Three to go

Mumbai Noir under my belt, and I feel armed. Armed with a new set of emotions of a new set of people I met on this journey. Armed with the workings of a new world I discovered while disembarking at a new destination. Armed with the knowledge that I now can better understand the chaotic breathing of this city, its tossing and turning the night away quality, the anxiety that froths the part Arabian sea touched by this island city. I know the city by night a little better, and I recognize it more by the day. Its changing scars of the nights’ bygone do not render it a stranger by the day anymore. I like that. It feels more like home.

Home. It grounds you. More than a routine of coming back to it, it is the calling that centers the gravity of your soul and equalizes the energies. Known smells, dark, dusty stairs that can be negotiated with your eyes closed, phone numbers that dial like a favourite tune played out on your keyboard, switches that don’t need the light, locks that unlock before the bolt gives way, the extra nudge to the door that doesn’t seem superfluous at all, the ‘ting’ of the elevator that marks your entry before the doorbell registers it…so many identities of you scattered all around your home, you pick all these up and become a whole. The best and the most that you can be.

Today I Wrote

A long drawn silence from my fingers, and now finally a croak, a cracked voice spilling through and words flying out from the barely opened floodgates. The sun spilling in and the thoughts scrambling out, all at the same time. Some thoughts heat up, shrivel and dry..and then some, they hatch. And live.

The lazy sunshine of the summer shines bright in our home. The kids, all wrapped around me with the cloak of ample, languorously laid out time spread endlessly around us..while we wade in and out of emotions, together. It is all magical. Their dreamy states, of afternoon siestas and early evening dazes have the shadows of varying lengths of their dreams following them around the house. They latch on to their dreams tight and pull them yonder, into our world as their playmates. They bounce them, paint them, devour them to the skin and then weave newer tales to be worn and lived in all over again. I watch the show from a distance with swim worthy eyes and sometimes get called in to cheer and join the mela, a valued invitation. I know my invites to such gala occasions are numbered. Life, the monotony and ruthlessness of the other seasons will soon take over the laziness, hold it by its collar and shake all of us awake into scheduled time slots. The dazes will have to be jerked away, the powdery remnants of the dreams on the eyelids will need to be washed clean, the lying about under the bed sheets wide awake will need to be edited out….but the playmates from the dreams, they won’t lose their way. We will still find them by our side accompanying us on new adventures beyond sunshine, into tumultuous, thunderous rain showers. 

Ducks

That was what it was all supposed to be about. Ducks. And it turned to be more (obviously), much more than that. It was about the finality with which time is passing by. The shadows of time, how they grow longer and then just denser, culminating back into the source at the end of the day. The source and the shadow lie enveloped in sleep, as one..never to be disassociated again. On one end lay closure, and then it was also about new beginnings. New lives infused with curiosity and energy,  bubbling musings, the looking forward to all coming moments, even the very next one, with the excitement of two and four year olds, making us come alive with the resonance of all that is yet to come, including the next floor of the elevator. The pristine white tea pot brewing surprises the new generation samples and also, some nurtured and acquired wisdoms of the one in passage…blending it into a magical concoction simply called chai..and relished by the toddlers of tomorrow.  The generation gaps squeeze into each other within the tea pot and out comes the whiff of a rarely blended aroma, it tastes like Darjeeling tea and soothes like an elixir. The handful saunf are fortified promises, needed to be delivered not only in the right hands (yeah, the smallest palm of them all) but also, to be handed over by the right authority. There is sanctity in the ritual, there are un-breach-able protocols enmeshed in the code of conduct and high stone walls forbidding entry to any but the blue blood of authority. It is a ritual done with highest regard and belies its nature of operation by its seemingly simple exterior. You can watch all you want from the outside, but you don’t charm your way into this one, no siree!

Yeah, and the ducks, they too need a mention. Our proximity to them and then our proximity to each other might be related in some way. Or maybe not. The ducks, they were our excuse to bundle up into one car, all of us and ride down tree-covered pathways, pass mini buses on the way, catch sight of bicycle laden grey matter, glimpse olympic sized swimming pools, feel a heartbeat and rhythm different from the one we inhabit, a world away from the glare of sun, nestled in its dreams and ambitions, fueled by it..and admist this mythical world, we reach out to each other, feel the closeness and pinch, ‘yes, this IS for real!’. 

Home Run Sperm (Vicky Donor)

I find myself pondering over ‘what is it that I am thinking about from the movie?’. That is the key to what holds and what all slips away. Then, I would know if I carry the people and the story they inhabit within me..or I let it pass, I open my palm and let it fly off…or I savour it as a keepsake in some corner, to be randomly re-discovered one fine day and then spend some snatched moments on looking it over.

Vicky sticks..but as an en-masse. His mother, Dolly, Biji (of course). Dr. Chaddha – they all collectively are an identity to reckon with. You don’t look at any of them in isolation and I think that is why the film works. They are set in their moulds, embellished in an environment, the collaborative products of their histories and their presents..and the fact that you, the audience, are not able to distill them into disparate elements makes the story and its inhabitants come alive, breathe, love, fear, gloat, reason out, escape, face you square in the eyes, without either squinting. The characters, grip you and move you through their escapades and you sit around and sip their chais and clink glasses of whisky and partake from their slice of life. And the movie grows around you and starts to slip in with you..and you carry it back home, almost unknowingly, as comfortingly as your house keys, your mobile phone (the one that is on mute and does not intervene).

