LIFE IN A POTHOLE

2007-02-25T23:33:00.000-08:00

When the insides of my being ache for your touch;
I hold you close…
To keep you safe, off and away;
I hold you close…
My arms, they give you wings.

2007-02-25T04:06:00.000-08:00

Feet aching of the untrodden moonscape,
Fingers burning with the walls I move…
My eyes searching for open doors,
How they tire of gaping at the lonely wolds…
The wind playing on the harp of my dreams,
Numbing the pain,
Breaking my wont to let go, let be.
So I walk…for a mile more…I walk.

oh happy day!

2007-02-20T23:44:00.000-08:00

Pree loped around the magnolia today…following that tiny grubby boy catching bright aubergine butterflies, under the creamy winter sun. So I stood on guard for a while...as they played along in the warm November breeze, chasing dirt and mirth and all things tingly. I stood their long…long, until the sun poked fun at my drowsy eyelids and burnt the tiny hair on my neck, golden with the glow of its crimson softness (surkh lal...ya surkh,sirf lal). Sometimes,it’s just about chasing the butterflies…

papa..

2007-02-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

Come tell a story...Say something nice...Inspire me!

2007-02-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

-

--- This thing’s gonna kill us.
--- No it’s not.
--- …Rephrasing… this thing’s gonna kill me.
--- No it’s not.
--- I might not die…but its still gonna kill me.
--- No it’s not.
--- How do you know…
--- Because it told me so…ok
--- (Laughter)…promise?
--- You think too much…

--- See you don’t know…they’re dumb…all of em (you say guns’n’roses…they’ll say violets are blue).
--- Then how come you wrote em all those things?
--- Because…I love them.
--- No you don’t…. you wanna…but you don’t.
--- Yes I do.
--- No you don’t.
--- How do you know?
--- Because they told me so.

--- So what I think...is that life really is about
--- mmmm…da ra di mmmm..
--- All it needs is courage…to take it to that other…
--- da ra di mmmm…
--- And to ask yourself if….
--- da ra di mmmm di hmmmm.

--- so…do you believe in god?
--- why... you don’t
--- (laugter) no I don’t.
--- well…good for you.
--- (pause)… see I don’t get the whole…
--- yup…I don’t get it either.
--- so how do you know he’s there.
--- it’s a he…you sure.
--- (laughter) seriously… how do you know he’s there.
--- how do you know he’s not.
--- well I just…
--- yeah… I think I gotta pee…

---so why were you chasing him
--- who
--- the kid with the butterflies
--- because he was chasing butterflies
--- why were you chasing him
--- because I can’t chase butterflies
--- so
--- so I thought…maybe…maybe he’d share.

--- Achilles heel.
--- yeah…so?
--- so the woman drowns the kid.
--- and he’s dead.
--- no he turns into this eternal greek god…
---geek god.
--- greek god.
--- so what’s with the heel??
--- no the heel’s left out.
--- you mean its not in the movie.
--- no the woman leaves out the heel.
--- she chops it off.
--- no no… that’s what she’s holding him with.
--- with the heel.
--- yes and so that gets left out.
--- out of the movie.
--- no out of the whole immortality thing.
--- there’s a whole immortality thing.
--- are you even listening…(stop thinking, start listening).

--- So what does your father do?
--- excuse me…
--- what does your father do?
--- is this thing over.
--- yes it is…what does your father do.
--- he takes his tea without sugar and ties his shoes bunny style…can I go now.

--- k then goodnight.
--- goodnight
--- I love you.
--- …

--- religion
--- you can’t generalize…can you
--- sure I can
--- and that’s is because…
--- because all religions…old or new… have very productively achieved the exact same height of imbecility that there is.
---so that gives you the right to generalize
--- who needs a right.

--- so I’ll do that tommorow.
---yup…me too.
--- gdnight.
--- gdnight.
--- love ya.
--- love ya too.

