unnamed

We don't know each other. We have never met and yet, there is so much we have shared. You have hated me for reasons more than one, and even as you did, you never had the peace of knowing that I knew of your hatred. Even if I had known, I would never have understood it. For how could one hate someone one doesn't know? But you can and I am glad you can. I'm glad it is easy for you to hate as easy it is for you to love. You are truly free in that. But to me hate and love both seem impossible. My mind won't let me love, my heart won't let me hate.

Sometimes I steal into your photographs and try to read what's there behind those eyes. Is there another one like me, as afraid of life to come and as remorseful? I guess I shall never get the answers. We don't know each other, but in the family of life, where times make relatives out of strangers, you and I have lived the same life, met the same end. In that we are siblings.

I do not cannot hate you. Because for that also I need to know you. And to really know you I have to love a bit of you. What you and I have is beyond such notions of love, hate and knowing - complex notions these (but at least they are named). I wish you weren't at this place, not because it would have altered my fate, but because I wouldn't have spent night after night thinking of ways to become forgetful.

foot and doors

Just now I read the name Foot in the Door, not as a bridge between two possibilities, as intended, but a foot that's caught between two doors and man, it hurts. Long time I wrote. Was busy mending a broken heart, trying to revive my health and my mood. I have been writing but to myself again. Writing of things fleeting by, writing of mundane and the ordinary, writing of what happened on my visit home and then tossing it all into the dustbin. 

I promised in the last post that I will, and so here I come. Tad too late perhaps, but you would understand. I had been reading some blogs today, by guys a few years elder to me. I noticed how they write, the gaiety, the chirpy laughter, the many comments, the whole hearty experience of it. And I then looked at my blog - I noticed how dark it had become, as if a winter had come never to leave. Not that I do not enjoy it, a certain gravity has always attracted me. But the blog had become so grim and rusty at places that fungi might have started growing by the sides before long. So I changed the template today, and even though I do not like it at ALL and in all probability will be changing it again, the fresh look is a breather.

----

I wish I had it in me the passion and the belief to sit cross-legged as I am, and cry out loud to the skies, the winds and the lands. And with such fervor proclaim the ownership of my self! Once again.

home and the world

These past few days had me take an urgent short trip to Delhi. It left me not wanting to return. The last couple of days I was holed up in my plush new apartment in Thane. Without a book, a working television or my laptop. I suffered as I ached to write. The writing had to happen on the screen, surprisingly, as I see it now, it never even occurred to me that I could write with a pen on a piece of paper. Simplicity again dodged me. So I stood in the balcony with stray drops of rain making me shiver now and then and as I often do, I wrote in my mind.

I ached for you, blog where for once I can close the doors to the world and let my self be. And even as I write this I know my writing has lost a certain essence. A part of me hungers for it, the rest is scared, lest it should be back.

I am at a precarious junction. The reality back home is exactingly different from my world around here. I feel the homesickness of the homeless. But where is my home to be found?

I do not wish to trouble others, but I think I end up doing that. I know I will spring back again in some days/months - as is the human wont. Till then I seek solace in you my pages. And this time I wouldn't wait to write on a screen. I would write. Just write.

the rules

Yeah, there and back again. I am. The past few days were challenging. The city of Mumbai ruthless, its people rude. But then I don't think they have an easy life for themselves anyway. Travelling in local trains as a newbie here is daunting. They actually consider it a 'mistake' if you happen not to know that you are to be at the door (at the edge of it) WAY before your train arrives at your destined station, that you are to ask most women ahead of you where they will get down, because most of them like to stand on the doorway even when there is space elsewhere, or if you happen to be like me - someone who can't, for the life of her, get off or get on a moving train - you have sinned to the fullest - you should be getting off and on in the end (which I am forced to do otherwise also). And yeah, do not trust girls with your East and West exits. More often than not they lead you in the wrong, of course they are themselves mistaken. And if you happen to be the poor one who is sitting as the fourth person sitting on a bench that ideally seats three - God forbid. Do not move an inch. They will gnaw at you with their words if you do. No kidding. And these are working women - office goers. I also realize part of why I have a problem is my natural resistance to getting knocked about. I am getting used to it. I am also learning to dress more suitably here. Covering my head and face and neck with a long scarf to save me from the sun and pollution on roads and in rickshaw. Most often it is just my eyes that show. But better be covered than be roasted.

