Love me tender

In berry scents
and red candles
your hand wraps mine.
Tall twisted glasses
on the table, half filled
with Satori, my favourite red wine.

I, bathed
in creamy liquids,
anxious in the night,
and you wearing cologne.
We shine in black
through the temple light.

An odd couple
caught in a perfect time.
Away from the glare,
in an exotic room
with breath floating
in peach and strawberry air.

Love me tender,
love me sweet.
Elvis echoes my heart.
As you hold me close
and brush my lips
the night's just about to start.

Beyond you…

Since the split, life has been to say the least ‘eventful’.

Dreams—however small they might be – their fulfillment always makes us happy. The excitement that comes from longing for something is replaced by sheer joy and thrill of seeing it being fulfilled. I don’t know which one’s better though. Once you get what you dreamt about, the fulfillment becomes just a distinct, memory, etched in your mind. But it is all the time that you spent yearning for it to happen that remains with you.

It is only after you that I discovered that there was so much more I wanted from life. So much more I wanted to do, so much more I had to learn about life and myself, so much more I wanted to give myself, so much more I needed to explore, and so many little dreams I had to fulfill. I existed beyond the relationship. I knew it but never realised it. A cloud that wandered about looking for the perfect time to pour on the dry earth, never realizing that it was getting heavier by the day, denser by the moment and the moment to pour down was for the cloud to choose. And it all happened after you. And I began looking at life beyond you.

Friendship
I discovered a new role of an old friendship, the very next day of the split. A friendship I never gave a chance.

Touch
How i keep rediscovering the importance of touch! But this time it meant much more than ever before. A tender and loving hand on you makes a huge difference when you are lost or upset or sad or excited. And there is something about this touch. It makes me feel safe, secure and loved. It tells me that this world is not such a bad place after all. It’s a lovely place to be in. With it i have also discovered why every relationship can't be given a name. Some relationships are too different and too special to be given a tag.

Concert
Five days later, I witnessed the lights, music and a dream. I had been dying to attend a live rock concert and it happened. The Roger Waters concert! Everything was just perfect. Better than how I had imagined it would be.

Solapur
Within 15 days I left for my much needed break. Saw my Nani’s place after two-and-a-half years. I had been yearning to go there, the place I went every summer before I began working.
Bhaiyya chi gadi, our favourite bhelpuri wala near Maidan in Solapur. The place is our family haunt since my nana’s time. My mum and dad and uncles and aunts ate there when they were in school, and I have been eating there since I was a kid. His stuff is nothing close to the chats we get in Delhi or even Mumbai. They are unique. I have no eaten this kind of food anywhere else in world. His chutney bread, kachori, thanda pani puri (which has only onions as ad ons), chutney puri….yummmmmm. I miss bhaiyya chi gadi now! He is Solapur’s shaan I think.

And yes, can’t leave out Sudha Idli Gruha. The idli and wada’s out there are characteristic of the place. Again the taste and the style of cooking are completely different from all the other cities. They keep serving you as much chutney and as much sambhar you want for no extra charge plus they serve you nice home-made kind of butter to top your idli. And a chilli chutney that served with the food is Sudha’s best stuff. And above all else, these places are dirt cheap.

If you ever go to Solapur, which is next to impossible since the place has nothing that would draw you to it unless you have grown up there, you must eat at these two places. You’ll thank me for this.
They fed me like a pig. From chapatti sabzi, shrikhand to chips, dosas and pizzas, they fed me everything they could in a span of three days. I almost died by the time I left Solapur. I felt like a child there; felt protected being around family and my lovely little cousins.

Bangalore
Then I was on the train to Bangalore. A place I visited three years back. Reading Vikram Seth’s collected poems interspersed with listening to some Jim Morrison I reached Bangalore. There is no better way to discover a place than to go around on your own, alone. I got to do that after a long time. The last time I did that was when I had moved to Mumbai the first time.

