Chiffonesque

I stayed up all night last week finishing up work. After some 10-12 hours of writing, I would lie down for a couple of hours before I woke up and sat at the laptop again. It was so physically gruelling. But every morning, around 6 or so, it would rain. I would open the windows of my room wide and listen to the rhythm. It usually sounds like a steady, light clinging of a coin-chain. The potted plants by the grate are in blue and brown clay pots. They'd shuffle to the wind like little, leafy toddlers. There are times when writing is so rigorous that I wonder if I will ever get a weekend to relax. But those few moments in the morning were such beautiful post-its of leisure. Until a complete weekend comes, I'll take what I can get. Around 4 a.m. today, I finished a large chunk of an assignment. After the laptop had flickered and shut down, I got p and looked out. It was so quiet and dark outside. It was quiet and dark outside my room too. I suddenly felt empty.  Also a litt...

There she sits in a gilded cage With the trap door a little broken She sits in silence, all hush and quiet But the face that's turned away has spoken It rains blue roses all night long Yet she does not fly free A newborn day comes with fresh, mint scent And she decides to be Inside her cage, by that door She lives through a million springs And sometimes coos for the little freedom That comes to those with gilded wings.

A really scattered Sunday. There is a lot to finish by tomorrow and I've just been chatting away with friends. Spoke on the phone for nearly three hours today. I think that's almost as much as how much time I've spent on the phone in the last six months. Then, exhausted, I tried to take a nap, tried to figure out all the projects I have to work on. Got very tense. I sat by the window sill and saw a guave tree sway in the wind. There was a tiny, perfect little guava swinging from the branches - a little, green knot of joy. Then the grey sky acted like a sieve. It got all porous and sweet, cool rain came falling down. It was all good again.

One's heritage often imparts certain tools that equip one for a particular path in life. It could be business acumen or strong legs. It could be predisposition to the arts or a keen sense of adventure. For me, I think, it's taste for mustard. I love mustard, especially mustard oil. The sharp, heavy smell of mustard oil is what I can battle armies for. If my childhood could be bottled as perfume, I'm pretty sure the scent would be mustard. (I understand it wouldn't have many takers. That's perfectly fine with me. Like I said, when it comes to mustard, I don't like competition.) As kids, we used to be massaged with mustard oil - our bodies, hair, armpits, cuticles, etc. A thick coat of that oil, with its distinct scent, would get soaked into our pores. My brother and cousins hated it. I couldn't get enough. After a vigorous massage, we had to rest or play on the floor for a half-hour and then, go for a cold water bath. Without being boastful, my brother, my...

As a freelance writer, I spend close to 12 hours a day working. Mostly, it is actually writing or researching. Then there is some amount of meetings and discussions on what to write, how to write, devising content related strategies, etc. There is a lot of getting into someone's head and figuring out what they want. There is speculation on what is going to drive people to someone's website or write persuasive marketing collaterals or a powerful concept note. I love all that juggling. However, sometimes I do lose the plot. Early this morning, I finished reading 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel. It's the story of a boy, Pi, who survives a shipwreck. His survival involves spending nearly a year on the Pacific on a lifeboat with a royal Bengal tiger. I read that book and remembered that anything creative or inspired makes you feel a particular way - it makes you want to be a better person. It makes you want to live a better life. It makes you want to soak in the goodness o...

In religious hierarchy, generally paganism is seen to be inferior to, well, non-paganism. (I don't know the term for the opposite.) So, if one is monotheistic, believing in one God that somehow can't be seen, touched, or heard, then that is more evolved than a value system where you pay obeisance to a rock, stream or flower. But why? If you can actually perceive a god all around you - or even a different god in each and every element - if every little thing fills you with wonder, joy and piety, aren't you there? ('There' being the place that religion was supposed to take you to.) Wasn't that the whole point?

