lehrein ayi, lehro mein beh gayi...

A song, a feeling, a scenery, a painting, few lights, a misunderstood joke, a lizard perhaps (i miss my marley) urges you to write a line or two may be. Suddenly while doing a very clerical and tedious job i stumble into a song which makes me want to write. An urge i had lost in the hum drum of this ordinary chaos. So 2014 is at an end, and one more circle completes of the many rings that forges into a man's life. It would be interesting if a man wore a chain forged by no. of years lived (i am sure the ladies would not approve of it!)
To review this year, is something that frightens me. A year of drama, of tears and happiness of shocks and despairs, of guilty pleasures and partying :D a mini TV serial, (a hindi soap drama for sure) A year of lost and found. I always get melancholy as the last week of the year approaches. Apprehensions of the coming year eats up the joy of a year successfully surviving with head over my shoulders. or may be it's just the blues. And sometimes life creeps you out when you have your friends boyfriend's misc tape and see his name and picture in album art (AWKWARD!) instead of Nickleback's.
I think my refill of writing has exhausted. I need to get a new refill from the inspiration shop hopefully he has one to fit my miracle writing pen. :/
CIAO!

children of hell

A flash.. And the sky lights up

Like a bullet fired from a bullpup

The kid looks up in awe..as it rained fire

This is hell on earth as the souls rise higher

A touch on his shoulder, sees his mom with him

her body might vanish but her memories live within him

A bark from his lost dog

hiding under the debris from the war lord

Dizzy he was, as things long lost flooded him..
But transfixed he stared as hell sang its own hymn..

He dug deep and set his pal free

nothin around was standing except for the oak tree

An oak tree which stood tall in its time of glory

Now withered in a site that was too gorry.

He wandered north and then went east

there he saw the evil general with gold teeth

The battle is won the general said

100 dead how could he sleep cozy on his soft bed

Flashed his teeth as he laughed at his question..

U naive boy i m going to make a new nation

Pulled a knife out and slashed it across his throat

blood spilled as the soldiers walked to save the man in green coat

For all the lost things he loved the most

The father , the mother and the holy ghost

The devil inside him killed them all

How come he still gets a cushion for his death fall

As the bad lie on his cushion of death

The noble boy lay slaughtered in bullet sheath

The world is soon gonna need blood plumbing

i ask the lord when is his next comming

the fight for friendship and beyond

The fight for friendship and beyond

A time of roses and thorns

I was sparing a lad with his armor on

Couldn't see his face as we sparred on the lawn

A rose for every slash i made

A thorn for every bruise that would fade

People watching would find me ungrateful

A knight that answered every slash with a rose

For me i saw a thorns of the rose

And forget about the petalled core

soon the lad took off his armor

And i could see hurt in the clamor

As realization dawned it was too late

The rose was of petals and not thorns of fate

My blunder was irrevocable and unpardonable

But oh! I had fallen for him hard, which was undeniable

And all i could ask was for forgiveness

 For a knight like you doesn't deserve a girl like me in such foulness 

lonely man

alone in the crowded road
alone in the cramped bus
alone in the stuffed canteen
alone in the bustling office
alone in the jammed train
alone alone alone

alone among the grouped tress
alone in the swinging party
alone in the prayer hall
alone in the noisy parks
alone in the busy shop
alone alone alone

does it bother?
does he care?
does he notice?
does it feel?
noone sees
a lonely man....

just coffee (2) :the road

My note: i have been meaning to write many short stories with the title just coffee.. so here is the second installment to it.. hope you like it (cross my fingers)

The only constant in my life seems to be coffee. My life till now has been like the rickety shack that is on the main road, surrounded by the buzz and hum of the on going traffic but still afar from all the hustle bustle, within it’s own private bubble. And such is a place i frequent to. I am a working girl in a different city almost every year  i have to shift my base. Do i mind? Not yet.. am i a loner? Not by choice! And my coffee?? Such a loyal friend.

