Clouds

 

If I could paint, I would paint you.

You have so many hues,

And so many colours.

So many stories,

That I recite for hours.

You show so many faces,

And every emotion prepared.

It adds to the stories,

That you so kindly share.

You set romance,

Or mirror my mood on a dark day.

I always feel at peace,

In so many ways.

Every road I travel,

You make me feel at home.

It's your familiar whisper,

That makes me write a tome.

If I could paint, I would paint you.

And every canvas would show something new.

The Room

This is a part of my childhood that I cherish. It was a dingy room, dimly lit with a musty scent. A makeshift storeroom and a “pooja room” as well. The only thing of interest that it had was a music system. It was the origin of a mixed tape that introduced me to a host of music that opened my world. It was a room that crooned M.S Subalaxmi with as much ease as it crooned Judas Priest and Megadeth. There was never even a single morning when I felt why I was waking up to this music at full blast.

It comforted me when I was sad over bad grades, heartbreak or a moment of unrequited love. It told me it was going to be ok when I felt I was stuck between a rock and a hard place as it told me I wasn’t exaggerating my issues. It was a place where I built a relationship with my sibling beyond being born to the same parents. Even though it was a shared space with my brother and my parents (just during the morning hour or a festival where my mom paid obeisance to the countless idols in that small space), it was my place. I have shed many a tear without shame, smiled at myself countless times and felt…..at home.

The fact that I remember that space and recall it fondly now is perhaps because I miss my place. My home, my people….myself. The past few months/years have been hard on me more than I would like to admit. I feel ashamed at admitting it because what is wrong? People I love are doing fine, my family is fine, and we are financially stable and doing well. And yet, it has been hard. Harder because I keep comparing myself to those who are having “real” problems. I mean people are dying for god’s sake and I keep feeling what is missing. I look at the many posts on how we should be grateful, and thankful for what we have. I am thankful of course, but when does being only thankful ever been easy? Why can’t I even process things the way I always have? Why doesn’t anything move me anymore? What made me move from my room, my space and think I shouldn’t and couldn’t feel all the things no matter how embarrassing they were. And it is not like I haven't been through things I found harder to deal with. 

How many of us have been feeling the same way and pushing our feelings down thinking it is not as important in the larger scheme of things? Even if they are not, why push it?

When I experience a life-defining moment, I reach out to people I haven’t spoken to in a while. I think back on the unfinished chapters and regret them, trying to correct the wrong. But there is a problem there. Not everyone processes things the same way you do or feels that it is a loose end that needs to be tied. And when you gather the guts to actually “fix it”, it makes the situation worse. Because it took two to leave the story unfinished and it would take two to finish it as well. And who knows if you like what you read.

I am still figuring out what helps in such a case. But from what I gather, just hold on to the things that you have control over and that make you feel good. Go for the “hard way” rather than the easy way out. For me, it was easier to try to fix the loose ends because that way I have someone else to blame and not myself.

For now, music helps because it all started in that room. That room was my safe haven and place of solace. In the room where I confided in music each and every sibling fight, parent outburst, and my deepest of feelings which I could not understand and process. Much like now. I find my solace in any room with the music playing as loud as it used just so it drowns the thoughts. And as long as I do not find another way, I am staying put!

The Lone Mushroom

As I sit in a comfortable air-conditioned room, 30 minutes before my class starts, the anxiety doesn’t leave me. I see women walking inside, one of them asks “Is this the creative writing course?”, I nod. And I wonder simultaneously, am I going to be the oldest in this class?.

Many walk-in, all women (well to be precise, girls) and all of them seem younger. “Second-year college” “Graduate” “Doing my post-graduation in sociology” and one of the ‘jokes’, so you are like a super senior. I feel awkward and message a friend “I hope the teacher is older than I am” and she types in a LOL and a soothing ‘Relax’.

