February - My month, My way.

I love February.

Its everything about it - Birthdays (my own birthday of course), the weather that changes from harsh winter to spring, valentine’s day (hate the concept, never really had a valentine, but I like the feeling of love in the air – even if it is forced), 28 days mean salaries come in faster, the word that makes my heart go ‘tick’ – SALE. Practically everything is on sale and within your reach.

February for me is the month of wishes and dreams. The month to contemplate my future and now of course, my age!

Suddenly when the month arrives I have a list of things that I want, those that I want to do and wish for even though I know they are really not within my reach. But then, Pisceans were always dreamers!

The 2010 February is here and my list of wishes is out.

• This year I wish to find direction. I am at a crossroads right now with my career and everything surrounding it and I do hope I make the right choices and take the correct decisions that will enrich my life.

• I wish to find this year a passion for things unknown. I have started with doing things I have never done – The camel ride, the tweet-up. I hope I can continue to find stranger, quirkier and weirder things to do and experiment with.

• I have always been interested in photography but never found my style, recently I discovered that there is no need to follow style, photography like painting is emerges from your gut, it’s one of the things that make you go with the flow and with that create something that only you see. This year, I wish to explore the art. For starters, I wish for a digital SLR : )

• I wish to find love in everyone I meet this year. Last year was the year of giving. This year is the year of soaking it all in, taking everything people and life have to offer. Love is often misunderstood with just being just sexual. And that is not the kind of love I am talking about. Anyhow, I do wish that I can extract love from every individual I meet. 

• After a series of disappointments last year from people and friends, this year I wish to untie and unlatch any strings that bind me from the past. I wish to carry memories just as memories, nothing more.

• I thank a stranger (a reader of the blog – Preeti) whom I have never met, but whose reaction to a certain post was so strong that it has made me wish and pray to write more, write better and spend a lot more of my time on the blog and on the book that I will someday write. To know that my words touch someone’s heart is so heart warming really. I wish to continue doing that all my life.

24^th of February is drawing closer, my vacation is ending and I’m standing right at the crossroads to another era. I have rediscovered and discovered some friends in a nutshell, I couldn’t have asked for more. 

Fearless: an obsessive, self absorbed post. I so love it :)

It has been two weeks today and time seems to have just vanished. There was so much I had planned to do and so many people I had planned to meet and it hasn’t gone that way. Nevertheless it has been beautiful.

I haven’t exercised (so long eye twitching Baba Ramdev!), I have slept till late and haven’t gone on long walks.

I haven’t shopped, I haven’t well, met any good looking / interesting men (where in the world are they??)

So what have I don’t in the past few weeks?

I sat on a camel. So, what the bloody big deal? (I can almost hear your mind)

Most of the times in life you fear something so much that after sometime you forget why you started fearing it in the first place.

Fear has that amazing capacity to overpower everything you believe in and crumble your insides as if they were ashes hanging from a dying cigarette.

For some reason a camel ride has scared me to death ever since the first time I tried sitting on one. I remember screaming and shouting till they had to get me down.

So what made me sit on one finally? Liberation perhaps.

An act to tell myself that if I could get over this perhaps I could get over a lot more.

Anyhow, it’s not such a great deal (As long as a camel doesn’t sniff your hair of something) its fun actually and quite the feeling of being in the film ‘The Mummy’ (one of my top weirdest films)

Would you believe me if I told you this silly thing acted as a catalyst to so much more?

I could erase and delete everything that needed to be eradicated from my life and my mind. Most of them silly fears tying me down!

I realised or rather was made to realise by awesome RT that my fears were holding me back from having so much fun ( read – casual, harmless flirting : a forgotten art ) Well, a couple of lessons later, I’m getting there.... with the right words and the right things to do.

Whoever said that it was a bad thing didn’t know what he/she was missing in life! I believe (especially at the brink of downhill thirty) that it is what will keep us young forever.

Being in your cosy shell for the fear of everything new only makes you a sad loser. There is a certain reason for trying things that are alien. And that my friend, is growth.

Even if they are things you don’t believe in, they will ultimately only reaffirm your faith in the thing that you do.

So I’m off today to meet a bunch of strangers with my lovely, beautiful, divine girlfriends. (What would I do without them?) This is something I never thought I would do, but then I never thought I would fear it too.

If I had my choice I would carry that camel with me everywhere to remind me that my capacity as a human being is limitless, the strings of which I hold and often tend to forget that.

Here’s to everything new and unknown and to all those people I still have to meet and all the experiences I still need to have.  Here’s to the times when we will meet and cross our paths and smile or maybe frown and perhaps go our own way. Here’s to everything beautiful.

Here’s to me too!

Cheers !!!

Diva

And he, unaware of her mystic sensuousness, walks by.

I tell her to follow, to lay the trap.

He runs far away.

She, with her supernatural aura glides beside him.

A stroke of recognition and then blankness covers his face.

He stops, observes.

Overwhelmed by everything her,

He turns and walks away.

She rises and towers like never before,

I bow down to her beauty, her mystique.

She smiles and waits.

The father of man.

I try hard but fail to understand what tickles him to laugh so much. How a simple gesture becomes a game and goes on and on till something new and fascinating comes up.

