The Storyteller's Hut

Moving On...

2011-09-16T20:22:00.002+05:30

It's been 6.5 years at Blogger and I have decided to move on. No, am not going to stop writing. Just that where these writings will appear will be different.

Yes, I have moved to Tumblr to give a fresh direction to my blogging. I hope to write as much as I can over there.

Here are the links:

I will be maintaining two blogs:

1) Notes from my life - where I will record observations from everyday life through poetry, opinion, conversations, musings. Read it at http://notesfrommylife.tumblr.com

2) The Storyteller's Hut - Again! :). Here I will be posting only my stories. You can read it at http://storytellershut.tumblr.com

On a related note, if you would like to receive regular updates on both these blogs please join my blog FB page

Or follow me on Twitter!

See you at the new place and thanks so much for all your support!

The Letter

2011-09-06T13:37:00.001+05:30

The story of a middle class family told over a letter. I wrote a 'long story' after a very, very long time and the sense of relief when I finished it was awesome! A story that's very close to my heart too. I know I have been missing in action on this blog for a while - even more so from stories point of view. So, here's something to make up for that. Read the story here.

Growing up with Kailash

2011-04-15T14:51:00.003+05:30

A sort of mini-book I have been planning for a long time. Finally managed it!

Open publication - Free publishing - More creativity

Untitled

2011-04-07T18:43:00.003+05:30

I don’t know why I think of you so much even now when you have gone so far away, when fate had decided long back that we wouldn’t be together. I remember you with every song that I hear, every breath I take and every sight I see – I still think that it would have been so lovely if you had been by my side. I whisper your name every other instant, with no particular purpose; it escapes me unconsciously just like the breath I take. I write poems thinking of you. I even dance with you in the realms of my imagination. Remember that night when we had danced secretly in the dimly lit corner of the street we lived in? I still think of that. I think of your smile, your assuring voice, your gentle gaze and feel the warmth of your grasp as vividly as I had felt it the last time you ever held my hand. I still love you for the fact that you loved me beyond my famed eccentricities.

I am lost in the past. Do you even have a clue? The world would surely see me as a lunatic – a love-lost-lunatic steeped in a past that has withered away to obscurity - if not for the effectiveness with which I cloak this supposed insanity with my role as a writer. What do they know? I live on clutching the bag of priceless memories.

I try to imagine how you would look now. But my imagination fails me miserably. My imagination, it appears, only aids the birth of the written word but not the sight of your face. It’s only memory that roars like a ferocious lion, sending imagination whimpering into a dim corner. Try how much ever, I see your face every time the way I saw it last.

Let me tell you about the biggest paradox of my life. The last time I saw you – it’s been so long; so long that a child practising counting with fingers would grow tired of counting. 27 – that was all you were when you left me. Four years– that was all the time we had lived for as a married couple. And then, you just left – left me as simply as a tender dew that slips off a blade of grass just as it is meant to do in the large framework of destiny. Well, the paradox is that my dear, with every passing minute, the years have counted up, but you have only grown closer to me and have come so close that my words fail to describe.

The truth is perhaps that you have dissolved within me as pure, unadulterated thoughts.

And for no strange reason, I want to title this untitled piece ’80 and still in love’.

Exploring Relationships

2011-02-06T12:19:00.002+05:30

Yes, that's the theme for the February 2011 issue of Spark.

Have you checked out our new website? If not, it's hightime you did!

Catch all my stories, interviews, non-fiction and poetry there. (including four little stories this month).

See you there!

Pride

2010-12-28T15:39:00.006+05:30

This is something I have been thinking about for a few days now. I feel that motherhood reveals its true, beautiful self only with passing time. Kailash and I have this whole range of moments and experiences that we have shared over the last three years (Yeah, he just turned three.).

Yes, he throws all the tantrums and we have the worst of fights. I scream, he screams back and as an incentive he also pulls my hair or throws my glasses. And then there are the loud cries and plenty of tears from those innocent eyes. Yes, there are those moments too. Yet, do you know what follows that? It’s that instance of realization inside him – of having done something wrong; that instance he mumbles a weak sorry through those valuable tears and climbs on to my lap and gives me a hug and says, ‘Sorry amma, I won’t do it again.’ And when he says that, I feel such pride at that trait that my loved one possesses – of being able to realize his folly and repent for it. It’s a different thing that he would throw the same tantrum after a while, but for me, that instinct to tell good behavior from bad and regretting it is a sign of good things to come.

It’s been six months since he started going to school. I remember how he would cry in those initial days. The first one month used to be a nightmare. I used to pray every other day that he should settle down soon. Every day that I used to go to pick him up, his teacher would come back to say the same thing – he cried all the time, he cried for an hour today, he refused to go to the loo without mama. I so vividly remember how I used to get back a red-eyed, runny-nosed little darling home, telling him the same story each day – see, amma doesn’t go anywhere; she just stands outside your school gate till the bell goes. And, other such stories.

And somewhere in between, the transition slowly slipped in. He began walking up to his class on his own, began picking up small words in English, began telling me stories each day, began revealing his capable side just the way I wanted to see. What all I told him to help him settle down in school – one thing I distinctly remember. I used to take his little hands into mine and tell him that his fingers had grown so much longer, his hands bigger and boys with such long fingers and big hands never cried when they went to school.

I am not sure if it is a great idea to ascertain progress at this stage. When the teacher sent in a circular saying that they would be giving a progress report, I had mixed feelings. But I was curious all the same, to learn how he did at school, because that remains the only time he is away from me and moves in a totally different environment. The day my husband and I went to collect the card, the teacher beamed. When I read the last line, ‘Excellent Kailash’, which summarized all the other wonderful things she had written about him, I shivered with pride. It was Kailash’s true self, stripped of all the initial inconsistencies, that I was well aware of and that I had hoped all through would be revealed at school.

Since when did I start getting sentimental? Of late Kailash keeps asking me when he will grow up or in his words ‘become big’ that in most cases, sounds like a desperate plea. Please do something, wave a magic wand or something, so that I grow up – you know, like that! Today he asked me the same thing again. Why do you want to grow up, I asked him. 'Because', he began, in English, just like he does when a question beginning with ‘why’ is shot, and then switched to Tamil : I want to go to college and then hostel, take my scooty and come back; you sit with me on the scooty and I will take you.

Ah, that pride resurfaced!

It reminded me of one of those old Complan ads; in which a boy grows up and takes his mom ‘doubles’ on his cycle. Silly sentiments? Who cares? I love feeling that pride.

The truth that remains at the end of it all is that the pride I have felt in each of the instances has sent a rare tickle down the spine, and believe me, that tickle is priceless and incomparable.

Gitanjali

2010-09-09T15:11:00.006+05:30

It is one of those usual days. I stand in my balcony overlooking the children’s park in our complex. The coffee tastes fine and it seems the perfect moment to sip and reflect. The pastel shades on the porcelain cup, the warm winter sun and the little pink and white roses popping out of the brown pots that line the balcony’s boundary offer the perfect ambience.

Call me Gitanjali. I am bold and daring, that’s people around me say. Charming and secluded too, some say. Narcissistic, do I sound? Perhaps I do. But, the observant among you or those who know me, I guess will make out that I am not boasting. I am merely sharing what I hear.

If you are a young man, I am sure you are working out details in your head. Trying to draw up a picture of me in ways that your imagination wants me to look like. i wear a platinum nose ring, if that helps in any way. What age would you put on the ‘me of your imagination’? 18? 20? 25?

Well, the truth is I am 45 years, 3 months, 5 days, and 6 hours old.

Right now, as I stand in my balcony, sipping coffee and looking out, I feel strangely empty.

Would you walk with me down memory lane? I don’t think I will be able to escape this. The sudden gush of thoughts overpowering me now is scripting a path back to the past. Every human on this earth has a past – interesting or otherwise, that comes back to haunt him or her when a spark of an incident triggers the journey back in time. And now, it’s my turn, I suppose.

I am going to tell you a story -a story that began 28 years ago when I was seventeen and was waiting for my first ever class of ‘Physics I’ course, inside one of the biggest gallery classes of one of the most prestigious engineering institutions in the country. Delhi, the city was.

That day, a buzz of a noise had filled the class. The guys were chatting excitedly. And the girls, almost all of them were giggling in anticipation; yeah, anticipation. That moment somehow seems frozen in time, the moment he first entered the room; a sudden hush came over the entire crowd. What a moment it was! It was a silence that came from admiration, admiration for the overpowering presence and charisma of a person who truly owned it.

There he was, Professor, Arvind Krishnan, the most eligible bachelor on campus and the heartthrob of many a girl and the model of a perfect guy for every man. There he was, dressed in a pair of blue denims, a blue checked full-hand shirt, neatly tucked in. The most striking part about him was his black hair with modest streaks of gray and a finely chiseled face, a sharp chin; there was a glint in his pale blue eyes, surprising for an Indian, I mean the blue eyes.

Why he remained a bachelor, no one really knew but both the legal and illegal stories did the rounds. But at that moment, all that never mattered. I would have hated to admit it then but I stared for a moment too, perhaps a moment too long because his gaze quickly caught ‘the dazed first-bencher, me’ for a fleeting second. I think he was perhaps too used to it by then, these ‘stares’ or ‘gazes’, whatever you would wish to call them. It isn’t a big revelation if I told you that I had fallen in love with him by the end of that class. I am sure every girl in that fully-packed class did, only that they went on to find their own boyfriends a few months down the line. Going gaga about him now and then was typically ‘open flirting’, well knowing that it would amount to nothing because it was never going to materialize, (oh, come on we had at least twenty three years between each of us and him!) which later turned to be all but fleeting passions once new men entered their lives. Did I say ‘theirs’?

Yes, I have most conveniently excluded myself because I never found the right man for myself, so to speak. A few months into the first semester, night sessions at the hostel were filled with stories of love – ones that were sending out signals of beginning to bloom – indications of that feeling that it is a little over the usual liking; then there were ones that were almost at the stage of confession; and there were those that were fully-bloomed love stories. Love hung in the air, literally, apart from of course a zillion courses – ranging from Calculus to Optics to Inorganic Chemistry to Engineering Drawing!

For most men and women in my batch (I say men and women because experience was teaching us certain things and we were maturing in certain ways – making that transition from boys and girls to men and women), academics and fill-in meetings with their sweethearts during college hours, and post-evening dates filled the calendar. Where was I in between all this?

Now, I have to define my idea of men. I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought that I don’t like men, given that I have no personal romantic stories to boast of in the first semester. Frankly, I had many friends who were guys, and only a handful of ‘girl’ friends, none extremely close. In fact, barring a few, I found most girls to be silly and so full of farce and stupid dreams.

While my friends (both the boys and the girls I mean) grew busy with their dates, I would often choose the library or that calm spot near the faculty quarters. That large banyan tree that opened up like a big black umbrella into the vast expanse of the clear, star- studded black sky. I would sit under the tree and spend an hour or two looking at the night sky. I often spoke to the moon.

Like I said earlier, I had gone a wee-bit too crazy with Mr.Arvind Krishnan after the first class. But what’s interesting is that I had conveniently assumed that ‘it would pass.’ When the truth was, I sank more and more into my world of dreams that had only two inhabitants – me and my blue-eyed Professor!

I was appalled at first. But I let myself loose and be carried away. After all, finding a man who appeals to you doesn’t happen all the time, especially for someone like me. The result: A student falling in love with her professor! Truly. Madly. Deeply. I would attend all his lectures religiously and once even followed him on his way back home to figure out where he lived! While my friends would rave about the shirt he wore on a particular day or the way he explained a concept and gush over him, I would think how unfair they were being to their boyfriends! The logic of commitment was totally flawed in their cases, so I would think. Why the hell should I have bothered? But I did, because much to my dismay, I was indeed taking this whole thing too seriously!

Two semesters following that first one, we didn’t have a single course with him. That never changed anything. I stole glances at him as I walked through the college corridors. It kept me happy. My friends had no clue of what I had in mind. It didn’t matter whether they knew or not – I never had anything like a close friend to confide in. Friends, they were there, only for a few fun-filled memories.

You think I am one of those ‘leave me alone, don’t mess with me types’, withdrawn-into-a-shell kind of a woman, don’t you? Yeah, in a way, I was and at 45, I think I still am. Back then, the sort of love stories that I saw around me irritated me beyond a point. Yes, there’s all that fun of proposing, gifting, holding hands and sometimes secretly kissing. But, how many of you know that there’s such a beauty to love that isn't confessed but nurtured with pure devotion within? I knew it. Life taught that lesson when I ran into Arvind Krishnan.

I call him by his name now though I never dared to utter it in reality back then. In the third year, I did two courses under him for my specialization. And that evening, in my third year, when I had walked into his home under the pretext of asking doubts, I clumsily uttered as we poured over a book, ‘Sir, I love you!’ Yeah, you heard that right : Sir, is what I had said. And yes, I had confessed too out of sheer impulse.

The next moment I had expected a tight slap to land across my face. But then, he closed the book, looked at me and smiled. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
I nodded blankly.
One more reason for me to fall madly in love with him all over again – composure. That, in addition to his amazingly perfect body language, his quiet confidence and his flawless proficiency and expertise in his subjects.

In certain ways, he was all that I wasn’t. Calm, patient and well in control of himself.

I guess when you meet someone, especially from the opposite sex, who is in many ways what you want to be, and exhibits some rare qualities, you tend to kind of forget the world around you and get into a world of dreams and start living a life that borders on insanity, a sweet kind of insanity, though.

I waited praying that the glimmer of hope will break into brilliant radiance. But, he showed me the way to what I thought then was the darkest tunnel I had ever known.

So, when I idiotically blurted those three words that evening, this is what he told me.
‘You aren’t the first one to tell me this.’
I hated to hear that but I nodded.
‘Are you sure of what you are talking? This isn’t love,’ he explained. ‘I am sure you have heard enough of all this fare.’
I looked at him.
‘It isn’t what you think it is,’ he continued.
I shook a ‘no’. ‘I am sure of what it is and it isn’t what you think it is,’ I spoke.
‘Hmm..’ he seemed lost in thought. ‘You will know soon. Nothing of what I say will enter your head now,’ he said, ‘You have a long way to go, Gitanjali. You are an intelligent girl and your focus should be on your course now,’ he finished as he picked up a bunch of newspapers lying on the floor.
‘Promise me you will never think these things again,’ he put out his hand.
I cried like an adamant child. I coughed up a ‘No, I won’t promise. Please.’
He waited, his hand outstretched, his maddening gaze fixed on me. I looked up at him. ‘go on,’ he gestured with his eyes. I obeyed like a woman in trance.

I knew back then and even now that it wasn’t infatuation I had. Yet, I felt there was no point talking and explaining. I got his message loud and clear.

One of my friends, who had been observant enough came up and asked me. ‘Geetu, is everything alright?’
‘Yeah Sam, ‘ I told him, ‘it’s all fine.’
He wasn’t convinced but he decided he should leave me alone.
I struggled, after all, all my dreams of five semesters had gone down the drain. To hell with all the talk of practicality! Heck, why only me, I broke my head.
I scored poorly in some of my tests and then reality dawned on me. I had to realign my focus. Get back on track before the world took notice of what I had done to myself. My circle of friends started to notice (quite late actually) my withdrawn, sulking self. One even asked me if I had fallen in love and was walking around with a rejected proposal. How true it was – only that she didn’t know who that ‘he’ was.

It took me all the effort I could put to get myself back on track. I focused on my studies even as I tried hard to turn back my unrelenting mind from the path it was treading. I battled and hit many losing points and eventually I won; convinced myself that all this was taking me nowhere. Somewhere down the line, experience gave me the lesson that one should learn to let go. Go with the flow. Impermanence and all that philosophy made tremendous sense for the bereaved yet determined-to-make-my-way-out soul I was. What I didn't realize was soon my philosophy would begin to go down the drain again. Otherwise, I could have well become a saint - if all of it could be so easy!

Cinematic it all sounds, doesn’t it? After all, what’s cinema but a reflection of our lives?

Thanks to placements and projects, life rolled on in the final year. But when it reached a point where there was only a week left for me to leave campus, the memories and longing started getting back to me.

It was one of the last few days in the final semester. Gloom hung over the fourth year hostels. We were all going to say goodbye to the place that had been our second home for four years.
Five days before I was scheduled to leave, he caught me at the college canteen. Arvind Krishnan catching me at the canteen? It threw me off my balance. All the resolve that took months of building, it seemed, was melting away. I held on desperately to my new attitude like an insecure child clinging on to her blanket.

‘When are you leaving?’ he asked me.
‘Coming Monday, Sir.’ I replied.
‘Mind joining me for lunch on Sunday at home? I know it’s going to be tight with all the packing and winding up.’ He paused briefly.
I was floored. What more did I want? Lunch with him and that too at his home? This was more than what I could ask for when I was thinking I would be leaving without even seeing him.
‘Are you sure, Sir?’ I looked at him hesitantly.
He nodded.
‘Then, Ok Sir.’
‘Sunday, 1PM, then?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’

What a memorable Sunday that was! For the first time, I disclosed to Sam that I was going to Arvind Krishnan’s for lunch. Sam only smiled. He didn’t say anything.

At Arvind Krishnan’s home, much to my surprise, both of us were so much at ease. A simple self-cooked meal awaited me. It appeared as though nothing had really happened before and we were starting off on a clean slate. I figured out that day that he smoked. He confessed that he smoked once in a while, when he was really relaxed. I felt a little stir of joy within me from that indirect signal. He was relaxed now, in my company.

He asked me about my family. He told me that his mother lived in Bangalore and so did his sister, who was married. Dad was no more. He told me that they wanted him to come back; that they wanted him to get married.
‘Why haven’t you married, Sir?’ I asked him suddenly.
He looked right into my eyes.
‘Your eyes are blazing,’ he spoke. ‘Bold girl, Gitanjali,’ he said.
‘And cute too.’
Cute? That was something I was hearing from a man for the first time. I was beginning to feel strangely dizzy. God, hang on, Gitanjali, I remember telling myself. Remember you have to stay in control!

Then, he told me: ‘one night I saw you talking to the moon.’
God damn it! I blushed. How did he know? Perhaps he had looked, because his balcony overlooked my favourite banyan tree spot.

‘Thanks for the meal, Sir,’ I said, ‘trying to change the subject. You cook well,’ I continued as I looked away. I was really losing it.

He casually took my right hand into his and looked at me. I had tears stinging my eyes by then.
‘I am going to miss you and all your seeing-without-actually-seeing glances’ he said. ‘Geetu..’

‘Geetu,’ he called me for the first time ever. I sat there shocked and paralyzed with love. How did he know? That’s how my friends called me. How did he know? How did he know that I had been looking at him secretively all those years?

‘You know..’ he paused, ‘You are the first woman to have caught my attention in my life. Remember that first Physics class four years ago, when you looked at me for a moment longer? I knew you had the fire in you. And the day you told me that you loved me, I knew it wasn’t what I said it was. The determination in your eyes I saw that day told me so', he paused and sighed.

‘I wonder why I found you after all these years. The wait has been just too long.’
‘This can’t happen, Geetu..’ he said, pressing my fingers slightly. ‘The society wouldn’t take it well. And you have a big life ahead of you..’
I didn’t say anything. I suddenly felt unbelievably light as if I had just offloaded something mighty heavy. I felt that I had attained some sort of enlightenment. All my bitterness of rejection and the uncertainty that haunted me about the nature of this relationship seemed to vanish.
‘I don’t need marriage to define this relationship, Arvind,’ I thought to myself. In a transformational moment, I realized that just knowing the feeling was mutual was sufficient to keep me happy for a lifetime.

‘I must leave now,’ I said, looking at him. He nodded and led me out of his house. As he closed the door, I caught a glimpse of the face of the man I loved so much.

I wrote him a letter from Cochin once I went back home. Told him that I had settled down into my job and was enjoying it. We exchanged a few letters and then the communication kind of trailed off.

I disappointed my parents by saying I won’t marry. My mother was aghast but she couldn’t do anything to break my resolve.

It all may sound vague to you, this entire story of love. Yet, it is one of those rare stories where proximity, conversation, expectations and a definition do not matter at all. Just being in it is priceless gratification. Yes, this story did not begin the same way but experience and time shaped it thus.

Two years ago, I visited my college website. Arvind Krishnan was still there. He had an email ID. Oh, how far we have moved away from the age of handwritten letters! I wrote him an email. Told him I was in Bombay, still working. He wrote back. ‘Why didn’t you call me for your wedding?’, he asked.

I sent him a smiley (my nephew had taught me how to put one!). ‘Arvind, what made you think I would marry? I haven’t run into another soul mate.’ I sent him my number.

There was silence from his end. A few months later, he called on my mobile. I froze when I heard his voice. After 22 years.
‘How are you, Geetu? ‘
‘Fine. And you? ‘
‘Hmm..been OK..I am getting back to Bangalore, to my sister’s place. ‘
‘Finally!’ I said.
‘Yes. I thought I could spend my last few days with my nephew and niece.’
‘Last few days? Arvind, is everything alright?’

I shuddered. He told me he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
I cried.
‘Come on, Geetu,’ he told me.’ I thought you were a bold girl!’ He laughed slightly.
I sobbed.
‘Geetu..’, he said. ‘Say something nice, won’t you?’
'What..How..?' I stammered.
'Come on now, girl..'
‘I am not a girl anymore,’ I said through sobs. ‘I am 45, you old hog.’ I sniffed.
He laughed. ‘Now, that’s more like it.’
‘Arvind, you will be fine.’
‘Hmm..yeah. I will talk to you from Bangalore.’

We hung up. I received one call from him after he reached his sister’s place. Then, silence. I tried calling back once in between but no one picked up.

I prayed. I didn’t have the courage to see Arvind when he was suffering. Yes, the bold Gitanjali became so vulnerable.

Today morning, I received a call. It was from Arvind’s sister. She informed me that Arvind Krishnan passed away the previous Sunday. She sobbed uncontrollably. He had given me your number last week and told me everything, she said.
Everything? I didn’t know what to say.
He was a great man, I consoled her.
‘Come home if you come to Bangalore,’ she invited once she calmed down.
Yes. I will.

I have been feeling numb since morning. And now, as I think, a bloody tear makes its way out.
I look up at the skies and mutter a prayer.
I think I feel him as the wind ruffles my hair;
Arvind, I call out softly.
I hear a loud thunder and it begins to pour.

Tell us what you think! - Question 1

2010-07-26T14:04:00.000+05:30

The August issue of Spark will center around the theme, 'India Decoded'.

We plan to do a Public Opinion section for the issue. Here's a question:

If there was one thing you wanted to change about India, what would it
be?

You can leave your response as a comment here. A request - please keep your replies concise and to-the-point. The best replies will be published in the August issue of Spark.

Don't forget to mention your full name and your city/country as part of your response.

Many thanks and looking forward to your views!

When Son goes to school..

2010-07-22T14:09:00.004+05:30

Life changes.

You wake up early.

First few days can be tiring - anxiety primarily. You never know how his day went till you ask the teacher. One day he is fine and the next day he isn't. The good thing: it's just few days. Then it's all fine.

Son and I make interesting and important decisions like which colour hand towel to take and what to pack in the snacks box.

Advice escapes you like the easiest thing on earth. Deals are struck. Be a good boy tomorrow! Don't fight with others! If you want something ask your teacher! Enjoy, school is fun. See there are no friends at home, they are there only at school! (And after that, the boy peeps into each room to figure out if there's someone at all; you see part of the exercise!)

Pride. When he gets his first hand print home.

Nursery rhymes - old ones revisited; new ones learnt - not just son but momma too!
Interesting conversations on the way back. Ma, today that boy did this; that girl cried; I didn't cry. I was a good boy, Amma. Stories of colours painted; crayons used. Places visited - the music room, play area/sand pit; cycling in the ground; catch the ball!

More than anything, the wide-eyed big-grin face that I spot most easily among the sea of faces when I go to pick him up; the relief of finding him again after two hours, all safe; the way he pushes his way through to me, the 'amma lift me' and that small kiss on the cheek!

Ah, the many memorable moments in the lives of a mother and her school going son! :)

**************

Quick update 1: If you love the written word, then you must check out the July issue of Spark. The writer of the month is Paritosh Uttam, Author of 'Dreams in Prussian Blue' published under Metro Reads by Penguin.
Quick Update 2: Spark is on Facebook. If you like our work, become a fan!

The thing called love

2010-04-07T16:30:00.002+05:30

Damn it, I used to say, whenever anyone spoke of love at first sight. That’s the most stupid thing anyone can talk of, I would sneer, much to the annoyance of my friends. At movies, I would wear an irritated expression when the hero would fall in love with the heroine the very first time he saw her and grow even more irritated when they would suddenly shift to unimaginably beautiful locations abroad to sing and dance like nobody’s business. I always would argue that one needed enough reasons to love somebody. How can you just decide that you would live with a person just by looking at him or her, I would sternly put my point. 'It’s impossible!', I would almost cry, until I saw her.

When I saw her for the first time, she was wearing an yellow salwar-kameez, brushing away that printed floral duppatta that partly covered her face as the 8:50 AM local stormed into the Dadar Station. She hurriedly sipped whatever was left of the espresso coffee inside that yellow cup and was caught in a moment of indecision whether to dump it into the tracks or take it with her into the train. And, she shook her head a little, took the cup in her hand, and hopped into the ladies coach. As for me, a few feet away, I stood, thought time had frozen for a moment, and missed the train.

Who was she? It was as if I had seen spring in a human form, an extremely beautiful form at that. For many days, I didn’t even realize that I had fallen in love, well, in a way that I had least expected, at first sight. All I knew was that my days following that one day, began with a sense of purpose – I had something to do other than going to work at an office located in the bustling area of Churchgate. Every morning, I was there at the station, ten minutes ahead of time to catch the 8:50 AM local and of course to catch a glimpse of her – that girl who caught my fancy and imagination. At first I wasn’t sure, if she saw me, and saw me seeing her. You know, on the third day, I treated myself to an icecream, when I caught her seeing me and turning away when she realized I caught her looking at me. Did she blush; I couldn’t see unfortunately. And soon, she turned out to be my dream girl with the yellow cup!

This thing called love – it dramatically alters you. My friends weren’t dumb enough to notice the change in me. They saw me stay quiet during lunch discussions of love, when they spoke of their girlfriends and of course, they didn’t fail to notice that I began to smile a little during those romantic scenes in movies. One of them even asked me, hey you, is everything all right?

I began to dream; of me and she together; of the children we would have - may be a boy and a girl. All logic and reasoning quietly left through the backdoor and dreams filled my home and being. I don’t know if someone who looked at her would call her utterly gorgeous. But, she appealed to me in a way that no other woman had till that point in my life. She was simple and that made her look all the more beautiful. It was as if she was made just the way a woman should be to fit the taste of a man like me.

A month and we were still exchanging glances. I didn’t know her name, where she belonged to, what she did and whether she even loved me! But, something inside me pushed me on to dream more, look forward to each day much more and love life even more. Music then became the food for love. Isn’t it something that takes the all-beautiful emotion to an entirely different level? I would listen to some of the most beautiful love songs with my eyes closed and I would see her with me, resting her head on my shoulder, intertwining her fingers with mine, not looking at me, but blushing all the same; for the first time, I would feel the pink colour of her blush as warmth against my face. And her silky black hair – strands of which would touch my cheek sending electric pulses through my body. I would shudder and open my eyes; was this just physical attraction– some sort of an infatuation?

The next few days, I didn’t realize, would serve up an answer for the question that rocked me. One fine morning, as I expectantly reached the station, for the first time after I had seen her, I saw she wasn’t there, standing and sipping coffee. She would always reach there before I did. That day, I hated lunch, lost my concentration at work, didn’t sleep. The devilish mind stirred up stories – perhaps she already loved someone, or maybe her wedding got fixed and she left for her hometown to get married; Damn, I thought I began to hate love the way I used to before. But, there was this something – a small yet miraculous feeling – one I would later realize as belief or still better put, faith. The sense that woke up in me after I saw her, made me believe that the love that survives is one that has faith at its core – faith in the people in the relationship and faith in love itself. It may sound filmy, but, when you are in love, the most unexpected does happen.

A restless ten days passed and every morning it was a frustrated me who would board the train – the same 8:50 AM local with the burden of a longing heart and desperate eyes seeking just one sight of her – my dream girl with the cup of coffee.

The day after, I stood at the same spot in the station that I usually did and turned towards where she would stand, a couple of feet away, least expecting to find her. And, there she was! In a pista green salwar-kameez, already looking at me! Even as I was trying to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, she almost came running to me and said:

‘Hi, I had been away, been to my hometown. My Grandpa was sick and I wanted to be by his side..” she gasped, looking directly into my eyes. And then, she calmed down.

“Harish,” I smiled, and extended my hand.

“Maya,” she said and blushed, as she put her hand into mine.

