Don't be afraid Girl!

“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.” Jesse Jackson

This is what I have wanted for oh so long. And now I will not let anything keep me from letting myself fly. I have to make my mark no matter how small and I will. So all I need are good wishes sent my way through every medium possible. After all my ill luck I want to smile.

On the road to fame!

Well fame of sorts I would say.....but then if lakhs of people reading your name and recognizing it the second time round does not account for fame, I don't know what does.

Point is I am a print journalist after so many years of running away from broadsheet writing. I wanted spontaneity and zero time lag in news. And then I shun it for this...ironical and silly to an extent is all I can say. But then fate intervened and I conveniently will allocate all blame to that one factor that cannot hit back.

So here I am waiting for my first byline to appear.....

psst...should be latest by Wednesday.

I Miss Me!

I miss Delhi. every waking moment I miss it so heart wrenchingly it makes me want to run away. and to hide in the bylanes watching my house which now has strangers inhabiting my favourite corners.

I want to stand on my wide terrace and watch the fog recede and the trees and buildings come alive after a smoky illusion.

I want to shiver in my pajamas while my fingers clutch at my coffee mug so tightly trying to wring out some warmth through its thick impermeable walls.

I want to cuddle in my "rajai" and look through the little slit near my eyes at the weakened sun as it wrestles with the winter breeze trying to spread some cheer and heat.

I want to feel the wind in my hair as I shiver and snuggle while the auto driver dances through the lazy traffic.

god I miss Delhi. I miss me in Delhi. I miss being me in Delhi. I miss me.

I want to be KNOWN!

Passion is the element in which we live;without it, we hardly even vegetate. Byron

As I stepped into the train, the darkening clouds and the fading skyline of Delhi made me weep like never before. I was leaving my home and the job I was really good at and anyone who cared for me to enter an alien land, to make new acquaintances and to hunt for a job, that might never give me the high I had always wanted from life.

Though the rewind seems scary, the fact that news might go away from my life for good has made me sit back and evaluate what is that one thing that I want from life? And Irealizee that while I shudder between the sheets, turning page after page of often read novels, trying to seek meaning and inspiration, what I am doing is burying my dream of being a hot shot reporter on the move!

I want to be on the move, to be in the news, to live in the moment, to be able to come back dead tired and flop down on the bed with my shoes on, to wake up and see my name/face all over making a point. I want to be known for what I know.

That dream seems like an illusion I am chasing sitting within yellowed walls. Why don't these bricks fade to let me out into the open land where I can try to holler and make a difference?

Almost Famous!

A completely new high I must admit. Though the actual high would be seeing my name in black and white....there for all to see. But I assume now that this first step has happened that aint too far away. Anyhow here's the reason for my celebration....

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwNi8xMi8wNCNBcjAxODAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

She Stares Alone

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning....a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.
Joseph Campbell


Seems like ages since I was confined to this little house overlooking the traffic. I watch cars and scooters pass by with bustling passengers….trying to get a sneak peek into their lives….trying to understand why they alone have been chosen to be the ‘busy lot’.

I married for love and now am confined by my love. They told me marriage is all about sacrifice, adjustment, termination of individual egos and what not. I dutifully obeyed them and here I am…..a pathetic shadow of myself.

I watch from above and see this lady, cribbing, watching TV, perfunctorily cooking dinner, lying on the bed gazing at the roof hoping or maybe praying that someone or something come crashing down to bring her life. She cleans and hums, makes love and fights, socializes and sleeps all in rhythm. And in the stillness of the four walls she sobs out loud. Wanting all to hear and save her from this anonymity and dependence. I put out my hands….but her blinding tears keep her from clutching my fingers….

Suddenly she hates the world and everyone inhabiting hers. She wants to break free, yet the choices she made strangle her and tie her down like a block of iron. She is talking to me and asking me to intervene. To play with fate, and to erase these moments that are making her seem like an outsider to herself. She doesn’t understand the shackles she has built for herself. And still amidst the drowning waves she loves and calls out for him. Wondering if her love might not shake him awake from his self possessed dream…. hoping if he might not put out a hand to prevent her from drowning in her pool of tears.

