Broken Butterfly

I would have fought till my last breath
against the very Goddess of death
I would have stood in the way of every rolling hill
and slain every monster with my sword, until
you were safe and sound
in dreams profound
in your bed tucked, away
from every drowning bay
yet, as I lay here crumpled, in a pain so fine
you sit on a high seat, laugh and dine
with the fiends who pierced me, with their fiery spear
I scream and cry, but you find nothing to hear
And as I wonder with my dying sigh
if you were my friend or was it just a lie
you flare at me, raise a hue and cry
how could I doubt you, how could I deny
that you had a life and a right to choose
whom you wished to laugh with, whom you wish to bruise
And as you laugh there merrily, on your table so high
A broken butterfly, I quietly die...

I lost my best friend today-- To betrayal, to love and to pre-set notions.

The people who know you are the hardest to convince that you are trying to change.
The people who tell you what's wrong with you and what you need to improve are the first ones to think you are mocking them or being sarcastic,when you actually take their advice and try to be a "better" person.
The people who tell you to give them space are the ones who tell you to FO!!! for being a snob, when you do exactly that.

Why is it that the relationships we cherish the most are the ones that we invariably end up losing?
Why is it that "baseless insecurity" is what often leads to broken ties?
Why is it that the one person we trust with every hidden corner of our heart, betrays us the deepest?

A personal surprise

On an impulse, yesterday, I bought myself the most beautiful long stemmed red roses.
It felt so good. I used to do this in college. A lot of people found it weird, you know, giving roses to yourself. But then, I love roses and so why wait for someone else to realize it and give them to you to make you smile? Why not just have a little romance with yourself?
But somehow over the last year amidst the clutter of my useless existence, like most other things that were me (the long walks exploring, the lying in the dark listening to music through the night, the hanging out with friends and laughing my head off etc.) this too got lost in some forgotten recess of my memories of me...
Well, yesterday walking alone in the night, flagged by lighted shops and wizzing traffic, a backpack on my bag and no idea of where I was going, just following my heart, I felt more alive and more "me" than I had felt in a long time. And the roses were really the cherry on the cake.
I was on my way back when I passed this flower shop, I had actually gone by without stopping, but then something made me smile and turn around without another thought, and a moment later I was there, looking through his bundle for the best roses of them all...

This just proves, that even after living with "me" for the last 22 and a half years, I still have the ability to surprise her :)
I wish I have more days like this.

PS: Finally after almost a month after my poor lappy went into a comma, its working again, and after ages I had an urge to write and so I did.
By the way had the greatest day today. Will write about it in the next post. TC all :)

I miss

I am missing the joy that only writing something creative
I am missing being hugged so close that I can't feel anything but his arms around me...
I am missing the sound of a shared honest laugh over maggi cooked in a heating kettle
I am missing my best friend (a lot)

Reading the "Signs"

Ever since my one of my best friends introduced me to "Sun-Signs" by Linda Goodman in my first semester of college, I have been hooked. I wouldn't say I believe in all those daily predictions that come in the newspapers for the different signs, but as far as the basic characteristics associated with each of the signs are concerned, I have found a lot of examples that fit.
I lov studying people and so I have learnt a lot about certain behavioral patterns of the sunsigns I have come most in contact with.

So, I decided to share my insight into these here at my blog.
I will be sharing one sunsign with each post. I invite you all to share your views on the signs and even your experiences with them either in the comments section, or even by mail (I would love to publish them here)

Cancerians:
1)Extremely sensitive
2)Extremely caring
3)Extremely family oriented
4)Extremely vindictive
....a lot of "extremely"s there, but when it comes to cancerians, nothing is less than "extreme"

They are the best moms,
the best cooks
and there is something about them that makes u want to share your deepest secrets with them
they have great intuition and they love to say I told you so ;)
they are great when it comes to taking important decisions
when it comes to handling finance, well, they know what they are doing
they can be quite adamant about what they think is right and can be self-righteous(some people would call that an understatement)
not very independent by nature, but when it comes down to it, they know how to stand strong come what may.
they love getting pampered (yes we all do, but to them its as important as air and water to most of us)
they love getting gifts and will never forget someone who gave them one, or for that matter someone who didn't
they can also get a little too easily swayed by praise and a little expert buttering ;)

