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...

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?