Seashore by my window!

A sea beyond my window sill!

With green waves forming with the winds!

A sea across the iron grill!

With bobbing flowers, speak of spring! :)

Scribbles post office!

I spent some time walking on shadows of people today…

I looked to the moist tiled floor, even as a cleaner kept pushing water dripping from the AC above into a drain channel. The myriad colors from the white screen behind the live band playing around the corner reflected on the fine crevices of the flooring. The ever changing hues were crisscrossed by dark shadows of passers-by; I too barred a beam or two from reaching the floors.

I looked up then, to the contrasting black skies. Stars, if any, were outshined by their artificial counterparts on the earth below. A stray branch of a tree, green in the light of the halogen bulb shining nearby, somewhat jutted in my view of the dark sky. Swaying (as if) with the music it make a pleasing sight; one of those moments which make one want to have a camera/camera phone handy!

There was a brief silence, quickly torn apart by the strains of flute & I turned to the live performance by the relatively unknown band. I think the flute is a melancholy instrument. It makes the soul stir within so violently that the mortal being can feel the ripples physically.

I gazed blankly for some time. Not so much at the band, but at the rope swings a little distance away in the backdrop of the performance. Tiny kids dangled in the air, harnessed to a rope by their arms. Their guardians seemed to cheer them on & clap. I could hear nothing of it. There is distinctness to life when viewed in mute. The sense of sound can sometimes blind the inner eye.
I looked up at the skies again, only this time, a host of brand-billboards hit the eye. Aside I could see a giant air-ball rolling with hapless children (supposedly) thrilled at the ‘joyride’. Childhood had been a lot simpler when I was a child – happiness lay in small things & the joy was larger than life.

The ball soon rolled out of sight & the billboards stared in my face again. Four years ago, I entered the first big mall in my life & I was overwhelmed…four years hence from then, it doesn’t even register to me.

I stand a ground which is a podium of ‘success’ as some define it. It’s a dais I never wished to own as a child. Still, the stage is all mine, and here I stand, blocking some colorful light beams from falling to to the ground…I carry their colors upon my person. And, so do the people whose shadows I walk on...

Senses...

Tripped on a shadow,

Straight in the air...

Oh what a splash it was!

Pity you weren't there;

To see: how green

Sounded the grass;

To see how damp

The memories felt...

The Centuplicate...

When lightening shines, into the night, I miss the time of broad daylight...

Sometimes for those old times' sake, I miss the sounds that silence made,

When I'd lay up, in the night, shaken by some thought up fright,

And when it rains, I miss the thrill, of wiping rains from the iron grill,

Balancing the drops, lest they may fall, tiny drops in hands so small,

I look to the sky and miss the stars, hidden by the blazing lights,

that surround me...

Sometimes when its dark, I miss the night,

Sometimes when I'm brave, I miss the fright...

The life that lives...

I was sitting and watching the rains outside, making lines against the smoked glass of the windows in my office. Straight ahead there is a blank wall, greying from rains year on year, to the right are buildings & to the left there are small waterfalls skipping steps on the green mountains. Some sort of palm trees complete the scenery, its windy outside...& the blast of the AC within makes me miss the mud smelling, humid breeze that inverted my umbrella yesterday :)

I am relatively free today, its been sometime since I looked around randomly. My work is stuck & I am not tugging too hard behind it. I already need a break :D I look at my feet, wet with the mucky water on the street to office...& I think how many times....

Did I see the impression my wet feet made & try n better the design?
Did I hide behind the door to 'boo' someone?
Did I cry in a movie?
Did I share my morning glass of milk with my dog when mom wasnt looking?
Did I open n spoil my mom's lipsticks by shutting the cap without roling it back in?
Did I put on nailpaint n spent an hour scratching it off coz I dint know thr exists a remover?
Did I paint my nails with a sketchpen and made my mom clean it before i went to school?
Did I wear my raincoat at home & randomly walked out to feel the pitter patter?
Did I pester everyone for a toffee?
Did I open n lick the cream b4 having my biscuit?
Did I open my mouth & blow in the winter morning, immitating a smoker?
Did I immitate a smoker with a phantom sweet cigarrette?
Did I have a hard toffee to remove a loose tooth without tellin my mom?
Did I dig my tooth in the garden in hope of a gold one?
Did I hang a stocking on the door on Christmas?
Did I dig a pencil in the soil, as wood 'grows' in mud?
Did I give a samosa & coke treat?
Did I sprout seedlings for a science class experiment?
Did I ruin the carpet while delicately balancing the inverted glass full of water, its surface closed with a card sheet?
Did I burn paper with a hand microscope?
Did I go to see ravana burning on Dushshera?
Did I come back with the biggest baloon available?

