PHANTASMAGORIA

Tuber

2012-01-25T00:32:00.001-08:00

The lone French fry sizzled on its bed of wood and make believe.
With one guilt-laden prong, she pierced its deep fried flesh
And looked down at the massacre that decorated her plate:
Bits of charred lettuce locked in an awkward embrace with yielding
Discs of orange. And a thick pool of blood
From the guts of a naked man.
Oily palms thumped him, abused him and gave up.
Sadly, all he coughed out was a smidgen of red.
The strip of yellow was taken for a waltz in the battlefield.
Soaked in blood, it made its way into her mouth.
Somewhere between the clockwork of spittle and teeth, it died.
She gulped on some cola and swallowed it.
In the pits of her stomach, it would be ambushed,
Beaten to a pulp and turned into an ugly spool of nothing.
It would rush through her thighs when she was with him.
It would memorize her every crevice and cobweb,
It would remember her every bruise and fall.
It would.

He saw her under the warm glow of a 30-watt bulb,
Took a gulp of his beer and sighed.
He knew the scent of her strawberry hair.
He could locate the scar on her chin in the dark.
He had met all the freckles on her milky skin.
But he had lost.
That French fry, that amputated tuber,
Knew more about her than he ever would.

Ink Slinger

2011-12-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

He wasn’t a man of many faces.
His mouth, like the paper he wrecked, was crisp
And lacked the comforting curve of a smile.
On Sundays, he misplaced commas.
And on Mondays, he juggled apostrophes between
Two sips of whiskey.
He wound blue circles around unsuspecting words
Like “yclept,” “wampum,” and “skoptsy.”
And when they crushed under his pincers of steel,
He mocked their weakness.

While he dreamed of ravaged cities in Technicolor,
Clusters of his words were being printed by men wearing
Bloodshot eyes over their trousers,
In black and white.

She forced his adjectives into a bag of ferozi plastic one Thursday afternoon.
She wanted something to read on her flight.
“Tintinnabulation,” he whispered. And the words jingled in her ear,
Like coins in a barren pocket.
She carried him in the constellation of her hair till Mississippi.
He didn’t know.
He was still asleep in Hyderabad.

The Reluctant Poet

2011-11-11T03:50:00.000-08:00

Your stubby fingers dance over the alpha and the beta,
They waltz and make love out of words.
Your spit them out like watermelon seeds from your yielding mouth -
One syllable, sometimes three.
Your mind races and the feet on your palms try to catch up.
They fail. Usually.
Your words are clones, sometimes.
Two or three that sprout from the same genes.
Sometimes, fatherless bastards.
Incomplete and naked without the shadow of an adjective.
They are born in the cobbled streets of your mind.
Born when you're sipping sunshine outside the Louvre.
Born when you're canonized in the Ganges.
Born when you no longer want to breathe.
But they are yours.
All yours.

The Weight of an Inside Joke

2011-08-08T07:19:00.001-07:00

Between creases of stark white mulmul
That cocoon my stark white being,
I find a strand of burnt sienna that once
Made your hostile scalp its home.

That woolen bastard.
That ungrateful truant.
It abandoned you
And made an awkward landing on my skin.

I carry on my shoulders
The uneasy weight of you.
Your family.
Your ancestors.
Your blood.

It will
Take off
As easily as it
LandED.

I laugh. And it laughs along.

Pip

2011-07-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

She gnawed on the spoon,
And smirked when she saw tiny
Drops of red nuzzle against the nape
Of its cold, silver-grey neck.
The blue flames from the television screen
Danced the Bharatanatyam on
The hunched back of pearly shine.
What once lived in pools of
Pickle-flavoured oil
Would now be her weapon of choice.
She scooped your insides out;
Perfect crescent moon shaped bits
Of your gut.
She left out the pith and the pips,
And placed you in her mouth.
You were nothing but a sour aftertaste.
A citrus punch, at best.

You were found later that day,
Filled with heaps of nothing.
Who would fill you up now?

Grimace

2011-07-02T05:14:00.000-07:00

I’m nursing a 23-minute old glass of glassy gin
In the mosaic of my 21-year old hand.
Perched on a tangerine chair
tattooed with outlines of rusty continents where the paint decided to die.
They position themselves on the bridge of my back,
Their aluminum people crawling over the mahogany and chestnut of my spine,
Mapping blueprints of their aluminum homes.

Somewhere, faint sounds of a blues song are dancing over someone’s pitcher of amber,
On a cloud of guitar strings and beer, they float towards me.
I hold out a chair.
They refuse. Politely, of course.

I’m al
one again.

They are all there.
The grime-tiered tables of wood and wood.
The cavity-decorated smile of a crumbling face.
The steel hearts.
The talons of orange.
All of them.
Only you are missing.

