On needles

I had a panic attack today. 

I had a dentist's appointment to remove my wisdom teeth. It was all fine in my head, you know, the blood and gore aspect of it. I was not much bothered that my crazy phobia of needles would make its presence felt. But it did. 

I have always been scared of needles. I rarely go for a blood test without my mother, for support. Until not very long ago, there have been episodes of me running through the house with my dad chasing me with a tetanus shot. There was also the time I went all hysterical in a path lab and two nurses had to come and restrain me. These are all incidents in my 20s. 

But lately, after a bout of dengue which involved at least 12 blood tests in 5 days, I thought my fear was abating. Although, whenever they took my blood during the dengue phase, I was in bed and would hide under the covers and leave my arm out for them to take the blood. That was not difficult. 

Then, there was that time when I had to do a full medical for a job. Since my employer had these labs on the company panel where we were supposed to get the tests done, I had to go on my own, behave myself, and not do much but squirm as they took 4 vials of blood out of me. It was a proud day. 

Today was stupid. I went inside the clinic, and without ceremony was plonked on the chair. 
It is scary being in surgeries or interventions of any kind. You are the centre of everyone's attention. It is not easy being in the spotlight. All the idiotic inferiority complexes of you not being worth any attention creep in. Just leave me alone, you think. I am Ok in the sidelines. Don't look at me. There are other people to focus on. But no, it has to be you. You are asking for this. You are paying for it. 

I opened my mouth and stared into the light above my head. It said 'Gnatus'. That's Latin for jaw, I thought. Trying to distract by remembering old biology textbooks describing evolution. Agnatha, the jawless fish. 

The dentist checked my teeth with that mirror-thing they have. He said nothing. No remarks about the time it would take, no smiles, no harmless banter. The next thing I know, a big needle crosses my vision and he starts to put it into my mouth without any "This is going to hurt just a bit" stock statement. I shut my mouth and said no. Me, the spineless coward, I thought. 

I asked him to wait. I told him I was scared of needles and would need a moment to catch my breath. At the second attempt, after 10 seconds, I again froze. I was expecting some reassurance here. "You can do it Swapna. It'll be like an ant bite" or even, "It's just a matter of 10 minutes, you'll be fine". Nothing. Even after I said it was just the needle I was scared of, not the pain. He said point blank that he needed full cooperation of the patient and did not expect that in the present case, and the surgery could not be done. That made me feel smaller than I already was feeling. It is not easy having a phobia. You curse yourself for having it. And sometimes all you need is a little encouragement. None was coming. And then it started, the panic attack. All the sweating, the dizziness, the embarrassment of it all. 

Almost running, from the clinic I came straight home, with my impacted wisdom teeth intact, hugged my mom, and slept. 

I am all for being macho and tough and braving through pain. But empathy, and even sympathy, are underrated virtues. It does not harm to smile a bit to encourage someone, or say you are brave to someone who is shit scared. How else would anyone have done anything at all?

When someone writes what I want to write :P

Excerpt from "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn.

I bloody typed the whole thing out, I liked it so much. Story of our lives. (This excerpt, definitely not the book!)

"For several years I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism itself is derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I've seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or a TV show. A fucking commerical. You know the awful singsong of the blase: Seeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are most of us, who grew up with TV and movies, and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; if a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.

And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.

It had gotten to a point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.

I would have done anything to feel real again."

On forgetting

"You get to an age where the stories don't matter anymore, and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate, but there are no accidents either." -Simon van Booy

They don't matter anymore. The teacher who left you out of the annual day dance at the last minute, the people who hurt a 12-year old you, the friends who betrayed you to hang out with each other on friendship day, the boy who broke your 16-year old heart and the constant jibes over the years about your chubbiness. The stories you told endlessly to each new best friend you made. Now, except for the heart break one, none are repeated. And the heart-break story is repeated only for effect. Only to let others know your emotional range does not exclude unrequited love. The big sympathy (or psycho) card.

Time has moved on.

You are used to being on your own and immersing yourself in television mythology. And enjoying it more than actual human interaction. It's easier feeling someone else's pain, easy to get jealous of someone's steamy romance and easy to rack your brains figuring out the plot twist. You know your guesses won't affect the outcome. They are someone else's business. Your feeling the pain of a crying matriarch and envy of the budding office romance of a TV hunk, can be forgotten after the the 20-45 minutes run time. It should be forgotten. It is mandatory. Rules outside this mythos are not clear. Should you remember? Should you forget?

