sometimes it doesn't mean a thing

He wore a red shirt
read the Telegraph
what could it mean?

I woke up at 3
having dreamt of pumpkins
what could it mean?

She clutched me hard
while crying for him
what could it mean?

9 million bicycles
she called it
what could it mean?

I smoked 5 cigarettes
while waiting for your call
what could it mean?

You said 'Like'
not love, and then cried
what could it mean?

He drummed your fingers
on my sternum
what could it mean?

I sit on rotting wood
to fulfill my prophecy of a fall.
“Move away silly girl”
cries the gardener.
I gather my skirt closer
to protect myself from the cold
(as if that will be the death of me)
and sit firm on dead rotting wood.

This Sunday

Rolling in the dark
has its own joys,
thought the lil boy of 17.
marijuana dice fall free,
the room starts smelling of
winter nights; men and their
wood fires, burning rubbish
in my ignoble city. Rolling in
her dark room, with a sliver
beneath the door, has its own joys,
Sundays finish up my new freedoms,
and the cup now tilts; she clucks
like the mother hen, admonishes me.
The lil boy of 17 in me chuckles in glee.

off my chest

all the weight

crush me

brush me

paint me red

shower

more power

rush over

halt a bit

take a hit

and now..

no Now

give it back.

on my back

feet fly

toes curl

you toss

i turn

you push

i shove

we count

power.

Ek Aur Jala.....

The cigarette meant more than a precursor for disease, although that thought nagged at her too each time she lit up. It was always a support. A cure for loneliness. Every time she lit her Classic Milds, she had something to look forward to, even if it was just for 5 and a half minutes. Whenever she smoked alone, it was her friend. With a lit wand, she could start conversations with herself. Interesting, self-indulgent, neurotic monologues she kept up for far beyond the 5.5 minutes. Sometimes the soliloquy tired her, sometimes it upset her and then she reached out for another cigarette. The second one always made her feel more grown up. When alone, the second cigarette gave her, to herself, an aura of cynicism, of worldliness, of boredom that she always associated with other women she admired in the world. When with others, as was the custom, she had to pass her cigarette around. In the earlier days of scarcity, she did this without a grudge. Nowadays, she loathed to share her lifeline, especially around men who wet the bud. She never did, she never had. Even in the days under tutelage, she would maintain complete dryness of the budular region. She remembers some guy who was sharing a cigarette with her say that it was so wonderful that she didn't wet the bud like other girls sometimes did. She forgets who the guy was but remembers the feeling of inane pride and accomplishment at that achievement. More so because it was intuitive. Like she was born with it. Not wearing lipstick also helped. At least in this area. It didn't perhaps help in any other region of her life. Her fellow smokers nowadays complained that she smoked too much. “I have nothing else in my life, Don't take this away from me too,” she pleads every time. They give up. For they were friends too and fellow sufferers of the lengthiness of life and the abundance of time on their hands.

The cigarette indicated a lot more if you ever cared to notice. She had changed her brand some 4 times in her short life. Each time for love of some kind. Each time she realised her sacrifice after her heart or ego or both were squashed beneath some manly or dainty footwear. Every time she reverted to the one that tasted the best. Ever the good learner and a strong follower of the adage, “Learn From Your Experience,” she stuck to the one which tasted better. Or really which gave her the best high. There were some mysteries she couldn't fathom. Gold Flake lights were for sissies. But the two men she'd been most attracted to, and hence the most good-looking, broad-shouldered men she knew, smoked lights. Whereas, this dainty dyke (yeah I know) she was conversing and smoking with, smoked Navy Cuts. Yes, she switched her brand every time. Now she smokes Wills Classic Milds. Friends bought packs at a carton rate. This taste too had been borrowed, but it troubles her the least. At least her heart is alive. And sometimes, when she has finished smoking even the bud, conversations, real and warm and light and full of love and of a shared life prevail. And sometimes, she forgets to light the second cigarette.

At 27. I have seen it all. I know how it ends and I know what to not say and what the signs are. But I am not yet old or cynical enough (some would say Wise) to control my tongue, my fervor or my hormones.

Parting

Purple sunshine rested on your shoulders
you flinched at its familiarity.
Rose colored glasses still perched
I gazed on with young-girl eyes.

Chandeliers floated up to listen in
and you so easily let them in our story.
Young boys recounted their lives with glee,
I curled my masochistic toes in lust.

