Year End Post..

I realized I haven't kept my word, of writing my "design" blog and sort of slowly killing this one right here. I think perhaps, its best to start it in 2010? It's been hectic the past few months, not that its less hectic now. The worst part is that words are not shaping in my mind for sometime now.
Its writer's block I think. It should go away, sooner and words should be able to find their way out of my fingers.
On another note, I wish all of you who read and don't read this blog a very happy December (the last fortnight in the least) and a beautiful New year's eve and then of course the year approaching.

I don't really believe in making resolutions, which used to be the trend while I was in high school and a bit in college. But not any more. I am okay with who I am and a healthy improvement in my thoughts is quite regular in my life process that I don't need to resolve anything on the 31st...yet.

The past year has been wonderful, and I am grateful for all the little blessings that came my way. Can't wait for another such year to happen in 2010!
Goodbye and have a "safe" new year's eve people!

Talk DesiGn

Twitter keeps me busy. Its my new Vent machine. I will be shifting my blog to talk design. I won't let this go, but I must carefully keep this aside and move onto writing what about what I do when I am clearly not venting.
I shall keep coming back though, because writing this blog has helped me clear my head many a times.

Talk Design was started ages ago, contains just one post and then discarded. But I take it back now. Rebirthing it this week onwards. Hope to see you there!

I just stood there!

The painting by Frida hung in her bathroom. One of the few artists who understood the language of art. Took this on my trip to Mexico. A truly fun place, where if you are a sponge you have a good chance of absorbing the good stuff. Am hoping to visit more places in Mexico when I have the time and money. Someday.

could also mean THIS:

Let's just say its probably better to use the word "audacity" to replace "balls" in our next lively conversation eh?
example: He had the "balls" to ask me that!!
can also be stated as: He had the "audacity" to ask me that!!

mini feeds.

Hope:

never give that one up, the toad might turn into a prince. Someday.

the big T.

My NEW Best friend- TWITTER! and so much that I found Shashi Tharoor, Anushka Manchanda, Amit VaRma..and soo many many more!
Yet to figure out things on T, but for now am a very satisfied woman.

21.20- At school trying to create this sky scraper, 1:500 n all Mile high- post the Mexican trip. Just cannot get my arms to DO the work. Ideas simply buzzing around...buzzzzzzz!

Yeh...

Tweeting!

On Twitter! Trying to figure out HOW I can set up tweets on my blog face for now....YAYYY! Now I can tweeeeeet.
There is finally a place to place my broods on...:D

THAT does impress me much.

A good read is a good read. Period. But am not here to impress upon you intellectual stuff. Random takes on what impressed ME the most this week. Here goes:

A. Anushka Manchanda and her gloriously crazy ass voice. Her its just me and I can be a rock star in a simple white dress attitude absolutely shook me. She didnt need make up and glossy photo shoots or videoa to prove her attitude and music that mixed well. I absolutely love this girl!

B. My newly found charisma for staying free of swaying I hate all men thoughts to the newly transitioned nothing affects me anymore for thats your problem theory which I entirely belive in. Well....things that impressed be need not be always external to my aura right? ;)

C. Activites at my university which included- wine tasting festival, architecture week, spinni playing out in the day light helping me with smokes and coffee.

D. My hair! Yes!!! Finally my hair doesn't have a mind of its own. It responds to my wishes and swings the way I WANT it to!! which makes me um...quite sexy I'd like to think.

E. Itisha Peerbhoy's blog. Here's the link.

F. The abundance of girlfriends who think like me! Yayyy! :D

G. and of course Tarun Tejpal. I love how he plays sex with words.

These got me. and THIS-----> got TO me. Seriously, when I go out with the girls, all we talk about is the way men treat us. Hmm...well its only me talking as I am still the most single person in my group of friends. And I can hear my voice saying stuff...that personally I am not really liking anymore. Must stop this somehow. I mean men aren't the only thing my life revolves around. I know it. But its not helping. Especially when THEY act as if they are God's gift to women.

New Theory on why I always fall for jerks (by a close friend): "it seems, you are way out of league for the good guys. Its the players who have it in them to walk upto you and ask you out which obviously never ends well." So you think all men are jerks. You have to be less intimidating OR try to SHOW the good guys that you ARE their league. Then perhaps things might work out and you will not be eaten by alsations."
Hmm....
So now what..? If I don't play it down, it would mean that any guy who walks up to me IS a player???
Crap.