As the room gets filled with younger people and I sit in the middle of all of them (literally) I start to think. I wish I had the sense to do this course earlier, and the understanding to pursue this at a younger age. I am still finding my professional feet. I feel like the lone mushroom I found on an adventurous trail in Barog. I can’t find anyone sailing my boat, which can be comforting. The conversations, inside and outside my head, are broken when my teacher walks in. She is older (thank god). I thank my stars she skipped the chirpy “Oh, let us introduce ourselves”.

In walks a boy, which makes even the teacher state the obvious “Oh, you are the only boy in this class” and I think, wait a minute! He is the lone mushroom. The ONLY boy in a class of 30. For the next 10 minutes, I stop listening to what the teacher has to say and go on a journey riding on my thoughts. All of us are the lone mushroom. We all feel lost and like an outsider some time or the other. For some, it is worse because people point that out to you not so eloquently. In that room, each and every person was an outsider in some way to this course. One has not read a book in her life, one runs a fashion label and has never written in life, one is studying business, one plays professional poker and so on. Everyone is an outsider in his or her own right.

The lone mushroom, though an outsider on the lush green trail, caught my fancy on that long trail. ‘Outsiders’ make for a beautiful part of the trail of life...

The old is gold...

Moving into a new place brings with it a lot of new things. For one, the entire house looks unfamiliar. From north Delhi, I moved to south. From paying a rent of Rs. 2500, I know pay Rs. 25,000 (it's no magic or Chawl, it was rent control). From having a choice between  two metro stations at a walking distance, I hop into an auto. From having the local “doodh wala” as my neighbor, I now have a spate of people around me, some of them with bad music tastes. From living in a 4 BHK, I now live in a 2 BHK. The list goes on and so can I, but for your benefit I will stop.

I settled in the new place quite comfortably because I was psyched to live with the love of my life. This place became home way too quickly and I wasn't guilty to let go of the place I had been living all my life (well almost).  We had also brought some of the white goods from my old place. Buying new things for two people did not make much sense back then. But today we purchased a new refrigerator and a washing machine. As I sat down, staring at the two refrigerators, I began to feel bereaved. I wasn't unhappy about the new one, but I was sad about letting the old one go. When certain things have been in your life for as long as you can remember, they somehow become  a part of all the moments that you have spent around them. At that moment, on my couch, I could only think of the good ones. The refrigerator is so old, the model is obsolete. The washing machine was an inconvenience and sounds like a drill machine. Yes, they are mere machines, but they have been a part of my life for so long, they ceased to be just machines. They were like a page in my book of life, one that I didn't feel like tearing off.

Why do we keep old birthday cards? Why do we smile looking at photographs from our childhood? An old letter perhaps? I have seen my mom save things that I have labeled as junk, only to realize now that they are invaluable, some of them to even others. They are invaluable because they remind us of the glory of the past and not many things can trigger that. There are moments in my past that I would want to let go, so it becomes easier to let go of the things that remind me of the same. But not my leaking refrigerator and the drill machine. You have been sold my friends, but you were there with me, in my good times and for the bad ones..

Is there a real slim shady?

A few days back I was talking to a friend and telling her how I miss writing. How I think I have had a million ideas but not the will to write. I have been writing a lot of stories and have become a content writer by profession though, so that's some solace. But I wanted to get back to filling this canvas of my personal space.

