The Love of the pressed flowers and the creation from a carnage.

December has quietly seeped into my life,
and such a sordid sourness has taken its space between us,
and all seems frigid, all seems struck by the numbness, 
that touches my cold fingers as I reach out.

Living in a subtropical region, I should look forward to the sweet short winters that last barely a quarter of the year, but the frost is not just outside it manages to creek in and the uncomfortable feeling of emptiness starts eating it's way into all warmth and hope. The terrains inside become so cold, that if you haven't been to those lands it might just become hard to justify them to you. It's like the poles, only more vast and more lost and cut off.

I have often wished to save the summers or it's vibrant sister spring in a jar, put in the safe corner of  the corner most wooden cupboard so that the winter does not ravish it like all things that make the slightest contact with it, and so I did.
The pebbles from the bedrock of the river Tavi brought back from a short summer jaunt, or the seasonal herbs that sprout in the February fervour.Then there are flowers, blossoms that have fallen off after a short lived romance with the spring breeze. To soak in the sunshine I opened the cupboard the other day, and took out these priced possessions, gathering some optimism when I needed it the most.The pebbles round and smooth took me back to the stream with it's deep grey waters,white foam swimming atop, It felt good.The herbs, (I admit it was not jus herbs but herbs soaked in a bit of Calendula essence)  comforting and lingering scents swarmed my nasal tract, revived a bit of hope.

I skimmed through the coarse pages of hand made diaries looking for the flowers that I had preserved in their realms, Some flaked petals fell down , before they could touch the floor, I sat down in a reflex trying to catch hold of them. As I gathered them I felt something eerily wrong, the petals that were now strewn, half withered, half faded, did not give me the same joy as the other mementos . It felt rather sad looking at their lamentable state,the winter had seeped in my little wooden cabinet. and become worse.

I ruefully held the last of them in my palms, afraid to fold them. I studied them for some time, thin lines of phloem visible on their surfaces like wrinkles on an old face. That is when it struck me. winter with all it's ruthless and merciless carnage , it's creep like curse was like revival. The blossoms that I had tried to preserve had died indeed and they could serve no purpouse other than arousing nostalgia,that would become a deep depression if there were not an anticipation of the new. Suddenly the transition seemed peaceful and the concept of creation stemming from carnage was demonstrated.

I love the pressed flowers still, memories of every season are worth a keep, but they do not remain with the feel good winter essentials any more. They have their own place. As for hope, it still lives. I can not negotiate enough with winters to call them a pleasant experience but I have accepted them.

the scribbles of an empty mind......

clutter clutter clutter........
pause pause pause........
reason reason reason.......
cause cause cause.......
white..blank white.....
white sheet..... white sheet....clean
clean..now clean...spot....
spotted....ink...ink...blot........
ink...blot...ink... pen.....keen
write...paper..paper...write.....
scribble..scribble..scribble..
I have a blog!!!
clutter ...clutter ...clutter...again!!

To the Lady I Love.

My Dear Lady

My affections, adoration, adulation and admiration to you is indisputable . I have surrendered all of my emotions and my thoughts at your feet .I see in you the goddess, the higher self that I have striven to achieve in all this redundant human incarnation.The spirit untamed and the soul set free, out of the cage that lies in pieces now.Wearisome rules that were laid to tie it have played heavy on my mind for long but a thought of you is enough to rise me from the moribund issues and think of ideas that are far more large than my own existence.Your beauty is ethereal, unbelievable beyond the realms of worldly acceptance.You give me a perception that seems like an extension of my own but far more deep and far more my own. I could never have strewn my loyalties from you.It is effortless, loving you is like loving one's self.. My love for you is unconditional, irrevocable, devoid of the give and take that exploits all the human relationships because the most beautiful and true relationship is the one that exists within us. The relation with the spirit and the psyche. There is no question of being unfaithful., the one rule I have lived by is not to wrong my own self.

With Love.

Obituary

Pain died last night
in cries of pain,
she smothered her screams
in enclosures
It wept , and slept
then not to awaken.
smothered in it's own heavy breath
It died an untimely death.

I am who I am irrespective of what I am to you.

I may be your daughter, your sister, your better half, your friend, a stranger, an acquaintance. I do not care. You see me as the material entity and then label me as the world would see me or as you would want the world to associate me with yourself.. You create a shell around me, the kind that is made of my virtues and vice, again defining my innate qualities from a perspective that could never come out of the shallowness of it's own creator. I am not a slave of  the nous or the instinct that you possess,. why then the ramifications of my eccentricity seem like betrayals to your understanding ? 

I do not owe, I have not obliged.I have only been in the process that has been existent for years, much like you, a part of a mechanism that's incessant and as indispensable. A social fabric that is formed from the threads of a pseudo spiritual stitch. Much tattered by inferences that like barbed wires have entangled it and then modified it leaving holes and patches that have loose ends with no binding forces. Within this fabric there lies the weave spun by the more intricate and meaningful standards of social dependence and nature's laws but why synthesize the essence that is only binding by adding the catalyzing by products of skewed intellectualism and the free radicals of imbalanced emotions.I s covering the outer form not enough that now you want to tether even the spirit of it to this synthetic.

I refuse , I rebel, I differ and I break the  frailness of  the concocted and tear out the fabric caring not to disperse the thread that matters. It still holds the values that were before they got corrupted by the versions.
I am still pure, still unadulterated.'Resilient'.I am who I am.  

The Lady in Black.

Her tresses meandering at the reach of my far fetched thoughts,
where my head wandered she lay swaying her mane,
bewitched by the darkness, I never have been,
that darkness, I say has an aura unseen.

She is darkest than the darker sins
that my darkness has taken me,
Shes holier than the holiest skins
that have donned the higher being.

Her head is high, her voice is low
as incantations of her spell,
In her own deep throaty echo
she says it all, she says it well.

I know her now, I know her not,
I see her now, I see her not
she takes my pride, she takes my blames
I hate her now, I love her the same.

She dwells in the most wise of thoughts,
she lingers in foolish emotions,
she is the steadiest strengthened rock
and the sea that lashes it in commotion .

