To myself.

I am at peace now,

no hunger beckoning to take to a different lane,

with temptings of finding the latest dream unbuttoned,

ready to be worn, threadbare.

No promises expected to be returned,

every single swallow has flown back

to warmer skies, no one left behind to confuse

silent tears for dewdrops from the Happy Prince

No targets, remaining to be achieved,

that I would 'do this' if i 'could do that'

And waiting, for life, to take roots in midair.

I hammer away languidly, at the vacancy of stares,

idly thinking of nothing has become easy,

numbness has a presence and a comfort

I knew not I could live with.

Its become easy now, not to lose senses,

at people who do not deserve in the least

morsels of my temper.

Its easier to share, and bring in nameless faces

into the everyday happinesses life packs in.

To make life roll on, at that uninhabited

spherical pace, that I first thought,

would be impossible for me to live with,

a fireball of energy, its actually comforting,

to see the balded sphere roll on by.

Yes, soon enough, through mists and haze

another year has passed by,

revealing enough to show,

the mirror was never too far to see

only that I, in my constant fear

of letting go of myself, could not

gather enough courage, to pick it up.

I scruff up, the last shards of my memories,

of times belonging to another relative

space.

Of nebulous doubts and promises,

of beguiling dreams and voyages

into this solid ground,

beneath my feet, however small I maybe

in this universe, this space,

belongs to me, while I stand on it.

Happy New Year to me.

Never did give up,

not ever shall I.

On writing again...

I surprise myself these days when I cannot 'take' heavy stuff in writing anymore. I remember a time when I had got to the point when talking about fiction would not raise my heartbeat.When writing meant Kafka or Rushdie or nonfiction that was researched for a decade or more before a few pages could be gleaned from them . When even a Aravind Adiga book seemed like pale trash of English to be stashed away after a read. Yes, I had got to that point.

But things have changed. Maybe its the last two odd years of neverending work and putting yourself after everybody else. Maybe its the shuting off of the A+ personality for the much less hungry and rather indifferent B-. Something has brought about the change. I cannot manage to think anymore. Earlier, and a good example of the thing I had under my fingertips would be the blog I burnt. But these days, things take time to come out of my pen. While it becomes thorough at diagnosing things, it has become difficult to go through the pain I used to regularly undertake earlier before I produced something from my pen I liked.

I remember the feeling I used to get after writing those days. it used to act as a drug, almost as a therapy for me. Maybe the definitions have changed. Or maybe I have moved on to newer modes of treatment. I feel the same exhaustion after I attend an emergency. Not just the bodily exertion. But also the mental one. And I know that its not the same, but I feel cured. And in some odd way, its actually comforting to find that I did not arrive at it by further morselling my insides. In a way, the cure came with the byproduct of helping a bunch of other people in some fucked up situations of life.

I must even tell you that it actually feels good. I am cured of that poison that had slowly taken roots inside me. And while I do not know how willing I am to put myself in the path of life again, I sometimes miss the glory of that madness in me. I am hopeful of the fact that its not exactly my deal to stand at the darker end of the bargain. But I want to write again. Like I did.

That emotional exhaustion and turbulence acted like dope on my senses. Its going has to have in it a part that has possibly to do with the situation I found myself in. While intially finding myself incredulously staring at people who burn incense sticks at family altars..or cry to hear of their parents having an urinary tract infection, or baulk at the sight of chicken wings. I thought I would go mad in the long run if I stayed with such aliens. Even decided to have a plebicite once, at a conference, by asking the prevalence of broken families. And imagine the horror on the faces of the goody-goody shoe guys...Oops...My bad !!! How beautiful the world can be.

Yet, somewhere along this time, or maybe it can be ascribed to the lack of a rescue door, I was held up, unguarded to face and to live with such incredulity long enough to understand that a pattern exists in the orderliness and simplicity of these lives, the same way it exists in the madness and hopelessness in the one that I come from. Except that its plainly visible in the former and it takes a lot of sensitivity and strength, and probably intelligence to recognise it in the latter. I might even say I have grown to like this simple way of ebing. Rough edges that I had have been smoothened and tamed down. My anger has subsided into a cocoon and I have discovered something I never knew existed. That I have very few wants from life. Maybe its called 'Mellowing' that P used to tell me would happen once you age... I dont know. My face looks cheerful. The specks of anger that used to ride high on my cheekbones have given way to an almost grandmotherly understanding. I even watch cartoons, and I like it.

