A mirror...

Today I was a mirror...
clear, like the most virgin lake...
smooth like the finest silk...
shimmering like the brightest star...

Today I was a mirror...
hit by a wayward rock
rippled like a torrid sea...
and as the cracks spread to every part of me...

I fell..

fell to the unforgiving ground..!!

my shimmering pieces,
spread far and wide,
like the traveling tears of a lost child

The perfect sunday

The perfect wake up: A call from dad, saying how much he loves me

The perfect meal: Scrambled eggs, cooked to perfection with the purity of onions and the ooze of eggs accompanied by self-cooked burning hot paranthas

The perfect afternoon: watching the rerun of roadies followed by a session of "jane tu..ya jane na"

The perfect relaxation: An hour spent in the bath pampering yours truly.

The perfect blow-dry: jumping full hilt on top of the bed to "Have a nice day" by bon jovi at a volume high enough to make the windows vibrate.

The perfect romance: A slow motion dance in the arms of my giant pink teddy

The perfect moment: Reading lolita, curled up on the sofa waiting for the crazy colour on my toe-nails to dry.

The perfect Sunday: All of the above rolled into one day.

#Sherry#

Midnight exploits of the wandering maidens

My day started at 5pm today.. no, that was not a typo. It was a late lazy 'p'.
Of course that was partly because last night had ended at 7am, with a helping of Lolita and a dash of Salman Rushdie. Add to that an utterly spectacular spell cast by the "Illusionist" at 4am, and you can understand my late resurrection.
Anyway, I opened my eyes to an empty flat(except if you count my in-her-romantic-world, glued-to-skype rumie), an empty kitchen and emptier tummy. Luckily I found a half full packet of maggi in some obscure cupboard in the living room, which I quickly turned into a sumptuous break-lunch-fast.
What followed was the usual weekend fare of lounging on the sofa, aimlessly switching channels and basically waiting for the torture to end.
On a sudden inspiration, I raided the fridge and decided to cook "the house special" aloo beans :slurp: :sigh:, which when paired up with spicy pudina chatni(which I found hidden in some obscure corner of our powder blue fridge) and ghee drenched slices of bread, served steaming hot, and accompanied by the finest chilled pepsi "my can", was the feast-de-glory.
But the best part of the day was yet to come. After dinner, I along with my three rumies(who had finally taken a break from their busy love lives), went out for a walk. Whistling and singing, both completely out of key, and dancing like drunkards, we made our ways through the lighted, empty, 11:30 pm streets of our township, towards the all night cafe for an after-dinner sweet tooth indulging session of steamy gulab-jamuns and slurpy ras-milais. Tavi had this sudden idea and whipped out her blackberry for an impromptu photo-session. And so, we posed like school kids, prancing around all over the place, laughing like a bunch of crazies and vying for getting into the frame. On the way back we stopped in the deserted park and draped ourselves on the stone benches like Egyptian princesses of lore and their hulky bodyguards(complete with the seductive pout and the body-builder poses),all for the camera's benefit. We brought a fitting close to the day(yup it was midnight), by going to the childrens' park and transforming into 5 year olds, running after each other, climbing the spider net, almost upsetting the sea-saw and having a competition on who could ride the swing higher. A couple of whistles from some guys on a balcony high up, prompted a string of the choiciest lakhnavi galis from neha, and fits of laughter from the rest of us as we finally made our way back to our flat, singing typical shadi-type punjabi songs and doing our own version of the bhangra.
And here I am curled up on the comfy diwan in the living room(my rumie is back to her skype in the room and i don't like to disturb her, and anyway i like the diwan a lot more than our bed)under my favourite cuddly soft blanket with the fan on full-blast, and the windows open to the world below, with a satisfied smile on my face at last, writing this post, waiting for the download to complete, so that i can get to watching the movie of the night. A day well slept and a night well spent...