@22.45

It's so relaxing to read Amit Verma's India Uncut. Its simple. Its out there and he says it without mincing words. Clear enough. I keep having a good laugh as I read through his blog. It's something that makes you feel all is okay. Humour and cynicism exists and all can be quite okay at the end of the day.
It's been a tough week, and I haven't been able to concentrate on work, on writing and on myself. Thanks to a wonderful set of drunken tales, romance that never goes anywhere and a house without a broom.
Life is good. The visit to Delhi, the long drives, the dhabas, the general unruliness, the tilting buses carrying mango people (aam janta- a word that caught on after love Aaj kal) at midnight, all was very comforting. Some kind of hidden meaning behind it all I think. Something for me to relish. The view from my friend's apartment, open green spaces, tall buildings in between, bungalows, the works, Delhi definitely felt good to be in.
A friend just messaged me the existence of a good sex shop, where one can get goodies of all kinds. And she regrets not taking free candies on her way out. Which brings me to the fact that maybe I should visit after the almost 100th failed attempt at being liked and sharing some amount of liking-ness between the author (that would be me) and men. Men, always fodder for thought. Fodder for self mind fucking even.
Goodnight people. I need to sit with my thesis for a bit.

Clear is it?

I was supposed to have kept my word. To deliver a few written thoughts. That I didn't. Its probably because I like to avoid being obliged, even if I bring it unto myself. How goes it with you?
I sit at my parent's home writing to you a few stray thoughts. Really. Nothing much to say here you know. Apart from attending a few lessons in salsa, indulging in new friendships, absorbing the fact that in this busy world with busy people friendships may not be the best solution to social happiness. The only friends we make maybe the ones we meet whilst one was in the age of innocence. The rest- needs to be highly debated.
Watched a bit of Thank you for smoking but not the whole movie. Loved the office spaces of the guy working for the hollywood biggies or whatever. Inspired me to a whole new level. Well maybe not so much.
Stopped shopping actually. After the big spend on the tommy hilfiger and the kenneth coles, I've decided to be more laid back. The guilt trip was awesome you see.
I return to study again. I need to be there again. To refresh my thoughts. How strong I thought I was is directly proportional to my illusions I think. In fact, the truth of the matter is I might be a little afraid of the real me. I am staying unrealistically cool in order to avoid the me that is all of brutal harsh and honest. I am staying quite dishonest as possible. Well not in that sense. Here I go again...!
Its time for some salsa some black tea and some late night work on a design.
Working towards a clearer tomorrow.

Unto the summer....

It's been a while since I have splurged into writing. I've just returned to my beautiful country for the summer and so far it's been quite the trip. With old friends, to the green land to the animals to the brown bare deserts I have had the most fun. Its been a breathe of fresh air so far. I guess I shall resume writing the beautiful mess that I usually do by tomorrow. I should. Otherwise it wouldn't be right. Justice will be served.

Players in the making

At about 10 in the morning I chanced upon the fact that a girlfriend was in town. In the same place that I was while visiting my parents. I made a call to her. We spoke and haven't stopped since. This hapenned about two months ago. From the sunnyseaside back to the cold plains and lakes I stood here waiting for coldness to transcend into my brains. I was looking for inspiration. I found it in the oddest of things. I found it in words pronounced well, I found it in heated oil, I found it in a clean room, I felt the inspiration looking up at me in a woman's teeth, I felt it smothering me in the elevators. I felt it while holding Frida's book, it came crawling into me while I lay in bed and then some. And while at that I came across poems, the ones that make you want to talk too, for the love of my word that I need you to know.

The friend instantly took reins of my life. She spelled out what I knew, she told me secrets which I had refused to accept. She made my denial into a reality. From then on 60 days of sheer bliss followed. Without a camera at my disposal I began to feel more than I thought I could. And then we began to spin tales in people we care for. Thoughts transgressed between hers and mine. About the audacity of the resilient spirit in women. The foolproof eyes that we hold that make us blind to the ordinary. We grilled each other for answers, for solutions, for varnish to paint away the walls that we build around the heart.

The soul-utions were plenty but they didn't fit us well. So we threw them away. We tiptoed into our worlds and drew the curtains. "Show's over people.", We said.