I walked in to a pub alone, in a new city, sat at the bar and ordered a drink, chatted with the bartenders, making small conversations about newspapers and the deadlines in Bangalore. The feeling was liberating. To be able to claim your private space — as a woman — in a public place is liberating. And I enjoyed every bit of it. I did it in Bangalore which is not as cool as Mumbai is, for girls. You can hardly see any girls in pubs there on weekdays. Yes on weekends of course you can see women come in but almost always in a group with men for company.
I stayed at home watching movies I had been wanting to watch, getting out in the evenings, taking the local transport only on my 4th day in the city. Walking around and getting the essence of the city was so much fun.

Cauvery Art Emporium was my land mark for several days. If I got down from the auto here I could find my way easily. The place has some lovely stuff. Toys, book marks, show pieces, several hand made works and even a Rs 35 lakh worth sandalwood piece of artifact! Yes, it is over priced but you need to find stuff that you wouldn’t mind spending on.

Shobha took to me to India Coffee House for breakfast one day. After coffee and bread jam toast, the waiter got me two instead of one scrambled egg on toast. He urged to finish it and I did. The prices were so low at that place that I could have probably downed another two if I didn’t feel stuffed with what I had eaten. The uniforms resembled the ones worn by cooks during the British Raj.

The pubs
Legends of Rock and Le Rock are what I definitely miss in Mumbai. Spacious places, that play my favourite rock music, with big screens showing videos, cheap drinks and great ambience. I fell in love with them. I shall never forget the huge 600 ml pints served in huge glasses that looked like a tower. Shrav and I went crazy about them. Had great fun at both these places each time I went there.

We had to make a trip to B11. It was a ritual. That was the one time I missed our very own Rahul. The last time I went to Bangalore, Rahul played the perfect DJ at B11. He played all OUR songs. After all it is always great to have your friend as the DJ. But this time there was no Rahul at the DJ console and the place didn’t seem even an iota of what it was when we came there every single day of our five-day trip years ago. But the best part was I remembered every single spot I had seen so long back in Jayanagar. I was proud of myself and felt nostalgic.
Pikos—a Totos kinda place. But nowhere close to it. Yes, it is dingy, smoky, old and rusty but I can’t compare it with my favourite place in Mumbai, can I?

MG Road is a conglomeration of pubs. Loads of small and big pubs spread across and behind this street. Pikos, Guzzlers Inn, Le Rock, Sticks and several others. When I witnessed it myself I understood why the city is called a pub city. The saddest part especially if you are from Mumbai is that the pubs shut at 11.30 and autos charge you 1 ½ meter after as early as 9.30pm. You will have to bargain with Bangalore auto guys. That’s weird. It’s the law and order of Bangalore that needs to get in place not the people who want pubs to be open longer. The city is safer if the city is alive and kicking longer in to the night. I witnessed a really bad drunken driving accident in the few days of my stay. So is the 11.30 deadline of any use? Surely not!

Pondicherry
I travelled to Pondicherry with a guy I met after nine years. Another dream comes true—I go on a road trip to Pondy. The little Tamil Nadu villages, the forts and the pile- of-stones like mountains were what made my trip beautiful.

But apart from that the road was bumpy in parts and it took us nine hours to get there. Our butts were numb, we had to stand and sit down repeatedly to ease them. Legs were stiff. Getting off from the bike and getting on again was a task. When we finally reached, it was 9.30—the city shuts by 10.30— we had no place to stay. The only resort we had pinned our hopes on, ‘The Banyan Resort’, was shut for renovation that week. We somehow reached the Beach Road, it’s the mini Marine Drive, small, clean with little French architecture buildings along the stretch. I managed to spot a hotel and we finally got a room. My face was black with a layer of soot. I looked like a ghost. After a well awaited and well deserved bath, when I sat on the soft bed, I saw heaven!

