told him that his bitch was out of control. They laughed at him for being indulgent and scoffed at him for not "keeping her in her place". They said he was foolish for trusting her. A wimp, her obeisant servant, her keep, her toy. Oh, what did they know? They ridiculed what they couldn’t have or understand. They questioned his manhood because he respected her and unlike them, didn’t keep his woman in a cage. He knew better. Insecurity was the eunuch's disease. Not his.

Him

He loved her. A demented sort of affection. Everyday his soul grew more gnarled and twisted with his love. It spilled into his breakfast cereal and burnt his dinners. It filled his soul with the smell of roses and touched him with the sweetness of a child's laughter. It began and ended with the simple wish of wanting to be a part of her life. To him, she was the possibility of knowing how much a man he could be. Any guy could take a woman, but she would only keep a real man. It kept him real. She kept him alive in ways he dared not count or scrutinize. It was his touchstone. It made him wretched with desire and yet, blessed. He could not keep his mind off her. No, that wasn't necessarily true. He very well could keep his mind off her. But he'd rather not. What was a couple of missed deadlines and jumped stop signals next to a thought to return to? It kept him focused and it distracted him. It kept him company during long journeys. It kept him going. It was his grace. He remembered his dreams with her. It made him smile. It gave him strength. It gave him something to look forward to. It was worthwhile. It kept him in good humour. It kept him happy.

Her

She loved him. An almost-complete, feral sort of affection. She could count the number of ways she loved him on her fingers and her toes. And then she would smile smugly to herself. Every day was alive with possibilities, ideas; buzzing with the potential being complete offered. He made counting her blessings a rather delightful exercise and she smiled rather smugly (again) after taking inventory. It made her smile smugly many times a day. She believed she’d earned it and she’d make the person who tried to ruin this for her very sorry. “Don’t you lie to me, or you’ll be sorry.” A contract of trust. Both undersigned. She was his equal. His other half. Soul mates. Partners. Better-worse. Patience-expectation. Anger-forgiveness. Love-love. It was her precarious balance. The closest she had come to prayer. It was her risk. It was her saving grace. It made her ridiculous. It kept her coming back. It set her free. It kept her grounded. It was good. It was bad. It was wicked. It was perverse. It was pure. It was foolish. It was absolute genius. It was wonderful. It was mundane. It was magical. It was the pits. It kept her sane. It kept her sweet.

Love is jealous. Love is a lousy bum.
Love is love and that’s fucking awesome!

Eve would have envied her. She knew that much. They hated her guts. The philistines. They called her vamp. Short for vampire. Shrewd, sexy, dangerous. Unattainable. Out of your league. So they came to drive a stake through her heart. Chop off her head and fill the mouth with garlic. They came with their holier-than-thou protests. "Witch. Witch. Bitch. Burn her at the stake." They grudged her his love. They grudged her his trust. They ridiculed him for standing by her. He did, as he always would. Yes, Eve would have envied her. Eve offered Adam the apple with hopes of him finding his manhood. Instead it lodged somewhere in his throat. Adam's apple. The legacy of denial, bequeathed to his kind; God's condemnation and damnation for not standing by woman. They shall know that you've not done right by your woman. So much for balls!

of axe murderers and crows nests and other strange things

2010-08-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

Let me get this straight. I believe in the power of Gray skull and I believe in the power of Axe. But where do these guys get the idea that spraying themselves silly with enough deodorant to fumigate up to 10 sq.ft. of farmland will make them He-man (Or He-men? Or should it them-men? Oh, whatever) Yeah where do they get that silly idea? Oh, I forgot. They got that from the ads. Silly me! And I’m supposed to be in advertising. (For shame, Dannie, for shame!) But I wish these ads came with a teeny-tiny writing below “Stunts tried out by experts. Please don’t try this at home. Or at least before going to office.” Why do I wish this wish? Because of Axe abuse. Because I hate getting stuck in the lift, first thing before office with two (or, heaven forbid, more) morons dunked and drenched in f*****g Axe. It’s an ambush of the bloodiest kind minus the blood. It’s a veritable assault. It’s like being bludgeoned by an invisible, Axe-smelling bludgeon (duh!) right on the back of the head. So far the back of my head has proved to be the Axe-smelling bludgeon’s equivalent of a Viking helmet. I’ve not passed out till date. But it’s left me reeling and feeling rather lightheaded. It’s more like being stuffed headfirst in a sack (that’s not even very big, to begin with) and far, far from frenetic, rabid desire. Unless the desire to puke my guts out counts, of course. Now if you axe me. I beg your pardon.

Now if you ASK me, I have no idea why men like smelling like each other. Like cattle. How much variety do you think they could have? Why bring democracy under the armpits, in a very nonmetaphoric sense? Go on, experiment. It’s very, very confusing when you smell like each other. It’s worse when the whole world, right from the chaiwallah to the bus conductor and the creepy neighbour and the hunk in the ad smells the same. There you are minding your own business and then this invisible grenade blows your olfactory senses to bits. From there on, it’s a minefield, with Axe bombs going off at every corner. The Axe effect or should I say, the Axe trauma, begins right from high school, when boys stop running away from girls and start running towards them. At this tender age, they slowly turn from nice boys into mutant air-fresheners. Now how many of you girls get turned on by Odonil, hmmmm?

Today I saw an ad with a lot of boys sporting what can be best described as very-badly-made crows’ nests on their head. Looked like they slept on their hair all funny or like their hair was making rude faces and gestures. It turns out to be (surprise, surprise) an ad for gel or hair spray or something. Why would anyone want to consciously invest in bad hair days? Why? Why? Why? Maybe if I found the answers to these questions I just might find the secrets to conjugal bliss the wives in the detergent ads seem to know. And have college girls gasp at my youth and vitality as my neighbour’s kid (whom I have bribed, of course) comes running to me with arms wide open calling me “Mummmmmmmmmy.”

ka-ching, bling bling

2010-08-15T07:06:00.001-07:00

People. I HAVE NEWS. I’m rich. Yes. Very, very , fabulously, enviably rich. I’ve got lottery winnings coming in from my email, my mobile, my ears and my nose. Okay not my ears or my nose. But yeah! I’ve won so many pounds (like in British currency, not weight) followed by even more zeroes in the last 30 days. A real number followed SO MANY zeroes that it would just be plain tacky to count them! I’ve won a zillion from MSN and Yahoo sweepstakes. Then some billions from enterprises right from Japan to Brazil. Then enough from BMW to fill my entire street with their cars. Maybe I should talk to them about the exchange. I rather like the imagery of my entire street lined up with cars with the registration D@NN13. Actually BMW is in this “Take! Take! Dannie, take our money. Oh Dannie, please take our money” mode. I’ve won the lottery so many times. You’d think someone offering this much money wouldn’t be so desperate and particular about ONE person claiming their winnings. I mean I feel more special than Jesus, Neo and Buddha all put together. Cos I’m tha chosen one! I must have won that particular lottery like ten times by now. But in all honesty, it does feel like a bitchslap, cos I’m sitting on all this illiquid (read imaginary) money and in reality I have no job and am more broke than a Ming vase that crashed into a million pieces on the floor.

But technically I’m rich. Cos I have won more money in the last one month than Mukesh Ambani made in the same time period. Well if he made more, life is just not fair and I’m going to sue. Someone. Anyone. I have enough money. So what do I do with all this money?

Maybe I should mindlessly spend it on Louis Vuittons and Guccis and Jimmy Choos and all those fancy names I haven’t bothered learning how to pronounce, because the chances of me asking for them over the counter is like, umm, improbable! Until now, i.e! But nyeaaah, I don’t think so. Not exciting enough.
Or maybe I should adopt Africa. That will show Angelina Jolie. Hmph. The show off! But somehow I think it’ll cost me a lot more to buy Africa. Fecking De Beers and all have beat me to it. So that’s off the agenda. But I’d dearly have loved to steal her thunder. It’s like the woman is monopolizing the weather department. Aah well!

Or maybe I should turn fundu. Oooooh I like that. With a cause and all! I could really fund a fundamentalist outfit with all this money. And I could get a bazooka. I’ve always lusted after one of those. A bazooka kicks a Hermés bag’s ass, don’t you think? Move over Osama. Danger Dan is here. Jeeez that makes me sound like a superhero with costume-related dyslexia. You know, I’ve often wondered why superheroes wear their undies over their clothes. You’d think their super brains would have figured that one out. Maybe in their hurry they always forget to wear it first when they change. And they realize it only once they’re fully dressed and then they put it on anyway for decency sake. (Superman: “Dang! Forgot to put on those damn jockeys again. Doubt if that three-eyed Godzilla timeout his city-destruction plans till I get this stooopid sticky spandex stocking I call a costume off and put it on all over again. Aaah heck..I’ll wear my undies over my costume. Batty and most of the justice troop do it as well. But I must talk to my stylist! I really should! Must get rid of my favourite flying saucer undies!!”) Talk about job stress!
Errrr..sorry about going totally off the subject. We were talking about me turning fundamentalist. Yeah. I think I’ll be fine in jeans. Maybe I’ll wear a Red Indian’s headdress. NOW there’s a plan!! I’ll get Karl Lagerfeld design one for me! Maybe in pink! I like pink you know! Or maybe not. Paris Hilton will copy me. Or maybe I should patent it and bazooka any likely copycats into the next galaxy. I think I like that plan best.
Now for the multimillion dollar question. Who wants to be in my will, hmmmm?

a place in my childhood

2010-08-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

Childhood. It's a veritable attic of memories. And like attics, they can be really scary and daunting. I spent the blossoming years of my childhood at my grandparents' house and remember much too vividly for comfort, the cavernous garret. It was a shadowy grey place and filled with countless spooks and mice. The spooky dark wooden stairway which lead to it was eerily tucked behind a doorway. Why would it be behind a locked doorway unless you wanted to censor what went up and came down those stairs. What if something that never went up the stairs came down them? The door put such ideas into my head and made me nearly pee in my frilly little girl's underpants. I could never get over the feeling that a hundred eyes were watching me, waiting for the moment to strike and eat me up. Back then, i probably thought i was one tasty little morsel, cause i honestly believed that a lot of things wanted to eat me up. Like the monster family under the bed, for instance. Aah! The monster family - papa monster, mama monster, baby monster and the giant cauldron to cook me in. But the monster family under the bed is a story for another time. Let's go back to the garret.

Spiderwebs hung thick like ghostly festoons - trapezing the length and breadth of the attic. They hung there, invisible yet grey as sadness. walking into one of them was like remembering a bad memory. You just could not get over it immediately. And left you feeling somewhat defiled. It stuck to my hands, my face and my hair, and despite my best efforts, I could never shake it off completely. No one liked admitting that the uncomfortable shadows and the corpses of once-useful household things gave them the jeepers. I was the cowardy-custard of the gang, so I was allowed to be scared. And god, I was!! But it more than a small mercy that pigeons hadn't discovered our roomy garret, which in our untrained 5-year-old opinions, extended right into the next universe. I can imagine what their spectral moaning and crackly wings would have done for my jumpy nerves. Like I said, no small mercy.

Old dolls with holes for eyes and scalped heads lay there with their ghoulish pink grins and grime-on-porcelain complexions. Sometimes an accidental nudge would make them wail out a guttural, dying-battery "mama" in that creepy horror-movie way. But through the garret was the only way to get to the terrace. And you know the kind of attraction sunshine in high places holds for bratty children who've got just too much time on their hands and too little supervision. Siesta time, that perfect time of the day when all the grown-ups were much too busy taking their naps to boss us around. When we could be up to any nefarious deed that crept into our heads. Siesta time was when we'd hurry across the length of the attic, which went on forever, ducking at the wooden beams that traversed its width every five yards or so, sometimes bumping our heads very painfully in our hurry, wrestle with the jammed latch till it gave way and opened our exit into the welcome arms of laughing sunshine.

a very sincere letter

2010-08-07T02:03:00.001-07:00

Dear Mum, Dad, this might come as a shock to you. But i'm in love. No, the shock has nothing to do with the new challenge this poses to the established fact that I'm incapable of loving but about the object of my affection. Whom I'm in love with. Mum, Dad I'm emotionally involved with my potato salad. I've been watching too much of the Twilight saga and this happily-ever-after and falling in love with your food has gone to my head (not my stomach). If Edward can fall in love with his dinner, why can't I? I know this is extremely hard for you. But I'm a big girl now and I am in love afterall. I love Twilight. Twilight is my life. If the lion can fall in love with his stupid, stupid lambchop, why can't I fall for my spud-boy? The way I feel about it..no it's not gas. It's the real deal..butterflies..oh so many butterflies. In my stomach. I know it's unconventional and people will talk. But at least I'm not bringing home a hindu or muslim human being, am I!? That would be unpardonable. God forbid i do that. Nor am i bringing home a woman. I assure this is a rather straight, God-fearing catholic potato.

I hope you wil forgive me and find it in your heart to accept our love.

Your loving daughter

Bellady
(I've changed my name to a mallu-ised version of Bella)

pondering, wondering and some more pondering

2010-08-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

So my parents want me to get married. Not just want, they're bordering on harassment. And not just my parents. The entire community. Including my extended family, my neighbours, their extended family, their neighbours, the extended family of the extended family's neighbours. Or was it the extended family of the neighbours' extended families? Whatever, it doesn't merit grammatical and punctuational (is that a word?) accuracy.
"FOR WHAT?", is what I want to ask all these rather lovely people who have made my life their business. To serve what useful purpose of this very useful institution, may I ask? They won’t let me marry the only person I want to marry. Well to be honest, I'm not sure myself if I want to marry the only person I want to marry. But that's not the question. They won't let me, so ‘for love’ is out of the question.
For children and to keep the bloodline going? I’m a woman so there won’t be any Correyas springing from my loins and besides, we’re entering into an era of scientifically engineered genetically screwed up food. Hello? Do I look I want to raise my kids on three-drumsticks-per-chicken type of chicken and butter endorsed by a four-eyed moppet? Well, FYI, I DO NOT. I'd sooner adopt aliens!
Then, to keep loneliness at bay? I’m getting a husband here, people, not a lifetime validity prepaid connection. He can leave me or I can leave him anytime. There isn't even an anti-straying contract in the picture.
Then umm.. how about someone to drive the car so that you can do your nails? I think I could master driving yet and I don’t do my nails, so next?
Maybe as a sort of companion? I thought we were through this already, grrrr! Maybe you should wake up and then note what time people get back from work these days? Nobody has time for anything they don’t want to have time for, understand. And any man other than my (supposed to be) man comes under Section anything-they-don’t-want-to-have-time-for. Full marks, full qualification.
Okay, so maybe to keep the naatukaaru and the veetukaaru to shut their traps? Please listen to yourselves, realize and think about how pathetic you sound and I’ll think about forgiving you.
Cos you’re growing older, yeah that’s a real reason. My grandmother is much older, you’re going to find her a husband too?
Then maybe cause you’re waaaaay out of line and it drives us insane to watch you have so much fun? Ah-ha there you have it, the real reason huh, you people-with-terrible-envy-in-your-heart, you!! And sorry, that's hardly a real reason. Nice talking to you!

Dignity

2010-08-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

Economies can rise and fall, stock markets can crash and catapult, industries can boom and fizzle. But its been a long, long time since the world stopped to reconsider and reevaluate the market value of dignity. A personal asset of absurdly high capital value, paradoxically without currency, we've chosen to forget the role it plays in the economics of everyday life. No exchange value, no role. Short of shelf life, easily tradable and grossly undervalued, its personal cost is much too high that its upkeep is something most of us believe we can do without. A white elephant, an heirloom that's been with the family for ages, cherished but redundant. Unlike deposits or bonds, dignity does not grow by the principle of interest over time and crashes in a tizzy faster than the grizzliest of bear markets.