But they can also be really really controlling,
they never accept their mistake,
they never accept that they never accept their mistakes,
they are usually very impatient,
they are big time cribbers but can also be extremely resilient when it counts
they can use what u share with them against u if u cross them,
don't realize what they say when they are angry
and they can well, just be tooooooo mushy at times
they don't easily understand the concept of "space" in relationships and get hurt if someone asks for it (they take it as an insult to them and to them it translates to "I don't love you, I don't appreciate you and I don't need you anymore"
Whatsay??

PS: My mom is a cancerian and I love her. I couldn't have asked for a better mother. We have had our little tiffs and taffs but she has learnt to live with my need for "space" and my wierdness and from trying to get me to "behave", today she is my biggest supporter in letting me do my thing. She loves me for what I am and trust me thats a feat I sometimes find difficult to accomplish. On my end, I have learnt to respect her for her strength and the sacrifices she has made for her belief and love in her family. I haven't said it often enough but inspite of her flaws (very very minute ones mom) she is the strongest woman I know...she is my ideal and I know I could spend a lifetime trying, but I can never be like her

PPS: NO OFFENSE INTENDED WHATSOEVER!!!

Innocent Betrayal

She sat there with her eyes closed, listening to the waves echo back the words he had just said...
the gamble he had played with his trusting heart and lost...

It was the stuff dreams were made off...the beach, the song from her favorite singer, the eyes full of the emotion she had always wanted to see...
But she didn't say a word..confused...looking for feelings she knew should be there...
And he stood there misunderstanding her silence for yes
He took her into his arms then...
Something within her panicked and she struck away from his surprised arms...
the arms drooped...the look shattered into a million crystals...struck down by the wall of her betrayal

She opened her eyes to see him chasing crabs...
To anyone watching from a distance, it would have been hilarious...a grown man on his knees crawling after tiny translucent crabs, being a charming little boy
But to her it was the most painful thing she had ever seen...a grown man broken in half...grasping for sanity which chased away from him, slipping into little holes in the wet sand

It broke her to break him, it tore her apart...but she had no choice...her fears, her doubts had taken over and masked the love that was somewhere inside...
And she had turned and run away...

she ran...

she could hear him calling...

but she ran...

she ran till she could no longer hear the accusing waves,
she ran till she could no longer feel the coldness of pain,

she ran for days
she ran for months
she ran for an eternity

and then she stopped

for she could smell the sea again
for she could hear his voice again
and there was the same love in it
she turned to see the look she knew was in his eyes
she turned to tell him she was not scared anymore

and there he was...

and it was stuff dreams were made of..the beach..the song...the eyes filled with the same emotion...

but his arms were closed and his head was bent, and where she should have been, was someone else...
she fell to her knees crawling away from the pain, looking for crabs that refused to come...
a little girl..a broken woman...Innocently betrayed...

A december evening

a mist of words so silenced
an embrace so sweet so violent
bodies mute
playing like a lute
a heartbeat missed
an earlobe kissed
a dancing soul
a burning coal
an evening I remember
of a forgotten December
the love so warm
impatient yet calm
the memories remain
like a foggy terrain
here I sit in my empty quilt
as cold as the heart frozen with guilt

PS: This is inspred from Priya's post A love Poem

First ever award!!!

Hey guys, I recently got my first award for this blog thanks to Iggy!!

Its the Sumptuous blogger award. Unfortunately, there is something wrong with my blogger, can't upload pictures to it for some reason.

The recent Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations saw the entry pathway of our township decorated with lights.
Walking back from work one dark thunderous rainy night, with the twinkling lights on both sides, the following lines floated into my head...

