On a calm salty evening,
I rest my chin
on Her shoulders
the chill of smooth moon curls
caress them aside,
short breath of anticipation
I play with Her words
flows along my skin,
the malleable trickle of emotions
cool, until you delve
part its folds
caress the depth within
and find the warmth,
that envelops me all around
the solace of loneliness
She talks to me, you know
starts with a whisper,
Her secrets building up,
slowly,
reaching to a crescendo
a little too soon,
the crash, cascade
the final sigh
the calm again...
Me and Her.
Dec 10, 2007
Symphony of the Sea
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Dec 9, 2007
Staah-fish

And like that small story about the difference each of us can make, I tried putting a few back in the water...
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Nov 30, 2007
A Shore Afar

A shore so far
a distance that long
lights of joy
mellow melancholy
a shroud of uncertainty
cloaks hope for the future
and words unsaid
amidst dreams unforgiven
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Nov 29, 2007
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Nov 18, 2007
Stigmata
Hi, and what are you doing?
I’m waiting for the rains to stop so that I can go home and sleep. I’m not feeling well.
What happened, sweetheart?
Oh nothing! I’m just aching all over. I guess it is the strain or work, the change in weather maybe. I need to sleep it off.
I miss you.
But I am here...still talking to you. What did you have that you are now missing?
It began with a verbal duel, an argument for the sake of it. Sparring, only to make up later. She was a strong woman, miles from home, miles from family. In the big bad corporate world, with a few people to call as friends, she knew they were with her in as much as their insecurities as their need for someone who was equally lost. She kept wandering, between groups, between jobs, picking up few people on the way, losing a few.
I wish u weren’t so far away…just one of those days, you know, when the distance does matter.
I wanted to say something to you, but I don’t know if you are up to it.
Go on, please. Say your mind. You know I want to hear every word you think of. Sometimes I wish I was inside your head. Inside you.
Sigh. I don't know where this is going, you and me. I didn’t expect you to call back...after that day. I was ready to accept it that way, the way it ended. I feel it is much wiser to walk away now than later.
He always ends his sentences with three dots. She begins hers with them. They discovered more things that were different. She knew hundreds of English song lyrics by heart. He was more into world music and the rhythm touched him more than the words. She had been a wanderer, studied in half a dozen schools. While, he had had a steady childhood. He told her how they fit those lines by Danielle Steele perfectly well. ‘From opposite ends of the world, they came, trundling their bags, their treasures….’
Right now the feelings are warm. Happy. And I think if we go on this way it’s going to get worse. I’d rather live through the rest of my life with a few good memories than drag it to a point where every thought of you hurts. I really felt like that Sunday, the evening before last. And I don’t think I’ll be able to take it again. It crushes my ego. even though ego is something I can manage...To be told that I am thought of as a dear friend, just a few hours after being told three precious words that mean a lot more.
Ok.
And I really don’t believe in the concept of friends forever...in the sense that I will always feel much more for you.
Seen the future, haven’t you?
She liked the way he spoke, stressing each word out right, as if an accent would be a sacrilege. He liked the way she went off to sleep listening to him ramble about the latest investment deal. She was a morning person, preferring the energy of the rising sun, while he preferred the calm of late nights. She would often wake up with a smile, thinking of the previous night’s conversation and give him a call. She knew he’d be sleeping, but couldn’t resist the temptation of hearing his groggy voice. She felt close to him. His gruff voice felt special, as if it was meant only for her ears. Don’t you have to get up, love?.
Right now our lives have very few things intertwined...like common friends or something, and there aren’t many memories of being together...I think it would be easier to go our separate ways, than later, if we have to.
Isn’t that a big ‘if’?
I’d rather cherish what we had...than fight with you over trivial issues, hurt you and get hurt...
So, this is it then, huh? It ends this way. Just the way it started, over the Internet. Within the confines of a window. I would have preferred being told this to my face. Do you have to hide behind the curtain of this voiceless, faceless interface?
Don’t you have anything to say?
You choose not to notice. I am saying something.
Yes, I know what you mean. I didn’t want it that way. I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t wait till that time.
I don’t think anything I say would make a difference; you’ve already made up your mind.
I haven’t. I am thinking aloud. I am not passing a statement that you have to accept. I am being honest in my words. It is the least I expect from you in return. I was hoping you would say something and convince me otherwise.
I don’t show weakness, not even to those I love. Go, if u must. That is all I have to say.
I’d be disappointed if this happens this way. I would have hoped you try and understand why I am doing what I am. Either agree with it, or fight it. You are doing neither.
And thats the way I am...my parting gift to you, to find solace in any way you want. My silence. It simply means that you can deal with it, the way you like best.
You can be harsh, can’t you?
Can I? Well not as much as you at any rate. And I am not being harsh, I am letting u do whatever you want to. How much easier it can get?
I was hoping you would try convincing me otherwise. I am not doing something I want.