Lets talk about dignity's primary nemesis Ass Licking. It offers more feasible investment opportunities, likely returns and offers shareholder benefits of, well, holding something. What, is a matter of absolute discretion. An archaic notion like dignity stands as much a chance as a hothouse flower in the Arctic. The sun shines not in the sky anymore, but from scores of decision-making rearends, requiring the good people of the universe to trade their non-performing assets like dignity and originality for more speculative goods like servitude and sycophancy. Conference rooms turn into echo chambers, parliamentary sessions turn into auctions, catwalks turn into assembly lines, people turn into statistics, governance into window displays of too large teeth and shaking hands. Governments annihilate scores of lives in cold blood. We live by cues and in cages. Leftist, right wing, social worker, politico, bitch, sonofabitch, snitch, informant, performer, troublemaker (mime gesture: hand slicing across neck), pervert, opportunist, terrorist, self-righteousist, fagot, dyke. So many tags, lest we forget our roles in the grand scheme of things. All the world is a stage and we are all but backstabbers. We're all a part of a carefully formulated plan. A plan that gives only two-options. Voluntary bending over. Or forced down on your knees hands bound by your so-called dignity. You know the drill. It's your choice at the end of the day, hey!

Welcome to the lap dog economy.

confessions of a social networking site junkie

2010-07-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Hello honey!
I'm sure we've met before. Yes, of course, you remember my facelessness, don't you? We had a relationship sometime ago? Oh you don't! Well I forgive you. But I have to be honest. There were times when you were the only window open in my life. Like, literally. I would chat with no one else and your pings kept me alive. We've moved on of course. You couldn't keep up with the many wonders that the infiniteness of the netscape offered me.

I'm the internet's equivalent of a streetwalker. I haunt the pages. I check my mail every five minutes. Contrary to popular belief, the world CAN change in five minutes. Like, I know who is bored, who is not, who is busy, who is not, who likes me, who is attending what function, who is on a diet, who cheated on what and whom, who has had a haircut, who has just visited the can, who went drinking last night, who got soooo sloshed that they're going to have more than a hangover to deal with when the buzz is over (facebook on mobile is NOT a great idea, sometimes if you know what I mean), who is seeing who and who broke up. All this can happen in five minutes.

My need for social networking is so great. Social networking is my life. I'm such a facebook slut. Aren't you? 'Like' this, if you do. Or at least post this as your status for five minutes to celebrate the facebook slut sorority. Yes, I'm talking to you, bro! I see you online all the time, you're in the sorority. I'm on facebook. I'm on twitter. I'm on orkut. And on MySpace. and on hi5. And on Bebo. Like, thank God for internet mobile. I cannot imagine missing out on my status updates. Five minutes without my peeps. A peep at my peeps. LOL, get it? I have to tell the whole world what I've been up to. I change my status message at least 25 times a day. Oh the manicure I got yesterday? Uh-uh, not so good. Oh yeah the fudge was great. Nooo, you're getting it wrong, I'm a fairy mythical creature, not a zombie. Really, now you're just being rude! Oh my god, my chickens haven't had any feed yet. Hold on, let me do my farmville thing. Wont take long. Ha, where were we?

Or maybe i'm a kerbcrawler. You know, strike up conversations with any random person we see online? And then we have meaningful conversations and 12 am philosophy. We share secrets, only to regret it later. Sort of like, pick them up? Like, call me kerbkrawler. We rather like spelling our c words with a k anyway on cyberspace. And end words with a z. and put x's where ever they are inapplicable, cos that's what we do, right? Anyway this is what life is about right? Sunshine and reality be damned.

price vs. prized

2010-07-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

He came to me with magic. His purple hat with its wine satin sash whispered of rabbit ears and miracles. He said he wouldn't perform for free. I asked how much and he said "Enough". I thought, Enough was reasonable. I had Enough to give. I could spare Enough. So i asked him to show me his tricks. The first thing he pulled out of his hat was a smile, just for lil ol' me. Perfect and pouty. I tried it on. I looked good with a smile. I asked him if I could keep it and he pretended to consider it. He always knew i was going to ask and that he was going to make me pay. Foolish as i was, I thought I was getting a smile for the bargain price of Enough.
Then he pulled out laughter. It was a lovely fuchsia powder which you mixed in water and drank. It smelt like pink brandy and it tasted like delirium. It was heady. He teased me and raised an eyebrow at me questioningly. Gullible as I was made to be, I nodded my eager head giving away more than just that. I had just pawned a part of my soul. And I had absolutely no clue. Next he pulled out a puppy dog with the most restless tail. He was soft and I wanted to hold him so. Love. Beautiful, faithful love. He didn't have to even ask. I reached my willing hands shamelessly to him. The soft mass of liveliness and adoration cost me the rest of what I could call mine. I traded universes of possibility and galaxies of hope for that one instant of pure, unshared, whole love. Oh sublime love. Oh sweet love. Puppy love and a permanent leash. "What are you going to call him?", the magician asked me. "Mine. I'm going to call him Mine." "Oh that is just perfect." I liked to please everyone. It pleased me when I've pleased someone. And at moment I was very pleased with the magician being pleased with me.
He stuck his hand into his tophat again. I waited with bated breath. It was a box of colours. At first I made my premature disappointment apparent by blowing a raspberry. That offended the magician. He glowered and I cowered. But then he was just playacting. He knew he had already laid claim to my spunk. He would carry it away in a spunk-proof cage. I was so foolishly enamoured by his magical imagery, and I thought I had Enough and more. Already my tongue was making a hasty and disgraced retreat back into my mouth. I have never felt this apologetic in my life. Not ever. And here I was, dilated pupils like tulip blossoms. Pupil. Tulip. No lip from me. No sir. He liked my subservience, yes. And brought the mundane box of colours for a closer inspection. I couldn't touch it, of course. Fat colour pens, with things of wonder floating in them. Clouds and stars, fairies and kisses, hugs and stardust, friendship bands and love letters, birthday cakes and surprise presents, horses and fame, rainbows and presents tied in ribbons. Dreams. Sweet, sweet ones. Big ones, small ones, happy ones, sweet ones. Dreams. I wanted them all. I wanted more than Enough. So much more. Dreams that would keep me awake at night. Dreams that would steal the blackness of restful sleep and leave instead the branding of skeleton-coloured nights. Dreams that would make the night settle in bags under my eyes. But I didn't know that. I thought Enough would cover all my expenses. Enough included all my parent's love, all my childhood treasures, all my innocence, all my spunk, individuality, all my goodness and some spare sacrifice. But Enough was not enough. The magician made his invoice. I asked for it. He gave it to me with put-on reluctance. I think his eyes glinted. Did he register me as an infrared image of vulnerability? Eve's child. I eagerly took it from it. What a shock! I had grossly miscalculated. I was severely in his debt.

Smile, laughter, love and dreams. Those were engraved in my fate. And I was to give it my all in return for them. They were my destiny. And I would be their prisoner forever. I would pursue them doggedly. Because I asked for them and I couldn't afford to pay for them right away. Credit collector. And I was running out of time. The hands of karma completed yet another revolution. It was nearly time.

Did I strike a deal with god or the devil? I hadn't a clue. Minutes after that, my mother delivered me in a gory macabre of excessively dramatic proportions. I yelled like hell. And thus I registered my presence on earth. Destiny, here i come.

self obsession #1

2010-07-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

In my life, I've had the privilege
of knowing both jackasses and great people
so that now, I value the latter a lot better.

In my life, I've had the benefit
of falling facedown into shit
So that I know what it takes to hold my head up high.

In my life, I've had the ability
to hate my parents enough
So that I appreciate just how much they can mean to me.

In my life, I've had the grace
to have loved in vain
So that I know I can do much better than that.

In my life, I've had the luck
To be humiliated
So that I know pride isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In my life, I've had the opportunity
to make mistakes aplenty
so that I might correct them, yet.

In my life, I've been done the favour
of being denied
So that I'm resolute about not settling for less

In my life, I've been blessed enough
to be infinitely foolish
So that I know for sure what I do not want to be.

In my life, I've been fortunate enough
to fail countless times
So that I look forward, for the best is yet to come

the scapegoat's bloodline

2010-07-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

the father sacrificed his son not
passing tests of faith
exemplary courage and unquestionable loyalty
the goat's blood was spilt
appeasing some far away god's thirst for his pound of flesh
the lord giveth, the lord taketh away

the mother birthed her son
legs splayed, body cleaving
for life's endless passage. a baptism of love and excruciating pain
winding roads, years and dreams hitherto
she beckons him back from lands and glamours afar
i gave you life, now give me yours.

ruby red stained the ground the colour of
acquired self-righteousness.
i did this for you. it's your price to pay
the balance sheet of life and a careless auditor
debits, credits and sacrifice
glorfied and placed on a pedestal

a lever clicks,
one man's pedestal is the goat's gallows.

a typical love story

2010-06-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

she saw too much. he saw too little. she read too much. He was illiterate. she was heavy. He was light. She spoke too much. he was quiet enough to hear it all. She liked her eggs cooked. He liked them sunny side up. She smiled a lot. He was too awestruck by her to put his lips together. She was strong. He was stronger. She was in love. he was in love. They were in love. There wasn't anything they couldn't work out. And yet, they didn't.

from toilet to toimust

2010-06-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Ideally HR policy should begin in the potty. That doesn't go onto to say that I’m propagating that it should all be shit, but just the pivotal role loos play in optimum productivity and ergonomics. Consider this. You got the deadliest kind of deadline looming ahead and you got a bitch of a full bladder going on? Which one will you attend to first? Call of duty vs. call of nature. It’s no contest, really! And unanswered calls of nature have an annoying, not to mention uncomfortable, persistent-recently-ex-girlfriendesque, mind-dominating way of reminding you that you need to answer sooner than later, if terribly embarrassing circumstances should be avoided. "32 missed calls? What the hell!!" The only thing worse than being stalked by a psycho-ex is being stalked by a psycho bladder. More so, cos you and the bladder are inseparable. Any attempts would require some serious zen-shit and the telekinesis kind of power of channeling your concentration. Moving things move by looking at it is child's play when compared to taming the aforementioned psycho bladder.

Working requires sitting, sitting means putting pressure on your already under-pressure bladder, putting pressure on your under-pressure bladder means you think of very little else except the need for relief. But the loo is a living, infection-rampaging nightmare which has to be avoided at all costs. So you avoid it at company cost, choosing to hop around like a ballerina and talk in a strange, almost fanatical high pitch (the air conditioner is NOT helping) than work. If it's the monsoons, you're damned. And what's up with the waterfall screensaver, huh? Thus you do little else till the angel of mercy, read the ayah, comes with her resolute bucket and mop to do the humanitarian act of cleaning the loo.

Since the peeing process is by nature, a little undemocratic, the least we can do is a separate His and Hers, if you please? Natural selection didn't quite play fair. His and Hers is a wonderful idea. Let's adopt it more often. Also women have this "condition" called the period! Spare a thought, will you? It's easier to do something about that than global warming or something. Being out of circulation for an twelve weeks out of fifty-two weeks is bad enough. And makes us want to scream, pull our hair out and string the concerned HR person by their thumbs. Cos an indiscriminate EVERYONE gets 15 days of paid leave. Not even a little condition's apply star that provides for the erratic ways of the female reproduction system. Even the pacific ocean equivalent of cramps is casually and callously written off as casual leave. Insult to injury. All it takes to make life a little bit fair is a dustbin in the toilet, so that we are spared the embarrassment of carrying suspicious dead giveaway parcels furtively in and out of the loo. Not to mention, it also takes care of those weirdos who are in the compulsive habit of leaving behind "souvenirs". All things said and done, good loos make good workforce. It makes us more productivity to not have alarm bells going "I need to pee. I need to pee" in our heads. Before the almighty bladder, CEOs, clients, husbands, wives, the CIA, the prime minister, potential pinkslips, global hunger, Hugh Jackman, etc. all take a backseat. Good, proper, functioning loos can indeed make the world a better place. For you and for me and the entire human race.

ole

2010-06-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

(to be read after abandoning the teeniest weeniest bit of sense)

Whoa! What was that?” Lt. Mazzorb had been traversing rather monotonously through the fifth galaxy in the all new Fzzterdanlyt 2.0 when this sudden turbulence at zero gravity disrupted the course of their ship knocking both him and Capt. Bezzzoff right off their feet. "Oh that," Capt. Bezzzoff said rubbing his head, "must have been a goal." "A goal?" Lt. Mazzorb was beginning to find his co-vigilante rather annoying. The creature was all of 475 million gazos which was approximately 5 human years against his 325 million gazos of being around in the universe and the old Ennuitling believed him to some kind of know-it-all and the patronizing tone he used just then wasn't something the Lieutenant liked altogether. There had been reports of errant asteroid and they were doing their bit to protect the Beegblob intergalactic neighbourhood, when this wave of kinetic energy blasted past them. The stars only knew what or where such a powerful blast originated from. There were rumours of the cosmos beginning to implode within itself and this senile Capt. Bezzzowa shrugs it off as a goal, like one even knew what a goal was!!

"You're too young to even have been born then. Most of us Ennuitlings don't live long enough to remember one to the next." It wasn't often Capt. Bezzzoff got a chance to rub his seniority in his arrogant Lieutenant's face. "So what is this, Capt. Bezzzoff? Some kind of bipolar disorder of erratic magnetic fields? Or is it some kind of anti-gravitational pressure belt activity? It was rather strong. To knock a sturdy vehicle like Fzzterdanlyt 2.0 off its course and cause such an impact, it must be something to worry about." And worried is what Lt. Mazzorb sounded. "Nah! It's nothing." Capt. Bezzzoff said, settling back into his artificial-gravity lounge shelf. "Why are you so lax about this Captain?" Lt. Mazzorb was going purple in the face, a certain sign he was livid. Capt. Bezzzoff looked at him quizzically, "Surely you do know it's the world cup down there on planet Earth?" "I'm sorry?" Lt. Mazzorb looked more stumped than ever and a stumped-looking Ennuitling isn't an endearing sight. "The FIFA World Cup? Surely you've heard of it? Though you're much too young to have been born during the last one. It's a pity I won't be around for yet another one. It happens every 340 million gazos or so. Very special time, you see!" "Why's that?" Lt. Mazzorb wasn't sure if the captain was feeding him a whole lot of intergalactic waste but it was very interesting. "You did notice all this effervescence in the universe haven't you? The stars are ten times more luminous than normal. Yesterday we recorded an all-time high in luminosity. And there's been a lot more nebulous activity recently. Not to mention the high energy levels uncommon to this side of the universe" "You mean to tell me all this is attributed to some activity going on in that strange blue planet filled with a bunch of weaklings?" "Those bunch of weaklings are the only ones capable of the most powerful energy that exists. It's called happiness. Humans are the only living beings that can generate and are the only known sources of this powerful energy that even black holes cannot destroy or absorb. It often enters space in measured quantities and floats around like stellar dust in the cosmos. But during the world cup, powerful surges of happiness come like a tidal shockwaves from various points of the world. They all converge together and BOOM, catapult into space. What we just experienced was precisely that." "This happiness phenomenon ought to be studied." Lt. Mazzorb had his disapproving voice on, like happiness was this errant, irresponsible space gangster who had to be brought to book before it ransacked self-respecting space travellers. "Oh it's been attempted. More times than we care to count. You have to understand what this means to the human race. The entire human race which can't arrive at a consensus about anything right from how to cook eggs to nuclear policy suddenly finds some kind of strange brotherhood in football. Football by the way, is the reason for all this fuss. Let me explain how this works. It's very simple. Two teams, one spherical duo-coloured object called the ball, two goal posts and the entire human race. A goal post is allotted to each team and the entire game is about scoring points by overcoming obstacles and hitting the ball right into the goal post. And when they do that it's called a goal. Leading to delirious celebration. You have to understand the enormity of post-goal consequence. Imagine several thousand billion people standing up in unison, roaring with joy in unison, howling - sometimes with joy, sometimes in sheer pain, bellowing their celebration or their devastation. It's a whole lot of energy, proactive, reactive and counteractive, generated by one single circumstance and it defies every theory of relativity ever written. It's known that when football penalties are delivered, there have been more recorded cases of heart attack then any other individual cause. Depressive energy like that can cause some serious damage up here with its aggravated gravitational pull, shift the moon's position and cause hurricanes down there. There are more massive energy fields out here in outerspace. But human beings with their complex chemistries and reactivities, not to mention their capacity for happiness can wreck havoc with their unrestrained excitement. Our universe is just too small for its impact. There is this thing they do call the Mexican wave. That's some crazy intergalactic shit cos it's so combined in its purpose, it buzzes with teeming almost-alive potential energy. It has to be seen to be believed. These humans come up with such ways to celebrate that can sometimes mess around with the elements themselves. Anyway this Mexican wave thing, it's consequence is an insane slinky of a shockwave traversing right across the universe, thanks to the earth being round. For the briefest fraction of a nanosecond, every molecule in its path has its atom density messed with and becomes wobbly. We don't notice cos it happens one atom at a time. So by the time an atom experiences this phenomenon, the previous one has already recovered from it. But that's how it is." "But captain," Lt. Mazzorb interrupted, "Why do these humans follow this football thing at all? Don't they have countries that are segmented?" "The players, my dear lieutenant, are demigods. They are messiahs themselves. Zeus very own bloodline. This game can turn atheists into desperate believers and the prayer-generated energies churned out during this time, is unbelievable to say in the least. So all I can say is prepare for assualt during the next few weeks."

