Eight

Eight

Thats the number of months I've been pregnant for. It has an "about time now I'm tired" feel to it. It is an adventure of finding out all the nooks that can pain. Gym has got nothing on it.

So many things people tell you and so many more that they don't. Current advice being keep moving and walking and walking do you walk its good to walk. I could walk to the other end of them if i could.

Do you know your pelvis is shifting and softening in anticipation and it aches and you can't place a finger on it exactly where is that pain coming from. 

I think twice thrice and double that time if i got to leave the bed. Who is at the door, do I really need to pee, can I not eat, why doesn't everything just fuck off. 

Nights bring their own horrors of dreams, contradictions of wanting to be left alone but also to be held. Exhaustion but no sleep. Weeping and sobbing cuz which side to lie on. 

Few more weeks and finally I can get rid if this wrist ache that has ensured I can't hold a pen for the last 6 months. 

An autobiography [of a dust bin]

So i dreamt someone was yanking at my jaws, trying to dislodge it and i had just fallen asleep is this what nightmares are made up of.

Or better still, i was peacefully asleep in my safe corner when someone yanked at my jaw, almost dislodging it and me from my corner only for me to break in cold sweat and wake up to realise it is still dark outside and no one is really yanking at my jaws. Phew, nightmares.

I really don't mind someone gently nudging my jaws open. Its one of the most important exercises of my day. Jaw open. Jaw close. Jaw open. Like slowing chewing a bubble gum noisily.

But some of those days when you pour all your non-segregated, broken glasses, stale food from a month ago filth i want to leave you. Why is it so difficult for you to see that there is no paper lined and you won't give me a shower anytime soon.

I don't ask much from you, do i. Keep my corner fragranced and i am happy.

[brought to you by the below tweet]

She never knew

She woke up looking like a crumbling statue, from a forgotten ruin of a long lost past. The askew sheets told a story of restless night spent tossing and turning between the sheets. She tasted bile in her throat, reminding her vaguely of waking up in the middle of the night to throw up the little food she had eaten from the take away she had bought along when returning from work. When was it. Yesterday? How long in the past was this yesterday? She fumbled to find her glasses from the table besides her bed. She squinted at the wall to see what time was it. She stared it for what seemed like an eternity waiting for clock’s hands to move only to realise they weren't moving at all. She kept her cellphone away from her in an attempt to force herself to wake up the first time the alarm on the phone went off. It was yet to work. The alarm would go off, automatically snooze for another 15 minutes to again ring and again snooze. She didn't know why did she still keep doing this. Maybe one day i will not curl up and go back to sleep when the alarm rings.

She got up from the bed to get the phone. She couldn't remember the date. Or day. The year eluded her for a minute. The old calendar on the wall hasn't seen a fresh page for months. The cellphone’s screen said it was a Saturday. Well, i don't need to get out of bed and drag myself to work today at least. That was a relief. She could feel a headache building up just behind her eyes. It has become a constant companion. Perhaps i should get my eyes tested. I might be losing my vision. She made a mental note to go see the optometrist soon.

There was no sun light in her room. Her tiny apartment faced another building that had other similar tiny apartments. The curtains filtered just enough daylight to let you know it wasn't night time.

Her days have been merging into one another, days into nights into days. Day after day. She hardly had met her friends after the last birthday party they had thrown for her. She couldn't muster up the courage to pick up the phone and call anyone. Talk to them, tell them she missed them. She felt she would be imposing herself on them. She never knew why.

She put on tea to boil, got her toothbrush & stared outside the window. It was a dull grey day. Humid. The stillness of summer heavy in the air. The sun was bright but it couldn't reach inside her and evaporate that greyness. Sipping her tea, flicking through the television, not seeing, she spent her morning hunched on her bed with a book besides her. Her mind and soul restless, fidgetting to get out there.
Somewhere. Away. She dreamed of packing her bags and getting on a long distance train. Get a window seat, peer out, wind in her hair. That made her smile sadly. Why don't i have the courage to do this. She didn't know why.

i found a piece

found myself a part of me,
in a mosaic, of broken waves,
and shores of gold.

i found myself, a part of me,
in the tinted orange skies,
of a winter morning,
and chattering teeth.

looking at the swing, found myself,
the park of forgotten childhood,
evenings & the fountain of a rushing day.

the shops across the road,
run around the alleys of vacations,
the simmer of the parched earth,
i found myself under a banyan tree.

outside the bus, window i found,
me on the road so wide, staring afar,
in the past of spring noons,
sparkling sunrays.

