old email

and old, old email from way back when a friend had asked for my memories of rain.




there will be some grammar issues and typos - wrote it in a hurry - but its long enough to satisfy u so u'll forgive me i think :D and remind me - there are more of these... but not now :)

hmm.. i remember once i was coming back from school in wellington - i used to walk.. and my house was in the valley, the school on top of the hill.. and once i remember trying to out-run the rain.. i couldn't :P but thats a sight i wont be able to forget if i tried - the sky utterly blue in parts, the rain parting through the clouds that were low enough to be touched.. and then the fierce rain on my face, pounding at the earth, turning the mud under my feet into squelchy pats of joy, me in my gum-boots wading through the puddles, the umbrella still tucked inside my bag... and mom at the door with garam masala chai and pakoras ... slice of heaven :)

then the countless times i have been drenched in the rain, the rain that comes after the sweltering meerut summer, the months of no electricity and sweat and mosquitoes washed away in that one ecstatic moment under the slate-grey sky, the clouds bursting like they were pouring all the water in the world onto that one little patch of struggling-to-stay-alive land that was my nani's garden..

then the time i played football barefoot in the rain with my hooligan neighbours, two little husky boys who didnt seem so little back then.. how they made me take off my sneakers and roll my jeans up and play in the kichad - i came back home that day with an ear-splitting grin, nicked knees and jeans torn beyind repair!

then the time i was coming back from college in the always-crowded-to-the-seams DTC 724 - the summer was at that peak when all you can do is look at teh clouless sky and pray - i had thankfully got a window seat which afforded me the luxury of not banging into the sweaty crowd full of leery men - and then suddenly the rain... pouring in through the broken window, i gave up trying to protect my clothes, my bag.. and oh god the rain!!! turning the world into gold and green, the tarred road into a sheet of black and silver, the rivulets of water sliding down my cheeks, my hair.. and then walking home when teh sudden shower had passed, the fierce sun out again, the leaves glistening, the roads steaming and my hair and clothes dripping, drying... bliss :)

then another time when my flatmate and i, never friends at the best of times, 'bonded' so unexpectedly when we both woke up to the thunder in the middle of the night one day.. my mattress drenched, i woke up cold and clammy, but so excited to see the sky tearing itself into shreds with the most glorious purple-silver-golden lightening! and both of us, hyper as only girls can be! - running downstairs in our shorts and tshirts, getting soaked to the skin and yelling, screaming till the guards came out - and then pin drop silence, laughter and a lot of covering up :D

then one time when i was 6 - there was a storm in the middle of the night... i was never afraid of lightening, my dad came into my room to check if i was asleep to find me staring, fascinated, at the sky.. he took me for a long walk in the middle of the night, just to look at the lightening.. and at the end of the road there was this tree with white-pink flowers that stood ghost-like with the lightening and thunder all around it... somehow i can never get the tree out of the picture...

such pretentious bull i wrote :D cant believe you guys read this shit.. do you love me That Much?? :D
hehe.
now that i'm more vella maybe i'll post :)
and hopefully have something more sensible to say!!

and hey - see? this is Exactly why i dont maintain a blog.. cos its like my idiocy cast in stone :)
like going back to my 6th std diary and thinking woah! i was Such an idiot and i thought i was so smart :D

well anyway. maybe i'll get better :)

Magic Moment #63

Its raining in Delhi. The streets are washed clean, from my vantage point in the balcony I can see the shiney clean tops of yellow autos adding romance to the gray-green day.. Its cold and crisp and slightly foggy; the leaves are bright and new, rustling in the brisk breeze...There are drops of rain clinging to the electricity wires.. and I can see, beyond the busy road and beyond the construction and beyond the buildings, the trees of the ridge slowly turning blue…
The wind is pulling fistfuls of my hair out of the knot I have piled on top of my head, whipping it across my face.. and suddenly I start to shiver, its cold… but I feel… so ALIVE!! :))

Look what chicklit did to me!

Shall I tell you a secret..?
Even the most capable of women like to be protected. She might blow the socks off every investment banker in town, repair her own car and pay her own bills : she will still want to be told that she makes the lightest soufflé you’ve ever tasted. Men still like to play the protector and women still, and will always, like to be taken care of. And it’s understandable, surely, after all those centuries of genetic proclivity..? That’s why all but the most hardened of misoandrists, the most ardent promoters of the decline of patriarchalism, will confess to a sneaking liking of having the door opened for them. The key is respecting women and considering them your equal in every way, but realizing that the surest way to a woman’s heart is still with a posy of flowers. The remnants of chivalry still have a place in our world, if only to make the male feel still male and the women to feel feminine.

or maybe i'm just feeling this way after my recent immersion into chicklit :D
wait for an opinion change.

