letter

Dear Backbone,

Today I head off to a brand new workplace. People around me are intensely excited, proud and constantly offering advice. For myself, I'm determined to handle this my way. This isn't my first job, and though the previous one was part-time and non-corporate, it was business and it was work, and I was taught to handle it that way.

So far the best advice has come from Mitul Pishi who very quietly told me, 'focus completely on your work and don't talk bad about anybody in your workplace.'

And that is the essence of any work I'll do. I know I'll resist corporate work life at every step, but nobody will ever fault me for the lack of hard work and personal dignity. I'll be making mistakes, looking blank and sponging up all kinds of information. And every time I come through fire or scale a corporate brick wall, I'll remember to give you a pat. And to say a silent thank you to people like Sumit Pipa and Trips who are convinced that you and I are awesome!

It's been you and me for many years, buddy. So here's to another adventure!

Cheers!

Wishlist

I want a vacation filled with bookshops, long browses, sleep, writing, movies....and absolutely nobody I know around!

Orange blossom, roses and being a non-tourist in Paris

I anticipated trouble this time at Charles De Gaulle. I figured it was easier than to be surprised by it. About six hours into my plane ride, I looked out and espied a lone star looking back at me. So I asked it to please ensure that my journey was smooth, and my trip fruitful.
And it appeared to wink at me and do just that.
I wasn't arrested, photographed or even looked at suspiciously. My passport was stamped, my luggage came through and I was out of there in less than five minutes.
Since Dear Old Dad believes that his children must be Super Independent, I bought myself a bus ticket to Porte Maillot and made the trip to the hotel by myself.
The first night is a frenzy of cold air and posh French food. DOD and i ate our way through scallops, snails, foie gras and finished a bottle of rather good red wine between us. I must tell you, that to see my hard-nosed, dark-rum-drinking father swirling the wine in his glass, tasting it delicately and instructing his provincial daughter on how a wine-glass should be held was tres funny.
The next morning began with an enormous breakfast. Meat, cheese, meat, cheese, meat, cheese...oh and some yoghurt for good health.
Paris on a Saturday morning is sleepy. The newspaper kiosks were open, a few florists were open (it is perfectly possible in Paris to have a sudden craving for roses at 9 am),but nobody began business till 11 am.
While walking off our breakfast, I looked at the Parisiennes. Their shoes shone, their coats were of perfect length, they walked in four-inch heels as though they had been born in them (which is very possible). I had a feeling if they were pricked, they would bring forth gushes of Chanel No.5 rather than blood. I could not imagine them breaking into a sweat, or having wind-blown hair.
Maybe it's just Paris. I mean, you're living the standard of world fashion rather than living upto them...
We had another enormous meal in the afternoon....more meat, more snails....sigh. Then we stood out, leaning against the wooden tables and smoked. In my long, felt coat, pointy leather boots, with cigarette in hand...I might have felt worldly and European...but I was too busy feeling full of food and sleepy.
Paris was a whirl this time. The few journeys I made alone...walking out at 7 am to buy postcards, the bus ride to the airport, the orange blossom shampoo that stayed on my pillow...this is what I remember best. Paris is designed for travellers, loners, lovers, gypsies. In less than two days, it gave me aching feet, cold fingers and took my breath away...
The visa officer was highly disapproving of the fact that I was travelling alone to Paris, that I had no planned itinerary for my stay. Dear sir, I wish you two weeks in Paris. Try getting lost, try gazing out at nothing and make yourself some new secrets.

