तुम आये...

कुछ अजीब सी कैफ़ियत है दिल की
जबसे तुम्हारी आँखें मेरी आखों से मिली हैं

तुम
दो आँखें है, दो प्यारे हाथ हैं (जो जब न तब मेरे बालों को खींच लेते हैं)
तुम्हारी मीठी साँसें हैं
बस यही धूरि है मेरी अब
तुम से, तुम तक ही..
मेरे दिन और रात हो गए हैं

किसी से सुना  था,
प्यार जब होता है तब ही खुद के दिल की गहराइयाँ पता चलती हैं
ये अब समझ आया है,
तुम तो लगता है मेरी आत्मा तक पहुँच गए हो
वो भी बिना कुछ बोले

शायद मेरी शकल भी अभी तुम्हारी जेहन में सही आकार नहीं ले पायी होगी
पर कभी कभी  तुम्हारी आँखें यूँ कहती हुई लगती हैं
कि चाहे मैं तुम्हें पेह्चानूं या ना पेह्चानूं
तुम्ही मेरी ख़ास लड़की हो

घर बहार, बाजार
हर तरफ तुम्हारा छोटा सा चेहरा दिखता है
मेरे अंदर की छिपी ख़ुशी को तुम्हारी शक्ल मिल गयी है

मेरे बच्चे , मेरे गुड्डे
मेरे दिल को तुमने बड़ा कर दिया और वहां प्यार ही प्यार भर दिया
जिंदगी ने एक और मौका दिया है , जिंदगी को अपने घर लाने का
अब जिंदगी चाहे जहाँ ले जाये, चाहे जो दिखाए
हम और तुम मिलके सब आसान कर लेंगें

होगा क्या हम ना जानें , नयी भर लें उड़ानें...
जज्बात ने पर हैं फैलाये , तुम आये 

Those beautiful ones

Those big cities with eye blinding lights seduce me in a way I cant describe

Whenever I croos continents, I cant take my eyes off from sights of citis like this, in the night

"We are crossing Geneva", the announcement is made in the aircraft and like a sucker for beauty I hang onto my window, my co passenger eyeing me if s/he mistook me for an adult

I remember as a child, I would also look out for beauty...
-Of face, of body, of scenery, of words and of pure feelings

Beauty never threatened me, it just heightened my sense of everything within me, what I sought in this world...

I dont know why sometimes I stare in the horizon in twilight..when the sun has gone down and the moom has not come up as yet..a time of the day when all that is alive is part of me
Something scathing, unsatisfied..burning in that moment..the beauty of which bewitches me..my thirst for my life resurrects..and I wish to meet that person who holds the key to my being..in the meeting of dawn and dusk

Switzerland it was!

I have been back from my trip long back, but a few things have gone topsy turvy at my end
So, I have been trying to handle them and my blogging has taken its toll

Just before I embarked on my journey, something went wrong. Yet, I tried eradicating it from my mind, cos one does not go to Switzerland every day. And if I could not enjoy it just cos of some malfunction in life, then I feel I could not deal with anything which goes amiss in my life

So, with that mindset, I spent my time at the ariport having beer my myself, reading "Love" by Toni Morrison(more on this on my blog later) and talking to people over phone, to let the storm in my mind pass

Ok, a bit about the journey itself.

I went to Zurich via Colombo and the airline had arranged for a 1 day stay in a beautiful 5 star hotel by sea side, which was a treat in itself. The only glitch is : Being all alone, one can not make much of all the beauty in the world.

My 10-11 hours journey from Colombo to Zurich was spent parts in puking(yeah my usual), parts in trying to evade conversation by the strange man sitting next to me, parts in "Love" and parts in watching movies on the inflight entertainment kit.

So this strange man sitting next to me, was a kannadiga Brahmin, who would offer a prayer before any meal.
The moment  I saw him, I had an unnerving feeling that he would try and talk to me. I tried burying myself in book , but he started off in that typical fake accent(very typical of people in south who have been abroad for a long time).
       Its like, mixing sambhar in pasta, if you know what I mean.
They would force a foreign accent, but right in the middle of a sentence, their "Hech" for "h" and "intilligint" for "intellignet" gives them away.(No offense meant to anyone here, we all have colloquial accents, specific to our region and nationality, but faking it makes it all the more hilarious).
He started off by asking me if I stay in Switzerland, from then on he went till my 10th standard results and mark-sheet and percentage and finally he told me I should do MBA.(I felt like I was speaking to my mother).
Then finally he expended all information about himself(maybe asking about me was a trick to actually speak about himself).
He teaches mathematics in Switzerland. But along with that, he kept mentioning how he is into too many things. Jewellery design, interior decorations etc etc. And that he has many "important conferences" coming up. How he has a mansion in most posh area in Mumbai, sea-link. It seems his house will be a place to visit, such is the interiors he is designing. "I am into too many things", was his reply for everything.
Then I saw him trying to chat up air-hostesses and asking them "Do you have time?", some of them gave him cold shoulder, some entertained with feigned politeness and camouflaged boredom. And all this while I tried hiding a smirk.
He would disappear for long hours from seat(maybe trying his luck with air hostesses at the back), which was a boon for me, as then I could extend my legs onto his seat and curl myself to sleep.

