On my birthday

It's been a long long time since I wrote something. So I decided today is a good day for new beginnings. What better day than one's birthday to blow life back into a small metaphorical book that was tucked away deep under wraps, inside bundles of excuses.

So here I am, scaring away that silver fish which had found its home between my words. Shoo! there's no place for you here.

What should I begin with... Let me tell you about a beautiful thing that happened from the time I stopped writing to now. I met a new person, a little familiar, a whole lot strange.

All this talk of space travel, left me thinking. My meeting this new person was a lot like space travel. Before I knew it I heard a countdown starting in my mind - T minus 9, 8, 7....

I am very unsure how it feels in zero gravity. People and objects floating is as far as I have seen, heard or imagined it is like. My experience made me feel the exact opposite, just too heavy. Body and soul, all felt heavy.

You are on the way to this discovery all alone. There are people who come and check in occasionally or whenever possible. Like in the movie Gravity, (Big fan of Sandy B, by the way) where Houston chimes in for a visual or for the astronauts' "20".

You are all alone in this vast expanse, just waiting to complete the task you've been sent to complete, all the while monitoring the development of your little "project". Your eyes are on the beauty that lies a little distance away. You think to yourself this is just a small part of your life, soon this anxiety will lead way to that wonderful touchdown.

The pet project and its demons weigh you down at times, the ups and downs in your attempt to keep it together. I kept reminding myself aim for the touchdown, eyes off the meltdown and bad scenery.

All of a sudden that hope emerges, if this has to be done it's going to be you pushing through all the way. In my case, literally.....3, 2, 1.

I heard my very loving husband say "you can do it, you can do it" and egging me on, so I did it, if only to keep up the pretence of not being anxious in the least.

And finally she was here, my very own little angel.

Well after two years of her life she has clearly changed sides and opted to be her Dad's,  and he has unabashedly claimed that she's the prettiest girl in the world, so there goes..

Now that she's going to start learning, reading and writing, I thought I'll give her some material as well. Again, what better day than your own birthday, Happy Birthday to me!

See you again very soon.

Here lies the woman

I thought long and hard.

I couldn't summarize, nor did I find words.

It isn't so much a writer's block,

my muse was close at hand.

Right there in front of me.

Pretty, picture perfect, posing,

imposing an awkward silence.

I tried fencing the flutter,

before the thought left

each time I tried a rope, it fell apart.

I wiped that strange tear,

and started all over again.

Each time I tugged and pulled

I got weaker.

Like the spider she told me about several years ago

The one that weaved the web

the web that got destroyed

"the spider never gave up

it kept at it and wove it once over, again."

Keep at it, don't give up,

She didn't.

And now, The Eulogy:

'here lies the woman,

servile daughter, loving sibling

beautiful wife, strong mother.

She dreamt, wished, worked and believed

and the cosmos delivered.

Her sorrow was big

But I know she stood like that rock to the waves,

unwavering in joy and sorrow alike,

sheltering two of us,

and then many.'

'here lies the woman

who always had a smile to spare

even when she slept.

What did she dream of-

"Mother Theresa" she said once.'

'here lies my mother

far away from me in another world,

yet so near I could feel her

breath on my palm sometimes

may be from the way she kissed me when I was too small.'

'here lies my friend,

my coach, my mentor

who taught me the most important things in life

are Faith, relationship and love'

'here lies my philosopher,

the one who believed

in the power of man's will

while she knew that nothing could supersede God's.'

'here lies the woman,

my mother, my father, my brother

my comrade, my teacher,

my God in human form,

far away yet so near.

So very near to me'

Aavrita Padma

When in the circle

of the life of a lotus

the sacred flower

turns pink

not at its own beauty

but at the muddle that's around

the muddle that surrounds,

there rolls a pearl

down its pink cheeked petal

to hide inside

within the bosom of the padma.

To the world- it is shiny evasive dew

To padma- another bead of sorrow.

Then from the pink of age

to the aging pink it slowly droops

All the beads within

now catalyze the rot

then wilting

and then

slowly sinking

into the muddle

to start the circle over again.

Sometimes

Sometimes I'm unsure.

About what life means to me

About why I laugh?

About how a day passes without the "I" opening.

About when did I deserve, to stand where I stand?

Sometimes it's just me

When I don't want to see colors

When someone unnoticed notices

When I think I cringe

When I want to go "fast forward" or just "rewind"

Sometimes I care

To smile

To empathize

To make up

To improve

Sometimes I wish

For one day to exist

For the world to change, or perhaps just me

For a fairy tale to happen

For a butterfly to perch on me, the way it did on that flower

Sometimes, not always

But in life, sometimes you gotta admit that not everything will go your way

"I too had a love story"- a book that you have already watched

I never thought I'll write book reviews, or anything that talks about a book I've read. I didn't think that I'll ever read a book that really needed to be reviewed by me - a passive everyday reader, who buys books and reads them just for the sake of reading.

