So whom do I call?

Considering we are at logger heads, almost everytime we are in the same room, it’s funny how I’m beginning to miss talking to her so.

An insane schedule that we hit upon when I first moved out of home, to ensure I was safe amidst all those vultures out there. Now an unbreakable habit.

Even though nothing changes every three hours, we still have to make that perfunctory call, from the moment we wake up till we call it a day, simply updating one another of what’s happening in our little worlds. Each call may last not more than a minute, but both parties happy at the end of it.

For my hubby and bro these inane and at most times “simbly” calls are matters of great amusement and though we’ve been ribbed time and again, nothing stops me from calling my mom a zillion times a week.

And suddenly yesterday it dawned on me, how much a part of my daily routine it has become. And how now that she is on a vacation, and I have no means of calling so often, I am missing it so.

Crazy how little givens become so bloody valued.

Anyhow hope she has a blast.

How much is enough?

A friend sent me this forward today….

Made me wonder about “enough”.

I am forever complaining that I don’t have enough…or that everything I have is not enough….

How much is enough?

Anyhow read on….


----Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the Hyderabad airport. They had announced the departure.

Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, 'I love you and I wish you enough'.

The daughter replied, 'Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom'.

They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated.

Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?'.

Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?'.

'I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral,' she said.

'When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough'. May I ask what that means?'.

She began to smile. 'That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone'.

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more.

'When we said, 'I wish you enough', we wanted the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them'. Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them.

TAKE TIME TO LIVE.....

To all my friends and loved ones,

I WISH YOU ENOUGH........!

So sang John Waite….in 1984

Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
And I'm still standing here
And you're miles away
And I'm wonderin' why you left
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight

I hear your name in certain circles
And it always makes me smile
I spend my time thinkin' about you
And it's almost driving me wild
And there's a heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say

There's a message in the wire
And I'm sending you this signal tonight
You don't know how desperate I've become
And it looks like I'm losing this fight
In your world I have no meaning
Though I'm trying hard to understand
And it's my heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say

And there's a message that I'm sending out
Like a telegraph to your soul
And if I can't bridge this distance
Stop this heartbreak overload

I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say
I ain't missing you
I ain't missing you
I can lie to myself
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight
I ain't missing you at all
Since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you
No matter what my friends say
I'm missing you
I ain't missing you
I ain't missing you at all
I can lie to myself
Ain't missing you
I ain't missing you
Ain't missing you, oh no
No matter what my friends might say
I ain't missing you...

Of Poetry Competitions & School...

For some weird reason I am reminded of the numerous times I strode onto a stage to recite my poem. The high of winning the prize for the right pronunciation, modulation and emotion was quite irreplaceable in those innocent years.

Flashes of many a poem I recited in my school years have been whizzing past since last night....

Maybe they want to be said out aloud yet again....

Excerpts from The Lady of Shalott: Alfred Tennyson
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

Mystery solved!

After years of wondering why I was the only one who was plagued by those darn creatures it seems there is an answer….a scientific explanation to my irrational fears!

Read this:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/144541

In Sickness & In Health!

“Falling ill is not something that happens to us, it is a choice we make as a result of things happening to us” Jonathan Miller

Each time I have succumbed to illness, I have laughed at the stupidity of letting the body run amok till it could take no more and had to forcibly shut down. Each time I promised myself it wouldn’t happen a second time. Close to a dozen such experiences and I wonder why I religiously repeat this mistake with not a care in the world. And endure pain, medication, and a sense of dejection.

That is not to say I do not enjoy those phases in parts. I am eerily attracted to the smell that hospitals and disinfectants emit. I undergo withdrawal symptoms when I haven’t undergone some sort of clinical appointment once every six months and the icing on the cake would be being given a shot. Since childhood I have been fascinated by hospitals and the concept of being a patient. To the extent that some folks believe I create symptoms merely to get a doctor to take a look at me.

Unfortunately each and every tryst with medicine and hospitals has been downright painful in my experience. And most of them I didn’t even have the consciousness to observe and enjoy! And by the time consciousness prevailed I was ready to go home.