I frequent a place just like the shack i mentioned. Middle of nowhere and everywhere. Its location is very convenient for me. Somewhere on way to work. Not the CCDsa nd Baristas, but a typical Indian Nescafe doodh marke with diabetic inducing levels of sugar. It went light on the pocket and its location, perfect. Like every tea and paan shop located in India this was run by a man being the namesakes of half of India , Ramu kaka. I was his favourite customer. Needless to say i was the only women visiting his shack on a regular basis and taking compous amount of coffee. Ramu kaka’s place was frequented by all types of people.. the “shehar wales” (city people) dropped in for some cigarettes, the drivers for paans, the passengers for chai, the kids for wafers and chocolate, the teenage girls for juice and the rich brats for mountain dews. You named it and ramu kaka had everything one needs when it comes to road trips. During the shaddi season you would see truck, bus, tempo loads of people in eye numbing glittering attires climbing down these oven hot boxes and pilled over ramu kaka. You could see whole of india just sitting in this blow away shack.

Ramu kaka is like all other ramu kakas in the world. Tanned dark with sun, a small man with flashing white smile and eyes that crinkle in the corners. He had a missing a lower tooth and if ever asked how he would fall into a different stories each time.I never knew which one was true or if all together had bits of truth in it. But he was a man of the world. Happy and content at this moment with a wife and 3 children all married. He had a lame dog too whom he had named Hitler.When i asked him does he know who he is. He simply shrugged and said someone told him it’s a german shepherd. And all he knew about Germany was Hitler. Yes, you might think that’s a bit estranged piece of information for someone named ramu kaka. But that is ramu kaka to you, a man full of tit bits.

I was an esteemed customer for ramu kaka. He had a special rickety stool set aside for me which seemed to come from baba adam's era. my orders were always taken first, tho i rarely had to even ask him. I was his only customer drinking coffee and he showed me off to any new regulars who would drop by. I loved sitting there in dirt and filth of the main road and watching cars pass by. It was like spa to me after a tiring day at office. With the warm cup cuddled in my hand all the memories floating up from it with every wiff of the sweet smell. Sometimes when it was a slow day ramu kaka would sit and ask me all sorts of questions. At times i had a book in my hand and he would want to know the whole story! He was inquisitive by nature.He was a father in a far off distant land to me.

My parents were dead against about my stopovers a ramukaka’s chai shop. The news they hear all day long about all kinds of heinous crimes. They are not to blame. Inspite all that i never left going to the place. Another regular was shakti ji.  Given to his herculean name he was nothing but it’s opposite. A man in his 50s with scanty grey hair, a hooked nose and bulging eyes. In the first look you would think he is the middleman of some smugglers ring passing up messages inconspicuously. But in reality he was a band member in barati.. Those who play loud instrumental versions of bollywood nos like munni badnam hui, sheela ki jawani (my knowledge lacks on tacky nos)  for the dulhe raja (groom) barat to dance to the doom of two people. He was a man with worries, a man you often see buying desi daru from a wine shop. Thankfully shaktiji had enough shakti to have come out of the alcoholic red zone. A man who played the trumpet and made music for happy people to become even more happier, himself suffered from deficiency of happiness. He had two daughters. One married and the other yet to marry. His fingers had rhuetism so he couldn’t play much of the trumpet without killing himself with pain. But yet he did and everyday he came back to ramu kaka a confider and friend ,his guardian angel. To his chai. Ramu kaka sympathised with him and nodded sadly at his worries.. about the dowries one must pay.about the inevitable evil that is society. But as he said  wisely“hum toh aam adami hai, humra kaam hai jhelna” ( we are the common man, its our duty to suffer)

As the days went by, shakti ji chattered about the upcoming marriage. Even after the mega shock he was about to receive financially for the marriage there was sunrays of happiness and hopefulness for his daughter. This cheered him up considerably and i wondered how easy is the heart. All was settled and set to go for the big wedding of shaktiji’s daughter and he politely invited me to the wedding, which flattered me to some extent. But there was one element missing in the marriage. It was the band baja. The “ladki wale” (bride’s party) are suppose to arrange for the band. And it so happened that shaktiji had no money left. The irony. No band for the daughter of the band wala. He was in pieces. The ijjat and even the marriage was at stake. Yes, they are so fragile. Confessing about his new found troubles to ramu kaka. Kaka silently contemplatively gave shakti ji some chai. His eyes watching me , watching him. Like he was looking for some approval. Then he suddenly leaves having a quick chat with his wife, who lived just behind the shack. He returned with some money apparently sufficient for the band and forced it into shakti ji’s hands. A reluctant shakti ji  accepted the money and promised to return it full aware of the uncertainty of the promise and the depth of gratitude.