Winter scarves lay nearby smelling of you,
blueberries and strawberries flitter-fluttered.
My nicotine stained fingers looked for a lifeline,
as you sat in the sun and let me down gently.

Bordering

Though wasted lead casings make her bed
and old war wounds resonate on her skin,
Don't ask her to choose this time,
She has reclaimed her right to Stay Still -
To love the the enemy in Peacetime.

If it's love

if it really is

It's there in his kiss

yay! yay! yay!

rain

hookah

fingers

shoulders

balcony

mirrors

trip

alone

quiet

urgent

lips

love?

27

cynic

To Rita a.k.a L.T

I wanted to let you know that I miss you. You were a part of my blog when I was more carefree and happy without a reason and untouched mostly by grief and my faith on friends and friendship was unwavering. I love even thinking of you and how good you were to me and my friends. Please email me sometimes at sureamugly@yahoo.com so we can tell each other about our lives!

Glimpses of heaven
(what ever that is)
I see within
your rituals.

Cold water splashing
your eyes now
bright and wise,
God glistenning within your pupils.

Your mundanity
has not yet
snatched the divine
from you.

I pray,
on my knees
(the alter forgotten)
at your bedroom door.

You make tea
turn on the toaster
and tighten your terricot robe
closer.

July is almost here and soon august will be too. 1 year since you died rosh! And I still talk to you. I am beginning to mention you in conversations and people freeze a little everytime. My birthday Rosh, do you remember the last one? Beginning of the end really! So many signs, we just dint see. That Thursday, I wanted to tell you not to leave, but instead we discussed turtles and CSAT. I dreamt of you 2 days back and cried in my sleep. We were where I usually am in my dreams, my school. Babe! I rejoiced in your love for me. At its fullness, at its unconditionalness. You were my first death and you weren’t here to help me deal with it. Baby, I never said, I am completely in love with you! Am sorry I never said but I know you knew. So much more I want to write to you. We were the ones for reminiscing na? But I want to stop before am too sad. I think you will be happy to see the changes I am making to my life. Ironically, if you were alive, I wouldn’t have left Google or the people. In your death Roshni Poshni, I seek meaning.

That's That!

I quit. A year too late? Totally! But just in time before I died some more of a plastic death. Did I hate all of them? No …mostly I was surprised at being wondered about. And that I was scary or just intimidating. Why did I fail to see that side of me? I think its my complete neuroticism, my complete self-awareness. Should I evaluate? What I lost and what I gained? I lost a mostly. 2 friends, some of my innocence. Some ideas and creativity leaked out of my intestines, slowly. I gained an aura of inapproachability, a reputation, both befuddled me. Will I miss it? Do I miss anything? Not really…the people, the ghosts? Am I leaving roshni behind? Can I even ask that? Don’t I know that answer?

Mri Nabo Saran Mani, I will try not to forget them, I will try to keep in touch, to keep them alive. I made friends of them when I thought I was too dead to make any. That’s important. I have been ridding myself of any extra baggage which has kept me from loving. Envious, stupid friends who leeched on me, eating up my energy and giving me nothing back. I leave you here. Insensitive friends who pretended to love me all the while rejoicing in my pain. I leave you here.

Gossip mongers of Google, read me. I’ll keep you abreast of me. I hate you guys for not having the courage to speak to me about me. I would have given you an year’s supply of scandal…ha ha…

What will I miss of these 3 years? I can't believe that the answer is still the same. Sir, you were like my father to me, more so because I was not born to you. You are Google to me. I will never forget you. I believe you like me too. I hope 2 years later, you will not forget my name and say,"her name started with an A, she was an optimizer.” :)

Do I want to name any people I hated in my blog? Oh! I hated so many of you! Sylvestor ass! You are one ugly dude, inside and outside! People I liked, some of you knew that but for the most of you I was shy. Yes! Me!

Hamsi, I love you! Preetha, I liked you, albeit at the end. Itsax, I never knew you but I always wanted to. Sundeep Paul, you are a sweetheart! Thank you for the innumerable cigarettes you lend me and for you awesome earphones. The others, if I looked or smiled at you, I liked you, if I looked through you, I didn’t. The 2 men I found attractive enough to make an effort to speak to you. I will miss seeing you around. :) The one woman I found just lovely, you will never know :(

Secrets make little pitter patter paths

Blue green and yellow, all colours of the

Rainbow. I follow in its footsteps. From the

Glass rooms, from the woods, from the

Concrete. Sometimes I tire, sometimes I admire

But always I die a little more death. Till my

Heart smells of mothballs. Its Time I stop and

smell out different kind tree for me.

