verdura...

singing along

2011-08-30T09:34:00.002+05:30

Yesterday the radio made me listen to an old Hindi song from the 60’s. It is not that I ‘vent heard this song before. I’ve even hummed it quite a number of times. But today the song brought along with it a memory. Of a little girl and her mother, ears fixed on to the speakers of a cassette player. Pen and paper in hand.

It used to be our Sunday afternoon pastime. Listening to old and much loved songs to take down the lyrics. We both had our lyric books with us, to write out the lyrics neatly, without the many corrections that our papers had. I used to learn them then, diligently as if for an oral examination. It was my way of impressing my mother. The tune was invariably wrong and off key, but the lyrics were impeccable. My mother would correct my awful rendering in her smooth, beautiful voice. And I listened to her, awestruck as always. Falling in love with her again, yet another Sunday.

This was our time.

Today, I sit in front of the laptop, from whose clutches I never seem to escape. I try to remember which song it is that she had asked me to look up a few months ago. I kept telling her that I would find it, no big deal. After all there is google. But the fact is I haven’t and it has been months.

I miss many things in life. In fact too many things that it is probably unhealthy. Today however, this ranks supreme. The ‘our’ time. I think somewhere down the line, there are so many moments that I cherish, with so many different people. Which are simply not there anymore. And that makes it probably more beautiful.

A new member

2011-08-14T22:17:00.000+05:30

Since he is a part of everything I do...

Manu is now a co-author of Verdura. Not that he has not been contributing already. Anamika has been ghost writing some pieces for Manu :)

Brave attempts

2011-08-04T09:24:00.000+05:30

The mind wandered

all but alone

searching, it found not,

love but love

I asked, whose but mine,

Not lonely, but rejoiced plainly,

In love not lost, neither found,

Steadily,

But i traveled all along

All the time you need

is all but more

I'll wait for you

to be with you

to love with you

held we are

bound by sweat and love

for the night

through the night

and forever time and again

It will last

The breath will hold and forever it will last

not love, but life

To be loved,

Would be loved

all things right, left alone

mused on the wall a dream,

To care for. to die for

Left alone, to be hardened,

the sky told to forget,

the water to forgive

pray, the earth told

why?

asked the soul

to be loved would be loved

did death do us part?

did love lend us the reason?

life made a stop, but did love?

Sick Green

2011-07-18T21:29:00.000+05:30

I’ve been here before. Haven’t I? Yes I have. The winding lane does seem familiar. So does this rickety bench. But perhaps, the sick green paint wasn’t so sick before. Is that why it looks unfamiliar? Or perhaps the green sickness is what likens my heart. Sick.

That familiar sickness that creeps up from somewhere between your left big toe and the toe next to it (does it have a name?), to that knee broken earlier by a stray football. There were no complaints then. The football had been kicked by my first crush. (I wonder now if he became my first crush after that football incident. Or was it before? Damn these memory wisps that twirl and twirl and twirl, and choke you in its smoky trail. It also leaves behind a smell. Don’t you think? A smell of burnt love letters and crushed flowers? It doesn’t? It must be me then.) I am digressing. So the sickness that grows from that unnamed point from near the big toe to the broken knee, to that navel that bears a tiny mark of once having been pierced. (We got it done, yes ‘we’ got it done in a place that had pictures of people with piercings all over their body. They also had a tattoo salon, but then we had decided on the piercings. I got mine on the navel, he had it on his right eyebrow. Shit it pained. But it was worthwhile having him kiss it afterwards.) From the navel to the neck, a battleground of love bites, to that taste in your mouth when you puke. Blech. Yes that sick feeling is what I am talking about. Its colour is green.

It is funny or maybe it is not funny. I don’t know. But it is strange how many memories are linked to those men, nah boys in my life. Do I recall all of them? There weren’t too many. No no. Not too many. But enough yes to choke me for the rest of this walk. This lane with its trail of yellow wild flowers and acacia and eucalyptus trees and an occasional squirrel is I trust about a kilometre long, and am no fast walker. Never have been.

