What?

What is this
Need to belong,
to make square shapes
cast shadows oblong?

What is this
Urge to do
Because do you must,
And to a measure just,
Not undo or out-do
That which was done first?

What is this
Cry for
When cry is all
You can?

What is this
Looking for
When the leap
That should come after,
Is frozen,
Like a reluctant bride at the altar?

What is this
Learning for,
When there are
No questions asked,
What is this
Teaching for,
When answers
Cannot be unmasked,
Because an ego
Was trespassed?

What is this
Sadness for,
When sad merely
Means the opposite
Of happy,
And you cannot
Know,
The other side
Of something
That you have not seen?

The BIG ‘two-oh’…!

No body is born old, but everybody has age thrust upon them. Today, this day, 20 long years were planted on my rather un-toiled shoulders. Just like that. Though I have apparently lived each and everyday of these two decades, I don’t seem to realize it. In that way, one might say it’s been very pleasant, it certainly has been. Now, I can claim- My life, two decades of ceaseless happiness. Or write something like- Varsha Poddar, delivering weirdness, happiness, invaluable snobbery since 1991. *snigger-snigger*

Anyway, what does one do on a TWENTIETH birthday?
I remember between the ages of 3 and 4, I would yearn to be passed around as a parcel. Pamper. Pass. Pamper. Pass. Pamper. Tired parcel. Put on bed. Parcel sleeps. Next day wakes up an annoyed, screeching implacable toddler.
Later, it was a to-be teenager wanting to have friends over. Thereafter, a teenager who would do anything random. The odd age of 20. I don’t know what one does, but I ended up being happy.

Now see, I believe the 1st of January is the new year only for calendars. For me this was the beginning of a new year, for you it will be your birthday. Whenever that is.

So I am going to do something as symbolic as taking new year resolutions. Now, “if something’s changing, it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been this way before…” to quote from Regina Spektor’s song. And so, I am going to go back to a few things!

Be tireless like a toddler.

Ask as many questions as little children do. Curiosity may kill cats who can afford to die often, with their nine lives, but it certainly won’t kill me. And what won’t kill me will only make me stronger. So suppress no questions.

Be regular like school kids. At homework. At classwork.

Be adventurous. Like Infants, who fearlessly grab spiders and other creepy things that can only crawl like them?

Be amazed. Like children are. And then be amazing.

As a child I was continually being bribed by family members. They were ready to give me anything as long as I kept quiet for sometime. I didn’t accept bribes then, and I want to be offered bribes again. So that I can refuse them. So, I will be talking more. Gettit?

Love. More. Everyone. Like the happy-chubby baby who will pout in anyone’s arms. The perverts can shut their minds. I only mean- become more tolerant. ^_^

Sing, dance, be unafraid.

Have lots of moxie. THAT is such a yummy new word I learnt. Look it up in the dictionary!

Yay, so happy growing down everybody!
I am a happy-birthday-gal. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

And yes, the rain has come to remind me- be not squeamish. Splash in puddles and wade through the water-logged streets unabashedly! (rehmatein MOmOta di, we will never run out of those!)

Yay!

Sheltering in the shadows…

I hide behind my own shadow,
At least it darkens a lie.
And even though it may seem shallow,
It buries the truth from light.

I build up broken fragments,
Of pains and smiles and cries.
It’s quite a patchwork of emotions,
Until it’s laced by the sighs
Of heartbeats missed in sweet collision
In the embrace with those seeing eyes.
And then it becomes a blanket,
Which covers my naked
shakiness,
From mercilessly prying eyes.

I dance under the magnificence
Of castles drawn up in air,
And while preachers preach safe lessons,
I venture alone, into dangerous lairs.

While the world runs around in circles,
Bulldozing dreams to create undestined stairs,
I’ll be found doing my dancing,
And building even though I’m in hiding,
But never, ever, coming down those stairs.

Mutthiyo mein kaid aur cheekho mein bandh…

Bandh mutthiya le kar,
Aa pahuche they hum yaha
Kabhi socha hai,
Ki un mutthiyo mein kaid tha kya?

Dabi huyi ek cheekh
Ko azad kiya tha humne…
Kabhi socha hai,
Ki chalo aaj us cheekh ko hi samjhe?