Alas not even her Gods seem to be listening in on this aside. All at once she feels betrayed by her loved ones…for not stepping in, for not pretending to care, for not being there….. For leaving her all alone to stare.

Crippling Fear

I have always patted myself for being fearless and unshaken. But I am scared. Of the unknown, of something that I cannot define. It follows me with a knowing and evil eye. It has made me fear every whisper in the breeze, every shadow that crosses my window, every added breath that comes along with the wind, every creak emitted by the doors, every frightened glance I make over my shoulder half expecting the figure that will in short answer and sum up that fear.

What is it that maketh fear? They say the only thing you need to fear is fear itself. But then what about all those things you cannot name or define, you cannot control or overcome; you cannot abolish or live with? What other emotion do you extend to those unnamed things? What do you call the emotion that they evoke? Awe? Or simple, plain undefined fear?

I am crippled by this unknown force…that I believe is watching me and studying me without my permission. Making decisions for me and marking me out as its prey. Transforming me into a puppet that is enacting the verses put down by “it”. I have become an actor, a slave to the thoughts and provocations of someone, something unknown. And I have no hope or means of redeeming myself.

Why choose me? The solitary reaper? With not a sense of drama furthering her existence? Why not pick on a much celebrated or revered being, whose eye lashes keep furtively blinking so as not to mar the perfect snap? Why poor mundane me?

I have been forced into hibernation by this unknown and unwanted fear. I don’t like being held hostage by things I cannot even hate or blame in entirety. Why not have adversaries that you can holler at? Instead of echoes that merely surround the empty walls!

I have always been claustrophobic and this new form of containment will not leave me human for long.

My new found love

E E CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it inmy heart)i am never without it(anywherei go you go,my dear;and whatever is doneby only me is your doing,my darling) i fearno fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i wantno world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meantand whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the budand the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which growshigher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Irritating Tongues….

Her nasal overtone is killing. The lady is pretending to be oh so prim and proper….the epitome of class and sophistication. Christ, I would infact buy it if only she would stop alternating between tongues….why is she so confused about the origins of her accent….someone told me she is from Coorg.

So why does she alternate between every continent she has traveled through? Why not retain a Kannada twang native to her part of the world? Is it that every week spent in one continent has rubbed off on certain parts of her much limited and affected vocabulary, that it tends to never undo itself….making her look like a mixture of cultures the minute she opens her mouth?

Ah the travails of a star…one who has not an ounce of acting in her mangled anatomy….but has oodles of attitude to make up for all her misgivings….

Someone should tell that woman that merely flitting in and out of other worldly productions will not in any way prove her capabilities as an actor. Instead she is merely trumpeting to the entire world how dispensable she is in a world of talent. One cannot spend hours staring at her plastic countenance when someone beside her is enacting a well scripted role even as she uses her multi-accented tongue to make innumerous grunts and pouts.

The “Mistress of Spices” is stirring violent spasms of dislike in me. Someone switch off that TV!

You Lied to Me!

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you” Friedrich Nietzsche

Despite repeated reminders in that one split second he had changed our entire lives. He said a "white lie" to save face and avoid confrontation. Was it worth all the pain and the accusations that followed. All the trauma and the nonsense. The depletion in trust and in unshakeable belief? The living hell that both have to endure till memory fades and time selectively relegates this aberration into the back chamber? Was it really worth anything?

Too Much of Nothing is Too Bad

So Sang Bob Dylan...............................

Now, too much of nothing
Can make a man feel ill at ease.
One man's temper might rise
While another man's temper might freeze.
In the day of confessionWe cannot mock a soul.
Oh, when there's too much of nothing,
No one has control.