I never counted, but I can feel the thrill of poking a baloon still, I can still feel the lump in my throat for that wet carpet, & I am again a scared child precariously balancing myself on the scooter to have a better look at the burning ravana effigy...


Some experiences in life are timeless. Maybe life is timeless if we live it...wonder who doesn't let me live mine ...

:)

Scar

Scars - moments of the past frozen in time eternally. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh (quote: Leonard Cohen) We remember the time around scars, we live the moment, irrelevant emotions thronging the mind, alive, making the past even more precious; A gentle reminder that at times things cannot be restored. Like death, the ‘when there wasn’t a scar’ lives through the memory of the scar. I do not remember thinking of my unscarred limbs…

I look at myself in the mirror, a faint scar under my right eyebrow; I think of this old vegetable vendor, the one who came to my granny’s colony with his ‘thela’ everyday. I remember the grey hair, the long-ish white kurta, the mouldy wooden cart, base covered in a blue ‘barsaati’ & the huge jhola with muddy, white & red threads, that he hung over his shoulder.

I know he does not remember me as he sells his vegetables today. I would like to believe that he does sell vegetables today too. Death scares me, I shy away of the end.

I keep the medallion of braving the summer sun to catch a fleeing cricket ball across the road. That afternoon, when I crashed into the full cart & was too shocked to respond to the red on my frock. I keep my scar as my proof of identity on documents of importance.

Its sad.

The one who gave it does not know he is remembered. That indelible mark caused years ago through an accident…my scar tells me that the pain of the moment is sealed & done with. The hurt is over, there is no external mark…internally, I haven’t bothered to check yet.

Sometimes, or always, all that’s buried is not dead.

If I had a song...

If I had a song...

That spelt for me

The rhyme within

If I had a flower...

That spread for me

The smile of childhood glee

If I had a dog...

That looked to see

How nice I could really be...

If I had a plant...

That grew in me

The faith of growth in odds that be

I would then become (probably)

A tad less selfish

And...

Wish anew!

Barnie!

Mathemagics!

I have always loved Mathematics. Mathematics, in turn, has always hated me.

It started somewhere in Junior school, somehow of all marks in my report card & of all test-copies that were to be signed by parents, it was the maths column/copy I hated the most, & my father waited the most for. I was a scorer in Science, Economics & English & my eagerness for the English grammer & literature test copies was matched by my papa’s for my maths one. I remember fervently praying before I even opened my copy…even as I type this, I can feel the flexible copy between my fingers…I can smell it K

My earliest introduction to the subject dates back to those dumb(YES DUMB) dodging exercises in school. For the unenlightened, dodging was an exercise to rewards the magus   of the batch…those who by-hearted the multiplication tables n puked the answer as soon as the “13*9” escaped the teachers mouth… There was no time for the 9*3, carrying over the two n adding it to 9*1…I hated dodging…I dint have a choice L

After these pre schooling years, Mathematics graduated to another level. The next memory I have is of HCF & LCM (HAHA :D) I always forgot which one is which… & resultantly, many a times calculated HCF correctly for LCM problems & vice versa. They said I was careless…I wasn’t. Even in grammar I could not tell past perfect from present participle…but I got those correct. Unfair again…I dint have a choice L

Then arrived unitary method, time & work, percentages & linear equations!!! I loved them. They made sense to me! And papa was happy with the scores. Come standard 8^th & the choices I did not earlier have started to show. I did not like the teachers I got & they helped kill the remaining interest I had in the subject. I liked geometry & algebra, I did geometry & algebra. Period. Needless to say, my basics got all ruined by the time I reached standard 10^th. Lemme digress a bit here & discuss about my reading habits. I was a voracious reader (once upon a time) & comics of the like of chacha chaudary were never a part of my life, except in the early years of school life when socializing meant eating mango bite hiding one’s face during a class & exchanging comics. So things like “chacha chaudhary ka dimag computer se bhi tez chalta hai”, “saabu Jupiter ka niwasi hai”  were not hot favourites with me. Anyways, coming back to the topic, it was during my standard 10^th board exams that ghosts from the childhood came to haunt me. And what better time to choose than when I was sitting struggling with my exam paper. For a moment I felt everything was going darker… “din me tare…” situation from those comics came alive in front of my eyes. I went blank…!

