You missed the last bus when you went for a walk down that road

When I was a wee lass,
and my braid was fat
and its weight pulling my neck back,
I could see only the sky.

It was vast and blue
and white and grey
and I thought I would twinkle someday
like those stars in the night sky.

If I skipped a step in tune,
seemed like I would be a dancer
and if I rhymed it with rune,
I would become a poet and
write forever about the summer sky.

All roads lay in front of me
and why, I could go down any I chose
Who knew where they led to?
To hell, heaven or somewhere in the sky?

What no one ever told me
was that if wander far down one path,
you could never make it back in time
for that bus ride which takes you right up to the sky.

The little city that never was

Bangalore
It is not the city with streets of gold. Not where you can forget your past and come up with a brand new future. Not the city of love or joy or beauty. The pope never lived here. Nor do the stars and starlets. Not famous for absinthe or freaks in cages or sex bars or topless women standing in balconies preening. It is not where the Jats live, love and commit crimes of passion. Not known for mindless opulence and you cannot find Chanel totes in gullies.

Then whatever is Bangalore? Does it really not have a character of its own ? Or is it just that it is rather uncool to be the setting of any movie/ music video?

I think that Bangalore is the place where you come to face reality. Reality. Your own and your country's. No, Impossible is something, something that has to be worked around. You have to plan. You only have so much money. Your family still exists, they didn't magically disappear and leave you free during the few months / years you spent in America. They are not fine. Your mother is growing old and your father is sick. Your siblings are abroad and only you are there in this country. This is not like the time you were in Mumbai or Delhi, far away form your home and you never realised their problems coz they never told you. You need to look at your income realistically. You need to save up for yourself and send money home to make your parents lives better. Your ex has moved on. You need to do that as well. No, you cannot pub hop till the wee hours of the morning. There is work to be done the next day. There are parking fines to be paid and dirty clothes to be washed. It will not do to wear the same pair of jeans to work on 5 consecutive days. You look around. Nobody does that. All your colleagues have cars and/or bikes and clean, big houses with carpeting and flower vases! Even the single ones! Most of them take a vacation abroad every year, not work, but vacation.
It is a good life, there are plenty of opportunities but you have to work hard and harder to make it work for you. Luck has nothing to do with the quality of your life. No slums by the side of railway tracks but no Marine Drive mansions either. There is no Ambani fairy tale, no rags and no riches in Bangalore. Not the city of immense possibility, there is a ceiling. But then there is a solid ground as well.
It is the city of solid grounding and pragmatism. The eye drops that wash your eyes out and leave them with the power to look at your life with crystal clear vision.
You make your life here, clean and beautiful with modest acquisition of beauty and property. You look at your roots and think that it is time to give back. That's it!
The city which teaches you that unlike other cities where you snatch and grab, here you must give back to whatever has made you.
Yeah, I can see a director's view point, no romanticism in solid pragmatism and thanksgiving. No ?
Y

Housewife - Mrs. Robinson or Rajni ?

***My Weekend***
Swabbing with an 800 rupee mop
cleaning
cooking
Appam and kadala curry
the quintessential gajar ka halwa , the post modern Bollywood sweet
cleaning
broken glass
broken down water filter
yelling at salesmen/service professionals
coming up with new threats -bored of the age old ' pulis mein complaint karenge aap ke baare mein'
dreaming - oh always that
building castles in the air about a friend becoming some editorial mogul ( not sure what that is)
then on top of those big-ass castles, building some fragile structures of one's own, a little room on my friends minaret, a little magazine of my own, :P
beauty and pain
smoothness and endless self-adoration for 3 hrs
hunt for the corkscrew
a little more dreaming
clogged drains
long shower
thinking about The Book
rushing to catch slow buses
traffic
thinking about making a patchwork bag - old saree + old curtain, should I ?
a ring and a mangalsutra
some blinding gold shops with hideous jewels
bad salad and good coffee
the corkscrew found
impatience and violence
broken cork floating in the wine
wine through a tea strainer
wine
wine
dirty dishes
wine
wine
snore

Bangalore's signature weather

Cloudy days, inky clouded evenings, cool breeze, the tall towering modern apartments that condescendingly acknowledge your return in the evening, landscaped gardens that stay unmoved to the entreaties of most howling winds and refuse to so much as flutter a leaf without their creator's permission, a 2 yr old swaddled in diapers, tottering to a ridiculous red slide and looking inconsequential in front of an 18 storeyed tower that is her home, grimy labourers counting their wages and emerging from the underground city that is the Parking lot, the garden variety flowers that grow in these garden variety gardens.

This is my home, now. At 5:30 p.m., on a regular day, taken from a bad mobile camera in regular mode and with no effects whatsoever. Looks like it could easily be used as cover image for any of Ayn Rand's books. If the weather weren't so good...

Blahiye Blahiye

Nyet Nyet

No, No, No

I am bored so

Sugar in coffee

but rot in the coffin

honey in the tea-pot

but the corpse rots

sour tamarind when you are knocked up

the honey smell of your baby's head

but you ? You smell of rot when you die.

Radio, TV, papers, twitter and BB

uncle,aunty, mommy and daddy

hubby,baby, sis and her baby

yak yak yipety yip

Why matter?