Sadly, i had to shift my camp again and would not be able to make it to the wedding at the cost of humanity. I bid my farewell to my dear ramu kaka and left. A few months later i was passing by ramu kakas chai shop and thought of having that old sweet coffee once again and of course to chat up with ramu kaka. On my arrival i saw her wife recognise me and immediately make me a cup of coffee and clean up my stool. Even hitler came wagging his tail and sat by my feet looking longingly at the biscuits. I glanced questioningly at ramu kakas wife whom i always addressed as ramu kaki. She gave me a pained expression with watery eyes and i knew. Ramu kaka had caught the dengue. There was no money left after he offered his help to shakti ji and no hospital would take him. He was too proud to ask back for his money.

 He was now just a spec in the memories buried somewhere dusty in the minds of the many travellers he served. The chai shop witnessing an act of benevolence and generosity , of humanity against the stringent rules of society. In its own private bubble. Going unnoticed by the speeding cars. As the whole india past by it few knew the stories that makes human humane. Of so many stories of bravery we read this one finds it’s own niche. his fervent soul now inscrutable matter on earth.  My dear friend ramu kaka.. “aam admi such as you are never aam” ...

it's always the race against numbers!

Why should chapattis be gol (circle) ??

Why indeed! Why cant they be some random shape... may be a country or a smashed face..or a bird flying or diamond shape.. that needs talent too! Why my question about chapattis??  Does it have a geometrical aspect to it, or an aesthetic one? Or just one of the many never-asked-never-answered questions?! Well, every Indian household with a daughter(s) when reaching to a certain age have to sign in into Indain-culinary classes (creating the perfect brides since time immemorable)... so without knowing you are made to prepare for questions like “sasural wale kya kahinge” which is a rhetorical question.. if “sasural wale” indeed ask something act dumb (as written in page 23 of “Q and A of sasural wale”)

Case 1

Sasural wale: Beta, do you know to make rotis?

Beta : uhmm, of course aunty.. good round fulka rotis..

Sasural : (she hesitated, too much information, probably a show off, definitely doesn’t know to make rotis) :stamps REJECTED on the photo:

Case2

Sasural wale: beta, do you know to make rotis?

Beta: :stares at the wall:

Beta’s ma: of course she does, makes rotis everyday..! almost like Ma Annarpurna has blessed her rotis!

Sasural: (thinks: good obedient girl, let elders ans,her mom is very truthful,no reasons for her to lie)  .. she is prrrrrreefect! :ties the mangal sutr around her neck herself:

But as soon as she presents her sasuralwale with a bird shaped roti, she would be probably handed divorce papers conjured right out from thin air.. would it matter if they are edible? NO! The roti needs to look good, even if it means to be crushed into a plum and dissolved into a sludge with more horrible looking acids...

Atlast everything comes down to looks..even a roti has to pass the judgmental eyes of people. Checking out its shape, colour, texture, contours.. you are damned to make pokemon rotis, its a 109% no no for the grey hairs, though will make you real famous with the kids! ;) and yes my roti shaping skills suck! Too free minded to make circular rotis (thats what i like to believe, i-got-roti-making-dyslexia)

ship of life

Some words left unsaid

Some touches left unfelt

Sceneries left uncompassed

A love left unconfessed

Some flavours left unsavoured

Few smiles left unshared

Some canvases left blank

As the ship gently sank

The ship of life i thought

In the sea of forgot-me-nots

                                                              

Some fights i regret

An incomplete novelette

The apologies left refuted

Some relations left jilted

Innumerable memories unperished

Inspite of time unblemished

Further my ship sailed

Sinking with every breathe exhaled

A many left in the to-do list

Some left in the must-have done list

But isn’t that life i rambled

A many happy hellos

And a many tearfull goodbyes

The ship of life i thought

In the sea of forgot-me-nots

the Oswald fix!

why does it feel like all the cosmic elements are plotting against you, to do even marginally well enough to pass in a totally useless subject such as E-commerce! why do engineers even have to study that?! adding to the already slippery nature of the subject plus the first signs of rains and the sweet breeze.. tell me.. how can anyone even think of looking into the book!!
crappy non-sense text book language over first rains.. need i say more??
even the last moment panic induced adrenaline seems feeble against this surreal climate!
i like to refer this fix situation similar to Oswald's (the big head blue octopus!) he had to either save the overflowing popcorns or the bubbles from the bubble bath... the "kya karu kya na k
aru" situation!
it's always a war of the mind and the brain .. but you know you are doing the wrong thing when both consent with each other..
the funny thing is each year there is always this one time i have faced a fix like this... and each time the wrong thing will be chosen to be done.. and each time there will be bubble joy followed by regret...some priorities are always messed up! =D

Little Missings..

