your And Then's leave me stumped. :)

i just had a brush with death.... it scared me to death...

there's a story mulling in my head.... i want to see it grow... it's a story about a little girl, her mother and her grandmother... i want to see how it goes... 

im writing a story about the rat and the cheese... for my CV... does that make any sense to you?!!...

it rained... donkeys :)... i went running.... finally!!...

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and it rained down on me... going right through me and it flowed... 

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i went running in the garden next to my house and i saw life.. i saw the ld people running back home and the not so old taking shelter. somehow, i feel it's only the kids and the young boys who have no care in the world who come out in the rain. And i dont understand it. how can something so pure make you dirty.. you who live amidst the filth of your own creation.

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so anyways i saw a group of young boys playing football in the rain.. how i wanted to play... but ahem.... i'd have to take my shirt off for that.. or so it seemed... but i have never seen someone take in the rain as they do.. these boys who are so ready to enjoy the simple pleasures that are taking place around them. they weren't the boys from big homes in big cars going to sit inside a hookah joint in order to enjoy the rain. they were simply there.. out in it!

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and the lovers.. o!... the lovers... so many of them.. hiding in the niche's of the garden trees and trying in vain to shield the other from the wetness that draped all of us.. it makes u believe in love again.. to see such gestures... and moreover the romance of it all... what can i say i'm a hopeless romantic i guess :]...

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i even saw the children and a two girls sitting on the grass and sharing a laugh... the memory of which will stay with them for a lifetime. little knowing how that precious moment has changed their relationship.

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and i ran some more until i could feel it in my pores. i jumped into puddles, feeling the water seep into my shoes and the sound of ppcchhh!!... everytime i walked sounded like music to my ears!!... the rain ran out on me and i went home.. sitting wishing waiting! :) :)

im sitting in the KMC and watching my rain pour down on me... :)

and it makes me super happie!

                                             © benetton under colours

hehehehehe... this was my new find... and for some reason i find  it the sweetest thing!

~ bitchy woman~

you know of the Classic Bitch?!!... the first time i heard of her was when a cherry in a saucer dedicated the song Bitchy Woman to me... so offensive one would think but in retrospect it told me a lot of things. :D 

chop chop chop...
till it all drops...
and now that it's all gone..
i feel whole again..
It's been long time due...
and the conflict is finally over..
people ask why i did it..
i call it impulse..
i needed to break out and figure where i stand..
and now that it's all gone..
the calm is back...
i am one again!.

i like smelling like rain!

a stranger in a random city...

i like being!!

her tongue, so sweet,

then drew, mine ear, 

her wit, so sharp,

then hit, my heart.

one and a half months...

over... like a breezy sunday...

belonging here feels alien now...

yet.. bonds have been forged...

somehow a farewell seems befitting

yet unsettling...

i'm deviating from the road i was travelling..

once again slightly lost...

slightly amused.. more loved...

bright-eyed and curious...

i hope we cross paths again!.. :)

~the blind have taken to the streets

the innocent simply drift along~

~my travel log~

has the hum of an auto ever tickled the soles of your feet?

it makes me wanna tap dance :)

i guess i'm ticked off... at everyone...

today in the train i herd voices at the other entrance... a woman ranting in marathi... loudly..

she was LouD.. abusive and crass to put it lightly.

i couldn't see her but i saw the expressions on everyone's expressions change from bland boredom to exasperation and eventually contempt.. for that ranting woman... the other women started coming towards our side. 

i decided to stick onto my side but eventually curiosity got the better off me and towards the end of my train journey i went over to the other side.

and sitting at the foot of the train was a blind old woman with her blind husband. they were both poor and she wasn't ranting to the world.. she was ranting to him. he was silent all the time listening to her and keeping his head low.

no one was interested in what she had to say but she was angry and she was venting. she had  right to vent. to be mad. for whatever reasons of her own. if people had a problem with it maybe they should've asked her what the real problem was. but everyone shirked away, walking away as if she was an untouchable. as if she dint have a right to exist. one fat woman even had the gall to ask me if they were really blind. personally i think the fat woman was the real blind one in the train today.

there was a teacher in the group who seemed disgusted by them. aren't they supposed to teach us what's right?.. practise what you preach?.. and so what if she was loud.. aren't we all?.. when we're angry we rant to. in public or in the privacy of our houses.. i mean no one has a right to talk sobriety unless they practice it meticulously. cut her some slack. give her some space. she's not encroaching on yours.

i asked her to stop talking and asked her where she wanted to go. this question stunned her it seems because for a minute she was silent. 

then she wept... SoftlY

it broke my heart. i hadn't done anything and yet she wept for me. and not one person on the train today had bothered to talk to her.. except in a manner to shun her.

now it was my turn to be silent.i waited and she told me Andheri. when i helped her up, suddenly other women decided they were worth helping as they started coming forward to help. once we got off... they asked me to guide them to platform number one. i thought i'd walk them there but the woman said she and her husband would find their way. 

they smiled into the air and left.