--- Am still scared.
--- What’s the big deal?
--- Its like am walking…and I can fall to either side.
--- What side.
--- There’s a good…and then there’s a bad.
--- What’s across?
--- What.
--- What if you don’t fall…what if you walk across.
--- Oh fuck me tender…there’s an “across”.

--- namaste bhaiya.
--- namaste didi…good luck didi…good day didi.

post script: Conversations…these days the voices in my head centrifuge their way around, long after am through with them…trying to spew all the madness out I think…trying.

thankful

2006-11-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

For fingers that rested unwearyingly, in the hollow of my palm. For eyes that didn’t gnaw on the silence of my being. For the smiles that intended nothing more…nothing less. For the hands that never rested on my shoulders, without having me to ask for them. For making it easy…if not better. For walking alongside…and nowhere else. For knowing that soon I’d walk past and never look back again…but being an unspoken part of those days that brought with them the insufferable predicaments of existing with my wings chopped off. For being around. For being close by. For smiling and laughing and teaching me how too. And most of all, for being there…thank you.

To the man, and to the might of his royal contempt…

2006-11-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

ya rab!! woh na samjhe hain na samjhenge meri baat;
de aur dil unko, jo na de mujhko juban aur...

hai bus ke har ek unke ishare mein nishan aur;
karte hain mohabbat, to guzarta hai guman aur...

himachal: part-1

2006-11-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

Almost all of my previous visits were with my father, back when I was still a toddler, so unfortunately my memory doesn’t yield much of them except visiting hoards of far off relatives that he found almost obligatory to catch up with (him being the elder most and all that). The last one however, about a year and a half back had much more to it. It was the first actual village wedding that I attended, something i had always wanted to see. And so it is for some pleasantly obvious reasons etched out pretty darn well with me. Am not putting up all of it together, but yes the following is an excerpt from one of my last few nights spent at the bridegroom’s (my father’s, cousin uncle’s boy’s) house:

…I was a little apprehensive about staying up on the roof as the belching booze party was already well in action, but soon both the aforementioned girls climbed up to keep me company. I found it a tad bit strange, being followed by them in the wedding all through and so had to pluck up my gut and inquire as to why they saw it fit to stalk on me. One of them giggled at my apologies for this rather dim-witted query and went on to tell me that her mother (one of my door ki buas) had asked both of them to see to it that I was both well fed and nicely taken care of. I, as more a reflex than a gesture, squeezed her hand, (something I had never bothered to do for any of my cousins here in Delhi) and let her know how I couldn’t help but feel like a complete zit at barging in on their already stuffed wedding schedules.
Seemu, (which I later came to know was her nickname, Seema being the long for it) to my utter wonder giggled again at my city-bred idiosyncrasies, which I unfortunately hadn’t bothered to leave back home. “Oh that’s alright, am sure we can make some room for you” I remember the other one chirping along (Sushma, if I rightly remember…sumi to her mother…suusmaa to her father, and a rather plain susuu to her bratty little brother). They pulled out a couple of old charpoys from under the muddy little baud (a term given to the makeshift attic, usually on the roof of the houses there), and a pair of the most feather-soft hand woven himachali quilts, something that you’d have to pay through your nose to get elsewhere. And arranged for me to sleep outside in the open letting me know that a few of the others from downstairs were going to join us soon.
Sonu, Sushma’s younger brother brought up some of the leftover seera, (again, sent up by the ever-motherly kitchen ladies) and climbed down the back to let the handful of dogs out (for the night I guess). Seemu, while I gaped at the pooches, took my limp little pony in her hand and scorned at the sight of it. “You don’t oil your hair, do you,” she said. “Ummm…no I don’t” I whimpered. “Remind me tomorrow…I’ll do it for you”. Hah…even though I don’t think I have ever let anybody do that to me again, I did let her do whatever she pleased with my hair the very next morning. A couple of minutes later both the girls's mothers came up with some other ladies that I for the time being didn’t bother to introduce myself to. And before crashing down beside us, walked around to the other side of the baud to brake up the merry-uncle-booze-party and also to make each one of the slightly drunk men climb down to the two rooms below us. I asked suusu the reason for their not joining us upstairs where it was relatively cooler, to which she calmly explained of how they would be by now anyway too drunk to bother with the heat down in the rooms and that making them sleep up here would only mean one of them tripping over while trying to climb down in the dark for peeing or for something of that sorts. And oh yes, for some extra brownies we wouldn’t, this way, be subjected to their irksome snores and drunken moans.
Soon thereafter everybody around us pulled up their covers, and to another of my many pleasant surprises that day, one of the ladies sleeping on the other end of the row began singing…humming almost, I think to the infant next to her. It was an old local lullaby that I had come across once before and so had absolutely no trouble enjoying. She kept up the humming for a while as I sunk low in my charpoy, under the soft quilt, gazing at the clear moonlit sky above us with the humming becoming fainter only to fade away slowly. I was still at my sky gazing when Seemu turned towards me from the adjoining charpoy and whispered… “You know, that sky is still gonna be around when you wake up…would be much better if you close your eyes and try sleeping instead…early morning tommorow…goodnight.