Disclaimer: many laws of physics were harmed during the making of this piece. The writer takes no responsibility, culpability or be accepting any teaching posts at Harvard. About football, my sincere apologies for my limited knowledge.

mellow drama

2010-06-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

do you want to talk forever
i spell the rules out, i dont say a word
the boy who made me feel most alive
was the one who left me for dead
flowers and dreams laid before feet
why didn’t someone tell me love was
just a mating call, answered.
making somebody else's story, ours.
we're everybody and it happened to us.
Theirs as much as ours. them, we. us, them. common unfriends.
when our backs were turned, someone rewrote the rules
we believed there was nothing there
and yet, we didnt know there was so much to lose
we smile at each other the smile of strangers
memories overlap each other in a violent skirmish
jostling for space. it was good. it was bad.
bad riddance. good rubbish.
would you find the scraps we stowed away
behind work schedules, dark stairways, underneath pillows
pressed between books and in secret hidey holes in each others' hearts
dirty little secrets - orange and sugary like boiled candy,
too sweet to suck. too sweet to spit out.
personal jokes, giggles and laughter
spiraling like drain water. i watch helplessly.
songs unsung and folded kisses.
traces of each other stuck to skin, clothes
in our cupboards and unwelcome dreams of intimacy
make believe postcards of places we have never been?
pieces of you and me that without the other
will never be complete.
denied out of existence.
we smile at each other the smile of strangers
pretending not to care.
pretending it was never there.

relevance

2010-06-11T20:35:00.001-07:00

Technology is so advanced. One, two, three and voila! Right from cooking an egg to building an entire city. Press a few buttons and you're done for the day. The 7-day creation process looks like the outcome of bizarre super computer. Human effort is almost redundant. Judgement, so dispensable. The inbuilt chip will take care of it all for you. "Will that be all, sir? Very good, sir." "Apply. Cancel." Technology, such a diligent acolyte! Such a humble and reliable servant. Figure out the user's manual and you're king of everything. Life by instructions. Life by numbers. Life unmarred by sensibilities.
Take shaving for instance, such hard work, you could kill yourself from the strain. Thus electric razors. Battery operated and handy - the criteria for a perfect world. On. Off. And maybe a remote control to go with it? A remote control. That epitome of all of God's good graces, His name be praised. "Celebrate His loving mercy for he has given us the REMOTE CONTROL!" A case of constipated faith, honey? Check your TV guide for the next prayer session, to be followed by mass. Technology can save your soul! The evangelist raises his hands in conviction and faith and exaltation and melodrama. Hallelujah everybody. God's on TV!
Straight hair can now become curly and curly hair can become straight. Old women can become young and young women can become smaller, larger, taller, svelter, rounder; why, young women can become young men! Consequence is a just a matter of short cut keys. Cntrl A, Cntrl C, Cntrl V and then the penultimate choice; Cntrl S vs. Cntrl Z. Save or undo. Vibrators dispel loneliness and microwaves fill in for out-of-town wives and mothers. Up and down buttons. Warmer, cooler. Forwards, backwards. Higher, lower. Life's simpler.
Nobody needs to remember birthdays anymore. A little pop- up calendar reminds you that your dad's/mom's/wife's/husband's/son's/daughter's/dog's birthday is around the corner. "Leave your wish after the beep." They've even taken care of the surprise. Why fear when ebay is here!? Ebay has everything.

You don't have to take the trouble. There're a ka-zillion gadgets out there to do that for you. The time you'd waste in queues, you can now get your job done in a blinky, get your groceries, watch a movie (downloaded, of course) and still have enough time to spare for checking your emails or whatever happens to be on your priority list widget. Now would your postman come by every five minutes, just cos you suffer from an insatiable need for communication? Or would your newspaper man come by delivering updates, by the second minute?

Now let's talk about the amazing invention called the phone. It can make anything, right from dinner to booty and an ambulance to a blessing, appear. A regular magician. Or a super powerful wand. Take it anyway you want. This whole everything at your fingertips shibboleth never had it this good. And apparently, since punching buttons was taxing...we're all touchy-feely now. Touchscreens. Now it's actually, literally, perversely keeping in touch! Coming to think of it, old 'chit' must be feeling rather left out with his counterpart 'chat' being the only one savvy enough for these technologically-driven times. But even chat must feel violated with "Voice" being force-fitted to itself like an extra appendage. Twenty years ago it went without saying that the verb chat warranted the participation of voice. No voice, No chat! And now, this forced reinvention to suit the needs of the times cannot be without some amount of resentment.
Chats, voice chats, web cameras, second life, farmville, social networking, virtual pets, Wikipedia, blogs, emails, itunes, photoshop, livejasmin.com (which I believe is the porn site not the tearoom), youtube, piracy, ipods, kinky toys esp those disgusting inflatable dolls with their mouths open in a ghastly gasp, laptops, cubicles, intercoms, TV, microwaves, playstations, automatic teller machines, assembly lines, robotized-what-the-hell-talking sex dolls (?) and what not. Everything designed to reduce human interpersonal contact. Everything designed to bring us together while driving us apart. (Why talk when you can chat or text? Duh?!) Everything designed to keep us happy. Everything to help us deal with the unendurable heaviness of being. Everything to compensate for what we don't have. Everything to make it easier. Everything to make the nights a little warmer - loneliness is a fidgety bedfellow with terribly chilly feet. So many things designed to put a little inconvenient something called relationships out of business. Let's uncomplicate!

And yet, despite all this progress there's nothing till-date that successfully simulates or duplicates the warmth of a human hug or a kiss. Something so ridiculously simple, you'd think they'd have figured a mechanical, battery-operated substitute ages ago. Love, anybody?

the bathroom mirror monologue

2010-06-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

If us bathroom mirrors could talk, we'd be such terrible telltales. Such awful sneaks. Snitches. "She touches herself." "He wears his wife's clothes." "He talks for 10 minutes in the voice of Spongebob square pants. Everyday. Practising. Plans on trying out for a talent show. You’d think at 55 he’d have more sense!" "Mr. CEO is terrified of creepy crawlies and screams like a girl at the sight of one" “The priest hums ‘Like a Virgin’ while he shaves, makes moany sounds occasionally!” “That’s nothing. The other priest reads Playboy on the potty” "She might be the hottest girl in school and all, but her oral hygiene sucks. Bad breath as terrible as satan.""She hides alcohol in the flush tank. Swings" "He eats boogers. Blurgh!" "He pisses into his wife's shampoo." "She's in love with her son's best friend. They've been here and done thaaat." "Her t**s.... one hundred percent NOT REAL. One day it was like ho-hum and then barely later, it's glory! Glory!" “He fancies his best friend’s girl” “He’s having an affair.” “About Brangelina…ha ha wouldn’t you like to know!” “You’ll never guess who stayed the night at the chief minister’s place” We'd be the darling of the paparazzi. You think our worthy brother couldn't see right through old Adolf's plans everytime he carefully primped those bushy parallel lines on his philtrum with his toilet scissors as a young adult? But like I said, we can't talk. We're privy to army secrets, scandals, state secrets, orientation secrets, torrid love affairs, basically, forgive the pun, steamy secrets. We know the truth about the existence of aliens. I'm not telling you anything, oh no!! But I'm telling you, even those people you call Men in Black, they look into bathroom mirrors. And we know a Man in Black from a purple-faced large headed chrome yellow dribbling 6-footer. And we can tell a Halloween costume when we see it, thank you very much. We know which starlets take a piss standing up. Ha ha... aren't you dying to know our secrets, now? But most importantly, we know who loves you and who doesn't. What you see is never, ever what you get.

Big secrets. Small secrets. Smashing secrets. Blah secrets. Predictable-as-a-cheesy-romance secrets. Terrible secrets. Not-so-terrible secrets. Personal secrets. Scary secrets. Sweet secrets. "He asked her out finally. She just told me. They're going to be so happy together." Now, call me sappy, but I love secrets like that. I love it when they brush together in front of me, jostling for space, illict giggling, knowing they have no business being in front of the same bathroom mirror. "Her husband takes her make up off for her sometimes...awww ain't that sweet" "He's so in love with her. He even smiles when he brushes his teeth." I love it when small children choose to pray in front of me “Dear God, please make me beautiful” Then there are snide secrets. "You should see her without makeup. HORRIBLE. And she's supposed to be this hotshot actress. Sorry hon, but no photoshop available here." We even know who is standing behind you, watching you even when you can't see them. You know what I'm talking about, right?
"The boss cries in the loo as well. Just like everybody else." "She doesn't want this baby. And he's so excited. He doesn't even know it’s not his" "She stains her daughter inlaw's clothes on purpose and ruins them for spite." "She considers slitting her wrists everyday and changes her mind everytime her husband calls her to bed""He wanks thinking of his secretary's husband. And his wife has absolutely no clue!" “She lost her virginity..again. God, men are so stupid” “He beats his wife” ““He’s sleeping with his ex”. “So is she.” “Whoa! This is getting messy”.” “She’s bulimic.” It's practically amusing how people are so uninhibited in front of us. Hell, even nuns have no qualms about dropping their clothes in front of us. Practiced speeches. Nobel Prize slash booker prize slash Grammy slash academy award slash national award slash Miss India acceptance speeches. Rock concerts with shampoo bottles for mikes. Parliamentary addresses. Don't even get me started on the shutter-happy narcissists who can't get enough of taking their own pictures in front of us. Proposals. "Will you marry me? Tch...Will you please, please marry me? ...uh uh...I can't live without you. So marry me?" And the inevitable HUGE Sigh! So many dreams..all laid before us.

Happy Bathroom mirrors, unhappy bathroom mirrors, content bathroom mirrors, disgruntled bathroom mirrors, suicidal bathroom mirrors, pervy bathroom mirrors, holier-than-thou bathroom mirrors. It’s just very well we don't socialize that much. And that we can't speak.

Here's the deal. Some of us see pretty much the whole of a person's life. We're like more or less, a permanent fixture. A long term relationship of sorts. Right from when we can just about see the tops of their heads (soft curls and porcupiney straight) to when you can just about make eye contact if they stand on precarious tips of toes, necks outstretched like curious ostriches, then you see a cute little nose, then a smile, then a neck, till they're tall enough that we see the tops of their heads as they double over in grief in front of our eyes. Breaks our glassy hearts! In many ways, we're the true reflection of who you really are. We ARE who you are. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your happiness, your sadness, you dreams, your worries, your insecurities, your true beauty, your heartbreaks. We see it all. Lipstick and kisses. Aftershave and nicked necks. Tight underwear and cellulite. Sweethearts and bitter tears. Concealer and camouflage. Being taken for granted and being cherished. Frustration and prayers. Sometimes a little too much that desired. Like leaning over and bursting pimples in our faces (for the record, I hate that) and checking for breast cancer (don't do that in front of us, please. It's scary!!) It’s sometimes sad to watch some of you become such clichés of disaster. And it is wonderful when you redeem yourself. Most of you are a lot cooler when you're naked. If only you'd take the time to look yourself in the eye.

It’s very well we don’t speak. It's a good thing we don't go to town about it. It's a good thing we can't tell on you.Things are bad enough with most of you going around with your heart gaily swinging from your sleeve.

Tigress

2010-06-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

I’m dangerous they say. In zoology textbooks and encyclopedias they call me an apex predator and flesh-eating. I’m called fierce. A hunter. A threat. Merciless. Dangerous. Wikipedia confirms me to be the largest and possibly the most lethal in the family. .
Feral. Cunning. Calculative. With an acute survival instinct. Territorial. Powerful. All gone to rust.

A lazy tub of lard. I don’t need to fight for my place on the food chain. I’m fed. Cooked, processed food. I don’t even have to use my teeth. My claws have gone blunt with complacence. Fatted. I've forgotten the smell of blood, and how it coursed my veins with adrenaline. That hunger I used to know when i preyed. The rush of being my own again. Of being answerable to no one but myself. Of knowing freedom, of being in charge. Of being the one calling the shots. Of not having to retract. A change in environment. That’s all it took. To reduce me to this. It's an easy life. Yes it is. Take a girl out of her habitat for long enough, and she's lost on her own turf. Unsteady. Senile. Stupid. Insecure. Ridiculous. Suddenly I'm approachable. He has the nerve to reach out his audacious hand and stroke my neck. And i respond. The shame. The fall from grace. This is my compromise. My compromising position. I'm safe here. But at his mercy.

Respected. Feared. Revered. Now I purr and nuzzle. Playful. And played with. For the sake of a little protection, how much of myself was I willing to trade? For shelter, I have traded my battles, my wounds, my victories. I have surrendered them all. "Just as long as you will take care of me." To be cared for, was that so infinitely important? To yield instead putting up a fight. Unforgiving. And now I'm taken for granted. I was made to be solitary, have my space respected. Now i roll over and let them tickle my tummy. I used to be called wild. Beautiful. Unattainable. Goddess. Worshiped. I lick his hands with gratitude. They take liberties with me now. This leash is almost a comfort. It means security. Of not having to be afraid, a coward's comfort.

I'm dangerous they say. But I wouldn't know. Out here, I’m just tame.

**(as thought by a tigress in captivity)

doors

2010-06-04T21:20:00.001-07:00

I know I just walked through one of them. A doorway. An exit. A vestibule into another existence. The start of another chapter. A change of events that separated this second from the last, wedging its demarcation vividly like a thin red line on a map. An evolution of sorts on an unconscious level. A fragment of soul, falling away. A snake shedding its skin. Slow and viscousy movements. Seconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, seconds halved, quartered, segmented by the hundredth. Dead skin and dust shaken off. Without too much exertion on my behalf. Escorted almost. A sense of loss overpowered by a gradual wave of giddy happiness of having regained myself, breaking over me in slow motion. So slow that I almost don't recognize it. I feel nothing of it till the water rose to my waist. Closure, perhaps? I'm almost afraid to hope. That maybe, I have put it behind me.
We walk through these doors often.These exits in the time and space of what we call growth. Like an extra inch taller - another higher marking on the wall. Like the first spot of blood which becomes a monthly ritual. The cracked voice that begins with the sound of a chair being dragged and deepens into bass and maturity. Puberty. A childhood left behind. A car license, A voter's id. The threshold of adulthood. Milestones. Legally allowed to get laid. Legally allowed to get sloshed and wasted. Legally accountable for your actions. The driver's seat is finally yours. To crash or to get somewhere is entirely up to my discretion.
Another dent in the clay that would fashion the being you are. Physical and subtle.
Somewhere an equation has changed. The balance tilted, shifting the earth off its axis and exercising its own laws of gravity. Priorities pulled off their pedestals and shelves. "Things are different now." Contentment lies beneath the debris of broken redundant would-haves and should-haves.Altering of circumstances that need straightening out. Without knowing, I had walked through a doorway. As surely as someone walked over my grave. A trapdoor opened somewhere, a part of me fallen through, smashed into a million pieces, never to be whole again. A first time. A last time. I know I have changed.

Nothing would ever be the same again. The point of no return. Exit. The end of the tunnel and into the light. Or maybe even vice versa. Curtains.

faded

2010-05-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

"Someone's been stealing the colour from my roses", Pip squeaked. Pit pattered down the garden muttering to himself that he was sure Pip was being the drama queen she is. How could anyone possibly steal the colour out of one's roses? But for the sheer curiousity this complaint merited, Pit decided to find out what exactly qualified as roses whose colour had been stolen. So it came as some amount of surprise, an amount only the skeptics can even imagine, when he saw that some one had, indeed, been stealing the colour from Pip's roses. There they were, in full bloom, like show girls, yet sweet with the kiss of dew. But the colour of your whites when you mix them with your reds in the machine. "Darling," he said with some uncertainty, "pink roses sometimes pale a little." "But these aren't my pink roses, these are my RED roses!", she wailed. Some one had indeed stolen the colour from the roses, Pit thought for the second time, like a typical skeptic; like he would for the third, fourth. fifth and the sixth time. He would keep thinking that till he came to terms with it, which, probably would be never.

