Hazy

Roll up in your woollies and
walk down a winter's evening with
a song and an ice-cream moustache.
Let the chill sleep on your nose, twitch
it only when you are thinking.
Pull down your sleeves till your fingers are just
woolly paws with which you can twist
your Fiama ponytail. Feel a little giggly when they look
strangely at the cone in your hand, how would they ever
understand?
Brisk steps to nowhere,
amuse a skinny puppy along
that pavement with biscuits and fake mews. Then may be
stand somewhere
in the middle, catch a
leaf and a smile. And
on your way back home, when you pass the
Phuchka-kaku, don't stop.
You still haven't figured out what to do with all
that imli-water.


"if I forgot who I am, would you please
remind me?"

Secret

'once broken,
 always beautiful' ,


said the mirror to the music.



'yara tere sadke/ ishq sikha
main toh ayi jag taj ke/ ishq sikha'

Scrabble

You scoop up shells
and thoughts
from the sandy waters that
he no longer cries into.

You zip all your pretty words
into the blue rucksack
now too old to carry his laughter
to the fields.


Why did they tell you
you have a way with words?

You have a way with words only
when you give them away.
You have a way with words only when he walks them home. Or
leaves them behind on the tongue-tied scrabble board.
You have a way with words but



he knows your way by heart.

Cover

It'd be my favourite time of the year and

He'd be dressed in his January-best.

We would be old enough to pick any pretty restaurant

we liked and I would have my hair tied back
in that old messy pony, the hazy smell of a winter-night
lingering around my wrist.

He would lean over and ask me something, I would

look up and say something nice.
So far it'd be all-things-my-favourite,
so far

he'd get everything right.

Then when the music starts to waft down
the shadow-lit hall,
I would not bother correcting him.

Perhaps I would have, had I remembered to record your low-sung cover
from all those winters back.

'...She can't remember the time, when she felt needed/ 

if love was red, she was colour blind...'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCm6gRHINqA

Saturdays and Such

There's something particularly strange about Saturday afternoons,
something that makes you want to find yourself in a particularly quiet
corner of Starmark, with a particularly lazy song on. May be even be surprise-treated to a  particularly favourite meal out of the Selimpur Dominoes by no-one-in-particular.
All that, without particularly going out of your house.

I could go on and on about this one, but then I am not
particularly bored.

O (my) Malley

"Isn't it the same with all men"?
"No, to some men their family is everything"
"And, these men..you, know them?"
"Yes. I know one of them.."


I'm glad  Grey's Anatomy finally caught up with me.
It's the way I used to be about Bones all those years back - Google-ing out every little background score,
writing down every other dialogue that stirs something within. Waiting for 10 pm like my life depends on it!
And then there's George O'Malley to make things better:)
Honestly, I do not get the brouhaha over McSteamy. I mean, that guy looks like the love child of
Brad Pitt and Betty-the-Bull-Dog :|
McDreamy has his charms allright, but I don't think much of his character in general - wayyy too wrapped up in his own..err, dreamy-ness, if you ask me :P
O'Malley, on the other hand,
is all that that guy was supposed to be  - warm, goofy, unassuming.. adorably unaware of his obvious aww-inducing element. Georgie is man enough to be sensitive (in an unapologetic way),
and occasionally, sensible.

'You were a good kid Georgie..always so sensitive..I'm sorry you  had to grow up feeling different from us all' ..
*siigh*

They just don't make O'Malleys outside Seattle Grace, do they?
 :(

Cursive

Riyaa...?

Riyuuu ? Raka?

The strangest thing was happening to Mrs Roy Choudhury as she sat in the shiny-tiles lobby of the insurance office, checking

with her husband's umpteenth policies that were now supposed to get her by.

For no good reason, She was trying to recall her nickname - you know, that

often funny, always  pointless, quarter-of-a- name

that our close ones insist on calling us by, despite the fact that we have a perfectly spellable ,

fairly whole name anyway. That sort of thing,

Mrs Roy Choudhury was struggling to recall.

For no good reason, she could not.

She was positive it began with the same 'R' that opened her own name.

