She: What are you upto?
He: Studying..Took a long break from work.
She: Exams?
He: Yup,25th..What about you?
She: Well I am a living rotten zombie.
He: Try being a happy one
She: Whoever heard of happy zombies? They don't have feelings.
He: Stop patronizing your feelings and capabilities
She: That's why I come to you time and time again
He: You are crazy.
She: If I get any crazier they'll send me away.
He: Tell them you don't have a passport
She: actually I wish I did have one
He: Then go get one and fly away.
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He: Kiddo whats you upto?
She: Just dozing off,tomorrow's another big day hopefully I get down to doing something worthwhile
He: I call it spirit
She: I Wish it was as bright as yours
He: p.s. fall in love...helps.
She: Tried,got dumped
He: Try again but make sure its a different guy and worthy enough to handle a little princess like yourself
She: smiles
He: I just earned 10 points.Gave you a smile.I get to go to heaven..yayyy
Smiles and stuff.Plan to make it to the headlines?
She: Death by suicide.That's the only way I can do it.
He: I'll never lose my hope in you..all i can say
She: I'll try living upto that
He: You'll never be able to..I'll keep raising the bar everytime you get near it,gonna kill you with your happiness
She: Try me
He: What are you? A washing soap on sale?
She : I wouldn't mind being that right now.
He: I'd pay a million bucks as an advance token to buy you..
She: We both know I am the cheapest thing that's not on sale.
He: Sleep.
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*Posted after careful consideration and deliberation.
I am very well aware of the fact that I can get sued after this post.
xyz.
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Thursday, December 4, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Right out of the survival books..
I couldn't deny the fact that I needed her and the things she did.They zigzagged their way into my survival book.How many of those things posed the bigger question.Had I not seen this coming before? Of all the things racing towards their destination I knew "help" wasn't one of them.Answers needed to be dug out of their graves.It was essential for me to be on good terms with the world.At the same time I found the experience mortifying.I hated it and this was no secret.Details couldn't flourish on their own.They needed the support of human existence.And now I've lost my train of thought.
I've watched her afar,up close and personal.She harbors the great Indian dream spinning it into different spools of flavors,colors and textures.Its 8 'o clock in the morning she steps out of her bath soft skinned and fresh,drapes herself around in a crisp sari and leaves her unwashed hair uncombed.Then she applies an insignificant bit of kohl under the rims of her eyelids.Some amount of jewelry is considered necessary.Then she dabs a bit of powder on her cheeks and the undersides of her chin and neck.
I stumble out of bed at 7.45 after effects of alcohol demurring my senses.Good someone's in the bathroom it gives me enough time to search for my aspirin without having to explain to her why I have the entire contents of my medication tool kit splattered over my unmade bed.
Her's on the other hand is immaculately clean.I made beds before but then again I slept well before.I don't remember much about yesterday.There was name calling,door banging and something else ..I might even have to pay him for damaging some of his aesthetic glassware.But right now my cell phone is hidden away in the most undiscovered places that the world has to offer and frankly I do not possess even an ounce of intention to perhaps hunt it down and come to terms with the consequences I would have to suffer for last night.
I felt mutant sore.
Numbness was the best best way to encounter social grudges.So here I was...numb.I glanced through the newspaper without really going through it.The usual fucking shit,why bother?
Then I am seated alongside consequences.Just for once I ventured astray,glimpsed at a few odd stars and finally retreated back home.I look like I haven't slept.
She walks in with a few flowers.I look perfectly calm whilst sipping my chamomile tea.My kitchen cabinet is an adobe for the most exotic varieties of tea..chamomile,jasmine,organic,green,earl grey,darjeeling orthodox tea,black lemon tea,tulsi pudina,ginger tea...the taste of tea calming my nerves is the only peace I've experienced after reckless nights.
She is beautiful...every step taken or to be taken bears witness to that.
Everything in my life seems diseased for now.I have research papers to write for the day.Some fucked up shit regarding ethics.I don't think I will be able to carry through with it.The numbness has clogged my brain.
"You look tired.." she smiles and I notice the stark and unpleasant whiteness of her teeth.Happy to have found a flaw I smile back."I had a rough night."
I've watched her afar,up close and personal.She harbors the great Indian dream spinning it into different spools of flavors,colors and textures.Its 8 'o clock in the morning she steps out of her bath soft skinned and fresh,drapes herself around in a crisp sari and leaves her unwashed hair uncombed.Then she applies an insignificant bit of kohl under the rims of her eyelids.Some amount of jewelry is considered necessary.Then she dabs a bit of powder on her cheeks and the undersides of her chin and neck.
I stumble out of bed at 7.45 after effects of alcohol demurring my senses.Good someone's in the bathroom it gives me enough time to search for my aspirin without having to explain to her why I have the entire contents of my medication tool kit splattered over my unmade bed.
Her's on the other hand is immaculately clean.I made beds before but then again I slept well before.I don't remember much about yesterday.There was name calling,door banging and something else ..I might even have to pay him for damaging some of his aesthetic glassware.But right now my cell phone is hidden away in the most undiscovered places that the world has to offer and frankly I do not possess even an ounce of intention to perhaps hunt it down and come to terms with the consequences I would have to suffer for last night.
I felt mutant sore.
Numbness was the best best way to encounter social grudges.So here I was...numb.I glanced through the newspaper without really going through it.The usual fucking shit,why bother?
Then I am seated alongside consequences.Just for once I ventured astray,glimpsed at a few odd stars and finally retreated back home.I look like I haven't slept.
She walks in with a few flowers.I look perfectly calm whilst sipping my chamomile tea.My kitchen cabinet is an adobe for the most exotic varieties of tea..chamomile,jasmine,organic,green,earl grey,darjeeling orthodox tea,black lemon tea,tulsi pudina,ginger tea...the taste of tea calming my nerves is the only peace I've experienced after reckless nights.
She is beautiful...every step taken or to be taken bears witness to that.
Everything in my life seems diseased for now.I have research papers to write for the day.Some fucked up shit regarding ethics.I don't think I will be able to carry through with it.The numbness has clogged my brain.
"You look tired.." she smiles and I notice the stark and unpleasant whiteness of her teeth.Happy to have found a flaw I smile back."I had a rough night."
Day two
The true essence of life is misery itself.Misery that shapes you down under,beneath the crusty exteriors and the folded secrets.
HE: I am boring when I'm real
SHE: I could make do with that,what makes you think I am so interesting myself?
HE: I am no good judge of people but this I know.. you are "one good piece"
SHE: you should know..I'm a broken piece.
##He doesn't reply
So then I cling onto curtains and window frames throwing my luck out of the window and never looking back.Loneliness is a bent condition I could straighten it.Wash the essentials and clean the peripheries and write about it all the same.
Scene one: The city.
Winter has set in,the chill zooms past the morning breaths of dog walkers surveying the early morning routes of a city on the brink of the busiest day ever.Sometimes I think of myself as a mute spectator scurrying past my own life to get a good look at what I see.What I want on the contrary is underlined and never mentioned.
HE: Sometimes I think why did you ever have to go through the trouble of knowing me?
SHE: Honestly I don't know.I wish I did though..
HE: Of course you do! That's precisely what I am accusing you of.
SHE: Well then I might just be a little slow in figuring that out.
HE: You always have answers don't you?
SHE: Well I'd like to believe that when I am with you.
HE: What if you don't have an answer to a question I ask you someday?
SHE: Try me.
The sun would be out any second now indulging my sickly pale skin in its lucid warmth and glow.This lonely spot would now be a traffic maniacs destiny.Farewell dew,morning joggers,dog walkers..oh you gem of people.Life is more fun when you drive a car they say.Picture pretty right.My job here is done.
SHE: You spoil me.
HE: Yes I do. Do you like it?
HE: I am boring when I'm real
SHE: I could make do with that,what makes you think I am so interesting myself?
HE: I am no good judge of people but this I know.. you are "one good piece"
SHE: you should know..I'm a broken piece.
##He doesn't reply
So then I cling onto curtains and window frames throwing my luck out of the window and never looking back.Loneliness is a bent condition I could straighten it.Wash the essentials and clean the peripheries and write about it all the same.
Scene one: The city.
Winter has set in,the chill zooms past the morning breaths of dog walkers surveying the early morning routes of a city on the brink of the busiest day ever.Sometimes I think of myself as a mute spectator scurrying past my own life to get a good look at what I see.What I want on the contrary is underlined and never mentioned.
HE: Sometimes I think why did you ever have to go through the trouble of knowing me?
SHE: Honestly I don't know.I wish I did though..
HE: Of course you do! That's precisely what I am accusing you of.
SHE: Well then I might just be a little slow in figuring that out.
HE: You always have answers don't you?
SHE: Well I'd like to believe that when I am with you.
HE: What if you don't have an answer to a question I ask you someday?
SHE: Try me.
The sun would be out any second now indulging my sickly pale skin in its lucid warmth and glow.This lonely spot would now be a traffic maniacs destiny.Farewell dew,morning joggers,dog walkers..oh you gem of people.Life is more fun when you drive a car they say.Picture pretty right.My job here is done.
SHE: You spoil me.
HE: Yes I do. Do you like it?
Day one.
Furious thunderdrops lashed out at this strickenly pale season.Gloomy sullen behaviour took its toll on the misfortunate lot.I collected the leaf and the twig and walked home,inhaling the pleasant aroma that cast dampness on the ground below.I must have looked haggard as i held that miserable wet itchy twig in my hand.
walk walk walk walk
How can I let things get to my head? They pinched at places my nerve endings intersected.
walk walk walk walk
I try to avoid the traffic and smuggle myself between two parked cars.I brush my skirt across a greased surface and that long red hippie like thing stains black.I feel like the Dixie chick who got her wedding dress stained on purpose.Only this isn't a wedding dress and I didn't stain it on purpose.
Well wishers have advised me not,I repeat not to walk more than three kilometers by myself.That is not what a girl with meaning would do or whatever.But I think my funny little slippers and my hippie attire would carry me anywhere I want as long as Jordanian's are not around the corner to molest me.
walk walk walk walk
How can I let things get to my head? They pinched at places my nerve endings intersected.
walk walk walk walk
I try to avoid the traffic and smuggle myself between two parked cars.I brush my skirt across a greased surface and that long red hippie like thing stains black.I feel like the Dixie chick who got her wedding dress stained on purpose.Only this isn't a wedding dress and I didn't stain it on purpose.
Well wishers have advised me not,I repeat not to walk more than three kilometers by myself.That is not what a girl with meaning would do or whatever.But I think my funny little slippers and my hippie attire would carry me anywhere I want as long as Jordanian's are not around the corner to molest me.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A reminder list...
1. You could be the president of India or the queen of England (unrealistic need not be unreasonable.)
2.You don't have to wait.For anybody or anything.No one's coming if they wanted to they'd already be here.
3.Little is more.
4.It doesn't take much to get up and go.
5. Who cares if you make a fool out of yourself.
6.Bad decisions are made by people with unsound minds
7.Correction- Bad decisions are made by people who never had a chance to make a decision.
8.All that you have around you will be gone.
9.Remember there was a mouse who never got his cheese and died that way?
10.Thoughts are beautiful.They truly are.
11. There is no number 11.
2.You don't have to wait.For anybody or anything.No one's coming if they wanted to they'd already be here.
3.Little is more.
4.It doesn't take much to get up and go.
5. Who cares if you make a fool out of yourself.
6.Bad decisions are made by people with unsound minds
7.Correction- Bad decisions are made by people who never had a chance to make a decision.
