Of peace, and not armistices!

This is odd. I write this while listening to a very soothing tick-tock of my clock and sipping beautiful red wine. I am not outraged, or sad, or in any way trying to purge any emotion out of myself. I am, in fact, happy. Happiness shows too. In a paunch, full of days worth of "real" mozzarella. In my toasted skin. In my (for once) big, tousled hair. 

But, this ain't a travelogue, and definitely not one of the post summer vacation essays we were expected to churn out about each museum/monument/mountain/beach visit. Not yet. This is just a first. In a series of, hopefully more to come, inspiring times. 

I crossed half the globe for this one. For Italy. Italy of glorious espresso shots and equally satisfying Chianti moments, of heat that burns the insides with every breath in and of Gelato that cools it all off, and of women so beautiful, even bad ideas seemed great (read going out bra-less and jumpsuits-that I was almost willing to spend EUROS on till I remembered warnings from SH of not getting carried away, fashion-wise). But, come on. I was on a vacation. Well-deserved, after 4 years of grad school + unemployment + job. 

I met Caesers and Boticelli in Rome. I touched a forgotten street-dwelling Michaelangelo. I tasted the sunshine and the sweat, that they tasted right there. And then, I saw a million paintings of “Bambi and Madonna”. I was teleported right away to second grade moral-science classes. Resonations of “He died for your sins” came screeching through the quiet hallways of the gallery. “What sins? I am 7 years old. I am a HINDU. Pagan/Infidel/Kaafir. Non-kosher. I have a billion gods to worship. What on earth are you talking about? If I see another cherubic, blue-eyed, blond-haired baby and a blue robed mother, I’ll effin’ scream (yep, 7 year old me was uber profane and bi-polar). Where is the well-preached religious austerity, damn it?” Yeah, it is difficult to remain neutral when it comes to art. If it doesn’t evoke any emotion, it is a big failure. Right? I saw all the angels, with Morton’s toes at that (Seriously, what’s the deal with that? Eve, Madonna, Destiny, Venus. A disorder common amongst ALL models from the era? And after I had noticed a few, I couldn’t not find them in EVERY painting.). I left hungry for the characters. Where are the mistresses and the harlots? Where is the darkness? Where is the humor? Would I have to re-visit France for that now? Then I came across the ghetto-est train I have ever seen, and it made my day.

I found my anarchical humor. And then some blues.

What “Yesterday” are we talking about? I can negotiate for some. Am I going to be unemployed again? Or worse, would I have to sit for competitive tests again? I want SH's hundred Reservoir Design stories (that I cried through before exams) worth of “yesterday”. I want my futile attempts at harmonizing with AM through Antaras and Alaaps worth of “yesterday”. A yesterday to encompass all times of hope and exhilaration, of peace and not just armistices. That is what I want. Else, ça va bien, merci.

I had forgotten how a city can have 2000 years all wrapped in a few square miles. Reminder: Need to visit Delhi soon. But, wait. That’s not where the similarity ends. How can I forget the men? Yep, didn’t miss Delhi for that. Making way through catcalls, whistles and very inappropriate propositions, I felt completely home. I have lived in the US for the past 4 years. My sister thought I was naïve again. She handled them well enough while I stared dumbstruck at being asked by a couple of 38 year olds (who assumed I was 22) if I wanted boyfriends for the evening. Yeah, creepy much. Pedo much too. Europeans, I say! When did she grow up to be the older, protective one? I thought I was the older brother. Nevertheless, I realized I am now soft in spite of being the fittest in years. Walking 8 hours a day doesn’t just get you drunk faster. So to all that is Rome, to its founders, preservers, and re-founders, my fantastic- looking calves would be eternally grateful. 

Ave Maria.

You know, fuck that.

Ave Caeser!

डर

जब ना डर हो और ना कोई आकांक्षा,

और स्वप्न हो गए हों खाली.

जब हो इतने स्वतंत्र,

रहे केवल अब और आज.

उस पल की आकांक्षा में, स्वतंत्रता में, रहेगा यह मन तब तक

इस डर के बंधन में.

(When there exist no fear and no hope,

And the dreams are all empty.

When there is absolute freedom,

And just a now, not past nor future.

In the hope of that moment and that freedom, I shall remain

Fearful.)

