ReMnaNtS oF tHe dAy

2012-02-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

It's strange how much I like burnt food. It's stranger when I find myself scrapping the bottom of the wok to salvage the burnt, the disfigured. And then promptly pop them in my mouth.

Yappy Noo Eeyar!

2012-01-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Patricia Fermazi, sent along the most beautiful new year wish my way :)

"happy new year Ms. Mangalore. I hope this year love is everywhere and we both find courage for it this time around. huggs"

Here's hoping 2012 is filled with everything worthwhile and that we are at peace with ourselves and with the world. Cheers! *clinks glass*

Unread.

2011-12-05T03:46:00.000-08:00

“Why do you look at me with those eyes?” He asks.

She blinks and questions back “What eyes?”

She quickly flips through pages, whole chapters and lands at something more appropriate to be read.

“Imploring, begging. Hurtful, accusing, questioning….I..I don’t know. It’s many things. Many things at a moment’s notice. I don’t get it and it disturbs me”

She starts writing another story, a joke perhaps. Full of mirth, good cheer and nonchalance. All la-la-la, sunshine and rainbows.

She laughs. “You are so dramatic. You know, you should star in a soap”

“You…you…just.” A pause. So pregnant, it threatens to give birth to more. More hideous offsprings, growing alarmingly bigger and bigger, fed on spoonfuls of accusations, doubts and anxieties.

All caught embarrassingly in a mucky, coital embrace.

Abort it. Now.

Desperately, she scratches at the pages, writing furiously. Some story ought to surface, regurgitate its way out of the tired bowels of the past. Something. Anything.

“See? Now you look distracted. What are you looking at the ceiling for?” he says.

With fluttering lids, she writes another story. Of a butterfly she saw in the park. How beautiful it was, red, yellow, blue gliding like a ballerina in the air. She omits the part about how she saw only its tattered wings, how it flew in jerks, how it sputtered and reeled, a taint on its graceful kind.

Keep it happy, she told herself.

The tattered wing part must have sneaked its way in. Frantically, he mumbles something and leaves.

She writes the last chapter, following him with those imploring, begging, hurtful, accusing, questioning eyes.

She closes the book. She slams it shut. Tight.

And then she binds it with every taught nerve in the iris, hurling it into the black hole of the pupil.

That’s another book he’ll never read.

When.

2011-11-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

Feet never touched ground
On that grass of endless summer
Where eternal youth lay spread,
Gathering the sun into its body
Filling its lungs with memories.
See now.
Now there it lies
Framed in a sepia snapshot
Full-bodied, blood red
drunk with sun and laughter
Now it materializes
Gleaming, shimmering
on cold winter nights
A carnal reminder of all that we were
Of all that we could be.
And of feet that knew how to fly.

Charge.

2011-11-06T05:46:00.000-08:00

Franklin, they say found it in a metal key

tied to a kite in a storm-filled sky.

Faraday sought it in wires and motors

Volta ferreted it in plates of shiny metals

Edison encased it in bulbs and what-nots.

Such fools, these great men.

Such tiresome workers, these wise men.

If only they knew

that electricity is found

Not in science and laborious calculations

Not by math or funny looking equations.

But in the locking of lovers lips.

For what can be more electric than a kiss?

Feeling like...

2011-10-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Someone's given my heart a warm, tight hug and let the blood rush all over :)

Blood Sacrifice

2011-08-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

Blood red sprouts hang from green stems, like trickling down from a pricked finger. Bent down by a torrential downpour, water slashing this way and that. Experimenting, like it couldn’t make up its mind which lashing out would cause the most pain.

He walked, drenched in viscous maroon rain, making a gentle crunching sound. The gravel soothed the sole of his bare feet, like nature digging its rough fingers in for a deep tissue massage. He revered nature and it rewarded him in its strange little ways. He unloosed his tongue and felt the raindrops sink into every pore. He drank it up gratefully, this holy water from the heavens. The maroon robes clung to him, afraid to let go. They whimpered and clung tighter as the rain grew violent. The drops played a tap-tap-tap on his shorn head and he laughed at their juvenile composition. He wagged a finger at them playfully and laughed louder, letting the child within resurface for air. They took the cue and quickly drowned in the gaping hole between his teeth and he gulped them down. They were now somewhere inside him, caught in the labyrinths and voids within, making that tap-tap-tap with his blood.

He then plucked the blood red sprouts and breathed them in. They carried in their heart the scent of their agony, sweet and sacrificial. He carried them gently, his precious load. They would find themselves at the feet of a sleepy-eyed man-god, sitting still age after age, even as the walls crumble around him. Who would watch serenely, without emotion as the blood drained out of them. And there they would lie, till another rain, another time would obliterate their existence. They would have no more memories of their being then, just a faint sense of something red and alive trickling out.

2011-07-12T01:04:00.000-07:00

"She was considered timid and morose. Only in the country, her skin tanned by the sun and her belly full of ripe fruit, running through the fields with Pedro Tercero, was she smiling and happy. Her mother said that that was the real Blanca, and that the other one, the one back in the city, was a Blanca in hibernation."

— Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits)

Bare your feet

2011-06-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

One of the things I resent most about being 'civilized' is having to wear shoes. It is a necessity of course, but there's no better feeling than the freedom of bare feet. Being close to earth, grounded. Feeling every texture mother earth is gracious enough to present us with.

The grainy, grittiness of mud.

The scrunchy, tickly feel of sand.

The once-viscous, once-light, foamy feel of water.

The plush, spongy softness of grass.

I wish our shoes were made of these textures :)

2011-05-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

I've got to stop oscillating like this. Insanely happy one day, terribly blue the next. God help me.