8.All that you have around you will be gone.
9.Remember there was a mouse who never got his cheese and died that way?
10.Thoughts are beautiful.They truly are.
11. There is no number 11.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The story
I remember the story well.Our story.I can hear the words even before you spread them at the tip of your icy lips.They throb and burn in my whimsical heart and I am forced to share an unwanted delight.But I trust your words, the shapes of then, the slight curves and folds.They stimulate the pores of my imagination and I am rendered hopeless to speech.I wish I could tell you what each wordless day felt like until you froze them in our midst.Then I watched each frozen drop melt away,out of sight,getting smaller and smaller.Tears you might say.Relief I'd say while I watch you walk away.Your back has captivated me ever since I met you.I stood still for mighty seconds whenever you left.I watched you leave.These moments they never return,they stand frozen in our midst and then they melt away.
I'll get back to the story.The story that lay splattered on the dinner table.Entangled within a fork and cut short by a knife.A story envied by the sumptuousness and luxuriousness of everything distastefully yours.
I was young,a girl of fifteen living along the edges of a crumpled paper.I wasn't aware of much except the cat in your house and the hair on your neck.Howdy do little miss muffet? you said as I stepped inside the walls of a delirium something as unfathomable as my heart and what you make of it.I was young that is all I know.You said that Id grow up to be something and that I needed direction,support and plenty of ambition.You said all that like I'd find them everyday on the breakfast table along side my mashed eggs and potatoes.A hard earned breakfast I'd say after a night's violent ordeal.I couldn't sleep for the first week.Twisted and turned like a monster waiting to be fed.Nana couldn't really do much to comfort me except keep me warm which she would.Nana and her forty year old rugged hands was about all I loved back then.She was magical.She'd scrub and clean and spit and forget.The chequered tiles smelt of Nana sometimes.I rolled over these tiles at times when I was incredibly bored and stopped right two tiles before the stairs.The whirlwind never ended and it led straight to your room.A disaster I could never fathom.
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Part two;
Dig,dig,dig! Dig these wounds deeper and they won't hurt as much.Hold your hand against this sickening flame and you won't burn as much.Sometimes I'd sit up straighter when I'd catch you staring at me through the corner of your eye.I'd find myself questioning the details of what I am doing when I'd sense your watchful and perverted gaze.Most of the times I'd do it wrong and wrong I was all over again.Right from the start ever since I was 15 and I have been wronged ever since.Nana knows a lot about wrong and right and yet she doesn't judge me or my wrongdoings.This is what you get when you walk a town you know nothing about.And then you start from scratch.From loving each foreign step that you take to not noticing even the most hideous of the faces that pass you by.
Demons I have known as I grew,bled and matured into a woman.I dreamt of this place often even before I came here and never imagined spending most of my adulthood over here.Recurrent dreams of a weirdly built house,chequered tiles and a nauseating staircase.Your room and mine.Nana's belongings scattered in a corner.
I am more than a molested girl who grew into a woman only to fall in love with her molester.
I have more than sin and lust and wavy hair.Now 25 years down the line I am not thinking about sin any more.They say the past has a way of hunting you down and you can't really escape it.Escapisms were those long,tiring nine to five jobs that i thought would dissolve me to the very last piece.But things don't work the way you want them to at times.All I can hear right now are the birds chirping outside my window-- they are a middle aged woman's miracle.To hear then,feel them and stay at peace.
The story is still unfinished,Nana's dead and I am dressed in black.You see your beautiful daughter off at college and I am scared for her.Her tremendous beauty fragile and tender.Untouched and naive, her hazel eyes boast of the happiness she is yet to attain in the years to come.They are anything but wrong about it.
As i brush the last strand of my hair I come across a souvenir of what I consider to be the very last of my relationships.A sophisticated Rolex wrist watch that stopped working at 23:55 on 23rd May a week before.It was then that he stormed out of my humble apartment (with a river view and haunted eternally by construction and repair work) saying he couldn't take any more of me.
That I crossed all limits of human paranoia.That I bred in a pool of anxiety and drowned in the same.That my liver inflated and deteriorated every time I took an antidepressant and it affected my love making capacity.
I don't feel like putting my pen down today because that would mean surrendering to an unfinished story and letting the ghosts of the past flourish in their vagueness.A life needed more than that.And all want superseeded everythingelse really.And now that Nana is dead there isn't much holding me back either.Nana and all her efforts to keep me warm gone down the kitchen sink.The very place she'd scrub her sadness away and hand me the plate so that I could wipe it dry and save her the trouble of looking at the future.The future was selfishly mine afterall.
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Part three
Thatttttttttttttt mannnnnn!! Tabitha would roll her tongue and look away.Her cork screw like hair stuck to her like a terrible secret waiting to be told.I've always been jealous of her after all she was the best friend I never had.Together we were the broken sisters tied loosely together with a broken thread.A dirty little secret shared.She kept hers under yoga mats and I kept mine under coffee mugs.Neat.
Tabitha is now a yoga instructor who had embraced buddhism two years ago.Erasing her past,cleansing her system...she's good at this.She doesn't meet me often especially in front of her new friends.They love her that way - with beads,rings and trashy whorish make up.A self declared genophobic claiming to have heard the voice of GOD.Tabitha and the wittiness that got her nowhere,the fakeness she clung onto I loved her all the same.
But you may have been right all along.She was an uninvited guest.The story belonged to us and Nana was there to clean up the mess.
I remember those lazy winter afternoons when Tabby and I would run off to the nearby shacks to have a smoke.She was more than sulky and bad tempered.She made tea for Nana when she was sick and she threatened to bludgeon you when she heard the voice of GOD. Misunderstood.So then she was gone and I stayed on with the lowly cat.It would be another five years before I would finally walk out.
darn cat,
Somehow I found it hard to believe in something.Belief seemed like pneumonia ..something with dire consequences.That's when I realized that there are more things to this world than pleasing a wretched 31 year old.
The afternoon breeze touches my skin.I yearn to go back to sleep but I won't.. I think I have stuff to do..............................
................back in bed and my body wouldn't budge.My toes curl and I bring my knees closer to my chest.A foetus not wanting to be born.Sometimes I think I have become her.It took my mother 12 years to realize that the man she loved didn't love her..not even close and by the time it struck her he was gone and so were the people who loved her back then.Love is cursed in the town we live.Nothing here changes,it just lives on.
The winds have changed.Its become cloudy all of a sudden and now its starting to pour.I let the rain in.
'its been years since they told her about it...i run for life....lalala' I love that song...STOP SINGING AND ANSWER THE GOD DAMN PHONE>
"hey Nina,Tabitha here...would you be free next week..i have to talk to you."
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***spell check.
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Self belief was harder to fathom.I watch the day wrapped in its melancholy and the sky roaring with thunder.A middle ages woman's nightmare.
Rain pouring outside my window,thoughts raining in my head like confetti.
A week since Tabitha called.I've been trying to keep myself busy,keep myself guessing actually.Amusing myself and trying to look busy,whatever it is.Yes...I am apprehensive,anxious and madly curious.I've been smoking again ever since I tried to quit.Tabitha was the one who showed me 'how to smoke the right way' after all and when it finally hit me I mumbled 'wow you should write a book.'And then we'd giggle until we knocked ourselves off the settee,bare feet and momentarily insane.
Sometimes I run into grocery stores and forget what I have to buy.Wander off into banks like a wide eyed idiot and acknowledge my perpetual stupidity when I realize that I've forgotten something important like my ATM card or my chequebook.The worst nightmare I've ever had dying in my sleep whilst forgetting to turn off the tap.So when they found me I was floating and so were the details of my life.
Define wrong she said one day and i found myself incapable of doing so.As incapable as a blank piece of paper.But I knew what to do with it just as I knew what to do with the blank piece of paper.
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Walk away before the day ended you once said to me.I didn't.I saw the sun set and the pearly clouds twirl around the crimson skies.Night came too soon and when I finally decided to walk away I was too bored and lonely to do so.I needed direction..I needed the antique gold rimmed compass,a gold plated 1970's watch,a neatly folded handkerchief and the rest of the contents of your drawer.I needed the smell of Park Avenue flooding my nasal cavity.I needed Nana's clover breath.I needed a clean slate.I needed stones to topple over and bruise a knee.
I needed band aid,antiseptic and a wound whose presence I never bothered to acknowledge.
I wasn't looking.
"Hey are you feeling any better?" I find Tabitha's neatly manicured hands caressing my cheek.I felt terrible then I feel terrible now.It took me twenty years down the memory lane,darkness and the dead of the night to realize that feeling.I shudder.
'You were lucky,had I not called I would have never known...'
Having to tell people that I fell from the stairs was embarrassing enough add to all this the fact that Tabitha was my official caretaker now. I added my own pickled details to the facts that were,like presence of water on the stairs causing me to slip or my dangerously shaky 4 inch heels.I never wore four inch heels and Tabitha knew that too.However there weren't many people to explain these things to, just a few colleagues whom I was barely in touch with.
A week later they sent me home with a cast..right leg left hand..bang bang.I settled in quicker than I thought.Now that I was pretty much at home all day, each insignificant task surprisingly occupied the whole of me and anyway I was grateful enough to keep busy all day.
Bathing was painful and took almost an hour but I somehow enjoyed it.The pain struck me harder than a knife at first but gradually I discovered that pain is a matter of getting used to- be it physical,emotional or mental sorts.I also took to some serious reading..all of Jane Austen,all of Rushdie,all of Naipaul,all of Doris Lesing.
Sometimes all it takes to wake up is to fall down and fall down hard I suppose.I wish I'd learnt that earlier in life.But then there was no scope of falling I was six feet under already yearning to see the light of the day and probably gathering enough courage to step out of the ruins.Courage and what this world makes of it sometimes bemuses me.
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Absolute despair and myself,walking along,hand in hand swaying together...wayward fools on an unlikely path strewn together with guilt.A guilt that would stay for as long as I remember the blood in my veins.Gone was the time for all the wiftiness and insignificant ecstacies of life.Could I contain myself any longer? Join an aerobics class,drink fresh orange juice,pay the bills and pretend everything's fine? I don't think so,even that took tremendous effort.Facing myself each day,acknowledging the epicentre of the storm.I would have rather been drunk,naive,ignorant and unaffected than have witnessed all these foolish years,having stood in the shoes of a fool myself.
Courage and what this world makes of it amuses me.Trust and what this world makes of it makes me laugh.If only we'd think about more things to say! I see him slither away into the glory of a mad river.I say nothing.I watch him flow.The heliotrope skies oversee my sadness they add to it a tinge of his crimson craziness.Between us stands virtue and cloud-- a stairway to heaven.Its dark now and the insects have fearlessly started emerging out of their holes.They laugh at the eccentric writer,a mere clown and watch the skies beyond along with him,their antenna's tingling in the direction of the wind.
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Friends and Foe
Mr XYZ.
His fucking source of vulgar humour dried my peripheral senses.Apathy was the only form of life he invested in.I could see it around the corners of his mouth..startlingly distinct and unprepared when it came down to the spoken word.My tongue felt rancid and stale.I sat upright in my chair gone was its feel of the velvety centre surrounded by distinct arcane ivory carvings.My toes curled in my classic black and white chequered ballerinas and then fabulously stretched out like any moment from now on I'd run out of those wide six feet doors.I didn't know much beyond those doors.I still don't.Every door leads me to another one,another revelation thrust into my tiny pale hands.I sat there listening to extremely boring details of whatever didn't interest me.Politics,trade,money and whores and us.Essentially masculine talk..essentially fucked up.I stretched further into my own little world with details of a different kind.Yes where would I be without details.