Or was that her surname? Mrs Roy Choudhury tried and she tried some

more, but for the love of life, she could not

recall.

'Maa'm, this is where you sign..here'

With a confused jolt, Mrs Roy Choudhury found her way back to the roller-tip pen that had somehow gotten between her fingers.

Slowly, she

traced the cursive loops of the surname that she had been bestfriends with for the last seventeen years.

Roy Choudhury -

'Is that all? Do I need to sign anywhere else?' she asked with uncharacteristic deftness.

' That would be all for now Maa'm' , the young agent smiled sympathetically.

Slowly,

Mrs Roy Choudhury got up to leave for a home where the other half of her surname no longer waited

for her to return.

It was still her home though.

And it was still her surname. But, honestly,

what was that funny name they called her by in school ?????

For the love of life, she could not

remember.

'Yuhin, pehlu mein baithe rahon..

aaaj jaane ki..zidd na karo...'

Fraying Still

We all would have given up somewhere in between,
if not for the replay button on our MP3s.

'and I would have stayed up with you all night/ had
I known how to save a life..'
:)

2012

I learnt a little Math.
:O
Twenty Twelve.
:D

Vanilla Clock

My fingers still smell of vanilla! That's the best part!
Besides the part where you get to crack the egg like you are
a surgeon making a heart-tear. (No, honestly, egg-cracking is the most underrated art ever. There is something oddly satisfying about getting it just right.)And the part where you lazy-whisk it while
watching tv. Or rough-whisk it while watching tv. And the part where you finally dip your hands into the deepest layers of the by-now-gooey batter and then lovingly, violently tickle it! Not to forget when the gorgeous cocoa sprinkles turn the flour-yolk-butter-sugar-milk-vanilla-thingy a lovely light brown! Or when you place your batter-bowl inside that yellow-warm micro and shut the mini-door with a spirited smack.
I would have been sitting right in front of the micro at the moment,but
Ma reckons those evil rays from the machine might
dumb me down or something. *rolls eyes dumbly :P*
Baking's always such good fun. But I was only half-right about the best part thing. The best part,
is the forty-five minutes of vanilla-whiffed wait.
This, is the best part.



I hope it is a round little cake:)

Forever and for Always

I had nearly forgotten how much I adored those old cassettes from... backintime.
They don't make cassettes anymore. It's all a click or a share away, all the good/bad/debatable music you ever wanted to listen to. Cassettes are essentially like our grandparents I suppose - you know, the last of the living witnesses to the epic-ness of a World War II or a Satyajit Ray... a bumbling, awkward memory of that kind of grandness that is the thing of lazy-noon stories today.
I was cleaning out one of my less-sociable shelves,and the good(literally)old(literally) fellows
just stumbled over into my hands, at once making them dusty and happy!
It had been so long since I had held them, or even seen them, it was almost like the whole *first time* fondness all over again! You know,when you've just brought it home from the ever-enchanting G55-store at Dakshinapan,when you know it's about to be wrapped up in cute blue papers for your birthday the next day, when you are so impatient to check out the songs that you refuse to sit still till it is in the stereo,that kind of instant, unshakable fondness. The ashen layers time that had accumulated on top of their still-as-pretty glass covers were at once a reminder of their age and their agelessness. It was a strange strange thing.
Browsing through, I came across a Toybox ('Tarzan is handsome,Tarzan is strong /he is very cute and his hair is long! :P), one Aqua (Dr Jones probably still hasn't picked up the phone, ha ha)
Nursery Rhyme Hour by Preetie Sagar (apparently this was a lunch-hour ritual after returning home from Humpty Dumpty - my funny-named prep school), Celine Dion - A New Day Has Come,  one MLTR, a couple of Shania Twains, one particularly damaged Backstreet Boys, Taal, Atif Aslam:Doorie, Kaho Naa Pyar Hain (stop staring at me already) and of course, the cult, Titanic. I was sure I had a Westlife somewhere, but it was not to be seen.
Looking back, that was probably the time when we didn't bother to judge the music we listened to. We just listened to them in good faith (and some madness)
But that was then. Now we have learnt of genres and sub genres vowed our allegiance to our choice of bands. Now we won't be caught dead tapping our feet to a pepsi-pop number, no matter how groovy it happens to be. No, that is just not cool enough.
After half and hour of dust-cough and dilemma, I somehow decided against wiping the grayness off those covers. One by one, I put my old friends back into their musty dark jam-room where they can be themselves for a few more years to come.
Somethings should get to stay as they are.
'Cause I'm keeping you forever and for always..' she had said.