So these men. I have always felt for Amina Sinai in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Learning to love her husband in parts. It was the same with me, I recollect now. Karim had a long nose. Rather too long, but straight. Unlike mine, which bent at the end, and when he smiled, there was a crease that shaped like a sea-wave. There were many other creases on his face—he was 68, I was 17. Mujib was my neighbour. My parents always wanted me to be like him. Smart, polite, studious. I couldn’t never manage it, quite. So I loved him with my 11 year old heart. But that dint make me like him. He liked me I think. He smiled at me every time we saw each other, and even winked at me once or twice. It dint grow into anything though. He suddenly fell out of favour with my parents and I was forbidden to see or talk to him ever again. I think I loved him all the more then. He had begun growing his hair, that hung around his face in ringlets, and his lips and teeth had a queer blackish tinge. All the more exotic for someone who was growing up on Hobbit and Narnia.

And then there were Vipin with his craze for photography, who gifted me an SLR, Abhinav and his obsession for the flute and the way I tried to learn to whistle, Salman and I shared something more, spiritual—I called it then. His conversion to Buddhism made him exotic to others, but I think I fell out of love with him then. But this sickness today, this awful stench in my nostrils and the slimy feeling in my throat, that horrible pricking at the corners of my eyes. It is only for him. Who did not walk out on me. But came just a little too late into my life, and left too early.

It is true that he was the occasional man in my life. I shared my heartbreaks with him and he stitched my poor heart back to one piece with his fingers and tongue and wine and caresses. I went to him when I was lonely and he gave me company in his little grey apartment, with blue walls, and lungi curtains. At those times when I woke up to horror, seeing that the other side of my bed wasn’t empty, and that it was filled by a man with whom I’d with last night’s sex fallen out of love with, I rushed to him and he made me coffee, and hugged me to sleep. There were those times when I had no one to go shopping with. He came with me then and taught me to bargain. He was my m-seal. He filled up my cracks, and I walked out into the sun, the cracks healed, and now merely streaks on my body, that people take to be body art.

I perhaps realized that he was more than Dr.Fixit for me, when I saw him give coffee to Aysha in my cup. I stole it from his apartment that day and smashed it on my washing stone. Aysha was lovely. In a way I probably could never be. But more perhaps was the fact that for her, he was the only man. Rehman came into my life when he should least have. He was there all along, yes. But I was too busy with my other occasional men. Aysha took him. Or perhaps he went with her. And here I am walking this path, the yellow flowers reminding me of a time when I wore it in my hair, to be photographed by him. I sat on the sick green bench. Only then, it was not sick green. It was just green.

Lusting after life

2011-02-21T20:42:00.000+05:30

To her husband, she was Aabha. She was the only spot of balance in his volatile life. Him with his long hair, tied back with a rubber band that always pulled out hair. I have heard him screech at her, for not helping him out untangling. She stood laughing at him, while she poured out coffee for me. Extra sweet, and light. Just the way she hated it. Just the way I wanted it.

He left her for months, but she always knew when he would be back. She re-painted their room, got a new haircut, threw out her running shoes, and waited for him. He came, and then he stayed. I have seen them together. And I could never call what they shared, love. At least, I was not prepared to do so. The last time I saw her, she had a cut lip, from a saucer her had flung at her. I had jumped up in indignation, rolling up my fists in anger, but then he came into the room; his face, well and truly scratched. She showed me her new nail paints.

Once I walked in on them doing it. I hate to call it making love. He laughed at my embarrassment, threw his large shirt over her, and reached out for a smoke. I've heard her singing to him while she cooked, and he painted. I meant to hunt for those songs and learn to sing them, but I think they were just their songs. It was a world they knew, and I wasn't a part of it.

To Mukul, she was Neeyati. I don't know where they met, I believe it was at one of her husband's exhibitions. Mukul was a boy. Why, he must have been at least seven years younger than her, and he looked fifteen years younger. She took him with her on her library visits, and he got her second hand books which had inscriptions on them. She told me once that she had taught him to kiss. And that she was quite sure she was a good teacher. Would I know anyone who might be interested in him? The poor boy is too shy to find one on his own!

Neeyati was Mukul's idol. He got her flowers, though I'd told him that she was not one for clichéd daintities. I scoffed when he spent his monthly stipend of 3000 rupees on some fancy flower arrangement he'd seen somewhere. I told him to take it in his stride if he found the flowers waiting for him in the wastebasket the next time he saw her. I ate the flowers. When they wilted and shriveled, and decayed and blackened and stunk. I would have earlier, if she hadn't kept it in her room, on a new stool she got especially for it.