The colour stealer struck again that night. This time it stole the gold from the mango nectar. Pip sliced the mango with the insides of an apple. White, tawny but fibrous. Nectar that isn't gold tastes like life without laughter. Dull, flat, unsweet. Pip's face was sour as unripe mangoes and Pit hmm and hawed at the tree, who in turn basked unrepentantly, unconcernedly in the afternoon sun. Its fruit felt lighter and the flies left it alone. It rather enjoyed this detachment it felt from its own offspring. The children stopped throwing stones at it. They focused on the coconuts instead. There wasn't any colour to steal from it. By mid summer, the colour thief siphoned away the purple from the berries, the ocher from the marigolds and the crimson from the chethipoo*. The oranges that came from the plateaus and the apples that came from the hills looked like badly smudged watercolour productions. But nothing prepared them for the colour-bled konnas that flowered that awful faded summer. Golden shower cassia had petered down to an unenthusiastic drizzle. Bunches of bleached yellow hung like wasted hope from the threadbare trees. Pip swept off the fallen lacklustre sunshine petals from her courtyard with a face that grew greyer by the day. Their beloved konna suddenly became deserving of its ugly latin name. Cassia Fistula. Their beloved konna which used to be bright as children's laughter. Their beloved konna of elfin yellow. The colour thief had dulled their symbol of prosperity and wellbeing into a gutter yellow. And they knew for certain that they had been cursed.

*Ixora

lame

2010-05-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

What would the world have thought if type-casted, yesteryear villains like, ummm Danny Denzongpa made claims or issued public statements about fight scenes that was demanded by the script or if Gulshan Grover ever took the trouble to go blue in the face saying "That rape was demanded by the script. It's not to endorse violence."! Or Amrish Puri apologizing for Mogambo being the sadistic, no-business-being-this-happy f**ker that the script demanded? I can't help wondering cause I don't understand where these actresses are coming from with their "I have no problem exposing if the script demands it" or "it was demanded by the script" or what they seek to achieve with them. Where did this strange practice of validation and denial and all begin? Who has ever heard of actors doing any random thing they liked in a film? Not me, quite certainly. If they did, I shudder to think of what Mallika Sherwat whimsy productions would come out with.
Anyways, geting back to the point, first they leak out the good news "So and so is hitting the gym to look good in a bikini on-screen or so and so are flexing their lip muscles to do a mean liplock." And then they go satya-savithri on us by saying "the script demanded it" when they're actually thinking something along the lines of "dude, you aint seen nothing yet." It's not like I have a problem with on-screen kisses and gold bikinis. Okay I'm lying here. I DO have a problem with the gold bikinis. Oh yes, the gold bikini goddess with her arched torso and her hair flying just right like the bloody seaspray is doing a teasejob on it. I HAVE A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH HER. "Ooooh look at me! Look at me and my perfect size zero figure that slips into the tiniest, iitsty-bitsiest gold bikini!! I know a ka-zillion boys across the country are cooking in their hormones picturing me. Oooh look at me. Look at script-demanded-I-be-in-a-bikini me" GAH! Seriously!! The lip-lock was demanded by the script. The bikini was demanded by the script. Maigaaad the script demanded it, so now its our duty to appreciate the trouble they're taking to do justice to the script. They're all heart, no? Such passion.
So my dear actress whomsoever it may concern, I suppose you take us for a bunch of morons. Which we are by the way, for readily appeasing them with media space for their stupid capers and all. "Shilpa Shetty sneezed today!" "NOOOOOO, you don't say!" "Yeaaaasss and not just that Vijay Mallya gave her a hug instead of a tissue. I guess her doctor's prescription demanded it or something"! Back to demanding scripts and all. Why do they say this? Why? Why? Why? Half the populace who make the box office go ka-ching cares a hoot for their precious script. They're going there for their share of booty. Script, schmit indeed. Give us a break. I remember this one time when the release of Dhoom 2 was around the corner, my MALE friend came running up to me his face shining with the light of a thousand suns and he proclaims with ecstasy, I'm going to see Aishwariya Rai in a two-piece. Hallelujah honey, your life-changing moment is here. Embrace it!
Yes you're on a beach and we expect you to be strutting your stuff. Spare us the script demanded that you do your peacock dance thingy. Of course the director would see to it that your script would be very demanding and put you on yacht somewhere for a song sequence wearing the challenge of your film career even if the rest of the film is based in the Sahara. But why does a liplock have such screen mileage. I mean you get to catch the live show in most places. Weird. Or maybe its the steroid equivalent of voyeurism watching a star go at it. I donno. From where I see it, it's nothing to get one's blood up in boil about. Or maybe it is. But nevertheless, actresses get into such a tizzy about their onscreen kisses. Esp when you catch them do their tonsil tennis thingy aplenty in real life, MMS and all. The script demanded it, again? The agonies of filmdom. The script demands this and that, but what are they trying to achieve by boo-hooing about the script. I wish some script would demand Abhishek Bachchan to do a full monty. Now THAT i would pay good money for. Heh heh. But seriously speaking, I'm really looking forward to Raavan. I'm guessing that it was a very, very demanding script in respects that actually shows for something more than just cleavage.

lonesome

2010-05-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

It's evening and Beautiful Girl found her mascara running. Faster, faster, faster till a blur was all she could see. A sappy love song played on the radio. There was a love story on TV tonight, one of the American Film Institute Favourites, the blurb said. Her pekingese, Sweetheart was sleeping peacefully on the couch. A novel titled An endless love lay face down and the strain that ran down its back made it ache. Page 42. It had been lying there all week and dust settled comfortably like complacence around it. There were heart-shaped cushions piled on the sofa. Upstairs, heart shaped pillows rested below a giant pink heart counterpane. In her drawer, panties sprinkled with red hearts cosied up to devilishly pretty lace and satin. On her neat kitchen counter sat two coffee mugs who sat in companionable silence next to each other. When placed just right, they made two halves of a heart a whole. One of them hadn't been used in quite a while. It sat there alone and incomplete, diluting her coffee with guilt. Making it taste metallic and bitter. On the wall, hung a heart-shaped clock and heart shaped magnets dotted the fridge in a weird, tizzy lovefest. Oh there was love everywhere but in her heart. And try as she did, she simply couldn't find it. Under the cushions, under the pillows, on the dresser, in his boxer shorts, between the folds of her skin, in her mailbox, in her garbage, in the photo frames, in the cupboards, in the kitchen sink. There just wasn't any love to be found. Not even vestiges. It was all just very empty.
It's evening. And Beautiful Girl blotted out her running mascara. She painted her pretty mouth and wore her tightest skirt. She widened her eyes, and coated her lashes in lush, midnight black. Her reflection smiled back her. Worries forgot their lines and it felt so good not to hear their opinions for once. Love was not to be found. Love was not going to arrive. Not tonight. And even if it did, it knew where the house keys were. Inside the hollow, by the jasmine bush. Love could let itself in. Tonight would be a night for dancing. Her mascara opened up her eyes to the world. In all respects.

witching hour

2010-05-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

The rain fell. The rain pounded. The rain hammered. The wipers fought the tears that just wouldn't stop. Blurred vision and smudged horizons. Uncle drove the car fast, cause if he didn't, the hazy shapes that moved under the rain's blurry cloak would catch up with us. Yakshikal. Witches. Demonesses. Baadha. Malevolent sprites. Mothers carrying insanity in their ghoulish wombs. She-spiders who wove their silver webs thick and sure. Damned women. Bitter hags and nubile temptresses. They moved silently, invisibly under the sheets of rain and their breath frosted our windows. Uncle drove faster. We wanted to stop. The rain came down with steel machetes. The road was slick with their vice. Rivers swelled with black wrath under the bridges. We wanted to stop. But if we did, their outstretched arms would touch us and taint us for life, they would suck the light out of our eyes, leave their sulphur musk on our clothes and steal our souls.

There definitely was something in the air. The weather was just too pleasant and the countryside we whizzed past was alive, somehow indecently so, like a showy virgin in her prime. Vulgar green parrots with their whorish vocabulary flitted among trees, disturbingly green fields glistened softly under the sun, inviting like parted lips, waxy green leaves camouflaged the maavu's unearthly denizens, placid green mossy temple ponds, green bursting with life. Giddy with life. Red blossoms, red tikkas, red sindhooram, red sandalwood, red restraint. We'd driven into a country where everything didn't come with a logical explanation. A place that had a reason darker than piety for the countless kshethrams and masjids that made for sombre milestones within every kilometre or so. Red and green. The air shivered with magic. It was thick with spells that weren't meant to be broken. Silences that weren't meant to be stirred. The air was steeped in witchery. Every so often, an aalmaram in its melancholic solitude would reach out to us. Coconut palms stood grim like unaffected sentries. Then there were the swollen with the pungent, sweetsmelling white flowers. Palapoo. The smell of temptation. Of being lured. Bait. Possession. Inviting.

Fallen, empty she-souls. Cursed, beautiful, deprived, disappointed women. They smiled their winsome smile at us. In our single-minded pursuit of getting to Cochin before night fell, we shunned their invitation. In our air-conditioned car, where we saw the sea before we smelt it, we offended something deep and sensitive. And squealing at the happy discovery of the sea cut our affront closer to the bone. The storm clouds came from nowhere and they loomed low. The heavens growled with thunder. Without too much warning, they unleashed their fury. Lives would be claimed. Good vs. evil, in open combat. Irresponsible, foolish mortals with enraged demonesses at our heels. Demented, unreasonable, bloodthirsty spirits twisted in their white hot rage. Water blinding us. We ought to have stopped and let the storm pass. But somehow instinct got the better of rational. We were outsiders and we weren't welcome. The sooner we got out, the better. Silent, ceaseless invocations clutched closed and tight in a firm fist. Hell was closing in on us. Hell with the fury of countless scorned female-spirits with centuries of pending scores to settle. Righteous wrath, unreasonable vengeance. The haunter and the haunted. Hunter and the hunted. The rain hissed like a hundred thousand serpents about to strike, poison in its fangs. A caterpillar with icy tips made its slow and gradual progress down my spine. Eerie, unexplainable uneasiness we simply couldn't shake off. Thundering hooves right over our heads. Two hours. Racing cars and palpitating hearts. The wind raged. The road dipped and twisted. A fifth persona squeezed between Teenu and me in the back seat. Fear. Would we make it? Uncle resolutely drove on. A relentless fighter. And yet, somewhere a calm within the storm. Aunty. She held us together in a silver thread of prayer. Panic and faith.

Somewhere we took a wrong turn. Providence finally intervened. We'd outrun them. We slipped into Aleppey town. They fumbled and slowly retreated. Towns with their obtuse streetlights and insensitive grotesque structures have a way of disorienting desolate, lost souls. Mortal and immortal. The sun slowly came out from its hiding place. The worst was behind us. It wasn't our time. Not just yet. We stopped for tea and smacked our lips, milky and thick with the taste of being alive.

blameless

2010-05-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Pilate washed his hands of it. The basin clouded over with the murky orange of guilt, the blood red of remorse and rust of responsibility. A lot of water passed under that bridge. Rivers that flowed from the streams where artists cleaned their brushes off blame, where actors washed their faces painted over with masks, where promises sank to the bed like coloured stones. One among a million. A citadel of lost dreams covered in seamoss and green decay. Pouring blood and veins broken in vain.

We could smell the acrid sunset long before we saw it. I smiled with glass eyes. Her hands clenched into a fist. Downcast eyes vs. tears spent in secret. Bad bargains, weighed losses and raw deals. The evening turned the truth kinder. Tomorrow would come nevertheless, and with it would come regret. Paths were traced, signs were erased. Histories were rewritten. Denial couldn't have been more beautiful. Inconvenience minded its manners, and left quietly through the backdoor. Pink flowers wilted among the weeds. It was wrong. The sea roared its protest, it refused to be forgotten. And yet, we pretended we were in the realm of a parallel universe. We washed our hands of it.

There had been dreams. Of houses. Of chairs and dining tables. Of mountains and puddles. Children and jokes. I thought. You thought. He thought. She thought. We all thought. They thought. Different things, unfortunately. The same start but a different finish each. Another place, another plan. The trees watched grimly, the mud ate greedily, time turned its face away. We came clean. Such lies. The rooster cried for the third time. I know thee not. Memories were buried alive in unmarked graves. The sun washed its hands of it.

She stood there singing, clutching her heart desperately in her left hand. People danced on the trails of blood. smudging it all over the floor. Invisible stains painted a vivid picture of her agony. They ignored her bleeding heart and kept dancing. The hem of the bride's gown turned a grimy shade of red. The white lace was stained for life. The colour of ache. 30 pieces of silver glinted wickedly. People washed their hands of it. And it dragged on over black puddles of lies, spilt mistakes and lumps of pretense. One, two, three, skip. No one was the worse off for it, except, perhaps the white lace, which would never be the same again.

Love was portioned into four quarters. Sweet. Bitter. Ache. Ecstasy. Someone was going to get what was coming to them.
I sank my teeth into it. Spat it out. It was rotten. I washed my hands of it.

hero

2010-04-27T20:19:00.001-07:00

Consider this a request from me, please watch Cinderella Man if you haven't watched it yet. It's a sacrament of a movie. And it got me in the gut. I know I'm really late on this bandwagon, but Lord, I'm glad I got on it. Russell Crowe is such a epiphany, even if he happens to be a badass one at that. I have no idea what it is about him, his rugged yumminess notwithstanding, that makes you believe him. The Cinderella Man, pugilist Jimmy Braddock who decided to take on the Great Depression in the ring. Jimmy Braddock who makes you believe in hope again. Jimmy Braddock who reminds you that you can only put up your best fight if you have someone to fight for. Jimmy Braddock who makes Johnny Bravos of all the fancy-pants heroes we have today.
The movie reminded me to be thankful for the things I have. And I have been jaded for a really, really long time. I probably can't begin to compare this to sensation returning to a paralysed limb, it felt good to feel blood and feeling rush into all those crevices where I felt nothing for ever so long. It felt good not to numb again. It felt good to see something that wasn't painted over, touched up or maybe even veneered with cynicism. Felt good to see a woman stand by her man and he, by her. Old fashioned, yes i know. But wow. Renee Zellweger makes a beautiful Mae Braddock. She's vulnerable, fragile yet incredibly strong. It felt good to feel so inspired. It felt good to see him make pudding out of Max Baer, this cheese-assed, cocky, big-bully, nasty weasel of an opponent, who bears a startling resemblance to a particularly difficult client. Felt excellent to see him being humbled. Made me believe in the concept of good guys. Aah! Fairytales and happy endings didn't have such moxie.
In my head, maybe, most of us are lost ‘cos we're missing that something to believe in factor. Our mothers believe in their marriages, their devotion to our dads, their faith in God, in propriety. Our dad's believe in their duty, in their self-importance, in their lineage, in what's best for us, in their dreams. What do we believe in? I think the only thing I've got unshakable faith in is Boredom. As a staunch, card-carrying believer of God, I'm not saying this for added effect or coolness. It's just that I know whatever the status quo happens to be, Boredom will soon settle like dust on it and turn it a shade dull. Cynical? Yeah. But while I watched this movie, I thought, it doesn't necessarily have to be the case.
Please watch it if you haven't seen it already.

Instant Salvation

2010-04-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Cold Milk - 1 cup
Oreo Cookies - To your heart's desire

It's a very complicated recipe. But absolutely worth it. Stick to it carefully and you're sitting on God's favourite chair already!

Put all ingredients in a blender (what we all call mixie). Beat it like how Michael Jackson adviced you to. Five seconds. Full Power. Pour. Drink. Amen.

Works equally well on hot days and rainy afternoons. Got someone to share it with? Oooh, you're cuter and cosier than Goldilocks ever could have been in the Three Bears' home.

mysteries

2010-04-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we stopped making the p word, read period, such a big deal. Like what would happen if we girls just stripped it off its glamour, iffy-quotient by being downright causal about it. “Listen guys, I’m chumming today. So I’d like to take it easy ok!” That’s all there is to it. Nice and outright. Deprive it of its mystery rights. Either ways, boys love to arrive at conclusions and the signs are so unmistakable that it all becomes elementary my dear Watson! Jump into conclusions they will. They have little respect for the logistics of biology and the fact that it comes only once a month. Anything is THAT thing. Looking-under-the-weather according to them is a dead giveaway or the legendary stomach pain/back pain (apparently stomach upsets or back sprains are the sole privileges of the male species. If girls have them, it’s DEFINITELY ‘that’!) or that stupid traffic-halting pimple that heralds the misery week like the first flower does of spring “Hello sunshine”!!