Well,
Almost always :)

Cold Quill

Graft it on your skin then. Drill it in, till
the Tea Party settles down right at the pit. Then
just forget about it. Or may be even














forget about it.

One-seventh of a Sweater

'Aree hoy blazer ta khule feyl noito
pull down the skirt! Mone hochhe tui khali blazer pore,
ha ha ha ha! '

'Kintu blazer khulle thanda lagbe toh'

'Tahole skirt ta namie ne?'

'Na motei na. Only Krittika Guha (*name changed)
type people wear orom long-long skirts beginning from their diaphragm.
Ami blazer tai khule ni.'

'Tui already kaapchish!! Ei take my sweater. I'm not cold. Ne. Uff.'

'Na na, then you'll catch a cold and aunty amae bokbe.' ( shivers a little)

'Arre naa amar lagchee na thanda, onnnnnn god. Ne tui!'

'Thanks :)'

'Kaeda kore sweater na kine blazer ken aro!'

'Are blazer ta e *courage to know* ta golden e stitch kora! Pretty laglo. Tai.'

'Tui na seriously khub neka!'

'Hehehe, jani. Tiffin e ki enechish?'

'Chocos. Tui?'

'Ei AMIO chocos! Chol share kori!'




Today,
these two girls caught a three-second glimpse of each other across a particularly crowded city crossing,
roughly seven winters after they shared this strange conversation.
Winters are always so strange.

This-gruntled :/

*note to self* -> I HATE TERM PAPERS
like I love John Foreman.
:|
No, really.

Let Go

Take away my lamp-green winter and

I'll give you poetry.

'It's alright, cause 

there's beauty in the 

breakdown - '

Passage

And now
faith is a stranger's face at a tram window.
Always at a safe distance.
Passing.
Slowly.


Surely.

Aircrash

: Are you trying to woo me again?

: I'm trying to write.

: stop trying to woo me!

:You want me to stop writing?

: Don't you stop writing!

: But I was trying to woo you, you know?

:Yeah. Oi.
Write something new today?

Tung Tang

Brishti tui
tung tang, raat jege
bhul bhaal,
cheshta kore geli / Ar

amar shaanto-chokhe,
lokkhi-ghum
ektu rege gelo


Brishti tui
tung tang, raat jege
bhul bhaal,
cheshta kore geli?


Brishti tui amar chokhe,
ghumer cheyeo bhalo.
:)

Little Glass Bottles

Little glass bottles gather dust.
On their lap, a tiny rubble of white sugar balls lie still.
Months of un-use,
and you can almost expect the sweet ovals to break into a sticky sweat against the
waiting glass walls.
The mark of touchlessness shows the deepest,
and the little glass bottles don't escape it either.
I don't quite speak the language of little glass bottles but perhaps
they want to roll around inside giant school bags, clinking
against each other as you carry them around those Southern streets and then secretly,
to your little room. Perhaps they still
want to be that little form of powerless love that you reach for,
when a sudden cold or an ache
bully your toothy smile at the end of a roguish day. Perhaps they did get
used to your confused label-reading after all..a pretty pair of tired eyes,
squinting hard to tell apart a swell from a sneeze - I see how that can be the cutest goof ever:)
People, when left alone, come up with the strangest of things.
The little glass bottles just said something pretty strange too.
Of course, I don't really speak the language of little glass bottles, but
I think they said they are willing
to gather dust
forever.The tiny white sugar balls are okay with melting away in sleep, you
see?
For I could be wrong, but I think they finally trust you
to fight off the cold or the ache with just
that toothy smile of yours.


