shesturningblue's Xanga

It's been awhile...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:43:55 GMT

And, I've moved to: imonpurple.wordpress.com

Another battle to wage

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:55:50 GMT

Of course you’ve heard of the bomb blasts in Mumbai by now, and of course you’ve read the government-bashing, Rahul-gandhi squashing, BOMB-ay declamation posts doing the rounds. I’ve even seen friends squabble over a post from Delhi that belittles Mumbaikars (calling them insects), and a rant and rave that proclaims: “I’m apathetic. And, I’m not sorry.” Words also gotten around that Mumbai is made up of the callous.

Indeed, dear world, we’re sorry. We’re sorry for not reacting appropriately. We’re sorry the terrorists seem to pick us, and NO we don’t think it has anything to do with us.

It has nothing to do with our apathy.

It has nothing to do with how we let our lives roll on.

Yes, when I hear of a terrorist attack, I still remember being one train compartment away from the bomb blasts in Mumbai, 2008. I still remember my hands shaking. And, I still remember going back into that train within a few days.

But, then my thoughts move on. Go on with my work-drive to home-life afterwards routine. I call my mother and laugh about nothing, speak to my father and plan my next investment. Even send my sister an unimportant Whatsapp, then crack a joke with a friend.

I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do, dear world. I send out a prayer. I dwell over our turbulent times.

I think about how important it is to be happy.

But mostly, I think about how we have just a brand new battle to wage. One there’s little we can do about.

Like cancer. Like making it to work on time. Like ever affording a house. Like insecurity. Like rape. Like the drunk driver that rams into your pretty white car at 3AM. Like death itself.

That’s terrorism. You can’t keep fighting it. And, you can’t let it overcome you.

And, we, Bombay have been struck enough times to learn that.

Nobody said life was easy, did they?

tactless on tuesday

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 11:11:26 GMT

You know, this is just the kind of thing that makes me feel like a tactless bitch.

I’m standing in the queue, waiting my turn in the office lunch line. Along comes the friendly canteen guy, whose company had the contract for last week’s lunch. I complimented last week’s spread, and then began to tell him how this week’s food was rather unappetizing.

Just then, the slightly round man in charge of this week’s lunch comes along and looks at me quizzically. He knew I wasn’t saying flattering things about the food, but didn’t say anything. I felt terrible.

I tried to make myself feel better. I told myself I wasn’t one among the people raving and ranting at the different round tables. But, I had still managed to offend someone who came across as incredibly harmless and terribly naïve. (This is such a rare mix in wretched Gurgaon.)

Indeed, he didn’t even have anything to do with the food, and was probably stuck working for the wrong company.

I absolutely believe in making someone’s day.

Every now and then, I manage to do just the opposite.

I do deserve this four-hour-and-unending toothache, don’t I? I do.

And, yes I know what it feels like to be working with the wrong company.

(P.s. attempting to consolidate my blogs)

aye Monday

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:52:57 GMT

There.

Monday.

Spent the weekend on a lazy song again.

Watched the rain fall slowly from a taxi-cab window. Watched traffic stall, and Gurgaon snarl. Watched gawkers at swimming pools, then didn’t watch them.

Read a book that didn’t move me, tossed prawns with chooped onions, watched a play in Hindi, learned of a new poet.

Discovered a new love story.

Love stories always intrigue me.

I am currently most curious about mine.

Spent Sunday morning in a grocery store. I wish I had a beautiful home with organza curtains, and white-wood furniture, and a big wood bookshelf to hold my supplies.

Spent Sunday night in conversation.

Woke up before the alarm went off on Monday. (that is never a good thing.)

Wish I had bought those beautiful brown shoes after all.

aye Monday

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:37:02 GMT

There.

Monday.

Spent the weekend on a lazy song again.

Watched the rain fall slowly from a taxi-cab window. Watched traffic stall, and Gurgaon snarl. Watched gawkers at swimming pools, then didn’t watch them.

Read a book that didn’t move me, tossed prawns with chooped onions, watched a play in Hindi, learned of a new poet.

Discovered a new love story.

Love stories always intrigue me.

I am currently most curious about mine.

Spent Sunday morning in a grocery store. I wish I had a beautiful home with organza curtains, and white-wood furniture, and a big wood bookshelf to hold my supplies.

Spent Sunday night in conversation.

Woke up before the alarm went off on Monday. (that is never a good thing.)

Wish I had bought those beautiful brown shoes after all.

Monday Musings -43

Mon, 02 May 2011 11:18:19 GMT

Mondays always remind me of when I used to write. Pen to paper, frenzied moments with a keyboard…

Mondays also remind me of when I stopped to write…somewhere there was a moment I stopped to believe.

It has not been easy. It as difficult and uneasy as losing a lover, as losing something you believe in, as losing a piece of you Are you going to give what you have lost another chance? Are you going to breathe love, and fervour into it again? Is it a chance worth taking? These are difficult questions, with simple answers. It’s hard to accept but sometimes, the answer is yes, yet again.

I may be disappointed.

I may lose again.

But, because I love, I have to try again.