Updates on Spark

2010-03-08T11:43:00.003+05:30

Hi there,

Ok, this is about Spark yet again. For those readers of this blog interested in the literary magazine, monthly updates on Spark will now be available on the sidebar. So, keep checking!

I hope to follow this up with a story or something. Let's see! :)

I love telling stories..

2010-02-09T10:34:00.004+05:30

It's been five years since I began blogging. It is interesting to note that this blog got out the storyteller in me! Much of my initial blog posts were more personal or non-fiction rather than stories and somewhere in the middle, my storytelling instincts woke up and the result, I ended up even changing the name of my blog to "The storyteller's hut".

And I have realized, over the days, I have only grown more and more fond of writing stories - aiming to keep them simple and writing plots that readers can relate to. Each time that I have written a story, I have tried to see things from the perspective of my characters, felt what they would feel, wrote what they would have thought and spoken. In certain cases, i.e., stories that have stayed very close to my heart, I have even had that hangover of the theme and setup lasting within me for days together! For me, my stories are a different world altogether - one that I travel to once in a while and feel refreshed and come back! :)

And so, for those who are interested, here is a compilation of the short stories I have written so far on this blog!

And well, this blog has also inspired me to aspire for something more - to reach out for something higher - the result : Spark. The February issue is out and the theme is Romance. Please visit http://sparkthemag.wordpress.com, where many other writers and bloggers have joined me in creating a magazine brimming with creativity! If you love it, don't forget to subscribe to the mag!

Good day!

Three more days to go!!

2010-01-02T10:24:00.003+05:30

Well, yeah..three more days to go...Hit this link and get ready for a pleasant surprise that starts on the 05th of Jan 2010!

Visit http://sparkthemag.wordpress.com to subscribe and ensure that you don't miss it!!

Mothers and daughters

2009-08-10T16:45:00.008+05:30

#1

Her tears make their way out. Jhanavi doesn’t bother to hold herself. She is watching that movie for the hundredth time and still the tears during the interval are as fresh as the first time.
“Jhanavi, come on, you are such a cry baby!” sniggers Chacko.
“Oh Chacko, you idiot, just get lost!” Jhanavi retorts, sniffing into a tissue she pulls off from the holder on the center table.
“ok, ok, fine,” Chacko ruffles her hair and hangs on for a second longer. Jhanavi flushes, visibly. She is seated on the carpet, her left leg tucked in and right leg stretched out. He is sitting by her side.

Abhimanyu sits in the bean bag, nibbling a bowl of microwaved popcorn. He has been sitting there since half way through the movie, only to watch the songs and dance sequences. The story has never held his interest.

The bell rings. Chacko quickly takes his hand off Jhanavi’s head. Jhanavi gestures to Abhimanyu. Go, open the door. Abhimanyu struggles to get out of the pit he has worked himself into and drags himself to the door.

“Ma,” he cries joyously, as he opens the door and hugs the woman in a crisply starched lavender Bengal Cotton saree. Leela is on the mobile phone and as she speaks, pats Abhimanyu on his head. He walks on with her into the living room.
“That’s good news, Rajiv, the food retailer’s contract is a big win for us.” She smiles a half smile, speaking over the phone. “I think you should be flying to the U.K. in a month’s time to discuss the details.”

She cuts the call and looks Jhanavi and Chacko’s way. Jhanavi smiles. Chacko is up on his feet.
“Ma, Chacko; I mean Goutam Chakraborthy, I have told you about him,”
Chacko bows and waves, quite theatrically. Leela smiles. “Nice to meet you,” she says, “carry on with the movie” and walks in, her fourteen year old boy tagging along.

She heads to the dining room and as she does, looks into the bedroom to the left. Vaidehi is busy looking through rows of audio tapes. The ten year old two-in-one is playing something – to the best that it can for its age. Vaidehi quickly turns and finding Leela there, flashes a smile.
“Abhi, come here,” Vaidehi says looking at Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu runs into his granny’s room.

“Subadhra,” Leela calls out. “Is everything ready?”
“Almost done, Memsaab,” Subadhra emerges from the kitchen wiping her hands in her apron.
“Saab has not come still?” Leela asks.
“No memsaab.”
“hmm..ok, get me a cup of coffee,” she says, seating herself on one of the chairs in the dining room. Subadhra disappears into the kitchen again.
It is a quiet Sunday. Although Leela would have preferred to spend the evening alone, reading a book, especially after visiting office, there is a small get-together planned for the evening.

Fourteen years ago, this very day, her son had come into their world. But, instead of smiles and laughter and looking forward to happy times, there had been uncertainty, anxiety and gloom. The baby hadn’t cried when he was born. A month later Leela and her husband, Subramaniam, had learnt the bitter truth that they had been destined to bring up a Down’s syndrome child.

Abhimanyu hardly asked for anything. The birthday party scheduled for the day had been one of his rare requests. It had come up when the family was having dinner the previous Sunday.
“Abhi, you know it’s your birthday next Sunday, What do you want?” Jhanavi had asked him.
Abhimanyu had dropped his spoon and looked at his mom and dad.
“Appa, I want cake,” he had spoken one of his rare sentences.
“Amma, Bablu, Rahul, Ammu, Archu, …” he had recollected all his friends at the special school and said, “will come.”
“Akka, I want red pen.”

Leela sips her coffee and looks at her watch. It shows half past three. She calls Subramaniam and puts the phone on speaker mode.
“Mani,” she says after a while, “still at the academy?”
“Yes. I will be back in half an hour,” he says.
“We won the U.K. contract,” she smiles tiredly as she says.
“Oh, good news. I will be back soon.”

She hangs up. The dining table is a good vantage point. She can partly see her mother’s bedroom. Vaidehi is playing yet another tape. Abhimanyu is still in the room, leafing through his grandma’s bound long size notebook into which she often wrote something. Leela had always thought that Vaidehi was writing swarams for the keerthanais she listened to from the tapes.

In the living room, she catches Jhanavi and Chacko continuing with the movie. She finishes her coffee and walks towards them.
“Jhanu,” she calls, “have you folks had something to eat?”
Jhanavi turns, startled a bit, in being stirred out of the dream world she had slipped into.
“Yes ma, we finished lunch.”
“Hmm, so you are here for the party, aren’t you?” Leela asks Chacko politely.
“Ah well, am sorry aunty, I have promised my friends I will go out with them for a movie at 6. Am sorry I can’t join in.”

As Chacko talks, Leela doesn’t quite like his insouciance, not to mention those curls that rest carelessly on his shoulders. She sees her daughter’s eyes gleam with admiration and perhaps, what the twenty-year old thought as love. Whenever Jhanavi spoke of Chacko, one of the five finalists along with her in the extremely popular music talent hunt show on Q TV, Leela had, much to her distaste, always sensed a palpable attraction. In fact, the so-called chemistry between the two had been exploited enough by the TV channel to lift the TRP ratings of the show. It was all over the channel’s website too.

Leela suddenly realizes that she has been staring at Chacko for a while. She quickly touches her forehead and says, “Doesn’t matter, get some coffee, the two of you.”
“No, thanks, aunty, I am leaving right away,” says Chacko. “I gotta get going.”
“And Jhanu, you need to get ready fast. The guests will start coming in by 5.30.”
Leela then enters her mother’s room. As she had imagined, Abhimanyu is seated on his grandmother’s bed, looking into Vaidehi’s notebook.
“Amma,” Leela says, “I think we all need to get ready. Why don’t you wear that dark blue silk saree?”
Vaidehi nods.
“Abhi, come over, we need to hurry up!”
Vaidehi pats the boy and Abhimanyu obliges, walks out of the room with his mother.

#2

Vaidehi observes that the living room has been decorated, not overly, but cheerful enough for a birthday party. Her granddaughter, Jhanavi, had taken care to do that in the morning with some help from the security. There are colorful balloons, color papers and a happy birthday banner with Abhimanyu’s favourite cartoons in the background.

Vaidehi opens her cupboard, trying to look for that dark blue silk saree. That’s what she had worn on her last ever professional concert. That had been seven years back. Ever since her husband passed away, she had stopped giving concerts in public.

She locates the dark blue silk saree. She grasps it in her hands and sits down at the edge of her bed. She closes her eyes and for a moment, she hears the thunderous applause. She can see the standing ovation she had received on one of her December season concerts right in front of her eyes.

She clearly remembers that the crowd had stood up for her rendition of Govardhana Giridhara in Darbaari Kaanada. She smiles at the thought of even the toughest of critics praising her as the queen of Darbaari Kaanada and Dwijavanthi.

Vaidehi Raman. Fifty three years back, as a girl of sixteen, when she had given her first public Carnatic recital at the local temple in Trichy, she had hardly known what path her musical journey would take. Vaidehi had never failed to thank the Gods and her stars – for giving her a gifted voice and of course, a very supportive husband. Raman, who hailed from Thiruvayaru, had love for music stamped in every cell of his body. After all, he belonged to the place where Saint Thyagaraja, who forms the Trinity of Carnatic music along with Syama Shastry and Muthuswami Dikshithar, composed some of his best compositions.

Surprisingly, Raman had not taken to music as was expected of him. He had been happier with his textile business that he ran in Madras and happiest supporting his wife’s musical career. What more did Vaidehi need? With Raman by her side and lady luck smiling down on her, fame had come rushing to her and opportunities had embraced her like their twin sister. Vaidehi’s hands had always stayed full. She had had enough concerts and music classes to attend to.

As she recalls the good old days - her golden period, Vaidehi also thinks of Leela. Her only daughter, who in colorful silk skirts and long plaits used to run about their house, had given her enough reason to worry. The girl, Vaidehi sighs, as she thinks of how much she had worried back then about her daughter not showing feasible interest in Carnatic music.

Those days, even as she had every reason to smile, Vaidehi had often been troubled by one question - didn’t Leela inherit at least a fraction of her genes? The girl had been a rebel, truly, for she had flatly refused to learn the art that the world praised her mother for. After two years of futile training, Vaidehi had given up mentoring her daughter. The little girl, on the other hand, was happiest pulling out books from her father’s library. She had decided her path would be different. And it hadn’t stopped with that. Vaidehi recalls how Leela went without food to win her parents’ approval for studying in the U.K.

But Raman had not been for it. Vaidehi, obviously, had not been for it as well. Marriage had been the best option they could think of. And that’s when destiny had sent them a wonderful solution. Subramaniam, as a young, charming man of 27, had come down from Bombay to play the violin for Vaidehi for some of her December season concerts that year. The fellow had everything Leela’s parents had wanted in their prospective son-in-law. What’s more, Subramaniam had liked Leela too. As for Vaidehi, she had been only too happy to bring music into her family through her son-in-law if not her daughter. The young man had just begun but he was full of promise.

A totally frustrated Leela had married Subramaniam in a grand wedding with business magnets and eminent Carnatic musicians attending the event. Then, she had left for Bombay, feeling bitter and angry.

#3

The clock shows it is exactly half past four. Leela is looking through her wardrobe deciding on what to wear for the evening. She chooses a peach color chicken work saree.

“Nice saree, that. I have always liked it,” Leela turns to see Subramaniam standing near the entrance to their bedroom. He is leaning against the door, hands folded.

Leela smiles and says, “And sir, I am sure you have decided on that cream kurta, haven’t you?”
“Smart,” says Subramaniam nodding, “not surprising coming from a successful businesswoman like you.” He winks. Leela pinches him gently as he settles down on the bed.

“So, is Rajiv going over to the U.K. for finalizing the project details?” he asks.
“Hmm, yes..” Leela mutters as she combs her hair.

Leela had hardly any clue on what her life would be when she had landed in Bombay as a newly-wed wife, even as her head was brimming with ideas on what all she wanted to do. Subramaniam’s mother had passed away two years before their marriage and she had joined her husband and father-in-law as the third member of the family. She had felt so angry towards her mother for she thought Vaidehi had achieved what she had wanted to through her daughter. She had felt so furious that she had vowed she would not travel to Madras again. The fury so typical of the young; it had raged in her like a fire that could never be doused. Add to that, an orthodox father-in-law, she hardly had any idea where her future was going.

And yet, she had remained a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law, cooking and serving food religiously, performing pujas regularly, and running the household dutifully, all the while, writing, erasing, and re-writing career plans within her head. She was not the one to give up that easily. Subramaniam had quite a few things to do – concerts now and then, violin classes, and a job at a nationalized bank.

One night, a year into their marriage, she had told Subramaniam, “You know I came into this city with lot of dreams. And, I don’t want them to go down the drain.”
The next day, Subramaniam had spoken to his father and Leela had followed it up, explaining very politely to her father-in-law that she did not want her talents to go waste.

Soon, she was teaching history and geography at a school in Matunga, where they lived. Two years later, Jhanavi had arrived into their world. Leela was no doubt, overjoyed. She had felt that Jhanavi was the most beautiful living being in the entire planet. She had vowed she would do anything for her. Raman and Vaidehi had come down too to see their little one’s little one.

Leela had not been sure of how to react to her parents’ arrival, particularly her mother. Although Subramaniam had gone to Madras twice in the last three years, Leela had refused to accompany him. Her parents, busy with their own chores, had not come to Bombay either. Leela had only been too happy to be at Bombay – away from all the limelight of being Vaidehi’s daughter, away from irritating questions like, why haven’t you pursued music as a career. The thought of managers (some balding) from various sabhas who bothered her with meaningless questions when coming down to their home for dates, had irked her beyond description. She had somehow always felt that her mother had not been there for her, when she had needed her most – a thought that Vaidehi had never really thought for Leela- a thought that had left her feeling extremely melancholic. In Bombay, she had a life, how much ever insignificant, a life that she had carved for herself.

After Jhanavi’s birth, Leela had readily quit her job. She had wanted to give her child the attention she needed. All the same, she had worked out a plan to keep her career going. She had begun taking tuitions at home. To begin with, she had only two students from the neighbourhood. The number hadn’t deterred her. Leela had spent her spare time writing notes for her two students. Much to her delight, the notes had become hugely popular a few months later and soon she was busy, circulating copies of those and of course making money out of it.

And somewhere in between, a little after her father-in-law’s death, the year Jhanavi had turned four, Subramaniam had come back from work one day and told Leela about his bank’s 50th anniversary celebrations. The bank had planned to announce various deposit and lending schemes and not to mention, lucky dips, and was contemplating on popularizing the same. Leela had quietly managed to work out a handmade brochure for the same out of sheer interest, and one fine morning, had shown it to her husband.

Subramaniam had been pleasantly surprised. He had taken it with him to office the next day and had shown it to his immediate boss. How true it is that life flows. Sometimes, things that seem most insignificant at a particular point in time, lead one to the most significant changes in one’s life. The same way, what had appeared very significant some time, may by all means turn out to be very trivial at a later point. For Leela, the brochure had been one such insignificant point in her life that turned out to draw out the businesswoman in her. Call it luck or destiny, or both, the brochure had made its way to the boards of all branches of the bank and Leela had even earned a commission for the job.

Six years after Jhanavi’s birth, Leela had set up a small office in their house, with five people to assist her. She had done brochure assignments for another bank and a local departmental store. Not just that, she had also involved herself in publicizing campaigns for two non-profit organizations. Those were perhaps the most crucial years of her business building exercise. She had taken seriously to building contacts, spreading the word about the things her small company could do. She had decided to go slow but steady. After all, she had to juggle the work at hand, the family, and also devise new strategies. The same time, Subramaniam was busy drawing up his plans to set up an academy dedicated to conducting violin classes, workshops, and discussion forums. The couple had saved money religiously, least hesitating to be frugal and being very sure that they would not take monetary help from any relatives or friends.

From then on, they had walked closer to their individual dreams, faltering occasionally, but never giving up. It is the kind of story that would read as a fairy tale on paper – the “and they lived happily ever after” sorts. Subramaniam’s academy and Leela’s firm did come up. But, hard work and persistence were the virtues that had seen them through. For Leela, Abhimanyu’s birth had particularly been a challenge. Dealing with a mentally challenged child had been a true test to her both physically and mentally. Her business plans had taken a backseat for the initial two years after his birth, when the couple had been trying to come to terms with what they had to do about their son. Yet, she had persevered and bounced back, never wasting a moment. She had stayed at home, doing an MBA in marketing through distance learning and had also attended computer classes. Much against her own wishes, she had hired a full-time caretaker to take care of her children, while she tried to find her feet.

The rest as they say, had been history. Leela had grown to become the founder and director of The Right Word Content Providers, employing about eighty people with two offices – one in Bombay and the other in Bangalore. Her team of MBAs, software engineers, literature graduates and web designers designed brochures, websites, corporate newsletters, annual reports and email-based marketing appeals to a diverse client base including non-profit organizations.
After all, Leela had carefully chosen the tagline “Tell us your dreams. We will give them wings with our words.” to promote her company.

#4

It is about 8 by the time the last of the guests move out. The family is exhausted. Subadhra is busy cleaning up the post-party mess. Leela calls out to Jhanavi to help the maid. Jhanavi obliges. Abhimanyu seems extremely happy. Leela tells him to run up to his room.
“We will open the gifts tomorrow. You should change and sleep now,” she tells him. The boy hesitates, nevertheless walks slowly to his room. Jhanavi is on the phone even as she is cleaning up the dining room.
“Yeah, it all went fine,” Leela hears her speaking. Must be that Chacko fellow, she thinks.
“Leela,” it is Vaidehi, who calls her, from the entrance to her room. “Can you come over for a few minutes?”
Leela is surprised. Such requests from her mother were rare. She walks into the room.
“Come here, sit down,” Vaidehi says.
“What happened Amma?”
“Nothing, I just felt like talking to you today,” she says. “You know you look very nice today. This saree suits you so well,” she continues to Leela who is sitting next to her on her bed.
“I am glad you wore the dark blue saree I told you to.”
Vaidehi smiles and nods.
“You are worried, aren’t you?” she asks Leela. Leela is surprised. A puzzled look crosses her face.
“Worried, why should I be? I am fine Amma.”
“Dear, I am your mother and I know.”
Leela falls silent.
“Don’t worry about the children. They will be fine,” she says.
Leela sits quietly.
“I saw you when the special children sang Happy Birthday to Abhimanyu. I saw your tears.”
Leela looks up. Her eyes are moist. Vaidehi presses her hand gently.

"I understand Leela. It is a mother’s fear. I will also tell you this. I know you are old enough to know how life works. But sometimes, we become immature beings in that we fail to see our lives in practical light. We worry unnecessarily about things that we have absolutely no control of. I do know Abhi worries you beyond words. But, Leela, you need to face his future as it is. Don’t worry. Life will offer its own solutions at every stage.”
Leela smiles. “Thanks Amma, I feel so much better.”
“Amma, can I ask you something?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you been angry with me that Mani and I had not even bothered to ask you and appa to come and stay with us? I mean, we got you here only after appa’s death.”
Vaidehi presses Leela’s hand a little more.
“Not at all. We had our own things to attend to in Madras. You know it didn’t even occur to us that we should perhaps come and stay with you. We were happier off coming and seeing you now and then. In fact, I agreed to come and stay with you after your father’s death only because you insisted.”
Leela nods. "You couldn’t have managed alone, Amma. I knew it.”
“Perhaps.”
“Can I ask you something?” Vaidehi asks.
“Hmm?”
“Did you hate me for what I did to you when you wanted to go to the U.K.?”
Leela looks at her mother.
“I don’t know if I would call it hate. But, I felt bitter towards you and I am ashamed now that I thought like that back then. What a rebel, I had been.”
Vaidehi continues looking at Leela and speaks again.
“You know sometimes, especially in the years that I have come to stay with you, I have often thought that I had perhaps been quite imposing when you were young. Trying to get you to agree to my ways. Got you married when you didn’t want it at all. I am not sure if I had been selfish. I left you with your grandmother when you were small, while I was busy with concerts.”
Leela is surprised at this dialogue with her mother. Why were they suddenly talking these things? Maybe the most wonderful, satisfying, and revealing of conversations are those that are unplanned - those that happen just like that.

“Amma,” she says, “Much of what you had done did not seem too correct to me at that time. But, when I became a mother, life gently lifted the veil. I saw what it meant to be a mother and how our perceptions change once one becomes a mother. I remember I used to long for some moments with you, but I landed up hiring a caretaker for my children to attend to my career. I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter thought I had been selfish. But, I was desperate to not let go of the chances I had and what I was capable of. I did my best to be with my children, just as you did. It is just that for children what parents think as enough may actually not be enough.”

“The other thing I have learnt is that,” she continues, “knowingly or unknowingly mothers do things that end up as being good for their children. Here’s something I had wanted to tell you all these years. You asked me whether I was angry that you got me married off. Yes, I was fuming, to say the least. But by doing what you did, you gave me a new lease of life. The new place did so much good to me that it has led me to where I am today. So much so that worries such as whether you had been selfish or I had been angry mean very little now.”

Leela then gets off the bed and rests her head on her mother’s lap. Vaidehi pats her.
“Amma, I know you still wish I had taken to Carnatic music. I am sorry I didn’t live up to your dreams.”
“Silly girl,” Vaidehi says, “I thought you just said these things didn’t matter anymore. I have seen you grow to what you are now, dear, and it fills me with pride. I am proud that I am a mother of a self-made businesswoman. You have taken after your father. And don’t worry, my granddaughter has my genes,” she laughs gently, “Jhanu is a wonderful singer and it doesn’t matter she lost in the finals of that show. She will go places. I can see it.”

Leela laughs. “Oh, she has some of my genes as well. That girl, what plans she has! She works part time in a bookstore, just to read up books. She wants to become a singer, wants to open her own bookstore, and also plans to write novels!”
Vaidehi laughs. “I suppose all of us carry a part of our mothers within us. Don’t we?” she asks.
“Yes, maybe. I think my hard work and perseverance that people often praise me for are what I have taken from you. But, I am also worried that Jhanavi has the rebel side of me in her. I mean..”she stops.
“Hmm..” Vaidehi pauses, “don’t worry about her Leela. The girl will come out of what she is into. She will learn things soon. She is a good girl. This is just a passing phase.”
Leela smiles and lifts her head. Her face looks relaxed. “I think you need to sleep. It’s late. Have you had your medicines?”
“Oh yes, I will now,” Vaidehi says, “tomorrow I need to rearrange these cassettes.” She waves her hand in the air, pointing towards the rows and rows of cassettes.
“Goodnight,” Leela says as she leaves the room.
“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

#5

Leela switches on the bed lamp as she enters her bedroom.
“Long conversation with mama, eh?” asks Subramaniam.
“Mani,” Leela almost jumps, “you are still awake?”
“Yes, I was waiting for you to come over.”
“Hmm..yes, a fulfilling conversation with her,” she says and turns off the light.

The next morning Leela wakes up to realize that her mother never woke up after she went to sleep in the night. She is startled at the triviality of life. Just last night, her mother had spoken so well. Leela feels giddy. Yet, thinking about it, she feels her mother had a good death. She strongly believes that it is the bhakthi that Vaidehi had unfailingly fused into her music that had blessed her with a good end. The newspapers down south carry tributes for the renowned Vaidehi Raman. Two national news channels feature a one minute documentary on her. Leela decides that their own house in Madras where she and her parents had lived should be converted to a memorial for her parents.

#6

April 18, 2008, 11:30 PM. It is a month since Vaidhehi’s death and it is one of those days when life has slowly begun to resume its usual pace in the Subramaniam household.

Leela sits in the living room and has a worried expression on her face. Subramaniam is telling her to calm down.
“Mani, I am really worried. The girl’s phone is switched off. I have tried speaking to three of her friends. She isn’t there in any of their places. She usually leaves the bookstore by seven. Should we call the police?”
“No, Leela. Let’s not hurry this up. We will invite unnecessary attention if we go to the police. Let’s keep trying her number.”
Leela starts walking up and down the living room. She stops mid-way once.
God, Mani. Has someone kidnapped her? I am really tensed.”
Subramaniam tries to stay calm even as his insides are churning because of tension. He doesn’t answer Leela and keeps looking at the telephone. What if some crook calls to tell them about their daughter.

Subhadra is standing by the kitchen door looking worried. “Memsaab, can I ask my husband to go around and see if he can spot her somewhere?”
Leela considers the maid’s suggestion. Mani intervenes. “Let’s give it another twenty minutes.”

About ten minutes later, the door bell rings. Leela rushes to the door and opens it.

Jhanavi walks in, looking tired but resolute. There are beads of sweat on her forehead. Even before Leela can say anything, Jhanavi dumps her bag on the sofa and walks straight to her room and shuts the door.

Leela and Subramaniam exchange glances. Leela slumps into the bean bag.

#7

Jhanavi leans against the shut door of her bedroom, slides and sits down hugging her knees. Tears begin streaming down her face. She examines her perfectly manicured fingers – those ten fingers that Chacko had kissed incessantly at his flat just two hours ago. Jhanavi had felt giddy with fear and excitement when he had taken each of them to his lips. He had run his long fingers through her hair as they sat on the sofa looking through a magazine.

And that’s when he had reached down to her pink shirt, trying to unbutton it. And it was precisely that moment Jhanavi had felt that she was really standing at the edge of a cliff. She had felt a sudden shiver. Suddenly, she had thought of her mother and the fight they had about Chacko a week back. In a totally unexpected move, she had pushed aside Chacko’s hand and slapped him on his face. Being the man that he was, Chacko had quickly and firmly grabbed Jhanavi by her hands and pinned her down to the sofa. The fellow had drunk quite heavily and Jhanavi had kicked him on his stomach. As he fell, she had jumped off the sofa, opened the main door and run out, not stopping till she reached the taxi stand outside.

Jhanavi looks down on the bruises in her hands. She walks up to the rest room, washes her face and combs her hair. Then, she opens her bedroom door and looks out. Leela and Subramaniam are still in the living room – both appearing frantically worried. Jhanavi walks up to Leela.
“Amma,” she says, sitting down next to her near the bean bag, “don’t worry, everything is fine. I am not going to see that fellow again.” She rests her head on her mother’s lap.

Leela sighs and pats her daughter’s head and looks at Subramaniam. Subramaniam nods and smiles. Leela knows what her husband means.
“Don’t worry. Everything is going to be just fine.”
"Yes," she thinks, "everything is going to be fine."

To Tennis and Roger, with love..

2009-07-06T16:59:00.004+05:30

What a match it was! Roger Federer at last won the epic final that lasted over four hours – his 7th Wimbledon Championship pursuit in which he had so much at stake. And he did it, - broke Pete Sampras’ record as the holder of maximum Grand Slam titles, became one of the few players to have won the French Open and the Wimbledon in the same season and of course regained the prized No. 1 spot. At the end of it all, he was smiling politely, no fuss, no tears – kissing the cup, perhaps the most coveted of all slams.

Of course, I haven't forgotten the other man in the game – the other gladiator as they called him. Andy Roddick with his spirit to fight on, to see his name up there in the list of winners, was so powerful with his serves and gave Federer, truly, a run for his money and claim to fame. Andy reminds me so much of those fierce fighters of the past. Michael Chang, the short little guy, with small eyes, but a big determination to make opponents feel that every penny they earned was well worth the effort! And forget not, the Spaniard, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and the lovely Monica Seles whose grit was responsible for some of the finest three-setters in women’s singles.

I loved the Sunday’s men’s finals for yet another reason – for the fine display of sportsmanship. Andy Roddick accepted defeat gracefully and Pete Sampras landed up at the Wimbledon after seven years, to watch and appreciate his record being broken.

Tennis is such a wonderful sport. Ask a die-hard fan like me. It isn’t a love affair just for the players but also for the millions who follow the game with such ardent devotion. Tennis is many things in one. It’s about ego, anger, tranquility, patience, sportsmanship, eccentricities, fashion, endorsements, victories, defeats, fame, obscurity, and records.

I was delighted to rediscover the joys of watching a good final yesterday night. I haven’t watched a tennis match in many, many months now, a sad fact – considering that as a girl of fifteen I used to follow the sport so closely. I have always been and still am a big of fan of Pete Sampras, but I should also admit that I used to have a very crush-like liking for the big serving Croatian player, Goran Ivanesevic. With him, what comes to mind is the changing looks of players and of course, their foul temper.

I used to like him with his clean-shaven face and one fine day, he sported a goatee in one of the matches. I really felt like running up to him and telling him, please take that nasty thing off your face! Somehow, the interest in him kind of fizzled out, particularly with his habit of spitting on court!! And yeah, I vaguely remember that he used to lose his temper quite too often!

Talking of emotions on court, we had the very sentimental Andre Agassi, who wept when he won. And as we speak of Agassi, I can immediately think of Steffi Graf, the usually cool player, who fumed after suffering a shocking first round loss in Wimbledon in 1994. The unconquerable defending champion, Graf, lost to Lori McNeil and left the court seething! After all, it isn’t so easy to accept defeat, particularly if you are the queen of the sport! And well, haven’t we heard much about John McEnroe’s temper tantrums?