All in all to make life a bit easier. I have started to come home late. Takes longer reaching home but I reach alright.

there and back again

a ray

After days of darkness I see a bit of sunshine today. Like a solitary ray of light streaming in after an age of darkness in my dungeon. Little particles of dust shimmer, ridiculing Newton's gravity, dancing a mad dance.

I had forgotten myself so fiercely that I failed to recognize who I am. So busy was I berating myself for not being like any other person that I was preparing to die. Hopeless, guilt-ridden and hopeless again. Guilty, as if it were my middle name and no matter what I could not rub it off my chest.

the ages

It's sweet. The younger me, the naive me..to hug and to care for the old me. Has it just been 2 -3 years? And yet, how much I have traveled  not in miles but in the mind. And I ache to be that girl again. The one cried the first night she spent in London, the night her most ambitious dream had finally become a reality.

I ache to be that girl who I hurt - I know things could not have been different perhaps - age plays its part - and yet I feel for her and what it lead to for her. may be I am wrong in saying I want to be her. Away from all of my past, in a new city where I hardly know anyone, I have come to belong my old self. Ah, the warmth of an Indian city meeting the warmth of my old self.

Today while reading some old posts from 2012 I realized that so much has changed yet so much has not. I am still that little girl running to her blog to find peace. I will always be that. Why is it that the world is not enough to talk to? It is talking to myself that gives some relief.

---

I have tired of 'trying'. I do not want to do that anymore. You may say I am giving up the fight before even preparing for it - but then exactly, I do not have the courage, I do not want to go through it all and I do not want to see a doctor to answer why. I don't and perhaps that's the end of it.

There is a lot of grief. Not only in every aspect of my work in human rights, but in every cell of my body that seems to have lost the zeal to live. How can I then love? How can I then hold someone's hands and make promises? When I am trying hard to hold myself lest I should leave me stranded mid-way.

I had love for that little girl even as I was that little girl. Somewhere that self-love is missing. What I see right now is a person who let herself down and I am reluctant to hug her, tell her that 'hey girl, you are me and I love you'.

Blog, you will be seeing a lot of me.

the whole spectrum

From soni sori's handwritten letters, to stories of sexual abuse by those in the family,  to subtleties of "sahmati, poorv-anumaan, chaahat, chunaav, haan, naa, shayad.", to my own personal account.

The perks of being sensitive are downward spiraling.

reminder

I realize just now that everything I have ever done, been proud of having accomplished or been a part of, has been a result, not of any stated curriculum or compulsory coursework. More often than not, from a university point of view, it has been unnecessary, unasked for and even at times unheard of. It was pure initiative on my part when I went up to a speaker in a panel and asked for work, or applied for work even if I did not yet have the credentials, or did more essays than required. Not to say that I have accomplished a lot - it is just that it were the small initiatives where I worked to learn, toiled myself without pay, recognition or even a certificate of internship, that paid off. Mostly, it has been the one nervous phone call - asking people I found interesting in the field if they would let me work for them - for no pay and if they agreed, dedicating my self to the work. After college hours, on Sundays, during summer vacations and winter breaks. And I don't think I missed out on any of the fun either.

Why did I do it?

I hated being at home so avoided going back after college. Sometimes I was running away from the tragedy of a break up, sometimes it was curiosity and sometimes I was sick of the curriculum. But mostly, it was my dad's discouragement that did the trick! I had it in me to prove myself or die trying. I had a cause.

Why am I reminding myself of all this?

Because I need to recall. The appreciation is dousing the flame. I have stopped rebelling as much, or struggling if you like. It's not that I am encouraged now, just that I have stopped caring to prove - as often happens when you leave home. I'm 25 and I know where I can be. If I have to taste the sweetness of being where I want to be doing what I want to do - I will have to keep myself hungry, I have to keep the cinders burning.