Pondicherry has two parts, the French square and the Tamil Square. We had decided to explore the French Sqaure since its architecture and food places were something we had been looking forward to. First we stepped into the tourism office. When we entered the air conditioned office, a guy came up to us and asked us to take the seat. We asked for the map and he handed it over to us. He told us the places we should go to and a pamphlet of the hotels to live in. The tourism office’s booklet was too good! Informative and it served us well in the entire trip. We got out of there, walked down the beach road, which is lined up with all possible government offices of Pondy, from the Court to the Vidhan Sabha.

It was lovely walking down the tiny streets except that it was too hot! The sun burnt my skin, literally despite loads of sunscreen. The walk in the heat was followed by a relaxed brunch. We had French cuisine but don’t ask me the names. I don’t know French! The food accompanied by the beer was just right. When we walked out we decided to get into a cycle-rikshaw. The last time I sat in a cycle-rikshaw was incidentally in Pondy with my parents several years ago.

Soon we checked out from this hotel and headed for Auro beach and began hunting a new place to stay. We wanted to live in a shack on the beach but discovered that all of it was taken up by foreigners. Yes, it is here that we realised that this place was a firang magnet. There were firings all over the beach. In our bid to find a place on the beach we entered a firang-packed shack place where auro cookie, auro coffee and everything auro was being sold across the counter at the joint there. Obviously the place was full so we went back to our hunting.
Finally we found a place just behind this auro-hotel. The place had lovely trees with yellow flowers, shacks built ten-feet above the ground and a fantastic balcony. So we stayed in this bamboo house, played in the waves in the evening and took a long walk on the beach. Then we got some beer and sat down on the beach till late in the night. We spoke about a whole lot of things and finally had candle-lit dinner in our balcony. There were no sounds except for the sea waves and moving branches and no lights except for the candle in front of us. I was high and it felt peaceful.

Well, the next day was our last day there. We had our breakfast outside the shack. The little wooden tables and chairs under the shade of the tree were strewn with the yellow flowers bidding us good-bye. It was one of the most peaceful breakfast I’ve ever had. I felt relieved to have come to this place and fulfilled by the discovery of a place so removed from the world I’m so used to living in.

Before leaving for Bangalore we paid a visit to Auro Ville. A half-an-hour drive from the Auro Beach, we encountered several shops owned by foreigners. The coffee shop at Auro Ville looked fantastic, and though we were tired we made the walk to Matrimandir. It’s the golden dome being built at Auro Ville since 1974. The ten-minute walk turned out to be a half-an-hour one, but we were determined to see Matrimandir before setting out for Bangalore.

On our return our goal was set. Two hours to Maghumalai, Krishna Nagar in the next two hours and another two hours to get to Bangalore. Just three breaks this time round. It was a mission and we had to fulfill it. We reached Bangalore in six hours this time!

And last but not the least I sat in a flight for the first time, got a window seat and watched the desert of clouds all the way back to Mumbai.

Life has been exciting, after all the tears and shit!

Mahim

I wasn’t aware what this small stretch of Mahim Causeway wraps within itself till I began researching for the Urs festival that takes place at Mahim Durgah every year. It is one of the cities within the city of Mumbai which has somehow got lost in a whirlwind of traffic that dresses it’s roads during peak hours day after day. It has its own little history and culture which is to say the least of significant interest.

Mahim Causeway
A plaque that stands at the Mahim Causeway records the making of the Mahim Causeway. It credits Lady Jeejeebhoy, the main donor. It was built in 1845 to connect the island of Salsette with Mahim. The swampy area between the two islands made travel dangerous and thus a need for a causeway arose. The British East India Company, who governed Bombay at that time refused to fund the project. Finally it was built at a total cost of Rs 1,57,000 donated entirely by Lady Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, wife of the first baronet Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy with a stipulation that no toll would be charged to citizens for its use by the government.