Wasabi, not Guac!

Context: Running through the living room, getting late, combing my hair, swinging my faux Aarti thaali in front of Dad for money. Him laughing.

Mom: "Where do you think you are going in your torn jeans and bathrobe lookalike shirt?"

Me: "Movies with friends."

Mom: "Don't we get you nice clothes? Can't you act lady-like EVER?"

Me: "YOU should know better than to ask that. Besides this was an acid accident in the lab. I don't hide my bruises, why my bruised jeans then. You should have seen Ankit's shirt when acid spilled over. It had tiny holes all over"

Mom: "Uff.. Atleast, this is better than your neck piercing. Is this why we sent you to a convent school?"

Me: "Why exactly did you send me to an all-girls Catholic school?"

Mom: "It is a good school and not far away."

Or that is what my mother said. I argued they had different intentions though. 

1. Keep the boys away from me
2. Be able to start a matrimonial advert, if it ever got to that, with "Fair, convent-educated, Punjabi girl..." 

The pursuit of either of these ends has been pretty abortive till date. 

Perfect timing for plan-change. My younger sister (referred to henceforth as MS) who was going to drive me (because that is another thing I do not know) decided to make a pit-stop at our old school. She likes going there to meet up with teachers, unlike I, who showed up there after 5 years of leaving. Come on. I was there for 13 years. THIRTEEN frikkin years. I was there for cursive writing, through summery pink tunics and white skirts, wintry red blazers, with long well-oiled plaits that hung below the hips, for Mental Math, stories of Adam and Eve and of Our Saviour.  I called the teachers "Miss", was duly scared of Mrs. D'Souza who would call us "Junglees from the fish-market" if we created ruckus, participated in prayers that took place four times in 6 hours (much to the dismay of my grandmother who would get a shock every time I started my prayer at a pooja at home with "Our father, thou art in heaven". "Why do you not know any good Hindu mantras? Why only Angrezi mantras?" But, I digress..). That was how it was. Nuns were nuns, teaching us docile girls to be seen before we were heard, and using base verbs with our dids/didn'ts. Teachers came in all kinds of packages- nice, sarcastic, helping, or just plain bad at teaching, standing akimbo while kids ran amok. I had had enough. 

First teacher to meet at the gate- Mrs. George. She hugs MS, asks her welfare, while I shuffle restlessly trying to stand with one leg covering the other one with the acid tear. Horrors of having to open hems of our short skirts at the entrance of our school suddenly came alive again. But, that was not for long. A protest happened (the reason of which eludes me now), became political, and caused enough grief to our school administrators to punish us by changing our uniforms to salwar-kurta. The punishment had to be tantamount to the offence. We got the ugliest new uniforms. They were not just a fashion-disaster, but also climatically wrong (too hot in summer, too cold in winter). My more fashion-conscious heart would go out to the 13 year old me, except I know she did not bother so much about it. 

Mrs. George asks MS about me. I am still here. Nope. No sign of recognition. "So you do not recognize me out of my school-uniform?" But, that was not it. I just was not an impression-making kid. I read during the lunch-break, stayed away from trouble, kept quiet, was not even class-monitor material. In all, a boring kid that gets good marks and is remembered as "the girl who gets highest in English/Hindi". Not by name nor, sadly enough, even by "the girl who gets highest in Math". College saw me with a different struggle of trying to be anonymous in front of professors. Well, I made an impression on Mrs. George now. 

I have grown up since then, from a quiet, shy girl to a person with strong "dislikes". I am taller, hair is shorter. I have a couple of degrees and do my own taxes. Still wear the tunics though. Matrimonial ad is yet to come and the boys need to leave for that. Wiser? I don't know. But, myths have been broken.

1. There are Indians other than me who do not like mangoes. And we have all been disowned by our beloved fellow countrymen. But, they are rather cloyingly sweet and...Ahh, nevermind.
2. Fantastic, long-distance relationships do not last. Conversely, neither do bad, close vicinity relationships.
3. There is a world of make-up beyond the red sindoor bindi mom wears.
4. Just because people preach integrity does not mean they practice it too. In-the-face immorality is more acceptable to me over fake, vacillating sincerity.
5. Hypnosis does not shrink a butt. Especially if someone else tells it in a loving, but firm, voice to stay as it is. All you get is a confused butt.
6. Benefit of doubt is a finite resource. 