Say hello to Valerie
Say hello to Vivian
Send them all my salary
On the waters of oblivion

Too much of nothing
Can make a man abuse a king.
He can walk the streets and boast like most
But he wouldn't know a thing.
Now, it's all been done before,
It's all been written in the book,
But when there's too much of nothing,
Nobody should look.

Say hello to Valerie
Say hello to Vivian
Send them all my salary
On the waters of oblivion

Too much of nothing
Can turn a man into a liar,
It can cause one man to sleep on nails
And another man to eat fire.
Ev'rybody's doin' somethin',
I heard it in a dream,
But when there's too much of nothing,
It just makes a fella mean.

Say hello to Valerie
Say hello to Vivian
Send them all my salary
On the waters of oblivion

Bored of Myself

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. Eric Hoffer

It driving me nuts....this feeling of being worthless and silly. Of existing as a non-thinking being who merely dissipates the conundrums of other thoughts as her own in an attempt to disguise the lack of activity in her upper floors.

What is it that holds me back from freeing myself from this exile? Why have I chosen this over the many more ridiculous methods of existence? Do I crave life and joy no more? Do I not want to enjoy the pleasures up for grabs in nature? What is it that ails me? And makes me want to hide beneath the sheets all day long? To pretend exhaustion when all I really want is to go out there and let the sun shine down on me, holding me aloft in the public eye.

Why do I fear company? Why do I shun contact with the world? And the chance to engage in meaningful conversation? Have I lost the capability of holding my own? Or is it that I no longer enjoy the nuances of argument which have always taught me insightful lessons and the truths of life?

Maybe I am a bit bored of the routine. I am bored of the same faces that greet me day after day as I wake up and smile. I am bored of the same things they say in varied tones and accents. I am bored of the silly mails that remind me that those beings that I have been running away from still exist and care. I am bored of the noises that creep in through the pores on the walls making me shrink into my blanket. I am bored of the way the maid walks in punctually at 1300 wanting to do the clothes and vessels. I am bored of the weekends that mean nothing but a movie and a dinner. I am bored of weekdays that mean nothing but cooking, waiting for hubby, soaps on TV and a quiet dinner together. I am bored of everything around me. I am bored of life, of predictability, of togetherness, of this town, these people, of myself.

The Leaky Cauldron

The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force, and 'mangled mind' leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict.
Elizabeth Drew

I sit at home day after day...waiting for the phone to ring or the mail box to beep....with some good cheer. That someone has found something that will keep me occupied for the upcoming months....while they throw in a little something to keep the debtors away....

Alas I wait in patience...Wonder at every little loud whisper that crosses my window...whether it aint someone wanting to have a conversation....to share my misery....to tell me the light at the end of the tunnel is so bright it will burn to ashes these moments in the dark....

For the first time the prospect of what many a woman goes through or willingly accepts stares me in the face....I shudder thinking how one can voluntarily surrender to a life which has no meaning, no consequence, no use, no art, no beauty, no music, no laughter....when everything in your life is borrowed?

The two rooms and their little furnishings don't keep me occupied enough ....even if were to re-arrange the house and its things ten different times, showered five times, ate another five, and watched mindless soaps for 4 hours, I still would be left wanting. So how can I plaster a smile when someone walks in tired after the trials and tribulations at work, wanting to crib....how can I lend him my ear when I am sobbing inside as my little upper floor leaks out through those thin black strands each day as I stand under the shower pretending that the water flowing down my cheeks is but the one from the tap......

I live a lie...A forced lie....

I no longer feel like I am me....I am an apparition of my self....somewhere lost in transit between the two abodes....my home and this temporary settlement....

Why is everything eluding me alone? Am I suddenly so untouchable? Should I have then left the comforts of my home, my friends and everything I consider dear to come to this alien town that treats me like I am a leper?

Something inside sobs. I dare not let the walls hear....They stare at me in smug satisfaction. They are slowly succeeding in ruining one more thinking being. Save me from this torturous world of mirages. Throw me the life-line. My eyes are so used to the darkness I will not miss the little clink.

