pattern

resist subsist

cherish embellish perish

mattered shattered battered

It hadn't been that long. except of course in her head. but she firmly believes that just cos something's in her head doesn't mean it's not true. so an eternity it's been. the Y at the end of the word, really puts the lengthiness of the word and time in perspective for her. like infinity. eeeeeee. someone shrieks in her head. the window in her room overlooks this rock. it's very like the window and the room in her head. The real rock is big, overwhelming and fenced in by ancient grey-green trees and batches of this, filigreed, hardly there leaves. Unlike the real rock in her head. which looms large and stands like a monster, ever changing shapes and size; it stands on an always stretching barren land, sometimes translucent almost, thats when she's at her peaceful best and at other times made of dark grey pebbles of desire and unfulfilled wants. 

She's  noticed the rock outside her living room window and promised herself that she would take the time out to look at it and admire it. It had been raining that day and the rock in her head had almost melted. it's been 2 weeks of space and time but she hasn't really looked out to admire anything except the hot Hyderabadi summer.

The opaque rock now looms large. Every night has been filled with people. Good people. People with shared history. Brand-new people with potential. and the rock now really looms large.

She has of course oscillated her whole life between her effusive and loner self. both feel so right. so her. both are her 'reality' -  her honesty when she is in them. After moving on, she retrospects and rationalizes. But how much ever she is aware, of her rocks and other rubble within her, she is still not able to demolish them. there sometimes rises this innocent desire to accept that. that it is inevitable. that there are different sides to her. That her highs and lows can reach great elevations and depths than is safe for her heart or mind. she knows of the 2 poles. but she is still unable to control. Swinging back and forth. She thinks sometimes being less aware might have helped. but to to be only aware of the Nizami rock outside her living room and not the more ancient one in her head, seems pitiful. she hates self-unawareness in others, she's horrified at it in herself. The answer to it sometimes seems to jot everything down and make poetry out of it. dark, ugly, frothy, pretty poetry and cluttered prose. She tries, she tries. She churns out poem like structures out of the fissures of her soul. Nobody realises that they are her wounds her welts, sometimes self-inflicted. Or do they?

Sometimes, instead of creating this self-study in words, she wishes she could have a biographer instead. Someone else. Involved in her life. Who would ask valid questions, edit out her narrative and punctuate it with understanding or even an acknowledgement of her uniqueness, only because they love her. And so she seeks this. A biographer. Someone who would rid her off this painful process of lying on her living room carpet with a pink pen in her hand, writing about her rock, which now looms very large and is menacing in its closeness to all her senses. It's shutting her down. It's coming closer.. it's.......

Love in the city of joy!

Little pieces of paper flutter and fly

over the pile of garbage,

somewhere in the city.

Little pieces of paper.

Some square some not.

Browned by time and misuse?

Unloved,

Folded into little crevices

in someone’s cupboard,

Found one spring cleaning day.

Found and torn away.

Torn and thrown away.

Little pieces of paper flutter and fly.

Passersby pass by,

Nobody bothers to look at them.

Nobody thinks of finishing this jigsaw.

If they had had the time,

they would have met

an unspoken love affair,

written in green ink

on the back of old envelopes.

Always

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

Pablo Neruda

Love story I’­­d thought it would be. Solid, sensual, earth-shattering and tangible. But it was all smiles and pretty hair and smatterings of borrowed scenarios from the best of Mills and Boon, but because it tried to be better than that, it ruined any chance of the real romantic. I tried you know. To feel something. Anything - But it left me cold. Cold. Yeah very pretty it was. Very. But that’s it. That’s that. She smiled too much. Too easily. Her smiles should have been in spite of herself and the situation she was in. Instead it was readily given. Toothy, wholesome - Completely inappropriate. His veins stood out, nostrils shivered, voice shook, eyes watered, but, but….. Nah! Where was the love. I saw nothing that made empathise with them. I didn’t necessarily root for them. When they died for apparently they couldn’t live without each other, I laughed at the absurdity of it all. It could have been my cynicism. My belief that, ‘come on! Get over it!’ and ‘Life goes on.’ But it wasn’t that. Cos I don’t feel that all the time. Somethings are worth waiting for, worth pining for, worth may be even dying for. But with those two, I didn’t feel it. Believe me! I was primed to cry for love or its loss. Instead I yawned, ate pop corn, then Thai food, and then played out some scenes of my own. But that a story for some other day.

among strewn clothes and remnants of last night,
lies tiny bits of my heart.
my knees hurt from the hardness of the floor,
my chest from the missing part.