Je ne comprends pas!

I am too clean a hippy, 

Too free-spirited for the free-market.

A simple girl with a messy history,

A twisted girl with good upbringing?

Too sane for the crazy, 

Too crazy for the sane. 

Non comformist, non-belonger?

Or just a pretender trying to survive the world?

Ab waqt khatm!

She called out
As I stumbled to get my walking stick.
Covering a thousand crooked ear lengths,
Her muffled voice is as collapsible as her lungs.
I cannot see,
And she cannot hear.

Between insulin and twisted thumbs,

And childbirth and forgetfulness,

Pain and pleasure 

Are salt-peppery.

Dry taste-buds and dry eyes
Long for a rain from a lifetime ago.
She reads for me,
I sing for her.
Last dance and last song of us.
I watch
And she listens.

Naked and Monochromatic

Spring

The sun is back. Hallelujah!
I finish my 6 month stint of vegetarianism today. Helloooo Re-Carnivorization!
And 11 men made 1.1 billion hearts skip a beat in sync. 
What an absolutely glorious day?

Pyaasa Verses

Tang aa chuke hain kash-ma-kash-e-zindagi se hum

Thukraa na de jahaan ko kahin bedilli se hum

Hum gham-zadaa hain, layein kahan se khushi ke geet,

Kahan se khushi ke geet,

Denge wohi jo paayenge is zindagi se hum.

Ubhrenge ek baar abhi dil ke valvale

Abhi dil ke vavale

Maana ke dab gaaye hain gham-e-zindagi se hum.

Lo aaj humne tod diya

Lo aaj humne tod diya rishta-e-umeed

Rishta -e-umeed

Lo ab kabhi ghilaa na karenge kisi se hum.

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Main phool taank raha hun tumhare joode mein,

Tumhari aankh massarat se jhukti jaati hai.

Na jaane aaj main kya baat kehne wala hun,

Zaban khushk hai, aawaz rukti jaati hai.

Khayal-o-khwaab ki parchhaiyaan ubharti hain,

Mere gale mein tumhari udaas baahein hain,

Tumhare hothon pe mere labon ke saaye hain.

Tumhe yakeen ke hum ab kabhi na bichhadenge,

Mujhe ghuman ke hum milke bhi paraye hain.

Khayal-o-khwaab ki parchhaiyaan ubharti hain.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zaraa mulk ke raahbaron ko bulaao,

Ye kooche ye galiyaan ye manzar dikhaao,

Jinhe naaz hai Hind par unko laao.

Jinhe naaz hai Hind par, woh kahaan hain?

Kahaan hain, kahaan hain, kahaan hain?

~ Sahir Ludhiyanawi

Isn't it ironic?

It is, when your CPR instructor asks you to keep up the compressions' frequency to the beat of "Another one bites the dust" and suggests you sing it inside your head while giving them. Think I might want to stick with "Staying alive". That works as well.

Chandni Chowk

A man taking a moment to button his shirt.

Credit for the most breath-taking reference picture goes to Ankit. Yet again! I live my India through his pictures nowadays.
And I deserve a better camera too.

Lull

I wait for you,
My Love,
An emotionless terra nullius,
To leave a proud Him
And come back to me
To blow the smoke in my mouth again,
To beat the wrong drum beat,
To stroke my hair,
And sing with me.

Bits of orphaned love-lives!