This morning

2011-05-01T13:56:00.001-07:00

Spangles of light stream through. A bottle with a single white flower and a sprightly twig of shiny green leaves cast their shadow on the wall. And everything is suffused with a warm, ethereal glow. It takes so little to be truly happy...

12 days of Ladakh

2010-09-09T01:28:00.000-07:00

I've known you even before I was formed
I've walked your paths before time
Barefooted, I've trudged through the veins
that course through your heart
And I've felt
the rough of your earth, the touch of your weathered skin.

I remember how you called me out in dreams
Slicing through the clouds and piercing my soul
You whispered through the silence and took me into your womb

And I came.

I now stand, maroon-robed and shorn head
Gazing into your vast emptiness, listening to your wordlessness
Trying in vain to gather into me every bit of you
And wondering if i'll meet God, hidden in the folds of your breast.

Clouds so low they pull a hood of shadows over the mountains

Fluttering prayer flags

Surreal contrasts

The beautiful people and the children, happy and ever-content despite the harsh life

Clear spaces and blue, blue skies. The intermingling colours of Pangong Tso, pristine, pure.

Ancient religions and traditions nestled between the mountains of the gods

Remembering & wanting to forget

2009-11-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

For my very own, for every tear, for every faith, for every act of courage.

For serenity. For peace.

WhatEwah!

2009-10-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Found this random article while browsing today. And at 2 a.m. when your mind is unclogged of sounds and outside influence, it makes me wonder even more at the 'Amreekans'.

'Whatever' so totally tops most annoying word poll

By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 7, 3:25 pm ET

Americans are totally annoyed by the use of "whatever" in conversations.
The popular slacker term of indifference was found "most annoying in conversation" by 47 percent of Americans surveyed in a Marist College poll released Wednesday.
"Whatever" easily beat out "you know," which especially grated a quarter of respondents. The other annoying contenders were "anyway" (at 7 percent), "it is what it is" (11 percent) and "at the end of the day" (2 percent).
"Whatever" — pronounced "WHAT'-ehv-errr" when exasperated — is an expression with staying power. Immortalized in song by Nirvana ("oh well, whatever, nevermind") in 1991, popularized by the Valley girls in "Clueless" later that decade, it is still commonly used, often by younger people.
It can be an all-purpose argument-ender or a signal of apathy. And it can really be annoying. The poll found "whatever" to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.
"It doesn't surprise me because 'whatever' is in a special class, probably," said Michael Adams, author of "Slang: The People's Poetry" and an associate professor of English at Indiana University. "It's a word that — and it depends how a speaker uses it — can suggest dismissiveness."
Adams, who was not involved in the poll and is not annoyed by "whatever," points out that its use is not always negative. It also can be used in place of other, neutral phrases that have fallen out of favor, like "six of one, half dozen of the other," he said.
But the negative connotation might explain why "whatever" was judged more annoying than the ever-popular "you know," which was recently given a public workout by Caroline Kennedy during her flirtation with the New York U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. "You know," Adams notes, is a way for speakers to seek assent from others.
Pollsters at the Poughkeepsie, N.Y. college surveyed 938 U.S. adults by telephone Aug. 3-Aug 6. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points. The five choices included were chosen by people at the poll discussing what popular words and phrases might be considered especially annoying, said spokeswoman Mary Azzoli.

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938 US adults actually pondered over the 'most annoying word' when questioned over the telephone? Or when questioned, did they just roll their eyes and say "Whatevah, man!" and slam the phone? And that by default became the most annoying word?
Now, How about questioning 938 US adults what they really thought about the war? How about waking them up in the middle of the night with the shrill ring of the telephone, and asking them if they thought about it at all? Would the response then be "Whatever"? Or would there be genuine concern by a country that has therapy for a phenomenon called 'shopping stress'? Would there be, if any an answer at all?

So, like, you know....Whatever.

'Pulp'...and just that

2009-09-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

Pulp

Definition: any soft or soggy mass; "She pounded it to a pulp"

The last week was filled with hugely hyped movies/books for me. And i found myself asking "So what's all the fuss about?" It made me momentarily wonder if I was too 'dumb' to 'appreciate the finer points'. But then, I'm not one for intelligence that needs to concord with the rest of the world…just to fit in smugly :P

The first of my woes was 'Pulp Fiction'. I had heard so much about it being a cult movie, so many friends raved about it and gave me an accusing "You haven't watched it yet?!!? You ought to be dead!" kind of feel...I almost felt obliged to watch. Or be relegated to being the scum of the universe.

Five minutes into the movie and I was thinking how blissful it was being the scum. At least I wouldn't have been subjected to this. WHAT THE HELL WAS THE MOVIE (*!!@#$$%&**!) ALL ABOUT? It was like listening to somebody indulging in all the talk they never got to talk about, because people just weren't interested. I can take that in a book, but a movie??? I was biting my knuckles to stop myself from yelling "Aw C'mon, what's the story??!!?" (yes…I need a STORY). I didn't even find the dialogues funny (somebody droning on about a cheese burger...really???). I'm suspecting the only reason it got popular was for the uninhibited language.

Which brings me to 'The world according to Garp'. I won't slam the book as much as I did the movie. But again, I wondered what the fuss was all about. It had its moments...some bits i really liked, some that made me ponder, some that made me laugh. But for the majority of the book, it was nothing more than a recounting of male fantasies (despite its pseudo-dominant theme of feminism).

After that week of sex and violence, I snuggle up to my (safe) copy of ‘Mill on the floss’ and inject a dose of DDLJ into my system. And with a blueberry cheesecake for company (:), I’m purged of the last week’s excesses.

Of trash & moving

2009-08-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how callous some people can be. With a LOT of effort, I was clearing up the last of the trash in the house before moving to another place (this is my 3rd house in 2009, by the way). I had dumped all of the heavy stuff at my doorway, so that I could drag it all to the chute.