In fervor now, In my sense
In consciousness , in in-cognizance
the insider and the outsider
the bounded one in the wanderer.

I see the fading, spells of black
I see that silhouette turning back
I see a shadow in colour,
in the the silver of a fringed frame.
I know the flesh and scent of her,
and she says none could spare a name.

Drama and the Drama Queen.

I know the Drama Queen who has been swaggering around, her exclamations aloud, her sobs are the minimalist version of her emotional flamboyance. In her more vibrant moods she would give you no less then bouts of giggles and soprano laughter in a falsetto that would give the opera singers a deep beetroot tinge.

She can pout, snob,bitch and she'll don all those props with elan. You would stare at her vivacity and the liveliness of the act that she can put up and be amazed at the theatricals that are involved in the frequent enlivening of her moods. The autumn at play changes to spring at it's awakening and the winter if comes is no less than grey. Summer soot and sultry and she would playfully change the season of these expressions in a rush on a face that seems overcast with multitudes.

I do not trust her act, It's too loud for my taste. Like a cloying perfume that encapsulates the atmosphere in it's own fragrance , her skills manipulate them people into believing her and the calamity of a situation that she portrays. I look at the haze that spreads as the dust particles are scattered in the spotlight that is now fixed on her but do not let myself be blinded by her antics.I wait for the lights to dim, for the show girls to settle and for her to stand in the dimming light and then I walk up to her, take a closer look.I'am amused at her candid candy floss, You get what you see talks...and then quietly decode them into my own version.Sans the superficiality it makes so much more sense. She's just a girl, which one of them I am torn between them. I'll decode my self.

Precarious: Why chances never die.

    

Precarious…we are
you and I
and the dim possibilities of us
as precarious
Chances have dwelled on every breath we take
and possibilities in every thought we fake

With the uncertainties and the dwindling minds
and what all have you left behind,
My unwavering reluctance
and the whiff of penitence
every time I let my face touch the feeble winds

Like a tropical current ,
my back to the strong push of its flames
aah..another precariousness has built up.

Still, there are probabilities untamed.

 your deep silent games,
 a shallow understanding of you
and then we drop a few names
in the small indirect words, impromptu?
Threats to each other, reminders to our own
of what can be and what shall not be done

Precarious it is, how we can fall back
the lines shall remain and the limits tied
we glance , we glare,
what difference does it make the
indifferent stares?

Now we resort to humour,
we jest and we laugh away
the peculiar tension is softened between us
precariousness still stays
laughter subdued to grins
and you carefully pick a hint,

Enough has been said
manipulations aplenty,

Now humiliate each other

Rolled eyes, and embarrassing questions

Let’s treat each others as commoners, we are supposed to be

You are no god, and I no divinity

To each other, though we remain unapproachable

By choice of course, to each other.

Now we have had enough,

Let’s wedge the differences.

Let us lie, not say what we mean

and live in ignorance,

 Phenomenally we disappear

in thin air,

loom large over each other like a haunting,

 people around are now more interesting

Precariousness, are you dead now?

Over a round table, we have had negotiations

We have tried to do away with the mutual enemy

I have fought it with silence, we have fought it with words,

Alone and with a force of an army

We have aligned our wit, our thought our mind

and precariousness has hit back with an unbelievable force,

So mighty? That I resign.

Let it be am I the traitor or you, the intruder

It is here and here it is, still binding us .

 Keeping us afloat in each other.

Alive or not dead enough.

And so we go in directions

And the take the bend that comes back, in hesitation,

Precarious, strange how chances never die.

Does it change anything?

Often have I weighed the pros and cons with this question, and most of the times I have answered it with reason , pure unadulterated reason. A rationalist approach has always bitten the dust. The most unexpected situations have trailed the most expected practical reasoning and microscopic analysis of the situation.

I resign to the enemy without knowing his face, it could be fate(why is mine so vexed with my reason, the two never meet?)it could be the Murphy's law but well applied to this situation, it's such a paradox, because according to my reasoning , things were never meant to go wrong. It could be a chance but why is the probability of the complement of the set of my expectations = 1.

Does it change anything? I ask myself as I access another situation : the thought that I just gave to piece of writing above.It is no aphorism, no witty appeal to my own mind, no doused doubts, It changes nothing I surmise and If I am secretly hoping that the complement of my expectation occurs , it shall be added to my expectations and then I wonder if the occurring would become 'a null set'. Nothing Changes?

Self Contained

So self contained, so inane

your queries, love
I can not blame,
all answers are lucid and pale
what seems to me,
can not fail 

what it is to you?

I might dwindle
I might go wrong
what is it to me?
as long as you long.
I can not say, can not reveal
I think not much, when I do feel.

Yes, it's you
yes I did not say
could you keep it to self
and know that it stays,
yet it would never.
and so it's inane
and yes I am self contained.

Song of the rain.

On waking up to a rainy day....

in a cocoon, sleeping sound
woke up to a wafting ground
a bit of the greys from the skies
fell into the brown irised eyes.

Nothing brings back the memories from the past like a droplet on the window pane as i gaze through.The deja vu of the dim lit skies, the moist earth fragrance, brings back the most cherished recollections.
It is also sensuous in a way, the stable, composed, round pearl like droplet scatters and uncoils itself in a random form, stealthily sliding past the ...teasing your sight to follow it as it melts down into the innumerable capillary streams at the rims of the walls.