You see, you don't intend to, but you forget. You forget names, faces, feelings. You forget what your dead uncle looked like. And grandma becomes a hazy memory from some other lifetime. Old photos point to days and people you vaguely remember. And you realise you remember them more from the repeated viewings of the photo album than from the actual memory. Your face suffers the same fate. You know you are looking at the 2-year old you because you are told so. Scientists have proven this. Sometimes what you think happened never happened and memories are not foolproof. The brain changes constantly, and so do memories. The plasticity of memory, long term potentiation, neuroregeneration in hippocampus. But now I am digressing into the realm of neuroscience. Terms from another distant lifetime.

Remembering is not easy.

You repeat your experience over and over again to various friends, various family members till it turns into an anecdote, a story. Enough repetitions, and you start spouting stock phrases to tell it. Even more repetitions, it becomes fiction. It becomes something you narrate. Something you spent time creating and polishing. A story you perform. With the right emphasis, right sighs, right pauses. Meaning belongs to a previous universe.

You have to constantly create new ones.

A reflection on hate

I was walking down a crowded road the other evening. Groups of boys on bikes, or on feet kept passing by-busy chatting, laughing on their inside jokes and maybe scouting passing girls as potential girlfriends/wives. They were harmless. But the kind of hatred that sprung in my heart was not something I am used to. It was not harmless. "I will kill them even if they as much dared to pass a comment on any girl here." I fumed. My brain stewed in agonising details of the Delhi case. I was plotting how I would hit these boys who were, of course, going to molest someone. I shuddered after some 15 minutes of these thoughts. Not at how unsafe I felt, but what kind of an untrusting, violent being I had become.  
Punishment is essential for a crime, but extreme anger can turn us into beasts ourselves. Wishing death on anyone is never a healthy thought. Heinous crimes deserve no mercy but I wish there was some way in which we could protect ourselves as we meted out a death sentence. Or has the veil of civilization lifted and we no longer can expect that? Or has crime exposed a flaw within all of us, that as we punish, we must suffer. 

Grip

The land forced to yield to water for jungles of skyscrapers

with anodized windows and welded greed

minions of directionless forces slathering on cement

the minions dying for food and killing in the process

a hundred other dreams.

To breathe sometimes i run away from this land piled under concrete

i run to hide further, farther from the city

i run and find the brick kilns there

and the benzyl smell of cheap plastic

i run back into my town

The city finds me there

and builds buildings, flyovers and bridges

flooding sodium lights in my room.

my curtains recede leaving me bare

to the prying eyes of a window 3 inches away

i long for my childhood pastures

now under a million hungry feet. 

A rant

There is a switch which goes on in everyone's mind as soon as a single girl crosses 25. The light which the switching on of this switch generates, manages to pale every other finer feeling in comparison. You know what I mean, much like the sun's light obliterating every star's. So, I, who was once a "smart girl", "slightly obese girl", "the-one-who's-studying-neurobiology girl", "really funny girl", "a short tempered girl", "oh-so-ambitious girl", "the-one-who-writes-well girl" (ahem) is now reduced to only "not-yet-married-girl". This light, which this God-forsaken switch casts, manages to make sure all my other epithets are wiped off. Although, the negative ones pop out at times when they discuss why I am "not-married-yet".

So, I since I am "oh-so-ambitious", I decided that I needed to "study abroad". I chanced upon a really nice course and popped out to the United Kingdom as soon as I could. I led an extremely interesting year. A backpacking trip to Italy, bad scores on my assignments, night-outs which I don't remember, writer's block, enriching museums and conversations, a sprained ankle, being homeless for a while, staying with wonderful friends and horrible bouts of homesickness. The last few bits and the cold, cold weather made me come back as soon as I could. 

After getting back, I expected a hero's welcome (see that's where I went wrong, I should've expected a heroine's welcome). Anyway, point being, after being back to my native land, the only welcome I received was a standard question "So, when are you getting married now?". Imagine! No parties, no curiosity about my exploits in the First World, no "*wink *wink, how much did you drink?" questions. Just a cold, hard "When's the wedding now?" stare. 

