of flutes and people

our companions are like flutes..we can run around trying to choose good flutes, but finally, the music we have to create, is totally our own..no excuses there.

iceberg tips

we all judge tips of icebergs, cause thats all we usually know of a person, we judge!

approval seekers

How many of us are subtle approval seekers?in our day to day life... isnt it because of it, that we are loathe to criticism? that we cant take criticism kindly? stretched further, isn't approval seeking a kind of 'running away from responsibilities'

 

I am introspecting, and as usual, its negative incidents that makes me introspect, and this time its my friend, who has had a bee in her bonnet for quite some time, about my lack of cooking skills..not that she is a great chef, but she THINKS she is a great cook, and i dont point it out to the contrary, since i hate to put anybody down, and cooking or lack of it, either way is totally unimportant to me....

she has passed snide remarks for six or seven times now, in two three months, but yesterday, when she made fun of my cooking in front of my hubby, i lost it..they were discussing bese bele bhath, and i joined a bit late to hear bisi..i thot they were discussing a chit fund...when she laughed....".u must not even be knowing what BBB is!"

"who do u two think u are? i growled....two big cooks(my hubby thinks he is a great cook too btw).... who know everything and nobody else knows anything".

she was immediately, why are u yelling..and then i was like, why do u need to make fun of others so called in capacities, in order to feel good about urself, and she was like, i didnt mean anything and so on and so forth.

later when i introspected, i felt, that somewhere i did feel discomfited that i did not measure up to 'her' standards of cooking, and hence my negative reaction..(.mind u, i care a damn about cooking, anybody's cooking unless he is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy above normal, in my independent state).

which to me translated, that unknowingly i am seeking some approval, even in areas as unimportant as cooking.

hence the above questions..   

I am forced to admit, that, if i was not approval seeking,then my reaction would have been different..

maybe i wud have been amused, not angry.......and said, something like.... hey, i do know what BBB is, and btw, and as far as im concerned, cooking is the least of my priorities, which is why u find me lacking in that area. 

expectations

expectations

i expect u
to be
genuine,

fair-minded,
sensitive,
and
be true to urself

u expect me
to give u space.

and
Our expectations

clash.

possessiveness

Once again, my  two different worlds are merging..

and i not so sure i like it. not that i actively dislike it..but somehow, past experiences have always made me wary of making my different worlds meet. it has always created in me an awkward phase when the worlds that meet become more important to each other, than they are to me individually...that i was the cement of those two worlds, was often forgotten, much to my secret chagrin.

as i write this, i remember i had once met this lady in the local train(where else), who suddenly out of the blue asked me "where do u get ur salwar stiched?..can i get the number of the tailor?" . this of course was in those days, where Malls, mix and match, ready mades had still not become the order of the day. i was flattered, and as luck would have it, i was actually going to that particular tailor. I offered to take her to the tailor, and then we never looked back.

on the other side, there was this other lady, whom i got acquainted and loved instantly...we had met at a morcha for water problems that had plagued our society in those days .there was no way i wouldn't have fallen for her open guileless charms. in those days, i used to be a strict daughter, of a strict father.smiling only when it was unavoidable. never spoke more than needed. especially to strangers. she with her winsome smile, and openness, gave me the much needed air to breathe..the freedom of being me. not trapped in a role, given by my father or mother or both, to me, to be played. with her,i exulted. Around her, i re- became the child that i was before discipline killed it.

one day, i felt, that my two worlds should meet. but within an hour i was upset. i felt Lady A was sidelining me to warm up to Lady B. maybe she found her charms irresistible too. Or maybe she wanted to be one up on me. Lady B on her part, didn't notice the power struggle going on. She was her usual pleasant self. But i was burning...with unspeakable ire.

it took me a few days, before i got adjusted to the new equations.

today, when i look back im able to laugh. cause after all that power struggle, my both worlds remain more or less the same..they are as friendly with me as they are before.and im still the more important person, in both relationships.

okay, worlds, meet, you have my blessings. il manage to assuage my hurts. love u, worlds.