'Kuch aetbaar kia, kuch naa-aetbaar kia,
Wo bekarar rahein jisne
bekarar kia ..'

Boneless Chick-eh

It just hit me.
If  it gets any more dark and broody in here,
I'd need  to design a separate sob-section to this baby :/
I gotto stop doing an Enrique all the time, you know? :p
Wit,
or Wit-out?
 
*cue, thinking-face*


Also,
Who broke the funny bone?

Who, hoo hoo, hoo? :| :/

okaytatabyenow

:P

Inkling

You are only starting to loathe your scribbles because I am

beginning to 

be them.

BRB

Take me to the drowning afternoon dotted with water-tanned
ferrys.
Take me to the smiling phuchka-Buro from a hundred winters back.
Take me to the bustling tiles over the balloon-shaded parking lot.
Take me to the chillah-wala.
Take me to the ice-cone-man who has only
brushed wet red on sweet-ice crushes all his life.
Take me to the railing you fell off from.
Take me to the jheel you twirled me by.
Take me to the movie we never went to.
Take me to the stairs you found love on.
Take me to the day I scolded you for too long.
Take me to the cold green lamp where
kids tug at grass and smiles. Take me there.
Leave me there.


'Tui ja, tui jaa. 
Ami aschhi.'

Probability

You feel like you had fallen asleep with your head on the scolding river-bed rocks.
Water over you.
Water within you.
Weeds around your ankles and an old
white pebble clutched in your creasing fingers.
Decades of comatose Time has washed over you,
swallowing every inch of your human skin. Stirring, selecting
scalpel-ing  every
mililitre of your human memory. Now with the water over and
the water within, they have all dissolved - the sunsets and the silver and the
socks. They have all dissolved into memories
of memories.
Perhaps you are a memory.
Perhaps you are water. Perhaps
you are memory doused in cold river-water.
Perhaps you are.
Perhaps.

The Clock and her Commitment Issues

If you could have loved Time as
nakedly as I
did, between the two of us
clocks would have cracked open
into
screws and
bolts and
kisses

I Want to Worry

I want to worry.

I want to worry about the five minute-late call that would happen in ten more minutes, exactly.

I want to worry about the big black bag weighing you down when you walk towards your closest friends.

I want to worry about the red peels off the metallic paint of your soon-to-be-ugly-pink Manchester lighter.

I want to worry about the saltiness of your lost-match sweat 'ruining' my purple kurti.

I want to worry about the man  at the corner table violating our quiet-breath moment with his careless gaze.

I want to worry about the Phuchka-kaku refusing to give us an extra 'Phau'.

I want to worry about the skinny puppy not returning your bright-eyed love.

I want to worry about Mishti-Paan-Man not getting our green-roll just-right.

I want to worry about that extra tea-spoon of vanilla essence I might have slipped into your February-cake dough.
I want to worry about not finding enough small coins in your pockets when our Laathi-dida comes around, smiling.
I want to worry about you finishing off the munchies from your secret-stash before we are rich-again.

I want to worry about stupid things.

I want to worry about useless,happy things.

I want to worry. I don't want to worry
about never seeing your face

light up again -

Why I am a Number and That's Not Good News

I still run from Maths.
But of course, now there's no skirting around the fact
that I am one of those Godawful 'problem's my kind spend their childhoods
running from. Worse, on a particularly pro-division day, I may also become the 'result' to that brain-belittling problem. Yes, Irony is Life's personal aphrodisiac.
On those days, I feel
alarmingly like a number. A fucking odd number with multiple multiples breathing down it's neck! Blah. So much for being the perfect math-retard.


Yes there is finally no skirting around the fact that I am a number.
But if it makes any difference at all, I am not just any number. I am

the sum of all your Tazos and your troubles.
the sum of your Ghazals and your indifference.
the sum of your Accent and your quite.
I am
(WinterYou + SpringYou), I am
(Youasyouwere) + (Youasyouwouldneverbe)
I am you and you and you over and over and
over again, 
as and as and
as I received you on
each of those numbered
grassy days,
okay?
I am an odd number.
Because you are an odd lover.
I am not your friend.
I am
you.

