HAIKU

Vermilion circles,
raven lashes, confident eyes
setting hearts alight!

  

What's behind closed eyes

raw flesh, tight fists, chubby crimes

by my side to-night.

Sweat on the temple

a jingle around her wrist

rotis and ladoos.

Not Just Yet

Puh, Himachal Pradesh

                                            

“It looks like the world is all about boys: little, big and old boys, but it isn’t.  These pretty things, girls, they are making the world go round and round and….”, thought Hameed on his way back from one of his day’s errands to the bazaar for Mrs. Stinson.

Wind blew the thought through his curly head as he sped by the shops and stalls on his bicycle, deaf to the calling voices,” Angrez!  Angrez! Hameed, brother! ”. His old ragged pants looking tired of all the effort to put up with his long legs while hanging onto his thin frame.

Stinsons -for whom he worked as a domestic help- lived some six yards up the market street in the speck of a town on the Himalyan foothills, called Puh. Home to peach orchards, and rare birds like the infamous laughing thrush and the buntings, Puh was just as much of a small town as any in the plains; complete with the perpetual but unspoken coexistence of security and seclusion, inferiority and pride.

“Take rest of the day off Angrez, Mr.Stinson won’t be back until tomorrow and I am not expecting any visitors.” She ordered him off with a hint of urgency in her tone. No one was sure of how’d she end up married to a anglo-indian or where she was born. But that was not everything mysterious about her. Mr. Stinson was being cheated on.

“Thank you madam” he said for he couldn’t care less.

Women had not been their nicest to him. His mother had run away leaving him in a broke man’s arms. Bimla and Rekha were married off to engineers for he was just another broke man.

He was headed for the peach orchards across the river where his wing man Chotu helped his family. Chotu was about nine but nothing about him was nine. He was half a man already.

Spotting Hameed from a distance, he jumped off the tree. The ladder fell just in sync as his feet banged onto the grass, and frightened birds-who had been successfully hiding hitherto-flew off in a frenzy.

Hameed peddled on and let his friend chase him to the brook. The fleeing birds above them. A Laughing thrush in the distance called impatiently as if to reckon it was his favorite part of the day too.

“What, did you get yourself fired?” Chotu teased him as soon as he could catch some breath.

“Not just yet brother” he beamed at the baby man.

Not just yet. Hameed knew that the way to his dream- The Hill Top Inn – started with a tourist guide’s job. But he needed a running income to support himself and his father for now.

“You heard about the air tight trains running under the roads down in the big city? First they put them up in the air and now they are headed all the way down to Hell!” said Chotu animating his entire tiny self.

“Yes, I heard about it from the boys at the chai stall” he said pulling out the long grass beneath him.

“One hell of a ride that must be” Chotu breathed as he spread himself on the grass.

“One hell of a ride” giggled Hameed at the boy’s fancies and his sighs. Somehow, he knew better than most people twice his age in Puh did. That, crystal glass buildings made life no better than the crystal clear waters of the brook. That, even though the outsides were brighter in the city but the insides were only many shades darker. He knew very well that all the money they thought was buried in the cities, could all come flowing to this very town if it was made to. This was his big idea; his grand theory. But not just yet.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Aye Delhi

The much hyped capital city is one capital destination for youth all over the country and abroad. It's my first time here and I feel obliged to write about it for the way it makes me feel at home.
 I feel like I have been put in the middle of a mess that's beautiful and yet so scary; that's abuzz with life and lifeless at the same time.             
 Buzy bazaars, young people, corporates, metros, rikshaws,roadside stalls, white stone walls, birds and bats have made their way to my dreams and writings already.
 I should not even get started on the contrasts between my home and Delhi. My only homely solace are the birds on the terrace who remind me of the dear pegion who comes to sleep on the window by my kitchen back home. It's my way of keeping pets.
There are quite a lot of birds around here. A pair of parrots, pegions, crows and hundreds of bats who fly home with their babies at seven every night. It's a spectacular sight, birds flying in different directions with their families.
The first night when I saw the bat babies above, I started at the sight. A hundred of the little things, flying in zigzags and circles in a radius above me, never going anywhere. Queer things, baby bats are either very naughty or they have poor direction sense, I thought as I started guessing.
All I could manage was a headache as I tried to fix my eyes on one to figure out where it went. Turns out, no-where. 
Google had no explaination for it so I settled for the fact that they are bats, they know how to scare ya! 
Looks like my mood swings and Delhi are going to cook me some interesting stories. Quirky pieces of lesser known lives are already catching my attention and inspiration. Like the gukta-chewing bookseller I met. 
Artless sellers sitting by the roadsides or on sidewalks in markets with heaps of unattractive little things or of books are a common sight in Delhi. So common that they are a society here. 
It was quite a collection for a man of his looks. I discovered that these people have their ways of knowing what's selling. Making the mistake of thinking him a man with no wits, I picked two books by the same author and enquired for the prices (if you've ever picked a book on a street you would know to ask despite the MRP)
 So he qoutes 100 for one and 150 for the other one which was selling like hot jaleibees and then a classic for 100 rupees.
I tried to reason with him for a bargain," what bhaiya, same writer, alag price?". ( Dumb on purpose, dumb on purpose! ) 
And he jumped a stair down, coming closer so I could distinctly smell the gutka. I started and looked at him properly for the first time. He was excited about explaining it all to me. Which had me smiling at him despite the little boy continuously pulling my kurta,trying to sell stickers to pyaari didis. 
Well, gutka man explains that books that are 50 years or older, are for lower prices because anyone can publish them. "Us time koi royalty nhi hoti thi madam jee, aaj kal toh har cheez patent kra letey hain log",he says. Boy, impressive!
"Itna hi margin hai madam jee", he says leaning back.I laughed at the information and the proud man, not so artless afterall! 
So I bought the classic for the sake of old times and walked away with the boy with stickers tailing behind . Aye Delhi!