I watch this one and a half year old run up and down the tiny passage knowing so well that he can’t hide, but he tries. I find him and pretend that it was such a task and we laugh, like we have never laughed before.

Minutes vanish into hours and I don’t know how my time goes by playing pretentious games with him.
Games that he believes are true. The two fingers walking towards him to tickle him are actual people, the spider man doll that speaks, and the tiny aeroplane that lands on imaginary airports.

He has all the time in the world and he uses it wisely. He dreams and imagines. He makes stories and pictures in his mind that have no limit and no time.

He laughs from his stomach and smiles from his heart. His laughter fills my ear and my heart with so much love that sometimes it’s hard to fathom.

He knows so much more than me and explains the meaning of life in gibberish that I can only pretend to understand. So that’s what I do. I nod and pretend because that’s what I have learnt to do.

I don’t know where to start to learn from this little man, who unknowingly shows me everything I am missing in my life.
We dance, and for the first time in years I dance without being conscious of who is looking at me and how bad a dancer I am. We do crazy steps and laugh and fall, get up again and dance.

He comes and he hugs me just out of the blue, gives me a smile and walks away...
I wonder about the last time I ‘just’ hugged someone and I can’t remember. I walk after him to cuddle him and give him a million kisses.

There is so much to learn....

the best and the worst ?

One of the things that has stayed with me since my teens is a quote I heard one of my favourite characters say in Beverly Hills 90210 (a show by the way that I loved and grew up watching)

Brenda goes for a cancer check-up and tells her boy friend at all she can do is – ‘hope for the best but expect the worst’. She obviously doesn’t have cancer and continues to live her life at Beverly High with delicious Dylan.

Anyhow, I guess it’s been a long since those teen years and the quote which held such true meaning has gone kaput on me quite a number of times.

Does age do that to you or is it your experiences?

I was talking about relationships to someone the other day. (At this point I must mention the conversation was between two perfectly eligible, single people) it was so strange how we completed each other’s sentences when it came to relationships.

So the conversation went something like, - ‘I don’t have the energy for another relationship’, I’m tired’, ‘I can’t hurt myself anymore’

On my way back home that day, listening to Romeo and Juliet (Dire straits – one of my all time ‘fairytale’ songs) I kept wondering where my ‘hope’ had gone.
Is the worst all that’s been happening? And it’s just not me. There are others like me.

Whatever happened to happily ever after? Maybe they built this illusion for us through all the stupid fairy tales. Maybe there isn’t any true happily ever after. There is just blatant truth staring at our face which doesn’t look very pleasing. Maybe we all had to have a bite of the poisoned apple and there is no prince or princess on their way to kiss and wake us up from that deep slumber.

Maybe that’s the reason we have stopped ‘hoping for the best’ and have welcomed the worst.

The reunion

Someday my love, when we both have ample time to kill, we will sit next to each other and stare at the blue sky, speechless for hours.

We will not move or touch, we will just linger forever.

We will let the silkiness of the calm breeze caress our skin

We will let the vastness of the universe embrace us

Soft, gentle and pure,

We will let cold raindrops kiss each cell in our skin

Until we give up all our senses and surrender

Someday my love, when we both have ample time to kill, we will look for each other

In the crazy monotonous race of everyday life,

To sit next to each other, speechless for hours.

Till then,

XX

me.

its fun to write with some vodka in your blood !!!!

So it’s officially 2010 now! This is my first post of the year and I am very high and happy so that means it’s a good start to the year.

I am just back from the New Year’s party that we had been planning since a week - Friends getting together, music, food and lots and lots of vodka.

Suddenly during the party I see my past walk in holding the key to my future.

After a while everyone is suddenly absorbed with either their better halves or someone they just found for the night and I am wondering (and believe me after 4 vodkas the power of wondering becomes 100% more acute) what am I doing here?

I have some wonderful friends there – friends I have made recently and some who have been there for a decade and I see them happy and I feel happy but I also feel something is missing.

There comes a time in life when you feel it’s just right to embark on a new journey. I look at the beautiful full moon tonight and it tells me that the time is now.

So I pick my bag and grab my jacket and leave.

Is change here? I don’t know, I don’t see it (wish I could though) but I feel its somewhere around, just waiting for me to discover it.

After so much hype about New Years(even on my own blog and numerous facebook updates, and the pains to look good, fit into the sexy dress and then not even get a picture taken : ( ) tomorrow will just be another day, time in itself does not know the difference between days and months and years.

Time just IS.

Tomorrow might be the day when a new job opportunity arrives or the person I meet on a flight is the person destiny sent for me (it’s a before sunrise, before sunset fantasy! – sexy, oh very sexy ethan hawke where are you?), tomorrow might be another party where I feel old and my feet ache and I vow never to party again till another weekend arrives with promises of a better party.

Tomorrow might just be MY day.

And until then, here’s wishing you a wonderful 2010 and a beautiful decade.

Live everyday like there’s no tomorrow because one day you will sit down and realize time just vanished. Life just went by, a decade zoomed by and you just flew along.....

Happy New Year and decade lovely people.

Love you all.

Cheers to that!

While I raise toasts to the year gone by and the year that we are going to embark on with highly philosophical undertones (read the last post here) I thought of listing down some snatches from the year gone by.

Happy times, memories that will last for a long time....