Tez, bohot tez dhadkan
Liye, guzaara tha bachpan,
Kabhi socha hai,
Ki dil ko thi kis baat ki jaldbaazi?
Kaun si thi khushi, ya
Kis pe thi uski narazgi?
Kyu who itna tadapta tha,
Kaise na woh thakta tha…

Apni cheekhe suni hogi humne,
Par uski ab koi yaad nahi…
Woh mutthiya bhi kholi hongi humne,
Aur socha hoga hai yeh sirf ek khaali haath yahi.

Aur phir hum badhte gaye…
Kad mein, shakti mein, rakht mein…

Cheekho ko hum chupaane lage,
Hatheliya khaali ab na rahi,
Paiso se, samaj se, apne khud ke hi rhubab se
Humne unhe bhar li…
Dhadkane bhi ab tham gayi,
Kyuki kho diya humne woh
Khwab jo mutthi mein bandh tha,
Mauke ki firaak mein.
Rula kar bhul gaye hum woh junoon

Aur dil ne bhi thak kar socha,
Bhag kar ab fayda nahi,
Jab manzil hi nahi pehchani aapne.

Hands fisted, lungs screaming, a heart beating faster than ever, I believe we all arrive with a dream waiting to get out and realize itself. After all, those nine months of slumber must have not been dreamless.

Here, and yet not here.

It isn’t happening… It isn’t working out… Watching Rome and Venice and Paris and London and even Mumbai featuring on travel show after travel show isn’t satiating my wanderlust. In fact it’s teasing me into a longing which is almost too painful to carry in my already heavy heart. (This time I am not going to apologize for or stick my tongue out at the erotic imagery. It’s alright. It’s the truth.)

So I have an idea.
The Earth travels from West to East. That’s how we think the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. That’s how the moon comes face to face at the sun’s dying rays.
That means, at some point everyday, The spot under the sun which the city that belies its sobriquet of the ‘City of Joy’ now occupies, is replaced by charismatic Paris, by enchanting little Spanish villages, by some maddening city in the US, or some lost in time ruins of the Sahara, some mysterious, whispering corners of Persia and Arabia, by bogs in the Irish country, by fields of illicit poppy in Afghanistan, by rain forests in the Amazon…
Okay, by not every place mentioned above but by everything that falls on the same skewed latitude as Calcutta.

So I want to latch myself onto the sun and jump down at a choice location…
I want to cling to the clouds and rain down on foreign soils…
Can someone build me a sort of hover craft which remains suspended in mid air and lowers me down on Earth when I wish?
Why can’t I not let the Universe do all the work for me (quite literally) and drop down like an alien meteor, without IDs, without a passport, without an aircraft, just very naturally?

I want to do all of the above. Even if it is all in my head.
For as the great man Dumbledore said to the wonderful boy, the brave, brave man- Harry Potter, “Of course it’s happening in your head, Harry. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

The bizarre ideas in my head, the power rotation of the Earth, come combine and take me Across The Universe! Aye, just as the Beatles sang it… and I shall not weep my return to where I belong.

Things people do…

Of late, I have begun to be irked by little things that people do. These things… They’re pretty little as I already mentioned, but they are like the noise of nails scratching a blackboard, or a terribly slow speed Internet connection when you are waiting for something really interesting like (_____________) to open. And I left that blank after ‘interesting’ so you can insert whatever it is that would fit your definition of interesting and thus, really, really empathize with me. (For me ‘interesting’ would be photographs.) So anyway, this annoyance is like watching the last piece of your favorite cake being taken by this lady you can see ahead of you in the queue, it’s like pulling out your favorite shirt only to discover that it’s been gruesomely discoloured last time it was in the wash. It makes you go “What the F***!”. Even though you maybe a person who minds their language all the time.

Coming to the ‘things’…

To begin with (only because I have been trying to put an end to this the longest), is the habit of littering when one is on the road. “Ooh! Let’s enjoy the yummy hazelnut chocolate.” And what about it’s wrapper? Chuck it out the car/bus/train window of course! If aircrafts could fly with open windows, the frequent Indian flyer would have left a generous sprinkle of ‘thepla’ packets, banana peels, chewing wrappers (courtesy his ‘hip’ son/daughter) in his wake. Not to mention betel nut juice. The Left needn’t get dividers on road crossings painted red if they ever return to power. Our ‘pan parag/rajnigandha’ chewing male society will have done a tremendously meticulous job for them. (the same people will be the loudest when they voice their disgust about our city and its filthy roads.)