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and i wondered... how much effort did that take?

Love must have an amazing power....

some parents live a lifetime together 

without getting along ever...

For the sake of their children.

It is amazing, isn't it?... to feel so much of it.

~my drunken ballad~

wonder why?
Such animosity
Is it just them?
Or is it all of us
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind
Have we gone beyond blind?
Has patience turned into a vice?
Or is it the human need to survive?
I guess it’s the fear of subversion or being left behind...
But if this is the price I have to pay
Then I’d rather be without them than with it
I’d rather perish than survive in it

I saw an act of kindness today..

an auto rickshaw driver refused to give a beggar any money

he filled her empty bottle

with all the water in his bottle.

this beggar was special... she was a leper.

this is something i made... the first one speaks for itself while the other distorts in perspective. 

                  ~my own gulmohar~

For one human being to love another

that is the most difficult of all our tasks,

the ultimate, the last test of 

proof, the work for which all 

other work is but preparation.

- rainer maria rilke

we had a workshop and had to portray the meaning of this in an abstract way playing with colours and textures. my group consisted of jiten, jeremy and me.

EMEMBER me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

- Christina Rossetti

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

- A thousand splendid suns

there was a red car,

with three men in it... 

the one wearing 

the white polo-neck sweater,

the yellow sun-hat and 

the black seat-belt...

was driving it!!

For you, a thousand times over


- the kite runner

i want us to be silent spectators...
feeding off each others peace.

building walls where only we exist
in a rose-tinted universe
where its you, me and the colourful bougainvilleas

us... creatures floating amidst the whistling zephyr....

~wild in the woods~

i discovered a set of blow pens!!... and this is what i did :)...

i dunno what it looks like and as i tried variations and explored the medium this is what i came up with... 

to me it looks like a bouquet of flowers..

what does it looks like to u?

pickled women - live quietly in giant vinegar bottles of their own making... her existence is her reason.

- thousands of vinegar bottles lined up on earth, as far as the eye could see -

there were fire crackers in the air!!..

i felt the excitement in my stomach

today was a funny beginning... i was in an auto and we stopped at the traffic signal.. next to us stood a cycler, who seemed to have thirteen years of life behind him.. he was a slum kid by the look of it and stood at the at the very end of the road whereby spilling onto the other side. the the traffic continued spewing and suddenly my auto driver screamed at the boy to get into our side and to try not getting killed by the oncoming buses. 

the boy shifted and my auto guy calmed down..

as we neared the green light another boy of eight came n took the older boys place at the end of the road. the boy of eight seemed to belong to a middle class family.

our lane started moving and the boy of thirteen assisted and helped maneuver the boy of eight to the right where they we both headed. all this while my auto guy kept a watch to make sure they both reached the right lane safely before starting off on our journey forward..

i saw this and was amazed... humanity still throbs in our society and somewhere it is us, the have's who have lost it, not those who live by it..

my auto rides are too short

my hair s too long

they're not in tandem anymore..

i miss my 30 rupees blow-dries!!

my entire existence feels weird. 

things to do

. read people

. be considerate

the universe is made up of all things and experiences around you

i have been conversing about the sensibilities of talking.

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.

how you talk to a little boy or an old man.. makes all the difference!

i find peace in the vastness of the sea..

no past, no future.

i will miss our conversations...

perfect.. they are all perfect

A friend asked me for a memory of us...

and suddenly all the memories of my eight years in school came flooding back like an adrenaline rush... and when they passed

i was left smiling :)

In retrospect 

the faces smile brighter and frown lesser

the tears seem baseless and the laughs remain timeless

people seem tinier, their hearts bigger

we came

we met 

we sat together for hours staring at the star studded sky

we fought with each other 

and by nightfall 

Went star gazing together again.

we climb mountains 

and raged through rapids,

Half smiling and half fighting

screaming at the top of our lungs 

running around in massive circles

getting Ready for our first outing 

and gossiping till dawn about our first socials

eating through the mid-night feasts 

and getting excited by the simple pleasures of school life

first we made the apple-pie beds

and then the little ones made them for us

we had watched them sing 'Auld Land Syne'

and suddenly we were going around in circles singing the same song

and one day

the joy ride ended

and we all split our own ways

the eight years together

became a bittersweet memory

(to all my batchmates at welham, specially the FLIES)

The Invitation - Oriah mountain dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. 