Estate

2011-05-08T01:39:00.000-07:00

The owl-eyed women with their owl-eyed words
Will look at the moon of your face,
In a language only they speak -
Three-fourths mortal, one-fourth Zion -
They’ll declare you a two-month old reflection.
They’ll pronounce each closed syllable with practised ease,
And each open one with acquired defiance.
They’ll spit out your identity
As if it’s a wayward jet watermelon seed
That made its way into the guttural red of their insides.
They’ll discard the loopy letters of your being
Into the sleety air;
And banish the calligraphic strokes
Using a sword sharpened with a whetstone of muted silver.
Then they’ll place your moon on their slanting breasts
And sing you a song in their cold-blooded amphibian chorus.
The beats of their seventy-year-old blood gushing drums
Will lull you to a sleep flooded with the uneasy weight of dreams.
Theirs will be a swansong of bread and rye,
Gleaming with a sliver of plum-flavoured gloom,
And topped with shavings of cranberry ribbons that impregnated the mist.
A piece of the salty seas of their past will slide down their leather cheeks.
They know what you’ve inherited from me.
They know that, wrapped in mustard yellow tussar silks and
My grandmother’s blood red kanjeevarams,
I give you a crispy slice of my past -
A slice I have shared with thousands before me.
It’s been hidden inside sandalwood boxes perfumed with cloves.
It has the blue-grape scars left on our invisible hearts by men.
The azure-hued waters flowing between the cavities of our toes.
The soapy froth that is the love child of detergent and pockmarked stones.
The animal rips in our floral cotton frocks.
The unyielding smell of slimy vertebrates that nestles in the colony of our hair.
The first puerile letters we wrote with graphite sticks.
The first jingle of coins our ears captured.
The first restlessness of sweaty soles.
The first heaving of uneven breasts.
The first. The last.
I gift it all to you.
All our bitter bloodshed memories,
All the scrolls of our coconut tree ancestry,
All the heirlooms of our marshmallow abandon.
You’ll be strong enough to take them with you
In your lunchbox to school every day.
You’ll slather them between two unsuspecting flour cakes
And gobble them up.

I’ve willed you my all.
Consume it.
Let it slither down your being with a glass of rose wine.

The Man Who Loved Trains

2011-05-05T14:06:00.001-07:00

"You write about life?"
"No, I write about trains."
"Isn't that like life?"
"No."

Rapscallion

2011-03-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

Melt into me.
Let the earthy chocolate of your fingers melt into mine.
Set your caged secrets free into the leather of my ears.
Allow me to see you for who you are.
Stray strands of grey.
Crumpled valleys of mud.
Concrete grime.
Convenient lies.
Ruby-specked eyes.

Remember last Sunday?
I let your words dissolve into the golden-orange blankets of my
Golden-orange smile.
I let them dig their tapering steel claws
Into the tawny tiers of my skin.
They planted a flag in my soul.
And I allowed myself to lose.
There were golden-orange trumpets
And a marching band.
And there was you.
Pretentious. Gloating.
H
e
r
o
i
c. Obtuse.

Stand on your pedestal of jute and uncertainty.
And allow yourself to believe that you’ve
Won.

Pushing Up the Daisies

2011-02-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

Soon, he'll be gone.

In a suitcase of worn-out leather, he'll pack his

Shapeless woollen socks, and
A makeshift shaving kit that looks like a rectangular piece of polluted
Azure sky.

He'll sift through each of his thirty five years and pick the

Little fragments that made him the grey-blue mosaic of today.

He'll forget to turn off the lights when he leaves.
He always forgot to turn off the lights.

Even when they made love, they engulfed each other under the
Bright yellow rays of a 300 watt bulb.

She'll weep for him,
The crumpled edge of her crisp saree will feel her pain.
With a turmeric yellow rag that smells of yesterday's fish,
She'll wipe the grey marble slab clean,
Hoping to smear their life together with a film of spicy-sour fishy stench.
She'll be unsuccessful.
He'll wear his muddy shoes with an air of practised ignorance.
Left.
Then, right.

With him, he'll take the ungainly strands of her hair.

The melting caramel of her hips.
The valley arch of her sinewy back.

The mirror reflection of her thirty five rupee words.

She'll smell his shirt and remember him.

With one hurried breath, she'll take in that fragrance.
The smell of his cigarettes and her childhood.
And with a flick of her glassy bedecked wrists,

She'll pick up that piece of striped cotton arrogance,

And throw it all away.
Him.
His cigarettes.
Her childhood.

Sandman

2011-02-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

Snuggle, my child.
Cuddle between the blankets of milky white before they slit your throat.
Let the warm cotton lull you to sleep before they tie you up with their twenty syllabic words.
Shut your creased, crinkled paper eyelids before they slice them into triangles of papyrus lens.
Dream of purple shoes and yellow bow ties on yellower men.
Dream, before you wake up to find frayed brown leather and a basket of human-shaped humdrum.
Caress yourself with the edge of a sweet lullaby before you find it strangling you with its crisp notes.
Run away into a land of blue and green before your soul is splashed onto sheets of music.
Before pieces of it turn into harmonious squiggles.
Escape into your doll house sanctuary before they arm you with arms of steel.
Run away into the recesses of your wiry mind before they hold you hostage in theirs.
Live. Before they kill you.

Die. Before they let you live.

Aubade

2011-01-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

They were sprawled across a sheet of make believe satin.
She, the sharp-toothed spotted, striped predator;

He, the gnawed, mangled spineless prey.
With a smoky lustful mouth she chewed off chunks

Of grimy brown and grey.
With practised precision and moist hands she ravaged him.
Inch by inch.
Four splinters of calcium were introduced to the goosebumps on his skin,
And a trickle of scarlet-cherry swam down the hairs on his back.
She swallowed him whole and
With the vengeance of an icy storm, spat him out.
They woke up the next morning, sprawled across a sheet of make believe satin.

He, the sharp-toothed spotted, striped predator;

She, the gnawed, mangled spineless prey.

Kiss

2011-01-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

"Your lips are butterflies."
"They remind you of butterflies?"
"No, they are butterflies."

Tying

2010-12-30T01:19:00.000-08:00

There would be no frenzied lovemaking tonight.
Not tonight.

No sweaty palms.
No incense to smoke the crevices of his bubblegum mind.

Nobody would belch out a soliloquy about the exact cranberry shade of her lips, only to slide into a pool of cranberry ignorance moments later.

Nobody would turn off the lights in a failed attempt to curtain their ungraceful bodies with a cloak of purple-black.

There would be no curious, gliding fingers exploring the warm lines of her body.

No chestnut hairs on her back standing in rapt attention.

