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!!