While the boat wobbled, on the oceans,
wide & blue, i saw below,
the bottomlessness,
i found myself a part of me.

the cobbled road, the centuries carrying brick,
steeped into the past, the crinkled faced,
a stranger's smile found me,
a part of me for me.

i saw myself, at the other end,
the reflection in your eyes,
dipped in chocolate. Smiling mischief,
sipping tea on a sunny day.

i did find a part of me.

I often think...

I often think
A lot; not much at times
Still like the lonely bench
On a promenade
Waves lashing over the reclaimed
Land; under the feet of strangers
Making passages of my story
A chapter of silence often,
Memories like the permanent crease
On an earmarked page
Of my life's book
Filled with words
Of banality, ennui, restless
Nights; and days filled with emptiness
Nerve wrecking pauses.
I often walk, or jog these thoughts
To lose them
Move without a map; lose them at a corner
Of an unmarked lane; a shop selling
Trinkets from someone's past
Pawned for another
These buyers unaware.
I sit looking at the face;
Of a jagged valley crisscrossing
 The cracked mirror
Reflection distorted, million pieces
For a path that may be mine A plan.
To reach there
Following with the finger tips
Blinking. Harsh light from a neon bulb
blurring the scars of time.
Things are incomplete
Unclimaxed; without an end to every evening
Maybe if I couldn't think at all.

...they are boys

So i found place near the door of the train, plugged in my headphone, put a song on loop and tried to forget the various aches i am going through. This old lady sitting besides me gets up, and in a few minutes starts talking.

It starts with its that a phone that works by touching. I did not hear her the first time. So i pulled out one ear piece and tried to listen again. Yes, it is a touch phone. I smile. She goes on about how her daughter-in-law also had one but it did not last for long and it was quite expensive and she had got a new one. I smile and nod.

Another few minutes, my ear piece is back on and another ache is creeping in. She asks me if i work, i nod. Am i married. I shake my head. Am i a single kid. I shake my head and tell her i have 2 younger sisters. Oh she says. No brother? I have plastered the smile on and shake head, no. We are only sisters. So you have to work, she asks. No, i wanted to.
You are like a son to your parents, you are doing a sons job, she adds. (And i try to recollect how many times have i had this same conversation. About not having brothers, parents not having a son, me being my parents son. Do people not realise how annoying it is?)

I keep smiling and shrug.

She tells me how these days daughters are the one who actually take care of their parents. How sons don't care anymore. She has 2 sons herself. She is a widow. None of the sons ask her how she is. If she would want something. Not that she wants anything, she says. But it would feel nice to think someone cares. Cannot argue that now. I smile and nod.

She tells me how she was 6yrs old when she lost her mother. Then was sent off to a boarding school, when she came back to Hyderabad, her father married her off to a drunkard. The husband would beat her. Yell at her. Then she was pregnant with her first son. She came back to her father's place. But then she went back to her husband. She always wanted a daughter. But she had a son again. She got angry at god, told him no more kids. Give to others who are childless. To those women who get called barren.

She tells me don't marry unless you want to. Do not compromise on that. How she had met so many girls who are pressurized by their parents to marry, how they are left with nothing else in their lives. Don't marry if you think you don't ever want to. Make a life for yourself.

[I have gotten my ears pierced again. It is so much easier to be distracted when you are nursing physical pain. The headache from all the anger gets shadowed.]

I did not get to say bye to that old lady. Maybe next time i'll catch the same train and meet her again.

Men, uff.

I have a complicated relation with men which varies from I love them, I love them a lot, oh so much love, stop being annoying love, and get lost. Even though many of the close guy friends doubt me when I check out the fairer sex along with them, I am pretty sure I like men more. Is it due to the fact that I get along with them better or that since I am usually more around men so I get along better with them.