Yet, people have surprisingly hurt me here too. People who you trusted in the past. Who you put before yourself. Who you helped in their biggest times of danger, and even bodily harm. People who like you but whose insecurities cannot take in to see your real source of happiness. Of connecting with someone with whom you shared the company of pure labor and hard work if not emotional comfort. Strange ways things keep happening. Either initially when you are confused whether being yourself acts like a threat to some male ego in front of you, or later when a very unlikely source gives you a certificate of 'you cannot be anything else' with the same person when you finally manage to bury the hatchet. I am almost amused at how important I can manage to become to some people's lives even when they do not wish something good for me, but don't have the guts to come outright with it. I dont even have time for myself, leave aside other people's lives and the persons in their's. How can people manage to be so obsessed about what happens in other peoples' lives to the extent of predicting a future of two people apart or giving character certificates to others is beyond me. Or maybe they are confused about the way I feel. Maybe I make people insecure about losing their favorites. I am not a thief. And I don't stake claim on anything as a matter of principle. Maybe its escapism. Or maybe its just my way of seeing who will come how far to try to know the real person behind me. I will just run. I have done so in the past as well.

In any case, a lot of it is over and done with, for now. You cannot have anything else from people who have nothing else but other people's lives to drown their own lives in. One big average stagnant pond of looking at each other's mirrors and finding out the same face from each mirror is like the most inventive thing to ever happen since the falling of the apple on Newton's head. Sad but true. A lot of good people lose themselves in this rubbish.

I shall go back to writing. Once I leave this place, and enter a semblance of the world I have left some 2 odd years back. I shall go back into the chaos and the darkness of it. And get on with it. Its just like the thornbird. The best piece of writing you shall get from me is when I pierce my heart with the sharpest thorn available to mankind. Loneliness. And so it will be, I think.

And I am prepared for it.

Nerd...Who me ???

This is an oft repeated tendency I begin to observe in myself over quite some time now. An inability to mix and mingle into the general conversation, disinterest in other putative areas of interest and more than that, utter disregard to what other people might think about me behaving this way. The other day, I squirmed and made my way out of a gathering congregation about bangles and sarees to wear on a marriage party. I tried, I tried not to be rude and endure that piece of ...or whatever it was that was being discussed at the breakfast table on a good wintry sunday morning. But I couldn't. And I finally got up and got out.

Its not been the first time that this is happening. At least at home I was given the liberty to stay shut in my room. Because I would address someone s uncle at the beginning of the party and say goodbye as brother. My mother's and father's friends have never been a subject of enduring memory for me. While I do remember the lift of an eyebrow or an oddity that stands out in a vague paragraph mentioned at the end of the chapter in some textbook, or the way the lilt of the bagpipes carries on in the background of some celtic music, I fail drastically in the semingly mundane, but essential things that make up life.

Am I getting prematurely senile? My 'absentmindedness' could be the telltale signs of a fast approaching presenile dementia ? The 'nerdiness' a manifestation of the most innermost fears that shaped me into the oddball of information and efficiency that I am ?

I cannot say for sure. But I hope, I seriously hope, routine, 'normal' things in life assume more importance in my mind than they currently are. I am missing out on things, I think. A lot of them. And the worst thing next to missing them out could probably be being unaware of the things I am missing out on.

I am amazed peoply typify me as the talking, joke cracking nutty girl who always manages to smile. Nothing can be farther from the truth that is. I am vivacious if I want to be, I can be lethal with my anger. And I can crack a joke at expense of myself. But nothing, and nobody can claim to know me, if they misinterpret my reclusiveness as being upset, and typify me as a forever cackling goose.

I hate it when people say the most hurtful things masqueraded as a joke. Mostly because while I can be sarcastic to the point of acid dropping sentences, I usually fire it at people i do not respect.

Wish I did not become a submissive fool to people I loved. That is the trouble. They abuse that position. Sooner or later.

Few moments in yesterday...

The key fitted, two clicks, door opening

into the silent, sturdy security,

of a hardworking life.

I walked back, barefeet, into the cocoon of my privacy;

bringing thoughts and case files of a hundred people back

into the empty confines of my shelter,

save mine.

But a single silent blink broke somewhere in my eyes,

the bulb chose to die;

as a smile bore down through the cushions,

wood, granite and earth

into a face looking up at the moon inside

an eight year old car, two other lives beside

one in giggles, another in sniffles

the third singing of lanes left by.

Tumorous smiles, unkempt voices

flying high in sweaty summers

happy stars and moons drooled on paper,

handprints on posters,

meaning of lager

Fevicryl on boots,

When promises took roots

only to bore so deep, that realities did not weep

when they turned into memories

locked forever shy.

