Dance of The Happy Shades

This Blossomed Tonight

2013-05-10T23:49:00.001+05:30

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I Want One Too...

2013-03-20T00:23:00.000+05:30

...(in a few years from now) but sans the morning sickness and labour pain, and if possible toilet-trained at birth. And please God, make them chubby, healthy, quirky and fun and may they...

...jump onto my bed and have a fit of giggles about my funny morning hair.

...look at me with those liquid black eyes.

...delight in playing hide-and-seek.

...be the cutest thing ever!

...be aware of their cuteness and use it to their full advantage to melt my heart.

...never feel so scared and vulnerable about anything in life.

...crack me up with their crazy antics!

...embarrass their siblings with even more crazy antics!

...delight in every little joy of life.

...revel in a common childhood!

...always treasure our bond.

...delight in making the elder sibling dance to their tunes.

...always allow me to cuddle up to them.

...create their own fun, little games and happiness

...look just as cute when they fall asleep during a long journey.

...look just as funny when they threaten me with dire consequences.

...draw black, squiggly birds and yellow houses and a bright orange sun.

...wait outside my window and call out to me again before leaving for school.

...never let go of their innocence.


...have chubby cheeks and smiling eyes and little toes that I could just gobble up!

Random Stuff I Miss At 1am #1

2013-03-17T00:54:00.003+05:30

His name is Bhola, and for the medical interns posted at Boko, Assam he is the unofficial protector, companion while watching a starlit sky, reluctant offerer of its back to scratch, obliging listener to secret confessions, prompt fetcher of wayward shuttlecocks while playing badminton, drooler at kitchen door, loud barker, and quite the dude.

Relics of Childhood

2013-03-14T16:00:00.000+05:30

Today I saw a beautiful and moving series of photographs of children from different corners of the world being photographed with their most precious possessions. The little girl from Zambia and the little boy from Bangkok are so cute, I want to gobble them up!

I tried to recollect the most treasured (material) possessions from my early childhood. Mostly they were comic books and Enid Blyton mysteries. I stacked them in a brown cupboard with a glass door, and in the evening I used to return home after a delightful hour of playing with the neighbourhood kids and my cousins, splash some water on my face (to appease my mother), sit cross-legged on my bed and take out a book from that cupboard. It was a solitary hour of reading that I looked forward to every day; but those books and the cupboard got left behind while moving to a new place. I just hope some kid, who liked reading, found them.

A few days ago I had helped my mother clean up the old trunks in the attic. And it was here that I found certain run-down relics of my childhood.

An unusually cheerful Garfield that liked to hug.

I called her Tiffany, after the actor who played Vicki the Robot in the series Small Wonder.

This is my favorite childhood possession. My father had bought this glow-worm when I was barely two years old. I liked to think of it as an extremely hunch-backed, chubby-cheeked and kind old woman looking out for me whenever I woke up in the dark after a nightmare.

With the advent of my sister, we played house a lot. Both my sister and I were insistent that our respective Barbie dolls became the lone Ken's wife. The competition was fierce, and we were equally stubborn. It ended in a polygamous Ken with a harem of Barbie wives!

Later in the day, I skimmed photo albums for similar relics of childhood and a whole lot of weird objects cropped up.

I am useless in the kitchen; can't differentiate butter from margarine, don't know where the spices are kept, somehow end up burning even the noodles, and get palpitations every time I have to boil an egg. But here is photographic evidence that as an infant I was quite a kick-ass chef. The culinary skills have regressed since then.

That's me, aged one, flaunting all of the eight teeth I had. The doll in my lap was nearly as tall as me. I used to carry her around everywhere. Too sad that a few years later she was brutally decapitated by my sister.

Even as a child I was over-pouring with maternal instincts. It was a battery-operated baby that said 'Mama' whenever I pulled the blue pacifier from its mouth. It made a weird crackling sound and went mute forever after I poured a glass of hot milk into its mouth. I also tried to paint a natural blush onto his cheeks with a bright pink marker. The end result was grotesque.

This is the weirdest photograph from my childhood. From top right (in clockwise manner), here are the odd assortment of playthings that I surrounded myself with: the giant doll that was nearly as tall as me; (God forbid!) a gun; a yellow bunny, that too on wheels; a weird multi-coloured balloon-like doll; real five-rupee currency notes, and I fail to understand why; a yellow car; a merry-go-round; and an insignificant red doll. But there I sat, with a majestic sulk, grabbing an empty incense stick carton and my own photograph.