Mahim Creek
A dam built on Mithi River called Mahim Causeway is how environmentalists see the Mahim Causeway. The Mahim creek is a part of Mithi River that originates at Powai and meets the sea at the creek. Mahim bay area, where Mithi River meets Arabian sea, is a nominated bird sanctuary called Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary where migratory birds come for nesting. This part is full of mangroves and this fragile eco system requires considerations from pollution point of view, so that it is not destroyed. According to environmentalists, the depleting mangroves of Mahim creek are one of the main reasons for the floods in Mumbai. Emerald Fields now a student at Massachusetts wrote in his blog about the beauty of the Mahim Creek. “I used to live 20 feet away from sea water in Mahim creek. Five to six years back, it was great, you could hear the sea waves lashing across the stone walls, hear the fishermen’s boats leaving Mahim port at dawn. Tiny lights shifting swiftly in the dark. Suddenly there was an army of trucks all around. They began dumping mud all over to make that new sea link. So, one would see dust instead of boats and listen to noisy machines all the tim. The whole beauty of it died,” says Fields.

Creek water
While many thronged the Mahim Creek to drink the miracle water earlier this year, BMC warned the people that the water is unpotable. The National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) said that the reason for the sweetening of water could be attributed to the large quantities of groundwater draining into the sea because of the rains. The creek water is said to be highly unpotable due to low chlorine levels, dangerous levels of nitrates and alarming pollution levels. According to the report on the Mithi river water submitted to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) by Klean Environmental Consultants, the citizens dump raw sewage, industrial waste and garbage unchecked. Besides this, illegal activities of washing of oily drums, discharge of hazardous waste are also carried out along the course of this river.

Church
Missionary activity in Bassein, Salsette and Bombay commenced from 1534 onward. The Franciscans were the sole missionaries on the island; they were in charge of St Michael Church, Mahim. The Franciscans, who first arrived in India in 1500, were the first to establish churches in Bassein, Salsette, Bombay, Karanja and Chaul. According to Father Hugh Fonseca, around 40-50,000 devotees visit the church every week. St Michael’s Church is popular for its wednesday Novenas.

Durgah
The dargah of Makhdoom Ali Mahimi, the secular Sufi saint, is popular as the Mahim dargah. Reported to be at least 350 years old, the dargah sharief has five domes, the only dargah in Mumbai to have more than one dome. According to Durgah authorities, around 60,000 poeple turn up every week. During the annual ten day Urs festival celebrated on the 13th day of Shawwal, the Muslim calendar, millions of devotees visit the dargah.

Urs
Over 30 lakh devotees are expected to participate in the 593rd birth anniversary celebrations of Baba Makhdoom Shah at Mahim Durgah this year. Every December, during Urs, lakhs of devotees travel to the the durgah to offer prayers, putting pressure on the existing traffic situation. While hundreds of police officials participate in the celebrations, over 2000 police officials and traffic police are deployed to maintain security and traffic at Mahim Causeway. The highlight of Urs is the procession of around eight thousand which begins at the Mahim Police Station, the site of the saint’s residence. Two policemen from each of the eighty four city police stations represent the police department. A representative of the Mumbai police is the first to offer the chaddar (shawl) at the tomb on the first day of the festival. Legend has it that it was a police constable who gave water to the dying saint from his cap.

Mahim Fair
Most people who visit the Durgah are said to make a stop over at the Mahim mela held during Urs at the Mahim Creek. Different contractors install different joy rides and stalls for the fair. The rides include giant wheels, merry-go-rounds, dog shows, magic shows and the well of death. This year’s festival will attract more than 30 lakh people.

Last man standing
The only Udipi restaurant on the Mahim Causeway stretch, Shri Krishna Restaurant is the last restaurant standing at the junction. A regular outlet for the nearby residents and police personnel deputed at the signal, this is the only Udipi restaurant in the area. While its dosas have been one of the much relished food items, it has witnessed the changes in the traffic situation at this signal for years. Standing right opposite the St Michaels church his restaurant does great business on Wednesdays when people come for the weekly Novena. K Ravi who sits at the cash counter overlooking the signal says that he often watches people desperately trying to cross the road. “I often watch people crossing the road. It takes them ten minutes to do so. I’m used to the constant sound of vehicles but the honking still irritates me,” says Ravi.

