Something's missing

6.20 p.m. and she was done with her work. She left the air-conditioned office and headed home. Hot and humid air awaited her outdoors. The sun was still shining and she could see the colour of the buildings, rather than the grayish shades that they put on later in the eve. It looked like a different world.

She got into the car and started her drive. 5 radio stations. Not a single one played a good song. Every two seconds, her finger kept pressing the next button, cursing the producer who didn’t think twice before playing that awful number on such a beautiful evening. Luckily she found a CD to her rescue. An old favourite calmed her restless soul.

Nothing could replicate the magic of old songs, she thought. There was meaning in every word that was written. The music was such that generations later people would still cherish it. Why had it become so difficult to live life in that pace, she wondered.

She wished she could pause her life and enjoy all those things she had not in months. Listen to all her favourite songs and get nostalgic. Read the books she had bought with the hope that she’d read them someday. Make a card for that someone special. Have chai in the garden and watch the birds return home. Call up a friend and talk like there were no tomorrow. Cook something special for her family. Go out for a movie with friends. Write on her blog….

She played the song once again, the lyrics crying out her heart’s desire. Dil dhoondhta hai phir wohi fursat ke raat din...

Life's like that

I hate Fridays. They are like those people you wish to avoid but nonetheless happen to meet at regular intervals. Like a ‘dare’ that befalls on you no matter how strategically you try to play. It’s like what one feels like on reaching the top of the giant wheel. It all looks so beautiful from that height. Everything seems within your reach. But as it slowly descends, the larger picture is lost and all you are left with is that thing which lies immediately before your eyes. It’s exactly the way a Friday begins, giving hope to numerous possibilities. But by the time you plan something, it’s all lost. Whoosh. The ride is over. You have to come back to ground reality and begin the circle of daily routine.

The best things happen on a hunch, like they did the week that went by. A women’s film festival, a photography exhibition, a display of drawings put up by school children and another exhibition of a renowned painter, Nabibaksh Mansuri are the events that made my week. There’s something about the places these activities take place in and the kind of people you see there that gives rise to an emotion that lingers around for quite some time. Suddenly, you feel a part of a community that endorses the aesthetically appealing activities. It gives you a different kind of high; a voice that screams out ‘yeah, this is life man’. To paint a picture with bold strokes on a huge canvas, to capture the myriad human expressions through the lens, to appreciate beauty and have the freedom to express it the way you understand it...That’s life.

Had it not been for media studies, I would have taken up fine arts. I’m reminded of a line from Bob Dylan’s song, “People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.”

i have something to say...

It’s been long since I posted something on the blog. Considering the medium, even 2-3 days is a long time and I was away for almost 20 days! Reason? Even I don’t know. Not that I didn’t have anything to say, but just that I didn’t know how to say it. But today I do.

I dread the word ‘expectations’ and no matter how hard I try to avoid it, it manages to come back to me time and again. Sometimes it’s about things I expect from others but more often it’s about things I expect from myself. At times I think I know exactly what I want from life. And at times I’m left completely clueless. Sometimes I crib because I believe I do not have enough options to choose from. And at others, I get boggled down by the choices in front of me and hate it when I have to go through the pain of choosing one thing over the other.

It gets even worse when people put a certain amount of faith in you. Relationships often get marred by expectations. It’s not easy to please everyone; rather, it’s impossible. But still, we keep trying, thinking that some day we will succeed. And though we know we are doomed to fail, we do not lose hope.

I, like everyone else, like to find solace in the word ‘hope.’

My long lost handwriting

Few days back I appeared for an exam – a written exam! Yeah, the exclamation mark ‘cos it’s not everyday that I write 20+ foolscap pages. There were 4 exams in all – 2 on each day. The first paper I sat down to WRITE gave some good exercise to my fingers. The first paragraph took quite some effort and had different handwriting on every line. Thankfully, I continued with the best sample of the lot.

Everytime I released the static position in which one holds the pen, there was a slight crackling sound in my fingers. It took some effort and some pain in the knuckles to get back to the pen-holding position once again. Three hours and 20+ written pages later I realized what a humungous task writing has become. I don’t remember the last time I wrote a long letter. I haven’t opened my diary since last 10 months! Scrawling my illegible signature; underling sentences in a book; scribbling some lines here are there – these are the only things I remember doing with a pen nowadays. We are so used to keying in data that we’ve even forgotten how our handwriting looks like!

I mean, think about it – aren’t we losing a quintessential part of our identity? Everyone keys in the same-looking characters on the screen. So what happens to a whole stream called handwriting analysis? When you read someone’s hand-written letters, you can actually see that person’s face superimposed on that letter (ya, 70’s film type). Your sweat can drip on a note; your perfume can be absorbed by the fibres of the paper…Can you feel the same when you read a mail?

Mails, chats, sms – communication is becoming shorter and quicker. In the process, writing is becoming an archaic form of communication. The ability to communicate without editing is being lost. I mean, when was the last time you typed even one complete paragraph without pressing the backspace key?

Typing is faster while writing is slow. No wonder I have lost patience for creating a text at a speed slower than I think. At the same time, I love to write and I don’t want my writing skills to decay. I want to continue to write, to pour my feelings on a piece of paper and then read it after years and wonder if it was my tear drop that caused a smudge on that paper…

Let there be light...

She would go to the maidan every evening and see the sun set. It gave her a sense of completeness – to see the orange sky die and the darkness of night take over. She almost turned philosopher during those moments and no matter how harsh the day had been, the transitional phase calmed her. She knew, no matter how dark it gets, the brightness of the sun shall triumph once again; it’s just a matter of time.

if life were like nails…

if life were like nails…

i would chop off the ends
when they got too ugly
or unmanageable

smoothen its rough edges
and give it a desirable shape

then apply some enamel
which leaves it shining

and gives it strength
to grow again…

The best things in life…

Smell of the rain-soaked earth
A long-distance call
Receiving an email from an old friend
Finding a ten rupee note in your washed jeans
Listening to your favourite song on the radio
Finding a pressed flower in your book
Reading funny notes you'd written during lectures
Reading old messages
Singing a stupid song in chorus with friends
A head massage after a long day
A hot shower
Laughing over a stupid joke
Having someone play with your hair
Home-made food
Girls' night out
Watching a classic

Getting your first salary
Sitting under the shade of a tree
Watching the sun set
Walking on the beach
Making maggi at midnight
The smell of coffee
Blushing when friends tease you
Having someone tell you that you're beautiful
Candle-light dinners
Walking hand in hand with the one you love
Realizing that there is so much more in life to be explored….

Colours of Paradise

Ochre - not yellow, not brown, something in between
Grey - just a drop of black in the white so clean

Violet - blue and green merge to create a sight so captive
But beware, for looks can be deceptive!

Green - the blue sky and yellow sun come alive
Nurturing a colour that breathes new life

Orange- the fire in yellow gets more wild
Engulfs a tinge of red and makes it mild

Pink - the softness of white gets more loveable
Embraces the feminine and makes it adorable

Blue - each hue so different, different stories it tells,
Some of a precious stone, while some of rains spells