For Ma

I’m more hurt than angry. Its difficult, to deal with this, too many things are going wrong, too many things are... uncertain, and for me that’s the toughest thing. I don’t feel like giving up, I never have given up on something I have set my heart on…I’ve never been a defeatist. but this is getting hard.
What do I say, you know how it is. But it hurts when other people get the work I want to do, when I know I can do better than them; and the hurt is worse when there is no hope to redeem it… I may never do the work I want to do, although I know I am good at it and although others know it too.. sometimes life hands you too many lemons. What can I say, who can I blame? I just wish life was more.. just :( I’ve worn rose tinted glasses too long I think.. and reality is hitting hard. I’m tired, exhausted, I want a few days when I don’t have to think.. I need a break. But that seems to be the hardest thing to come by, now :( I’m worried and well, I know its inconsequential to worry about things I can’t change! But how can you ask me not to worry, to be hurt when there is so much I want and I can see it being given away when I know I deserve to have it…! Life sometimes can be too unfair… I just cant understand it. How long will this last?
Sometimes I wish I could be the kind of person who would be happy without thinking too much, who didn’t really Want.. as much as I do. But then I’d be a different person altogether.. and although this is painful.. I guess I’d rather have the pain than the feeling of knowing that I never tried.
Its worse to try to talk to you about it, I know you worry! And that’s the worst bit! I can deal with the worry myself, but knowing that you are worried about me makes me feel that I have let you down.. and its very difficult to live with that. I’ve never believed I am the sort of person who does things to live up to other people’s expectations – but then I’ve never let you down before :)
I’ scared, of course I’m scared! And more so than you, whatever you might say. Its my life, isn’t it? If it doesn’t work I’ll be the one left crying!
Please don’t worry.. even if I’m sad, even if I whine.. or cry. I just need to have you here. Nothing more. I know you worry about me; but I’m just in pain.. you understand that, don’t you? Don’t make me give up, please. I would hate myself for that. I guess you’re only a loser when you give up. I want to try, I need to try, and although I may well not make it, I’d still like to try! Give me that. The pain wanes, and the pain would be worse if I didn’t have the hope that adds some steel to my spine – the dull ache of compromise hurts more than stumbling, falling, learning. Let me try.

Desert Places

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Anybody want to trade places? I’m tired of coming back to an empty house. I hate it – I hate unlocking the front door, stepping into the chilly darkness. There have been times when I’ve slept with the radio on because I can’t stand the silence. Whoever says living alone is easy should try it :D
Me, I just want to go home.
After four years of being on my own, ‘home’ has taken on the connotations of a refuge, a safe haven… perhaps that’s why I get vaguely disappointed every time I go there lately : its wonderful enough, but the memory – or the rose tinted version of it! - is always better than reality..
but the paranthas mom makes should compensate! :D
and besides, it has to be better than this.

My favourite Robert Browning

Reluctance

OUT through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
_____________________________________

Dipping my toe in the water

I want to write, write in sentences of burnished gold made luminous by their own intensity, like the winter sun that turns the tips of trees into molten sparks of fire... I want to write in a way that makes that slow sweet smile spread across your face, brings the meandering recognition that touches a vein of unexplored feeling in your heart... I want to write to make you chuckle, I want to see that glint of pure glee and realize that it was me who put it there!
It’s not easy to write, especially not like that. I don’t write unless an idea skitters across my mind and plants itself, headstrong, there; watered unknowingly and sometimes unwillingly … turns into an enormous gnarled tree that I suddenly discover has roots in every corner of my heart.
(Even when I do write, I write most often in long convoluted sentences you have to un-wrangle, that struggle within themselves to find meaning. Quite like me actually.)
I don’t often write, I am dragged kicking and screaming to my notepad, leaving scratch-marks every inch of the way, by that odd pensive feeling that attacks me sometimes and refuses to go away till I acknowledge it in writing..

This meandering serves a purpose... Much as it seems otherwise :D
Don’t expect a post often.
But when there is one… it will have roots in my heart... That much I can guarantee... if that’s sufficient to hold your interest... I’m grateful :) bouquets brickbats welcome... Who knows, I may grow to love the attention too! :D