2006-11-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

I hate it, hate the fact that all my ooh-I-cant-believe-I-wrote-that posts are gonna sit and rot in those good for nothing archives, having an almost zilch-like chance of ever being read again. Not fair…naheeeeeeen!!!

and i think to myself...

2006-11-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

We’ve been sketching out for the past half hour. Gory inside-out replicas of the who’s and what’s of some regular human dangly dongs. (Sigh)…those were the days when anatomy classes were fun (nd by fun I mean girlish, giggly, hush hush, ha ha fun). But nope…not anymore. The whole CBSE crap’s ruined it.
I try and look around to wink at someone, but every damn person is deep at work. Phaa…not that I care bout em, really, but then again. We begin with the male reprodu…oh wht the hell, a PENUS (see I can say the word out loud), for the obvious reason that it takes more work. You’re damn right it does. A couple o minutes into it nd I realize that there is way too much stuff piled in for me to be done with it as of today. So I give up on mine with a testicle missing, the scrotum unattached, and the rest of it still somewhat maldrawn.
I like the female bit though (those of you thinking of the ‘P’ word shud go stick your head in a toilet bowl). It’s all nice and easy. Looks pretty too…like a small frilly goblet. And am not being biased when I say that it represents more to me, compared to its male counterpart.
Funny how the prominent, more vital part to it is the small bowl shaped uterus. The tiny space where the embryo dwells. Yup…the vagina however (the center of all hawjee-pawjee activity) shares very limited limelight in our anatomical diagrams. Symbolism…I think yes.
Anyhoo…comin back to the class, the dude next to me still seems stuck on his winkie (lolls)!! I wonder who he’s trying to impress making it that big, taking it out of the margin on to the next page. And some of the other geeks around are fussing way too much over why and what they are’nt getting right. Uh..does it even matter, I mean come to think of it, all of us in here (me nd the rest of the groin drawin bunch) would still at the end of the day be the ones who drew some and got none (GOT NONE). And I guess that pisses me off more than anything else. Wait…so the point of the post…I HAVE NO LIFE…

beneath the blinding darkness!!

