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Showing posts from May, 2014

Q for now, A for later?

I have been feeling this since the last few days. I feel that at some point of time, I may lose control of my faculties and not even be barely functional. Like I might get dressed and leave the bra straps unhooked because my hands can't reach behind. The twitch in my eyes get worse and I dribble all over a coffee cup. I can't eat without half-chewn food oozing out of a slack mouth. While physical degeneration is easier to pinpoint, the emotional and spiritual is not. Maybe all these constructs that I have built around me to help me cope with what has been and what will be, will crumble away. I will forget how to respond to a smile and a good morning. I will not know how to recover from a slight. I will forget how to be kind and not even know how to begin to forgive. That practice that I had learned to release and let go, that too will have shifted away somewhere. My brain feels far too fevered for comfort. This question is so cliched that I metaphorically roll up my eyes ev

On watching the latest X-Men movie

We, the mutants, have been mutated to save mutants and non-mutants and now, somewhere in the past, the Sentinels will be created who are better-looking mutants and will kill us mutants in the past mutant life and the future mutant world and here, mutant, there, mutant, and everywhere, mutant-mutant. Humanity needs to be saved because they are infernal non-mutants and they shame mutants and us mutants have to unite and save ourselves and also save blue Mystique who looks like a human mocktail that is served when restaurants run out of Pina Colada. I, Wolverine, am best mutant and our Brit man mutant played Gandhi but you would never know it and its just as well because you being non-mutant will not be able to digest this fact. ************ Okay, so I'm not a fan. But I did enjoy it because I was going for a late night movie after SO long! And I did enjoy the blueberry frozen yogurt with the butterscotch and berry toppings at E-Square. E-Square also surprised me by giving 3-D gl

Feels big

I love that feeling when you get started on a new book and you just know it will be immense. It will fill you up until you get stitches on your side and your mind will swell to altitudes you never even dreamed of looking up at. I have this feeling now as I read 'The Last American Man' by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Parallel Lines

The day ended. It did not give Harsh a chance to collect himself after reading the email.  His boss, Cezanne, was upset. She called him incompetent and an imbecile who could not string together five short slides for a presentation despite being given all the help required. This email was sent at 8.00 p.m., one and a half hours after official closing time. But there was nothing official about this cesspool of a law firm. Harsh was too tired right at this minute to snap. While he finished off his soggy shwarma roll, he thought about his response which he would draft and send the next day. "Dear Cezanne, 'All the help required' that you mention was a ten second brief from you whilst I washed hands after doing my business in the loo and you hollered outside. Assistance was also provided by our legal head, your husband,  who instructed me to:"...do whatever the mad woman tells you to." Over the last 3 days and over 30 hours I have put together the various m

Long enough

You wait long enough and the dispensabilility of that and those one has moved on from, surfaces. Or as one is taught in yoga - hold that pose.

On a perfect day such as this

It's dark, moist, cool, and wonderful outside.  Trees sway, leaves tremble, tiny, colourful blossoms shiver tucked into strong boughs. I have just woken up. Eyes still heavy and breathing still deep. Across, the netted verandah door seems like a portal to a land that's endless. Time flows from my room to the outside, on a steady stream of grey. Along the continuum of a dream. I plan to go. Merrily, merrily, merrily.

Prayer

Last night, I sat on the terrace and prayed. There was a big, shiny full moon that floated somewhere behind tall trees and gauzy clouds. I was feeling sapped and confused. I prayed that it must all make sense to me. Or else I must be free of this urge where things have to make sense to me. And here's what came to me...that it's time I got myself off the hook.  That , like the sea, time will have its ebbs and flows and will leave behind dregs of what was once beautiful. That friendships will end, passions will dim, furies will rise, breathing will be choked, ideas could be invalidated, identity may be rejected. But none of that may be because of me. At times, one does nothing more wrong than being a pearl before the swines.

sundown

that love comes up to me. shining down on the road, trembling through leaves, but not lighting up anything really. with a murmur that is muffled, soaring on melody that is sighed out. that love comes now with pain and choked heart and unshaken compulsion. that love comes...like unfinished business.

Does it feel like that somedays...

...that you are the road and someone else is traveling you?

