Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Happy Valentine ’s Day to myself
Ok. I am sick of it. There are the consumerists, proponents of commercial everything who have popularized the gift-buying, chocolate-having day to the extent that they have given birth to the activists, the anti-valentine day crowd who think the day is for losers and that you have to be seriously demented or mushy to believe and celebrate something half as ridiculous.
I do not even want to get started on the political aficionados who are so completely jobless and devoid of agenda to give excess attention and mainstream a mere saint’s death in a country which they would not be able to locate on the globe.
There are singletons who are renouncing their newly achieved or consistent singlehood. There are lovers who are fretting over what to purchase for their loved ones. There are the pink chaddis, epic sale of condoms and the fully booked restaurants. There is this electric competiveness of ‘what did you get’ and ‘where
are you going’ etc.
I do not have any of that, nor am I any of those people.
I am but an ordinary girl with small wishes. I live in my tiny little world. The world probably has no use of me. Tomorrow, I just want to be able to say, “I love you” to anyone without being judged, dismissed or distinguished.
If that is too much of expectation, I will just quietly wish a ‘happy valentine’s day’ to myself. Peace.
I do not even want to get started on the political aficionados who are so completely jobless and devoid of agenda to give excess attention and mainstream a mere saint’s death in a country which they would not be able to locate on the globe.
There are singletons who are renouncing their newly achieved or consistent singlehood. There are lovers who are fretting over what to purchase for their loved ones. There are the pink chaddis, epic sale of condoms and the fully booked restaurants. There is this electric competiveness of ‘what did you get’ and ‘where
are you going’ etc.
I do not have any of that, nor am I any of those people.
I am but an ordinary girl with small wishes. I live in my tiny little world. The world probably has no use of me. Tomorrow, I just want to be able to say, “I love you” to anyone without being judged, dismissed or distinguished.
If that is too much of expectation, I will just quietly wish a ‘happy valentine’s day’ to myself. Peace.
Hugging
I love hugging. I am one of those who know only one way to express affection: touch.
I hug a tremendous lot. Sometimes, I embarrass people but that is not the intention at all. It just so happens that I love that person and do not how to say that.
I have these rewarding relationships with people built on hugging. There is a squeezie hug relationship, bear hug relationship, warm hug relationship, envelope hug relationship and the grab and hug relationship.
I always seem to have a theory about hugging. I know the mechanics of it all, and I can write a manual of dos and don’ts. There is a breast-breast hug, chest-chest hug, head-breast hug, breast-chest hug and now you do the permutations.
There is also the rest-on-shoulder hug, pat-the-back hug, 2 seconds hug, a lifetime hug, a coming-back-home hug, making up hug, making out hug, sideways hug, i-wanna-take-you-home hug, bless you hug, everything-will-be-okay hug and the destroy-my-ribs hug.
Some hug over the shoulders, some from under your arms, some alternate their hands, some hug you like a bobo doll, some hug you like a disease, some make you conscious,
some make you special, some free you, some bind you and some molest you.
So, coming back to what this note is really about -
This is one of those days, when I have not slept the night, I am groggy and irritated, and M is trying to cheer me up. She says, “blah blah blah, and this is from the Zee school of .. err.. ermm… HUGGING..”
..and I am ecstatic. Yay! I have my own school of hugging. What could be better! And it’s all glee and we hug, for a long time. Oh my god, I have my own school of hugging.
So, if you had to have your own school, what would that be about?
I hug a tremendous lot. Sometimes, I embarrass people but that is not the intention at all. It just so happens that I love that person and do not how to say that.
I have these rewarding relationships with people built on hugging. There is a squeezie hug relationship, bear hug relationship, warm hug relationship, envelope hug relationship and the grab and hug relationship.
I always seem to have a theory about hugging. I know the mechanics of it all, and I can write a manual of dos and don’ts. There is a breast-breast hug, chest-chest hug, head-breast hug, breast-chest hug and now you do the permutations.
There is also the rest-on-shoulder hug, pat-the-back hug, 2 seconds hug, a lifetime hug, a coming-back-home hug, making up hug, making out hug, sideways hug, i-wanna-take-you-home hug, bless you hug, everything-will-be-okay hug and the destroy-my-ribs hug.