2006-10-29T06:34:00.000-08:00

In the dark hours of my night, I give up. In the dark hours of my night, I succumb. Succumb…yes I do…to the hazy binds of its pungent nothingness. Why, I’ve stopped asking myself that. Why…because sometimes you’re not supposed to.
The far off paradise blurs with each gaze I cast. It slips away as I try and grope it in . It falls apart as I look for it in the filthy remains of my incessant ruminations. Deep into the empty carcasses of my disheveled prose.
I hold up all through…all through laughing, at the meek deep within. Laughing because it is below all rest, to want and mourn out loud. But it is in these intimate darks that I let go…and let it seep in. Into my veins…to rest just beneath my skin. Making it tingly…making it go alive for once. Making me forget everything that needs to be forgotten…making me remember that which I really need to.
They asked me to look around. Then, when I had lost my all. And so I did. Yes I did…to find it (back). Well I did for most of it. But my eyes still search for the missing crumbs that I fortuitously let fall. My heart still wanders for the pleasant woefulness that I let slip away. My fingers begin to burn…itch from the sensation of stretching out. They will not quit until I ask them to. My fear is that I wont.
But tomorrow I will stand up again. Hah…that’s my gift. You see I always do…without a petite little trace of it. Without the tiniest hint of these sparse moments when I allow myself to trip over(and fall down), just to see sometimes, of exactly how it feels to not be perfect for once.
And then I stand up again, to fight another day. Why…because I like it…just like “pa” does…to keep at it. Continually…until you cant anymore. You know, with things like these…you’re not supposed to wear them (on your sleeve or someplace else) but stitch em deep inside. So you can never take em off. Never never!!!

2006-10-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

…. Mullah maar na bolariyan, mainu bikhra yaar rijhawan de;
Kanjari baniyan ta vi meri izzat na khatdi,
Mainu nach ke yaar manavan de….

For being in love, I pay the price. The price of me, the price of you. The painful yearn to run behind you pinches my insides, it bawls across the depths of my being. One that I have made you a part off. One that aches for the want of you. They call on me for worshiping that which is you. They say I will loose to you that which I never had. “They”, the unaware of what it is to have and yet not to know. To love and to be loved. To hold and to let go. So today I dance. I dance for the celebration of you; I dance for the celebration of us.

greetings from inside the hole...

2006-10-17T04:28:00.001-07:00

Why do I need to have a plan? I don’t even like the word, PLAN, it doesn’t make my tongue sway. Even COMPLAN is better…(hun??). But for PLAN. The shiny crisp pieces of white adorn my tabletop, they’ve been doing the adorning for quite sometime now, am supposed to put my blue in their white. GET DOWN TO IT, I hear every single day. Why would I do that…why would I do something that you have to get down for. Why cant I not have the yellow postid up where its always been…telling me what “TO DO”. Tell me…is it really running away, if all you want is to go back home…HOME…mmmmmm!!! Now that tastes nice. Am gonna go, I tell myself….away for a while (the damn word again). Why do I tell MYSELF of all the people? Because there’s no use, telling them. They know…that’s what they told themselves too. That they’ll go away (for a while) but they didn’t. They’re here, just like everybody else is. And that’s what they know, that it takes more…more than telling yourself. It takes switching off, locking up, shutting down, maybe even running away. To go back home. I pack my bags quietly…at night. I don’t want them to know…you see they’ll hate it. If I make it to AWAY. Because they didn’t, no one did. And it gets suffocating, to hear them at it everyday. Why, well because it’s better to walk instead (chalte raho...ruko mat). And its nice to walk, to feel that numbness fade away, When the blood gushes in, like in a faucet. Making that wooshy noise. I’ll walk out tomorrow…nope I wont run, I’ll just walk out. In front of them, with my bags packed, so they know that am not coming back. Because that’s all it takes. To get up and walk away.

ek aazaad khayal!!

2006-10-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

sabse aage hum the, arre sabse pehle bhi to hum hi the. gar chalte rehte to bhi kuch baat thi, par nahin, bas ruk gaye...beech mein kahin. ab khare hain, kyon...pata nahi, kiske liye...ye bhi pata nahi. bas khare hain. kuch der main baith jaate hain...baat-baat pe lait jaate hain. arre bhai log daur rahe hain aur tum khare ho. bhag nahi sakte to chalo... chalte raho...ruko mat. yun tham gaye zindagi ke liye (*laughs*) kabhi kya woh rukegi tumhare liye?! jeetoge tab jab dus ke dus milke kheechoge, teen-chaar ko baitha diya to dum kaise aayega. socho mat...bahut soch liya. sawal karo...jawab dhoondo. par yun in baaton par baitho mat. chalte raho (*sighs*)...kaam chalta rehna chahiye, bas.

