Deafening silence.

So we all have two (sometimes more) little voices in our heads, right? There’s this ‘Hey, relax, it’s going to be okay’ voice, and then there’s the eternal cynic. And too often, we give in to the cynic in us.

I really wonder why. Like Julia Roberts says in Pretty Woman, ‘When people put you down often enough, you start to believe it. It’s easier to believe the bad stuff… you ever notice that?’ Well, most of us would agree.

The thoughts we feed, are the ones that win. Yeah, have heard that before. Then why is it easier feeding the cynic, when it drains us emotionally, perhaps even physically? What makes it worse is when it affects you spiritually. The extremely evasive peace we so often seek in life becomes even more so.

And it is easy to feed that voice, even from external sources. You know a T-shirt looks well, just okay-ish on you. You seek validation to the contrary, you want someone to tell you, don’t worry, it’s fine. And then, somebody does walk in, only to walk all over  you and tell you ‘That doesn’t suit you at all. Why’d you ever think of wasting money on that?’ Ah, brilliant, delicious food for that cynic inside, who rubs his hands devilishly with a gleam of anticipation, as it pulls you down.

How do we stop it from controlling us? How often have we heard that the power to control our feelings lies with no one but us? It is one difficult truth. But a truth we must keep reminding ourselves about, mentally. Too often we spread ourselves thin, giving away power to each individual out there who has the ability to bring us down. Don’t!

Chin up, look at yourself in the mirror before you look the world in the eye and well, blinkjet advice: fight it, inside you first. You won’t need to fight it outside then.

‘Rain’ check

‘Lo people!

These are some outta focus shots taken from my camera phone in a moving rickshaw on my way to Bandra station, at 7:30pm on June 7, 2010. A fateful evening when Mumbai witnessed among its first showers of blessings for the year doh hazaar das (which was becoming doh ‘hazar-dous’ without the rains). The rainshower lasted all of ten minutes but hey! Presto! We see little water tanks  ‘flooding’ the streets already.

But the weather put me in such a good mood, I swear I was grinning like an absolute idiot on my way home from office. After the heat and pasina assault for MONTHSSS ….. the poultice effect of the cool wind on my face, the yellow flickering candle-flame sky, the slush-slush and woosh-woosh of my rick plonking ahead, the feel of a cool drop or two on my palm….t’was truly a blessing.

Small mercies, I say! :) Praise the Lord.

Wilted (A story me wrote!)

It was all the same.  The swish of the revolving door as I entered, the dimly lit room, the anonymity of the corner table I always went straight over to, the all-too familiar bourbon going down my throat as the time on my watch showed 1:03 am.

It was an unusually cold night at the resto-bar, and I saw people pull their coats around them a little tighter. I revelled in my body quivering. Had grown used to the cold. In more ways than one.

Oh yes, this was the one place I could bare my soul and walk away, and no one would even look up.

As I downed my drink — and it felt good — it was her voice that first caught my attention. I turned around to look at the makeshift stage in the other corner of the room where she sat at the piano, wearing a faded dress. And I couldn’t look away.

Her fingers floated over the keys with grace. Her fingers floated over the keys in pain.

It was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.

She sang out softly, throatily, about love lost, and I was entranced by the light ripples her music was making in the stillness of the night. I forgot where I was as she took me to another time.

Then she turned her face towards me, and I really saw her for the first time. Dear Lord….she looked……exactly like …..

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The same willowy frame, black hair curtaining her face, the proud chin, the all knowing look…like she could see right through me. My head was pounding. Could this be real? This couldn’t be happening.

This place was giving me a glimpse of the same bittersweet hell I came here to forget.

She played a magical tune then, looking at me – or through me – all the time. An hour passed, maybe two. Or just a moment. But when I found the strength to look away, I noticed we were the only ones left in the room.

She finished with a flourish the piece she had been playing, its soft notes fading away into the night, and stood up.

Like a vision, she walked towards me till we were standing just half a feet apart. To anyone watching in through the window, we’d probably look like lovers sharing a moment.

Ever so slowly, she lifted her hand and touched my face….tracing the rough stubble, almost as though memorising the contours, and her eyes followed her every move till she finally met mine.She was even more striking than I had thought. A painful reminder. Jesus, she looked just like her.

She said something before she walked away, leaving me with me.

Her words, “You look just like him…” stayed with me long after she had gone.

Old world charm

I cannot tolerate ‘jham jhoom’ music. Seriously.

I’m all for soothing, soft, romantic melodies. Preferably old Hindi movie songs! Yeah, it is often joked about that I belong to another century (millennium even), but really, nothing can quite match up to timeless music.