And yet I have had inane diseases. Like getting a whip lash injury (how I would not elaborate, and me and the doc conspired about getting me a polka dotted neck support), injuring and fracturing myself just above the eye and beneath my eyebrow by banging myself against a steel tap in the hostel by mistake, getting shots in my hip when the food poisoning incidents got too frequent and painful, breaking one hand and not wearing a cast, tearing a ligament on the other, and then balancing it out with a contusion injury on my knee, and having some surgeries in between, some problem with my pharynx, alternating between mono and stereo modes when my ears give up on me periodically, etc etc. Some more I shall omit for fear of causing a ear shattering gasp.

No it’s not an attempt to sound like a medical catalogue or a nagging and painfully boring patient. All are true and catalogued for good in the form of bills, medical certificates to schools/colleges/offices. Instead the way I look at it, I offer many a doctor the chance to practice and hone his theoretical knowledge. After all no other single human being can throw up so many interesting challenges all from one single body. Maybe I should donate this body to the medical fraternity to hone the skills of those coming after us. That’s food for thought indeed.

The other side to all this. I crave attention when I am unwell. Even if the world were to ignore me in my good healthy and hearty days, if someone doesn’t call repeatedly to check on my well being and happiness levels during my sick days I can make life hell. I am one fussy soul who only believes in the worst and so each time I have wondered what it would be like not to have another birthday to celebrate. And each time someone concerned has called back to check on me has taken me a step closer to recovery. And everyone who misses out on those calls/visits gets shunted to the last chamber in my memory.

Yes I am eccentric all right. But hey if I were all that sane would I have made life any better?

Now this I need to learn and learn fast at that…. “Health is not valued till sickness comes.” Thomas Fuller

Blissfully unaware...

Does that bespectacled man know what awaits me around the corner?

Can he predict the ups and downs that await my every living moment?

How to circumvent them, so I may retain my pretty smile forever?

Or does he believe I am fated to doom, to tragedy and sadness for the remaining years of my life?

Can they really see all that and more?

I wonder, after all I was to have died before celebrating my 7th birthday and here I am having spent one score years more, wondering why he died instead of me.

So what makes these mortals see beyond the human realm?

Why is it that providence is willing to let them into secrets they have guarded so zealously all these years?

What do they hope to achieve by warning those mere mortals or scaring them to a speedier death?

Is it because these men and women, either by rolling shells or looking at our palms or by watching a parrot jump across the space can somehow fathom what that man upstairs had in mind for humankind?

What gives them the edge to know those other worldly secrets?

And if it is as divine and blessed as they claim it is then why are they dying to encash it so?

Curiosity will soon get the better of me and I might be more than tempted to attempt a sitting with one of these “learned men”.

But what can they tell me I don’t know already?

Or is it that he merely wants to warn me away from the many more lurking dangers?

What if he fails miserably yet again?

Then who is responsible for that shoddy knowledge or incomplete reading?

God, him or me?

I am curious. Yet something in me resists. What if he is right and I know my day of departure?

Would life be worth living then?

Guess not.

Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Of memories and more....

“Love is as much of an object as an obsession, everybody wants it everybody seeks it, but few ever achieve it, those who do, will cherish it, be lost in it, and among all, will never...never forget it.” Curtis Judalet


Two years of holy matrimony.

As that landmark fast approaches, the natural rewind occurs.

The first glance, the first date, the first kiss, the first fight, the first apology, the first letter, the first everything.

Life ain’t a bed of roses, if it were; would it have been as well remembered?

Life is all about memories, some cherished, the rest despised.

Yet the heady mix makes for many a smile down the years.

Here’s to many more memory making years.

Love - a fortunate accident!

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

- Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Divine Accident Indeed!

“The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”
Sir Hugh Walpole

All Alone!