Back then details were few,clear,simple and they flourished.Now they drown in their own sorrow ten thousand of them in a barely measurable pathetic puddle.
Tabby grew what you and I would call materialistic and worldly.Bags,shoes,clothes,other items and equipments were all she cared about.This came right after being dumped by her second consecutive boyfriend who thought her to be tame and we thought it was just a phase or so it seemed to be.
She raided Mr Khan's shop in our wonderful Tinseltown,the only one of its kind.Malls weren't in vogue then.Incense,candles,pot pourri,bags and weird modernistic vases..that I sometimes called the non voluptuous straight whores.I think being the primary assault victims of a man much older to us never inculcated in our lives what you'd call a normal guy girl relationship.I watched enough movies and read enough books to assure myself that I wasn't the only fucked up case of a kind.
I wasn't.I had Tabby and her denial.
I found this in one of her journals once I kept it with me.
Find my foe
find my friend
bring them across the river's end
feed them meat,fondue and berries
drag them along the forests deep
cover them with foliage when they sleep
I'm foolish my friend
I'm wise my foe
Didn't you already know
I'd scrape off all sentimentality
covering your hideous feet
Lets wash our sins
and scrub our worries
Life is a dream
a drowning memory
who am I to know?
14 years on
and not a trace of snow
come my friend
find my foe.
She was 14.It makes me cry when i read it I don't know why.
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One fine day......
Years after sabotaging my dream I met him at a coffee shop.All those years of misery now gathered at his obtuse protruding belly.He drooped a bit having to carry the weight of an invisible burden.He wore hideous hexagonal gold plated rings.. a sacrament of sorts.An outward cleansing system only surface sterilizing the deeper complexities of a sin-various sins actually that added up to a greater one.What never really left him was that rustic appeal that somehow added up to and at the same time subtracted a bit from his personality eventually neutralizing it.Everything else including charm genuinely faded away.His hair looked different now..an unpleasant light reddish brown russet colored. He stood at the take away counter humbly awaiting his turn.I wish I could go confront him right away.But with what? With loving him ten years ago? He disgusted me now.I felt sorry for him despite the cast on my left leg and my crumbling personality and the first few signs of wrinkles under my eye lids.."HE" was what I felt sorry for.So what were we doing here again? Two miserable people in the god forsaken coffee shop.What was I really angry at anyway? Him being miserable or him being happy? OR him having a family to go back home to? OR me falling apart?
Too much to take.I retreat to the grocery shop next doors,grab a couple of not needed things
and make a quick run for my life.
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Did I need Tabby? Sure I did. I needed her more than her fake eyelashes needed her. And though things might not seem to work that way at the end of the day we do make peace with the people we hate knowing that they are the only ones you could perhaps count on. And Tabby, dear Tabby was a chronic believer wasn’t she? So I wrote to her- About how the past haunted me every bloody second of my weary life. About how we needed to get away, reconcile and make peace with ourselves..Learn to perhaps love ourselves before we tire ourselves out. The answer was very simple – nature could be kind and resourceful to us at this juncture in our lives.
She sat scanning the contents of my letter with a dubious expression on her face-The one that offered no explanations whatsoever. She might have felt a surge of sympathy shoot up through her skin or she might have felt otherwise.
The next thing I knew I was packing away the details of my life furiously and enthusiastically into a big red suitcase – the one whose glossy metal sheen bore my initials on it which could seen at a distance of almost six feet, the one that my ex gifted me after I lost two consecutive others but that wasn’t important what was important was that it was along with this suitcase that I was boarding the bus to nature’s heavenly abode somewhere far away from here.
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Half minus a happy ending
That was all there was in the end- nothing but the nakedness of the fact and fiction that I put myself through. It survived through my darkest, bleakest hours and now it stood with me facing the aftermath of its imposition. I walked more than humanly possible that day, treading twisted wild grass, tricky prickly stones that assure you stability when you step on them but as soon as you do you are in for a tumble. I reached the other side of the hill and stopped for a while to catch my breath. Everything stood mighty still that wretched evening even as darkness began to loom over. A prospect of how suffocating life could be if you just stood still, if you didn’t move on, if the course of your life was stagnated with doubt and eternal pathos. Nature was among the world’s best teachers indeed! As I moved on, a slight breeze swamped across my face, I embraced the feel of it. The breeze kept growing stronger and now the leaves, deeply veined and oddly shaped were swaying to and fro. Most of them had shades of yellow and red seeping through them- a characteristic of the fact that they were ready for “the fall”
I returned to our cabin, T shirt drenched in sweat, red bra showing, relieved and anxious to move on. Tabby had gone to fix us dinner she’d left a note on the dressing table. I left the water running in the tub, stripped naked and came back into the room. I looked around at our scattered belongings. I had never been happier before. Neither Tabby nor I have ever been one of those clean freaks- orderly, systematic and spruce. We have always liked to live our lives the messy way considering that we’ve been born and brought up in one. Sharing these bits and pieces of life with her gave rise to a much unacknowledged form of intimacy meaning to say I think I began to like her. The tub had almost filled up to the brim, I added a few drops of lavender and rosemary oil to make it a bit more inviting and then I slowly, callously, beautifully settled into the most comfortable place on earth.
I would have fallen asleep in there, in fact I almost dozed off until I sensed Tabby by my side, scrubbing my back with a loofah- the feel of it, stimulating and relaxing- synchronized, perfect. Perfect it could have been.
Tabby lifted the hair off my ears and whispered, “I had something important to tell you since a very long time now.”
The aftermath of those wicked words whispered in my ear left my mind hazy and nebulous, those five terrible words that sent shivers down my spine
“She’s not his daughter”
“I thought you knew,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom leaving me to drown in that hell hole all by myself.
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The consequences of living under shadows.
"You're just sad that I stepped out in the sun before you had a chance to see the light of the day."
"No I'm just sad that to went astray."
"Well you've had your chances..we all did, do."
I thought I heard a sigh but it was just the morning breeze, breezing her way through our detached conversations.I could not understand the intensity of the situation.It was pretty intense though.I then focused my attention on the cup I held in my hand. The cup was oddly shaped,bulging at the bottom and narrower towards the rim.Whore I thought. Yes I did have my chances. I never stepped out of his shadow and in the meantime Tabby stepped out of mine.I looked at her..truly amazed by what I saw.
Who was this spiteful woman who never wore her hair down and carried a bronze coated laughing Buddha in her purse?
We were odd balls weren't we?
Thrown together at a pack of furious professional players only to land up in ditches,underneath bushes and alongside wet marshy land after being hit hard.
"He calls her Elisa.A musical prodigy- a genius in the making.Sitar,piano lessons,the flute..you name it.
She stands 5 feet 9 inches tall and defines ambition as the essence of her life."
Did I want to know? And to think that I even felt something like concern for her.
"Tabby did you ever want to win an Oscar when you were 12?"
Tabby threw her head back and laughed out loud flashing glimpses of her extra large teeth at me.
"Watch it ... she ain't staying under the shadows for long.."
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A week after I came back from our trip,I almost got my life back together.I was freelancing for a lifestyle magazine and working as a part time translator.I started talking to people at book club meets and stepped out of the house more often than just to buy groceries and toiletries. I painted my bedroom blue and brought in new furniture.I took up cycling and swimming.I was more than happy to strike out atleast half of my to do list on a daily basis.I looked presentable and wore makeup.
But there was something missing.Even after an entire day of running around and accomplishing things at a pace I'd never really imagined I could..there was a void - something I couldn't seem to understand...
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6.42 pm: I rush home just in time for the second season of desperate housewives. I am cooking vegetable stew tonight and I'll have the left overs for breakfast tomorrow morning. I also have two cans of Budweiser to keep me company before and after dinner. I strip naked and rush in for a quick shower.. there is nothing like an untroubled force of cold water washing down the sweat and itch of the day.
I step out of the shower- wrapped in a towel and happy. I then glance at the mirror..essentially at myself. The droplets of water splattered across the mirror make me look contorted..I make no effort whatsoever to wipe them off and straighten myself out. My senses unwittingly inhale everything that surrounds me at that precise moment. Gone is my pink tiled haven. I look around at the hair strewn all over the place..my hair, some of them clog the sink. My toothbrush hangs out of its stand, the upper bristles deviating from the rest. I proceed to think about my uncooked stew and the Budweiser in the fridge, I hear Teri Hatcher blabbering away insignificant stuff at the moment. And then- I break down..tears and an uncontrolled shiver making me feel temporarily epileptic. Somehow I know in these depths of darkness a conclusion awaits its turn and in those final moments..i see him burn.
Our story did not demand a perfect ending. It ended the way it began- in bed on an unlucky night.
I remember lying awake that night..the room smelling of cinnamon and mint. Moonlight slid through a slit in between one of the curtains. It fell on your back.
"Let her breathe.." those whispers they float like silk on my soft skin-- it looks just like it used to when it was untouched. I could feel Nana's roughed out palms rummaging through them searching for traces of innocence only to find none.
Eliza's picture hangs over the bed, she is smiling and he stands beside her with that dangerous grin on his face. The contemptuous grin that created and destroyed lives.There is someone else in the picture too but I don't know who she is. She has a mole beside her lower lip and she looks pale..like he has sucked the life out of her leaving her hollow and miserable. Why am I not surprised? They all have their arms around each other.Together they portray a family that never existed, only in our dreams beneath a terrible cloud of confessions and secrets- it plunders the substance of hope.He is snoring now,each snore grows progressively louder.I know this by now if not anything else.
Morning summarized the details of last night's encounter.He must have left at dawn,it is 6.42 now..weird.I collect my belongings and drive back home.The morning breeze on my face..nothing like it...exhilarating.
I reach just in time to start off my day.
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I'll get back to the story.The story that lay splattered on the dinner table.Entangled within a fork and cut short by a knife.A story envied by the sumptuousness and luxuriousness of everything distastefully yours.
I was young,a girl of fifteen living along the edges of a crumpled paper.I wasn't aware of much except the cat in your house and the hair on your neck.Howdy do little miss muffet? you said as I stepped inside the walls of a delirium something as unfathomable as my heart and what you make of it.I was young that is all I know.You said that Id grow up to be something and that I needed direction,support and plenty of ambition.You said all that like I'd find them everyday on the breakfast table along side my mashed eggs and potatoes.A hard earned breakfast I'd say after a night's violent ordeal.I couldn't sleep for the first week.Twisted and turned like a monster waiting to be fed.Nana couldn't really do much to comfort me except keep me warm which she would.Nana and her forty year old rugged hands was about all I loved back then.She was magical.She'd scrub and clean and spit and forget.The chequered tiles smelt of Nana sometimes.I rolled over these tiles at times when I was incredibly bored and stopped right two tiles before the stairs.The whirlwind never ended and it led straight to your room.A disaster I could never fathom.
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Part two;
Dig,dig,dig! Dig these wounds deeper and they won't hurt as much.Hold your hand against this sickening flame and you won't burn as much.Sometimes I'd sit up straighter when I'd catch you staring at me through the corner of your eye.I'd find myself questioning the details of what I am doing when I'd sense your watchful and perverted gaze.Most of the times I'd do it wrong and wrong I was all over again.Right from the start ever since I was 15 and I have been wronged ever since.Nana knows a lot about wrong and right and yet she doesn't judge me or my wrongdoings.This is what you get when you walk a town you know nothing about.And then you start from scratch.From loving each foreign step that you take to not noticing even the most hideous of the faces that pass you by.
