adieu

It gets cold in here sometimes. My eyes seek for some light, some warmth, some life. I wander over the freezing surrounding and hold myself tight. Clutching my arms so tight that it hurts. My feet are numb I can feel my head stiffen from the cold around me. There’s nothing here no light, no life, no hope.

“I want to leave this world for a while”. Indeed. Tears dwelling in my eyes sweat gathering on my upper lips I know it will be long before someone will hand me a napkin. I use to like rain. Have you felt the rain lately the raindrops feel so soft and fresh when they trickle down your forehead and drop on your upper lip after trailing down your nose. Tear drops don’t. They are trails of your defeat marked on your face while your lips curl up as if begging for forgiveness. I often wonder if this is what I chose or was it chosen for me, the darkness make me feel like I am blind and a morbid dullness slowly fills the aura. A strange chill fills the air before I curl up within myself waiting for the cold to take over my body and lead me to my bitter end. Oh my eyes wait the predicament. I can’t keep them open anymore the heaviness from all the crying finally takes the toll I drift into nothingness, a state of non existence.

They will forget all about me. I will subdue to their past like a forgotten memory or a tear already soaked in the pillow. What are memories but past left behind? Some day when my picture falls down from an old album, my diary falls from the cupboard… someone will shed a tear and will sigh my loss. When all of this fades into a story once written with a pencil on the last page of a diary, some corner will fold marking my imperfectness and I will be nothing but a memory long forgotten, an incomplete song, a rose petal snuggled into an old book covered with dust in the State Library…

a wet city

It’s raining outside. The cool breeze is passing through my spine. The city must be so cold and wet right now. Peddlers must be running for shelter. The lovebirds must be flying to their nest. Some others must be grinning at their self. They just got wet and they are "lovin it". The roadside shopkeepers must be removing plastic sheets out of their hidden godowns. The pakoda walas would have just doubled their sales. Mother must be covering her kids with her dupatta. The kids must be drenched with the rain below her dupatta. Everyone must have become a part of this rain.
Every nook and corner would have been awaken by this chilling breeze but on the other end from me a girl just my age must have sipped the last drop of her coffee and shut her book to lie down on her warm bed. She would take her bed sheet and cuddle into it in sometime. A man, between his loads of work, would have looked outside the window of his air conditioned office for a while to remember the old days when such a downpour would be just the reason to rush to the nearest tea stall with his friends. A boy, not far from that man, would be trying to smoke the last inch of tobacco from his last wet cigarette. He must be thinking about his last blog on an old man who wanted to leave this mad world. Far from all this a small girl must have got her soap and towel to the terrace above her house. Her brother is already there with his huge bucket. They had awaited this season for a long time. Far in the midst of the concrete jungle a girl just the brother's age must be carrying her kid brother on her shoulder. She will be soon knocking on one of those huge cars to beg for a penny!

Every eye would have looked up to the cloud filled horizon at least once. Every drop would have been someone’s first drop of rain. Each flower would have blossom a bit more. Each tree a bit more greener, each street a bit more cleaner. It must be raining in my beloved city!

l love you, city!

Is it premature of me to say that I am in love with a city? Yes I have a lover's relationship with a city. It was not love at first sight but eventually I started getting closer and from friends we moved on to became lovers. No there was no proposing and cocktails but there were endless chats, long sleepless night and excitement of being together. I find it hard to believe that something not living and breathing could catch my breath and make me skip a beat or wait does a city live and breathe?

I cannot help but wonder can a city become something our friends and relatives cant? I was brought up in comparatively small town but my insistent wish to get out got me into a city of dreams, which was before I started dreaming about it. I was brought up to believe that each city had boundaries- the ones in its municipal control but I am yet to see the boundaries of my dream city. With each year passing by it’s just increasing in both length and breadth.