In all of this, there’s a lesson to learn. Never stop believing in you. Never stop believing something is because of you. Never let that control to any one else, or when it goes it’ll take that from you.

So, to the man I love, you are as much because of me. I will try again. But, if I lose you, I will not lose me.

To the spiritual cult I thought I once had, I don’t owe my writing to you. My writing is me, I can write again.

And, to Mondays if you mean beginnings…I needn’t start afresh. I can just start. Again.

[For more monday musings http://shesturningblue.xanga.com/tags/mondaymusings/]

Are bars even a good thing?

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:14:00 GMT

Are bars even a good thing?

In the corner, black-haired embittered man lamenting love

While your brown-black hair falls carelessly upon another shoulder

Wondering if someday you too will end up that a way?

And then upon tables noisy revelers in throngs guzzling happy

You are one among them but so lonely

Watching the bar man from afar

Juggling bottles, changing ash trays one-after-another

So young, still smiling

As beer dribbles from a young-man’s mouth

The waiter watches on

You sing a song

The right song plays the wrong lyrics

And the man in a corner, he looks sadder

Heads bob in the middle

Tomorrow they will not remember

How happy they were

But, today sleep comes easy.

Somebody there

Is drowning a dream in a glass of beer

Somebody is losing

A soul, or numbing a trouble

Holed up in a dark room without light

You step out to breathe

Cold, sweet-smelling winter air fills your nose

But you were somebody inside.

-3

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:17:09 GMT

There are many Goas, and I wonder if I can remember them all. The Goa at the swarming Colva Beach, where a little shack looks over Indian populace in bundled up salwar kameez. Fluorescent orange stands brighter than the sun. There is a Goa in the rain. Seawater lashing narrow roads, and sarongs dripping off salt. A Goa where the song and dance never end. Bodies clung together at Titos, and Cape Cod, and Kamakazi and other such queer names.

There is the ordinary picture of a Goa with the sun. Languishing on beach beds, watching the sea roar, and nibbling on French Fries. And there is a Goa where I almost didn’t see the sea, desperately following the smell, one last rainy morning onto a sandy beach. A Goa in a resort, where I spent an entire week holed up in a hotel room, with a swimming pool. Collecting shells on the beach. Reading by the sand, under a night sky. And, when I was young, use free hotel-room matchsticks to burn ants by the sill.

There is a Goa where the swimming pool meets the sea. A Goa with secrets, a Goa without stories. Where you breakfast at Infantaria, tell me you’ve been there. The prawns cooked in recheado masala, and the crunchy and well-balanced date and chocolate tart are worth an arm and a leg for. There is Curlies, where my head always throbs to the tune of mindless teenage trance. The glimpse of the sea is unimaginable though. Which reminds me of a Goa at the village. The exotic, otherworldly five-star Goa nestled among other places at the Taj Holiday Village. I remember chasing Saching Tendulkar for an autograph; I remember the cricket-hero romancing his then fiancé.

Suddenly, I cannot remember another Goa. Oh yes, Panjim City and the church, Brittos and cashew nuts and Feni. Drinking in the sea-air, and drinking; I can remember the giggle-fest one January early morning. How many places that you have not grown up in, have watched you grow up?

Goa, I had forgotten how you stir my soul.

-2

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:37:23 GMT

There's a little quiet, and a little la-di-da when you enter Hauz Khas Village. A book store, up the stairs, too tiny for poor literature. A lake down the stairs, and the littered path, too quiet for us restless sea creatures. (Bombay, how I miss the smell of your sea.) There's a little hole in the wall that sells curious cushion covers. And, many stores, lined one by another, with designer make-believe to take home. I step into none. Too expensive we assume, and too pretentious, and much too intellectual. There is furniture we want to take home. Posters we want to peel of their hooks, the yellowed ends notwithstanding, and leave on lavish white walls. Old, antique knick-knacks we have no use for. But admire nonetheless. (Delhi, how I marvel your history.) Then there is Naivedyam, much too grotesque, much too magnificient for tiny Hauz Khas lanes. We lap up unsightly fried idlis, still. And down the lane, we follow the trickle of people into Gunpowder- up a flight of stairs, with a view of the lake to behold. We do this time and again. We hardly take our eyes off the well-greased prawns, and curried fish with little white appams and crispy brown malabar parathas though. We do not linger at the lake at all.

Food can bring such tragedy.

-1

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:46:42 GMT

The trouble with writing now, is that everyone thinks they are a writer. The trouble with writing a book more so, is that everyone is an author. If you spend a little time with the books on today’s shelves, I hope you are disheartened. I know I am. Do you, and I, aspire to be a little known name on that shelf? You write your first book, and then what? You are lost in a sea of bad writing. Then, you know longer know what good writing is. Good writing isn’t good grammar, gah! Not to say that bad grammar is good writing, at all.

All winding up to the fact that in the past few months, I have been facing what you could call a writer’s crisis. I lost my font. Trebuchet MS 10 no longer works. And, everything I want to write is too trite, or too trivial, or too mawkish. The weather has been fussy too.

Now, however, the smell of winter is here. They say winter is a good time to write. Cambria Size 12 seems to do its job, for now. Let us see where this one goes...