Once Upon A Time..

The eagle takes flight. It aims for the zenith. It cuts through the air as it nears its one single vast expansive target. It crosses the field, a field with sprinkles of miniscule ignorant life forms. A gun shot. Dogs bark. The fall of the last of  the kings. The zenith remains unconquered for another day.

                       * * * * *                                             

The fire burns. Hungry. Merciless. Devouring all and everything. An angel of destruction. The fire burns majestically as the dry woods satiate its hunger. Hear the crackles. A child inhales the smoke as he cooks his meal for the day. A sudden strong wind makes the child raise his hand to cover the fire. A fire brigade rushes past the almost empty street. He looks for a while then gets back to his cooking.

                                                                    * * * * * 

Red. The color of blood. The color of the morning sun. The color to cry for, rejoice for. The color of passion and courage. But today it is the color of goodbye. The mothers and daughters play with the “sindoor”. The goddess smiles her frozen smile. She longs to join them but scriptures forbid her. Laws of man chains the strongest of power. May be some day she will, she believes. Is that a tear in the corner of her eye? “Subho bijoya” and they all threw red. I never found out.

                                                                    * * * * * 

“But I have a meeting, please understand. I will call u soon. I am sorry”, the boy hangs up without waiting for her reply. She is sad. She wanted this one to work. But for the past six months things have gone bad and beyond repair. She really wanted this to work. She leaves the keys of the apartment, takes her bags and with a last look, closes the door.

After a few hours and several knocks later, the door opens and a yell of “Happy Anniversary”. The empty apartment welcomes the surprise.

                                                                  * * * * *

The bus stops at the signal. The girl looks out. Her eyes meet the guy’s. A smile plays on both their lips. “Will he remember me?” “Will I see her again?”. The signal turns green. The bus starts.

                          * * * * *

People hurrying past. A chaos in a section, an argument in another. Yells and shouts fill the whole area. The boy looks around hysterically. He’s hungry, he’s tired, and…. and his gaze locks on the face of the most beautiful girl and he forgets everything else. The girl looks up and smiles. Suddenly everyone starts cheering. The priest chants as the boy puts vermillion on the girl’s forehead.

Discovering Shangri La

Life sucks big time. Yeah heard that, been there, (still there most likely). But there are good times, those good moments when life seems, well, heaven. Times when you feel the whole world centers around and everybody works for your euphoric approval. People fussing around you, and u sense that you are the queen of the world. Beautiful smells all around you. Lovely music in the background. And yes they are still busy, to make u beautiful, to make u feel beautiful, laughing, crooning near ur ears about how beautiful u look. But it all comes with a slight price. To know that consult the chart.

Don’t wonder more fellow readers, I went to a Habib’s store today and had a hair cut. And man! I look oh soooo pretty *blush blush*

So when's your date with the angels with scissors? :P

Healing The World - an essay on hope,love and coffee

Few days back, a friend of mine asked me, why do people love when they are not sure if it’s going to last or not, (most times it doesn’t though fortunately/unfortunately). And even though my friend’s question had a point, that point seemed to be in the blind spot of most people I saw. Because everybody was in the mission for love and nothing seemed to hinder the life-straining-tear-ducts-drying pursuit for the One, (or two, maybe three, I don’t know). This hara-kiri endeavor makes me wonder, is a human so fragile and incapable as a solitary entity and feels complete only with the company of another one, and not just anybody, the special branded one. I know human being is a social animal, but this current attitude of desperately-seeking-love seems to limit the social exchange between only two.

Now don’t think I am here to advocate love and preach it’s all mighty power to heal the world and so on so forth. I am trying to see if my theory does make any sense or not Honestly speaking there is nothing new to talk about it. If you are alive then you have felt love once at least.  Love is like a more complex stylish and miniature version of life, very much conditions applied. It’s the hot bath at the end of the day to release those knots on your back. It sometimes even is the morning coffee, (which I believe is the best discovery of man till date, how bland the world would have been without chocolates). Its like the first bite of sandwich after a whole day without food. (yum) So coming back to the question, why love when there is no telling when it goes poof? Sure the morning coffee and the hot bath (even a foot massage) sounds great, but they are not going anywhere till I want to. But love is beyond that restriction. Then why indulge in the self suffering and constant anxiety for the “next is what”? Lets take this example, if you had known what the match on the television would turn out like, you wouldn't be watching it, would you? The suspense keeps u going, makes you wait for the end. The “must see the end” keeps u awake till the wee hours of the morn and you don’t care if you feel sleepy. You stay awake to see your favorite team lift the cup, you cheer and hope that they do, but you also know for sure that you can never be sure. I suppose this is also the we human beings never stop loving, or more accurately, never stop trying to find love. Doesn’t matter how many bad failed relations we have had in our past, what does matter is the one right now, trying to make that work, loving someone, and being loved. Cause we all are blessed with that little thing in us, hope. And so we keep on hoping. hope to have a happy ending, hope to win the match.

So summing it up, if we hadn’t had the hope to bother with, maybe we wouldn’t have loved. If we hadn’t loved we would have never felt the need to make someone happy. If we never had felt that need we wouldn’t have had woken up early in the morning to make that special coffee for the special someone. If we didn’t have the need to make coffee, coffee would still have been a bean somewhere in some forgotten forest. And imagine where would have the whole human civilization be without coffee. Shudder to think about it.