• Falling in love, it’s beautiful for the time it does last. The butterflies in the stomach, the anticipation, the wait, the long conversations, coffee cups that get empty hour after hour, sunsets that have a whole different meaning, the little touch, the stolen glances, the queasy feeling, the way so many things are said without saying a word. Falling in love, it is beautiful. Falling out or breaking up is memorable in its own way. Suddenly there is a different queasiness, butterflies in the stomach like the ones you get during maths exams, words that never come out and just stay stuck in your head, eyes that never meet again to say anything else.Love in any form remains memorable for the extremeness it takes us to. And for that extremeness this year takes the cake.
  

• Traveling abroad for the first time (does Nepal and setting one foot in Pakistan at the border count?!!) if someone tells me that it doesn’t excite them that they are setting foot abroad for the first time then I will laugh at their face because it’s a big lie. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t been super excited to land in another country, stare in awe at the swanky airport and exclaim, WTF under their breath. Anyhow, I exclaimed a big WTF when I entered an immigration window for the first time because I was troubled by Visa officers for some crap. All I could think at that time was this - ‘akeli ladki khuli tijori ki tarah hoti hai’! LOL

• Spending time with Reyankh, seeing him grow from a little tiny thing to a person that walks and kind of talks!                                                                                                                                                  I would look at him when he was around me and think that kids should never grow up. But every day I would wait for him to do something new. The day he painted his face with lipstick or when he painted all the walls in the house and we painted along with him remain memories that will last a lifetime. With him emerged three more children and one adult - My poor brother who spent time controlling the extravagance of affection towards our bundle of joy just so that he doesn't end up a brat (which mind you means utter rubbish when it comes to nephews and grandchildren, that advice is for other peoples naughty kids!)

• Friends – losing some and gaining some. Some that grew with time and some that came and went like they never ever even were. 

• Evenings at coffee day watching the world go by. And few evenings at Zen cafe(I just love that place)
  

• Almost all the Saturday evenings this year spent at the farm! 
  

• The night I got my tattoo
  

• This time in Bombay when J and I sat on Bandstand for an hour and we hardly spoke, we just stared at the sea and some weird couples doing weird things! and then we laughed so hard that we cried
  

• My weekend trips to Bombay which now always start with breakfast at JATC, a ritual of cheese omelets, bacon, sausages, waffles and coffee (BLISS)
  

• An evening that was spent playing darkroom after 20 years!
  

• The day I bought my short denim skirt, it was liberating in a way that requires another post to explain its depth 
  

• Rediscovering painting out of the blue and making some awesome paintings!
  

• The day the blog was compared to Tuesdays with Morrie, actually every time someone clicks on a ‘like’ button on my blog FB link or comments on the post it makes it memorable for me. (so please do this more often !)
  

• Mastering the art of making Khow Suey, for which I remain the undisputable queen!
  

• M’s wedding for several reasons – Chandigarh (a city I have come to adore), winter, re-discovering chai, the opulence of a Punjabi wedding which I miss in this city (the aunties and uncles, the rich food, the servants running around, marigold flowers, dholak and funny songs, the dancing, the drinking, the drinking, the drinking, the drinking !!!.... )
  

• S and K’s wedding for making me remember that good things do happen. I have probably never been so happy for two people at the same time!
  

• Christmas lunch for the realization of the beauty of friendship that evolves through so many different levels to become one that is held by strong hands of destiny and probably on some beautiful plane stays on forever
  

• Painting my poster wall (which now is gone because we painted the whole house) :(
  

• The day my bank account reached a desired figure, it’s not much but its mine. 
  

I know there’s probably so much more which I can’t remember right now. I would love to hear some snatches from the readers and what made this year memorable.

Write in and let me know, maybe I will remember some more!

Till then, as a very good friend signs off and I borrow this one from him, Cheers to life!

A toast to the 365 gone by and the 365 yet to come...

It’s been quite sometime that I updated the blog. I have been in a kind of slow state of mind. Numerous efforts of penning down thoughts have been wasted in vain. The end of the year generally does this to me. My time and thoughts move to contemplation of what has been, what could have been and what can be.

For me this year has been the year of acceptances and realizations.

Apart from what it has taught me, it has made me accept a lot about myself and people around. I have shifted from denial to reality through some bad and some good things that happened during the year.

• I accepted to myself that everything has a shelf life including friendships.What you can do however is replenish them from time to time if you want to savor them as you grow older.

• I accepted to myself that I am someone who will always love more than the love I will get back. I will always pour my heart out till I am completely empty; I will fall, hurt and be in pain but I will stand up again, heal my heart and move on.I learnt that I have an amazing capacity to love, and that’s just the way I am, so there’s no point changing that.

• I accepted to myself that age is something I cannot run from. Each year I will look different, maybe a little older. I will not be able to do the things I did when I was twenty five; I will not be twenty five again. I will also never be twenty seven again so all I can do is cease the moment today.

• I accepted to myself that bodies change with time. And so it is ok to throw out old clothes. They don’t need to hang in the closet with a hope of someday I will lose weight and wear them.

• I accepted to myself that all fairytales don’t end up happily ever after. Sometimes fairytales don’t even happen the way you hoped they would.Prince charming won’t come on a white horse and sweep you off your feet; you might have to walk to him.

