And then the gods laughed!!

She drew lines.. lifelines in his palm
Tracing the time they would be together
Her own lines washed away like barren sands
And then the gods laughed..

She caressed her womb
Talking to her unborn
Telling stories, sharing smiles
Knowing perhaps that she won’t get
Many such chances
And whenever she paused for breath
The gods laughed..

In her final borrowed breaths
She asked all to keep an eye on her babe
She died clasping the little one’s hand
And then the gods laughed..

And now the little one
Searches for her mother in the starry skies
And the nights when there are no moons
She is silent ... waiting for the voice that sang her first lullaby
And now the gods also have averted their eyes...

FINDING MEGHALAND!!

Welcome to M.E.G.H.A.L.A.N.D. and prepare yourself for confessions of a threateningly un-dangerous kind, from someone SPECTACULARLY ordinary and taking pride in the fact!

Meghaland is a place where, as a very good friend puts it, my “jaundiced perception” rules!! So be prepared for biased views and narrow-minded perspectives.

Anyway, so a couple of years ago I randomly composed a list of people who irk me and wrote down what I would say to them if they were in MEGHALAND. The process was so cathartic that since then I have been jotting down everything and anything in my diary under Meghaland and to my dismay, the list keeps increasing at an alarming rate!! So if you meet me someday and think I’m sweet and silent and submissive.. Take a second guess, I might just be sizing you up and wondering what I’ll say about u in ML. That speaks a lot about my sizing up skills..

So in ML there are some people/things and issues you NEVER EVER speak against especially in a sarcastic/ironic tone, yet with a I’m –only-joking kind of expression. Here it goes:

1. Poetry: Mine of course. If you don’t have anything good to say, then shut up! I am not interested in your criticism, Mr.Eliot wannabe. Get a life and remember.. I got a voice too!!!
2. BABYPHOBIA: If you are grossed out by kids.. WELCOME!! Don’t send me pics of your friend’s brother’s sister’s somebody’s baby assuming I’ll go gaga over them. I just might be tempted to delete you from my friend list!! HUH!
3. Sachin & John: Two celebrities I adore. If you don’t like them fair enough but please spare me the list of their faults.. Especially anything related to Sachin’s voice!
4. Womanpower: I’m not a hardcore feminist.. I have my own brand of humanism cum feminism. Stay away if you are an MCP!
5. Flesh eating: So you might think I’m a heathen considering my craving for non vegetarian food.. Spare me your vegetarian diatribe.. Go eat grass and be happy!
6. Sleeping: There is nothing like “too much of sleep”. 24 hours are too short any way.
7. BLACK: I’m not just shades of white and gray, its black that completes the whole. I identify with Black: it’s me, my color! If you don't like it......search for your rainbow!

ML is not just a space of repressed anger or criticism. It is a testimony to the fact that I'm basically such a nice person that I don't say nasty things to people (at least not to their face :P). It's just me..no apologies!!

BABYPHOBIA

Well having had the [mis]fortune of being stuck with two kids, in a family that needs a babysitter desperately; I have no other course of action than to claim that I suffer from a chronic case of Babyphobia.

I used to think that I loved kids.. you know I was the type who used to adore babies, cute chubby creatures who went goo goo and gaa gaa.. but then I found out that appearances are quite deceptive. Babies are cute....... from a safe distance.. cos then you are not within the hitting distance.. cos then you can’t get wet if they decide to offload.. and most importantly you can’t smell them... So in 2006-7 when I came to know that we were going to be blessed with two lil ones in the family. I was quite ecstatic... see I used the word “blessed”.. that tells you how naïve I was.. Nothing could describe the horror that followed..

To begin with.. and to be honest.. both of then looked cute enough.. Shivanshi was the first one.. chubby and cute.. and Rachit came two months later.... looking and bawling like a monkey.. (They are not twins people.. though the title “evil twins” suits them quite well). Anyway to keep on the story.. well things were quite well as they slept most of the time.. infact all the time. But then my dreamy world of babies started shattering.. the constant wailing, the late nights and early morning milk bottles that I had to warm.. not to mention the constant changing of nappies and diapers.. ufffffffffffffffff.... that was gross.. I even puked one time and felt like fainting while cleaning shit..

