Very brown hands these

Made out of mould

Smell today of

Solitary pleasures of old.

Love?

Love in an empty room

Bumps at the corners

Echoes hollow.

I sit hugging myself

Rejoicing the space

I have earned myself

with years of shutting out

and keeping away.

Fear

Today, I got molested by an autowalla. He kissed my left knee. As soon as it happened, I thought of putting it up as my FB status message. And then I started thinking, what happenned? I have been in this city for the last 16 years. Travelled alone by auto for at least the last 14 years, sometimes as late as 12am, and more than a little drunk. And noone, noone, even made a suggestion. How was it different today? How did I allow my left knee to be kissed by an autowalla? One, I took it from Basheerbagh at 6:30pm. The time was most decent. The place, usually busy, on this curfew laden day was pretty deserted with truckful of policemen loitering here and there. Signal 1
The said autowalla struck up a conversation with me, and I responded. Signal 2. Then he complained about, how many petrol pumps through the city have been shut the whole day and he wanted to fill petrol at the closest one. I very politely and nicely said, “Koi baat nahin.” But as I was entering the pump, I realised I was smoking, so did the petrol pump attendents. They signalled me to stub it. I did. Within the auto, cos I thought stubbing it outside, won't be safe. It was then that the autowalla realised that I had been smoking. He was outside the auto, he put his hand on my knee. This had never happenned before. And I wasn't expecting it and before I knew, on the pretext of picking up the cigarette stub, he leaned over my knees and kissed them. After 4 of them kisses, I pushed him away, asking him, “Kya kar rahe ho?” He says, that smoking is not allowed in petrol pumps. By then, I had already given him Rs 100. It's a common practice to pay the autowalla in advance if he's going to fill petrol. So, he gets back into the auto, and starts, and I sit clutching my bag to my chest, stunned. It's been long since anybody has touched me without my wish. It was creepy! And I was so disappointed with myself for not having shoved him harder or slapped him. But the first thing I wanted to do was go home. Be safe. I considered my options. Get out of the auto, I would have, if I hadn't paid him already. To let him violate my knee and pay him 100 bucks for it, was insult to injury. That wasn't an option. I could have fought with him for money and screamed at him, but that wouldn't have hurt him. I could have slapped him, but I wantedto hurt him more than a slap. Also, violence begets violence and the petrol pump attendants were his friends and the roads were deserted. The truckful of cops were more scary to me than a lone autoguy. I thought, I thought. I wanted to hurt him. Whats the only place where it hurts human beings the most? I thought. Ego. I decided. How to hurt his ego? I wondered desperately. He kept talking to me about the curfew. The same topics as earlier. I didnot reply. Stoic face and silence. Then he started asking direct questions like if I wanted to smoke now and if he could buy me some. More stoic silence. It helped me. This few minutes of silence. For we were by then on busier roads and my anger had become more finetuned and I was replying to him in my scariest, rudest voice. Just saying, “Nahi” and “Chalo.” Then at the khairatabad junction he stopped the auto and got off and I asked him, “Kaha jaa rahe ho?” and he came towards me and said, that just a minute and then asked me again if I wanted to smoke. I said “Nahi.” again and he asked again. This time I screamed. I have this Inhumanly loud, screechy voice which sounds almost insane. It sounds like the next thing I might do is kill you with my bare hands. I said, “Nahi!” in that voice. Then I think he got a little unnerved. He got into the auto and started driving. Real slow. I could feel that he was itching to turn back. But he had stopped speaking. He asked for the time once and I said I dont know. By then we had reached Ameerpet and I still didn't have a plan. Out of habit, I asked him to take a left towards Sri Nagar Colony. I usually take that diversion cos the traffic is better that way. Today with the curfew it didn't matter, but I asked him to take the left anyway. When I say ask, I actually mean I screamed at him. He sounded really hesitant to do that. He kept saying, “But Kalyan Nagar is that way, where are you taking me?” Then I realised that he is thinking that I am going to take him to a place and get him beaten up by my friends or the police or something. I played on and kept ordering him to just shut up and go straight. 30 more seconds on that road and he stopped,saying that I am speaking so rudely to him that he doesn't want to go any further. And he offered to give me 50 bucks. I still sat in the auto. Then he insisted and thrust the note in my hand. Then I got off. I wasn't sure which way to start walking, so first I went behind the auto and then I went passed him and started walking ahead. Now, I know he thought I did that to note down the number plate. Believe me I wasn't thinking about it. I was just happy. I was smiling widely. Bennet called and while recounting the incident to him I started walking towards home. A few autos stopped, but I just couldnt get in. I wallked almost an hour to get home. My feet have blisters. And I was so upset with myself. I felt that I had internalised intellectualism and feminism to such an extent that I'd lost my primal reaction. But as the hours pass by, I think I handled the situation very well. There may have been other things I could have done, like walked off from the petrol pump itself without asking him to return the money, or screamed and cried and hoped some men would have roughed him up. But, I couldn't cos I would have been doubly upset then. First, at what happenned and second at how I had to depend on others to help me. Also, I was too angry to cry.