Mucchal Singh and other memories: a vignette

Sometimes the night arrives in all its majesty, riding on dreamy winds that can put anyone to sleep. All lights are out, ghosts are thinking of ditching the chores for once but I would lie eyes open, dreaming.

 On such nights I ask myself, “ What do I do, what do I do?”.

 “Write”, says a hopeful (thinks she’s all wise) voice inside.

 “Write what?” , I ask her.

Write what ….. umm..hmm….... 

*closing eyes with intentions of coming up with some idea*  

Mmmmmm… hm… ummm..........

*Shut Down*

And the next thing is maids running about, eyeing the lazy bastard of the house snoring in the face of the sun. But guess what, tonight, I know what I want to write about. * Let me dance first*

It’s about my childhood.

 No, I am not 80.

 Yes, I feel like I am.

 Unfortunately, I don’t have a chronological order of the events. And if any one claims to remember too much, that’s pure fiction. For me it’s more like scraps of a dream i don’t remember quite exactly. Anyhow, certain things have managed to be eccentric enough to stick around for this long.

Days spent in model-town ( a housing colony in my hometown where our old house stands beautiful) are the most magical ones of my life. While I was always impatiently waiting to grow up and rock the world, those were actually the days worth living. Just nostalgia, you might dismiss. But I don’t dismiss magic.

Maa, papa and I had our room on the first floor, below the terrace. Regular school mornings used to be ordeals, right from the getting up part to the final act of gulping down milk in pure horror of my life’s villain, Mucchal Singh. Tall and slender, young Muchhal had a wild, handsome handlebar moustache and a deep voice. He used to take me and seven other kids to school on his Rickshaw.

 From the few recollections I have of him, he usually wore vests and plain cotton pyajamas. I was late every morning and he had just as many insults for me ( read tiny and frail me). Maa would be running around,Tiffin in one hand and shoes in another. For all I knew, my Rickshawala was a beast and should not be angered and still I managed to make him wait every day. So much for just tiniest little sleep.

 Everyone used to go to school on rickshaws back then but I had to have the wild moustache-ed character to make my mornings and dreams hell. He used to cram us all on the vehicle and the two wooden boards attached to it, one on the back and other right behind his seat. Bottles and legs dangling in air, his was a tough job. Imagine our huge bags falling off and sometimes whole kids. I have no memories of making friends or having fun on that ride ever. But thank you Muchchal, I think you just made my childhood happening. Not every handsome man has pulled off the kind of horror you brought to my dreams (he used to drop me at a haweli cum school where ghosts’ children went and laughed in my face as he did that in the dreams).

Next to him, my most vivid memories are of the Gulmohar tree and the terrace. All  the summer breaks revolved around or on or under them. It was a quiet, sleepy place in the afternoons when everyone religiously took their naps; when lemons and roses were stolen. I remember eating mangoes sitting on papa’s tummy as he took his nap under the cooler, after lunch. I spent those afternoons sketching, feeding the occasional cat or on the terrace, but never snoring. I would run to the terrace to have face to face talks with the gulmohar tree by the boundary wall of the little park in front of the house, that my grandfather had planted in his youth. That tree bears the most beautiful cap of red flowers in summers, which I envied because the flowers were not reachable and I couldn't feel them. So I used to wait for the misfortunes to fall upon him and the flowers to drop, entirely oblivious of anything called autumn. I probably thought it kept the beauties on the top on purpose. 

The few kites that I have flown in my life have all taken off from that very terrace; where I buried all my priceless milk teeth for the tooth fairy to replace them with babies; where I learnt to make green chutney out of tree leaves from my cousins; where I made up future plans I never used. Yes same place.

Such little pieces are all I remember of a free life, the kind only a child has. I soon grew up and didn’t find many things to like, except sketching. But before that there is the most vivid memory of a pleasant october night where I like to close the chapter of my childhood.

So this night, Maa and papa were out and the entire family was excitedly bustling around in the house. In one room, all the girls had gathered to decide on a girl’s name that would be given to my sister. Yes, maa and papa were in the hospital and no, I had no say in choosing the name. The news was- it’s a girl, it’s a girl. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I could not decide what a newborn should be like. Not long after, the show stopper came, everyone got a glimpse and went home. But tiny me was yet to meet her. Finally alone in the room upstairs, just below the terrace, in a dim orange-yellow light I saw a pink bundle that did the ugliest poop that night. No longer was I the baby. I was soon singing her to sleep and taking the charge of her whenever maa was not around. Strangely, I have no memories of my own life after that, as a child of free spirit.

