I am not too sure if I believe in astrology. I make it a point to read my horoscope everyday though I seldom connect it to the rest of my day.
I don’t know whether I believe in palm-reading either. The lifeline in my hand says that I will die early. And sometimes it makes me a little sad. Some say that it is all crap. Is it? If it is, can I die when I want to? If yes, then can I die right now? I sure feel like. But then that would just prove that the lines in my hands speak the truth. Besides, I am too much of a coward to ever try committing suicide. Hmmm.
Anybody out there who believes in mercy killing? Pull the plug will ya?

We were so much in love
Made for each other
By God himself
Married blissfully for over a year
His eyes still caressed my heart and soul
My gift to my love
A child of our own
Moved gently within me
He would hold my hand
And place his ear
On my growing mound
To talk to his child
Whisper words of love
Promises made
That he would protect us both
From the big bad world
This evening was special
Three years since we met
The best three years of my life
I planned all morning
For the dinner that night
I went out to shop
For all the special ingredients
I couldn’t have been happier
When I had got into my car
Sweating in the humid heat
I called him at an impulse
And told him ‘I love you’
A constant joke between us
For I rarely would say the words
Could life have been better?
I had all and more
I am sorry my love
For I meant not to go
I died before I realised
When the bomb blasted so
I am sorry love that our child died with me
Before it had a chance.
Perhaps it was better
Is this the world that he should have seen?
Don’t cry for me love
Cry for those
Who killed the others and me
In a burst of angry flames

Sometimes we have reasons to do certain things, for we believe in something. Perhaps the ones who were responsible for the bomb blasts in Bombay yesterday had their reasons too. But what justifies killing people? Of destroying someone’s future? Of the end of hope? Of broken families? Of unfinished sentences? Of incomplete lives?

An inexplicable sadness and a hundred whys criss-cross within me.

Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
An echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no one called us to the land
And no one knows the where's or why's.
Something stirs and something tries
Starts to climb toward the light.

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me.
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand
The best I can.

And no one called us to the land
And no one crosses there alive.
No one speaks and no one tries
No one flies around the sun....

Almost everyday you fall
Upon my waking eyes,
Inviting and inciting me
To rise.
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning.

And no one sings me lullabyes
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky....

~ Echoes, Pink Floyd

One of the glitches in a bad internet connection and a slow server; pages that expire and are refreshed a thousand times. A blank post has appeared on its own on my page and there is no way I can delete it. Like the emptiness in my heart, that I can't get rid of, it is here to stay. Forever, on the pages of my life.

First person: Do you want to?
Second Person: Let us.
FP: Maybe we shouldn’t. It is office after all. What if we get caught?
SP: Come on. It’ll be good fun. I have done this before.
FP: Just check if anyone’s coming.
SP: No one. Let’s start.
FP: Woah.
SP smiles.
FP: This is going too fast.
SP: You’re not half as good as I expected you to be.
FP smiling wickedly: You haven’t yet seen all my moves.
SP teasingly: This is no fun with a novice.
FP frustrated: Why do you keep banging into me?
SP: If you move away in time I won’t.
FP: Oh my God, you’ve grown so big. I had no idea it gets so long!
SP: Wait till the end.
FP: Don’t keep coming on to me.
SP: That’s the whole idea honey!
FP: Stop.
SP: I can’t. It’s like I am out of control.
FP: Oh God! I am going to die. (Sighing) I am dead.
SP: You’re not too bad you know.
FP grinning: That was fun. Shall we once more?
SP: Yes it gets better with time. Then you become an expert like me.

And so went the conversation between two obsessed computer games’ freaks, deeply engrossed in a silly snake game, playing in office when they should have been working.
Believe me. I was one of them.

There is so much beauty in the white smoke of burning wood disappearing in patterns into the light drizzle of rain.