A scarf in the wind

Today i am a scarf swirling in the wind..
without aim, without purpose, without a care in the world
I blow, alone, but free..higher and higher i go
and on me..as the greens and blues splash the yellows with a helping of red and there hidden just under them..dancing to its own crazy tune is a dash of fresh violet
aaaah!! how good the wind feels so high up as it touches me inside out..
just how perfect the sun looks from up close, look how I make it blush as I blow it a kiss
as the world below me disappears into little specks, I am free at last..stringless guiltless painless.. just another scarf in the wind :)

I notice.. I wonder

I am sad.
I am sitting on top of my friend's desk in my white bay. My work here is done, but I have to wait for my blasted hip-hop class, where I happen to be the worse student, but for which I enrolled in some moment of temporary madness
I notice that the shiny leather on my not-so-old pair of black heels is coming off at the tip.. I wonder whether that happened, across the sleek floors of the office or on the ragged rock-strewn ways of the railway station, I cross every night to get home?
I look up to notice the people around me laughing... I wonder why a crowd is the loneliest place to be in sometimes?
I turn to walk away, its time for my dance class. I notice him sitting there, typing away at his computer.. I wonder why I felt sorry for him, when all he had to say was "keep your opinions to your self"?
I turn away and rush towards the lift. I notice that I have pressed the button for ground,. I wonder why I did that, since my class is on the 2nd floor.
I rush out of the building into the open night, the dance class forcibbly forgotten. I notice its cold enough to make me shiver. I wonder why I am not taking the warm red shuttle parked next to the main gate, and am instead walking the mile and a half to the gate, shivering in my rickety heels?
I notice the darkness, the cars zipping by, the bikes zooming past, the couples laughing, the shuttles stuttering.. I wonder why all this seems to be part of an uninteresting background today?
I notice the scores of little holes all around me on the road, and I wonder why is it that everytime I walk so carefully, my heel always ends up getting stuck in one, while today when I am walking like I don't give a damn I clear them, like they were never there..
I have reached the gate. I notice dozens of auto-wallas vying for my attention... I wonder who is this girl under my skin who is standing here and bargaining like a wizened old woman, when all I care about is getting to that bed to collapse on and cry my lungs out..
I am in the auto and I feel so listless.. like nothing in the world matters.. I notice that a tear just rolled down my cheek.. I wonder why I don't have a clue about when or what happened to made me this sad...
Its a red light and my auto stops with a shudder.. I notice a begger next to my auto trying to get me to put a few coins in his torn cap.. I wonder how he manges not to let them fall out of the numerous holes?
The light is green now, but we are moving slowly with the crowd.. I notice a group of saree-clad women in vibrant greens and jumpy oranges look down at themselves self-consciously as they get their picture clicked in front of a monument of red rocks.. I wonder if the seeing the picture later would make them smile, or would they wish they had done something different?
I notice that the traffic has thinned out and the lights are silent on this stretch of the road.. I wonder how much longer I can hide in my darkness..
I notice the driver of the truck in front driving erratically in the wrong lane.. I wonder if he'll pass a drunk test if a policeman stops him..
The last thing I notice is how soft the crunch of glass sounds as it crashes into a million pieces.. I wonder why it draws so much blood?

I don't know...

I don't know why it is so torturous to know that he is happy loving someone else, while I find it impossible to even imagine being in love with anyone else...

Happy Ending..!!

Had a long day at office, quite literally..was the last one to leave the bay..at a drop dead 9 pm!!!
By that time,
my kohl had melted from my eyes onto my cheeks and hands, from all that continual rubbing, waiting for the bugger of a job to run..
my eyes and my shirt had become the same shade of pink..
It had taken me 20 minutes to notice that the earphones plugged into my ears weren't playing anything 'coz the IPOD's battery was long dead..
I had reedited the same job twice, 'coz I found it difficult to differentiate between OPS_CAD and OPS_IND..

In short, I knew it was time to pick up my heels, and put on my bag and lock up the marker.. oops.. I mean pick up my bag put on my marker and lock the heels.. Oh! Whatever..!!!..
So, anyway, I was staggering towards what looked like the lift door, when my teammate offered me a lift to the auto, something I was in no position to deny.
Off I went on his brand new red HOT!! I mean Black HOT bike. And trust me, there is nothing like a ride under the stars on a fast bike to get your sight and your senses back. In short quite a happy ending to a not so happy day :) :) :)

Tonight I saw the wind's magic show
it took me high and dropped me low
it made me its undefeated queen
with a crown the colour of emerald green
Power without bounds i felt
as before me the world knelt
and the stars shone for me alone
as with a fury my hair were blown
as I closed my eye
and let out a sigh
the show came to an abrupt end
i had reached my auto-wala bend..