....so are our talks.
Language so filled with desire it forms in your brain
and transforms into an ache deep in your belly,
dark red and overbearing,
filling your body with secrets

Return

I know I know...I haven't been writing in here at all. I is sorry :( But..I have been positively swamped! Writing, getting paid for it a little bit, trying to decide on that big step of moving out of home....and trying on a new relationship for size.
Now, most of you already know about this since I am pathologically incapable of keeping such big news to myself! In fact, there are at least five people I have to tell right away when something Big Deal happens.
The truth is that it is big news for me. I am taking an old friendship off the shelf, dusting it off and looking at it anew. And I have been wonderfully surprised at what I am seeing. What is even more surprising, and leading to palpable irritability, is that it is happening long-distance. Trust me to respond to somebody only after they move to the southern hemisphere! But, truth be told, it could not have happened sooner. We both needed to go through a lot of brick walls in order to become the girl who can respond, and the guy she could respond to.
I freak out over these happenings periodically, but despite this, and the distance, we are managing to communicate a LOT. The good thing about the distance is that it means the going is slow. We have time to savour, to think (in my case, to obsess.) Oh, it drives me crazy a lot of times, but it is forcing me not to rush, to actually cultivate patience. (Aren't you proud of me Boss??!!)
For now, I am hummingly happy, enjoying being showered with liking and affection and silly arguments. I will get sordid and cry buckets and have nasty doubts clouding this light, but you know what, I think I can pull this off. I think we can pull this off.
Amen.

For Mitul Pishi

I know you will survive this. I know you are worried about those who might not be able to. I know that I am sitting here tight in my helplessness and sending you what meagre prayers I can dress up in words.
You have survived so much. And you have remained strong and forthright and a passionate advocate of solitude and living. Life has thrown so much, so many big things at you...and you have let them wash over you. You have caught them and plucked out the glitzy feathers and held on to bare bones.
You have held fear and resignation in your hands, and you have moulded them into strength.
All this I know, and I am putting all my faith in this knowledge and sending it to you so that you never forget just what you hold in you.

~ Tia

Weekend in Mumbai

At the Hawaiian Shack. Yes, we were slightly blurry!
Happily buzzed!
At Spikey's. Trying to distract Weed from Sudoku/crossword/general compulsiveness.

On letters and SMS

shortness of words
sharp, always black
sitting on the edges of impatient fingers

how did we get here?
Love was beautiful
in longhand
on paper alive with your smell
with the deep blue of your words
poured out from the curve of your belly

now there is quickness
metallic, silver.
we are free of waiting

and yet we wait

only,
the time is diminished
I can hear across hemispheres
the clicking of letters,
the slight sounds
as you choose brackets and dots
in the shape of your kiss

within minutes, sounds closer
to me will signal the arrival of a few lines
from you.
I could close my eyes and store the translucent laughter you brought...

Thank You :)

Thanks so much for the award Friend-of-a-dozen-years :)

Here are the blogs I love:

Maddie: The most peaceful, lovely writer I have read.

Left-handed trees: Very powerful, very gentle.

Misty: Poems, soul-searches and more....

Didi: Intimate, quivering word-play....

Gypsy: From Kittenland, with love :)

Prachi: Wistful wanderings in Strawberry Cove

Variations on the word Sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head.

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as beathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

~Margaret Atwood

On this, your day, I told you...or wished furiously I could.

Dear Airbus

My grandparents arrived back from the US a few days ago via Dubai. Their flight from JFK to Dubai was aboard the Airbus-380.

Here's the mail Dadu sent me about it:

I must tell you about our new experience while returning from NYC this time. By our two and a half trips by Emirates, we had earned enough extra miles to upgrade our JFK-DXB 13 hr flt to Business Class which in the latest Airbus A-380-200 means flat bed with ready made soft bed with a shoe-box and a shelf containing bottle of water, 3 brands of soft drinks. When the bed is made, the becomes a separate cubicle with just an entrance. The Bus Cl is a separate entity with separate entrance and - hold your breath - a wholetime buffet counter which serves almost any type ( within limits, of course ) of drink and snacks. As the flt took off at 2300 hes, one stewardess handed me themenu-card for dinner and breakfast, wine-card and info about the buffet which they preferred to name ' Anytime Titbits '. Thammi ordered a salmon grilled with some soft drink while I ordered a complicated cocktail ( which the lady took down punctiliously ) with grilled prawns. The service was perfect. I repeated the ordered as both my items were excellent. After this, the Economy Cl trip DXB-CCU was so disappointing. Anyway, it was an experience. Unfortunately, we probably won't have another opportunity to enjoy it.