No, tonight, there would be two mud-brown people talking over two mud-brown mugs of coffee about how their love tumbled.

It did not deserve a swan song. It never would.

It did, however, deserve words.

Words that would slit his wrists.

And slit the ropes that bound hers.

Gnaw

2009-12-12T14:36:00.001-08:00

She had heard
them talk about it in hushed tones. Serpentine grey roads that led to where she lived for those two days held secrets from her.
The numerous white-caped explorers moved around
the labyrinthine mess of nerves that
she housed within herself.
They'd get lost now and then. But they'd find their way.
They nibbled their way through the chambers of what she was deep down inside. They saw her lying on the pristine white and they celebrated a victory that was not theirs.
They
took
over
her
body. They did. But they never took over her soul.

Her soul would always be that delightful shade of yellow-orange
that would bathe the world around her in yellow-orange smiles.
"She reminds me of clouds," I said once.
And she does. And she always will.

Cantaloupe

2009-11-29T04:47:00.000-08:00

Ferris wheels, he called them. She preferred to give them no name. To her, they were gigantic mini circles doing what only gigantic mini circles could do. Turn, turn, turn. Turn. There was no beginning, no end. Where they stopped, they started. And where they started, they stopped yet again. They looped around the cornea of her left eye, and then slowly inched towards her right one. One cheery red bulb gave birth to another, and soon, they formed a ringlet of cherry brightness. Her feet paused, her mind raced. She wanted those orange-shaped bitter-greasy metal creatures to stop for her. And that is just what she made them do. Within the confines of her kohl-lined eyes, she saw them be. They moved to satisfy her circle-tinged whim. And then, as abruptly as they began, they stopped. They creaked, moaned, groaned. Threw a two-year old tantrum. Stubborn, they were. Stubborn, they were meant to be. But like all stubborn circles, they finally gave in to temptation. And did what they had been wanting to do, for what seemed like a century now. With one final lug, they pretended to be dead. Motionless; they lay suspended in the middle of the brown-green earth and the green-brown sky. Lights still blinking. Festive music still playing. They could have fooled a lot of people, but they would never be able to fool her. She knew the difference between a final death and a paused one. She had been hoodwinked once by the mysterious abstract noun in black. But never again. Never, never again.

Driblet

2009-04-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Oh, with those lusty pink-orange grapefruit eyes he devoured the world. Slice by slice. Lick by lick. Sometimes, to a stranger he made love. And with a lover, he had sex. He clung on to hands like he did to life. And oaths and vows and promises and such were left in box of odd white. Decorated with ribbons and hopes of a lily. Sometimes, the box would change chameleon colour. From white to a brown. Back then from a rainbow to nothing. On nothing-days, he would stand in his room, peer at the silver moon mirror and undress himself. Naked, he would lie. Naked, he would die.

On Mondays of June, and sometimes of November, it peeked from behind a bead curtain. It looked at him. The voyeur. What it was, it didn't know. Who it was, it did. It bit into a grape, a purple one. Streams engulfed its being. Purple streams. Look, it did. Look, it would. Look, it believed, it should. When his eyes shut, and he saw his dreams within the narrow bedroom of his eyes, it came closer, grape juice in mouth, and knife in hand. Slit. Slit. Slit. Before he knew it, it killed him. He woke up. Alive and with dead dreams.

He looked at it with turtle eyes and kissed it with a smile.

She flipped her hair, kissed back, and laughed.

Slit. Slit. Slit.

Blah!

2009-03-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've slipped into a puddle of humdrum nothingness. Yes. It's true. Vacations do that to me. Two weeks of feverishly flipping through pages, trying to remember statistics that aren't meant to be remembered, swimming through a pool of absolute (for the lack of a poetic word) nonsense. And then what? Three months. Three months of doing nothing. Sigh.

So, my Annual Summer Book List has been made. Twenty. I'm aiming for a bit much, I know. But, I have Karnad in there too. I think I'll do okay. Reading is all I see myself doing. Which, really, is not so bad. It's pretty good, in fact. All I remember of the summer break from when I was 7 was waking up early in the morning, fidgeting around downstairs on a bicycle, and coming back home and reading. Aaah, happiness. I know now that happiness is tangible. Well, almost. A book is happiness. Cliched, yes. True, oh yes.

Strangely, that's about it.

It's 8:17 AM, and I've been up for an hour now. I say this without an ounce of doubt in my mind, there's something wrong with me.

Yawn.

Viola

2009-02-26T02:37:00.001-08:00

Rainbow-ribbon eyelashes,
Tangerine-flavoured breath,
Almond peel skin that makes Summer
melt;
Cinnamon mouths together in a sonnet,
Raspberry-laden clouds of spring.

Like pianist fingers on a box of ivory,
He plays with her hair,
Like pictures in scriptures, he Reads her;
A vowel, a comma,
A full stop and a Puma
Lined.
Striped.
Stripped.
Lined.

A few strands stray,
A few smiles melt,
A few hours swim…

With her syrup-tears she finally
comes clean;
She looks into wine eyes,
and asks him to stay
He splits his blink,
and says with a whiff of silence
that he has perfected,

He Will.

Patterns of Pitter

2009-01-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

Precision, laced with blissful ignorance
thrown out of the marble windows of slow, slow time.
Gleeful hungry hands unbutton seams of soft sweat.
Beads of perspiration glide down the sliver of a silver back.
An ice hand feels,
and ignited is the mind.
Pieces of a purple soul mingle with carnal harmony,
making concentric circles
within the forceful realms of a warm void.
Strands of black press themselves against dunes of sweet, sweet kisses.
Cardamom, the man with the almond eyes thinks.
Cardamom.
They, the two, become one;
then two again.
Rocking in and out of bundles of sunlight.
An exclamation of white and translucence.
And then, it stayed.
Within the hollow space between her feet and the earth between his teeth.