Well,he did help me in the end, by telling me as to where to take the train to Laussane. My final destination was Vevey and I was getting picked up at Laussane by my brother in law.

It was a short trip, just 6 days(mis-management) yet I ca not write the zist of it in 1 post.
But, for sure, much remains to be explored(as Italy is still a dream).
I realized that this place is not meant to be visited with sister, brother in law and 2 kids. Its difficult to manage all that I aspired for, in 6 days, with kids falling ill and the general lethargy which is akin to carrying kids around in prams.
Its a place to be explored with someone who has the same madness and rush and lack of time.

But let me just tell you how all of it still appears in my head, in a jiffy.

The magnificent hill and lake which I could see daily from balcony, the wine festival where live music and dance kept me in high spirits, me and my niece playing songs and dancing in the balcony in late evening.
That was just B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. The growing dusk, the hill in front, my kind of music and some memories flashing in my mind while I danced with this sweet little thing who is growing up into a pretty girl. Can't believe 8 years back I was teaching her how to say "Tea"  & "Topsy" & "Teddy"(She caught all words starting with "T" as early as 11 months), and today she is telling me which colour sandle should I wear with my pink skirt.
"Blue goes with pink Sumi Mausi, so wear Mamma's blue stilettos". The way memories get created in cocoons of your heart

The days were so long, they lapped up the night in their over-bearance. And the night came tip toeing around day, as if intimidated by it, and disappeared before I could bury myself in its mysteries.
My glowing tan, in just 2 outdoors. Running to switch trains which are just 5 minutes apart, One reaching at 9.38 and another leaving at 9.43. And dot 9.43 it would be, you could probably adjust your watch to match the trains arrival and departures, its was amazing!

Going to Montreux all alone, sitting and having beer with sister at Bern, talking as usual of old times and things hinting that it might lead to a fight. But maybe the beer or age kept us mellow.Walking up to rose garden and the splendid view of the city from there, P.R.I.C.E.L.E.S.S

All that will follow in other posts, but let me substantiate this post with few pictures

Me and my sis, on my first day at Vevey, at beer festival

 Me and my Aduli - my niece and my friend

Thats me and her 8 years back, time ran out on us

We girls, when we landed at Evian(France)

My life, my opium

I trudged along, carrying those heavy grocery laden bags in my hand, my huge vanity bag on my shoulder and some other stuff.
I had vowed I would not take and auto, I needed to feel some pain.

Drudgery of the day added to all of it, and it started getting difficult with each step.

I am a girl of petite frame and soft skin, so soon I could see red marks on my palm, where the carry bag strips met them.

But I dint pity myself,
 At that moment I realized there was some sanity in religious fanatics flagellating themselves and crying "Haaye Hassan", the self-inflicted pain can be a source of derisive pleasure at times. I felt avenged of myself, of all my sins
I felt it was a way of punishing myself

Punishment for being with wrong people, at right times of my life
Punishment for  learning driving and having a license, yet not having enough guts to start driving
Punishment for absconding from my blog, for irrelevant people
Punishment for not being able to ignore things, and letting my anger get the better of me
Punishment for devouring life, treating it like a play-thing, submerging my life in my whims, meeting it headlong, trying to give it back in rage, as it gave me opportunities in love

But my red marks were threatening to become a bruise and I could not walk even for 30 seconds at stretch, with all that weight.
So I started taking short breaks, stopping and just looking around, and having other people give me weird looks
After a good ten minutes, there was a bus stop and I thought of sitting on the bench and just relaxing my palms

I was listlessly looking around, when I saw these 2 women, talking and laughing

They seemed so much one with happiness, on a high.
They were nudging, teasing, mocking...(I took their pic, but came too dark so I posted one from net)

I laugh cos like is happening to me

I looked at them closely, trying to decipher the source of their high

Were they young?