She came to see me once, wearing his shirt and giggling like a teenager. I closed the door on her face, and din't open even when she screamed abuses I had read in books, and knew she was capable of, but hadn't heard it ever. I called up the watchman to take her away, she was crazy. She threw her shoe into my window. It broke my mirror. And I fumed.

When Mukul told her that he had to leave, his scholarship papers had come through and though he hated to leave, he had to. She wont forget him would she? She smashed the porcelain girl-boy ugly figurine he gave her as a "will miss you!" gift and spent a whole week drinking. I know. I was drinking with her.

To me, she was not Neeyati, not Aabha. She was something more, but what, I cant say. She hasn't told me what she is to me, or what I am to her. And if she hasn't put it into words, then there might not be any name for it. She was my yin, and I was yang. No we weren't the Chinese opposites. I just picked the name because every time she mumbled in her sleep, she went yiiiinnnn ymmmmm nyyyy yeeeee.

Mukul dint know that Neeyati was Aabha. Her husband thought she was Aabha. I knew she was neither. I have seen her cry with rage, pull out each and every photo of her husband's, and burnt it to ashes. I have seen her run from studio to studio, retrieving the same, framing it and placing it on the wall for him to see when he came back to her. I have seen her wince when I touched her, laugh when I tickled her tummy, sleep with her specs tangled in her curls. I have seen her make omelette, and eat it with her hands. I used to lick her fingers clean.

I have seen my yin read five books a day, seen her write for three nights straight, got slapped for walking on to her taking a bath, been teased for getting drunk on beer, shouted at for mimicking her. I have seen her looking lost, and shrug it away when I asked her the reason. I have had her wrapped around me at nights, the smell of medimix and coconut oil on her.

I've been the jealous lover, (was I her lover?) I've asked her to leave her husband and come to me, and like always, after a fight, she walked away, only to come back later, with something new she'd written. And me the fool, read it, hugged her close and kissed her. Having her next to me was all that I cared. To hell with Aabha and Neeyati. She chopped of her hair once and gifted it to me. I painted her shaved head with tomato ketchup.

I am leaving I told her. She was driving me crazy. It was not healthy I told her, for me to wait for her always, and for her to run away from one man to be with another. She did not say a word, kissed me hard closed the door softly and left.

Damn it! She kisses so well...

As we flip the calendar

2010-12-31T21:37:00.000+05:30

Oh wait! Am I making new year resolutions? Again? Already?

I don't know if it's the same with everyone of you, but 2010 for me has flown by faster than any other previous years. From January to December, to the 1st to the 31st, 2010 has been good to me, and I turn to a new calendar with no regrets...

I thank you my Laptop, for not giving up on me, and for being the medium of this post

I thank you flowers in my garden, you are an inspiration for a green thumb like me

I thank you Nokia, and Airtel and BSNL distances truly aren't so much a problem now

I thank you mother billy, for dying (hear me out). I have a son now he's 11/2 months old, his name is Meow. And surprise surprise, he can mouth his name

I thank you sun god, for never failing to rise on happy days, and never refusing to set on the not so happy days

I thank you facebook for letting me know the limits of my self will

I thank you Bru coffee, for not being hard on me, and helping me refrain from you (Success for the past 2 months)

I thank you bits and pieces of paper, for making me fold you into shapes and sizes that now look pretty on my table

I thank you hope, happiness, luck, perseverance, love, laughter and tears for being an integral part of my 2010

I thank you time (or the lack of it) that made me do so many things at once (this has been a year of self pat)

I thank you Muthassa, for making me remember you a lot more this time around. I'll never stop missing you

I thank you paints, for making me want to put you to brushes again

I thank you Blogger for unleashing on me hoards of creative people (thanks to you all, I am taking up my paints and scissors again)

I thank you people in my life (every single one of you) for completing a jigsaw of the previous (already?) year in vibrant colours

I thank you me for being me (self pat again)

I thank you moments that made me so depressed, that I throughly enjoyed being happy again

I thank you 2011, for knocking :)

Adieu 2010, I wont miss you, however great you were.....