Thursday

2009-01-08T03:16:00.000-08:00

He smiled a tangerine smile and she smiled right back. With coal-lined eyelashes, he looked at her. She smiled. Yet again, she smiled. With feather fingers he touched her blue-black hair. She called his name. She ran away. She knew. She pretended. Intended. Comprehended. But pretended. Moist fears, dry hopes intertwined in the amorous melody of his touch. He fell. Oh, he fell. With a harmonious thud. He didn't want to untie the satin ribbons of orange. He had to. The man with almond eyes tried.

She ran away. She knew. She pretended. Intended. Comprehended. But pretended. Into a canister of black seeds of grime, she escaped. Leaving bloodshot eyes and trembling knees behind. Making the morning stars and the fast cars disappear. She escaped. From what would be. What could be. What was.

And he...cried.

A Thursday was all it took for the primrose to die.

Twelve and a few Twenty Five

2008-12-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

Sweet wedges of sour, sour lime,
Rusty edges of pearl, pearl grime;
And that time of the year,
When a smile gives way to a tear...

This year, somehow, the smiles linger on. The blankets of dust melt. The eeriness of happiness disappears. The spirals of glee settle down. Crystalline drops of rainbows hibernate.

And this year, she didn't feel like weeping on Christmas. And this year, she'll laugh when the clock decides it's time.

Putrid

2008-12-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

Fragmented lies. Forgotten.
False mellow eyes. Blinded.
Bits of ugly sunshine. Thrown away.
Miles of turquoise showers. Disappear.
Existence of temporary insanity. Locked.
Files of weathered red. Discarded.
Freckled. Speckled. Pickled.
Cried. Died. Confide.
Alive. Again. Now.
Never to come back.
Nestled in a container of the sourest lime.
Bathed in the milk of unkind lips.
Flung in a path of horned petals.
Allowed to be. To rot. To die.
That.
Go away, birdie.
Go away, before those eyes get you too.

Crepuscular Cat

2008-12-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

The mosquitoes whizzed past like paper planes that want to flee. And there was just Maa, him and me. I always love conversations with those neat, sometimes rude men that enjoy taxis more than I do. If speech disturbs the air, and makes paper plane mosquitoes with marmalade wings stop being mosquitoes, then there's always room for words. Plenty of room. Oak-leaking cupboards of adjectives and clauses that prance in glee. Some tears that sound like idioms and eyes that look at irony.

Politics, wind, shine, pain, money, summer, phones, relationships, the sea, rains. Nothing is spared. Clouds that warn of suspicious specks of dust are suddenly shoved in my face. Unreal realities of nature are brought back to life is a flurry of yellow mustard. Vows that are shaped like watermelons are made less juicy, more trusting.

Sometimes, I wish I was a cabbie, too. So I could have these conversations with kohl-eyed caterpillars all the time.

Candles

2008-12-10T05:26:00.000-08:00

Smile till your mouth hurts. And laugh till you make the clouds jealous. Crinkle your nose. Powder a dream. And never stop being you.

Happy Birthday, Sharotica!

You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio

2008-12-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

It's nice. Nice that the 'what if's have melted away. Or at least, I'd like to believe they have. Unless of course, they've been frozen, rather forcefully, in cellophane in an orange-trouser-wearing-polka-dot-sneezing man's refrigerator. Then, maybe, as always, they'll sneak out, sneakily, from behind the orange-trouser-wearing-polka-dot-sneezing man's curtains and they'll tickle me. Like they always do. Like I hate. Like they love. Like entertainment for sadists. And candy for strangers.

Like a pair of raunchy scissors gorging on the warm remains of a bloodshot velvet, they'll come to me. They'll stay. Maybe they'll freeze again, until I'm perfectly happy in a world of storms and nothings. Plastic and pearls. Then, just like a normal butterfly-free Sunday, the orange-trouser-wearing-polka-dot-sneezing man will win. Triumph. Gloating. Floating. Hoping for a sliver of sweet lime.

Maybe then, I'll tell the orange-trouser-wearing-polka-dot-sneezing man that the sweet lime has been in his refrigerator all along. Maybe then, he'll know.

Yowl

2008-11-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

While we paint our nails a frightening shade of red and try to fool ourselves it's all right; someone, somewhere is having their last laugh. And then, we'll make sure the coats of smoke on our nails don't smudge. And everything looks perfect. Cheery Cherry, the bottle says. Cheery Cherry, the words on thin white paper say. Cheery Cherry, the electronic voices of dark-haired women speak. Cheery Cherry, we cry. Cheery Cherry, we don't want. Cheery Cherry, we don't need. Cheery Cherry, they make us pretend. And, Cheery Cherry, we do.

Maybe this time, they'll know that we picked a different shade at the perfume-infested counter. Maybe this time, they'll understand that Black Beetle isn't that hideous a shade after all. Maybe this time they'll finally realize...that's just what we need.

And

2008-11-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

And so it is,
The shorter story,
No love, no glory,
No hero in her skies...

"The Blower's Daughter" - Damien Rice

Why?

This. Bombay. Now. This.

Just when everything seems perfectly perfect. Just when everyone dresses themselves with a smile. Just when clouds cover themselves with a thin coat of winter. Just when we think peace is just around the corner. Just when you want to serve it lemonade to force it to stay. It runs amok into a cave filled with mangled, bloodied hands and broken spirits.

Why are smiles so precious? Why is hope such a strong word? Why do tears make people laugh?

I think I know why. But I'm sure I don't.

How many more times? How many more lives?