On the other hand, Pete Sampras has been one of the cooler sorts. In many ways, I find Pete and Roger so similar. They hang on patiently, appear calm, even as matches grow challenging. At best, I have seen Sampras sticking out his tongue, which I assume he did to release the mounting tension! With Federer, I suppose he wipes his brows every now and then! In Sunday’s final, it is perhaps this stay-calm attitude, what I would call the Champion material that gave Federer the edge, despite the fact that Andy Roddick played a better game at many points in the match. Towards the end of the final set, one could see Andy getting worn out and close to giving up. Federer hung on and waited for that one point and it did arrive, finally!

Well, tennis is just not about emotions. What’s the sport without a word on the ever changing looks of players? Sometimes it is a pony tail and at others, it is a close cut – men or women. Andre Agassi and Boris Becker used to sport long hair once upon a time and then one day, Agassi arrived with his head fully shaved and Boris had a neat hair cut! And don’t I distantly remember seeing Martina Navratilova with long hair and then a boy cut? (or am I imagining it?;))

And without a trace of doubt, tennis is a showcase of fashion. The names almost flash immediately – Gabriela Sabatini, Mary Pierce, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova – these ladies have remained fashion models in every way, prompting sports journalists to turn the sports page lead stories into poetic pieces!

Well, then, there is the darker side to the sport too. Promising stars who unfortunately faded away. Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Mark Phillippousis, and Monica Seles. Sometimes, life is indeed cruel and unfair.

From some of the finest moments to the heart-wrenching ones, the world of tennis indeed is a journey. A journey in which legends are born and records are created, records that are indeed meant to be broken. Yet, the history makers continue to remain history makers.

And dear Federer, you have just found your place in history. Rock on!

Jasmine memories

2009-06-12T13:25:00.000+05:30

It is a quiet Friday morning. Sitting by the window in his bedroom, Sankaran watches the street bustling with activity. Men hurrying to work, children walking to school, and women, busy with their daily chores – some sending off their husbands and children, a few rushing to work themselves, some getting back from the temple. He also sees the old men and women warming up their feet for the day. Even as the world goes on with its life at a hectic pace, Sankaran has very little to do, at least that morning.

“Vasu..” he calls out, “Get me coffee.”

A retired man, sitting in a house that he has proudly called his own in the last 30 years, Sankaran lets his memories take charge – a sort of planned indulgence for the morning.

He recollects the story that saw its beginning almost four decades back.

The year was 1970. The start to Sankaran’s married life had been somewhat reel-life like. He had spotted Vasundhara in his family friend Swami’s wedding. The bride, Neela, was Swami’s classmate. Swami was about eight years younger to him and Sankaran’s mother hadn’t failed to remind him then that it was high time he got married as well. As was his practice in those days, Sankaran had simply kept mum. Marriage had never interested him, till of course he had landed his eyes on that young girl, who had fluttered around in Swami’s wedding.

When Sankaran saw Vasu, he had realized that he desperately wanted to live with the girl, only with her. It was as if some divine hand had pulled the strings of the so-long dormant bell inside his heart. Vasu was dressed in a mango-yellow, green-border silk saree that day. She had worn her thick black hair in a single plait that ran well below her waist, and had decorated it with dense strings of jasmine. Sankaran’s eyes had followed her wherever she went, as she laughed around with a bunch of people – whom he had presumed to be cousins or friends.

Within a week from the wedding, Sankaran had discovered that her name was Vasundara and that she was the daughter of a retired teacher in Triplicane. He had also found out that she was Swami and Neela’s classmate at the Presidency College, Chennai. Exactly a week from the day he had seen her, Sankaran’s mother had met Vasu’s parents, exchanged horoscopes and soon, he had visited her place, for the official girl-seeing.

Vasu’s dad had been exceptionally impressed with Sankaran. After all, he held a masters degree in Physics, a big thing in those days. Add to that, a cozy government job, and who wouldn’t have been impressed?

Sankaran could still remember how his mother had beamed, proud of her son’s choice, when Vasu came around with coffee and snacks. It seemed like she was quietly celebrating the fact that Sankaran’s refusal to marry all those days had indeed been for a good ending.

He had married his dream girl exactly a month from that day. During their first night together, he had been visibly nervous. When Vasu had stepped in, he had felt a strange feeling surge through his body. Her beauty had had that narcotic effect on him. Sankaran had slowly and hesitantly moved his hand to hold hers, but she had quickly withdrawn, looked at him straight and said, “I need time.”

All he had said in reply was, “ok, I understand.”

A voice interrupts Sankaran’s train of thoughts. It is Varshini, his first daughter. “Appa, Coffee.” Sankaran nods. Varshini looks around the room, glances her father’s way and quickly leaves.

Sankaran places the cup of coffee on the wooden table next to the bed. It is his wife’s writing desk – been one for years. A scratch pad is left open and pens and pencils lie scattered around. There is a picture of Vasu and him, smiling gently, feeling totally at ease, framed and placed at the right corner. There are few of Vasu’s books – books of her favorite authors – in the small rack above. He had got that designed for her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The desk looks a typical writer’s desk. A reflection of his wife’s deepest love, her nature at the very core that she had tried to preserve over the years. After all, she had been a literature student.

Sankaran runs his fingers over the table, they tremble slightly and he breaks into a sweat. The house is quiet. The radio is not on. This is the time Vasu usually visits the temple. But, not that day.

Two weeks back, before leaving for the temple, Vasu had, as was the routine, placed the filter coffee for him in a duvrah tumbler on the table and turned. The next thing Sankaran had heard was a thud and she was on the floor. He had rushed to her side – and grabbed her into his arms. But, the life in her eyes had ebbed out and a glazed look had taken over, as he held her helplessly. Her lips had worn a vague smile and were slightly parted. Perhaps she had wanted to utter Shanka, for one last time.

It was a massive heart attack – the second one in six months.

Slowly, Sankaran gathers himself and walks back to the window.

His wife’s death was the biggest challenge that life had thrown at him. What was he to do - He still had not stopped calling her for coffee. The last few days had indeed been difficult. Her absence had been painful and he had found it almost impossible to cope.

As he absent mindedly sips the coffee, Sankaran recollects how women had always played a crucial role in his life. His dad had passed away when he was too young to even comprehend death; forget that, even distinguish between presence and absence. His mother had been his world, till he had seen Vasu. With his mother still alive and Vasu gone, he had come face to face with the harsh reality of the death of a dear one – try how much ever he could not accept it gracefully.

Sankaran recalls how Vasu was different. She had always enjoyed the company of men. Vasu’s best world had always featured them. In fact, she had agreed to their marriage for the sole reason that her father, her role model, was thoroughly impressed with Sankaran. What’s more – Swami had been her best friend. He had always visited the Sankarans at least twice a week, for their homes were just two streets apart.

Not just that, while Sankaran felt the proudest father after Varshini and Haasini’s birth, Vasu had insisted that she wanted a third child. “I need a son to prank around with,” she had said and her belief had come true. With Sashank, their lives, more importantly hers, had come a full circle.

Sankaran had always felt that his wife’s beauty had a particular boldness and her character, a certain firmness – one that would attract men. Her sharp eyes along with her graceful appearance had always remained a deadly combination.

It was that very boldness that had given her character a defiant touch – the woman who had said a no to his approach in the beginning.

Yet, Sankaran could never forget that one particular night, when they had sat in the balcony, gazing at stars, while Haasini and Varshini slept inside. It was that time he had popped a question.
“Vasu, I had wanted to ask you this when I came to see you at your house for the first time, but we never had the chance to speak.”

She had turned around, a little surprised,
“hmm..what is it?”

“What do you think about marriage?” he had asked matter-of-factly.

Vasu had taken his hand into hers, a rare gesture – and had told him – marriage was about boundless love, unquestioning faith, and accepting each other’s eccentricities as much as their lovable traits. “Marriage is you and me,” she had said.

Sankaran had found her soft nature so wonderful, so refreshingly different from her often bold self. He had even wished she stayed like that always. But, he had quickly dismissed that idea for it was these rare displays of her demure side that had made her real personality all the more beautiful.

Yet, she had transformed, through all those years of their being together. The reason, he had never been sure of. But, Sankaran could remember a few instances, when she had been as tender as she could get. The change had happened slowly in those in-between years of listening to Binaca Geet Mala huddled together(Khilte Hain Gul Yahaan had been their favourite, one that had sparked the first act of love between them), of secretly dancing together for “Unnidam Mayangugiren”(Vasu had taught the shy Sankaran to shake his leg), of becoming parents and feeling responsible for the lives of their children – and till her last day, Sankaran’s sweet gesture of buying jasmine strings for her almost every other day. (Jasmine and her husband’s move used to melt her each time and she had never failed to reveal that to Sankaran by looking straight into his eyes and beaming a divine smile.)

“Sankara..”, someone calls out. It is Swami. He gently puts a hand on Sankaran’s shoulder.
“How are you?”
Sankaran smiles and sighs. Nods.
“When are the kids leaving?”
“Varshini is going to be here for a week with her sons. Haasini is leaving tomorrow for Bangalore. Sashank has to get back to work on Monday. He is flying to Bombay on Sunday. Both of them have told me that they would visit me soon.”

Swami presses Sankaran’s hand.
“I have something for you.”

Swami hands over a white envelope with the words “For Mr.Sankaran” written in bright green ink. “It is from Karthi,” Swami informs him. “He left for the U.S. today morning.”

Sankaran is surprised.
Swami turns to leave. He stops near the door. “Sankara,” he hesitates, “any help please ask me.”

Sankaran raises his hand to acknowledge. He looks at the envelope. Karthikeyan had visited their house three days after Vasu’s death. Swami had introduced him as their – his and Vasu’s classmate at college.

He opens the envelope and finds a few pages clipped together. He immediately recognizes the handwriting. It is Vasu’s.

*****
30th March 2008
Mylapore, Chennai

Karthi,

It’s been 38 years. Yes, I have broken the promise. I asked Swami about you yesterday. I know you didn’t, all these years, which is why I have always been proud of you. You kept your word and that is one of the many reasons why I love the man you are. Wait a while till I tell you why am finally writing to you.

Don’t ironies rule our lives? Remember what our dear friend Swami had said on the day he had wedded our darling Neela? He was so sure that the next wedding would be ours – you and me – Karthikeyan weds Vasundara. Ah, those remained just words. The other irony – the poor fellow had said he would come to the marriage with his son. Those beautiful souls have been so unlucky. They haven’t had a kid and continue to be each other’s child. And the third irony, I have two men in my life – one who did not marry because of me and the other who married because of me.

Life is such a weird experience, you know, Karthi. It wants to keep us on our toes, keep guessing what’s going to come up next. It often tests our ability to stay balanced through happiness and sorrow. Of course, it is an altogether different point that happiness or sorrow is the creation of our mind – essentially a perspective. But, we being what we are, plain human beings, have evolved a boring pattern of seeing things. Something as simple as –when things go our way, we are happy, and when they don’t, we are just that- plain sad. So much so that, we don’t even take an effort look beyond a point and see what we can do to go ahead. But, I have learnt to change myself.

I gather from Swami that you teach Journalism in the U.S. You have lived your dream, haven’t you? But, why didn’t you marry, Karthi? I have to tell you what a beautiful experience it has been – to have a caring husband, to have lovely children. A family can make even the worst of challenges seem conquerable. I really wish you had married. But, knowing you, I understand you made up your mind. I remember the last conversation we had before my marriage. I am indeed delighted you have found your happiness in your profession.

I am sure you think – if you call me the man who doesn’t budge after he makes up his mind, what is she? You are right. After all, I was the one who adamantly made you promise that you wouldn’t ask a word about me to Swami. Looking back, I wonder today, if what I did was right. I mean, I did not breathe a word about this to Shanka. Have I betrayed him by holding back the ghosts of my past? But, what do I do? I was worried that it would lead to unrest in all our lives. Perhaps, I have been selfish too.

I should admit that there have been many times when I had wanted to share it all with him. But, I was afraid, very much, that I would lose the affection of a loving husband. Shanka is a gem, Karthi. He made me realize that you can definitely rediscover love in a new person. I don’t have an iota of regret that I agreed to this marriage. My life indeed feels so complete. We have two daughters and a son, who fill our lives with delight. And then, there are the grandchildren too. But, you never know how certain matters can turn the flow of life.

I am sure you will be happy for me, aren’t you? I am often plagued by guilt that I dramatically altered the course of your life. Pulled you into something that finally never materialized. I perhaps didn’t understand the workings of the society back then. I should have put as much heart into that as I had done in loving you – truly, madly, deeply. I never really understood back then what it meant to belong to an orthodox family, to be a daughter who never went against her father’s words, but still out of a stupid boldness chose to fall in love with a man of another caste.

But, what was I to do? During our days together, I didn’t even know when I fell in love. It just happened and when my dad objected, it was as if my whole world had come to an end. What an irony again, that the same marriage in which we spoke of our wedding, my husband decided that I would be his life partner. What strange patterns fate creates!

But as they say, all is for good. Of late, Shanka seems very worried and I am deeply troubled. Why? Because I have a weak heart – quite ironically, not mentally, but physically. I suffered my first attack (a mild one) a few months back and ever since Shanka has been broken. I know he is smiling for my sake, to keep me happy. I smile too, to make him happy. I am worried Karthi, as to what he would do after the eventual thing happens. No, I am not being pessimistic. It may happen anytime, that’s what the doctors say. But, I am insistent (adamant?) that I will carry out certain aspects of my daily routine even now – like my temple visits and some cooking.

Why I am writing to you is for this. I have a responsibility to complete. I need to tell Shanka everything, before it is too late, but in your presence. I want you to meet him, and I want to tell all that I have told you now to him, while you are there. I know I am asking for a costly help – an unreasonable thing to expect – asking you to come down all the way. But, if you can do it, I will be really happy. It’s been so long, Karthi. I want to see you.

You can write to me or call me or if you still don’t want to do these, at least keep Swami posted of your plans. My house address and phone no. are enclosed.

Love,
Vasu

****

Dear Mr.Sankaran,
Here’s what all that your wife wanted to tell you. I wish we had had a happier get together. I am terribly sorry for what happened to you and it was unfortunate that I had to meet you under these circumstances. I considered it an absolutely wrong time to reveal what Vasu wanted to share, when we met.

The truth is that I received her letter a day before I was scheduled to leave for India for a seminar. But, by the time I had landed in Chennai and tried your number, someone answered the call to give me the bad news. Destiny’s designs, they are so fuzzy. Aren’t they?

Sankaran, I really don’t know what’s running in your mind now. But, I need to tell you this – you are a nice man with a good heart. I gather Vasu was really happy being with you. You made her life truly beautiful.

I wish the days ahead are filled with peace for you, ones in which you go back again and again to those evergreen memories of your days together; ones that make you smile.

And here’s something that would unlock the gates to those memories. It belongs to you.

Regards,
Karthikeyan

****

Sankaran turns the paper and to it is clipped a rare colour photograph of Vasu – in the mango- yellow and green-border saree – taken during Swami’s wedding.

He holds the picture and as he watches, a tear trickles down and wets the photograph. He is perplexed. Should he feel guilty that he snatched Vasu away from the man she had loved? Or should he think why she considered him a stranger to not tell him something from her past? Was he that stiff? He did not know. But, all he knew was that Vasu had grown to love him, through the years.

He walks towards her photograph hanging on the wall and touches the jasmine string adorning it. “Vasu,” he mutters and breaks down, inconsolably.

Some reasons to smile

2009-05-07T15:36:00.003+05:30

1) I got a book for a gift after a long time. Gift wrapped and with a card that read "wishing you more reading time!" (How much I need it!)

2) I picked up three notebooks and a set of 12 Staedtler color pens - stationery after ages!(Although it is over four days since I bought the stuff, a warmth fills me up when I look at them even now! Perhaps, it is the warmth of pure joy!)

3) I rediscovered (almost!) two songs from the movie Pavithra yesterday - "Azhagu Nilave" and "Uyirum Neeye" (Looped in Winamp! They melt me each time!)

4) I changed my blog template last week - something that gives me the hope of another new beginning. (Post more regularly?!)

5) I finally put up something of a post - the first one for this year! (Smile, smile! Honestly, I wish I could manage more. I will try!)

Memories of a free period

2008-10-25T17:30:00.000+05:30

Remember those days in school? When it is the third hour (or period) after the morning prayers and your strict math teacher with her bossy spectacles and her equally bossy stature walks in and starts explaining algebra in a (well, again!) bossy voice? Ok, for me math was the terror - you replace it with a subject you used to dislike and the picture is pretty much the same!

But wait! The rest of my discussion isn’t going to be about the math teacher! Rather, I intend writing about another scene. Picture this: It's the third period, and you are digging through your bag for the math classwork notebook and textbook. But..but...Lo! A different teacher walks in, quite unexpectedly, and very well to your delight, instead of the numbers woman who rattles your brain! “Substitute teacher” yeah! And so, the moment the other teacher comes in, an irresistible smile escapes your lips! And then, you frantically try to cover it up – smart if you are that is. Or else, if you are one of those “cannot-hold-back emotions” types, you let out an uncontrollable giggle much to the annoyance of the substitute teacher, who would already be fuming at the thought of having to spend her “free hour” in a class filled with devils.

So, that being that, some of the human species that I just mentioned (ah umm, there were quite a few of them at every class that I was in and no, no, I wasn’t one among them!) - even if you had five of them in a class of forty doing that, it would have qualified as a cacophony capable of tilting luck out of favor for the entire class. Here’s how.

Things would have depended on which class you were in. Say you studied in class five. You would have immediately got a “stand up on the bench all of you” punishment and one of the first-benchers would have been sent off to the next section to fetch a wooden scale (After the entire class kept quiet, when asked for a scale!) – of course for receiving a punishing hit on the palm for everyone, including the seemingly innocent ones whose brains would have already started working on a scheduling program as to what to make of the free hour!

Or perhaps the annoyed teacher would have gone to the point of deciding on showering a rain of chalk pieces on the class, the talkative ones being the most targeted!

Here’s another case. Suppose you studied in class ten, and the substitute teacher happened to be a subject teacher, she would have, for all you know, chosen to do some “revision” when she would have earlier decided otherwise - perhaps to let you study for a test that afternoon. Fizzzz…and all your study plans would have gone down the drain!

And that gets me to the next point. Let's assume that the teacher somehow let the class do whatever it felt like. Can you even think of how many different courses of action that each of us would have decided, the moment we realized we had free time in hand? The playful *slash* care-a-damn *slash* branded-irresponsible *slash* cool-headed *slash* freaky and so on types amongst us, would have chosen to play those little games. Like what? Like these – turn to a fresh page of hopefully your rough-book and divide the page into four columns to play the famed “Name Place Animal Thing”. Ok, if you hadn’t been that organized to carry a rough book, it would have been the last page of some “ill-fated” subject notebook, in all probability a subject you hated or the subject of a teacher who was lenient enough to let things pass without examining the last few pages of your notebook during correction.

An associated game – book cricket! I wonder which genius of a child discovered (or invented?) this marvelous discovery (or invention?) of a game! Fetch a book, open a random page, and write down the last digit of the even-number page, which is your score!! I bet there are other versions of this game that have evolved in the thousand different schools across our country!

Probably, the height of delight for the playful young minds such as these would have been when the substitute teacher happened to be the Physical Training or the P.T. teacher. Such kids would have been only itching to run out of the class, after uttering the monotonous “good morning”!

Yeah, playful kids. But, what’s a class without those serious ones? After all, they are the balancing factor in any class! The true darlings of their god-fatherly, god-motherly teachers – the many apples of the school’s eye! And here’s what maybe the branded-geeky *slash* studious *slash* responsible *slash* intellectual and so on types amongst us would have chosen to do.

If we had been in one of those younger classes, we would have chosen to finish off some homework and free up some time. Mind you, no amount of coaxing from friends to play would have deterred these studious minds – even when it was the P.T teacher for a substitute! The literature or knowledge-thirsty ones would even have chosen to get permission to run up to the library and grab a book – literature or science or math or whatever appealed to our brains and devoured it during the period! I remember when I was in class seven, when I luckily got a free hour I spent the period reading through a few chapters of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers” which used to be the “non-detail” syllabus for our English Paper II. (Well, don’t even decide what types I am, there! I have played my share of those intelligent games too!)

But, yes, as we progressed to the higher classes, we probably were left with little or no choice but to sit and prepare for the endless list of tests that popped in front of us everyday, till we gave our board exams!

Yet, whatever type that we might have been, the very memory of a free period unlocks the gates to a treasure house of memories – of the innocent things that we once did, of the many tiny decisions that we took at the snap of a finger, and mind you, with so much ease, of the little nothings in life, and most importantly, of being what one truly was, of enjoying life, of delightfully indulging in whatever we did, with the least sense of guilt. Memories that perhaps become lessons as we work our way through the big adult world today.

Naughty, Naughty, Cutie!!!

2008-05-05T19:11:00.002+05:30

Children - they seem to be the theme of this blog these days!!! 'That isn't surprising', you think, don't you? Well, actually it is pure coincidence that this is a kiddo-post too!!!

This blog space has been rusting, literally, thanks to the really tight routine. And of course my son, who is getting all naughty these days! I have left three stories hanging - they have been pleading for attention which, I haven't been able to give thus far. Nothing to regret, but I thought I will at least try and make a comeback to blogging with this sweet pic that a colleague had mailed me recently. It is the sweetest photograph I have seen in many years. Take a look!

Otherwise, hope all is well out there!! :)

Happy Birthday, Blog!

2008-02-06T21:49:00.000+05:30

This comes a little late, but this dear blog of mine completed three years on the 1st of february 2008. The past year was not very happening as far as this blog is concerned. But I have realized that one is an avid blogger as long as she comes back to it to share something with passion. At different times, I have seen this blog as a friend, a lover or sometimes even as a daughter. It is a very sweet and different kind of relationship that I have cherished thus far.

I am glad I began blogging at a very important phase of my life. This blog has captured my moods and my ever changing landscape of writing in my various stages - as a post graduate student of journalism, a financial writer in Bombay, an engaged, to-be married woman, a homemaker, a working wife, and now a mother. And, "The Storyteller's Hut" has been a place where I have run into many a day, on a hot summer afternoon or on a rainy evening to tell all that was in my mind.

At this moment, I would like to thank all my visible readers and the silent ones who talk to me through mails and also those who don't talk, for each of their visits to this hut. I would like to say I have enjoyed your presence and look forward to it in the days to come.

I promise stories and some hot tea! :)

Cheers,
Anupama (Viswanathan) Krishnakumar

Many dreams and a promise

2008-01-24T21:15:00.000+05:30

Come unto me my little one. I have been waiting for you all these days with anaemic fingers, tapping against each other like warring soldiers; and a breath weighed down with anticipation. How and what do I tell you, my son? Feeling proud has become a habit now. It is intoxicating, it really is, to silently watch you and then swell with pride – at all the things you do – the way you sleep, the way you roll your eyes, the way you smile, the way you hold on to me, the way you just remain what you are, a trait that many of us slowly start to lose as we move away from childhood.

I love holding your little fingers, the five pinkish petals of a tender rose from His garden. No, two little roses. I love running my hand over those soft creases on your hands and legs, the soft folds of flawless skin. I love drawing those neat curves, tracing my fingers over your tiny toes. I love calling you by various names – “Rolly Polly”, “Ingu Pingu”, “Softy Sweety”, “Lofty Softy”, “Chingu Mingu”, “Cutie Sweety” and “Kutty Kanna”. Kutty Kanna, your momma wants to tell you so many things. She just doesn’t know where to begin.

My little boy, there is so much to see in this world and so much to enjoy in life. Trust me, one lifetime isn’t enough! You know what all we can do – so many things. I will just offer you a glimpse of the world we can create for ourselves. These are flights of fantasy that I am making, with the wings of imagination. Very soon, this will be reality, for, you are the key. As you start to toddle, I will share your pride, I will offer you a hug when you walk into me. And soon, we will hold hands and walk together. We will rub noses, share surprise hugs, and exchange tender kisses on our cheeks. We will play little games that you will always win. We will recite nursery rhymes together, when we eat, when we lie down on the bed and whenever we seem to find the time; I will seat you on my lap and we will check out the big rhymes book that Papa has got for you.

And then, we will fly bright, chirpy kites that kiss the blue sky and speak to the sun. We will colour our lives with your red and my green and their many shades. We will discover new colours, explore the big palette and dab on. We will strangle fears to death and burn to ashes, the many negative feelings. We will nurture positive thoughts and build mental toughness. We will laugh our hearts out over the silliest of jokes. We will never miss a light moment and will try not to let a dull one seep in, as much as we can. We will pillow-fight. We will tease your Papa about his snoring. I am sure there will be times when you guys will gang up together. Your Papa is drawing up his own plans for you! And my best guess is that it is a world of games, gizmos, cars, dogs and movies!

For now, I will get going with what I have to share. When you get a little bigger, we will read out favourite passages from the books we read. We will grab sunshine with our hands; we will dance in the rain and waltz together on a moonlit night. We will star gaze on a clear night and go for a quiet jog on a pleasant morning. All the same, my dear, we are humans and we are here to defy the ideal. Let’s admit it. We will have our share of petty fights, and then apologize and embrace each other, only getting closer each time.

What’s more, we will exchange a secret sparkle between our eyes when you get your girl home. My boy, I am here to watch you grow and I will stay by your side, through the crests and troughs of your life. Remember, the silent pride will reside within me, no matter how old you are. I will walk down with you as long as my legs can carry on and then I will hold back and watch, as you advance in age and in your life.

You have come into my world and given it an altogether new meaning. And what do I have but my love and a promise to give in return? I want to make each day of your life special, in some little way and make you feel that this life is truly worth living and that, is this mom’s promise to you.

As I say all this, how much of it do you understand, I wonder! You look at me and beam a toothless smile that melts me to nothingness. You will, my dear, you will very soon understand – the many dreams and a promise of a proud mother.

Baby boy says hi!! :)

2007-12-22T22:53:00.000+05:30

Yup, our little bundle of joy arrived on the 8th of December...And, for a start,

Kailash says hi to all!!! :)

I haven’t let go..

2007-11-23T22:33:00.000+05:30

I know. I know. It’s all dark inside the storyteller’s hut; almost like a haunted house. Cobwebs. Unwashed tea cups. Mounds of melted wax that once dispelled the darkness as we sat and talked stories once upon a time. And now, with the last instance we spoke being almost four months back, some of you might have slowly started to believe that the hut is shut forever. I wish I had never let that idea creep in, but you see I just let other things take over – like laziness, tiredness, helplessness among others. Nevertheless, I am happy to see so many new guests who have stepped in, rummaged through the story bag and left little notes of appreciation. When I see them, I am delighted but guilty as well, at my inability to tell you more and entertain you better.

It appears to me the status will remain such for some time to come, for I am at the threshold of change – probably the most important one so far in my life. At best, I can assure you that the rugged muddy ground of the hut will continue to stay (aren’t you rolling your mouse over it already?) and hopefully the roof should also be intact unless some gusty wind decides to blow it away; and the story bag is still there and all yours. Having said that, I hope and pray I will return, not just alone, but with a little angel who will tell you more stories. Till then, stay good, healthy, and peaceful and definitely – do hang on!

Meenakshi

2007-07-27T22:55:00.000+05:30

18th July 1990. Meenakshi pressed her forefinger hard into the daily sheet calendar. As she did, she closed her eyes to recall how she had pressed the calling bell at the “Khushi Villa” exactly fifteen years ago. Fifteen years it was, since the day she had first touched down on this bungalow tucked away peacefully in a remote corner of Maharashtra. It was a rickety bus journey that had preceded her arrival.

Fifteen years ago, as a charming thirteen year old, Meenakshi had felt deeply thrilled at the prospect of spending her life in the villa. Back then, she had observed with wide eyes, the wild tuskers and stags that jutted out from the walls and the large paintings that accompanied them. She had wondered why the tuskers and stags had only heads and had found it quite weird. She had imagined the animals to wake up and walk around the house in the nights.

Totally fascinated, Meenakshi had felt her stay in the villa would be a launch pad to realize her dream – that of becoming a great Bharatnatyam dancer. Struggling hard to control her overwhelming joy, her eyes had fallen on Ramaa Chechi for the first time. Oh, what a treat it had been to watch her! Looking at her from behind the grilles of a window near the backyard, Meenakshi had thought she could fall at her feet. Draped in a crisply starched cotton sari, Ramaa Chechi was going around the Tulasi Maadam in small circles, with a lamp in her hand.

Rajan who had accompanied Meenakshi on her journey to the place had made a passing reference to a teacher, while sitting in the bus. May be this divine looking lady was that teacher, Meenakshi had pondered. Meanwhile, Rajan had beckoned her to the backyard.

“What is your name?” Ramaa Chechi had asked.
“Meenakshi”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” she had questioned, patting Meenakshi’s cheek.
“I love to dance,” Meenakshi had replied and had stuck out her frail legs and hands, while also rolling her visibly, big eyes.
Ramaa Chechi had smiled, patted her again.
“Lovely, we will make you do that too.”
“Can I too look beautiful like you?” Meenakshi had asked eagerly.
“Of course, yes, why not?”