I guess I owe my love for English classics to my momma, and Hindi movie songs to Papa. Often, at evening, when I’m sitting in my living room working on a frantic story, clutching my forehead and wrestling with words, an old tune wafts out towards me from my parents’ room….it’s my dad, who has an enviable collection of old songs on his computer….and I find myself getting momentarily lost in the mood he whips up for me without even knowing it.

An old song can make me feel (in the record time of one instant) like I’m walking through dark, misty woods by myself, taking a pause when the music does, increasing my pace swiftly when it reaches a crescendo, and feeling the drops from a stream slip past my fingers when the music piece reaches its conclusion.

Often, I sing old songs softly to myself at night just before going to bed  (yeah, I sing my own lullaby, huh?) …and get the most peaceful sleep ever. Can’t help it: I’m a sucker for all things timeless, all things old world, all things with a profound history behind them.

I never tire of songs from the following movies: Aandhi, Umrao Jaan, Arth, Abhimaan, Ijaazat, Silsila, Hum Dono, Nau Do Gyarah, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, Padosan, Madhumati, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar…let’s not even begin on how many movies I’m unable to fit into this para.

And of course, I’m always game for Kishore Kumar, Rafi, Jagjit Singh, Pankaj Udhas, Talat Aziz, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle…apart from Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal, I think very few current singers can be in the same league today.

Speaking of calm, mellifluous melodies, how can one forget the poultice effect of Ghazals (ahh, those lyrics full of meaning, the use of the Santoor ….such mood enhancers…much like the smell of perfume!).

Right now, I’m in the mood for ‘Aisi bhi baatein hoti hain’ and ‘Ae Dile Nadan’ ….lovely, soulful songs…perfect for sitting back, closing your eyes, taking a deep breath and dousing yourself in their balming abilities………..aaahhhh………..the sound of music!!! :) Sigh……

Wide awake

I’m settling  into my comfy seat at Cinemax to watch Wake Up Sid,  fully expecting it to be bullshit, armed with the theory that the only thing I’ll remember about the experience is how nice the AC was.

I hadn’t heard a single song of the movie, and the few promos I had caught on TV had me sure it’ll be this senseless, kiddish, full of forced ‘youthism’ movie, with high-pitched, hammed performances and a sub-standard story.

Uh, ookay. the screenplay and story is sorta predictable…lazy, spoilt, aimless guy ‘sudhrofies’ and turns over a responsible leaf during the course of the film. And of course, the ‘opposites attract’ angle. Yep, Konkana Sen does look older to Ranbir Kapoor. And the college life bit is a bit too cute at times. Some call this the Hindi equivalent to a chick-flick.

But let me also tell u this: I surprised myself by really liking the movie.

WUS is a feel good film (don’t know why that word brings out the critic in us!!) but here’s a wafer-thin plot where I enjoyed the wafer!  For one, it has kickass songs….I found Iktara, Aaj Kal Zindagi and Kya Karoon quite hummable and suited for long drives!!! :) Not chartbusters, but just pleasant, soft melodies …  the kind that you don’t mind playing in the background when you’re going about your chores. The last movie track that brought out the same reaction from me was Life in a Metro.

The movie and its characters are almost like pages out of someone’s everyday life….a simple story, nicely told….although the pace could’ve been a bit crisper. Konkana as Aisha is fresh and real (I do admire her as an actor, ever since Mr. & Mrs. Iyer). Her screen presence and sparkling eyes put life into her role. Of course, the fact that Aisha’s mad about writing made me see a bit of me in her!!! And I so wanted to live in the house she rents…(er, after it’s done up of course).

Must put in a mention on Sid’s college gang…the motu girl and the best chum…they look like real life pals and not the bubble gum variety. And this is the first time I didn’t cringe on watching Kashmira (Kashmera, Kashmir, Cashmere, whatever) Shah on screen. She’s passable as the horny next-door neighbour…reminded me of Lillette Dubey in Kal Ho Naa Ho.

Hell, yeah, there are some irritating cliches like the way the young gang helps Aisha ‘paint’ her new house (I’m yet to come across a single person living in India who has painted a whole house by himself/herself without official painters). And the part about Aisha’s khadoos boss (Rahul Khanna) falling for her eventually was an event anyone could’ve eventually evented, er, invented. After watching Love Aaj Kal and WUS, methinks Rahul Khanna should write ‘Side actor who’s just there to ensure the heroine EVENTUALLY realises she loves the hero’ on his CV under the sub-head ‘Specialisation’.

Ahh, surprisingly, Ranbir as Sid didn’t ham (I fully expected him to go over the top as the carefree, spoilt brat).

Anupam Kher is good (as usual) as the daddy, while mother Supriya Pathak reminded me a lot of my own….always worrying whether I’ve eaten on time and stuff!! On returning home after failing his exams, when Sid takes it out on his mum saying she has no right to be angry considering she never studied a word, I wanted to kick his butt. But the moment kinda made me introspect on the innumerous times I’ve been horrid to my momma…the movie does that to you: makes you identify with characters and situations.