Happy Birthday

2013-02-23T23:41:00.001+05:30

Four years of mute fishy joy. Happy birthday :)

Snippets from Elu Devi Baruah's Sketchbook

2013-01-02T11:26:00.005+05:30

She writes prolifically, novels and newspaper columns. She cooks the best chole ever. She paints panoramic landscapes, portraits and carries a sketchbook around everywhere. She is brimming with creativity that pours out through various channels; a pen, a paintbrush, a ladle. She keeps her sketchbook locked in an old Godrej wardrobe. The sketches are just an creative outlet for her restless fingers, they weren't meant to be shared. But when I chanced upon them, I realized it would be a crime not to share these snippets from my aunt's sketchbook, sketches that hardly takes less than an hour to materialize. I am honoured to be the first one to share these works of art through my blog. I apologize for the poor resolution of the images, as I had only my phone camera at hand.

Portraits of the departed: My aunt's in-laws

Boat of destiny: Where will you steer it?

Bare necessities: A hut on the way to Cherapunjee

The Embrace

Sensuous Femininity

A rough sketch of the Venetian canals

Sun and Shade

A Dhaba on the way to Cherapunjee

On her desk

The Mist

Quiet Sojourn

Eastern Europe

Toil

Chang-ghar

Loneliness

Remains of the day

Contemplation

Vivid

Journey

More journeys

Fruit Basket

Ferns

Threshold

The Climb

Yellow Sky

Odds and Ends

Arches

Led Away

Facades

Sunset

View from a window

Parked

Around the corner

Shades at Noon

Venice

Mother

Tempter

Mother and Child

High

After the afternoon tea

Room Vignettes

2012-10-28T00:16:00.001+05:30

Books. A bamboo mat during summer. Flowers. Jasmine-scented candles.

My 'Ek, Do Teen' Clock.

My Conjoined Twin, My Study Desk.

Clock Fetish, yet Punctuality-Challenged. My Library Clock

My Room on a Sleepy Autumn Afternoon

The Protector. A Small Prayer Nook with my Ganesha Idols.

Journal. Notebooks. More Books. Purple Pens. Cookie Jar. Sketch Book. Water Colours.

Kisses, Friends and Spring on My Wall.

My World

Mawphlang Sacred Grove, Shillong: And It Was Everything I imagined It To Be.

2012-09-20T19:32:00.000+05:30

Arrival. A forest awaits.

Leaves crackled underneath our feet. The lone sound. No bird calls.

Black, lithe limbs arising in a web of a green. We stooped. We jumped.

Moss and Mushroom.

Undisturbed, the forest flourishes. I walked through a jungle.

Flora breeds Flora. An unassuming red orchid.

The thicket leaks an eerie green light.

The tree with the bulbous nose.

Moss covered roots. Do they hide burrows to a Wonderland?

The guide tells us this frail white plant is used in the manufacture of 'incense sticks'.

A fan of red mushroom peeks from a log.

Fallen. Casualty of a storm? Victim of human hands?

A leafy canopy. A green shroud.

Tangled roots.

It conjured images of the Slytherin monster.

Shades of nature. Brown and Green.

Stone relics. Monuments to souls of the past.

I hallucinated. "Snakes!", I screamed.

A rare clearing. A carpet of crunchy, brown leaves.

A pop of clementine. More mushrooms.

Entry and Exit point. "Pray to the forest God before you step in", the guide advises.

Lilliputian yellow suns in a goliath green ground. Pretty flowers.

Soaking in more greenery. Oxygenated. Rejuvenated.

How green IS my valley.

Untamed. Pristine.


The sun-bathers.

I might visit the Eiffel Tower someday. Or the Pyramids. Even the vast Amazon. But this sacred grove in all its untamed, undisturbed and eerily calm allure will be lodged in my heart as a refuge from modernity, a mystical place where elfs or goblins might be watching from behind shrubs, the pulsing and wildly throbbing heart of nature, and even a Narnia sans the lamp post. I will return, someday.

Shillong: The Charmer

2012-09-20T00:46:00.012+05:30

Polo Grounds. Soaking in the sun. 5pm.

Old world charm of Hotel Pinewood. 4pm.

Dying sun, a few trees, a large green ground. Sunset at Polo Grounds. 5:30 pm.

Dark alleys and narrow passageways. 8pm.

Starry skies. A terrace. Three Sisters. Long talks. 11pm.

Blurry view from my window. 4am.

I still wonder who sits there every evening. Crush :) 4:10am.

A green roof. A light drizzle. 4:20am.

More roofs. A red one too. 4:22am.

Ivy-lined stone wall. 5am.

I sipped tea and watched pigeons on a red roof. 4:30 am.

I yearn for a home in the hills. 5am.

I stood under a tree with pink blossoms. Morning walk. 5:30 am

The sun shone through a mist. 6am.

Stealthy climb. 6:15am.

Purple delight. I stopped here on the way back. 6:30am.