When I was done with the house, I stepped out to find that somebody had happily clubbed their trash with mine! (oh, the joys of communal living…). I was furious…what did they expect, that I lug their trash as well?? Couldn’t they do it themselves?? All these question-rounds later, I still threw all the trash – theirs and mine. I couldn’t bear to have it lying around. I lugged all of it, making 4 rounds up and down (yes…I’m a chronic garbage collector). I came back thinking…would I ever do that? I somehow knew I wouldn’t…

It may be a small thing, but still…to me, it shows a lack of sensitivity and respect. Oh well...

As an aside, I was quite proud of myself during the 3rd exodus. Daddy’s li’l girl who couldn’t cross the street without holding his hand (even till high school!) packed all her stuff, hired a couple of pathans for the moving and set up the new place – all by myself. The 1st 2 times I had friends who helped me out while I stood like a helpless puppy and followed orders. This time around, I kept fretting how I would do it with my friends being away. But lo & behold! The good Lord shows you that you are capable of much more than you know and gives you the strength to do it. And I suddenly felt thankful for those years that I’ve spent away from the protected and loving environs of my home – or else I would have remained the same delicate, fragile person bursting into tears at the slightest challenge.
I’ve never worked this hard in my life, made so many decisions, or carried so much (esp. in 40 degree heat!) and the satisfaction was immense. I looked like a burnt pygmy at the end of it all, but it was worth it.

I adore my new, cozy li’l home and I have this smug smile on my face. There! I did it dad!

Rest in Peace, MJ...hopefully.

2009-07-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

I hope we let you live in your death. I hope we let you be the child you've always wanted to be. I hope we stop dissecting your life. I hope we realize how music mourns your loss. I hope, finally we let you rest in peace.

Why so serious?

2009-07-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

I'm bored. I'm so bored, it's unbelievable. I don't remember ever being so bored in my life. I find a seriousness creeping in, a lethargy, a 'I-don't-care-what-happens' settling in like a curling-up cat. I don't want to feel like this, but I'm too bored to even try. I find people, places uninteresting...I find my mind drifting when someone's talking. I find talk boring...it's the usual, the mundane. All I want to do is snuggle up in bed with a good book and doze off peacefully, somewhere in between it's pages.

People drive me nuts and I can't understand why humans love to complicate their lives. I'm bored of their constant whining, of perceived threats, of advices doled out, of illogical reasonings. I'm bored that there's nobody here who likes to share long silences with me...and not feel the need to puncture every silence with a word.

I'm bored that I'm bored.

I'm bored that my job doesn't excite me anymore. That it's become just another means to make money. I'm bored to the depths of my being.

And now I'm too bored to write.

I miss...

2009-06-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Unending coffee table conversations.
Mindless laughter, uncontrollable giggles.

Jumping fences.
Familiar faces.

The company of good human beings who occasionally bitch :)

But tomorrow...

2009-05-28T01:26:00.000-07:00

“But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.”

- William Collins

Roads on water

2009-05-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

"To translate the wind by the water it sculpts in passing"

I'm sitting in my office on the 18th floor, facing the largest canvas of Burj Al Arab with the sea all around it....sipping tea and spinning my chair absent-mindedly. The water around the Burj (a playground for the rich & famous) is alive again. Power boats and yachts skim the waters rending them in two. But now, I stop my spinning. The water where the sea traffic skimmed through is sculpted in the shape of a path. It looks like a perfect road in the sea. And it stays there for a really long time, as if the water was not liquid, but something solid. All around, the placid blue doesn't stir. There is a scientific explanation, I know :) But I can't stop feeling mesmerized.

It's so beautiful...i can see myself walking on it. Mmmmm....

Older, none the wiser

2009-05-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

31. There, I've said it. *Breathe* *inhale* *exhale* *don't choke* I turned 31 last month. *breathe out*

Till I was teetering on 30, I convinced myself I hadn't tripped over the threshold yet and died. Basically, I had convinced myself (and everybody else, for that matter) that I was 29. Still. Yet.

And now 31. It means the threshold has been passed. The first foot set in. Not unlike the bride in hindi soaps that upturns a tin can of rice...and looks up to scowling faces of in-laws and a few outlaws. And no..I'm no fan of the 'new-age' Indian soaps. But I feel all the insecurities, depressions and countless 'phases' scowling down on me.

The question writ large on everybody's chastising, patronising countenance??
"30 and not married yet?" "30 and no man yet?" "30 and not married yet?" "30 and no man yet?"

Essentially the same thing. That brings me to the question “Is it such a horrible, horrible thing to be sans man while you cross that 30's threshold?”

To a certain extent, yes. To a large extent, no.

I do admit to pangs of loneliness and hopelessly waiting for ‘true’ love. I also admit to being much happier, saner while single.

I am deeply grateful to those men who entered my life at the right time and left at the right time. Grateful, despite everything for having given me all the love, all the attention and all the care. But grateful, most of all for letting me realize how important I am to me. And how much I need to hold on to my identity, thoughts, feelings…without being manipulated into changing my patterns.

At 31, what have I learned really? A lot…and not so much. Quite a bit and nothing at all.

What I’ve learnt is not to trade in ‘myself’ for anything in the world. To love and give without expecting much. To be content with myself and not so content at the same time…so that I’m always at competition with myself. I’ve learnt to cherish the few, long relationships-friendships and not take them for granted. I’ve learnt how to unlearn and start all over. Also learnt that even the most self-assured person in the world needs a kind word, a loving smile. Learnt to let bygones be bygones. Not to let regrets hang over my shoulders in a thick cloud. Learnt also not to judge too quickly.

What I’ve not learnt is to budget.

