chand lahwz...

Yadon ke kuch anchuyen panne chedti hun

Beete palon ki ik potli ko tatolti hun

jane kya baat thi us guzre kal me

jo aane wale kal ke aks bhar se muh ferti hun

Paper Boats

When I was a little kid, we used to live in a place called Hoshiarpur, near the Pubjab-Himachal border. It was a small town which took barely twenty minutes to cross from one end to the other by car.

Like most small towns in India, it had an old area called Krishna Nagar. And among its many snaky little streets was the narrow Street No. 7, where we lived.

There are a lot of things I remember about that street; the dilapidated old school next door, with the crippled brown tree and soft pink roses; Hanuman, the pandit from the temple at the end of the street who always gave me an extra helping of my favourite prasad and waved to me from his rusty old bicycle as I waited for my school bus every morning and the huge, crazy German Shepherd who barked incessantly at everyone and for some reason had been named Pepsi.

But the one thing I remember most clearly was the excitement the rains brought with them. For whenever it rained heavily, the street would turn into a muddy river, like our own pet version of the mighty amazon. And there I would sit on the once-glazed steps of our home; under the blue door with the twin white peacocks, chipped and weary from the years they had been there. I would watch as strange creatures came out of the water, big cola coloured cockroaches that made my mother scream, worms as muddy as the water, driven out of their burrows by the onslaught and an occasional snake scare.

But nothing excited me as much as the sound of my mother's feet behind the door, for I knew they brought with them the reason I loved that muddy stream. For she had just taught me how to make paper boats and promised me if my boats were good enough they would travel far and wide and journey to strange, mythical lands I could only imagine.

And so I would sit there, my tiny fingers working tirelessly creating one little boat after another, praying all the while that they would pass God's test and not drown.

Some would be brave and strong and fight the torrent and make it round the bend of the street accompanied by my whoops of joy. But there were others, which despite my prayers failed to make it and sunk to their moving muddy graves. As I watched their tiny forms topple, my lips would quiver and my eyes well up, but my mother would hug me and urge me to let it go and would egg me on to make the next.

It was a tough lesson to learn... letting go and I had lot of trouble with it.

And today, even though I am a young woman of 24, somewhere that little girl still has her fingers crossed and her eyes closed every time she releases a boat into life's muddy waters, praying for it to get past the bend and every time one doesn't make it, it still breaks her heart...

Letting it go is still a tough lesson to learn...

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 :)

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