Hatred

Hate

sometimes 

we have this crying  need,
we all have at least once wished
to see a stone bleed!

we all would have at least once
wanted to see a bad seed
bite the dust
for hurtful insensitive deeds.

it can be so potent,
this raging unconquerable hate
that a whole lifetime,
to see it happen, we can wait.

what is loss,
but just another surrender,
to hate; poison to some,
to some, just another number.

crust

a maze of oft heard lies,
a web of underlying mistrust,
a heart hardened by life,
a heart tainted with rust.

who will uncover the innocence,
who will bring back the trust,
who can love us tender,
as to help break the crust?

every dog has its day!.

every dog has its day!.

there is this stray dog in my society, whom ive kinda adopted..i mean in my head..i dont feed it biscuits, let it fawn round my legs when ever it sees me, or whatever it is people do, when they adopt dogs, all i do is watch him from far....thru my window, whenever he comes in my view.

he is a handsome dog.with the most magnificent tail a dog cud be blessed with.....in fact i suspect he wud be the illegitimate kid of some royal dog or bitch, doomed to mongrelity for no obvious fault of his. somebody like karna.

he first came to my notice last holi, when some unkind kids had poured holi colors and water, and he had stood covering in a corner..he was bleeding/limping in one leg too..i had glared at the kids till they left him in peace..after that he was mine.of course, in in my head.

atul later told me how he lost his leg. one of the rash boys ran his Swift over him, late nite, while he was sleeping . he had run, but not fast enough.

my limping dog was an angry dog..the kids were stoning him, he was growling back,so they stoned some more, he growled back some more..the adults decided that he was a menance to the kids, and hubby threatened to call PETA if they touched him..

later, as it is always with time, things got better..the kids got used to him, and he got used to the kids. both let each other be. the only place where nothing improved, was his lonliness.

today morning, i wake up to find him playing with a bitch, prancing on all three legs, and she letting him woo her.

yes, he is in love..some bitch somewhere found him attractive enuf to want to mate him...ok, so now the old adage makes sense...

every dog does have its day!

cocktail..

Hindi movie cocktail...a different perspective

what i understood from the movie:

saif makes a pass at diana (amongst  million others), she seems to have been quite impressed by his pass,(though good traditional indian girl rejects it outright),cause she remembers him even a week or so later...so its already established, that he had entered her awareness even then. she seem secretly thrilled by the advance.

deepika is aware of this, yet chooses him to be her next convenient fuck buddy and clears that she intends nothing more than that.

saif...also remembers diana as the lady who was his rare failure..so she is in his awareness too.

he is shown to be cool with any kind of pants, as long as they belong to a woman.

diana penti keeps throwing him the 'im so pious unlike deepika' (under whose meherbani she is surviving notwithstanding) vibe, to saif, just to show her exclusivity and how she is any day the better choice, hands down, while saif and deepika feel she is the freak.

till here the plot is evenly matched.

after this, things change..i never really understood, why deepika, saif and diana chose to fall in love(or what they even mean by love for that matter), and all in the same day...except for the fact, that the director wanted it that way...but one thing is clear, both the women envy the others lifestyle..if diana didn't secretly admire the freespiritedness of deepika, there is no way she would have fallen for saif..(her only condition seems to me..i love the fact that u can charm the pants off any woman, but it must stop with me!). deepika is a little less ambiguous......she sees security as something welcome instead of a caged existence, for the time being at least.

next u see, deepika accuses diana of stealing her man(she forgets that diana is the one who introduced her to the man in the first place , and that she had claimed  that it was never going to be a serious thing...)

diana doesnt reject saif only because she feels guilty about deepika(though that may be part of the reason..she must have realized that its pay back time as in the i scratch ur back, u scratch mine bargain she had with deepika), she also rejects him cause she is not sure that the leopard would change his spots.she doesn't want to be just his next fling.oh no, not like deepika..thats not me, im better class.

then for some time, all three live separate lives, wondering what cracked so badly between them.

its only with time, that things get clearer., ie deepika gets time to realise that even though saif loves diana, she has her place intact, emotionally at least.(her ego feels satisfied enough to let go of him),

diana realises that if he has waited so long for her, then there is more to it than just checking out the next girl on the block, and she is ready to take the risk of long term commitment.

and that is the end of the picture, but it so not the end of the story, im afraid.