Caught in my own labyrinth
For the exit I look
My eyes searching desperately
Anxious at every nook

Trapped in a fishbowl
I swim in circles round
No light and no air
No food and no sound

My ship is drowning
In the middle of the sea
I scream out for help
But there’s no one but me

I wake up from my dream
Bathed in sweat
The fear of dying is
So much worse than death

I have always claimed that I believe in truth. The truth is my reason for living. But truth is dynamic. Ever changing with time and context. So what I believe today is not what I shall believe tomorrow. So I can never ever strongly believe in it. Like a person who can’t be called brand loyal if he drinks Pepsi today because for him Pepsi is the safest and truest drink and then switches to Coca-Cola tomorrow because his belief changes. So like brand-switchers I am a truth-switcher. I am a spineless person looking for the BBD (Bigger Better Deal). The bigger and better truth.

I drift alone in the endless ocean
Holding on to a piece of broken driftwood
The red sun seems to be drowning
As the water turns blacker with passing seconds
Evening gives way to the dark
And the sea gulls disappear into the horizon
The waves carry me away to an unknown destination
A chilling silence hurts the drums of my ears
The sea gets covered with a blanket of fog
The white of the mist and the black of the water seems colourless
How do I stop the tears that just don’t come?
How do I fight the pain that I refuse to accept?
How do I live when death’s knocking at my door?
How do I let go of life when I clutch on desperately to the driftwood?
How do I keep floating despite a heavy heart that weighs me down?
I feel myself surrendering to the arms of the ocean
And as my eyes close in tiredness and resigned acceptance
The silence is shattered by the sound of a fog horn in the distance
And the blinking light of the lighthouse welcomes me back to life.

I could be serious competition to Jim Carrey. How many of you can do the following?
• Stumble and fall thrice a day.
• Get your hair caught in the little fans in the back seat of a car. Get stuck there till the others have finished laughing and deign to release you from the awkward position.
• Start the shower when you need the tap and drench yourself just when you are all dressed up for work.
• Bump your head against everything that is within the reach of your head. Come to think of it, bump your head against everything whether or not it is within the reach of your head.
• Manage to drop important papers that you are need to give to your client in front of a moving car on a rainy day. And then later try and justify to yourself that the tire marks on the white typed sheets look just fine. After all you work in a design agency!
• Carry around a huge bag with all kinds of things in it. (You can be serious competition to Mary Poppins.) And then when your boss asks for a pen, you need to take out all the contents of the bag, one by one. It takes approximately ten minutes by which time he’s already taken it from someone else.
• Get a giggling fit just when you need to portray the image of a mature, responsible and serious adult.
• Do everything that is right wrongly and everything that is wrong rightly (so basically you do everything wrong!) and yet not be hated for it.

There are some moments which will always be a little more special than others. We had stopped our car to turn it around, back on our way home, when my brother noticed something moving on the road. He spoke out excited ‘A bird. Look.’ Obsessed bird-watchers that we are, we’re constantly looking out for birds. My father at first thought that it was a leaf, but we got out of the car just in case.
And to our pleasant surprise it wasn’t a leaf but a baby bird. A baby Indian Pitta. A bird that none of us had seen earlier. My father picked it up in his hands. The poor thing must have wandered from its nest and was incapable of running away. It struggled a bit but then quietened down. I held it gently between my palms as my father went back to the car to get his Salim Ali. The Indian Pitta is a brilliant bird. Terrestrial in nature, you can see the green and the blue even in the young. The shocking orange in its vent and the black and white streaked eyes. We put it down on the road so we could photograph it.
Then came the problem of what we should do with it. I was extremely tempted to bring it back home. It was alone and almost shivering and I lost my heart to it. ‘The wild should never be taken away from the wild’ Papa told me. ‘But it’ll die here. Some snake will eat it up. Or some other wild animal’ I said to Papa. But he was adamant. Leave it to natural selection. I picked it up in my hands again. And this time it came almost willingly. It knew that I meant it no harm. We checked the Salim Ali for details of the Indian Pitta’s nesting habits. Keeping it under a bush with big leaves was the best option. We walked away from the road, into the forest. At least it won’t be run down by a car. I kept it down gently under a thick bush and walked back to the car with a heavy heart.
Sometimes I wonder that the world is so full of beautiful things. Then how can I be sad ever? And now the memory just brings a smile to my face and a feeling of wonder in my heart. I hope it is still alive. Fingers crossed.