For years, I had seen my cousin brothers returning to India to parties and special sessions where people made them talk for hours about life abroad. I mean, these guys kept going and coming back for years and each year there would be these "Oh my! He's back" parties. Ok, some of these guys did get asked "when's the wedding?", but that was only if he was past 30 and if he seemed effeminate. Otherwise, the "let the party (I am thinking of a bad word here) with the firang babes be on!" 

As I was saying, the singularity of thought of these numerous "aunties, uncles and others" amazes me. A good career, a house purchase, a car purchase, the existence of an enriching life for a single girl over 25 are not to be lauded or spoken about unless accompanied by the mention of a marriage date.

Me and so many of my friends are leading purposeful, productive and happy lives. Some of them are even married. Observing this and reading many other things I have come across so far have lead me to believe that humans strive to be happy. And when we are happy, single or married, we should be satisfied and celebrate that instead of basing our life's happiness on some random incident in the distant future which may or may not happen. 

I understand the importance of a good relationship or a marriage. But what I do not understand is this invalidation of my entire existence without the stamp of a husband. Incidentally, I happily exist. 

Find this reblogged here:

Post by Women's Web.

  

Statistics

I am being watched

By omnipresent eyes

Privacy is not the right of a woman.

Clothing is mentally stripped off by people on the road

Every rift, every curve analysed and objectified and priced

I might don a burkha

a naqab to curtain against stares

But I know, from their experience

It doesn't matter what I wear.

My brain too, is now being watched

By automated bots

Privacy is not in the net bargain I had.

My mind is dissected by advertisers

Every click, the questioning words I type and myriad worlds I enter

I am quizzed and sold products I won't care to buy

a policy stops nothing

Money can be made from voyeurism

I know, I am a statistic.

Mad poem: A traveller

See, I am landlocked in this seaside city.

I pass an airport on my daily commute.

And see the jet-set and the others plying in their fancy rides

Then exchanging them for more sophisticated ones in the air.

I have pictures of ships on my desktop.

And the tv series on a sea voyage I see. It has my current crush.

He's a tv star. In England.

I hang out at home with some tea and stale bread.

And at times, even order in a lot of fancy fare.

I watch movies made halfway across the world.

And the tv series, oh yes, the tv series they make.

The characters colourful enough to fuel any reverie.

I do not miss my friends.

I am living online a lot too.

Connected via my broadband to the information labyrinth.

I paint landscapes of a full life.

My laptop is filled with pictures.

I have travelled alone quite a bit.

There was Munich and Milan, Rome,

London, Edinburgh and more.

I have souvenirs. But no tickets for any further trip.

Title Lost

I am really a hundred years old or maybe young enough to see the world as it is . I am definitely not 26. I don't envision a bright future. I know it does not exist for anyone. The least I can hope for is a future which doesn't put me out of my comfort zone too often. I would just like to exist till it is time to go. I might become successful myself but for some reason I have always thought of success to be a term used for describing progress of, if not only my country, the whole mankind. But I realise, I can be successful in "comparison" to someone who is unsuccessful. My progress should not be the result of some inherent flaw in the social dealings of man. And so, success stops existing.

A deity stopped existing long ago. No one to look up to. We are all wrong if morals exist. Emotions don't exist; they are electromagnetic waves, they tell us. Love, another such wave. What's disturbing me is that I believe them; that is, if belief exists.

In a mostly non-existent world, what remains is some stray smiles, some useless instincts. I maintain, the neo cortex has spoiled much the essence of the animal man is. We are wearing a headgear of extra brain cells and we know what crowns are valued now. The queen is an excrescence. The Arab land is witnessing a spring. I am digressing. All I meant to say is I am tired. And so is the world.

Bows and ties

I am starting a story here. Will hopefully update weekly.

My story begins as most stories do nowadays; somewhere in the middle. A surprising event to hook the readers. Explanations follow. The beginning and the end hashed together.

I found a piece of ribbon on the floor. The one which is all satin. It's wide and red. I had not bought ribbons, not since I finished school. What was that piece doing there? Wrapping on something I bought? But I had barely enough money to eat most of the days. Gifts were few, only sent by my parents. The piece of ribbon gave me something to think about. I did not have much to think about most of the days either. I am imagining a break-in into my room. But why would anyone want to do that? I have nothing except a mattress, one saucepan, one griddle, 4 T-shirts, 1 remainder of a T-shirt, 2 pairs of jeans and 2 jackets. And of course, 3 sets of undergarments. And an old picture of me and my family. There is nothing much in there. And most of the people around this area know it. Where did this piece of ribbon come from?