But yeah. Why not? Why not drag it down from its embarassment pedestal and make it an insignficant deal? So that we don't have to whisper obviously about it. It's just biology afterall. And its not syphillis, for heavensake! Now that would be a reason to be embarrassed. Why not just come out in the open and let the person decide how they want to handle that particular piece of information. Put the burden on them. Most likely they'd be more embarrassed and that's very well. At least you won't have to be subjected to speculation. And there is a great deal of sympathy involved when boys are let in on the secret! But keep them out and all you'll get is sniggering and adolescent curiosity. Bad enough there is all this mind-numbing pain to deal with. So you we really need to make it some kind of high-profile-embarrassment as well? Such a lot to deal with.

Dealing with 120 hours of downtime is by itself a problem without having to deal with smirking morons. Then there is PMS. It's slander, if anything was. Everything we do is PMS. We're crying, it's PMS. We're yelling, it's PMS. We're fighting, it's PMS. We're sulking, it's PMS. "Nothing serious yaar, I bet she's just PMSing." Either we're PMSing or we're lunatics and we need to be institutionalized. A threat to society, either way. I've not known infuriation like I do when my boy friend asks me, when i'm hauling him up for being a jerk, with much practised concern if I'm PMSing. Just like that he acquits himself of all blame and accredits my foul mood to the chemical imbalance of my hormones. Makes my blood boil. And wringing his neck seems like such a sweet option.

So should we deglamorize it and make it mundane? I don't know. I don't even know why we glamourized it in the first place. Though it WAS a lot of fun to freak nosey, horrid college lecturers by shaking the "female problems" excuse in his terrified face and bunk class. Like i said, they have little respect for the logistics of biology and the fact that it comes only once a month and so the excuse held good every two weeks.

struggle

2010-04-06T20:37:00.001-07:00

The moth bumped its head against the windowpane for the seventy-third time. It had been trying to get out all morning and in the dying heat of the late afternoon, its white wings trembled with ache. Soft bits of moth dust lay spent like dandruff on the windowsill. Outside freedom reached its welcome arms out, open and wide. With every attempt, rents turned into alleyways and alleyways turned into gaping voids in its wings and spirit. Life tasted weary in its tasteless mouth. Yesterday felt like a hundred years ago. It was hard to believe and harder to remember that it had been reckless with the joy of being alive, so-called-hundred-years-ago. The dank iron taste of imprisonment numbed its motors and spread the sweet poison of ennui slowly, evenly.

Every time it beat its gossamer fists against the unrelenting cold of the glass, life waned futile. Every time it threw itself against this wall that separated tomorrow from today, desperation got the better of wit. Every time it rebelled uselessly, compromise gained strength from a faraway option and despite its dubious credentials, began to look like a valid route of escape. And every time it fell back in defeat, it forgot that outside the radius of its immediate misery, life was passing it by.

On the other side life beckoned. On the other side beauty reigned. Opportunities lay glittering in jewel boxes, all it needed to do is get to the other side of the window. Just get to the other side. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.
I certainly hope I will.

expectation

2010-04-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

The moment she thought longingly of a baby, she realized, that in her mind, she had become a mother. She knew she was ready. And from thereon she took the first step of her journey towards motherhood. From that very second she had begun to reach out to her baby, who had been waiting forever, to be wanted. Her very own baby, who waited among the stars for her call. Her little person, who was destined for her, way before time even began and written history found its way into records.

I've been waiting a long, long time for her call. Sometimes I thought she'd never call. And then I have been very sad. Sometimes I've been afraid she'd never find me. Sometimes I've thought she'd never want me. But I am her baby and I always will be. Sometimes I thought they'd never be ready for me. They were always so busy, always running, always broke by the 15th of the month. But you see, I am her baby. I was destined for her, it says so right here, in the blueprint of creation. We babies are destined for our mothers. And we only hear the call of our mothers. We only heed the call of our mothers. I was sometimes afraid that she would conceive before she called me. That is just scary, because I could start growing in her in flesh but still be stuck here in spirit. Because if she doesn't call, it means that she isn't ready. And if she isn't ready how could she possibly become a mother. She could hold me in her arms and still not be my mother. Deep inside her heart, she wouldn't be a mother and I'd still be here waiting for her to call me. Waiting for her to want me. Waiting for to make me her own. I could be waiting forever, and it might be when I'm old that she might finally call me. And make me her own. I could be waiting forever before she baptises me with her love, and make me her child. I could be waiting forever before she wants me.

In the sweetness of a winter afternoon, she felt the stirrings of motherhood even before the determined tadpole-shaped squirt had a chance to find her waiting egg. This wasn't about sex. This was something far too sacred. This, she thought guiltily, had nothing to do with him. This was just between her and her dream-child. Her little fledgling. This was about her finding something in her, a part of her that had been there all this while but she had no clue about. This was about her being ready. This was about a destiny in gestation, coming full circle. And here she was, ready and willing. And somewhere in the outreaches of heaven, a little voice said "Mamma, I'm coming."

Dedicated to a dear friend of mine who discovered recently that she was ready for motherhood. I hope this journey is fulling and brings you all the joy and love you deserve.

maya-what-the!

2010-03-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Can you believe Mayawati? The woman's antics make the likes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and every other public weirdo as mundane as a hamster on its wheel. :P How she gets away with it is beyond me. I mean, is sycophancy that strong a force in the Indian psyche? Just when i was beginning to get used to the idea of her garland made of carefully crafted currency and her party's (party is a great word. But it think CIRCUS would be far more appropriate a word considering the clowns in it) so-called defiance to the muchly-envious opposition who is making such a big deal (so-unreasonably-really-now?) of it by the self-diktat that they henceforth, will only offer currency garlands, she goes and makes another beee-g issue.

Her rally was buzzing with more action than she actually cared for, courtesy a battalion of really angry bees. Quite miraculously, or at least according to Mayawati, not a single supporter was stung. Now, wow! Her mayajal works on bees also? But the fact that NOT a single supporter was stung or at least that no one proved otherwise, was not quite enough I guess. Nope Mayamadam is REALLY put off. She's got the entire police force, who in turn possibly wants to confer the Param Vir Chakra on her for keeping calm, doing an enquiry.

It's not her. It's us. How can we possibly condone this? Our country is supposed to be, despite popular belief - despite the rat worshipping, despite our legacy of superstition, despite hundred other despites, a nation of rational human beings. How on earth do we just read about the crazy slash ridiculously extravagant slash obviously corrupt slash crazy all over again slash no-way-in-hell-could-she-be-affording-to-do-this-honestly things in magazine and just flip the page and go on to the next story! How does the establishment explain this? How low are her "wellwishers" willing to sink? Whatever. All that being said, I think she's more news worthy than all the denizens of the page three universe put together. She's doing far more interesting things in her time than stuffy brunches and yawn cocktails. Speaking of which, i wonder if she's got Guccis and Louis Vuittons in that multi-million bag collection of hers.

Do I admire this woman? Hell yes I do. Like i said, it's us I have the problem with.

don't look now.

2010-02-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

Since forever, I have struggled against my parents to prove to them that I'm a big girl and that I can handle it! But apparently the entire universe is against us and is out to tell us that we, in fact, cannot handle it! Censorship! I just don't get it. Who or what are we trying to protect with censorship. Suddenly the excitement of an impending love-making scene gets an upturned bucket of brain-numbingly, ice-cold water. One second they are kissing passionately and the next the guy is already post-coitally zipping up his pants. (Thank goodness my blog doesn't have a grammatical censor board :D) It's like even the movies, that once used to be an idealistic getaway from reality, is determined to smash our faces into the hardships of reality. Well, isn't it typical, that love ends even before it begins, like in real life?

But my grouse isn't against just the disappearing love-making scenes. It's also about the asterisks that obliterate our lives. (For the thick-headed, that was intended to sound like Astrix and Obelix). Five year olds use the word shit without the minutest quiver of disposition. Let's face it. We live in times like that. And the closer we get to shedding our snake-skins of inhibition, it seems that the secondary forces that be get all the more hell-bent on denial. Self-denial is one thing and denial is another thing altogether. Who gets to decide what we are capable of digesting and what is acceptable to us? If there are small children in the house, self-regulate. Why should my raging on-the-wrong-side-of-25 hormones pay for it? If the biggies of the censor board can have all the access to his hardcore porn, (Please. All men watch and indulge and are disgustingly addicted to porn. Why is it disgusting? Cos it's another woman you are watching and getting aroused by, dammit. How would you guys like it, if your wives/girlfriends called out Brad Pitt's or the post man's name in bed. She's only fantasizing like you guys would with your joy stick :P) Anyways this isn't a battle of the sexes post, it's about me wondering why I can't have a little extra pulp in my orange-juice romance movies, if you know what I mean.
It's precious, for us, who gave the world the Kamasutra and is having the hydrogen bomb equivalent of population explosion, to make culture-claims. So what actually got my goat? The absence of the innocuous word "shit" in a song. The words went like this "Show's that we ain't gonna stand shit. Shows that we are united", Now with the word shit going M.I.A., I’m left with "Shows that we ain't gonna stand....Shows that we are united" So from an ode to London, Adele's gorgeous song "Hometown glory", sounds like an anthem for the differently-abled.

requiem

2010-02-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

Cochin might have long-forgotten than she's the queen of the Arabian Sea and sunk to the decadence of a harlot. The Land Mafia whom we will call LM, without doubt is her no. 1 customer. The b*****d fucks her, rapes her, degrades her, humiliates her, disfigures her for his pleasure, but somewhere in her foolish heart, she expects him to propose marriage and save her from the messy life she lives. Somewhere she harbours that hope, because he is charming and beautiful as much as he is selfish and greedy. That he will make her rich. Till then she will continue to give, give and give, till she runs dry. She turns grey and ugly as he ravages her and takes her as he pleases. There was a time when trees and not apartments made the skyline. It wasn't as grandiose and tall as it is now, but Cochin breathed back then. A time when her people didn't constantly have dust in their lungs, in their hair and in between their nails. She traded trees and pretty flowers for concrete and sinusitis. She let him in with his cement mixers, his multi-storey apartments and his grey skies and grimy rain. She sold her sisters to him, she let him build terminals and rail roads where herons and wood sprites took shelter. She let him fill up her marshes and the frogs forgot their songs and serpents beat their heads at this folly. She let him build car parks and shops where her girlhood friends once stood. She watched him tear their limbs and cart them away to become furniture and wood paneling. At night she watches out for him with the rumble of the highway and mosquitoes for company. She sometimes wonders whatever became of the crickets and the cicadas, but then her thoughts wander to how sweet life would be if he made her his.

Once, in her waters, dolphins raced joyously with water nymphs who wore glittery ornaments in their seaweed hair, to greet the first rays of the sun. Now the sun rises and sinks with the perfunctory callousness of someone who couldn't care less. The sun glares with the hostility of a scorned lover, charring people with impatience and vice. The gods and goddesses who once inhabited the trees and the lotus ponds, and slept in the golden husks of the emerald fields retreated into the confines of their sanctum sanctorums. In the green depths of the temple ponds, she hid her secrets and in the open backwaters, where she once had secret trysts with a dark-skinned boy who sang with the sweet saltiness of a sea-breeze. But the boy stopped singing a long time ago and she stopped waiting for him even longer. Her river beds where the remains of her drowned dreams lay, she gave away for the asking. She watched them filling out the shores of her backwaters with nary a question nor a flinch. To those who asked, she merely shrugged her shoulders and smiled at her second-most favourite customer. The establishment.

She liked Establishment. If Mr. LM promised her wealth and stature, Establishment with his slimey smiles and oily palms read her the fine print. With Establishment, she always felt like she was the one in charge. Establishment was in love with her, and she used his love against him. He did her favours, he trimmed his ugly nose hairs so that she would call him handsome. But most of all, he brought her that magical thing that LM could never give her. Guidelines. That magical word that was more flexible than a rubber band and did more miracles than God's very hand. by a sleight of hand, what was illegal transformed most painlessly into legal just by mere definition. He takes care of the idealists and the communists who care to protest. Though he hated the aforementioned LM, he always ensured that she never had to be the one to take the fall.

He gave her dignity. He made her meetings with the men in white less ugly. He held her close and whispered into her hair that he loved her. That made her smile. Of course, a lot of promises failed to materialise. But not before he had worn himself to the bone running after it. Dear, foolish One. That made her smile as well. He smoothed down the bumpy ride of procedure, so that she could someday boast that ever elusive trait - infrastructure. He was her No.1 henchman and he carried her home when she was too drunk. He gave without asking. And he took only after asking. Or so she believed. He made her promises of investment and gave her a bed large enough for her most prized, but in a strictly business sense, customer. Tourism.

For him she wears her purple scarf and wears her rings that validate her aristocratic heritage - her rings of pearl, opal and amethyst that claim her lineage. She smiles with the grace of sepia and paints her mouth the colour of roses for him. Cochin might have long-forgotten than she's the queen of the Arabian Sea and sunk to the decadence of a harlot; but once in a year, she bedecks herself with the regality of a once-princess who hasn't quite forgotten her charms. A nubile princess who waits impatiently for queenhood. One reckless with the intoxication of day dreams and bequeathed legacy. She wears frangipani in her hair and smiles a smile, light and breezy as white linen. He brings the glamour of yachts and she lures him with charm. She recounts tales of romance and he helps her relive them. A fresh coat of paint to cover what history won’t let her forget. Quaint neighbourhoods play out a timeless tableau. The two islands which have faced each other like sentries since forever, continue to guard the harbour mouth, which for centuries has been the passage for storms and sundry. Altogether, maintaining the poise of a lifted chin and keeping her visibly conscious of her fine bloodline. And subtly reminding her lovers, that when all is said and done, she still remains a queen.

kya haaal hai

2010-02-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

Waaaateeesthese, ya? first of all, I hardly watch the news. I'm always resolving to but I end up watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S instead. And on the rare day I switch on the news, all they want to talk about is how the Shiv Sena is mighty pissed off with Shah Rukh Khan or SRK (Bollywood loves acronyms and abbreviations, doesn't it! Remember KNPH, KHNH,KKKG, ETC.) Such a lot of gung-ho and all. Even Hitler would have been jealous! (Well..the dude did make a huge ruckuss called the WW2!) NDTV went on and on about how attacking Bollywood is a no-show cos it makes "soft target"! Yeah right! One day they say them and the likes of Dawood Ibrahim are like bumchums and the next they call them "soft targets". Am I the only one who is like really awful at math or does something really not add up here?
So today also, I didn't get much from watching the news except that it shed more light on the fact that Uddhav Thackeray only knows how to make a point with the fist (figuratively). I don't follow Hindi that well. But even I followed far enough to understand that I wasn't the one MISSING the point here.
There is this thing that I just DO NOT get! I just don't get it how Bollywood stars manage to put their foot into their mouth or do something to that effect, just before they have a release! Then it's all drama. Poster-tearing, banning the film, picketing, effigy-burning, yadayada. I wonder how much this "organized" sector contributes to the GDP. But you also know how the well-oiled wheels of publicity works, naa!? It could be that also, i am thinking. But all thinking and wondering and not-getting and math that doesn't add up is very strenuous. And having news that only wants to spend time discussing this is also strenuous. Cos then, all the news that is actually like news and not what-else-is-new comes in tickers; and then it's a veritable tug-of-war between what I ought to know and what I'm interested in. Bollywood is just the teeniest-weeniest bit more interesting than PC (P. Chidambaram NOT Priyanka Chopra, who, for the record, is also very interesting) talking with his Pakistani counterpart at the SAARC meeting. (yeay! i just looked at a newspaper after days)