Hmm…let’s wake up to the reality that not everyone will like Wake Up Sid…I did, I did.

The written word

I love books. No, make that I looooooooooooooooooove books.

I love the smell of books….in the case of a spanking new copy, the smell of fresh paper and fresh ink. And in borrowed books, the smell of yellowed paper, worn with time, but yet doing it’s job to enthrall me. I love the rustling sound of paper when I turn a page. Or the sigh of longing when I reluctantly place a bookmark in between its leaves when it’s time to sleep. Or when mom calls out for lunch.

I’ve had a fascination for books since I learnt the written word. Barely five or six years old, my mother (a bookworm herself, God bless her) introduced me to our local circulating library across the road, Shemaroo. I remember my little hand engulfed in hers as she scoured the Barbara Cartland series, following which I was taken up the winding staircase into the children’s section. My first set of books was the Mr. Men series (the stories of Mr. Happy, Mr. Greedy, Mr. Grumpy never ceased to amaze me….the sweet ‘Once upon a time’ types, accompanied by painted pictures of beautiful cottages…you get the ‘picture’).

In my formative years, Enid Blyton was my key to a magical, fascinating world: a world that led me by the hand, away from my own. I dreamt of English countrysides where people had tea with scones and blueberry pancakes, and went hunting/fishing, and vacationed in farmhouses.

Over the years, I did the usual set: Nancy Drew, Famous Five, Mallory Towers, Secret Seven, Agatha Christie’s mysteries (Poirot and Miss Marple: evergreen characters with their quirks), Sweet Valley High, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steele, James Patterson (he is my favourite author, by the way. That’s another blog entry for another day!!!).

A good book, like a good movie, resonates with its reader long after putting it down. There are many books that have made me cry (Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, Love Story by Erich Segal, and mostly all titles by Nicholas Sparks). Some books make me laugh (Hey Whipple, Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan, and the entire Diamond Brothers series by Anthony Horowitz), while others show me characters that bring to me life’s lessons.  Crime thrillers and periodical romances are what I dig currently….the former appeal to my sensibility (my window to gut instincts, human behaviour and forensic science), while the latter appeal to my sensitivity! :)

I have a looong way to go….I’m yet to read some of the best authors out there. Let’s just say I read a lot, but I’m not well-read. Hoping to change that with time.

I dream of being a book-reviewer someday….and writing my own book someday………

Someday………….

:)

Aisi bhi baatein hoti hain……

On Sunday evening at 8:45 pm, something peculiar happened. On my way back home from Mulund (a tiring but thoroughly enjoyable day with pals!) I changed trains at Dadar, and got into this first class ladies compartment. I could yawn, snore and build a house in there: it was remarkably vacant, save for me and this other lady sitting two feet apart (or shall I say, four bums apart??)

Anyway, I’m staring out the window, thankful for the breeze whizzing past me on a humid evening, looking forward to the shower that awaits me at home, when she speaks up (the lady next to me, that is).

“Has Bombay Central passed?”

“No, that’s two stops later.” I turn away.

“And Charni Road comes after Grant Road, right?”

“Yes.”

“I see…so Charni Road is four stops away?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you getting off?”

“Grant Road.”

She nods.

The train slows down. The sound of the rumble of its wheels are interrupted: “I’m confused what to do…” she frowns, rubbing her chin elaborately.

“Why?” I ask, in standard fashion.

“Well, my home’s at Bombay Central, and the club I go to is at Charni Road. The ladies there play Housie, but the game will get over at 9:15…so I don’t know where to get down.”

“Ahh..” I mumble, all-knowingly (although I know not why she is telling me all this) and turn back towards my window.

Silence. A second passes. Then another.

“So… what do you think I should do?”

Ookay. Eyes-wide moment. I turn to her, surprised, noticing her for the first time. She’s a decently dressed lady, speaks English well enough, looks presentable, and even sane. But I’m mildly, mildly uncomfy now. Hell, my overactive mind conjures up all those stories in the papers of well-dressed people duping others at knife-point in lonely train compartments.

I shrug. “I don’t know…umm…I guess it would depend on whether there’s someone waiting for you at home or if you have other work.”

“No. You see, my husband’s out of town…he’s in Delhi, and I’m all alone at home.” Silence. “So?” she continues. I stare questioningly. “Well, so what do you think??” Yikes. Back to that.

“Well, if there isn’t somewhere you need to be, go to the club I guess. You have half an hour of the game to catch.”