Find me a dark prison of hope. Find me a field of strawberries. Find me an orange that isn't orange. Find me. Find us.

A Couple of Hot Tomatoes

2008-11-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

In a pan sizzling with the heat of orange, they made silent love. A couple of hot tomatoes. Vegetation. Imitation. Citation. Sprigs of merry spring. And drizzles of a past prime. Remembering when oil was holy. When coins were guarded. When dimples were palms that caressed smiles. How cream-filled pages would smell of yesterdays. How hats hid raccoon tears. How bangles would bangle and bells would bell.

A touch, and a splinter flew. Sweet salt that mingled like rhymes in a sonnet. Waves of flutter in a continuous ebb and flow. Splatters of a ringing tingle. Sounds of a faraway winter. Heaps of sour breaths. Ribbons of melody-laden cries. And then there were none.

And then there were one too many.

Silent love died a silent death.

Gone, never to come back. Or. So they thought.

Or, so they thought.

Whychology

2008-11-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

Maybe. Rorschach will take control next year. And Keats will fade into oblivion. Considering. Consider. Consideration.

Apples and Ridges

2008-11-13T10:17:00.000-08:00

I felt older. Not old. Just older. Like butterflies must feel when they leave behind glorious caterpillars. Like autumn must feel when it sheds its coat of summer. Like smoke must feel when it escapes from a burning cushion of brown. Like a song must feel when it lies naked on a beating heart. Like Snow White must have felt after she left Prince Charming behind for a cottage by the sea.

Calendars will not wait for the day. No red. No vermilion. No blue. Just a Friday. Sometimes a Wednesday. Maybe a Sunday. And if it's heart was bubbling with bits of generosity, then it would be a Thursday. But It would go by. As usual. Drifting away to a tomorrow, shying away from a yesterday. Basking in the fate of today.

Maybe someday. Someone. Will understand what bus rides mean to me. That shut windows make me swirl. That ladders make me nervous. That sweaters make me cold. That the cream nestled between two layers of biscuits disappears, rather mysteriously, when near my fingers. That a coffee puts me to sleep, and wakes me up. That I can be as strong as a melody and as weak as a smile. That I can love, but cannot hate.

That trip meant the stars to me. The brightest ones. The shiniest ones. The older ones.

A journey across miles. Framed with fumes of incense. With flames captured in the eyes of candles. A journey to a cavity. A journey to gravity.

Close Hose Close

2008-11-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it feels like life is about going from one earworm to the next.
It's only fair.
If I can have 'Sex Bomb' stirring a protest in my head, then there's nothing that can be classified as impossible.

The newest one makes me cringe less. And makes the sun shine a little more. Because I get to sing a tune with, who I believe is, the sexiest man alive. Yum. Robert Plant. Cascading golden curls, and a voice that moulds itself around my name. Maybe it's time I stopped gushing.

Some sunny day-hay baby,
When everything seems okay, baby,
You'll wake up and find out you're alone,
'Cause Ill be gone,
Gone, gone, gone, really gone
Gone, gone, gone, 'cause you done me wrong.

Everyone that you meet, baby,
As you walk down the street, baby,
Will ask you why you're walking all alone,
Why you're on your own,
Just say I'm gone,
Gone, gone, gone,
Gone, gone, gone, 'cause you done me wrong.

If you change your way, baby,
You might get me to stay, baby,
You better hurry up if you don't wanna be alone,
Or I'll be gone,
Gone, gone, gone,
Really gone,
Gone, gone, gone,
'Cause you done me wrong.

"Gone, Gone, Gone" - Robert Plant with Alison Krauss

It may not be the most brilliant song. But, it dottily-spottily describes negligent everythings, and monstrous nothings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But, then again, I can't help but have a favourite.
This one's my crunchy comforting apple on a beanbag.
I go back to it when the sea seems depressing.

Should I fall out of love, my fire in the light,
To chase a feather in the wind.
Within the glow that weaves a cloak of delight
There moves a thread that has no end.

For many hours and days that pass ever soon,
The tides have caused the flame to dim;
At last the arm is straight, the hand to the loom
Is this to end or just begin?

The cup is raised, the toast is made yet again,
One voice is clear above the din.
Proud aryan one word, my will to sustain,
For me, the cloth once more to spin.

Yours is the cloth, mine is the hand that sews time,
His is the force that lies within,
Ours is the fire, all the warmth we can find,
He is a feather in the wind.

"All My Love" - Led Zeppelin

Ah, for light!

2008-11-05T05:03:00.000-08:00

The lights have been put back. Back to where they belong. Lazing in a brown box that smells of cardboard-y clouds. And Summer dreams.

I miss Diwali.
I miss waiting for light. Shining, blinding, all-powerful light.
I miss hoping for the magentas and the greens to make me cry.
I miss having to smile through the tears. And crying through the smiles.
I miss the streets covered in a sweater of warm, distant sprigs of glitter.
I miss patterns on maroon. A tortoise, a bird, a line, a curl.
I miss platters heaped with salt-laden sweets.

I miss when Diwali was not just Diwali.
When it was a season, not a festival.
When fire crackers made me smile.
When memories were sweeter than mithai.
When blisters on thumbs meant tears that refused to stop.
When earthen cups, filled to the brim with oil, nursed hopes.
When we believed that it was truly the end of evil.
When Shivaji Park lit up with sounds. Not noise.

I love what it has become.
Not just another day. And not just a distant memory.
Garnished with flutters.
Cherished.
Loved.
Loathed.
Unkempt.
Beautiful.