Our trip to the forest was unsuccessful considering that we did not manage to see any wild animals. It had been raining incessantly. The forests are usually closed to the public during the rains as the forests are inaccessible and the animals hidden away in the newly grown wild foliage. The forest we went to is known for its leopards. The leopard is usually an elusive animal. Night safaris are the only way you can spot one. It was a completely surreal experience. We were in an open jeep. It was drizzling lightly, tiny water drops on our hair. A searchlight constantly looking for some movement in the thick outgrowth. The light caught a herd of Cheetal in the distance. All we could see were pairs of orange-yellow eyes gleaming in the dark. Even the path was covered with grass as there had been no traffic on it for the past couple of months. It seemed as if we were going deeper and deeper into the forest. Into nowhere. An experience that I am not going to forget in a hurry.

Back to where I don't belong.

A band of three boys
Scruffy and shoeless
Brown hair and unwashed clothes
With white dirty plastic bags
Slung on their shoulders
Passed me by, on a mission
The tallest led
As they walked on the tracks
The youngest, the happy one
Skipped cheerfully as he followed
A bearded man suddenly accosted them
Towering he stood as he glared
“Get away from here’ it seemed he said
The boys backed up, unsure
An exchange of angry words
The wrinkled hands of the bearded man
And an almost evil look on his face threatening
The leader then jumped to another track
Soon followed by the other two
The youngest one still skipping, cheerful again.
The bearded man now content
Went his way, bending to pick up plastic and paper
As did the band of three boys
Bending like in a dance, in harmony
Walking away from the bearded man
And I sitting inside an unmoving train
In the comfort of the AC compartment
Saw with wonder the war which almost ensued
Over plastic packets and garbage
That we travelers thoughtlessly dispose.

At home. Happy. At peace.

Today I leave for home.

To touch
To hope
To wagging tails
To wet licks
To my bed
To butterfly kisses
To long talks
To memories
To time lost
To people missed
To familiar smells
To home food
To comfort
To reassurance
To love
To home

Their love story would have made a brilliant clichéd Bollywood movie. She was from a moneyed family and he came from an ordinary middle-class background. She was beautiful, rich and well-dressed and he a poor journalist, dressed in ridiculous bell-bottomed pants and thick glasses. He had gate-crashed a party that she was attending and she had looked at him disdainfully ‘Another one of those geeky guys!’ They hardly exchanged a few words the first time. But cupid had struck.
They bumped into each other in a few more parties. He was drawn towards her innocence, her depth, her want to learn more, her naughty eyes, and the lovely person she was beneath the veneer of a superficial existence; and she was fascinated by his love for life, his intelligence, his interest in everything, his adventurous attitude and his profundity. Like all Bollywood movies, his parents were initially sceptical, but welcomed her with open arms. Her parents, like all mean-rich-parents-of-the-girl refused to accept the match. But she was adamant. What followed was two years of struggle. He left the city, got a new job and worked hard so he could be worthy of her. They wrote letters, most of his letters were intercepted by her mother and she never got them. It was a love difficult to sustain. Days of no-communication, uncertainty and depression. It was harder for her. She would give up the comfortable life that she had grown up in. She was sacrificing so much and she didn’t have her parents’ support. Her father was disappointed but her mother was infuriated. The two years came to an end and they were married in her parents’ huge house with her parents’ unwilling consent. On the day of her marriage, her mother told her that she would come running home in no time. ‘Your marriage will not last beyond a year.’ With that curse ringing her ears she stepped in the ceremony area to be wedded to the man she chosen to marry.
They’ve been married for almost twenty-eight years now and could put a newly married couple to shame. They quarrel like teenagers and they make up with a smile. She pulls his hair when he’s not paying her attention and he kisses her tenderly on her forehead when she expects it least. He gets her flowers and she gives him cards.
And they lived happily ever after…..
My parents.

How is it that something in your heart
Tells you that it is right
When the whole world tells you it is wrong?

And how is it that something in your heart
Knows that things are not the way
They were supposed to be?

What do you do when your heart is torn
Between what seemed right
And what no longer does?

What do you do when your heart says stop
But your feet carry you away
Away from what has ceased to be?