(Now I am you and you are
running.
I was so harsh on numbers.
I was so harsh on numbers.)

Mary

Mary,
welcome home. I won't ask you about the journey -I'm way too tired to hear about journeys or handmade cards, I,
hope that's okay. You'll find I have left the keys under the (once)secret shaft. If you don't find it there, it'd probably be around that red cactus tub on the landing. Yes, the flowers are quite pretty, no? Just don't get too close. (But you obviously will. Just wanted to say something..wise and ineffectual, haha.)

Once you're in, feel free to sing, weep, dance, sleep.. just suit yourself, see? It is, after all, your new home.
Only don't write in there. Really. Please?
These windows were not always blue, Mary. That was me, some eight hundred autumns back. That was me being a dodo. That was me being at home.
But like I said, that was some eight hundred autumns back, so don't you worry. You do one thing, paint
the windows red. Or paint them grey.
Paint them any fucking colour. But blues are bad news, okay? and then there's that uncold fridge you have to keep checking on.
If you like you meals cold, like me,whisper a few tender words to that moron of a machine. It will turn cold enough. Then there's the creaky stair-step. Sixth from the last. Ignore it, don't try to fix it..
It has a sighless voice. Yes,
terrible, isn't it?
And.. and.. and..of course, the bedroom carpet.
Cigarette holes. Like black holes, almost.
Almost.
Threads. Soft brown threads,
tangled up in each other's unfaithfulness . And
wayyyyy too many
Spill marks. Biriyani wala Raita, fake Tabasco, Strawberry icecream. That's
my bedroom carpet. Your
bedroom carpet now.
Mary, there's writing on the restroom walls. Use one of those extra large sponges that
they use in the Asian Piants Ads and you'll be good. I'll be
good. It's good that you are home now, Mary. Your's
is a nice home -
brilliant. lazy. destroying. peaceful.
But mostly nice. So.
That's it then. You are already here.
I'm already gone. I have told you all that I wouldn't have, and I
don't know why. Mary,
you are home now. Be comfortable. Be happy. Just, be, and all that
jazz. But Mary, when you step out to buy a bottle of old Port this evening, I'll be on a deep blue bus and praying. Praying that you never find your way back home. My
home.
Keys and Curses,
Usually Good Girl.




"I don't know how..nobody told you.."
                                                                                                                                 
         

The Jarring of Me

Even in my sleep
the muscles are dull-aching.
A throb here. A
twitch there. I am
thinning, thinning down, even
in my sleep. Even in my sleep I
am stripping, stripping away, then I
am dissolving.
I would never touch this dream
tonight.

And tomorrow, you would
see to it that I sleep on
a dreamless pillow.

Green Light Night

Looks like it's just the two of us tonight,

Mr Fitzgerald. 

Coffee?

The Perks of Global Anesthesia

Paper cuts have their own 

alphabet system but

who's speaking?

Migraines have their  own

post-rock band but

who's recording?

With each dive of your

paintbrush-lashes, the moments

fall.

In soft cold twirls, like

crystals raining from a

swingless chandelier. But who's

who's

crying?

To Her Vagueness

You like to scribble around the margin and

across,

onto the old-wood desk.

You like to bruise the goose bump-skin of the waves

with the tip of your silver-ring toes.

You like to sit on top of a tree and

sleep.

You like to wind that pocket-watch to

4:34 and throw the

batteries into the bin.

You like to romance the sun-dial in your

heartbreaking fervour and quietly

slip into Hepatic Coma.

Someday I'm going to borrow some of your beautiful vagueness.

Someday.

When your man has left me all

vague.

Quicksand

It's only as gone as it was real.

If it was real.

That Place

Balloon-shaded Parking Lot.

Snow-cone man. 

Blue dye jhola.

Happy-cassette-shop-man.

Browns from the cake-boxes

sleep in a warm pile.

Twin Deo Cans.

Old-silver-shop-girl.

Gulaab Jamun Syrup. White fruit foam

lingers. Vanishes.

Glass-bangle-guy swears

you're the first. Cars honk.