You think you are being wise. I think you’re too afraid. You are pushing your insecurities onto the both of us. On this relationship. I won’t say much. But this is going to be your decision. Solely. To leave or to stay. As for me, I am not going anywhere.
And I don’t feel like staying here, like this, halfway between nowhere. I don’t feel peace. Every morning I wake up I think of you. I yearn for what isn’t mine. You ask for me, but you want only a part. I asked you to take the whole of me. As I am, what I am. Perhaps, it is the way I am. I’d rather not have anything that live with bits thrown at me. You think it is ego, I think it as expecting from life, cos everyone deserves it. I deserve living a full life. A full day. I don’t know how long can one go on living half a life.
Well, then I respect you choice. It is not easy, to take the harder path. I don’t hold anything against you for taking the easier choice.
No, I am not doing that. I take risks too, but when I have a goal of reaching somewhere. With you, I will always be behind. Your life, your social circle has no part for me. I will forever end up being only a refuge in times of turmoil. I don’t see anything else happening. We’ve already had the best there could be between us.
That, my love, you will never know.
I don’t have hope, that’s all.
It is a weird place, the future. But it’s sad, what you said about hope. I didn’t know you would give up so easily.
I don’t think I am giving up. I will have what I have with you. Like you did, with him. Or me, earlier, with her. We are part of each others life. Like you used to say, different parts of a jigsaw puzzle, pieces traded once a while, so as to make the picture a whole. No piece the same, opposites fitting each other, remember? And I see this as just preserving that something we had. It is too precious for me to scar that with bad memories which is what it is turning out to be.
Of course, the future is all bad. Seen it with your third eye, haven’t you? Anyway, I don’t want to argue. Like I said, leave, if you must.
I love you. And you will be that special part of me that will be mine. I won’t part with it, I won’t replace it, I will not share it. Now and then, I will think of us and be glad that I met you. Destiny can’t take that away.
I can’t beg and plead. And I am going to say this only once. I don’t know the future. I can’t promise you it will work out. Or that it won’t hurt. But right now, I can’t say goodbye, cos it’s killing me and I love you too much. So I am going to ask you to stay this once, even though I’ll respect whatever you do. And I will love you.
I love you too much and it’s hurting too much to stay.
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Kunal
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Nov 7, 2007
Oct 26, 2007
There comes time when one wishes one had a friend or an acquaintance who has a direct hotline to God, and to whom you could request or plead to get on it, make your wish come true. Something that you want more than anything else in the world and with as much conviction that wishing it so hard takes away a large part of your soul, that void, somewhere deep inside.
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Oct 8, 2007
Fantasies
Today is official 'Sod off' day. You can tell anybody to sod off and they will. For real.
:D
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Oct 1, 2007
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Sep 28, 2007
Oscar Mania
But this man, I remember one of his earlier interviews on one of those Shekhar Suman shows when he talked about his achievements as a young man, short documentary, ad film maker something, did seem quite impressive. Even then, he seemed more boastful than modest at that time. The last time around, when Rang deBasanti was chosen over Munnabhai MBBS as India's official entry to the Awards, he decided to go ahead and enter the film as a direct entry for the foreign film category, supposedly after the support he got from viewers across India. That was yesterday and then 'Eklavya' gets nominated this year as an official entry and it creates quite a ruckus for being a box office dud of no repute and yet get the nomination. An elated Vidhu Vinod Chopra, now, says people in India need to grow up.
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Sep 18, 2007
City of Djinns
I came across this from here. Some of these photographs also occur in the latest issue of M.
edit: with fond memories of the place...
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Sep 16, 2007
Here, now is where you belong....
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Sep 15, 2007
Ganpati Bappa Morya!!
Religion was something that neither of us in the bunch understood quite well. Except that it was a series of rituals that elders followed. Ganpati was no different. Every year, this time would mean a few elder guys from the row house side of the colony would go door to door and ask for contributions. With that they would build up the Ganpati pandal with a blaring music system, daily evening aartis and prasad that drew us to the spectacle. That, and the chance of shouting Ganpati Bappa Morya at the top of our voice. One day, when we were old enough we decided that we could manage a Ganpati pandal of our own. We used to setup our own pandal on one of these terraces with the help of unused slabs of kota stone with jagged edges. The flattest piece formed the floor while the remaining formed the walls and the roof. The back of the one square foot abode was the parapet wall. We spent hours decorating it with colored paper. Someone contributed the motor that had been salvaged out of a broken remote controlled toy car. A circular cardboard piece colored in bright patterns with our sketch pens was stuck onto the shaft of the tiny motor that was connected to a single pencil cell. This formed the chakra behind Ganpati's head. Tiny electric bulbs from someone's electric play set enabled us to light up the tiny pandal. The idol itself was painstakingly carved from blobs of mud rolled and dried and held together by tiny sticks or paper pins. One big mound over which rested a smaller one, a curved rolled up bit of mud formed the trunk and two flattened flaps made up the ears of the great God. Beads stolen from elder sisters' trinket box made up the eyes.