This post comes after a long gap, even though i knew that all I had to do was fill in my cuppa memories and spill them all in words leaving a few stains of recollections with the readers. but it tok me so long to pick the choicest of memories and shuffle them in the in and out section. So today when i woke up to the falling skies i thougt of all that i associated with it and found the flashbacks of every stage of my life with the rains in the backdrop.
the very first memory takes me back to when i was four, strangely I can vividly recall those times perhaps because those were the best of times that i had spent as a child, or maybe due to the numerous repeatitions of the same stories by my grandparents and my mother.
this one image is of the peacocks at Kota, for those of you who do not know, Kota is a city in rajasthan , not as popular as the rest of the major cities such as Jaipur and Jaisalmer but having its fair share of tourism due its proximity with the Chittaur killa and the fort of a Rajput Queen ,Padmavati. Well, to me Kota was my maternal grandmother's house where i would spend most of my holidays in the summer and early Monsoons.
Even though the place had a well distributed population and none of the areas were what you could call sparseley poulated, quite a number of peacocks lived in harmony with the people, they mingled into the human population from the adjacent green covers and would show up very often near naanima's place (naanima is how i call to her). we often left some grains or bits of edibles for the birds, who could fly a little distance at low heights. So one rainy day , as the clouds gathered in the sky, A bird flew to the first floor even as My aunt and i stood at the other end and it started feeding on the scattered grains, varying moods they have and as I  went running to the end where it stood it flapped  away and set its foot on the ground and as soon as it touched the ground it opened the veils of its  multi hued feathers and spread them all aplomb.Majestic , rich colours before my eyes and that too at such a proximity. That was perhaps one of my first few brushes with nature's superior form of divinity and beauty. Now i stood startled and even till today I remember it like a wide eyed wonder.
That was one of the pleasent memories, however rains have not always poured down much of joy, they have also played a spoil sport quite often. I was a first grader at EvergreenWoods in  Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistaan in the year 1996. we did not have the dull uniforms , so we could wear our casual clothes to school everyday, as a youngster i was far more concerned with dressing than i could ever be, now that I have a thousand things running in my head other than appearence and clothes . I was dressed in a sleek black pleated tunic with black tights and a black pinafore top, straight off the ramp, I guess that one deserved to be at the fashion week at Milan or Paris(or atleast I would have thougt so when I got into it that morning)... I had matched my favourite black soft leather mocassins and stepped out dressed to the nines that day. It was a dull day, a little cold than the usual september breeze was rushing on our faces as my mother dropped me till the car and handed me an umbrella in the wake of the dark clouds that covered the sky.i sat in the car, it started drizzling and i observed the inoccuous droplets on the window, was delighted at the way my hair were done, was rehearsing the thankyous and the blushes that i would give when my drama teacher would utter..'.La ces magnifique' at the sight of me. My hair , poker straight and with a couple of black pins to keep them at place swayed with the breeze as i stepped out of the car to walk the long and narrow path covered with yellowed fall leaves and thats when a drop fell on my head, followed by subsequent droplets all landing on my lovely hair and the pinafore,i shuddered at them and tried to open my umbrella which was stuck and refused to budge to the little strenght that my little hands were capable of exerting on it.The rain was no longer a shower spray, it was like cascades now, and with the calamity of an umbrella that I carried I ran on the muddy path to my school's corridor, ran with the fastest, widest strides that i could take, only to slip on the mud into a puddle. no need to say what ever became of my dress, not only was it ruined and mucked it was also torn at the edges by a sharp fence and so was I ..bruised and tattered and out of my classes for a week.. Not that I am really graceful or impeccable, rather i seem to be on the edge of clumsy and weird but that fall figures in the most embarassing moments of my life,facing a whole class of girls, giggling with beautiful costumes in a muddied dress is not much of a dream. I guess i  left behind dressing to please others after this and another few instances.

however the most wonderful memory of the rains coms from my adoloscence, rather the closing years of adoloscence ,. I was sixteen and A couple of my friends and i shared a cab to school, It had been pouring for  almost a whole day without a stop and the whole city was submerged in puddles of muddy brown, Luck shined and our cab broke a few metres away from the school,, so we were left to this choice of taking a wet walk till the school that was in sight but still far enough for us to get soaked in the rain,I had no inhibitions whatsoever and wanted to make it on time so I convinced all of them to step out,and walk the few metres lashing the puddles with quick steps and enjoying the rain on our face, inside there was a little fear from the stringent supervisor we had....RVD(Mrs. Rajni Vasudeva ) and how she would react on seeing us drenched and absolutely dis oriented. Our school compond was six feet below the ground and soon enough we realised the consequences, the ground floor of the senior section was pretty wet and the auditorium in the basement was almost flooded till water that was knee deep. It was a matter of grave concern for the athorities but for the eleventh graders this was an oppurtunity to have the time of their lives at the school. Classes had to be shuffeled and we were immediately shifted to the first floor.The day was full of chaos as teachers struggled to find the classrooms with the makeshift seating plans and the clashing timetables. We even mislead some of them to classrooms that were empty and managed to sneak out the most wonderful time of our schooldays as friends gathered their desks and made the most out of the rains outside and the mischief inside. We stood in the corridors hanging from the balconies, looking at the running staf members who tried to save the the auditorium from damage. Even made paper boats , as we fondly recollected the childhood games. splashed puddles. As for me and a couple of friends who had reached the school with water trailing from our uniforms, we were offered towels and hot drinks by the supervisor who even allowed us to sit bare foot while our socks and shoes dried. She even let the girls dry off there hair and that day the school seemed more like a second home, with even teachers pouring in some of their most fond recollections of the rains.It all enede with the sun coming out by late noon and all of us being sent back home with a day of absolute fun engraved

those were the best days of my yet lived life....ad would always be recollected like the tune of a wonderful rain song that often plays in our subconscious as we hear the musical pitter patter. Wonder if i could ave a playlist to associate with these recollections..hmm:)

Harry Potter and the Girl who never lived ...duh!!!

I was getting sick of The Potter paranoia that spreads like an arsonists intentions every time there's a release on the corner... be it the Books or the movies. It doesn't help if a few of of your very close and very intelligent rationalist friends are sucked into the typhoons generated by the masses who find absolutely anything that is off the limits of reality worthy of worship. This time though there was a smug satisfaction..... after all even the tag line to the movie said 'It all ends"......(..ha ha..finally!!!!! I thought to myself.)

I know I risk being assassinated by few of my own kins, have invited more hatred than the evil dark lord....The one who shall be named in the same breath as my name by the maniacs I know, but before you really plot to kill me people here's the catch. It all takes a twist......read further.

