and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 

and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

- E. E. Cummings

gratitude

At having parents who, when told timorously about plans for travelling with friends 'round country at two in the morning, react not with apoplectic 'What? How? Why?' but a matter-of-fact, 'Okay, you're gonna need a thicker sweater.' And Mater, of course, begins knitting one immediately.

At having sister who spies with merciful eagle eye injured dog in the rain and instead of walking on, bundles up in car to nearest vet.

At being able, despite infinite capacity to procrastinate and Carpal's wrist and a thousand, thousand excuses, to make some dough. At being able, in short, to remain relevant. =)

At knowing wise and lovely people who send in beautiful, thoughtful things every now and then, just because.

At having more reasons to love than to not.

four-letter-word

Realise with a shock have been thrown into the deep end. With the kind of lucid terror only midnight brings, see now that I do not walk, I wade.


(When it rains, as they say, it pours.) 


Breaking the easy surface of these shrugs already are clammy fingers that will keep heart enclutched, for who knows how long. Under cover of those casual, casual laughs is bubbling over what shall soon flood into shoes and leave standing, irrelevant. The coolth of the water now, hides how swiftly it rides. 


High time, high tide. And true to nature, it stands not on ceremony. In now for already too long; am soaked. 


The only thing that can be done is to still. Clench stomach, curl toes, grit teeth. Switch the autonomous nervous system into overdrive and pray, pray that when one is done drowning, there shall be air left to breathe, and sense left to let it in. 


Such elaborate, futile caution; hands tremble. Gloves cannot contain it. =)

Ami Amo

There exist certain persons who are able - with nothing more than inherent light and native sweetness - to turn the heart over and around. Persons who one may meet after twelve years and yet pick up that last thread of conversation that hovered about a rusty gate, a pinching competition, or another Mario level.

One must guard against pride, cocksurety, and ignorance just as hard as against indecision, self-pity and often - what we think to be - love. But when said persons walk back into the daily scheme of things - if only long enough for some ginger tea, some levity - keeping things at bay becomes irrelevant. There is, for a while, no further need for walls, fists and scowls. Said persons remind us of who we were, where we are likely to be, and reillumine that ghost of Ithaca.

This being the right moment to ask you to remember to thank whichever god you believe in or don't, for creating said persons who bring back from obsolescence, that much abused token of

Friend. 

longue durée

And its ineffability. Not the absence of Foresight; merely its irrelevance. Which is to say, thank you, those who stick around when there's nothing to stop you from leaving. 

a little indulgence

janus

Sick to gills of 

prevarication 

hyperventilation 

circumlocution 

pretension - 

Balking at 

reef-knots 

cross-stitch 

knit knit 

purl purl.

Torch down your cave falls on nothing. No diamonds in your cobwebs. You can have your darkness and eat it too. Your messes, your trifles, your grey gooseberry dreams. Build your fortress, one paradox at a whine, and pout and stay put.

You, I want. I want, you. 

I want to drink your light in. 

The irradiation off your teeth teeth, 

the light that catches your iris, your luminous 

scrupulous skin. Come in, come in.

You threw me

In so deep, I'm struck mute. Wanting nothing. But Desire lit; now keener than a toothache. But desiring no more than that (not even) twelve-hour old smile, like a lamb but for the glint. Coarse, you. And beautiful like a stab, like a gasp. Like a singeing bay leaf, like the throb of vein on a straining forearm, like the smell of moss on a (just rained on) roof. You'll never read this and it's so ridiculous to strike off a month this deathly way, (and for what?) for a glint, a smile not twelve hours old yet.

There is a story to be told, but that must wait. There is your memory to fade, but for now, inane insane must do. Not that you'll know but you throw me back to first loves - इस बहाने अब मेरा चाँद होके नूर आए  - you threw me in, I forgot to breathe and it's so ridiculous because look, thirteen. Thank you thank you thank you (:

seaside stories

We spent a June week near Puri this year. More the need to leave than the need to go somewhere, which gratefully, everyone in the family gets. Slightly itchy around the waistbands if there pass six months without a trip. That's when this first happened, among many others, the one I mean now is how we got on a boat, like every time, to bob up and down an afternoon away on a river. Except this time, slapped out of our siestas by salt that came at our faces like an epidemic of needles. The man grinned, we're here, take off shoes, please. Um, we're going to march into that pile of salt? - no, no, madam, take off shoes please.

We totter off boat, me grumbling mostly - what is this, the Satyagraha? was having such a nice dream too - the sand and salt are sharper than whale teeth, biting into calves, arms, back - should've come as an eskimo, grumble, skin is peeling off - the wind howls, tangible and sour and sticking to ear lobes like lice. We persevere; the man indefatigable. Dunes, look, dunes - stop being so cheerful, grumble. About six feet away, there's a fisherman tossing his nets in, his body pulling back in an impossible arc every few minutes and relaxing again as the net stayed suspended over his head for just a second, before falling into each gentle, identical splash - what is he catching I wonder, rock salt?

This time Ma glares, so I stop, we're almost at the peak of the hill of salt, when with an immense hush, the blinding wind dies down. We were on the other side. And there they were. Two seas and an ocean, the man grins. Without warning each of us runs out in separate directions; Didi is the one yawping, I think.

I try and find the middle of the circle and wedge heels in. Water gushing in, sand scudding away from between toes. Oldest, fondest memory. And that collective roar of oceanic exultation that no shell can quite contain. In minutes, it was probably about fifteen that I stood there, thinking it would be the most natural thing to wait patiently to be swept in. Just listen, Ma whispers from somewhere, just listen and watch and breathe in deeply. Remember it to that last, tiny crystal leaching your legs.