My Taj...

Her tiny skirt caught on the rusted old seat, as the little boat dipped suddenly. Her pink knee, turned red as it scraped against the much-used wooden floor. But that was too little to keep her still. She was up again, running towards the side of the boat, looking for her favourite place in all the world. Even as the salty spray from the sea stung her eyes and the sharp sun pierced through the back of her head, making her dizzy, she stood there, looking for her jewel, on the other side of the horizon..looking for her Taj...
And there it was, she could see it now. To her tired eyes, the hustle bustle of the Gateway of India was muted. All they could hear was the melodious red of The Taj..her Taj.
Every time their ship came to Mumbai, her 5 year old feet couldn't wait to get onto the lurching boat that would take them to the shore at the Gateway of India, right behind which stood the object of her fantasy. Taj, with its gigantic walls, majestic windows, cool marble floors, leveried waiters who always treated her like the princess she knew she was, and most of all the breathtaking fountain right in the middle of its shiny lobby, which she loved to dance all around, was truly her haven.
And as the boat neared the harbour and the half naked boy jumped over the pier to tie the little vessel to the port, her excitement knew no bounds. Her father had to hold her back forcibly, kicking and spitting, lest she fall off the side and crash against the rocks. As soon as they were at the pier, her parents asked her with a grin, already knowing her innocent answer, "where do you want to go today darling?". And with her eyes bright and her cheeks red, she said, "My Taj".
And off she went sprinting towards it...

Today, that Taj, My Taj is getting ravaged by reasonless men. Its gigantic walls are being blown apart like a pack of useless cards. Its majestic windows are being used as gun slots for shooting down are brave guardians. The cool marble floors are being made slippery with hot flowing blood. Its leveried waiters are being taken hostage and being sacrificed by men who are trying to bring alive their own sordid misshapen fantasies. And the fountain..my pure magical musical fountain is being silenced by the cacophonous disenchantment of a vile death...

PS: This is a tribute to the Taj that I had known, the palace of dreams, the epitome of grace, and to the countless smiles and memories which it gave me and many more like me.. No AK-47 bearing terrorist can kill those smiles or burn those memories...

Broken...

The high walls of a coastless sea
The hidden power of a humble plea
The guilt born in the lap of love
The pain struck by an empty glove

The face reflected in a broken mirror

The distance that grows as you go near
The betrayal brought by an honest touch
The emptiness caused by too much
The tremble of an unshed tear
The bloodless death by a spoken spear
The story told with a silent face
The sorrow writ in a clown’s grace
The world destroyed with a shaken head
The faith that was left for dead
The reasons I look for behind
The pieces that I never find
The wonder at what has been done
The horror and I are now one…

No, I am not still hurt or in love with him, but now I know how it is to be on the other side of the fence... How it feels to break a heart...

PS: Office was boring today..not much to do except staring at a blank screen and listening to Bryan Adams on my friend's IPod. Not that I am complaining, I kind of enjoyed sleeping with the back of my chair pushed backward, my unheeled feet resting on the upturned dustbin and the earphones singing in my ears... , and yeah dreaming about the irresistably hot HR I have been literally oggling at during lunch hour for the last week and a half ;) ;) :D

Weekend sprawls..

I came home with aching feet and a head full of service lines and delivery logs (I couldn't have remembered the steps of logging one if my life depended on it.. but since my job does, I just spent the whole day trying to rattofy it)..collapsed onto my huge teddy, took off the killer heels and closed my eyes. Images of the weekend just gone by came flitting through and brought a much needed smile...

5 pairs of funky shorts sprawled on the floor..eyes glued to the lappy screen, as a single coke bottle passed hands...

The shared guffaws at abhishek's overacting and ooohs at John's sexy body in dostana and yeah..!! the green smoke of jealousy at priynka's hot style

the imprompto full blast dance party at 3 in the mroning..with everything from "kala chashmas" to "kajrare"

The smile just grew bigger as the images of all those cool dudes we discovered on orkut at 5 in the morning went by.. ;)

the sudden wakeup call at 1 in the afternoon...

the marathon to the bathrooms

the hurried facials and the last minute kajal..

and we were ready to hit the malls!!