Another thing, what I fail to understand is what role does the Sena have to play in Kerala. I came across a poster that said "Save Cochin. Join Shiv Sena". Now I'm totally flummoxed. There are only a fistful of manoos in Kerala, if there are any at all. I thought the Shiv Sena is about Marathis and Maharashtra belonging only to Marathis? So brings them all to Cochin? I donno. What they got planned to save Cochin also I don't know. But I know we rather like the little diversity we have here. Having a Punjabi, Gujju, Marwadi, Pattar and all in our gang of friends is very, very cool. We like sampling multi-cuisine and all at zero cost.Please don't put cockroach in our Aloo ka paratha, thairusadham, patrode (which is a yum dish and not the past tense of pat rides), dhoklas, pani puris and all. Please don't spoil our rather nice cultural avial! Very much thanks!

yo grammy so ugly, it makes me go GAAH GAAH

2010-02-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

The grammy's are announced. And I of course, have an opinion. Don't I always!? And of course I must announce it. That is the purpose of this blog - to air my neverending, of-great-gravity opinion. I must opiniate.
First things first. AR Rahman did us proud by bringing home not one, but two Grammys. When you have two grannys why settle for one grammy! Ok that wasn’t not even a joke but I couldn't resist. So now he'll be known as Grammy Award Winner AR Rahman. Grammy Award Winner and AR Rahman will be inseparable henceforth.
And his most humbling experience perhaps, would be looking at his passport. There he’d just be AR Rahman or Rahman AR of whatever. Speaking of which, I wonder what Queen Elizabeth's passport says! But this isn't about Queen Elizabeth's passport or AR Rahman's passport or even AR Rahman for that matter. And I wasn’t saying that his head is too big for his size. The man is humble enough, it's just the way we are. It us, not him! Henceforth any literature on AR Rahman will without doubt have "the Grammy winner" and "the Academy Award Winner" as other ways of referring to him. To add pizazz to the copy, i suppose. They'll replace "the very talented" and "India's musical wonder" might be given a rest, and TGW and TAW will be his official adjectives or appellatives or whatever in the fancy circles.
By now you must really think this is about AR RAHMAN. It's not. It's supposed to be about the grammys but apparently it insists on delving on AR RAHMAN.
The grammys. Well music is not what it used to be. I didn't watch it, I sort of missed the show. But I heard someone play the highlights and people had more to speak about how well others are endowed in other respects than music. What I heard was how well people were endowed down south and they weren’t talking about Alabama! I don’t remember music being mentioned. But I could be wrong.
Tommy Lee wanted to publicly announce that he was getting some that night. I mean what happened to the music? What happened to the power performances people raved about and didn't get over for days? What happened to us actually caring about the grammys?
I haven't walked into a music store in years. Weird for someone who used to go in every week and drool over the new albums and spend more money on music than on food (strictly based on the law of averages).This Lady Ga Ga, discosticks and pokerface and all. What is she about?
She more like Lady GAH GAH (if you read comic books you know what that means. if you haven't, you don't, and you're also a sadass - it's an interjection that denoted frustration or disgust. really, now!) I don't like her. I don't believe I mentioned that. Why has music come to this, when some woman from Mars rules the charts and has a fan following! It's peth-et-ick! The Grammys used to be about the eternals. Not about hype.
I was doing some reading up on the Grammys and this entire article was about what each celebrity wore. I'm sorry I thought I was reading up on the Grammys and not the Milan Fashion Week. Why are we discussing clothes here? Speaking of clothes, if you haven't seen what Britney Spears wore, you must. It looked like Spiderman designed the damn thing for her. She must have thought, "OK I'm not getting a Grammy, so I'm going to get all the attention i get. cos thats the other thing i'm addicted to". At least I hope she knew she was winning anything.
I’m doing it as well. This post is getting too depressing. I'm going to stop.

and some dream of flying

2010-01-31T09:32:00.000-08:00

My last post had me taking the Lord’s name in vain a lot. This post is about how some people in particular have me calling and invoking His mighty name rather in desperation. Autorickshaw drivers. If they aren’t driving like they’ve been possessed by the ghost of Evel Knievel, they’re acting like they’re possessed by the ghost of a 12th century tax collector (over-charge till it hurts is our motto!)

Some of them BELIEVE with all the sincerity of their well-greased hearts that they HAVE to speed over every gutter, hump and what-have-you on the road. They simply have to zoom dangerously across curves and bends, and swerve narrowly missing (and sometimes not missing) everything in sight. Oooh the adrenaline rush it must give them! Well, one man’s adrenaline rush is another’s piety surge. (Dear God, I have a presentation next week, I don’t want to die today. And yes. I do have my priorities sorted out) Along with all this, some of them are adventurous enough to make CONVERSATION and they turn around to do so. “I know you’re scared, but you ain’t seen nothing yet. Cos now I’m going to turn around, like take my eyes off the road, and ask you where you’re from or some irrelevant question. And I know you’ll answer cos you’re terrified and you’re anxious for me to get my attention back to the road.” It brings out a whole new meaning to being made to talk AND it makes the Joker look like a straightforward guy in comparison. Obviously you’ll invoke the divine name here!

These people do bring a whole new meaning to auto racing.

And if it happens to be those horrid, bumpy things that are the autorickshaw equivalent to monster trucks, it’s an assault on every part of your anatomy. Cos then you have speed and you brute strength. And both of that together is HARDLY good news. One hand you’re desperately trying not to end up on the road, and on the other hand you’re just desperately trying not to end up on the road. Right then, gravity is one mean bitch, if you know what I mean! Making you go, “Good God! What is this?”

Then there are those who talk to you in English. If you think that linguistic skills come at no extra cost, you are mistaken. They charge a frikkin premium that can put the business class to shame. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, some of them are convinced that they are the light, and offer you advice and friendship. If they do, you’re screwed. You’re screwed anyway, so why should an auto ride be any different. In addition to being at their mercy, you are also responsible for every traffic jam, every gutter and every railway block. So… Yup. Screwed again. And thus, when you take your wallet and shell out twice the fare, you can’t help but ask, “Why god, WHY?”

But let’s not get all general and stereotypical here. Some of them take so much pride in their ride that they get the whole vehicle upholstered that at 9 pm after a long day at work, it’s a veritable chariot just because you can lean back and rest your head, without your neck testing its obtuse angle abilities. And that my friends, is God’s divine mercy in itself. Quite the moment when anyone would say, “Thank God”!

things that made me go hmmm during Twilight

2010-01-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

• How do men sit through this? (Baby you love me? Yes i do. Then come watch twilight with me? Uh-oh)
• How much compact slash concealer slash several-shades-lighter foundation did they use on these guys and didn’t they object?
• Boy, most men act like vampires. Men. Vampires. Same difference.
• Edward, the main-romantic-boy-vampire, he does all the following – he’s everywhere she is – the parking lot, the cafeteria, heck even in her bedroom. And HE asks her to stay away. God, really! How typical.
• My boyfriend behaves like a vampire
• My boyfriend has the manners of a vampire
• My boyfriend is a vampire. I think! Yikes!
• Such a lot of makeup. Makes Paa look au naturel
• Why does the girl speak like as if every single word is torn from her frikkin guts? Does she HAVE to be this frikkin intense?
• He’s supposed to be dazzlingly beautiful according to the story-gist on the jacket. He’s just dazzlingly white. Like an ad for Tide detergent.
• Stupid SOB is just playing so hard to get. “Oh I’m going to tell you to stay away. Cos I know that’s exactly how I get you to stalk me. Oh stay away. Oh I’m such a sad lion. Oh I’m such a typical male. If you think I’m playing hard to get, you should see me when you bring up the commitment word.”
• The misleading story-gist on the jacket (again) says she’s not popular and that she’s like an outcast. WHAT THE HELL! She’s like the queen bee in the movie. “Hey Bella, come sit next to me” “Hey Bella you wanna come sit next to me” “Hey Bella you really wanna come sit next to me” “Hey Bella I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come sit next to me”
• Fancy car and a fancy growl that can scare men away AND he creeps the competition out. Man, this guy is a catch. And he’s there when you need him. (Attention: 26 year-old seeks hot 90-year-old-but-looks-32-year-old DEVASTATINGLY BEAUTIFUL vampire)
• He drives like a lunatic. Well if you’re immortal, accident isn’t something you’d worry about.
• God Almighty! Even saying “See you tomorrow”, makes this woman wince with some deep, deep pain. Look at the way she gasps it out with such trauma and all going on her face!
• This woman must be into psychos. Or maybe she is psycho and she loves vampires. Either way I see the resemblance between the two. Whoever said opposites attract, apparently didn’t see this coming.
• This guy is full of shit and she’s buying it. God, we girls are dumb
• He can’t get into her mind, he says! Pfft….he sees nothing cos there IS nothing in there!
• He’s just oversexed. “ I don’t have the strength anymore to stay away from you” ( dude we all get that way. It’s called FEELING HORNY”
• This,? THIS? THIS? Is supposed to be some kind of “darn good hunk of pop moviemaking”? Yeah right! Then I don’t even want to know what makes a “Darn horrible hunk of pop moviemaking”.
• “Oh noooooooooooooo! What have I done!!?!! I’ve gone and fallen in love with a monster!!” Get over it girl. We all have. Not the first. Not the last. But our kind of monsters drink blood only metaphorically and they go by the title of either husband or boyfriend. But they’re hot, aren’t they!!
• Good God, this movie reminds me of when I was a kid and loved lions and tigers so much that there were ONLY vegetarian lions and tigers in the stories I wrote. Vampires on a special diet! My foot!
• He glows in the light! Heavens! What will they think of next!!? By, God, he glows in the light. And I thought vampires roasted in the sunlight. Now THAT’S why they avoid the sunlight – cos they would glow and awe-strike everyone with their dazzling (HEEEEEEEEYYYY!) personality. This ought to teach me not to be judgmental. MY BAD!
• Even vampires can’t stop themselves from showing off.
• Talk about a relationship with NO future!
• Whenever my boyfriend comes like REAL close to me, my only thoughts are “OH goody! He’s going to kiss me!” But poor child, her thoughts would be like an objective question.
o A. Oh goody he’s going to kiss me
o B. Waitaminute! He’s probably got to bite me. Uh-oh
o C. Shittyshit..the SOB’s going to eat me

Sigh!! Must be so stressful.

• This movie is just oversexed. And 14-year-olds love it. Are we programmed for the stuff, or what!
• Are we so running out of stuff to believe in that we need vampires?
• She asks him to make her like him, you know, like a vampire and stuff. So then they go around for two years and then they break-up and then what? Most guys would only have to deal with “I lost my virginity to you for nothing” But what would she accuse him of, “I lost my humanity to you”? Whoa! That’s some heavy duty shit!!!

And the Farmviller saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. ...

2010-01-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

I have known for sometime that farmville is a clever ploy by the agent smiths of the world to get us obsessed with the other dimension they advocate. This so-called application on facebook had most of my friends occupied, preoccupied and bloodyoccupied up to their noses in virtual reality compost, mud and chicken feed. Everyone was a farmer and everyone was sowing and reaping and harvesting and prospering and becoming neighbours and winning yellow ribbons and finding lost black sheep (I thought that’s why they were black sheep in the first place, cos they were lost) and ugly bulls and all. The competitive got even more competitive in the guise of friendship. So-and-so has invited you to join Farmville, an innocuous little notification would, er.., notify. It kinda goes like this

“Howdy friend! Come be my friend in FarmVille, where you can grow delicious fruits and vegetables on your very own farm!”

Sounds warm and friendly and all that jazz enough. But ha-ha it’s actually someone who wants to win more yellow ribbons than you can tie around an old oak tree. Have you ever heard of a Friendly Farmers Association? In all probability you haven’t, cos they’re all trying to grow the biggest potatoes or tomatoes or egos. soon enough you start to get invites that sound a lot like “You scratch my back, I scratch yours”

“Here is an Apricot Tree for your farm in FarmVille. Could you help me by sending a gift back?”

“Here is a Reindeer for your farm in FarmVille. Could you help me by sending a gift back?”

“Here is a Red Present for your farm in FarmVille. Could you help me by sending a gift back?”

“Here is a Chicken for your farm in FarmVille. Could you help me by sending a gift back?”

“Here is a Cherry Tree for your farm in FarmVille. Could you help me by sending a gift back?”

And everyone’s still furiously sowing and reaping and harvesting and exchanging and prospering and wasting time and obsessing and becoming neighbours and winning yellow ribbons and finding lost black sheep (Again, isn't that why they are black sheep, in the first place) and ugly bulls and all. Why, one of my friends even shared her password with a lot of people so that they all could log in and play Farmville for her, when her net connection at home was facing technical difficulties (possibly fatigue from all the farming) Talk about dedication! But still I had no idea how strong this invasion into our reality was until this conversation happened between two of my friends, whom I’d call “A-life-less-ordinary” and “A-little-Extraordinary” here because the characters in here are not fictitious and resemblance is not coincidental and in all probability, one, or worse, both of them could come and bop me.

11:02am A-life-less-ordinary: Hey A-little-Extraordinary

11:02am A-little-Extraordinary: hey A- life-less-ordinary
how r u ??/

11:02am A-life-less-ordinary: i am ok
i need a small help

11:03am A-little-Extraordinary: yeah tel me

11:03am A-life-less-ordinary: I have sent u a farmville neighbour request, can u please add me as ur neighbour?

11:04am A-little-Extraordinary: lol!! ok ..i thot its a real thing

11:04am A-life-less-ordinary: hmm

11:04am A-little-Extraordinary: i don't use farmville anynore
but i can restart. i have enuf pending gifts

11:05am A-life-less-ordinary: ok..no issues..i am running out of neighbours
but how then do u spend ur time?
i mean do u go for work?

11:06am A-little-Extraordinary: if i am not on farmville??? i don't work
but i do loads of things

So there you have it people. "No farmville. No life." If you aren’t on Farmville, WHAT do you do? This question can go down history as a rhetoric of our times. Like the “to be is to do” and other famous words, “As you sow, sow sow and reap” will end up on tee-shirts. Farmville is redemption. Everybody and anybody ought to be on Farmville or else the curse of the children of the corn will be upon them. All of Neo’s and Morpheus’ attempts at realizing the real world were in vain. The agent smiths have won. At least on Facebook.

the infiniteness of talent

2010-01-18T08:20:00.000-08:00

I’m in an exciting enough industry. Advertising has a lot of talent flowing freely through its creative veins. But sometimes you can take all the fantastic people and opportunity for granted and let ennui slip between your coffee breaks. And when you have done that, a day of sheer hard work with your nose pressed against the grind stone works for you like a fix works for a desperate druggie.

Today I had the privilege of working with some extremely talented people. People who are so married to their talent, and work on their passion like a person would work on a fragile marriage. People who are made of such potential and people who have every right to be pompous but don’t, they rather have their feet placed firmly on the good ol’ earth. People who are grateful for the opportunity that life and circumstance brings their way. Right from a make-up artist who is so married to her art, that she doesn’t think it beneath her to address you as ma’am though you are obviously so much younger and less experienced than her to a coordinator le extraordinaire who has all the right to strut around like the crane in the pond, but chooses to be humble and available, they have a way of putting things back into perspective.

After ages and ages, I finally got to work on a shoot. Shoots are great. A shoot means that the sweat and blood you put into a campaign is one step closer to seeing the light of day. Shoots are great because you get to meet a lot of talented individuals. Shoots are great because you get to touch base with the industry. But shoots can really test your patience and your limits of endurance. It means long hours of standing, diplomacy that can really start to fray within 2 hours, heat, temperamental people and don’t even get me started about that voice in your head that believes that it’s the only one with ideas in the room! But these are just the natural perils of every good thing that comes with a price.
So in an environment as volatile as this, that I could come out at the end of the day feeling extremely grateful for this long and exhausting Sunday, in a veritable state of high sort of reminded me that I was privileged. Because I have a place in this universe where my talent can find a voice. Now only if I could persuade myself to let it sing.

Will the real KFC please stand up?

2010-01-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

After nearly a decade of waiting on tenterhooks and smacking its lips in anticipation, Kochi finally walked into the open doors of its first ever KFC. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for Kochi’s much-awaited, first, original Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. After several KFC imposters that deabbreviated into Kerala Fried Chicken, Krispy Fried Chicken, Kerala FOOD Centre and the likes, the Real McCoy is finally here. And phew for Kochites. Or so I thought.

