Current status

state of mind...energitic, positive and rearing to go
my body...is happy that i am giving it some respect. i just checked my weight and was horrified!
hooked to...Fifa '08
now reading...Khalid Hosseini's The Kite Runner
learning...to exercise self control
yearning to learn...the guitar (i'm still dying to lay my hands on one)
missing...going to totos
on a humming spree…with Rehab by Amy Winehouse
hate humming...O Jane Jaan by Aatif from Race (because I keep repeating the same lines)
latest favourite...movie- Lives Of the Others
high on...swimming
hung over...my conversation with Kajol yesterday
Hung over again...with the 10 movie DVDS i bought. Yay! And it includes Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist which I have been dying to watch. Yay!
I'm off...booze
favourite food right now...Veggie delite sub
enjoying drinking...orange juice & coffee sans sugar
accessory for the week...my cell phone for its new song list
thinking...how good I can make my life.
dreaming of...my trip to europe
waiting...for April 11 when I take off for the Himalayas
drooling...over the yummy chat I'm going to eat in Solapur at my favourite chatwala
excited about...my kashmir trip
waiting to meet...my cousins in Solapur (going to see them tomorow!)
tired of...the loud music our neighbouring chawl has been playing.
proud of...myself for maintaining strict health discipline for the past 5 days.
enlightenment quotient..."Ask and you shall recieve." "Knock and the door shall be opened."

The ride

I was taking in the cool waves flowing from the desert cooler on a hot summer afternoon. Aaji had retired into her room. Everyone else was taking a short nap. My mind though was wandering. There was a grey bicycle parked under the tin roof of the garage. I had been dying to ride it and I knew this was my chance. I hurried out, grabbing the key from the keyholder on the wall. I softly closed the door behind me. Even as I unlocked the cycle, there was one thought going on in my head. How will I shut this noisy main gate without making a sound? I had to try. I had to ride. I had just learned how to ride a bicycle and there was a whole new world waiting to be explored in this tiny town.
Every summer I was just cacooned in this place. I knew there was more to this town apart from Vidyanagar. Apart from the garden outside the house, the big ground located in the centre of the colony, maushai's house which was two blocks away, the sugarcane shop where we often went to cool ourselves in the killing heat and Baloo's shop. I never ever asked who Baloo really was? Or why his shop had no other name? But I had to ride beyond his shop now. And there were a lot more things I would love to find out, I thought. I somehow managed to keep the sound of the creeking gate down. Locked it behind me and before anyone could spot me sneeking out I rode out. The breeze was hot and I wished I hadn't got out in such heat. Nani always stopped us from playing outdoors in the afternoon. I used find it very annoying. If I didn't mind the heat, why did she? But now I wished I had listened to her. But soon the thought disappered from my head. I was riding the bike. The very same bike I had first learnt cycling on.
With all those thoughts in my head, I didn't even realise I was crossing Baloo's shop. I had ventured out of the familiar area now. I was free. The feeling was so good that I urged myself to paddle faster. Soon I approached the main road. I could see big vehicles driving down the road which was exactly at a right angle with the small road I was riding on. I was slightly apprehensive about whether I would be able to handle the traffic and the big highway. But somehow there was no fear. I was free after all- an explorer. Riding, feeling the breeze on my face. I took the highway and continued riding with zest. The sun was going down now and the breeze was stronger and cooler. I was smiling and going on and on. I don't remember how long I was riding, when suddenly it struck me that I had come too far. How will I get back home? I braked immediately. I took a right turn thinking that if I had taken a right turn earlier, taking another right could become a full circle and I could reach where I had started. But as I began riding, I became more and more scared as the place felt completly alien to me. Almost like a new town. And before I knew I had tears in my eyes. For the first time I had felt the fear of being lost. Something that was absent when I started my exploration. I had forgotten that explorers too need go back home at some point. The realisation has stayed with me. But that was exactly the point where I realised I knew the name of Nani's colony and I could easily ask around and find my way back. But my sense of direction was good and my instincts were taking me in the right direction. I realised that an explorer apart from a love from adventure, also needs to be careful and rely on his instincts. Before I could think further I was back in familiar territory. I was relieved to be back home. I thanked god a hundred times for being there with me when I needed him. I softly parked the bike in its place and entered the house.
But everything is transitory they say. I had been so glad when Nani had gifted me that very bicycle once I went in my seventh grade. Since the day I had set my eyes on it, I had this strange feeling that it belonged to me. It was the first bike I sat on and the one that taught me how it feels to be a rider. When I grew up a bit we had gone around the city promoting cycling too! But there was someone out there who needed it more than me- so much so that they could steal it from me. Last I had seen it leaning against the pillar in the parking of my building. A little rusted, a little less grey but still the same bike I first sat on.