Blahiye, mine idol, idol mine

my life is yours

In a land where you rule

where no one goes to school

from crib to the bricklayer's shop

to fetch,carry, get hurt and drop

then to be your own bricklayer

and build,always huts and no more

In the land where you rule, Blahiye

Undone by hand

An 8 of diamonds on the road,
stamped on by a a heavy sports shoe,
turn it over idly with your toe
and be surprised to know
that it has 8 diamonds on the other side too.
Some trick that lies by the wayside
Some trick that never was
Someone walked by armed
but was robbed by chance
of all the tricks up his sleeve.
A Kinley bottle filled up with water
lying unused by the gutter,
a stream that never passed through the gullet
bypassed to meet its fate.
A thread on a nail,
leading to a slowly unravelling dupatta,
the dupatta lies inconsequential
on a heaving heavy bosom.
Some of us are never allowed to perform
the routine that we have practised hard.
Some of us make our destinies,
most of us just fulfill them,
and there are some
who are carefully undone by the master's hand.

Art of taking it "aisy"

I have come to realise that I am so worried about everything that I have forgotten to relax.
So in post-appraisal rage, I decided to take 2 days off for myself. Just me. Will do whatever I want.

Today started out well.
Getting up late. Seeing fiance off when he goes off to work.
Breakfast - 1 apple, 2 chotu bananas
Some chatting on gtalk with friends. Sending off resumes and making phone calls.
Then cutting up loads of veggies and mixing it up with leftover dal and some masalas to make something yummy. Hearty lunch. Started reading 'East of Eden'.
Then some high tension moments of dealing with workers, supervisors and maintanence managers. 3 hours of pointless conversations. Then I decide to drop it. Whatever, doood. Peace to all earthlings.
Had a hot shower, welcomed fiance back with a kiss. Now chilling after having ordered dinner and waitng for friends to join me.
Maybe tomorrow, the taking it easy part will be better, with practice.

In the throes of lust

Currently lusting after:
The towering mountains of Bhutan
A trip along the Yangtse
A chance to shop in the furniture warehouses outside Shanghai
LG refridgerator - 16k
Sony Bravia 32" wall mounted television
a 1 TB hard disk
Tata sky plus connection
4 Mbps internet connection

Thats all. Simple, thats me.

I am here to discuss Fear

What makes you insecure?
What makes you scared?
What makes you want to run without even waiting to put your shoes on?

I will go first.

1. That I will die without ever getting that job that I want and enjoying a day at work
2. That I will die without having ever raised a child
3. That I will never get to see all the places that I want to go to
4. That I will be crippled and not be a full person
5. That He will stop loving me and I will never know it
6. That I will never be desired sexually by women
7. That I will be raped brutally
And hordes of other things like stray dogs, cats, creepy crawlies, being mauled to death in a forest, dying of heart attack etc.

What are yours?

Why are we afraid? Does not Fear take away something from you?

What to do about it?

Vingt-sept

I made some soup today

with crushed pepper

and bits of cabbage floating in it.

Threw in some of Eliot for good measure,

the prickly pear stirred in by the coffee spoons

and I watched it turn grey.

A sickly grey, that made one think

of hospitals and bird vomit.

Unable to stand the sight,

I carefully grazed the edge of my left thumb

with my bread knife, the serrations running

across my skin, like a goods train.

I drew blood, inverted my thumb above the soup bowl

squeezed above the little wound

squeezed in 2 or 3 drops into the bowl.

I don't know what I was thinking.

I was thinking of Iranians and couscous,

the Maharashtrian green glass bangles,

and my loved one's hands on the small of my back.

Yet I wasn't really thinking.

I looked down ,

the soup turned brown.

Not red, not pink, but brown.

A dirty, murky, rummy brown.

I was disappointed.

I was a romantic,

but my soup cured me.

Now I'm stoic.

I dipped my spoon and drank my soup

My soup, my unexpectedly brown soup.

Feathers

Women are either nightingales, who sing beautifully but don't speak or parrots who repeat everything they are told but understand nothing.

The moment a woman thinks, speaks and acts out, she crosses over to the other side and becomes a man. Or a dyke.

We don't want to become men. Do we now, ladies?

I get by with a little help from my friends - Cover version

What would you think if my designation is a cartoon?

Would you stand up and walk out on me?

Lend me your shoulders and I'll cry a little river

and I'll try not to wet your tee.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

Mmm, please pass my resume on, my high-flyer friends

gonna try with a little help from my friends.

What did I do when the boss laughed at me today?

(You secretly chipped the screen of his iPhone)

Does it bother me that I am so sad and a little fey?

(We are with you, you are not on your own)

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

Mmm,more Facebook time, my Farmville friends

gonna grow rye with a little help from my friends.

Do you need anybody?

Yes, I want hot contacts right now!

How is your LinkedIn so shoddy?

Coz my contacts are all bloody cows.

Would you believe in career growth path?

I'm certain it happens to others over time.

Over promotions, is there a bloodbath?

well, a guy killed himself last time.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

Mmm,more whiskey for you, my HR friends

someone gonna die with a little help from my friends.