I have been trying to find her for 4 years. I have today. I visited her house today. I got the address from one of her friends in the local supermarket. I got to know the friend by chance. I saw her walking with him near the railway station once. I saw him again one day at the supermarket till. I asked a few questions. It was her. I pretended to be a long lost school friend and got her address. The building was derelict, dirty and behind a smelly takeaway. It was 2 o'clock and I knew she worked then. I made my way to her floor as inconspicuously as possible and opened the door with my recently acquired knowledge of using a hairpin to pick locks. It was a basic lock. I opened it on my first attempt and was pretty proud of myself. The room was tiny and a mess. It was a living room-cum-bedroom-cum-kitchen and the bathroom was a hatch in the wall. There was some food on the stove. Clothes lying on the mattress and the floor. A bottle of shampoo near the bathroom door. And what I was looking for, the picture on the stool behind the door. It is confirmed then. It is her. I was overwhelmed at the realization. 11 years is a long time. I took out my pack of tissues and dried my eyes. I know where she is. Now to get the rest of the machinery in action. We could have her back by the end of this week. We need a plan.

Ribbon? I should just let it go. The pesky landlady might have opened the house; but, what would be the ribbon for? She's almost bald and dresses like a man. Hmm. I should just let this rest for a while. I will concentrate on the getting some sleep now. It's been a long hard day. There were too many customers today. Must be a good day for hardware and a bad one for my fingers. Got two cuts from the wrapping paper! I hope I get some bonus for today. Am hoping to buy a mobile phone. I would like talking to Danny more often. Not that anything is happening, you know, romantically, but he reminds me that I have college degrees. That feels nice.

Soon enough

Dear Friend,

I hope you are doing well. I hope you are getting all you need and all you want too.

I am sitting outside of my current house, in the backyard, and it's a little chilly. The rain Gods were at doing what they do best today and its wetness is dripping from the trees which border the yard. The drops on the washing lines seem frozen, sparkling from the light which I just put on.

It's been a dead day, if there was such a thing. Nothing seemed to happen, or happen right too for that matter. I missed an interview appointment because I FORGOT! That's no excuse, it's just pathetic. And I have nothing exciting happening which should've prevented me from remembering this detail.

The skies were greyish since morning. You know how much light affects my mood! That is one of the reasons I want to come back home, to India. The land of monsoon and the land of enjoying monsoon! Rain here is just depressing. It carries no romance the Indian monsoon does. The first rain, the smell of the quenched soil, the sudden greenery, the bhajias, the chai..... it has been romanticised enough by all. I need that. I need to feel Nature. We, in India, are so much in tune with the forces of nature. We are celebrate the arrival of each season, we depend on it for so many things. A poor rainfall means food shortage, an untimely one means no mangoes that year. Yellow-hot summers leave us begging for the rains and we wait, wait for the massive force of winds to unleash some upon us. Here, in UK, it's perpetual rain. The summers are short and celebrated only by rushing off to parks and beaches and wearing one layer of clothes. The winter comes soon enough and puts on two layers of cardigans and coats on you again. Then, you put on a heater in the house and live as if nothing has changed from the transition from summer to winter.

I have done just that staying here. Stayed the same. Done nothing radical. Worn my layers of fat and ennui and prayed for the summer to come and melt it off. It was never hot enough. My summer here required some changes to my Indian perceptions. It was hard to think of summer as a pleasant season. Back home, we dread it and wait for the moist monsoon and cool, dry winters. I had to reverse my psyche.

Anyway, like all here, I am just discussing weather. That's one reason I find the British (and I guess most Westerners) shallow. They will spend hours discussing weather but none would ask you the state of your affairs. Your joys and sorrows are your own to experience and you can tell them to a shrink. Thanks for being mine!

I will see you soon enough and thaw out in our land of perpetual summer.

Love,

Swapna.

Poems in the rainy afternoon

poems in the rainy afternoons.
drops not touching me.
falling from an ambition-less sky.
yoked by grey.
me in my solitude.
in the dryness of the house.
squeezing a poem out of the moment.

my sights are not set high.
just like the heavy cloud.
an ear to hear.
a sympathetic hand.
i can pour in shallow depth.

a paper-pen or keys on the board.
just soul preceding over medium.
i seek the poem.
and comment on my journey.
i never arrive.