Strangely. 2 weeks ago, I had had a nightmare, where an auto driver I was talking to very nicely came and sat on my lap and then went ahead and tried to rape me. I dont know if he succeeded or not, for I had woken up.

Language First

Over the 5 years that I've been writing in here, all the comments my posts have received have been appreciative. (Mostly cos they were made by friends). Because of these kind comments, I now believe that my writing appeals to some people and that i may be a good observer and expressor of emotions, or even a good writer. However, before my blog happenned to me, pre 2005, when i wrote offline, in my diary, there was one person who really enjoyed my writing. Me. My words seduce me.

Till my first standard (or till I was 6) I studied under the W.B board in a bangla medium school in Calcutta. I was being tought long division and geometery at the age of 6. As a direct result of that and the long hours I had to spend in school, I hated school. I was learning english too. We were being introduced to meanings of all words english. The book, i still remember very well, was this bangla-english dictionary. And it was my favourite book. I would study english all the time. I was great at spellings. At the last exam i had in that school (we had 2 hour exams with 100 mark question papers, yes! At age 6!) i scored 99/100 in English (don't ask me my maths scores, i dunno i donkare)

The next thing i knew, i was uprooted from W.B and placed in LilavatiBai Podar High School, Santa Cruz, Bombay. I.C.S.E saved me. For the entrance interview, I remember, I sat with my father while Mrs Marker, the then principal, asked me questions in english. I only half understoon what she was asking. When she asked me, “What is your favourite subject?” I replied, “ Maths, english, history, geography, bangla...” Because I knew the meaning of the word subject but not the word favourite. She was so kind. She asked my father to set me some sums to solve, so she could check the standard I was used to. My father did. Thankfully, he left out the long division. I did the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division easliy enough. After another 10 minutes discussion between Mrs Marker and my father, I learnt that this was to be my new school.

When school started in June, I saw that my class (the 2nd std) hadn't reached division yet.

I remember not being able to understand a word of what was being said in class the first day. Hence, I dont really remember the first day at all. On day 2, i sat next to this girl, whom i heard humming a bangla song. I eagerly asked her, “Tumii Bangaali?” She nodded and she became my best friend and interpreter. Nivedita translated everything for me.

I remember, the whole class, after finishing what the teacher had set for us, would turn to the teacher and ask her if she liked what they had done. My fiercely independent 7 year-old self would baulk at this. Why did she have to like what we had done. It took me 5 days to realise what the class was asking her was, “Is it like this?”

The first year i received some after school coaching in english. And slowly i was at par with the rest of the class. Much later, when my family moved to Hyderabad, and I joined Gitanjali mid-term and yet scored much better in english than most of the class, I think came a full circle in some way.

Slowly, however, my written bangla became rusty. (My handwriting even now looks like a 6-year old's). I still read bangla and I still thought in bangla. In the mental arithmetic classes, i would do so badly, cos i knew my tables in bangla and it would take me some time to go, “7 8s are? (Shaat aashte chhaappanno) 56” [in fact some things you can never relearn, and I still multiply in bangla]. But whereas the rest of the class was still at 10 times table, i had learnt till almost 20 in Calcutta.

My parents were such bookworms, especially my mother and so i had learnt to read bangla at a very early age. My grandparents would parcel loads of bangla books for me to read after we moved to Bombay. When I would be done with them, i would start with terribly inappropriate (for 7 year olds) adult books by Shooneel Gangopadhyay and the rest. I would hide and read them in the loo (hmmmm so that's where that habit came from!) and get caught all the time. Thankfully, my parents wouldnt make a big deal of it and my mother and her mother were so appreciative of my thirst for knowledge that they would try to answer whatever questions I had. (I now return the favour and explain the more new-fangled things that they dont understand). I never asked them, “Where do babies come from?” cos I was precocious enough to know that that was a secret and i'd made it my mission to find out on my own. The 'India Today' and the dictionary helped.

Now, I think in english. And no I am not sad about losing bangla as my natural first language. I was so young when i left W.B that i never picked up any bad language. And everybody knows, your first language is the one in which you can curse the best.

Happy woman?

Very cluttered. Skip if not in the mood to decipher the labyrinth of my brain.