But what do I know, I'm just one of those many magazine buyers who happen to look through the "top ten books of the week" list and tend to stock up on books to be preserved for a good read sometime in the future.

And so it happened... based on a vague memory of a listing I saw in some blurred out magazine, I picked up "I too had a love story.."

I'm going to first detach the author from the piece. I have nothing against him, God bless his soul. Gentleman writer, the only bone I have to pick with you is that you let the book go to print without this statutory warning ( though you had that new pen in your hand that had too much ink): "Reading such books can cause headaches (making it look gentle with a mild word- check) to the reader".

I'll just talk about the "love story" which started with a phone call the protagonist received after a profile listing on Shaadi.com (Yay! someone just got popular).

The story starts in a typical Bollywood movie fashion with a reunion of friends, some point in time after college and after campus placements (yes, and the writer is not even Chetan Bhagat). This bunch of young achievers finds the perfect silent spot to discuss their future on the banks of the Hooghly in a very Bollywood way.

Subsequent to the discussion, they decide to find their future life partner through wedding portals (fair enough, my pedestrian self has been there and done that).

Then one day it happens - the beginning of a love story initiated by the girl calling the hero (The liberty to decide the bollywood stars who play the parts is all yours).

The excruciating pain dealt by reading what follows is what forces me to be in front of my blog today doling out a book review though I'm not a book reviewer. I am just a "do-gooder" doing good to others by typing away. ( dear author, I already did you some good by buying that book, don't hate me)

Shona and shoni as the hero and heroine refer to each other are like laila- majnu, heer-ranjha, to the present day buntys and bubblys that fall in love, with a twist- they talk over the phone a lot. What follows is they fall in love and talk over the phone, fall in love and talk over the phone, fall in love and talk over the phone some more..... the saga continues (you can even make a TV series of 300 episodes out of it ..)

I am now aware what makes those cellular companies spend multi-billion dollars on advertising offers for him & her. That's one mode of revenue generation everyone from soap manufacturers to car makers should follow (strategy fee = book price compensation.)

Anyways coming back to the love story, our protagonist is off to the US for a project and on his way makes a pit stop in Delhi to see his shoni for the first time. She lives in Faridabad.

The heroine (sorry don't have the patience or the heart to call her female protagonist. The character sketch of the lady has been directly downloaded from a Bollywood masala movie. For a clearer picture refer to any DVD where the girl has beautiful everything and the description from the tip of her hair flying across her face to the tip of the toe with the nail color on it.) Moving on, she takes the hero to her house - movie style - and introduces him to the family -this is where the song and dance can come in.

By now we know there has to be a rain scene. And the writer brings it in, it was 'carefully sown' into the story as "a heavy rain that lashed on the cab" submerged the streets leading to her house in Faridabad' just when he needed to get back to the airport and head for his flight.

And yeah, the heroine asking the hero to promise he'll never touch alcohol again- that's there too.

The IM element is there as well, because that's how they keep in touch after that. The hero comes back and they are all set for the band baaja scene.

Oh and then the heroine meets with an accident. Following which she goes to a better place (death of anyone - even this heroine - is never funny).

The hero is sad - and I lost patience to read any further.

This is that tipping point in my life which left me wondering as to:

a) Why Indian writing in English today is increasingly being written to constitute raw material for Bollywood movies?

b) Who approves them for printing and why such stories are published?

c) Who lists them in the top ten in those magazines?

d) The cover says "Simple, honest and touching"- N.R. Narayana Murthy - Sir with all due respect - who are you and Really?

e) The author has immense potential to write movie scripts.

I aspire to be one of the greats in this genre. How is this for the first line- "Dishoom, and he beat his enemy to the ground with that first knock on his head." 

Oh wait déjà vu.

Return my money ya filthy animal!

Green Room 1: Character introduction

Tribal 1: An irritating someone, elated by others misery, the actions make you want to scream. But instead you just swallowed the feeling and mumbled to yourself "Oh My God!"

Tribal 2: Grabs your chair the moment you get up-- "WTF?". But instead you end up saying "thats not good etiquette, you could always ask me before doing that."

Tribal 2: Asks you to share the food and at the first nibble followed it up by saying "Why don't you make your own kill?"

Female Tribal 1:Looks at the precious something someone gave you and has the balls (metaphorical) to ask you "did you get that for twenty bucks at those pedestrian shops?"

Female Tribal 2: Kept looking at you from the corner of the eye, looks so jealous of you that the moment you plan to break for a breathe- would promptly ambush you.

Animal 1: A jackass who just doesn't like you because you are his enemy's favorite.

The Crew: People who live and breathe slumming in this situation day in and day out.

Tribal King's Assistant 1: Has a bad day and wants to vent it out and walla you show up at the right time.

Animal 2: You tell him something knowing it is the right thing to do, but there is a conference of ass lickers called who are anti-you and would say that the sun-rises in the west just to keep the ass happy.