The little missings

The countless pens and erasers

The one piece of the jigsaw you never find

The safety pins and clips ,

Reported gone in times most needed

Keys, which go Houdini each time you get late!

Ever wondered as to what happened to them?

May be swirling in some lost and found abyss

To be found someday, by their rightful owners

Or perhaps they were found and owned by someone-else

And if ever were they given a voice...

My! The tales they would have had to tell!

The little missings

Important yet ignored

Sure does makes life hell !

don't run after free candies!!

Inhumanity is human nature.Every year more or less, people of this massive hive are woken from their dreamy slumbers to the rawness of a society.It is followed by a few days of  "is this the nation we live in?" or "we need more laws" "men should be controlled" "death sentence! castrate them!" the media, facebook, twitter, blogs they are swarming like bees on this topic.A few more weeks and this will die down ,with a silent but occasional hisses like when you pour water over a dieing fire.Harsh but true.Take jessica lal case or the aarushi murder case (which is still not decisive) notice again all point to the capital. They have died long ago.

I see no change in pattern to this recent Delhi gang rape case.Don't get me wrong!I am as feminist as they come, and i am glad the increasing rape cases and atrocities against women have been come to everyone's notice.But hyping a singular event asking for death penalties for the wrong doers just doesn't seem fair enough.If such a heinous act has to be punished make them suffer for killing a young girl to satisfy their more than animal needs. It's like watching kids running towards free candy, without questioning what would be the outcomes or why at all  are they been giving free candies! the mob needs to think different.

Why not analyse what made them do such extreme acts, why not question the cause of such crimes? There have been more excruciating torturous actions against women and they live to tell the tale, why not listen to them and give them voice as strong?? no, but all they see is the candy. Politicians seek this scrumptious opportunity to sell the candies while the kiddish crowd feeds on it.

If you ask me the human mind is loosing it. It fails to stay calm and seeks solace in violence and pain. Over this year there has been reports of "mass shooting at Aurodo at the premiere of dark knight rises" and the "connecticut school shooting" and "the mistaken murder of a girl" (where the murderer thought he was killing his ex-girlfriend turns out to be an unfortunate gal wearing the same clothes) or the Guwahati gang rape which was splashed all over net in a shameful way, and countless others, the clear pointers of loosing the sanity of man. This is something the attention should be focused on.

The immediate solution to this age old atrocities is gearing up against men. If we lack in physic it's time not to be sissies and complain about lack of security but to learn to fight and aid ourselves for such emergency situations.
i am happy for the girl, who passed away for i dread to think how she would have survived even if she lived to tell the tale.But i mourn for what had caused her sudden demise. It's noone's right to take away life goes for both us and them.

with the torn one-eyed teddy bear..

A tomorrow that had come and gone

A future that had become past

A bloom withered

The tears withheld, untouched

Rains painting  grey

The colourful pyre

Flesh to smoke

A ritual as ancient as man

The child lost in the grey

A tear or a smile

She didn’t know

Staring with a torn one-eyed teddy bear

Both as blind , both as innocent

Staring at the bewilderment 

From their own corner of the world

A child's and a glass eye.. 

Staring and wondering...

half a dozen of dozens!

yes.. it's 12:12 12' on the 12/12/12 .. my contribution towards the world's obsession of this 12ing phenomenon where the world's beginning of the end and planetary movement placing the earth in the middle of the milky way galaxy and alignment of all the nine planets in the same line (this comes from all natgeo and history and N.A.S.A videos) well.. a lame bet with dad made me so knowledgeable about the outside happenings of the earth on the day.. but its a shame sitting over here and dwindling with petty issues of exams when cool stuffs are happening just outside the atmosphere...but well.,. i plan to post this post exactly at 12secs  and well you have to take my word on the secs count! :D
and oh! just when you thought there would be nomore winter.. i wake up to a chilly morning (chilly according to mumbai standards) hope it snows! (that's not much to ask.. is it?)
TOODLES!

nah! it's not 12ᵒC over here! 

strings that sang..