31…it’s got to be a hazardous journey from here on. Fun part is, I’ve got myself for company :)

Reverie of light

2009-04-19T04:36:00.000-07:00

I came home, walking through a patch of Lalang rods lustily cavorting in the breeze. Sunlight was trapped in them…it moved restlessly from fuzzy tip to stem…only to get trapped again. When I came home, their hair had clung to my skirt. When I came home, I was wearing a sunlight sprinkled skirt that glowed warm with every swish.

I reached the wooden table, where I laid down my basket. My basket…it was filled with gold of all hues. Red gold, yellow gold, violet gold, gold gold. Somehow, the rainbow had gotten trapped here too. I walked towards the living room. A burst of honey gold spread over me. I felt warm as toast. I knew then that he had left the door open.

I walked towards the living room and I saw an old, weathered chair covered in soft cotton, it’s back towards me. It was white (well…worn brownish white now) with green clovers printed on them. At the top of it, I saw a halo around a head. It changed hues, gold to champagne to pink. And then the head turned. I saw your face awash, the smile that let your dimples gather pools of liquid light. You seemed ecstatic, as you always did when you saw me. Every hair on your beard seemed to capture the light. Which light was it…the one in your eyes or the one of day? I decided to stop asking myself that.

As I drew near, the house smelled of soup cooking thickly, like something into which were hurriedly put the freshest things. Also of some brew, aromatic and sweet…that would be golden brown and forming words, shapes with it’s steam. I was right. You motioned me to partake of a cup of tea on the table. I sat opposite you on another worn chair, right in front of the door that allowed sunlight in, right where the dog sat lazily curled up on the steps, warmed to his bones, right where the wind found voice through the leaves like some silly ventriloquist, right where I wanted to be. I looked out. No words were spoken, none needed. The golden brew with its steam formed all of it. Steams from two delicate china cups mingled, held hands and drew apart.

The Lalang rods as if on cue, let the sunlight go a little too quickly to embrace the velvety night. The lights, finally freed, shimmering, thirsting rush up homebound. It’s the end of another day. The lights have dimmed.

Alyque, have you lost it??!!?

2009-04-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

Alyque Padamsee and his theatrical troupe landed in Dubai with ‘Unspoken Dialogues’. I jumped at the chance to encounter the histrionics of the legendary ad guru & actor…hoping his flamboyance was intact (keeping in mind the fact that he’s older than the nearest antiquity).

The play came with generous helpings of his family….wife Sharon (ex-Madonna-impersonator-current-botox endorser), daughter Shazahn (young, beautiful…and that’s where the achievements end).

With a name like ‘Unspoken Dialogues’, the play held many a promise claiming that “it reveals the hidden secrets of the heart that are always left unsaid”.

Made me think “Ah! So much like my life, where things are always hanging unsaid”. That said, I waxed and waned and conned a friend, Van (who’s mildly suspicious of anything to do with advertising people…can’t say I blame her!) by buying the most expensive, best seats in the house. And the promise of a substantial dinner. In my delirium, I do admit I bled through my nose a little, but figured an evening of pure theatre would purge me of my feeling of guilt.

I was wrong…so, so wrong.

The play began with Sharon’s ‘unspoken dialogue’…which ironically was a monologue of a woman so besotted by a man, that to have him by her side forever, she murders him and keeps his body in the basement. In short, the story of a maniac. I could still live with that and admit to having taken a certain amount of pleasure in a woman murdering a man (Aw c’mon…I was kidding!!). Despite Sharon’s foot-stomping, immature portrayal, her dialogue delivery was flawless. I waited.

The next set saw Alyque himself (and this is where I brightened up a little) take on the guise of a doctor (quack?!?) giving advise to his patient. Nothing could save that dialogue…not Alyque’s Wodehouse-like delivery, his strange conviction in the horrid piece he had written…nothing. I couldn’t believe that I was watching a play with the kind of script we rustled up for school plays!!

Case in point. Remember those snickers passed from girl to girl when anybody mentioned ‘laptop’ in the days laptop first came into the limelight?? A dialogue between a boss (Alyque) and his secretary (some girl I don’t know from Eve) had the boss saying “What??!!? You want a laptop? Do you want to sit on top of my lap??”

Sigh.

I still gritted my teeth and sought deliverance…especially since my theatre-uncouth friend got increasingly restless and started biting into an apple (an act which normally would have made me gaze in anger at her having defiled a play…but this, I had to concede). Between the scrunches of an apple, I heard the rest of the incredulously-childish play.

The next, we saw the quintessential generation gap fight between father and daughter. And the lame way it was handled. Nothing different from what we have seen in countless, mindless movies…the only exception being Shazahn, holding a Barbie doll, teetering edgily between adolescence and childhood.

Just when I was nursing the burnt hole in my pocket, which by now had seared the inside of my thighs…and just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, it did. With a talking dog (a man dressed in gloves for paws and strangely rouged red on the apples of his cheeks…as if dogs had rosy cheeks). He panted and spoke about how his master treats him. Just when Van threatened to get up in her seat and do an item number, I decided to leave.

Just then, the next dialogue’s theme was announced…’what women want’. A-ha! I thought…now we are getting somewhere!

Two women…Sharon & that other girl. Sharon, shrill and whining because she just left her husband. The other girl, her friend….trying to put up with her and coaxing her to drink away her sorrows.

Sharon’s tone got shriller, sillier and I got going…in the company of a friend with a murderous expression on her face.

I said “Maybe they’ve dumbed it down for the Dubai audience”
She asked “Whatever for?? Considering 3/4th of the audience was Indian!”

All I could mutter was “Maybe Alyque’s lost it…he’s quite old, you know”

And she “Then he should just retire…gracefully, no?”

After this, I had to agree.

Yiiiiikkkkkeeesss!