Coming to the present day...... 2009. April.

A scene set in Delhi 5:- A harassed looking girl running after two toddlers who are engaged in a fight, trying to tear each others’ hair.. all the while kicking each other and shouting and crying at the highest possible decibel level.. The girl keeps saying.. “No Rachit”.. “No Shivanshi”... “behave you two”.... Finally she yanks them off each other.. Both the kids have messed up hair.. scratches from the fight.. red faces.. and they are wailing at the top of their voices.. Stifling the urge to slap them, she drags them to a house where the drawing room sofa is littered with toys, drawing books, crayons, pencils, aero planes, packets of chips and biscuits. Asking them both to stand in a corner she tries to clear a space for both of them to sit. The kids stand in a corner, trying to look sheepish.. they know they are in the danger of being thrown out of the house any moment. And they do this only for a moment.. and then get embroiled in an argument abut whether Hanuman ji’s nappy needs changing or not.. (Hanuman the soft toy that is!!). The girl snatches the harassed looking hanuman from them and charges towards them with the intention to give them a well deserved whack. Instead the poor thing slips on a toy thrown on the floor and falls down.. This occurrence delights Rachit and Shivanshi who think that their masi/ bua is playing a game.. they jump on her kicking and screaming with delight.. 22 kgs of combined weight causes the girl to faint.....

[CURTAIN]

P.S. And just in case you thought this was a one off thing.. you cannot be more wrong.. this is a daily scenario.. much to my regret..

This is not a blog entry.. take this as my suicide note .. just in case one day things go overboard.. :P

A God of My Own!!

Preposterous idea indeed!! Talking to God?? What the &^%$!! That was MY reaction when I was gifted a book titled Conversations with God. It is the usual reaction of a person who views motivational literature such as the above mentioned book with disdain. And I do not go on here to reveal how the reading changed me and turned me from a skeptic into a believer. No. It just made me realize that I had been conversing with My God for years... unconsciously, subconsciously. I am not a schizophrenic. I know there are skeptics like me out there but it is hard indeed to explain exactly how you talk, how you converse. I believe each one of us has his/ her own God or rather the idea of what God is. A Personal God. A God of My Own. And I have been asked what is my God like. There have been things/ events in my life where my faith in God was shaken badly. Loss of anything you hold dear makes you a disbeliever. And I became that. I ridiculed silently the people who went to temples or prayed religiously. But then God proved me wrong. It was not because of any miracle or any prayer coming true that I started believing in Him again. But believe I did. And yes I conversed with My God. There is a line in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I where a character says, “We Owe God A Death”. The line somehow stuck in my mind and this became my tribute to My God.

We owe God a Death
and yet the ignorance of it
Makes braves die but once
and cowards bit by bit..

We owe God some love
for making us see
The infinity of a moment
and the limits of eternity

We owe God a smile
Coz when we are in pain
He gives us the strength
to stand up once again

We owe God a chance
When faith in heart dies
Coz He comforts us
and with us, He cries

We owe God a life
Coz He set us free
To overstep boundaries
and explore immortality....

My God is a friend, a teacher, a comforter, a mother and most importantly someone I can talk to. He is always there to listen, waiting for you to come.... perhaps it is time you took the step..