-- This afternoon - last afternoon, it's 4 in the morning holy cow - I finally earned myself a Wacom Intuos 4. Have drawn over twenty things since, but this is today's last. Reproduced inasmuch as can be with the reference image being only a memory and the skill being deplorably slow in progress.

i was probably more sun-burnt.

Life as an anachronism is more ebb than flow - dryer when the face that convinced you you were right changes its mind - but I know this: that for those few minutes that the world stood still, I possessed all.

because twenty must be rung out, wrung dry

A celebrate myself, and sing myself kind of day; as sincerely executed as conceived.

Whatever is out there loves me much. The ride-to had it drizzling right through the sun. While the return had heavier, real rain - but so calm you'd want to sing just to bestir.

Water over Coke, guava over Cheetos, yellow over pink rose.
And so armed, and so assured, a nap beside the pond on singular spikes of wet grass.

Where it needs eyeglass in addition to contacts to realise

that the kingfisher is of the white-throated sort;

who likes to dip into the same ripple and perch back on the same branch to rouse itself.

That the black blots on the lotus leaves are actually moving,

(I'm not insane) and are snails. Ranging from Excess to Excel.

That the sky is virulent but quiet and indigo run dry
that will pounce on you if you can squint out the trees.

That I have just found my new afternoon delight.

And plenty of walking fro and to and not entirely without company because I gave in, because that doesn't matter any more. Commerce too, a little, as new clothes had to be changed (for once for being) - too small. And who can resist chicken and capsicum?

Tried to crave a cigarette, but it's like I pronounced - a smoke can never replace a coke - and so it was settled. What resolutions, what? When?

Back home, all quiet on every front. Pasta and Coke and I settle down, with the sun, for what began as Dr. Strangelove but soon was Meet the Fockers - of which about 30 seconds was funny; exactly what I needed except there was just one thing missing which quietly crept up and made camp on heart.

Pasta, Coke, Movie, Pillow.

And, cat.

Webcam leftovers. Glasses, see.

And lest we forget: cameos by
Ben Harper, Cat Stevens and several versions of Across the Universe -
one of the few that has stayed the same since age six and
twenty certainly won't change my world. =)

There's lots and there's nothing left
but to curl up in the secret place on floor 6 + 1, tonight,

tonight that Cassiopeia, Orion have joined Sirius.

It's past midnight. Aranyer Din Rattir has finished playing. It reminds me again of that stifling beauty of a Ray film. But more importantly, there will be cake soon.

Rewind, oh delirious days, oh lonely years - and stay, stay with me.

Had planned on spending day under the bed but there's a Bharat Bandh so pretty close.
Unlikeliest of people remembered to wish. Fuzzy feeling that won't let me be misanthrope.

So. It's been an hour each of everything desired and I think I am finally ready.
Holyshit, holyshit I'm twenty. =D

when you're not feeling holy

A belief that we are collectively fed - as appetisers to the boiled apples and pulped spinach - is that love sent out is love received. Like the begat begat begat of the NT - except here the blanks are Love - and this principle did not hold true.

Perhaps it was the alternating between indulgence and passive aggression - Let's agree to disagree - whichever the final straw, the world and I have ceased to get along; except, at best, casually. I've tried pretending this away but it's still there, sure as a stump.

One could take this opportunity to burst into tears and curse all humanity and stamp on centipedes at bus-stands. 

Or.
One could take deep breaths out the window, take oneself out to lunch, ending it with a chocolate tart in slowest possible motion; and be grateful in general for the adequacy of being.

For although the heart has been very foolish in its choices, and much too proud to cry, and much too constant to forget, there are reasons to rejoice still. The mind is a more reliable friend, seeking only to absorb, dissect or revel in itself. Indulge this instead.

It's hard to keep clasped that atom of conviction against the world's body of dissent 

- you're not really all that special, just strange. And untimely - 

but it can be done.

If you would only let the lonely pass from being a punishment.

If you could stop to think, instead of squeezing head between indignant hands and running from one distraction to the other; if you can begin to forgive.

I love the world, and it's alright if it doesn't feel the same way. And no, I will no longer wait for it to change its mind.

You can't always git what you want - Thank god for that.

PS: This is not to suggest that status quo is above question and that sociopath is necessarily also genius - only that it's quite all right. =)

Double-Back

No matter how fervently you love him, and no matter how patiently you persevere; however divinely forgiving of errors and sweetly indulgent you may be of him - 

your dog will never learn Boolean Algebra.

Now that you have accepted this, perhaps it is time to reconsider love.

Is not his drool just a little bit annoying? Does not his stoic stupidity (sometimes) push you just a little closer to cracking your ribs?

Silence is only profound to those who choose to think.

sweet and heady

like my love

excuse me, i'm in the wrong room.

I sprint through the world blindly with family-shaped stencil in hand.

Cutting out all excesses, misfits, everything. Of course, nothing except grotesque remains.

Can you imagine trying to grate slate?

Back home I squint through my worldly-wise eyeglass.

The kind that magnifies all exceptions, variations, gradients. Of course, I am never content.

Can you imagine what a rose looks like under a microscope?

Today when you stammered and I asked sorry, what? and you flicked it with three fewer (and therefore less guilty) syllables it dawned.

You were trying to be more accessible. This perverse compulsion to arrest yourself without reason (when is there reason?) was not my albatross alone.


The things we do to make those we love feel safe. And adequate.