“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.” Jean de la Bruyere

What is it about being alone that is so scary? That seems so insurmountable? That chokes me and leaves me running out like a mad hatter, as if the world were coming to an end. What will make it better? Why has it suddenly become so impossible to be alone? Why do I dread my own company? Or is it something more?

I need answers. I don’t want to be locked up in an asylum cell fearing even the goddamn disinfectant smelling wall.

Make me see sense. Give me courage to tide over this. I need to be strong.

This or That?

The Rig Veda says, “When there is harmony between the mind, heart and your determination, nothing is impossible.”

Now my question: for someone as confused and vacillating as me, harmony seems as unattainable as utopia. So then how do we make the impossible, possible?

I am perpetually torn between two extremes. Why I wonder? Is it because those two divergent choices really exist in my little world? Or because I would like to delude myself that though the available option is not as pleasant as I would like it to be, there is this nook in my little brain I can run away to hide in.

The choices stump me at times. Yet I pretend I am conquering something, a temptation, a lesser option, a similar not up to the mark opportunity in favour of this so-called wise and well-informed decision. Only to rant in a few months at best a few hours.

If varied options merely lead to confusion and discontent in hindsight, why not do away with them?

But then how will I console myself that I got the better deal, unless there is something to pip in favour of it?

Life’s choices have me confused.

But that is my silly high.

I refuse to let it go.

And true it is...

“What is love? Love is when one person knows all of your secrets... your deepest, darkest, most dreadful secrets of which no one else in the world knows... and yet in the end, that one person does not think any less of you; even if the rest of the world does.”

Holidaying!

Off for a break.

Wish all of you a Merry Christmas & a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Cleaning out….

As I rummaged through some old mails etc, I came across this little neatly hidden note. Personal, written in A’s hand.

“The point of the matter is she never would have gone so far away if it hadn’t been for them…. there was nothing that could have come in between them. The princess would have patiently bided her time, forever. And yet…the storm raged. She was swept away. And while he searched with all he had left, she was floating unaware in some faraway shore, calling out to him, choking on tears. Something died then, deep within. Never to be reborn or mended. Not trying to make excuses and slip away. It was ignoble and simply disgusting. It hurt too. That it did whatever else he might want to believe. It tugs at the heart more than he might actually give credit for. She did let you down, did turn out to be a slippery eel, uncaring and unreliable. But if ever he finds it within himself to believe and forgive, he should do so, for come what may the princess will wholeheartedly love the captain, and him alone till the end of time.”

Those days it never made sense to me…

Neither had ever explained why they chose different partners. It had shocked me then, it scares me now. I had stayed away. Now I wonder…

I have another 20 odd FYI ones. I wonder if I should make sense of it all, after so many years.

Ignorance is indeed bliss many a times.

For the captain and the sea princess

“………I was just entering the place.

He looked right at me, smiled and walked away.

Something in me went off. It kept saying he likes you.

I put it aside. Walked on.

Talked on, lived on.

3 days later I met him again.

We were going the same way.

We were sitting next to each other.

We talked.

And talked.

And fought like 3 year olds.

Then suddenly held hands.

Suddenly we were shy.

Of everything, of each other.

Till that moment it had all seemed so pure.

Suddenly there seemed to be bigger questions that needed attention.

I was single.

So was he.

But we were strangers.

What was it that had brought us together?

Where was this seemingly sudden and one and only meeting headed.

Why had we both gasped and smiled the minute we had set eyes on each other again at the bus stop?

Was it another fanciful dream?

No. He is much older than me.

Then why am I, this fresh in college kid, swooning over him?

Pray what is wrong?

All I wanted was to be with him, talk to him, look at him, have him hold me, like this forever…”


A sent me this way long ago. Those days I had wondered how in the span of a half hour bus ride she had mustered up enough reason and courage to interlink her fingers with that of an older stranger.

After years of being together, they still took a bus ride to relive those innocent times.

Today as I search for those two faces, people who made me what I am, loved me to death and made me love so steadfastly in return.

The two of you…so far away, so removed from my life.

At every turn I look for your approval, your smile.