I stand there amazed,
what a wondrous sight
darkness walking calmly,
through a boulevard of light...

Its a time for endings and beginnings... I have made some tough decisions. I wonder if I would ever be able to stick to them completely...
Call me selfish, call me mean, call me a bloody bitch, but i have decided to live for myself. No sleepless nights, no rocketing phone bills, no emotional entanglements... just me, my ebooks and my movies.
adios

Pitter Patter

I listen to the pitter patter of a silver rain
colouring the wan glass grey with strain
I feel the feeling of being headily drenched
and wake up to find, in a galss tomb i am trenched
With the whiffs and whaffs of crackers and tea
my wicked memory, restless, teases me
With a curl of my lips I watch them pass,
those wavy shadows of the greying glass
playing at being the thunderous waves of a silenced sea
a memoir of a bliss I can now only see
I try to remember, but fail
the potent taste of setting an unleashed sail
The wild cry of a free wind, so young
eludes me like some song I had once sung
I wonder why i am lying here like a vampire of light
interred by choice in this tomb of glass, fighting the flight
is this my fate?
to understand when its too late
the direction my life should have taken
to live in servitude of a glass, that can't be shaken

PS: I know most people would see this as a sad poem. But trust me, I was so happy to just be able to write something, that about wiped off everything else :)

The Funny Feeling

She looked up at the stars splayed across her ceiling
and wondered what was this funny feeling
that had left a snake slithering down her cheek
and an odd sniff, anything but meek

she looked out of her window at the children kneeling
and wondered what was this funny feeling
that made her feel so empty inspite of everything around
and wrapped her in blankets that blacken out every sound

she looked at the kiss the sun from the ocean was stealing
and wondered what was this funny feeling
that sent a tingle of memories chasing through her heart
and bred emotional hiccups that gave her a start

she looked at an old picture whose edges were peeling
and wondered what was this funny feeling
that made her laugh and cry at the faces in it
and wish they could have trapped time forever in a pit


PS: Listening to "kyu...phoolen ke khile khile se rang udd gaye" from kambakht ishq on repeat... wondering why my cheeks are so wet?

My Old Friend

My collar is wet and my eyes are swelled up, but I haven't felt this good in a long time

No i didn't get a new job (one I can at least tolerate, if not love)
No I didn't find the love of my life
No I didn't read the best book I have ever read
No I didn't get a bouquet of 20 roses
No I didn't have anyone tell me I am the most beautiful girl in the world or the sweetest creature of God
My life hasn't changed all that much

except...

except that I just found an old friend...
She was lurking right round the corner, and I never noticed. And then tonight, out of the blue WHAM!! there she was before me, laughing her head off, being her silly goofy self.

We had lost touch for a while, you know, in the motions of life, learning things, unlearning things, making THE BIG decisions, while ignoring the little ones that really mattered...
in short---in growing up!!

Tonight, like most nights, I revved up my faithful lappy, checked for mails that never come, half-heartedly replied to the comments on the depressing post I had put up on my blog, logged into gtalk and logged out before anyone got a chance to ping me, put up another one of those historical dramas for download and played the same stage of mario i have been playing for the last 2 months again (again failing to pass it through).
I was about to sign off and call it a night when i remembered this dog movie I had downloaded on a wild hunch a couple of days back and forgotten about. Well the sleep angels weren't exactly purring yet, so I decided to dig it out and sample it...

It was there that I met her again...my long lost friend...me...
prancing around incessantly, disobeying every command ever thrown her way, chewing on anything she could get her teeth into, loving the people who mattered with every last golden hair on her 100 pound body... all in the skin of " THE WORST DOG IN THE WORLD "--- Marley.
Yes, I am talking about the movie "Marley and me".

