Privilege cards

 I was never hungry

But I am always starving.

I was never poor.

But I am forever deprived.

What is this pain that I so desperately need?

What is this beauty of grief I can never experience?

I once deliberately went hungry.

Chose to spend the last 5 rupees in my account on a phone call instead of a vada pav

I could have borrowed money from any friend.

And I had so many of them.

I chose to make a call.

For the next 48 hrs I ate only free food.

I thought I would then understand that hunger.

That desire to rob , to stab, to steal , to have.

Never did.

I was content to eat from my friend's lunches and snack packs.

I went down to chaat shops and tried to feel my nothingness. 

Deliberately inhaled pungence of the onion at the bhelwala's cart.

Let myself salivate at the panipuriwala stall.

(The UP bhaiya's and NOT the Mumbaiyya's)

Yet, I never did feel that rock bottom.

Is this what privilege really is?

Our inability to fathom the ink of darkness, hear the pitch of a scream or 

just never ever feeling rock bottom at all?

How do you know what you don't know you have?

Failed beauty

In a moment of pure pain, I thought I would cut myself.
Like her, Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Secretary.
She ( and James Spader) made cutting a thing of exquisite beauty.

Remember?
But years have passed
since I saw them and the movie last.

Maybe I had forgotten how to make it beautiful.
Perhaps it is beautiful only when a sharp glinting steely edge
cuts into young taut skin, and the slutty veins eagerly ooze.

All I had was a dull bread knife.
( Well, sue me!  Everything else lay in the sink)
Dullard dulled by making cheese sandwiches for the baby.

But I would cut myself.
Ok, last moment, went for the thumb instead of the wrist.
( Hey, I still did it, didn't I?)


Now here I am.
Old pain forgotten.
New burdens begotten.

And all that is left is the annoyance
of having to type with one hand.
Coz the other index finger is busy trying to seal
stubborn unbleeding wretched injured skin closed.
Well to quiet it down, if not to heal.

Another day, another travesty of justice

It ishttp://www.thehindu.com/news/national/homosexuality-illegal-sc/article5446939.ece?homepage=true


Baby Krishna tied to a mortar
for his own safety
Baby grew up, and the millstone
and rope cut into his carotid.
Ouch!

Golden nothings

People post their childhood photos on Facebook, brimming with mischief and innocence. The screwed up eyes, the broken tooth smile, the naughty glints, the tongue stuck out. There are cricket bats and stumps and beach balls in the photos, adding to a sense of a full childhood, as it should be. There are other kids in it, playing with them, adding to the cuteness.

I look at my childhood photos. There is nothing like that in them. My photos are just me, alone. No siblings, no cousins, no cute snotty playfellows in them. Sometimes my Dad or Mom can be found in my photos, looking indulgently at me. I am never to be found playing in my photos. There is only one photo of me where I am tearing apart my Mom's wedding saree. Well, my Dad thought that moment was more precious than the wedding saree, so he chose to take a snap than rescue the saree. Other than that I am most passive in all of them.

I guess my photos are a reflection of my childhood. There were no friends. My first best friend was made in std.  7. Till then I was happily alone with my thoughts. I never liked to play in the sun. I was happy to fake some mild illness and read under the trees during PT Time. Chess was my game of choice and Scrabble was my favourite exercise. There is no snap of the hours spent reading Nancy Drew in a dusty corner of the public library.No one has captured the moments where my school librarian gave me grown-up books off the record. Nobody knows how much I cried over Sidney Carton's death when I was 11.

I am sure there are others like me, who grew up feeding their imagination rather than actively experiencing life. The way the rest of the world looks at childhood, we will always be made to feel like we didn't our normal share. That just isn't true. Our childhood was every bit as special, our growing up was equally heart-breaking if not more. After all, if you read about the horrors of adult life well before time, doesn't that dampen your wish to be grown up? Our innocence was precious too, so were our joys and sorrows. We bear our own scars, most of which are not visible to others, but we know why we don't like strawberry ice-cream or that red colour dress. 

Sweet Ageing

Ageing is lovely, if you don't fight it. It is like drinking wine, sipping and swirling it at all the right places, when you start to recognize each of the underlying notes in it. 

You realize the importance of gradual ascension in a trek. 

Unknown, unbranded solid perfumes made from essential oils and wax alone start looking way more appealing than some random Davidoff or Carolina Herrera picked up in a rush from the duty-free counter in the airport. 

You start questioning discounts. 

You realize the worth of other veggies besides potatoes. You give the Maggi and egg bhurji a break, you start cooking real dishes. 