Some time ago I was a timid girl who acquainted this elder and mature city. I was naive and ignorant; I dreaded even the aura of this magnificent city. But like all other, kind and compassionate loved ones, the city took me into its arm without judging me. Each time I fell, there it was with its arms held wide open to make me stand back and in time it became my friend, philosopher and guide.

Just like any other relationship we were separated and had our quarrels but this just kept on proving how real WE were. The long wait for a taxi in the scorching heat, the push and pull of the local trains, the long line for some theaters, the exorbitant rates for something as common as a roadside ice cream... the list can continue but then there came moments which made it all worthwhile. The late sunset, the sparkling street lights, the breeze which could take your breathe away, the long walks to nowhere with no one just to not feel lonely... each day is a new journey to Neverland, as if no one grows old here.

At a level much deeper, the city gets into your system. It’s in the air we breathe, it’s in the touch we feel, it’s in the food we eat, it’s even in the dreams we see and before we know it, the city is us and we are the city.

Movie magic!

My friends think I am addicted to movies but I don't. Addiction is when you forced to do something more like a compulsion but I can leave watching whenever I want. A movie for me is like that cup of coffee you have every morning not because you are addicted to caffeine but because it is one of those few things which gives you sheer joy.

A good movie is like a dinner at a good restaurant. Everything served perfectly keeping the consumer's wants in mind. All you have to do is make yourself comfortable, get in the mood for what's coming and let the story unroll. What starts as a long list of names and unrelated description of characters slowly molds into a plot where a usually confused protagonist with a series of accounts opens up a completely different refuge from the mundane real world. In matter of no time, you start becoming the part of the story. However, I disagree with the common belief of relating to the characters, I don't. I don't have a rich father and a poor boyfriend or a sick mom and no money (touchwood!) but all I have is a huge craving for stories.

I do not believe in classifying movies just like the music- anything good to the ears is a good music. Similarly anything which can hold your attention for anything more than a minute is a good movie. It might take days to make a masterpiece of a movie but just two hours or so to realize it. I do believe making a movie is an art but so is watching one!

Ah! Those heart aches after a heart rendering tragedy, those dazed smiles after a happily ended 'chick flick', or that long silence after a display of those deeply complicated human emotions...Once the reel begins, every script tells a story, every character comes alive, every emotion becomes real until the line between the real and the reel no longer exists.

I still repeat its not addiction or passion, its just sheer craving for some good stories, tales, and incidents whatever you call it. For some it might be a well written book, for others a well sung song and for the rare ones a good narrated story, for me it’s the movies.

writer's paradox

I have been reading a lot of notes from many different people. each with a unique style of writing. Till a long time i was shy of writing anything and making it public. i really admired the courage of the 'many' people i have read. The thing which has and will always amaze me is that how writing brings out the altogether different side of the individual- the more emotional, the more serious and best of all the more creative side.
The saying 'to each his own' stands so true in this context. words is all we have and i guess always will. the point of this note is that though it looks a very famous and 'cool' activity, it involves something way beyond that. i just wrote a paper on a topic which didn't really turn me on. If it was just about writing i would have done it without much pain, but it was more than writing a test, it was about the extra knowledge one gains from that task. Me and my fellow mates doing the same task share this feeling. After writing that paper, talent called 'writing' gained a higher status for me. to feel is one thing but to find appropriate words for them is a totally different task. for this you have to have either a great vocabulary or a way with word or both. i have none!
Its refreshing to read fresh thoughts expressed so finely that one is forced to think about it. I have a habit of scribing behind my subject books during my lectures(i personally believe lectures are the only time when our creative side peeps out), and reading it so many times that after a point i cant believe it was my own work. The quotes made on the way to station, the poems wrote in a FC lecture, a song made at a dingy tea stall, a memorable quote from a popular old movie, a line in a random song which clicks just right are just a part of the long list of most creative work done.
all i have gained from reading people's personal, public or just random work is just that each one of us have a Wordsworth or Yeats hiding somewhere in the end of a book or the back of a waste bill!
P.S.- my way of saying 'job well done' to each and every word written by anyone ever!