The strings that sang

Could that hand hold a knife

Irony it seemed to rang

Guilty! Hammered the judge    

Death of the music fingers

Heart trapper they called him

Charming he was, to all his well-wishers

Was it.. is he.. could he be???

Harsh words seemed so much harsher

Unbelievable had to be believed

Why would he? Whispered some.

“Such a talented boy” his grandmother had said

But he did wrong they all webbed.

“OH! Sweet child of mine!” screamed his mother.

Could sweetness be so brutal???thought his father.

He said nothing to the world just hummed a tune..

Just didn’t matter anymore for his faith had gone

Annihilated by a women he most loved.

He plucked those sweet notes till life was in those fingers

The stage, the rope..

Irony again came sailing in it’s boat

Never had it been empty, and the curtains drawn

Ending it all from where it had begun    

The world for once saw a melodious death

The rope tugged
And the tune played

“twang” the note reverberated through the empty hall

Melody from the last twitch of “those fingers”.....

the one place you don't want to be is always the place you are in!

pujor gondho! :)

The month of October always sets my heart racing..what with pujo in the air.. the leg jingling dhaak er avaj , the bold and beautiful eyes of the protima, the mouth watering smells of moglayi and cutlets and rolls (neverending list!) the chants of the pujo, the pandal re aada, carrom, natoks, going to all the other pujos, assessing which one’s the best... relatives and their never ending rants about how old you are now! Oh, not to forget the extensive shopping spree( for all the shopaholics out there!) somehow words seem less to cumulate the “pujo feeling”. No matter what state of mind one is a bong mind would be euphoric during pujos.. even a trouble ridden rickshaw-wala would have a smiling face.. such is pujo and its effects on people.

That’s why i like India.. the fact that we have so many festivities that there is always a constant commotion.. no life goes boring and dull till the end of the year where you dance around the tree..

HAPPY PUJO!! J

easy.. huh??

If mind was sand and will was sea..

 things would have been just so much easy.

ganpatibappa moriya!!!!!

Believe in gods or not, one always gets a holiday which is very generous of the gods! With  september on the calender it's the beginning of two month long festivities! Starting from ganpati to durga puja clubbed with navaratri, dassera then comes diwali and bhai duj and ends knocking on the doors of exams!

visarjan at juhu

But nevermind that! It's ganesh chathurti and whole of Maharashtra is in high spirits for the next 10 days, with occasional visarjans in an interval of 2-3 days (polluting the already polluted water of juhu) but its fun! college goes on a mini vacation mood.. (not that it makes much of a difference!) if it takes someones fancy you could stand in the legendary "lal bagh cha raja's" line which snakes kilometeres and often takes 4 hours to just to get darshan! But yeah, people can get crazy over here.You witness ganpati of varying sizes.. right from as small as your index finger to a 20ft tall one and it doesn't end with size, different postures of the elephant-man. Even expressions our hard to go unnoticed! And not to miss on the delicious "modaks" made on this occasion and all kind of sweets (it seems ganpati had quite a sweet tooth!) Somehow this cute trunk-man with an equally cuddle-able  mouse has captured the hearts of people since the concept of the tusker-man originated.

Mean while, let mumbai go on a gajadhar frenzy while i laze around and yes, get crushed in the crushing crowd of devotees and non-devotees and people like us who are out enjoying the spirit of festival rather than the belief!

GANPATIBAPPA MORIYA!!! JAI MAHARASHTRA! (no i am not going political!) 

it all ended where it started....

the clock tick tocked its way through a whole round.. and much has changed.. i smile back to the time.a sad half smile. may be its meant to be this way.. perhaps all is for the best.. 

fill me up!

A space filled with nothingness, is what i am

For a painter i am a nice white canvas

For a writer a sheet of paper

For a musician, silence

I am indeed nothing....

Fill me with your thoughts, paint me with your desires

Sway me to your melodies

Pour yourself into me like raindrops on parched fields

Think not about what you fill me with

For i am the secret keeper of the world

Pray don’t immerse me in all rosy for i am not a child

It’s as much night as it is day,
Cause i know all that glitters is not gold

I am nothing but your half filled mind...