Discover you discovering me

I must remember that most of the musicians I end up liking are the ones I can't stand at first. And I have examples to prove my point:

1. Coldplay
2. Eminem
3. John Mayer
4. Justin Timberlake and Siamese twin Nelly Furtado

Right now's wishlist? To attend a Mayer concert. Not the flashlights and smoke guns and 10,000 fans kind. Not the long queues and signed T-shirts being thrown at you kind. The 100 people-who-don't-need-a-fix-for-the-high, mellow light, I-can-see-the-bass-guitarist-and-the-drummer kind. I want to see his face scrunched up as he sings. Sweat-soaked. Seducing his guitar into submission. Listen to Comfortable, the music makes you hear love.

Well almost. Exaggeration afterall, makes things more than perfect.

Philosopher Phixation B

I was good with people till a while ago. Then I just forgot all my social skills. Trust the Memory to remember to forget.

Thoughts in Tapdance

You tiptoe in
No stranger to my thoughts
A smile you drop
A whisper shuffles through
Mind marauder
Will you never stop?

I don't muster the will
To look through you
Your courage always
Willing me to fail
Crumbling before

the inevitable chase.

We dance around
Naïve, blissful fools
I sigh content
Never did unease
Seem so tremendous
So terribly spent

Memoirs of a Memory (or Park Parody IV)

Time. Time will heal everything. One gets over heartbreaks and lovers laid down.

She shook herself, as if to rid her mind of these thoughts. It was slightly chilly, and she wrapped her shawl tightly, an insufficient armour to the indifferent collapse her insides were going through. Time? That cruel I-don't-wait-for-anybody will heal? Either They had lost their minds or she had. Heal? Did she even want to? She dug her toes resolutely into the grass. It was going to be a long evening. She should have brought something warmer. A leaf fell near her hands. Withered and yellow.

A kid cycled by and reminded her how he had tried teaching her to "balance". With no success whatsoever. She had, much to his disbelief, managed a fracture and toppled over an old lady...but those were just inconsequential after-memories she had no intention of retaining, details she could certainly do without. Her memories were hers alone, to uncover and watch as she pleased. She could play a song softly in the background, emphasize and enhance parts she loved. She could choose from a hundred of them, each with their nuances, each in a different hue. She could stroll around them or rush forth, feeding her fancies, trampling on caution.

She didn't want time to snatch them away from her. Dull her into believing that the incidents were after all mere figments of an overactive imagination, from a period so long ago, fact and fiction coalesced into an unintelligible mosaic. She wanted to remember and forget them at will, to have the power to choose and destroy. To discard and retain. To erase and rebuke. To shelter and encourage.

But her memories, they fed into her, maggots in a fetid wound. They would remind her of parts of her being that she had given up. There was her smile she had parted with so joyfully. Her opinions, threadbare with all the conversations they had been part of. Her thoughts, suddenly so private and at once displayed with flamboyant ease. Her laughter and the way she gave it with gay abandon. Her tears, cherished and wastefully fallen in the crevices of uncomfortable silences. And she had broken off bits of other people, weaving them through her mind in circular patterns, each one entangling itself in perfection with one another. She could hear a whisper in the background, she could feel an embrace hold her, and if she concentrated hard enough, she could see why it was an embrace, not a hug, not perfunctory, not forced. There was some shouting too. Bitterness and anger. Indifference and annoyance. She caught her breath as she heard him mumble something she wished she could hear forever. She smelt him on her and smiled a little more.

Time? She wielded it like a toy. She looked down at her hands, a piece of grass wound around her fingers. She twisted it and then smoothed it out. She knotted it and then untied it. It lay in her palm now. Limp. Compliant and silent. She grinned at it, dusting her clothes, as she got up. They were dank. She put her thoughts back in place, they refused, scurrying around, disobedient toddlers. She walked, in no particular direction and liked where it was leading to.

Rasmai Rain

I'm off to see the Sangu

The wonderful Sangu boy

He is, he is, he is, he is

my favouritest boy.

Question 19

I can't seem to decide whether:

a) Indecision has become a way of life
b) Or not.