Of promises

2010-11-27T10:14:00.001+05:30

It's not that I've forgotten my promises. Not one bit. I've been busy scrounging for raw materials, and they are a little hard to come by. Once I get them all, I can get back to my promises :)

P.s Am looking for soda bottle caps and four square pieces of good solid ply wood :)

Apsara

2010-11-25T20:02:00.000+05:30

First attempt at mural painting...
Poster paints on canvas

Part 4

2010-11-23T19:15:00.000+05:30

Well now, a confession. This one was done a few days back. Before I started the whole series of solemn promises that is. But I am actually quite proud of myself here. And I like this quite a lot. This was ink on paper, just like that. I was looking at Kerala Mural paintings, wanting to draw one for a long time. I found one that I liked and drew on the back of a rough paper with pen. Honestly, I dint think it would come out well...

I want to do the same thing in fair, on better paper, and this post is a prologue to that. I start drawing today.... Hope the "real" one turns out good.

Looking at paints itself is an inspiration....

part 3

2010-11-21T14:44:00.000+05:30

This is an imitation of Artist Namboodiri's sketches. Quite happy the way this has turned out. This has to suffice for yesterday and today, because i started one yesterday, spilled water on it and spoilt it. drew this again today morning.

Pen on paper

Part 2

2010-11-20T10:36:00.000+05:30

The rustiness of not having picked up paints for a long time shows through....but still.
Oil pastels on paper

p.s find the inspiration here

Solemn Promise Part 1

2010-11-19T07:22:00.000+05:30

Tummy first..
Stuffed Puri and Raitha.. experiment that went quite well I guess. There was also Paneer Makhanwala, of which I forgot to take a pic of....

Glee

2010-11-18T10:16:00.000+05:30

Thanks to Savithri Ma'am, a Verdura post is now on Malayalanatu.

http://www.malayalanatu.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=201:the-silences-in-between-&catid=16:story&Itemid=20

:) :) :) :) :)

Making the best out of me...

2010-11-17T19:38:00.000+05:30

Lets call 'Julie and Julia' an inspiration....

I've been whining to anyone who would listen that I've lost touch with the art world. Neither do I pick up brushes nor I swirl around glue or snip snap paper bits...I've decided to give myself a break. A break from killing what little of artistic/ creative streak that I have in me. I know its not going to be easy. The moody me will have lots of reasons to not do anything and not stick to my words, hence this public announcement.

"For the next one month, starting tomorrow,

I am going to do something creatively productive,

everyday!

I could paint, draw, or do little pieces of paper art, or cook, or write.

Whatever it takes me,

I will do it.

*solemn promise to myself.*"

P.s the results of the promise will be posted here everyday.

p.p.s Whenever I put up pictures, kindly excuse since I'll be relying on my poor little phone camera lens.

p.p.p.s Wish me luck :)

The white, black and greys in between

2010-10-14T23:59:00.000+05:30

In all her Amar Chitra Katha books, the demons were black. Her muthassi told her that bad people are dark. "Their colour of skin is because of the colour of their hearts".

Once in school, her friend had told her "Do you know? Sitting with black girls and boys will make us also black? See am not sitting with Kalyani anymore. My mother told me if i am friends with her again, I will also end up bad and black like her"

Through out her college, she had girls around her who spoke lovingly about fairness creams

When she hit 23, her mother too had panicked about her job making her darker. "Quit being a reporter. Its making you dark and ugly"

Today as she lay under him, moving under him, she saw her arms on his back. Seeing white on black quickly made her withdraw her hands.

He stopped to look at her. She hated herself

The silences in between

2010-08-27T13:14:00.000+05:30

“I’ll just be back.”

She stopped midway into her packing, grabbed a duppatta and rushed out. Her roommate had hardly enough time to react.

She came to room A-4 and stared at the door. Two hand prints stared back at her. One blue, big and sprawling, and another orange, a little smaller and a little distorted. The two thumbs overlapped each other. She hesitated and then knocked.

“yaaaa”

She knocked again

“Come in...it’s not locked.”

She pushed the door a little and slid inside. He was lying tummy down on his bed, his head hanging out and was reading The Hindu. A mug of coffee stood beside, and what remained of a pack of Hide-and-Seek biscuits. She stood there looking at him. He was reading the sports section and dint look up. When she dint speak, he looked up.

His hair had grown longer, and brown-er. He’d changed his specs. The frame was thicker now, and she noticed, the glasses too. He was growing a beard, and as usual, the two tiny places at the crook of his lower lips were uncovered with hair.

“They just don’t grow there. It is irritating. I can’t have a decent enough bulgan”

She remembered a conversation with him earlier. She was sipping coffee in his room and he was examining his new goatee.

