Saturday, January 29, 2005

You stretch your hand to me in the dark
Your eyes search in the shadows for mine
You call out my name in futile whispers
Your rolling tears spawn a lake of brine

I curl up further into the corner
And close my eyes shut tight
I try and think of other thoughts
But in my mind ensues a raging fight

Do you love me?
Do you really do?
Do I love you?
Or do I not love you?

Were things meant to happen this way?
Tell me what is right and what is wrong?
Will everything turn out fine in the end?

Or will you become my swan song?

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Different schools have different ways of initiating new students. My post-graduate school had the tradition of hoaxes. Elaborate hoaxes played on the new batch over the first month of the academic year. The first month was the only time in the year when the whole senior batch unanimously agreed on something and worked together in perfect harmony. Each student acted brilliantly, each worthy of an Oscar. And I, who prided myself on being a sensible intelligent person, was made a complete fool.

I had known D from my days back in Calcutta. Actually, I had met D through her boy friend R, a good friend of a good friend. We had gone out a few times and I knew her sufficiently well to feel assured that I had at least one friend in the land far far away. Sure, I was a bit apprehensive. It had been a year since I had last met her. Besides, D and R had broken up a few months after she had left Calcutta. ‘She has found someone else’, a drunk R had told me bitterly. He must be completely irresistible, I had concluded. Even in an inebriated state R was one of the most handsome and suave men I had met.

So it was with mixed feelings of comfort, curiosity and apprehension that I renewed my acquaintanceship with D. (Though, staying in a hostel for the first time in my life, I would have been best friends with a cockroach if it meant that I could call someone a friend.) Coincidentally, D was in the same hostel as I was. Given enough opportunity to observe everyone she was friendly with, I still could not figure out who was the hunk, the reason for D and R’s break-up. And then a classmate told me. D was seeing X. Now, I had seen D and X hang around together all the time but the thought that X was the hunk had never crossed my mind. X was certainly sexy, but X was also small, thin, dark and a woman!

Whaaattttt!!! Can’t be, I told myself. I refused to believe anyone. How could it be? As more and more of my batchmates started whispering about the ‘lesbian couple’ I observed the two more closely. They did share a special smile. And they ALWAYS shut the door when they were alone in D’s room. Could it be true? Could it?

I finally accepted it when D took me aside one day and raised the issue herself. ‘Please don’t tell anyone back in Calcutta’, she begged. ‘It will absolutely kill my parents.’ I didn’t know what to say. A thousand questions played in my mind but all I did was nod my head solemnly. ‘I will never-ever tell anyone’ I assured her.

It rained that evening. The kind of rain that makes everything appear misty and romantic. Someone had put loud music in the hostel. And some of the senior students from other hostels started trooping in and dancing in our courtyard. We (the juniors), still not allowed to get too friendly with our seniors, watched from the doors of our rooms. I watched X as she moved sinuously in the dance of a seductress. She danced with her face raised and her eyes on D who stood on the first floor watching her, smiling the half-smile of a lover. They had eyes for no other. It was as though no one existed but them.

I was amazed. How? How does a girl discover that she is attracted to another girl? When does the moment of truth occur? Does it start from an accidental touch? Or perhaps, it is the need to actualise an intense feeling inside which comes not from sexual attraction but love. Does an impulsive hug create an awareness between the two? Does it happen when they’re watching a movie in the dark wrapped together in a blanket? How?

My questions remained unanswered till the end of month, when I realised that they were needless in the first place. It was all a big hoax and I had been the most gullible of them all. What with my sincere promises of never-ever telling anyone about it!

We still joke about the hoaxes when I meet up with my batchmates. The ones we played on our juniors and the ones that were played on us. The ‘lesbian couple’ hoax is still everyone’s favourite. But sometimes I remember that dance in the rain. D and X. Their faces are etched in my mind. Was it all just fool play? I shrug off the thought but I know that somewhere deep in recesses of my heart I want to dance in the rain for someone I love. And I want that someone to look at me the way D had looked at X. To smile the half-smile of the lover.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

I am so tired that I could sleep off while typing this. And only you and your words have succeeded to keep me smiling. If only you could see me now. Tired eyes barely managing to keep open and a silly grin stretched ear to ear pasted on my face.

The brand launch tomorrow (or should I say today) better go off well.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

You know, sometimes happiness comes from the most unexpected of places. I still can’t stop smiling.
Happy New Year to all! I hope it is indeed happy for everyone. I, for one, intend to be very very happy this year.

And to be happy I have realised that I need to take control of my life. And the first thing that I must do to take control of my life is SAVE MONEY. And the way I’m going to save money is to start telling the cab drivers my destination the moment I get into the cabs. Don’t scoff! The amount of money I waste because of my weird OCD of not being able to tell the cabbies where I need to go is not funny! I have to give the directions. It’s like a compulsion. I don’t know why but I just have to. It would have been okay if I weren’t so absent-minded. I end up passing by most of the turns that I am supposed to take. (I would never miss a turn if I were driving. But when I am sitting comfortably in a cab my mind tends to wander.) Now, even if I were not as absent-minded, my amazing lack of coordination of the brain and mouth fails me at the opportune moments. Even when I am alert and waiting for the signal so I can tell the cabbie to turn left (I am thinking in my head- TURN LEFT NOW, TURN LEFT NOW, TURN LEFT NOW) I end up saying “Ab right”. THAT is really not my fault. Faulty genes passed onto me cannot be my fault. Anyways, my fault or not, whether it is my wandering mind or my amazingly accurate ability to point to the wrong direction, I always end up paying double of what I ought to. So, after meticulous calculations I have reached the conclusion that I will save almost 16.375% of my take-home salary (AND THAT is no amount to scoff at!) by letting the cabbie take me to my destination without any directions (read interference) from me.

So, basically, by letting the cab drivers of Bombay take control I will be able to take control of my life.

(Scratching my head deep in thought.)

Duh???!!!