Bye bye my secret world. Bye bye and good riddance

you beautiful monster.

It’s as if 3 years have passed and I was asleep all this while. And once the decision was made, I just woke up from a fretful and cold slumber that had morphed me into something staid and intimidating and scary. And once more I wish to be free. Once more I need to be open and out and loud and loving and wanting. Are you ready for me? Am I?

Yes we can!

I wasn’t really interested this time around. Not after a heart-breaking last year I had. But I watched. How could I not? Mid-Summer, blazing sun, boring Sundays. Where else could we go? What else could we watch. The lure of cool interiors, the inviting cold beer, big screen T.Vs, (a very good looking Sameer Kochhar ) and we were hooked. And we started watching IPL season 2. I hadn’t meant to, but thank god I did, for my little city won to erase the ignominy of last year.

I am a very pessimistic, superstitious person when it comes to cricket. I am such a stereotype when it comes to cricket. For the Border-Gavaskar 2000-2001 Chennai match, I stayed in my bedroom and tried to study political science. Everytime I emerged, Indian wickets fell. My sis and Mom banished me and I stayed in praying cos we were winning against Australia and it all depended on me! I still believe that.

Last Sunday the Deccan Chargers Played Royal Challengers. My sister, my friends and I hung out on 10d Bar stools and kept our fingers crossed and prayed. I prayed with my head bowed and hands clasped and looked up to see the owner of the franchisee in the same stance. The owner and the fan, were we praying for different ends? Money v/s Simple Victory? Did it matter? Weren’t we all participating in a religious ritual/warfare here? Do the advertisements reduce cricket’s sanctity? Not for me. And not for the hyderabadis at 10 d that Sunday. Or for the 4 bangaloreans.

Love Come

Is it only me? Or Are you too completely swamped with nostalgia and feeling the bitter sweetness that was high school? Do you also try to cast your mind back to that age and time and you return with a handful of nothings that meant life or death a decade ago? Do you also wish you could go back and then shudder for now we know too much to go back to that? Have we left our innocence at the turn of the millennium? If you have answered yes to one or more to these troubling questions and if you are the type who enjoys a good weep at a heart touching romance, and if you are the type who likes anime, I would suggest Love com or ‘Lovely Complex’

It’s a very relatable anime I chanced upon last year this time. Me and my sister fell in with it completely. And whenever I feel down, I go back to it. It’s very brief. 1 season 24 or so episodes.

Read more about it here.

or

Start watching it!

Heaven

May be I am about to die.

I am getting these flashes of cherry blossom trees. Lakeside in the evening. Cloudy skies. Empty streets. Warm breeze. Roadside tea. And mirchibhajji.

I hoped it was the future and heaven.

But now I know.

it’s only Yercaud.

Every evening I take my now accustomed road back home and I think of you. To fill you and me with thoughts those surround me this evening. My heart chokes and I long to feel the heat engulf me and the hot air of my lonely city to parch my skin and make my eyes water, with heat and easily remembered yarns of my past life. Lonely grey-green trees stand by and suffer the summer. Every evening I make a promise to spin those yarns about my city, my childhood, and my memories. All that is now my melancholia, my nostalgia. The summer in my city has its own personality. A visitor is always surprised by the Deccan summer. The mornings are quick to blossom and sultry. I stand under the shower, eyes still shut with sleep and hot water pours down. The smell of vanilla and cinnamon slowly calms me down as I get ready to live away another day. It’s just 6:30 am. A short and silent cab ride to hell where the weather doesn’t matter and it is eternally cold, and I am cold too, not on the outside, but the inside and I breakfast on the spoils of war at the loner’s corner. It’s 9 and I have spoken not a word. Enough of that.

Every evening I take my now accustomed road back home and I think of you. To fill you and me with thoughts those surrounded me that evening. Evenings here are balmy and breezy. The people who were inside (wherever that may be) come out to feel as the sun sets. They come out to belong, we come out to share horror stories about the weather, the heat, the sweat or the lack of it and people dying of sunstroke. Was it 43’c yesterday? 45’c in Warangal? We win the weather forecast on every channel with the highest predicted temperature and we lose at the humidity.