You know it now, girl. xoxoxox

Me amo! Te amo!

Hey!

Today is another day! I am happy right now and for once I am going to write it all down without feeling that writing or expressing the fact that I am happy will take it away from me. God knows who put this into my head.. but as if following a superstition I have been ever wary of expressing my happiness in words.. perhaps it is a way of avoiding a potential 'fall' from the happy state. As if the expression might jinx it or perhaps the feeling will vanish. 

Right now as the moment stands - I am ready to forgive myself. I am also ready to accept myself. I am beginning to hold myself again, wrap my arms around myself. I am ready to love and be loved. I am ready to smile and laugh and work. I am even ready to try to love Bombay. (okaaaayy..ready to try, at least. hee)

I might very soon shift in with a friend within my locality only. Living alone is certainly not my thing. I can stand hating a flatmate for a thousand things, but I don't want to be the only person in the house anymore. After London I had started to believe I would be fine - but, no siree!

By the by, I got my visiting card made. After months I am feeling proud of myself. After days of agony today I can feel the sunshine. I am able to love freely! And even if this feeling passes me by and fear takes hold of me - I am ready to fight it and reclaim myself.

I must not let fear boss me about. Que sera sera.

Which reminds me that my lessons in Spanish are going beautifully. I am actually feeling more confident now than I was before. This week I shall take out some time and sit with it.. get a hang of the verb conjugations, glossary and write the two small essays I am supposed to write on "Mi Casa" and "Mi Familia". Looking forward.

Love you, me. Love you, you!

blank stare

Looking for myself. So depressed I can hardly look up and walk straight right now. I want to see less, observe less, feel less. I want to meet less 'kind' of people.. I want to NOT think that deep all the time.. I want to go back into old age and be happy, really happy for once..unmindful of things that I see. Once in another post I had written, 'If you can see Thestrals, you would have witnessed death'. I do not wish to see them now. I do not wish to see these things that bother me, make me feel I am not one of many. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? To see things, and to want to be one of many.

There are so many questions in my mind - when to listen to what and whether to listen at all. I run to my sister for answers, she is more like me than anyone else is - but even then, our lives are not identical - hark, far from it. I am ever able to talk to anyone in such language. Never. I talk in other words and sometimes they get it sometimes not.

Taking an aerial picture, what is it that's bothering me? Isn't everything fine? More than fine, any one else would say. Then why am I afraid to be happy when I am. Why am I terrified when I should be strong. 

I wish I find the answers, they will come to me I am sure. But then I also know that there is no learning, unlearning going on here, there is no right or wrong decision may be, there is nothing called fate, there is simply nothing to this life at all. THERE ARE NO ANSWERS. What makes you think your life is so important? 

Is it not?

I think I am having an existential crisis.

Update

Been and now back from Delhi. Holi it was - with friends - good fun. Especially the beer part. Loved staying at home, with mom dad and my sister.. missed Panther while trying to forget, went for walks and sneaked out at times.Had a few fights, some love too, had home-cooked food, brought some back with me. Never knew I loved Delhi so much and how dry Mumbai really was to me. I have stopped calling it Bombay even. I've stopped caring!

All through the flight back home - kept thinking why I loved Delhi so. Was it the roads, the lights, the metro .. and I realized it wasn't that Delhi was grand - just that Mumbai is unbearable (to me). We pampered lot in Delhi get frisked about all the time here in Mumbai. While in Delhi it is always about 'yes, I matter', here it is almost writ large on everyone's head 'you matter not, nor do I'. Quite an equalizer Mumbai. You are basically a see-through here. A cellophane!

My mom doesn't get teary-eyed easily, she never once did when I left for London for months on end. But she did this time. I couldn't figure it out. She said, 'because you aren't really happy there'. I did tell her I was fine and that I just missed being around her and my friends! But well. 

But I have friends here and I get by. :) Have missed two Spanish weekends, hope to catch up tomorrow. Have much to write. 

More later.