The games we play, the logistics of any situation, the feelings we intertwine in order to benefit from, are so cruel and so beautiful. The ability to call something daring and cowardly, stressful and relaxing, beautiful and ugly without the yet interfering, is my world. There happens to be no solution and that could be the beauty of the drama that I call life.

Random notes

It's difficult to live in a country which isn't your own. Because you cannot afford to be a fop here for want of good company. So the fop-ishness has to stay within.
Does this mean you can be one in your own? I guess so. It can at least borderline between self-indulgence and being foppy? Does that make sense?

I realized I am a chameleon of sorts today. And all this time when I thought I knew how to play the game- I didn't. I realized I was born during a game.

General discontent prevails today. And I simply cannot savour the life that is mine. In order to avoid further pessimism I should perhaps start talking about the the snow that looked delicious to my eyes.

I met with harmony, regret, soulfulness, agony, apathetic conversations, unending ramblings,disillusionment, simplicity and undescriptive lifestyles all in the course of a week this time. Quite dramatic in its own way.

I leave for Mexico soon. I think that's the place I need to be. Just the desire to melt into the colours and the screams and all that secretionary life.

Syrup

And on that note-

I could be the raw rain that beats against your brow.

I could be the hibiscus that you mince between your hair.

And perhaps the footprints of your feet when you walk home from the beach.

I am the salt you taste when you breathe the sea.

I am the bubble you blow and the shadow that glides away spraying sunshine on your face.

I am your own, I am my own and I don't exist.

I stopped holding the water between my fingers, thanks to you.

Teesta

I want to write so much today till my fingers bleed. But I cannot. The language of my thoughts is jumbled up. I've noticed how nothing affects me anymore and how everything affects me but I can manage to zip it up some how and go on. I was thinking of a post that I wrote with so much intensity recently that I deleted because I didn't want people I knew reading it. It transpired my innermost feelings about a certain incident and my interpretations of it. As I said I am all jumbled up in my thoughts for now. Yet, at that point my decipherence was right. My writing was not in line with my feelings but they left the same message at that point. With less gracefulness I think. I even had a valued opinion of a fellow blogger- Shro.

I was willing to cut off that detail of my life just so that people who read my life would think otherwise. But it all came tumbling down like a pack of playing cards, and the light of the story was out.

I am looking to adopt a little girl. Just in my thoughts. I am searching for a little one who I can name that of a river and show her life. Maybe this ever growing thought within me is a sign- not that I need to be a mother but perhaps a search for the little girl that I was and not anymore. That girl who never made a spelling error and who could hold up against all odds.

Day indulgence

I woke up late today. As always. Its 14.00 now. And am sipping tea and writing. I should have been at school indulging in work coffee and friends. I don't usually regret waking up so late. I am usually thankful to my body for not doing so earlier. For having made me miss the first half of the day. I need to deal with only less now.

But today, while in bed throughout the morning I was painfully aware that I shouldn't be in it. I didnt have any chores to do, nothing in particular that I had to complete, yet the guilt danced in my belly. So I finally woke up and made tea.

Waking up at this hour doesn't hold any meaning to me anymore. As insignificant as it sounds, that phase of mine is over I think. I don't feel jubilant over the world for having done so. While boiling the water, I wished I had opened my eyes at 7.00 and boiled this water. I wished to walk to school in translucent darkness and I wished to sit in the glass box at my school listening to the silence of a few friends moving about. I wished I had woken up early enough to buy coffee from the cafe and run though my mail and make some sketches. I would have felt more important. But now I don't. I usually feel important waking up at two in the afternoon but today I don't.

I have missed out on doing amazing things for 7 hours today.

I doubt if I'll repeat this on a weekday again. I am beginning to feel the mornings to be far more exciting and valuable than evenings now.

I am getting accustomed.

The curious tragedy of Long sentences.

Many of my teachers at school have been thrilled to point out that I write rather long sentences. I believed them. Especially when they made that grim face and pointed at my sentences with the ball point pen. It was always a moment for me to hear that. I often sat down and read them out loud after the teacher left. I perfectly understood what I was trying to say but apparently they didn't. Well...not so recently my aunt (who happens to be a teacher) mentioned she hates looong sentences, because of her age. When you get to the finishing line you forget what the beginning was. Its better to break them down into shorter ones she said, grimacing over a student's homework.

Hmmm, now I get it. This was proselytizing moment for me. From 5th grade until now I reprimanded myself within for the inability to cut short. Not anymore!