The window shopping for goods and guys alike ;)

The gorgeous red top and funky new handbag..

Tryouts for dresses we know we won't wear in our wildest dreams, while the helpless shopkeeper watched on..

The bagsfull of household goodies(yup yup I am a girl with a flat now)

Behind an old obscure board..the most delicious chinese food I have ever eaten...I can almost smell it.. :yumm: .. :sigh: :sigh: :yumm:

and the best part... dawdling along the streets of hyderabad at 11 I the night looking for the elusive paanwala..

The knock on the door pulls me away from the swirling red gulkand.. That's my rumies back from a long day... its time to pick up the broom and sweep the weekend under the covers for the moment, along with the empty popcorn bag and the capless bottle of coke..

Confession..

Guys...I have a confession to make. Some of you must have read the blog Freeville, by Sherry Rowl.
Actually, that was my anonymous blog. I know a lot of my blogger friends would be angry and shocked that I hid this from them. But the truth is that there had come a phase in my life, especially my blogging life, when I needed to get away from the sad moping sob that I had turned into. I had to run away from the increasingly depressed posts I had taken to writing. I had started writing as a means of getting away from my pain, but my blog turned into this web that was strangling me in that same pain.

So, Sherry was born. She was bubbly, free and dreamy... The old pre-heartbreak Umang, but with a new zest to dream and survive, with a thirst for life and a hunger for joy.

But now that I am out of my net. I don't need an alias anymore. I can be myself again.
So, here I am..
proud to be free, proud to be a dreamer, proud to be happy...
proud to be UMANG...

Corporate Heels

I sit at the windowsill behind a wall of glass and look down at the flimsy tin roofed huts of the laborers working in the construction site next to my office. I don’t know why I find the sight so enigmatic and relaxing. It’s like I can sit there for hours just looking at the torn clothes and broken boots strewn across the silvery sheets, drinking cup after cup of watery dispenser coffee. But someone is waiting for me at my workstation… its time for implementing another code I don’t understand…trying to decipher error logs more cryptic than ancient Egyptian…remembering file paths longer than my blog posts… Sigh… Welcome to the life of an “Associate Software Engineer”. Yup that’s my new title…gone is the Queen Bee or the doll…It’s ASE now or “Absolute Stupidity Expert”, as I like to call it.

It’s been a mere 4 months and how much has changed…a pair of innocent run-down floaters have been discarded in favour of sophisticated corporate heels. The torn jeans have finally made it to where they should have reached years ago…the bin basket. It’s all razor sharp creases and stiff collars now. The girl who made a friend of every stranger with a single smile, now looks blindly ahead at the distorted image in the shiny doors of a jam-packed lift, feeling like a stranger to herself…

Not a very exciting life is it? Well, it has its moments…like the time when I walked into the store I had looked dreamily at for ages, pulled out my all new debit card and bought an unthinkably expensive pair of shiny black heels. Its another matter altogether that it took me 30 days to walk 30 meters in them without stumbling, and another 10 to get over the violent bites they gave me.

But I am getting better every day. Only yesterday, I climbed a hill of stones in heels…and only yesterday I completed one complete job of ciphers and codes all by myself…

PS: By the way, for all those bloggers who remember me, yup guys, Umang is back to blogging. I know I said I was done with blogging, what with how unbearably sad my blog had become. But, how long can you keep the shark (I would consider it a huge insult being compared to a mere fish, even if its in a proverb ;) ) out of the water. So, here I am with a brand new blog, to share my equally brand new (though not so shining) life. Hope I’ll still have it in me to write something worth reading after the proverbial long day at work.

And for those unlucky (ya I heard the uhms uhms ) souls who have had the misfortune(ok that cough wasn’t so discreet) of never reading me, hi!!!!!!! Guys, I am Umang aka exuberance and I… OH SHIT!!! I think that burning smell was my allooo-would-have-been…I better salvage some of it else my rumies would have me for dinner!! See ya!!