Smear

2008-10-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

One pebble more. One more. Just one. She pleaded. Like she always did. To everything that shone, that smiled, that lived, that died. Nobody was spared. Pears, salted ones, with speckles of glorious red on them. Eyes, with slivers of grey. Rivers, which bled a gruesome green. But this time, it was all different. This time she pleaded to herself. How much trouble could one pebble cause? How many tears would it set free? How many fears would run amok in fields of yellow hopes? How many complimentary lies would fall into a valley of lilies? How many?

The canary voice that preferred to make announcements, to voice opinions, to fake deaths in her funereal mind, was, she believed, silenced. Pin drop silence. Like she was taught. Long, long ago. When ribbons were strings of fairy dust, and erasers were a gloomy shade of cheery grape. When a finger, who was placed firmly on innocent lips, believed silence was golden. That it was trapped, strangled, mangled, in the hollowness of the mouth. That certain truths lived a desperate life, and that certain lies curtained themselves. Rather cleverly. But that, she knew now, wasn't true. And that one pebble could make the cookie crumble.

Chances, she knew, were rumoured to be unforgiving. That they loved to drag the earth away, and throw you into a universe filled with cold stars, and cold stares. Stares that froze your blood in your veins. And stopped them from making their way to your fingers. But, chances also meant the hope to live like someone else. Someone you read about, quite aloud, when you were seven. Who dared to be who they wanted to be. And since she didn't know who she was, and what she really wanted, she settled. To live the life of someone else. A life she dreamed about. With a faceless knight, and different her. And a sunset to make everything mellow and dripping in beauty. So, a chance she took.

In a turquoise suitcase, she packed heaps of neatly folded nothings. She walked along a path dotted with dotted ladybugs. She would never know where the path ended. Or if it would ever end at all. Like an hour spent waiting for nobody to arrive. Or a poem that smears you with insight.

And then...there it was. Sparkling. Splendid. Crystal. She pulled out the pebble, smooth in all its roughness. Ugly in all its beauty. Heavy with the burdens of eyelashes. Sad because it knew. With a wish in her heart, she laid it to rest in the embryonic waters. One splash, two. Three. And then, four. It raced along the pin-drop-silenced sheet of blue. A wave hit her. Where it knew she'd hurt. It swallowed her whole. Held her captive. Devoured, and caressed. Killed and brought to life. Slapped and made love. The tears, and the fears, and the lies, and the hopes, aligned themselves obediently along a thin white line. One spark, and they were gone. Disappearance, they loved to display. A crackling fire, and a heap of ashes.

And like most extinguished fires do, she smiled. Because she knew now, more than she ever did, that everything would be fine. Like cherries with stems. Like roses with thorns. Like devils with horns. Fine, she liked. Fine, she knew. Fine, she believed.

Fine...

How

2008-10-23T09:59:00.002-07:00

A lifetime too soon. A kiss too late. A smile too weak. A hope too bleak.

I love how sometimes everything seems to fit. Like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle that likes to finish itself. To form a sometimes hideous, but mostly, cloudy picture of somethings and nothings. I love how sometimes a kiss is not just a kiss, but a little bit of your soul. How a promise is an inch of your oath. How a friend isn't really a friend, but a piece of brilliant blue sky. How a smile is an arrow shot straight from your heart. How a teardrop is a breath of fresh air. How love is not love, but a scent in the breeze. How a conversation is sometimes better than coffee. And how coffee is sometimes better than conversation. How reading love letters can make you think about stars. How baby powder can pour a melody into your mind. How vanilla can set everything right. How the sun loves to melt into the sea and turn it into a firecracker orange. How an ocean of happiness is a pool of lies.

I love how the beginning is the end. And the end is just a new beginning.

Movie-Schmoovie

2008-10-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's not even funny, the number of movies I've managed to watch. The whole of last week, that is. A spark of brilliance punched me square in the face, and I decided that downloading movies was the way to go. Not that downloading hadn't swished it's bushy tail to lure me in before. Although why bushy tails would lure me in, I don't know. That, I'd rather leave to a future conversation on a leather couch. To a shrink, or someone shrink-y. But, this time it swished, and pranced. So, I was left with no choice.

The exams are breathing down my neck. Warm unwelcoming breaths. And I'm making them disappear with a flick of my wrist. Why? Why? Because I want to watch 'Pretty Woman'. Sometimes, even madness fails to make me laugh.

Cheesy movies. Semi-fairy tales which I know will never happen. But the ones that make me smile anyway. Abundant in mush. And everything nice. I hate sad endings. I do. I really do.

Finding Nemo
Juno
Shall We Dance (I fail to understand why the question mark is missing)
Sleepless in Seattle
Pretty Woman
Madagascar
You've Got Mail (Because freshly sharpened pencils make me smile, too)
The Bee Movie
The Dead Poets Society
Notting Hill
When Harry Met Sally (Yay!)
The Good Girl (Alright, only because Jake's in it)
A Streetcar Named Desire
Roman Holiday
The Fox and the Hound
Shakespeare in Love (Made me go back to it while cursing prosody in the middle of a bad Literature exam)

I'm an ant, that way. I'm simply storing for the winter. Go, grasshopper! Go! Go! Go!

Sine Qua Non

2008-09-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Ad nauseam. The semicolon leaned listlessly against the 't'. Almost waiting to flee. That, sadly, was what it boiled down to. A decision. Precision. The exact moment. When would it fly? When would it fly? Caught somewhere between the dark cavity that led to a world unknown and a helpless halt. A fullstop and a comma. Merged in a willowy embrace. Like lovers. Almost there, but not quite. Someplace. Someplace else.