Then comes the phone call. In Business Communication classes in the Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) curriculum, there is a section on how to make a phone call. “Speak clearly, in an audible yet not loud voice.” Lost. This lesson is lost on the people who study it, and those who are lucky enough to not have studied this course, can conveniently feign ignorance when they shout at their loudest into the mic of their mobile handsets.

There is also the case of the self-proclaiming singer. You can identify them in the crowds and easily, because eyes shut, ear phones plugged in, they will be found singing (and quite audibly) with the most religious and sincere expressions on their face. Hello! Music composers and producers do not travel in buses or linger in park corners hoping to pick up a ‘fresh voice’. And if you’re singing cuz you are a free bird and you ‘love’ music, wake up! You only spell wannabe in big, bold letters.

Then there are people who want to ask something straight enough, but then go about it in the most roundabout manner possible. It’s like going from Calcutta to Mumbai, but via Japan, LA and London.

I could go on and on. I do not like it when people honk at red lights. I do not like it when they scold their kids in the Metro in loud, broken Hinglish. I do not like it when people slyly put the biggest brand they picked up at the mall right in front of their shopping piles for other people to see. I do not like it when people compare marriage budgets when they should be rethinking their wedding vows. I do not like it when they scratch their sweaty back one moment and offer me their hand to shake a moment later. I do not like it that people think they must please others around them. I do not like it when people curse the rain as if its sole purpose is to spoil their stupid plans…

I do not like a lot of things that people do. But I am not a misanthrope. I can just appreciate people and ALL their facets.

Near-bye.

Streaming light
Upon her face
Fresh with the pain
Of a decaying heart
Lingered,
But could not stay.
For stay she couldn’t either…
A bourgeois cage
For a humble heart
Built like the cages of a spider.

A tiny rhythm
Stolen from the noise
Of her insatiable hunger
Caught
And then strummed and strummed
Till the song came upon her.

The weight lifted
And given off
Torn into bits
And strewn
Never again to be sewn
Into a shroud
To be cast upon her.

A solitude befriended
And taken along
On a journey
She had lent
Herself to and cast a wish upon.

For all those times I said a near good bye. For all those times when I felt my heart wanting to be set free, to set off and quench my thirst for travel with a song on my lips, no care in the world and the companionship of my own self. But for all those times, i’m still here, nearby. Sigh. It isn’t a prayer but it’s such a beautiful, yet somehow painful feeling… Amen.

The rains, they’re here again!

I was away from this blog for over a month. Did I miss it? Did I think of it while I was away? Did it prick my conscience to be away from something I had avowed life-long commitment to in the introductory post? I think yes, but I can’t be sure.

I could take two ways in putting this, what some might call a ‘comeback’ post up. I could ‘humbly’ apologize to my readers for the unduly long absence. (but who would I be kidding? I’m no JKR. I could proclaim so to my self-obsessed self, but I’ve taken my reality check, thank you very much.) The other option of course would be to ignore any pleasantries and slyly slam a post on top of the previous one, much like slamming hot gravy on a cold dish that would be, and so that wouldn’t do either. Nah, not either. But I found myself tautologically activated, and I decided to go ahead on an inhibited ramble.

I don’t feel like talking much about myself, however. And neither do I feel like commenting much on the state of various affairs.

However, I can’t help but observe that the rain on our city is into its thirteenth hour running now. it’s the most active as in mobile thing about this city. While the traffic crawls and its lazy residents get lazier, rain- sprightly rain continues to pelt every surface under the now set but then cloud covered sun.

The city’s recent obsession with ‘green’ has ahem, now been inundated by various shades of brown, black and repulsive grey. (Which I think is the city’s true colour palette. It’s been on it’s sickbed for quite sometime, after all)

Leaks exposed, long forgotten vacant spaces flooded, craters and holes given birth to, I think the rains are a good litmus test for the cities of our country. And the roads- these roads are the best… Let’s not say ecological but infrastructural indicators which reflect the health of overall infrastructure. From the Manhattan of India in the ‘dry’ state of Gujarat to our capital city to our country’s financial capital to the Pink City to the Blue City to God’s own country to the Silicon Valley of India and of course the City of Joy, monsoon leaves all fancy sobriquets drenched and dripping over the roads of superficial development and leaving them not wet but well, rippling in its after effects.