Standing before the calendar, Meenakshi recalled how much she had believed in that deceptively divine woman. Ramaa Chechi was a professional. She had pushed the little girl into her role so effortlessly. She had gently led the teenager into a room that presented an illusion of happiness, of a heaven free of all troubles – full of flowers and incense that choked her breath.

Meenakshi was reminded of how she had succumbed without protest, the first time. The surrender did not come out of acceptance of her doomed fate or as a move towards starting a new way of life. It was more a means of seeking solace and affection from a complete stranger for the grief that engulfed her broken heart; to blow away the misery and weariness of a young soul that was cheated by her own father.

And as far as she could think, the first time was the only instance she had exuded passion in her profession and never again after that. Meenakshi looked at the silver ring in her hand, thoughtfully. This was the ring that the first man had left behind for her, as a gesture of what Meenakshi imagined to be genuine love. He would have been in his early twenties then. She could say he had liked her. Loved her? She didn’t know. But she preferred to assume it that way. It at least gave her the comfort of having something substantial to dream and ponder about; something to make up for the void that so dominated her life.

Meenakshi looked dreamily at the withered rose that she had preserved in between the pages of her only notebook. Tears welled up in her eyes. Despite the many years of seeing the different men that she had seen, love was not a lost feeling as far as she was concerned. It was lost, yes, in a partial sense, but only deep within her. She had vainly searched for her first man in every man she had met after him. She had stayed hoping that he would come and take her away someday. The ring would be her only proof of identity then. She had imagined he would come while she played on the swing. He would then fall at her feet and tell her how much he needed her in his life.

Alas, but what did she know of him, except for a faint memory of his face and the wetness of his long parting kiss on her cheek years ago? For all she knew, he would be happily married off to some pretty woman who would have borne him his children. Worse still, would he even recognize her if she were to come face to face with him when walking down some street? Even so, she carried on, despite being fully aware of the futility of her dream.

What a life had she lived! She had seen all sorts of men. There were the nervous first timers. Then, there were those men who fed their egos with an air of nonchalance, a kind of despicable carelessness. Well then, animal behavior also found its place. She had dressed and undressed to please and impress them all; acts that defined the very essence of her existence. And after everything, Meenakshi felt the whole place stank of dumped feelings and a nauseating eeriness that sometimes drove her to the point of contemplating death as the soothing alternative. The only relief probably had remained her friends in the villa – Nupur, Selvi and Rekha. They would laugh and hoot together while discussing men – their subject of expertise, and remain thoughtful as they spoke about the fading memories of their lackluster childhood.

And now, after fifteen years of a life in skirts that paradoxically shouted happiness through large, bright flowers, she was waiting with her little box to leave. Meenakshi sighed, as she turned to face the villa for one last time. She was going back, back into the world that brought her into the villa. She had nothing particularly pleasant to take back and nothing particularly exciting to look forward to. As policemen swarmed around the place, Meenakshi walked towards the van with a blank look on her face.

Ironically, it was the deathly infection that had won her the prized ticket to her freedom.

It's home, again!

2007-07-13T22:26:00.000+05:30

You know how it is visiting home after a while? It is truly like revisiting a part of yourself. After what seems like ages, mom, dad, my sister, and I are back together to live the feeling of what it is to share our lives under one roof. Vani is on vacation, I am on one too, mom is no longer the busy teacher running to school, and dad is still the man who runs the show. When did we last hear of this? ‘Way too long’ back!

At a time when responsibilities of a different order, ones confronting a married woman is all that you have witnessed for a while, you actually wonder how it felt to remain irresponsible. And that precisely is the feeling I have come to experience again, during this break, the sense of parental pampering, a rare comfort of ‘there is someone to mind it all’. You don’t worry about what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it is all piled in copious amounts on a the ‘stainless steel plate’ that exclusively belonged to you ever since you came into this world. And what luxury - do you have to remind mom about what would tickle your taste buds? Come on!

We have spoken all sorts of stories, ones buried deep inside our souls, waiting to be reborn, in the words of our retelling and our acts of hearing them out all over again. Tales like how I gave my sister the name she has come to bear today, how she used to be this little brat who wanted everything that her sister had and at one point of time trembled with jealousy over all the attention that the elder one received when she had set off for graduation.

With mom this time, it has been a run through of her patented ‘arranged marriage’ philosophy, as we laughed over all that appeared ‘once serious’ and now ‘outrageously funny’. All the same, it is also the time that she has chosen to send out those signals to my sister about ‘minding the step’. This time, it is my turn to grin from ear to ear!! With dad, the discussion as always has proceeded on a different platform – books, music, investments, the irony of how we so easily complicate our lives, as well as a rather formal talk on how the married life went on. And you know how it is with sisters, you don’t need solid stuff to speak and can get away with all sorts of nonsense!

The most fascinating part of it all is how everything fell into place, the emotions, the long-established signals of communication and the unchanged meaning of silence. And then there are these other things – dad’s driver who taught us Gujarati, and this wonderful little angel who is all but three, living in the same building. She has the most beautiful and adorable pair of eyes that I have seen in a long time. She speaks Gujju, and I speak everything else other than that and she still is so much fun to hang around with!

In between all this I miss him and wonder how he is taking care of himself, starting from what he is eating. Despite all those petty fights and admonitions (fond though they are) we throw at each other over the phone, I deeply wish he were here. I wish I can hold his hand and lean on his shoulder and whisper softly how I miss him.

And yet, I revisit carelessness every night, as I lie curled in my mom’s lap. After all, it is a means to satisfy that burning desire to be a child once again, especially when your little one is already telling you through her soft kicks that it’s time for this woman in her mom’s lap to change roles, very soon.

If I may ask..

2007-04-05T03:20:00.000+05:30

While I was working on a report today morning, my mind wandered off to many thought landscapes. Like I had said in an earlier post, I have these questions suddenly popping inside my head that I feel like shouting them out to a crowd.

Here is today's question:

Is there this one thing (need not necessarily be a physical entity) that you love/value the most in life? If so, what is it? And, why do you love it so much??

Waiting to hear sound bytes! :)

PS: No particular reason as to why this question. Just like that!

PPS: And I want honest answers!!! :D

Story Clip #1: Raman

2007-03-28T04:40:00.000+05:30

Raman, everyone is so proud of him, except himself. His mother tells relatives he earns plenty that he could buy a house within another year. His father tells friends that his son is ‘settled comfortably' in a rewarding job. House, car, marriage – plans, plans, and plans they made for him. But, Raman is tired even to feel proud anymore. The attraction has withered away. It is yet another Tuesday in Raman's life, a year after he wore the illusorily shining badge called 'software engineer'. He writes ten lines in the morning and stares at it all of the evening. And still he cannot break through. The brain that topped the class in the final exams doesn't help find that one bug that refuses to let the program run. The boss sends a stinker of an email demanding an explanation and accusing him of being slow. Not again, he broods. The confidence curve falls flat and enthusiasm levels dip. Do I have to do and see this all my life? Can't I ever make mistakes? he thinks. Raman shuts the application and walks out of the office, past the manager who summoned him for an explanation. Indifference for a day, to make up for the peace of mind and smile lost for a while now.

Maya's story

2007-03-23T03:44:00.000+05:30

“And I scratched and scratched the page with the fine nib of a treasured parker, spurting out black ink, like the oozing blood of a devilish thought, springing out of a wounded ego. How else could I extinguish the roaring flames of anger? The page tore open like a deadly crevice. I ran around like a mad man pulling down all that fell in my line of sight – curtains, table covers; I took the umbrella, poked the bed and the pillows, with its tapering end. Fury and pain wrenched my heart. I had become a loner, in a world full of pretending well wishers, a world without Hanna.”

Maya switched off the monitor and stared wide eyed into the empty space ahead of her. Her hands trembled a little. It was a fiery face of Professor Malcolm that she hadn’t seen thus far, given the six months of personal interaction that she had had with him – in her mind.

She wasn’t sure about that line, she had typed – “oozing blood of a devilish thought, springing out of a wounded ego.” She opened the document, deleted the line and began typing again. “;olr n;ppf ppxomh pgy pg s epimfrf jrsty” she keyed without looking at the screen. Shit, she thought, staring at the train of red underlines that the software had left, like a school teacher who thrilled at striking down everything with that dreadful red ink. Why can’t this damned MS Word convert it to what I want? She felt like suing the software for its supposed inadequacy. Her finger rested lazily on the backspace key till it deleted the unintelligible stuff that she had just then entered. “like blood oozing out of a wounded heart, “ she corrected and sighed deeply.

She could sigh by all means, for she didn’t know where her dream was heading to. Every letter, every word, every sentence, every paragraph, and every page that made sense to the machine as only indecipherable bits and bytes were the building blocks to the vision she was giving shape.

Maya had grown up reading every name board on the road. Even as the bus or scooter or auto she was moving in advanced faster than her letters/second, she craned her neck to finish the name down. “Lakshmi Tea Stall” “Connections BookPoint” and everything else. Sometimes, she had the feeling that the name of a shop didn’t fit its appearance. Such beautiful names for those ugly faced tea shops, she would grumble under her breath.

And, when she grew a little older, she loved assigning names to strangers. May be that girl would be called Rachna – that cute face with two pony tails would be complete only with that name. Swarnamukhi, for the dancer, her friend’s neighbour; Akshay, for the guy who was seen driving the Enfield everyday outside her house; after all, it was her own world of imagination, and people here could assume names that she wished to give them!

Her love at sixteen was books. Papa and Mama had no trouble finding gifts for her. They knew she would smile the widest at the sight of a bookstore. Maya literally fed on books, relished a different taste out of the many writers. Archer was like espresso coffee while Narayan was like a chocolate that slowly melted away, leaving behind that lingering sweetness in one’s mouth. Hesse was like a tastefully prepared filter coffee, an enriching philosophical experience that left one relishing it even after the act was complete. Austen and Dickens were like classic hot chocolate, Woolf was a dense dry fruit milk shake – you had to stop once in few minutes to munch those nuts – those powerful nuggets that gave the dash of splendor to her work. Hardy was bitter chocolate. What would hers be? Maya wondered.

Maya equated writing to love, simply and best put. She absolutely loved it. Stories were her passion. She wanted her words to be the window to a world she created. The characters in her story would be thoughts that danced to the tune of her creative forces – but sometimes they were not puppets. They shaped to something beyond her control sometimes bringing a smile and sometimes making her scratch the whole thing down. Each word was a revelation. Writing was to her, as music was to a singer and dance to a performer.

There was a man who wanted to sell his soul. She found him creepy. There was another who was willing to buy it. She found him loony. And what about those people who wore all that heavy makeup and chatted nonsense? She found them to be a rather strange breed of people. Did the others know about them? After all, they all lived in her paper world. She would let others see them, through her novel. She would tell them things that they knew well but never consciously realized. She would make them nod in childish delight (one arising out of discovering matters, all over again!) at what she told them.

Dreams, she had plenty of them. Like reading out excerpts from her novel to a group, autographing copies to a mad audience, for instance. She even wanted to do a workshop telling aspiring ‘kids’ (she would have moved out of the block then!) how to write. She would clip all reviews for her book together and read them at leisure. She would try correcting herself and scorn at a mindless review. Plenty of them, her dreams; But, she had fifteen more chapters to go and a publisher to find! Talk about literary dreams and aspirations! Would Maya make it? I am clueless, actually! :)

My DNA

2007-03-02T04:03:00.000+05:30

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

The day

2007-02-21T04:35:00.000+05:30

Shyama was not sure. She sat in her room, smiling at everyone, as people walked in and out of the small cube that stored God knows how many things, including herself. She smiled, but her insides moaned – was she sure about what she was doing? Her cousins were chatting, laughing and giggling, throwing sideward glances at her. She was supposed to be the happiest woman in the whole world that day. But, was she? She wasn’t sure. Worse still, the point was, she shouldn’t be worrying about it then, not at that instant.

A few anxious seconds. And then, her dad seemed relieved. Granny hugged him. Mom was brushing away happy tears. Little sister hugged her. A mix of emotions – relief, happiness and a strange emptiness. Amidst all that, Shyama stole a glance at him. Raghav looked at her as well. She felt reassured, smiled for the first time from her heart, since the morning. She trusted her instincts. They told her it would all go on well.

A year later, she stood staring at her mirror in their bedroom, twirling a curl dangling near her left ear. They had taken many steps together, forgiving, fighting, understanding, giving, sharing, loving and holding on. Shyama stood there lost in memories. Suddenly Raghav hugged her from behind. “Happy Anniversary, sweetie,” he whispered. She smiled - a smile of genuine happiness.

Letters to Dad - 15th March 2004

2007-02-09T00:22:00.000+05:30

Dear Pops,

I loved pouring over your letter that came in a little late. Never mind, it was worth the wait for those five pages of your still undecipherable handwriting. Dad, you really are getting old. :), and your slants are getting slightly shaky.

You know how busy life is here Pops that I had to postpone this letter by a week. It is ironic that the topic that I choose to write today is about the lives of people who are at the other extreme of those we discussed in the last letter. Yes dad, I am indeed referring to my visit to the old age home, on my birthday. While I marvel at what my son teaches me through his ways, all that was left of me after that visit was silence and a vacuum.

Many of them, Dad - a sea of faces. They were about thirty couples at Karunalaya, each and every one of them, unique. Mr.Prakasam, the one who was so particular about his fitness was the first one that we met. Clad in his starched white kurta and dhoti, he was taking his morning walk in the garden. Full of warmth, that’s how he was. Mr.Prakasam shook hands with Akash, placed his palm on my head and then on Aryan’s and mumbled a blessing. Welcome, he said, we are all expecting you. We could only smile back, gratefully.

The woman behind my success, he introduced us to his wife, who had just emerged from the puja room. Come beti, she invited me, and then it was ‘ey chotu’ to a visibly nervous Aryan. She indeed looked divine in a simple chungudi saree. How could her children leave her here? How could they do away with such sweet parents?

Dad, each of them had stories to say; some happy, some sad, some heart-wrenching, some really brave. The Subramanians have shared sixty four years of marriage between them. And the love hasn’t diminished one bit, Dad. Mrs. Subramanian could hardly hear and said a different thing while her husband spoke something else. But her better half was patient, always smiling and trying to raise his already feeble voice to as high a decibel as possible, to convey the intent. We are old, he said, and our sons are away in a foreign land. We speak to them once in six months when they call up after sending us some money, he explained, while his wife just brooded and nodded. And suddenly, she looked up and smiled, as if there was no trouble in her world. Is that the slow insanity that old age breeds into one?

Seethamma was different. She was loud, frank and full of disbelief. Her husband was timid, unobtrusive and deep into the day’s newspapers. Seethamma seethed in anger. All you children, you don’t care about your parents. Why have you come here today? You distribute sweets or serve us lunch and go away. Does our misery change after that? She glared at me. The man, lifted his head up, threw a glance our way and then a feeble smile. Commotion, it seemed, was a parcel of his life. But dad, her question fascinated me, quite.

What are we to them, other than being people merely sharing a day’s joy with them (ironically, we hardly know whether what’s happiness for us, is happiness for them as well.) and doing the disappearing act after that? But Dad, I think the solace and the answer is that, we attempt, genuinely at that, to try and bring a smile on to their faces at least for a day; to make them believe that there are people in the world who still care; to massage out the numbness of a lack of love that has clung on to their souls.

Mrs. Parvati insisted she would sit next to Aryan. He reminded her of her grandson, she said. She insisted she would feed him. I let her do it. Aryan didn’t understand, Dad. Confusion was written large on his face. His eyes brimmed with fear. That night, he was quiet and finally asked me, Mama, who are those old people? I told him. I told him, they were like his grandparents, but they stayed there because their children could not take care of them. Why, he asked me, that’s really bad. I nodded and patted his head. Mama, I will take care of you and Papa, when you grow old, he said. I cried silently. After all that claim of ‘we will stay independent in our old age’ that I and Akash so often reiterate to each other, I still seek reassurances. And damn that, from my three year old son, who is yet to see the world, in all its beauty and devilishness.

And what’s with this Indian tradition, Pa? Parents would stay with their sons, but never with their daughters. Isn’t it unjust of the society to have moulded such a strange ideology? We grow old, and children are channels through which we remain assured. At twenty nine, I am already seeking it. I wonder how it would be for you. Don’t you wish you could stay with us, but you still deny yourself the pleasure, just because we all live the Indian way?

Papa, I am serious. I really wish you and mom would consider staying with us, for some days at least. I know how it feels Dad, to be old and staying away. Mrs. Srinivasan words still ring in my ears. She is old, frail and dying. When I turned to leave that day, she held my hands and asked me when I would come back again. Do keep coming, she said, it’s not for the sweets or the food, our tongues have long last that desire to taste. It’s only love and company that we yearn for. I look beyond the gates, everyday, seeing as far as my poor vision can let me see. I imagine I see my son and his family. But they never come.

Love to you and mom,
Sumi

P.S: Keep writing.

In a world of many things..

2007-02-07T17:34:00.001+05:30

In a world of many things,

At one moment, you feel you could rest your tired head on to a silky pillow that absorbs all worries while the ivory moon sends its love as rays filtered through the window. That’s when you smile, a smile of light-heartedness, of relief, of a realization of peace and calm.

And then, the next instant you are running into the green open, cutting through straight and sometimes slanted shreds of silvery threads, descending from the heavens. That’s when you get soaked to the skin, unmindful of a world existing around you.

And suddenly, you feel transported back in time, when the scent of the past tickles your nostrils; of days that you have left behind but whose vague memories you have carried along. That’s when life’s meaning dawns; that you have indeed come a long way from being a child.

And what happened to those friends with whom you shared everything from a meal to the deepest secrets? They are all away, but something of a memory stirs in you and you are smiling through reminiscences of love, of a different order.

Ah, then a moment to savour, for it brings with it the first instant you caught his eye, smiling, the instant you held his hand and decided to walk together.

I tell you I tie musical notes to precious flashes of time.

I tell you this is what I live through when my iPod slides from one song to another.

They are unconnected emotions; but ones that make perfect sense, in a world that’s only yours, where music is the backdrop, filling the ears and the being.

It's Feb 01 again!

2007-02-01T12:38:00.000+05:30

Two years since it all began and the story continues under a new name. I never thought this journey would come this far when I wrote my first (silly) post on the 1st of February 2005. Then on, I have moved through many, many experiences – some fondly remembered, some best forgotten, and some still making me wonder why they ever happened. This blog is where I have given vent to my many literary dreams – I would scribble ideas and gaze at them in wonder, as they took the form of stories, poems, and essays. Here’s where I could do anything, anytime, and in any damn way I wanted.

At times, I have caught myself smiling at a post, for voicing an opinion way too strongly, that it carried the heat of the moment at which it was written. At other instances, I have journeyed down the memory lane, reliving experiences by merely looking at the written words echoing the past. Dreamy, romantic, and fairy-tale like – that’s how it has been – for I live on with the feeling of constantly being engaged in a fulfilling affair with a virtual lover – one that I really hope will qualify for the much-desired phrase “ and happily ever after..”

This blog year (as I choose to call it) has been a memorable one for me for many reasons. It was also the year which saw one of the most tragic incidents of my life. Of late, this journal has not seen much of an activity, but I sincerely hope things turn for the better, very soon.

Like I said last year, I take this moment to thank each and every one of you who has taken the trouble to come to this site and leave a comment. And a double thanks to those who constantly keep a tab on what’s happening here.

I sincerely hope this blog has much more to offer, in the coming year. Thank you all.

Cheers,
AV

Of cobwebs, dust, and inactivity..

2007-01-08T14:19:00.000+05:30

Helplessness, that’s what I feel when I look at The Storyteller’s Hut. I began last year with this story (one of the posts, closest to my heart) and this year, something as trivial as this post. What a contrast!!

Now, how do I stop that bitterness that’s lumping up at my throat?

I miss you dear blog!

I really wish I could find the time to experiment more, to write more! :(

God, are you listening?!!

The Moment

2006-12-27T02:15:00.000+05:30

#
Here, on this earth,
Where nothing stays,
Like,
The passing cloud,
The flowing stream,
The rushing wind,
The fresh bloom and the fading flower,
The seed, the cub,
The withered tree, the dying lion,
The autumn, the spring,
Like wars, people, and innocence..

#
You flow too,
And so does that one dream,
That both our eyes painted..
Ah, shades of love,
Smudged by tears;
When colors seem meaningless,
I request for a streak of gold -
Can I hold on to you,
For a minute now -
And cherish it for a lifetime?
This memory,
The joy of a minute’s beauty.

Amritavarshini

2006-12-08T10:06:00.000+05:30

Amritavarshini. You would hardly hear anybody calling me by my full name. The last time I think I heard that myself was when my class teachers took our daily attendance back in school. I am Varshini to my dad, Amrita to my neighbours, Varshee to some of my friends, Amy to few others, Varshu to my cousins, and Ammu to my mom. Ammu – would Siddarth have called me that way?

Siddarth – all I know of him is what I have heard from my parents and my aunts and uncles. Are you surprised when I tell you that I didn’t know of him till I was ten years old? He was like a little box of chocolates hidden away from me; a treasure that remained oblivious till I was deemed fit to be told about it.

It was on December 19 1996, when mom pulled me into the dining room, as I returned from school and threw my bags carelessly on the sofa. I still remember that day so vividly, in all its detail, as if it had happened yesterday. There was a cake with a single, lonely candle, glowing serenely. And my, what did I catch in the light of that candle? It was the photograph of a sweet, chubby face, with such innocent eyes, the photograph of a boy with lovely curls.

I saw Siddarth for the first time in my life, heard of him for the first time during his 20th birthday, 20th if he had been around, with mom, dad, with me. My mom spoke of a brother that I had, a child they had till five years before I was born, a precious child they lost in an accident when they sent him with his grandparents for a vacation.

Somehow, I didn’t pester my mom for details. But I burned with curiosity to know more about my brother, who had drifted away like a beautiful feather, back to God, who wanted him back so badly. How would he have looked? How would he have handled his little sister when she got all the attention that he had received by all means, earlier, exclusively for himself? Would he have flung her new doll to the corner, scribbled with a sketch pen all over its face? Or would he have kissed her gently, stealthily, when mom put her to sleep and disappeared into the kitchen? Would he have run away to grab his share of mom’s lap when the princess slept in her cradle?

What are these questions that remain answered even today? Tormenting figments of imagination, that’s what they are – when one remains clueless about what would have happened, if what happened hadn’t happened.

Siddarth was all but five when he left my parents. I think of my mom now. How many times I would have nagged her as to why I didn’t have a sibling! Why should I be the only one? Oh, how many times I have bothered her! Where would she have buried her face and cried then? My heart feels heavy, like a rock tied to the end of a thread; so heavy with guilt. Don’t give me reasons – you were afterall a kid and anyway, you didn’t know what happened. I tell you, this feeling is beyond any human reasoning.

My brother I hear, was so naughty, that his eyes forever sparkled with innocent mischief – like those of khannaiyah. My aunts tell me that he was one among them, more than belonging to his generation. He used to claim to be Lord Krishna himself and talked all sorts of things, like what big men do, for he declared that he was a big boy when he was four! Another of my aunts fondly recollects that he said he would marry her, when he finished college. The many beautiful facets of a small child that never saw light.

These are like pieces of a puzzle for me. I gather them all together to get the bigger picture, of a brother whom I have grown to love more with every passing day, a brother with whom I wish I could spend at least one day. Sometimes, I sit by the sea, smiling to myself as I let my imagination run loose. How we would have built a castle out of sand, together; how we would have taken sides with mom and dad, and laughed a great deal in the end, together; how we would have shared secrets and sealed our mouths and fooled her, together; together, together, together. I am a lonely dreamer who dreams of us being together. I am Ammu, who became Amritavarshini because Siddarth once said his baby sister would be called Amritavarshini, years before I was born. He lives no more to see it, and I live as an impression of what my brother once uttered – as a fragment of memory called Siddarth.

To each one, a tale..

2006-11-17T06:45:00.000+05:30

Sai was clutching his tummy and almost rolling over the floor. Well, laughing. Anybody who didn’t see his face would easily assume that he was having a fit of spasms. His hehehes and hahahas reminded me of a monstrous but cute creature like Shrek, guffawing at a joke that may be only he found utterly amusing.

“Sai,” I called. He was too busy laughing to pay any attention to me.
“Saaaaaaaai,” I screamed, “Now what the hell is up?”

“Oh, here comes our Ms. Moody Memsaab,” he spurted out between giggles, “hehehe..hahahaa”

“hahahahaha”
“hahahahaha”

His whole body shook without any hassles, like ‘laugh laugh, no trouble buddy, am there with you to see through it all.” I stood there with my hands folded, waiting for the uproar to die down. As I did, the jumbo- bimbo’s laughter that spiked and slowed alternately, finally sloped down to a much desired silence.

“Now, could you for heaven’s sake share the joke?” I scorned.

Puffing and panting, Sai lifted his left hand and pointed at Ashok, who sat at his desk, facing his computer.

“Well?”

“Ashok,” he paused gulping down a piece of unavoidable laughter, “our dear handsome man seems to have had a great day.”

Sai shot a glance my way to see if I was responding. “Hmm“I nodded. “Whatever happened?”

“Arrey yaar Purnima, tu itna tube light be nahi ho sakthi hai!”

“Yeah right, you talk everything else other than what you are supposed to. “

“Aww..K, “he said and cleared his throat, as if on the verge of making a crucial announcement, “let me get serious,” he paused, “and not laugh, err and be precise..”

“Our romantic hunter went chasing his favourite bird with rosy dreams and the bird hopped away saying it already had a mate,” he grinned. “Our man proposed with all the romance of a love stricken heart and she told him, Can I ask my fiancé and let you know?” “hahaha, kya slap maara!!” and laughed again.

“Sai, that’s hardly funny!” I said sternly. “Why waste moments laughing?”
“Waste? Naah my dear lady,” he said, “it definitely made me feel better,”

“How unjust Sai,” I retorted, “you feel happy at someone’s expense!”

“That’s not the way you see it, Purnima,” he said meditatively. “I am just lightening up the heavy mood.”

I looked at him and sighed and moved to Ashok’s place.

“Hi Ashok,” I called out softly, “been a bad day, has it?”

“Well, yeah, didn’t expect things to turn out this way,” he spoke, words dribbling out like drops from a soaked sponge. Sadness oozed out from his voice, grief was smeared all over his face.

“Am not going to say it’s alright,” I spoke, “it takes time to get over but I know you will, someday.”

That assurance came readily from me until later when I wondered whatever made me say that. Can you get over something like that with time? Can I even make a claim to have been successful about it? Jesus, no! It’s tough and a struggle, and it hurts, hell of a lot.

“Thanks Purnima,” I heard Ashok say, “It felt good to hear that,”

“Now let me strike a blow to the gloom that’s settling in this work area,” Sai came announcing. “Let go guys, just learn to let things go.”

I smiled, hopelessly.

This man, Sai, Sairam was my immediate boss but to an outsider I suppose it would least seem that way. His heart was as big as he was. You could seek emotional refuge in him and be assured that your tears aren’t wasted. Feeling good? Go to Sai. Feeling utterly dismal? Speak to him. He always had the heart to listen, an unmatched ability to heal. I ought to be grateful to Sai. He tore open the cocoon of silence that I had spun around myself after what happened to me a year back. I suffered from what I may call a ‘loss of love.’

Do you know how it feels to be in love? I am not launching into one of those obsessed, heart wrenching, and utopian discourses on it. Love, I think, is plain, simple and beautiful. It fills one with awe, happiness and fulfillment. But, isn’t there always two sides to a coin? Haven’t we all heard of how love hurts? Few friends have told me that this perspective is farce. It depends on the way one sees it. Losing one’s love, however immature it may sound, hurts. It is like a thousand pins shooting down your heart leaving it bleed in agony.

When I met Shyam for the first time, I never knew love had come knocking. We met at a common friend’s party, started going around and things began to take shape. It reached the climax when he proposed to me on my birthday last year.

You know how it is when you have found the person of your life. You start weaving dreams, literally, thread by thread. And finally, one fine day, someone walks through the door and shreds your fabric to a million pieces and your heart lies shattered like shards of glass strewn devastatingly over the floor. That’s precisely what happened with me. As much easily as he breezed into my life, he slipped out, only that this time, he left a big emotional scar.

You can’t brush away the man just like that, can you? He left me because he couldn’t face familial pressures and finally yielded to it, married some other woman, leaving me alone.

I refused to show any signs of interest in marriage following that and much to the despair of my parents, moved away from Pune to Bangalore. Fussy I sound, don’t I? But I believed that change was a big healer.