For every moment spent apart…

I miss you A & S.

Love you always.

Forget it, but how?

“When love becomes labored we welcome an act of infidelity towards ourselves to free us from fidelity” --- François de la Rochefoucauld

In the last five years, a zillion times I have pondered, what forced him to commit such a heinous act? It was unforgivable then, and now.

What is it that spurs a human being to stray; from those he/she professes to love more than themselves?

Is it boredom, is it for pleasure or the thrill of the chase, or a craving for variety, or lust, or physical and/or emotional needs, or despair, or depression, or loneliness, or anger, or revenge, or pure mirth, or sheer disregard for another, or destiny or something beyond all that?

It had stung really hard, and has permeated sensibilities of mine, that are invisible to the naked eye or brain and now impede pure happiness and innocence in me.

Why? I ask myself, for I never got an answer.

Now as I build happiness with another, I am forced to relook and try and discard those fears and numbing feelings so as not to cast a dark shadow on the honesty of that which exists now.

I wonder if ever I shall break free of those shackles that bind me for life? How I shall mete out justice to this one who loves me beyond compare now and gives me happiness I didn’t dream of by worrying myself green that history might repeat itself.

How can you walk away from something that hurt you so bad and bury it so deep it can never again resurface?

Everybody has a good side?

"Find the best in everybody. You might have to wait a long time, sometimes years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side; just keep waiting, it will come out. "
Randy Pausch



My life and experiences, albeit small and numbered, tell me there is no inherent and hidden goodness in someone. There are no varying degrees. Either they are good or bad. There is never this fine line ebbing into nothing. Most manage to pretend and hope otherwise.

The people I have known range from downright evil to absolutely wonderful. Though the first category seems to attract itself more to me, the fact remains the last has been the one that taught me more.

They, who are innately good, can only exude goodness. And basking in that either we learn, unlearn or relearn. We may not become clones of those saintly souls, but it at least instills in us the belief that even if we are not considered pontiffs and divine messengers, we might be able to bring a smile to someone, somewhere. At the bare minimum, we might make life better for ourselves.

Few years back, each roadblock seemed a punishment to me. I berated against nature’s cruelty against simple me. But now I wonder otherwise.

When the going gets tough, the person who is a survivor grits his/her teeth and sees a silver lining even amidst the muck. That has been my attempt at many junctures in my life.

There is always something good, if only you persist and go through with it all. There is some reason it is happening to you, and not to the guy who sits next to you in office. What might that be?

I don’t have many answers, but I merely pursue what little goodness and purity that remains in me. I wouldn’t want to be the odd one living amongst pontiffs.

Recourse to Plath

The Companionable Ills


The nose-end that twitches, the old imperfections---
Tolerable now as moles on the face
Put up with until chagrin gives place
To a wry complaisance---
Dug in first as God's spurs
To start the spirit out of the mud
It stabled in; long-used, became well-loved
Bedfellows of the spirit's debauch, fond masters.

Straying Hairs....

“I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows” - Janette Barber, stand-up comic

For once I have an explanation to what those black strands are doing way below my so called head…. each time I resorted to creams and gels and threads and painful waxing procedures, which I resented I racked my brain to come up with some rational explanation as to why they were there….and now I know!

And all this while I wondered how I could laugh about growing a partial beard like my dad, bro and hubby…. but hey it wasn’t a galactic conspiracy. It was just that like my spinal column fucked up and gave me two damn extra bones, my damn eyebrows forgot their limits and overflowed….a wee bit under!

What with extra bones, misdirected and stray hairs, almost joint eyebrows, (yeah not just Kajol folks, but in now way imitating the bewildering and frightening bridge that Karishma Kapoor sported) frizzy limp brown hair, a full figure (read overweight) and ……(better left unsaid, making me suddenly develop a complex) I have concluded that my body shall be given away to the world of science to learn what the repercussions of multitudes of errors can do…

And in the meantime, God bless her sweet soul for finally ending the traumatic overtures of the little grey cells to be creative on this one….