Chiffonesque

It's seven in the morning and I am on the terrace, getting ready to do yoga. The sky has a shy pink orange blush and there's a cool breeze. Beyond some juttings of building terraces, a slow sun rises. It doesn't so much  rise as it gets pulled into public view. A round, hesitant ball of glow. It may not be shining in its full potential just yet, but you could definitely sense its power. Something about its demeanor suggested certain, reluctant valour. On the ledge of my terrace, a pigeon looked at the sun. It was dull, grey, and fat. In a million years, through intense evolution, at its peak of vitality... this bird would never be that which the sun could relate to. Not even when the sun lost its strength and had to clear away from the sky. Yet the pigeon, like me, looked on. Hoping for maybe a passing association with something spectaular. I thought of a movie poster showing exactly this morning scene - a globe of yellow rising from behind...

...to love something absolutely that is completely flawed and unraveling fast. In my case, it's my city...and myself.

I am very impressed with the name 'Provogue'. It's a great name for a clothes brand that positions itself as stylish, yet bold. It can be interpreted as 'Pro-vogue' - so, 'for' fashion. And also, it can be construed as a twist of the term 'provoke'. So, when you provoke in style, you are 'provogue'-ing. Clever! Also, learnt something new today. 'Archaic' is actually a period in history. So far a good day.

It has been a strange day today. I have worked for close to fifteen hours. My eyes are parched and the body is warm with a scratchy kind of fever - the kind you get from exhaustion. In this situation, I am often wrestling with some strange thoughts and dark moods. Maybe the toughest tussle is trying to pin them down - each inchoate, muffled echo of a feeling - and figure it out. Maybe adjust the sound frequency of this chaos such that I can actually hear each syllable clearly. Then I'll be able to transcribe its message in detail. Late evening today, I lay in my bed trying to trip up shadows. J ( http://www.teerathyatra.com/ ) sent a text saying that the moon looked beautiful. Despite that, I spent the next hour being a week, limp-wristed pugilist before my demons. After dinner, though, I went up to the terrace. And there it was. A cool, white layer of perfectly set lunar mousse. The top, smooth and glazed. It beckoned to a latent decadence. I wanted to put a spoon th...

A little pearl inside an eggy star - seed for something it had clean forgot. Pinned loosely to a flimsy sky no idea how far it had come, how high it had got. One day the star tilted a little Lost balance and snapped off so easily Plonked into a wide, wet ocean Plunged through depths of the violet sea Now, there’s a trembling star in a luscious pearl - seed for something it had clean forgot Safe and rested in a warm, blue place Remembering from where it had come, how deep it had got

My friend, J, is very wise. Also weird. But this post acknowledges her wisdom. (Her quirkiness will be paid homage to in times to come.) Sometimes, she overflows with sage advice. Then, the cool fount of her sensibility spills on to you and you are better for it. Sometimes, she sprays insight. Usually, this is unforeseen, so one might duck or get out of the way. That is a mistake. If you let the drizzle settle on to you, you may just get one of those rare things, i.e. – a perspective. The other day I had called J to talk. I was feeling dark or depressed or disillusioned or one of those brethren emotions. (I forget the specifics because I am in the seat of such calm joy at this moment.) J said many things and also compared me to a wild flower in the Amazon jungle that spits out poisonous darts. Given that I had always thought of myself as a regular bougainvillea, the comparison to such a radical botanical specimen puzzled me. However, confusion with J is sort of de rigeur . They go...

The other day, my friend and I decided to catch up at the Kala Ghoda festival. It had been a while since we'd met. Lots had been going on in our lives - rather, a lot had been happening in his life. My life, well, there's always so much all the time. Or maybe, there isn't a lot happening. But whatever happens keeps repeating itself in a crazy, accelerated, demented fashion. Well, whatever the case, lengthy talks were in the offing. And a good sprinkle of colour and culture always goes well with conversation. It was lovely and sunny when we reached. Art exhibits in Jehangir were quite stunning. My friend sketches. So he'd come up with these insights that had me peering at the canvases more closely and for longer. It makes such a difference - to look at paintings with someone who ' knownotices ' (as in, someone who knows   and someone who notices .) But that was that. Bereft of an agenda, we decided to go for a boat ride. I wonder why that's not part...

In the recent past, I have spoken with some friends – most of them close to me, all of them intelligent and none of them superficial. Each one of them is wary of Muslims. Each one believes that Islam, either obviously or subliminally, promotes or condones violence. None of these friends are Muslims. While they are not exactly evangelists, they do believe that their own faiths – Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism – are superior to this ‘peace at sword point’ religion. I have strong reasons to refute this belief. However, my point here is not about challenging anyone’s opinion. These are deep and personal matters. Knowing my friends, I am sure they have struggled with their own notions of secularism before they have uncomfortably accepted this belief of Muslims and Islam. However, when I encounter criticism of another religion, I tend to question my own. I am Hindu for several reasons. The most important one being convenience. I was born into it. As a child, I found my rel...

I have had it. I have really had it. This world exists to annoy me. I am very sure of this. It waits until I get some sort of method into my life and then it just tilts and swerves and throws everything out of whack. There is so much mess everywhere. Most of the mess comes in the form of people. I detest people. I hate them. They annoy me and they irritate me and then, if that is not enough, they seek to reform me. These little piles of putrid, stinky, hell-hole worthy masses of drama they call 'humans'. Of the many different forms of torture that a freelancer goes through, interacting with imbeciles is definitely top of the charts. Why will reasonably sane people not understand why I don't have time to step out for a coffee with them? It's not just about money.(Although, it is true that a hundred buck coffee and two hundred buck rickshaw fare tends to get a bit too much for an outing on the whim.) It's also about time and energy. I don't have the wherewithal...

At times, I think about nursery rhymes one learnt as a child. A couple of them I am partial to, because of the sense of weightlessness they evoked in my stomach. I'd recite those lines and try to wrap my mind around what's being said. It would feel so ethereal and whimsical - like trying to shape vapour into a horse and ride it to the sun. The first one is 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. I'd always imagined a little boy reciting this. He'd be wearing a red woollen coat, black shorts and a white shirt made of stiff, white cotton. I see him in a hostel, with a glass of hot milk in his hands. He's in a huge, empty music hall that has a grand piano on one side. All his friends are down in a common room playing scrabble or watching TV or reading books. He stands by a huge window overlooking silvery ghostly silhouettes of mountains. The sky is full of stars. However, there's a specific one that seems to have mutated into several tiny crumples of light. Th...