Ek cutting
Basant tea and cold drink house has been standing at the junction for the last 40 years. A regular halt for foreigners and taxi drivers traveling to the International airport early morning, Vishenji Shah’s Rs 3 cutting chai is the most popular in the area. “The church goers and the workers in the bamboo market have been my regular clients for the past 30 years,” says Tekchand Shah, Vishneji’s son. Way back in the 1960’s the chai which costs Rs 6 now was sold for 25 paise at the shop. Tekchand remembers how the roads were narrower and there was space for people to walk back then. “The footpath was wider and there was a lot more free space. Even during the 10-day mela at the durgah, there was no chaos,” he recollects.

Mahim fort
How many people know that there stands a fort at the edge the western coast of Mahim with a vantage view of Mahim creek? The Mahim fort which has great historic importance is now in ruins. The Mahim Fort is a relic from the British Raj. This fort is actually a fortress- a part of the larger Bombay Castle. This castle was an important base during the time of the British Empire, but now all that remains are a few ramparts scattered about the city. All one can find are encroachers and hutments in the area. The fort which was once visible from the Mahim Causeway and Bandra Reclamation is barely visible now. The Mahim Fort is a heritage structure and the BMC in its budget proposal for 2005-2006 had intended to pay special attention to Mahim Fort but nothing has been done yet. . Conservationist Sharda Dwivedi says that the Fort is in a very bad state and needs to be restored. “A glorious structure like the Bandra fort is ruins. Encroachments have been allowed to flourish for years now. The authorities don’t care about the heritage structures,” she says.

Mahim Beach
The Mahim beach can hardly be called a beach anymore. Slum dwellers excrete and take a leak freely on the sands, leaving no free space to take a peaceful walk. The beach stinks and the shore is strewn with plastic. One of the worst beaches in the city today, it has been calling for attention from the civic authorities and needs a massive clean up drive to restore this important beach.

Supernova

They make weird patterns;
streamers of light, shining
in different hues.
I can make them twist and turn,
taking shapes I straighten and skew.
I change the shades
with the power of my mind.
Red, yellow and purple;
glowing, they are real.
More real than my body
floating in the clouds,
lying parallel to the ground.

Green mixed with indigo,
blue sprinkled over orange,
and pink garnished
with some yellow filings.

The combinations change
with my moods.
Passion sees deep purple,
elastic tubes of light.
They do a ballet to the music
playing at the core of my brain cells.
The music gets louder
and the strobe lights become sparkles,
elegant and supple,
and begin to sprinkle a burst
of colour across the pallet of my eye.

I’m numb
And the colours alive.
A supernova
born in the boundless confines of mind,
set free through the boundaries
of the sky.

Disco blues

We walk hand in hand
Arm in arm.
Talk about Bollywood
And celluloid charm.
And walking down
The footpath
The conversation scatters
To hip and happening places
To discos in the suburbs.
For the night’s at hand
And we need to dance
Hip to hip, cheek to cheek.
And make it at a rocking night
With friends we dig.
As the man standing
On the console
Like a hellish lord releasing
Lost bodies and soul;
Remixes, rehashes, refurbishes
Something that remotely
Sounds like sound.
Interspersed with
Scratches and screeches.
And ding-dangs and yo-yos
And noises and voices
Twisted and wound.
We yell out to each other
Across the dance floor
Revel in the ecstasy
Of the lights heavenly
And the floor paradise.
But it got to feel that way
Since we’re four pegs down.

I wake up in my bed
With a hellish hangover
And walk down the room
Like the dead.
The paradise lingering
In my distant memory
I make a new call
And seek a new arm.
And call up a fellow loser
For the night’s at hand.

Horses

There are horses all around. The flat mountain top rings with the sound of their feet. They gallop, jump fences and run through the woods towards the end of land. They look like mad horses, not reducing their speed as they approach the edge.

Probably they are blind, unable to see that the land ends there. May be the fog of an after-rain evening has blurred their vision. Or have they been given a shot of insane medicine, making them go berserk? There is no time for me to stop them. Still, I yell out their names but they don’t respond. They are approaching the end with great speed. But who am I to stop them anyway?