Sometimes when we are lost and desolate, it is the strangest of things that can get us reaquainted with that friend who is hidden somewhere under all that artily smudged kohl and piles of tic-tacs, under the very visible frown lines and the invisible laugh lines, under the crisp shirt and the choiciest chooridars...the girl who doesn't care if her eyes are puffy because she cried over the death of her favourite book character all night or that her laugh woke up the neighbors down the street at two in the morning, who doesn't care if her t-shirt is on inside out or if her favourite comfy old shorts are coming off at the seams, literally!!
Yes, the same one who would end up playing with every little kid she came across...who spent every second of an auto ride looking with wonder at the things passing by...
Its strange really when you think that there is no good in the world and that nothing matters anymore, that everyone is selfish (including you) and nothing can touch your heart anymore, a simple story of the journey of a dog and that of the people around him can move you like this, can make you feel again, can make u see yourself again... not only as who you were but who you want to be... who you can be!!!

Yes, you can be that girl in a pair of travelling shoes, clicking away pictures with her phone from the window of a moving bus, yes the one who is not afraid of laughing louder than thunder and makes friends with every dog she lays eyes on...
the one who is hoping for a sunnier day... but if it still pours..., well, what the hell!!!
there is nothing like a dance in the rain to raise those spirits is there??? :) :)

Tc people!! Sherry is back!!

aimless scribble

After ages I actually logged into gtalk and talked to old friends... and then at 1:30 in the morning had a sudden urge to scribble something here.
life has been a little topsy turvy recently...made a really hard, life changing decision
lost something very important to me with my usual talent for screwing up everything that matters to me
made a few new friends in hyd..don't know how long it will last
watched angels and demons today...if u separate it from the book it was actually ok but for someone who has read the book and loved it, it was murder, "literally"
i am still on bench...nine hours of doing nothing continue, though i have taken to looking up obscure things, case histories, movies etc on Wikipedia as my new hobby and it helps pass the time pretty well...
I don't know why i am scribbling all this... may be its been so long since i wrote something, the craving is overwhelming
I want to learn to play the guitar
i want friends
i want to have a good time
i want to slim down
i want to talk to someone who would make me laugh till my tummy ached
i want to travel
i want someone to give me company exploring Hyderabad
i want to start clicking pictures
i want to get soaked to my skin in the rain without being watched
i want to feel his breath on my shoulder
i want to cook something exotic
i want a big close long hug
i want to sleep
i want to be happy

a clean slate ..

I am sitting at my desk with nothing to do except write crap, I don’t even know whether I would publish it or not. What a day it has been.

I came to office to a merciless dressing down from my ex-manager because I failed to hear what he said over the deafening traffic and because I “dared” to ask him for a charge code for the work I was supposed to be doing for him. Add to that wadas so soggy, they almost made me choke and the unbearable stench of stale coffee all over me because I managed to spill it down the front of my pale yellow shirt, which is now irreversibly ruined.

‘A’ thinks I am bored of talking to him, ‘coz I managed to fall asleep for three consecutive days on the phone.
None of my friends are online.
I feel like breaking something.
I feel like tearing off this foul smelling shirt and jumping on my maddeningly white desk; naked.
I feel like pulling out and shredding every piece of poetry, every picture, every thought I have put up on my cramped cubicle wall.
I feel like crouching under my desk, running away from this unforgiving world like a kid.
I feel like ending my career before it has even begun.
I want a chance to wipe the slate clean once again and begin anew ..

Enough Reason?

I am not usually the silent times.
I am known to have had the loudest voice and the most thunderous laugh any room.
I used to spend hours lost in songs and their meanings.
I used to love to chat and gossip like an old maid and yet they all loved me.
I used to have the best friends in the world, my little circle of love and trust.
I used to have the most photogenic smile in my group.
Whether it was placing an order for food or talking up a complete stranger it was I my friends used to catch ‘coz I could hold a confident conversation with just about anyone.
I used to be the life of any room with my craziness.
I used to have 10 simultaneous windows open in gtalk with something to write in each of them.
I used to spend many a day dancing on top of my bed to some wild tune.
I was a moderate success in just about any work I took up.
I used to spend sleepless nights rolling in bed musing over that greatest mystery…love.