2009-02-19T02:10:00.000-08:00

I apologize for that barrage of pictures. I couldn't help it! :)

2009-02-19T02:02:00.000-08:00

2009-02-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

2009-02-19T01:54:00.000-08:00

The people

2009-02-19T01:41:00.001-08:00

Pyramid, sphinx

2009-02-19T01:35:00.001-08:00

As you can see, I have no clue how to format the page :(

Just been Egyptized!

2009-01-28T05:57:00.000-08:00

The falcon-headed God, Horus took us on a journey. A journey that skimmed eras, swirled around ages and settled upon the new. That made the hair on my neck stand up and calmed me down at the same time. I...went to Egypt :)

Ever since I can remember, I've been dreaming about it. Sitting on that plane seat, I could never have been prepared for what I was about to see, feel and sense. Egypt was a revelation, in more ways than one. We hit Cairo city and chaos. It reminded me so much of India and I warmed up to it instantly :) A quaint hotel in the middle of the city accorded a better view of everyday city life in Cairo. But by then, I had frozen into an icicle. It was 9 degrees!!

The next day, Giza loomed large before us. And the pyramids loomed larger :) I was awestruck. If I could find words, they choked in my throat. The 3 pyramids stretch into the skies, tall, magnificent triangles fitted into an exquisite jigsaw of perfectly uniform stones and you wonder - "HOW???"

No amount of Discovery or NGC can prepare you for this. Our guide, Iman was wonderfully eloquent...being an archeology graduate herself and having worked with Dr. Zahi Hawass, who I am a huge fan of (o.k., o.k....I am a geek)...she gave us an even deeper insight into Egyptian history. After entering the pyramid, which was a looooong claustrophobic way down a narrow shaft, we entered an ammonia-drenched pyramid interior. The tapering at the apex was perfect, reaching upwards with clean-cut symmetrical stones...smooth and unglued, just fitted into place! After climbing out of it, breathless and hardly able to feel your legs, I knew what it was like to 'Walk like an Egyptian'!

Giza's Sphinx welcomed us majestically and gloomily...missing a nose isn't easy! The half-man, half-beast had secrets he was unwilling to share. Although he did speak in a sonorous voice via the modern-day light and sound show at Giza!

From there to the Egyptian Museum, which was a smorgasbord of such spectacular glimpses into a rich heritage. Pity we weren't allowed to take our cameras. I went from one display to the next with the predominant question in mind "HOW??". Everything was larger-than-life - the display of pyramidal wealth, accessories - everything to ease the passage into the afterlife. The sculptures, the artistry, the detailing, the sheer talent of a people way ahead of their times. Tut-Ankh-Amon's chamber - sacredly standing, aloof and dignified with the boy king's treasures up for public scrutiny. 'Oh's and 'Ah's peppered around, the artifacts made me wonder at the meticulous attention to detail these ancients mastered.

And then....strange things happened, which you will never find in a travel guide :) A man approached our guide and started talking to her, fretting over something. A lengthy discussion later, our guide turned to explain. She said the man had visions everyday of a Queen/Goddess who had an unfinished crown on her head. He said that the queen told him that he was the only one who could finish the crown for her and he had to do it. He paced the museum halls hoping to find her. We kept looking out for a statue with an unfinished/ broken crown...and we chanced upon Tutmoses III's wife. She had an unfinished crown on her head and we wondered...was she the one who haunted the man? Unfortunately, we couldn't find him anywhere.

Iman told us many more stories...of the guide who took a bunch of Europeans to the temple of the Goddess Hathor and plunged to her death after having climbed the roof of the temple, crying wildly "She's calling me! I have to go!"....Of the cigarette smoke in Hathor's temple that assumed the shape of a cow - her symbol. One day could never be enough for the museum, not with stories like that!

Saqqara, the Nile cruise, the ride around town, observing cultures, taking in everything....

...I really can't put it all down...REALLY. You have to see it for yourself. And there's so much more to explore. I have just seen a sneak preview - there's still Luxor, Alexandria, Valley of the Kings...

Although it's very little I've seen, Egypt pervades the senses and remains. And i keep dreaming of going back.

And so it shall pass :)

A li'l late, but Happy New Year it is!!

2009-01-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

Geez! it has been long...and I somehow feel awkward writing after this hiatus. As for me, 2009 started on an excellent note with a trip to Egypt! (This one's for another day). So, I'm still warm and snug from memories of that trip. But for now, the words aren't pouring out like they should... and I'm racking my brains for things to talk about other than my holiday...so this one, I'll sign off with a (albeit late) wish for the New Year :) And hope that my next blog is more verbose!

I wish you all with so much happiness that it makes you cry...

I wish you all so much health that you glow with life...

I wish you all so many more years that you can fulfill each dream, each wish...

Most importantly, I wish you all new dreams, new hopes and renewed lives.

I wish you all...a fabulous, rocking 2009 :)

2008-11-20T01:46:00.000-08:00

I'm too spaced out to put anything down. Can't seem to organise my thoughts. It's thanks to fellow-blogger Pinku that I've picked up my pen...errrr...keypad. So, a poem it is, simply for a lack of incidents...significant or otherwise.

New Dawn

Incandescent triangles of honey gold

Stab and pierce the windows,

Searching through every fold and every wrinkle,

Creeping under the covers of the unmade bed

Seeking...

To dry the tears of a crumpled soul,

Left over by a cruel night.

Diwali Blues

2008-10-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year again...when I get lower than an earthworm's bellybutton. Characteristic of a seasonal phase, I feel lonely and depressed and wonder what I'm doing so far away from the people I love.

When I walk these streets and stare at cold, sterile buildings each trying to outdo each other, I miss Diwali all the more. And home.