• I accepted to myself that some fairytales do come true for certain people and with all the pure happiness I feel, it’s ok to feel a tad bit jealous.

• I accepted to myself that I have been and I guess will always be confused of what I want out of life. I will change my career preferences, my cocktail preferences and color preferences as I grow up and as I realize that life has so much to offer.

As the countdown to 2010 begins, I look back at the very long journey I have treaded and a longer one that lies ahead.

I shed so much – I discard, wrap and throw some precious and a few unwanted things, relationships and ties that now just remain memories.

I look at friends getting married and I wonder when did we grow up?

I let go of old memories to make place for new ones.

I know its time to move on.

I wish for a better tomorrow and even though I know I might make the same mistakes again I pray for the courage and strength to endure them.

I pray to find the ability to take risks and make changes without the fear of what lies ahead.

Even though it flutters endlessly I pray that next year my soul finds an abode to settle.

And to everyone who stumbles on this blog, I wish you lots of love and light.

Strange Strangers

Strange strangers we become

Walking down the same path

Silence doesn’t speak anymore

It’s vacuum all over again.

There was a you I used to know

I don’t see him anymore

Is he lost?

Or did I forget him?

With fierce knives and scissors

We delicately cut what used to be us

No reason, no plan

Strange strangers we become

Walking down the same path

Never to meet again.

Quests and conquests - The sometimes perfect life !

I have been trying to think of an awesome opening line for this post because the reason to celebrate is awesome but anyways ten minutes of typing and hitting backspace is enough. So I give up.

The news is that finally, yes finally I have found a pair of jeans that fit!!!
The search for the perfect jeans is finally over (Ok- they r not perfect pefect (they have the funny white/grey fading lines on the thighs) – but they fit me just right)

They are not skinny in the bottom – they fall straight!! Yes they still make those ones apparently.

I spent a bomb, but they are so worth it.

So I walked into the Esprit store just to kill some time and there they were staring right at me with ‘try me on’ eyes! The very sweet store manager told me that I should try a pair with a 28 inch waist (you know the feeling – the one in which you ask for a 30 inch pair with a queer face and look down because you are ashamed of the number 30 and someone says the magic number : 28)

You obviously know the other feeling when so very smoothly a pair of jeans slide up and fit. You turn around in the mirror, look at your ass and smile. Bliss.

That feeling is like the satisfaction of digging into a gooey chocolate cake. (Bloody irony!)

Anyhow, I celebrated my purchase with my quest for the perfect butter chicken in Ahmedabad by trying yet another Indian eating joint (Curries @ SG road). And I was disappointed yet again.

Did I ever mention that I am in search of perfect butter chicken in this city and so far no restaurant has come close to the buttery sweetness of what you relish at places like Pandara road in Delhi or even Zaika and Kareems in Bombay.

What does a butter chicken and dal makhani with butter naan craving, die-hard Punjabi do in Gujjuland? The only choices one is left with are overpowering onion and garlic red gravies with paneer, vegetables or chicken in the name of ‘Punjabi’ cuisine. (Why is everything red and with paneer Punjabi?)

Someone please tell them that red gravy with lots of onions and rajama chawal is not Punjabi cuisine and neither is a salwar kurta called PUNJABI DRESS.

Are we digressing here? From the celebration of the perfect pair of jeans to butter chicken to my anger on Punjabi dresses?

Whatever, its Sunday morning rant time! : )

Yesterday I also saw one of the crappiest movies in recent time – Kurbaan. The performances were good (except Vivek Oberoi who should stop acting) but the plot sucked. Such a sensitive issue treated without a strong story is a shame. I liked Kareena for a change and Saif is hot but the botox is too much in the face. Is he having identity issues of dating a girl young enough to be his daughter which have lead to the overdose of botox?

Anyways it’s good to wake up to scrambled eggs (the ones made with lots of onions and tomatoes and cooked in milk so each bite literally melts in your mouth) and fried sausages with pancakes to follow... background music of an odd combination of Jack Johnson and Kishore Kumar and a thick Sunday paper to last a couple of hours.

Life sometimes is perfect.

And the search for perfect butter chicken continues.....

Cheers!!!!

Of giving’s and taking’s

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give." – Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

 comic relief for a sensitive post ! : )

There is this little thing about selflessness, it brings joy. Now this might be very selfish thought in itself but many a times the little acts of selflessness actually bring pure altruistic joy. Those few countable moments in one’s life are what make this life worth living.

In the past one hour two very strange things happened. I came home to find out that the cycle of one of the painters working in the house was stolen. A daily wage worker, he earns Rs. 100 a day and without a means to commute would spend Rs. 50 on travelling.

These five people have been in and out of my house since the past fifteen days and if the laws of sociology have to be considered we have become a close group of people.

I could not bear look at this man. His eyes were truly sad. And it was not just his eyes but a face that was pulled down and broken.

I have often wondered why certain people suffer so much and why many of us don’t even realise anything and live our lives taking everything for granted. (Rules and laws of karma maybe)

This is certainly not the first time I have acted kind on a whim. I gave this man money for his cycle without a thought because I knew those eyes would haunt me forever.