Billboards all around say San Francisco is a city of characters. So it is no wonder I met her here too. In her colorful kaftans, and beads and quirky glasses she looked like a quintessential San Franciscan "character". I was smitten. I also like to romanticize all things old school and her typewriter sound from the window across was no exception. I had seen her quite a few times already in the elevator with those brilliant, wise, well-traveled eyes while she dragged her grocery cart. Old-age did not seem to have caught up with her eyes yet. We met in the laundry-room and I pretended to be AY. No one was supposed to know I lived there too. She was cheerful and very inclined to talk and while I usually am a little wary of strangers coming and talking to me (Yes, it happens a lot. And I, more often than not, end up being an agony aunt. I think I am way too shy for it still), I was very eager to listen this time. So out came the story of a woman who had lived in the same apartment for 35 years yet had traveled across all continents. A freelance writer with a noisy typewriter, she was. And then the conversation started to include me. "Are you married?". No, I said. "Ah, I never married. My man lived a couple of blocks down. We were together for 25 years." (My thoughts then : "Dude, that is brilliant. Who does that? To be with someone for so long without the entire marriage tie-up. So, you actually WANTED to be with him?") "Then?"-I asked. "Then. Then, he got Alzheimer's. I brought him here. He died 2 years ago. He did not remember me by the end. He did not even remember himself." I was surely not expecting this between the tales of travels to mythical lands. I was shocked. Then I wanted to kick myself. ("How? How the hell did this happen again? I have enough woes in my own life right now") But, she seemed unfazed relating it all. She, in fact, appeared very happy talking about him, seemingly still in love with him, the good times and probably even the bad ones. I pushed the buttons on the washer and climbed six flights of stairs in a daze, still pretending to be someone else on a weekday holiday doing my laundry.

I cried intermittently the entire day. Not because I was sad for her. Not because I was sad for her man. I seldom cry when I am sad. I am yet to cry for S, though the nightmares of taking that last breath under water still haunt me after four years. I cried in despair, envious of her luxury of the last moments spent with him. She foresaw and she was prepared.

How blessed are those who know what their last moments together would be? You mostly do not even get to know till it is all over and look back to find only a void in your own memory. How would you ever cherish it then? All the time we spend blaming moments of weakness, other people, distance, differences in culture/religion/age, in lieu of that, we are scared to admit that we were just not strong enough to fight hard for it, that we made a conscious choice to let go, that we judged it less important than other things on our own. So why make excuses then? Why not? Even something as great as death does that. It makes excuses of disease, accidents, willingness to take your own life. But then, how many times do you meet someone you actually like (in my case, even bear) and more so want to spend your life with? To let go and not own up for such extraneous banalities that pretty much everyone in the world has exhausted over and over again is plain cowardice. Intrinsic nuances, for the sake of it, are at least more interesting reasons for relationship deaths. "She is a bitch. He is a bitch" seems like a relatively better argument. After all how can you be yourself if you are constantly scared of a negative reaction? Incompatibility of temperaments, lack of love, disdainful cursing provide for some valid causes of these lamentations and definitely make up more occupying stories. Yep. Till, obviously, you do not interrupt me during my cigarette break and start talking to me about it. 

कब

यूँ पूरा जीवन जी गए हम कि
एक छब्बीस साल के साये में बावन साल की प्रज्ञता समा गयी.
फिर,
मैं ख़त्म हो गयी 
और तुम भी ख़त्म हो गए. 

Bondhu!

Arre ailo na aamaar, praaner bondhu aamaar,

Oporaidhe shoilo
(Why didn't he come? My life, my friend. What was my crime?)

Aamaar bondhu kaino, aailo na

(My friend why, why didn't you come?)

Dhheu bhaange, barh bhaange re
Mono aamaar bhaange
(Waves break, floods break out, my heart breaks)

Dhheu bhaange, barh bhaange re,
Shaupono amaar bhaange

(Waves break, floods break out, my dreams shatter)

Aamaar bhanga hridoy
Jodaa laage
Tori taane re
(Your pull mends my broken heart)

Nodeer paani, chokher paani
Nodi hoiyaa buoy
(River's water, eyes' water, flows like a river)
Arre ei nodi tui
Dekhli aeto
Chokhe dhoira naae
(You have seen enough of the river and the eyes but you still can't behold it in your eyes)

Tor khonjete, paagol hoilaam
Tor praane te praan
(I lose myself in my search for you, in your life is mine)
Aashaar khoonti te
Baindhha aamaar naao
(To your knot of hope is my boat tied).

Lyrics: Indian Ocean

Translation: Siddharth Talapatra.

Being a Hindi speaker, Bengali is not too hard to understand, but a lot is lost in translating it to English. 

How I love the song? And how I love the band? And how I love the times I heard it live in concert, sometimes solitary and sometimes with the dear ones? New York, Alexandria, Berkeley. And, how I loved Asheem!
(Download it from http://www.indianoceanmusic.com/)