Trapped at the epicenter of reality. Somewhere in between. A tornado and a dream. It wanted to escape. It needed to escape. To breathe. To exhale. To scream. But fear strangled its slender neck with sturdy, tenacious hands. Speckled with a maze of telling wrinkles. Each reciting a silent prayer. And if you listened carefully, you could hear the haunting melody of a swan song. Snaking its way through a knot of desires unfulfilled, lives unlived and stories untold. Then, like a ribbon caught in the thorny harshness of a branch that sets itself free, it flew. An unforeseen display of strength. An unforeseen hope to live. To feel. To smile. To skip.

It flew. Up into the syrupy marshmallow clouds. And for the first time in ages it did what it had been craving to do. Breathing in. Breathing out.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

A comma and a fullstop. In perfect synchrony.

And finally, it knew where it belonged.

HamBugger

2008-09-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Wall-graffiti makes me happy. Especially when it's made out to be something it's not.

Z: What? HamFred?

G: Zah!

Z: Ham-Red?

N: Zaaah!

Z: Oh! Hammered! *Does ballerina jump*

L.A.Vation!

2008-09-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

Kaleidoscope, 2008!

Thankfully, this time, my Kaleidoscope experience was richer. I don't quite know if 'richer' fits in perfectly. But, I do love the word, and I don't particularly care about a melodic sentence...or maybe I do.

I realize that it's a tad too late to post an entry about Kaleidoscope. And probably, we've put it all behind us and moved on to non-Kaleidoscope things. But better late than never, they say. They say. They really do.

So, here goes...

Sharan, thanks for being there. Those late night conversations really took me through. You'll always be my pillow. I love you. I know you know.

Mommy-loo, you're simply the best. And that's an understatement. You've been plain amazing to all of us. We're going to miss you. A whole lot...

Daddy, I know you will never read this. But, still, thanks for being you!

The LA minis - You guys are really quite something. We promise to be nice next year, and you can be even nicer and buy us those scrumptious cinnamon buns. They aren't too expensive, and a little bribing never hurt us.

We've learnt our lessons. All of us. It's made us less susceptible. More aware. And less likely to suffer a collective nervous breakdown. We've also learnt that cute boys aren't always cute. Even the ones that go down on one knee to ask you an obvious question. Hee hee.

P.S. We're the ones with the dot-faces.

Bawl-E

2008-09-23T04:06:00.000-07:00

It's probably time I stop obsessing over 'Wall-E', and how I'm almost sure I'm never going to watch it. It's just a movie. It's highly likely that it could be a huge letdown, like 'The Dark Knight'. Go ahead, pelt me with stones the size of smiles. I did not enjoy the movie, and thankfully, Amrita, who I went with, didn't like it either. Which made for an amusing round of conversation that mainly revolved around declaring ourselves unintelligent, and incapable of comprehending a film that every soul ranted and raved about. Well, almost every soul. I did find a few who agreed. I also dug out a few confessions. Some raved for weeks, and then, in ant-sized tones told me that they didn't quite get it either. Hallelujah!

I spent my Tuesday morning watching 'Forrest Gump', which warms my heart. Every single time. Without fail. Forrest. Forrest Gump. I enjoyed it with a steaming mug of bitter-sweet coffee. And my day is complete. Heh.

Exclamation

2008-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

And it's finally happening! I'm watching 'Wall-E' tomorrow. After months of wanting to watch it, and weeks of trying to convince people (who hadn't already watched it) to go...I am, well, going. It doesn't even matter if the show is an early morning show, which means I'll be sleep-deprived for the rest of the week - Sunday is, and will probably always be my second favourite day of the week (Thursdays are the best. In all their lack of pretentiousness and delight), simply because I get to catch up on all the sleep I've missed out on. Which is mostly a whole lot.

Waking up at 9 am seems like such a luxury suddenly. These days, I don't feel like leaving the warm envelope that is my bed. It's such a perfect mishmash of everything soporific. Pillows, blankets, warm sheets. And that universally comforting warm, fuzzy feeling that escapes as soon as you abandon the bed for something less soothing. Probably a slice of the sea is one of the few things that make my journeys to and from college a little less mundane, and a little more tranquil. Sometimes it's a cold, grey sheet of harsh steel, other times it's a bouncy, fresh tantalizing blue. And sometimes, on rare occasions, it's a bit of both. Like most people are.

Somehow, sometimes, I think all I need is music, pie-shaped pieces of sunshine and those sea-studded journeys. Ella Fitzgerald, and now a sudden love for Harry Connick Jr., whose velvet voice bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Frank Sinatra. Strange, almost unexplainable bus experiences that serve no purpose. And the lack of existence.

And Still I'd Be On My Feet...

2008-09-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

You taste so bitter. And so sweet. Joni Mitchell knows just how I feel about coffee. I do realize 'A Case of You' has got absolutely nothing to do with my addiction to, erm, love for caffeine. Nevertheless, the song makes me feel strangely gloomy. Strangely delighted.

It's been raining. Big tears. Small fears. I love how the rains make me feel. Warm, loved, enveloped in a storm of fuzz. There's nothing about the rains I don't love. I love how the puddles enjoy munching on my new jeans. How snails snail. And how birds bird. The rains remind me of humid, dragonfly days when I was 5, and loved to step out in my bright red gumboots. Bespectacled turtles clinging on to books on my raincoat. And earthworms that fancied a good wiggle.

I've also read, and re-read a terrible article called 'Moles of Females'. Not only am I amused, I'm also terribly disgusted.
I have a tiny black spot on the left side of my forehead, and according to the article I'm supposed to be an evil and malicious woman. And that's all I've ever wanted to be! *Chuckles*
A tip to the world in general: Be afraid, be very afraid.

Joni Mitchell sings. And I sing along. The rains, coffee and her.