Paper planes

Light and ridiculously blithe,
Paper planes in the classroom sky.

Scissor scores on the folds,
Clumsy fingers' prints of ink.

Messages in the seams,
Hieroglyphics of over-imaginative minds.

Surreal

I am obsessed with that word. It's comforting. My drug of choice.
I like taking holidays from reality.
Reality is confusing, lacks reason and is not satisfactory.
Unlike the control surrealism gives.
My laptop becomes my soulmate of no flesh and blood.
My windows turn into cinema screens.
The cursor is my fingertip gently cruising along a cold, steely skin.
The streetlights are my suns, shining without hydrogen, not blocked by any clouds from reality.
The Pangea forms again, and home is on the next street.

Wings

I am at many places at once. I live in a room with no great view currently except for the sliver of an old pub, scrawny rose bushes below my window and two dull green trailer boxes stacked up in front of it. I have another window, to use the cliche, this one.

I exist in India, Germany and US through this. I have the times put up on my screen. It's 19.33 and 15.04 now. At the same time. I feel like in some kind of continuous motion back and forth through time-space. One moment I am at lunch, the next, having breakfast.

Just before I wake up every morning I think I am in my bed. I wake up and realize this is a rental. My waking moments are filled with regrets and longing for familiarity. After making my self go through the motions of cleaning myself up, I get acclimatized to the here and now. Only to put on the computer and sink into the grey area between there and here.

I have travelled quite a lot in my country. Gone for journeys which have taken me a thousand kilometres away. But I never felt like this. I can picture the globe when I am trying to place myself. It's like a GPS zooming out and going westward from my home every time I try to find out where I am. It always tells me how far I have moved. I never gave much thought to physical distance, now I can feel every inch which has been put between me and home. Anything south and east will be like the direction of my Mecca. I bow my head in reverence and realize, I am lucky to have roots and now sprouting wings too.

Rambling

I sit in a white-washed building. There are no windows. There are password-protected doors giving access to a few. The air is conditioned, pumped inside spending loads of electricity. A gentle breeze might be blowing outside.
There are a thousand tube-lights. They illuminate and put everything into a spotlight. The sun shines brightly till evening. The ceiling hangs low. People move about suppressing spontaneous laughter. Business-like, busy.
Thousands swarm into these precincts every morning. A human ant colony. Working on set instructions, following rules.
Where do we draw the line? Human instinct or pursuit of something higher, less tangible, more ethereal. Do I need the support of cold, hard-earned paper money or the joy of doing what I like? Can these spheres intersect? Should they?
Why do I feel like I wrong people who, along with me now, are a part of this worker-ant-like colony? I look at them condescendingly sometimes. Sometimes, I just envy their happiness in the materialistic. And wish I was never this ambitious. I wish I could belong.
The metrics, the statistics, I am a part of, demean me. They cast their all-pervading shadows on my uniqueness. My sense of my own indispensability. I will struggle to break through. I hope to win. I don't know what I will lose. Hope the spoils are satisfying enough, if not, I will have my peace of mind, I tried.

Uphill

[again, an old one :P]

We started early. My over-enthusiastic sister hauled me out of bed. I woke up and peered through the window hoping for overpowering rain.

“We are late. We are so late!” Shweta kept on her scolding ramble as she tried to hurry me. I cared a damn.

There were eight of us, fitted in two cars. Dressed in comfort-wear, we tried a few stretches before we got into the cars. On our way, we stopped to parcel some vada-pavs as breakfast.

“I want five of ‘em.” That was Tanvi. “ What? Don’t stare at me, I need to treat myself after all that exercise!”

The rest of us- Shweta, Niket, Shamika, Mandar, Manish, Kedar and me- settled for two each. With the steaming vada-pavs in our knapsacks, we sped on to the base of the mountain. All the way, I was hoping for a massive traffic jam, which would send us back home.

After the cars were safely put in the parking zone, we obtained our entry passes- to climb. I kept hoping for a “No entry on Sundays” sign to pop up from somewhere.

The weather was horrible. It had rained the night before and the whole of yesterday. But now, it has stopped. Summer was trying to overwhelm monsoon and the humidity was making us sweat rivers.