Jobless!

The bustling maid
The shrill milk whistle
Towel clad husband
Bread burning wife

Perfunctory goodbye kiss
A slammed front door
Still yellow walls
Empty windswept bedrooms

Lunch-break call from friend
Abrupt end
The call of duty
Alas a jobless wife!

Boiling tea, hot cakes
Clean beds, steaming hot dinner
Ironed shirts, washed floors
Smiling wife, dog tired husband

"Goodnight wife", lights out
Reverberating silence
A deafening road!

July 14th 2006

Shifting Home

Stained coffee mugs
Soiled, sweaty clothes
Unopened suitcases
Space occupying cartons

Small paw marks on the dust
Little feet running by
Screaming mother on the top floor

Arguments with the agent
No more green bucks passing hands
Vociferous land lord on the landing

Tenant absorbed by woodwork
Memories wiped out by strangers
Little boy sobs in his bunk bed

Sweeping strokes of the broom
Lives, histories swept away
New stories being crafted
The traffic goes by.

July 14th 2006

Back in Action!

Finally after the deafening silence, sound waves have crept into my life. I am alive and there is some validation for my existence on this lonely planet. Someone somewhere wants me to magnify my presence for all those sundry mortals to see and envy while I bask in the glory of inertia…..

This truth negates the vacuum that had engulfed my upper faculties in the last few hundred hours….


I am alive and the universe is crying for me to make felt my little being in this vast expanse….


It’s good to be back!

The Inevitable Change!

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France


Seven years of anonymity, freedom, independence...of fun, frolic, danger, adventure....of fear, fearlessness, never say die....of lovers, admirers and mentors....of song, dance and death....of weightloss, weightgain and obesity....of spinsterhood, of coupling and marriage.....

Many phases that made me....the places, the scents, the people, the skies that made me....I have to let them go....I am married!

From my small nest, I have to flap my wings and spread out into the next world....full of dangers and unknown abysses....for I am married!

I have to change me, my spaces, my dreams and my life....I am married!

I have an extension, a partner...to share and care....to hold and push.....to smile and love, to cry and loath....I am married!

My smoking persona, my dangling smile, my killer instincts, my on the move intellect, my tapping toes, my painted hands, my battered clothes, my wet shoes....all in some dusty box...I am married!

My stupid friends, my dopey partners, my genius admirers, my faceless lovers...at the bottom of the ocean...I am married!

This white world...full of magic and serenity....I am married!

The moments of puritanical insight when adjustment and higher love ring true with every thump of the heart....when every little jerk of the eyelid....translates into poems of understanding...when every cough means a zillion complaints...when every smile means absolute acceptance and approval....when every wisecrack means an invitation....I am married!

Purity and loyalty...the key ingredients of this coupling.....talk and song....walk and dance.....fight and slap.....kiss and make up....all about love....

I am married!

Unnecessary Musings?

"It's Not Every Day A Fat Cat Brings You Flowers...." wrote A M Homes....

I wondered as I perused her writings on the net...the consequence of a freak search on Brad Pitt...Why hadn't I heard of her...me who prides myself for knowing every single writer who had strayed into literature...and I had not read her...leave alone know her...I had sinned...and now I had to undergo penance....

The dreams were scary....cats filled every little clean spot on my floor, on my curtains and furniture...I was petrified to say the least...and I didn't in any sense want to imitate Halle Berry....but I was beginning to crouch like I shouldn't...and my feline senses were buzzing....was that a plate of fish fry....passing me by on the floor below? mmmmm..........YIKES!!!!!!!! I was awake...Me, this puritanical brahmin iyer, dreaming of fresh fried fish? my grandmom would churn in her grave and order a bath with cow dung!

