Chiffonesque

A day before my immaculate friend arrived, I had written to her asking her to bring good walking shoes. While ‘good’ is a relative term and ‘walking’ can have several interpretations and ‘shoes’ can mean anything from wedges to pumps, one assumes that the three words taken together would fit some sort of universal sensibility. I was wrong. SS came with two pairs of shoes – one with three inches heels and the other one with three and a half. When one comes with footwear suited for soft carpet walking, the cratered roads of Pune come as a rude shock. SS did her very best to not turn up her nose at the rocks that lay untarred on the sides of the road or the huge cracks on the sidewalks. But there are few things that SS can keep to herself – namely her disdain for all things less than perfect. Anyway, we had quite a walk – all the way from Lane 5 to German Bakery. Once there, she walked in, all stylish and posh in her sky-blue tee and funky belt. She surveyed the area for a place to sit an...

I feel flighty today. I need to work on a document, finish the review of a course, put down suggestions for some kind of art treatment (it will all be shot down, of course, because no-one sees the merit of seeing a boiled egg twirl atop a camel’s hump. All art must be ‘relevant’. How deadly dead!) and figure out my budget. It is now getting a little irritating to be so broke so often. In addition, I need to prepare for a test that I need to take tomorrow in office. Interesting stuff. I just took a preposition test and flunked. I should go to Hemingway’s house and die on the floor. (Or is it atop the floor? Or on top of the floor? Or perhaps at the floor? I flunked prepositions, so I don’t know.) I don’t feel too bad about it because the email for the test informed me that I was to be tested on ‘ propositions’ and I had to get a minimum of 90 correct. Well, I’m not sure if I want to make 90 propositions correctly. What would that make me? Also, a little blight on the bright tube ...

When it comes to people, I am not very intelligent. I’ve been luckier than I’ve been smart. I’m usually dull with vibes and jibes; most escape me like the sense in fine print of license agreements. (Or in the case of license agreements, the big or the medium-sized print as well.) Therefore, when my friends introduce me to people they are engaged to, involved with, want to get to know better, I am usually very happy for them. I like the subjects of scrutiny, because well, I like most people I meet. Of course, there are times when I may not like the person concerned. I strongly resist the charm that was described to me as ‘irresistible’. I can very well contain my laughter and run no risk of laughing my head off at limp jokes. Or sometimes, although very, very rarely, I think that the person is deceitful. But that happens once every blue-striped moon. Generally, if I am not gushing about a significant other, it is because I think my friends are too good for the people they are with. (It’...

Through powdered dusk With caramel light And hint of musk A cloud floats in sight Over a thick green grove curtained with fog It's a treasure trove By a smoky bog A trove of Navajo lilies And fairy bees And striped bass And wood berries The cloud swirls through moments When nothing much matters When the sky is silent And the moon royally flatters And shines so distant Over grass and thyme And makes such songs With note and rhyme One time when colors are yet to settle One time when darkness is sharp with nettle One time when there are motes of twilight dust One time when the day is here but..almost..just The cloud looks down on the orchid earth So solid and peaceful it rests Its crannies with foliage, its nooks with winged life So full of troughs and crests It's tender core lies beneath Very stoic, blue, and quiet It whispers to the frail roots And its whispers are ivory white It susurrates of times to come Of stunning awe and fame Its ivory specks go and fix themselves To those...

I am finally back in Pune. Not much has changed in office. Looked around for J but she wasn’t in. Z had her own immediate plans of punching the boss. A couple of colleagues mentioned how I was ‘glowing’. Must be the spanking new white shirt with slender sparkly stripes and my white capris. I love them. They fit me when I’m plump and they fit me when I’m…well, plumper. So, the white attire was much complimented. A couple of people asked me about the trip. Strangely I felt a little shy about showing off the ring, but I think I blushed furiously, so people caught on. Not about the proposal or anything, just that there were dozes of love-mush in my little holiday. I like that phrase – little holiday. Very beachy and balmy. Gherkin-colored shorts, sea sonatas, and moon shining over a rickety boat. Work is perfect. Not too hectic and not too humdrum. I will still be typing away, hitting my pointy nails squarely in the centre of the alphabet squares. My thumb will be poised to hit the spaceba...

I am back from Delhi. I have plenty of snaps, loads of stories, heaps of memories, and not many presents. I still have a couple of days before I get back to work. So I spend my days wrapped in an after-holiday gossamer sheath of bliss. I get up lazily, sip my coffee by the window watching the roads get bright and dusty, feel the sheets getting cool in the air conditioning, and look at the snaps. This feels a little strange now. What look like glossy reminiscences were actually moments that were clicked in anticipation. Sometimes a stranger was hailed to click a photo, sometimes the gardener of a manicured lawn was taught to zoom and focus, sometimes a waiter added a vase of flowers to the table to enhance the composition, sometimes my cousin or Jaygee or boyfriend clicked me looking sharp in the setting sun. Now, when I see the photographs, I think of how much got recorded with each click – the mood, the memory of the person not in the frame, the hope of what this picture will mean to ...

I will be on leave for the next few days. I will be in Delhi, where I have spent some of my happiest childhood vacations. This time round, of course, I go for very different reasons. I go to eat mutton, have fun with Jaygee, visit all the coffee places with her - at least Mocha and one other one that she recommends, and meet my boyfriend. J, my very own wet blanket in Pune- also from Delhi, told me that I did not have to do all that in the month of June when there are records of people dropping dead in the heat. But well, I can't wait any longer. Much before I fell in love with a typical Delhi guy (and Mumbai girls were wary of that for the longest time until Shah Rukh Khan came and changed the 'picture' - bad pun, yes..okay, I'll carry on..), I loved Delhi because of the aloof beauty that it was cloaked in. The mist, dust, gardens, roads, color, market places selling vermillion chunnis and coriander and bangles and ceramic pots. But what I loved most was the food - tas...