I love waking up to the sound of the rain. It feels like a different, watery form of sunrise. The air is cool, clear, fresh. Somewhere up above, I imagine the best in the universe got concentrated, condensed and nurtured in a large silk pouch. Then these formed perfect jewels of beauty and tenderness. When the time is right, all those jewells, all that goodness, comes pouring down and then falls away. And I step out into a world that is whole, new, changed. May you often wake up to rain.

A grain of sand in a grey sky's eye And clouds rub it off quickly The large grey eye then waters down And flows into a salty sea. This ocean in its vastness now, Is our emblem of hope since years And it's forgotten that this flame of will Was really born of tears.

I woke up early, around 5 a.m. and wrote out a sample test article for a website. I had been delaying it for so long - what with the nausea, queasiness and old-fashioned procrastination. But I woke up, heard the rain falling steadily (always my song of hope and joy), sat at my computer and worked steadily. It took a solid two hours to tackle that and I sent it off. What followed was an exquisite lightness, an airy sense of joy. What followed was also a gnawing hunger. My cook was awake by then so I asked for some tea and crisp toast with butter and mayonnaise. I munched on that watching the beautiful grey sky - luscious and juicy like the flesh of lychee - and its sweet pin-sharp drizzles of silver rain. Thick green leaves shook about and somewhere, in the rain, birds chirped noisily. I am now sated with food and well-being. It's time to take a short nap before I get dressed and go to Andheri to meet my friends. Good morning, world!

This is from the movie, 'Walk the Line'. It's a story about the singer, Johny Cash. In this particular scene, Johny is estranged from his family. He has left his wife and has become an alocoholic. He has a rocky relationship with another singer (Reese Witherspoon) but can't seem to get his life in order. Record labels that were earlier lining to sign him up start avoiding him. Johny has decided to get away from it all and has bought a house up in the mountains. It's a very beautiful place and he has invited his girlfriend to see it. When she visits him, she realizes that he is living a wasteful life he can't afford. He can't afford the house or the dogs and he definitely can't afford to be drinking that excessively. They have a fight and I think they break up. She goes to her car and brings out a box of stuff that belong to him. She had meant to give it as a gift. But she more or less throws it at his face with a "Hell with you!" kind of go...

I am really unwell today. The twitch in my left eye is much worse than before and some nerve is feeling stretched. There's a tremendous bodyache and my right tooth is paining badly. My throat is sore, my nose is stuffy and small knots of pain seem to lodged around my eyebrows and the base of my neck. There is a general expression of gloom. The recent blasts and then anger at Mumbai, the city and what it stands for, its steady into decline because its part of Maharashtra, the intolerance in the world at general, etc. - all that is doesn't sit easily with me either. All in all, everything is feeling heavy and sodden. To perk myself up, I thought I would make a list of movie scenes that really meant something to me over the years. (I will post a scene as and when I get the energy. Right now, I feel like I won't stay alive long enough to finish the post.) From Qayamat se Qayamat Tak: The last scene. Just before Aamir dies, he softly kisses Juhi on the lips (she's alre...

The Bombay spirit. It's a cliche because it has become a desensitized phrase make us Mumbai people look like roaches. Oh look! They'll survive everything. Yet... Today, there were blasts at Dadar, Opera House, Zaveri Bazaar. At the time of the blasts, I was close to Dadar with a friend. We'd spent a splendid day in town, collected our freelance moolah (always a day of joy) and then spontaneously decided to do a few things. We tried out a new restaurant near Phoenix Mills called China Land. My vegetable wonton soup was quite nice but the starters, Peppery Tofu, was brilliant. It was soft and smoky with some really interestic flavors. I think smoked garlic with coarsely crushed peppercorn. After that, we caught 'Delhi Belly' at PVR. We then we walked through Worli village to get to Worli Seaface and saw this beautiful little garden we had noticed before. We sat by the sea, our back to the splendid sea-link and talked for hours. Then we got close to Dadar, got in...