Tribal Rain God: You feel like banging your head against that wall because you are frustrated by the indecision and extreme furies.

Tribal Elder: Someone with donkey's years behind them and yet don't have the common sense to be contemporary and rise up to today's requirement.

Inter Tribal Sprint Champion: Someone who passes the buck at the speed of lightening--- even the olympic relay racers do not compare to that speed.

Animal 3: The Fat New Rooster, who perches on your head the moment you are courteous.

Business Class Aspiring Tribal: The avid emulators- who would copy you so much that you feel like you're looking into those mirrors that show you in different sizes and shapes at the Doll Museums, you won't like a single reflection yet there they are.

Look around Green Room 1-- all these people are characters from real life-- they just choose their own funny schedule to enter the stage / your life.

Green Room 1-- don't play on my stage and ruin my parade, I have only this one script and screen play to rule on.

Our Wish-- a different cast altogether.

"And then the curtain falls - the play winds"

What's with these Auto drivers in this city???

There's only one sub species among homo sapiens that makes me have no mercy, that makes me pull out my hair, that makes me snarl and growl, that makes me want to turn into a godzilla or a king kong and stamp, and stomp and romp around till their mechanical contraptions turn into tin pancakes - the homo sapiens autodrivers.

Seriously - what's with these auto drivers in this city?

Any instance where I have had to hitch an auto ride has been a disturbance to at least one neuron in my brain, let me quote the various instances and make my case:

Problem 1:

This sub species (because they are obviously a class apart from the rest of humanity) indulges in herding up and mooing out non-sense at someone pointing out that the amount they have quoted for a trip of two kilometers can be paid to buy and install 3 meters which would glare the right fare for this trip on their rickety ride.

Problem 2:

They use their rear view mirrors not to look at on-coming traffic but to size up the passenger in the rear seat.

Problem 3:

Any suggestion made on the speed at which they take you from A to B either falls on deaf ears or earns you the looks. They, like us, grew up with the dream to place some space shuttle like Discovery into it's orbit, the non-fulfillment of which makes them jet set on the roads till you brace yourself to the painted and rusted bars on the contraption and sing "Nearer my God to thee, Nearer to thee each day".

Problem 4:

The day you take the rick, you need to look deserving enough to pay anywhere close to the right fare. If you are sporting an attire modest by their standards, something that helps you blend and make you look deserving of their mercy, you might end up having some luck. It is as if they can sense the zeroes that followed the number which baffled you while you coughed up the amount you paid for those expensive- looking clothes, that expensive - smelling perfume, that expensive - looking make-up, that expensive anything. They make you pay up for your gross vanity and make you feel guilty that you sported one or a combination of those artifacts. You could pay up for those, why not for the extravagant fare on this marvel of modern living.

Problem 5:

They refuse to take U-turns; God forbid you need to reach the other side. You are better of walking, limping, crawling to the other side than requesting the omnipotent auto driver to take a U-turn.

Problem 6:

Peak traffic, One-ways, Night time. You think you are not responsible for the creation of any of these obstacles. But you forget you were the crook who voted (or refused to vote) the government into power which built the infrastructure on which are established the road traffic rules by the officials and the authorities that the government you elected are responsible for. Mea Culpa, Guilty again!! The subspecies makes you pay for that crime. And that beautiful rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle little star" thats the only thing to give you company while you draw out straight hundreds to pay for a night-time odyssey.

Problem 7:

Not using the meter to charge you the fare. The device, fitted to each of these torments which shows the passenger about a fraction of the amount they end up paying for the ride, is reduced to an instrument to mock science in the face and make mathematics the butt of laughter by this greater sub species. The honest machine and the ripped passenger share the same haggard look once they are through with the ride. The honest passenger is left haggard by the mathematical equation that doesn't throw out a constant to link the number on the machine and the number on the currency notes. The machine is left in despair by how it's meticulous exactness (which in some cases has been thoroughly manipulated) in showing a cumulative fare, was completely ignored.

Problem 8:

The one of a kind mutation: homo sapiens honest auto driver. Once in a million rides you'll come across this variant who charges you the right fare and actually takes ten bucks less from the number he quoted because a new flyover has cut short the distance from A to B and he wasn't aware of it being open. This variant apologizes for his lack of awareness, and instead of taking you through the small lanes to make a one kilometre ride feel like ten times the distance on the time and space co-ordinates, actually sticks to the shortest distance between the two points- the straight line.

Why is this variant a problem- he rekindles hope that this super subspecies is actually not that bad. There are traces of the good crop left. With your belief in the super subspecies reinstated you take the next ride to realize soon enough that you had been spell bound by the mutation, you had actually forgotten the fraction- pay attention- that man was ONE in a Million. You'll have to take as many rides to receive the boon again.

With the hope that you and I will be blessed at least once in our lifetimes with the gift of a pleasant auto ride, and with wishes for a very bright and pleasant new year ahead, lets battle it out and face them with new grit and vigor!

God Bless - Happy New Year!!!