It's a man's world

Yes it is!
In-spite of all the efforts, all feminism, all this sho-sha about women being equal..there are numerous ways and things in our system which ultimately make you feel so.

I have been planning for a trip abroad. When I applied for VISA, I got a checklist of things to be submitted. One of which said:
   - An NOC(No objection certificate) from husband, if married.
That irked me, but since I dint need to bother about it, I went ahead and provided NOC from my company.

The travel agent lady who was arranging for my VISA, went thru all my documents and sheepishly said: "Can you arrange an NOC from your father also, since you are a single female?"
I frowned and asked "But I have given you from my company, and I am not a minor"
To that she said "We dont want to take chances and sometimes VISA people might ask for it"
I further asked, with chagrin "And if I were a single male, that would not have been necessary?"

She promptly replied "No. no..not for males"
I stared at her in disbelieve and must have borne the most hideous expression, since she just smiled at me in exasperation(with a look saying, this is how the system goes)

I mean, what kind of crap is this? I am a full blown adult, who has been providing for my parents too, in small ways..yet I need to provide all that cos I am a single woman?

What if I am a tyrant and ask my husband on gun point to give me NOC, or torture my father to provide me an NOC? How the hell will they validate?

This stupid system we are in & this stupid country(or maybe its the same everywhere)

Anyways, all that bullshit had to be borne by me and had to provide everything, for all the pleasure that awaits me

So Yes, I am off

To a place with mountains

Where the smell of cheese and chocolates is in the air

And intoxication of wine pervades the nights

I hope to find a lost piece of my heart there

Bye and laterz.. with pics and details of the trip(Just wish that weather remains as good as it is right now, and no rains)

While on the way to work, my iPod was playing this song:

"Hansne ki chaah ne kitna mujhe rulaaya hai"
(The desire to laugh has made me cry so much)

I dont believe in indulging in self pity, yet the simplicity of this song can melt you heart

The first line is so terrific, that each time I hear, it makes me think and feel different things.
And the soulful voice of Manna dey gives it the edge of hopeless melancholy

The flute which starts the song, sets the mood. It has a bong touch to it, reminds me of trees and shadows

Hear it if you like to be beautifully sad at times, and love your sadness

She and Me

No, she is not my role model. There are so many things I would have wanted her to do differently
Be bolder, stand up for what she wanted and deserved, not be a push over..are some of the thing

I believe in breaking things rather than preserving thier ashes
If something does not work out, get rid of it..anything if not wanted in its totality is a clutter..and life should be free of clutter
But she keeps asking me to preserve, to hold on to things till they fall out of my hands without my mistake
And I either get irritated or laugh at her stale values

Yet, when I speak a harsh word with anyone, when I shout at auto-rickshaw guy, I have this nagging feeling of going an notch below in my image in her eyes

Cos I was always this soft girl, who could not fight the world(Now all I do si fight)

No, she was not a dancer. I dont know whose genes I inherited for the danseuse in me.

"हट बे निखाटू गंवारवा मैं तेरे संग ना जाउंगी " - My mother would teach us this dance in her clumsy, faltering, endearing way

Yet to me, till date, thats my sweetest memory of anything close to sweetness

No, she might not be so good in English, or have had as good an education as we had, or maybe we were a tad better student than her

Yet, my oldest  memory of education is about her asking me to write 100 times in a book, something I could not remember easily

My purest feelings, my overwhelming love and my maddening  anger, I feel only for her

Happy mother's day Ma!

माँ और माँ की जाई 

Committing the felony of Eating, praying, loving..

I bought this book "Eat,Pray,Love" (Elizabeth Gilbert), from a roadside hawker, few months back. Those xeroxed ones.
But after reading 229 pages of it, I realized it started repeating the previous pages and many of the pages in between were lost.

So I went back to that place and asked him to exchange it.
He said, he dint have any copy of that book with him anymore, and added
     "Why dont you read 'Committed", its from the same author".
As if the same author means the same book?!
I dint want to read "Committed", so I said I will wait for "Eat,Pray,Love",

I kept going to him, once every week, and this continued for a month
And each time, he tried handing me "Committed".
Finally I thought I will bargain for some other book with him.

But I desperately wanted to read that book so I started trying at other places.

I encompassed a whole of 4 kilometers around my area for that book, and interestingly none of them had it. And EACH one of them tried handing over "Committed" to me.(With the same story about how its from the same author)

This began amusing me, and then I deliberately started asking any hawker I saw, for this book Knowing fully well he wont have it. Just to see if he offers me "Committed" or not. And they all did!

After a while I started feeling as if this was some sign.
As if God was trying to tell me "You have done enough of eating, praying and loving,  now its time to go "Committed"!"