For the picture, unforgettable childhood memories and pani-puri, thank you, Katie :)

Fume

2008-09-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

There it was...crying, hoping to be picked up. I couldn't help but smile. When absolutely everything was going wrong, it came along. Lying in a pile of erotica. Sleazy erotica with blood red lips and doe-shaped eyes glistening with kohl. A little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Half a skirt, and a crescent-shaped sliver of a breast, leaving much to the imagination.

Chekhov had settled, rather royally, on a haughty armchair. Smiling a Mona Lisa smile. One half-fold of skin and one perfectly smooth - ironed to perfection. Where did the truth lie then? Somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere in between. In between is where truth likes to lie. To curl elegantly, cover itself with a warm quilt, and die a little each day till it is buried under a red rug. Sometimes showing up uninvited to a fancy dinner party. Sometimes throwing open and slamming shut windows in rapid succession. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Flip. Flip. Flip. Ten pages, and I was addicted. Chekhov does that to me. He'll never fail. Like incense. Intense. Incense. And before I knew what happened, I flipped. The last page. Good-bye, blue sky. Good-bye. I chewed off a morsel of the truth. Whether it was flavoured, I couldn't tell. Bitter. Sweet. Sour. I ruminated. Moo. Moo. Moo.

Blood red lips. Doe-shaped eyes. Chekhov on a chair. And nothingness naked and bare.

Count

2008-08-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

I Googled. And I Googled. And I Googled some more. A whole lot more. I'm surprised. Oh-so-surprised. It hasn't ever let me down. And this was plain outrageous!

There was absolutely nothing substantial on Arun Kolatkar. A few reviews, and one article about his death.

Now, I must admit, before the era of the enthralling lectures with Miss C began, I was clueless. Like Google, I didn't know who Arun Kolatkar was; Dilip Chitre, I had heard about. But, reading Kolatkar was discovering new territory. Untouched by me, beautiful in its virginity. The thought of a bilingual poet appealed to me. It seemed fantastical that a mind could think in two languages. Think so captivatingly, and make you wonder.

'Jejuri' is almost dreamy, while still having one foot firm on the shaky ground. Kolatkar asks questions, seeks answers...and almost never gets a satisfactory response. He juxtaposes brilliantly; without batting an eyelid a railway station is likened to a temple - the sloth-like pace of existence, and the perfunctory routine of daily life. He finds meaning in seemingly insignificant places...and he offers you the choice of perspective. Which is rare.

Although, like a glutton I devoured every line in the small set of poems that were prescribed, I still crave for more. More of 'Jejuri' and more of Kolatkar. More ambiguity and more clarity. More. More. More.

Miss C smiled and asked us once, "Which language do you count in?"

The phony adult voices unanimously exclaimed. English.

Did he count in two?

Violets In The Mountains

2008-05-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

A cluster of white lilies. And white lies. Or so she thought. Emma Bovary.

The bouquet holds a place of prominence in Gustave Flaubert's literary masterpiece 'Madame Bovary'. Dried wedding bouquets that belong to somebody else. And flowers harshly thrown into an unforgiving fire. An ugly marriage. A beautiful wedding.

Emma! Emma! Emma! A blushing bride. Silently hoping for a love so rapturous, it could blind. So passionate, it could scour. So fierce, it could kill. And yet...

A dried wedding bouquet that belonged to the 'other' Madame Bovary lying calmly in the bedroom, as if pledging innocence. An unhappy marriage and a burnt bouquet. Although not the strongest symbol in the sequence of things, the flowers do hold a place of significance.

As Emma steps into her new home with Charles, one of the few things she notices is the other Madame Bovary's wedding bouquet. The orange blossoms that belonged to Charles' dead wife make her wonder. Even though the wedding bouquet is left forgotten in the attic, they continue to make Emma dream. Dream of what would happen to her own wedding bouquet, packed in a bandbox, if she died.

When Charles and Emma move to Yonville, in a moment of fury and pain, Emma throws her wedding bouquet into a hungry fire. A ravenous fire that devours her wedding bouquet with uncontrollable ease. The dried flowers indicating dying hopes. Hopes of a beautiful marriage, dead and burning. Probably signifying the promises, that a wedding brings, broken. Broken till cannot be fixed. The gluttonous fire consuming the dried orange blossoms indicate how Emma's desires consume her youth. And eventually, her life.

Flaubert uses unassuming symbols to add to the bigger picture. If you look closely, you will be surprised. Flaubert leaves out absolutely nothing...the windows, the flowers, language. Everything has it's perfect place in Emma's world. They unite to bring out Emma's past, present and future. Because words are never enough to capture the complexity of human emotion. Never enough.

Thirty

2008-05-20T03:33:00.000-07:00

Dreary days at work are almost an everyday affair. A humdrum existence, to say the least. Yesterday, not quite strangely, was no different. Three mugs of coffee gulped down in a desperate attempt to stop my drowsy eyes from shutting. And a routine online tab on the news.

'Vijay Tendulkar passes away', it screamed. Rather softly. A half-frantic, half-in-disbelief phone call later, it sank in. Why the news affected me, nobody quite understood. It was enough that I knew.

'Ghashiram Kotwal' hit me hard. Really, really hard. It didn't strike a chord. It wasn't meant to. It made me cringe and cry. It frightened me, and it left me restless. It made me question, and it didn't provide a definite answer. Something we all seek comfort in...the knowledge that everything will be all right. Even if it is in a play. The answers are ambiguous, while the questions stare you in the face.

Do you loathe Ghashiram as he barters his daughter to gain the position of a Kotwal? Or do you sympathize for him when Gauri dies a gruesome death? Is Nana the lesser evil? And does the most powerful always win?

Everyone likes a nook to sink into, and 'Ghashiram Kotwal' makes the nook disappear, leaving behind a wall. Or, more precisely, reality.

For making a class of 30 think and question, thank you, Vijay Tendulkar...