Chiffonesque

Wrote something on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bemost-definitely-mukta-raut?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish

I am sitting with a cup of coffee, looking out the window. There's a beautiful moon out there.It's not full but it seems like it has been there recently enough (and it has). I've cut my hair really short now and I'm liking it. It will be nice to have a deep, mysterious love affair with the sea. Like no matter where I am, I'll feel the scrunch of sand under my toes and I'll walk in the direction where I find the sea within 15 minutes. Then I swim and do some back floating and then come back to this world. And no one has to know. It will be great if it rains right about now. Please God. Tonight. Let it rain.

This is a set of five short stories, all centred around music and musicians. In one, an aging singer serenades his wife before their marriage ends and their lives take a different direction. In another, a friend has been roped in to save his friend's marriage in an unconventional set-up. In the third story, an older musician couple interact with a young guitarist. As a result, the hollowness of this couple's equation with their own son comes through. The fourth one is a piece between a popular singer and a jazz musician. They meet in a swanky clinic where they have both had plastic surgery done. Although they are both bandaged and can't see each other, they connect through music, play each other's records, hum their favourite songs. This connection takes its time, though. In the final story, a Russian cellist finds and loses his groove through his interaction with an American virtuoso. Each story is so delicately embroidered, so beautifully written - that they fe...

There has been no electricity since 2 a.m. My new, short haircut is keeping me cool but just about. I'm earing a sequinned, flowing sea-green skirt (as a strapless dress) and ate a chilled piece of kiwi. I also made some hot chocolate which was good. Mostly, I've been wondering whether I should buy this book: http://www.amazon.in/Harley-Loco-Rayya-Elias/dp/1408837692/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458859071&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=harvey+loco Also, I've been combing thrrough Elizabeth Gilbert's Facebook Page where I discovered this jewel. I read it often. I intend to read it often. I hope it helps you too: Dear Ones - I'm worried about something. I'm worried about how much we hate ourselves. When I say "we", I mean modern people in the developed Western world, primarily. And among that population, it is the women who hate themselves most of all — who harm themselves, sabotage themselves, bully themselves, undermine themselves, and spe...

I think it's time to slowly put to rest a lot of expectations now. I think it's time to try and figure out a way to move ahead knowing that the apologies and expectations may not come one way. It's time for peace now. Hopefully it will find its way. I am feeling really low now, very nauseous, and very, very sick.  

With a little exasperation, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/may-i-please-ask-certain-gentlemen-out-mukta-raut?published=t

Sex is a lonely planet. It seems that in world we live in, it seems to be much talked about, talked at , than maybe just simply and quietly understood. And perhaps a dimension that ought to be quietly and silently understood gets lost in that vortex of very strong, sure voices. There is one kind of shame and accountability expected from people who, say, are sexually active. Happily so. Depending on who's observing, you may get labelled a certain way. There's another kind of shame and accountability expected from people who are not sexually active. Not because they were so unappealing as to not have choices. Not because there was some memory of deep, scarring abuse. Or maybe there was. But maybe because...and there's no reason after that. This piece, here, is then an ambiguous articulation of why perhaps this might be the case. Maybe because the last time such people may have had sex with the one they loved. When there may have been, yes, the biological hunger, ...

I came across this line and it resonated. "Unless the heart feels secured, the head will never receive new ideas." - Devdutt Pattnaik, My Gita

Some good things that have happened: 1. I think I overcame some kind of a jinx by going for a late-night movie by myself to Phoenix. Watched 'The Revenant' which I loved. I am besotted with the lighting in that movie. The glow of flint, the blue-silver of the river, and snow that's white with a tint of pink...how is it so stunning?! I loved it! Anyway, I returned around 2 p.m. Since it was a Saturday night, there were some cops on the road. They indicated me to pull over. Since I don't have a license and as I was not carrying any money to pay up the fine, I was a little nervous. But they saw me in the car by myself and told me to go on. 2. There's this Reader's Meetup I go to where I met someone who shares my interest in horror fiction. He gave me a book called 'Things that go bump in the night'. Really looking forward to reading it. 3. I finally went grocery shopping and got rice! Rice is just so beautiful! So I got rice and I also got this one s...