I had read the first three potter books with unmatched interest and even till date i could only utter praise for the author for being able to create a parallel magical world. You could call it the printed match to the much acclaimed and awarded Avatar by Cameron or maybe as the chorus of the Potter fans would sing ....its incredible and unparalleled literature.
 then why this aversion...hmmm....
there are quite a few logical and absolutely ridiculous explanations to the same...and the story goes back to when i was a grade four student:

 i fist heard about these delightful books from a teacher close to the release of the fourth book...Harry potter and the goblet of fire . It was 1997 when the first book was published and the fact that i had missed something that by the sound of it seemed so larger than life  was a little irritating. I dwell ed in books, there was an appetite for all classic Enid Blyton mysteries and Ruskin bond and quite a lot of the others. Its a boon here in India for the parents if the child has a strong inclination towards reading, this talent is exploited to shove the child into studies without any resistance. so it was predictable that all my birthday gifts were Encyclopedias that I devoured out of the habit of reading everything that could be spelt.
So I thought that it might just be easy to convince my dad to make a gift out of the first four books in the series. I  was obviously wrong, My dad nodded to the demands at once but when he discovered the books were about some magical mumbo jumbo, he scoffed at the taste of the general people and remarked that he would rather spend that amount on a Britannica.Of course he had his way.
i have looked up to my dad since i was four, so even though we had a conflicting opinion i agreed nodding at his observation and then started looking for the other sources to have my way(Oops!!...did I tell u I have been a rebel !!!!)

the next book appeared somewhere in 2003 and in this gap of three years I had begged, borrowed and exchanged my way to reading the first three and well I had even lapped up the first two movies (thanks to our school trips to the movies) . Obviously it had started growing on me and it wasn't long before i fund myself bonkers about the franchise. then my life took a serious turn(Dramatic!!!!)......
i was a seventh class student with plummeting marks ( well from sixth itself)..... I had to work my way out of this Mire . so for the next one year, in class eighth I started reading my text books with half the enthusiasm but still purely out of academic pursuit. I missed the fourth movie, I missed the fifth book,and I realized I was alive and kicking and my parents were certainly delighted that I had topped in my class if not all the sections.what my father and i would define as depth with poetry, started reading Paulo Coelho and then never looked back.

well once I did...again an interesting story .....
In ninth one of my Potter Pumpkin classmate brought her fifth book along and i was tempted to read it , but so was her secret crush(not that much of a secret though)... who also happened to be a friend. she left us to fight with the book being the bone of contention and when i was successful in snatching it out of his hand i realized I was letting a petty book take control of my self. i immediately offered it back and vowed never tio let it carry me away like the other lesser divine beings. I am my father's daughter.

Lets take a leap and come back to the present. one of my very dear friends wanted to avenge me for my taunts and the polite but offensive anti potter comments. she realized that she could do that by infesting my bloodline with a potter fan,so she lent my sister the first book. As if the whole potter chatter on networking sites was any less, my own home was now ringing with potter praise.(what could be worse?)....the worse was yet to come. my sister vowed to attain the whole series(she generally has her way).when she brought the second book...Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets, I remembered how it was my favourite out of the ones I had read. so when she slept with the book under her pillow I sneaked it out and flipped through my favourite parts, skimming through the treasure, recollecting faint ly the exact phrases before my eyes. Soon enough I found myself controlling my bladder imperatives to complete the book in two hours flat.

Thats when i realized that i still had a soft spot for The boy who lived and how I whole heartedly supported the good over the evil plot.

When you grow up, become so cynical and rational and stop believing in magic. these little reminders from childhood linger and you live in sanity. i understand why my generation still ardently adores potter, He gave us something to believe in, something to hold on to. An escape to Hogwarts when the real world took toll on us.
He made visit my childhood dreams and fantasies, the little girl who had never lived enough.....

I might not be as devoted as to go and catch the last part instantaneously but I admit, I might just gift my own children the whole series. and help my sister add to her library:)

NOSTALGIA.....your a B**CH

Please do understand that I hate sensationalism and profanity is the last resort that i would sought to make this a juicy read. In fact I am not keen on people who read to fill themselves with scandals and controversial issues.(trust me I have been misleading with my titles but have steered clear of controversy..haven't I?;) )

so naturally curiosity arises of the intentions I have when you read the Block letters that i have put up there loud and clear. Its suggestive of some recollections, yes. Are they going to be the wretched emotional sort? no.
from here to the next few posts its going to be a journey through guilt that has emerged from the past and there consequence. not exactly fun(as it is defined by the kitsch standards)...but amusing nevertheless.

As it is said...A Blast from the Past...!!;) 

Coffee houses , Cafes and the Contrasts:

What if there was a world a little different then it should be......

then would you call it wonderland 

or never care to see?

Any one of my friends, acquaintances or family is sure to be familiar with my romance with the Hot cuppa coffe, and anyone who has frequented a café with me knows that the what delights me the most is a hot espresso, simple, bitter on the tongue,  and preferably unsweetened with any sucrose or its substitutes. While people would tag me an absolute addict, I beg to differ. For the difference between my passion for the beverage and an addiction is as obvious as the one between a gourmet and a glutton, a connoisseur and a hoarder. I do not drink merely out of a habit, I drink out of love. Coffee to me is an indulgence. If chocolate is molten cocoa bean and is known as ambrosia, then coffee, the liquid caffeine should be labeled elixir. In fact if I were to chose between Godiva and the finest Arabica, I would give in to the beans and be happy with the treasure.

Though I have stocked on a variety of beans besides the widely manufactured Nescafe classic, (Nilgiri, Arabica, Brazilian and would love to add some more) and even got myself the old style brew kettle( all of which was gifted by my father who knows my taste). Its often that I find myself going to the nearest Barista or CCD for an exclusive experience, So whenever we decide to meet up, old schoolmates, or hang out with my friend from college or just for a shopping trip with the best buddies I find the perfect excuse to chat over a cup of coffee. Nothing is more delightful if there’s a cup of fine tasting coffee before you and an interesting company across the table. No wonder coffee dates are so popular, the feel good factor of the coffee and add to that a romantic flavour . 

Coffee and its love can actually take me places and after visiting a few cafes around my place, I zeroed on my favourite hangout where I generally go for the best coffee experience. its absolute nirvanas to sit there thinking of nothing, listening to the chatter and the soft subdued music. I have been there with company but do not mind being left to myself as long theres an endless supply of coffee. Though I am always open to experimenting and would not leave any accessible café unvisited(one is on my mind now a days and I might land up there soon).