I was surprised when I reached a decent score (even half convinced my paper got mixed with someone else’s!)  Anyways, being left ‘starry eyed’ shook me bad. I decided to make scores even with mathematics J I took up maths in 12^th. As they say history repeats itself. Horrible teachers, topped with focus on engineering competitive exam levels shook my confidence yet again. I even copied homework once from a classmates notebook L

Have you ever heard of guardian angels? No? I saw one! Two months before my exams began, a lady who just shifted in my neighbourhood decided to teach me of her own accord. I distinctly remember…she had asked me, “How do u like Vectors, should we start there?”,and I had replied,  “I do not know Vectors, you can start wherever…”  She wasn’t startled. She taught me. And for the first time in my life, Time fell short for answering that standard 12^th paper. I was happy J

I also continued with Mathematics in my graduation (thanks to that teacher) liked it, & moved on. Then XLRI happened…& QE happened alongside it L The teacher was a fine one, he loved his subject, appreciated it, but I lost it someplace, & never caught up…I was wrong, I never raised a hand to say I don’t know. Mansij taught me, those were the first night outs in my life…crazeee…Mansij, Karishma & me, huddled in our room… (No. 310) solving solved examples :D: D Now when I think of it, I can’t help grinning!!! Life is funny!!!

Why am I going on & on about Mathematics & I today? I was trying to solve an equation :P after an hour’s struggle I figured what variable was wrong where…& I thanked my stars I never wanted to be an engineer! One of my dear friends has a set of fancy statements he makes two among those are: “You would have made a good engineer”… “Mathematics is beautiful…its like economics”  I can only (stage)manage some expression before I purge the first statement from out of my head…as for the second is concerned, I don’t agree! (We can discuss this maybe if u happen to read this!)

Now I don’t know how to end this long account. Maybe I can quote another instance that just struck me! :D

Once, I got so enthusiastic about solving fraction addition, subtraction & division, that I solved all division questions like the addition one’s (you know, took a common denominator & all) Gosh! I hope my employer does not read this :D :D :D

Of Rainy days & Raincoats for cover...

I distinctly remember.
All through my school life, I hated taking an off from classes. Attendance was sacrosanct, as was homework (only once I picked the register of my classmate to copy the mathematics home work…that too, coz I never really understood what was happening to the equations or questions or whatever they were) I hated Rainy Days…coz that meant that one had to get ready n wait for the rain to ‘slow’ or stop before one ventured out to school in a raincoat…there was a lingering anticipation of school being closed (Today, the *th of September, 19**, is declared a Rainy Day) but one could never really be too sure! So, parents made calls to the forever busy school landline. Blue diaries were swished out from the bag to check the phone numbers, n religiously kept back lest I forget it if I happen to leave for school (Carrying diaries to the morning assembly was mandatory) Friends called to check if others had any clue of the status quo…parents prompting from the background, “ask her to call u if she comes to know anything..”
And finally, it was too late to go to school anyways…& only the next working day we came to know whether or not the school was open the previous day n missed class work was noted down.
Cut to today- A normal non-rainy, humid day. Alarm clock screeching from somewhere under the quilt even as I rub my eyes in disbelief that its morning already. I run through my memory chip (read brain) to ascertain if today is a holiday, come out of the analysis disappointed and think of what is to be done in office through the day except waiting for the timed customary chai-coffee breaks in paper cups. I think n realize that all the work is to be done either through the cell phone (yes, I don’t have a desk phone) or through mails & no human interface is essential or required. I think if its cool to work from home & of course I can rest assured that I will work hard(ly). So even as the morning cuppa is drowned, I know my plans for the day & here I am…This is my third deliberate off from school & limited work life that I have had (True!) & I have realized now, that if I don’t report to work, my organization won’t shut down…

Howrah-Tatanagar & A Few Unknown Faces

Many a times, on the 5:30 pm train from Kolkata to dear old Jamshedpur, we used to sit spotting “TATA Steel employees”. Judging by the way their near cotton shirts& trousers crumpled from the ~4 hours train journey, the black dully shining leather shoes, carrying forward the legacy of the morning, when they were freshly polished, the pastel shirts, the unvarying black trouser, a neat looking suitcase (brown or black), spectacles (full framed) A golden or a ‘black leather strap’ Titan watch, neat combed hair…old timers, was the word!
Morning today, the cabbie asked me even as I was giving directions, “TATA ke office jana hai kya?” I replied in the affirmative, without a thought to why he had asked me that! Walking up to the office building after paying him, I took one long look at myself…Pale blue cotton shirt, full sleeves…black trousers, polished black shoes, a black bag, a large dial sized Titan watch (silver downplayed), a black pen, black full rimmed glasses…
Personally I think I am way back in the process of becoming the quintessential TATA employee as we defined him back then…but I guess, some things can easily rub on in 4 months…

Many in one...yet...one in many

Just a thought...maybe will build on it, maybe not...