As for myself, I enjoyed the rains with a steaming bowl of ‘Wai Wai’ and an e-book in hand. So there… The monsoons and I are back and yes, we’re both a nasty pain in the umm, in many a celebrated, craned necks.

Rain reminds me of this one song- not such a favourite, but quite listen-able.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzbhiNl0roY

Will the rains wash away our sorrows and take away our pains? You wish!

LoneStar.

She came out on the street, head under a cape, feet treading the sidewalk with a visible, hesitant and reluctant quality. As if she was scared where her steps might lead her.

A snowflake swirled down to the grey tarmac, and for a moment, it was a brilliant spot of reflected light, before the wheel of a sedan took it along, making it a part of its dubious, black, shadow of a life.

A star fallen to the ground and made part of all the sadness within it. Visible, even among the lights of a celebration which was not going on within her, only without.

There is something about reaching the edge and being pulled back, that she was very familiar with. That her tears were not strangers to, either. It made one a stranger to the outside world, however.

She did not remember the rest of her walk at all. Only remembered that it was heady, a blur of happy faces. They came with open arms into which she never walked. They called her name but she never answered. They raised toasts which she never returned.

It was a psychedelic reel of denied happiness. Or maybe her refusal to be masked with joy.

Only the footprints on the snow told her that someone had kept her from going over the cliff. One set, walking to her and then walking away. She followed them, but they lead nowhere. Or rather lead her into a confused maze, a jumble she must somehow untangle to reach that moment of bliss she had been ignorant to.

And then, more snowflakes rained down and erased the painful memory of a happy moment.

Back to School.

Observing world news in the past few days, I can’t shrug off the image of the world as one giant classroom and all its nations as rather unruly boys, getting in the way of each others’ and often their own education.

First, Egypt got this toy called a people’s revolution. Soon every other country was crying out loud to be handed out the same. From Libya to Israel, to even India, which sought to break off the shackles of corruption with a mallet it calls the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Then, Osama bin Laden, whose supporters deem him a one man nation, met it’s end at the hands of who appears the biggest bully, the US. But can you blame them for biting back? And of course, Pakistan appears very sly and dubious amongst all of this.

Now moving over from all that is important and happening across the world, and back to my little head, into my I-don’t-know-what-adjective-describes-it-best life.

Every school pass out I’ve ever known, including myself, yearns to go back to school. But I think now, that school life, like everything else, was a frame of mind.
“We had friends”, or did we simply enjoy the people around us?
“We were carefree”, or did we just take life as it unfolded?
“Life was simpler”, well we can still make it that, even now, it’s just that we all somehow choose not to. We’ve all heard how different it is- life out of school. And then we go and live it and when things appear simple in this promised, complex, after-life, we make it more difficult for ourselves to make it all more real perhaps?
It really is about putting mind over matter. And may I add, having a strong governing control over that mind which we put above all else.

I’m going for the cliche here- life is a school and you can always learn if you pay attention.
Just because it is a cliche, it doesn’t mean it can’t make sense.

And yes I paid a little attention in the past few days. And I learnt I was chasing this Utopian dream for a life, a real life. Untouched by grief and sorrow and imagining it all in beautiful high definition or something.

And I learnt, really learnt what may seem a very basic thing, just yesterday- that no life is perfect. Rather, nobody’s life can be more perfect than they make it to be.

There just has to be a kink somewhere. And these are not the words of a cynic, a realist, maybe.
And it’s true that because of the kinks one can tell the smooth lines apart.

Well, to put it plainly, I have come across people with greater troubles and greater dignity. While I had lesser of both.

I won’t condemn myself of having lived a lesser life, I just didn’t know better, till the Universe sent these people by. It was my time.

“Every man dies. Not every man really lives.”
I think I have made the beginning of my transition from one kind of man to another.
I think all of life can be as joyous as the 12 years spent in school.
I think the boys in the classroom above need to laugh at themselves a little.
Maybe they need to go back to school, or maybe just pay a little attention to life.