Stamped.

He speaks volumes,

Of each facet,

Unexplored,

Unexplained,

Leaving just a window,

Slightly ajar,

I take a peek,

My mind alive; anew,

I am led...amazed,

Mesmerized, allured,

Into the dungeons of time,

And space,

Awake, aware,

Stumbling into the unknown,

Willing, Wanting,

Unfaltering,

Each sense heightened,

Each thought processed,

In awe,

Of life and what we choose to make of it.

His voice clear,

Unwavering,

Pushes me,

To plunge to the depths,

I dint think existed,

Only to rise again,

To the heights,

I never dreamed possible.

And in the intricacies of the rise and fall,

I hear my thoughts,

All my own,

Not stamped by approval;

Not colored by upbringing;

Not falsified by love;

Not pressured by circumstance;

Distinct in its birth,

As perhaps, 

In its death,

Leaving me alive,

In its wake.

Change.

    Truly, the only constant in life is Change. Like it or not, believe it or not, embrace it or not. Each day brings with it possibilities aplenty to accept and prepare for. The choice as always rests in the person who stares back at you each morning in the mirror. Change can be expected, unexpected, terrifying, stupefying, life-altering either for the better or the worse. Depending again on the kind of person you really are. The battle often lies in that very reality, knowing who you are.
     It often amazes me to think why we fear things. It seems rather ironic. Since the day we are born, we constantly keep changing, unconsciously, consciously, a response built in to survive. Yet, when change presents itself to us, the instantaneous reaction in most people is fear. We are born to die. That is a fact of life. But what is also equally accepted is what you do in the interim as a person is what defines you. So if life decides to throw a googly at you, now and then, the best you can do is chin up and face the task at hand. Do it to the very best of your capacity, to the very best you possibly can and leave it be. Because at the very end of the day, this life, this one life you have as you is truly precious, truly worth living to the fullest, truly worth being thankful for.
    And as the wheels of my life spin on in frantic pace, I wake up, a day older than the night before. I hope in earnest that I live this life, as well as it deserves to be lived. Change being my (and the) only constant. 

Rambling on. A lazy friday evening...and me.

   Lying on a bed, white sheets, mattress, drapes, walls. Awake and yet asleep. Watching hairspray, the movie. Thinking, then not. Dreaming, some.
   Away from home. In a city, I don't fancy much. Alone, even if for a while. Aware.
   So much I want to do. So much. My soul aches, my heart yearns, and my mind tries its level best to anchor this ship, that longs for the wind beneath its sail.
  Often, I gaze into nothing. Silent, as a cold winter day. My heart still singing beneath a demeanour so placid. I watch the seconds turn into minutes and then hours. I wish upon each star, broken and whole.
  For magic, the kind I have always believed in. At each crossroad. I pray for an intervention of a divine sort.
   I believe in religion, my own. No caste or creed. No teacher or preacher. It has taken me a while to get here. And aware that there is a lot more to see, to be. I live and love as I wish to.
    Knowing that the best I can be is still me.

The point of no return.

Words stop,
Voices muffle,
Then cease.

I stand,
I watch,
I stare.

Time moves on,
Ticking,

The silence,
Looms large,
I sense it,
I see.

The crest,
The trough,
This thing,
We call life,
All remain,
A memory,
In the mind,
Of only,
The very hands,
Of time.

To what avail,
I wonder...

So as long as I can,
Both,
Kick and fight,
I live,
I love,
I strife.

Until...
I reach the very point,
The point of no return.

Silence.

Efforted, yet simple. Free flowing, caressing, loving. Seeing, like seldom seen. Honest, with no pretense. Seeking  and finding.  A voice, with no volume. Clear in its birth, certain of its course, unmindful of its death

The darkness, the light. The good, the bad. Boundaries diminished. All knowing, complete. The constant chatter, selective uptake. Making sense of nothing. Making nothing of sense.

Watching; like a cat its prey. Touching; like cold water on a hot day. Comforting; like a warm meal on a cold night. Understanding; like a mother, the wail of a newborn child. Quiet  in the madness. The din in the quiet.