My sister is now 17 And taller than I am. The gulmohar tree is soon going to go red now and I just saw Muchchal in the market place, pulling the old thing, for the first time after I had seen him last. He still has the same frame and ofcourse the moustache. I am so not 80!!  

It's time to be home.

Sitting under the thundering sky that lights my book as cars pass by, all I can say is that I could sit here forever. As it starts to turn dark, I work out in my head where to run if it starts to pour and there i have a drop on my sentence. Dogs and people run for shelter and few like me stare up before ducking.

Packed my book and followed the dog. I do trust him more than anyone on two legs, won’t take me anywhere i don’t want to be.

And false alarm, the clouds were playing the only April fool’s prank they probably know. 

I step out to look for a ride for the dog won’t take me home. It just wants to lick itself.  *silly boy*

So,out again amidst the staring eyeballs.

Wait, is a girl with a book that strange or do they like my hair this way? I probably would never know the answer to THAT (finger quotes).

 Well, stare on.

I go back to reading but it’s strangely hypnotizing as I read the same sentence over and over and still don’t seem to know what it means. That usually happens, when I have a backlog of things in my head to sort.

I do have some decisions to make, huge at this point of life and long pending by this time of the year. There’s no way it’s letting me enjoy a read.If a book can’t do it, nothing else can.

So I shut the book to finally think.

Heart rate rising slowly in resonance with the winds as I ask myself things…and,

HOnK POnK!!

Got a ride to catch!

{see Ted in a cloud saying ,’’ You see kid, the universe has a plan.. And that plan is always in motion.”}

I nod once and hop on.

Just as I finish writing this, i have made that one decision that sorts everything else and that is, to Hop On the long waiting ride, for it’s time to be Home.

Sunday Story -i

                 

                                     

                       Thinking Barefoot

I watch the sky through the tree tops, tree tops through cable wires, the wires through a net, and the net through my soft-lashes

And something about the day has got me thinking….

So I am not leaving this couch or the view until I make up my mind.

The thing is that I can’t tell what I woke up to this morning… the way I used to.

Like the time when I woke up to be a painter or a blogger or a nomad or someone's muse or whatever...

But This day has something I have never woken up to…

clearly because it has taken me the whole day to pick what-i-woke-up-to.

There's a nice couch under me, sweetest melody in my ears, weather that makes my skin glow,no voices partying in my head..

And a feeling that everything is alright with the world because it’s just what it’s meant to be.

I don't know what to make of it as i watch the sky changing colors over hours, lying on the very same spot.

A peaceful day in a row of messy ones. No rush whatsoever...

Dear setting sun, i can see you are trying to tell me things...things like i am where i am meant to be the way you are, the way every other thing is... 

Well, that could be it. 

Will see you next week.

#Melody courtesy: song for you - Alexi Murdoch

AURORA : The goddess of dawn

Another last chapter

What better way to look back at gone years than letting your diary paint them for you...

Whooshing visuals of conversations, stolen glances,endless laughters, so many faces... i can't even name them all now, campus rains, overpowering adrenaline; all of it in between those sentences of pointless blabbering, pouring of heart, dreaming, drifting, complaining and onesided discussions i had with paper, which never seemed like stories until i sat down to write the last page!

In this maze that our brains are, we never know which tiny neuron is treasuring which memory for us or when it decides to surprise you with things long forgotten, to leave you smiling and wondering...

Just as i leaf through the stories of my four years of college, i realize so many things have different meanings now. 

I'd call it perspective. Things changed as i changed perspectives and yet for me, it's them who changed...I have come to hate the same rains i had danced with, love the same winters i had spent scooping inside blankets... well the list is long.

But the journey was not just about changes. I can't sum up saying that a lot changed... because changes never stop. Only, we see them much later.

This journey was more about going out there and being someone i had never dared to be before that and having a brand new chance at that every single day!  

College life is bound to give such wings to all of us. That raw-immature-fresh spirit to step into the unknowns is something i miss the most. Those little wonder-struck hearts we had when it all started, aren't the same. They all got torn, bullied, sewed up or glued together, warmed sometimes and then pelted with ice on the way...

But all for the good.

In the last chapter that i write to my diary tonight, i'll  try make myself a backpack of memories to keep. ummmm... a few conversations, some faces, a lot of high fives and chuckles, lessons learnt, best books i read, a birthday present, may be a secret or two, all the admirers ( ^.^ ) , things i didnt say, all those friends who stood the test of time and that one last moment of turmoil of leaving behind everything i ever knew....

That's all i guess.

Farewell Diary, i'll let the dust be yours in the darkest corners of the shelves for i will come back when all my memories in that backpack are stories to share; because the older a memory, the meaningful it is !

 details of the backpack rest in my diary only, didnt't put them here for obvious reasons