9 out of 10 people around us have eyes that are sad. Eyes that talk but are never listened to.  Eyes that wake up each day with a hope but sleep tired and exhausted.

We forget so often to look into these eyes. They are all around us but we never have the time.

I switched on the television and on the news was a story on 26/11. As the date draws closer news channels are gearing up with stories for maximum TRP’s. This one however was truly touching. It showed the plight of the ‘real life hero's’, the ‘real givers’ our Jawans, posted at the Gateway of India.

Living in shambles, forced to use public toilets, sleeping on the cold hard floor expected to protect the country from terrorists.

These are the same people who fought and gave up their lives to save the nation from probably the biggest terrorist attack in recent times. These are the people who gave and continue to give selflessly, something that each one of us holds so dear to us – our life.

Giving is so relative, a couple of thousands can’t compare to a life.

Yet on some spiritual plane it all adds up to a simple act of selflessness and pure joy the act brings.

The prophet is one of my favourite books. Effortlessly Khalil Gibran manages to weave the complexities of life into simplicity.

Read here the chapter on ‘GIVING’.

Weekend Chronicles - 3 (from reel to real life)

 Another crazy weekend (more like a nonexistent one) leads to another post on the weekend. I have a strange feeling very soon the blog is going to be called the weekend chronicles! Tuesday thoughts now happen on Monday mornings!

I also feel the post format is changing. I have started writing more about myself (in person) which feels good (till now at least) that’s why the poems and articles are now interwoven with what is happening around me.
I don’t know what the people who follow and read the blog like – so let me know : )

Back to the crazy weekend...

I got my room clean and freshly painted with two RED walls on Friday evening!!! I was skeptical about the red but it looks super cool. I spent all of Saturday picking up, moving and arranging furniture. I have a new cupboard (but honestly still no space) believe me, am not hoarding, still there are just so many clothes!!

All of Sunday and till Monday morning we were shooting for a new TVC in Bombay. I came back in the morning and have slept all day. This explains the reason for a late night post.
Shoots are always fun and they give you a lot of time to think. I always wonder about the life of a junior artist in the film industry when I look at one at a shoot.
For one shot there were some 14 ‘extras’ ironically without whom the shot is incomplete so I wonder why they are called ‘extras’ in the first place. The sincerity in them is commendable. For a second of fame they give their 100%.

Fame is so important. Success is relative.

I am looking at a very gujju looking man in a very shiny bright suit being instructed by one of the assistant directors to stand/ then sit/ stand again. Obediently the ‘extra’ does as he is told. He is so scared that when he sits, he doesn’t remove the bag that’s lying on the chair. He adjusts. His eyes show such fear of losing the quarter second of screen presence (which might lead to his big break later) that he won’t take any chances.

Bombay – my city of dreams. There is not one person who comes to this city without a dream. A million ‘extras’ roam around this city each day trying to find their own route to fame.
Finally the model arrives (she is not very pretty in reality) but make-up transforms her. The lights make her beautiful and I can’t help but wonder and notice my own physical flaws. When I look at the model in the monitor all I can think of is my very fat nose. Because I know its make-up I can shun the thought of my fat nose after a second of self pity and laugh but the 14 ‘extras’ don’t. Each one has that hope and that dream in their eyes to someday be that ONE person in front of the camera.

Fame. Who doesn’t want it? Yet how many of us struggle day and night for that quarter second of screen presence?

Most of us just give up without a fight. Or we fight and then in time give up. Paulo Coehlo can keep writing about fighting for your dream and turning lead into gold but how many of us are real warriors and for how long can we be warriors?

We all have a tipping point, what do you do when you tip?

Sometimes we become ‘extras’ in our own personal lives. We are thrown out of the frame and all we can do is ‘adjust’.
The director is calling the shots and we don’t even know if in the final film we will ever show or were we there just to be a part of the crowd?

I am not being a pessimist here but I will agree that I am falling prey to the pitfalls of a thing called destiny.

I have come to realise that sometimes ‘your all’ is just not enough. Sometimes the ‘time’ is just not right. That you can keep trying again and again to make things right yet they will be stuck in an irksome limbo.

Every day is a struggle to move up from being the extra to the lead actor to finally someday the director.

Every day is a new role, a new act where someone else calls the shot.

Every day the lights change and with each layer of pancake a new mask appears.

Every day is a hope that it would be the day when fame would be right there for grabs.

Every day is a fight for maximum screen presence in a sepia toned frame.

Someday, maybe, somehow. 
Soon......

Bombay Meri Jaan !!!!

So I am back from a nice long weekend in the only city I call home – amchi Mumbai. : )

Each time I visit the city (since I left it the third time in 2007) it speaks to me.

Strange right, have you ever felt that a city/ a place can communicate with you?

Bombay does that with me.

I was very low of the ‘hope quotient’ when I arrived in Bombay this time. However it didn’t take me more than 2 hours to get back on my toes!

Hope comes from strange corners.

• Two of my favorite people got married (to each other) there were times of calmness and times of chaos; a wedding however small is a wedding after all.But at the end of the day when you stand back a take a look from two feet apart, the picture always appears flawless.The bride fell ill and the make up man played truant, but at the end of the day, when the bride and groom stood together it was a perfect picture.A hope fills around every wedding, a hope for perfection, a hope for something called love and a hope for togetherness. 