I can almost see my little town's every street, every home lined with warm, glowing diyas. I can see mom greeting everyone she meets, sweets being exchanged and me gingerly waiting for the next big 'bomb'. I can still feel the unconfined excitement of the neighbourhood gang waiting for dad to bring 'patakis'. I can smell the crisp aroma of 'thukudis' and the sweet sensations of 'ladus' in your mouth. Every association of Diwali is nostalgic and inviting and lends a strange, warm glow that fills the insides of your heart.

Everyone's home and yesterday's phone call drove me to tears. Most of all my brat-of-a-niece. As she animatedly (& secretly) told me her plans to plant 'maale pataki' behind her unsuspecting uncle (read my bro), I remembered my antics. And the time I burnt the sole of my feet :) Mom complained about how 'electric' diyas were replacing the traditional ones. And I saw her point. From my very early Diwalis, I used to stay on late into the night, making sure that each diya being blown by the wind was replenished with a fresh flame. An act that gave me immense peace. We used to sit up and watch out for the last dying firecracker, leaving it's whimsical trail behind...signaling the end of another Diwali night.

I try at my end here to light a little diya in my home, but it's just not the same. Without the intangible warmth of family and friends to make it glow brighter, it seems incomplete and listless.

A cynical old friend calls it my 'delusion' - typical of Indians living abroad who think it's romantic to sigh about India and home. Maybe it is, I don't really know...but as long as I still pine to be 'home' for Diwali (or otherwise!), I would like to remain in this perpetual 'state of delusion' :)

To all you guys out there, wish you a sparkly, bright and beautiful Diwali...with or without your loved ones.

How can a grown man cry?

2008-10-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

Realizations sting the eye

Like a million pins

On a display board.

And you blink it away

Blaming the dust.

How can a grown man cry?

Your earth lies shattered

Beneath your feet

And you walk the shifting sands of time

Afraid of falling through

With every step.

How can a grown man show his fears?

Your heart has sunk to its darkest depths

And your soul tainted with grief.

You look in the mirror,

To meet the ghost of your dreams

And look away, lest he prods your heart.

How can a grown man look weak?

You smile and laugh

And say it’s all right.

Everything’s fine and never been better.

But it belies the pools gathering in your eyes.

And you blink it away

Blaming the dust.

How can a grown man cry?

The SRK routine

2008-10-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

Some songs do it for you. The recent 'Khuda jaane...' from 'Bachna he haseeno' is one such number, methinks. Sure, it's no classic and months later I would have purged it out of my system. Really, it's not like one of those olden goldies that one can listen to anytime.

Right now, I'm in the mood for 'Khuda jaane'. It's expansive and makes you want to do the SRK routine. Let's try this together. At the count of 'Khuda jaaaaaaannnnneeee....', spread your arms, bend a little backwards, tilt a little to the side, head back and yenjoooooy (note: all this has to be done with split-second precision). The words, music swooshes over you much better that way. It would help if you had a designer sweater.

I do it all the time for appropriate numbers. No seriously, it feels soooo good. Stand in front of the mirror (or just about anywhere actually) for maximum impact. While in public though, watch out for passerby's who could be smacked in the face by your windmill-arms. Don't get too carried away in public or you could find yourself in a padded room.

So, swoosh, spread, pirouette...and fill your soul with feel-good numbers.

Randomly rambling ahead...

2008-09-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

O.k. I haven’t said this in a long time…but Gene Kelly is the original cat’s pajamas (although I have absolutely no clue why a cat would need pajamas, let alone boots). Don’t believe me? Watch him do the newspaper routine in ‘Summer stock’ and don’t you dare blink. You just might miss something. Watch any of his movies actually. He’s so incredibly fluid, agile and graceful…and he’s still ‘all man’. No effeminate vibes to make you cringe and ask “Why, God…why?”. Now, how many men you know can do that? Seriously? The swoon-bit is of course his impish, romantic, mobile face…hmmm…What a dreamboat. The kinds that make you sway from side to side with a loony look on your face.

I’ve come to the conclusion that they don’t make men the way they used to. Probably has something to do with the fact that women have morphed into part-time men. Which leads me to another conclusion – men, as a species may soon become extinct. I mean, seriously…I change the light bulb, I fix the pipes, I handle my investments (a tad warily). Heck! I even open jam jars. And I know tons of women who do the same. And I also know we are an increasing tribe.

So, what exactly would be the role of man in let’s say, the year 2080? Would we be walking on the debris of egos of men? Or would women have completely taken over the planet, considering they have superior manipulation powers and an overdose of emotional strength? With women growing more self-reliant, androgynous and independent these days, I wonder…

O.k. this random rambling is going nowhere. I, for one despite my fondness and undying loyalty to my species, would still like to have men around (the more evolved ones, that is). I donno…life would probably be quite boring without them around. And it’s no fun blaming all your problems on a woman.

But, I think the reason why I would like men to be around (and I’m not talking about the more obvious reasons!) all the more would be because they tend to bring women closer. Let’s face it. We have an invisible and strong bond because of men. Our easy camaraderie stems from realizing that quality female company can soothe any heartache. And more often than not, it’s a man causing it.

Conclusion to the conclusions? For all our claims, we still need men around. And if they look and dance like Gene Kelly, bring them on. Preferably to my doorstep.

Both sides now

2008-09-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

I won't write a thing today. I won't even mouth a word (I know, I know, that's 2 sentences already). I will just copy-paste an all-time favourite, which a very dear and lifelong friend said was all 'me'.

My dearest friend, this is in fond remembrance of those endless days of youth. With you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun

They rain and snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels

The dizzy dancing way you feel

As every fairy tale comes real

I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show

You leave 'em laughing when you go

And if you care, don't let them know

Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now

From give and take, and still somehow

It's love's illusions I recall

I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud

To say "I love you" right out loud

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange

They shake their heads, they say I've changed

Well something's lost, but something's gained

In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all

I've looked at life from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all...