Demons I have known as I grew,bled and matured into a woman.I dreamt of this place often even before I came here and never imagined spending most of my adulthood over here.Recurrent dreams of a weirdly built house,chequered tiles and a nauseating staircase.Your room and mine.Nana's belongings scattered in a corner.
I am more than a molested girl who grew into a woman only to fall in love with her molester.
I have more than sin and lust and wavy hair.Now 25 years down the line I am not thinking about sin any more.They say the past has a way of hunting you down and you can't really escape it.Escapisms were those long,tiring nine to five jobs that i thought would dissolve me to the very last piece.But things don't work the way you want them to at times.All I can hear right now are the birds chirping outside my window-- they are a middle aged woman's miracle.To hear then,feel them and stay at peace.
The story is still unfinished,Nana's dead and I am dressed in black.You see your beautiful daughter off at college and I am scared for her.Her tremendous beauty fragile and tender.Untouched and naive, her hazel eyes boast of the happiness she is yet to attain in the years to come.They are anything but wrong about it.
As i brush the last strand of my hair I come across a souvenir of what I consider to be the very last of my relationships.A sophisticated Rolex wrist watch that stopped working at 23:55 on 23rd May a week before.It was then that he stormed out of my humble apartment (with a river view and haunted eternally by construction and repair work) saying he couldn't take any more of me.
That I crossed all limits of human paranoia.That I bred in a pool of anxiety and drowned in the same.That my liver inflated and deteriorated every time I took an antidepressant and it affected my love making capacity.
I don't feel like putting my pen down today because that would mean surrendering to an unfinished story and letting the ghosts of the past flourish in their vagueness.A life needed more than that.And all want superseeded everythingelse really.And now that Nana is dead there isn't much holding me back either.Nana and all her efforts to keep me warm gone down the kitchen sink.The very place she'd scrub her sadness away and hand me the plate so that I could wipe it dry and save her the trouble of looking at the future.The future was selfishly mine afterall.
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Part three
Thatttttttttttttt mannnnnn!! Tabitha would roll her tongue and look away.Her cork screw like hair stuck to her like a terrible secret waiting to be told.I've always been jealous of her after all she was the best friend I never had.Together we were the broken sisters tied loosely together with a broken thread.A dirty little secret shared.She kept hers under yoga mats and I kept mine under coffee mugs.Neat.
Tabitha is now a yoga instructor who had embraced buddhism two years ago.Erasing her past,cleansing her system...she's good at this.She doesn't meet me often especially in front of her new friends.They love her that way - with beads,rings and trashy whorish make up.A self declared genophobic claiming to have heard the voice of GOD.Tabitha and the wittiness that got her nowhere,the fakeness she clung onto I loved her all the same.
But you may have been right all along.She was an uninvited guest.The story belonged to us and Nana was there to clean up the mess.
I remember those lazy winter afternoons when Tabby and I would run off to the nearby shacks to have a smoke.She was more than sulky and bad tempered.She made tea for Nana when she was sick and she threatened to bludgeon you when she heard the voice of GOD. Misunderstood.So then she was gone and I stayed on with the lowly cat.It would be another five years before I would finally walk out.
darn cat,
Somehow I found it hard to believe in something.Belief seemed like pneumonia ..something with dire consequences.That's when I realized that there are more things to this world than pleasing a wretched 31 year old.
The afternoon breeze touches my skin.I yearn to go back to sleep but I won't.. I think I have stuff to do..............................
................back in bed and my body wouldn't budge.My toes curl and I bring my knees closer to my chest.A foetus not wanting to be born.Sometimes I think I have become her.It took my mother 12 years to realize that the man she loved didn't love her..not even close and by the time it struck her he was gone and so were the people who loved her back then.Love is cursed in the town we live.Nothing here changes,it just lives on.
The winds have changed.Its become cloudy all of a sudden and now its starting to pour.I let the rain in.
'its been years since they told her about it...i run for life....lalala' I love that song...STOP SINGING AND ANSWER THE GOD DAMN PHONE>
"hey Nina,Tabitha here...would you be free next week..i have to talk to you."
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***spell check.
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Self belief was harder to fathom.I watch the day wrapped in its melancholy and the sky roaring with thunder.A middle ages woman's nightmare.
Rain pouring outside my window,thoughts raining in my head like confetti.
A week since Tabitha called.I've been trying to keep myself busy,keep myself guessing actually.Amusing myself and trying to look busy,whatever it is.Yes...I am apprehensive,anxious and madly curious.I've been smoking again ever since I tried to quit.Tabitha was the one who showed me 'how to smoke the right way' after all and when it finally hit me I mumbled 'wow you should write a book.'And then we'd giggle until we knocked ourselves off the settee,bare feet and momentarily insane.
Sometimes I run into grocery stores and forget what I have to buy.Wander off into banks like a wide eyed idiot and acknowledge my perpetual stupidity when I realize that I've forgotten something important like my ATM card or my chequebook.The worst nightmare I've ever had dying in my sleep whilst forgetting to turn off the tap.So when they found me I was floating and so were the details of my life.
Define wrong she said one day and i found myself incapable of doing so.As incapable as a blank piece of paper.But I knew what to do with it just as I knew what to do with the blank piece of paper.
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Walk away before the day ended you once said to me.I didn't.I saw the sun set and the pearly clouds twirl around the crimson skies.Night came too soon and when I finally decided to walk away I was too bored and lonely to do so.I needed direction..I needed the antique gold rimmed compass,a gold plated 1970's watch,a neatly folded handkerchief and the rest of the contents of your drawer.I needed the smell of Park Avenue flooding my nasal cavity.I needed Nana's clover breath.I needed a clean slate.I needed stones to topple over and bruise a knee.
I needed band aid,antiseptic and a wound whose presence I never bothered to acknowledge.
I wasn't looking.
"Hey are you feeling any better?" I find Tabitha's neatly manicured hands caressing my cheek.I felt terrible then I feel terrible now.It took me twenty years down the memory lane,darkness and the dead of the night to realize that feeling.I shudder.
'You were lucky,had I not called I would have never known...'
Having to tell people that I fell from the stairs was embarrassing enough add to all this the fact that Tabitha was my official caretaker now. I added my own pickled details to the facts that were,like presence of water on the stairs causing me to slip or my dangerously shaky 4 inch heels.I never wore four inch heels and Tabitha knew that too.However there weren't many people to explain these things to, just a few colleagues whom I was barely in touch with.
A week later they sent me home with a cast..right leg left hand..bang bang.I settled in quicker than I thought.Now that I was pretty much at home all day, each insignificant task surprisingly occupied the whole of me and anyway I was grateful enough to keep busy all day.
Bathing was painful and took almost an hour but I somehow enjoyed it.The pain struck me harder than a knife at first but gradually I discovered that pain is a matter of getting used to- be it physical,emotional or mental sorts.I also took to some serious reading..all of Jane Austen,all of Rushdie,all of Naipaul,all of Doris Lesing.
Sometimes all it takes to wake up is to fall down and fall down hard I suppose.I wish I'd learnt that earlier in life.But then there was no scope of falling I was six feet under already yearning to see the light of the day and probably gathering enough courage to step out of the ruins.Courage and what this world makes of it sometimes bemuses me.
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Absolute despair and myself,walking along,hand in hand swaying together...wayward fools on an unlikely path strewn together with guilt.A guilt that would stay for as long as I remember the blood in my veins.Gone was the time for all the wiftiness and insignificant ecstacies of life.Could I contain myself any longer? Join an aerobics class,drink fresh orange juice,pay the bills and pretend everything's fine? I don't think so,even that took tremendous effort.Facing myself each day,acknowledging the epicentre of the storm.I would have rather been drunk,naive,ignorant and unaffected than have witnessed all these foolish years,having stood in the shoes of a fool myself.
Courage and what this world makes of it amuses me.Trust and what this world makes of it makes me laugh.If only we'd think about more things to say! I see him slither away into the glory of a mad river.I say nothing.I watch him flow.The heliotrope skies oversee my sadness they add to it a tinge of his crimson craziness.Between us stands virtue and cloud-- a stairway to heaven.Its dark now and the insects have fearlessly started emerging out of their holes.They laugh at the eccentric writer,a mere clown and watch the skies beyond along with him,their antenna's tingling in the direction of the wind.
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Friends and Foe
Mr XYZ.
His fucking source of vulgar humour dried my peripheral senses.Apathy was the only form of life he invested in.I could see it around the corners of his mouth..startlingly distinct and unprepared when it came down to the spoken word.My tongue felt rancid and stale.I sat upright in my chair gone was its feel of the velvety centre surrounded by distinct arcane ivory carvings.My toes curled in my classic black and white chequered ballerinas and then fabulously stretched out like any moment from now on I'd run out of those wide six feet doors.I didn't know much beyond those doors.I still don't.Every door leads me to another one,another revelation thrust into my tiny pale hands.I sat there listening to extremely boring details of whatever didn't interest me.Politics,trade,money and whores and us.Essentially masculine talk..essentially fucked up.I stretched further into my own little world with details of a different kind.Yes where would I be without details.
Back then details were few,clear,simple and they flourished.Now they drown in their own sorrow ten thousand of them in a barely measurable pathetic puddle.
Tabby grew what you and I would call materialistic and worldly.Bags,shoes,clothes,other items and equipments were all she cared about.This came right after being dumped by her second consecutive boyfriend who thought her to be tame and we thought it was just a phase or so it seemed to be.
She raided Mr Khan's shop in our wonderful Tinseltown,the only one of its kind.Malls weren't in vogue then.Incense,candles,pot pourri,bags and weird modernistic vases..that I sometimes called the non voluptuous straight whores.I think being the primary assault victims of a man much older to us never inculcated in our lives what you'd call a normal guy girl relationship.I watched enough movies and read enough books to assure myself that I wasn't the only fucked up case of a kind.
I wasn't.I had Tabby and her denial.
I found this in one of her journals once I kept it with me.
Find my foe
find my friend
bring them across the river's end
feed them meat,fondue and berries
drag them along the forests deep
cover them with foliage when they sleep
I'm foolish my friend
I'm wise my foe
Didn't you already know
I'd scrape off all sentimentality
covering your hideous feet
Lets wash our sins
and scrub our worries
Life is a dream
a drowning memory
who am I to know?
14 years on
and not a trace of snow
come my friend
find my foe.
She was 14.It makes me cry when i read it I don't know why.
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One fine day......
Years after sabotaging my dream I met him at a coffee shop.All those years of misery now gathered at his obtuse protruding belly.He drooped a bit having to carry the weight of an invisible burden.He wore hideous hexagonal gold plated rings.. a sacrament of sorts.An outward cleansing system only surface sterilizing the deeper complexities of a sin-various sins actually that added up to a greater one.What never really left him was that rustic appeal that somehow added up to and at the same time subtracted a bit from his personality eventually neutralizing it.Everything else including charm genuinely faded away.His hair looked different now..an unpleasant light reddish brown russet colored. He stood at the take away counter humbly awaiting his turn.I wish I could go confront him right away.But with what? With loving him ten years ago? He disgusted me now.I felt sorry for him despite the cast on my left leg and my crumbling personality and the first few signs of wrinkles under my eye lids.."HE" was what I felt sorry for.So what were we doing here again? Two miserable people in the god forsaken coffee shop.What was I really angry at anyway? Him being miserable or him being happy? OR him having a family to go back home to? OR me falling apart?