What makes women happy? Fay Weldon, my most favourite author tried to answer the question in her book with the same title as the question. I think her list went, sex, chocolate, shopping, friends, etc. Not necessary in that order though. She says that women feel happiness in small moments. For example, when the sun rises on a perfect day and she stands in her blooming garden, she feels happy, for about 5 minutes. But unadulteratedly happy. Then the moment passes. According to her, a woman's 'Happiness' is the sum total of these very short-lived happy moments. I just hope I am able to be peaceful. Happiness is so fleeting that it scares me. I can get addicted to happiness and its scary how sad sadness feels after a bout of happiness. But one cant escape the race for happiness. One mortal can't. My quest for peace of mind sounds phoney and pretentious even to me sometimes. Fay Weldon says, 'Be Good.' And 'Good will happen to you.' Karma- I believe is a a just bitch. Back to finding happiness. Love. It's scary how that seems to be the answer everywhere I look. The concept of another human being fulfilling a need in me seems unfair to me. If our goal of finding meaning/happiness in our lives ended with our finding love with another, I am sure we would have been born in pairs. However, we are born alone. Left alone to make sense of everything we see/hear/feel around us. Our parents aren't gods, we realise sometime soon. Our siblings not our best friends. Our friends not our soulmates. We are back to square one. Of course, we can spend our lives trying to analyse/figure out/make sense of the human condition. It's futile of course. For we are bound by our human limitations. And accepting the futility of our fragile human condition doesn't seem to be easy. Oh How we strive. For we are the only species that can. We form memories, we retain, we have a thumb. So we build, we make, we invent. Isn't it funny! We invented a currency. I think human civilisation(?) peaked when we gave intrinsic value to paper. But I digress. I was looking for meaning of life. The question Why? Isn't really answerable. So we do the next best thing. We live. We try pretending that we are doing more than just existing. We write novels, poems, make movies, music, so much to validate our human birth. There is beauty in it I suppose. In this effort. That there is strife and we still live is beautiful I suppose. That we created language, that we gave credence to art, I suppose in a way is a victory of our human birth. And we created religion and we went back to square one. But I digress. What makes me happy? Food, alcohol, sex. Easy answers these. But what sucks is that happiness doesn't make me happy anymore. I still feel joy. Yes. I try to hold onto that. So. Yes am still living. I still have an unnameable hope. But I suffer. For nothing seems to help any more. Not food, alcohol or sex either. Prozac might, sleep may. And then I wake up and am back to square one. The trick is to be normal. To belong to your community no matter what. To hold on to your roots/caste/religion/morals/what your parents taught, etc. If you are a freak and you begin to question any of that...that's it for you then. Back to square one.

Waiting @ Mocha

The wait is always the same. Don't get me wrong. For an impatient girl, I enjoy waiting. The nothing-to-do ness of the wait has a very calming effect on me. My mind rushes on with images of what can be. I practise imaginary conversations which in a few minutes or so may come to fruit. The drama at the end of the wait, especially if of a romantic nature, always fulfills its prophecy. The one waiting, the Waiter, is a step ahead of course. She has come on time and encountered stray gazes. She can now set the stage. The legs are perfectly folded, the hair tucked behind her ear, the half-finished cigarette between her pink-tipped fingers perfectly poised over the fresh ash-tray. If the wait is longer than a few minutes, her fingers now entwine the crook of a tea cup. The moment's arrived for the waitee has too. Is she facing the doorway or did she have it in her to expose her back to the door and win at the game of not caring. If she has seen him come in, catching his gaze and holding it, with or without a smile, is a good way to begin an episode. However, waiting for him to approach her from behind has its perks. To keep her neck open to prey, albeit, the romantic kinds, takes courage and shows her lack of fear of the future, of the unknown and her non-chalance.

The uninnitiated to the wait, resort to a book. The feiging hasn't been mastered yet. Pitying glances from fellow revelleres worry them still. The mind has not been honed to accept the fatality of a wait.

The wait. An oasis of me-time of nothingness in between a day filled with moments of purposefulness for others. Next time you are awaiting, treat yourself to the glorious drama of it. Spectate yourself. Order a cup of tea, light that cigarette, take a deep breath and wait with me.

The Insomniac's Pillowcase.

I write about you tonight,

dear cotton god.

Of how you suffer the indignities

of my 'toss and turn's.

Begining at my neck,

often in between my legs,

finally on the floor you rest.

Sleepless creases shape

your otherwise benign form.

Moist patches from desperate

douses wet you cold.

Dear cotton god,

how you help me bear the night.

It's stillness.

The nothing-to-do ness.

And how in the afternoon,

i toss you,

like the ineffectual day

tossed the potent night away.

Rosh Posh

Pearls (‘o wisdom)

Drop

From your palms (rough)

From your lips (strangely white)

Your skin smell of melons (bodyshop)

Your hair smooth and curling (dove)

Pearls (aforementioned)

You drop carelessly (as careless s you are with money and..tax)

I pretend not to notice (cos you loved more those who loved you less)

I have a wooden box (mahogany)

Filled with your mouth, your brain, your heart and soul (as for your body.....)