“you know, I saw an old Malayalam movie yesterday where there is a boy who applies karadi neyyu to grow moustache. Do you think it works? Is it even available?”

“I’ve heard that it works.” She grinned.

“sigh. But knowing me, it would probably take the rest of the hair on my face away. I’ll just grow my moustache longer. It might just cover the stupid hollow”

“Abdu told me he saw you around yesterday near Sagar.”

His voice took her back to the present.

“I had to meet ma’am”

“You submitting your thesis?”

“Nope. Haven’t been working much. Wanted to get out of home. And had things to take back....”

“hmmm...sit down. Don’t stand. The chair is clean enough. Just shift the newspapers.”

She heaved about 30 newspapers and wondered where to put them. While she was contemplating the bed he jumped up.

“Here, give me”

He took them from hers, and pushed them over on to his cupboard. Something else fell through the crack between the cupboard and the wall, and by the sound of it, broke.

He turned around to face her. And grinned a little sheepishly.

“I have no clue what that was”

“Do you never clean up? Unless I am here?”

She remembered asking him once, folding his shirt.

“Well I do. I clean the table when I want to paint. I clean my bed to sleep. But I like the floor better. And yeah the cupboard. I have 3 decent shirts and 1 decent pair of jeans. I keep it folded. Yes folded means folded and not opened. Your method of folding is too complicated, serves no purpose. Those are wrinkle free shirts anyway.

And yeah. The rest of my cupboard holds paint brushes and paint, and paper and books. They are clean.

My desk holds books. I read them. So they are neat. That corner table is where I work. But as I hardly ever do that. So it is ahem..a little dusty.

The maid sweeps the floor every day. So I sleep on a clean floor.

So you see, am basically a clean person.”

He stared back defiantly. And she laughed.

“You have beautiful hair.” He’d said.

“It’s a little messy”. He said. Hunting about behind the cupboard to see what it was that broke.

“Ah! Forget it.,” he said giving it up and seated himself on the bed.

“You look good” he told her.

Normally she would have retorted with “one of us has to” but today she just smiled back. “Thank you,” she said.

“hmmmm”

She looked at the calendar flapping about near the window. He’d furiously marked almost all the dates. She tried reading it from the chair.

He saw her looking at it and said “random things. Calendar makes up for a diary”.

“hmmmm”

“I got new specs.”

“I noticed.”

“hmmmmm”

“I guess I’ll leave then. Your coffee is cold.”

“It is. Meant to be that. I usually have it like that now, like...” he left it at that.

“I like cold coffee more than hot ones. She had told him. One heaped teaspoon of Bru coffee. 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder. 1 ½ teaspoon sugar, 1 mug of milk. Heavenly.”

“hmmmmm....”

“.....hmmmmm”

“My flight is at 7. Its 3. Have called taxi.”

“...hmmmm. I’ve been accepted at Notre Dame. Will leave in October....meant to mail etc..but....hmmmm...... “

“oh. Congrats....”

“thanks”

“bye”

“yeah”

The past three months

2010-08-08T17:29:00.000+05:30

~~Writing~~
~~Loooooong chapters~~
~~Even loooooonger edits and red track changes~~

~~Buying~~
~~Books and Paints~~
~~The former to stock in cockroach ridden shelves~~
~~The latter to stink rot and die unused~~

~~Dressing~~
~~In sarees old and new blouses new and borrowed~~
~~Kohl rimmed eyes and braided long hair~~

~~A degree in the making~~
~~A generation gap of three years~~

I confess.... I cannot write

Thus died one who longed to write

Choked by profusion of words

That never made sense

RIP

A song long forgotten

2010-05-01T18:32:00.001+05:30

Every Thursday, Ambika set out four cups of tea and a plate of Britannia Marie biscuits on the little cane stool. Madhavan helped her by dragging four cane chairs and setting it around the table. Up until a few years ago, she did that too by herself. But now lifting the tray of tea cups itself had become a little tiring.

It had rained today, after the sweltering heat of a cruel early summer. She had loved it. so had her little flowers in their little pots. She tucked her saree up to her ankles and walked around her tiny garden, peering over her back frequently to check mud splotches on her mist green chikan work saree. She couldn’t afford to look dirty when they came.

