Over and Out

There's a strange kind of tiredness creeping into me. Whether i like it or not, I am shrouded by it. I'm tired of all the early mornings, of all the sun rises, of all the blazing noons, of all the sunsets, of all the cold nights. Tired of life.
There's too much to brood over, too little to smile about. There's too much to debate over, too little to agree upon. There's too much of darkness, too little light. Life's a bitch. Excuse my French.I'm sick of all the blames, of all the burden, of all the onus. My shoulders are drooping, they can't take anymore weight. My heart is heavy too.
I look at people around me. i see them empty. Full of sympathy. That's still empty. I look for The One. I can't find anyone. I live my life, it's full. Full of thoughts. Thoughts that grieve, thoughts that sob. Thoughts that give a heartache. Thoughts I hate.
I hate what I love.
I pretend. Pretend to smile, to look for joy. I find very little, or none at all. I gather the little. Store it in my house. I water it, but it just doesn't grow. It's planted in sand. It won't grow. It chokes me to death. I love the little joy, but it hates me. It denies me itself, it withers and wilts.
I wither and wilt along with it...

Fire Crackers

They shoot up in the dark night sky, making a loud hissing sound. Form a pattern high up there for the world to see. Patterns that look like flowers, or showers. Transform their colours from red streaks to pink blobs to purple splashes. And then, they all disappear - the streaks, the blobs and the splashes - to leave just puffs of white smoke in their place. Fire works.

And there's the breed that works when the sky is lit up by the sun. Begin with a weak hissing sound, one that's short lived, just a harbinger to warn you. Warn you of the explosion that's in store. Then the blast. Could be just a singular loud noise or a multiple series of moderate noises. All one sees is delicate sparks interspersed between these noises. At the end of it all, they too leave just puffs of smoke rising from the ground to mid air to the heavens. Crackers.

Fire works and crackers are all over the place once again with Diwali. It reminds me of the days I used to burst crackers, be a part of the I-have-more-Laxmi-bombs-than-you clan. Fun days those were.

Shopping for Diwali meant shopping primarily for crackers. The jewellery, the clothes, the household material, the sweets could take a back seat. With all the enthusiasm, we used to stock ourselves with all the essentials.

At the primary level were the Sparklers, the ones that sparkle when you light them with candles, sometimes showing a strong resistance to light up. Also in this category fell the tapes, the thin, red strips of paper dotted with black noise making chemicals. We would load our new Diwali guns with the tapes and play chor-police all afternoon long till the end of the Diwali vacations. I would hide behind the tall, grey tank in the terrace in the hot sun, my feet burning on the hot terrace floor, but determined to be true to my race of chors! Then there were the other small range products like the snake, which never did any good to anyone but just left a lot of tar remains and a staircase reeking with noxious gases; the electric wire, which had no electric charge what so ever but just burnt with bright colours - the electric looking green and orange - while you held it in your hand.

The secondary level comprised those crackers which looked a lot more challenging to crack. It required alertness, to light them some distance away and flee the site to secure a safer place on earth, much safer where the fire from the crackers would not reach you and you could witness their marvel, giving you a satisfaction as though you were their creator. The flower pot fell in this category, which when lit showers sparks and fire from it's mouth that rise up in the air, to be taller than you and fall all at once like illuminated rain drops reaching the ground. There's also the jameen chakra, a gold-coin-with-a-tail like appearing fire cracker. The key was to light the tail and wait for the magic - how it spun round and round and round shooting fire from it's tail resulting in a circular labyrinth of fire. There were a few athletic characters who jumped over the sparks, probably to show how they had shunned all fear for fire and reached yet another stage of life.

Also here belonged many other noise making, neighbour waking crackers like the Taj Mahal, Lavangi, all of which had small packets of chemicals tied together so that when you lit one end of it, the blasts would continue to be heard in a series. Of course, there were a few like me whose main aim during Diwali was to make the crackers last, make them last till the very end, when no one else had any left and then burst them to be the object of envy of all. We would untie the Taj Mahal and the lavangi and burst it one at a time, making only minimal noise but serving the purpose - keeping everyone company during the bursting sessions as well as having bursting sessions when the rest weren't.

And, finally came the tertiary, uppermost level of fire crackers. These were the ones which wre reserved only for the big Dadas and Didis. Our parents would always say, when you grow as old as Neelu Didi you'll get those, not now. And how I yearned to be as old as Neelu Didi with every passing Diwali. These included the rocket, the ones which needed a glass bottle to perch them on. Lighting a rocket was a whole ritual in itself. First, the lucky Didi who could burst rockets would ensure that nobody else was lighting any other cracker at that point, then would decide the apt position for the bottle which would then hold the rocket. After checking and double checking, Didi would approach the rocket with her agarbatti and light it. Then in no time, she would rush to us, the ones not as lucky to burst rockets. And look upwards. Towards the skies and see the marvel. The beauty of the single stick like object with a cap transforming into many colours and shapes.