Too much to take.I retreat to the grocery shop next doors,grab a couple of not needed things
and make a quick run for my life.
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Did I need Tabby? Sure I did. I needed her more than her fake eyelashes needed her. And though things might not seem to work that way at the end of the day we do make peace with the people we hate knowing that they are the only ones you could perhaps count on. And Tabby, dear Tabby was a chronic believer wasn’t she? So I wrote to her- About how the past haunted me every bloody second of my weary life. About how we needed to get away, reconcile and make peace with ourselves..Learn to perhaps love ourselves before we tire ourselves out. The answer was very simple – nature could be kind and resourceful to us at this juncture in our lives.
She sat scanning the contents of my letter with a dubious expression on her face-The one that offered no explanations whatsoever. She might have felt a surge of sympathy shoot up through her skin or she might have felt otherwise.
The next thing I knew I was packing away the details of my life furiously and enthusiastically into a big red suitcase – the one whose glossy metal sheen bore my initials on it which could seen at a distance of almost six feet, the one that my ex gifted me after I lost two consecutive others but that wasn’t important what was important was that it was along with this suitcase that I was boarding the bus to nature’s heavenly abode somewhere far away from here.
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Half minus a happy ending
That was all there was in the end- nothing but the nakedness of the fact and fiction that I put myself through. It survived through my darkest, bleakest hours and now it stood with me facing the aftermath of its imposition. I walked more than humanly possible that day, treading twisted wild grass, tricky prickly stones that assure you stability when you step on them but as soon as you do you are in for a tumble. I reached the other side of the hill and stopped for a while to catch my breath. Everything stood mighty still that wretched evening even as darkness began to loom over. A prospect of how suffocating life could be if you just stood still, if you didn’t move on, if the course of your life was stagnated with doubt and eternal pathos. Nature was among the world’s best teachers indeed! As I moved on, a slight breeze swamped across my face, I embraced the feel of it. The breeze kept growing stronger and now the leaves, deeply veined and oddly shaped were swaying to and fro. Most of them had shades of yellow and red seeping through them- a characteristic of the fact that they were ready for “the fall”
I returned to our cabin, T shirt drenched in sweat, red bra showing, relieved and anxious to move on. Tabby had gone to fix us dinner she’d left a note on the dressing table. I left the water running in the tub, stripped naked and came back into the room. I looked around at our scattered belongings. I had never been happier before. Neither Tabby nor I have ever been one of those clean freaks- orderly, systematic and spruce. We have always liked to live our lives the messy way considering that we’ve been born and brought up in one. Sharing these bits and pieces of life with her gave rise to a much unacknowledged form of intimacy meaning to say I think I began to like her. The tub had almost filled up to the brim, I added a few drops of lavender and rosemary oil to make it a bit more inviting and then I slowly, callously, beautifully settled into the most comfortable place on earth.
I would have fallen asleep in there, in fact I almost dozed off until I sensed Tabby by my side, scrubbing my back with a loofah- the feel of it, stimulating and relaxing- synchronized, perfect. Perfect it could have been.
Tabby lifted the hair off my ears and whispered, “I had something important to tell you since a very long time now.”
The aftermath of those wicked words whispered in my ear left my mind hazy and nebulous, those five terrible words that sent shivers down my spine
“She’s not his daughter”
“I thought you knew,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom leaving me to drown in that hell hole all by myself.
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The consequences of living under shadows.
"You're just sad that I stepped out in the sun before you had a chance to see the light of the day."
"No I'm just sad that to went astray."
"Well you've had your chances..we all did, do."
I thought I heard a sigh but it was just the morning breeze, breezing her way through our detached conversations.I could not understand the intensity of the situation.It was pretty intense though.I then focused my attention on the cup I held in my hand. The cup was oddly shaped,bulging at the bottom and narrower towards the rim.Whore I thought. Yes I did have my chances. I never stepped out of his shadow and in the meantime Tabby stepped out of mine.I looked at her..truly amazed by what I saw.
Who was this spiteful woman who never wore her hair down and carried a bronze coated laughing Buddha in her purse?
We were odd balls weren't we?
Thrown together at a pack of furious professional players only to land up in ditches,underneath bushes and alongside wet marshy land after being hit hard.
"He calls her Elisa.A musical prodigy- a genius in the making.Sitar,piano lessons,the flute..you name it.
She stands 5 feet 9 inches tall and defines ambition as the essence of her life."
Did I want to know? And to think that I even felt something like concern for her.
"Tabby did you ever want to win an Oscar when you were 12?"
Tabby threw her head back and laughed out loud flashing glimpses of her extra large teeth at me.
"Watch it ... she ain't staying under the shadows for long.."
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A week after I came back from our trip,I almost got my life back together.I was freelancing for a lifestyle magazine and working as a part time translator.I started talking to people at book club meets and stepped out of the house more often than just to buy groceries and toiletries. I painted my bedroom blue and brought in new furniture.I took up cycling and swimming.I was more than happy to strike out atleast half of my to do list on a daily basis.I looked presentable and wore makeup.
But there was something missing.Even after an entire day of running around and accomplishing things at a pace I'd never really imagined I could..there was a void - something I couldn't seem to understand...
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6.42 pm: I rush home just in time for the second season of desperate housewives. I am cooking vegetable stew tonight and I'll have the left overs for breakfast tomorrow morning. I also have two cans of Budweiser to keep me company before and after dinner. I strip naked and rush in for a quick shower.. there is nothing like an untroubled force of cold water washing down the sweat and itch of the day.
I step out of the shower- wrapped in a towel and happy. I then glance at the mirror..essentially at myself. The droplets of water splattered across the mirror make me look contorted..I make no effort whatsoever to wipe them off and straighten myself out. My senses unwittingly inhale everything that surrounds me at that precise moment. Gone is my pink tiled haven. I look around at the hair strewn all over the place..my hair, some of them clog the sink. My toothbrush hangs out of its stand, the upper bristles deviating from the rest. I proceed to think about my uncooked stew and the Budweiser in the fridge, I hear Teri Hatcher blabbering away insignificant stuff at the moment. And then- I break down..tears and an uncontrolled shiver making me feel temporarily epileptic. Somehow I know in these depths of darkness a conclusion awaits its turn and in those final moments..i see him burn.
Our story did not demand a perfect ending. It ended the way it began- in bed on an unlucky night.
I remember lying awake that night..the room smelling of cinnamon and mint. Moonlight slid through a slit in between one of the curtains. It fell on your back.
"Let her breathe.." those whispers they float like silk on my soft skin-- it looks just like it used to when it was untouched. I could feel Nana's roughed out palms rummaging through them searching for traces of innocence only to find none.
Eliza's picture hangs over the bed, she is smiling and he stands beside her with that dangerous grin on his face. The contemptuous grin that created and destroyed lives.There is someone else in the picture too but I don't know who she is. She has a mole beside her lower lip and she looks pale..like he has sucked the life out of her leaving her hollow and miserable. Why am I not surprised? They all have their arms around each other.Together they portray a family that never existed, only in our dreams beneath a terrible cloud of confessions and secrets- it plunders the substance of hope.He is snoring now,each snore grows progressively louder.I know this by now if not anything else.
Morning summarized the details of last night's encounter.He must have left at dawn,it is 6.42 now..weird.I collect my belongings and drive back home.The morning breeze on my face..nothing like it...exhilarating.
I reach just in time to start off my day.
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Saturday, August 9, 2008
The poisoned leaf.
Her poltergeist like spirit wandered the overwhelming skies,surpassing each cloud along the way.
We have visions sometimes: of peace and sanctity,a beautiful world feasting on the scrumptious goodness of the soul.Blessed is the world we live in.Thoughts were too much to take,he hurried back home.The world would spin around some imaginary axis and each life that was counted withdrew a strange sort of significance,
She prodded along the rainy streets,life evaporated in smoke.Her flip flops flicked muddy water on her calves and part of it stained her beige floral skirt.He was away when she left.A ragged rucksack stuffed with her sketchbooks and charcoal pencils.He wasn't there to sneer at her,ask her where she was going again and again until she'd screamed out every swear word she'd ever come across in these twenty four years of her very feminine life.The door would have gone 'bang' and her heart would have beaten twice as hard until she'd have walked long enough for it to regain its normal pace.She liked to walk.Poltergeist like spirit.Extremes of a kind.I'd have the money soon enough to leave his wretched soul to rot in hell she thought.
He sat on his clumsy bed the mess around him revealing itself as the effects of masturbation wore off.Who'd leave that half eaten sandwich lying on the bloody floor that way?hoarse laughter followed by a crude cracking of the finger bones.She'll come back all right,whimpering,rejected,dejected.
The traffic zoomed past her.Ten to two.The rain had stopped,the sun lay a freckled glance over the city.She entered the coffee shop which was flooded with a college litter.She was here to meet Mr A.A for anomaly,A for art,A for anonymous.She scavenged through her ragged bag for a lip gel.Ah vanity he would have said scrutinizing the details and contents of the poor gel.
Wild was the wind when they were girls,when something like a best friend existed and they kept roaming the streets and walking in and out of shops.The wind felt moist and heavy with reality now.
Mr A was late today.She glanced at the comical clockwork hung at the side counter.Bright yellow diseased with pink polka dots.Hideousness isn't dead she mumbled to herself neither is outrageousness...a familiar voice.Colour can never be hated neither can its drastic variations.Mr A clean and polished as always.Neat.
'I warned you of the beast,..you look like a bloody mess.Utterly dreadful.'
'He seems like oyster sauce way past its expiry date,a fungal froth crowding the mouth of the bottle.'
'Oh does he now?'...'so what's new?'
'I need fucking money,'she grumbled.
Let me see what you've got there.
Just then a family of four walked into the coffee shop.The little boy caught her attention,sevenish she guessed.He wore a bright yellow and red chequered shirt,miserable sea green shorts that held on to his vulnerable little frame with the help of an obnoxiously large brown belt.He walked each step with tremendous caution very sure about the fact that his movements were being monitored by the people surrounding him.He stood three feet tall and resembled a frail knitting needle.He carried the weight of a disastrous combination of happiness and awkwardness on his tiny little shoulders.The larger picture remained unknown.Someone should have told him...she thought...
'Remind you of someone?' Mr A unapologetically intruded her thoughts.
As a kid you know I'd make lists..He bore a laughable nostalgic gleam in his eyes.
You mean in addition to your hit lists? she grumbled and took another sip of her coffee.
He didn't seem to hear her.
the list:
1.People eating alone at restaurants.
2.Undersized kids reading oversized books
3.People who actually didn't give a fuck about the world..in the true sense of it.
4.Workaholics
5.Alcoholics
6.The gawky awkward bunch of them.
'We are talking money A.Shut the fuck up'
'Your stupid.Your pricey little qualifications didn't get you no money.Then you come to me after being cooked up with the cunt in your suffocating little condo rotting away each miserable day of your fucking life.'
He was sweating now.She could feel the heat of the spoken words.It stayed like a cloud for the rest of the conversation............
to be contd////
We have visions sometimes: of peace and sanctity,a beautiful world feasting on the scrumptious goodness of the soul.Blessed is the world we live in.Thoughts were too much to take,he hurried back home.The world would spin around some imaginary axis and each life that was counted withdrew a strange sort of significance,
She prodded along the rainy streets,life evaporated in smoke.Her flip flops flicked muddy water on her calves and part of it stained her beige floral skirt.He was away when she left.A ragged rucksack stuffed with her sketchbooks and charcoal pencils.He wasn't there to sneer at her,ask her where she was going again and again until she'd screamed out every swear word she'd ever come across in these twenty four years of her very feminine life.The door would have gone 'bang' and her heart would have beaten twice as hard until she'd have walked long enough for it to regain its normal pace.She liked to walk.Poltergeist like spirit.Extremes of a kind.I'd have the money soon enough to leave his wretched soul to rot in hell she thought.