Ineffective summer showers pitter patters on the over-worked A.C and the summer painted terrace. My poor dog with a perpetual black coat barks in delirium at the rain. And then at its short-livedness. The 15 minute rain and the accompanied 20 minute powercut both over, my room now artificially chilled. The A.C cools my hair and I forget the completely still, hot night that reigns over my poor city. Instead I dream of clouds, snow and other improbable things.

every night
just beyond twilight,
i change shape
and soul
with my other
and inspite of a promising day,
go to dream
holding noone's hand
noone's heart.

This time tomorrow I would have exercised my democratic right to vote my leader.

I watched the blood through your iridescent earlobes

This happened yesterday afternoon.

As you and I sat around wood,

Hoping the next meeting comes soon.

lonely house

There on the window pane

Egg white ink and lilies lay

Asleep in the day

Origami doves

Came alive at your one touch

Flew away in the night

All over my grave

Orange flowers you chose lay

Lesser petals wept.

Dead Sunflower Fields

Its that kind of evening again

Nothing is safe now

Jackfruits and more burst

And more and more ripe

And the smell this evening

is maddening.

 

Such evenings are just not

Safe for you my little girl

Someone as young and fragile

As you my little girl

And such things stir in me

That heightens this evening

 

And your brown brown hands

Red full lips midnight eyes

Beckon me, they do

They do beckon me and

You dance just ahead of my eyes

And your family waits for you

 

Hurry home to your mamma

Little girl, my little girl

Do you see those eyes over the hedge

covet your brown brown skin

hurry hurry home hurry

home my little brown  girl

 

your mumma waits for you

milk gets colder as a glass on the table

she waits at the door and calls

out to you, her pretty girl of just 13

and here you are dancing in front

of these dirty brown eyes

 

you are dancing in front of me

 

Over my fence under my window 

you jump and skip and run

over my enticing summerfields

my sunflower fields seduce you

and you slow down as your mumma

waits at the door for her pretty girl of 13

 

 

 

It happened just 67 steps from home

And you were snatched and don’t cry

It was not your fault and you will go to the gods

And its all the way to hell for me

For what I did to your brown skin

And you were just a pretty girl of 13

 

 

Those 67 steps you didn’t cover

my little pretty girl of 13

now you will never come home

and your mother knew this would

happen someday to someone as

pretty as her daughter of just 13

 

under my fields and my soil you lie,

my little 13 yearold pay thing

and no one knows still but the

village now whispers and no young girl

take the shortcut through the sunflower fields

 

 

your bone melts from the flesh

your yellow summer dress 

I have hidden somewhere where none will reach

And I burn in my own private hell

And you are now far away from all this and me

But still the sunflower fields haunt me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When The ShockMeister Tags Me!

1. If your lover betrayed you, what would your reaction be?

Stunned silence. Denial. Revenge. Total Heart Break. Lot of blogging.

 

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?

I am a published writer and people are reading my books and discussing them and discovering a me without me telling/talking/discussing me.

 

 

3.  Whose butt would you like to kick?

Bangalee Shomiti Kaakimaas

 

 

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Invest, Travel, Buy a house. Make a film. Tell My story.

 

 

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?

I Will always try not to, but…..

 

 

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?

Loving someone!

 

 

7. How long would you wait for someone you loved?

Wait? I would wait all my life. But Also Move on in many ways. But I would always still wait.

 

 

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?

Shower love, attention, support. Till they can’t live without you too. Even if that’s just platonic.

 

 

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?

Female Infanticide.

 

 

10. What takes you down the fastest?

Narrow-minded people with quick judgments

 

 

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

With a house, hopefully a kid and at least 2 dogs.

 

 

12. What’s your fear?

Dying before I get to Live. Dying Young.

 

 

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?

Easily accepting of, almost welcoming failure, just to prove a point.

 

 

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?

Either. What does Single Mean? No flings? Or casual stuff?

What does poor mean? No food? Or drainage?

 

 

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Switch the geyser on and hit snooze on my cellphone alarm.

 

 

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?

If I am equally in love (whats equal? Whats love?) I will be with whoever wants to be with me. But I will always ‘wait’ for the other too.

 

 

17. Would you give all in a relationship?

Well…Yes…Only if I am not getting enough..i wll try and work harder at it and be earnest and serious and too Chipku. Otherwise…ummm..I guess am a bit of a commitment-phobe.

 

 

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?

I can forget the person easily. Out of sight is out of mind (mostly).

Can I forgive and forget the horrible things? Well I try not to judge. So will forgive. But am self-preserving so will never forget.

 

 

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?

Single when in a relationship.

In a relationship when single.

 

 

20. I tag Serindipidous and Medusa