Having said that age is getting to me too. At times when I write those, I tend to forget what I was meaning to say at all! The irony of age.

A Shroud of Sanity.

The Hindutva Talibanism that has taken over the Indian women's life by storm recently advertised their opinion on the new Indian woman and her 'provocative' sense of dressing. Not to mention a recent article by Sagarika Ghose also caused quite a stir amongst many an educated woman across the nation when she wrote about how the youth of today has nothing better to do than imitate characters from the quite well known series "sex and the city". She went on to express her desire to be more like the Nehrus who romanced and wined and dined while being discreet.


Clearly these two instances are nothing if not a critic's delight.The job here is too simple. I already read through many opinions in ink rubbish-ing them both. But at one point it got me thinking.

Firstly on the issue of provocative -ness. If the HT believe that the epitome of Indianness is wearing a saree, then so be it. But have you actually observed it? Most of us in fact die to be in one for its sheer sexiness if it wasn't for the inconvenience of walking in it or the time needed to make it perfect. Yes it wraps you up. But what about the part where it not only accentuates the breasts but literally helps you in expressing your bosom into your neighbour's face? Thank God for the safety pin. Even then. Think about it.


Then comes the midriff. Oh that part which most of our sexy tank tops and bod tubes help us in covering the flab. In case of the saree, the ENTIRE stomach (if I can be explicit) is shown. Only if you stand straight and keep the "pallu" in a particular way can the rest of the world be assured of not going into fainting spells.


At this point I'd like to introduce you to the blouse. Which most of us do wear. High necks are out, though I do think they look good. This means that the blouse exposes the back. That fleshy and I dare say probably one of the sexiest part of the woman's body is out there when she's all wrapped up in a saree. Of course the arms are in full sight but not the legs. But sigh. When you've exposed three fourth of your body through voyeurism-ish, attention grabbing peek-a-boo sense of fashion who cares if you're legs haven't been exposed?


So what exactly about tight jeans or a mini skirt offends these men? If nothing else, it clearly shows that they prefer to be provocated through a bit of this and a bit of that. And since we're on that topic.

Does not it only validate their weakness in the sexual arena? By saying that they are getting provoked does not it mean that they don't have the will power to keep them from hurting another human being? Does not it more so show their indulgence in voyeurism?
And besides if you look up the statistics about the number of women who fell victim to rapes, most of them were literally covered up from head to toe. So are these Hindu Talibaans saying that even a toe can kick them into a fervor of sexual aggression? In which case, whats the point of any of this in the first place?

It just feels like talking to a wall right now. I'd like to be open minded but I just can't. As Sagarika Ghose mentioned quite cleverly, it definitely is a class war expressed through culture. This was bound to happen. It can happen in a society where the rich and the poor co-exist. But having said that, are these goondas against all rich? No. Not really. They are okay with the the traditional rich. But not so okay with those who have the money and flaunt it in ways they don't understand. So perhaps here we have an issue of a class war waging over the lexicon of understanding.


And since we are on the topic of Miss Ghose's superfluos article on how the youth of today (and she points at the Indian youth in particular), try to recreate a sex and the city feel leading a shallow life. worthless even. She urges us, you and me to be more like Sarojini Naidu who although a great fan of Shelley, sported a tongue of talent, speaking three Indian languages. And of course, the Nehruvian days where they so tastefully wined, dined and romanced, all the while being discreet.

In my defence, I would first like to point out the fact that I am Indian. Indian YOUTH. Extremely proud to be one and an ardent SATC fanatic.
so,
A) whats wrong in watching SATC? All the characters in it are independent, strong women. They have a sense of who they are and they like to have sex. Who doesn't?

B) The whole terminology of being "western", "eastern", "south-western" is gone. I'd like to think it was over about ten years ago. I'd like to think we are global. We mingle with different cultures, we take good and bad from all. We co-exist. Big deal. We can fend for ourselves. Thank you.

C) Do you really think that the young Indians of today are that shallow? Because from where I stand, and from what I've seen and sensed, we have been so much more succesful in not just being good at our careers, but also learning ten different languages, being able to travel the world in a jiffy, donate our entire savings to organisations in need, earn some more, read and read and read, learn to dance, take care of our parents, even our grandparents, find true love, vote, stand up for our rights- even if that right has to do with the freedom to do a samantha while sipping off a cosmopolitan, have children, edit a book, publish a book, learn to make tiramisu, prepare an Onam sadhya, read the Gita, do the tango, help our friends, be there for our friends, love all like we've never loved before, climb some peak any peak, adopt a child, recycle, listen to the maid at home spill out her troubles, give out your old clothes, watch porn, write a blog, hug a tree, pray at Mookambi, recite the Lalita Sahsranaaman in 15, write a thesis, repair the pc, fix the bike and so much more all the while....looking your best. Being your best.