Along with your pearls.

My wooden box is heavy and aches with posthumous love ( you know I am just kidding myself)

Your pearls (of love, caresses and unconditional affection)

Pink and grey (like the salt water ones you loved)

Rest within my melancholic box.

Meeting @ Mocha.

She waited. She'd arrived a minute early. He would be 17 late. She doesn't know that yet, and she doesn't mind. Arriving early is noble and she does it with a practised ease. She pities the late arriver, of course, for he starts with a disadvantage, but she never admonishes them. She has always graciously brushed aside apologies for lateness. It's tough to be punctual, she knows. No, she didn't mind. She wasn't bored. Nobody is bored around her, least of all, herself.

She waits still. Quaint blue tea-cups on mis-matched orange saucers arrive. Earl gray at 8. She takes a deep breath, exhales and takes a sip of the tea. All's right with the world. She lights a cigarette. Stray glances, at a woman smoking in public, hit her face and slide off at her non-chalance. Lookers-oners look away. It hurts them to try and penetrate her private bubble. Her oasis of solitude affects the cheerful mood at the next table and the converstaion dies down a bit.

She waits still, now contemplating her next move. Should she smoke her last cigarette? She let's it be. Play SuDoKu? She doesn't feel like rummaging through her vast green bag to look for her phone. Instead she gazes ahead and tries to concentrate on the noise around her. The collective hum of the conversation of the 17 tables around her gathers her in and soothes her with its benignity. She looks for a rhythm in the voice of the crowd and smiles to herself. It is so easy to feel alone, to experience solitude amidst a crowd. The urbanity of the in-comprehensible hum lulls her to comfort like it always has. It reminds her of her childhood mornings when she would wake up to her mother's chants. The noise of the chants spelt Morning, God, Clean Room, Incense and a Mother Smelling of Sandalwood. She had never known the individual meaning of the sanskrit words. Suddenly, she catches a few words from the table closest to her. She frowns. She turns the other way and starts humming to herslf as if to shut her ears. The table laughs in unison. She smiles and her palms unclench. She lights the last cigarette in the pack and awaits.

'What does it even matter what he has to say, really,' she thinks, 'I know why he wants out of this....' She stops to look for an appropriate word. She looks around to stare at the Jackfruit tree. Her friends would have provided 'Relationship,' she settles for 'Entanglement.' 'He is scared of course.' She continues to talk to herself, her tongue actually moving behind her clenched teeth. Her jaws tighten with the effort of not speaking aloud. She laughs at herself.

'I need to keep a blank mind. I can't let him know what all I presume for all my presumptions are right and he will get more scared at being so transparent to me and run faster. I'll keep the topics neutral. I'll talk about my sister or the Weather.' She decides and pulls the scarf closer around her neck.

She looks around now for him. 18 minutes have passed by.'Where is he?' She spots him entering through the door, with a phone in one hand at his ear, calling her and a book in the other. Her phone rings in the vast green bag. She ignores it and instead looks at him frantically searching for her. She smiles. He looks so young. So vulnerable, So his age. She waves at him and beckons him over, relieving him of his fear of having to wait for her alone.

There are certain un-explainable (not inexplicable) things about me. (Am not saying they make me unique) These I realise at weird times and I amaze at my belief in magic-of-sorts (and other cutesie things)

I think that 27 is a magical age. In films and books, the most amazing characters will be 27. They stand at the edge of the rest of their life at this age.

I think 28 is the coolest age. There is something very rounded and stable about this Age. It's as if, Now You Are Wise.

I am currently 27 and my favourite age is 23. I find this age irresistible. Of course, it's not the age per se but people of this age...but the co-incidences are amazing! All these amazingly yummy people I meet, whose brain I wanna lick (ewww, I know!) or who I just wanna gulp up whole are all 23.

When 2 people kiss for the first time (and mean it..not drunken/friendly kisses) their souls get a bit exchanged. Their thoughts and desires and goals (not of life, but or that moment or the person changes...interchanges)

If you laugh a lot, you will cry soon. (I think it's a neurotic thing..happens to me all the time!)

I like words like Inexplicable, Astonishing, Inadmissible, Admonishing. I think thats cos they are pronounced like they are spelt. (This thing wants me to believe that the spelling of spelt is wrong..but I wont give in)

I wish to be recognised as the cute thing that I am. Despite my size, heft, intuition, IQ, sense of humour, vocabulary, education, sex, I want to be CUTE!!!

I like it when I am treated like am fragile or weak just cos am a girl (believe me it dont happen often... ) for because of my size, heft, intuition, IQ, sense of humour, vocabulary, education, I am usually treated with asexual respect or like one of the guys. (It sucks if the guys doing this are cute!)