.i doubt saif will be able to remain true to diana..chances of him continuing with his earlier philandering lifestyle is very bright.

and that must be the prime reason he chose her as his life partner.......cause her traditional thinking would prevent her from dumping him for his old habits.

diana i think would be one of those girl next door women, who aspire to be freespirited, but are chicken and  finds it useful  to put up with his numerous infidelities, as long as she can lord it up before other women...saif the most handsome dude is legally mine, so girls suck it!

what is shown was not love at all, just selfishness, and arrangements of conveniences all around..

but then love doesnt exist anyways, so then thats how it shud be also.

waiting

waiting

trembling heartbeats,
hard slow breathes,
muddled scanty thoughts,

eyes scan streets,
ears perky alert,
restless mind,
eternal wait for that one moment,
to tumble into arms of the beloved.

price

i
know not
to put a price on enrichment,
enrichment is what ur love has promised me.

lost lanes

almost two years ago, i had got a transfer to an office, where all the govt offices in the street, more or less had similar layouts..

first few days i was careful, so made no mistakes in reaching the right office, then on day when I got complacent, i walked into what i thot was my office premise, but was actually the adjacent office premise.

and ive such a funny brain, that it even tries to explain the tell tale signs of having lost my way, to suit my convenience .it refuses to let me understand the obvious, that ive as usual lost my way..

like i noticed that the security guards looked diff, and i assumed the regular guys must be having an off holiday, i saw that the shrubs looked more spruced that usual, and i was like saturday sunday, gardner ne saaf kiya hoga, and then i even explained to myself the different layout of the inquiry desk, and carpeting..as to some dignitary must be visiting..hence the quick changes.

..its only the near startled expression of the guys in the lobby, that made me realize i was in the wrong premise..

but the best part is yet to come..i had unknowingly walked into an IB office..:D

on giving directions

this is an incident that has really happened long long ago, when i used to work for airforce audit.. and even today whenever i think of it im not able to stop a grin spreading across my face.

i was on a Temp duty to Thane AF Station,, where i happened to sprain my wrist, and had to see the doctor available in the premises. There i met a young sardar guy who had a whole arm fractured and was waiting for the doc too..same issue , both had, so we struck a conversation with other..

saw him almost a week later at Thane Station, when i was with my male colleagues, and after the 'hey didnt we meet the other day at the doctor's' smile, he asked me the route to a AF unit at santacruz.

i earnestly began,.... u first take a ticket at thane station, u can get down at Kurla also, but i dont know that route, so get down at dadar, change from central to western, then take a train to santacruz, get down to the East, then there are three BEST buses at the Bus depot, Nos.211, 212 and 213, all three will go, but if u take 211, then get down at kalina bus stop or the air india bus stop, but if u take 212 for god sake get down at Kalina stop, cause it doesn't stop at air India stop, and if u take 213 then get down at the air India stop but not Kalina stop.

after he left with an utterly confused look, my male colleagues almost laughed till they died ......is that how u give directions? now he will never reach santacruz, anyways serves him right for asking a woman, when all of us men were also around.. they grinned.

all or nothing

She insists
she wants me all,
or nothing at all,
Alas,

 little does she know,
people in relationships
are always incomplete.

newspaper.

newspapers.

the first time i must have became aware aware of a newspaper, should be when i was in the second standard...i had heard the running commentary of an India-West Indies match in the early 70s( along with my bro and an uncle interested in cricket) which had ended in a fight on the stadium (or was it the radio news?), and was surprised that the huge piece of paper sticking on the door,every day narrated the whole thing again, but this time in black and white.