This is Palolem. It is a crescent shaped beach and so pretty that it could be a pearl that got loose from an angel's embroidered wing. This time in Goa, my friends and I decided to take a day off to go to a different beach from the close to our hotel. Somewhere distant. So, we woke up early, ate a quick brekker and set off. Then we walked through little strips of road that knitted paddy fields, hailed a bus and set off for Palolem. Palolem is deep in the south of Goa. From where we were (Benaulim), we had to change two buses to get to the beach (one to Madgaon and another to Palolem from the bus depot there). It was a long sheery ride. We went up a road that swirled around a green, green mountain. It was like tracing along the ribbon of candy color that rolls about a lollipop. On the way, the bus would be hailed by large crowds of school-children. They'd hop off somewhere between a purple house with yellow windows and a red hut with blue walls. There were all these souvenir-t...

I have finally summoned up enough strength to get through a wad of work for today. I'm done. Complete. Clean. Finished. Slate is clean. Tomorrow I have to trudge up to my father's office for some work. It will be fun I think but only if I can have a delicious langorous morning after having a heavy, sweet sleep. Unlikely because I intend to do some luscious reading - the kind of reading where I don't even blink. I am reading 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel and that book is so dense with soul! I think some people are like butterflies. Or rather they communicate the way a butterfly lightly flits about you. Similarly, their words have meaning hovering around them. Like a sweet little mote on a beam of soft lavender light. Maybe the way, if you have shampooed your hair before you sleep, the next morning you get a lungful of the fresh juicy scent in your nose when you wake up. As I was saying, some people are gentle with their words and meanings. Like they spray a word wi...

I have been really unwell the last few days. High fever, a very sore body, thumping headache and, since misery loves loves loves company, there's a toothache doing the salsa with a sore throat as well. (How do they manage, you ask? Well, illnesses have a way of getting around.) Now, just a few days ago I had started yoga. And this time I was determined to do yoga regularly to get fit and burn off my karmic deposits. (No, that’s not what they are calling body fat nowadays.) I wanted to settle at least that part of my karmic cycle that has kept me tied to the drama of anger. I have tried to figure out why I have so much anger inside of me when, frankly, I have around 2,800 things to be grateful for every single day of my life. And this is a list I can make up right from stuff at the top of my head. I have tried to get to the bottom of this for a while now. A friend's sister is a hypnotherapist. Nearly a year ago, I had visited her on account of some issues that I was really ...

My name is Mukta. My father was abroad, in flight, on the way to India, when my mother delivered me in Cuttack. I was conceived on ship, somewhere near Bulgaria, I think. From the time my mother had conceived me, both my parents were certain they'd have a girl. My mother attributes the certainty to her gut. My father attributes the certainty to my mother. The sea and the beginning of my life is closely interlinked. Several times, I feel that there was an osmosis that happened between the swells of waves and my mothers womb. And when that happened, I passed through. Niether of my parents really had any idea on what they should name their first-born. They had left it to my grandparents who toured the entire mythological planet to apparently come up with the most tongue-twisting monikers. But then, one day, my mother went into labour. Then, one day, my father was travelling home. They hadn't spoken to each other then. But independent of consultation, they both t...

1. Friend 1 is soon shifting to Pune. Got a cushy job in a company around the Hinjewadi area and is looking for a place close to office. If anyone knows of a place to rent out in that area, please let me know. 2. Friend 2 has got a job around Hiranandani, Powai and is looking for a PG Accomodation in and around Hiranandani or Chandivalli. If you need a flatmate or know of a good PG acco, do mail me. Both are women - clean and responsible. Do email me at: mukta.raut@gmail.com . Thanks so much.

My Monday begins when I want it to. When I have nosedived into a fresh, new book and read a few pages of it sipping tea. When I have scribbled a couple of lines sitting on the terrace, taking in muddy grey-blue-yellow skies. Monday begins when the weekend langor stops letting out the slow weepy wail, "Just a little bit longer." After I have limbered up with a few yoga stretches - the kind of stretches that ease away Sunday evening indulgences. After I have listened to every chirp of a bird, looked at every flirty copper-pod on a tree and felt, "Yes. I've got stuff to do." My Monday begins when I want it to.