Love, Dadu

When my grandfather says 'complicated cocktail', he means complicated. And he has been living on my grandmother's cooking for the past 53 years, so if he compliments culinary skills, they must indeed be superlative.

Airbus, trust me you'll never receive higher compliments :)

In Gratitude

'Serious, thoughtful and drawing attention to and trying to open windows that are closed or ajar. From that point of view, out of the ordinary and brave.'
~ Dadu

'I read your piece and it was a thoughtful write-up. I hope to get more of that in the future.
.....a genuine prayer to the elements that you write more, for some like you write, and the rest, like us feed on it. '
~ The Professor

When my book(s) are published, these are two people whose opinion I would like printed on the front cover.
Thank you, gentlemen.

Yay yay yay yay

Chillibreeze published my article!!!!! And they've rated it pretty well. Me is Eskited!
Go see.

Every day you play

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

~ Pablo Neruda

Penmanship

The rains have softened slightly and I am in the throes of an intense urge to receive and write letters. I don't mind e-mails, they indulge my impatience, but...the writing on a monitor screen is not to be touched, nor are there visible smudges where the ink has run. No hand has passed over the words in a silent prayer that they will reach their destination...
I feel like putting ink-pens with thick, curved nibs to rough, hand-made paper with flowers pressed into it. Ball-points are such crass, scratchy things.

So...who wants to become pen-pals?

And, this, Ladies and Gentleman, is who I want to write like

This is why.

Look what Frobscottled sent me!!

That teeny print on the left reads:

Consider yourself blessed if the Snooty Scooty agrees to take you to your desired destination, allows you to pay by meter and does not leave you with a broken vertebrae. If you are a risk-taker and a kick-ass haggler, then sit back and enjoy the gravity-defying journey of a lifetime.

There's a lot more to this card than what I'm putting up. Let me just say that I'm more glad than ever that we found each other again :)

Take a look at where she picked up the card.

Of Friends and madmen

M called from Hyderabad and made my day :)
Shibs and I caught up after a long time.
She's sent me perfectly Jungian pictures of her trip to Europe. No, Europe is too prosaic. Her trip to Paris and Normandy...sigh! Shibs, you are looking tres model-like in them!!
Frobscottled is in Delhi studying to be a Human Rights lawyer. I hope your first day is a PlayClan type :)
And P is off to perform in HRC Mumbai, before going off to dancing school in Bangalore.
And I have completed and sent off an article and gotten shortlisted for a 'zob.' I have regained courage and bloom and audacity, and am looking forward boldly to this non-degree education year! I've never had one of those before.

Oh....despite blasts and terror and earthquakes and the LOC....people are doing beautiful things. The Parliament is defamed, the democracy stands in ruins....but there is a sweeter, more primal madness than all of this....the will to live big and rich and constructive.

I Stumbled across this poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. In gentile language, it is entitled 'The Invitation.' In my mind, I also call it 'Let's Cut the Small Talk Crap.'


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

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

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

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

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own.
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy
fill you to the tips of your fingers
and toes without cautioning usto be careful, be realistic,
remember the limitations of being human.

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

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

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

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

It doesn't interest me where or what
or with whom you have studied.I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Yeesh! Humour

Me: I've had a problem FOREVER!
Dad: Now that's no way to talk about your face!


Dad: I'm a poet
Though I didn't know it!

YEESH!!!

Shades of blue

The house has gone a little cuckoo with preparations for E's birthday picnic tomorrow. Tis the same spot where the Liquifier puts flowers in her hair, drinks vodka and nariyel pani straight out of the bottle and floats around in the river. However, I shall be very well-behaved on the morrow as I have kiddies to look after.

I feel less blue today. An old schoolmate saw my status on gtalk - a few lines inspired by The Professor - and asked if I could come up with something on deception and heartbreak.
Here's what came through:



Dust is what I have left
Particles of little lies
and your eyes
shaded
smudges of your fingers
mingling in my skin
fading

what is real?

the body and the light
flowing through
as you become grey
an outline remembered,

darkness

'That's how I feel,' she said after reading it.
I love her for saying that!