That is what I remember about the movie. I don’t find the lengths that Dr. Chaddha goes to make it work for Vicky even slightly over-the-top. Heck, I expect it of him. I wouldn’t claim to know that man if he hadn’t tried to make it right. I don’t ever question the un-real strength of Vicky’s mother (the Iron lady) and therefore, the understated derivative strength and commitment of Vicky’s love. Biji is a work of art, old wine, to be cherished and savoured. They don’t make them like her anymore. Chaman, Aashima, Pishi, Bongs, Punjabis, refugees, neighbours, Taujis, everybody..they are the details without which all would be incomplete although you would never be able to put a finger on what was missing.

They, the makers of this film, have got it all right. Life is exactly what it looks like in the story and yes, the story too, very much like life, has a happy ending..filled with love, goodness and magic that works…almost everytime.

This sperm of an idea hits home with the egg and creates an organism that weaves its tale with simplicity and conviction. RESPECT. 

Today I read

One of those days, when you want to ingest it all. 

So today, I do not vent out. Today, I do not talk. Today, I do not express. Today, for once, I do not react. Today, I do not exhale. Today, I read. I listen. Soak it all in. Today, I take a deep breath and hold it in. I hold in the thoughts, the air, the light,…everything. Today, I am a reservoir. Today, I am a bulging overloaded bus. Today I swell up like a lake in the rains. Today, I am the anaconda who has gobbled up a zebra. Today, I am a stuffed capsicum. Today, I am the book bursting from its seams with many varied characters and their stories. Today, I am the badhtaa bachchaa of the complan ad..too huge to fit in my clothes. Today, I am the rain cloud on the verge of a downpour...only not there yet. Today, I am the alphabets in the book with its fluterring pages, waiting to be devoured. Today, I sink my teeth into the world and consume it. 

Today, I read. 

Love Hath No Fury

Getting things fall in line by being cantankerous and super-duper scary is the easy way out. It is also the messy way out, leaves back indelible scars. It does not require skill or forethought or even patience. None of the cultivated and cultured skills come into use. What does get picked up and refueled from your resource basket is savagery, misdirected angst, screaming banshee like costumes and vocal notes and potent venom. And no, I am not being over dramatic here. Sometimes, I think being the hard task master in life, on yourself and all around, takes a lot more out. It saps you of love, peace and calm. Even the tasks achieved and the milestones collected refuse to show themselves in a glorious heap. They too pile up crammily and resemble a lot like work left undone and you hurriedly stash them in drawers and closets, without really having the spirit in you to celebrate them and savour them till they deflate into two dimensional moments, ready to be pinned up in the scrapbook of life.

But nurturing on the other hand, takes an awful lot of out you but replenishes and rejuvenates like a sprinkler in a garden left open. Nurturing and love take time, patience and maybe a few things slip by from in between the gaps in the delayed schedules...but the sunrise on the mountain is cherished and embellished in your mind. It is at your beck and call, to radiate its warmth and energy when your reserves run low. Smile at your babies, a lot. Smile when HE comes home. Smile the smile that reaches your eyes and lights up the house. Hold all, everything and everybody, with gentleness. Let them always feel wanted and protected. Look into their eyes and hold their gaze, sample their love, taste their fears and live their joys. The red balloon from wherein the world appears red, the green balloon that can be a telephone too..throwing your voice into it and hearing it change, echo…can change your world view, your games, your idea of fun and time. Sometimes being suspended in timelessness is the best-est way to spend time, to be together. Laugh, a lot and watch everything around come to life and perform for you. It can be quite a show, a pity if you missed out that one. Cherish and be cherished. Draw them in with love and calm. Snuggle. You need the warmth as much as they do. Sometimes more than them, you need to be not cold. You are the sun. So rise, smile and bring out the sunshine, it sustains life. You sustain life.

BIG decisions

Growing up can be so tough. The endless effort of trying to push the envelope with the limitation of resources looming large can be quite a daunting task. If having to face similar trials and tribulations, our adults would probably throw in the towel in a matter of days, if not hours. As a child, I inhabit a world that seems to be better equipped than you in almost all quarters. We children often meet our inner silence while searching for the most appropriate language to describe the many myriad emotions felt while encountering new things, scary things, un-understood things and things that seem o!-so-familiar..the handful of words in our word basket seem incapable of reflecting all the colours and shapes of the world within. Also, some paths seem un-traversable, some heights too high up to reach, some slopes too slippery and unsure to take a step on, some pebbled pathways seem like they will come undone from under our feet. How then, in the name of Lord, do we explore unchartered lands to discover our adolescence and embark on our very own adventures? We want to navigate the world, the landscapes and the mindscapes, ours and distant, we want to author our own stories, inhabit them to the fullest before we move on to other settings. We want to be friends and foes, caretakers and disciplinarians, teachers and firemen, lions and fishes…we want to internalize all and then decide the course our settled waters would hold for the rest of our lives. Growing up, we feel, is a BIG decision and we want to size it all up before we take the plunge. We want to be sure about being grown-ups.