I am a mere spectator.

And just when they are about to throw their lovely black bodies into the valley, out of nowhere, large white wings appear. Right behind their ears! And they take the flight. Caressing the cool winds with their new found wings, they glide. The sky shines with a crimson light just about to fade. I rub my eyes. Is this a dream? Is this a miracle? I continue to watch. I can’t take my eyes off these beautiful horses flying amongst the clouds. And then suddenly, with a blink of an eye, they are nowhere to be seen. As if the sky swallowed them. I try hard to find them in the clouds spread all over. But there is no sight of those miraculous creatures.

I walk to the edge of the mountain and peep down. And see them writhing in pain.

Goodbye

I could have slit my wrists
and let you
flow out of my system.
I could have pierced my eyes
with needles
Where you’re frozen in time.

I could have slashed every inch
of this cadaver
you scribbled your name on.
I could have burst
my brains open
and burn your memories down.

I could have ripped
my heart apart
still waiting for you
to come by.

But all I did was wipe my tears
And say goodbye.

Touch

You left without a promise
Without a word of grace.
You left without an echo
Of a love lost in haze.

I held up your pictures
With a desire world apart.
With the music in my ears
I stumbled back to the start.

The music of the first kiss
And the hug of the dawn.
The miles in one hand touch
And the brace of your arm.

The harmony of our spirits,
The symphony in our fingers,
Miming words on our lips
Writing stanzas all new,
As the drops from a melody
Perch on my eyes of dew.
The drum beats of the clasp of hand,
Take me to the highest note,
Make me smell of you.

And I still smell you
Through the black holes
Of years lost in time.
I hear your voice through wires
But forget the way we rhyme.

And then in scorching summer
You grace me with your rain.
You kneel down at my doorstep
And melt away my pain.
I throw myself in your arms
I forget to remember
I’d forgotten how you feel to me.
Then the whole world comes tumbling
In my bosom, in a spree.

My finger tips,
The edge of my forehead,
And the skin under my neck
Witness the magic again.
And a moment before I glide in mirth
You wither away.
You’re gone again but this time
You leave your touch behind.

I die

I die,
I die to hold you,
I die to say a few meaningful words.
I live,
I live to soak you,
I live to make a meaningful sentence.

A border-village

A villager ran miles
From the shelling
In a border-village up north.
It happened for years
And then he sent off
His family, and he stayed
To look after the farm.
Then one day
There was no where to flee
He quietly lay down in dust
And look who watched him die,
A man from the army.

Others displaced
Found new shelter, made a new living.
Living to go back to the home
On which the morning sun once shone.
Now spiders dwell amongst the ruins
And land mines decorate the backyard.
Hope still leads them on;
Hope to be buried
In the place they were born.

Thousands of camps
Of people in the no man’s land,
No one to lend a hand,
No one to share the burdens
Of an abandoned home,
An abandoned village,
An abandoned life;
Retiring to destiny.
With neighbours burning down to death,
And fathers lying in a pool of blood
Still fresh in the memories
Drowned in the same sand,
Their eyes look to the sky
And wonder why we fight for land.

OH MY GOD!!

Words are deluding me. There is excitement, anxiety, surprise, joy and lots and lots of love all at the same time. Overwhelming is all I can sum up!
My status message on gtalk for the last one month: who knows what the tide may bring!
I felt that the phrase somehow applied to my life and it actually happened.
The tide brings in this guy from saat samandar paar to my door step at 1 am on a regular depressing 17th December morning. And suddenly all the gloom, all the insecurities and depression I had had been feeling for the last few days vanish leaving a small white trail of smiles behind.
So I saw him, felt him in my physical space after three long years. And all the wait seemed to have consumated into a feeling of relief. All of it was worth it. It felt just right.
It was the best brithday ever. Romantic, surreal and probably better than all the ways in which I fantasised meeting him. And now I'm happy and excited as usual!
Thanks all you guys for plotting this birthday surprise!
Somu and Shrav I need not thank u guys because I believe that one good turn deserves another :-)

Why????