Delhi 5

The onslaught of the title track of Delhi 6 on FM stations made me think about my part of the city.. It is known for its market, the crowded lanes and the hustle and bustle.. for me its home.. The lanes are familiar, the landmarks.. well I have seen them change shape and color over a period of time..Delhi 5 is a place where the refugee families, especially Punjabi families, were allotted land for homes after the partition. My grandfather brought his family from a village in Sargoda, Pakistan to New Delhi. My aunt laid the bricks of our homes with her bare hands.. that is the history seeped in this area. I often walk through the narrow galis just to have a look at the homes with arched doors reminiscent of an era gone by.. you can see history here not just in architecture but in the walls themselves.. The tiny balconies and jharokhas, the latticed windows, and the posts made for sitting outside are something you don't get anywhere else.. and there are actual wells on the chaurahas that have been covered up.. people say someone committed suicide by jumping in the well and since then the local people covered it up.. I have had the chance to sing national anthem and watch the unfurling of the flag at one of these chaurahas on and independence day. It was a feeling that cannot be described in words..

In a comparative old locality like ours the special ingredient is the people you are surrounded with.. your neighbours.. you know everything that goes on in their homes and I guess your life is no big secret either.. So we refrain from lighting the lohri in the front of an old woman's house whose husband passed away on the same day many years ago.. and we celebrate festivals together by making rangolis on the doors of not just our own home but everyone else's too.. if there is a wedding in someone's family.. the neighbours help you like its their celebration and in the case of a death... they stand by your side and give you strength.. On sundays when the kids have an off.. the street is teeming with tricycles and kiddos playing on the one slide that we have.. yes we have a slide in our street.. lucky we!! And aunties sitting in the winter sun..knitting or talking.. gossiping actually.. but its a feeling of being surrounded with love.. and safety.. the feeling of coming home at the end of the day.. that is what Delhi 5 is to me..:)

I too had a love story!!

The story I am talking about is not mine.. I too had a love story is the title of a book I had the pleasure of reading last month. It was Christmas day.. browsing through stuff at Janpath, I told my sister that I wanted a book as a gift..and though she was grumbling quite a lot, she accompanied me to the book store.. i randomly picked up this book with a white cover.. flipped it over to read the story brief and after a bit of dilly dallying.. bought it. And kept it in the book cupboard where it gathered dust for ten days.. One fine day someone asked to borrow a book and I picked this book and handed it to them.. When it was returned, out of sheer curiosity I thought I would read a few pages.. But I was wrong. I had my viva in a couple of days yet I had no care for that.. I was hooked.. it was a tale told with simplicity, a kind of love that is unimaginable... I was laughing, smiling, crying.. and I guess a part of my heart got broken too at the end.. :(

Ravin's love story is touching because there is no effort in it to impress the reader with lofty words or expressions.. there are moments we all can connect with.. the pleasure of having late night phone conversations, little fights, smiles, especially the moments of first meeting.. It is a true story but I do not know what else to call it coz for me it came as a story.. something that has made me appreciate whatever I have in life, the value of time itself... I have been guilty of using this quotation often:

I hold it true watever befall

I feel it when I sorrow most

Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all..

But I would not do the same here.. Coz the reading has made me question many things including the emptiness of words and promises.. words do not really soothe or make you feel any better...

I recommend this book to all who have been in love ever.. who have lost their loved ones and those who are cynical of the concept of love..

Not everyone in this world has the fate to cherish the fullest form of love.

Some are born, just to experience the abbreviation of it.

A TORTOISE NAMED SPEED!!

An offer from a friend to gift a tortoise to me this birthday awakened ridiculous longings in me.. to own a cute pet .. and i pondered quite a bit over what i would name this cute pet of mine and the name i came up with was SPEED.... Why SPEED u might ask... well it seems to make sense to me.. if i have to motivate the tortoise to move I would have to just say its name.., "SPEED.........COME ON!!!!!!!!.. I NEED SPEED!!!"

I dreamt of having a tortoise of my own for quite some days until Dad made me sit down and asked me a few questions wth the condition that I had to get atleast some of them right before I could be entrusted with responsibility of a pet... I was soooooooooo confident I said I was ready for interrogation there and then.... AND I THOUGHT I KNEW MY DAD..

The first question was a blunder straight on.... I mean how many of you know the difference between a tortoise and a turtle??????? He just asked me calmly if I wanted a tortoise or a turtle.. and I was like, "You mean there is a difference between the two??"... Honestly.... Do you guys know the difference?? From then it was all downhill.... if there was ever an uphill to begin with....