Thursdays hadn’t been fixed on purpose. It had just happened. It was the only day where he did not see patients at home. He used to come over for a cup of tea if he saw that his wife was out. (She made horrible tea anyway. Without ginger and with lots of water.) Sometimes his friend Hari used to come over with him and hang around for the tea and conversation. Latha too used to join if she was in the mood. And then Sachi and Bala and Bhama and Dyuthi. Ambika was never the one for talking. But she did make good tea.

She had known him before. Much before the little chai times. Much before he was engaged to Latha, much before he had become a doctor. It was sheer chance that had brought her to this home. She had quit to take up writing seriously, and was looking for a small and affordable home to stay somewhere near the city. She hadn’t understood why anyone had to go settle in a village to write better. Here there was no river in the background, nor were the sounds of the city muffled. There were trees yes, enough to scatter her little front yard with so much of leaves that sometimes she let it become a carpet of sorts. There were birds and crickets, but so there were also rumbling of trucks on the road, incessant beeping of the scooters and the honking of those mad red buses. She had loved the home even as she read the ad in the Mathrubhoomi, and had promptly moved in.

She first saw Latha or rather heard her singing a Bengali song that she’d forgotten from her college days from her kitchen. Latha was happy to have Ambika in her kitchen. Would she help her make aviyal?

It was only three days later that she actually saw him. Even when Latha had mentioned his name, and spoken of his profession, she still didn’t for a second imagine him to be him. Meeting him was a surprise. She might have looked away when he looked, and he might have hung his head when she looked. Nothing would have given away that they had known each other, in a past that still was making up its mind if it were a dream.

People did ask why she was never married. But once they came to know she was a writer, with actual published works, people took it as a given that she couldn’t be married. And no more questions were asked. They did not meet in secrecy, and met only on Thursdays, with at least three other people sitting around drinking chai. Once or twice, she had seen him look at her strangely and hang around for a few seconds after everyone left, only to walk away just as naturally.

When her 6^th published short story collection was suddenly being discussed as a masterpiece, she heard him playing the flute at his home. The same song.

32 years had passed since she’d moved in. The chai party frequently had new visitors. And once she had become and “author” from a “writer”, there was often a demand for membership to the chai club. But the visitors never lasted.

Today there were four chairs around the table. It had been four for the past three years. For Latha, Bhama, Sachi and her. Of all the people she missed most, she missed him who would never again come on Thursdays. The song lost its tune. And she forgot its lyrics.

A scribble

2010-03-05T22:58:00.000+05:30

Anamika wants to try out scribbling in malayalam. Hence Kuthivara.

And then...

2010-02-07T19:10:00.000+05:30

Because my childhood was spent missing my parents, I thought nothing of careers, nothing of being a juggler of home and work, nothing of being a “super” mom. Nothing about being an “earning” wife. I wanted to be a mother and a wife.
I took the decision long ago. Maybe at fifteen, or maybe even before. I don’t quite know.
I made my husband happy when it was just the two of us. I cooked. I made the home pretty. I loved him having his friends over for dinner. He was proud of his pretty wife with a great figure, who cooked well, and liked his friends. He loved his wife who gave him surprise birthday and anniversary gifts. He was grateful to his wife for always listening to his day at work. He lusted for his wife behind their closed bedroom doors.

I had married the love of my life. We loved. Then we had a daughter.

I made my daughter happy. I made her little hand puppets, made her teddy bears in her favourite colour. I painted her room with her favourite cartoon characters. Made her star shaped sandwiches and chocolate chip muffins. Knew all her friend’s names and their parents. Took her out of school and went junk jewellery shopping. Made her bunk classes and went for movies. I tried my hand in teaching her maths, though we did stop that exercise pretty soon. I cried with her when she fought with her best friend and laughed with her when her appa got scared of her makeup kits.

My daughter got a job and became a career woman. And then she became appa's girl.

Of that same old thing that we call love

2009-12-23T23:23:00.000+05:30

There are people who are just born to be in love. I am one of them.

There are people who are born to be loved. I am not one of them.

I am not Anna Scott, who found her love at the end of the movie.