Am is supposed to feel this way at the most buzzing time of the year?
My birthday, Christmas, Sabir's wedding, Aanchal & Shravan coming & New Year.
This time of the year is happening and I've always made the most of it. Cut ot this year. I'm anxious, upset, irritated, confused, frustrated and unexcited!!
How can I be like this?
I really don't understand my problem.

Lives

Do you understand?
There are lives inside
The wild days
Of the wild fields,
Of the wildly growing
Weeds outside.
There are demons
Climbing the walls
Of my skin.
And serpents crawling
Down the aisles
Of my old mind.

For I was here before,
Long time ago.
Born in the body
Of an eagle king.
My palace had pillars
Of freedom and
My fields were full with silver.
I drew no envy,
Called no wrath,
My treasure was
Hidden away
In the sky.
In my times
There was no war.
My soldiers were poets,
Painters and scores
Of blessed women.
And my courtiers
Sang and laughed and soared
To perform a dance of lore.
I had a lover I took to bed,
The only one I took to death.
I loved her till I loved no more
But abandoned her
For a greater love before
Other forces took over
The kingdom of wings.

Then in one life
I was born a slave.
In the other
A soldier with arms.
I overtook the master
And killed my enemies.
So now I overthrow my shame,
Of incestuous hours,
And swindling pleasures
And new figures
Touched upon.
Of the penny I stole,
The child I killed,
Of the death I saw
In drying lawn.
Then I saw some faces
Unmasked and bare.
Took a diversion
To somewhere
And landed in a dream
With shining love,
With flowing wine
And stars above.

I awake after ages
In the next one
To walk up the stairs
Of the heaven of smoke.
And I trip
Several times over
Before I let go.

pen on paper

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life
- Mark Twain

There are times when I don’t want what I’m chasing and times when I want to chase something that isn’t there.
I can easily have a day where all I do is have some beer, listen to my favourite music, sit by the sea side, and end the day with a classic movie. I don’t want to be sitting in office, staring at the comp and deciding how to phrase the sentences in my intro.
There are times when all I want to do is write poetry and read poetry. Not sit down and file a story.
Most often I’m given a topic to write on and I enjoy it. But there are times when I want my mind to let go of constrains and put together something that I chanced upon through my mind’s wandering.
There are so many experiences I want to write about and so many unknown things I want to discover while I write. And I’m aware that I might wake up one day and end up writing a whole book on something that I never dreamt about; or may just get lost in oblivion without writing a single significant line. Yet I spend hours thinking what I should write about.
Writing is not putting down thoughts as such. It is more about the evolution of thoughts into its own words; words that were lingering somewhere in your subconscious but never found their way out in the real world. I think I need to be intoxicated big time to be able to write like a dream and at times I feel that I should probably just open some pages inside me and show them to the world on a Sunday afternoon.
Whenever I talk I feel like I’m at loss of words. Words fall out of my head quite often, and then I end up making no sense by the time I fish them out from the sea of my consciousness. But when I write words just flow. They fall straight out of my head onto paper.
Writing is magical. It creates a figure, out of the smoke that probably came out through your ears, when you were thinking of what to do with the cramped space in your brain. And then thoughts just blow into the world, forming shapes made out of smoky clouds, and touch the senses of those who walk through it.
At the end of the day, writing makes me happy. It makes me feel alive.

The last sip is over

The last sip is over
But the spark’s still burning.
I am living each night.
Twisting and turning
Inside.

The night is about to end
And the day is yet to come.
I’m in transit,
In the middle of some
Dark and light.

The highway is long
And the journey, a mirage.
I disappear in my own sight
Ride on a carriage
To nowhere.

There’s a wild child
Inside of me
Shaking up the stillness
Free
Of its confinement.

Go on,
Don’t stop.
There’s nothing called eternity.
Go on till you drop
Below the ground.