Times

You wrap your hands around the steering wheel. Those thick short fingers with those bulging veins running down your sturdy hands. They take me to the black and white time. Your hands often shivered. As the light creeped in from the tall glass windows of your room, you picked up that audio cassette and shivered it into the music system. It's your favourite Yanni. I didn't know him then. But I always thought I knew you. You were so gentle, so shy and so scared of hurting me. The moments were so full yet empty. They are heavier to me now as I travel back from that black and white time. Young and restless were we. Now you drive and your hands don't shiver. Something's changed. But I talk and I listen. You remember so much. There was so much you didn't see and so much I didn't see. I know circumstances can blind us. The air is tender again but nowhere close to the time when you showed me your tiny pet turtle. You placed him on your palm and asked me to touch it. Today you send me a messages. Then there was just the old-fashioned phone but you picked it up too late. Saxophone was romance and you gave Kenny G to me. All actions run smoothly through my head but it's the conversations that are muted. Through all the years there were letters, rides in the rain, there was touch, music and play. But just tiny thin threads of muted conversations. As I caress your hands with my eyes, you ask me if you can hold my hand. I allow. I guess I am just making up for the broken conversations.

Me

At 15,
God: Always was and always has been, never can be created or destroyed, all that ever was, always will be, always moving into form, through form and out of form.

At 25,
Energy: Always was and always has been, never can be created or destroyed, all that ever was, always will be, always moving into form, through form and out of form.

I am an energy field just like this universe.

Lives of the Others

How much can a nation's political scenario affect anyone's personal life? if you think it hardly does, you need to catch this one.

and all one requires is one good man to be able to fight an interfering and almost dictatorial establishment. how much can creativity be curbed? How much can a painter or a writer or anyone else be stopped from making a political statement or doing his or her own thing? How much can an individual be stopped from voicing his opinion? If we don't stand up for what we believe in, on a public platform, our government can even monitor us in your own house! It's scary, but it drives you to think how important it is to do what you believe in. Who is the government to decide what you are supposed to believe in, stand for or talk about?

Most touching thing about Lives of the Others is the goodness of a disillusioned man. How far can you go to support what you think is right? Think. Thats what the film makes you do.

"It's for me."- is the last sentence. It deserves an applause.

One of the best films of our times, it is as relevant in our times as it was in the 1980s East Germany.

enigma

There is something about mystery. The knowledge that there is something out there undiscovered and unexplored, can lead you to unexpected places. The beauty of somethings is best when unexplained and unknown. Enigma is sensuous.

Each time she went to the station to bid him goodbye, she thought it could be the last time for a long long time to come. It could very well be the last time. But she hoped, against all odds that they would meet again, and that she would never have to say goodbye at the Railway station. She cried each time she saw him waving out to her from the window. This time too, there were tears in her eyes. She sent him a message but he didn't reply. Did he feel the way she did? Everything ended. And her worst fears came true. She knew, this time was the strongest she felt. She would never have to see him off again, because he would never come to meet her again. In that moment of pain she thought- he never did feel for me the way I did. And wiped a tear flowing down her cheek. There is no love anymore.

Am I two?

Do I know something more than I consciously know? Is there a doppelganger of sorts, from whose mistakes I learn? Are my decisions mine or are they formulated by someone else—a possible destiny or higher power? There is more than what meets the eye. Am I two?

The Double Life of Veronica or La double vie de Véronique is intriguing. It’s supernatural and mysterious. Music and cinematography, in fact, are the two strongest characters of the film apart from the two Veronicas.

It’s strange.

Your words caress the threads of my imagination in a way that almost everything that has touched it before seems to have dissolved into that one caress.
And it’s so overwhelming that you make me breathless.

Smooth as my breath.