What is the natural habitat of a tortoise/ turtle?? I mean i thought i would just put it in a bucket in the bathroom... of course that would jeopardise my privacy somewhat.... but its winter and who bathes in winter?? In summers I had thought we could put Speed in the water tank to keep it cool.. gud idea no?? But Dad was shocked... seemed I had failed again.... sighhhh... tell me something new..

Next.. what does a tortoise / turtle eat? I mean come on Dad...... if its tummy is as hard as its shell........ it can digest anything!!!! Yeah you guessed it.... I said dat... AS IF I was planning to feed my Speed Chicken momos or something..... Hey that's not a bad idea actually.... Momos are infinitely better than Biryani.. RIGHT??

A look at Dad's face warned me to not even ask if I had passed the interview....

All my dreams of spending days and nights with Speed were put to rest... I had thought of singing songs to him.. ( see how Speed graduated to "him" from "it" in my imagination...) .. I would share my poems with him... ( my sis very unkindly said that the tortoise/ turtle would commit suicide to escape SUCH a fate...) and I dreamt of taking him for walks... you know that is the thing with tortoise/ turtles.. you HAVE to carry them... for me it would become more of a weightlifting than a walk!! Dogs do seem better pets in some ways!! But the novelty of having a pet like Speed was something else.... Imagine if someone were to attack me. I could just take out Speed from my pocket and hurl him at them.. again and again.... see no need to carry pepper sprays!! my bodyguard..... my OWN WMD..... SPEED... WOW!!

So wat if I don't knw what does he eat..... please read and comment to convince my dad.. :P

13 REASONS!!

13 Reasons why I’m considered ECCENTRIC (A euphemism for mad :P ) by many people....... including my family....

1) To begin with...... I’m often found mumbling incoherently...muttering to myself...... often breaking into weird smiles and occasional bursts of laughter!! WHAT PEOPLE FAIL TO REALISE IS THAT :

a) I may be conversing with myself....... or better still I may be conversing with God.. DIVINE CONVERSATIONS...

b) I may be recollecting some funny incident/ line/ conversation I might have read/ encountered earlier in the day..

c) I might be in the midst of composing a poem or concocting a make believe scenario with me getting to say all the witty, funny lines..

d) I could be day dreaming of participating in a karaoke/ talent hunt competition..(of what nature exactly .... don’t ask me!!). where I win.. OBVIOUSLY!!!! (Dude if I DO NOT win even in MY imagination. then there’s something wrong)

2) MY ORIGINAL DRESSING SENSE- Ok... so some people might consider it weird but WHAT THE HECK!! I call it my “scholarly garb”..... something that makes me blend in perfectly well with the library walls all over the city... at times I wear all black stuff for days to avoid the pains of matching or mismatching... . there’s a wonderful thrill in wearing mismatching clothes.... in knowing you look like a weirdo.. Kurtas + Jeans+ colorful socks+ floaters + a big bag + oily hair + eyes seeped in kohl.. does make me look like a nutcase..

3) My idea of an excellent day is one spent in a library/ bookshop....... ALWAYS!!!

4) M someone who takes a rickshaw when I go for walk......... hell I’m supposed to be walking AND I do that when I reach the park......

5) I prefer Mohabbatein over DDLJ.. . BIG DEAL!!

6) I LIKE STUDYING.......... SHAKESPEARE.

7) I have a quote for every occasion.... and usually they make sense only to me...I tell you people do not take kindly to geniuses...

8) I often travel to my college which is like two and a half hours away...... just to eat a plate of Chicken Biryani....

9) One of the sports I follow passionately is WWE : both RAW and SMACKDOWN

10) I hate Babies...... abhor them from every angle.. I am a certified, compulsive Babybeater.. and I suffer from an acute case of BABYPHOBIA... no wonder kids in my own family run away from me..