And then I saw it! The reason that triggered this blog. I saw another blog that had lifted all the content off my blog (I counted five posts which were mine) I appreciate the fact that this person at least had the sense to edit the parts that made no sense to her (since all my blogs are personal and you can't possibly feel exactly what I feel) but I felt invaded.. Cheated and not honored. The only happy thought I got was the joy of reading my own blog, I wrote well :)
There is a thin line between plagiarism and inspiration. I am yet to decipher it as I have been hearing the music directors since the 90's say it and not explain the difference. When I find out the music of barfi is lifted...it hurts. When I find out RD Burman copied music...it hurts. When I find out a recent idea of marketing by a channel I worked with, and the people who I admired for their creativity, copied it from an airline ad..it hurts. Is there no original thought or idea left now? Is that why we are resorting to remakes in bollywood and find ourselves reminiscing the good old past?
I have always loved the 70s as an era. Revolution was coming. Ideas were flowing. People were thinking and were proud of being original. I see scores of people now wanting to desperately hold on to these...those who have the time to stop and smell the rain. Or trying to adapt anything that is new (Americans were getting married in an Indian way because they thought that's why marriages last here...what they didn't know is most of our people don't have the balls to admit that there's is a crappy marriage). I don't have a problem with trying something new and see if it works for me...but this?
I recently got married. Call it the blissful lenses but I think my marriage is different from so many. We have our own work and space, we both cook (and my husbands a better one), we talk about everything that is related to us, we have our personal stuff as well and don't yearn to learn everything about each other, we didn't want an elaborate wedding or a reception to show off and we can be aloof and jack asses to people and not care. For me, these are things that are mandatory in a marriage or a relationship..a given. But when I shared it with some of my married friends...it became a gift. My in laws and I are very different people, but its working for us because we respect each others individuality. And no its not because I'm lucky, its because we are honest. We are just...as original as we can be.
We all develop over a period of time. Taking a part of everything and everyone who comes along, and shape into someone. If one is really proud of who they are and what they feel..one will not resort to being a "copy cat" (something that I used in my past quite often, along with cheater cock). It is my appeal to this female and all the others who think they can't churn anything original...at least try and not be shameless!

Musing...

I have had my share of surprises and shared enthusiasm for my birthday. My family and friends understand the excitement associated with it in my mind. Over the past few weeks, I can’t stop thinking of one birthday though. It wasn’t an expensive surprise gift or a surprise party. Something that I had been craving for months or 12 o clock show up at the door. A crisp Sunday morning with the perfect breeze and the sunlight wrapping us in its warmth. Colourful dancing waves of kites adorn the blue backdrop like candy on a tray. We used to love watching the kites….back then. After the morning wishes and my mother's special present, it was time to go up to the terrace to watch the dance. My cousin and my father were preparing to join in the war of the kites while my brother was happy watching the meticulous nature of their work. As soon as I joined them my father took a bright orange kite and wrote “Happy Birthday” on 14th August on it. It accentuated my enthusiasm to the highest level as I saw that kite soar in the sky, fight it out and then land on someone’s terrace. Seeing my disappointment my dad told me that even though the kite lost a war, we saved ample “Manja” to begin another battle. And that put a smile on my face.

I don’t know why I keep on thinking about this day. The fact that I miss him is pretty obvious, I miss him all the time. But what I reminisce about this day the most is that bright orange kite and the enthusiasm with which my dad wrote the date and the message, like the day belonged to me. It made my day and it made a wonderful memory and all I wish right now is to fly another kite marking my day with him….

The Last Step

So this was long overdue...but that's not why it's special....let's not call it a 'post'

Listen to me my daughter, when I say

I was once a child like you, finding my way.

I didn’t stop to rest & smell the rain, or fulfil my desire...

I didn’t go up to that girl and tell her that I loved her.

I trusted everyone and they hurt me with their words,

But I didn’t thank the people, my cries who heard

You be your own person, you be the star,

You walk your way, you make it far

For I lived to see your first step and I could see

That you would make the last count before you sleep...

With years... before my hair started to grey,

I married a woman who I loved, but never did say

My daughter I raised you to be like the woman I adore,

And you had all that she has but much more

I guess I did something right, even when I thought I was wrong,

The path that I walked all my life, doesn’t seem so long

You be your own person, you be the star,

You walk your way, you make it far

For I lived to see your first step and I could see

That you would make the last count before you sleep...

My father, THE man, the one who raised me,

To be a daughter, a sister and the person I want to be.

I did smell the rain and my love I professed

I did shed a tear and to those I hurt, I confessed.

I made my own mistakes & so will my next,

But I will be the person you foresaw before I rest.

I will be my own person, I will be the star

I will tread my way hoping to make it far

Even though now you don’t live to see my last step

I am sure to tell you my story..after I rest