I have loved. A little too many times. I’ve been loved. By too many. Never for the right reasons. I am 35 now. The grease paint doesn’t look too good on my skin, which never got used to it in the first place. I’ve money to change the way age sits on me. But I refuse. And for that the movies left me. I have no complaints. I did love acting, but only under the spot lights. When acting percolated too much into the way I brushed my teeth, read my morning paper or sipped my coffee, I began to hate it.
I loved yes. The first ever actor I acted with, the first person I kissed—not under a tree, while shivering in the rain like my poor 17 year old self dreamed—but in front of a camera, the director’s beady eyes looking for a moment to call “Cut” and probably 70 spot boys who stood on top looking down on us, probably seeing my breasts too through the v-neck of a top that was supposed to show off my youth. It wasn’t perfect in the real sense of the word, but it was, under the circumstances. The movie ended, me and my breasts became famous, and my first love got lost somewhere along the way.

I fell in love again, with the dimples and the smile of a director who gave me my first “woman centred” role. He made me the centre of his world too. Or so I thought until he got married to my then close friend.

I fell in love yet again with the gentleness of my manager, the witty talk of my driver, the love for Dali of a reporter, the kalari teacher who tutored me for a film, a business man who had an art gallery and would let me sit in front of Water Lilies as long as I wanted... yes I fell in love. Too often. Too soon. For too many reasons.

I am 35 now. The tabloids gave up on me a long time ago. I told you—the grease paint just doesn’t sit on my face anymore.

I am pregnant. I know who the father is. But I don’t think about him. I think I did my best acting there that night with him. I remember Monet’s “Poppies at Argenteuil” hanging at the foot of the bed. I dreamt me walking between the red poppies, a little pair of feet behind me. The dream is now in me. The dream of someone to love and be loved at last.

How selfish love makes us.

The state of being

2009-12-16T23:53:00.000+05:30

Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved Calvin, or maybe it’s because no one is more succinct than Calvin, whatever the reason I follow him now...to the state he was in, in Mrs wormwood’s class—“The state of denial”.

But maybe it’s not complete denial too...maybe there is no term for it. Not when your heart sighs when you see the forwards he sends on Gmail which has your name too, but you think of those days when your name used to be the first name on the sent to list, and now it comes, trailing, in alphabetical order somewhere towards the end. It’s not denial is it, when he still calls you every now and then and you’d expect the conversation to end in an “I love you”, but ends in a “take care and keep in touch”. It’s not denial at all is it when you see him put up pictures of them together—happy and smiling, and you smile along with them, but somewhere your memory cringes that your photos never came up in any of those pages.

Is it denial when you still think and dream about the past and the impossible future as a possibility? Denial is not that is it, when you go about your days as if nothing happened but the late nights and late mornings are just about sleep now, and not what is used to be—of warmth, kisses and blankets, of nakedness and sweat, of love and wine, and poetry. Would it be denial if you thought about him as the perfect person, even while he was searching for perfection elsewhere?

Would it be denial if you loved someone so much that forgiving was easy but forgetting was not?

Living Life in Bits

2009-11-23T19:35:00.000+05:30

Music. Oil paints. Shantaram. Dev Anand. Oil pastels. Handmade paper. Silk. Chappals. Glass paint. Smell of turpentine. God of small things. Research. Conversations. Love. Lots of it. Hugs too. And imagined kisses. A presentation. Family. A single tie. Impatience. Loneliness. Sighs. Interruptions. Love again. Salads. Broken nails. Paints. And paint brushes too. Of writing. And reading. Loving reading. Then hating it again. Same difference. A virtual farm. Cows and turkeys. Of pink satin pillow cases and a bunch of 12 red roses. Being there. Being not there. Ignore. And being ignored. Painted walls. Wilting money plants. Music. Bollywood. Anthony Gonzalves. Arundhathi Roy. Aditi and arundhati. Babies with dimpled cheeks and big black eyes. Living together. Living on phones. Living off suitcases. Still living. Music. Oil paints. Shantaram. Studies. Or what mocks it. Long drive cravings. Dreams. Lots of it. The good and the bad. Flowers. Photographs. Ankle socks and frosty toes. Coffee. Masala tea. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Paints. Paper. Pen. Music. Songs. Love. Mirrors. Satin and silk. Love. Conversations. Coyness. Anger. Laughter. Tears. Whines. Living life. In bits.

You/Me/Me/You

2009-11-05T19:23:00.000+05:30

Missed hugs. Missed calls. A little tiny tear. Your tee shirt. Me.

Long hours. Stolen rest. Busy days. My tiring calls. You.