You have conversations with your mother, father, older uncles and in-laws. Real conversations. You are pleasantly surprised to learn that these people have distinct personalities, real identities that you had no part in shaping. They are not known in the world as So-and-so's Mum/ Dad. You begin to understand what makes them who they are and consequentially you start finding things out about yourself and where that comes from. 

Reading becomes even more important than before. 

You don't feel the need to have a large group of friends around you to have fun. You are not lonely when you are alone. 

You don't look for clothes that reveal your best body bits, you sport your character. 

It is such a lovely time, when you become emotionally mature. Much like how we rebelled against the physical changes during puberty and adolescence, we tend to fight against this time of ripening emotional maturity as well. 

Stop the fight, revel in the ripening.

You are served on the world's table as a delicacy whose time has come. A bunch of sweet grapes under a cloche. 

My wish list

1. Write a novella
2. Lead a more eco-friendly lifestyle - trying to eliminate plastic from every possible aspect of life
3. Look better -want to regularly apply multani-mitti and besan packs etc, however feel deterred by the paucity of time and break down at the thought of the messiness.
4. Cook a lot of new dishes - a lot of new ones
5. Do a bit of ballet everyday
6. Learn to take my Ayurvedic meds on time
7. Try and be a part of a food raising charity - something on the lines of Oz Harvest

When I think about what I really really really want for this year, it is nothing big like a trip abroad or a high paying job or even a baby. I just want to make elementary changes in my lifestyle, however this list seems tougher than Baby- Job- International Trip list. 

Vomit

I have to be somewhere else,
in the next 15 mins.
What I am doing right now
does not matter.
They are just the ramblings
of an unpaid, unproductive, childless housewife.
Where I have to be,
in the next fifteen minutes
is a place that matters to you.
Where they count, store, multiply and divide money.
Where you are treated rightfully
by the size of your account
or the colour of your card.
Yet I think I would rather be here right now.
I don't want to die without leaving this unsaid.
I want a gun.
Then I want a shooting instructor,
a female shooting instructor.
Then I want to felicitate hospitals where they practice female foeticide.
Why waste time giving birth to puny things which will be raped or killed later on anyway?
Then I want pills which can quell my nausea.
I am retching violently.
My Facebook page lists updates on reports of crimes against women in my country.
But what chills me, is the endorsement of the 'Girl Child Gift Basket' right next to it.
Some hateful bastards want to celebrate the birth of these little girls.
Maybe they want to rape them tomorrow? 

Time and Punishment

The entire country is outraged about the rape. Demanding death penalty, castration etc. for the rapists. Will that solve anything? Is fear enough? If Man just chose to do the right thing out of fear rather than out of choice, how is it a good system?

We are materialistic. Always have been. We grow the crops that bring us the most money. We would like to sow seeds in the womb that would  bring us the most benefits too. That's why the preference for the male child. We would like our sons to work towards the profession du jour, engineering, medicine, pimping whatever is the highest sought profession in that age. We will buy them certificates from excellent institutions that will qualify them as prospective engineers, doctors and pimps. Then we find them women who will adapt their lives to those of our sons.

Even after all this puppet-mastering, we don't stop. We constantly point out other friends' sons who are in the US or earning a billion dollars every year and whose child gifted them a world trip. Spurring on the blinkered horse.

Can an entire mass of men remain sane? They will snap. One way or another. Hatred for the mother which will manifest itself as a crime against women. Hatred for the father which will exhibit itself in incidents of domestic violence. There wont even be psychologists and psychiatrists to help these sick minds. Remember, you made engineers, doctors and pimps out of them?

In an age, where is art is neglected , beauty can cause extreme damage.

Imagine a grey, colourless bland world where everyone goes about their boring, insipid lives. One day, on a smoky morning in a grey street, there is a large canvas with a frighteningly beautiful painting on it. The art will evoke something in every one. However, never having known beauty, it will frighten them. They will be bewildered at first. Then a few bold ones will take up sharp knives, rush together at it and rent the beautiful painting to ribbons.

What we hold in our hand today are the shredded ribbons of our sanity.