And every evening, just after dusk, when we heard the chant of the 'aarti' over at the colony's bigger organized pandal, we would gather at our little pandal on the terrace, with a small cup of sweets that would make up the prasad for our little Ganpati. A bunch of four five kids, one of us was the wiser kid who knew the aarti by heart and would therefore guide the rituals. We would light a small diya and incense sticks, agarbattis and chant His name over and over again. After the shouts of Ganpati Bappa Morya had died down we'd greedily divide up the prasad amongst ourselves and gulp it down. Cut fruit, sweetmeats, et all.
One year there was a feud and our group was divided into two. Each decided to have their own pandal on the very same terrace and an unspoken competition was set off with the aim of building the better pandal. That event brought about use of actual cement stolen from some construction site in the colony and therefore better constructed pandals where the air could be kept out of God's abode and the flame of the diya would not be at risk from the stiff September draft.
The dipping of Ganpati into waters was a problem every year since none of our parents would let us go by ourselves and carry the Ganpati to the nearest water body for 'immersion'. It would be left up to one of us to find a family who would take our Ganpati with the family one and immerse that too. Sometimes, when that was not possible, we would gently lift Him and place him in the empty plot of land nearby, consoling ourselves that we were returning him to his natural abode. The pandal would be gently dismantled and we would have the use of the terrace again for our daily evening games. Games with large balls held by the knuckles, 'Monkey in the Middle', 'River or Mountains', 'Sattodiyoo', 'Color, color', 'I Spy', and a dozen others.
Kids. We made up our own games, our own religion, our God and our own politics...
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Sep 3, 2007
By the way, my new maidservant speaks English. Sis did warn me of it when she called to tell me that she’d managed to fix her up to clean the place and wash clothes. Next morning, a Saturday, a groggy me hears the knocking on the door (the doorbell doesn’t work). I get up and peer through the peephole to see a thinly yet cheery woman on the other side of the door. I open it up and I am greeted by a ‘Good Morning’. That drove half my sleep away, my Saturday morning. The next day she took out the newspaper from the latch and handed it to me on the way inside. Bade bade shehero mein aisi chotti chotti baatein hoti rehti hain.
I am enjoying the new house. It is, as written earlier, the first time I have a place to call my own. The cosy one room apartment is something I look forward to at the end of my day. Even as I right now have no means of entertainment, courtesy the broken Thinkpad, I still yearn to get back to it. I have yet to figure out the Internet and the daily newspaper, a fridge to keep milk, water, fruit juice and beer (in that order), a television sometime later this year and a music system. But it has my bed and sky blue bedsheets, the few books Ive managed to keep with myself and a few trinkets. By the next week I shall also have a few potted plants.
And as I stood by the window of my place, watch the rain beating down the tin roofs two floors down, a few words kept looping in my head.
Aazmaale aazmaale aaj khud ko aazmaale
Kashmakash ko chhor de tu,
- Taxi 9211
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Aug 29, 2007
ps
This seems adventurous enough...
an ode to the humble auto rickshaw
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Aug 26, 2007
Meter Down
Hmm...
I need a HOLIDAY!
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Aug 24, 2007
Aug 17, 2007
Anyways, the point being, I wrote earlier about people being everywhere. It can be disconcerting for a lot of people and takes time to get used to. At no point in time, be it early morning or late night will you find tip toe silence in Mumbai. There is always movement and there is always some sound, the trains, the flights, the cabs, autos. People are always in a rush. To get someplace. Get back home, get to the office, to the shopping mall, not be late for the movie or a rendezvous with friends. A friend here told me recently that people don't smile here. Even if you happen to get into a longish eye contact with someone, you merely look away. Scowl, at the worst. There simply isn't time to pause, smell the flowers, as they say. It is a daily fight, from hunger, for a shelter, for power, for money...and for affection, perhaps. Sometimes, you just wish that you could get away from the maddening rush. The crash and squeal as dreams mesh and collide with each other...the city of dreams.
I chose to be here. I chose Mumbai.
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If You Were A Song
I love this one. If you were a song....
I could even float a meme on this.
ps. I'm sure each of the captions are songs. I can name a few. How about you?
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Aug 16, 2007
Street Tales
Last year in Delhi, something similar happened outside the office. That time I helped a blind man cross the street. Then, a couple of cars actually stopped when they saw me, my colleague and the man crossing the road. I could not help but compare that no one even thought of that, here in Mumbai. So much for prejudices.
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In sight, smell, throb and crash...human...
People.
Everywhere.
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Aug 9, 2007
Earlier, I thought I could forgive but never forget.
I think now I can forget, I can never forgive.
Like Janis said...Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...
Balls.
:)
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Aug 1, 2007
Classic
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Jul 3, 2007
Noise
The light is still red.
He will give him a glare.
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Kunal
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Jul 2, 2007
No. 1 is a Delhiite. No.2 is a Goan. No.3 is a Parsi Bava. No.4 is a Kannadiga. No.5 is a guy from remote interior Vidarbha.
Thats Mumbai.
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