I have a smile stretched from ear to ear
To see you walking down the road
We meet at the lights
I stare for a while
The world around us disappears
Just you and me on my island of hope
A breath between us could be miles
Let me surround you my sea to your shore
Let me be the calm you seek

Oh and everytime I'm close to you
There's too much I can't say
And you just walk away
And I forgot to tell you
I love you
And the night's too long
And cold here without you
I grieve in my condition for I cannot find the words to say I need you so
~Sarah McLachlan, I love you.

When a black cat crosses your path, it means bad luck. But when a white cat crosses your path, you’re in for one hell of a ride. Two minutes after a white cat crossed our path last night, Dang’s (a good pal, ex-classmate and present colleague at work) bike had a flat. Stranded in the middle of a supposedly hep area; dark, deserted and slushy (thanks to the rains), we could not find one garage open. Frustrated, we decided to park the bike in Taj Hotel’s parking lot. Once we parked the bike, we nipped across to the hotel’s night club for a drink (we needed it badly!). And then began one of the craziest of nights of my life.
Accosted at the entrance by a group of giggly girls, we were told that we should not go in as the disc was empty.
‘Doesn’t this place have a decent night life?’ (Dang and I of us look at each other. We’ve hardly been around the city.)
‘Are you guys married?’ (Both of us shake our heads furiously!)
‘Girlfriend-boyfriend?’ (Oh please! Never!)
‘We’re from Dubai, we don’t know this place at all.’ (Alright!)
'Are you doing anything?' (Our bike just had a puncture. Ah never mind.)
‘We’re going to TDS. You wanna come?’ (I see Dang drooling. The girls are hot.)
Some guys came and joined us then; a part of the same group, they seemed to have hidden somewhere behind the girls.
It was like we were in a whirlpool. We didn’t even realise when we became a part of this huge group. Probably children of some hot-shot gangsters in Dubai. They sure looked like it. Smart, expensively dressed and superficial, with money dripping out of their pockets. We were roller-coastered to another disc close by. As luck would have it, there was no dancing there either, but I sang karaoke for the first time in my life. Certainly a day for firsts. We were then pulled (and when I say ‘pull’ I refer to a kind of force that you have no power over.) back to the Taj disc. And then we danced till almost 2 a.m. On a weekday!
The craziest bit was that we were with a group of 15 yr olds. Fifteen year olds! That is like a dozen generations removed from us. We discovered this late in the night, by which time we really didn’t care. Dang ofcourse had a good time ogling at the kids. The paedophile that he is!
And all of today’s morning he’s been playing the same song over and over again.

Strangers in the night exchanging glances
Wond’ring in the night
What were the chances we’d be sharing love
Before the night was through.

Something in your eyes was so inviting,
Something in your smile was so exciting,
Something in my heart,
Told me I must have you.

Sinatra must be twisting and turning in his grave. I am going to throw the computer out of the window if he plays it one more time. I seem to have the worst hangover of my life (despite the fact that I had one lousy drink) and Dang is dreamy-eyed. What a night it was! And all because of a white cat.

Who says it takes years to make friends? Who would have thought that she would be my one comforting factor in a new city? She helped me put up curtains, buy racks and she taught me to cope with living alone. She was also the one who got me blogging.
I knew even before I met her that she was going abroad to study. Anthropology of all things! But it was so easy to grasp the easy friendship that developed. Who alone in a new city wouldn’t?
At first, she lived a ten-minute walk away. So we met every day. Then she went off to her home, some obscure place in the interiors of India, but thankfully just a couple of hours away. So she came down once in a while. Then she stopped coming to town because the date of her departure crept close. But we still spoke ten times a day. And now, silence. Yeah I know, Texas is not that far away. Just the other side of the globe. Yeah I know, she’ll be back. But……
Frantic calls made for quick recipes; Long conversations late into the night; TDS, sexy numbers, sweat; The accident, Dettol, scraped arms and knees; The crazy Cyclops woman (the one-eyed woman did rule the blind!); Passing messages from him to her; High on beer (for Christ’s sake!); Glass shards all over the floor…….
How I hate being senti and mushy!!! Damn you woman!