after that, i think, i started looking at newspapers seriously( other than Laxman cartoons most of which i understood nothing except the expressions on the faces of the common man and his wife), only when Times of India started the Sunday Times.

it was around my teens they started the supplement every Sunday....and it suited me well.. feminist Shoba De( khilachand in those days), fashion,food by Kajal Anand (I think)..i used to devour each article, like there was no tomorrow.

the person who put an end to my newspaper reading habits, was my mom..

good girls who have to get married and go to other people's houses, don't cross their legs with a newspaper the first thing in the morning..they get the tea and breakfasts ready..they have the whole day after that to read the newspaper, is the news different,does it change, if u read it in the afternoon? .her ferocious nagging finally got to me and i stopped pouncing on the newspaper the minute the door bell rang. somehow it jarred terribly that i got to read the paper second hand..rather third hand...after dad and bro were through with devouring it. (esp, when both of them woke a cool two hours after me).

I became a rebel with a worthless cause, and stopped reading newspapers altogether..i was fine without them i said, and seriously i was, still am.....the habit has still persisted. 
no doubt, when they started Mumbai Mirror and Bombay Times, i was redrawn to it initially..but it was never became an addiction like it was before.

mine, I can proudly proclaim, is a world without newspapers.

Over the years, i have often found my male colleagues, passing snide remarks on their wives who just wont read a newspaper. we women are not encouraged to read them i protest..in fact we are actively discouraged i offer.

but u read the Bombay Times..they smirk.

So, do u want us to stop that too? i snarl back.

One of my colleagues proudly proclaimed to me that his wife always read the newspaper back to back, even if was the last thing she did before going to bed.

why? why does she read it last?, i ask, isnt it because, u men want to hog over it in the mornings, while she is sweating it out in the kitchen to make ur breakfast and lunches before rushing to catch her local to her workplace???

i think its time women should start rebelling against the man's rights of having a newspaper first thing in the morning...let them make us the breakfast while we devour the gossip around the world..

Heil Woman.

finality.

so whats really amiss?

it is not somebody u really really knew well..
it is not even a person u really  liked.
cause even then, somewhere u were aware, that  u never really knew the person. the whole person. ah, well u have to admit he was a handsome dude, but that's not what it is al about.

what u knew,  was just the shadow of a person, who choose to show u that side of himself, that made u believe in a potential of good friendship, a longer lasting friendship. You took the friendship building act slowly, cause you thought u had time, to build strong foundations, strong bridges.

now  u realise that, you have run out of time;  before you could build any foundations, let alone any bridges,  u realise that there was never any foundations, nor bridges, and  u are upset. at how could u have judged so wrong? u are upset at your lack of accurate judgement.

you are upset at not being understood. you are upset at being misunderstood. you are upset at being sought out, and then for the no show the responsibility of being sought out. you are upset at the lack of gratitude for acceptance of the seeking  and if u  really care to admit it to yourself, you are upset at the lid not being blown off, for the world to see.

and lastly u are upset, cause u are not sure about ur judgement..ur current judgement..u r not able to write off the person as non genuine..

its like a half written story..u are upset at the lack of finality to the story..the inability to put a peg on the issue. classify the incident and file it in the archives of the mind. lay it to rest for ever.

mostly its about the lack of finality.

walls

I loved with my walls down,
u loved with ur walls intact,
when the love died, as most loves do,
a part of me died, u remained almost intact.

but if i had to love again,
down, i would still put my walls,
i would await the impending pain,
for, for me thats always how love calls.

doors

doors

waiting
for a door
to open wholeheartedly
or shut completely,

realizing
its totally shut.
  is a closure
of a different kind.

relativity

Einstein is right.....everything is relative

yesterday from the corner of my eyes, while alighting at marine lines station,, i witnessed  two shabby grubby young guys sitting huddled under the dark dingy stairway just outside the station, using syringes..since ive never seen drugs been taken from a syringe, i took a few seconds from my life to watch them, out of sheer curiosity. they seemed oblivious to the world and the world to them.

as I left , a little further away, was a beggar girl.