I sat at worn-out tables and sipped steaming cups of coffee in quaint cafes. I bonded with family, a little more. I soaked in the sun and the lush greenery. I bought books and a key chain of a doll with stringy hair. I searched for bargains at Police Bazaar. I went on long walks and knew how to define 'happy'. I let the breeze ruffle my hair.

I fell in love with a charmer. With a town. With Shillong. I wrote about the trip here.

Bibliophile Heaven: Delhi, February 2012

2012-03-07T02:03:00.001+05:30

A moment at Sunday Book Bazaar, Daryaganj, Delhi.

A cozy nook for reading.

Perfect reading snack. Paneer and Capsicum Quiches.

The loot :-)

The Red River

2012-01-23T21:11:00.001+05:30

Sunset at riverbank. Brahmaputra.

Undercurrents.

The tree reminds me of a bedhead.

The pace of the ferry boat put me to sleep.

Sun and shade.

Poesy through Lens

2012-01-23T19:36:00.000+05:30

New year, new thoughts, new words, a new journal.

Winter mornings...icy, silken fog obscuring my trees.

Owls make noises here. Every night.

Isolation in abode of trees.

Uruka fire, January 2012, Jorhat. Home. Warmth. Love. Hope.

An old pine tree. We were neck to neck a dozen years ago. My growth stunted along the way.

Reeds. Bamboo thicket. In front of my old home. Futile attempts every day to shield the sun.

Trees on my path. Rural Kamrup.

I slept through this heaven on earth for a month, slouching in the backseat of the car, too tired at the end of the day. And one day, I peeked through the window as we crossed a rickety wooden bridge and turning into this lane, I drove through the most beautiful path in my life.

Narakachal Hill, Guwahati. Late evening. Long, quiet halt.

Fishermen wade through it with nets, and fishing hooks fling into it in unison. Busy mornings are followed by serene, crimson evenings. Rural Kamrup.

My home front. Winter had stripped the trees naked of foliage but the bare branches, jutting out awkwardly, look beautiful on a moonlit night.

Rural Assam

2011-09-24T14:11:00.001+05:30

Comes with the new job :)

Here I learnt my ABCs

2011-09-23T15:38:00.000+05:30

Here I learnt my ABCs and fractions. I sang, I danced. I wrote poems. I ran races and spent hours on the swing. I prayed at the church. Believed in the rumour about the ghost in the church. I browsed for hours at the tiny library. I borrowed a book about dollhouses once, and spent a summer creating them. I watched cartoon movies here once a week, huddled with the whole class. I listened enraptured to the music teacher's guitar playing. I ate lunch under the shade of the trees. I played in the sun. I queued to get into the school bus. I learnt. I played. I started my life here. I loved my life here.

Donbosco Primary School, Jorhat.

Coffee and Crossword

2011-09-22T14:53:00.000+05:30

My morning routine.

In and Around My College

2011-09-17T16:51:00.000+05:30

Gauhati Medical College. I did my MBBS from here. Nestled atop a hill, surrounded by lush greenery, towering over the whole of Guwahati, the terrace gazing at the mighty Brahmaputra, quaint paths winding uphill to it, calm and serenity resides here. I am fortunate to have been a part of it.

Something Fishy...

2011-09-12T15:25:00.000+05:30

Three and half years, and counting. Orange, slippery, mute, fishy joy.

1970s

2011-09-12T14:28:00.000+05:30

A world I wasn't a part of...1970s. My father, my uncles and aunts, my elder cousins. Our world moved into colour much later.

A Simple Life

2011-09-10T15:16:00.000+05:30

Boko, Assam- I began 2011 here. Two beautiful months.

Library

2011-08-25T14:47:00.000+05:30

            My treasure.

A Glimpse

2011-08-23T12:58:00.000+05:30

A Glimpse

Art

2011-07-28T12:53:00.000+05:30

Few of my favorite paintings of all time.

A Day in the Sun

2011-07-23T17:25:00.000+05:30

A day in the sun…

I went for a long drive on 20/7/11, and here are few of the photos I clicked on the way.

The sky was the bluest blue; the bright, white sunlight glimmered in the cool water surface, the varied shades of green calmed me; the wind was in my hair, the road ahead was long, and absolute stillness encompassed me. I thought of this perfect weather, which surfaced once in a while throughout my life, my childhood…and how happy I felt each time I saw this gentle blue sky, each time I woke up to a perfect day like this.

God gives us so many wonderful gifts unasked…

Reading list

2011-07-23T12:12:00.000+05:30

My current reading list.

I have a very short attention span, and I end up reading 4-5 books simultaneously. The usual routine is that I select the reading list for the month and read a few chapters from each book alternately.