Romeos hoot. The puppies must have moved

out of the gali.

Dangle the jute slippers from your fingertips

when you walk.

Walk. For

places don't remember love.

places don't remember goodbyes. But footsteps,

they remember.

Only Saying

But 

people are just moments 

that meet each other, and for a moment, 

turn each other into..

people.

Only Saying.

Non-Being

Words don't always get you there.

Sometimes words don't get you at all.

Is it getting last-train-late?

Trains don't jump tracks.

Are you losing track enough?

Enough with the Jester's jargon.

The Jester has been long exiled.

Have you been to the book-store?

Where have you been?

Do you think you have been?

Do you think?

Do you?

Don't.

Theory of Relativity

How cold.

How cold already.

Wildflowers and Envelopes-II (Heather Writes Back)

Rolling 'round in our fields of Oleanders and Suns. Two pairs of eyes adjusting to the nutjob vortex of purple and gold.

-anything Irish must have in it a blob of pretty and a fistful of crazy,

I  had said -

Especially Irish Summers ! -

I suppose you had laughed.You found me funny, David, but David,

you found me.

You see, I was already done with faces by the time you strayed in, but

when you laughed, when you laughed with me, it would bathe me in a song-like

peace:) 

Tell me,

do you still wear our June in your eyes, David? And o,

do you remember peace?

I  remember afternoons.

Gypsy-afternoons brimming with light, and throughout, this gypsy ached to brim with you.

But I would always fight you away - throw pebbles and copies and

questions at you till I ran out of

pebbles and copies and questions. And then you'd ask your careless breath to

linger on my wrist and I would stop running.

Did you see me stop running, David?

Sometimes, David, when the seasons underwhelm me?

I close my eyes and try to feel you running your hands through the cheap velvet of your drama-class costume!

 David you were Romeo, and I, 

I was by your side.

Remember how pretty the trees looked through the tinted cellophane

of those 3D glasses you stole from Ms Connolly's locker at school? You had always fancied Ms Connolly's teacher-curves, don't tell me you didn't!  God

I was so mad that you actually followed her to her locker! I swore I would never talk to you again. But.

What chance did I stand

against your June-filled eyes? Or that

stupid  Sorry-Note scribbled out in your wiggly-ant handwriting.

Some days? I wake up an hour early to trace the ageing skin of your cursive little

'S '.

Tell me,

what chance did I stand,

David?

David I don't hang those feathery dream-catchers by my bed anymore. May be that is

why I have such strange dreams, you know? In my dreams you are always

in that grey jacket that you should have outgrown ten Decembers

back. In my dreams, your are kissed on your cheeks by your toothless

little boy. In my dreams David, your long-haired woman stands with her back to us, as she stirs your

soul and your dinner.And I follow your wishful gaze to the delicate arch of her shoulders. David,

she is beautiful.

In my dreams, you break into sweet sweat just at the sight of her silhoutte, in my dreams you

call her Megan. Then

Megan, pretty Megan, calls out to you

with her back still turned, but

when she calls out to you, David, she calls out to you

 in my  voice!

I never sang quite as often as you

would beg me to. Is that why you gave her

my voice, David? Would you give her

our song too?

O David,

remember that rhyme about the kitten who wanted to mix up all the colours? One that Grammy would sing to us after that staple St Patrick's Day dinner at yours..? And  how she could never quite recall what the 'Colour-Kitten' came up with when he put Purple in Yellow and

Yellow in Purple? I have long since found out.

But you weren't there for me to run to. You weren't there for me to run to, with the soap from those half-washed dishes skating down my nose.

Do you still watch in wonder when some little girl twiches her button-nose, David? And o, do

you still hate reading sonnets?

It's been so long, David.

There have been wildflowers and there have been envelopes.

There have been dreams and there have been fevers.

But every year when the sun holds me by my ring-finger, I ache to let you know

what the kitten got when he mixed purple in yellow, and yellow in purple.

When there is purple in yellow, and yellow in purple,

David, there are -

Sorry-Notes that you sing to sleep. And O.

Pretty, crazy, Irish summers that span a lifetime!

:)