• I met a lot of old colleagues and friends at the wedding. I realized what I have been missing out on since the past two years.Advertising in India is defined by Bombay. Anywhere else, you are pretending to be in a make believe world of advertising.If you’ve been there once it doesn’t take two minutes to blend right back in. The booze is always flowing; the group is always the last to leave the party. In a two minute conversation you can talk of your career, the weather, Mayavati and who slept with whom.I miss the vibe, the zest and the passion that advertising is supposed to have and is very sadly only available in Bombay.

• I ended the weekend with a long brunch of sushi, dimsums and ice-cream and a stroll on Hill Road which I absolutely love doing! I have not yet found jeans that fit me right. I totally revolt against skinny jeans and skinny people. Despite the efforts at the gym the skinny jeans still make my legs look like barrels!To make up for the jeans fiasco and the fact that leaving Bombay always depresses me, I managed to make my last meal special with awesome roadside, hand dipped pani puri at Band Stand and whole wheat, extra juicy burgers at Gostana (I highly recommend this place to all my fellow foodies – its tucked in a small lane opposite the Bagel Shop in Bandra and makes the most scrumptious, juicy burgers ever)

  

 Love the blue colours and Jimi Hendrix posters


Bombay just makes me feel so much better about life.

There are clearly two kinds of people in the world for me – people who like Bombay and people who don’t.

I have no clue why the latter even stays in the city when they hate everything about it – The traffic, the rains, the crowds….

People who like Bombay however have a way of making their way around the twists and turns of the chaos.

I simple love the weird small things about Bombay – (Read more here and here)

• The look in everyone’s eyes – it varies from tired (in the local train) to lost (in traffic) to hope (while looking at the sea) to love (coochie cooing on Band stand rocks) to happy (when you buy the random book from a child at the traffic signal)
• There is so much emotion in every moment; most of us are busy criticizing the traffic to even notice that
• The fact that there is no distinction between proximity and space in this city
• More men than women stand outside Salman’s house hoping to catch a glimpse of his biceps.

I can’t wait to get back. It is difficult to live in this city – The rents are too steep, the slums sprawl at every nook and corner, commuting is a hassle.
But there is no other place where you can walk with a million people and yet be on your own.

Till I’m back..... my city, my love… Here’s to you!!

Cheers!!!!

Tu jaane na .....

Words that touched my heart and my soul... (to hear click here)

कैसे बताये क्यों तुझ को चाहें यारां बता न पाएं
बातें दिलों की देखो जो बाकी आखें तुझे समझाए
तू जाने ना, तू जाने ना

मिल के भी, हम ना मिले
तुमसे ना जाने क्यों
मीलों के है फासले
तुमसे ना जाने क्यों
अनजाने है सिलसिले
तुमसे ना जाने क्यों
सपने है पल्खों तलें
तुमसे ना जाने क्यों


निगाहों में देखो मेरी जो है बस गया
वो है मिलता तुमसे हुबहू
जाने तेरी आखें थी या बातें थी वजह
हुए तुम जो दिल की आरजू
तुम पास हो के भी
तुम आस हो के भी
एहसास हो के भी
अपने नहीं
ऐसे है हमको गिले
तुमसे ना जाने क्यों
मीलों के है फासले, तुमसे ना जाने क्यों

ख्यालों में लाखों बातें यूँ तो कह गया
बोला ना कुछ तेरे सामने
हुए न बेगाने भी तुम हो के और के
देखो तुम ना मेरे ही बने
अफ़सोस होता है
दिल भी यह रोता है
सपने संझोता है
पगला हुआ, सोचे यह
हम थे मिले उनसे ना जाने क्यों
मीलों के है फासले, तुम से न जाने क्यों.

Tusday musings - Drugged, random thoughs

In office on an idle Tuesday afternoon awaiting changes in layouts with a strong anti allergic in your blood, what do you do????

You pen down random, random, totally and utterly random thoughts….

Read on….

* I have the worst cold ever; all I can think of is hot chicken sweet corn soup. The kind in which lots of corn flour has been added and the egg looks like puke so you need to put lots and lots of soy sauce till the soup becomes black. Yes, that’s exactly what I am craving for.

*I am reading the Lost Symbol since a week and I can’t believe I have carried on a Dan Brown book for so long. It’s not a patch on The Da Vinci Code. He keeps repeating himself and goes on tangents that have no connection with the actual plot.Robert Langdon is weak. The sheer brilliance of him in the earlier books is gone. I think it’s the Tom Hanks effect; he was so lost in the film adaptations of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons that his lose acting skills have rubbed off on the character here.

*I absolutely love the new Limca jingle.(can’t help much as it plays on everyone’s computers all day) Not very fond of the ad though. The first one was a master piece. The playfulness and twang (my word for a naughty/emotional/playful blend) of the Sushma Reddy one lacks here but the music as usual sticks.

*I have 340 friends on facebook and I talk to none. It’s a pity, social networking is supposed to bring you closer but I don’t see that happening.
I love checking out my news feed – status, pictures and links. I don’t remember the last time anyone wrote on my wall or I did on theirs.
Pity, sigh. : (

*I highly recommend watching Inglorious Basterds. Tarintino just gets better and better with every film he makes.
Call me a sadist but I love the way in which he displays blood. There is always such ruthless, raw elegance in each frame where anything to do with murder and blood is concerned.
Simply beautiful.