11) I’m a drawing room, street side.. road singer..... I sing ( which many describe as croaking!!) and I do dat whenever and wherever I feel like........ even if it looks a bit silly to people ....imagine someone with the above described attire singing or rather croaking at full volume..

12) Whenever I go to shop, I head straight for the men’s section... not to shop for my dad, or bro or cousins.. BUT for myself........ Needless to say I borrow clothes from my brother all the time... THIS when I have two sisters...

13) And finally.... The last but not the least cause of my eccentricity is my ever varying expressions which I use without a care of being labeled a plagiarist.... From my urdu fetish of saying “takhliyaa” to the two kiddos who ran out from the room scared like hell, fearing that I had finally lost it, to my mumbling of Potter’s “Expecto Patronum” instead of saying “God please help me!!” “Carpe diem”, “Slumming It out”...”Suspending disbelief”... “whatevaaa!!!!”........ all jumbled versions used by me efficiently enough to justify my eccentricity...

And you know what.. today is Friday the 13th.... the timing is sooooo apt. Watsay??

POXED!!!!

Poxed Indeed!!
Well recovering from Chicken Pox I never thought taking life easy could be such a pain in the *&^% . Having your meals served in bed... meals meaning boiled food devoid of spices... just plain, boiled veggies... yuckkk.. and me just craves for a good dose of Chicken Biryani.. sigh!! I have been catching up on my reading and how!!! Every single book that had been bought from book fairs and Darya Ganj and that were piling up everywhere..I devoured them.. Agatha Christies, fat historical romances, Princess Diaries part X, Almost Single, another book by Cecilia Ahern, a victorian romance, In Memoriam by Tennyson, fragments of ghazals by Faiz, and my own Juvenilia.... phew!! hard work indeed..

The first thing a friend did after being told that I have Chicken Pox was sending me an sms saying......"O you poor thing!! you will spend the valentine in bed!!" AS IF!! Honestly its good to have an excuse to not go out of home.. not having to justify your single status to people who stare disbelievingly at you.. not having to explain the reasons behind your heartbreaking poetry.. :P. AND I SUCK AT LYING!!!!! boo hoo hoo..... i wanna go out and celebrate.. well usually every year its me and my best buddy Ranjana who go out together and just roam around, shop or just eat. Its fun having a plan atleast for the day... buying gifts for ourselves, gorging on hot chocolate fudge or just chilling out in CCD.... sitting in Central Park, browsing at the book stores or libraries is our idea of celebration.. we do things that make us happy... sounds like the sensible thing to do.. WHICH I WILL NOT BE DOING THIS YEAR!! :(
I will be online I guess.... reading poems, surfing sites, reading ebooks, chatting.... celebrating my Spotted Valentine..!!

M not your type

I don’t wear short skirts
I don’t use makeup on my face
I’d rather wear my old sweatshirt
Than silly frills and lace
I can’t strut around in high heels
I can’t bat my lashes at you
I can’t pretend to understand rock music
When I sing better than they do

I wud rather watch a cricket match
Or dance out there in the rain
Or curl up wid a good old book
That makes some use of brains
I know I’m not size zero
So wat if I’m a bit on the bigger side
I wud rather eat wat I spend on
I’m allergic to every type of diet.

I cry smtimes for no reason at all
Just as I laugh, frown and smile
And I need to be told that I am loved
Everyday, daily, all d time
M not difficult to understand
M not stupid or vain
I don’t pretend to b intelligent
Coz all others pretend d same

I hv had my share of crushes
Not much but a fling or two
A kiss, a hug.....here and there
Now I wish it had been you..
I use swear words that cud make u blush
I’m mean and bitchy in a fight
But if u cry I’ll hug u close
And kiss to make all alright


I know I am too different
From the clones who roam out there
Its dis difference that is the real me
That I hope u wud want to share
Coz m not ur type as they all tell me
M not ur type at all
But since wen hv types ever mattered
When its hearts that r involved…………….