A new day breaks..I look through my curtain
The earth has gone around the Sun once again..

Bringing in another platter of gold
Can I live another life today?

Each day gone by, is an opportunity lost
Each day is all new..does not hold anything of the old

It might seem to you it was the same day which came by your way yesterday
And it might look like the twin of tomorrow

But its not, its a unique day
Alone in its entirety

Never happened before and will not happen again

I can grab the day and make it my own
I might live a life I have never lived, do things I never did

I can pretend to be someone else, I can assume I am happy

I can be someone else today
Can I?

Small town girl

"You dont look like someone who belongs to so-and-so city" - I heard this statement once again from someone at work recently.

This is something oft-repeated with me, people not being able to associate a small town with me.

I dont know if its something I should feel happy about, but I surely get irritated at such statements.

People in India dont know so much about their own country, and stay like frogs in a well, in their so called notions about how a city and a human is co-related.

I dont say they are not, but not in the way people usually perceive.

Maybe it has to do with the way I dress, or speak which catches them off-guard.
Maybe people feel that if you belong to so-and-so city, you dress in a certain way and your English is bad. How stupid is that?

These people dont know that the school where I studied, always had someone who was in the top 3 ranks all over India, in boards.They might not be aware of the college I studied, had in a year top 3 IAS women rankers.

When I was 15-16, few cousins from Delhi had come down to my city and they asked me what is the night life like, in my city.
I could not fathom what they meant. We used to wake up by 5.30 for school, came back home, read/danced and then by 9.30-10 we used to be dead tired and sleepy and went off to sleep.
Where is the time for night life? And whats one supposed to do in that life?

Our life was confined to studies, dance rehearsals on weekends and 4 of us were enough for each other to seek anything else.
Sometimes friends came over or we went to their place and had some tea and chatted.
We were content, thats all I remember.

Here when I go to a pub and see these 15 years old smoking a joint, having a drink, making out in public..I thank my stars for the lack of night life we had when w were this young

Yes we dint know much about jim morrison, difference between hard and soft rock or head banging..but we knew lata, hemant and the ageless melody of yesteryears.

I squirm when someone says "My hindi is poor". If you dont know your mother tongue then thats something to be ashamed of, and not flaunt proudly.
Its not like you are a Shakespeare when it comes to english. I can ask them meaning of 10 words in English, which these wanna-bes would not have even heard of.
So basically, you have no command on any language.

If I knew Keats, Hemingway, Nietzsche, Maugham and Maupassant..I also had our Mahadevi verma, Sumitranandan Pant to ruminate
I even read Rabindranath Tagore's translated version in hindi

I also knew Majaaj, Meer Taqi Meer, Iqbal..
And I felt enriched.

Some of these names might be un-heard of, by the youth of today.

When I look back, I like the fact that owing to the lack of a life outside studies and dance, we had no other go but to either take up a career which needed us to study hard, or stay at home(which for us was never a possibility). I am not saying I would not have liked to do something other than what I do now.

I would definitely have wanted to pursue dance, but there are always pros and cons of all paths in our lives. I dont regret not having so many choices.

My only wish unfulfilled is - I wish we did not have such liberal parents. I sometimes wish that we should have had a father who put restrictions and a mother who was finicky about lots of things. I wish I had an elder brother who I could be scared of.Then our brain would not have got so corrupted by notions of love, feminism, freedom and the likes.

Sometimes lack of options keeps things stable.

There is power in simplicity.

Note : And I know guys will acknowledge that we small town girls have somethink called namak..which I cant really find a word for in english :)

There is too much of life running in my veins

They say one should live in the present

But what if present is what I don't want to live?

I am either reminiscing the glorious past, or day dreaming a future

My present is leading itself in a mindless haze

A haze I will never owe upto ever and say that it was mine.

Half of our lives we are trying to make an impression about ourselves on others
Whatever we say, do, feel or think..its an endeavour to be respected, to be applauded, to be noticed
We live in chains of our own creations..which is ourselves

And the other half we try to demolish all that we created
we try to break free from all obligations, notions
We try to be just us..we just try to be..

Paint me purple

"What do you like the best in me"

"Hmm..I think its the way you pronounce my name. The right most way!
The "aa" after "R", as it is meant to be. Not the single "a" which usually people pronounce it as

"Anything else?"