.except that she wasn't  the usual  beggar girl., the kind u come across  in mumbai ..traditional beggars in a  hereditary profession....more often thn not very young.. ragged half saree , ragged blouse of a mismatchedly different colour, hair not seen oil since the day they were born.....This girl  seemed to be a girl about 25, who seemed to be from some respectable family, and who seemed to have  come into real bad times..at least tahts waht her clothes, jeans and a tshirt,  even if grubby and unwashed for months, seemed to suggest..she also didnt seem like somebody who must be also selling her awesome body for a living....

while on one side, i couldn't help thinking about how wrong the boys were handling their lives, ie life has so many beautiful things to offer, but they seemed to prefer to enjoy life the more difficult way.  At the same time, i realise wretched though the girl was she was at least a shade better then them in her wretchedness.

which is what set me thinking about relativity.

i think, if i was that boy under the bridge exchanging needles had to view themselves as a third person , they would justify themselves,  saying, at least we are not beggar.s like that girl, .the beggar in turn would feel, at least im not a thief...the thief wud say, at least im not a bigger thief, the bigger their would decry a politician, the politician mite point fingers at the drug addict for being a bane of society, and the cycle goes on.

each person would definitely find somebody more abhor able than himself to feel good about himself, or at least justify his existence to the world.

competition

The war was not about men. not really. it was not even about attitudes. though at that time i thought that it was. it was not even about sister codes. though again, at that time i thought it was.

at that time, i hated her so much, that im sure if i had got a chance to meet her in person, i could have killed her with just my looks.

for one thing, we were competing for the same things. so it had to end in a war, a fight to finish. and it did. of course like all wars, it started as a skirmish or two, and then it ended in a full fledged war. with no clear victories on both sides. i had thought she had won hands down, and was surprised that she felt that i was the victorious one.

it was only today, that it stuck me...

though we were competing for the same things, the reasons for wanting the same things are different. her reasons are more valid than mine. I also realize, that as long as we both felt the answer to our questions lay in the same direction, we would never get our peace with each other.

i know il thrive. i walk away. im at peace.

empathy

empathy

this happened way back in 2004 when i was attending a kind of personality development course, in the evenings.

that day, before class, we students, had decided to order bhelpuri / sevpuri from the road stall vendor on the way back to church gate station.

now it so happened, that, in that particular class tht day, we had an assignment. wherein we were told to be totally silent, for the what remained of the day or rather night...unless it was a matter of life and death, we were not supposed to use words to communicate anything with anybody.

After the day's class, when we reached Churchgate station, , i remembered about our bhelpuri tryst.

I stopped near the stall as agreed. my friends gave me a look of u are not supposed to talk..i gave an il manage smile.

i stopped at the vendor, pointed out to the bhel and stuff, to place the orders..bhel puri or sev puri as per our requirements. i was giving the orders, using my facial expressions and gesturing with my hands and fingers.

which is when an interesting thing happened.The bhel puri walla who could talk, also started using gestures instead of words just like me.

the whole transaction between him and me, ended without any exchange of words.

if a thousand words would not have explained to me what empathy was , this single gesture of the bhel puri walla made me understand what empathy was.

empathy was becoming a mute  person along with another mute person.
whether the experts agree or disagree, for me this is empathy.

dont wanna love u

love,
please dont come to me
i do not like u!

u fill me with butterflies

u make me go weak
in the knees, mind, heart, head, brain
with u i become all meek

u give me an unwelcome restlessness
more exciting than the peace around
more intoxicating than wine
more painful than a long forgotten wound

i erupt in volcanic motions
i greedily rue the wasted time
lost without the loved one
to hungrily capture all that is 'mine'

u make me feel alive
but up to ur passion, im not
dear love, leave me alone
afterall Im all ive got!