Whats wrong with that?

Devasuram

People of the World, If you have the time do take a look at this article.


I don't have much to say about what happened a fortnight ago in the city of Mangalore, India. It has been splashed all across the newspapers. It's been on the news all over, it's been talked about day in and day out since it happened.


Then what happened? This.
Are you done reading?

What do you think?


I've been thinking. If I ever go down to this city or near it I could be easily targeted and beaten up by the honorable Sena. I totally fit into their menu you see.

The hunt will stop. It will take a few more incidents here and there. The media flaring up. The people flaring up. Election times getting close. The Government will be more vigilant. The cops will do their job. Etc etc etc.

All the thoughts that ran across my head when the news spread were simply spoken out loud by the others, on television, the radio, in print and so on.

I remembered stories about lower caste Indian women from the south who loved a drink and would step into the local toddy shops or similar and get smashed.

I remembered Kunti and her penance and meditation, how she 'pleased' the Sun God who 'presented' her with a son. (To be honest I am writing out of what I have read when I was a child and interpreted then. So if you think my facts are wrong which I know aren't then do not let me know. Thank you.)

I also remembered Amba, Ambika, Ambaalika. The sage Vyasa walks in to each of their rooms to sleep with them while their husband waited outside. That is how Pandu and his brothers were born.

There are plenty more.
Back to the story,

Nirmala whoever. She started off on the wrong foot and remains to be so.

"From some sources we heard that there was a live band also and some girls were also participating or whatever it is..." she said.

Dear Ms Nirmala,

I know. I know people like you. You like the sari. You like having your hair long. You like it when girls are shy. You like it when boys are boys. You think being feminist is not cool. You believe that the proper place for a girl is at home. preferably her's. You Don't understand why a girl young and pretty wants to wear a skirt, shave her legs and sit with a boy and chit chat with a mug of beer. You don't right? I mean seriously, aren't they such a bad influence on the rest of the good girls? So when you see a girl walking into a pub you think, " Must be from a loose family. Must be filthy."

This is just a wild guess. After all you look forward to your offsprings if girls to be married off in an honourable way. Don't you?

And thus you declare some random facts or whatever you find inside or outside the pub on the day of the incident and then declare the wounded as the culprits.

Someone once told me that being open minded doesn't only mean that your thoughts are liberal and easy. It also means you nod at the narrow mindedness of the guy opposite you. Live and let live.

Devasuram.

The daughter of the MLA, mentioned that when the two goondas were dragging her and the Muslim boy out of the bus, she begged and pleaded with the conductor of the vehicle and the passengers to help her. Nobody did. This hapenned on February 6th, 2009. 2009.2009.



Who are the Devans here? Who are the Asurans?

They have merged have they?

Home IS where the heart is.........

I know I know I've said it before....I need to blog about serious stuff about dams and poor people and the newly packaged Hindutva Talibanism uprising in India blah blah- yes and I will... let me just get my head straight okay? and then I will enlighten you all with my oh-so-crazy ideas about what could be done. Right. For now we shall once again delight in my Oh- so- delightful life now, shall we?
Am at home now, with my parents, the week starting off with a fever and puke rushing out of my oesophagus every half an hour. But now I am better, my hair looks great (and by great I mean curly long and beeeyoootifulll) but my skin for reasons unknown looks shabby and I am waiting for the glow to set in. You familiar with the glow? You know the one you get when you set foot at home, where you're fed so well and you can sleep all you want and there is always somebody to pick up the clothes you throw on the couch and so hence due to being so well taken care of you feel genuinely loved and happy? yes that glow. But haven't got that yet and I guess its coz of the flu for now.

About boys. Well. Right. Thats a very important topic. And guess what? I am who I am. I am loud when I choose to be. I am demure also only when I choose to be. I love a good joke. I usually like to be the one cracking them. I love NDTV24 X 7, I love the discovery channel. I love not understanding what I want. I am me. I cook and can mother a 100 children. I can be the striking editor of a magazine. I can be the girl who is so lost with a map. I can negate business deals. I can do a whole lot of rubbish at my will. So yes I am who I am. So dear boys. why do you always fall short of my expectations? and no I am not scaling them higher up the more you try.