(grndps-- on my last visit--sums up our long usual argument on war and freedom in india!!)

2006-10-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Came across a couple of old home videos back at chacha’s place. There was a whole undiscovered box full of them (seems like he was the only one around with a video-cam when we were all kids). Interestingly, found one with a “HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY” and my name on it. Hah…I don’t know about the others but its some bloody thing watching yourself that tiny. And while on that, its even more amusing to see your folks (and other folk-like people) in the bizarrest of hairdos that they wouldn’t now be caught dead in. The most sidesplitting thing however (in the video) is my special solo jig. Like most other Indian kids, then and now, I seem to have well discovered filmy music. Ma often mentions how I had a thing for the awkwardly weird “tirchi topi walle” (for those of you who don’t remember…haw ji poppi shame!!!). Anyhoo, so the jig begins with me knocking a couple of things off the table…yay, happy birthday little me. Then someone puts on music, some crappy bollywood thingy…not that I seem to care. And then it begins, the walk first. Am inching my way across to the TV, walking, then crawling then walking again. Ma stops me halfway…PITSTOP…runs her hand across my posterior dubiously. Nope all’s well inside. So then it continues, the walk-cum-crawl-cum-strange slithery movements again. Gets worse once am near the perforated voice part. Placing myself in the most eerie Mick Jagerrish position I start the creepy boing-boings. Feel a jitterberg somewhere deep down in my toes. Spreads all across my legs, and moves all over the rest of my body until am jumping my ass off. And jumps they are, amidst constant fits of panicked shoulder movements, freaky up and downs with my ankles in the air and my toes somewhere still down below. A couple of violent ass thrusts and the grand finale…baby high jump landing on the lil baby butt. Sadly no one goes *TADA* only a soul-ripping bwaaaaaaaa from me. LOLS… She’s some kid there in the video. And since the 18th I had yesterday sucked, think I would have liked if she was still around.

J.P bhaiya jinndabaad!!!!

2006-09-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

Weeks of screaming my craw out at J.P (newspaper walle bhaisaab) finally yields. The roll’s fatter than usual. He has, to my absolute delight, stuck a small scrap of postid that in his rather pleasantly illegible scrawl, reads: encl—mainstream, OT, RSJ all issues September. TO BOLO TARA RA RAAAA…….

JOURNAL JUNK...from some time long back!!

2006-09-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

6:00am --- the fuckin panic timer making her point more than clear….wake up assface, time to go, take some more of their shit.

7:00am --- assemble near the senior labs, to be ‘escorted’ to our new coffin-houses. Everyone’s nicely done up…nicely done up for new nice session. Crisp white collared complete with cherry blossomed shoes (hah…cherry blossomed). New non-graffitied furniture and all freshly coated walls, smell of fresh paint…unscratched fresh. Everything’s official, in order… order order. Happy happy-ever-afters everybody. Whoop di doo.