There live so many men within one man...so many existences, making their appearances at times they deem appropriate, thou you & I may not appreciate the timing...! And still...the person is one whole, unique & different, an Identity in his own right...with no one to compare...funny!

Hey no..b4 I start getting buzzes, I am not depressed!!! :) Just a thought...put to paper (or typing, whatever) before the other person in me takes over & makes me forget!

Cheers!

Moon Child

I kind of hate writer's blocks. There were so many things that came to my mind...about the RP vendor on the street...about the Dinosaurs, about the second coming...But lazy as I am, I did not write : :

So thought I will try break it with this thingie...A pic of a 'fraxing" kid on a moon :D Going on & on...sliding off, climbing on (the moon) so very like the monotonously unique hum-drum of our lives! I am sure...I was more imaginative when I was a kid...when i thought winds are caused due to to moving of branches...one moving branch moves the other, that one another & so on...till everything starts to move n wind is caused!!! Dint get it? Its something like the stirring of Bournvita in a glass...the spoon moves, the milk moves...:P

Chuck!

Fear...

The curtains move in the playful breeze
That comes flying from the leaves of trees
The quite child from under the quilt
Looks up to see if all is still
It looks all fine, so off he goes
To sleep again, but his woes
Do not end, though he pretends
That he is brave!

After a while
One little eye
Ope’s to see if all is well
Looks ‘round-confirms,
The quiet room & sleeps again.

The curtains still, the breeze subdued
The child huddled, to his teddy glued
His tiny mind, now up in arms
Why its so quite, why its so calm?
The child is all alone
And theres no one else at home…
His tiny eyes well up with tears,
Not of remorse, but untold fears
He shuts them tight…

The sunlight peeks from o’er the hill
To find the child sleeping still!
The naughty sun then full of glee
Plays on his eyes n off he flees
The little child now up from sleep
Jumps off the bed n down he peeps…
.
.
.
.
.
.

Finds no one there
Was just a fear?
Maybe it was, but just in case
Before he’s off to sleep today
He’ll peep to see that all is safe!

:)

Step Aside, lest I push you...

The average office goers today spend a minimum of 10 hours at their workplace; sometimes even more than that. This is the age of competition & success-stories. Boys & girls, graduates, Post graduates, MBA’s, MBBS…running day in & day out in pursuit of being better than themselves (or sadly sometimes, better than their peers) at their work place, in their worldly possessions & even when it comes to weekend partying venues to beat the work blues! There is an amazing ‘stickiness’ to the phenomena. It clings on even more fastidiously more one tries to move away from it.

People study for jobs & run helter-skelter one week before placements looking for answers as to why they chose to go in for an MBA. Cooked, marinated, stewed answers are then served on platters…fresh flavours intact & 10 people successfully sit in front of the same panel answering the same question packaged in a different set of words. At least some degree of personalization is maintained!

Someone once rightly told me…go & speak there what you think, I won’t give you a readymade answer. It sounded very mean then, but come to look at it…if my prospective employer does not respect me for what I am, should I be working for him in the first place? Believe me, the attitude helps.

In whatever way…everyone ends up in the rat-race. You ahead of me, I of X and so on…& yes, rest assured, ultimately the rat wins! Was thinking on all these lines, maybe lack of interesting work has made a thinker out of me, when it struck me…Boys & Girls, all of us who have just started working, at least majority of those who I know, go back to cooked food back at our places of residence (no, I won’t call it home) Be it the guest house, the hotel, the ubiquitous dabba-walla. One barely has time to eat before one hits bed…obviously the long phone calls & the chat sessions are not counted. Contrast this with our childhood, when our parents were home by 5, helped with our homework, made sure our uniforms were proper before we went to school, saw our test papers, and had meals with us.

Was misplaced in a party of fresh teen girls this time when I went home…almost choked of the smell of generation gap that was rising mingled with the fumes from the sizzlers…I realized I was growing up…I cannot make a value judgment on that group of kids. But yes, the world changes every few years…maybe in the years to come the rat race is gonna burrow its way down under the age ladder…where little girls and boys will stand competing with each other in issues of social intelligence & maturity. I hope I am wrong. Maybe innocence is harder to lose…

The War of Roses...whose history is it anyway?