The best friend is a guy and also it was a guy who displaced me from being the first rank holder in class 5. I'll never forget you Rajesh. It was Raj who would tease me crazy with a Jungle book character's name since it rhymes with mine. And the only I love you i ever got to hear was by a guy who I ignored & ran away from since thats what a 10yr old girl would do when an 11yr old cutest guy ever says to you.

And lately its men who are being pricer than the kohinoor who are driving me nuts. It is very difficult to stay unaffected by intelligent, cryptic, emotionally/geographically unavailable men.

They have left me grinning silly at the screens of various monitors, cellphones, opaque windows with their words. Sleepless, wide awake in the middle of the night.

There was this not-too-much-talker who I never talked to what with him being swamped by every pretty girl in college who would make you feel like a total behenji. The BEST bus tickets come with digits which we would add up & then any cute guy who's name would start with alpahabet that it corresponded with was ohhed and aahed about. These brooding kinds are such a hit.

Then there are the charming, will listen to all what you have to say, will send flowers (virtual ones count too), again hit amongst all the ladies around (some of the girls would even be crying in their pillows every night each night), who will be good in everything they do. They read only as prescribed by the government but still seem to know it all. They'll never be serious. And then its someone next for them.

Moving on to them who are all as messy with their emotions as a girl. They get emotional for any girl who tells them their sob story, they'll be nice with everyone, they'll get dumped by their girlfriends for someone else for unknown reasons, and they are much of a sweetheart.

The emotionally unavailable come with dillemmas since they don't seem to be sure or clear what makes them emotionally unavailable. Geography can be worked upon but that takes first place in the "top 10 reasons why I am going to be aloof, stubborn, difficult, ambigious with you". It also lists down "women from the past who were the one and I can't seem to move on" as a very important reason. They'll give you sleepless nights & open eyed nightmares, you'll be pulling your hair in frustation while trying to convince yourself that it might work or might not work out depending on what time of the day you were daydreaming about them. Daytime tend to be optimistic while as the days business (busyness) slips into the plain dark canvas of night you would be on the edge of your bed questioning your sanity.

You see, every last fall makes the next one more easier. To fall gets easier but not when it comes to getting over.

EvilPieceOfHumanSpecies.

When days take for things to sink in...

Being ambitious is easy when all you do is dream and the next day is back to snoozing the alarm for the nth time so you are late for work for the nth time and for the nth time you decide you’ll change your ways. Or atleast this stands true for me.
Not ever since I remember, but ever since I became aware of the possibility of actually going someplace which wasn’t inside Bombay, I have wanted to travel. It could be any place. In the past few years I have done a lot of travelling (even if it has been confined to Bombay-Pune and around Pune. Or Kanha). And recently it was Turkey. Which I am not going to be tired of telling people about. It is part of a dream coming true. What after 2 people from the group having to cancel their plan at the last minute, 5 visit to the embassy to finally get the visa done, additional miserly behavior to have enough money in the bank to not have to be miserly when we reach Turkey.
I have clearly forgotten the exact route we followed. I remember what I saw – fluffiest, bluest sky ever, cleanest bluest beaches ever, oldest driest ruins of the oldest Greek-Roman times, the Mediterranean from up the sky – paragliding can give you a mighty scare, Cappadokya from up the sky – height matters when some guy might need to pick you and drop inside the balloon’s basket, the clean whitest valleys where falling on your butt is quite a possibility followed by local lemon mint flavored ice-cream which leaves you dizzy with joy.
And being placed on the map. Each shopkeeper would pluck you out from the surrounding and play lets-see-if-i-know-what-place-on-earth-do-you-aliens-come-from. Which was quite laughter inducing.
The sounds (or lack of honking which you’d notice if you live in a crowded city), food (its not plain boiled! Yay!), colours (the skies varying at every possible chance, the overcoat & scarf clad local ladies, white valleys..exhausting to recollect), and the yummiest desserts you could imagine which ensures you don’t loose even a gram when you come back home.
This is my haphazard but not half hearted recollection of the best journey yet. May the gods of travelling be nice to me for ever and ever and ever.