Pristine, sparkling, all forgiving.

And then shyly, albeit with a sparkle in her eye, returns my sanity.








. 

Snippets of time.

My customary bus ride is in progress. We make our way from the Delhi's international airport to our alleged five star abode. Comfortably nestled between my rock and the window. I sneak my usual peak at the world outside.

The roads are wider. Cars zoom past, or so it seems from my rather safe ride. There is the usual Delhi chill in the air, not uncommon for this time of year. The yellow crescent moon stares at me, through its clouded haven. We greet each other in our usual silence. Grudgingly, I shall admit, Delhi is cleaner. More green and yet more barren. High- rises non existent, giving way to  independant structures.

The usual din of my loved city absent, and pedestrians a figment of my far fetched imagination.

People chat in hushed tones around me, people snooze. While words lull me into their spell, I gaze. And catch myself doing what I do best. I dream.

The spell broken by the familiar creak of the gate. I wake to the reality of my existence.

My Grandmother, My Friend.

The fourth year, since Ammamma passed. October 1st 2007. A day etched in my mind forever. Saying something predictable like I loved her, though true, seems to fall short of the intrinsic connection I shared with her.

We became friends and like friends we had our share of secrets, our share of anecdotes, our unique perspectives to certain things and most of all, our shared love for the written word, be it poetry or prose.

She was without doubt, a far superior writer to me. And for all my living days, I shall truly believe that to be true. Since she had such a firm grasp of both languages, English and Malayalam, she comfortably wrote in both. And since Malayalam though my mother tongue, remains for me a bit of a mystery. English became my ally, my companion.

She read my first poem, when I was too shy to let anyone read my work. Actually way before I even called it my work. I still have some of the letters she wrote to me on that blue inland paper, her running hand in ink, I cherish those pieces of paper, suitably aged with time. There is a poem in one of them, which was sent to me,  on the eve of the new millennium. A poem left open ended, one she wanted me to complete. One I dint.

I remember her, as I shut my eyes, in a variety of homes at different stages of her life. My first memory of her is as early as four or five. I see her, in her large floral printed saris, bustling around in her rather large kitchen, in what I will forever know as the 'Khar house'. She and me weren't exactly friends then. From my end there was little interaction, a certain amount of apathy even, as my world centered around my Ammacchan (my grandfather). My relationship with Ammamma began only after we lost Ammacchan to a massive heart attack when I was about six. Back then death wasn't something I understood. Yet I sensed the finality of it, and just knew he wasn't coming back, based on the look people wore around me. From that moment on 'white'  became Ammamma, she lost her floral saris and her black hair (much to my then amazement).

Our friendship began when she moved to Madras. Her first house was next to the beach, I vaguely remember it...the hall, the bedrooms, the balcony. Madras became our summer spot, the irony of which was lost on me back then. But, Madras with its mad heat and delicious food, became our much awaited trip after the routine humdrum of school. I will never forget how my brother and me, lapped up her stories (mostly true) with sheer delight. Like most grandmothers she had a penchant for telling us stories, the details mostly from her childhood, and her growing up alongside 7 siblings, always had us glued. My favorite story, however, was how Ammaamma and Ammacchan got together. Love marriages back then being a rarity. The magic of love, fueled by my active childhood imagination, presented to me a thing of absolute wonder.

She had her many strengths, which included her immense will power to complete a task at hand, be it a monetary issue or a personal one. She single-handedly got two of her unmarried children settled. Invested wisely, from someone who depended completely on her husband, even with respect to checking accounts, she became astute and self reliant. No mean feat that. She was kind and generous. She had her flaws too. But none of this really mattered to me, back then. In fact, all the understanding I have now, comes from coming into my own. Then her reservoir of stories, and delicious fish curry had me hooked.

I was soft on her, yet the teenage years were the years that our friendship blossomed. Much like any adolescent girl, I had issues with my mother. We, Ma and I, could barely go a day without arguing over something ridiculous. Summer vacations became a time to vent for me, who better to complain to, than Ma's Ma. Ammamma heard me out patiently, never took sides, and spoke to me with a lucidity I could understand. All this meant so much to me. She channeled my wild imagination and umpteen emotions, by urging me to write.