Some hug over the shoulders, some from under your arms, some alternate their hands, some hug you like a bobo doll, some hug you like a disease, some make you conscious,
some make you special, some free you, some bind you and some molest you.
So, coming back to what this note is really about -
This is one of those days, when I have not slept the night, I am groggy and irritated, and M is trying to cheer me up. She says, “blah blah blah, and this is from the Zee school of .. err.. ermm… HUGGING..”
..and I am ecstatic. Yay! I have my own school of hugging. What could be better! And it’s all glee and we hug, for a long time. Oh my god, I have my own school of hugging.
So, if you had to have your own school, what would that be about?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Finale
I fought with my dreams for you
Doubted my gut
Questioned my sex.
Made myself believe
Every passing day
That this is how it goes.
It was never formulaic
Thus I continued to be
To be in love with you.
Now I am tired
A little wasted
Incapacitated.
I would like to know
How long and how much more
Call me and let me know.
Doubted my gut
Questioned my sex.
Made myself believe
Every passing day
That this is how it goes.
It was never formulaic
Thus I continued to be
To be in love with you.
Now I am tired
A little wasted
Incapacitated.
I would like to know
How long and how much more
Call me and let me know.
Scenes of Mumbai
Scene 1.
The man was broken. He was sitting curled up at the edge of the road, with his one foot in the drain trying to avoid falling into it completely. His face is contorted with a deep grief that I hadn't felt before or even imagined.
I am waiting for my bus back home, stationary, beguiled by this man’s angst. With a mammoth effort, he moves slightly and I discover a huge gash on his entire foot, running from his knee to his ankle, bleeding profusely. I ask a bookseller nearby about him. I am told that that morning something ran into him and in desperation, he put his leg into the drain for some relief and has been there since.
Scene 2.
I am in the train standing in the passageway taking support from the edge of the seat. There is a young boy of about seven in front of me holding onto a Rs. 5 packet of Cadbury bytes. Dressed in a clean shirt and pant, standing politely next to his mother, he is trying endlessly to open the packet until he simply cannot find the strength in himself to do so anymore.
Meanwhile, a slender, tall girl with hip hugging jeans and a Dell bag looks at the small boy. Without a word transacted, he hands her the packet and she with her well-manicured hands tries to open the packet with as much finesse as possible.
The girl continues to struggle. An aged tribal woman dips her hand into her plastic bag and hands the Dell girl her betel knife. The girl reluctantly takes it. The job is done, the boy is smiling, the girl is amused, I am humbled and Andheri arrives.
Scene 3.
I am getting out of the rickshaw near my building. As I am paying the rickshawwala, I notice an old raggedy man sitting on the pavement shivering. Between shivers, he is skimming off the upper layer of a food mixture in a transparent plastic bag. He is carefully removing the fungus, so he can eat his fill today.
The man was broken. He was sitting curled up at the edge of the road, with his one foot in the drain trying to avoid falling into it completely. His face is contorted with a deep grief that I hadn't felt before or even imagined.
I am waiting for my bus back home, stationary, beguiled by this man’s angst. With a mammoth effort, he moves slightly and I discover a huge gash on his entire foot, running from his knee to his ankle, bleeding profusely. I ask a bookseller nearby about him. I am told that that morning something ran into him and in desperation, he put his leg into the drain for some relief and has been there since.
Scene 2.
I am in the train standing in the passageway taking support from the edge of the seat. There is a young boy of about seven in front of me holding onto a Rs. 5 packet of Cadbury bytes. Dressed in a clean shirt and pant, standing politely next to his mother, he is trying endlessly to open the packet until he simply cannot find the strength in himself to do so anymore.
Meanwhile, a slender, tall girl with hip hugging jeans and a Dell bag looks at the small boy. Without a word transacted, he hands her the packet and she with her well-manicured hands tries to open the packet with as much finesse as possible.
The girl continues to struggle. An aged tribal woman dips her hand into her plastic bag and hands the Dell girl her betel knife. The girl reluctantly takes it. The job is done, the boy is smiling, the girl is amused, I am humbled and Andheri arrives.
Scene 3.
I am getting out of the rickshaw near my building. As I am paying the rickshawwala, I notice an old raggedy man sitting on the pavement shivering. Between shivers, he is skimming off the upper layer of a food mixture in a transparent plastic bag. He is carefully removing the fungus, so he can eat his fill today.
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