Homeless

This far away gaze,
This silent whimper,
This furtive thought,
Touches the fingers and turns to vapour.
This ominous fog, my breathe leaves
Blurred words, their lifespan just a blink.
I sit near the window, my home for the moment
The bench across the sea too at another
I carry the gaze, the silence, the unknown thought
To walk along with me, to reside in me
Till i find the next home.

Relentless fluttering, the heart needs to rest
I lie down in the dew.
Running feet over the pond, breaking the stars' glimpse.
I carry the unwashed fingers, along with the morning fragrance
The feet find the gravels
While i find the next home.

I look for a place, until i reach the final home.

Answers?

You don't know if all was spoken,
That all which I held within
Was shared.
You don't know if all was what you saw,
That all which was in front
Was all what had to be seen.
If I hide within the turbulence of a stormy night
Or the calm of a spring morning.
Love for life, love life, life hence love
It is for each to find
Though guides along the path would point the way
It is for each to decide
Will it be search, or
Giving up and rest to follow.
Some thoughts wouldn't see the light
Someone with a yes may not be the answer
Somethings are meant not to be
Distorted perceptions & illusions may not survive.

Nothing is meant to survive, that is the eternal truth.

In a straightjacket

She was scared of things. Scared of people. Scared to talk. Scared when talked too.
She was scared of heights. She was scared to touching anything.
She was jealous of people. Jealous that they seems so not scared.
Not scared of things, of people. Not scared when they talked. Or when somebody talked to them.
Jealous of people who could laugh out loud, without inhibition. Or who did not care of what people thought of them.
She was never the favourite. She was good at her studies but the teachers found the other kid who was charming better than her. She was the eldest child at home but she was supposed to act grown up since was the eldest child.
She was scared of making friends. Jealous of people who could make friends easily.
She was scared of losing friends. Jealous that people could stop caring after a while while she couldn't.
She was scared to love. She was jealous of people without spectacles, without messy hair, without bucktooth, without accumulating fat, with their overflowing talents & mirth, with someone to love them.

She sat in the tub, scratching away fear & jealousy that was in her. She scratched until her skin was red & burning. Until she felt like she was on fire. She wore a clean white gown & stepped out. Faint red marks were peeping from underneath.

Rustling thoughts

While the dream lasted, it felt all so real
To realise that the glimpse of the burning candle
Was the sun setting across the horizon.
The thoughts were bright & colourful.
Playing in the spring foilage with the blooming flowers.
Where laughter was easy to come
Looking at the butterflies & fireflies.

What is real, is it a nightmare
To which I have woken up
Or did I sleep.
Where the sounds weep.
Thorns adorn the weary traveller's path. Nothing ever as was before.

Life and its tragedies, living beyond
The shore. Of expectations & returns.

Paths

Building thoughts around wishes
Creating smiles around these thought
I am in love with them
They don't deny me that happiness
which these open eyes make me see
To be not possible, to be not real
To be mere dreams.

I am bound to fall
To have skinned my wishes' knees
To have my heart shattered into thousands of pieces
To have cried myself to sleep
To have woken up
when the bird won't cheer me
But what is a day without an accident, what is a life without incidences.

I carve my path along the way
I am the traveler and the destination
I walk along, looking for what to find
Trying to find who am I
I will never find me
But I will have my heart lost to you
When on our intersection, you are a part
Of my way.

I smile, teary eyed. I carry your thought with me.

Doubts I don't want to solve

The ocean, wide and never ending
It sure does have an end
Which my desires lack
Wanting that which is
Not less that a mirage.
But only if I knew what is that want.
All that the eyes see
It sees that what it wants to see
I believe what I want to.
The tree goes deep
But the roots know their purpose
My purpose is still unknown
Yet to be found.
I seek to find it too
It never seems to be in my reach though.
The nightgale, the hawk
They pray, they prey
Groping in the dark
Running behind shadows
I pray to fall prey to.

When they thought

"You don't understand. There are miles and miles between us."
"But distance is really so trivial!"
"How did you manage to think there could be any outcome of this. We met on a social network. We haven't even met and there are bleak chances of we ever meeting in real."