Okay venting done.

Now for the real stuff. I am home and it feels good. It didn't the first day but now am settling in and getting used to the air. A lot of paper work needs to be done and of course some thesis work needs my attention. But besides that there is plenty of time to write and also I have decided to start my bharatnatyam classes again. I think I'll re learn one or two dances again. Just for fun's sake.

There is plenty of time to unravel here.

What I need to do here:

1. Get more serious.
2. Focus on new projects.
3. Write more and more.
4. Excercise and get my tummy flat again.
5. No drinking alcohol.
6. Try and try to make the best tiramisu even if it means I die trying.
7. get a pair of new spectacles.
8. New Ray bans please.
9. scuba diving if dads lends me the money to do so:).
10. Read and read and read.

Um...thats it by then it will be time for me to get back to my other home.

good today....gone tomorrow.

Much to do much to do including smother certain people while trying to finish my thesis work. I have been trying to achieve success by being single for as much as I can. While watching a certain series I encountered questions such as:
a. do you want a man?
b. do you need a man?

Thing is for quite some time now I haven't had a man (I am talking 1 year minus a few distractions and a few straying crushes). Waking up in the morning, brewing my coffee, walking up to school, grabbing my second cuppa, switching on my laptop, designing, sketching, running through the books, stealing a few drags in the balcony, lunch with the boys, lunch with the girls, shopping, caring for friends, cooking butter chicken, cleaning my kitchen, buying soap.....all this and more without actually finding the need for a man. But still I wonder am I completely happy being on my own? or am in living in denial?

Who knows.

This came at about the time when I had a random chat with my grandmother who since she has turned old and is currently living alone decided to spice up her life by taking my star chart and horoscope leftovers to the astrologer. This man in question then told her as a matter of fact that I would indeed never find a man until I do. It is all upto me. She tells me this with good humour, complete confidence that she doesn't doubt my capabilities in doing so and with complete candor that it woke me up. Shoot.
Now I have to find a man? It was easy when your parents did that for you. You could blame them for the rest of your life. But in this case we gotto do the dirty work all on our own?

Not good. It seems to me that there is nothing much I can do about it anymore. The good guys don't wanna marry you. The bad guys don't wanna marry you or anybody else. The good guys can sleep with you. The bad guys can sleep with you. Guys in general can sleep with you. And with all this retardness flying about and all the temptations, you have to let them down, find excuses and wonder at whats going on.

She's decided to go for a Long Walk......

Have you ever heard of the pathway between the rubber trees that lead to a little round pond in Vattakaanam? You pass by trees, mostly rubber, the gooey white stuff trickling down spirally through their barks. The air there is very mossy and moist. As you walk through the little path, pitched with stones and brown earth, greens tufts of
grass and little slippery frogs hopping around, you tend to forget your language. When you stand there in that 100 metre long space having a width of a mere 2 metres you feel a devilish joy that you cannot get in any city on this planet. The joy that makes you want to cry because right there you feel you do not need your cell phone, that you've died and gone to your private mansion, and all the connection with people and buildings and cement and motor ways and machines is lost for ever. You should also remove your shoes. Throw them away. If you are a woman or a man with long hair, let it loose. While you stand there, it will grow longer and longer. Try wearing some kind of a loose clothing while you walk through. The breeze has a way of penetrating your skin through the cotton sheets. All you have to do while you walk is breathe in and breathe out. The rest will be taken care of.

This is the place when I was a little kid and I was rambling along with some cousins of mine that I got lost. I was afraid for my life there then for I knew wild snakes roamed around looking for little girls for supper. So I was scared. I cried but I couldn't scream because of fear that something bad would happen to me if I declared it.
So I walked as slowly and carefully as my ten year old body could carry me. And that is when I met her.

She was most beautiful She had brown skin with a big black circular mark on her cheek. Her jet black hair, shining from oil glossed over was cascading down sticking against her back. She was voluptuous. She had breasts I hoped to achieve one day. She was dressed in a strange white and red cotton sari like outfit. Her calves were showing exposing thick legs covered with thick black hair. But her arms were bare. Free of hair.