Census

I got counted yesterday. As an Educated/Single/Bengali/working woman.

p.sssst - Nobody asked my caste!

Baby girl!

O the rain the rain. I can’t believe this is the end of summer. It was unbelievably short toh! Yeah the last few days were unbearably hot. I fell sick. Really. But what? This is it? Personally I don’t think so. It’ll be back for sure may be just for a few scorching days. Hai re Global warming! Long strange winter. Short Summer and Rains in May. What’s up! Really. I know I sound like an old woman complaining about the changes around her. Oh but I am. :) Went for my first Karaoke night last night. Hated it. Ha ha. Loved the company of course. But that’s it. The lyrics captivated me yeah. Twas fun to see and read the song. Which is what I like to do anyway. But don’t get the frenzy at all. Whole of Google was there. And most were quite friendly with me. Wonder what’s changed. Why I don’t scare them still? :) One ex- colleague actually hugged and lifted me up. Awwwww loved that. :) The nights are a bit scary in my new house. I lock up the doors and windows but the breeze or Laila outside makes them knock strangely. And I have intruders on my mind all the time now, so I do get a bit scared and cry at the drop of a hat at night. Usually am a thriller person, but haven’t got any of tose from home, instead loaded up as many romances I could find to keep me company. Watched Mirror has 2 faces last night. Love that movie. Usually I cry watching it. Dint last night. Wonder why. Might watch Wake up Sid next. Once Sush moves in I will open all the movies with ‘Murder’ in them. :) Sush baby! I got all the Agatha Christie DVDs I have. Yay! Also. Realizing the futility of love as every minute passes. I hate that love makes me so childlike and hey! It reflects in my writing too. Make me Cynical again and ever-editing and passive – in approach to life and writing. Heh heh. Don’t think anyone got that joke. :) Shit this reads worse than my 8^th std journal entries. Will post anyway. Cos not self-conscious. There. See.

Swinging: This way and that.

That space. So unusual. Right out of my dream for a home of my own I suppose -  Couldn’t have come at a wronger time. Job extremely unsure. Mood kind off Volatile. Good friends and pillars of my support system have left or leaving the country. The weather is balmy (shit can’t believe have stooped to this level. Complaining about the weather? Really!) Old Old friends bugging the fuck outta me. Making me wonder how patient and tolerant was I? And what happened to me? And if it’s a bad thing? This change into expecting people around me to be interesting at least if not irritating. House warming party was fun. But I guess I had lesser fun than rest of them. I hate playing the hostess. Always gets me soberer. Drank like big wineglass Mega Pegs of Rum. 3 one after the other and then never went back. Dint play the kissing game either. Din’t feel like. I hate having feelings. Carefree Carefree. Make me carefree again, someone (Soon I know. Very soon. I will be. But the wait, I hate. But Time Heals and all) Now, I realize how much I like T.V and newspapers. Need to get a good broadband connection so can start watching older episodes of Dexter and House and HIMYM and the rest again to feel less alone, bored or plain scared. The space is too huge for me. Love T.V. Am a totally huge believer in escapism. Why not? There are other realities, than what ‘They’ say there is. So now I have no money. No fridge or TV. No maid. Am constantly cleaning the house and though it’s close to a week since my dog moved out, her fur still rotate in circles at myriad corners of my house. My jhaadus fail to gather them up well. Waiting for Sushmit and some pragmatism to help me out here. Just another week I guess and They’ll be here. What else what else? So heartsick last week was. And yes it was PMS. It arrived so early, it had thrown me off and I kept thinking this is the real thing. Real thing meaning sadness. “Just cos it’s in your head, doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Who said that? Am I better now. Every hour, there are these 2 mins where I feel like, “There. See. Nothing is wrong. I am having a perfect moment wherein I am thinking about these other things and having conversations with people about work, or politics. And that thing that is bothering me so much is quite out of mind. See at this point I don’t feel anything for him.” And then like that - it’s gone. But, I am old enough to know that these moments will soon add up and soon I will be over feeling what I am feeling and I will be over all those feeling. But am also old enough to really feel that am tired of moving on and getting over.  So yeah. Right now life is weirdly all over the place. But then I have been looking for this right? Growing up. Becoming an adult (gawd 10 years too late!!!) being lonely, having to make new friends, new colleagues, earn money, budget oneself, being spontaneous, getting into trouble, getting out of it. Feeling a bit overwhelmed is ok at this point I guess. And ‘Feeling’ means being alive. Right? I should be glad (and I am) that am able to feel love (and hate) instead of that that dead-woman –walking thing that had engulfed me the last couple of years. And the hurt that inevitably accompanies love makes me sometimes wish that I was back to my unfeeling, scary self, but not really. When it rains and I can feel the amazement that I am experiencing at the bottom of my heart bubble over and spill, I know that this is just the other side of the same coin of hurt. And my friends call me - old and new and they call me over to 10d, or Mocha (yay!) and I see myself feeling a bit alright again! 10d tonight then girls!?  :)