And she was left wondering if distance really was that big a problem. How hard would it be to fly to his city and meet. Only if would just agree. Also, there was this minor issue of his words not showing any emotions. They had never had a voice conversation. But that never seemed a problem. She had fallen head over heels on his words. They were dark, complicated, not ever giving away what he was thinking. It had taken some time for her to get him to reply to her. Hr was opaque. Always on the edge, ready to snap. A challenge really. But of-course it did not stay a light pursuit for a long time. She wasn't known for keeping emotions at bay. And it had happened again.

Earlier it had happened with the one who would send her virtual sunflowers. Since she didn't have any favourite flower. And sunflower seemed good enough as an answer when he had asked her her favourites list. And they laughed. And she got one everyday. Until the day she told him and he reminded her the distance. Distance the first time. Distance always.

Wasn't it supposed to be a small world?

[typos fixed. Result of a slower day.]

Bayimaan

Moh laaga rey tohsey piya,
mann bikhaare hai yaad.

Naina taakey aakaas ko,
bairaagan hui main,
aur tu naa jaaney naam mera.

Paraan saanso se bandha hai,
saans bandhe hai tohsey.
Tu toh chala jaata hai,
aangan se morey, bin batiyaae.

Peedh iss jagg se aur mila na kuch dooja.
Tu bhi aa daan kar, thodey aur dukh de badha.

Her

She remembers not what it was
She knows not what would be there
She smiles and looks at the void
Imagined shadows playing seek.

She went about without a thought
They asked her to worry
They knew not she worried but she didn't know
She smiled at them and hid in the seeking shadows.

They told her of others who they wanted
She did not hear the words
She lived in their voices
She smiled at them and nodded.

She wondered of death
She did not know what to feel
She dreamt of screams
Of bloodied splashes on the wall
She knew not what the shadows asked.

Freshly rinsed and yet to dry

So then, using a collection of words that someone has used earlier isn't getting me behind bars, right?

Back to the point, i.e. home after

Manori [ferry, rickshaw, train, cab] Pune [cab] Panchgani [cab] Mahabaleshwar (being touristy) [cab] Panchgani [bus] Pune [train] Jabalpur [bus] Mandla [bus, gympsy] Kanha National Park [bus] Jabalpur [train, train, rickshaw] Home

That was the past few days worth of not being home, not working, taking a break, running around, being disconnected (mostly), taking a safari through a jungle, things cancelled due to unseasonal rains(!), watching deers and langoor early morning, going to another state, another city where a mall saved us our bladders and let us spend time bowling, playing around and wondering if we travelled so far to hang out in a mall(!) before the train back to home.

Well, it was quite fun. And funnier was our bad luck being ahead of us two hundred steps at every point.

The incidence of a constable asking us if we were college kids (since all the noise we people made), and told us to stfu (when we replied in the negative), won't be forgotten.

Some pictures below (phone cameras were used & the animals are missing since they don't allow phones to click pics inside the jungle)

Disjoint

Could I be a myth, fragment of someones imagination
Could I be far away, nearer to no wants
Possibilities if you let them come over
But again they might change. Possible.

Walking the same way
The road knows where you go
I wonder where the path really is
A fork and you & I are back at the start.

Dark nights, the moon & starry knights blink
The invisible hands of breeze, ghosts behind the curtains
I stifle a yawn, squeeze the sleep away
Tearing eyes struggle
New and forgotten nightmares queued up.

Disjoint thoughts, floating in the sea of memories
Long forgotten, dulled, sketchy details
Vivid, blurred, fogged by imagined details.

I ramble along.

...Life and then next

Death is inevitable & known
But it comes as surprise
to even the most hardened hearts.

The first death I encountered was in the 4th grade. A classmate had met with an accident. I didn't know how to feel about it. I still don't know. Didn't know when my dad's step mom died a few years back. Or when I saw bodies lying on the railway track after the Bombay local train bomb blasts 5yrs ago.

To share somebody's smiles is easier but how does one react to knowing that a person is not going to be around anymore. The numbness, cold that creeps into your very being.

I am shy to shed tears. Awkward to console somebody on their loss. Some will wail, some sit quiet...lost in thoughts. Death brings us back to reality, the futility of things.