"And the way it leaves a ring in my ears when you end it, leaving me wanting to be called once more..as if you kissed my name before saying it"

"Oh is that all :)"

"Yes, I like the fact that there are no words of endearments before or after my name. I like the way my name is naked on your lips. Yes I guess thats it!"

I would like to frame my name, in your voice..

Pukaaro mujhe naam lekar pukaaro,
Mujhe tumse apni khabar mil rahi hai

Band baaja baraat!

Weddings in my house, are a world of their own

Apart from all the fun things, weddings are a place where you can find a glimpse of a lost you, where you are reminded of what you had been..long long time ago.

I was at a cousin's wedding in Delhi recently and was touched at the way certain things unfurled weird emotions in me

Some of these people I was meeting after more than 15 years or so

I have been trying to be this single, strong independent woman of the world..but for those few moments of life, I felt like that little girl again..
This girl who used to love attention from elders, pout and preen!This pampered little girl who used to throw tantrums..

It reminded me that I have been loved and cared for..that I too have roots

Its good to be reminded of your roots, it is a wholesome feeling of being someone's grand daughter, niece, sister, special friend

"Kitini pyaari lag rahi hai"(You look lovely) - Someone cups my face and says it affectionately. I feel abashed and look away while I smile, cos such things dont happen to me anymore. Noone cups my face in their hands and says sweet things. Am a little un-used to such displays of affection now. It has been a long long time.

"Bahut patli ho gayi ho"(You lost so much weight) - The usual comment from one and all around. Even though when these people had last seen me 15 years ago, I was 4-5 kgs less than what I am. Yet a slim person always hears this comment.

And then follows my protest of negating it, giving them facts and figures and people laughing it away

Once I felt a tug at my sleeve and turned around to find an elderly lady beaming at me. This was an aunt we had a spat with years ago, but when I saw her smiling at me that way and wanting my attention, I automatically touched her feet and she hugged me..and I beamed back. It was a genuine smile that I gave her..heartfelt!

Sometimes we bounce off the energy and affectations of the other person.
Each person we interact with, makes something within us come to surface , parts in us we dint know

I wanted to hug so many people, a thing I do rarely!
Maybe by wanting to hug them, I wanted to hug bits and pieces of myself..which were lost in each of them

In between, we sisters would catch up to exchange notes on who dint touch whose feet, who was trying to avoid whom, who looked pathetic and who was drinking away to glory, who was being a pile on..and so on..

The rustle of silk, smell of mogra..jasmine and lilies..clinking of glasses..shehnai in the background..henna on my hands and me trying to manage everything with just one hand..sound of blaring music and shaking a leg..the teasing and match-making..maketh a wedding worth its while!

Friday night

Its friday night and I want to be drunk

Friday nights cry for that
They demand that from you, to lose it, to live..to love

I want to be in someone's warm arms
Swinging to my moods, the mood of the night

Wear a pretty black dress
And lose myself in the smoke

Its the stubborness of reviving all lost things, that awakens like a ghost in me..
On friday nights like these

When fighting with reality and giving in to drunken stupor seems right

Its crazy that what you once had, torments the very gut of your soul!

The whole of me

I was told, I was the woman to walk the mountains with


And since then, I have walked hills and rivers, in my mind
I have travelled the length and breadth of my being
To see if you would come along to walk with me

But I dont think you believe, do you?

But I swear I do walk, cos sometimes I wake up with smell of sand and sea in my hair
Of nascent flowers on the hills
I smell of cotton balls, and delicate dreams

Craving to be in a place called mine
I have owned and disowned you a thousand times, at my own will
Yes, I have trespassed a few boundaries
Its strange that you never got to know..

But I swear I did own you...sometime someplace,
cos sometimes I wake up speaking words I have never spoken before
Conversation I could have had only with you,and noone else

They say I leave people, I have them when I need them, when I am broken
But do they even know...
There have been men I met, men who deserved only the half broken me?
That me who does not know herself, that me who forgets herself

Maybe they were there for a reason, for a trifle or for a season
reason is gone, trifle is over, and so are they

But you deserve the whole of me
The sweet, bitter me
The laughing me, the chatter box me,the loving me

The me who melts and resurrects
the me who knows no bounds
The me who waits and cries

Maybe I will be broken again, and will belong to many once more
But the whole of me will stand to be owned, just by you

hazaaron khwahishen aisi ki har khawahish pe dum nikale
bahut nikale mere armaan lekin fir bhi kam nikale