The climb started as soon as we crossed the gates. There was no prelude of a lazy walk through woods. Sticky, gooey mud covered much of the path. The mountain was steep. There were mud-coated stones and boulders everywhere. Scattered like after a landslide, slanting along. Strange buzzing mosquitoes and dragonflies ruled the air. Mounds of mud on the ground were teeming anthills. Dense foliage overhead made the atmosphere hotter and steamier.

At the point of a rivulet-crossing, my sneaker-clad foot stepped into the water. (Eww!) My overweight flesh and lazy bones were definitely not a big help for limbering upwards. I was panting like an asthmatic. Left behind by everyone, I was cursing myself for having come. I guess I kept on trudging only to avoid the ridicule of my friends if I did not.

It was some 30 minutes onto the mountain when I saw that these guys had stopped at a ledge. The canopy of trees was absent at this spot. The sun had reluctantly buried itself in woolly blankets of grey. The light that resulted made the world seem surreal.

“I cannot. I will not go ahead!” Shamika had a shrill voice. Her anemic skin was glowing pearl white in the surreal light making her seem like a wailing zombie.

“Thank God!” I thought. “Now I can go back with her!” I did a mental “Whooppee!!” But…I joined everyone in reasoning with her why she should go ahead. Unfortunately, she complied.

“How much time more?” I asked Mandar who had been on this trek before.

“Till we reach there….” He pointed to a black stone fort, far far away. “About 15 minutes more.”

“Cool.”

Mandar had lied. It was already 20 minutes and I could see no signs of reaching the fort anytime soon. I was tired of breathing violently and my legs pleaded for a rest. I kept on walking.

Soon, we took a slight turn and found ourselves on a thin, narrow plateau. Here, the trees thinned out. I looked around. The neighbouring hills and mountains were crowned with dull white clouds. You could see for miles around. The hills sloped down gently into plains with paddy fields. Everything was green. Moss, leaf, sap, viridian, vulgar. Green. I tilted my head up. Grey clouds stared right into my face. A slight rain began.

I was suddenly ecstatic.The rain washed away sweat and mud. I put out my tongue to drink it all in.

The fort could be seen now. Veiled in grey and white wisps of vapour. I started forward. Onward.

The last leg of the trek was the toughest. But now, I was prepared. I wanted to go up there. Small stones gave way to huge boulders. Brown mud had disappeared leaving only glistening black basalt. Putting fingers in crevices and feet in gaps, I hauled myself up. We helped each other on the difficult parts. One slip could have lead to at least a month in the hospital. But, the journey was not scary anymore. The boulders were just a step to the summit. The adrenaline rush made it worthwhile.

The fort on the top was hammered by weather. Half walls of stone, cracked steps leading to nowhere and blades of grass everywhere the earth could allow. We found a small cliff which had its beginning at one of the black walls. It was a patch of soft green grass overlooking the steep mountain and offering another breath-taking view of the hills and clouds around.

I sat down and spread my palms on the wet earth. Grass blades caressed my hands. I felt more happier than I had been in a long time.

We then munched on our vada-pav breakfast. Everyone ravenous and fighting for the extra vada-pavs Tanvi had. The food was warm, spicy and filling. Contentment spread. Eight of us laughed, joked and sang till we were hoarse.

The descent was faster than the climb. The way was still splattered with stones and mud; now, more familial than repulsive. I smelt fresh scents of crushed grass and weeds and mud. Heard the gurgling, tinkling rivulets hurrying downward. Sunlight filtered through leaves on my arms and faces of friends and the adventurous path.

I reached home muddy, sweaty, tired and happy. Then, sped past my sister into the bathroom, peeled off my clothes and stepped into a hot shower. Relief surged through me. My mind relaxed and wandered to the task at hand. I had an exam coming up next month. A listless and faithless mind had prevented me from studying for it. I thought of the piles of books and papers towering on my study table. Now, no mountain is too high.