The ad agency that I work with and the people around me sprinkled hope back into an emotionally deserted terrain, my heart. And suddenly, at some point in time, I felt I was standing like a fool, trying to leap from one cliff onto another, fully aware of a deadly chasm in between. Sounds cryptic? For all that seriousness in that statement, there is a dose of humour in it too. Laugh it off, horrors and horrors, I realized I was falling in love again -in love, with the man who had just then lost his love.

Ashok joined me over tea the next afternoon.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Hmm, just alright,” he said, flatly.
“Guess what Purnima,” he continued, “I truly felt like an idiot yesterday. I mean, it was bizarre. I actually felt burnt up, it that sounds any close to how I felt.”
I nodded, blandly.
Ashok looked into my eyes and I searched in those misery plagued ones, helplessly for love, for me.

Later that day, Sai walked into my cube to inform me of a client meeting.
“Sai, what would you do if you loved a girl like nobody’s business?” I asked him when he was turning to leave.
Shocked, dark silence, broken by a sheepish grin.
“I wouldn’t even tell her!”
“Come on Sai, stop kidding,” I screeched.
“Can we catch up on this during a late evening walk?” he requested. Suddenly, I felt like the boss. (Grin!)

Sai had grabbed a handful of popcorn from God knows where, when we left for a walk. After a string of useless talk, I desperately tried to drive him back to the point.
“Answer my question,” I said.
He nibbled away the single popcorn thoughtfully.
“Well, tell you what Purni, I would really tell her some day. When, I have no clue, I would do it just when it seems right!”
I smiled; Sai and his pretence of orderliness and problem-solution crystallization; Clever, quickwitted, funny and yet, thoughtful and immeasurably kind.

"But, I will tell you another thing," he continued, "I wouldn't care if she liked me or not and wouldn't sink even if she said a no!"

"To me, it's the feeling that matters, and it's just that! which is what I have always told you, ever since we met."

I kept quiet. What he said was true. This is a lesson he had always preached to me for months now.

"So," he startled me, "Let's come to the point. What's running in your head?"

For a moment, I felt like I had a transparent head; as if he could see through everything.

I sighed.
"Sai, I think I am pathetic."
"I think I am falling in love, all over again! With a man, whom you would least imagine."
"Ashok?" he asked me plainly while I looked on, dumbstruck!
"Sai, What the hell! How could you? I mean how did you..for heaven's sake, I tell you.." "Holy shit, you are too much!!" I spoke, broken sentences.
Sai laughed.

"Now tell me, how did you ever come to know?"
"Magic, magic.." he smiled and walked ahead.
I pulled him by his sleeve.
"Tell me Sai," I persisted.
"At the risk of sounding cliched, but definitely to tell you the truth, I could see it in your eyes."
And I thought I had cleverly avoided leaving any evidence.
"Do what your heart tells you to," he said and walked off.

Ashok. How was I going to tell him? Wouldn't he think I am a moron, who just advised him big time a few days before and now comes to him with a silly proposal? How stupid!

After two horrifying days and restless nights, I went up to him.
"Tea?" I proposed.
"Sure."
Over tea. The usual exchange.
And then,
"Ashok, I got to share something with you."
"Hmm..You like someone, don't you?"
"Mighty God, how did you know?"
"And I also know who it is.."
I blushed.
"Well?" I paused.
"Sai, isn't it?", "He loves you man, he told me that once!"

I just felt like a loose end, yet again.

Her Music

2006-10-31T04:31:00.000+05:30

I watched her fingers play in perfect rhythm, dip, brush, and caress the keys of the piano as if it were a new born child. Ah my, what graceful movement of those long, divinely sculpted fingers that somehow held the key to a certain rarely experienced ecstasy! When she played, it was as if air, water, and fire seethed in anger and gushed at you, overpowering the hapless observer that one is. And yet there was that newly found peace and calm at the heart of it. Wasn’t her music beautiful for the irony that it presented with such ease?

My words seem to shiver in shame for their inability to duly describe that lingering sadness and the hum of a smiling music, unified in a moment. The force, a strangely magnetic one at that, stripped me of the human resistance I possessed and drew me fiercely, that I could go fall at her feet and slowly look up at her face. I did fall and I did see a face; a face that glowed with an unearthly serenity, a pair of grey eyes that defied the word beauty of its worth. I also saw that all that those soft eyes perceived was a screen of perfect black when her music produced a riot of colorful dreams.

My new bookshelf! :)

2006-10-29T18:50:00.000+05:30

Tadatadaaaaaaaaa!!!

:)!!

And I continue to dream..

2006-10-10T04:20:00.000+05:30

Of so many things! Like taking a vacation, and writing a story, and catching up with friends, and buying a bookshelf! Recently, I have been taken in by the charm of a beautiful bookshelf, particularly because of its simplicity and elegance.

I am surprised how I can take liking to certain things almost immediately. While my obsession for books, bags and music are always growing exponentially, there are those other desires that pop up now and then and hold my fantasy for a good length of time. Like the bookshelf that I am talking about. Let me refer to 'it' as a 'she' from now on.

I see her in my dreams because I am always preoccupied about where to place her if she arrives and how I would arrange all my precious darlings from fiction to non fiction to poetry to management to comics. May be this should go into shelf one, that into shelf two and so on.

Now that am writing about this, I should share with you a similar obsession that grew in me when I bought my scooty pep three years ago. I desperately counted down 45 days before the red princess came to belong to me on a rainy evening in Bangalore. Hell, who cared for the rains?

Like some of my friends would know, that day, I actually woke up at two in the night to check if she was alright. I am glad to say that my interest in her hasn't weaned away one bit, even today. I call her my daughter, pretty, sweet, child.

The point is, I am amazed by human attachment to certain things. We care for them like they are the most precious things that define our lives and a small damage to it or a life without it seems unbearable. Suddenly, all philosophy takes a back seat and you can't think of a life without getting your hands on it. Isn't it?

I began a countdown last Monday for yesterday when my hubby promised to take me to the furniture shop. Unfortunately, the rains killed all my dreams of seeing and bringing home my much desired bookshelf. What now, I have begun another countdown for the next weekend for the same mission! :D

Updates will of course be available! :)..Good day till then! :)

Where have I been?

2006-09-27T04:05:00.000+05:30

Everywhere else, except around my blog. I am busy shuttling between work and home, with very little or no time to spare for writing some stories and other stuff that are swirling inside my head.

I hope to make the time soon and get back with a post, really really soon!

Take care all of you and enjoy life (and work!) !! :D

Cheers,
AV

PS : A lot has changed back from when I began blogging. I felt the title of my blog needed a change and hence, it has changed! Request people who have my old blog name on their blogroll to update it with this one!

I have great pleasure in welcoming you to The Storyteller's Hut! :)

Waiting for Grandpa

2006-09-15T07:25:00.000+05:30

I draw lines on the canvas of dew that has settled on the window panes. I would fix them straight but they would trickle down aimlessly, beyond my control; Random, strange patterns. Try again, and again, and again. Random, strange patterns. No straight lines. They behave as they will. Does God script lines of fate similarly?

I watch through the misty glass, the pale yet unusually calm face of the man I so revered and loved – Grandpa. Yesterday was not like this. He and I had had a nice, warm chat, sitting by his bedside. And suddenly, with minimum fuss, he slipped into a coma.

Granddad was telling me about his childhood days. How he and his little friend, Somu, jumped over his neighbours’ compound wall, into their farm, to steal mangoes with great expertise. These for me were like silver screen stories in real life. Where had I ever heard of such stuff? The movies, I bet.

Ageing is such a mysterious reality, even stranger, the phenomenon of death. To me, they are frightful truths that often haunted one in the nights and quietly escaped through the backdoor as morning descended with the illusions called life’s responsibilities. Don’t we categorize them as simply, daily routine?

Coming to think of it, there is the other side. We run in a race, fast and faster, to be the first and always on top. In the process of running, many of us forget that the ultimate finishing line is the end of ourselves. I somehow, can’t subscribe to the fact, “there is only one life, live it.” We should live it, but well aware of our coordinates. We don’t live forever. Sadly, many of us either ignore death or worry too much about it. How many of us can gracefully accept that death is indeed a humbling truth?

Surprisingly, Grandpa always had a calming view of death, not the frightening undertone that it usually presented. He only dealt with it, with such elegant ease. The calm that stemmed from his subconscious glowed on his face, as if preserved till eternity.

We fear missing others, in their deaths and in our own, missing our own selves and lives, those lives, however miserable they may get. We fear death even more, because we have no conclusive control over the causative factors.

I was missing Grandpa’s toothless grin, as soft as a baby’s. I was missing his childish craving for the forbidden jalebis, his assuring talk, his strong will that beat the fragility of his physique. I was missing the complement of me, a weak young woman– he, the strong, old man. I was missing my confidant.

Is there nothing that we can do? I ask the doc, gazing at Grandpa. The doc shrugs in reply. He is deteriorating. I hold grandpa’s hand that had grown to wear the characteristic softness of old age. I will wait for you, Grandpa. Afterall, who am I to draw lines?

Confessions

2006-08-31T02:40:00.000+05:30

The river bounces along talking sweet murmurs and deeper down, escalating to a silence, inert and cold. I sit in the muddy banks, throwing stones into the water and watch them disappear clueless into the ashen grey, like a spine chilling mystery; sucked in by an astonishing power of absorption. Isn’t it a similar kind of gravity of the past that’s drawing me inside, to my inner layers that I have been desperately hiding away from?

I am not a woman who somebody would easily want for a wife. That was my husband’s last remark, when he was my husband.
“Jane, you are just not happening! Look at you. Now, why don’t you pump some life into your being?”

Now that I think of it, this was never how things began between us. Rosy, picturesque, dainty, and smooth – made for each other, we had imagined. But what we reaped in the end was disdain, hatred, repulsion, tough luck. All those happy moments were ephemeral that evaporated without a trace, to nothingness.

“I don’t for the life of me understand what you want,” I had screamed one day. “Walk around with dipping necklines, revealing thighs, party all time and smoke cigarettes offensively into faces? Is that what life is to you?”

“Come on Jane,” he roared, “That isn’t everything. But that, is also life. Is seclusion, quiet and mute arrogance all that there is in life for you?”

Petty fights weren’t real reasons why we separated. They were trivial, invented, to force a separation. We forced flaws, sharp divisions of attitude to merely get away. We were getting unbearable to each other, so I thought. I had all these days, tried running away from that one truth: What forced us to invent reasons? Was I so incapable of sustaining a relationship? Was I the reason for him to bring up reasons?

These have been days of emotional curfew. I wouldn’t cross the disturbing line, after which I would break down. “Why should I waste my tears for a heartless man?” I used to reason, but the reality was that I was running away from identifying myself, as possibly the core of the entire fault.

Ah, the travails of a wandering mind! I struggle to place the entire relationship and the events associated with it, under a surveillance system – my conscience. Where had it been all these days? Had I just snubbed it all those times when it rose before me to warn me of a possible breakdown?

“Let’s give ourselves some more time,” he had suggested and I had flatly refused to even lend an ear. What could you expect out of a heart that was fuming red with rage and obscene hatred?

“Don’t try to patch up things, Sam. I am tired of showing up this façade of loving you and living happily with you.You hate me, accept it and get done with me!” I had yelled.

“Jane, you are not a woman that someone would easily want to have for a wife,” he had shouted and walked out of the house. And with that he drew the final between us. Rather, it was I who forced him to face the severity of a separation.

Then, I had thought heavily about not compromising on my individuality. Why should I party and mix, when I don’t have the inclination to do it? Why should I stop doing what I love to do, when he doesn’t like it? Even the disappointment on his face wasn’t remedy to the selfishness that I was cultivating inside me. I could have at least tried out that day, couldn’t I? I could have at least made an attempt to set it all right. Give it some space, like he had said. Like I have today; I have worn the skirt that he so wanted me to wear then.

My love for him seems to have been locked away in unfathomable depths and I had let silly things come in between us only to realize that the love choked and died a silent death inside me, inside him, that the damage became irreparable. God damn, my murky, obscure attitude!

The sun has turned a dense ball of orange, and the sky a backdrop of shimmering gold. The water suddenly appears dyed orange, a flowing satin of orange. Time to leave, I decide and walk back, unmindful of the soggy mud. I turn and see that I have left a track of my footprints. These, I think, will be washed out in moments. I fervently hope that the ironies of life will brush aside too. Realization in itself is a big thing and it has begun today. I know I will learn to live, someday.

Where I talk about the real ‘me’

2006-08-29T02:20:00.000+05:30

I realise I have talked very little about myself in the last few weeks (or has it been months?). Hence, I have decided to put my stories, poems and all those other stuff aside for a while and talk a little about what’s been happening with me. An extemporaneous effort, hopefully without sounding like a rigmarole!

Nothing very important but nothing unimportant either. I was surprised by a strange phenomenon. Suddenly quite a few people that I know have asked me questions (through Orkut and phone calls) in their own styles, but with an underlying theme that could be framed thus: “How has married life been treating you?” and I got back to them saying more or less, “Yeah, splendid”. And it all happened in a week, when one of the dates coincided with the completion of six months of our married life.

I have to admit I have learnt a lot in these six months. Reflective as it may seem and sound, living with a partner alters one’s lifestyle from what it was when one remained single. It’s so much fun sharing one’s joys, sorrows and fears with a special person where adjustments, compromises made with the right temperament contributes in a big way to a harmonious life together.

There is a thin line that runs between what you would want to do and what your hubby desires and I think if one is smart enough, she should be able to strike the right balance between the two. Like, eating upma, for instance ;). I have hated the very prospect of eating that silly dish for years and I would run miles from the kitchen when I got a hint of it being prepared by my mother. But I cook the same thing for him, these days. And the best (or worst?) thing is: I eat it as well. But halfway through, seeing me struggle, he would kindly ask me to drop the idea. :D. Well, that’s fun. But, the fact is, it could be extrapolated to larger issues that tend to crop up in people’s lives together.

Oh, we have been doing tremendous shopping at Shoppers Stop. Logically speaking, we shouldn’t be talking about clothes for couple of months to come. Nevertheless, I know, we will and may be even go a step further to redo our wardrobes. :D.

Did I miss out “Vettayadu Vilayaadu” in between all this? :O. Oops, I loved the movie, the thrill, the immense change that it brings to the kollywood world which is otherwise increasingly being loaded with silly, soapy, sentimental scripts! Kamal Haasan dons the role of a smart cop and man, he really is, after all those ‘in between humour based movies’ of his. Jyothika does a subdued role and breezes through the movie. But the real eye catcher of the film is the characterization of the villainous men. The Diro-man really makes you hate them. Definitely worth a watch, if you are the sorts who can tolerate a little bit of gruesome scenes and violence.

Lord Ganesha alias Vinayaka better be happy :p. We celebrated his day in all its splendour and made his favourite kozhakattais, sundal, vadai, idlis, payasam and a full course meal! I don’t know whether He really ate it all and felt happy but our friends surely did. My friend was home within an hour of me telling him we made kozhakattais. Hey, you better treat me someday for this!

What’s more? I am now happily listening to a beautiful playlist on winamp and typing this away. But caution soon warms up the insides of this not so bright head. No more of these stretched out, relaxed happy days. No more of those afternoons when hubby comes home for lunch. No more of leisurely book reading, for I report for work (again, after a break of eight months) in exactly one week!

Love nuggets

2006-08-19T03:10:00.000+05:30

Nugget#1
For all the four years that I had known him, we spoke most when our eyes locked. But I couldn’t decipher its implications. Where was all this heading to? What did it mean when I saw a sparkle in his eyes? Was it love or an imagined, self conceived attraction? It could be love, I guessed, for, the pristine beauty of the feeling meant that there was indeed something special.

But, we weren’t talking. Don’t ask me why. I simply don’t know. Sometimes, the language of silence is far too soothing than any spoken word. We didn’t want to confess something we innately knew. That’s stereotypical, archaic, clichéd. The belief that he loved me, could sustain a parade of dreams for all those years and that was exceptionally sufficient to keep my soul happy.

Someday, I would get a sign, a positive one at that, and I would know the answer, I believed. The sign finally did come, when his eyes beckoned me to his arms, on a beautiful night.

Nugget#2
One glance my way and I blushed like those docile touch-me-nots that shrink unto themselves at the touch of a finger. It was a moment pregnant with the joys of newly found love – not a word exchanged, yet it felt like I had known him for eons.

The instant was a perfect confluence of a woman’s femininity, fragility, fluidity – that the warmth of his gaze enveloped my feminine wraps. I surrendered; I melted away like drifting ice. Did he even know about it?

Nugget#3
Rishi and I had shared wonderful moments in the three years we spent together at college. It’s hard to find a true friend, someone who can sense your mood, act accordingly, lend a shoulder to lean on and cry, ruffle your hair and let your tears have a beautiful meaning.

Rishi was all that to me, but I was always left groping with a sense of doubt – Why should he do it all for me, a girl who had nothing extraordinary about herself?

I loved taking long walks with him round the campus. This won’t last forever, I told him one day. Isn’t it unkind of fate that all good things had to come to an end? Who said this would end, he asked. How could it end, if we decided to go together forever? I stood still, feeling dizzy and as I can recollect, feeling extremely confused. What ever do you mean? Why me, Rishi? There are so many pretty and interesting women, who dote on you. Why me?

Because you are not extraordinary, he told me. Because I adore the sweet child in you who cries for a Mills n Boon story, who smacks her lips after a dose of ice cream and who without hesitation, truly hugs me and sobs for a badly done test. You are simple and hence, truly beautiful, he said and pressed his lips on my cheek leaving a solemn and tender kiss, for the first time ever.

“You are the music of my life, Maya. Won’t you be my girl?”

Nugget#4
Sanjay couldn’t understand what went wrong. Veena’s send off hadn’t been very pleasant in the morning.
“Good bye, honey,” he had said, while leaving for office and was met with cold silence in return.
“What could be wrong?” he wondered all day long.

Back from work in the evening, he tried the hug and pacify formula. It always had fetched good results. But that day it had a different effect. Veena thrust a cup of his favourite badam kheer into his hands and was speaking to herself.

“I am a fool,” she said, “a silly wife who does all that her husband likes and he, he doesn’t care to even speak to her! All he can do is to waste away the morning, talking to a female colleague who he finds much more interesting than his own wife!”

“Ahh, pangs of jealousy. Now, I know!” he thought and grabbed a bunch of roses from the vase, knelt down and said out loud,
“Veena, my true love, come hug me now, right away!” and ran around her following her all over the house.
“I should tell my mom that I have married a monkey,” she said.
“Really, but it so happens that the monkey’s wife is curiously jealous!”
“Nobody is jealous, here, now go away!”
“Ah really, then somebody is trying to suppress a smile, isn’t it? Now come on, don’t lie!”
“Get lost, you meanie!”

“No, no way,” he laughed, and seized her by her waist, pulling her close to him.
“You silly, stupid, leave me now, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate to hate you, you bum!”

Nugget#5
They had been married for over fifty years now. But things were slowly moving away from what it used to be. Lakshmi was distancing herself from their beautiful past, quite without her knowledge. Swaminathan was trying his best to pull her out of the deadly abyss she was plunging into. Her memories were falling prey to Alzheimer’s disease.

“Do you remember this painting?” he asked her one day, pointing at one. She looked at it and drew a blank look. “You gifted me that on our 25th wedding anniversary!” How could he hold her back, she, the essence of all that life had been to him in the last 50 years? A big part of him was nearing annihilation. What was he to do?

One of those nights, he sat, massaging her foot and telling her how the blue in her eyes still remained beautiful, even after so many years. He told her how the warmth of her grasp still communicated a thread of togetherness even that day. He told her, how he missed her voice, their early morning talks sitting in the balcony. He told her of how they had shied away during their first night and how he carried her all over the house, when she confessed her motherhood to him. He told her how he still loved her silver grey curls and her small feet.

He took a deep breath and looked at her face. He saw a tear slipping down her cheek and rushed to hold it in his palm. He believed she heard him.

அவளது கவிதை

2006-08-12T01:50:00.000+05:30

தித்திக்கும் இசைக்கும்,
கொஞ்சும் மழலைக்கும்,
நெஞ்சை நெகிழ வைக்கும்
தமிழுக்கும் நடுவே,
உன் இதழின் மௌனம்

ஒரு திகட்டாத புதுக் கவிதை..

Letters to Dad – 21st February 2004

2006-07-26T04:15:00.000+05:30

Dearest Dad,

I realized it’s high time we revived a certain tradition that both of us – you, and me, by virtue of being your daughter, have held so close to our hearts. As you might have very rightly guessed, it’s about getting back to the art of writing letters – it feels like ages since I wrote something to you out of my hand. The fact that my handwriting seems utterly messy would suffice to say that I have moved distantly away from a culture that has a charm of its own and demands special prowess. Nevertheless, I shall attribute that to initial trouble and move on.

Dad, I am planning to do this thing, systematically. Let matters of daily routine rest with our usual telephonic conversations and daily mails. These letters will be different. Let me explain. Do you remember those nights when I returned home for my vacation? We used to sit in the balcony, look up at the sky and talk philosophy watching the stars! I remember how we used to glide from one topic to another and let words play, to put forth our different ideas. Discussions, they were, that taught me plenty and left me wanting for more.

Time has always ushered new things into our lives and can you believe it is seven years since you got me married? Dad, try how much ever, it’s been tough to maintain our relationship the way it had been before my marriage. However, my love and concern for you and mom, have remained unquestionably intact and isn’t it true that love grows even more splendidly in separation?

I want to begin this series of letters, with a special person who has redefined the meaning of my life and in the process, has offered me such interesting perspectives and thoughts that I haven’t really been able to identify myself with, before. Yes, I am indeed talking about the three year old brat that I have for a son and you for a grandson - Aryan. Dad, you got to tell me if I had been such a big trouble for you when I was young. This chap really gives me all the exercise I need to keep me going in my old age – very active, or more appropriately, brimming with ‘difficult-to-manage’ mischief.

I know I have shared aspects of his growing up with you and mom, over the phone. But certain observations, a few realizations, I feel I can best articulate only through writing. It so happens that when you watch your child grow up, it’s almost like looking into a mirror and seeing your own childhood. In a way, it’s an access to insights about what I might have been when I was a child and what as a parent, you would have done (leaving aside photographs) – things that I, in all realistic possibility don’t have an inkling about.

What I want to share with you is the emotional side of bringing up and being with one’s child, after having been one, to one’s parents. Aryan brings inside me a gush of feelings – love, concern, responsibility, pride and sometimes, fear.

It’s surprising as to how a fresh soul can breeze in so much of happiness into one’s life. From the day Aryan was born, I have watched every act of his, as one of divine nature and worthy of all human awe. Ah, what could be more fulfilling than watching your child toddle, seeing his teeth grow, throwing all those fond admonitions for getting his shirt dirty, or for fussing over a glass of milk or for sucking his thumb? I remember you telling me how mom used to scare me that she would tie a cockroach to my finger if I ever sucked it again. May be, it’s time for me, to use those silly tricks again and feel foolishly superior to a child, who knows no fear. Dad, didn’t you feel this way too?

I tremble with pride when he cites nursery rhymes with half audible words and syllables that are yet to find their way to perfection through that sweet tongue. In child talk lies the core of innocence and I wish I could trap that and keep it with me forever. It’s something that experience has eroded off my being and I helplessly realize, my son would be subjected to the same fate.

I feel responsible for his life and sometimes as Akash puts it, get over protective and fussy. Can’t help it, can I? It’s that being a mother, I feel insecure when the child is away from my vicinity, slowly leading to fear. When he holds my hand, I feel overjoyed and overwhelmingly safe. As your child, didn’t I redefine the outlines of your life? May be I did, from what I am learning now.

My son teaches me so many things that I ironically have forgotten; the beauty of simplicity, the power of an inquisitive mind, for example. May be as a child, I had taught you similar things – what you taught your parents and had forgotten. Suddenly, your daughter starts teaching the same things all over again! We teach lessons, to forget them, only to learn them again. Vicious cycle?

It all seems so similar and it’s just that I was a daughter to you whereas Aryan is a son to me. But, we hand down those emotions, those tricks. And those childish pranks run down unstoppably, generation after generation. The phases that we observe and admire are undoubtedly the same through years. May be you used a cassette recorder to tape my rhymes and childish chatter. But today, I do it through my digital camera and my mobile phone. There are things that do not change and there are some that change.

I am led to believe that a chain of changes dominates every generation and at the same time, there are things that are handed down to children – such is life, isn’t it? For all that there is, we have so much to learn and ponder about!

We’ll indeed talk more on anything remotely possible, in the days to come. Do write back to me.

Love to mom and messy darling doggy, Bruno!

Lots of affection,
Sumi

PS: Dad, I miss your cake and your hug. Wish me Happy Birthday!
- Sumi

United we stand!

2006-07-13T03:45:00.000+05:30

More than a hundred lives lost and over a three hundred injured. Of what worth is all this immense loss, I understand not. Why target the innocent common man? Where is all this leading to? When will peace return to this land?

Bombay. What I share with the bubbling city is a long time love affair. The terror attacks that wrecked havoc in the city, by targeting the lifeline of Bombay, have left me feeling empty and wanting to share my spirit to fight, though I don’t stay there anymore.

A part of humanity wants to instill terror, while another goes about its business undaunted and the city wakes up to live the next day as normal as ever.

What's more. It's high time some relevant action is taken on this front. Meanwhile, the strength of unity is what can help us now. Overcoming differences and joining hands is the need of the hour and Bombay set a perfect example of this spirit yesterday.

I remember how we fought the July 26th floods last year and like I was mesmerized by some supreme force, I got back to office the very next day. I am sure the same calm would have returned over the skyline at the Marine Drive, even today.

Salaam Bombay! Your spirit shall rule over every other evil force that wants to purge the courage out of you! May the kith and kin of those who lost their lives, find themselves even stronger and may those who caused it, tremble with shame for the gruesome act they committed!

Weekend delights..:)

2006-07-10T23:00:00.000+05:30

May I have the lovely pleasure of introducing to you, the delight that tickled my taste buds over the weekend?

Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together to welcome,

The Sizzling Brownie!!!!! :)..:)

Reflections

2006-07-06T03:55:00.000+05:30

Charming yellows, soothing greens, smart reds, earthy brown, pale purple, hazy blue, icy silver – gorgeous, glamorous, picture perfect, every year. I watch the twenty seventh spring of my life, this time, a little early. I, Scarlet Wadsworth, let myself loose as the wind pulls me, swirls and rolls me down the memory lane.

When did I smell the hint of my first spring on earth? It was when Sally, my caretaker took me down the slopes near my home, and I caught the sweet scent of spring and received the first shower of dew. Then on, I have come a long way, may be far, far away from the novelty of a new born.

Isn’t it fascinating? The way we all grow up; so many changes manifesting themselves in our physical form and the nature of our being. That, what once seemed meaningful and perfectly valid becomes the ground stone of absurdity; that innocence, turns to be a paradigm so distant, and next to impossible, that we struggle to realign our focus to what we once were?

Pouring over a cup of hot chocolate, landing up with sticky fingers, sticky lips, standing in those long twirling lines in the school, waiting for a chance – to pick up a library book or to get your notebook signed, or maybe for a drill, or may be just to render a prayer with due reverence and hear boring speeches with undue disrespect. Memories – how they rustle like the falling leaves of autumn!

And what about those merry go rounds with Agnes Anderson, Hilda Osborne, Rachel Larson and Matilda Merryweather during school days at Southampton? Would I care to do that today? Come on, I just can’t afford to make a fool of myself, Can I? That’s what I think - openly. Secretly though, I wish I could call all of them to my guest room sometime and do it all over again!

Deals used to be struck those days. Rachel and I would exchange our pencils and pencil cases. Hilda would let me have her doll for a week’s time and I would give her my (much eyed) kitchen set, but mind you, only for a week. Deals often led to complaints, teaming up and pesky fights. And those were followed by courageous reconciliations, ironically through deals struck again, only different ones this time.

As children, I think we asked interesting questions, enthusiastically pondered for answers and surprised elders, out of pure naiveté. Momma, how did I come into this world? May be Momma said, from me. And then she would have gone on to say, God made you and sent you to this world, through me.
“Really, But, where did God come from?”
Silence. Period.

Today, I have changed, in so many ways. I have grown up. Yes, I have. I no longer let out a shrill cry of joy at the look of a box of toffees. I don’t sink my teeth into a pastry, unmindful of cream smeared all around my mouth and falling onto my dress. I don’t fascinate wearing all those jazzy pink ribbons and laced hair clips that I had once held with so much adoration. I live, carefully treading along the boundaries defined by the society, the world, people. I no longer ask the right questions. Even if I did, I don’t bother to struggle enough to get answers.

I bother. Oh hell, yes, I do. I care for what others would think of me. I care for not messing up.

Time changes one or one changes with Time. May be you realize that or you don’t. Years back I was a kid who ran back home after I lost something as small as my school badge or snapped up my watch strap accidentally, out of fear and agony. Today, I can’t even think of doing all that again.