play

as i sit on one end of the room, i see a huge crowd trying to adjust in a miniature apartment. Each of them knowing their role and the theme. Far but visible is the host, he is not the reason for the gathering or the celebration, but is nevertheless happy. As i look for some time, he smiles at a pretty girl who plays the lead. its her day. she is aware of this fact as you can see her smile at even the chairs and the tables. She has revised her role very well and is delighted with the importance poured on her. I am trying to look nearby for a while. i am surrounded by a group of 3 boys each having a part. they are suppose to be host's friends. each one is impressed with the surrounding. they have worked for their characters for days and though not convincingly but are playing their role with full enthusiasm. they know just the right words and are using their grammar aptly. Then, there are side actors. they don't have a significant part but each of them have been explained their characters well and are giving their best to the little they have. Someone switched on some music, everyone is moving to the beats. the song sequence is very well choreographed so every one has a flair.

i look back at the girl, she now has a glass of wine and a huge smile, which she has been wearing for a long time. Diverging from the crowd i think about the phrase 'wearing a smile'. the girl on the other end to me is actually just wearing her smile, like the pearl necklace on her neck. She surely knows how to carry herself with the glass, the dress and the much discussed smile. after the play ends she might go to her dressing and take off the smile, but for now she wears it.

Felling claustrophobic and bored with the repeating dialogues and slow pace of the play, i look outside the window. Just like all other nights, the sky is black, the moon is white and stars, insignificant. the people on the streets don't know about the play they are part of some other acting group and are keeping to themselves. just across the window, there is another stage with a different play going on, I've missed the beginning i suppose. there is a princess standing on her balcony, blowing bubbles to call her prince. i was trying to remember the fairytale i had read this story in, when one of the extras starts practicing his dialogues with me. At first i just stare at him as i bring myself back to the play but slowly i catch up with him. I suppose he has ended his conversation and is now waiting for my comment. With a sympathetic look, i ask him to work harder. he looks disappointed, i suppose he has practiced the lines many times and is unsatisfied with the reactions.

I think of walking away from the set, when the protagonist holds my hand and gives me the smile she now seems to be tired of. I don't know what to say so i repeat the lines every other extra artist was asked to say. she didn't catch me but sat beside me for a while. she is best among her peer, one of the reason for her to be playing the lead, i suppose.

Although coming to this play was my decision, but i seem to regret it. i guess i should have gone to that other place showing Sherlock Holmes instead of attending A Birthday Party!

and so i start.

its 1:30 i am suppose to be sleeping as i have an early journey tomorrow but caught this blogging fever from a near and dear one. i created my blog long ago but didn't have anything in mind to write. i am missing a cup of coffee to get me started but here i am anyways.

(i was just going through the blogs of someone i know for a long time, its amazing how i came across an altogether different side of that individual in the blogs.)

There is a gazhal with line - apni marzi se kahan apne safar pe hum hain, ruk hawaoin ka jidhar ka hain udhar ke hum hain, these line say so much with such simplicity that one cant help thinking about it again and again. i believe i shall put forward my introduction with it , i am just another indian kid studing some random course for the sake of it.
if you are looking for negativity of indian education system then now is the time when you should stop.
i am grateful to a system where one has to not think about their future a lot. everything is served on a platter and as the options are few, its easier to choose. its a boon for people like me who have nothing they can boast of. i am a jack of all trades and king of none. i am an individual with nothing unusual. i am so normal and untalented that it makes me think if its normal or a talent.
i am not saying that i lack something its just that i don't have anything that makes me superior to others. you might pass it as my modesty or ignorance but i firmly believe the hardest part of one's life is to find that one thing which makes him or her different than others. i am yet to find that uncommon side..... that not so known side.

and so here i start blogging hoping to find a different side of me

P.S. motivate me by commenting