Chiffonesque

You were a great year. So great that I will probably not remember you in March, and will have forgotten you by the time October rolls around. But that’s because you would have passed from being a segment in time to being a part of life. Now I don’t know if you get that difference…but it’s like this. You, more than any other year, is like a scar I have on my elbow. I got it from falling into a pile of glass when I was eleven years old. It bled, it hurt, it got infected. When the doctor rubbed it with antiseptic, I almost fainted with pain. When he tried making small talk, I felt like pulling his tie so hard that he’d choke. Somewhere along the way, though, as the doc dressed it up in soft cotton and gauzy bandage, I got mesmerized. One’s open wound is a beautiful sight, once you are through with the screaming. It’s a corporeal reminder of a sentimental truth – whatever hurts, will one day heal. So, you’re like this wound that I had many, many years ago. Past, forgotten, but permanent. I...

Dinner with family. Just family. Decorating the tree with them, brother showing up really late, talking to parents, dad dozing off just as I’m getting ready to click, and running out of film just as dad wakes up. Brother stays over. Driving through streets of Bandra on Christmas eve, watching men looking dapper in suits and women looking chic in dresses and satin gloves. We have coffee at a place over-run with kids in Santa caps. SS visits, after a lifetime. We window-shop. Hungrily. There’s no store on SV road that wasn’t devoured. Mango was the tastiest dish, though. J and Cy land in Mumbai. (Cy is all of ‘seven’ now – a figure she announces loud and clear, holding up the right number of fingers for good measure.) SS and I are at the airport to pick them up. Cy sits forlorn on a trolley and tells me, “My mother never gave me any food.” I tell her that I’m her real mother, and J is just an imposter who got lucky. So, she retorts, “You’re not my mother. You never ever ever gave me a...

To wade through a dense, quicksand of noise and reach home. Home that’s soft and empty in mellow silence. To sleep with a pounding heart and wake up with streams of bright shards of pure sunlight zigzagging on your bed. To shuffle around the kitchen aimlessly, and brew the kind of tea that makes you close your eyes and take you to a cold, frosty mountain peak. To turn on the shower like you always do, but get bathed in childhood memories of cycling on a beach instead. To watch the sun come down, the lights come up, and the traffic get more frenzied, yet more distant as you slowly meet the peace that peeps out of chaos. To hold your heart in your hands – however you may expect to find it– broken, wounded, strong, healthy, tender, tough – but to see it hopeful and grateful. And, yes, smiling. Merry Christmas everyone!

Feeling stuck, Feeling blue, Feeling not too much Unlike you Both of us On this noisy street Both of us With no time to meet There’s so much now I have to say But this razor buzz Gets in the way You don’t look up And I can’t turn Sometimes, I forget Sometimes, you learn What can we leave And where do we go? And what will we find We don’t already know This grey space, These crimson velts This great white void Soft like ermine felt We’ll find all this, Also, cold purple air, The void is home When we’re not there.

FIRST, the stupid BEST bus does not stop at the bus stop. When I remove my glares to take down the bus number (for some reason I can't see too much through these Fast Track sunglasses), it falls on an idiotic stray dog who yelps and jumps two feet in the air. THEN a stupid rag-picker points at me and laughs. THEN, in the next bus I catch, a girl keeps dozing off next to me with her head bopping my shoulder. I tell her, ever so nicely, that she can put her head on my shoulder and sleep if she wants. (I don't want her neck to snap, given all those sharp jerks she's having.) She looks alarmed and tells me, "Oh no no! I'm not like that! Sorry!" (I'm NOT LIKE THAT! What the hell is that supposed to mean? 'Like that' means what...lesbian? Well, I'm not like that either. I was just being NICE! Actually, I'm usually not nice either...so I'll let that pass.) THEN I read my horoscope that says, "It'll be a good day for those around you. ...