Rev. Spooner, my apologies

2008-09-24T03:06:00.000-07:00

"So, what can I do you for?"

Nope...not a spoonerism, not even an unintentional typing error. At least not on my part. This was actually a sentence used at a very serious, prim and 'propah' board meeting.

And guess who laughed???

30 pairs of disapproving eyes of all colours turned in a matter of seconds towards the source of laughter. I tried (a little unsuccessfully) to look back at the perpetrator and glare, only to stare at the glass door.

A quick apology later, I was wishing the prophecies of doomsday were proved right at least this time. Of course, no such luck...just ended up cursing Nostradamus for misleading me. again.

C'mon people!! Where's your sense of humour? What's with these guys anyway? They look like they swallowed a septic tank...so poker faced! O.K. fine...i give in. The next pasty Korean who says 'boooss" instead of 'booth' doesn't even get a chuckle outa me.

So there!

From the frying pan...

2008-09-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

Yawwwwn. First day at my new agency and I'm bored to death. This place is so claustrophobically professional, it’s weird! For the 1^st time in my life, after 6 years in the business, I have had a 3-hour ‘orientation’ with 133-pg. PPT’s thrown in for a major snooze fest. Seriously, who does these things in an ‘ad agency’??!!?? It’s unheard of and so pseudo! Who gives a rat’s ass for your KISS strategy? (which if you are curious, is the ‘Key to Impact Sales Spots’. Why, oh why, does a writer need to know that fudge?? Although I admit the word shook me awake and I thought ‘now, we are getting somewhere!’ I should have known…)

Seems like I’ve signed up for the military, with a skewed helmet and without my camouflage. Serves me right for choosing a multi-trillion dollar conglomerate over a fun, mid-sized thought shop.

Oh well…the decision was purely for the moolah and my plans to retire early. Or alternatively, to afford a toy-boy in my senile yet sensible years :)

I miss my ol’ team though – a bunch of whackos, my partners-in-crime. We always dreamed up schemes to raise hell and I miss that – that whole ‘agency’ feeling of laughing as you work, fighting as you work, scheming as you work. The guys call me every single minute to give me updates and nostalgia bites me in the rear.

Hmm…maybe it’s the first-day blues, but you can get a feel of a place from day one. I’ve always had a feeling of the ‘feel’. The ‘feel’ this time is of a laughter-less, jaded, hostile, pressure-cooker environment. And I don’t hear music.

Sob. So this is fire.

2008-08-31T02:20:00.000-07:00

In the contingency of bekaari, I'm feeling poetic...so here goes.

A million stars skip across the water,
Glazing it with a silver hue.

Every night, I dip myself in this silver
And awake, to find me soaked in gold.

Back to the past

2008-08-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

Finally! An impending and long-pending trip to Egypt materializes out of the sand. Plans, re-plans and re-re-plans later, we booked tickets. And that’s just about it. Now it remains to be seen whether we’ll actually make it. So often, our plans have come crashing down…much like the nose of Giza's sphinx.

Sigh! So many plans to travel and so little time. Between work and work and then some more work, there’s not much that can be done. But, hold it…I do have a list. And it's long.

I'll roll of just a few to keep you off a doze-a-thon. Some of my must-see’s and must-go’s include all the historical sites in India, Machu Picchu and the ruins of Petra, besides the valley of the kings. Being a complete sucker for history, I so often see myself brushing away piled on years to get a glimpse of the past. Watching the people of the Indus Valley lead their organized, urban lives thousands of years before urbanization. Or stumbling upon Tutankhamen’s tomb and dying of his curse, clutching a scepter, crying wildly. Oh well… :)

I envied Agatha Chistie’s life as the wife of archeologist Max Mallowan (of course, the lousy lout cheated on her…but that’s another story). Imagine what adventures her already fertile mind would have spun, while coming face-to-face with remains of the past.

The impact is best summed up by Christie herself while watching the city of Ur come alive –
“The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint through the sand, was romantic”

I couldn’t agree more.

Romance aside, there’s something of the past that’s searching and magnetic. It’s like this shadowy creature waiting to engulf you and take you away…into a world frozen in time. Waiting, watching…seeing if you ready.

And God knows I am :)

An ode to a Mockingbird

2008-08-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

I'm reading 'To kill a Mockingbird' all over again...because years have let the little bits trickle out of my memory. I read it when I was 12 and felt closer to Scout than Jem, despite the latter being my age. Scout’s eyes always remain adult-cataract free, transparent, seeing and perceiving as is…and not what should be. Believing in good, its all-encompassing quality and its ultimate triumph, however long the wait.

On another tangent, it also gets me thinking each time…we, as Indians were victims of racial prejudice for years, but are we above it ourselves? I have so often heard the term ‘kaala’ (or ‘kariya’ down south) for an African, or even a dark-skinned Indian. I have a very dear friend who tells me that in her childhood, some parents didn’t allow their children to play with her because she was dark-skinned. The logic being that touching a dark-skinned person would make you one too!! (if you are lucky, you buggers…). We place ourselves a notch higher when we label somebody an ‘untouchable’, and although the bias seems to not exist on the surface, it still has its noxious seeds waiting to sprout somewhere. Trust me on that one.

Even a show of tolerance or brotherhood can’t hide a festering hideout of bias and intolerance…towards anyone who’s not as pretty, as smart, as successful. For me, racial bias is not just towards a particular nation’s people. It extends towards particular labeled ‘races’ as well – what we term the ‘losers’, the ‘poor’, the ‘disabled’….all those we wouldn’t associate with or touch with a barge pole.