 One such quest on a shopping trip took me to a coffee house .  If CP has been your destination quite often and you have aimlessly wandered the inner circle and  walked past the emporiums, window shopping and admiring the wares, there’s a great chance that you might have passed by ‘the Madras Coffee House’. I never tried to dig up the history of the place and if you require that you may search the Google maps and then Google it to find out the precise dates but it seems like it has been there for no less than three decades.

 The place is pretty plain and dull so it would not be a big deal if it went un-noticed.

Now most of you like me might land up there and feel like you are lost because the interiors were an absolute contrast to the air conditioned , tasteful furnishing, bright colours subdued by matte finish and mood lighting that we are used to in the more popular cafes. In fact it seemed more like an ordinary  college cafeteria if you happened to increase the floor area and seated elderly gentry instead of a pack of robust college kids. Yes the place was full of senior citizens , those who seemed to have retired from important positions in the government services and had the leisure of time . The coffee was again  basic, no froth patterned with intricate designs in craft, but well made , brewed from one of those old style kettles and a fraction of the cost that I would have shelled out at a Barista. So I sat there noticing the conspicuous ceiling fans hanging from the tall ceiling with a very pale coat of off white paint and walls that were banana cream yellow and stained with spots of coffee. The windows were large and had glasses that appeared milky and scratched like most of the things, unlike the spotless glass doors we are used to walking in and out of at the modern day eateries. the place had nothing to add to the sophistication that existed in the atmosphere, the crowd too was bubbling chattering and effervescent like a fresh brew being poured into a cup. I don’t know what to say of the stares though, it  seemed to me that the older women were neither used to nor amused by the presence of an odd one(which was me) and there glares seemed to be drawing an invisible line that I felt I had crossed by trying to mingle with the rest. That was until I looked around and noticed the people rather than the ambience, myriad cultures mixed in the potpourri, no divides of class or even nationality . I saw students from Buddhist monasteries seated next to me , rude as it may have seemed to them but I could not help looking at how amused they seemed relishing a plate of Idlis. At the other table there were foreigners , the backpack tourists who travel in a limited budget, sipping on coffee easily melting into the commotion. All people having animated faces with smiles, none able to hear the talk at the next table, different discussions, different classes , ages, nations and yet brewing together a perfect brew at the coffee house. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I observed it all, but was quick to don back the stoic look because suddenly the whole table of the auntys had started staring at me. I was wondering if I should take my stuff and head to the nearest CCD , but I decided to stay , as I helped myself with another cup of coffee from the counter.

the coffee house experience was refreshing from the usual ones at the other places that I frequent. Not that I am not fond of my regular spot anymore but the contrast between an old style coffee house and a café is hard to miss. Sometimes I find the cafes rather boring, with people trying to make soft conversations, an air of formality due to the office crowd or the usual sweet nothings being whispered (not that you can hear them, but you can easily guess what’s being said) .  All said  and done , I guess I am more comfortable in this routine. But next time I happen to be around, who knows I might just feel like reliving the old style coffee house ;)

today’s confession , I would like to end it with the little thing I heard from the aunty ji table:

“Kids now a days. Why would they come here, they have all, money, taste , class, such places are not cut to suit them”… well maybe she was right, or maybe not. But no harm in trying something a little different from your taste, is it? J

Losing a friend and a world being Lost.

Being bereaved of a friend:

I never have written a eulogy before and so this was a tad bit more difficult than putting my honest confessions in words. Not that this would not be one of my experiences in fact this is something that I hold very close to my heart and have tried to let out numerous times.But who wants to listen to a story that has no hope and a sad end. The kind that leaves you searching for the right words to say , some sensitive people tend to it but not everybody has the patience to give it a thought. You might even end up feeling amused or laughing at the poignancy with which I would tell it at the end of this little description that I have of a dear friend I lost. well I am wondering if i should disclose her name right now, because that would be a little unfair, sometimes disclosing the identity of a person before telling their stories invokes more of prejudice(good or bad..can’t say) then any emotional chord, so for now she would only be a friend of mine

She had lived near my place for a long time in fact we were neighbors but I was oblivious to her presence for quite some time. Until this fine day when she came to my place in search of a little something that she had dropped accidently, that was the first time I ever got a close sight of her. She was a tiny creature, not very beautiful , the most that you would call her was cute.  But there were little things about her that made her a charming little sweetheart , she had a nimble feet, and it seemed that she always hopped , with a certain vivacity. Though she had entered without ringing the doorbell or even  knocking at the gate but it did not seem rude at all, in fact her demeanor was very submissive as she cautiously walked in with her eyes fixed on me and carefully lifted her little belonging and swiftly went back  just as she had entered.

It was amusing to say the least, from that day onwards, I started greeting her more often, to which she would either reply with a bleak voice or turn away shyly. She had always been the reserved kin perhaps due to the fact that Her life was ever as simple as mine. I decided I would try and be a little more than civil and that might just help her be a little less meek and then maybe I could invite her to my place a little more often.

She had a beautiful voice and every morning, soon after sunrise she would practice singing, even if I was in my house I could hear her , She must be used to getting up early because there never was a day when I couldn’t hear the sweet voice while getting ready for school.

Soon we were on good terms, I had actually gone ahead with my plans and tried a little harder to befriend her. Soon enough she started frequenting my place, I loved to share my meals with her, though she never ate much, her serving size was miniscule as compared to mine. Sometimes she would come for a drink of water while playing outside in summer afternoons. There was always some water kept aside for both of us on the outer wall of the verandah, I always leapt for the bottle which she could not drink from so there was a utensil for her. My mother also seemed to be very fond of her, so she was always welcome.

That was till I was ten years or so. Childhood friends, no matter how much you have loved them, spent days with them that make memories that you cherish for the rest of your lives, sometimes lose touch.

So as I grew I lost interest in playing the little games that we used to, running after her, trying to catch her even though I knew she was too fast for me and would fly away even before I could take a step ahead.