I woke up with a bad mood. I had received a message from a friend that made me very angry. Usually, I get irritated. But this text got me inexplicably worked up. I had half a mind to call up and yell, but I was getting late for my yoga class. (Speaking of yoga, whatever my body may have accomplished in terms of flexibility, my mind has not in terms of anger management. I lose my cool just as often and just as badly.) This was my first yoga class after my trip to Delhi. I was wondering if I'd even be able to touch my toes, after four days of only moving my hand to my face. But turns out, train journeys do keep the limbs limber. So, the class was pretty good. It softened my mood a little. I came back home and sent an angry, but much more restrained message to the 'friend'. The day had begun on a bad note, though, and I was sure it was going to be one of those days - when the bitter aftertaste in the mouth will not go away. Even if you win a million dollars. Even if you get f...

I have just returned from a beautiful, satisfying trip to Delhi. Attended a wedding in Gurgaon. One of my very close friends was geting married. I didn't realize just how close she was to me until I clicked a photograph in the Gurudwara...a second after she was wedded to the person she was in love with. I expected to go to the wedding to build memories, have fun, share joy, and hopefully not embarass myself too much (charging towards the buffet, shoving people aside can be unseemly). I did not expect the lurch in the heart and the lump in my throat, though. There she sat, resplendent in a fine outfit in violet and gold - all poised and regal next to the groom. Very oddly, I remembered an evening a year ago. We'd gone running in the park, and it had started raining. We ran anyway. She giggled like a child in the gushing downpour. Soaked to the bones, we went to buy spinach. On the way back, there was a shattering bolt of lightning and a deep rumble of thunder. And what did we do...

It’s been a month of being bemused. There has been a sustained period of walking about with a nervous knot in my stomach. I have also, very lovingly, carried a lump of tension at the back of my neck. There is no reason to feel anxious, but I feel that way. There’s an excitement so sharp that it feels like fear. It’s like a nice Betty Cooper type of happiness that went into a parlor and got her hair crimped and body pierced. Joy feels lethal, somehow. I can’t be out enough. I can’t stay home enough. I can’t sit still. My world can’t stop spinning. If I lay down, looking out into the darkness, tree-tops swathed in moon shadows, I hear a buzz. My world is noisy. Days begin and end and begin and end. They are not seamless. I have become acutely aware of the start and end points of time. I sense their jaggedness. I have had bad dreams. Very bad dreams. Not really dreams...but that disembodied reality that comes alive in the twilight of doubt. I have seen dead children hanging from ceilings....

Sometimes, work gets manic. Rabid, in fact. It swallows up your time, gulps down your weekends, and gobbles away your life. And when you complain, work looks you in the face and gives a long, loud burrrrrp! This is when one feels a little shitty. Trampled upon. Worn out. When work gets maddening, one strays so far away from a normal life, that even watching regular people doing normal stuff like bargaining for spinach brings tears to one’s eyes. That’s when I go to Lokhandwala; late in the night, when everything else is practically closed. To have a cup of hazelnut cappuccino in the midst of people who’ve started their day…with excitement, no less. But on the way, there’s enough bizarreness strewn about like breadcrumbs to lead me back home. For example, there’s a small, pokey little hut that sells ‘ Authentick Punjabi Food’. Its extensive menu includes jeera dhokla , malai sandwich, and pav bhaaji . Then, there are the people wearing tight t-shirts with interesting messages. Like th...

Today is the first day of the last month of this year. It feels like the first day of the rest of my life. It has been a good year. A very interesting year. It’s tempting to start enumerating – most memorable events, least favorite foods, top fifty buys, etc. etc. In good time, I think. This year, I feel like I have actually seen things. Seen people. It’s quite marvelous. One night, a friend called me up to share a rather difficult piece of news about his marriage. I asked him what his plans were. He wasn’t sure what ‘their’ plans were. My friend still thought in terms of ‘we’. My friend has made up his mind to stick on with his marriage. Not just in honour of the vows he’d taken taken, but for love. The next morning, I saw a young boy reach the bus stop a minute after the bus had left. He ran and ran…at the speed of wind, it seemed…and caught it. Everyone at our bus stop broke out into a small cheer. If one met my friend dropping off his wife at the office, or one saw the boy sitting ...