He sat on his clumsy bed the mess around him revealing itself as the effects of masturbation wore off.Who'd leave that half eaten sandwich lying on the bloody floor that way?hoarse laughter followed by a crude cracking of the finger bones.She'll come back all right,whimpering,rejected,dejected.
The traffic zoomed past her.Ten to two.The rain had stopped,the sun lay a freckled glance over the city.She entered the coffee shop which was flooded with a college litter.She was here to meet Mr A.A for anomaly,A for art,A for anonymous.She scavenged through her ragged bag for a lip gel.Ah vanity he would have said scrutinizing the details and contents of the poor gel.
Wild was the wind when they were girls,when something like a best friend existed and they kept roaming the streets and walking in and out of shops.The wind felt moist and heavy with reality now.
Mr A was late today.She glanced at the comical clockwork hung at the side counter.Bright yellow diseased with pink polka dots.Hideousness isn't dead she mumbled to herself neither is outrageousness...a familiar voice.Colour can never be hated neither can its drastic variations.Mr A clean and polished as always.Neat.
'I warned you of the beast,..you look like a bloody mess.Utterly dreadful.'
'He seems like oyster sauce way past its expiry date,a fungal froth crowding the mouth of the bottle.'
'Oh does he now?'...'so what's new?'
'I need fucking money,'she grumbled.
Let me see what you've got there.
Just then a family of four walked into the coffee shop.The little boy caught her attention,sevenish she guessed.He wore a bright yellow and red chequered shirt,miserable sea green shorts that held on to his vulnerable little frame with the help of an obnoxiously large brown belt.He walked each step with tremendous caution very sure about the fact that his movements were being monitored by the people surrounding him.He stood three feet tall and resembled a frail knitting needle.He carried the weight of a disastrous combination of happiness and awkwardness on his tiny little shoulders.The larger picture remained unknown.Someone should have told him...she thought...
'Remind you of someone?' Mr A unapologetically intruded her thoughts.
As a kid you know I'd make lists..He bore a laughable nostalgic gleam in his eyes.
You mean in addition to your hit lists? she grumbled and took another sip of her coffee.
He didn't seem to hear her.
the list:
1.People eating alone at restaurants.
2.Undersized kids reading oversized books
3.People who actually didn't give a fuck about the world..in the true sense of it.
4.Workaholics
5.Alcoholics
6.The gawky awkward bunch of them.
'We are talking money A.Shut the fuck up'
'Your stupid.Your pricey little qualifications didn't get you no money.Then you come to me after being cooked up with the cunt in your suffocating little condo rotting away each miserable day of your fucking life.'
He was sweating now.She could feel the heat of the spoken words.It stayed like a cloud for the rest of the conversation............
to be contd////
Saturday, July 19, 2008
This is fierce.
Fierce looks old now.Fierce feels old too..he has lived long for sure.His hair have grown coarse,rough and stringent.Fierce is a forgotten soul.He was rediscovered recently after ages of hiding underneath pillows and being tucked under mattresses.However what seemed like neglect was actually the most sly form of escapism ever witnessed.Fierce faces the world again today with undeniable courage and is not really liked by many.Fierce has lost his teddy bear charm and has become a ragged sorts.It looks like he's twisted a neck and he can't hold his head still for more than a second and a half.Fierce doesn't desire any form of even the remotest sympathy."I've had enough of it," sometimes I can hear him say.
Fierce's past is a distant memory.Fierce won't even show the slightest hint of nostalgia in his worn out eyes that pop out of his face like black metal beads.What matters is Fierce has survived being suffocated and abandoned.Fierce is the hero who not many know about.
Fierce is a not so dearly loved or heard of hero.Fierce is still the most content soul I've ever come across.
--- signed tree hugging hippie.
Friday, July 18, 2008
another of its kind..
So then I remain stagnated,under a cloud.The fuzziness,the moistness..the dream.This city is tragically owned and laughed at,being stomped upon every second by people with to do lists,errands,jobs and friends.People who eat,meet,breathe and rarely make great conversations. I walk this city too.
There was loss and there were words and they didn't interfere.There was silence.Amazing,awkward...terrible terrible.Imagine waking up to a day like that.
Imagine the city waking up to something like that.Devoid of all the craziness and eccentricities that it once dreamt of.The noise...the bustling noise pinched out of its soul and someone equally depressed writing about it.
And then I am reminded of this little girl facing the kitchen window drinking her fair share of milk.She bangs her hand on the delicately carved tiled surface and says aloud..."I am going to have fun today " The sunlight brightens up the room.
*******************************************************
The violence escalated.Peace feasted on what was left.Chaos drowned in familiar waters.How much more longer can it take to sit down peacefully and figure out the difference or lie awake all night and not even give it a second thought.
Demons walk the earth.They are fat lipped,clandestine,dressed in brown and madly in love.
She'd risen to dizzying heights and woken up on the floor the next morning.A downfall wouldn't be necessary..she'd crawled through tunnels all her life.Then she'd scrub the floor,clean the mess and go to work.Dire consequences awaited at the end of the tunnel.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Itch
The day inched towards closure.A closure that demanded a certain sense of privacy and she lay wrapped up in her quilt,the newspaper crumpled under her pillow,a vogue issue at her feet,a lip gloss that served as a bookmark to the glamorous magazine,the Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) on the table across her bed,a tap dripping in the bathroom across the room.Sleep seemed to be a stranger in a distant land dressed in a hideously colorful attire walking away from the horizon in a manner that can be at least be described as drunkenly humorous.With her mind on the verge of a new idea and her pupils sufficiently dilated, she sat up straight,so straight that her spine was a bit taken aback by the histrionic movement.Nothingness enchanted a new melody in her..something that sprung alive after being suffocated for long enough.This was the peak after which there would be none.Like the graph she'd studied in a physics class.That was long ago.Living alone now in hilarious nostalgia was damned bliss.There couldn't have been anything better she sometimes thought.It couldn't have gotten worse she thought the rest of the time.
The day before she'd been to the library and there she saw him.Straightforwardly dressed and a man of few words.He didn't ask many questions and he stooped a little when he talked to the staff.He'd just issued the book "the trial-Franz Kafka" Who read stuff like that she thought.She wondered if he was like the lot that lived alone and ate and washed out of the same sink or named a rat that entered into the room instead of driving it away or killing it (the non grotesque option would be preferred of course) She then glanced at his key chain which had Liverpool engraved on it.Would he go home and pour himself a mug of beer and swallow it along with a cheap football game.She saw that he too was glancing at her black nail paint and skull shaped ring that hung loosely over her finger.She wondered if he thought she'd go home and watch Buffy reruns or even worse one pathetic Charmed episode.
"I'm over that,"she whispered coarsely.
"Excuse me?" His eyes widened and she could see a tinge of gray in the them.
"Your eyes are gray"
"ohhhkay"
Sleep was now a stranger who began to know her and talk to her.It still wasn't enough to get her to bed.She opened her fridge and ransacked different containers until she found a flaccid one that contained chicken pasta that she'd packed after lunch at her usual restaurant.Heated it for 15 minutes on a sickly blue yellow gas flame that irritated her and made her think of her wicked past experimenting with food. Experimenting with food at the cost of starvation deaths in the country.A delicious meal puked out in the sink.Bulimia was the beast she fed well and lived with for now.Well we all are hypocrites aren't we.The women and men alike.Men with American playboy issues hidden under mattresses and women wearing red sindoor along with red lingerie. The world was hellishly confused about minor stuff.So was she.And a 23 year old had the basic right to be confused about investments,about her future,about her intrinsic desires and about the world around her.Basic rights..we are born with them like we are with intestines or an arse.
He arose from the fragments of her imagination.Fragments that eventually exploded and the explosive residue that stuck to his feet.The world ended at her feet.The belief stemmed from the innards of her soul.The core was the untouched delicacy.Like a Lindt chocolate that would soon go down the drain and would follow the ugliest routes to reach its final resting place..more like the eternal rotting place.We never think of all that when we bury people.
"I noticed you had gray eyes"
"well...i was born with them"
The day before she'd been to the library and there she saw him.Straightforwardly dressed and a man of few words.He didn't ask many questions and he stooped a little when he talked to the staff.He'd just issued the book "the trial-Franz Kafka" Who read stuff like that she thought.She wondered if he was like the lot that lived alone and ate and washed out of the same sink or named a rat that entered into the room instead of driving it away or killing it (the non grotesque option would be preferred of course) She then glanced at his key chain which had Liverpool engraved on it.Would he go home and pour himself a mug of beer and swallow it along with a cheap football game.She saw that he too was glancing at her black nail paint and skull shaped ring that hung loosely over her finger.She wondered if he thought she'd go home and watch Buffy reruns or even worse one pathetic Charmed episode.
"I'm over that,"she whispered coarsely.
"Excuse me?" His eyes widened and she could see a tinge of gray in the them.
"Your eyes are gray"
"ohhhkay"
Sleep was now a stranger who began to know her and talk to her.It still wasn't enough to get her to bed.She opened her fridge and ransacked different containers until she found a flaccid one that contained chicken pasta that she'd packed after lunch at her usual restaurant.Heated it for 15 minutes on a sickly blue yellow gas flame that irritated her and made her think of her wicked past experimenting with food. Experimenting with food at the cost of starvation deaths in the country.A delicious meal puked out in the sink.Bulimia was the beast she fed well and lived with for now.Well we all are hypocrites aren't we.The women and men alike.Men with American playboy issues hidden under mattresses and women wearing red sindoor along with red lingerie. The world was hellishly confused about minor stuff.So was she.And a 23 year old had the basic right to be confused about investments,about her future,about her intrinsic desires and about the world around her.Basic rights..we are born with them like we are with intestines or an arse.
He arose from the fragments of her imagination.Fragments that eventually exploded and the explosive residue that stuck to his feet.The world ended at her feet.The belief stemmed from the innards of her soul.The core was the untouched delicacy.Like a Lindt chocolate that would soon go down the drain and would follow the ugliest routes to reach its final resting place..more like the eternal rotting place.We never think of all that when we bury people.
"I noticed you had gray eyes"
"well...i was born with them"
Old journal entries made public --part one..
October 30th 2007
Tuesday,
My tongue is ticklish.I've relished a serving of spicy gossip and am ready for more.Hayho.
We're morphing into superbitches -- quote D. I have very unusual guests to entertain tonight- meet convenience and plan.And you too!!Come lets pour ourselves a glass of wine. Join me, lets raise a toast to my sarcasm and wit,my antidepressants and my pen and paper.Resurrection never felt this powerful.Enjoy the music,at least it'll keep you company if nothing else.
(D= Dyuti Mishra honey do you remember our gossip girl inspired girls night out? the plan was wonderfully charted out,hilariously animated and never followed through..)
3rd November 2007 Saturday
Steps have been carefully taken,fake smiles carefully pasted,yet the gestures not really perfected.Reminds me of a wobbly wriggly worm-I loved pronouncing such weird alliterations as a kid.I hated spellings though,I still do.