The only time I talk now is on the phone. I am so silent elsewhere, I fear that my voice would disappear.
I can’t remember the last time my laugh sounded like my own.
I listen to songs endlessly on my phone but would be at a loss to answer which song was playing on it.
I don’t gossip, I don’t bitch, I don’t tease and yet everyone seems to hate me.
I have no friends to speak of, no one to trust and can’t remember what a loving hug felt like.
I don’t get my pictures clicked, the smile is too painful to look at.
If someone talks to me I stutter and can’t think of anything to say to a simple question like “what do u dream of?”
I glide in and out of rooms like a ghost and no one even looks up.
I sign into gtalk and can’t chose one window to open from my 200+ contacts.
I don’t dance , ever.
I got my first feedback with “FAILURE” written all over it.
I have lived through the painful reality of love and don’t even have its soothing illusion to hug close to my heart in a lonely night.

Is it enough reason to be a depressed blogger Mr P? or do I need more?

and days go by ..

It’s been quite a while since I wrote here, and no the culprit has not been my high flying career with one of the leading software firms in the industry. I have none. I have an obscure corner in an obscurer bay of my company building…the ITP bay commonly known as THE BENCH. Which means while people in projects slog under deadlines, do overtime, miss their own weddings…we put up our feet (literally), lower the (imaginary) brim of our hats and doze off with earplugs streaming the songs we have been listening to for the last 8 months into our ears.
When sleep eludes us we turn to some unread book or unopened ebook.

We sign into chat but are soon found making excuses ranging from an urgent meeting with an absent supervisor to a desperate call of nature in order to go offline, simply because we don’t want to answer the proverbial question—“Whatsup??”

Some of us might be found engrossed in their own world of equations and synonyms, trying to plough their way into a B-school.

And when nothing is left we search obscure topics on wikipedia, like, psychoanalysis, pagan rituals, or in an act of utter desperation, the six wives of Henry VIII.

We recently joined our out of practice hands and rusted heads in a “SAY NO TO PLASTIC” campaign which had us painting posters, even a first grader would be ashamed to call his own and writing slogans that wouldn’t inspire a duckling…
It also had me laughing like I haven’t in a long long time, and had me making friends and chatting up with people like I no longer deemed possible in office.

The campaign got over yesterday, the plastic bags are back and the posters have been lost somewhere in the labyrinths of the office…
but here I am sitting on a desk, sharing a bag of peanuts and a diet coke with my new found friends along with childhood stories and poems… painting ridiculous paintings and trying to make sense out of dumplings of paint… holding discussions on who is the worst painter in the bay and on our views on paganism and Christianity and on long lost tales…

I am sitting here, with a smile on my lips, the proud owner of a shirt marred by dashes of paint and a heart of many shades (which I painted) taped to the wall of my cubicle alongside a brand new poem which came out of nowhere just like my new-found joy.


I want to live in a house by the sea
With whose white spray my spirit could flee

Or may be I would prefer a house on a giant tree
With whose red blossoms my heart could grow free

A castle in the wilderness it might as well be
In whose hidden passages my lost spirit I could see

Or may be my destiny is a quite plantation of tea
In whose green bosom could be the answer to my unheard plea…

Inside the bubble

I am sitting at my desk, feet on the upturned dustbin, no work to talk of, grey raxine-like walls converging into a cone behind the black dell monitor, a white board blank except for a blue date of three days back marking one top corner. The outside world is blocked out by curvatious black headphones singing “o saathi re” into numbed ears. An e-book version of salman rushdie’s “satanic verses” has been fished out of the long-forgotten archives of my C-drive and is being devoured with a demonic hunger. g-talk is logged out, both cell phones lie lost and ignored in a heap in my little black bag of endless mysteries and intrigue…