touch

Love, 

when u touch my soul, 

u fill me with the whole universe.

heartless love

i
 heartlessly
watch u drown
in the whirlpool of my eyes,
who says love has to be kind?

gratitude

it was one of those rare days,when i was picking my eight year old son from his school.(usually it was my mom's allotted task). After picking him up, as we were returning, we noticed one of his class mates standing and sobbing profusely outside the school building.

a little probing and inquiries later, in fits and starts, she sobbed thru her story.... which turned out to be that nobody from home, had come to pick her up that day. i pacified her and offered to take her home.

only glitch was that, we were kind of family enemies..i.e. you know the kind...close family friends who fall out with each other, and then never getting to patching  up again...... our families had fallen out, when her mom and I were little kids.

it was not without trepidation that i rang her doorbell, after walking thru 'very familiar but not visited for years' lanes, and a small pinch at the heart, when i saw her mom at the door. after that it is just a fast forward motion of events, in my mind..she running to her mom, crying, her mom shocked at the horror of her negligence and guilt, her immediate attempts to calm the child...i was sleeping, she explained more to her daughter than to  me......and we standing like outsiders..

since our work was done, we left. and a week later when i met her, and we ignored each other like all other times. i was mildly disappointed. sure, i was not upset that she didn't thank me at that very moment, cause i had not expected it then... i knew she had been distraught at that time, but a week later.........didn't i deserve some acknowledgement, for getting her daughter safely home?

a year later, she sauntered towards me suddenly, with a handful of chocolates, smiling gaily, thrust them all at once, into my forced open palms...do u know what day this is? she began gaily, without any formal beginnings.

no, i said, wondering, what had changed in the meanwhile?

its exactly a year since u brought daughter home..i am sorry, i was unable to thank u that day.

i was pleasantly surprised...i had initially  thot maybe she had felt that i needn't have made such a hue and cry and brought her kid home. they werent that late..may be she felt i was trying unnecessarily trying  to obligate her something.. thats the only way i cud rationalise her actions at that time..that she didnt want my obligations, cause of  of our unhappy past history.

however, when i observed  that she had even kept note of the date a whole year later,  i realized that whatever her reasons, at least she remembered .....and though late in showing her gratitude, when she did it, she did it wholeheartedly...

  i learnt a great lesson that day............. no kindness/goodness goes unnoticed. maybe it takes years to reach fruition., but it does finally.

bondage

The burden of bonds
are the hardest to bear,
so much to lose,
so much to fear.

the shackles of the body
can still be broken at will,
but the shackles on the soul
are the most difficult of all

the body, is chained by the mind,
the mind, by the needs of the soul,
is freedom sum of parts
or, is it a complete whole?

will freedom scatter the soul's spirits
into the ever expanding universe?
will it unfetter the soul's needs,
the soul from its entity, will it release ?

celebrating love

wrap me with ur arms,
make me feel less naked
or fill me with ur love
make me feel gloriously wicked

i wait for ur magical touch
it fills me with warmth and makes me glow
enriches my days and nights,
little else i need now.

awaken in me my long buried lust,
charge my dull brain
set me free from my chained habits,
il celebrate love with u, with u, il dance in the rain!

cotton

i stealthily check the black blue bruises
on my well needed kneaded breasts
reminders of the harsh, probing, never ending,
longings, of ur ever demanding lust.

i watch u, claim them, with my lazy eye,
 u feast hungrily on the sumptuous spread,
life giving force, u merrily chime,
ironically, the pleasure paths is all mine to tread.

i fear tremendously
losing our  sparse moments of pleasure
to the  authoritative disapproval,
of dull insensitive minds of another

i hug  the marks, close to my chest,
zealously guard them from  prying eyes
warp, weft..threads of cotton,
 being my willing accomplice.

our secrets remain hidden,  untold
this humble  garment of armour,
protects our shameless  lust,
 and safe guards my insatiable paramour!