I could not afford to get fishy here...and that meant I could not sleep...for Halle Berry was now the woman of my dreams....and I liked jumping off rooftops in search for a nice stance.....hell Homes had corrupted me...

but I like tigers....majestic, unafraid, royal.....no I did not want to spend a night in the wilderness frightened that I might wake up and find myself staring into those shining slits of gold....or be worried sick that I might be grabbed by my leg and dragged along as my hair gathered leaves and sand and I screamed myself hoarse into the dark skies with nothing but an owl to respond...

but what is the purpose of what I am writing...I am lost here....

ah I wanted to do penance...but homes was away and couldn't care a damn whether I knew her or not, or I read her or not, while the rest of the world was anyways celebrating her success and her writing....

so then why am I bothering? to make up enough dough to fill this space...or pretend that I was clued into the major movements of the literary world? ah the question I am trying to answer even as I am typing this nonsense...

to be precise...Its just me trying to understand if with every passing month I am losing my touch with the language and the art of stringing together some meaningful words.....

can I continue with writing even if I woke up from a coma that lasted five years....maybe not...my fingers would be dead and sore....but I could complete a sentence in my head and make myself heard if not read....

so then should I waste time and energy....should I write?

Confounded Confucius!

The chill is piercing...an aberration of sorts....here in the middle of May, at 43 degree celsius, I am shivering inside my sleeves....

The drab office colours are blinding me as I wander through the corridor holding aloft a bottle of "chilled" water in order to cool down my senses! And there on that hideous woman's table I see the lines....Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life....so said Confucius if I'm any bit wiser...and he has made me ruminate yet again....

I am stuck in this abyss....rolling out news bulletins day after day....dumbing down all the bits of information for that jobless viewer who has tuned into my channel....freezing inside the PCR and cursing all the powers that be for mesmerising me into this medium that excels in lying and hoodwinking! What am I doing here? Changing the world? Bringing them the truth that is out there? Making the layman's voice echo in the chambers of power?

I am doing nothing remotely close...I am merely giving silly old farts time to make their voices heard, rich obnoxious politicians more time to spread their muddled up ever changing ideology, and converting into a joke anyone who tried to make a difference by questioning every pure thought of mankind....

I am ensuring that every story that pleases my boss goes on air, every time he wishes to enlighten the lesser mortals I eat into the precious ad breaks to allow him to let his creative juices flow in an uninterrupted fashion....I am doing nothing worthwhile and feeling even more worthless with every passing bulletin I roll out in an attempt to lay bare the happenings in the corridors of power!

My job sucks...and I want a change...but what should that change be? Something in me cries out against doing something that is unlike what I currently pursue...after all this post here had its share of obstacles and sacrifices....then again having to put up with this monotony for the rest of my life send shivers up my brain stem....I will end up being a vegetable.....Do I risk that? If not should I go back to academics...add a few more degrees and churn out names and quotes in the time you bat an eyelid? Or should I sit at home, take a sabbatical...work on my love for writing and ensnare the world into reading what might make for some good bedtime scary story? Options and then again lack of options...or rather the fear of being financially unstable and forced to live within the four walls of the house I run from every morning for the silence is killing?

I am confused....and lets hope Confucius might be able to bail me out this time round!

Silence Is Killing!

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction, said Virginia Woolf....

And here I am hoping my new found hubby will replenish me with resources to sit back, chew on my pencil and scribble while the rain patters down on the window-sills across which I have drawn curtains for fear that a fly might disturb my delicate balance....

For death, pain and the macabre fascinated me and the world shunned me for being wonky upstairs...my love stood by me...watched me mumble in silence at the blue screen with little words staring back in complete meaning, hoping I would hit backspace and make the silence grow in size...

he stood by patiently as I scribbled, mumbled, swore and cried....I was a lunatic....I needed restraint...yet he let me out...to smell the wet grass and the white daisies...while the wet sand caught on to my sandals and made impressions on my his favourite carpet...yet he watched in silence...why this sheer love? I ask again...do I return it? I don't know...my words are failing me...I don't want to be silent....I'd rather die!