8:00am --- linger on in the corridor for a while, want to breathe out the hardness…its been sitting on my chest all morning. begin to take steps towards the door when Dee slides her hand across my waist and pulls me towards her “hey ho… you ok?” she asks dotingly (hard to remember when I was last doted upon). “Yeah…am fine…I guess…feel nauseous”. My best shot…that’s the best I’ve got…phaa. “That’s ok, you’re just nervous” she smiles. NERVOUS; I search for the butterflies down in my gut. Nope, aint any. Just a loud thumping noise, like a tribal drum beat. My heart…damn thing’s been palpitating all through.
We’re walking into the class. It’s pretty airy but the giant tree outside the lone window blocks sunlight.
“Old one. They’ve given us an old board. Not fair” Gego is already cranking up. “Hi Gego”. “We need more chairs…more chairs”. I can see his foggy pic adorning a best seller’ jacket already. ‘1001 reasons why you should go kill yourself (right now)’.
All the good spots are already taken. I choose the one in the far corner, next to the window. Gaping at blue budgies during algebra a…aah pure bliss. Lolo comes and plunks down beside me (AAAAARRRGGGHHH). “You don’t mind do you”, she twitters, her huge ear hoops flashing about obscenely. ‘Oh no sure go ahead…drumbeats, heart palpitations, hernia; life’s a huge big party for me.

THE ART OF CHAUVINISM!!

2006-09-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

.....I jump on my white horse, Cadillac
I ride across the border line
I rope sixty five girls
I kiss them all the same time
I take twenty five or thirty
I'd put them all on a freight
A million dollar reward for me
Each and every state
The Sheriff says, is you Guitar Watson?
In a very deep voice
I say, yes Sir, brother Sheriff, and that's your wife on the back of my horse'

Cause I'm a gangster of love
Yeah, I'm a gangster of loveHey, yeah
When I walk down the street
All the girls that I meet
Say he's a gangster of love!!!
- johnny "guitar" watson.

you're still seventeen....arent you!!!

2006-09-18T04:17:00.000-07:00

I got this invite for an evening do at decibel a couple of weeks ago (rephrasing:- a couple of weeks ago was when I got the invite, the do was yesterday.). And well I, being me, was, as an obvious routine, pretty darn skeptical about the whole thing. I mean not that I have anything against “shaken ma thang” in front uv a couple a hundred ppl but just as a general norm that I have against most scool (bwah…yuck…make 5-year-old-puking-on-his-broccli face here!!) related gatherings. But then since I had had my fill with the countless “night-out” posts on some off the blogs I regular at, I thought well if for nothing else the ‘excursion’ wud do my blog some good. So I wake up on Saturday morning at the grandpeople’s place in dwarka (my weekend getaway) and am in no mood to make it back home let alone go all the way to chanakyapuri for the party. But turned out the folks there had a lunch-thingie somewhere, so I caught the 10:20 metro and…huh… got back home. Countless SMSes and trying to figure out how to make the evening possible without any commutation later I was almost (…being the operative word here) ready to go. Now I had this shameful secret of how I have never ever been to a club and how I don’t know scrap bout parties, so I figured w(ai)ell there really is no theme per say so why get all dolled-up, thus pulling up wateva I cud, I was off. I reach the venue and eeeeks!! There are about a handful of girls outside all dressed up with all sorts of shit in their hair…now how do ya beat that. But nada ppl…I didn’t just spend bloody 80 bucks on a damn auto to go back home. So I, giving them a HA HA UR ALL DRESSED UP look make it straight in. There I find a couple of losers frm back at school who happen to be in charge of the entry even more dolled up (yes…yes… compared to the aforementioned ladies) and going “hey!! You made it”, with everyone. They take my siggi, rip my invite, ink my wrist and am all officially a party person (sounds very cryptic Harry potter ish eh?). Now outside I was like phrrrrrrrr while am young guys, and once inside am all oh howdy doody everyone. The place is all nicely done up and since am pretty late the party is well into action. The track changes from ‘hips don’t lie’ to ‘play ma song’ and am all wooohooo, (consider: I have NEVER EVER done this before) takes me a few seconds to spot my set at the other end of the dance floor and a few more to actually get to them. Again…more people dressed up but then since my set is my set..they really don’t give a hoot bout the fact that am not all flashy. Takes bout two songs before I find my beat and once I have boy am I rockin it or what. (Sudden realization: I lurrv to dance, so much so that I don’t care if they start playing bhojpuri music). The best part about the whole thing was that since everyone knew everyone well enough there was no real chance of me being either picked up or felt up. And given that am surrounded by people who are as amateurish as I am there even aint any chance of them being all, hey what the hell do u think ur doing either. No problems there save for one teeny tiny icky little thing, little into the do and I realize OH hell no. I don’t have any deodorant on. Now bearing in mind that when indulging in anything physical I have a tendency of sweating a tad bit too much means that about half an hour more before I start smelling like a pig. The good part however, the place is so damn crowded that I bet so are some of the other peeps around (gnna start smelling that is). So well off with that. Drinks were on the house and there being a huge flat screen TV with the live match on, they (organizers) seem to have really put their thought into the do. We danced our asses off for a couple of hours more and by the end of the entire thing I was very much partied out. Nothing very gripping other than all that…i said it was a scool thing didn’t I?