What’s all that? A part of the package called ‘growing up’?

சுவடுகள்

2006-06-22T21:06:00.000+05:30

உன் உயிர் தீண்டலால்
என் முகத்தில்,

துளிர்த்தன வெட்கச் சுவடுகள்..

'Coz sometime I have to wake up..:D

2006-06-12T22:30:00.000+05:30

Yeah, my sister finally woke me up from my blissful sleep..:)...and I have decided to go in for a weekend roundup..KK and I had an exotic buffet lunch at the Taj, watched Fanaa at PVR Cinemas and visited Landmark and Crossword over the last two days, though there isn't anything significantly surprising about the last mentioned activity!

Fanaa was ok. Kind of predictable storyline. But Aamir and Kajol's pair rocks! My lips now fail to stop murmuring Chand Sifaarish and of course I sway happily to the beats. Nobody could have rendered it better than Shaan.

The next few days are gonna be kind of busy and I wish I could keep my blogging in course.

Oh yes, I also have a small reason to celebrate. 100th post!!! :)

See you all soon..!!

An Alarm Clock, a Divine Lady and I

2006-06-06T05:48:00.000+05:30

A devoted Alarm clock (Crooning mechanically):
Wake up, wake up, my darling,
You gotta get going
It's a new, new beginning
A beautiful day in the making.

A sleepy Me (head popping out):
Oh, stop all that crooning
You tell that every morning
Remember, that gets boring
And, I don't feel like waking.

To the coziest of all divine ladies, Lady Idleness!

A blur of white
rising in might
patting me alright
I know thee, my light!

A bewitched me (looking in her direction):
My, I can't stop gazing
At thy form so pleasing
Despite all the ageing
You still look thriving.

A puzzled Alarm clock (rolling eyes):
Now dear, stop wailing
Look at the sun beaming
How dutiful and inspiring
Your day ahead is waiting.

A half convinced Me(struggling):
Oh, enough of convincing
Yet again, you are winning
In holding me from falling
A prey to idleness so dazzling.

And thus I wake up
steaming coffee in a cup
dabbing fresh make up
Sigh, everyday is a hiccup!!

Yet another night returns
Yet another dawn breaks
Yet again his duty begins
Yet again, my friend sings:

Wake up, wake up, my darling,
You gotta get going
It's a new, new beginning
A beautiful day in the making.

And so the story runs
for days, days and days
As the Lady divine returns
in her ever tempting forms.

Alarm Clock: Wake up, wake up, my darling..
Me: No, no, she is alluring
Lady Idleness: My honey, stop resisting
There's lots in the offing.
Alarm Clock: O' dear, you, she is wooing
Me: 'ts just a day, stop worrying
Lady Idleness: My child, continue dreaming
And witness idleness flourishing
Alarm Clock: O'Sigh, why aren't you holding?
Me: Indeed I am, but to her, smiling
To the hand she is lending
Lady Idleness: Come on, it's happiness calling..

And thus for a day
Feeling happy and gay
From the work,cut away
I slept and slept, all day!

An experiment for a change - updated!

2006-06-02T20:45:00.000+05:30

I wanted a change, hence wished to experiment with something. The old template has been here for too long. I thought I should give it a break. Change often leads to new beginnings. Goodbye Kubrick, Welcome Beckett..!

Well, that's what I thought..But there seems to be some terrible problem with the Beckett template. All formatting has disappeared. For now, I go back to Kubrick..

And I also have an appeal out here.

An appeal

2006-06-02T19:20:00.000+05:30

We crib, we cry, but in the end, all of us do earn big. I am sure most of us out here are big earners, big enough to lend a helping hand to some special people who seek it from us. Why not, if the folks asking it of you are a bunch of special children, who like all of us, are doing their families proud by trying to become earning members.

I would like to put forth an appeal made by the "DS Special Children Welfare Association", a group based in Chennai. To briefly tell you about the people in this group, the team is constituted by eight down syndrome children – Ramesh, Dinesh, Santhosh, Sudhakar, Shakthi Balan, Revathy, Vidyavathy and Uma Maheswari. The interesting feature about this group is that these eight children have been given vocational training by a team of eight parents (parents of these children.).

The group works like a regular school and on a daily basis, under the guidance of their parents, the children manufacture, eco friendly plates, cups, fresh fruit juices, paper bags, envelopes, diabetic biscuits, greeting cards, Mopping cloth, kitchen towels, yoga mats, door mats, incense sticks, handicraft gift items and many more. It is heartening to note that the items done by these children have been sold to the public through organized sales, in and around the city.

The support group which got together under this banner only last July, has seen phenomenal success as it has organized more than six sales events in the last one year, including colleges. In a few days from now, the group is moving into a new building (in Virugambakkam) that has been donated to them.

As you may have realized, the parents of these children are very keen on boosting the confidence of these children by engaging them in activities like these. They believe in using their children’s potential to the fullest, thus helping them in their growth. This being the case, the parents initially ventured to put in the start up capital required to buy raw materials, basic machinery etc.

As the team moves into the new premises, they are in need of funds to buy the following.

- Machinery, fans
- Tools
- Raw Materials
- A van to transport them from their homes and the finished products to the sales outlets.

I have personally seen these children and witnessed their work and I vouch for the great work they do. I place before you, on behalf of the association, a sincere request to help them by contributing whatever you can. Contributions can be made through Cheques or Demand Drafts, drawn in favour of “DS Special Children Welfare Association, Virugambakkam”. I also request you to pass the word around through emails.

The original appeal and details of the group can be accessed here.

Let’s do our small measure to help these special kids feel independent and meaningful.

Many Thanks,
AV

Me, her and our worlds together

2006-05-30T01:05:00.000+05:30

14th July 1965. When the first rays of dawn broke in all its golden charm and touched down lightly on my window panes, illuminating it with an unearthly glow, I was born again. It was the first time she wriggled restlessly in my arms, suffering conceivably from both fear and fascination for the big, bad unknown world I had led her into. She - my daughter.

I basked in the glory and peace of lustrous motherhood. It was as though a tender flame burned quietly within me, throwing a light never seen thus far. She clung on to me, her little fingers appraising the alien cloth that then seemed to have come between her and me. Did she know that I was her mother? What would I tell her – call me Mom, or Momma, or Mum or whatever? What was she thinking? What was running inside her little mind? Was it blank or was He showing her beautiful dreams as she stirred and smiled?

I held her close to my bosom, her head on my hand, her tiny fingers holding my gown. Oh, how exhilarating it was, I can’t explain. I ran my fingers all over her, feeling the supple and the beautifully tender skin, fresh with the smell of a new born. Such tiny fingers, toes, small eyes that hadn’t even opened completely, a small round mouth, that had broken into just one half smile, a nose that was yet to make its way out, such delicate folds – how marvelously sculpted by the Master Creator. I had carried a priceless gift from God and had delivered it to the world, I felt and hence, beamed with a satisfaction, that was definitely not meagre.

The first time she crawled, the first time she sat up, the first words she uttered (buh, buh for milk) – a long list of unforgettable firsts found a mention in my “My baby book”. One afternoon, while I was in the kitchen checking on baby food, I suddenly turned to see my little honey having taken two steps from where I had put her (it was near the kitchen door). She tottered towards me, carefully lifting her small feet and putting them forward, o-------n-------e, t-------w-------o, th------ree-------, fo--------ur, fiveeeee! I sank on my knees and held her hands. She beamed. I smiled. I cried. My baby had learnt to walk.

It wasn’t long after then that she started running all over the house and the garden, her father, giving her all the company. Vaccines, diaper changes, “Oomy” and “Addy”, baby food, prams, toys, baby clothes; they were symbols that dominated our lives together. Addy dropped her at pre-school and I would pick her up in the evening. “Oomy” she would say, “Colour, colour..”. Colours fascinated her and Addy only pampered her with crayons, colour pencils, more crayons, more colour pencils.

I think the phrase, “And they lived happily ever after..” is destined to find its presence only in fairy tale books. (Oh, how many we used to read out to her – “Beauty and the Beast”, “Cindrella”, “Snow White and the seven dwarfs”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “The Pied Piper”, “Pinocchio”..), for doom descended on us, like a huge black cloud. When my daughter was barely three years old and me, 25, my husband left us groping in the dark, searching for a future, that appeared to exist eons away. He died of cardiac arrest.

Faced with the huge responsibility of bringing up a child, single handedly, I shuddered. God, what would I do? Where would I begin? The amazing trait of family life is the division of responsibility. Momma would cook, run the household, Pappa would work, take care of financial matters, and both would play an equal part in raising the kid. Suddenly, I had to do it all, all alone. I felt stranded, as if abandoned in an island in the middle of the sea, with no one to help but myself.

She was after all, a child. Her questions were alarming and, never ending. She couldn’t understand why dad never returned home, why momma went to work in a bank while she also made food, why Addy never dropped her at school anymore and only a school van picked her up. Why was Oomy signing report cards, why was Oomy talking to teachers – Oh hell, why was the whole world upside down, why was routine so topsy turvy and was like what it once never was?

I was making tremendous effort; to build up my determination, to walk my way up to my ultimate goal. I sought employment, took stock of our family financial condition and retained our house. (We had bought it just a year back). I was earning only half as much as my husband and hence our lifestyle had to be adjusted to the inflows. Fatigue, work pressures, memories and sometimes despair would drive me to a corner.

I wonder how time starts ticking away without even you realizing it. In all those years of my daughter growing up, I wanted to make sure, she didn’t miss her dad but how could that be possible? I was missing my husband and how could I successfully fill up that void he left behind? My daughter seemed to me a mature girl for, over a period of time she realized that life had to go on and that father was no longer a physical presence of support but an entity in the memory, an impression and pillar of strength within our minds.

By the time she was eleven, we had gained ground and established a way of life for ourselves. We were determined to have fun together. After years, we laughed, rolling on our beds, had pillow fights, threw water at each other, cooked together, did homework together, went for picnics, watched horror movies and comedy shows, remembering him all the while, only that this time, we remembered him with happiness and not regret. It’s a lesson that life and time had taught us – to be happy when we could be.

Are anxieties and fears signs of growing old? By the time my daughter was sixteen, I seemed to have all signs of it. I was worrying, to say the least, that my daughter, like many other teens in the country, would lose track of her life. What induced the fear in me, I know not, but it sprouted out of nowhere and was growing to torment me in ways that I had not imagined. At fifteen, she was watching movies with her friends, having late night parties. She was good, she informed me of everything beforehand, yet, I panicked. I feared I was losing my daughter to undesirable ways of life. Drugs, affairs, sex – Oh Jesus, what if my daughter fell a prey to any of these? My daughter’s requests to attend parties slowly met with a cold resistance, which she had never seen of her mother. “Oh Momma, but why?” they are all nice folks, she would say. But I would put a firm foot down.

In the nights, I would see her weep into her pillow and feel terrible about silly notions I was entertaining inside my head. She is my daughter, I would tell myself, Why don’t you trust her? She, she understood but still didn’t understand. She was a nice daughter who loved her mother and knew momma loved her too. But, why wasn’t she letting her go? Why doesn’t Momma trust her anymore?

My fear was driving me to a point of atrocious insanity, bewildering for sure, to my now grown-up daughter. Our lives suddenly seemed to assume the nature of a bundle of contradictions, when each found the other’s attitude a dividing line – to her a fence to her freedom - a fence that pricked when she wanted to jump to her greener pastures, to me the very barricade that rose like a wall between us. In the process of me being protective, and she being assuring, we, like children, were exaggerating the line beyond proportion.

In the end, I trusted my instincts and let her go. She wanted to do her graduation, staying at a hostel. My fears rose in me again but at seventeen, I saw in her eyes, the confidence that had once sparkled in her father’s eyes. I let her go.

It was true I missed her and worried about her but her assurance was not merely words, they were really meant to assure a mother in a distant land, a single mother who had stretched herself to bring her daughter up in the best of comforts. I dutifully collected every single letter she wrote to me, spoke to her once a week over the phone and counted down four months to her winter break and then another four months for her summer break. And my daughter would return, unfailingly every time, to be with her mother.

Her assertion that I was still her best friend warmed up my existence and she spoke of her friends, her college, her professors, her classes and in her final year, her boy friend. I smiled and she sensed the worry plaguing me, “Don’t worry momma, he is a very nice chap,” I will bring him over very soon. I trusted her.

My hair grayed quite a bit over the years and looking at my own reflection in the mirror, I felt the shadow of old age creeping up my physical body. I continued to work even after my daughter was gone for her studies, for it seemed really important to me to keep myself occupied, lest an idle mind would conjure up unwanted thoughts and ideas.

The day my daughter spoke of a new person, a new man in her life, I realized that she was truly grown up and whether I liked it or not, her life would take a different course in which I may no longer be the mainstream personality. She would have her family, her kids to deal with and the ball would just roll on.

I think of the last 25 years in a flash, as my daughter’s latest letter flutters in my hands. She speaks of her work life and discusses her marriage plans. “Momma, I’ll always be there for you, Love you sweetheart” she signs off. Now, I decide, it’s time to see a new phase. It’s time to redefine my goals.

Heart warming victories, silent defeats, ups and downs. It isn’t easy to be a single mother.

In loving memory

2006-05-24T21:40:00.000+05:30

"Some people touch our lives in ways unheard of and unknown and when they are gone so suddenly, it's like the light of our lives is gone."

My very dear aunt, her husband, her second daughter, Suganthi, (a down syndrome child) and her grandson (and my nephew) Siddharth (her first daughter's child) all passed away in a fatal road accident on the 21st of May, on their way from Chennai to Trichy. All of them are survived by my cousin, whose parents, sister and her own son, died very tragically.

Suganthi, will you come back once more to do all that you did and say all that you said?

Siddhu kutty, all your cars are still with us. Won't you come back to play again?

Athai and Athimber, we will miss you lots.

May your souls rest in peace.

Folks, when you drive, please do not drive rashly. Not only is your own life precious, but so are the lives of many others who drive on the road. It's a humble request. Thanks.

The dark secret

2006-05-18T03:20:00.000+05:30

Through trees that rose to heights
The moon white as a dove
The sky watching with a million eyes
We played the game of love.

By the brook rippling down softly
On the earth that smelled fresh
Wrapped in your arms so closely
We nestled in our youth’s mesh.

Ah, the memory of one glorious night
It pricks the heart and it bleeds
And now, it’s your spite that I fight
No more in the ring of your needs.

The secret, I bury deep in the wood
The truth falling like sullen shadows
Here once hand in hand we stood
O’ the passion in me, still bellows.

You vow your love and steal my right
Never again to see your face
I remain the mistress for a night
A lover distant in time and space.

Temptations

2006-05-18T03:13:00.000+05:30

Temptations - How they rise again and again? Creation is such a beautiful act to indulge in, for it transports you elsewhere..

Some more strokes from a learner's hand..

In the end, I felt a lot lighter! Thank you colours..:)

The couple and an Ipod Nano : A story

2006-05-16T05:50:00.000+05:30

Good day! So, you decided to read the story!
Ok, if you please..

(Don't ask me if it's fiction, it isn't!)

The pair in the story is an awesome one, you know! (Yeah, trust me!)..Why not, if it happens to be me and my better half ;)(call him KK)! The Ipod Nano is ours (technically what I own, though my husband sponsored it..:p).

This Ipod Nano has been my secret desire for (if not ages), definitely couple of months.

Me, I was obsessed with the idea of owning an Ipod but was never willing to talk about it, even when tempted into buying it. I have this very strange tendency to say no to things I like. If someone asked me straight on my face, if I wanted something, I would say a no; outright. This is true even if it's a thing that I really loved. After having said a no, I would rue over it and long for it, like a dumb idiot. And that, is a terrible weakness!

Both KK and I, are Forum addicts (the much talked about mall in Bangalore), that we religiously spend every saturday/sunday evening there. For the first five of our last seven visits there, he would take me to the Apple Ipod store inside Forum, and we would gaze dreamily (me, longingly!) at all those cute Ipods sitting there. While I was caught struggling with my unusual emotion, KK was stuck with a different problem. He also (desperately?) wanted to pick up a nano, but his wife (whom he knew wanted to buy one, but unfortunately) was actually convincing him not to buy it, citing a huge list of unwanted reasons - big money, savings, investments, blah, blah..I am sure, he thought "Oh come on, it's just this time! Why all this Ramayana??"

From the third time on, that we walked into the Apple store, I was getting this uneasy, silly feeling that the demo person out there, would recognise us, as the "Couple Craving for a Cute, Compact, Charismatic, Cho Chweet Thing" (or abbreviate that to C7T)". The day we were supposed to make the sixth visit to Forum, we oscillated between buying and not buying an Ipod, hmm...let me put a number to that, 13 times, thanks to me. I think KK convinced me 6 times, and I said No, all the 6 times (remember my weakness?) and finally the 7th time, he saw me sitting glum and before he could ask me what was wrong, I yelled out, "I want an Ipod da!!!" And he, he just sighed!

When we walked into the store the sixth time, we had seen the demo five times already in the white and black models and I was severely warning KK that I would hide my face, in case the folks there recognised who I was. I had shocking (of course useless) premonitions that they would pull us up by the collar and threaten us into buying a piece once and for all!

The sixth time, was a decisive one! Finally, finally, yes, we bought the dream thingy out!

Awww...so much for an Ipod, you think? Don't you? Yes, yes, I know. But, sometimes it's fun to put up crazy posts like these that are not hard on your brain cells! The serious stuff is always there!

For a round up, why not take a peek at the top ten songs in my latest playlist? It's a mad mix!

1) Maru Murai Aval Vizhi (Run)

- Short, quick rap with a beautiful instrumental ending of "Panikaatre"..

2) Enna Idhu (Nala Damayanti)

- Soft, soothing, haunting melody..

3) Oru Maalai (Gajini)

- A treat on an Ipod, Karthik rocks!

4) Thottu Thottu (Kaadhal)

- Can you give a superlative to brilliant? I love the lines, "Karu Vizhi rendum karuvarai thaano, meendum pirandhen"!

5) Vellai Pookal (Kannathil Muthamittal)

- My eyes grow misty everytime, and that's rare! ARR, I bow to thee!

6) Signore (Kannathil Muthamittal)

- Singalathu Melody! Very cute!

7) Kannathil Muthamittal (Kannathil Muthamittal)

- Jayachandran's voice is soul stirring!

8) It's the time to disco (Kal Ho Na Ho)

- I love that beat, and the laziness in the words, "Hey, we are dancing the night away!"

9) Dekho Naa (Swades)

- The strings, Alka, Udit, ARR, simplicity - extraordinary combo!

10) Suraj Hua Madham (K3G)

- The violins steal the show!

When I am bored..

2006-05-16T05:45:00.000+05:30

I try out anything remotely possible..

Like this!!! :D

Yeah, Like that!!!

Divine magic

2006-05-12T05:45:00.000+05:30

What are you, but divine magic?
So suave, so dignified, so soothing, so elegant..

I close my eyes, open my arms wide,
I speak, I confess, you smile, you listen,
And,

In the gripping power of your silence,
You absorb my fears and my happiness
And caress me with a tender breeze
Filling me with a beautiful tranquility..

What are you, but divine magic?
So enthralling, so mesmerizing, so striking, so magnificent..

O' dear Sea, You are true bliss!

[dedicated to Marine drive, where I have spent some of the best moments of my life..:)]

To Amma, with love..

2006-05-08T23:05:00.000+05:30

Ask her. Even today, she would definitely brand me her biggest trouble maker till my sister came into the picture. Not that I make things any better for her now, but atleast am a little grown up.

Ma, remember those days when we used to play those little, little games? Hide and seek, doctor-doctor and teacher-teacher? Well, I know all of it only through pictures you have shown me and the ones you created for me, through your flawless, innocent recollections.

Then, I grew a little bigger and I still recollect those pretty, pretty dresses you designed for me, in Singer Fashion maker. You couldn't have asked for a better model, could you? :)

I have troubled you enough, haven't I? Demanded so much patience from you. But then you did everything for me - you poured strength, inspiration and motivation into me when I needed them the most and you smiled in relief when I crossed the worst hurdles in my life.

Ah, how can I forget those fights over arranged marriages and horoscopes? I told you I would get home a man of my choice.:p. You panicked and pinched my cheek and twisted my ear and then in the night, whispered into my ears, "Trust me, dear, I'll bring you the best," and I smiled and hugged you. And you did find me one, didn't you? ([Oh yes, You did, you did!:)]

Tell you what, You are sweet, you are adorable, you are special, you are my dear friend, my lovely technophobic lady!

As you turn a golden fifty today, I wish you lots and lots of years of happiness, good health and cheer. Happy Birthday Ma, You are the best! :). I promise I will do you proud! :)

Lotsa Love..
Your big dotter..

What shall I give thee?

2006-05-06T04:40:00.000+05:30

For the security in your embrace,
For the strength in your grasp,
For the warmth in your touch,
For the care in your eyes,
For the bliss in your kiss,
For the kindness in your words,
For the affection in your actions,
For the selflessness in your thoughts,
For the completeness in your love,

What do I have, to give in return?

Than this:
I love you, I love you, I love you beyond words, sweetheart.

Munni - the story of a little girl

2006-04-27T05:20:00.000+05:30

The story

Munni

2006-04-27T05:10:00.000+05:30

#1
It’s surprising how the most of the time, what seems like a fresh and interesting beginning gradually sags down to distressing boredom. When I had stepped into Bombay a year ago, I was captivated by the sheer brilliance of bustling activity at Churchgate station. Then, it had seemed as though I was living life’s best. It isn’t often and infact, not for long, that life gleams with such optimism.

This is how it all began. Bright sunny mornings, chaotically colourful, scurrying, ‘me-my business’ people all over, and me, the solitary walker with earphones plugged on, from the moment I stepped out of my hostel through the 20 minute walk towards the station – we were all a part of this huge machinery that was Bombay, moving in and out, in sync, like nuts, bolts and axles of a system that moved tirelessly 24 X 7. But the bratty Time taught me a lesson – the lesson that there is something really catastrophic about a life that offers very little impedance. Monotony could sometimes make you so weak and could leave you defenseless against change, unless you have the courage to overcome it. Routine is an illusory trap!

My thinking process usually writes itself bold and clear on my face. I very much guess that I could have been an object of muse for co-passengers in the 9.30 local that I usually took to reach office. My mind races back to that particular Tuesday, last April. My disc-man was entertaining me as ever and it was Yanni’s Nostalgia filling the moment with a serenity not experienced for a while. And no big guesses, yeah, I was lost in thought. I could feel the coolers that I had pulled back over my head. New ones. Fast track, light brown, flimsy plastic – 5000 bucks. I was wondering how long its charm would last, for the previous purchase, a pair of high-heeled sandals pleased its owner for only two months. And then the owner settled down for a pair of bare flats, the next best approximation to bathroom slippers (well, these were ethnically designed ones.)

“What am I doing here?” I thought. Mom and Dad wanted me to do an engineering degree and a techy post grad. But I had fought and shouted my lungs out crying a big No. Thankfully, Shridhar Uncle, dad’s brother was big support. I did my graduation in business administration and since my heart lay in writing, went on to do a post graduation in journalism and jumped into the media world. The rest remains history.

I closed my eyes and scenes reeled inside my head when I felt that light tap on my thigh; the tap that was to steer my destiny on a different course. The train had stopped at Charni Road. I opened my eyes and there stood a young girl, wearing the costliest asset she could carry – a bright, wide smile.
“Hmm?” I murmured, still not off my inner world that was ringing with a thousand, unanswered questions.
“Didi, choodi logey?”
“Hmm..No..uh, No..,” I shook my head confused.
“Please didi, yeh pink colour aapke dress key saath bahut achaa dhikegaa, please..”
If not for anything else, I was so pleased by her smile and her brown eyes.
I nodded. “Teek hai, woh pink waala dhikaao”
She helped me try them on. I decided to buy them.
“Kitna bolo?”
“Didi pandraah,” she replied breathlessly. Come on, she had after all made business for the day.
She surveyed me with her large eyes as I dug into my bag for my wallet.

“Oh oh..,” I said holding a 500 rupee note, “No change..” I shrugged.
Her face fell instantly. Hopes had crashed. May be she had dreamt of having 'dho roti aur dal' that night. I felt pangs of guilt within. Oh, how I had ruined and killed small dreams..
“Teek hai, I will buy it from you tomorrow,” I promised. She nodded and was off to woo other buyers in the ladies coach.

The night meant hectic work. A survey report was due for submission, end of week and I sat on my bed, pouring over a hundred printouts and trying to gather sense and of course, I was biting nails, munching chips, drinking pepsi (did I say that was my dinner or rather I had skipped dinner?) and on top of everything, feeling terribly, terribly bored. The RJ from some FM station chattered endlessly and at one point, I was tuning in and out of stations as a matter of addiction. Search, search, search, for something better. Well, what was I actually searching for? I seriously wished I could gulp down glasses of whisky and lie frothing like a careless drunk because, only because I could chase boredom away for a while. But, work beckoned. I was turning out the front page story for the weekend issue. I couldn’t slip. It’s a mistake that would cost me my reputation. What would people think of me?

The next morning in the train, she stood before me. I wonder how she remembered my face from among the sea of faces that she would have seen the previous day. Secretly, I felt proud but it was a sense of shame that overrode pride for I had completely forgotten a promise that I had made to a small girl. “Hi,” I said and smiled at her.

“Didi, woh pink choodiyan aaj loge?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes,” I nodded and she packed it up in a jiffy.

“Here,” I said, handing her the money, “Kya naam hai tumhara?”
“Muniya,” she said, “Munni..”
“Oh, sweet name,” I smiled, and she blushed.

My eyes followed her as she moved about the coach throwing glances at all ‘working women’. May be she thought, all of them were her sorts. Even she was working, after all, only that she was a girl. On her way back, she smiled at me again. She took me by surprise when she came and settled down in that empty seat next to mine.

“Didi, aapka naam kya hai?”
“Sindu”
“Aap kahaan pe uthroge?”
I paused. “Why?” I asked.
“Bas, aise hee,” she said in a breeze.
“Elphinston,” I replied.
“I get down at Dadar”, she told me and explained complex equations of switching trains to do her business. I listened patiently as she rattled on to explain how she had hopped into this whole thing fairly recently.

Did she speak to somebody else on the same train or may be some other train, the way she had been speaking to me in the last few days? I was dumbly curious. Why did I seek that reassurance? Why did she have to tell me and move me by her stories? Did she want money? I was researching intentions. The next day she put me to shame.

She had passed around her box of bangles and quietly came over to me.
“Good Morning,” she said, briskly saluting, the way I had taught her. I smiled and signaled her to sit next to me. Munni was a finely dressed business girl. So what if she didn’t have money, she still looked neat, smart and bright.
“Tho, baath kya hai aaj?” I questioned. She smiled shyly and put down her head.
“Kya hai?” I repeated.
“Didi, woh..” she pointed at my disc-man, “mein sunoon?”
I burst out laughing.
Yeah, yeah, why not? I put on Kajraa re and had to literally pump all my energy in holding her from dancing. How could she be so innocent? I wondered, for she was most willing to throw a cherubic smile at the earliest and put anyone to ease. I envied her.
I had to nudge her back to reality, halfway through the song, for some customer needed attention. Before she left, I thrust a 50 rupee note in her hand. She moved away dismayed. “Nahin didi, nahin chaahiye..aap chaahiye to choodi le lo..” she said sternly and was off.

#2
Munni’s life was the playhouse of a devil – the devil called poverty. Her parents had seven children including her. The first five were girls, the last two boys; Munni was the fifth one and the last child was barely a year old. Let me recall names that she had told me with such vivacious enthusiasm. Heera, Moti, Chandni, Piyu, Muniya, Sanju and Bolu. May be her parents decided to give them all at least rich names, if not anything else. Her father was a watchman somewhere and often returned home drunk. Her mother, well, she just existed, a child producing machine.

My report for the week was finally taking shape. The survey indicated that consumerism was on the rise in urban India. Plastic money was booming – everywhere, everyone wanted to swipe their cards; Why not, when every other business entity was ready to woo its customers with attractive gifts, offers and freebies (of course with a strict, “*conditions apply” tag attached). Four out of every five in the urban working class held a credit or debit card or both. Malls, multiplexes and eat outs remained most frequented places. An urban man and woman on an average would spend close to a thousand a weekend, in entertaining himself or herself. While men usually spent it at bars, eat outs, gadgets and movies, women let out their share into clothes, jewelry and accessories. Yes, you could count me in along with those women. Markets were booming, industries were thriving, and the Indian economy was registering an awesomely positive GDP growth. All was well. But why did slums still exist in Bombay and everywhere else in the country?