The Undercover Philistine

Sometime music is very frustrating. It is like foreplay gone awry. Sometimes I discover little nuggets, some piano masterpieces that frustrate me no end. I stop everything I am doing to listen to it over and over again. I give in to the deceptively calm opening tinkle. Close my eyes and fall back hoping to sink into a cushioned place only to find myself falling. In shock, I realize the piece is not calming at all. It is stormy, it is is frenzied and evocative of something. What exactly? What is it trying to evoke in me? I can feel the composer's, the pianists, the arranger's, the video uploader's, everyone's desperation. They are all trying to tell me something What is it? I don't understand this emotion that they are trying to get across. I am feeling something, but I don't even know what it is. It is like clawing at a smooth glass wall.
Then begins the long process of playing it in the background while hunting around the internet  Searches on the composer's name, his life, the time in his life when he composed this piece etc. Then piecing together that long gone corpse's life and trying to understand what he is trying to communicate here. Listening to the piece again from that perspective, but again feeling frustrated since I don't understand.
Then panic sets in. What if I am unfeeling? What if art and music evoke nothing in me? Could it be that I am a Philistine? If I am, I must at least try and appear unlike one to all human observation. Then in a desperate attempt, I find reviews on the particular piece of music and try and form my opinion based on other clever people's opinions.
Here too I exercise cunning, read conflicting reviews to know every possible opinion about it and then I go with something the character called Myself would probably choose to go with.
Is it worth it? So what if I did not get this or all of this or even all of the music in the world? Would it be the end of me? Even if my mind were not developed at all, would my body still not appreciate the world of sensuous pleasure? Is that not enough?

Everything is 2D

Would you like to sketch me? How would you go about it? Would you represent my overweight body by swiftly drawn strokes that will give a sense of the fluidity of my flesh? Will you manage to capture how unusually small and screwed up my eyes are? And wondrous natural darkness of my eyelids that always make me look like I have a teensy bit of eye shadow on? And the stray hairs wildly fluttering? And my pimply cheek and darker chin? The tiny tiny hairs on my upper lip? The sandpapery texture of my nose? The softness of my ears, their easy foldable nature? the tiny teeth, except for the two buck teeth up front.
If I were to ask you to paint me in colour, would it make it all the more difficult for you?
And if I were to ask you to extract my essence and abstract me into a visual art form, what would you do?
I think I would forever like to me immortalized as a tiny mosquito just about to land in the thick  sweetness of a Tropicana Orange juice served in a cheap thick glass

This I know

When in doubt, write.
Write feverishly, like your life depended upon it.
No, that phrase doesn't quite cut it.
You know, when you have that asthma/ allergy attack.
Your nose is blocked completely and you are breathing through your mouth.
Shallow gasps of air that you drag through your mouth while making raspy throaty noises.
After 2 mins, a throbbing pain starts in your head, slowly radiating in concentric circles just below skull level.
Every time you open your mouth wider to gulp in more air, the pain shoots up in intensity, the circles of pain in your head are closing in on each other. At this point, death does not seem like a bad idea.And then you set your sights on your inhaler.
Write like this is that moment.

Epiphany

Why must we crave desperately what we cannot have?
A quiet moment in a bustling city
A night of decadent partying in a rustic hamlet
Love for the commitment-phobic
Skin tight, slim fit jeans for the fat man
Heavy bosom for the skinny chick
Fame for the unknown
Anonymity for a celebrity
Are dreams merely a dance of human stupidity?

Tattycoram

I want to reach out to you.
Across the ages
Across the fourth wall
Instead of it being the other way round.
That'd be predictable, wouldn't it?

A firm grasp and then dragging you with me.
Who knows - up or down?

I understand.
Let me put it this way.
I alone understand.

Not the Beadles
Not the Meagles
Not even she, Miss Wade.
Not like the way I do.

Good must not mean righteous
Well-meaning gone wrong is deeply hurtful.
You have nothing to regret.
Not all those afternoon delights shared with her.
Not the suppressed lesbianism in Mr. Dickens' world.
Not your rage or your spitefulness.
Not the damnation.
Nothing.

I wonder how you spent the rest of your life.
Did you really curb your anger?
Did you really succumb?
Did you just pretend all this while?
Are you waiting for me to reach out to you?

All the way upto the shrink's couch

Brown and lyrical, thats me
Hairy and hysterical, also me
Illogical, yet infallible, yup, me again
Hopeful pessimist, no points for guessing who that is.
Amoral and righteous, again points to self
Irreligious and superstitious, look no futher.
What a mess of the contrary!

I give in to the basest of my urges

Always wanted to be highbrow and never put in words the frustration at work. Now I give up on those sort of taking-the-high-road thoughts and principles.

It is 12:00AM. I am up. Rehashing a presentation which has already been sent to the client last week. It is an 180 slider, heavyweight presentation, made last week over 72 hyper-caffeinated hours by me. Sure, it has many flaws. It is probably an egg-net of flaws. However, my point is that it has been sent already. Why bother now?