After a long time, I am not bored, not sad, not lonely…I am the girl with pigtails sprawled across a rope-bed on a brick terrace in an obscure town of Punjab, drowsily reading one loved book after another, dreamily jumping from one fantasy frame into the next, while the winter sun teased the hair on her pink payjama clad legs…untouched from the world outside, her innocence virginal in its ignorance of the intricacies of lies, betrayals and untouched by lives which are nothing but farces…
I want to live this fantasy forever…never want to take off these headphones…never want to ever worry about what who thinks about me…never want to hear another lie…never want to laugh at a joke I don’t find funny…never want to share confidences with a false friend…never want to pretend to feel things I don’t…
I want to be the epileptic prophetess Ayesha one second and her ignorant sinful archangel the next. I want to swish my angry tail in desperation like the not-so-evil devil and the throw my head back as the rebellious Mishal and kick out.

I want to be a drop of time, with the universe rolled into one…
I want to be the daughter of a king and the man who killed her for a son…
I want to be a bubble in full flight, out of reach of every bursting pin…
I want to be the taint in everything pure and the virtue in the heart of every sin…
I want to be the beauties and their loving beast
And the girl who had butterflies for a feast…

Today,

I don’t want to love
I don’t want to be loved
I don’t want a kiss or a cuddle
I don’t want sweet nothings whispered into my sleepy ears
I want to be left alone in my bubble of self
I want to be free of everything…every chain, every pain, every relationship, every obligation, every desire, every smoldering fire…

Stark White Ends

He felt the breeze ruffle his hair lovingly, as the bike yawned lazily down the dark road. Unlike most people, for whom biking meant riding full throttle on an empty road, flying faster than the wind itself, leaving the world behind, for him, it was a slow ride along an empty road, taking in the scent of the wilderness, breathing the slow languid solitude, as the world moved past, slowly at its own pace. Nothing relaxed him more. On some nights he would go to the dark empty road on the outskirts of the city, just put the bike in the first gear, close his eyes, and let the bike take him wherever it wanted to go.
It was one such night.. He was lost in his version of nirvana, when he sensed a foreign aroma ripple through all the familiar odors of the night. He tried to place it..what was it that he smelt? A bud of passion in a swirl of loneliness coloured with a dash of the wild and the unfamiliarity of the city, an open invitation hiding an impenetrable wall, a feminine mystery.. his eyes opened, and he saw her walking down the pavement. The white salwar, unhurriedly kissing the quick paced heels... the kurta coloured with little drops of ruby red, that seemed to be shifting, forming a new pattern with each step... the long black braid, that went in a pendulum motion, that had something hypnotic about it, It took him a minute to force his eyes away and break its spell. But what took his breath away was the scarlet dupatta, which seemed to whirl around with a life of its own... the deepest red with the starkest white ends...
He pulled his bike ahead and stopped next to her. The heels stopped, and she turned a slow black gaze towards him raising her questioning eyes, with just that hint of suspicion in them. For a moment he didn't say a word, standing there dumbfound, staring at those impossibly red lips. It was when they moved to ask him his purpose that he finally snapped out, "Hey! This is kind of a lonely place,to be travelling alone, I would love to give you a ride back to the city". He sensed a hesitation in those vibrant eyes, and quickly turned a smile to put her at ease. "Are you sure, it won't be a inconvenient?", the lips asked slowly. "Not at all, I was going there anyway".
The bike started again, and he felt the dupatta on his back, almost caressing it. He could have sworn there was something almost wet and sticky about it.
He ignored it as the wind took over and the scents of the night returned to fill him.
The trees fell past, as if of its own violation, the bike got faster... the wind ceased to caress him, but crashed against him to break into a million pieces.
The grey ribbon ahead disappeared, as the red dupatta whipped out like the devil's tail, to wrap itself around him.
The ripple of his scream shattred the silent mirror of the wild, before it set itself back in one.
She walked on with the white salwar, unhurriedly kissing the quick paced heels... the kurta coloured with little drops of ruby red, that seemed to be shifting, forming a new pattern with each step... the long black braid, that went in a pendulum motion, that had something hypnotic about it, and the scarlet dupatta, which seemed to whirl around with a life of its own... the deepest red with the equally bloody ends...