Anyway the point being,it took me a lame century to figure out where I stand and having figured it out I couldn't position myself there quite satisfactorily.
15th December 2007 I don't know what day it is..I don't care,
Out cold for too long.
In bed shrinking,disappearing,calling the worse shots ever,hoping to get my arse moving around.Disappointing.
I began counting my so called achievements on my fingers and i turned up with a closed fist..
sigh,,
12th April 2007
for the upcoming vacation..
1.Get back to writing
2.Exercise
3.Read fucked up crazy books
4.Solve the daily sudoku
5.Rent weird movies
6.Make cards
7.Bake a cake
8.Reinvent your wardrobe
9.Help depressed kids on myspace
10.Collect interesting newspaper clippings
11.Try solving crosswords
12.Get drunk with D
13.Meet old school friends (whose existence was totally forgotten about by me)
14.Be good
15.Shop
16.Clean
17.Cook
18.Plan for a school reunion (wtf?)
Tuesday,
My tongue is ticklish.I've relished a serving of spicy gossip and am ready for more.Hayho.
We're morphing into superbitches -- quote D. I have very unusual guests to entertain tonight- meet convenience and plan.And you too!!Come lets pour ourselves a glass of wine. Join me, lets raise a toast to my sarcasm and wit,my antidepressants and my pen and paper.Resurrection never felt this powerful.Enjoy the music,at least it'll keep you company if nothing else.
(D= Dyuti Mishra honey do you remember our gossip girl inspired girls night out? the plan was wonderfully charted out,hilariously animated and never followed through..)
3rd November 2007 Saturday
Steps have been carefully taken,fake smiles carefully pasted,yet the gestures not really perfected.Reminds me of a wobbly wriggly worm-I loved pronouncing such weird alliterations as a kid.I hated spellings though,I still do.
Anyway the point being,it took me a lame century to figure out where I stand and having figured it out I couldn't position myself there quite satisfactorily.
15th December 2007 I don't know what day it is..I don't care,
Out cold for too long.
In bed shrinking,disappearing,calling the worse shots ever,hoping to get my arse moving around.Disappointing.
I began counting my so called achievements on my fingers and i turned up with a closed fist..
sigh,,
12th April 2007
for the upcoming vacation..
1.Get back to writing
2.Exercise
3.Read fucked up crazy books
4.Solve the daily sudoku
5.Rent weird movies
6.Make cards
7.Bake a cake
8.Reinvent your wardrobe
9.Help depressed kids on myspace
10.Collect interesting newspaper clippings
11.Try solving crosswords
12.Get drunk with D
13.Meet old school friends (whose existence was totally forgotten about by me)
14.Be good
15.Shop
16.Clean
17.Cook
18.Plan for a school reunion (wtf?)
you won't be going home tonight..
Someday
after an amazingly bad day
You wouldn't be walking home
There would be night
There would be a bar
There would be smoke
There would be strangers
With glances,drinks and sneers.
There would be your apartment
bills to be paid tugging at your door
lying across the floor
back on the streets
to your left
There would be a takeaway counter
An ATM to your right
A STD booth further down the lane
if your mobile batteries are dead tonight
A theater across the street
A restaurant that serves scrumptious meat...
Yeah whatever,
You aren't going home tonight.
after an amazingly bad day
You wouldn't be walking home
There would be night
There would be a bar
There would be smoke
There would be strangers
With glances,drinks and sneers.
There would be your apartment
bills to be paid tugging at your door
lying across the floor
back on the streets
to your left
There would be a takeaway counter
An ATM to your right
A STD booth further down the lane
if your mobile batteries are dead tonight
A theater across the street
A restaurant that serves scrumptious meat...
Yeah whatever,
You aren't going home tonight.
The Oscar WIlde theory...
Yes I have been in love with the guy ever since i picked up "The picture of Dorian Gray" or "portrait" is it? anyway I personally love the guy.His on the spot exceptionally renowned wit and sarcasm shook the world.Shook London..even better.And yet after all the glamor and fame and exquisiteness of his verse and quote and his life and his being..he died a lonely homosexual. Tragic and heart breaking for someone who had it all,the art of satire and the hearts of young men.I don't want to be like that writes Tarun Tejpal in the alchemy of desire.Living a life of exile and dying a lonely death.Well if it scares Tarun Tejpal then it scares us.It scares me and whenever i think of fame and satire and wit and charm I think of lonely homosexuals dying lonely deaths.Being sarcastic isn't a fad anymore and being a homosexual never was.But Oscar Wilde still has fans the world over nevertheless his tragic life has gotten him a tad bit more popularity.Oscar Wilde quotes are immortal and charming as ever.I use them sometimes and I'm sure they suit more than one occasion and more than a specific group of people.I really do not realize the purpose of this post and as senseless as it sounds i am not a homosexual.I just find it arcane when i think of Oscar Wilde and his life and the countless men he fucked.I am not against homosexuality either.Glamor and fame might have seen better endings and the art of satire is certainly not as sinful as it sounds.All i have is a stupid rhyme that goes as live a life of reckless fame and later maybe die of shame.And there is no one really left to blame.
signed...
drunkard.
Oscar Wilde quotes can be used on 1. angry parents
2.the frustrated lot of people
3. drunk people
4. friends you like
5. friends you don't like
6. people with bipolar disorders
7. a teacher about to grade your project.
Use at your own risk.
signed...
drunkard.
Oscar Wilde quotes can be used on 1. angry parents
2.the frustrated lot of people
3. drunk people
4. friends you like
5. friends you don't like
6. people with bipolar disorders
7. a teacher about to grade your project.
Use at your own risk.
Friday, June 20, 2008
june 8th
I am a writer who doesn't write.Today i was supposed to weigh my options and decide for the very best.I wasn't supposed to recline in the obviousness of it all which i eventually ended up doing.It is difficult to indulge in specificity when you basically have nothing to do.
Two days ago i turned 20.I could turn 30 tomorrow and things could still be the same.Maybe they wouldn't.Maybe they would.
Twenty somethings in vain..the punch line stays the same.
What you get here you don't get anywhere else.
Two days ago i turned 20.I could turn 30 tomorrow and things could still be the same.Maybe they wouldn't.Maybe they would.
Twenty somethings in vain..the punch line stays the same.
What you get here you don't get anywhere else.
chapter one: the way it all began
Life dwindled strangely on the outskirts of a dream.The horizon with held the idiocy of hope and promises.Time ticked away.The flowers dried,wrinkled and miserable-
fell off wretchedly like they were destined to do so.A wave of sympathy tore her doors down.They creaked open her windows and cracked open the floors.The crunchiness of the moment was savoured.However her belongings lay untouched.The vase,the chair,the book,the pen,the painting,the half eaten sandwich and the untouched cup of coffee now grown cold.The photographs lay splattered on the floor.Memory sucked the life out of them.They faded away to blacks and whites of nothing significant.Love wandered in and out of the wooden doors and the peach coloured walls like a burglar eyeing his own belongings with utmost avarice and then it contemptuously dissolved into one of the cracks in the floor below.
All was still now and she was on the chair.Life sat still for a moment as she held her breath,glanced over..a moment's notice and then carried on as she grasped for it.The moment had passed.She feared not knowing what to do like never before.
This time the fear gripped her knees feeling the softness of their shaken surface. This was the furthermost she had ever been and couldn't walk any further.The city lights dawned on her like they never had before.Shunted off wonderful experiences regarding life..nothing ever filled her book of life and reality.Random thoughts however flooded even her peach coloured walls.This was a week before she died.
The book of life-empty
The book of thoughts-flooded with even the most minuscule least important insignificant detail.
She took none with her.They stayed under her bed for years to come.One of the workers found it during the renovations.He gave the empty book to his 12 year old delight who filled the first half of the book with landscapes,still life,abstract art and beautiful portraits.The later half of the book however contained nudes.Some of them were touching each other's breasts,some of them were crying,some of them were pressing their thighs against each other and some of them just stared at you from the corner of the page.
The books of thoughts made it to a publisher who left it lying on a pile of unread books.Later that night it poured and the rain slashed hard on the roof tops and the wind ravaged that part of the city.The pile of unread books remained unread after the publisher's head was found smashed against the windshield of his beloved car in the wee hours of the morning.Cracked open,just like the floor of her house.
She sat still on the bed.There was a gentle knock on the door.She would have liked to believe that it was the wind.The knocks grew louder.A possibility-the wind could have grown wilder harnessing essential bouts of energy from mother nature. The thought of mother nature would sound comforting to her as she held strange looking,over sized red lingerie in her hand.They came out of her husband's closet. Over sized red lingerie.Red for rage,red for passion clenched tightly in her fists. The knocks grew louder.She was a small woman with tiny tits and bony hands,veins sticking out of them.When she looked down she appeared tinier. Her husband always bent over to kiss her..could that be one of the reasons,she asked herself.
She finally opened the door.Grief had taken a toll on her.Her eyes were sullen,she wore no make up and she looked old.A man wanted to clarify some of the details of the funeral which was to be held day after.Before he left his face flushed with sympathy and he offered her his condolences. "I am sorry for your loss."
She looked at him.At his oblong face and his hazel eyes clouded with smoke.Her face broke out into a smile for the first time in two days."So am I," she replied. There was something terribly disturbing in her smile.A hint of insanity he figured. The awkward moment passed.He turned to leave.The red lingerie lay safely under the pillow of her bed.
A cloud passed across the sky as she lay on the soft green grass.A confused 12 year old.The garden looked greener than ever.Flowers of every species bloomed with a certain pride.The thought bubble was drenched with thoughts,it burst open unable to sustain the congestion,chaos and confusion.The wind blew her thoughts away to a safer place..this she assumed.As a child she'd be caught in two worlds distinctly apart and varied.Papa-an ordinary carpenter,mama a high profile lawyer.She floated in between hammers,screws and closing arguments.Papa carried his tool box and mama carried important files.Papa in his worn out Levi's and half buttoned shirt,mama in her sophisticated suits and her classic pumps. Sometimes they fought because they couldn't get along.
Those were humble beginnings and then there were none.
chapt 2 : (the fucking details..to be contd)
She took to the streets sometimes,callously wandering around the unfamiliar place trying to get her hands on something worthwhile.However she failed to discover that worthwhile things aren't discovered on the streets.They are found in garages and the corners of a room.I could afford to be drunk tonight she thought..or stay sane and attend a book club meet.I could be social tonight she thought as she passed by a couple holding hands.I could be...she paused, alone tonight.
Some feasible thought.Some feasible junk.Her dress was deliriously pink and her bag a pearly white.The girl,a dream and the streets.The sky leaked of guilt as it turned a shade darker.The scene was set and the story..missed.It lay in one of her fancy drawers smelling of camphor.The ones at the top were found,the ones at the bottom lay hidden inside.
The self gained importance like it never had before.The self was somewhat confusing and wouldn't be compromised.When they found her,her soft skin submerged under the soapy water splattered with her half wet hair they must have figured out the importance of "the self " too.Yes...they figured out the importance of the self right there kneeling among the blue bloodied tiles.Her melancholic grey eyes wide open,tilted upwards like they waited for a part of heaven to tear down the roof of her lonely apartment.Interestingly the cut wrist lay outside the icy blue bath tub.A peculiar lavender essence haunted the place.