Pointers for next time (is there gonna be a next time…HELL YEAH!): -

1. You can shorten you skirts and boot cut your pants all you want, the school uniform Is still gonna make you look like a buffoon…but then that’s the whole point isint it?

2. Never try and dance with people who are all “coupled up”. Not only are they not interested but also there other halves are gonna give you real shady looks if you try to.

3. On the floor, it doesn’t matter even if ur in your undies UNTILL u know all your moves well.

4. Sweaty people must carry their deo-sticks, Clint Eastwood style. U KEEP THEM HANDY THEY’L KEEP YOU DANDY (background fake laughter…. BWAHAHAHA).

5. (this ones for the guys) its ok if u do your ooh-leave-the-stage-and-see-me-go-all-cartwheely jig once EVEN TWICE but then it really gets irritating and extremely desperate.

6. NEVER go up to the dj more than once and never try and be rude (“looks like u left all ur good music home buddy”). The worst thing will be when he turns around looks u in the eye and says “sweetheart if you come up here one more time am seriously gonna consider calling the security on you!!!

i only ask for so much.....

2006-09-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

Bring me life and bring me lots of it. Bring it the way I asked you to bring it. Wash it clean off all airs and watch so you don’t ruin the copper hemline. Shave off the fake goatees, and pull open the pointless ear hoops. Rub off the phony tattoos and the bogus punk rock shit. Don’t let my share crawl back on to the dance-floor…. fake stilettos pinching my feet, ruining the delicate curves. Chop those braids off, I never asked for them. I wear my hair down…always always. I have waited in line…silently. I can wait longer. Yes I can. Who put those slits in my jeans, I don’t want them torn…I don’t see the point. Who told you to put that skylight up there? Those pricey sconces are a bloody eyesore…take em off. I registered for the sun. I wont settle without it. I take my tea with milk in it… several times…over nd over again. Until I feel milky enough inside. I don’t cry but when I do, my tears are never forged. See, I don’t do “khool”, never could. And I hate cocky…the desiccation that comes with it, unavoidable. I want “abbe yaar” and chup re” and “dilli” and “wah”. I want earth. Yes I know its better, with them around, more “fun”. But I jus don’t want it. I always knew that it was out there but no one told me how there are ten different shades of it all. Well am picking mine and its not fiery red or a murky black. But it’s me. And I like it. Life the way I always dreamed about it, not knee kicking shin digging better but just the way I called for. Earthy…

about a song.......