And also here belong the Laxmi bombs and the Atom bombs. The ones that require not just alertness but astute alertness. These are the ones that leave your ears shaken, once they burst there's a strange humming in your ears which refuses to hush up for at least a couple of minutes.

Ah, well. I reached all levels, including the didi lucky enough to burst crackers too. Realisation of the futility of the whole affair, the environment un-friendliness, freak accidents et al, later I've stayed away from the crackers. Feels good, must say.

Words

I've always been friendly with words. Whenever I met a new word, I would check on it - whether it seemed heavy or light, fat like an elephant or thin and slender like a deer. I would discover its meaning - how different was precaution from precocious, what did it mean to feel dizzy, how different was it to feel giddy. From where did the word come - barber came from the Roman word barba which means beard, moolah means money in Fijian. Its usage - the wind always blows, never sings or dances; the birds always flap their wings, never just move them. How to speak the words - jim-nay-shi-yum for gymnasium and gai-nah-kau-law-jist for gynaecologist. They puzzled me, amused me, entertained me, but most importantly, kept me company.

There are a few words which I love more than others. Some because they sound good, some because they have been easy to spell while some others purely on contextual basis. Here's a list of a few of them, however random it might sound and seem, I am loving this activity of putting down words. Just words. Without having to bother stringing them all together to make sense.


Bubbles, frostbite, x-ray, samosa, blueberry, blackburn, oink, Frisbee, VIBGYOR, whisper, lee, gushes, spoons, sex, education, bosom, crux, cash, pink, shimmer, glitter, lustrous, sensex, tune, strings, fangs, fish, luxury, benzene, loop, dewdrop (as a child, I thought it was one word), gleam, balls, shread, guts, glitz, blood, beef, tortoise, turtle, purple, porpoise, mess, pastings, twinkle, trickle, creek, fins, dolphins, manga, sauna, grave, casket, muffled, reaking, jealous, exit.



Remember I only love the words, not what they actually denote or connote!

My Silver

The shimmering silver of the moon allures me.
It invites me;
More than the glittering gold of the sun.
For, the moon's rays gleam with coldness;
A coldness that's warm.

He watches me when I'm shrouded in dark;
Keeps me from dangers,
Warns me from the untold.
Many a lonesome nights have passed by his side;
Nights of low, nights of high.

And tonight, I sit beaneath him
Amidst the sifting sand;
Faced by pristine, white waves
Which I fear could engulf me.
The waters froth at my feet,
Giving me a taste of their mirth.

Taken for a ride!

This may have been after a good 10 long years. I got into a double decker bus, it was late in the evening and I was rushing to get back home, headed for VT/CST. It's a given, when you get into a double decker bus, you're limbs involutarily climb up the stairs and go straight up. I believe the ones who opt against this are abnormal - they either are generally sad in life disallowing any scope for the slightest level of excitement or suffer from a severe degree of vertigo. Me being neither, propped up zealously to my seat up there.

I peeped out of the window to see the city at my feet! Mopeds scurrying past the road as if the larger vehicles were on a mission to gobble them down! The cars and the jeeps and the vans blaring their horns at undefined forces, hoping for a miracle to clear the traffic. And, in the midst of it all, were hundreds of pedestrians trying to make their existence felt by halting traffic with a single wave of their hand, assuming the duties of a traffic controller!

And all of a sudden, I spot a vacant seat on the front row! I feel elated! I jump and leap to the seat. The front seat on the "fisrst floor" of a double decker! The window upfront is open, there's cool breeze blowing through, it brushes past me and right up to the back of the bus, I guess. I spot the dizzying tail lights of a million vehicles on the street. My eyes follow their trail, but fail, the busy-ness is unimaginable. There are tall standing lamp poles, like pins with glowing, electric heads. All seem to chase and drive each other, performing an odyssey by themsleves. How the lights dance in grace! A delight for my weary, sleepy eyes!

Alfredism!

Alfredism of the day:

Now, picture this. Both, me and Alfred are in the office cabin, we have to share one, my fate!!! It's post lunch, and I feel like a quick nap - may be for a good quarter of an hour, plus there isn't much work load, so i really can manage that. I get into the cosiest possible position in the available tiny little space, rest my head on the desk and before I realise, I'm deep into my nap. I even remember a dream from it, something about a great dessert. And.......the next thing I sense is a hand on my right shoulder. The first thought that struck me was, "Oh shit! it's my boss! I'm screwed!". Then i hear our dear friend Alfred, " Mini, let's listen to music".