Crossed Roads

[another old one; luckily, stopped the gym-going 5 months back :)]

It was one of those dreary days when you curse the hour your great grandfather was born. Overcast, humid and with a 4.00pm, post-lunch gym appointment. Life can suck, and how! I dragged myself (duty over mind and matter) and pushed my being into the huge red tin boxes which pass for as buses. It carried me as slowly as possible, not missing any potholes, to my dreaded destination. The grueling 40 minutes of the bus left me with a dust-caked face and a runny nose (my allergy to particles floating in the air). As I moved ahead with the small crowd, a small mite of a girl, came up to me and asked me if I could help her cross the road ‘cause her tution classes were on the other side. She had sharp cut hair, framing her face in a square, pierced nose and shiny skin. She had worn a loose salwar kameez which hung on her bones and billowed in the air. She had a rectangular backpack. I said “hmmm.” And we walked to the crossing. I reached for her hand and at the same moment, by some deep seated human instinct, she put her tiny hand into my palm. We waited for the vehicles to pass. Me awkwardly holding her hand, she confidently grasping mine. We crossed the road and the tiny hand slipped away before I knew it. She quietly walked away in haughty tip-toes, then, prancing, as only a child can. I smiled, as only an adult can, with regret for my own lost childhood; and remembering the pressing matters at hand now. I went to gym.

City Lights

(An old one really; posting it now)

Gel Electrophoresis, protein structure elucidation softwares, nitro-cellulose strips, references, coffee, guffaws. Then get into the car and get home. After she got home, there was the usual channel surfing. Then the long debate with self of “what-to-cook”, ending with a 2-hour adventure in the kitchen. Smell, measure, cut, mix, heat, taste. Cooking for her was pure passion, unlike her job. She would spend hours in the kitchen deciphering the kind of alchemy that set aside a tomato salad from tomato gravy. This journey satiated her more than eating the food. Food just found its way into the mouth somehow, when eyes were wrapped with TV and ears glued to some music. Once the food found its way to the gut, came the real bites. Gnaws in ears to hear familiar voices, not just familiar noises.

And then, sometimes she would sit by the telephone and try the numbers of some ten people; for work, for self. She felt herself intruding privacy when she heard the sounds coming from the other end of the call. Disturbing their routines, upsetting their chores. She knew their reassurances that it was not so, were genuine, but then….

Sometimes, she just sat at her wide window, looking down at the city lights. Yellow, red, orange, neon. And fell asleep wondering why they never burn out before sunrise. Why there was never complete darkness. Cursing the lit-up, smoky, city sky.

The sun seldom failed to wake her up. A few stray birds would dutifully chirp at her window too. That morning, she woke up before the sun did and waited at her seat till he did, wondering what else she could do. It was her birthday. It pained to think that she had not received any of the customary midnight birthday calls. She heaved a loud sigh and moved on in her daily act of getting ready. As she drove to work later, she forcibly hummed with the radio. She wished someone would call her.

Once in the institute, she followed the regular trail- up two flights, turn right, get in the fourth door to the left. As she turned right, she noticed that the glass paneled doors were not emanating light as everyday. Fearing a power breakdown, she pushed open the door. Suddenly, lights flooded the lab and people swooped on her hugging and singing “Happy Birthday”. A cake was wheeled in on a lab trolley and was ceremoniously cut. They gave her kisses, wishes, cards and a T-shirt.

Later, as she was leaving the lab, a call from her mom instructed her to come directly to Hotel Renaissance. Family, friends had all gathered. It was a grand party. Food, drink and bunting flew all around. A smile would not leave her face. The celebration lasted long and she hugged everyone before breaking out. Gift-laden and a little tipsy, she sat in the car with the last coffee shot her sister forced in her hand. The car started with a slight jerk and she cruised on. As she climbed in the lift, the alcohol had begun to wear off. Happiness faded away under the stark loneliness of her flat. She put on the new CD her parents had gifted. Took up the book her sister had given and curled up at her favourite seat by the window. Her eyes watching the city lights and wondering why they never burn out before sunrise.

Encroachment

The black grille of my window cuts the whitish-blue sky and its soft, cottony clouds into triangles and rectangles. Airplanes, steely, glinting in the sun, pass these co-ordinates. An occasional black crow zooms by.
My window used to usher in a jamun tree into my bedroom. Its branches bent with unripe and ripe jamuns in summer. We spent many a summer afternoon reaching out and plucking these fruits, filling baskets. The tree sprouted new purple leaves in monsoon which turned green during the year. This monsoon, there are only sepulcharal branches. The tree is picked to its bones by our housing society. Punished for dropping dead leaves and ripe fruit in the compound. The middle branches were cut. The lonely leaves at the top tried in vain to nourish roots 30 feet below. They dropped, exhausted. The spectre is white now; visited by some squirrel on her travels. The birds who nested here have abandoned it for spaces in concrete. Who is encroaching whom?