She was moving slowly. I could see her from a distance she was walking towards me. Suddenly she stopped and smiled at me. Her eyes just like those of a doe looked deep into me, narrowed a bit and her lips curled into a smile. She looked at me as though she finally found me. She walked closer to me. I just stood there. In awe of her beauty and her smile and her eyes. She stretched out her hand towards me. I kept mine in hers. She then turned around and walked leading me with her soft hands. I was still looking at her and smiled when she would turn around and smile at me.

I was in her world now. My heart beating faster. There was then the sound of water. Do you know the sound that still water makes? It's a strange sound. But it lets you know its presence. That's when the air becomes less moist for some illogical reason as though its paying it respect to the water body.

I heard the cooing of birds. I heard the laughter of children. the sunshine blinded me. She had brought me to a clearing where there was a round pond. A little wooden house stood at the far east corner of it. My cousins were playing right across.

They couldn't see me. I looked up at her. She knelt down in front of me, took both my hands and looked into my eyes. The smile that she often threw at me that day returned. The smile went into her eyes.

I realized that the noise of the children was getting more distant, into whispers. I looked around to see my cousins moving further away. The fear in me returned. What if I got lost again? I shook away my hands from hers and ran towards my sisters and brothers shouting out my presence. They stopped and turned around and nodded. I was about to run towards them again but then I turned my head back to tell her that I needed to go now.

I only saw her back walking away from me.Moving away gracefully though fast. My cousins were walking away too. I stood there for a while. The fear in me suddenly left me. I went to the little pond and sat down by its banks.


Today the property that houses a lovely old house built in stages with its wooden decks, the acres of rubber thotam, the gurgling brooks, the screaming bootleggers, the wild snakes that take shelter under your couch are all still there, uncared for, waiting for someone. The bed of roses too where my mother, my great grandmother and my grandparents have been buried awaits......

Winding up 2008 and the rest behind....

It's been a great year for me. I have had that much fun that I knew I should have had before. I did things that I never thought I would do in this life. I behaved in ways so much that it was unexpected from me. I travelled to places following my heart. I didn't care about sleeping in airports, I ate what was given to me without complaining, I grew to the idea that I am growing.
Its been a thoroughly exhausting journey since then to now. But the exhaustion was worth it. For now, I can smile with my eyes and I can sit at my computer and work day in and day out.
If I were to highlight the most effective parts of 2008 it would be these, some small, mostly irrelevent in general but these I remember:
1. I have more girlfriends this year and we actually bond.
2. All these years when I thought I couldn't cook..? Guess what! I can.
3. I love collecting postcards and not sending them to anyone. Since august I have managed to collect quite a handful of them.
4. My fear of airports is gone.
5. I am becoming like Sarada, my Grandmom- a neat freak. I was happy to be excluded from that particular gene in my family but I guess there ain't escape.
6. I truly believe now more than ever that what goes around comes around.
7. My belief in miracles have strengthened.
8. Fairy tales do happen. Recently I had a prince who walked up to me and asked me my name. I didn't give it to him.
9. My blog received it's first serious negative criticism.
10. I love being on my own.
11. I managed to finally get my hands on The Pianist.
12. I stood in the Anne Frank House . I stood there and cried.
13. I bought my first Nikon D60 camera.
14. I have learnt to be self indulgent.
15. I have also learnt to be kind.
16. The fighter in me doesn't go away that easily.
17. I realized that all people are not good. There are some who may not give you space to walk out when you are choking to death in a crowd, simply because they want to see the fireworks at 00.00.
18. I made my first lasagne.
19. I realized how much I miss being at home with my family and frying fish for my dad.
20. I think this year more than ever, I have been a good daughter.
21. This year however I did not go to Mookambi and recite the saharanaamam. I hope to do that next year though.
22. I have partied enough and it's been lovely and exhausting.
23. I managed to buy some nice dresses and shoes.
24. I managed to donate money for causes.
25. I have helped people and didn't expect anything in return.

There's more but I think this should suffice for now. I think I'll start voicing my opinions on some other matters this year rather than being this self indulgent. The indulgence was necessary for me. But I think, it's done its job although not upto where I hoped it would. But, we can talk about other stuff from now on. Hopefully 2009 brings us more to write about and discuss in the blogoshpere.

Thank you all for visiting my blog. Thank you for all your comments. Thank you for reading in.
I'll start posting again in a few days. Till then.