 But She was there, still living at the same place going about her own life the way she did before she was noticed. I became neutral towards her singing in the morning , it was more like a daily hum drum . I really did not have the time to appreciate all this while rushing for school. So it went on like this for sometime , a few years I guess. I was too preoccupied with the more relevant things, I never noticed that she moved away.  Mornings were seeming more quiet than usual, not that I caught the change immediately, none of us did. Life went on., when one day my mother remarked that how she never heard her sing for such a long time and how she disappeared I felt  my stomach folding but the very next instant forgot all about it when she mentioned a topic that interested me more.

It was not till an year back when we all realized the reason for her sudden vanishing act , that was when my dad showed me the newspaper report on how the callous, unmonitored and illegal planting signal towers had resulted in the wiping of a whole specie that we knew as the common house bids. ‘The sparrows’

How I miss, the way she sang perched on the tree right outside my home, the way she hopped in the balcony to eat the little pieces that I sneaked out of my meals, the earthen bowl that was filled for her with some water to drink has visits only from the pigeons or the joy birds but no sign of her anywhere around. I remember how sometimes I would scare her away while trying to catch her. The innocent games I played as a child and I wonder how could I along with all other people become so insensitive to her presence and the sudden fall in her visits and all that lead to her extinction from the realms of the cities’ skylines.

Told you, you might mock at this tale, or you might trash me as an absolutely sentimental person with a farfetched idea of mourning the loss of a certain species of birds.  But then read it all over again, omitting the fact that this is the story of a certain avian. Do you not miss the flock ? or has their diminishing not been noticed yet. Try to spot a sparrow the next time you are outdoors and if you find one consider yourself lucky, cause there are hardly any left in the cities. Later you can tell the generations to come about witnessing such species that were plentiful and now have been limited to the inaccessible mountains where soon network providers would dwell and wipe them off the face of the planet. I suggest click them too……. Save them in the frames …  I am not going to suggest garlanding the frame now, cause well then that would  take away the focus from the whole purpose behind the story.

 This story aims at bringing this fact to your notice. All my previous attempts have gone vain ,people are not interested to listening to all these environmental causes. Not that am I calling upon people to turn into environmental activists, I am just trying to sensitize them towards the fast eroding natural resources. While we can’t do anything about the birds that went missing or the bees that are no longer seen but we can certainly do more when it comes to conservation of the a biotic resources such as water or the absolutely indispensable forest resources.

Let’s not lose everything to the trait of insensitivity that dominates the rest of all the human tendencies. Show a little bit of emotion. A bleak ending to today’s confession….. I feel helpless when i come to think of all this. I really do.

Cross dressing tips!!

It's a natural human tendency to be curious of what could it be if not what it is at present.........and to live in that illusion is a bliss!!


I recommend you don't flip to the next blog as of yet, thinking that if you are not one cross dresser you can ignore this. dual meanings my friend!!
So do you find men who dress up as women kitsch, oddballs ,outrageously kinky? Next time you make a practical joke on one of  your self confessing friend stop and think. Has there never been atime when you have changed from your natural skin to an unnatural ,transient hide? not just changed into it but found it more comforting and somehow like a resort from the usual self......huh?
believe me , its absolutely natural to be somebody you are not or you just cant be in most situations, its like escaping with an evasive answer to the circumstances rather than coming out in the open( we do that rarely).

what do i have here to offer in today's confession.... certain tips to cross dress..... This is one trait of mine that I am not guilty of . I can safely proclaim myself the queen of this art as I have been successful in creating a completely misunderstood(or lets say incomprehensible) alter ego.
 When it comes to my social circle I have safely  classified people in different radii...and its not the subconscious classification, the kind that we come across in simple human psychology, its the more complicated than it seems.... strangers, acquaintance, friends, real friends and then of course the best friends.......... perplexed?
Its not that I am telling you to become a hypocrite or an absolute fakolina,(I abhor that kind), Its more about your comfort level and how to draw a line between self and all that is uncalled for and it saves you a lot of unwanted troubles of saying hollow hellos, waving frail byes and smiling unwillingly......... you don't have to do that. In short its about clearing the clutter, cutting the crap!!
Socializing i believe has become a stress of sorts, its an absolute mania and hell it does matter when you are a bit of a popular figure in your own small circle....lets say like a lesser known celeb....the prettiest girl in the group, the talented band guitarist, the smart charming event organizer,the impeccable leader ......generally with such a pseudo status comes the need for a pseudo attitude that fits the bill. There's this itch to perfectly fit into the cast that we have made out of external factors and internal insecurities.... 'the crafted image' and then you start behaving as people would expect you to.
you dress up as they require you to , so on a moody blues day when you would rather get out of your bed and drive straight to college for the sake of it, you find yourself being dragged  to the closet to fish out the best pair of jeans, the branded tee , haggardly search for your glares , put them on along with a fake smile and start the drama that lasts the whole day!!...perrrr...fect, and then you become so comfortable with that image that you confuse it with the real you and that's when the whole trouble begins...so you see cross dressing can actually grow on you and then entangle you in its mess..

I have been doing this for ages now....in fact i guess I have been doing this since kindergaden , why and how ? it's another story but since I have been hanging around for so long I got an insight into the complications and the consequences a tad bit earlier than most of us. Adolescence taught me how to walk out of the mess while child hood had actually pushed me into it, more so because childhood was not much of a dream and I discovered more of self in the troubled years( not in my case).
so lets stop yapping about my personal  miseries,( just because I am confessing doesn't mean that you have to know the whole story :p)
The Dos and the Dont s:

first of all, keep one thing in mind: 'you are not as important as you think you are'... dress down your ego a bit and let go, It doesn't have to be all perfect all the time, so act a little natural (oxymoron , huh?);)...  more than half the people would not even remember your name if you disappear out of their sights for a week or two.

next , remember the purpose of wearing that artificial attire, its ephemeral ecstasy and content and if you are felling any other way, just drop it there and then.obviously its like wed,, you can get high on it once in a while but ultimately it might just be fatal. don't get addicted.