And that is perhaps how I developed the fondness for the written word. No matter how mad I got, or how happy, or how secretly thrilled, my pen and paper stayed by me. Giving me a perspective unlike any other. As I wrote, I realized, I enjoyed it. I shared this love with her. I read some of her work, an article she had written about Kashmir when she was young, had resulted in, her receiving a letter from Lal Bahadur Shastri. She cherished that letter. And, I for one, was so inspired, and so proud of her. Her poetry was effortless and flowing. We could sense each others moods, observe the others quirks without being judgmental. It was comforting being around her. We had languid afternoons, peppered with conversation and food. She encouraged me to think outside of me.

As I got older and time played its usual tricks. Our friendship stagnated. I had less time, and my lovely city, and its people had me hooked, summer vacations became rarer. Yet, we spoke on the phone, but it never felt the same as physically being around each other. We had, by then, forged a deep understanding of each other. I was sometimes the channel through which Ammamma and Ma, sorted their differences. This time the irony was not lost on me.

There are some days when I picture her sitting on her favorite easy chair, a smile playing on her lips, her eyes revealing the intelligence that lay behind them, content and happy. Today, older and a person in my own right, I realize I would have had so much more to share, to say. I miss her so. I wish we had more conversations, more time.

There is a wonderful gift, that she left behind though. My love to write. There have been bad days and great days. Sad days and happy days.

But my pen and my paper make them all bearable. And I have only one person to thank for that. Thank you Ammamma. I miss you. And truly hope you are in a happier place now. I love you.




 

The beauty of the mundane.

A lazy Monday morning. I woke up an hour too late, with my workout pending, and my mind lazily chewing on the nuggets of time. I sneak a peak at the world outside.

The birds are busy, purposeful, much like they have deadlines to keep and places to be. The watchmen sit on their rickety chairs, watching the world go by. The children, i see, seem thrilled, with school bags on their backs. A rare sight. My much cherished household help, fills me in on her life, as I seem intent to write.

I realize the bell has rung a time too short today. I missed the bread man. It seems I have these varied men in my life, without whom a morning, lazy or not, is incomplete. The day begins with the regular thump of the newspaper outside our door, by our trusted newspaper man, a signatory bell may or may not be rung or heard (much like today). Followed leisurely by our bread man, who on most occassions has a brown bread packet in his hand, prior to me even opening the door. Yes, we are that predictable. Then comes our dearest housekeeping man from the building, to collect our day's trash. A man of very pleasant disposition, and an easy smile. The routine number of bells is three over a span of two hours. Yet, the abscence of any one of the three is enough to get us in some kind of a tizzy on most occassions. There were two other men wanting to join this soiree' of sorts. The milkman, who was very disheartened that we preffered packaged milk over his 'fresss milk from cow'. And the washerman, who again, was not very kicked about our affinity for the laundry instead.

Its lovely to even have the comforts of these varied services at one's doorstep, and this is something we really ought to be thankful for. Just ask our foreign counterparts about the difficulty in procuring household help, even. Yes, that does make them self reliant and perhaps more able. There are positives aplently each side, and of that I am aware. But the least we can be is thankful. I, most certainly, am.

On a day like today, the mundane seems so comforting. The familiar sound of the spinning fan, the clean cool floor, the drape drawn darkened rooms, and this wonderful thing called time. Make a lazy monday morning, now spilling into the afternoon, a thing of beauty. Something charmed and blessed, in its existence even. And to be enjoying it in the confines of a city like Mumbai, and in the four walls of our own home, makes me content and yes, repeatedly, thankful.

Some alternate busy Monday morning, jetsetting, losing out on sleep, waking up in new places, without the familiarity of your own bed and bath, and for most others without family. Makes me sit up and take note of a morning as idle as this. And immensely grateful.

I stretch, I preen, and I gear up for the bout of activity to follow.