*I am trying very hard to rise up and forgive the inglorious bastards I know but it is not happening.
How long does this process take?
The one that involves – mistrust, betrayal, hurt, anger, damage – anger, anger, anger, pain, hurt, pain – letting go, forgetting, moving on…..
I am still on stage one and the spiritual pep talks are not helping.

*Spiritual pep talks remind me of Deepak Chopra on twitter. The man can talk. He tweets every second. My twitter page is full of his tweets.
Honestly, I fail to understand most of them because he blabbers too much.

*I am very touched by some sweet messages about the blog. (esp. Z and J) I am glad to bring a change and provoke thoughts which have been whiling away in your heads. But People please comment on the blog – don’t mail me/ sms me or comment on gtalk.
Some of the small pleasures in my life include reading the comments on the blog page     ( :- D )


*The air is changing and I love this city during these months. I must admit though that I am over this place now and the time has come to move on but the weather is making it so much more bearable.

The avil effect is kicking in and I’m high. : )

Its time to check some layouts and go home to my bed and pillow and sleeeeeeeeeep just to later wake up to hot, steaming soup.

Aaaaah, the very simple pleasures of being ill. : )

So until more random thoughts,

Sniff, sniff, cough, cough !!!

Cheers!

The weekend chronicles

Crazy week and a crazier weekend. Have lost and gained so much this week. The new post had to be on eye openers.... read on ...

:) :) :) 

Weekend revelation 1

I sit across the table from an unassuming gentleman in a tiny, pink tiled room and while he blabbers incoherent words in an ancient language I try to focus my attention on the wall pasted with numerous pictures of God’s and Goddesses. The smell of incense is thick and overpowers the aroma of bhetki being cooked in the neighbouring house.

I feel almost surreal. The man is reading out my future as the ancients have written it.

At one point, I almost laugh out loud. I can’t help but notice the irony of his predictions coinciding with recent events. That makes me want to laugh and tell him to shut up. I go on listening though, hoping that something he says will give me hope.

He sums up the session by telling me this is my last birth and therefore the reason for all the troubles, I need to clear my karmic debt to everything and everyone.

After that it’s simple bliss. Moksha.

This happened yesterday. A quiet, long rickshaw ride later, I came home and tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

If someone spread out your entire life right in front of you in a mere sixty minutes, would you put up your hands and give in to destiny or would you fight and challenge it, simply to change it?

If this is my last birth and I don’t get another chance to experience and learn then I have wasted enough time.

There are still the Greek islands to discover, too much sushi left to eat, sky diving to be done......

Weekend revelation 2

There is not much you can do to ease pain. You need to let it sink in, slowly.

You need to wait for numbness to take over.

Things that make the heart ache are something like that too. You just have to believe, you have to see what stares at you with naked eyes. You have to let it engulf you till you are submerged in its powers and then you wait. You wait to forget. You wait for it to ebb.

Change happens in its due course. (Karmic debts I guess) and comes back a full cycle.

But sometimes what changes cannot be undone. Sometimes what you lose is lost forever.

Sometimes years of trust are broken in a brittle moment of truth.

Weekend revelation 3

Even if it’s momentarily, there is nothing that can’t be cured with a little Billo Rani and vodka.

I spent a couple of hours last night dancing on cheesy, cheap Hindi item numbers. Three vodka peg’s to forget that I am a horrible dancer.

Friends without any Karmic debts, just me and the stars..

Awesome.

Weekend revelation 3

As I write this, I am also watching qayamat se qayamat tak on TV.

In a weird, sort of crazy way watching this movie today makes me think of the past. The twenty seven years that have gone by.

This movie is eventful in a lot of ways – it is one of the first movies I watched on the big screen, the first time I fell in love (aamir khan) , the first time I cried for someone else (when they both die), the first time I thought of the concept of eternal love.

The weekend started with someone predicting the next thirty five years of my life and the weekend ends with a flashback.

I don’t have the guts to count what I have lost and what I have gained. I fear the losses might precede the gains.

So I let that be.

The past twenty seven years have been eventful, joyous, sad, happy all blended into one.

I suddenly realise that the astrologer hasn’t told me anything that I haven’t experienced.

The next thirty five are going to be eventful, joyous, sad and happy all blended into one.

I just might be smarter to live them with a smile.

Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla have just found abode in the middle of nowhere and they are happily singing a song....

I can’t help but fantasize about a similar situation. Eternal, crazy love, an abode in the middle of nowhere and fighting for who you love. Perfection.

And then soon after, the villains arrive and perfection dies.

A tear rolls down my cheek.... as always.

Remember cupcakes?

Remember when you were a child and a tray of freshly baked cupcakes was kept right in front of you. That moment when you looked at that tray and smelt the choco-cocoa, creamy, hot cakes was one where nothing else in the world mattered.

Everything you wanted and ever needed was right in front of your eyes. It was Hansel and Gretel in real life minus the witch. Everything after that would be happily ever after.

As grown-ups the cupcakes grew scantier and the often moments became once in a while.

Everything that was wanted and needed was not available on a tray, kept in front of your eyes to feast on.