Not to say that the KFC falls short in any way as my friend’s adventures at the place would tell you so. He got into the long line uncomplainingly as, the already initiated would testify, KFC etiquette requires you to. Well, wasn’t he the regular at the Forum KFC at Bangalore, so much so that he’s almost a pilgrim, and knew the hows and ways of KFC decorum. And so he gets in line which predictably happens to be a very long line and Kerala DOESNOT like nor understand long lines, except outside alcohol shops. (which in turn, is a brilliant and extremely rare case study on human behaviour and how empathy can make them co-exist peacefully and turn even malayalee men into patron saints of patience - but that’s a story for another time) And so he’s waiting patiently in the long line with only chicken on his mind and that’s when he encounters his first surprise. Midway, someone decides to ask him what he’s like to order. “Huh? So what does it look like I’m doing in this line? Waiting to meet Elvis?” My friend, caught totally off-guard is as confused as Brer Rabbit would be on being equidistant from Brer Wolf, Brer Fox and his rabbit hole. If he trusts this man with dubious credentials, (what if he is an imposter wearing a KFC badge and uniform which he stole from some poor unsuspecting employee with the sole intention of coming between him and his Kentucky Fried Chicken; what if he’s deployed by his very annoyed girl friend who was very annoyed (obviously) at not being taken along? Huh? Huh? Huh? What then?) It could mean losing his coveted place in the line (he was half-way through, remember?) so he gives his order but refuses to give up his place in the queue. He stands his ground, and it’s a proud moment for all of us listening to him narrating the incident. (Annoyed girl friend, included)

Just then another man beckons to him with a “Sir” that has a curious yet sinister quality not unlike the shady man with sweets who hangs around schools. He beckons and invites my friend to take a seat. By now another man, this time a customer, is making the beginnings of a scene that looks like it could get ugly. Really ugly.

Man: (looks with dismay at his order and says with near horror) “But there’s no bun?”
KFC-ian: (With the forced patience of a guy in a white coat to a harmless mental patient) “No sir, there is no bun”.

He says there is no bun but what he means is “Duh, did you see any bun?” The aforesaid man must have keen abilities of voice and tone discernment. For he quickly gets over his initial dismay and takes on the tone of a scornful cynic and looks to my friend and says “Imagine! No bun!” in a way that implied “Maybe you can’t handle how low our world has stooped, but I have long-reconciled myself to a bun-less world”.
So my friend finally gives his order and then has to deal with more confused KFC-ians who all want him to sit where they direct him to. Much to his, quite obviously, confusion. Where, how, what-the, how-the, would he wait for his precious Kentucky Fried Chicken? He didn’t trust any of these jokers to give him his long awaited KFC-in-Cochin-Kentucky-Fried-Chicken. Could he sit? Would that project him to be weak? Would they use that as an opportunity to hoodwink him and give his order off to the closest annoyed customer, who was also taking quarterback positions? And then again the very distractive “Sir, sit here, sir” “Sir, please take your seat here”. With enough vigilance and shrewdness my friend managed to get his hands and his incisors into the much-longed for KFC-in-Cochin-Kentucky-Fried-Chicken. After much pain and agony, Kochi finally got its very own KFC. I don’t know what you think, but to me, it sort of sounds a lot like a newly-beheaded chicken running around in silent squawking, doesn’t it? And a lot of terrible service.

december

2009-12-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

Everything is perfect in December. Things sort of acquire the fuzzy sweetness of nostalgia. Like sepia photographs, in retrospect everything’s warm and the angles are softer. Everything except perhaps ex-boyfriends and ex-girl friends. Them, especially fresh ones have a rotten way of giving a rather bitter aftertaste to the sweetness of December. Anyways this post isn’t about bitterness or strife. It’s about December. The end of the year.
When nice memories become nicer and not-so-nice memories become less not-so-nice. You try and catch up with life. We meet up with old friends. You shift down a couple of gears and prefer to just cruise. Most of us are back at home, tucking in everything edible in sight, especially what goes down our gullet with considerable ease and relish. We relax our grip in our eternal arm-wrestling match against the bulge. Soft indulgent paunches show for our slackening. Smiles get wider. Hugs get warmer. Deadlines get a little less deadlier. For that one week between Christmas and New Year, it’s like the world takes one big gigantinormous collective sigh – a deep, deep breath of respite from the rat-eat-dog race we all know.
Just for one week. I hope you enjoyed yours. Happy new year, everyone.

flesh, ashes and dust

2009-11-25T20:30:00.000-08:00

Suja got acquainted with the fact that pain was personal very early in life. She learnt it first when the nurse poked around her tummy until she found out where exactly it hurt the most. The nurse kept jabbing her finger around asking her if it hurt, like she had to search the place out – like she didn’t know where it hurt the most. But how could the nurse not know where the pain was? Especially when it ached so much, surely it was horrible enough for the nurse to see it, if not feel it. Surely pain like this loomed over the world like a black cloud, so that the whole world would know that she, Suja was in Pain! But no such thing! Why, the nurse even seemed mildly irritated at the pain.
That was the first time Suja realized that when something really hurt, only she could feel the pain. The other people didn’t even know where the pain was, forget feel her pain. Suja quickly learnt the parts of her anatomy so that she could tell the world about her pain. “Amma, my stomach is paining.” “Amma, my leg is paining.” Stomach pain worked well when she wanted to stay home from school and leg pain worked best when she wanted appa or amma to carry her.
But when amma scolded her and when Tinky died, even Suja couldn’t tell where the pain was either. She hurt all over. Nor did she want to share the whereabouts of her pain with the world, though she did tell amma why she couldn’t eat when Tinky died. “Amma, I can’t eat amma. The top part of my thamuck is paining.” “Amma why did Tinky die, amma?” “Because God called Tinky, molle.” “But why did God call Tinky if he knew Tinky would die if he called Tinky. And Tinky was my dog.”
Amma picked her up and held her close. Amma never poked around for the place where it hurt, but she always helped make the pain somehow bearable. That night as she made her peace with God regarding Tinky issue, she asked him to take the pain away and asked him never to call Amma like he called Tinky. But the next morning the pain didn’t go away, unlike her leg aches and stomach aches. Two fat teardrops rolled off her nose as she thought about her dead dog and the way he used to smile his ridiculous smile at her. That was the first time she made her acquaintance with the kind of pain that remained. The kind of pain that the night didn’t and couldn’t steal away from your body as you slept. The kind of pain that sometimes stole your sleep. The kind of pain, that sometimes, nothing could heal.

**********
As she bounced between the opposite sides of consciousness and unconsciousness, the pain was a disturbing droning that didn’t let Suja collect her thoughts. She was supposed to be worrying about something, so worried that she could feel it rolling about in her mouth, like a taste you tried to remember long after you’ve swallowed what it belonged to. “The baby”, she remembered and her hands struggled to feel the familiar bump. But they didn’t cooperate with her intentions and one of them had the definite weight of humanness in them. Someone was holding her hands. “Ravi…?”, she wanted to ask about the baby, ‘Was he safe? Did I kill him by being so careless?’ But she couldn’t, her tongue wouldn’t budge from its heavy stupor. Even Ravi kept moving around in the spectrum of her vision like she was looking at him through a kaleidoscope. “How did I fall? Where did I fall? Did I kill him?” At this, the pain stopped being a dull droning but turned into a very evident jagged edge that slit somewhere deep inside her being. “Is the baby coming?” she wondered and made yet another failed attempt at feeling for the bump.

Ravi’s lips moved, like he was telling her something. “Must pay attention, he’s probably telling me something about the baby”, thought Suja as she wrestled with the heaviness in her eyelids. The droning and the humming again. For the briefest second, like a revelation, clarity cleared the smoke in her disjointed senses and she caught on what Ravi’s moving lips were saying. They weren’t saying anything at all. Ravi was singing to her. Ravi always sang to her when she couldn’t sleep. And sleep was especially hard during the course of her pregnancy. That one moment of clarity was a wet towel to her feverish delirium. “The baby is fine”, and she let the pain drone on and stopped worrying about the taste in her mouth. But she would have, if she realized that it was blood that left its metallic taste in her mouth. And that Ravi was singing to keep himself from crying.

It was well into the morning when Suja gained consciousness and instinctively her hands flew to her stomach. It was empty, she knew that before she even touched the place where her beloved bump used to be. The emptiness in her was like a broken pane on which scraps of hopes and dreams clung on to with the desperation and tenacity of patches of moss. “I killed him”, a sob got stuck somewhere on its way out and her body shuddered from the impact. Strong hands of hopelessness had her pinned down to her bed and they poked and probed, jabbing her where it hurt the most. Jab, jab, poke, poke. Warm human hands pulled her away from the smothering blackness. Saving her.

A summer’s night, so many summers ago, the warm touch of humanness. “The up part of my stomach hurts” “Amma why did Tinky die?”Amma’s soft, cool hand on her cheek. Amma’s soft, cool hand that had long withered away to dust in the heat of the furnace fifteen years ago. “I killed him.” Ravi’s firm, warm hand touched her cheek; no less gentle, no less kind, no less loving. “I killed him.” “No, you did not. The accident did”, Ravi half sighed, half gasped, like his lungs couldn’t decide whether to contract or expand, exhale or inhale. His hand travelled down the bed like a blind five-legged spider, seeking for hers just by the sense of touch. They were both blind spiders, seeking each other in the darkness, groping around, reaching out for each other – through the sense of touch. Each seeking each other’s pain. Trying to find it, to compare wounds and heal somehow. Seeking the sorry comfort of empathy.

Suja, numb, traced shapes on her husband’s head as he sought respite in her warmth. Each repeated movement of her finger was like carefully flicking back the pages of time. Behind her eyes that stared fixedly into space, she replayed the events of the last evening.

Vishnu was a handsome boy and when he smiled, his eyes crinkled so small but one could still see the warmth they emanated like the rays of sunlight that stole in through the gaps in her roof on summer evenings. He had just stepped out to meet some friends. And he’d kissed her before he left for letting him take the car. “Amma you’re such a dear!” Suja heart tore. Strange how the sweetest memories develop jagged edges just by the altering of circumstance. A dirty, mean trick like stealing from a blind beggar; like a thorn in a rose. Suja was the one who answered the phone. She heard it first, but she didn’t tell anyone. She couldn’t. She had passed out, clutching at her stomach.

Ravi’s tears made a wet patch just beneath which her heart unwillingly pounded on. Her own tears slipped down silently mixing with the wound on her lip. Bitter and sweet. She wrapped her arms around Ravi and he tightened his embrace. Suja knew that pain was very personal and no amount of prodding and poking would help determine the exact point of the origin of their pain, nor would it help to feel or partake of each other’s pain. Suja also knew that this pain would not go away. But for now she would hold Ravi close and try and bear it.

(i wrote this story a long time ago when my aunt had a miscarriage. and she had been longing for a baby. she still is. somehow losing a child seemed significant then, though many good women i knew attended their children's funeral. call it a prayer, call it a requiem - this is my little something for all the mothers who have had to bury their babies.)

untitled

2009-11-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Dreams live in snake pits
The diamond nestled in their fangs.
Put your hand in, the snake will bite;
Don’t put your hand in,
Your heart will bite.
The poison will course your veins, nevertheless.
Bite the wound, suck the poison and spit it out.
But there’s no way,
To eject the poison
Of a dream gone to rust in your blood.
There’s no way
To get the dream out of your blood.

acquired immunity

2009-11-19T11:49:00.000-08:00

“Hi”
“I’m sorry, but do I know you?”
“Yeah, we spoke. Remember?”
“Did we? I don’t seem to recall.”
“Well I’m not surprised. I’ve changed much since we last talked. So how have you been?”
“Well, what if I have changed as well and I’m not entirely too kicked about talking to you?”
“Oh. In that case, I’m sorry. But it is a pity cos I have changed for the better since we talked.”
“Oh really? And who is to vouch for that, may I ask?”
“Well, for one thing you would remember me the next time we spoke”
“(shudder) I certainly hope I won’t.”
“But that is just being plain unfair.”
“No it isn’t. It’s resilience. I’ve learnt to fight back.”
“Intriguing. And what is this that you have learnt to fight back against?”
“Disappointments. Angst. Agony. Hurt. None of them can affect you if you don’t remember.”
“So you’re telling me that you don’t remember anything at all?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m telling you that I can remember nothing at all.”
“But that’s just ridiculous. What about happiness, joy, childbirths? You don’t remember those either?”
“Nada”
“But how can you possibly do that. How can you leave those behind?”
“Oh I can.”
“And love? What about love?”
“Love? (Laughter too shrill to be icy) Love is just foolishness. Anyone can afford to leave foolishness behind.”
“Ok forget love like romance, flowers and sex. But what about love like romance, flowers and sex?”
“Hmmm? What about it? Those are just tangled weeds and smoke. What they do hold against the cold sweetness of indifference?”
“What about longing?”
“That? Do you know how easy it is to jam every emotion in prescription pill bottles? Their caps are so damn tight, to keep them child proof.”
“Somehow, the sight of pill bottles make me feel cold and clammy inside.”
“You’ve got too much emotion going on with you. One day you’ll realize that they’re nothing but deadweight. And you’ll abandon them like old friends.”
“Your analogies are disturbing.”
“There you go again. Are you going to be this dramatic through out?”
“And these pill bottles, what do you do with them?”
“Oh I bury them. Oh I know that they poison my well water. But it’s certainly better having my blood poisoned and turned to lead by having their contents inside me.”
“Their contents being?”
“Oh do you ever let off asking questions?”
“You have dirt under your fingernails.”
“I know. That’s my talisman. To remind me that it never does to be weak.”
“Will you give me some?”
“That is just plain disgusting. Why?”
“Because that’s all I can claim of what we used to have.”
“You have nothing to claim. There never was. There never will be.”
“But that’s a lie. You know it is.”
“My dear, I’m sorry but I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s George, Mrs. Alberta George.”
“Mister George, I’m terribly sorry. But if you’re trying to stir up some kind of emotional past, you are wasting your time. Because what was left in me is dissolving right now in the fathoms of my well and sticking to the tendrils of my dahlias’ roots.”
“But how did it get to be this way? How can you be so remote, so unfeeling, so unaffected? It’s inhuman.”
“My dear, did I not mention prescription bottles? They hold little pellets of resistance. Resistance against disease, against infection. Defense. And keeping you out is no more inhuman than resisting those viruses that cannot wait to invade my body and make me awfully sick. It’s no different from keeping a cold away.”

He left in a hurry. But not a moment too soon. One second more and I’d have reached out to keep his face from falling into a million pieces. But he’ll be over it soon enough. Even if I never will.”

(I was wondering how it'd be if there was some kind of emotional suppressant. And thus this post. thanks to a certain pink person for showing me how interesting conversations can be)

Of falling stars and pockets

2009-11-12T23:44:00.000-08:00

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Never let it fade away
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Save it for a rainy day

Even the worst days have something to cherish about them. Something good. A perfect sunset, an old, old friend calls after ages, a sudden shower of rain which awakens the dormant senses of the earth and cleanses you within and without. Somewhere, somehow the world is never bereft of beauty at any point of our existence. Yesterday had to be one of the worst days I’ve had in my 26 years. As most 26-year-really-feeling-olds are, I’m plagued by the insecurities of existence – career, marriage, children, where is this going, will I-won’t I, have i-haven’t I, will we-won’t we, I’m sick of this but am I brave enough to let go this, maybe-maybe not, I’m running out of time, if I’m not behind the wheel, who is! And yesterday all these questions decided to form a psycho-tsunami inside me. And everything I knew, invested dreams in, wanted, hoped for teetered on the edge of a precipice of infinite fathoms. I was weighted down by the overpowering hand of hopelessness and GOD IN HEAVEN I wanted to curl up something, anything and smoke it for the desperate life of me. (Ha ha, bet you thought I wanted to curl up and die) But smoking is not an option, thanks to my severe allergies. To make things infinitely worse I had a constellation of pimples taking shape on my forehead. Feeling low and feeling ugly is by far an unhealthier combination than Mentos and Coca Cola.
Salvation comes pink and beautiful in the form of someone who I have grown very fond of in the recent future. My own stranger buddy tells me that the director of a film I had reviewed in the previous post has commented. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
From there my day took off. How often do you get a director taking the time to tell you thanks! It was overwhelming. It was brilliant. It was heady. My own falling star. God couldn’t have engineered yesterday any better. Well it could have, but let’s not pee on my parade shall we. So it’s eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and more eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and still more eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Happieeeeeeeeness!
That felt good. And so I’m pocketing this little bit of starlight, because I want to remember good things can happen even in the worst of times.