I began the year reading this and I liked it. It was a sweet, light read. I was looking for something to read between Bombay and Pune - something that I could finish in the two-and-half-hour car ride. This book sufficed perfectly. Here's a little background about the author: She was an actress and is the daughter of considerably renowned thespians in Bollywood, Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia. She's married to Akshay Kumar, an actor. She was an actress with a rather unremarkable body of work. She gave up acting to take up candle-making and interior-designing and many years later, found her mojo as a columnist. This book is derived from the theme of her columns, i.e. - a famous person's observations as she goes about her mundane life. It's not 'ha-ha' funny but it is witty in places - especially when she talks about her house-help, her mum, and her kids, especially her elder son. I particularly liked a couple of entries. In one entry, she writes about teen...

Jerry Pinto's mother, Imelda or Em as the kids call her, is depressive, suicidal and schizophrenic. The big Hoom is Jerry Pinto's father and Susan is Pinto's sister. This is the story of a family that lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Mahim (a suburb in Bombay) and tackles incidents like attempted suicide, a son who is so frustrated that he calls his mother a filthy bitch one day. The mother who's 'mental' remembers that but pretends that she was out of her senses when she heard it. It's the story that ends with a family having a cup of tea in the memory of their feisty, wonderful mother who they'd just buried. It's the story of Em's illness, how the family copes, and it's core, the togetherness between a woman who fell ill and her husband who took care of her (and everything) until the very end. It's a very moving story and a necessary one to read. There's so much strong and hopeful magic in seeing what all people can endure. ...

This is a real life account of Anita Moorjani's Near Death Experience. She had been suffering from cancer for a long while and one day, had lapsed into coma. The doctors felt that they were losing her. Her mother and husband were crying and pleading with the doctor to try something...anything. But the doctors had given up hope. And the heart monitor indicated death. And Anita Moorjani revived. The book is mainly about this incident and her observations on what she'd seen on the other side. You'd think it would make for fascinating reading but somehow I felt a little underwhelmed. In hindsight, I think it's understandable why. Moorjani isn't a writer. She had had an experience that was profound and well, annihilating to logic and reason and vocabulary. How do you describe an immersion into a feeling of such peace and healing that you know it's love but it isn't love the way you know it? What word describes certainty of goodness? Sure, you call it peace b...

Those denouements of Chekhov, Those dirges of Flloyd, Where do you contain all those echoes, Of the vastness and the void.     (How would you visualize this verse?)

It's enough I think...my procrastination and all that. It's time I just sit the hell down and work on what I want to work on. Last night, I panicked. I felt like I would die without doing anything. Anyway, so that's why I just sent a mail telling some dear friends that I won't be in touch with them until the end of the year. It just seemed the right thing to do.

Had headed to Parel in the afternoon...dappled sunshine and a lovely tree and an old building with many flats. 'Teeming', I believe the word is. The sun is doing an 'ice-cube in hot water' routine. And that bus you see is a double-decker one. I loved those. Ooh! This is when we got to Aer - the club on the 34th flor. This is my city with its spine of light. Aer has two parts. One side has the view of Marine Drive, which is a prettier place to sit. But it was crowded. So we sat on the other side but I went by to take a few pictures. Large and glitzy through the window. That bright shiny thing on the side is the moon. All that sky we're busy scraping There's just one kind of a light where the machines will look beautiful! Amidst all that sky and those pretty little light, a structure choked with teensy cubes where lives are being lived out and worked through. Black and yellow cabs and the Mumbai myth Black and y...

March feels like a fresh start. It feels like a different kind of start though - I understand that there is a fair bit of residue from the past but it's manageable. So much is uncertain now that it's really good to just stay focused and pay attention to one thing at a time. In other news, it's just splendid to pay attention to my plants in the balcony. There's a plant that earlier have pretty white flowers but today it just grows sturdy and green. In fact, it's become so tell that I actually have to tiptoe and sprinkle water on top of it. Another little mogra plant has displayed shy, reluctant blooms. And when I would bend down to break away a tiny, brown-tipped leaf, I'd get the faint scent of a bloom. Today the strong, slow sadness crept up again. But I think I am getting better at handling it. So I just chatted with a very old friend, breathed in and out, and then let it be. It has helped but there is pain. 

There's a quote that goes, "What can't be said, will be wept." Though some unshed tears may play a different part They'll find the splotches and strokes and paint And who knows? A city will get it's art.   - A tiny ode to the one thing that Delhi's done right recently!   http://www.thebetterindia.com/47808/street-art-india-foundation-lodhi-colony/