Lack of brain racking work in office today forced me to imbibe a hobby from one of my dear friends. I tried my hand at reading History J

“History”: have quite some images in my mind that I associate with it. Begins with the orange and black photos of kutchcha houses & pucca houses from the era (until standard IV) when History-Civics & Geography were but one subject. (Yes yes, I know that is not a part of history, but I can’t help myself thinking of it, can I?)

Next image to creep forth is that of Joshi ma’am from school (chuckle) She was one good history teacher… (Scary n all yes) studying from her was an experience! Obviously I don’t remember much of the History lessons…Ok, let me think of what all I can recall… ‘Red-shirts’, ‘Indus Valley Civilization’ (I still remember the granaries diagram in the history book) & renaissance(Yes, I now know how to pronounce it) and I know Russia isn’t Rushshia! :D

The project report we were required to make at the end of the year was an amazing piece of art. There were drawings, diagrams, Photostat copies of pictures from library reference books (which our sweet Lib ma’am got done for up provided we wrote up all the page numbers n figure numbers for her neatly on a piece of paper, folded it and submitted it! (Ma’am are u listening, I am still bad with clips on my hair to keep them in place!)Internet and printouts were not popular then…Internet was for information…for projects, reference books ruled the roost! Sometimes I feel…were we not brought up in a different era?

Anyways, coming back to the point, Ma’am Joshi, used to sit on the table to teach! Girls in class, (some marriageable material types(pun intended)) used to flock to see her saris! Grey-green eyes and impeccable mannerisms…Joshi ma’am was a teacher whose terror stories reached our ears even before she started teaching us! Thankfully I was never the part of the hated lot, even though I never really loved writing history exams. Once, just once, I freaked out in the history exam! Karl Marx section it was…I walked up to ma’am Joshi n said, “I don’t want to write the exam, I can’t write it…” I had gone blank…I felt I knew nothing… She looked shocked. “Go write it…I am sure u will do something…” I wrote it. Got decent marks…but I still don’t know why I did that that day! One of my dear friends (yes the history freak) says I have an abnormally high achievement orientation. Maybe it was becoz of that. J I don’t know.

I used to love Modern History. I remember, one the day before the history board exam, I was up all night reading my book! I slept on the page with the Jama Masjid diagram on it! Woke up late, wrote a poem on my condition & then carried on further to answer the exam. I can see myself sitting in the exam hall (I used to sit on the stage) I can see the table in front of me, and the history exam long answer section on the grayish white exam paper…I remember! I dint do too badly J

So today, taking a cue from my dear friend I sat to read about the ‘War of Roses’ interesting nomenclature…my inquisitive mind refused to read further before it found out why a series of dynastic civil wars fought in England between supporters of the Houses of Lancaster and York was called a war of Roses among all things! War of roses…seems like a war for love :D (Hijack, cried my senses, you got to read before you sit down to imagine the possible roots of the name, maybe the answer is right there) Hmm…so I read…

The red rose of Lancaster & the white rose of York…

This is what Wikipedia told me:

Although the roses were occasionally used as symbols during the wars, most of the participants wore badges associated with their immediate feudal lords or protectors. For example, Henry's forces at Bosworth fought under the banner of a red dragon, while the Yorkist army used Richard III's personal symbol of a white boar. Evidence of the importance of the rose symbols at the time, however, includes the fact that King Henry VII chose at the end of the wars to combine the red and white roses into a single red and white Tudor Rose.

The unofficial system of livery and maintenance, by which powerful nobles would offer protection to followers who would sport their colours and badges (livery), and controlled large numbers of paid men-at-arms (maintenance) was one of the effects of the breakdown of royal authority which preceded and partly caused the wars.

Romanticized…?

J

Funnily though, I always thought history was romantic! Drama, Thrill, Power struggle…plush with theatrics…history dazes me to date…the pictures speak for themselves…and it gives me the same feeling that I got when I read about the dried up flowers in the ‘Time Machine’ It gives me the same feeling that I get when I think of my years at XLRI…2 years, or a lifetime? The years I was at home, still a child…eternity! And now…every moment I breathe I create my own history. History is good, it is full of feelings, feeling we don’t really want to relive, not even the very happy ones, they are right where they need to be, untouched…I don’t want to go back n unruffled a single feather! History, probably, is always perfect.