As a child, I had wanted desperately to be an adult. Every time I had a silly fight with someone, every time I was witness and victim to petty jealousy, every time somebody was stupidly possessive, every time somebody was unnecessarily mean and every time someone purposely made me cry, I would ask my parents, “Why can’t so-and-so behave like an adult?” I wished that we would all be grown-up and that every one would behave ‘maturely’. My parents had always smiled a secret smile, a smile that was pacifying and indulgent.
Now I know. We never do grow up. Do we?

Cooking tips for the no-longer-inexperienced-ha-ha
This is a continuation to a previous article, dated June 9, 2003. If you are still a beginner please refer to the earlier article first. It would be foolhardy to venture into this article which is meant for more experienced people.
Now that you have been cooking for some time you should have your basic fundas in place, especially if you’ve followed my article carefully.
• There do exist condiments other than salt and pepper. Condiments can also be used to bring some colour into your food. But remember what looks good may not necessarily taste good.
(IMPORTANT: Cake colouring in food may not be such a great idea. Though on Christmas it would be good fun to have green custard with red jelly!)
• You have now become wiser and you should invest in a cook book. The best reference is yet the free pamphlet that you get with the purchase of a pressure cooker. It not only gives you the cooking time for stuff, but also gives you some recipes. Treat it like a bible. (IMPORTANT: Don’t be disheartened if your rice is uncooked or your pulses over boiled. Pressure cookers are tricky business.)
• Be open to new ideas. Don’t close your mind. There will be times when you are tired and lazy and will not want to cook. Try new combos like plain rice, tomato sauce and fried egg-plant. The trick is to attempt all kinds of permutations and combinations of left-overs in the fridge.
(IMPORTANT: You may not want to try sweet biscuits with dal and curd. It tastes positively yucky!)
• Preferably wear a full sleeved dress/shirt while cooking, specially when you add garlic paste to hot oil (you are bombarded with flying got garlic flakes). The girls could always ask their knights in shining armour to cook for them; the armour would provide full protection. Ok! Ok! Bad joke!
• Maggi is still your saviour. Remember to buy packs of fours in dozens. And, I am not paid to endorse Maggi!!!!
(IMPORTANT: Ants seem to love Maggi as well. Unless you like dead ants swimming in your meal store the Maggi in the fridge. It even improves the taste somehow.)
The signs that you have graduated from a learner to a decent cook is when people stop grimacing when they eat food cooked by you. And you receive your certification the day a poor hapless soul calls you up for cooking tips.

A baby rabbit, tiny and innocent
Still pink and shaking, ventured out
From his burrow, when the sun hit him
With blinding force, he twitched his snout.
His eyes were yet not open but he dared to move ahead
Unsure, but curious to feel the world around.
The big bad Wolf came drooling at him
Just when an Eagle swooped down
The Hyena laughed a crazy laugh
And the Jackal lurked in the shadows
Death awaited at every corner
In every form, in friends and in foes
He ran back to his hole, ‘tis a bad world
He slid back into safety, shaking his head
'It may be dark, cold and dreary in here
But it certainly is better than being dead.'

Next week I go home. Unfamiliar, because my parents have recently shifted to a new place, a new city. But home is home. It has a father, a mother and two dogs. Familiar furniture, my bed, the sofa on which I have spent long lazy afternoons reading, books that I have grown up around, the stack of old records no longer heard, the typical smell of food cooked by Mamma, as distinct from other food smells as fingerprints of individuals.

Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire.
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
~The Dark Side of the Moon