Youth is a high in itself, as if the world is yours and waits for you to laugh
But they seemed well in their 50s

Were they gorgeous?

Beauty, of the kind which makes the world go weak in knees, makes the owner of the beauty giddy at times
They feel the world belongs to them, and waits on them
But no, they were not the conventional traffic stoppers either

Were they high on their richness?

But that could not be, else they would not be waiting for a bus

And it pleasantly struck me, they were high on life
This life, as it was then, in that moment...
They were high on their everyday-ness, the same mornings and evenins

Past and future were in limbo
At least for those moments

And I instantly scribbled this in my notepad:

I have looked for highs on mountain and cliffs

But realized,  there is a high in every low

For every trough, there is a crest

Sinusoidal wave, this life is

My life, my opium

So I threw my head back, let my hair fall all around, picked up the bags and headed home, stopping at a medical shop to get some ointment for the bruise.
Hoping that tomorrow morning, all  my scars would be healed.
And they will be, nothing in life is permanent

Note - It was good to be away, but its better to be back. 
Packed with armor of my arrogance, and power to ignore the ignorables

Maashi....Chocate

You omit the L's and R's
Chocolate is "chocate" and rain is "ane"
And I love saying it the way you do

"Broom" is for some reason "baate" for you
And we sisters also sometimes refer to it as "baate", in our conversations :)
You kids have a strange way of getting into elders brain

But gradually I see you correcting your words now..
I feel the pride, but at the same time some god-forsaken sorrow creeps in
"Cream" is still "Cheem" for you...as yet...hope you never get it right

My sweet valentine this year
तू जिगर दा टुकड़ा ,you are my शोना शोना मुखड़ा

Hoarders of beauty

People have a way of stripping off beauty from everything which is grand and make it mundane.
They say.."Art is nothing, poetry is bullshit"

Basically everything in the world which brings peace to a some souls can be negated, blown away and shred into minuscules of ordinariness

Why do people do this?If thats true then what do I hang on to, in order to believe that life and people have much more to offer than what they seem to?

Cos I have always been a hoarder of beauty, splendour and everything which was a little out of my reach, yet it intrigued and tantalized me..like a faraway light
A shimmer of glamour which I always thought is my eventuality...that in the end I will reach there

Its easy to shred things apart to their base nude form and say "this is what it is..nothing". But its difficult to weave a romance around everything, like a child, to be wide-eyed about things.

As a child I used to hoard beauty, in all forms..

I would cut pictures of a pretty face, a handsome guy, a scenery, a poem..
The house I lived in, had beautiful stones spread on its pathway, I used to sit for hours and pick the most beautiful ones
And store all of them in a box

I dint do it to show to anyone, but I treasured them in my heart secretly
Every night I used to open them and have a look at all the beautiful things that I had...I loved that moment of the day, it had a strange thrill to it, the whole day waited on me for that moment

I love beautiful words too, the way they feel and sound in my mouth
We used to have a book in my high school called "Words are beautiful" and I used to score a full marks on that cos learning new words was a passion for me
I would even read a lot of urdu books by Mazaaz, Iqbal, Meer Taqi Meer and few others, cos I found unnerving beauty in it
Even though urdu is not my first language, I would spend time to know the meanings of each and every word I came across
Cos by doing so, I brought beauty closer to me..in my grasp

(In class 6th I wrote an essay for my Hindi class.I displayed all my knowledge of urdu in that essay. The teacher next day read the poem in the class and said its a beautiful essay but totally not understandable cos maybe its written by a Muslim girl. I sheepishly told her that was not true :))

Beauty is an absolute for me, like truth
Its self containing and self preserving
It does not need acknowledgment from the world,
Like a black hole, it sucks in people without itself being involved and disturbed

Beauty is a way to connect with another who understands it

We all love beauty and know that too, yet we at times want to ignore it and claim beauty does not exist? Is it cos we are threatened by it, or by lack of it in our lives?

We try to find flaws in a stunning face.."The nose is too big"/ "Her Smile does not reach her eyes"/ "I find his face expressionless, lacks something"
And we try to glorify an otherwise ordinary face.."She has character on her face"
If you don't acknowledge beauty, does that change it?Why run away from it?

And at times I wonder what is this need to have beauty in our lives?

To have a beautiful house, a pretty wife or a good looking husband, a nice dress or shoe..
Everything is about storing beauty in our lives
Stocking beauty, so that we never have dearth of it in our lives

Yet we deny it its credit..

For me, beauty is what keeps my life interesting..