मातृभाषा

कभी कुछ हिंदी में लिखा पढ़ती हूँ तो सच लिखने का दिल करता है. सिर्फ सच. मानो सब सच हिंदी में ही बसा है और लिखने की देर है. मुझ जैसे प्रायः अंग्रेजी में लिखने वाली को भी यह यह लग सकता है, कुछ बात होगी हिंदी में. तभी शायद हिंदी किताबों में बूँद भर ही सही पर रस ज़्यादा ही होता है, स्कूल-कॉलेज के दिनों में हिंदी डिबेट हमेशा से ही मुझे अंग्रेजी डिबेट से ज़्यादा प्रभावशाली लगती थी. हिंदी-उर्दू की "मिलीभगत" में लिखी गईं कविताएँ भी थोड़ी ज़्यादा पसंद आती हैं मुझे. मानो की जो सच है, सही में सच है, किसी भी उपरीय-दिखावे रहित वह ही लिखा होगा इन कविताओं में. पर यह प्रेम काफ़ी व्यक्तिगत है. मैं किसी भाषा, देश, कौम से व्यक्तिगत लगाव से ज़्यादा कम ही महसूस कर पाती हूँ. लगाव इसलिए भी की मेरी माँ की हिंदी पर खूब पकड़ है. जितना अच्छा बोलती हैं हिंदी, उतनी ही कविताएँ मूंह-ज़बानी याद हैं उन्हें. बचपन से ही उन्हें हिंदी की श्रेष्ठ कविताओं को पता नहीं कैसे आसान-सी धुनों में पिरो के गाते-गुनगुनाते सुना है. कई बार मुझे रोते से चुप भी कराया है उन्होंने राणाप्रताप या झाँसी की रानी पर लिखी कविताएँ सुना कर, और कई बार सुना है उन्हें किचन में खाना बनाते हुए, वही कविताएँ गाते हुए. यही वजह है कि कुछ छन्द मुझे भी याद हैं. सही मायनों में हिंदी मेरी 'मदर-टंग' है. शायद इसलिए अनकहा स्वाभाविक लगाव है हिंदी से. लिखने को बोलो तो प्रायः अंग्रेजी ही लिखी जाती है; किसी से मिलूं तो अंग्रेजी में बात करना ज़्यादा आसान लगता है - शायद इसलिए कि हिंदी में कुछ ज्यादा ही अपनापन है, नए लोगों से इतने अपनेपन के साथ बात नहीं होती आजकल.

respirar

Breathe. Once more. And so on.

Eh.

Mind: Start writing, girl. Kick-start. S.t.a.r.t. Write as you read.
All that underlining is not getting you anywhere, neither is the
scribbling in the margins nor the endless pointers in that horrible
handwriting of yours.

Self: Eh?

flip-flop(?)

I don't exactly want to sound that I know more. I couldn't, for reasons more than one. But mostly, because I have realized for all my wisdom, we are all creatures of our past, we are all creatures of our fears and our mistakes and our doubts. Amidst all this foliage (or rubble if you like) we grow, we cull, degenerate and grow again. All through this time I had been sailing a fictional flag, floating on a fictional boat, living my life considering my self an enlightened being. Little did I know that the same books and theories that had me congratulating myself upon as having read, having elevated myself - were also in part taking me away from simple truth, from simple happiness and everything that on a rainy romantic morning I wanted. To put it plainly, it was actually taking me away from simplicity. It was taking me away from what I actually wanted in a world of what I desired. Want is simple you see, and desires have an imaginary wings to them - which on one hand give flight to our creativity - but are useless when it comes to looking deep within ourselves. They also waste a lot of time.

To continue, in the past one month I have almost come of age again. Such coming of age is not new to me. Happens every couple of years and I have always had an acute sense when the transition was taking place. As if it was puberty all over again. And I am sure even this, what I may call my metamorphosis here (to borrow a word from someone I briefly and sporadically loved) will go through another transformation. I don't say it as a disclaimer, I am not trying to protect my credibility. I say it as a fact that I must put for you to be able to understand what I am trying to tell you. The circle has no end, as is an answer to many a riddle.