After the first cut was made she looked at the tiles.She seemed to actually notice them for the very first time.They were the same color as the tub,a black line dividing each of them perfectly and a bent golden flower with its calyx and corolla above the black line and the stalk along with leaves below it.The flower shone,the black line was barely visible,her toe twitched,the blood dripped.All was still.The sunlight beautifully cast itself on the delicately carved soap case.Perfection and disaster patched up after a broken marriage.Silence dissolved itself in the lather and later drained out of the sink when the very first sounds of the sirens were heard.
She stood alone at the edge of the staircase.Below the monster twisted and twirled until it finally reached the marble floor.The miserable marble spread over 300 sq cm of its equally miserable surface.He loved her best when she stood that way.
chapter 3. the others
Now 'the widow' and life took sharp turns.This time she walked --on gravel,on sand,stones and grass.Wide eyed and stupid she thought as she managed her bank accounts and taxes independently.Loneliness turned out to be surprisingly comfortable.As an art teacher her salary was modest,satisfactory and sufficient.She didn't need much anyway.She did keep a few of her husband's favourite books,manuscripts,his black suit and the strange oversized lingerie that she dug out of his closet a day after his death.The rest was gone,lost or burnt in the sink.An old unread yellowed manuscript caught her attention.It read 'Attempts to normalize her..'
13 now and suffering the aftermath of her parent's divorce.She lived with her mom and visited her dad on weekends.Her passion for art took a fierce form.Sometimes she'd dream of dissolving herself into a perfect colour and splattering her innards on a fresh crisp canvas.The grotesqueness of it somehow calmed her.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The table is littered with secrets and dinner is eaten in atrocious silence.Smiles and pleasures.Doesn't he know? She thinks.Does she know?.He thinks.Delicate leaves
roll down the pale blue candle stand.Mrs. Newman fixes her hair.Jenny runs a hand
over her lips as she peers into her pocket mirror.Her lipstick is intact.Perfect she thinks as she slips the mirror into her purse again.Or is it? Yes there is a lot of thinking going on.We have quite a lavish dinner here that boasts of authentic spicy kebabs and strawberries dipped in warm chocolate sauce.We also have a specially recommended sea food menu that boasts of obnoxious flamboyance.The children giggle. The secrets are not for them.Pretty eyes carry out a conversation.No lies,no secrets..secrets if present are spilled out.Hey i got the cherry.I have more chocolate sauce on my dessert.I wore some of my mother's lipstick when she wasn't looking..she still isn't looking..do I look pretty? Look..new earrings. Look at this scar,my darn cat scratched me here.The truth and nothing more.The dinner goes on. The grown up conversations are yet to start.The champagne has been served.The children hurriedly slurp their sodas.They spot the garden.Can we go play? Umm..okay but come back soon.
Jenny checks her lipstick again.Still intact although there is a tinge of it on her champagne glass.A classic Revlon burgundy gifted to her on her last birthday by Bob.A relief from the usual heart shaped chocolates and roses that die the next day..men finally learn.But Bob is thinking of another color- heart wrenching crimson red.Blood red lips and nails that dug into him a week ago.Bob doesn't look at Jenny although she does glance at him from time to time.
Nina and Vish - the hosts.The Mehta's.The sophisticated lot.She a lawyer and he a geneticist. She earning twice as more and he working thrice as hard and studying nonetheless.
Charu and Manav the awkward teens - they grab their soda glasses and go to another room to watch Tv.Charu bespectacled,Manav with braces.They are excruciatingly bored.At 15 and 16 girls and boys, aware that they are indeed girls and boys don't make a great conversation.He was aware that she had monthly menstrual cycles and she was aware that he had a dick.Puberty and awareness..do they mix?
Well bananas,walnuts and chocolate chips do! that was Nina's special dessert.Manav helped his mom make it.But at 15 and 16 some teens do mix..the social lot of them,mix and blend excruciatingly well. Like vanilla and chocolate.The distinctness of the flavor and the insignificance of the individual ingredients.But awkwardness doesn't mix.It regains its individual identity.An identity that could be chopped up into a million pieces and still be retained in each of them.
We return to the dinner table-the delicate china,the aesthetic forks,the champagne glasses and a Russian salad.A full fledged conversation finally came to life like a fetus that pushed its way out of the womb.Life - conversation, conversation -- life.
Writer rule number one-Let your characters have the basic right of deciding who they are and what they want.They could have a dream or want a car.
The conversation now roared through the rust colored walls of the room.The talk was about philosophy.The philosophy of life..the award would go to the person who talked better crap and for a substantially longer period of time.The conversation initially began with politics.Jenny's lips twitched and Nina blinked and rolled her eyes more than twice (the usual rate.) Bob was lost in thought.Red was the thought.Crimson red..the lips,the nails,the lace.
roll down the pale blue candle stand.Mrs. Newman fixes her hair.Jenny runs a hand
over her lips as she peers into her pocket mirror.Her lipstick is intact.Perfect she thinks as she slips the mirror into her purse again.Or is it? Yes there is a lot of thinking going on.We have quite a lavish dinner here that boasts of authentic spicy kebabs and strawberries dipped in warm chocolate sauce.We also have a specially recommended sea food menu that boasts of obnoxious flamboyance.The children giggle. The secrets are not for them.Pretty eyes carry out a conversation.No lies,no secrets..secrets if present are spilled out.Hey i got the cherry.I have more chocolate sauce on my dessert.I wore some of my mother's lipstick when she wasn't looking..she still isn't looking..do I look pretty? Look..new earrings. Look at this scar,my darn cat scratched me here.The truth and nothing more.The dinner goes on. The grown up conversations are yet to start.The champagne has been served.The children hurriedly slurp their sodas.They spot the garden.Can we go play? Umm..okay but come back soon.
Jenny checks her lipstick again.Still intact although there is a tinge of it on her champagne glass.A classic Revlon burgundy gifted to her on her last birthday by Bob.A relief from the usual heart shaped chocolates and roses that die the next day..men finally learn.But Bob is thinking of another color- heart wrenching crimson red.Blood red lips and nails that dug into him a week ago.Bob doesn't look at Jenny although she does glance at him from time to time.
Nina and Vish - the hosts.The Mehta's.The sophisticated lot.She a lawyer and he a geneticist. She earning twice as more and he working thrice as hard and studying nonetheless.
Charu and Manav the awkward teens - they grab their soda glasses and go to another room to watch Tv.Charu bespectacled,Manav with braces.They are excruciatingly bored.At 15 and 16 girls and boys, aware that they are indeed girls and boys don't make a great conversation.He was aware that she had monthly menstrual cycles and she was aware that he had a dick.Puberty and awareness..do they mix?
Well bananas,walnuts and chocolate chips do! that was Nina's special dessert.Manav helped his mom make it.But at 15 and 16 some teens do mix..the social lot of them,mix and blend excruciatingly well. Like vanilla and chocolate.The distinctness of the flavor and the insignificance of the individual ingredients.But awkwardness doesn't mix.It regains its individual identity.An identity that could be chopped up into a million pieces and still be retained in each of them.
We return to the dinner table-the delicate china,the aesthetic forks,the champagne glasses and a Russian salad.A full fledged conversation finally came to life like a fetus that pushed its way out of the womb.Life - conversation, conversation -- life.
Writer rule number one-Let your characters have the basic right of deciding who they are and what they want.They could have a dream or want a car.
The conversation now roared through the rust colored walls of the room.The talk was about philosophy.The philosophy of life..the award would go to the person who talked better crap and for a substantially longer period of time.The conversation initially began with politics.Jenny's lips twitched and Nina blinked and rolled her eyes more than twice (the usual rate.) Bob was lost in thought.Red was the thought.Crimson red..the lips,the nails,the lace.
Monday, June 9, 2008
miss artsy
paint my words red
paint my heart blue
colour my world
colour my soul
my life an abstract art
splash me over and over
each time with a different hue
you hope to make sense of me
when you hang me on your wall
i will be there for all to see
before i break and fall..
and what did he ever know of losing?
he tied his shoelaces
and drank the milk without spilling it on the floor
and put a star shaped cookie in his pocket
maybe he might have lost
a crayon sometime
and known about it
when he was about to color his heart
red
the one he drew on a lined page
given to him by his mother
from a diary she used
to keep her accounts in
to keep him busy
shoo him away
an arty pre occupation
hours of relief
to do things she liked
like paint her nails
maybe red
he still searches for the red crayon
underneath sofa's and in between sheets
troubles him,it does
to see an empty space
in the crayon box
something missing
amongst the blue's and the green's and the black's
losing isn't easy
when you want something
in a moment more than you could imagine
it not being there
could bother you,affect you..
more than you could imagine
it starts with a crayon
something that stands 6 cm tall
that sickly pastel
losing isn't great
but at the end of the day
the heart is painted
green....
and his mother's nails
red...
it looks more beautiful than ever
imagined.
you've watched me all afternoon
you’ve watched me paint my nails,half black,half pink an orange line slashed diagonally over..graphic,weird,colourful
you’ve watched me fall in love and wake up the next day as if nothing happened..you’ve watched me sit on the edge,looking below,one step closer to falling...
you’ve watched me keep my devilish innocence in my purse like money wondering if they were the same
you’ve watched me cough out my pride and inhale insecurity
you’ve watched me all afternoon,,i’ve watched you too
ive watched you dig out the monsters i buried last night
i watched you bring them to life
a host,an exhibitionist...you have a lovely house draped in an ugly heart,,i wish id stay here all day
and id burn our memories in the kitchen sink...
the pores on your skin have grown deeper
the lines on your forehead thicker,,like maps and routes
do you think of me often??
you’ve watched me fall in love and wake up the next day as if nothing happened..you’ve watched me sit on the edge,looking below,one step closer to falling...
you’ve watched me keep my devilish innocence in my purse like money wondering if they were the same
you’ve watched me cough out my pride and inhale insecurity
you’ve watched me all afternoon,,i’ve watched you too
ive watched you dig out the monsters i buried last night
i watched you bring them to life
a host,an exhibitionist...you have a lovely house draped in an ugly heart,,i wish id stay here all day
and id burn our memories in the kitchen sink...
the pores on your skin have grown deeper
the lines on your forehead thicker,,like maps and routes
do you think of me often??
today (poetic expressions)
today i wait
for a rumor to take its toll
for love to grown sour
for my pages to fill soon
for a hideous monster to disappear
today i dream
of you, in all your wretchedness
of hearts that would bear a terrible burden
of rooms id never enter
today i sing
a song that tickles my tongue
a wish that makes it all end
today i decipher
your to-do lists
your post-it notes
these codes
and an obscure truth
today i drink
from a forgotten bottle of wine
a life i thought was mine
today i love
the candle light fire
the wind that strokes my hair
the night that grows cold
the room where i grow old
today i write
verbs that don't make sense
adjectives that spark fears
nouns that you don't hear
today i bear witness
to me..
my life..
my soul...
my selfishness..
my flawed heart..
everything i did..
have done..
will ever do..
for a rumor to take its toll
for love to grown sour
for my pages to fill soon
for a hideous monster to disappear
today i dream
of you, in all your wretchedness
of hearts that would bear a terrible burden
of rooms id never enter
today i sing
a song that tickles my tongue
a wish that makes it all end
today i decipher
your to-do lists
your post-it notes
these codes
and an obscure truth
today i drink
from a forgotten bottle of wine
a life i thought was mine
today i love
the candle light fire
the wind that strokes my hair
the night that grows cold
the room where i grow old
today i write
verbs that don't make sense
adjectives that spark fears
nouns that you don't hear
today i bear witness
to me..
my life..
my soul...
my selfishness..
my flawed heart..
everything i did..
have done..
will ever do..
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