I was surprised why Munni never went to school. When I asked her that, she shrugged and replied, “Ladkiyaan school nahin jaathey..” I was stumped. Was that the idea instilled in her – that, girls in her family were never meant to go to school? None of her sisters knew to read a word, only Sanju saw something of a school. Harsh yet real inequality! And why did she start selling bangles? “To supplement the grossly low family income,” she reasoned. Once she almost whispered a business secret. That Saturdays and Sundays, women wanted to buy more bangles. “Holiday mood,” she classified. What a striking similarity between the world of malls and that of a small bangle seller!

Once the report was published, I got a breather. I had a vague idea about something I wanted to do, but wasn’t sure. The next day, I caught Munni, five minutes before I had to get down. “Munni, I want to come and see your home,” and she almost jumped, out of fear or excitement, I knew not. “Kyon?” she asked, bewildered. “Bas, aise hee,” I beamed. She was quick enough to reconcile. We decided we would meet up Friday afternoon at Dadar and move to her place.

I am sure I looked like the firangi memsaab, with my coolers, scribbling pad, handy cam and all that equipment that I was carrying. Munni seemed excited for my arrival and disturbed at what seemed like a threatening and definitely foreign demeanor. I felt like an alien in the territory of the poor. Curious, anxious eyes of men, women and children scanned me from top to bottom. I gestured to Munni to pick up those biscuit packets with me and give it to all the children. If I called that a mad rush, it would be an understatement.

A frail woman invited me into a hut that was bare land with an equally frail roofing on top. People peered into the hut as Munni’s mother made a vain attempt to shoo them away with her weak hands. Munni introduced her sisters and the story of Miraben, Munni’s mother and her narration went straight into the handy cam. I had some tea in a dirty looking glass.

I returned to my hostel and spent the weekend browsing through what I had scribbled and recorded. Miraben was married away when she was thirteen and had her first child when she was barely sixteen. She had seven children with two miscarriages in between and finally got herself operated. Her husband was nowhere to be seen. “Don’t talk about that man,” she screamed.

She was almost wailing in the recording. Her first daughter eloped with a man from another caste and was hence, cast away and disowned by the people of her clan. She hadn’t seen her daughter in three years, she complained. Munni threw an apologetic look at me. She was may be repenting why she ever got me there. I smiled in assurance at the sweetly understanding child, “am ok..”

My usual weekend Marine drive walks were now replaced by visits to Munni’s slum. The place looked unmanageable and petrifying during monsoons. There weren’t well built sanitary and drainage systems and whatever was there of it, looked awful. As if humans weren’t enough, dogs and other animals huddled together inside huts. I got to hear Sarada’s story of how her son died of malnutrition and so many other heart rending tales of Munni’s neighbours.

#3
Immediately following that, somebody at office made a big hue and cry about missing his name in the byline list, for no big deal a contribution. What did people want? The downpours were getting heavier. The next day I didn’t see Munni in the train. What could be wrong? Another day and yet another, she wasn’t to be seen.

May be she was just another acquaintance but why was I bothering so much about her? Somehow I grew restless. That evening, I visited her so called house and her mother reported that Munni was down with jaundice. I had to wait for the weekend to arrive. I visited her at the Government hospital.

She had grown weak and sick. But the eyes and smile were still intact. “Don’t worry, you will be back in action soon,” I told her. It was as though I was feeding her morsels of hope that she was desperate to claim; Emotional food for the soul akin to dry crumbs that would tease the tongue like a heavenly delight. She was poorer by food, by money; poorer by solace, by choice.

“Everything would be okay,” I had told her and she believed me. What was I doing? Wasn’t I just making a passing remark when I consciously knew that my comforting words weren’t practically going to make any difference to her?

More often than not, I am led to believe that I am a fickle minded fool. Spending days together visiting those huge slums left me with a strange sense of bereavement. Could I ever decide for sure what I felt for the likes of such people? It is tough to classify the feeling. Was that pity, a silly feeling covering up an unwillingness to take up responsibility or rather indifference, an irrational and unpardonable selfishness to avoid being a part of gnawing misery? Could I by some personal means, pull off the entire dirt called poverty that rode on the souls of so many such people?

I wanted a way out before the thoughts inside my head grew stale and clogged my mind. A friend of mine once said that out of confusion, clarity is born. For days together I pondered for an answer and it wouldn’t arrive easily for the simple reason that I feared change. I was close to making a decision but that meant I had to forego the boring yet secure and cozy monotony of the life that I had settled into.

It meant I had to travel, see unseen and unheard of villages, realize without any inhibitions the implications of a living condition called poverty. And I knew I wouldn’t understand it unless I whole heartedly embraced the flaws and pitfalls that came with that way of life. It needed a transition from the wholesome to the hollow and it wasn’t easy.

I read and re-read my diary entries and viewed the unedited documentary on my handy cam, and I knew I was almost at it. I knew not how far it would reach, but I would definitely make the attempt.

I decided to write that book and film that documentary.
But, Where do I begin?

I looked up my address book. Shridhar Harihar, Executive Editor, ColorMagic Media.
I applied for a sabbatical at my workplace.

That's what I saw in the village..:)

2006-04-21T22:45:00.000+05:30

Some memories of a village visit in December 2004, captured with great excitement on my then, 2 day old Nikon 4100..:)

Oh, she was so proud, so proud to display her darlings! And when I said "Smile", she gave me all that she could! :)

Hot day! Come on, that doesn't stop me from practising little bit of football! :p

Boy, it's soo damn sunny and to top it all, such acute water shortage!!! You shall have half of it and me the rest, it's a deal, what say? ;)

அவன் கேட்டது..

2006-04-12T23:40:00.000+05:30

உன் கொலுசின் ஓசையால் என் இதயத்தை திருடிய கள்ளி நீயடி..

ஆனால் நீயோ, உன் விழிகளால் விலங்கிட்டு, உன் இதயத்தில் என்னை சிறை வைத்தாயே..

களவாடியது நீ, கைதி நானோ?

Irony

2006-04-07T02:55:00.000+05:30

One more day, one more time – your words fly like fiery sparks of fire and pierce me like the sharpest icicles. Oh, why wouldn’t you understand? Why do you hurt me, to love me again? Why do you love me, to hurt me again? Glassy spangles down your cheek – what are they? Tears of repentance? Whatever for?

You wrap me up in this conundrum called your love, cloaked in burning jealousy and possessiveness, and as I choke, you say I am a princess, your princess.

Yes. Yes, I am. I am your princess, the princess with a crown, the crown of thorns, the thorns of irony, for I am after all a ruffled feather, against a backdrop of deceiving joy.

This one's for you..

2006-04-06T14:50:00.000+05:30

You are my companion through journeys myriad, as we delve deep and absorb thoughts, words and creation, together, from those many, many pages.

I love the way you stick out your head in anticipation, waiting for me, the forgetful soul, all the while, to remind me of those volatile, in-between beginnings.

This one’s for you, dear bookmark..:)

(The picture is a prized bookmark that I possess, one that was personally autographed for me by Gregory David Roberts, the author of the bestseller Shantaram, on his visit to Bombay during November 2005.)

Ballerina

2006-04-01T08:00:00.000+05:30

Move. To the back, To the front, Inward, Outward..

I sway and dance,
As if in trance..
Rainbows inside my soul,
Ah, fresh love out for a stroll..

Pause. Jump, Turn, Pull in, Pull apart..

This joy so pristine,
me, the new queen..
Serene and tender,
Isn’t love a wonder?

Rise. Swing, Stretch, Bend, Twirl..

The eyes converse,
Languages disperse..
For, it’s silence that steals,
The beauty, off words..

Sway, Pull in, Touch, Hold. Pause.

In his eyes, am lost..
Pragmatic, is this thought?
Or is it all trouble,
Like a dream inside a bubble?

For a few pennies less..

2006-03-29T17:40:00.000+05:30

A scene with a vegetable vendor outside one’s house:

That lady with her basket, recounting her already complete shopping list: “So, how much for that half kg of cabbage, one kg of potatoes, one kg of tomatoes and blah blah..”

The already tired vendor awaiting what’s coming his way: “54 rupees amma..”
Lady meditating for a while, “Hmmm…round it up and keep it as 50 rupees..”
The Vendor : “No Amma, this won’t work out..”
Lady, kind of heating up: “What it won’t work out? In the market, it’s so much cheaper..”
In the meantime, Hubby Sir thrusts a 50 rupee note in the vendor’s hands and demands that ‘some little’ coriander leaves and curry patha be dropped into the bag. Free of cost, of course.
The vendor sighs deeply and the couple walk away mumbling about the supposed ‘unreasonableness’ of the vegetable fellow!

Well, that’s how it is and I wonder why it ought to be this way! Why is it that, almost always, we land up crying our throats hoarse over a rupee or two, as if there was an undeniable edict to take the chance and do so every time? This so surprises me; what’s with a vegetable vendor or a flower vendor or any roadside vendor’s face that immediately sends alert signals to the brain and gears it up for further action? Does the jingle of couple of pennies more, bestow such an extraordinary sense of delight to the greedy ears?

Ask that Mr.Hubby, when he walks into a well established showroom to pick up the latest DVD player, if he would bargain for a couple of hundreds less than the “MRP”. Nay, aren’t we the class that shuts up our mouths in an environment that is ordained to see only decent behaviour of the species that walks into it? Forget that, would he even think twice before paying that price as much as he would to pay for a kilo of tomatoes? Our dear lady wouldn’t be any exception. She goes awfully (or awesomely??) silent when inside a silk sari shop with the most exquisite range in terms of saris and price, of course!

It’s a funny game you know. Vendors who are lucky enough to become shopkeepers because they have a modest looking 400 X 400 floor area with four walls and a roof on top, ensure they nail a “Fixed price, no bargain” at a very visible point in the shop. But some of our shoppers are smart enough, that they become selectively blind to ignore such, what they consider hapless moves. They land up bargaining there, getting all worked up, despite a board, screaming in bold white, against a red – “Fixed Price, no bargain”!

Vendors who know not what to do, hike up the price so that it comes down to the actual price after bargaining and some of them openly admit that the rate you ask is the cost price of the thing you want to buy. And we are cool liars, aren’t we? We argue and hold that we have checked out the same stuff in other shops and it’s way cheaper there and we would rather buy it there. Then one employs the next weapon – the act of walking away. We are masters at throwing frosty nosed stares at those chaps and if you are lucky the vendor shouts after you to come back and tries his best for a ten buck profit till the last minute. We meanwhile, stubbornly shake our heads in a most decisive ‘no’ and the packet does land reluctantly in your hands! Be glad with that sense of achievement and party for that wonderful feeling!

Only if your expectations turn the other way round and the vendor politely asks you to get lost citing your unreasonable demand as a reason! You walk away fretting and fuming and cursing the man, achievement and failure all compounding one’s already skewed, out –of-proportion ego! If by any chance, desire wins over ego, we do walk back to claim our dream thingy, at the price he proposes! Oh, why at all?

Yeah, yeah, all that argument about quality, long lasting stuff and brand name and all those Uncle Sam terms are all fine! May be then, you don’t go to those folks down in the streets and haggle with them over a couple of bucks. Well, this isn’t big money anyways. Leaving all logical reasoning aside, it’s more of a humane concern to help them lead their lives. Those guys let you bargain, unlike shops, because they hardly have a choice. After all, they are men who fight for a hand to mouth existence.

So, what do I propose? (Ah well, I almost feel like standing in front of a distinguished scientific fraternity to present a crucial finding that occurred halfway through one’s sleep! :D) I merely say, let’s apply some discretion and employ those grey cells to do a little bit of sensible thinking before we open our mouths to start an (indecent?) proposal! The problem is, we take a chance, toss the coin quite needlessly, most of the time!

சினேகிதி

2006-03-28T04:05:00.000+05:30

பள்ளி அதனில் முதல் நாளில்,
மெல்லச் சிரித்து, கை குலுக்கி,
என்னைப் போல் ஒருவளாய்
அன்று கண்ட அவளோடு..

வட்டப் பொட்டிட்டு, சடை பின்னி,
பூச்சூடி, வண்ணப் பட்டணிந்து,
செல்லச் சிட்டுக்களாய் வானத்தை
எட்டிப் பிடித்து..

தோள் சாய்ந்து, மனம் திறந்து,
சொல்லால், செயலால் துணை இருந்து,
வார்த்தயிலும் மௌனத்திலும்
நட்பதனை உணர்ந்து..

ஆடிப் பாடி, விளையாடி,
கை கோர்த்து நடந்து, முத்தமிட்டு,
முத்தாய் சிரித்து, சிறு பூவாய் மலர்ந்து,
பூரித்து இருக்கயில் ஒரு நாள்..

மனம் குமுற, கண்ணீர் பெறுக,
முதல் முறையாய் தனிமை அதனை
உணர்ந்து நின்றேன், என்
உயிர் சினேகிதி அவளது மரணத்தில்..

[Thanks Rajesh, for putting up with my nagging and helping me out with the tamil fonts! :)..'Tanglish' version of this post in comments..]

Papery woes

2006-03-23T23:10:00.000+05:30

While I am cast away, with scorn, contempt and anger, crushed with all the force of a deeply pained heart for the fear of pure confession coming to light, I catch a glimpse of the sorrow that shrouds her moon like face like a cloud.

Carrying all those bluish blots pressed onto me by that fine, golden nib, I lie here wondering about the irony that wraps my life – impermanence, the transition from usefulness to uselessness in a fleeting second..

Cuddly, cuddly, all mine! :)

2006-03-21T02:15:00.000+05:30

There are some charming people who belong to the small world of mine. Soft and cute and definitely adorable, they are more than dolls to me. I thought I should introduce them to you. Shall we begin?

Let’s meet the big bro first! Big man Bozzo, Bozzo the Bear! Bozzo is the oldest of the lot and supposedly, the most mature and sober of them all! And that shows up most vividly in his large, chubby face! This chap loves, ‘simply loves’ food and Ahem, I assume that is quite obvious! Bozzo has always remained the man of few words, and is often feared (and disliked by one particular person, whom I shall name later) for that particularly ‘smug’ expression on his face. Once, this fellow caught sight of a woman who got her hair dyed pink, and pink being his favourite colour, was desperate to have his ears coloured as well! His friends tried hard to convince him, but since our dear Bozzo had his mind set, got one of his ears dyed pink and added a dash of blue as well, to look Yo!

Next in line is the absolutely feline, feminine, beauty queen. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I request you to please put your hands together to welcome the gorgeous damsel, the sweet pussy cat, Pooshy! Pooshy is definitely not someone whom you can take your eyes off easily. She will hold you with her smart gaze and of course with that erect and professional pose of hers, she may very well be the perfect model for all your cameras! Having said that, I ought to tell you what Pooshy treasures most. Well, yes, it is her bushy, bushy tail that she prides herself for and as expected, quite a lot of effort goes into maintaining her prized asset. Ah, I suppose you can all see the tail, can’t you? She actually wouldn’t let me go without ensuring that it appeared in her solo picture!

And then I would love to introduce this pretty faced, sweetie, cutie pie of mine, the child with the golden curls, Pinky! Pinky is the most obedient child you could get and she sweetly agreed to sit next to my telephone, to take care of calls whenever I am not around. Pinky’s golden curls are, to put it most simply, neighbours’ envy and owners’ pride! I got her home, falling for that innocent smile of hers and of course for those curls! She insisted that she wanted to display her curls for the picture and here they are! She and Pooshy are thick friends and Pooshy’s pink ribbon was Pinky’s gift for Pooshy’s birthday!

Ah, what moment is more perfect than this, to introduce the Mr.Romeo of this gang? Adonis, rightly named thus, is the Yo! Man with the guitar. Actually a ted, Adonis gets more than a teeny-weeny bit upset, because he is often mistaken for a lion cub! This chap is one hell of a smart bugger, for he starts plucking the strings, the moment a specimen of the better sex is in sight! Pat him on his head, and he shakes it as if in trance, and strums his guitar to sing the song, “Come on baby, let’s do the trick!” (Uh, really??) And didn’t I tell you, there is someone who isn’t too fond of Bozzo? It’s no one else but Adonis, for he often finds female teds attracted to Bozzo for his serious nature! Of late I suspect, Adonis has set his eyes on Pinky and starts his “Come on baby..” the moment she appears. He is however a little wary of Pooshy, and calls her the ‘no-nonsense’ babe and no wonder I see Pooshy around, whenever Pinky enters Adonis’ room! :P

Last but definitely not the least, let’s say hi to Jojo, the Jumbo! Jojo, is so, so innocent and naïve, I can’t tell you, that he often is made the baby of the gang. Jojo has great trouble with his nose that half the time he struggles to balance the rest of his body against his nose! Bozzo is particularly very concerned about Jojo that he keeps dropping a word or two of advice to the most sincere listener he could get! Pinky loves Jojo’s tennis ball tail and keeps playing with it affectionately, much to Jojo’s dismay! Shy that he is, compliments make his ears go pink! (literally!) I have often seen Pooshy comparing her creamy fur with Jojo’s pure white and sighing deeply, “Baah, Jojo! You are the first jumbo that I have seen with such lovely white coat. You are soooo cute!” and Jojo actually hides his eyes beneath his fur! :)

And finally, I tried hard and successfully brought them all together for one common snap.

Trust me, this picture is worth a million dollars! :)

unnai kandein

2006-03-18T04:00:00.000+05:30

unnai kandein, kaadhal koNdein
eNNangaLai sidhaRa vittein, kadaisiyil
naaney sidhaRipponein..

Getting back..

2006-03-14T02:45:00.000+05:30

Oh, how much I longed to return to them! Reachable, yet beyond reach, those alphabets brushed aside like dilapidated furniture in the attic – the delectable A to Z; arrange, rearrange, fit, refit, phrase, rephrase, indulge, celebrate, suffer..

The wind brings along with it, that soft rustle of paper and fond memories of people in waiting - Scribbling pad, frantically crushed papers, vague, erratic, never straight pencil margins down the left, shaky arrows cutting across; the inevitable, word master, the Oxford Dictionary – It’s back to the terrific game of finding THE right word, back to watch those mysterious words wave their magic wands creating patterns of infinite possibilities.

Yeah, I am back and needless to say, it feels so wonderful to be back!!

Return to innocence

2006-02-19T21:10:00.000+05:30

I say a prayer so fervent
To crawl, to whine, to be innocent
To relive that forgotten moment
I wish, I wish I were a child again..

Honk, Honk..L-Board Here! :)

2006-02-18T04:30:00.000+05:30

Phew!!!! After a month and a half of waking up early and religiously attending car driving classes (with my instructor's tireless, non stop talking to accompany every class), I finally landed up getting my four wheeler license yesterday!

Ah well, didn't I say some time that I wanted a Lancer? :D

Duality

2006-02-08T20:30:00.000+05:30

When her radiant black hair looked wild like the deadly night,
When her face grew pale like the ghostly moon,
When hot tears stung her eyes like a thousand bees,
When nails dug into her skin, letting it bleed in agony,
When every pore in her body cried out in desolation,
When a fierce fury wrenched her heart,
When pangs of jealousy seized her being,
When her heart lay shattered into a million pieces,
When her soul burnt like a raging fire,
When that fierce, passionate possessiveness overtook her,
And..

When her lips quivered with love so sublime and pure,
When she knew for sure they would never leave behind a kiss,
When she learnt that this love could never be consumed,
When in missing him she missed a part of herself,
When she saw her love grow truer with every confession,
When even the pain of separation seemed a sweet trial,
When the heart that was filled with love, still felt hollow,
When they seemed like the dove’s wings that never met,
When she accepted in peace that their paths couldn’t cross,
When that calm and serenity of a cool blue sky overtook her..

I saw the devil and the Master coexist and sustain their beauties together, this duality in Love – an insanity in whose core lay the seed of profundity –The same love that evoked a devilish possessiveness, was the one that let him go, without holding back; anything.

A special day

2006-02-01T20:15:00.000+05:30

I slapped myself hard on my cheeks, rubbed my eyes and opened them wide. Oh come on, you should be kidding me! It can’t be a year so soon! Holy Christ, it indeed is a year since I started blogging and my child is a year old today!

May be a slightly exaggerated display of excitement for, there are many more experienced bloggers around! But, given the shockingly small number of things that I pursue with such fervent passion, this is a happy moment for me.

Coming to think of it, my first experience with blogging came as a typical academic exercise. As I vaguely recollect, it was one of those simply ordinary days during my journalism course in 2004 when we were asked to create our own blogs. As with many people, I put up two posts and abandoned the poor thing then and there.

And suddenly, on Feb 01, 2005, God knows from where a small thought to revive the activity popped up! [May be I saw, my blog father, who was my classmate and the proud owner of a dozen and odd blogs then, glued to the screen writing about anything and everything, probably even including an ant that crawled near his comp..:p and oh yes, it was also Rathish’s wonderfully creative blog!]

My sis who is a month senior to me in the big blog world, initiated the commenting system on the first post, one about my mom! I was deeply intrigued by this comments thingy and I landed up on her blog leaving a comment on a post she wrote on me! And Lo, on my next post, I saw Saranyan’s comment and was thrilled beyond description! The activity kept me so mesmerised that I went on to put a post almost everyday and Feb 2005 still remains the month in which I have had the maximum posts up!

I grew to love this child so much over the days. I cared for her, adored her, gave her all that I could and felt bad if I didn’t see her for days together. Funny it may seem, but truly speaking, what started off as a mere idea of keeping record of things, has evolved into a beautiful relationship, that I have grown to refer to my blog as my child.

Through the year, I saw my thoughts, dreams and aspirations take shape into what stands before my eyes now and I feel I could just hug this blog and thank her for being so wonderfully flexible! The last one year has been so eventful and my blog holds a special place in my heart for she has been a part and parcel of everything!

The idea of trying on anything fascinated me so much that I felt like a child who wanted to splash colours across the wall and merely stare at it and feel innately happy about the sheer joy that colours can bring to one’s life. Since then, my blog has been more of a writing experiment and I have tried my hand on whatever I wanted to.

There are more reasons than one for which I am grateful to this blog. I made some really nice acquaintances through this thread and it gave me some of the deepest relationships that I would treasure and hold dear all my life. It taught me many lessons, saw me happy, found me cracking up at times and remains one of my most treasured experiences.

I take this moment to personally thank each one of you who has patiently taken the time to leave a comment. Thank you for being the wonderful audience that you have been! Thought Pallette has indeed been a spicy journey and it shall continue..

Warm regards,
AV

Little Manu's promise

2006-01-24T02:45:00.000+05:30

“Ei Ramamurthyyyyyy!”

There she goes again! Not a day of my study holidays has passed without me hearing a shriek from that girl. That’s Manu for you, the little brat next door. Hardly six years old, she would easily give you the impression that it was she who was born before you.

Back to what I was talking about, this person who is being yelled at, is her poor grandfather. Given that even her grandfather, Mr.Ramamurthy, who retired from the railways, is acknowledged only by his first name, how can I, a mere 20 year old neighbour doing her graduation, even dream of being spared? Manu calls me Sundari, right royally, as if she had given me the name.

Let’s return to the story of our little princess. The shrieks are not uncommon on a weekday morning. The battle is for the remote control. While Ramamurthy Sir would want to watch the news bulletin at 8, Manu would want to watch Scooby Doo in Cartoon Network. “What thatha, today Scooby will drive that ghost away and you don’t want me to watch it?”

Obviously, thatha understands nothing of the world of cartoons and would beg, “Five minutes, Manu, I will just look at the headlines.”

Manu, however would have none of it. “Thatha, you don’t know anything. Do you know what detectives do? You don’t understand anything,” Of course it goes without saying that our daring princess wins the ensuing battle. The ‘Ei Ramamurthy,” comes at an instant when she would grab the remote.

And mind you, she doesn’t stop with that. The intelligent girl would thrust the daily newspaper in her grandfather’s hands and settle down before the idiot box with her plate of tiffin.

Ramamurthy Sir is an epitome of patience. He is the ideal picture of a retired man, living his life in peaceful resignation. Always dressed in a white shirt and dhoti, his freshness is only enhanced by the fragrant sacred ash that runs generously across his forehead. He would never fail to wish a brisk good morning to my dad, his neighbour, while both of them are busy picking flowers for the morning puja in their respective homes. Once in a while, he would dutifully enquire about how my studies were progressing and would mumble a sincere blessing when we parted.

“Someday, even Manu would grow up to be like you,” he would smile and continue, “for all you know, she would grow so quiet then. I really don’t know whether I can bear to see her quiet.”

At about quarter to four in the afternoon, he would finish his coffee and walk up to Manu’s school which is ten minutes distance from where we stay. Manu would come rushing out of the gate towards thatha, tell him stories of all that happened in school that day, in one excited breath that would calm down only when they reached the gate of their house, with thatha paying rapt attention, all the way. It’s such a pleasure to watch the old man walking slowly along side a small kid, two people at two extreme ends of life’s spectrum, bound together by a tender understanding called love. The calm and maturity of the aged and the excitement and frivolity of a kid, to me would seem, as one of the rarest pairs of opposites that glows with an exquisitely subtle beauty.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s morning has been unusually quiet. I saw Manu leaving with her Dad for school. No fuss, no noise. Something ought to be wrong. While am wondering, Dad informs me that Ramamurthy Sir has been down with high fever since last evening.

In the evening, I tell Manu’s mother that I would go and pick her up from school. “Don’t bother Sundari, I will manage,” she says. “No, no aunty, absolutely no problem. You take care of Ramamurthy Sir. I am anyway bored, I will get her back from school,” I convince her.

Manu comes running, in an expectant mood but I can read the disappointment in her face when she sees it isn’t thatha but I, who has come to pick her up.

I take the lunch bag from her and we begin walking.
“Sundari, Why hasn’t thatha come? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing Manu, thatha needs some rest, that is all. Tomorrow he will be fit as a fiddle,” I tell her. She isn’t convinced. We walk back home quietly.

Back at home, she dumps her bag, washes her feet and runs towards her grandfather’s room. She stands close to him, as he lies on his bed, his hands resting on his stomach. “Thatha,” she calls out softly and pauses, unsure whether she was disturbing him. “Thatha,” she calls out once again, a little louder this time.

As I stand in a corner, I turn a passive observer. I see Manu’s little fingers holding as much as she can of thatha’s fingers. Slowly, she places her head on his chest and I see tears running down her cheeks. “Thatha,” she says amidst sobs, “You watch whatever news you want on TV, I won’t ask for the remote,” and she gently strokes his chest as she gets up. Thatha holds her hand and then ruffles her hair, “Manu Kanna, I will be alright soon,”

“Really?” she questions sobbing, “When?”
“Tomorrow,” he replies. She hugs him and runs out of the room, while the overwhelmed grandfather lets out a small laugh. I stand here, stupefied, struck by the purest form of love and innocence - a small face with large eyes, an almost unnoticeable nose, a soft, round mouth, and two small pony tails behind those tiny ears, the sweet innocence called Manu that jumped and ran out of the room now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s been a week since I witnessed that touching moment. Within two days from then, I saw grandfather and granddaughter back in action and Manu does seem to be keeping up her promise. No more s-h-r-i-e

“Ei Ramamurthyyyyyy!”

Now, wait, what’s that? Did I say no more shrieks? I am afraid not, for it seems, the battle has begun yet again!

In conversation..

2006-01-21T07:30:00.000+05:30

She caressed the delicate, bright coloured petals of the flower in her hand. Soaked in the gentleness, the flower smiled lightly, blessed the kind hearted soul for her affection.

”What bothers you, young child?” asked the flower, taking her by surprise. “Your affectionate touch does carry a strain of sadness that you are trying so hard to shield from me.”

To which she replied,”You, my fresh blossom, never lack in kindness. Tell me, do you understand this strange feeling of mine, which is even more puzzling because of its inexplicability?”

“My friend,” said the flower gently, “If speaking your heart out could relieve you of the burden that pains you so greatly, I am delighted at the very thought of being a sincere listener.”

The flower saw her face grow pale, drained of blood.
”Why do I feel so helpless when it comes to certain things?” she questioned, her eyes lowered and lost in the shadows of her long eyelashes.

Thus replied the flower swaying lightly:

“My dear child, your words flow like softest ripples down the brook. I shall refrain from making flawed assumptions. I know your difficulty in putting forth your trouble, yet, I urge you to try and speak up.”

“Kind flower,” she whispered and stayed quiet, like she was searching her soul for the right words. “I feel incomplete because I am unable to face truth. I am unable to relieve myself from the pain that torments me.”

At this the flower fell silent, lost in thought.

She drew comfort from that silence. “Flower, it’s a void, a shallowness that I experience.”

“Suffering, my child, is it!” was the flower’s erudite response.

“Yes, yes,” she whispered softly. “Why do I have to,” she sighed deeply, “suffer?”

The flower watched and listened, as her voice choked. “I cry and brood over fate. Why should I long for what’s not in my hands, despite having realised the futility of it?”

“My dear, I would call that a self imposed suffering,” said the flower.

“But, kind flower, what am I to do? Is it wrong to desire for something?”