I had begun to think till sometime back that I knew who I was, I knew what I wanted, I knew what suited me and what not. The operative verb of course being 'knowing'. Riding my high horse galloping the vagabond streets of desire and the mistake of thinking I 'knew' what I sought, had actually blinded me to what I simply wanted and needed. I had actually closed doors to what I was capable of. A self-styled enlightened being closing doors to knowing oneself! Isn't that disturbing? Yet I continued to do that. Continued to tie my limbs while chanting 'I am free', continued to gag my mouth while believing me to be breathing free, continuing to hold my heart down while believing me to be loving freely. It was then it happened. The dramatic realization.

I still don't know if I have reached stability. It is too early to deduce that part. But the fact that I metamorphosed, challenging my conception of myself, which of course I took constructively. Once the blinkers came off, I saw better as expected, but I also am beginning to accept better. I want to tell you, that as times will pass your conception of yourself might change, you might feel you are capable of much more sacrifice (for your self) than you ever thought possible. You may let go of 'this', the cause of your trouble - but I would want you to having done it knowing that you might metamorphose too and when that happens - promise that you will love yourself double as hard as you do. But, if you decide to not let go of 'this' - then know that you are capable of much, much more than you can imagine. You are capable of accepting much more than you thought you could and there might be some simple truth for you in there.

happy!

The day was long, I made the most of it. Wrote vigorously. I'm loving it. My work is making me look forward to life and times to come. My beliefs replenished, reaffirmed.. it is beautiful this feeling. Much like love! Everything is making sense - as if I can use each faculty within my mind, each cell in my body, each nerve is alive with charge. Just wanted to write this moment.

teri aankho ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai!

my pages.

Just a random thought.. after having read Faiz's letters to his Wife.. it would be so lovely to be writing to someone.. in flesh and blood.. in ink and paper.. lovely to be writing to someone because there are things you want to write ..not things you just wanna tell and be done with. I used to do it in school - write letters to my friend, during the summer holidays. :)

On a completely different note - something had been happening these past couple of weeks. I don't know where I am - but it seems that I am losing control over how I feel.. the control is getting "outsourced" should I say. I am seeing things differently yet so scared that the happiness of it all has not got a chance to sink in. Somehow I fear even this will fall apart.

I am holding on to you, my pages.

Wayward

First thing first. Where I am. What I am doing today. The waywardness that has surrounded my life the past couple of days had me lose myself. Even as I traveled around Bombay  attending meets and training sessions and the like, I guess some reassessment of my self and my work is called for. Very often I find myself distanced from the areas I wanted to work in i.e. rural India. The fact that I am placed here in Bombay seems to me such a waste of time. "Things are fine here. Send me to the war-front!", say my innards. Ok but this is not the time for such commentary. There is work to be done and now. And no matter where I am situated - my work/academic research can still be done. And I can always travel 'there'. (hidden mockery in my own words.)

I love my job. I really really do. I love seeing things through the rights perspective. It is not an effort, spending hours and hours over reading and making sense of dozens of articles a day, taking notes and chalking out the contours of my own thesis. In short, I like studying and my fellowship here is giving me a lot of time to do that. But what has been bothering me? The fact that though what I am trying to say is very new in this organization,, within this set up, on the whole it is not very novel - much has already been written about it - do I really wanna give birth to a near-clone? From health perspective while I will have to explain things from the very scratch, over there i.e among people who have a human rights background I think I would only be articulating what has already been discussed, debated, agreed upon. Would it be better to instead take the discourse further or at least add something to it? I don't want to be bringing in an idea that (i fear) might be already stale. Is there something called a stale research? But then, doesn't research itself mean re-search? Phew, I don't know. The basic study is necessary for me anyway. So I should be concentrating on it.

I don't have answers but I hope I will in sometime. I also want to get my LSE assessed essays published - but somehow in the heart of my heart I tend to underestimate my work.  Within my mind it goes something like this - If I have been able to do it, then anyone can and so it is not good enough and if I face difficulties doing something - it must be wrong somewhere and so definitely not good enough. Do I leave myself with any choice here?