Love is a sweet picture
Of indulgence.
An obsession with shadows
And an emergence
Of self reflections.

Then music lends
A hand to your imagination.
Triggers
Cords of unsolicited ramification
Of a boundless mind.

And you take the last sip
But the spark’s still burning.
And you dive into the night,
Twisting and turning
Inside.

In the pink skies

In the pink skies
I saw you come.
I saw you cry,
I saw you moan,
Elated but shy
Of shrouding clouds
So dark that
None can see
The longing
In my eye.
Tied up in snakes
That name
My love evil
And wrapped
In shreds
Etching out
Just one way
To find what
I’m looking for.
But I’m lost
On a path that leads
To my kind of love.
I say I’m your woman
And you’re my lady.
Your chocolate eyes,
Your dark eye brow,
The waves in your hair,
Make me crawl
Into your arms.
But who can give
My thing a name?
People just find
This love too strange.
I touch you where
Only my breath can go
In there,
On the right side
Of your body,
Your soul.
Every inch of skin
Guides my finger tips,
And I travel
To worlds in you.
And what do they
Call my kind of love?
For I make
My kind of love
Out there,
In the pink skies.

Follow me when it ends

There is no respite
In bringing you back to life.
It’s over, the fairy tale
Without an end.
There’s always a path
You leave behind
But there’s none coming up ahead.
As all the ways you walk must die
And you follow me when it ends.
There is speed,
And there is sound.
But there is no ground
To come around.
I’ll call you when I kill
My shadows,
And crash into blinding lights.

I undress again

I undress again
But don’t bare myself
To the stranger.

In the yellow cab
Then the silver car,
From the staircase of the old house
To the curtained corner.

Deception is born
From liberty taken
To cage weak freedom.

But the distance is too long
And time passes so slowly,
Tiring virtues that hide away
Under the weight of mistakes
Too often made,
Impossible to erase.

I’ve gone too far too soon.
So I take my shoes off now
And put my feet up on the table.

Now my body longs
For a touch of truth
Worthy of satiating the restless
Needs of my mortal being.

My desires long forsaken,
I stand at the threshold
Of complete surrender.
A devil waiting to lose out
To a sage in disguise.

They are all over me

They are all over me.
Biting into every inch of my skin.

Creeping up my eyes and nose.
Giving me no space to breathe.

I lie in their blanket,
Safe.

There are places to go
And dreams to live.

But for now I want to just be
Hiding away in oblivion.

Not running for cover,
Letting the bugs take over.

Hysteria and love…

A dreaded combination! Hysteria and love combine at this one place my friends. Totos! I’m sure all those who were present for ‘The return of Totos’ this Tuesday know exactly what I mean. Even as I write this I’m constantly aware that I’m going to walk into Totos tonight to have yet another frenzied five hours of awesome music and fun. And then again tomorrow, and then several more nights will follow.

(so writing about Totos at this point in time is inevitable)

I hope my pals (I need not name you guys) who have waited desperately in the past few months to let the music sink into them, as they take their seats in the home-like comforts of their regular haunt day after day, are finally feeling fulfilled. But I know you guys will agree to what I’m going to say next. This joy and fulfilment seems to have taken on a new vigour. I feel renewed energy when I step into Totos now. I jump, sing, scream and interact with several people around like crazy. I seem to have lost control.

I value the place more than ever before, have fallen in love with it all over again and have realised that no other pub in the world can take the place of Totos.

The truth though is that this garage pub is what its regular’s make it. People who come here know their music, love their music and sing along like us J How can we live without the regulars. The older lot of MM, Ramu, Faresh (as annoying as he is loves Totos) and the new ones like Shankar Mahadevan and company, Auri’s stalker, Chris Martin, brooding faresh, blue faresh etc etc. What would we do without them? Tell me, tell me.

Totos is a whole world in itself. It is a community of people who love their music and the dimly-lit small stingy smoky garage pub at Pali Naka. Cheers to Totos! Cheers to us! We love Totos and we love us!