The flower appeared calm and still, went ahead in a voice so crystal clear. “Lady, you are so child like,” It threw a radiant gaze and continued, “Realise that when a want arises, suffering finds its way.”

Her face appeared flushed. “But why on earth?” she questioned.

“Simply because achieving what you desire is influenced not just by you, but by a million factors that lie beyond your control. If all works fine, you get what you want, if they don’t, you suffer.” came the flower’s thought provoking response.

“Flower, do you mean that suffering is the direct consequence of desire? “

“Yes and No,” it said. “Yes, for the aforesaid reason and no, because suffering as a consequence, can still be averted. In simpler terms, as much as your control plays a part in achieving your desire, it plays a much bigger role in averting suffering.”

“You confuse me, my knowledgeable blossom,” she sighed.

The flower chuckled. “It simply means that most of the pain is self imposed. It means that the consequence is a matter of your choice.”

“Is that what you called self-imposed suffering?” she questioned in a tormented voice.

“Yes. Now that you give me an impression of having gained some understanding, I shall explain a little further,” said the flower and paused to throw a sideward glance to gather signs of approval.

She nodded.

“Very well,” it said, “The choice that I spoke about is what you intend to do at two levels. One is to avoid the root of all problems. You could choose to not desire for anything and lead a life of what the world calls a saint. The second is when you desire to possess something, but you prepare yourself to face the best and worst of it. Do you understand?”

“Ahem, yes, I guess so,” she said.

“I quite don’t like that trace of doubt in your voice,” the flower replied. “Let me take your case,” it said, trying to explain further, ”You said you cry and brood over something that you desired but could never achieve. Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

The flower continued breathlessly, “Now dear, think about it. Didn’t life present you a big choice there? Wasn’t it you who chose to cry and brood over it?”

“Yes.”

“Sweet friend, my sincere advice to you would be to not to lose the present, pining for what’s not going to land in your lap. May be you did deserve it, yet it didn’t happen, but should you let that come in the way of the present and the future? Ponder, child, ponder.”

She remained silent.

“There are two choices. You could burn yourself down to ashes or you could rise from them like a phoenix. The choice is absolutely yours.”

“But, flower, isn’t it easier said than done?”

“True, it isn’t easy to let go but, it isn’t impossible. Time and experience perfects an individual. You will learn.”

“You are indeed kind,” she smiled, “you made me feel much better.”

“Delighted,” said the flower, “Just a word more,” it said. “I have a lesson for you from my life. I laughed and thrilled myself when the sun’s golden rays touched down on me. I bloomed and smiled my widest when he was around. Today I lie in your hands, but I don’t regret the present, nor do I desire for what went by. Tomorrow, I will be a withered flower and day after, I would be gone. But, I am glad I made the present useful, by helping you,” said the flower and smiled.

Her eyes sparkled and she took the flower close to her lips and whispered, “I will try my best, I will, I promise.”

The flower kissed her gently on her cheek.

Do you really care for your money??

2006-01-16T17:28:00.000+05:30

Well, do you? If you still are thinking of an answer, you better read ahead! I thought I would have a slightly different post (something non literary and kinda journalistic!) this time and I decided on Money Management.

How many of us are fully aware of what Money Management is? As much as we slog lengthy hours at office to earn the big buck that many of us make, we fail to recognise the magic that well planned investments can do for us. I personally have known, quite a few people who leave their money idling in Savings accounts without streamlining these into investment avenues that could earn much better returns. There are a gamut of options today - Mutual Funds (through Systematic Investment Plans), PPF, debt instruments, real estate and what not! Certainly, our ignorance can't come in the way of the magic that good money management can do for us!

Financial Planning isn't rocket science.. And wouldn't it be even better if you had a blogger specifically telling you how to go about managing your money in an interesting way? Do check out Money Plants!!

And I wished..

2006-01-13T10:41:00.000+05:30

The atmosphere was electric. Colourful silk saris, the fragrance of jasmine and sandalwood paste in the air; men clad in silk dhotis hurrying about their business; a hair-raising kalyani rendered through the nadhaswaram, listeners nodding their heads intently; Laughter widespread, overjoyed expressions..

Through those rows, sitting much behind, among those pattu paavadais that appeared and disappeared in a flash, I saw her..glowing calmly like the tender flame of a candle; A docile girl carrying a beautiful smile, her eyes flickering with intelligence and the spark of her age..

Then she turned around, right in time, to catch me staring at her and a mischievous smile passed over her face. She walked down, put her hand on my shoulder and asked..
"Oh thatha, what are you looking at?"
"Nothing kanna," I said, "I was thinking you should get married soon."

"Ayyo thatha.." she smiled shyly and in a flash, disappeared.

Sarah

2006-01-06T00:00:00.000+05:30

Ms. Sarah Parker. Yes, that is me. It’s been a day since I have moved into our lovely cottage in Yorkshire and right now, am sitting by the window watching the light drizzle outside. Dad is fabulous. When I tell you that I find my residence so amazingly beautiful, I owe it to him. The smell of fresh paint still hangs in the air. Mr. Parker knows his daughter’s tastes too well and I must admit he has made sure that I have had all of it around me. Dad has made sure he would give it all, when he has the chance, may be his last one.

Martha is busy pulling out a fresh bed sheet and spreading it over my bed. She is busy dashing in and out of the room. This time, she is carrying one of my paintings, struggling rather. Meet Ms. Martha Harper, the tall English girl with beautiful curls and dark, piercing eyes and yes, my childhood friend, and my maid’s daughter.

“Martha, need some help?” I ask her, while she tries to hang on the wall, a landscape painting that I had done about four years back.
“Nope dear, I can manage. Give yourself all your time to watch that,” she smiles and points at the glass shutter of the window by my side.

Drip, drip, drag, drop.
Drip, drip, drag, drop.
Drop, drop..Drop where?

What are these drops teaching me? That nothing could stay on forever? That someday you have to descend and drop down into chasms unknown? That someday you dissolve into oblivion?

Dated 23rd September 1968

My dear diary,

I realize my last entry has been about three months back where I have complained of a bad, bad headache. It seems like ages between that day and today, and there is a lot that happened in these days. Lots. That these ninety days seemed longer than the twenty four years that I have lived on this planet.

Within a week following that headache, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in its advanced stage. My hands refuse to move, dear Diary. Tears are already welling up in my eyes and I feel a lump in my throat. A chill runs down my spine. Why am I falling into this mode of self pity?

I am proud to tell you that I have come to terms with it after the initial shock. It was almost like the entire world has closed in on me, when Dad told me this three months back. Dad has handled it equally well too. We just know we have to go ahead. But, tell me, am I not human too? Sometimes I can’t escape the gravity of self pity. It sucks me in, especially when you know your best times are yet to come and you may not be around to see and live it. Diary, it is even worse when you realize that you are in love..

Good night,
Sarah

It’s around seven in the morning. I decide to take a stroll in the garden for I am not able to sleep anymore. Dad left for London last night, to collect my latest test reports. There is a great possibility that Edward might drop in along with Dad, when Dad returns this weekend.

“Good morning,” Martha’s brisk voice greets me. “Isn’t the place so beautiful now?” she questions. For a moment, she is lost in her own thoughts, though she quickly realizes that and turns to me, “I will be right back with a glass of milk for you.”

I smile and turn around. Yes, like Martha mentions, the place is utopian. Lush green everywhere and the rain’s freshness sits atop that I earnestly wish I could soak myself in it.

After lunch, I insist that Martha read some poetry out to me. Frost and Longfellow today, I tell her. It is such a strain to read for ten minutes together these days. I am glad Dad agreed to my request to get Martha to be with me. It’s through her that I am living my life now, doing what I would have loved to do all by myself.

Dated 25th September 1968

Hi Diary,

I hadn’t intended to come back this early to you. I get so easily exhausted writing these days, that I take breaks and write. I can’t get Martha to write this for me. These are deepest feelings that I can convey through no one else but myself.

Just now I got to listen to some poetry. It’s so relaxing and brings me back memories of graduation days at London. Literature is awesome. No one would know that better than you, for that’s when I had gotten into this habit of writing to you.

20:00

Sorry, I had to stop that in the afternoon. I am excited, for tomorrow, Edward is here. Dad sent word that Edward is joining in. Now, aren’t you wondering who this is? Well, to give you the briefest introduction, he is Dr. Edward Johnson, the one who has been treating me, about 18 years elder to me and the man I am in love with..

Shall write more tomorrow.

Love,
Sarah

Edward is already at the table by the time I am dressed and out. Dad throws a warm smile and waves his hand. I wave back and look at Edward, who is deeply engrossed in the newspaper.

“Morning, Edward..”
“Oh,” his head pops out of the newspaper. “Sarah..”
I pour out tea for both of them.
“Martha, could you fetch that pack of cookies? I shall get the milk ready for the two of us. ”
“In a minute sweetheart.” And Martha disappears behind the curtains.

Edward is dressed in a light blue casual shirt and a pair of deep blue jeans. I take a moment to look into his eyes. What do I see? Love or am I imagining it?

I tell Edward we could take a walk round the garden.
“Sure,” he smiles and reassures Dad who fears that I am straining myself.

“How do you feel?” he asks me.
“Never better,” I smile. I can see it in Edward’s eyes – that he has read the sorrow behind the smile.

I tell him I really wished I could get back to picking up Spanish and reading some more on Latin American cultures.
Edward promises to send along books. “Or why don’t you pick them up from me, when you come for your treatment in ten days?” he suggests. “I shall collect them from the library for you.”

”Thank you Edward, you really are a big help.”
“My pleasure,” he says so sweetly.

Dated 26th September 1968

My dear Diary,

As you might have guessed, I feel elated and relaxed today. I got to spend considerable time with Edward. We spoke of nearly everything – poetry, music and he filled me in with the latest theater fest in the capital. I wish I could be around to watch it.

And guess what Edward shyly confessed today? His wife Rachel is carrying their second child. I really wish they have a pretty, pretty daughter this time, after a son. Little Dave is so cute. Edward had gotten him to the hospital when I was undergoing my first level treatment in London.

I am sure it is obvious to you now that I am in love with a married man, leading a blissfully peaceful life with a beautiful wife and an adorable family. And I am in love with him, without him even having the slightest hint about it.

Have you ever thought how it feels to be this way? I pause because of the paucity of words. It’s like holding all your dreams in a bunch, trying really hard to hold them from drifting away, but in vain; For, they do, they do drift away like weightless wisps into thin air.

Edward leaves early morning tomorrow.

See you soon,
Sarah

P.S: There is something that I want to share with you. I attach the piece of paper to this page.

Meeting Dr.Johnson

11th August 1968

I met Dr. Edward Johnson under the worst of circumstances, definitely not in the way I would have liked to. Yeah, it was at the Cancer Research Hospital when he disclosed what I know and have slowly got myself to digest, today.

I don’t wish to get into the details but I would like to recall one incident in particular which brought about this ironical turn of events. It was when Edward told me that I suffered from an incurable brain tumor and gently pressed my hand when I sat motionless. When I looked up, I was already in tears and that passing instant, when I looked into his eyes, I fell for the calm in his eyes.

I fell into his arms, that of a complete stranger and sobbed, as my Dad watched. I loved the security of his embrace as he stroked my hair and patted me. I cried I don’t know for how long and I didn’t care for his time and nor did Edward resist. He let things flow freely and didn’t give false promises. He never said that everything would be alright. Had he said that, I would have called him a blatant liar!

I owe it to Edward for transforming the experience of my treatment from being dull and lifeless to a courageous battle that ought to be fought. Every time that I had gone there, Edward made it a refreshing experience for me. He revealed great interest for music (the piano especially), for Keats and performing arts.

I grew to like him for the synchrony he brought to our conversations. I never felt like I was talking to someone different from me and yet he was different. A vibrant personality, I found him to be an extrovert, unlike me. I saw in him all that I had wanted to be myself.

And suddenly one day, I really wished I could swim in the oceanic blues of his eyes and lose myself completely, leaving the present behind. That day I knew I was in love and I felt blood rush up my veins in what seemed to be an otherwise lifeless existence.

So much for Edward Johnson. Should I regret that he walked into my life only now or feel happy that he came in at least now?

Sarah

While Edward leaves, he promises me my books again. I can read fear in Dad’s eyes and even in Martha’s. I am sure Edward has told them what he told me during our walk.

It’s a dizzy feeling to think of a moment when everything comes to a grinding halt. It’s true that mortality is the inevitable truth but even rock hard determination can’t stop some questions from popping up – what would Dad do after I am gone? Even Mom isn’t around. Isn’t it a worse punishment for him to suppress his feelings just because he wants his daughter to be happy?

I feel like running up to God and asking him another chance. Trust me, Life is so beautiful and many of us don’t realize it till an end to it, is at sight. Once that is near, the fear returns through the dark, when the world sleeps. It’s tough. It really is.

“Sarah..” Edward shakes me up. He pats my cheek and says that he hopes to see me soon. I smile and I feel I could take a plunge into the sea. I take Dad’s hand into mine and lean on his shoulder.
”Dad, I love you..”

Dated 27th September, 1968

Dearest Diary,

I feel like a child today, a child chasing fresh bubbles, each bubble a simple wish – to wake up and watch the gentle morning sun, to chase butterflies, to hug dad, to joke with Martha, to read, to write, to explore, to love Edward forever.

I hope the bubbles don’t burst….. Or.. will they?

Sarah Parker.

When it's a trip that keeps you busy

2005-12-30T08:50:00.000+05:30

Well, that's what it is. I almost panicked and fainted when I saw that I had just two posts up in December..:o..Thanks to all the trips that I am making with my parents and my sis, the latest being a visit to Trichy, after about seven years.

An 'after a really long time' get together with cousins, and add a sweetie cutie nephew to the gang..Boy, kids are the loveliest things you can ask for..this one drove me crazy and made me fall in love..:p..

I also landed up watching two movies - "Kanda naal mudhal" and "Waah..Life ho tho Aisi". Liked the first one and found the second one kinda silly!!

And that is that..:)..What's more..Hmm..with the new year round the corner, I guess it's time to start wishing everyone - Happy New Year folks!! May the year ahead be filled with sweet surprises and let it give you countless reasons to smile..:)

From Bombay to Madras

2005-12-19T05:30:00.000+05:30

So what if it’s raining? Vani and I today raced through in my scooty pep, as the rain hit hard on our skin and the wind rushed on our faces, dishevelling our hair. It was wonderful, to say the least, to be back driving my dear two wheeler. It is wonderful to meet my sis after about 8 months (and hasn’t she thinned down?). Well, it’s wonderful to be back home.

Happy to be back here, yes..But what’s that? The kind of suspended feeling that I woke up with today morning - a sense of still belonging to a different place and that this was may be a dream, from which I would wake up and rush to take the 9.45 local from Churchgate. It doesn’t take long to see that my being in Madras, is reality, when mom places a cup of steaming ‘Milo’ in my hands. Day before yesterday morning, I was somewhere else, there, where my heart still lies.

I am now reminded of a post that I had written on transitions, a few months back. Transitions – how they rule my life; the last one week at Bombay was one where I found myself engrossed in work, for almost 14 hours at a stretch, everyday. I am surprised, I never complained; somehow, I never felt like. The last day, I walked out, without looking back, as if it was yet another day of going back home and being back the next morning.

Despite all the work at office, I still managed time for things closest to my heart. I walked up to Marine Drive, lost myself looking at the serene sky and the placid waters. I went to my often-frequented Barista at Colaba for a last bite of my favourite brownie and a mug of hot chocolate. I watched a movie at Sterling. I walked down Colaba causeway. I stood for a moment in between platforms 1 and 2 at the Churchgate station staring at the tireless local trains that went up and down, listening to the announcements. I threw one last glance at the Oxford bookstore, a place that I had visited as if it was my second home. Days so full of ‘for one last time’ visits.

Farewell gifts, sweet hugs, moist eyes, seen yet unseen tears, good luck messages and to top it all, a mail from a person who you hold in high regard. It isn’t always that your boss writes you a mail and ones that welcome you to stay back in the organisation, even rarer. I still chose to leave them behind, saying someday I would be back, to this lovely place. The question nevertheless remains. Will I ever go back and even if I did, will things ever be the same again?

It is difficult to fall in love with places; But when you do, it’s even tougher to miss them. When I boarded the train back home, my mind was blank. But as the train pulled out, my heart grew heavier. Isn’t it true that it’s the memories that make a place beautiful? Bombay, where I saw so many of my dreams take shape, where I lived my life to the fullest..She, the queen of my Dreams; She is a tear that hangs inside my soul forever..

Holding on..

2005-12-09T21:00:00.000+05:30

"She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever."
- Jeff Buckley

Isn't that true with places too?

Lyrics that I fell for - III

2005-11-30T03:00:00.001+05:30

Now, after this and this, I am tempted to list one more again and this is one song that is very dear to me. It is from the movie, 'Nilaave Vaa' set to tune by Vidyasagar. The song penned by Vairamuthu, is sung very beautifully by Chitra and Hariharan.

The concept used in this song is very interesting. The attachment or the fact that the presence of the other in one's life is indispensable, is put forth through certain wonderful facts - pairs, where you can't isolate one from the other. I can't pick out one of them and say I love this. I love them all! :)..So here it is, for record..

"nee kaatru naan maram
enna sonnalum thalai aatuven

nee mazhai naan boomi
engu vizhundalum endhi koLven

nee iravu naan viNmeen
nee irukkum varai thaan naan iruppen"

"nee alai naan karai
ennai adithaalum etru koLven

nee udal naan nizhal
nee vizhavendam naan vizhuven

nee kiLai naan ilai
unnai ottum varaikkum thaan uyir tharippen

nee vizhi naan imai
unnai serum varaikkum naan thudithiruppen

nee swaasam naan deham
naan unnai mattum uyir thoda anumadhippen" (nee kaatru..)

"nee vaanam naan neelam
unnil naanai kalandhiruppen

nee eNNam naan vaarthai
nee sollum pozhudhey veLi paduven

nee veyil naan kuil
un varugai paarthuthaan naan isaippen

nee udai naan idai
unai urangum pozhudum naan udithiruppen

nee pagal naan oLi
endrum unnai mattum saarndhey naan iruppen" (nee kaatru..)

The gift

2005-11-20T05:15:00.000+05:30

Deep crimson, streaks of gold; a bulging cloud coddling the orange ball..Two dozen birds, miniature marvels, gliding across, with messages from heaven..

"Slowly, steadily, you descend and drop,
next to me, you go hip-hop..
Fragile bird, with a pallid wing,
what message do you bring?"

I hear a grumble; What is it? Is it you, my stomach? Nope, nope..it can't be, for I just fed you..this glass, a proof..

Ah, serene, sensual, surreal; succour, I succumb to thee; Bach and Mozart, Masters of the art! Will you forgive me, this son of thee?? - Sinful, sinning, sinner..

"And there sings a distant lark,
thro' the frills of dark..
O'ye lark in mad mood,
what d'ya sing - The Art of Fugue?"

"Ah yet another bereaved lover..," mutters the man in guard, walking by..

"O' dear sir, I ain't lost a lover,
but a lovely, beautiful daughter..
She was born this day,
but fate snatched her away.."

"I raise my violin, play her tune,
gathering memories, that are strewn..
Heavenward wind, carry with you,
this father's tune, to her, my due.."

For the bookshelf..

2005-11-15T12:00:00.000+05:30

Saturday at Oxford
Sunday at Crossword
Four from the former
Two from the latter

Reasons are to be built
For I suffer from guilt
I say, "What for do I earn?"
Oh God, when will I learn? :(

His better half's monologue..

2005-11-03T06:30:00.000+05:30

"All of us love listening to stories, don't we? Well, I have one to offer you too, the story of my own life, the one that I lead with this man, who the world calls my husband.."

"You know what am thinking right now? Why (the hell) do we get married?"

"No, no..now don't start on devising those sermons to be delivered to me.."

"I know why we get married..to fight and blow our tops!!"

"Before you dismiss me as one of those cynical sounding feminist with anti-men ideas, I will give you an instance..Why one, I will give you many.."

"It is one of those rare nights. We are watching a fabulous late night movie with mugs of coffee in our hands. It is pouring like crazy outside and my dear hubby could think of nothing but his car outside.."

"Oh my poor car, my poor car," he goes on and on..

"Finally I get bugged and I say, "Oh God, now go hug your poor car and sleep..""

"And you know, what all we fight for? Which channel to watch, which restaurant to eat at, whose party to attend - his colleague's promotion party or my friend's daughter's birthday party..Oh yes, we also fight on who has to wake up early and cook!!"

"Ok, let me tell you about another day. We are inside the car, waiting at a signal when I can see his eyes effortlessly following a group of five college girls, laughing and giggling. There is a smile that I see unconsciously spreading on his face. But Sir checks himself soon enough, for he knows my eyes are following him as well.."

"And then he immediately has to clear his throat, and say.."

"Now, now, dear, won't it be lovely to have girls, er.., daughters like them, so pretty beautiful and adorable.."

"and he has to crane his neck and look at them, till they disappear round the bend, till I shake him up and say, the signal is green.."

"Daughters, it seems..Sheesh!!"

"God, what do I do with him? The morning following that late night movie, I wake up to see his eyes fixed on me anxiously.."

"Well?" I raise my eyebrows in surprise.

"You know what honey..You look like a beautiful child when you sleep.."

""Amit.." I burst out, finding it hard to supress my giggles, "You just can't get this.." and I go into fits of laughter, holding my tummy."

"And then I see him looking mournful and confused like a kid.."

"Amit, what is it?"

"Suddenly he kneels down by the side of my cot, takes my hand and slips a beautiful ring into my finger.."

"Sweetie, may be there are a thousand stars in the sky, but you are the brightest.." he pauses, "but don't mind the rest.." "

"and there, right there, he gives a wide grin, while I chase him out of the room with his loud cries of "Happy Anniversary baby.." filling the entire house.."

"But you know, I should tell you..Sometimes, I find him so cute, especially when he falls asleep on my lap when I go on and on with my day's stories.."

"Love sometimes shows up most in the most trivial of acts. Like.."

"Like when he massages my feet when I cry out in pain and when he hands over those tissue papers, seeing me weep over spicy food.."

"I am talking too much about him today..All this rambling means that I am going to miss him..:(..he is going on a two week official tour..:("

"Sumi, I think I would need another bag..Where are you? Why don't you come here..Sumi!!"

"There, can you hear him??"

"Coming coming.."

"See, see tension is mounting..I need to rush now.."

"Sumanaaaaaaa..."

"Coming..oh Godddddddddddd..!"

What if..

2005-11-01T03:00:00.000+05:30

What if I hadn't started blogging?

What if I hadn't called myself Anupama Viswanathan?

What if I had a nick name and blogged?

What if I stopped blogging now?? :O

Geeh..I am in such a crazy mood now..:D..Feel like I am almost drunk!!

Jesus, somebody help me...!!! :|

PS: Happy Diwali folks!! Shall hopefully follow this up with a sane post..:)

A story tree grows..

2005-10-21T02:00:00.000+05:30

A branch added to Eroteme's story tree..

He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.

Pushing his luggage under the seat, he sat close to the window. "Papa, when will you be back?" - his four year old daughter Munni asked innocently. He stared into those soft brown eyes of the motherless kid. He held her frail palms in his, through the window. "Munni, Papa will get you a nice gudiya from the city..Say tata," his sister spoke to the kid, to avoid an emotional outburst. In a minute, the train pulled forward, and Munni's little fingers parted from between his. "I need to go..", he thought, "I have to, at least for Munni's sake.."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)

This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
1. A blogger can add only 90-100 words (not more or less) at a time
2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. A tag must be accepted within 7 days else the branch is a dead branch
7. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
8. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
9. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded
10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree below with each accepted tag (the link address can be copied and used).

I would like to tag Rathish, RS and Ammani, to continue this story..

To BITS, with love

2005-10-14T09:09:00.000+05:30

Today, I talk of a small place that housed many dreams, aspirations and a single spirit that bound many people together. It housed me, a tiny dot in that big ocean.

Some months back, Amrita asked me, "You are still rooted to that place, aren't you?" That shouldn't come as a surprise. The place she was talking about, is a speck in the Rajasthan map: Pilani. That day, she was the victim of my rambling.

What would you call this - Irony? I talk of a place that has almost been shadowed, after the turn of events in my life. I came out an engineer, and now I am a writer. I think of this place and all the events linked to it, everyday, even if it means, in a trivial way. It's almost four years since I graduated and the bitsian slang still refuses to slip out of my routine..

It simply isn't easy to forget. The moments of pride that came with wearing those bitsian tee-shirts, the hungama in the trains, when travelling from Madras to Delhi and back, the group of friends that came together in the most unusual way, the first birthday at BITS with people painting your face, the corridors, the classrooms, the EEE lectures, the never ending list of tests, the mess food, the lawns, the 5 maddening days of OASIS, the spirit of our cultural departments, the innumerable treats, the blooming romances, the crushes, the trips, the laughs, the smiles, the sighs and the tears, the affection of the sweetest friend, her never ending support, the solitary rides on my bicycle round the campus, the chilly winters, the warm razais, the lazy wintry afternoons, the beautiful february spring,

the miserable summer heat, the tired PCs, the gossips, the small monthly budgets, my room, my cupboard, my table, my bank account, the home sickness, the letters (no, not mails), the night outs, the gatecalls, the professionalism that grew in you, the small successes, the heart breaking failures, the spirit to fight on, the 'just for the heck of it' pictures, the farewells,the second home, the people, their variety, the place, the place made most beautiful by the people in it..It's they who carved the beautiful memories that I cherish now..It simply isn't easy to forget.

Talk about reflections. Now, hasn't it really been a while?

Sometimes I wonder why I resist change so much, why I find it so difficult to go with the flow. Friends, with whom I have spent almost every minute of my time, now seem so distant and far away. In no time, our lives have taken totally different paths, from a period where we flowed together.

Change, it is so hard to live with. But, that's the way life works.. It's tough, but I just move on, holding these memories along..

This is to BITS, with love..

When every word counts..

2005-10-04T22:37:00.000+05:30

Dreams. They rose like high tides, crashing against my heart, dying as silent whispers on my lips. I watched them play; Beauty, Paradox, Passion, Trust.

Finally, I spoke, you didn’t. You smiled.

Today you bend down, to place roses on my grave. I see them. Tears. My man, don't..please don't..it hurts, worse than death, sweetheart..

(Thanks RS , for the 55 word tag..)

14 days!! :O

2005-09-27T22:40:00.000+05:30

I think I have been really unfair to my blog this time. The guilty me has been cribbing about it quite elaborately to my close friends. Anyways, I hope to put up something soon. In the meantime I thought I should cheer myself up and here is a joke that I happened to get from one of my colleagues.

"Friends of Women:

A wife was not at home for a whole night. So she tells her husband, the
very next morning, that she stayed at her (girl) friend's apartment
overnight. So the husband calls 10 of her best (girl) friends and none
of them confirm that she was with them.

Friends of Men:

A husband was not at home for a whole night. So he tells his wife the very
next morning, that he stayed at his friend's apartment over night. So
the wife calls 10 of his best friends and 5 of them confirm that he stayed
at their apartments that night and another 5 are claiming that he is still
with them!! "
Moral of the story: Men always have better friends...They will stand by you, no matter what....!!!

My comment: Ohhhhhhh...Phuleeeeeezzzzeeeee!

(With due thanks to yahoo for the smiley!! :))

Tagged, yet again!

2005-09-13T22:55:00.001+05:30

Ok, am tagged again, by Agnibarathi..so, here I go!!

Seven things you plan to do before you die

Buy a lancer and take my parents around
Get into developmental journalism
Own a small library of my own
Write stories for children
Go on a European tour
put on weight ;)
and of course, freak out!

Seven things you can do

I can..

eat pastries
care immensely for those who I love
write pages and pages of nonsense
crib like crazy and throw tantrums
enjoy sweet nothings in life
be a patient listener
work really, really hard

Seven things you say most

I say..

Nonsense
Shut up
Please..
Very funny
Chalo, gtg
aah..amma
romba nalladhu

Seven things you can't do

I can't..

watch hindi serials
go without sleep
eat non veg
drink coffee
stay without books, music and writing
stand people who act too smart
wear heavy make-up

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex

Intelligence
Creativity
Chivalry
Humour
6 feet height
Mischevous eyes
deep voice

Seven celebrity crushes

Narayan Murthy
Madhavan
A.R.R
Yanni
Pete Sampras
Kannadasan
Maniratnam

And let me tag..

S m i t h a
Kumari
Vinesh
Biju

Ouch..

2005-09-02T22:00:00.000+05:30

The last few days have been tight; long hours at work, plenty of running around; The few 'in-between' minutes were religiously spent on a favourite book and of course, there has been very little sleep. And did I say that my head hurts and I miss something?

Doesn't matter, after all that cribbing, I am still grinning wide..because there is some good news.. Yeh!! I am going home!! :)