From The Bard's Pen

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

- Hamlet

Friday, November 12, 2010

My Gypsy Heart

So then ........ I promise you
one last fling
if I must
My dear gypsy heart
to satisfy your
unquenchable wanderlust......

I allow you no more than
a kiss or two
Break free of those fetters
I now permit you to...
Fly high.................so high
yet remain within reach
Let not anyone capture you
I do thee beseech

And when the time comes
to enter the world
of promises and vows
made before the Lord

Don’t you look back
with longing and tears unseen
Forget what was and why
or what could have been

Remember what all you had
and say with a smile,
“ I’m a gypsy heart

come home
after a journey
of a thousand miles...............”

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Khushi..


Khushi..

This word wrecks havoc with the BP and heart rate of residents of a particular street in Delhi 5. A two-plus terror, with maggi-noodle like hair, Khushi's screams have elicited groans of pain and terror from one and all. Rachit and Shivanshi are not immune to her. While Rachit still puts up a brave fight whenever Khushi is in the battle mode, Shivanshi just prays that God would make her invisible.

Khushi feels a strange affiliation to me. Don't know why I'm the CHOSEN ONE. She is perhaps under the impression that our home is a baby salon or something. She arrives everyday around 11 and expects me to wait upon her. Nail paint, combs, clips, toys.... all things are touched and appreciated.. She mumbles and jumbles.. picks out her favorite nail paint and goes on and paints my home blue.. a dash here.. a splash there.. and her job is done.

One summer day she arrived as usual and was delighted to find Rachit and Shivanshi sprawled on the floor, busy coloring. Peace is NOT acceptable to Khushi. She shrieked once, twice. Shivanshi quietly surrendered her drawing book while Rachit hid behind me. Just then my phone rang. I handed Khushi her favorite nail paint to quieten her and went outside to take the call. Two minutes was all she needed. And I returned to find that she has moved on to painting human forms.. live models.. I entered the room to find Shivanshi in a corner, sporting two blue imprints of little hands on either cheek, her eyes huge with unshed tears. Rachit was still unscathed. He couldn't decide whether to laugh at Shivanshi's fate or cry because it would be his turn soon.. Khushi turned around when I started laughing.. I could have hugged her.. She has achieved the unmanageable. She has tamed my two monsters!!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

...

Don’t give me a list of possibilities and probabilities

I don’t need “if only’s” and “what if’s”

Chipping away at this wall-

That I have created around my heart…

Brick by brick

I have created this shield

Leaving no vents for friends or foes…

I’m sick of friends

Who chip away at these walls

INSISTENT

PERSISTENT

Like termites

Pest like they put up signboards

Signifying occupancy

And ruin my digestion

I still don’t know how to categorize you

Don’t know if I love you or hate you more…

I should learn the art of staying aloof

Of saying no to friend requests sent by strangers

And ignore matchmaking attempts…

Don’t give me the silver linings

They don’t work anyway

Just let me go and mingle with the black clouds

... My namesake.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Ten Confessions...


How many times have you urged someone to confess something? Is there anything you want to confess but don’t have the courage to?
The urge to blurt things out is hard to suppress. Nothing exceptional here... just a few random things that are important to me. Most of these are embarrassing actually... stuff that I pretend I don’t do or like... Time to make some confessions here:-

1. THE FIRST CONFESSION: I adore Mills & Boons. Love reading them. Settling down with a good boss- secretary romance is my idea of bliss! I also love historical fiction... You know now what kind of books would occupy the maximum space in my library... come one I have just this one life to read all of them...:P

2. Confession 2: I CRY. Yes, I do. People who know me might not believe this, but I do cry at silly things. What makes me cry would be the subject matter of another blog entry but the last time I cried was I when I watched Paa... and Armageddon and Stepmom...


3. Confession 3: I don’t actually hate kids and babies that much. I get the occasional, over the top, screechy, hysterical fit when I have to deal with the two monsters at home... but what the heck... I always had a preference for the horror, the gory and the macabre.

HA HA HA!

(DID YOU ACTUALLY THINK I WOULD DECLARE MY LOVE FOR JUNO HERE??)

4. Confession 4: I often day dream about the superpower I would like to get. I guess I would love to be a master of legilimency (Potter fans know that it is the art of reading minds!) Or the power to become invisible. I guess some news channel would employ me as their 24X7 sting operation specialist!!
I like to believe that daydreaming about this topic would motivate me to create a comic strip based on superhero/ fantasy character.


5. Confession 5: I dream of and am working towards the 2 things I want to own in this life- a tree and a library of my own. So people, who have lent me books, just forget about them and those whose books are missing... you are right... I STOLE THEM!


6. Confession 6: I always...ALWAYS cross my fingers before I open this page/ blog and utter this holy incantation, “Please god... just one more follower!”


7. Confession 7: I still haven’t managed to figure out the difference between quite and quiet, effect and affect and many such things... Quiet weird ehh?



8. Confession 8: I feel murderous when people ask me the meanings of random, big sounding words. And if I do not have the answer they smirk and say in a derisive tone, “AND YOU ARE A LIT STUDENT?? BAH!” Someone should tell them that the curriculum of the universities does not include vocab lesson....urrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!


9. Confession 9: Just because I’m studying Shakespeare, it doesn’t mean that I am walking talking information centre or line-identifying, giving-the-context-guide for you... I am still a student. Have pity on me!!



The Final Confession: ..........................................

.................................