For love may come
And tap you on the shoulder one starless night
Just in case you feel that you wanna hold her
You’ll find a pocketful of starlight

Some of us call it prayer. Some of us call it optimism. Some of us call it a cigarette. But there’s something that takes us from stage one to stage two. Whatever be the catharsis crutch, it’ll get us by. Our own pocketful of starlight.

For when your troubles start multiplyin,
An' they just might!
It’s easy to forget them without tryin,
With just a pocketful of starlight!

Sooner or later life’s going to spit on my face again. Something’s going to make me cry. But like the rest of the world, I have to keep pace. To stop thinking that things aren’t fair and make the best of it. Like someone once said, you can’t recreate what just might have been. And until this very moment I was kicking my own ass for a lot of things – to count them would be a litany of absolute silliness. What I need now is to teach myself to love with arms wide open. To thank with joined hands. To smile with an open heart. And to embrace life tight, like it’s the one gift I’ve hankered for all my damn, well, life! To remember that I’d rather be hurt than live in the cold preservative comfort of complacence.
So this is my way of keeping this fistful of starlight so that I might remember that there’s always some reason to go on. That I’ll get to the end of the rainbow yet and I will find my pot of gold.

Enjoy this song at:
http://www.imeem.com/people/vyoB7p/music/k_OG9eJR/block-catch-a-falling-star/

I promise you, it’ll be worth your time.

a fresh brew

2009-11-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

This is a request to the good people of Kerala who presently reside in Kerala. Please go watch Kerala Café, in cinemas now. It’s a brilliant, brilliant breakaway from the embarrassment we call Malayalam Cinema these days (A precious few masterpieces not including). A brief yet thankful lapse from the superstar cult. All of 10 short films, Kerala Café is a celebration of talent, humane, the glorious mundane, poignant moments and heartrending insight. The film is bigger than every single fragment in itself – the directors, the actors, the stories and the hundred and one places where your heart just skips a beat. I’m not exactly someone to comment, since I barely watch Malayalam movies and I think Mohanlal in the post-Kilukaam era (leaving aside Devasuram which was brilliant extraordinaire) became the overweight middle-aged uncle of Malayalam Cinema. And he has no one to blame. He decided to ride on his superstardom rather than deliver Talavattom-esque stellar performances. But that's just further proof of the decadence of Malayalam Cinema and here's what I thought.

Right from the opening of the film, you sort of warm up to the whole "feel" of the film. A railway station café, where people share tables if nothing else. A reststop of brief acquaintances, forgotten sooner than the aftertaste of the coffee and masaladosa fades. But nevertheless a backdrop to countless sleights of circumstance.

Padmakumar’s NOSTALGIA, the first of the ten short films, makes everyone think of their NRI relatives with a sardonic smile. Dileep slips in with ease into the role of the arrogant, full-of-himself, constantly dissatisfied, I’m-the-centre-of-the-world NRI in this film which is a reflection of our own dissatisfaction with ourselves.

Suresh Gopi redeems himself from the “Just remember that” and his infamous thickly accented English which make the new-gen snobby Malayalee (including yours truly) want to relinquish all associations with him in LALITHAMHIRANMAYAM. Though Jyotirmai and the pretty girl with straight hair (Dhanya Mary George) own the film, he is at least a decent, if not, excellent prop to the story directed by Shaji Kailas who surprisingly has delivered a rather sensitive rendering of an extramarital affair.

ISLAND EXPRESS by SHANKAR RAMAKRISHNAN to me was sort of the catastrophe it was about. Half way through the movie I was wondering why I couldn’t understand anything – it was in Malayalam, and yet it felt as alien as whatever language they speak in Czechoslovakia. Bizarre doesn’t begin to describe it. Those who did understand it enjoyed it enough. So you have my sincerest “All the best”.

OFFSEASON by Shyama Prasad left me with no clue whether I liked it or not. The visuals were gorgeous, picture-postcard-perfect and Suraj Venjaramood was funny enough. But God, I was disappointed especially since I’ve always associated Shyama Prasad with “the magic touch”. No magic in this one.

In AVIRAMAM Siddique’s film with Shweta Menon ripped me apart. I mean it was an ordinary enough theme. But the characters lived, breathed and bled. So convincing that you reached out to the story and you begin to wonder where did you take that wrong turn that lead to this jaded existence. Directed by B. Unnikrishnan.

Mamooty..aww I love this guy. He’s just so incredibly handsome that it’s not funny. In the Lal Jose directed PURAMKAZCHAKAL, he brings out with brilliance the one hundred and a million reasons why a random person could be a co-passenger from hell. Very sensitive. Very beautiful.

Saleemkumar can be as ridiculous as he can break your heart. The Anwar Rasheed directed BRIDGE was a story of small, seemingly insignificant losses and how lives slip through the cracks in the pavement of life. Whether it’s an old mother who has outlived her purpose or a little kitten who is yet to fill its space in a little boy’s life.

Anjali Menon’s film HAPPY JOURNEY with its subtle humour and excellent characters is a brief release from the other poignant-heavy films. It leaves you refreshed and of course, it comes with its fair share of insight, which primarily is to cherish your life like it was the last day on earth. Revathi’s film MAKAL though it was a tried and tried even more theme on child prostitution and predictably lots of tears, it made me spare a thought for the plight of those countless people who go unaccounted for. You’re left with a strong feeling of discomfort for having an easier and better life, which you take for granted nevertheless. Finally, the movie that really KICKED ASS was this movie called MRITYUNJAYAM by Uday Ananthan. It’s spooked me out so much that I was so convinced that my house was haunted that night, that I was making 3am resolutions to give my family priest a call.

On the whole it’s a gorgeous movie.

Please go watch it and give our dear film industry reason to experiment for the better and do more films like Kerala Café.
Http://www.keralacafe.in

salvaged nothingness

2009-11-06T01:57:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there died a man. Though he went through the motions of life, he lacked one essential trait- he was not made of flesh and blood. He needed neither food nor drink and he would come out, just as he went in if you placed him in an airless cavity of the earth's bowels…….
Ram was ordinary in every sense of the word. He had to work to satisfy the demands of this stomach. He bled if you pierced his skin. His eyes watered if smoke or dust entered them and his legs ran if and ever his brain urged him to. But his heart was weak. Not as in the muscular organ that pumped life into you, but in the context of faith and conviction. Though the "mill" that he was a "run" of, churned out many like him into the world, he believed he was special. He believed that he was extraordinarily stupid, extraordinarily ungifted, extraordinarily common and above all extraordinarily detested. But he was just ordinary, painfully ordinary; and no one has strong emotions about ordinary, most of all, detest. Ram was so ordinary that no one noticed him, a fly on the wall. Actually, not even a fly on the wall, given today's sterile conditions that any winged creature causes such confusion and commotion as a dragon's visit would. Women would rather yawn than speak to him. And men, well, men would rather go to the toilet. It isn't a sin to be ordinary, but it's a sin to stick to its heels like a piece of shit that sticks to the underneath of your shoes.
Ram let the coils of self-pity fall around him and it was in its suffocating embrace that he slept, dreaming his grey dreams. Everyday, he would read the papers and remember nothing about the 12-year old who got raped and killed or Iraq or the farmer suicides after he was done with his morning coffee. He would do morning puja without actually making contact with God. His thoughts were black spaces where beetles of jadedness bumped about blindly against the glassy surface of his eyes, like the bird that entered Tom's ear in those Tom and Jerry cartoons. Words of devotion bereft of sentiment fell like dung before the image of love. One day the coil of self-pity got a little too tight around his neck and as suffocation always does, it blocked out his ears. His ears were blocked to the voice of God. They found his body on the railway tracks the next day.

I didn’t have to do it, you know. But I did it anyway. Why? Cause I didn't want to struggle. I was the lazy butterfly whose freedom was the result of the effort of an external source. I didn't fight my way out of my protective larva skin; someone assisted my way out- made it easier. But maybe if they hadn't I would have appreciated my freedom better. Maybe I would have given my life a second chance- maybe struggle would have saved me. But my chances have gone b y- no more second chances.
The curse of death is binding and complete. The scorch of a soul's torment isn't something the flesh would understand. Endless nights of insomnia and nightmares you can't wake from, reaching out to you with gnarled, hairy fingers; decomposition within inches of your face. But this isn't half as bad as being the fetid smell amongst the living. I see their lips twist in disgust, their only acknowledgement to my presence. The fly on the wall degraded to a bad smell. But at least they acknowledge the smell. The bitterness of a bad death isn't something expressible in quantitative terms. It would make a body crack, coming out like worms, eating you inside out and outside in. but a soul, what does it do to a soul of uncertain material? It does what you do to a stubborn bag of potato chips that just won’t open. It wrings it, it punches holes, it pulls it, it tears it, it scratches; only, the soul never rips open- the struggle continues. And the word " suicide" from living lips makes you feel the wheels of the train, mashing your body, reducing you to pulp- your last scream, "Oh God!!", knowing that not even He is listening anymore. Knowing that you cut the tie that binds. Knowing that you cursed yourself- took out your tongue and put worms in its place. Took out my heart and put filth there. Took out my God and placed decay in His place. To hear " suicide" from living lips switches on a hundred and one bright lights blinding your eyes - hundred and one bright lights of a hundred and one oncoming trains. "Move out!" "Run!" "Get off the tracks." You scream, till you think your lungs will burst, and blood will spurt out from your mouth. But neither happens, because you're dead, remember!?
The agonies of life are certainly difficult. But I'll tell you, living the agony of your death is, by far, worse.

(This is a really old story, written like 4 or 5 years ago. I seem to running out of stuff to write. Till then, recycle i will)

On deadlines

2009-10-31T00:45:00.000-07:00

Deadlines. They’re everywhere. At work, quite obviously. Day in, live in, drive in, living in sin, they all have deadlines attached to them. Your biological clock with its constant ticktocks and alarms that go clanging every once in an inconvenient while. Meaning deadlines for having babies, having sex, having your hair, having your health, having your wits and having any breath left in your body.

The day comes with a deadline. Whether you like it or not, 12 am is bound to happen and it’s the next day, you poor sucker in denial. And you’ve wasted another day of your life – a day you’ll never get back. A deadline missed, with its share of opportunities.

There are deadlines to live irresponsibly. You’re not going to be young forever. Deadlines to cherish the people you love. Sooner or later the magic of the relationship is going to run dry. Once your wife dies you can’t give her flowers any more. Flowers on her tombstone honestly does nothing. You can’t tuck your son in bed forever, he’s going to find someone else to do that sooner than later. And your husband, take your clothes off for him as often as you can; you’re not going to be hot forever. Once you have children, you can’t pursue your dreams like a maniac, unless you’re one of those rare individuals for whom guilt works just as well as adrenaline.

There are deadlines for having all the chocolate in the world. Once you get diabetes or worse, you die, you can’t eat too much chocolate. There are deadlines to do something with your life, because opportunity, like you remember, has a worse case of the diva syndrome than a hundred Aishwariya Rai Bachchans put together. There are deadlines for saying what you want about the Aishwariya Rai Bachchans of the world, ‘cos someday you’re going to be recognized and Aishwariya Rai Bachchan will slap a pretty figure (not the vital stats kind) on you in damages for libel and all that. And just because you’re famous doesn’t necessarily mean you are rich, and then you have a big problem at hand. In all probability the court’ll have its own deadline. And from what I have heard, you don’t want to mess with any court deadline unless you want to meet an unexpected shirt-on-your-back deadline!

So basically there are deadlines for everything under the sun. The sun has a deadline, if you can call a billion, zillion, trillion years a deadline. But I’m sure a fly would be like, “yeah right, YOU can panic over retiring at 30 (ask ME about my 30-day existence)” Happiness has a deadline. The happiness-deadlines are sort of like the voucher coupons. They’re only redeemable till a certain date. After that they sort of lapse and they’re worth nothing. Know how one minute you’re the happiest person on earth and you think ‘Oh, but look, I’m baking a cake, I’ll be happy half an hour later” and exactly 29 seconds later, you, if you are a woman, you feel PMS slowly cast a shadow on your day of sunshine. Or someone calls you and tells you that you were looking old yesterday and good-intentionally asks after your health. If you are a guy, you wouldn’t have been baking a cake in the first place and anyways your happiness depends on how much beer you have left in the fridge, so not relevant.

So to state the obvious, it’s up to us to make the most of these deadlines (duh!) it’s what we do between the time the countdown starts it counter-clockwise motion and deadline that matters. Our lives will not be counted by the number of deadlines. It’d be a sad sucker who defined his/her life by the number of would-have-beens, dead relations and lost chances, basically missed deadlines. Life will always be what we’ve done between those deadlines. So run baby, run!

(I've just turned 26, I guess I'm really paranoid about running out of time, and thus these posts)

between life and death

2009-10-29T00:56:00.000-07:00

“If the sun shone brighter tomorrow, I wouldn’t know. Or if there’d ever be a sunset again, as perfect as the one I saw last summer. If the world will come to an end in 2012 or if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt would last beyond 2009 – I’ll never find out. Or if AIDS or the recession would claim more lives or which of the two would get cured sooner. I’ll never know if I’d ever decide to have children or if I’d have a little boy or a little girl; or if I’d do all those other things I was too scared to do.

If I’ll be all the things I wanted to be or if I’d have made a difference in this world. I’ll never have a chance to learn to play Stairway to Heaven or Fix You or even Dido’s No Angel, perfectly on the guitar. I’ll never fail miserably in another game of bluff again or learn to let go of the handle bars while riding a bicycle. I wish I had watched Pulp Fiction when I had the chance, for now I never will. I will never get to eat chocolate again, chocolate cake, chocolate brownies, chocolate fudge, Twix, Dairy Milk, Snickers, all melted and gooey. I have no idea when I would have made that trip to Prince Edward Island with my best friend like we always planned we would. Don’t know if I’d have paid my telephone bill tomorrow like I was intending to.

I won’t smell the scent of the first rain ever again or lick my fingers clean after a good, good Onamsadhya. I would never know if one day my boss did the whole world a favour and died. I’m never going to find out what the end of the year had in store for me nor the next year or the year after that. Or if my mother would change her mind and talk to me again. I would never know if I’d eventually have gathered the guts to tell Pavan that he’s a mindfucked piece of scum. I’ll never yell, fight and then patch up with my mum or hear her sing her hymns through her nose. I’ll never see my love again. Not laugh at his jokes again. Not know if he’ll lose his paunch like he’s always promising to. I’ll never know what he planned to get me for my birthday or whether he’d have sent me flowers next week, next month or next year. When he would have taken me dancing again or if we’d ever have made love under the stars. i'll never know if I'd get to be a part of a U2 concert. I’ll never learn French, Spanish, German or see the rain, the first moon or sunflowers again. have no idea if my brother or I would be the first to cut our hair short. If I’d ever make the most perfect batch of cookies. Not that most of these things are necessarily what mattered the most to me. But it just feels weird to know that I’ll never know anything anymore.

It isn’t your entire life that flashes before your eyes, when you’re about to die. What actually flashes before your eyes are all those things that’ll you’ll never know.

Funny, I never realized there was so much to live for.”

ode to my self

2009-10-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

dear all, please sing it in the tune of the dancing queen. it'll mean a lot to me and absolutely nothing to you if you don't. thank you very much! :)

Drama queen

I can bitch, I can scream, throwing the row of my life
See this girl, throw a scene, dig in the drama queen

Friday night and I’m feeling low
And I’ve got nowhere to go
Peeved and bloody sick, I’m itching for a fight
You come and act like you’re king
Anybody should have to be out of their mind
To be here when my temper’s high
With a lot of hooha and an attitude from hell
I’m in the mood for a song-n-dance
You’re so in for it now...

I am the drama queen, hardly sweet, all of 26
Drama queen, feel the rage of my tan-ta-rum
I can bitch, I can scream, throwing the row of my life
See this girl, throw a scene, dig in the drama queen

Time for tears, I turn them on
Gonna blow this, way out of proportion
You won’t know what hit you, oh not a clue
I’m in the mood for a song-n-dance
You’re so in for it now...

I am the drama queen, hardly sweet, all of 26
Drama queen, feel the rage of my tan-ta-rum –oh yeah
I can bitch, I can scream, throwing the row of my life
See this girl, throw a scene, dig in the drama queen