The Very Short Conversation

2009-10-08T21:15:00.000+05:30

“You do know that people are talking about us. Don’t you?” She asked him in her usual matter of fact no nonsense way.
“Oh! Are they? But why?” He looked at her quizzically, still frantically stirring his mug of almost boiling coffee
“Isn’t that obvious?” She asked incredulously
“erm...is it? Why?” The stirring was replaced by blowing into the mug.
“Coz we are always together. We have our meals together. We are practically well yeah for lack of better word...together.”
“Oh!” she was sure he dint understand “But what’s wrong in it? Is there anything wrong?”
“ No. I just wanted to let you know in case you had a problem with it.”
He considered. “ No I don’t think I do.” He went back to stirring his coffee. She was sure the spoon would create the end of the orange large mug. “But then you know....”
“what?”
“well you are a girl and all.....” he hesitated.
She snorted. “men are so dumb”
“Whats wrong? I meant you know the tag and all...what if people start talking about you in a wrong way and all? Especially others in campus...”
“men ARE dumb” she reiterated.
“I am trying to be nice.”
“Idiotic. Thats what you are being now.”
“You women say we men are jerks because we are insensitive. Here I am, trying to be nice, and you call me dumb.”
“Listen men are jerks. No denying that. Men are also dumb. You are just proving that point. Over and over again.”
“Not all men are jerks. Come on. Don’t give me that feminist crap.” He looked insulted.
“It’s not a generalization. Like how many women you know stare at you up and down and virtually undress you as you walk past? How many women have passed lewd comments at you while crossing you on the road? Just about how many women have grabbed you and your whatever in public spaces? And am sure no women has rubbed against you while traveling in the bus or flew past in a bike shouting obscenities and laughing at you or followed you if you happened to be alone on the road at a particular point of time? Can you count the number of times?” Her eyes flashed as she looked at him.
He put the mug of now-just-steaming-coffee on the table, neatly kept the spoon next to it and ran his fingers through his hair. “Well...I haven’t had to face any...but then again...not all men are jerks....” he said almost feebly.
“Oh no. Not all men are. Just about a mere 90% of them are” She sneered.
“oye! Thats unfair. Would you call me jerk?”
“Well I’ve just known you for like what half a month...so I can’t really say.”
“That’s unfair again. But I guess I can only defend myself in saying that I haven’t done any of those things that you mentioned above to anyone...”
“Well am sure you haven’t. You don’t come across as that big a jerk” she grinned.
“That big!! What’s that supposed to mean? You women never trust anyone...that's your main problem.”
“Well yeah. We generally don’t trust men. How can you when there are fathers raping daughters and uncles fathering nieces’ daughters? And especially when we women know for a fact that whenever a man says he loves a girl he’s secretly even unconsciously thinking how good she’ll be in bed..”
“Well in my defense I’ve never thought of that when I think about....” ? He stopped. Grabbed the orange coffee mug and gulped down a big mouthful. If the coffee burnt right down to his tummy bottom, he dint show it. Except that his eyes watered slightly.
“think about....?” She grinned
“no..like...randomly....you know....girls and stuff....” He ran his hand through his hair and scratched behind his ears.
“Oh so you think about men that way...” she chuckled. “Well don’t worry...gay rights are getting a lot of attention...and soon they’ll legalise gay marriages too.” She guffawed.
“Oh no no no....am am normal...sorry am straight. I just said I don’t think in the way you mentioned....” he blushed furiously.
“Ok let’s get back to the conversation...” She smiled wickedly. “You don’t think like that when you think of.....me?” she looked at him again.
He squirmed
“Does that mean you hate to think how bad I’ll be in bed?” she stuck her tongue out at him.
“ NO!! No!! Its just...well I don’t know...just that I’ve not thought in that way....”
“Someone once told me that you shouldn’t wait for a guy to propose to you. Knowing guys they just might not. They are all lazy bums. So am saving you the embarrassment. People are talking about us anyway. Why not give them something to talk about? Do you mind?” she asked.
Whatever it was he clearly did not expect this. “You are kidding me!”
“So is that a no?” she laughed
“no no....sheesh!....who is the guy here?” He almost looked offended.
“See...I told you guys are dumb.”
“They are also jerks. I was in fact thinking about how great it would be kiss your lips while you were on your spiel about men.” He winked.
“See we women are always right...”