And even the yellow light blinded me back,

up from the depths of

that protracted happy goodbye...

In Two days

In two days I turn twenty nine;

today I pick up my diary and leaf

dog eared pages to go through

memories I had long since buried.

My fingers type unaccustomedly in blank verse

on the keyboard, as I attempt a poem,

Again.

After a long, I mean really long time.

Not about tear jerkers, not about the love

that cheated and died, not about

being human, or being a doctor,

but a list of the things, I want.

I want for my birthday.

At twentynine, I wake up from a long,

unbroken dreamy sleep that wakes me up

with the corners of my mouth stretched,

the kind of smile, I used to get on my face,

when I dug up cashews hidden by my mother.

I want a long bike-ride, behind some person I

can hold close to me, someone who

would understand that meaning of

' driving to the point of no return'

doesnt necessarily mean we would die

at the end of the ride.

I would like to as well, watch a movie that

would wrench the last tear drops of my eyes,

and not have someone looking at me and thinking

'What an emotional fool she is !!! ', while sympathising

with me.

I would, like to go looking for tigers

with my brother, in the forests of Rudraprayag and

Kumaon, where I wandered as a child

in the fantasies of the Jim Corbett books my

brother gave me to read when I was eleven...

I would, like to cook up a meal,

an American chopsuey or a veg-au-gratin

with the cheese perfectly cooked, and red wine

and sit with my friend ( a girl this time)

discussing MBBS headaches and films.

I would, I wish, spend

one quality day with my family, one whole

day that goes just right, set in the nineties..

when I was just the age that was right.

Or spend a present day in the present time

wearing my FCUK t-shirt that says

FCUK 1972

( The year my parents got married !!! )

And well, they cannot 'see' the difference.

I want to turn back the hands of time,

to walk with someone with feet filled with blisters

someone who I would know, would last even till

a bitter truth than a convenient lie.

Someone for whom my respect shall

start, continue and grow, until

the deepest honor and lust of

a beautiful feeling.

Love.

And also to go, with someone, get drunk,

on the dancefloor, and release,

every memory in my mind in one drunken

fever,with someone close to me

I can trust even when I absolutely let go...

fully knowing that

when I wont be able to stand up on my legs anymore,

someone will carry me home...

back to the incredulous safety of our confines.

Or to go on with a black t-shirt with dinosaurs

painted in front, to my English teacher,

who would unabashedly stare at my boobs, but

would actually be reading aloud

"Triceratops"

And I would love it he got the name right.

I wish I could go on a ride

on my bike, when the monsoon would lash in

Cuttack, and would race the train till my house

grinning that I beat it..

and would dance the night away with

Channel V hits and my cousin sister.

Also watch all horror movies with my hands crossed,

and when electricity fails, run to the loo,

hands between my legs,

failing miserably before I reach the door.

At twenty nine, I know,

none of this will happen.

I will possibly have a long day to lie on the bed,

dream about all the contorted truths of the poem that

has actually happened..

and then get back to life

which is good neverthless

And read up a book on Neuro.

Again

It has worsened now than when it started

she was scared then she would go

and not be able to live

beyond a twelve year old,

with her parents. When it started,

and she spent hours locked up

in the bathroom waiting for it to stop.

They came they ate into her,

tortured her soul month after month

leaving bright red tears on beds

chairs, skirts, roads

and she ran from everywhere.

They worsened, came at their wish.

And bled her life away, her legs shaking

Her eyes reflected the silent agony

she went through, as she stood

through endless hours of work.

She cannot stand because she is weak,

she cannot sleep, because she will dirty the bed,

she cannot speak because she is

catching her breath, while,

the remaining blood trickles out

beneath her in steady dribbling jets.

There inside of her it started,

that flesh day by day, eating out

blood and rooting in the place

where a life begins,

right there, it grew

and spreading tentacles

cuscutas of its veins

drained life blood from the house

that gave birth to it.

Till this day, when it has grown

into the tree, crushing beneath it

the house where, it began as a seed

and its roots drain deeper

leaving the shambled cottage's

hungry lungs cry for air.

White pallid skin, replaces golden

parched lips reflect the hunger in her

eyes, as she passes by every child

she sees, she wants it.

To be her own.

But fears, because, tomorrow

every possibility exists,

This poison ivy will never

allow a small seedling to grow

and attach itself to his

mothers womb.

Or if it does, she will

choke him to death.