I finally exchanged my "Eat, Pray,Love" with "Committed", from the original shop.
But I wont be opening a page from that book, unless I find and finish my "Eat,Pray,Love"

I am adamant to finish all my eating, praying and loving...till its time for "Committed"..
And the time is never right...unless it feels absolutely right

I wonder if all the mystery in me, my joie de vivre, my humour, my wit will be enough to survive a witless, lackluster, self obsessed, insipid man. Sometimes I get a feeling, it just might.
I dont really need to find my equal.
If yes, then marriage is good, if no then its scary
Cos in the end, it will only be me..its all about me

You will not be lost

If ever you thought you lost any part of you
Come to me
I have all your parts intact, within me

If you feel you lost your mirth,
I will give back that you to you
Who smiled as he got up from bed and winked at me
And I knew, that the day dint belong to me anymore

If you have any doubts about your worth
I will be your reminder
Of how you wiped my fears

All the light, all the shine in you
Are etched in my recess, threaded in my pores
You just have to see me, and be reminded of your glory

If right now you feel like nothing
Remember me, and you will become all that a man like you is meant to be

If I exist, rest assured none of you will be lost ever
We will be in love again
With someone like each other

A poetess like me

I follow a blog which puts up great work by various artists from various streams and its a delightful blog for me. There are rare songs, poems by writers I was not aware of. One such I came across recently was "Nikki Giovanni". This blog translates everything in hindi, which was beautiful. But I knew the English would be much more, and I searched and fell in love with her many poems which I read. She felt close to heart, a natural, a lover. There is a poem which resembles a line from my hindi poem which I had written ages ago


I am sharing lines from some of the poems I found stunning

 "Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day"

Don't look now

I'm fading away

Into the gray of my mornings

.........

I try I become more difficult to hold

I am not an easy woman to want

They have asked the psychiatrists . . . psychologists . . . politicians and social workers

What this decade will be known for

There is no doubt . . . it is loneliness

-------

"Choices"

if i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

--
This specific poem written below is the one which made me feel I had written something very very similar way back

"The way I feel"(Ahh this is one of my labels on this blog)

i've  noticed I am happier

when i make love 

with you

and i have enough left to

smile at my doorman

 i've realized i'm fulfilled

like a big fat cow

who was just picked

for a carnation contentment

when u kiss your special place

right behind my knee

most time when you are around

i feel like a note

reberta flack is going to sing

And the lines which struck me with deja-vu are following

in my mind you are a clock

and i'm the secodn hand sweeping

around you sixty times an hour

twenty-four times a day

Sample these lines by me, in one of my hindi poems which I had written way back in 1998, in my diary and had posted it on my blog in 2008, here
http://memoriesofaworldelsewhere.blogspot.in/2008/06/some-love-poems.html

तुम जब चाहो मुझे देखोगे और मेरा दिल सिमट आएगा तुम्हारे पास
तुम्हारी आँखें मेरी धूरी हैं
चाहे जहाँ भी जाऊं मैं , केंद्र तुम ही रहोगे
(When you look at me, my heart will come back to you
Your eyes are my pivot
Wherever I am, you will be my center)



Ohh..sweet love, how you feel so strange when you are gone
Was I ever like this.?

4 more years went since I wrote this on the blog too??? Unbelievable. I feel I started this blog so recently

So we were at 2 different parts of the world, thinking alike..

There are other poems which I loved by her, but the last one I want to share here is this

"Communication"

if music is the most universal language

just think of me as one whole note

if science has the most perfect language

then think of me as MC(square)

what i mean is one day

i'm gonna grab your love

and you will be satisfied

Blissful read is each of her writing, and she has the most endearing face and smile

 
 

Cliche'

I try to run away from the cliched, and look for novelty..all the time..in smallest thing

A cliched joke, a cliched look, a cliched phrase..gets on to me like a parasite
The agony of living the already lived..a disgusting second hand experience

When one knows the effect of something one says, the effect is lost already
Innocence of not knowing your own charm, charms me like anything

Maybe thats why kids make my heart swell with love and happiness
They dont know what they are, unless they grow up

If you really mean something, never say it and make it a passé

In distress if someone tells you "Let it go"..you lose respect for that person, cos you know this person will never try and get into your shoes to know whats hurting and would just harp about the "Let go" mantra, oft repeated

"I am the girl who loves the rain and likes to get drenched in it" - When a girl tells me that, I lose interest in anything else that she has to say..cos I know there will be more of cliche coming my way

"I like to break rules, and live by my own" - When I guy says that, I want to ask him where did he learn this from?

I would rather be quiet than say the same thing said by many in the same situation..time and again

I say beautiful things when no-one is noticing, but the moment people start expecting...I go kaput

Give me a moment, a word, a sentiment never experienced before
When tears come cos of nostalgic happiness...sadness does not bring them

Everything beautiful in life is a way to nostalgia..
A song, a face, a fragrance ..
Making the heart heavy with beauty of everything that can be deemed beautiful in this world

And cliche can never be beautiful

I wish I could break my own cliche, 
Could I be that coquette, with those sultry eyes?
The one who woos men in the bar
I wish I knew my power beyond what I know

if love is a cliche too, then lets resort to lust

तेरी निगाहें पा गयी राहें , पर तू ये सोचे जाऊं न जाऊं न जाऊं

ये जिंदगी जो है नाचती तो, क्यों बेड़ियों में हैं तेरे पाँव ?

प्रीत की धुन पे नाच ले पागल, उड़ता अगर है उड़ने दे आँचल

काहे कोई अपने को ऐसे तरसाए ?  

(Your eyes have found the path you wanted to tread,
But you keep thinking if you should go along
This life, which dancing around you,
Then why are your feet in chains?
Dance on the tunes of love,silly
Let your veil blow away, if it has to
why should one keep oneself deprived?)

This heart is again looking for a wintry affair, this summer

When the coffee gets cold, cos the talks could not