2006-09-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

I find it dreadfully amusing, how one has to practically wipe out every last trace of ‘gray’ in them to even bear Hindi music today. And as if that wasn’t enough, we now have Mr. Polypsic crooner, your majesty, pepping the lyrics up further with bullshit like love-you-unconditionally. I mean why would you say that to someone…even in a song….why would you. I feel so violent everytime he goes oooon and aaaaan that I feel like lynching myself off my own skin. But then just as am about to pack my bags and move to greener pastures (seriously… where do I pick up these phrases) I stumble upon to this amazing no., startling almost. Its one of the lesser-known songs from Omkara. ‘Namak ishk ka’. The song, in a characteristic thumri style, has an old-world charm to it. Penned by GULZAR, the words ooze Gulzarian elegance and grace. But the aspect that makes it most fascinating is the way he deals with the lyrics. Half way through the song and you come to a sudden realization, hey wait just a freakin second…this is porn. The man is talking sex, aint he? Of course it’s pretty darn hard to make out at first, its Gulzar for crying out loud, the man who shoved life into old ‘Ruswa’ poetry in umrao jaan. The man who wrote almost all of Naseer’s dialogues for the series on mirza ghalib. But then it slowly climbs over, the beauty of the words, the subtle ease with which he talks about the act—before, during and after. You giggle at how if explained in layman’s terms, the words are fit to make it into some c-grade upanyas, the ones hidden at the back of some cheap newspaper stand with the sleazy pictures of plump women with heaving bosoms and fake, repelling pouts. But then he doesn’t let it fall down to the average dhin-chak standards. You can almost feel him watch over the song, with his deep-set eyes studying each verse closely, etching every little word to perfection. His prehistoric horn-rimmed chashma in hand, chewing on one of its legs, almost living each couplet he writes. I guess that is how one can tell a Gulzar song from the rest of the recent bullshit. Pretty simple, the rest of the recent is bullshit.

P.S: if this post inspires you to give the song a try, then I’d prefer you download it. The video is no good. The whole weird bipasha basu hip gyrations spoil the fun.

SMELLS-part.1

2006-08-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

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:

2006-08-29T23:45:00.000-07:00

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

to him, and her.

2006-08-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

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.....

2006-08-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

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………………..

logical gibberish

2006-07-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

Prick your finger, make a thick smear, put a load of crap on and watch as it clots into a thick goop. WATCH; watch like your life depends on gaping at its crimson coldness.

Something that was a part of you a minute ago, something that you were a part of a minute ago, warm liquid, liquidly warm. Turn it into some freakin specimen. WAIT, wait for its abstractness to surface. Stick your eyeball deep within and find what she says you are supposed to find, THE RABO NACLOCOBOCO ACO. Same shit everyday.

Rains outside, fuckin rains outside, falls onto his abandoned torso. Diamonds on his belly pot. Two feet five inches of nascent glee. His pretend mate, all shy and hazy. Eyes pretending to empathize with my soar finger, his grin mocking the orphaned dab of my red smear.

“Dude, this is some bullshit, I aint slittin myself, looks like ure already cut, squeeze some of it here wont you”. Sure, with pleasure you spectacled assface. Here take a drip, take it all, hell shove the whole god damned thing up you ass, I don’t care.

I don’t care until the little bum splashing outside disappears. Why cant he just go, go where everything else went. Place called ‘AWAY….’. Heard about it a couple of days ago. Heard about it a lot lately, somewhere far off. Across the dingy marketplace, through some poets forgotten palace with the makeshift P.C.O booth. A u-turn from the red light, to the left, maybe the right.

Clear up; make it fast and clear it all up. Break the needle, wash it off. WASH; wash until every part of its blend dissolved. All wiped off.

OFF AND AWAY.

my splendid bareness

2006-07-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

They are not the dreamy, foggy and seemingly smiling silhouettes anymore. Suddenly everything becomes lucid, the faces, the shadows and the eyes. They definitely are not smiling anymore.
Something falls from the inside of me; it falls from the zenith of all my sensations, some place where am used to keeping it, all clean and shiny. Why have I managed to find the comfort in it, the comfort I never could quite find in myself. Why was it always perfect?
But now it falls, it slips from the shelf and falls. Deep down into the darkness where am unable to hear it shatter into pieces. How I long to see its perfection smash into oblivion.It is scary, feels really good for some strange reason, but scary, to not have my gods up where they should be, up where they have always been. why is it comforting to see the light shining on the empty surface, smooth and warm, smooth and warm.