You learnt to fight for a tiny piece, to cut ends for one single bite. You learnt to scram, save and struggle for your potion of happiness.

Cupcakes all of a sudden were compartmentalised. Cupcakes were not happiness on a tray anymore.

You needed to choose how big a bite of which cupcake you would eat.

And suddenly, you realised that you couldn't eat cupcakes anymore. Your body refused to take in anything remotely sugary.

Suddenly happily ever after seemed like a distant dream of hot, creamy cupcakes in a distant past.

Do you remember this happening to you?

The irony of love

Found this beautiful image on the net -

and then I found a longer version -

Happy New Day !!!

Inked, engraved and enlivened

Has it ever happened to you that you lose a part of yourself in the humdrum of life and then just like that, one fine day it all comes back. You are yourself all over again. Maybe for a moment or for a day but that feeling, the feeling of being whole again is the biggest high you can ever get.

Being impulsive, spontaneous and unplanned used to be natural for me.

Life and its expectations, me and my expectations from life, people, work, the stress of  always running late for work, heartbreaks and heartaches, the anxiety of becoming fat, the worry of failing, the sense of loss etc made me very guarded.

I don’t know when it exactly happened. That moment in which I trapped my carefree, artless, raw soul into walls I built for myself. I forgot that it was ok to be impulsive, to be free and to be myself.

My soul subjected to such torture, lay dormant. Too busy to even look at myself in the mirror I forgot about it being all alone behind deep, thick walls.

This whole deal of being guarded came with its perks; it made me feel old and made me anti-social.

None of this is my inherent nature but I played along

Fighting the world was enough; I didn’t have time to fight with myself.

This weekend after declining three invitations for dinners and parties, I was ready to sit at home, watch crappy Saturday night TV and aimlessly browse the internet. A friend kept insisting that I come and meet her and her boyfriend, whom I had never met. Having let her down so many times already I decided to make a short visit. One drink and I would get back home.

The conversation was interesting, I was drinking slowly and after meeting people I adore I was at ease.

My friend’s boyfriend happens to be a tattoo artist and the conversation obviously was revolving around that when I told him about the tattoo design I have been carrying around since forever but have never had the guts to get it done (it also happens to be significant in my to do before 30 list)

He came up with the idea of doing the tattoo right then. It was 1.30 in the morning. I was sane with only half a peg of whiskey and coke in my blood.

I have no idea what came over me, I don’t even remember thinking too much.

I agreed.

At 3.30 in the morning, I had my tattoo.

As each drop of ink pierced into my skin something else, somewhere evaporated.

Each prick of the needle pulled out a brick of the deep, thick wall and engraved my spirit that had suddenly woken up.

It wasn’t just about the tattoo or the symbol that means so much; it was about what the whole experience was doing to me.

Cho Ku Rei is a Reiki symbol. It indicates strength, power and energy with a direction.

What has always attracted me to this symbol is its meaning that all the energies of the universe reside at this point (where it is drawn)

People feel that it takes big events in life to wake one up from deep slumber. I believe that everyday there are moments which give you the choice to either wake up or lay dormant.

Impulsively, without much thought, getting the tattoo in the middle of the night, just like that was a moment for me.

A moment to wake up my soul and be alive again.

Tattoos always have a story and a reason behind them. My tattoo has given me a reason to look forward again.

With the universal energy engraved in me forever I doubt my soul will ever sleep again!

It is my new day, my happy new day.

And not to forget the tattoo -  immensely sexy! ;)

Note: The title credit for this post goes to my good friend A. I have read this as your status message since so long but Saturday night was an actual new day.

The credit for going through with this also goes to A and S, thanks for pushing me.

Miss Almost, Miss Maybe, Miss Halfway

 People who know me well know for a fact how difficult it is for me to stick on.
I can’t stick.
I can’t stick to a career or to a job.
I can’t stick to a city or to people.

A lot of people feel I have commitment issues. I feel I just like to experience.

God however is naughty.
I think He/She likes to play with the naughty ones.
Ones like us.

Does it happen to you that you are faced with choices just when you have made a decision?
Does it often happen that you have set your mind to do something and be right and suddenly out of no where temptation appears?
You take a step to eat that cake and realize that you are leaving millions of chocolates behind?

I have often pondered on why I can’t stick.
I see everyone around me comfortable, settled in lives they have either succumbed to or are trying to settle into. Most of my peers are getting married, having babies, going places with their jobs and living content (I hope so) lives.

I have been one of those who have always wanted more. The kinds, who suck from the straw till the last moment and make ugly noises just to get the last bit of the strawberry milkshake.

The ones who feel no job was ever made good enough to exploit their talents. They have so many talents that they discover a new one everyday and then forget where they started from.

I am sure there are quite a number of ‘ones’ like me.
‘Ones’ with whom God plays mean, fun and naughty games.
Restless, twitchy, forever seeking souls.

Faced with life changing decisions at the moment, I have suddenly been gifted options.
I can choose.
I have been given the gift to choose.

And suddenly, I don’t want it.
I like the limbo, I like the chase and I like the unknown.
I like being almost,
I like being maybe,
I like being halfway.

Note : This post is inspired by the lyrics of the song - Miss Halfway by Anya Marina check them out here