you are my home

I snuggle upto him on days my heart is too withered
He pulls my hair..gives his 2 teeth bite as an approximation of kiss

I smell him and he smells of the home within me
His small frail body sings back lullabies to me..
The only place I feel safe is his round tummy

I have come to believe this one thing
that you dont need me so much baby..as much I do

You are simply complete in yourself
Its the eroded me which seeks to be mended in your beauty

As Promised

More than a year back, I moved into my house and had promised to put more pictures here.

I dont know if anyone has been waiting for it, but I am here to fulfill that promise of more pics on my blog.

Here are the bits and pieces of my heart...





































I have been busy decorating, setting up, and its an on going process. There is still dining table to be bought, few more changes to be done.

Yet when I see all of this, then I can not have the heart to ever complain to God about things s/he did not give me. It is more than I asked for.

And to think that all this is solely my doing, all this is only and only mine(no gifts and bribes taken :)), my heart can not but swell with pride

Note : - Btw no enquiries on where I got what, will be entertained :) I have spent days googling, running helter skelter to all god forskane places, to buy stuff. I now know the difference between Venner, types of solid wood, melamine finish. So you go figure for yourself, its fun and it worth it!

Genes Story

I can see both my parents in me so clearly at times. Its like I am living outside my body and watching them take over me.

Some things just show up out of the blue and am taken aback by the similarities.Especially things I used to dislike about them, showing in me

My mother does not like to wear slippers while at home. I would take her case on that and scare her with stories about all the insects going inside her system through her feet, but she would timidly tell me that its too much of a task to wear slippers while roaming around the house.It used to irritate me.

And now I see myself doing the same..I dont feel like taking the effort to put on slippers each time I have to move from hall to kitchen to bedroom. I give myself the excuse that my floor is really clean..but I know this is my mother in me

My father has this habit of carrying a camera wherever he goes..digi-cam, video camera..all of it. And he keeps juggling between them all through his trip, taking inane snaps or videos. And none of his pictures would feature him.

We would make fun of him and at times shout at him for making such a major show about it that he has no time to sit and talk with anyone

And now I see myself doing the same..well definitely not to that extent..but I have started taking pictures like a freak.
Specially many dont feature me, which is so unlike me.
I can feel that the same bug has gotten into me. And its definitely not a penchant for photography.
Maybe its an urge to replicate beauty..or an attempt to stay away from people..I cant say..
And then there are mad eccentricities of my father which I could never understand and now understand so well cos I see myself doing the same, irritating things about my mother, which manifests in different ways in me, like cleanliness mania, trying to have an order in everything etc etc

The funniest part is all contradicting character-streaks from both my parents show up in me..sometimes pulling me apart and sometimes I can only smile in exasperation and say that one cant fight one's genes..there is no getting away from it!

Maybe this is the best gift we can give to the ones who gave us life..

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 :)

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!

Home sweet home

Being in your place of birth and youth has its undeniable charm.
Something which creeps upto you unknowingly, like an unforseen force

Thats whats happening to me in Patna right now..

My house, the streets..everything evokes certain emotions, which have their roots deep down in my heart

But apart from the emotions, its the comfort which gets to me

Living on my own and alone had made me work for myself..and I had forgotten how easy it had been for me, back home

And now its coming back to me..
when I finish my bottle of water, someone invisibly fills it and keeps it in place for me
The food is served in plates, wherever I choose to sit..
Tea and coffee appears from no where, as if my mind commanded them
I just dump my clothes without bothering about how to segregate them into different piles, and all are washed, ironed and handed over to me!

My house is full of helpers... more than the inhibitants

Some of them have been around for more than 20 years or so..and they come here more out of habit and for my mom, than for any actual work..
But they fill in wherever there is any dearth...
If I need something urgently, they will run the errand for me
If I need tea out of the blue, they will make it for me
If I need a massage, there is someone to do it

I have a driver who also sees to it that all my small wishes are fulfiiled
Just today, I was asking the maid where my slippers were, he got them for me and put them right in front of me..and said "I will first dust them for you, then you wear them"..and ran to get a cloth

I feel so embarassed at such moments that I cant even look him in the eyes..
I just told him hastily that my shoes are alright and he neednt dust them..and wore them hurriedly , lest he starts off in his crusade of cleaning them

Then there is this smell of incence, and chants..so typical of durgo pujo..a nip in the air..
This month of october and my home town stir up some magic

Now am sure life will be so difficult when I get back to my own place...

Today

Getting settled in a new house is like living your life again.
Its..one HELL of a job.
Specially if its your own place and in a city which isnt your own.

In my 10 years of exile from home, I had come to pride my capability to deal with change and needs of life. I thought I can take on the world just like that.

But right now that confidence is a little shaken. I have this place where I need to get so many fittings done and no one to do it. My brother-in-law helped me with few things, like curtain rods ,but he gave up when he drilled a hole in my bathroom tile which does not seem to fit in any screw.

I have to do with no light in bathroom, since the electrician is a God and never gives "darshan".
The blaring light comes in directly in my room, to wake me up rudely every day, since the curtains are not done as yet.
And leave aside the wood work finishing, which might need a novel to be wirtten.

My meetings with the builder, his brother, carpenter, painting guy seem like an encounter always.

I am fighting to fall in love with my place, but as of now its just a source of despair.
Somehting to fix, re-fix, discard..a perpetual cycle for the time being.
Trying to get people to do that ontime, is the biggest issue

And the icing on the cake was today, when I asked a carpenter to fix a soap case in the kitchen and he just blew the pipe by drilling inside it.
And in a split second there was gush of water all over the place, with me just standing amazed in a kitchen full of water.
And then all hell broke lose....
I wanted to kill that guy and all he said was "I dint know there was a pipe inside". Now who is supposed to know that, I dont know.
Then a frantic search for a plumber began, since this building plumber has gone back home.

I called up all possible sources and finally a plumber came, who charged me a bomb, to fix it.
Then a search for some one to do the cleaning bit.

Now I have a kitcken with 2 broken tiles. So, instead of getting something fixed, something already fixed has been taken off!!

I realised my level of tension ,when at work the girl who sits next to me, started laughing at me.
Thats when I realised that instead of wearing my anti-glare glasses, I had put on my sun-glasses in front of the monitor and was panicking thinking I have gone blind!

Mere ghar ka seedha sa itna pata hai..

Mere ghar ke aage mohabbat likha hai..

Na dastak jaroori..na aawaaj dena
Main saanson ki raftaar se jaan loongi..
hawaaon ki khushboo se pehchaan loongi

Zindagi...zindagi..mere ghar aana..
aana zindagi...

....More to come :)