I'm left speechless but I still manage to squeeze words out of my mouth carefully filtering out abuses, now that was tough! How could any human being with even quarter of a brain wake up a soul sweet as me (!) from a deep slumber and suggest something as stupid as that? Given the fact that we have NO music system in the cabin except a laptop that doesn't even belong to us!

He amazes me! Alfred! Phew!

My dear Alfred!

Alfred, he's my colleague. Lately, it seems as though he's consumed my entire life. I spend the whole day in his company. When that's done, i'm talking about him to all my friends. And all of them seem so curious to know about him! I get calls enquiring about Alfred's wellbeing everyday. All of a sudden I realise how many of my friends' calls I've missed because of lack of an Alfred in my life. But now, it's no longer the case!

You might expect me to confess my love for Alfred in the following lines, but let me save all the build up of a climax - nothing of the sort awaits your attention. In fact, what's waiting is an acount of the weirdest character I've met in my life! Undoubtedly!

Firstly, he's no macho man. He's shorter than me. Now, that's a statement in itself, quite definitive, considering i'm one of the shortest females you'll ever meet. And when I stand right in front of him, I can see the top of his head covered with jet black hair. Hair well groomed, not in the most fashion sensible manner but: parted at the centre of his head, each strand of it dripping with oil! And two curvy locks hang right on the forehead, like fangs of a venomous snake.

His gait is another aspect which surely needs mention. His back is always erect, as though a plank of wood is stitched tightly with his vertebral column. Each stride of his would involve a push of the shoulder blades in alternating order, once right then left. His hands would remain safe in the front pockets of his pants constantly in search of some hidden treasure, may be!

He loves wearing his shades, and has quite a collection of them. All of them seem picked from a roadside vendor after keen deliberation of frame shape and colour. He would resist taking the glares off even after entering the darkest dungeons. It's funny to spot him peering at scrawny writings on the walls or papers with his glares on. He lacks the commonest sense to do away with them in such situations, guess he believes in giving himself enough challenges in life! After all, he's one of the National Cadet Corps members, that's what i hear him harping about half a day long, everday!

His talks are something that amaze me the most. He would start off questioning your opinion regarding something, for instance he would ask, "Whom do you blame for corruption?" And before I can even open my mouth one tenth of it's capacity, he would be on his own trip! "I think, it's wrong to place the entire blame on the officials. If the public stops offering them money, they wouldn't have any option but to do their jobs the right way." I can only try butting in, for he's got great conviction! He'll go on and on, " And, don't you think it's wrong to blame the system when you aren't ready to be a partof the system? I think it's wrong, to make any changes, you have to first be an insider......bleh blah bluh.."

One of my friends thinks he doesn't belong to this generation! That's very interesting and true. For, his use of language is totally uncharacteristic. One such incident: There was a movie discussion, something that happens all the time. My friend Alfred thinks 'Kya Cool Hain Hum' is a great movie. I beg to differ, so i say, "Alfred, that's a damn sad movie!" And dear Alfred takes it literally, " No, it's a comedy. How can you call it sad?" Ohhhh Myyyyy Gaawd!
And he's still stuck in the era of using "Housie" as a game to entertain the children and hold their attention. Wake up, it's the age of Play Stations!

It's non-stop entertainment in his company, though he tends to get on your nerves at times. Never mind. I'm looking forward to more of "Alfred Quotes" to keep posting here! Here i come Alfred...!

Thoughts

Times there are, when you cry, when you laugh.
And then times like these,
When neither you try.
For there's none to laugh along,
Nothing to weep about.
Only a looming boredom
That elicits a pensive me.
So, here i am - speechless yet alive,
With thoughts rushing through my head,
Not knowing which to track.
To trace the crowd that gulps me,
Or the bubble of quiet that frees me?
The choice makes me glum.
Makes me shut myself from the noise.
I retreat into the bubble,
And amble in the consuming silence.

Sense

I wake up to the silence,
To see, to smell, to hear;To sense.
The dry of the leaves rustle,
The calls of the birds ring.
A beam of sun pierces the thickness
To light a new born leaf.
The river waits, bare and naked,
To be dressed by the flowing waters.
The dragonflies buzz past me,
Humming the secrets of their days.
Greens bloom on the barren rocks,
The earth feeds the starved.
Life is what i sense, despite the lonesome quiet.