How come we never have patience for anything less perfect, when we aren’t perfect ourselves?

What does it mean to be human really? Is it just to constantly hanker towards perfection or embrace everybody’s else’s so-called imperfections and admit to our own? What if we had a society full of self-confessed imperfect, flawed people, telling all and sundry their fears, doubts, hopes?

I have a sneaking feeling that the day we voice out our shortcomings and gather them to our bosom, we would be free of all prejudices. We would then refrain from derogatory terms and look instead at the richness in a person. At chocolate, coffee coated skins, at a struggle inside a pupa, at survivals despite the condition.

Maybe…just maybe...then, there would be no more ‘race’…except for the human one.

Confront or talk?

2008-04-16T03:53:00.000-07:00

Today is the day...where i make a choice between 'confrontation' and 'conversation'. I would rather opt for the latter, but i also know there's a welling up of putrid and corrosive emotions that threaten to hit the surface. If that happens, i know i'll end up spewing venom instead of digesting it.

I want to just converse, i really do...i hope i can suspend my 'humanness' for sometime.

Sometimes though, i just wish i wasn't human.

Being Garfield

2008-04-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

Like Garfield rightly (and insightfully) puts it "Am bored...am bored, am bored, am bored...". I would like to add a few more to that. I've been feeling supremely lethargic and bored to even stretch my imagination. The reason why my blog has been silent for so long. A good friend's blogging efforts (thanks Neeru) have awakened the blogger side of me again (Ahoy there! I see land :)

I am in a strangely transient phase - just 'put in my papers' and 'serving' the dreaded 'notice period' in my company. Between spurts of contained excitement and those darn fluttering butterflies, i don't really know what to expect. And i strongly suspect that the older i grow, the more averse i get to change. I guess we all seek a 'stay' after a point of time. Right now though, i need to metamorphose or be stuck around in my cocoon forever.

Well...i guess it's time to fly :)

Missing me

2008-01-17T03:56:00.000-08:00

Was surfing meaninglessly, in my usual preoccupied manner when the remote froze in on ‘The Wonder Years’. The episode was one in which Harper Woods was to be torn down to make way for a shopping complex monstrosity. The woods – where Kevin and his friends lived countless childhood memories and lives. The night before the woods are to be reduced to nothingness, Kevin and gang land up there to reminisce for the last time. They play a final game of hide n seek. And then the adult voice of Kevin says something that hit the sleepy gong in my heart– “Growing up isn’t easy…And that night, we found something we had lost – the spirit of children…the spirit of memories…”.

I cried (yes, again…and no, I’m not pregnant…I’m just hysterical). I cried at my own lost childhood...the memories, the sights, sounds, smells..... I wept at spending another adult day bickering with taxi drivers and rushing indoors into A.C. environments to escape the heat. At another night used up in flipping channels back and forth. For all those childhood landscapes that have lived on only in the blind spots of memory….physically defunct, ethereally hung in time.

I cry…At having lost ‘me’ in a sea of frozen faces.

When it rains, it pours…

2008-01-16T02:55:00.000-08:00

Leaving behind a wistful vapour trail, the day diffuses into inky blackness. It’s been pouring incessantly…the grey-black atmosphere coating everything it touches with a damp and gloomy veneer. The dark clouds form an apostrophe in the sky…like a million words have been left unsaid in between. I can’t get myself to speak and my words choke to death even before being born. Who knew it would end this way? Everything, including the relentless rain seems so futile…

Ehhh…Wassup Doc!!??!

2008-01-08T05:15:00.000-08:00

Had been to my quack for a checkup on a perennial problem and instead of administering a cure, she took a complete U-turn of a deviation and settled in on her preferred choice of subject - marriage. She sort of suggested that my hormones would rebel like crazy if i did not tie the knot (around my neck). I looked at that implication a tad dubiously since she’s been a very vocal advocate of my marital status. Being tirelessly hounded by scores of homo sapiens on the same subject...I did something weird.

I launched into a revolutionary tirade on why marriage is not for the likes of me. And finished it with a smug and successful look on my face. She in turn, gave me a number that made me duck behind her desk with my eyeballs peering out.

I’m never gonna see that doc again. She’ll probably burn me at the stake.

Of Resolutions & trying to keep 'em!

2008-01-03T00:25:00.000-08:00

Sigh...This is my 4th attempt at blogging...i never seem to keep up with it. And i forget all my i.d.'s and passwords. My new year resolution this year is to TRY (that's the key word) and write a blog atleast once a week.

Now to make this last more than a week...

One finger

2008-01-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

I type on a second-hand laptop, a steaming cup of tea (yeah…I’m not in2 coffee…and no, it ain’t a sacrilege) by my side for internal tranquility and external warmth and with one eye on the blinking tube light. Almost Dom Moraes type, I type mostly with just one or two fingers. The rest linger restlessly over the keyboard, waiting for the chance to hit upon a letter…which never comes.

There are two bottles of mineral water standing like sentinels on either side of my bed. Why, you ask? Because I don’t know which side of the bed I’ll wake up on and when I need that blessed drink, I don’t want to turn to the other side. It’s too much work. A horde of books lie on a stand in complete disarray, some read, some waiting to be read. Clothes hang limp from a hook like they have been sentenced to suffer their fate. You may say nothing’s in order…I say it’s ‘chaotic order’ the kinds only I know. The drone of the old AC and the one blinking tube light are something I’ve gotten used to by now (each time, the landlord replaces one blinking tube light with another). The Venetian blinds are drawn ‘full down’ because it’s 12 midnight and I’m freaked out by shadowy things creeping up on me, even my own shadow at times. The TV’s on the blink and I don’t feel like reading.

So here I am, with my second-hand laptop, typing with one finger.