“Hmm, I was thinking of the same thing…I’ll catch up with my friends there. Gosh, it’s so hot, no? I’m sooo thirsty…” (all said with the dupatta-flapping-on-the-neck routine). I dip into my bag and give her SOSO: a wannabe Bisleri brand that I bought at Mulund station, which lives up to its name. The train lurches while she’s taking a swig, and voila! Her lipstick’s all over the bottle rim as she sheepishly looks at me. Not that I was ever planning to take it back, but I tell her she can keep it. She stares like I’ve given her a Lexus.

Bombay Central passes away. “Decision made, I guess,” she smiles. I smile back.

30 seconds later, my stop arrives. “Oh you’re getting off? See you!” she shouts out after me. I wave and get off, feeling a bit strange about the whole conversation.

In the span of some four minutes, I had judged her several times: from a stranger, to an overly inquisitive woman, to a creepy psycho, to the final assessment that she was just a lonely person out for some conversation with just about anyone.

Some stories don’t have conclusions, just abstract endings, huh??

Ever had a conversation with a stranger?

After a tiring day …(x2)

While on the subject of Helen Exley giftbooks, here are lines from another one of her books. This one’s about love, for those who like fairytales! Er, forgot the name of the book though….saved these lines on my fone! :)

Read on folks:

1. My husband is humble… and when he says, “Why do you love me? I am so ordinary,” it hurts, because I can never find the words to tell him he is my whole world.

2. When you are away too long, I put on your ancient gardening jacket and sit wrapped round in you. (Pam Brown)

3. One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.

4. A husband is a man who when someone tells him he is hen-pecked, answers, yes, but I am pecked by a good hen. (Heheh….)

5. The story of a love is not important. What is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

After a tiring day….

 

 

Don’t know what a book called A Special Gift of Peace & Calm was doing on the bottom rack of the Crime & Mystery section at Crossword last Sunday. But I’m glad I chanced upon it. It’s a thin, pocket-size Helen Exley giftbook, which led me to check out more such books at the store.

Here I reproduce some enchanting lines I got from that book:

1. And silence… like a poultice…. comes to heal the blows of sound.

2. There are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

3. I wish you quiet sleep, dreams of meadows deep in flowers and grass, of oceans calm and flecked with silver, of islands hushed by gentle waves, of countries of your own invention, of easy talk with friends…of roads leading to a reunion…of sorrow comforted. Of hope restored. 

4. LET peace enfold you: Shed the day’s anxieties, one by one. No need to hurry. Let the body drowse. Unwind….little by little. Still the mind. Breathe slow…until at last the busy world retreats, and leaves you in a gentleness, a stillness, a refuge of peace and calm.

5. Nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength. 

6. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere. (From The Upanishads)

7. What life can compare to this? Sitting quietly by the window, I watch the leaves fall and the flowers bloom, as the seasons come and go.

8. I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. You don’t grasp the fact that what is most alive of all is inside your own house; and so you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look! (Kabir)

9. Calm is a clear well that you may draw from whenever you have need.

10. Nothing is worth more than this day. We tend to be alive in the future, not now. We say, “Wait until I finish school and get my Ph.D degree, and then I will be really alive.” When we have it and it’s not easy to get, we say to ourselves, “I have to wait until I have a job in order to be really alive.” And then, after a job, a car. After the car, a house. We are not capable of being alive in the present moment. We tend to postpone being alive to the future, the distant future, we don’t know when. Now is not the moment to be alive. We may never be alive at all in our entire life. 

11. QUIET NIGHT: Lie gently in the dark, and listen to the rain pattering against the glass, the swish of passing cars, the hush of leaves. Renounce decisions, speculation, the tug of time. The world beyond the window….enfolds your silence, holds you softly. Sleep.

A ‘peace’ of my mind

There’s nothing like the potent, heady combination of a spoonful of the night on a dollop of solitude …to calm me when I’m most at edge. This is a picture of me (yeah, hard to see where I am as camera phones only play with our feelings when they say ‘night mode’) at one of my favourite calming spots.

I stay on the 9th floor of my building, and we have a whopping 7 flats on every floor. The passage outside my home is a very narrow, loooong one with two breezy windows, a staircase and the lift, of course. Curled up on one of the window sills, this is me spending quality time with me. I even put both my feet up many times! :)

You mommies out there, there’s a grill to the window so not to worry.

I sit here, mulling over silly things that happened during the day or sometimes, wonder about the larger picture where miniscule me fits in somewhere.

You can see surrounding buildings, but among the many things that this pic couldn’t capture is the brilliant night sky above that I often gaze at…on some days, when the Lord knows I need it reeeal bad, he has the moonlight filtering down to me at my, er, seating arrangement.

Wow.

This is my ‘time to myself’ spot. Nevermind that it is exactly 7.5 steps away from my door.

Where’s yours??