I guess we really owe love a lot. It does heal the world (morning grouches are a serious issue).

School age to Cool-Age

Remember when we were in school? Geeky, clumsy, not sure whether to laugh at a joke or not, and how we all used to go starry eyed about life at college? To us, then, college was like the epicenter of EVERTHING nice and cool. It was where we HAD to be, and frankly, our life did depend on it. We decided then that we had to learn, to be prepared, beforehand, so we pulled up our sleeves (in some cases, we even cut them), and went ahead with trying out their “modus vivendi”. The result was something none of us is proud of (and will carefully omit the next time we talk ‘life at school’). We got caught bunking school. We got caught while coughing after a puff of the forbidden stick. And as the fear of everything that moved still persisted, so though we dared to wear cool belts and colored ribbons or a current hairdo when we dressed for school, we also made sure they were all gone by the time we reached the school gates. We wanted to be something we didn’t have a clue about and we couldn’t wait. The promised land beckoned to us and before we knew, it hit us.

Some one said it damn right, “little information is a dangerous thing” and how wonderfully it proved itself. Starting college the first thing I missed most was the ataraxis; school was a heaven which gave u peace of mind, filled with angels (though, with horns, fangs and claws) who did everything for you. There was no worries about notes or what-will-be-wont-be’s. There wasn’t any temptation to deal with about bunking an important class to hang out with friends, cause u just couldn't. Thus there was no tension about attendance and as a bonus, your nails stayed safe and looking good. (In college nail biting is a catchy habit. TRUE STORY.)  Due to the absence of uniforms, you end up always, ALWAYS being late, cause u can never decide what to wear, cause its either too bright, or too clean, or too old, or just not good enough for the day. It’s a never ending list of “before and after”-s and its heartbreaking to recount as well. Gosh!! I miss my school days, but mostly, oddly, I miss being told what to do. Responsibilities, my dear friend, are damn scary, very scary.

But wait! Lets not forget the crème de la crème of the promised deal : Bunking, the USP of college (or so they said). Lets suppose you got a bunch of college buddies, and u decide to bunk classes and watch a movie the next day. Pretty exciting, huh? Now here’s what happens. The next day two people have tests, one of them feels sick, the other has a private tuition to attend (which he completely forgot to remember when the plan was actually being made), another passes on 'verified' critical comment about the movie being bad. By this time the entire ambience has dropped below sea level and the plan’s cancelled.

Now, like always, we have the tragic heroes, who really wanted to watch the movie but alas! They go home sad. But there IS a happy ending, cause there is always one smarty pants who actually did bunk college and didn’t bother to show up. She stayed home, woke up late, and watched her favorite movie in her pajamas (which, by the way, are never “too” old).

Cheers to all bunkers.

Song of the Night

The night hums its own sad tune,
Remembering the past,its curse n boon;
As she spreads her cloak,from dusk till dawn,
I too find myself,humming her mournfull song...


From the shadows come voices more,
Whispering to me, their forgotten lore,
The wind sings a lullaby near my ear,
Of dreams and hope, love and fear.


The wait for the morning to come, and the dew to dry,
The bird prepares to take flight, with its morning cry,

But someone left last night, someone said goodbye,
And the night sings her song, and I sing with her tonight.

What The Heart Wants?

Good question. And just as all good questions go, this one too is hard to answer. Its not as simple as deciphering the brains wants and demands. Lets turn to science 99. we all know, like a civilized organ, the brain sends out proper signs and signals for the benefit of the concerned human being so that the said human being can act accordingly. Its clean, to the point, hassle free. Now the heart is a different matter all together. Try expressing yourself amid gallons of liquid rushing, swishing in torrents. You wont even hear yourself, forget about some one else getting the message. Of course if u talk fish that’s a different story then. I don’t talk fish as far as I know not even the fish talk fish. So coming to the point, how can anybody understand what the heart wants. Easy to “presume” but come on, presumptions are as perfect as the promises of the dear politicians from 3^rd world countries. and even if the presumption does make a touch down, your heart doesn’t order for my heart dearie, I might want the other flavor of the ice cream. So how do u actually make others believe that what u want is what they want too? Is it really possible to pull it off?? Before u say no, whoa! Ask Farhan Akhtar. Cause he sort of proved it, that it is fairly possible to do that. (yeah homie.. it’s a movie review!)

Watching the movie, after like one year, I saw things I didn’t notice before. It does talk about friendship, yes, but it actually talks about relationships. True we cant really relate to the super rich guy driving a Merc or the philosopher in the body of an artist, but it did give me a quick reminder of what I read in my social studies books. RESPECT ALL and SAY SORRY. The sort of new age friendship rule about “no sorry, no thank you” (seriously! who invents these stuffs!!)  is very illogical. What’s the harm in admitting your mistake, and is thank you like curse or what?? Aakash showed how cool it is to say sorry, (he also made goatee and spikes cool too, but this ain’t a fashion post and I am not a guy, so no comment on that ).

To finish this off, doesn’t matter whether u know what the heart wants or not, just keep those people close who will be there with u despite of whatever your bloody heart wants. After all “dost hai yaar”.. and where will we be without friends. Three cheers for Dil Chahta Hai…!!

FUNFACT : Wifey Kiran Rao made her acting debut in the movie!!!