Witness to my life

I think it was Virginia Woolfe who said something to the effect that marriage was necessary because everyone needs a witness to their life. Why I quote, or misquote Woolfe, at 7 a, m. on a Sunday after zero hours of sleep...I don't know.  Or actually,  I do. It's this picture right there. That's one of the three wardrobes I set to arranging last night. That's probably one-fifth of the clothes I own. Clothes...managing them...is posing to be bit of a situation. I have given away clothes copiously to people...the help mainly, sometimes for relief activities,  and at times to kind friends who have liked a certain top or a skirt and haven't minded a hand-me-down. I still don't understand how the pile seemsto grow so much. I think they procreate inside the wardrobe once its shut. Often, I have this sinking feeling that the situation is uncontrollable. Just getting a shelf in order proves chaotic. But all of last night, I spent making spicy oats and chai and cleari

Evening

Spicy sent of almost rain.             Clouds grey like a gentle gaze.                         Lavish bunches of lettuce and foresty broccoli.                                     Evening - spicy scent of an almost day.

What I would recommend and what I would not

1. Had Red Bull and coffee late at night. Slept very fitfully with a burning sensation in my stomach and nausea. Avoid. 2. Had masala macaroni. Plain boiled curls with chilli powder and the masala for Bisibele Bhaat. Very, very good. Try it if you are not a purist. 3. Curd rice made with brown rice. Interesting texture. I added a few green olives and chilli flakes to spike the taste a bit. Works. 4. If mangoes are ripe but a little sour, having it mixed with vanilla ice-cream and a little bit of mixed fruit or pineapple jam helps. 5. Sometimes, after yoga class, I feel really parched. It's a strange kind of thirst. Water, even cold water doesn't quite cut it. One day, I had some diet coke with a wedge of lemon and a sliver of really spicy chilli. It was so beautiful. I sipped it in the car looking at a new moon. Definitely recommend. 

Cubicle Zen 2

It goes away somedays. The anxiety,  the fears of having missed out on smeling all those beautiful flowers - and you wait out endless summers for the backyard to be less barren. Long hours of sleeplessness, grafted on the wings of the bird that is tucked away in its dry nest right now but will fly away tomorrow. At dawn. A cane basket with books. Sweet fruits. Pale yellow eggshells. Somewhere else, a storm moves through a village. Breaking nests. Tearing books. What I have seen in Denver. Across the empty sky, large paintbrush strokes. Clotted with purple, pink, green, and yellow clumps. Slowly softening as condensation mists over. Sunset. Monday morning. A movie plan for Friday night. Monday evening.  Checklist for exotic groceries for scrumptious Saturday brunch. Tuesday afternoon slump. Game plan for lifelong project to begin Saturday night. After a dinner of very healthy steamed broccoli,  asparagus, and cup of mushroom and potatoes mashed with garlic, butter, and cream.

Cut my hair short so...

1. Shampooed and dried my hair in under 5 minutes. 2. Fingers worked well. Didn't use the comb. 3. Summer breeze on an open neck feels brilliant. 4. Spraying perfume on the neck feels cold and tingly in a nice, non-horror way. 5. One has discovered the neck, the way one discovers the smoothness of a heel after a pedicure. It's a happy feeling. 6. A personal preference – short hair goes far better with saris than long hair. 7. Much time has been saved that was earlier spent looking for scrunchies, tying hair, untying hair, loosening knots, swishing the hair about in appreciation when it wasn't knotted, etc. 8. In the time that has been saved, one is considering taking up carpentry. 9. Ears look nice and open too. 10. Next step, at some point - clean shaven.

Khichdi, almost

I returned from Mumbai tonight to find that my cook hadn't cooked anything. I had specifically told her to but she hadn't.  It is going to come up in a stern conversation tomorrow.  Anyway,  not only was there no food, there were no vegetables or salt either. That's the really annoying part about my cook- she never tells me that we are running out of something until we have actually run out. So, on a night when I want to have a cup of creamy porridge is when I'll find out that there's no oats. Or when I have my 2 a.m. coffee is when the milk won't be found or the sugar jar will be empty. But milk, sugar, and oats is still okay to run out of. Salt, well...that posed to be a bit of a problem. So here's what I did: took some green moong daal, some brown rice, and soya nuggets. Then, I mixed them together with some mustard oil, salt, sabzi masala, and hot water. To this, instead of salt, I used dark soya sauce. After mixing it all together well, I pressure coo