However, my sado-masochistic boss wants me to "relook" at it and "tweak" it thus.

In his words, this is what I must do

"Look at each slide. Read what is written on it. And ask yourself 'So what?' An answer will come to you, write it down on the slide. Ask yourself this question 5 times and write down the answer each time. Once you have done that, ask yourself 'Now what?' "

So here I am. 180 slides, 900 so-whats and 180 now-whats. Whee!

Is there an honest, easy yet intellectually stimulating way to earn money?

Ok Tata Bye-Bye

What is it about the 'rangrez' and sufi music influences?
Increasingly I come acros songs invoking the Rangrez or The Dyeing Artist.
'Kun Faya Kun' mentions the rangrez, 'Rangrez mere' takes it to another level comparing the dyer to God. The song sequence ends with the leading lady wearing dove white and wandering around amongst dyer's work stalls and all around her are multicoloured dupattas in various stages of the dyeing process. The accompanying vocals meanwhile confer various roles to the 'Rangrez' - killer, friend, judge, master, god, etc.

From all the old numbers that I can remember, only one song comes to mind that has a mention of the 'rangrez'. Inhi Logon Ne from Pakeezah.
Humri na maano, rangrajva se poocho, jisne gulabi rang dee na dupatta mera.
The only character out of the 3( the merchant, dyer and soldier) who did not demean her virtue by putting a price on it or snatching it away from her.

Quite an unexplored character, this Rangrez. Loads of potential. Only hitch being that dyeing is restricted to a few small towns in the North of this country and slowly more and more from the Rangrez caste are turning to other lucrative professions like auto-driving and ironing clothes.

In a dupatta-less age of skin show, the Rangrez makes an unobtrusive exit from the society. Time for poetry to immortalize him.

The Orchid and the Dumpling

They are both fair and soft.
One rested in a narrow glass vase,
slender and fragile, she looked.
My wine drenched rim
barely making it midway up her length.
There she is,
turned away and upwards.
The gentleman absently fingers her smooth skin
whilst impatiently talking on the phone.
His roughly calloused fingers
impatiently plucking at her immaculate delicacy.
Does it hurt her?
The man's wine suffused breath hangs like a cloud over our thoughts.
Sure, we are inanimate, but we are not vacuous.
The other lies lies soft and yielding on a plate.
Chubby to a fault, but smooth to touch.
Smoothness all around.
Shiny where the steam in an effort to escape
has surrendered to her arresting flesh.
She evokes lust.
One look at her and you want to poke her
dig into her flesh and know what that feels like.
She offers herself to your lustful enquiry
your all devouring interrogation.
She will mingle happily with the wine droplets
and satisfy the man till he wants no more.
They are both fair and soft and satisfactory.

The day job

I listen.
You and your ideas.
Your reasons, for choosing
Cambria 14 over Calibri 12.
I nod, vigorously, seriously even.
Vow to vouchsafe 'client's comfort'.
My mind snickering at the phrase,
unbidden thoughts of Asian girls in brothels.
The crispness of the presentation,
the lucidity of explanations,
I listen, I do.

At the back of mind,
(yes, my mind is not tiny as you make it out to be)
I am not thinking.
Of you or your client.

Just like the widest of camera vision
cannot capture what the corner of your eye sees.
The eye sees what is shown to it,
but the corner, my dear, the corner
sees something unconnected to the scene.
Rebellious, no?

I think of mountains,
a cabin made of stones stacked up together,
a notebook and chai,
freezing temperatures and the warmth that ensues.
The mind churns out ideas for a story,
it is like bits of candy floss,
drifting in a fair ground.

I smile.
At my thoughts.
Those ones at the back of my mind.

And you think that I smirk.
In disapproval.
Of your fonts and slides.
Of your colours and plans.

Oxymoron 1

Those who die young,
live longer.

Taxiing for take-off

How and what does one write ? How do people write copiously? How come there are so many books published? How come there are so many stories told? Sometimes I feel all the stories have been told and then I read a tale retold so well that it seems like a new story after all.
I thought travel gives your pen wings, it doesn't. If your ink don't run on a page now, all the wandering won't help it.
Sometimes there is just no way to tell a story.
I wander, I see, I imbibe yet I cannot tell it to anyone. Cursed. Bound by some unknown pact to keep all the stories bubbling inside secret. I couldn't tell it if I wanted to.

Writers, I think, are just people who have broken their word and outed the secrets.

Curse them all.

Anyway, something melodious and uplifting for those who have wandered here on to this page. Just turn right and click.