Mea Culpa awarded me!

Mea Culpa Friend and Fellow Crazy Girl, called me her favourite blogger. Thank you Girl for your kind words, they make my day too!

As for my award!

It goes to BeShockSenBandhoPaadhay's Blog for being so funny and unselfconscious and wordy. From a mere porn-watcher to the Meister -  You arrived. Long Ago.

And,

To Benny . I started reading you so late, and then gobbled all words you placed before us. Your poems reflect my thoughts, which I have not yet put into words. Thank you Thank you.

Between

Between the 2.
Constantly.
Abruptly.
Carpet to chandelier.
suddenly.
feelingly.
Airy to dust
love to not and back again.
in a matter of heartbeats.
its the same again.
its the same.
in a matter of heart beats,
she's begun swinging.
Alarmingly
swiftly.
she's running around in circles again.
From door to wrong door,
she runs in circles.
stupidly
full-knowingly.

Dubious

Some men like Jack

And some like Jill
I'm glad that I like
Them both, but still

I wonder if
This freewheeling
Really is an
Enlightened thing

Or is its greater
Scope a sign
Of deviance from
Some party line?

In the strict ranks of
Gay and Straight
What is my status:
Stray? or Great?

 

--Vikram Seth

I once knew a girl,

Who had,

Bright bright eyes,

Rich black hair,

And soil coloured skin.

I once knew a girl

Who would

Dance in the rains,

And then dry her hair,

Just outside my window.

This girl

Would sit at her window,

As I sat at mine

And hum and whistle,

And sob and sigh.

And this girl,

Cried all night,

And prayed all dawn,

Right outside my window.

I once knew this girl,

Who pined all summer

for the girl in the opposite window

A girl who didn’t seem to know she existed.

I once knew a girl

Who lived in the house beside mine

And our windows spoke to each other,

Though we never did.

And this girl,

I was told,

Wrote poems about a girl

She once knew.

The urgency sometimes surprises me,
the carpet and
the pillow between my legs.
The floating orange curtains
come to a halt and watch
with human-like interest.

green moon tonight
darkens my flowerpot
startling dahlia light
binds in a knot
my neo-virgin plight.

paper cuts galore
sweet pains kiss
a novice no more
i give me a list
of the undoables.

She’d stayed in

Pretending

The key was lost.

He’d sat still

Tea cup steamed

Fogging sense.

She writhed free

Dress hitched

Revealing that.

He leaned forward

Narrowed his eyes

Till eyelashes touched.

She made herself

A cupful of frenzy,

Unheeding.

His morning cup

Of tea crashed and broke

Unheard.

On waking

Toes on the window sill

Strain with urgency.

Little chips of ancient paint

Break and float away

(Revealing a previous coat

By a now-forgotten tenant).

Calves dimple up hard and taut

Revealing a truer inner intent.

Toes on the window sill

Turn white around the edges

Blood thrums in louder and redder.

Heels feel weightless and skinless

Against the back of brown thighs.

Toes quiver now, some lose grip,

She readjusts her position.

Sits still on a borrowed window sill

(She’ll look like a brooding bird from below,

Nothing further from the barren truth)

And surveys the neighbour’s water tank.

Toes now cold as her hair and neck,

She dreams of flying, she dreams of drowning,

She has given up living now, in sepia

screens of her errant dreamscapes

and the newer bluer colours frighten her still,

so she haunches over the still awake world,

and contemplates living on;

Sitting on her toes on a borrowed sill

neither drowning, nor flying.

It had been long and I had forgotten,

How it is to climb out unbidden

And fall plumb into a tub of fireflies.

And their light now enters my mouth,

Which smells a bit like the summer-soft

Friday afternoons spent with you.

And the light now moves about me

Like your eyelashes around my face

And settles around my collarbone and

melts into my sweat and your reticence.