...................


.............


........

....

...

........................ I am in love :D



Tuesday, March 16, 2010

BARDOLATRY!

I guess it’s high time I wrote something about the bard too. Just checked online and saw that my research proposal has been selected! I had promised myself that I would write something on Shakespeare if I did manage to get into Ph.D. Phew! Here it goes...

My Favourites in Shakespeare:

Favourite Play: King Lear- Well the reason for this being my favourite is kind of weird. This is the only play where the Bard has managed to affect my tear ducts. (Believe me.. that is TOUGH job!!)

Favourite Sonnet:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Favorite Shakespearean Hero: Not that I’m a feminist, but choosing a favorite here seems like a task! Hmm.. It should be Prince Hal (Henry V) of the plays Henry IV I & II. No tragic heroes for me.

Favorite Shakespearean Heroine: The Serpent of the Nile- Cleopatra

Favorite movie on/about Shakespeare: Shakespeare in Love

Favorite adaptation of Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (It has Keanu Reeves as Don John!!)

Favorite lines from Shakespeare: ‘Et tu, Brute!” – Julius Caesar

Favorite critic(s) on Shakespeare: Bruce Smith, Valerie Traub and Carol McNeely

Favorite Bit of Trivia on Shakespeare: The average American's vocabulary is around 10,000 words - 15,000 if you are REALLY smart. Shakespeare had a vocabulary of over 29,000 words.

Favorite Shakespearean Insult: “I'll beat thee, but I should infect my hands!”

Favorite Shakespeare Biographer: Bill Bryson

A book on the bard I want to read: A Hunkier Shakespeare

Favorite Shakespearean Quotations

* Hamlet, III: 1

To be, or not to be: that is the question.

* Romeo and Juliet, II:2

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow.

* Twelfth Night, II:5

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

* Merchant of Venice, III:1

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

* Hamlet, I:5

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

* Macbeth, I:3

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.

* Two Gentlemen of Verona, I:2
They do not love that do not show their love.

* The Merchant of Venice, I:3
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

* King Lear, III:6
He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

And I would like to end this post by quoting Shakespeare’s epitaph:

Good frend for jesus sake forbeare to
digg the dust encloased heare.
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones and
curst be he yt moves my bones

Saturday, January 23, 2010

God's Dilemma

Strolling behind the gates of heaven
I was surrounded by clouds
of prayers, wishes, hopes and requests
Money, success, love, health
All formed a halo of materiality
and in the human cloud of want
I felt lost...

Suddenly I blinked
Someone down there on Earth
had asked for ‘Nothing’ as her birthday gift
I looked closely
and found her kneeling in prayer
with tears in her eyes.

She said, “You have taken my all...
Now give me nothing, nothing at all.
If I have anything ......anything I hold dear
with it there would be happiness
but also a dark fear
A fear of too many smiles
that could be lost anytime
So give me nothing, nothing my lord
That is my wish this time”


Speechless, I just wondered
and saw her sorrow unwind
A spirit broken by hardship
and cruelty of time
Clueless, unsure of what to do
I’m searching all the time
What can I really give
to this favourite child of mine?

Friday, January 8, 2010

WILDEST DREAMS/ THINGS I WANNA SEE HAPPENING IN THIS YEAR!!


* My wildest dream is to GIVE an autograph to Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar.

* Become an International bestselling author overnight and get a fortune like Rowling (Just a Harry Potter of my own!!)

* Write something ‘ORIGINAL’ on Shakespeare.

* Live in a “BABY FREE “world! God, Is that asking for too much?? The three monsters at home prove everyday that Bush was looking for WMD’s in the wrong place.

* Kiss Johnny Depp. (I did say WILDEST DREAMS!!)

*Be a guest at OPRAH for achieving any of the above.

* Backpack around the world (When someone else is paying for it,

of course!)

*Adopt Grandparents. (God knows, I could do with some adult supervision)

*Get a Tree of my own. With a bench to go along with it. (something like Notting Hill.. Where is my Hugh Grant?? Even Ronan Keating would do!)

*Find my Rhett Butler (Usually known/ referred to as soul mate in common man’s vocab)

*Increase the no. of fans on orkut. Figure out the bribes to be given.

*Get Juno, the __________ to address me as ‘maasi’ and give her a makeover. She is too much of a tomboy!!

*Write the sequel to ‘Kubla Khan’. (Without the help of prescribed drugs)

* Get a waist like Scarlett O’Hara. (For the uninformed, it was 16 inches only)

* Set up my own band aid factory or something since I’m the biggest consumer of the product. I promise to give discounts to all those who are in my fan list at Orkut and to those who praise my poetry at AP.

* Grow Nails.

* Get married to a real prince. Then ‘WE’ would see all the above coming true. Imagine ‘WE’ would have:

- Film stars asking for ‘Our’ autograph

- Oprah fawning over ‘us’

- Publishers dying to publish ‘Our’ biography/ story/ poetry

- Shakespeare himself coming back from the grave to write ‘Our’ thesis on his plays. He would be original, ‘WE’ think. Watsay?

- Juno accepting that ‘We’ are the real royals

- ‘We’ would own several acres full of trees

- Johnny Depp would... well.... ummm.. Let’s not create a royal scandal!!

So people... there is still time for you. Count your blessings that you still have the chance to do something meaningful in life. You are getting a chance to be friends with ‘Us”.

Bless All!! Gotta practice the royal protocol. Happy New Year!