SMELLS-part.1

MUMMA:
Infrequent bouts of a rarely used tea rose perfume. Cheap talcum loosing all its talcumness under the struggle of her daily motherhood. Pungent “Sunday-mehandi” odor wafting,rather shamelessly,over a seasonally flaky scalp. Fetish for rubbing borolin over an always parched upper lip (the one in the green tube..Weird..do they still make those)? Skin scrubbed, almost ruthlessly, clean of all grime and some youth; courtesy a religiously followed-beyond my comprehension-bathing regime. Bobble belly akin to the back of a baby’s head (sundry scent of a baby powder and a pricey milk formula) perfect to burry your head on those sick and tired evenings, wishing you were on the other side, cursing the moment when you decided to try pushing out. Oily pakoras on rainy afternoons, ruining the deep pretty gashes on the insides of her palm. Some “kachi ghani sarson ka bullcrap” making a dreadful gulch out of her ‘line of fate’. An old bottle of special tankari-ittar hidden deep behind her closet. The last thing her grandmother left her, only to be used on those special occasions, never even used once.

forsaken splendor:

kaun jaye zauq;
par dilli ki ye galian chhorkar!!!

to him, and her.

Hadn’t seen him for quite a while now, had seen him last a couple of years ago, with her. They were them then. SHE: the fair, the dainty, the coy, the pretty. HIM: short, a pitifully droll blend of an ugly mallu dad and an even uglier Afro mom. But somehow they fit, and it felt nice to see it fit.
I don’t have a favorite mush movie, I had one back then, it was THE SUNDAY LUNCH AT THEIR PLACE. Aloo bhujiya and Oscar Wilde. She usually hid in the kitchen; until he’d call………aye dost…“dost”, meant more then, much more. Then she left. The gradual abruptness of it all. He'd seen her off, he'd said it was inside her, but it didn’t get her, just didnt get to her face, she didn’t let it. So it got to him, and I see it now, I see it as we ask him over. DECLINED. “Have some work down at jungpura, then have to make it back home, maybe next Sunday”.
Turns around, shorter than ever, almost tiny, leaves. Numb, strange pangs of numb begins to rub all over. He is going home. Is he? Is he going back ‘home’? Where he has no one to go back to. No people in his pocket. I slip beside chachu (he is his frnd, from back at the passport office, that’s how we know him). “Why do you hug him so tight, you see him every day”. “I know I do, but sometimes it just seems like I never will).

DICTION.....

FOUL: the stench that hits you, almost straight away, as you walk into a KFC, reminding you why exactly you gave up on non-veg.


TOUGH LUCK: having to part with a whole hundred bucks to an autowallah on the lame excuse of not having any change.


BITCH: an evening wasted in having the unfortunate pleasure of meeting some random non-delhiite who claims of knowing the city inside out, when all he really is acquainted with are flashy clubs, gaudy lounges and expensive eateries………. “Uh.huh, so where do you guyz hang out”.


ENGLISH: something that has nothing to do with intellectuality.


INTELLECTUAL: Nandlal, the rather vibrantly flamboyant paanwallah across the street who quotes Ghalib and can tell you exactly what kimam is, why it smells the way it does and precisely what significance did it hold during the ‘Mughal Raj’.


EDUCATED: the south Indian eunuch (on TV the other day) working with an AIDS NGO, wonderfully explaining the situation of HIV in India, comparing it with “accidentally scattering scores of pea grains on a land much too fallow”.


LITERATE: our friendly neighborhood chowkidar, who after getting extensively pissed (pun intended) on a few jhuggiwallahs, constantly using the campus back wall for peeing purposes, picks up a few pieces of coal and etches out the following graffiti on the said wall: -
GADHE KE POOT
YAHAN MAT M***.

OHNEST: A certain autowallah, who calls out to me from across the road, jumps off, runs athwart (dodging the heavy traffic), sticks his hand down a filthy pocket producing a few bucks he owes me from an already forgotten ride. “arre duniya abhi bhi aise hi to nahi chal rahi naa, kuch ko to haath dena padta hai”.


FAST FOOD: paneer masala dosa at the battered bus stop near Jantar Mantar. Service- takes 2 to 4 min. tops depending on your vocal ability to shout your order across.


QUIRKY: this from the back of a taxi- NAIKY KAR OR JOOTE KHA
MAINE BHI KHAYE, TOO BHI KHA!!!

NICE: here………………..