‘Memento Mori’
(Remember that you will die)
How can I not remember that I will die one day? Death hangs around me like thin air on a mountain peak, slowly choking me through the lack of oxygen. It’s like a gun perpetually pointed at my head. A sharp knife, its gleaming blade ceaselessly teasing my skin.
They say that the fear of death keeps us from living not dying. I wonder what is it that they really mean. That if I am aware of death, the probability of my dying would be higher? Or perhaps they talk about fear. Perhaps the answer lies not in being aware of death but in the fear of death. It lies in the acceptance of this fear and in learning to deal with it. Being afraid is not going to stop the inevitable, is it? ‘Memento Mori’! Perhaps we need to realise that everyday is like a gift. Be thankful for life and its beauty. Be thankful for love. Enjoy every moment like it is the last. My father and I have had this discussion often in the past. ‘Accept death’ is what he always says. Somehow, I am not convinced.
What is the point really? Doesn’t it bother you not knowing why exactly are you living? To sustain mankind? I mean, if I am to die eventually, why should I bother to attend school, spend all my childhood learning stuff that will not make an iota of difference when I die, have a career, suffer through office politics, spend my entire life doing things that I really don’t enjoy doing.
You know, there is a lot we can learn from ants. It makes sense to designate everyone’s purpose in life. There should be some DNA tests done to measure what our capability is or what our character would be as adults when we are merely foetuses in our mother’s wombs. And from there we should be divided into groups.
• Scientists
• Politicians (leaders)
• Philosophers
• Doctors
• Soldiers
• Labourers
• Farmers
• Criminals (Those who show a high probability of becoming a criminal in future should be terminated immediately. This keeping in mind that legally the foetus is not yet a human-being and abortion is now readily accepted in our society.)
• Producers (The sole aim of the producer’s lives should be to procreate and have children.)
• Mothers & Fathers (They would be the one responsible to help the child grow up to be what they are designated to be.)
• And others (There could be further groups. This needs to be given more thought.)
And members of each group should have a fixed life-span. Each person will be given a time frame for life and death depending on their group and their responsibility in society. For example, soldiers are to die on their 40th birthday. Let everything be planned, calculated and documented.
At least then you would know when you are to die and you would know what you are living for till that day comes.
‘Memento Mori’

He feels that I am as complicated as it gets. Me? Complicated? I asked him, surprised. I am an open book. An open book with blank pages, unlined and unmarked.
‘That’s what makes you complicated’, he said.
So, for his benefit, I shall bullet-point all that is there to say about me.
• I am but a dust-speck on this planet.
• I live an inconsequential existence only to die purposelessly someday.
• I am still searching for a reason.
That is the only thing significant about me. The only thing worth mentioning.

I remember reading in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy that it is not us, humans, who experiment on rats but the rats who experiment on humans. Earth was not a planet but an experiment designed by a supercomputer called Deep Thought. The Earth was actually a computer so vast that organic life became part of its matrix. What if it were true we ask ourselves and then we laugh it off.
But what if it were actually true? What if no God exists? What is God to us is actually a set of beings somewhere in space who have built this planet using a supercomputer. What if there exists no space at all? What we think of as universe is all built inside a huge glass sphere. What if everything that I do is being observed by someone? Someone, who is responsible for my well being. Someone, who records all my thoughts. Someone, who has my life already planned and chalked out. There is nothing called destiny. It is an experiment being conducted by Someone. Someone who puts me in all kinds of situations, trying to understand why I react the way I do.
I will fool Someone yet. Confuse ‘it’. Laugh when I am supposed to cry. Cry when I am happy. Be surprised at the obvious and indifferent to the unexpected. Be scared in bright sunlight and fearless in the dark.
Damn! Was I programmed to write this piece as well? Is everything that I do pre-ordained?

Walking back home, I saw the little girl
Clutching close a brown teddy bear
Big black eyes and quivering lips
Lost and bewildered against a shop window
And suddenly in the midst of the busy street
A memory hit with a blinding force
The sounds of the traffic dulled, and I
Stood still as people whizzed passed by
Echoes of an obscured past
Resounded in my ears once again
Pleading cries and hiccupping sobs
‘I want my teddy’ ‘I want my teddy’
I had cried as they had dragged me away
From my parents, lying cold on the hospital bed
Completely alone in the whole world then
All I had wanted was my teddy bear
I had clutched it close and it had soaked up my tears
Tears of an abandoned child, solitary and friendless
I grew up alone and my only friend
The teddy bear died a tattered death
Worn with age and torn by time
Held close for years to a tiny girl’s heart
Many years later I still awake
Crying, in the middle of the night ‘I want my teddy’
Empty arms wrapped around nothingness
A constant reminder of my solace lost
I stood still on the pavement, lost in my thoughts
Elbows nudged and people short of time
Pushed me as they hurried to their busy lives
And I kept standing there, numbed by my past
And watched the girl get lost in the crowd