As soon as you star being extra pally to people who you don't even remember seeing the last time, back off, do a reality check,  the most important factor on the list:' Am I sacrificing something more important ?' if the answer is no , get back and start it from where you left it else just excuse yourself and run away without looking back (you need not excuse yourself if you don't feel like it :) )

Once in a while go to the people who know who you are and get a dose of reality, the real friends, the best friends, siblings, parents..or who ever you think it is who might just pump out the extra air in your head :p

take complements as they come your way, avoid being driven by them, praise and flattery need to be segregated from each other.

Ultimately find time for your own little indulgence, your time, your hobbies , your ideas, introspect. If you are a rock band guitarist you don't have to abhor old classic Bollywood tunes, or just because you are the tom boy doesn't have to mean that you have to hate love stories or that you cant dress girly once in a while. try not to typify yourself, leave that inane job to others around you.

Well that's all, Its not a vice to create an image in fact a very genuine and intellectual man once told me,"humans wear three skins epidermis, meso dermis and en dermis......... I prefer meso dermis" ;)...

so now you can go and experiment a bit, ready get set, cross dress :D

Men.......Women ...hmm.....

There is tide in the affairs of men,

which taken at the floods leads on to fortunes,

Omitted, all the voyage of their life,

Is bound in shallows and miseries.

                                          Shakespeare

That's a sane advise Mr.Shakespeare, and yes all my lovely ladies ...adhere to it. Yes, Yes we are the young liberated, independent women and we don't really need men to buy us our jewels or pay the rent and keep up with the groceries. we are no longer liabilities and men are not assets ....or maybe they are....but why should we not call them accessories.

all said and done.... the stronger we become the more we need someone to make us feel like women, so while we may scoff and walk away with an airy gesture if a stranger pulls the door for us or calls for the cab , but we do love to see the chivalrous gentleman in the man we call our own. Well i shouldn't forget to mention that its a nice way of sprucing the male ego and giving men a reassurance of sorts.

along with the natural and biological ones, this is one reason why the sexes have not become redundant to each other,... 'YOU pat my back, I'll pat yours'

With this kind of an equation , its easy to live unattached and in a frivolous relationship, no strings attached, no luggage,. It doesn't even matter if you are looking for a companionship which means a a little more salt and pepper than the usual in the recipe for a perfectly platonic relationship. take it a step further and you need much more than that static equilibrium...a dynamic one. 

Men would more than love to take a bimbo by their sides...as they call them ...'trophy wives' the shiny display material which would win them the 'lucky bastard ' tag among their peers. There is an exception of a few.. like the other day a friend told me how he would be stimulated by a woman with some grey matter in her head rather than the myriad hues on the front lobe of either side of the brain..(read make up :p). But most woman want a little more than a fat juicy chicken ready to be feasted upon, obviously there are exceptions in this case too. while all the surveys may tell you that money is a complete turn on, believe me, its not true. If that was the case then the nouveaux riches with loads of fortune and flashy cars and the taste for absolutely crass songs that define women as woofers(sic) would have had a bevy of beauties making a bee line for them 

So ladies and gentlemen keep reading...

Well, if I understand my species right barring a few possible diversions the first and the foremost thing required by women is respect.. for what she is, who she is and what she wants to make out of it. The next step is well obviously...not to take anything that the other person does for granted, and be able to appreciate the efforts and the labour thats put in. Men should learn to live with female angst and should stop complaining that women are losing their femininity, remember we were pulled in to the current by the extremely competitive world where this whirlpool theory of survival came to being...(all thanks to you guys :/).
All the terms put straight ladies? well, here's your part: We are still women and we realize (or should realize ) that the onus of creating a balanced world is on us. we have an innate power to mellow down whatever is stark, that we have been blessed with this ability to forgive. We chose to step into the male dominated world and establish ourselves but to lose our own identity to them would not be right.We can definitely walk in their shoes for several miles but they can't don our stilletoes and exude the grace , the poise that we can. so stick to it.

and as for the first few lines...the catch in today's confession is...know what you want. A last bit of advise that i wanted to drop for the girls out there but it won't really harm if men take a hint too.We all need love but what is the price that we are ready to pay for it?
If you know yourself then probing into the kind of men we want would be easy. We all have that charismatic Mr. right in our thoughts yet we tend to get lost with the wrong ones...?..Accept it.. there's no perfect man on this planet, what makes them perfect is our love for them...and well as I said ..it comes for a little price.
so mark the risks and sail your ship into the sea with the right tide... and then the journey would be ever so enchanting with a few rough waves thrown in( I guarantee the rough waves too;) ).......

and to the gentlemen out there, read this all over again...if you are smart then this might not bruise your egos much and you might find the right tides in there for you ;D

Love Triangles

The king , the princess and the knight.........

I haven't really dived into the recent romances that have appeared in print, (though i confess to being a die hard romantic and have had my share of classic love stories as a teenager which was pretty recent). it is just that I would rather invest my precious reading time in discovering the realms of philosophy, history or some political drama , and if knowledge is not the pursuit of my reading then it has to be the sheer beauty of the work that inspires me to appreciate it by reading it further. Not that their haven't been some great romances in the recent times, in fact both the Hollywood and the Indian film industry continuously supply us with chick flicks and rom coms that capture the effervescent love with a so called fresh perspective and that's precisely the reason why reading one doesn't really seem like an appealing idea.

Anyhow the absolute girl inside often emerges and takes her share of space in my mind from the practical head that I always think of myself as. so recently when i happened to stumble upon a book in my younger siblings closet I couldn't help but flip a few pages, by the review it seemed like a regular for our generation, a teen drama entangles in a fantastic fable mixed with plenty of supernatural elements . I realized that it had also been turned into a series which was quite a hit with all my female friends at college. moreover the cover was not really ominous with tell tale signs of unbridled passion and it seemed to be a good frivolous read. I admit with  a slight discomfort that I had followed the Twilight Saga with an interest that would be termed deeper than the superficial curiosity that I had feigned while buying the first copy.Thus while reading a book that seemed to be on similar lines I could not help but draw a parallel between the two. other than the supernatural mumbo jumbo what i found common to the two was 'a love triangle'.a complicated relationship that was between the protagonists . substantial characters entwined in an emotional mess along with the supernatural clutter.I really thought that originality had come to an end not just with those who write but even those who lap up the same old wine in a new bottle.I scoffed with an intellectual's pride over the masses taste for fresh ideas and originality or the lack of it.