Beep off

I was watching yet another movie on yet another sleepy afternoon. Ever since I left probably the best job in the world, I have been in a mood that befits my new found superduperlative schedule. And I realized that the secret to happiness is just an idiot box away. With all the English movie channels coming up with subtitles for people who just never catch dialogues (I founded and currently head that elite group) the motion picture has been relegated to the background while the written (rather edited) word reigns supreme. Trust our censor board to provide comic relief in the most unassuming places. Samples:

Dialogue: "I should have made a move on her. Damn I think I just lost my penis."

Subtitle: "I should have made a move on her. Damn I think I just lost my manhood."

Dialogue: "Did you notice her big boobs?"

Subtitle: "Did you notice her big?"

Do they realize that's not even a complete sentence? And that we can actually hear what is being said and so our pure, beautiful minds have already been corrupted? And that in spite of our muddled education system, we have all been exposed (oh dear is that a dirty word too?) to the taxonomy of human body parts, irrespective of their, well, location?

And the best was:

Dialogue: "You damn motherbeeeeep. Beep off."

Subtitle: "You damn motherbeep. Beep off."

But as I lay dozing off, I decided to imagine that the Board has someone with a great sense of humour. I like to think that the Subtitle Guy hates his job, gets the kicks about writing wrong grin-inducing stuff and weaves jokes into the lines. That's so much better than imagining them not knowing enough to think they are fooling (cleansing?) us.

Familyar Friends

My family is a motley bunch. But we are variegated - not like a bunch of badly matched flowers in a bouquet, but more like the different fingers on a hand. Each one with their adorable peculiarities, their beautiful quirks, annoying habits and loving ways. We fight for every cube of chocolate with unnerving intensity, each one hates a different sabji, making sure dinner is always full of fireworks, everybody likes their coffee at different times, and blaaaaaaah. We look different enough to belong elsewhere, we like and dislike things planets apart, lead our separate lives and intertwine and disjoin at a million little places across several generations. And yet somewhere, the seams find each other, the differences blend into this cross patched quilt of colours, so warm, it makes you want to wish for a winter forever.

What in the world prompted me to write thus? Careen into emotions that rarely leave the insides of my subconscious? I guess it is that sometimes the mundane can trigger something so pure, its a miracle that we still quiver to be novel. And sometimes a moment is so precious, you don't mind it ending because it so graciously, so unassumingly allowed you to be a part of it.

Everyone was sitting in their individual comfort zones around the house. The women flitting across their numerous tasks (how just how are they so thoughtful...day after treacherous day?). Girl 1 was readying to curl up with a book, the rate at which she was devouring literature was alarming and awe-inspiring all at once. The man had changed into his kurta pajama (if India had a dress code and I had any say in the matter, all men would be in white kurta pajamas 24/7) and was about to play some mind-numbing/mood-stunning/blood-pumping/soul-drowsing music (depending on who you were and what kind of music worked for you). Girl 2 was settling into the Children's room that she had recently (re)claimed as her own, marking it with pictures and postcards, with her pens and papers, her faithful friend The Diary and The Laptop.

And then the bell rang. Everyone called out to the other to open the door (in spite of being the great, noble people we are, we are incurably lazy). Someone did. There was squeal. "Girl 1's driving license has come!"

"Whaat?" Squeals, shout shout, laughter, squeal, ha ha ing.

"She has an identity now!"

"Finally"

"They gave her a license in spite of her driving test." Wow

"It says LMV. Does that mean a bus?" Noooooooo.

And so we were standing. This crazy adorable bunch of somebodys. In the thin ohsothin gallery of our house, hyperventilating over a card (the new licenses even have a chip in them. No one knew what the chip was for. Way to go!). The card exchanged hands, chatter played, the soundtrack of the moment. And then we retired, back into our bubbles of individuality and momentary isolation. Nobody and nothing in the entire anywhere could take that moment from us. The somebodys who were everybodys for each other. When each moment holds the potential to be this pretty, how can we help but look forward to time?

Humming

I can’t stand to fly
I’m not that naive
I’m just out to find
The better part of me

I’m more than a bird…
I’m more than a plane
More than some pretty face beside a train
It’s not easy to be me

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie'bout a home
I’ll never see

It may sound absurd…
but don’t be naive
Even Heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed…
but won’t you concede
Even Heroes have the right to dream
It’s not easy to be me