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled or closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain... mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy... mine and your own

If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore, trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure... yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "yes"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised tot he bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

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I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in those empty moments.

some stills from my fiction project... despite all the madness and last minute cancellations.. i think we managed to pull it off.. thank you to everyone in it.. i shall let the credits roll once the film is done.. as of now it's still under construction

babychild??

~in transit~

recently we were on the subject on this place called home and well... i really don't know where home is for me... i don't feel the flood of home when i'm in college or when i go home to eat my meals... nor do i feel it in retrospect. In the last three years i have shifted into three different houses while i thought i would never be able to adjust after the first move (i'd lived in my first house for more than fifteen years) i was quite comfortable with my new house but by the time i finally figured that one out we shifted again.

even in my first house i was never really home. i was at the boarding school and went directly to mumbai for my holidays and would visit "home" for a week at the max. so then where is my home? 

no space where i belong or do i belong to all of these?.. where did i leave my impression the most or which one is the closest to me?.. these questions boggle me now as i never thought of these things before. i was happy in my caravan traveling with or against the tide but now as i stop to look around i see empty spaces.

wherefore will i move on to and which new space will i leave behind. i know not. i guess i will always remain in transit until the day i decide to settle down.

Had I the Heavens' embroidered cloths,

en wrought with golden and silver light,

the blue and the dim and the dark cloths

of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet;

but I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet,

thread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B.Yeats

kiss the rain

whenever you need me

kiss the rain

whenever i'm gone, too long.

if your lips

feel lonely and thirsty

kiss the rain

and wait for the dawn

keep in mind

we're under the same sky

and the nights

as empty for me, as for you

if ya feel

you can't wait till mornin'

kiss the rain

- tracy chapman

i suddenly know somethings wrong... i cant look at the mirror. i don't have the courage to face the consequences of my actions.. but its inevitable.. forgive me

self doubt will kill me... soon

they lay there deep in thought

the only sounds 

their breath and the morning breeze

thinking of everything

the fights the joys the new toys and the childhood plays

he extended his fingers

she felt the slight touch on hers

they were connected 

across parallel universes

suspended in time 

separated in space

they walk away

without a backward glance

somehow they don't feel the need to turn

the distance is sheer nothingness

its been almost two months since my fall at the arts reverie... the movie's shot, the edit is midway, i am a year older, another short film is on its way.. and i feel myself falling again.

unna and tipsy went up the house

to look at the rooms and others

unna fell down and broke her crown 

and tipsy came tumbling after....

a month later and i'm in Mumbai. it's the 26th of december and the memories are still fresh. The Trident has re-opened and everyday they pose an advertisement in the paper.. - We are open again. thank you for your support and hope to serve you better - .. and the city is back on track. those who have lost are still grieving. those who saw it happened are still angry. those many who are doing something about it are still vocal. but there are those others who have made a mockery of it and those who have glamorized the terrorist who was caught and hyped up the entire episode with sordid tales of glory about how bad the situation is. they dont truly care about those dead or affected... all they care about is getting the news to u.. in a manner where a bombing sounds like a celebration. i wonder if they have become so callous or were they always like this. more the tragedies higher the TRP's. and this is our Media.

anyways back to where i was. suddenly the media needed a new story. so a month anniversary of the mumbai blasts seemed to be the perfect story.  Revisiting the dead, the affected and the vocal. while the billet marks have been left on the walls of Leopold's for investigation purposes , the media decides to take snapshots of the same and give an emotional story to it. i dont deny that the bullet marks dont take us back to 26/11 but i think even without the reminders the people of mumbai and the world over will take a long time to forget this incident. think they can remember it without the media pushing the story unnecessarily.

the city has changed. it has been struck sooo many times now that somewhere the people had gotten used to the complacency. but this time it's different.. they are different. the people have woken up. they have decided to take a stand n fight back. i saw bill boards asking people to realise and be a part of the change. they have become more vigilant n expressive. they have started the wheels of change for the safety of their city. in essence the much stretched mumbai has come together as one. they have decided that they have had enough. this is the first step towards a united country. our country, which has fragmented into sections of indifference from all sects. a mumbai was needed to awaken this nation and i can see the winds of change washign over. And for this i am proud and grateful.