Later that week in the quest of a more insightful reading experience, I started reading a best seller by one of my favourite bestselling author. he also mentioned the concept of multiple soul mates and after a certain point the whole story seemed to revolve around the theory. (sic)
here I should mention at the risk of sounding a little orthodox (I don't really believe that though, I feel like I'm one of the fantastic characters from a fable who are rare to keep the sanctity of a belief in a skewed world :p)
that I still believe in the concept of one true love and there is this strong need to belong to a single person and have an unadulterated love with a deep and lasting meaning.

I was pretty disturbed at this strange phenomena of triangles all around me.the fact that one of my friends confided into me about one of her personal experiences of the same sort and that the author whom i revered for his works also corroborated the multiple soul mates theory was of no help.
so for the next few days i snuggled into my comfort with a few old classics, and took respite that Austen, who had been quite a rebel for her times justified my view to an extent... one life,one love :)
but then it seemed even classics had to mess with my ideas, I discovered Camelot, the tale where King Arthur shares the princess with the valiant knight Lancelot.....no running away from clandestine affairs ..sigh : /

the other day , I sat with a cuppa with the dear friend of mine and she asked a question quite nonchalantly, just the random discussion you have with your girlfriends, that make no sense, just like that.

the question was a hypothetical situation in which I had a choice of saving any one from my friend and my lover from a possible life threatening situation. stupid stuff, I answered nonchalantly with an equally stupid answer, that seeing both in such a situation, the faint hearted person that I am I might just beat em both to the gates of hell .
later I thought about it and realized that it was quite a dilemma, they both meant the world to me and secretly I prayed that i would never have to chose.

that's when I realized that the multiple soul mate theory might just have some substance.There can exist a few triangles or even squares, pentagons and all possible polygons. I still wont jump into an illicit affair, though I might just be a part of a triangle already.;)

SO here I am sitting with a book that seems to be headed in the same direction and I would just sit back and smile wryly as I read it till the end .......(wink wink).

Sinister thoughts......

Thoughts are what turn into ideas and ultimately actions.....
"I think, therefore I am"

Whats in a thought?
Early morning the alarm goes off , you are woken up from a surreal state that turns into consciousness bit by bit. In between that consciousness and the hangover of dreams and a blissful sleep there must have been myriad emotions and ideas that would have fleeted by. your sub conscious must have had a deep affair and your rising consciousness must have flirted with ten crafted , fantastic explorations of your mind at an average. Yet, if I tell you to recollect a single thought that you had as you stepped out of your bed, you would vaguely remember. Unless of course you were prepared for an eventful day ahead and you woke up with the thought that you had taken to your bed last night.

Once in a while we have given into the luxury of aimless pondering, your colleagues new shoes, the bosses' new affair, the pompous next door neighbor's new car and the itching desire to gift him a new dent with it. Seemingly innocuous little devils. and then the more serious ones that start with a 'what if'.........
"what if if call him and ask ?", "what if i spy on her?", "what if I'm able to lure him with this deal?".....and then varying degrees of imagination concoct varying doubts and dilemmas.

We all know that some of our dark fantasies bite dust even as we are trying to give them a conclusive ending. then what could deter us from thinking of a sin.... "thou shall not think???????"...hell is that even a commandment??
But lets say there is a fervent thought that like an apparition re appears at the slightest rekindling and nudges us from within to give in. then would we try to reign that thumping thought. have you ever been successful in taming your rebellious, robust outlaw thinking.?
IN fact whenever you have set the thou shall not think barrier, you have conspired with the enemy, and have been taken in and engulfed by a force of an exponential magnitude.
Its as simple as it could be, to drift the sin away be insensitive to the fact that it is a sin, a forbidden territory. For it lies within the errant human tendencies to flow opposite to the current in the stubbornness arising from our own Ego and sometimes the curiosity to dive if not dwell on the darkes side.

Suicidal tendencies......

...Where is your life headed?
..Towards death

No, it s not that i enjoy infusing macabre thoughts into people's brain but the truth can not be ignored. Death is the most faithful of all chances we have in life. It would never deceive us perennially unlike a spring summer passion or  a serendipitous event . With all calculations and all the observations to the experiment called life there's a standard end result...'Death'.
 The spontaneity with which the event shall strike us is so stark and yet remains so subdued in the hope of life. amusing!!
Yet more amusing is the fact that in the hope of life we assimilate all the paraphernalia that takes us till the very end of it, sometimes willingly but most of the times unknowingly . If you are perplexed by the thought then a glint at all the routines of an ordinary, less than ordinary or an extra ordinary life would elucidate the statement quite effectively. All things desired or undesired , needed or wanted take us to our last breath in one way or the other. Love,hate, money ,sex,work, idleness,leisure, travel, passion , pessimism, success, failure . Could you think of a way of life that would not risk life?
We all have suicidal tendencies ........ we all devise our own plans for dieing , driven by an external force or an internal consciousness.

Here's a confession, I once contemplated suicide or the thought of it a long time back but did not have the quintessential . So like most people I'm waiting till the time when i have enough reason and devises to meet my end. till then.
 it's a deal with life ;)
PS: this is not a theory but a confession....I do not argue on experiences. Ideas are debatable...not emotions.

infinity infinity.......

the waves in the ocean?  infinity
stars in the heaven? infinity
life in the moments infinity
and yet infinity stays not defined................

An atheist must be in love with the concept above.'why' if you may ask, then its simple..... infinity is an ironical term that defines itself as 'not defined'. the irony of which is accepted as it is by the simple, questioned by the intellectual and understood by the genius.
there was never an explanation to the logic of infinity, those who did not have the faculty to understand, did not challenge it's value. Those who tried to interpret it but failed scoffed at it, nullified its base and with a wry smile drew the Mobius strip at every corresponding fraction. Those who went beyond the realms and found the hidden truth acknowledged it as the largest, and never dared to define it..............

 would you take a stand?.....or wisely remain undefined.......??
infinity, infinity!!