I am someone who marvels at beauty openly..and off late I have started taking beauty with a bit of gratitude ..and guilt too, for all that I might have maligned in this world, knowingly and unknowingly

If I read something written so nice that it tugs at my heart, I love that..and I thank God that there is someone in the world who can write like that..isnt that beauty?

I see a good movie or a well executed scene, or acting, I cant forget it for days..and I can never tire of watching it again and again..as if to keep beauty in a loop

A good song, we all know, sometimes defines us, our idea of romance, sorrow, love et al..
Isnt that creation, art and beauty?Can everyone make us feel the same way?

And when I see good dancing, I am mesmerized..

On that note I am totally awestruck by Hrithik's dancing.
No, I dont ogle at him like a woman ogles at a man and lusts after him, believe me I dont...but I ogle at him as someone who is just so perfect
I cant stop gushing at his perfection in looks and dance, when I see this,
He is just too groovy....and he fills me with reasons for all possibilities in life


He seems so happy just being himself, knowing his own charisma, and regaling in it..that's a superlative

So is the case with Madhuri and all her dances, I can never have enough of it

I get goose bumps when I read authors like Milan kundera, or many bloggers whom I read..I cant express that feeling when I read something which is akin to my feelings, which I could never put in words but someone could do it like s/he got inside my mind..thats beauty too

What would you call it? How would you shred apart all that beauty? And say its not art?
You dont have to think differently to be an artist, its the way you express it which creates art
And if others can feel a sort of oneness in their art, that's a good enough reason to be regarded as one

Beauty is my peace and solace, and I wont let that ever go from my life...

Beauty can make your world topsy-turvy, make you blind, bedazzled and you might think that you lost your way in its enchantment

But then, that's the only thing you would remember, which was worth it, when you sit and account for your life in your own mind

I might give up on love, on relationships but I will never give up on beauty..

Morality Vs Sensuality

We have divided ourselves in 3 parts - heart, mind and body. They refuse to be in tandem, for lesser mortals like me

And the body takes the last precedence for most of us, who allow our heart and mind to bog us down

Are we killing our sensuality in the name of morality?

I am sure the way I am thinking right now, I wont be able to think like this again..cos mind keeps fluctuating from right to wrong, from good to bad

Yes, right now I think we shackle our real selves by this thing called morality

Its not a societal thing, its not even related to our culture, or upbringing
Its something so deeply ingrained in us, that we have come to believe in so many things, which sometimes takes us away from ourselves

This is more contextual to we Indian women though..

Were we supposed to be like this always? Did God create us like this?

Am sure God did not think much when s/he created humans, we were supposed to be free spirits

Sometimes the weight of "forever" love, "one man-woman" thing interferes with our natural self and makes us forget what it is to discover the viler side(if it may be called so) of us

Do we realize we are made of cells, molecules and elements which we dint decide upon? That they act on their own will at times and we either obey them or be caught in the whirlwind of guilt and longing?

Can we lose control..can we let go of our obsession with being-in-control?
Even if we do, and when we do..we still have our caps.
We are still bound by notions of control,our limits..the extent to which we can stoop

Can we ever come to terms with our losing control and understand that it can be exquisite?

Why cant we treat our sensuality like a merit, a virtue? As something which we need to protect and nurture? Like we are taught to be good to others, speak truth always, why aren't we taught to respect this beauty within us? If speaking truth is right, why is addressing this part of us a taboo? Are we being truthful if we pretend that we are never amorous?

My sisters who are so happily married, and surely in love with the same person for so many years, would probably scorn at me for having such thoughts, but I really want to know

I am not talking about infidelity, or hurting someone

But just that at times, too much sense of right or wrong makes us all wrong for our own selves..for our sensibilities

We withhold, we stop..we wither away..

I have always been a a sucker for larger than life things
Every moment of my life I spend just to have a moment of something breath-taking

Something to make me go breathless..admired..cherished
Something like the picture below

I have always wished for a day of such grandeur in my life.
When someone like Obama(or Richard Gere, or any man who has the gall to hold me like that in his arms..center stage), leads me on



And the 2 of us waltz away..while the world is just an on-looker..applauding us!

Then sometimes words fail...

..And beauty takes over!




When beauty gets unbearable, and I cant contain it within me..the enormisity of it which sometimes wants to burst my heart..I tend to share it with the world..to let it out

All my babies fill me with that overwhelming feeling..

Just look at him in this pic, eyes full of stories, lips like a bird, cheeks pink and rosy, and a face worth million dollars..

My splendid, breath-taking Shretzi baby..Shrehanu!