Bombay Hues

The ecdysis

I am becoming your Frankenstein's monster. You wanted me like this and there, you have it. You brought about this change, cast me into a mould that was not mine from the beginning. And I, as if lying in wait for the very change – became who I was not; and never even 'wanted' to be. The shapeshifting over, I emerged anew the way you would have me be. And now you feel wronged. You resent me because you fell in love with your own creation. Why, you should have known of all people that even as I sloughed my skin, to come out puckering and ugly, like a child fresh out of its mother's womb, I had ceased to be human in the process. 

My Ecdysis has happened – spineless that I am! –  at times even spiraling out of your grasp, my creator.

settled!

Heya! Apologies for a belated post. My house is now set and I have entered into a routine. I am reading on a lot apart from that required for my research and now that I do not have a necessary priority in terms of course work to do - my interest in politics, journalism, issues and the like is rekindling. Stuff that I had lost touch with like Indian law and politics - I am again coming back to it all, albeit quietly. Unlike before, there is no one now to discuss such stuff with, or to casually speculate or predict. Now I remember it used to be fun doing that in college days. I still don't have a subscription to a newspaper here. Must remember to get it done at the earliest. Right now I am making do with an unreliable internet connection. I have to get that fixed too. 

As far as work goes at times I find it hard to keep focus. I keep losing track on exactly what I am doing - given the fact that I am very much an outsider here. Often I am surprised by my own presence. And then I go looking for myself. Remind myself of my interest and take it from there - so every other day becomes the first. The year in London was important in terms of ideas and concepts - now is the time learn the practical aspects of it all. But again, it would be great to have someone to talk these things through with. Someone senior.

As usual, when left to myself my mental compass naturally points to literature (and not human rights, much to my chagrin). I had been reading Anna Karenina - it is strangely paced - at times very slow, at others just right. I am halfway through the book but I still cannot make up my mind about a certain characters - why doesn't Tolstoy tell us more about them - often while reading I find myself wondering about the truth of these characters - Vronsky, Anna, her Husband Alexei, Levin and Kitty  - half way through the book and it still feels like the curtain is still only half drawn. A couple of thoughts though. I have always been enchanted with strong-willed women - and that's why I like Anna. And yet, to not been taken further into the countenance of her mind and what she is actually going on there, instead to be simply told what she is doing leads me both - to take this book up and to put this book down. (In contrast - how beautifully Charlotte Bronte elucidated Jane Eyre's mind. I am still hopeful though.)

Another book I am reading in between is A Short History of Nearly Everything and I don't know what to make of it because whatever I learn I forget in no time. I do enjoy it. And it is a very very easy read - given that it is all about Science.

PS: I am joining Spanish classes. Declaring it here to make me really go and enroll myself.

Let go

When will all this end? The unrelenting guilt. The false guilt. The guilt that is not to be? When will it end and let me live? I know it is unimportant - but to me a malaise that I want to be rid of. Unnecessary, screeching, wrong and yet I cling on most obsessively. 

Train Post 2: later into the day

I land in Bombay today (or since I am coming by train should I say crawl). The 'city of dreams' it has been called rhetorically – I shall see what it turns out for me. I look forward to meeting my advisor tomorrow somewhere in Santa Cruz. There is a lot going on in the mind right now. Flashes from the conference, workshop safari, my blink-and-miss stopover at home and here I find myself in this train going from one Rajdhani (Capital city) to another. Intermittently, I also miss London. Unlike before. The missing is more in terms of pangs. Piercing till I shake it off. I miss London streets I was regular to, going to buy the grocery from Tesco. The most predictable of things are the ones I miss – like the chill, the rain, the slight shiver, the hostel and the hostel kitchen where I used to cook. I don't miss the monuments much but I do miss the nameless streets and people I met there. AND the tick tock of my boots! It is all in flashes too, places where at times I lit a cig, walked a bit, sat for mere view, wrote in the mind, talked on phone while on walks.

Eddying out to the present - I can see what makes India tick. No wonder from Switzerland to Tanzania everywhere Indians are known for their business acumen, more specifically how they 'capture the market'. Right before me is a handsome chap I presume to be a Gujarati. Got in the train at 6 am from Surat. I was sleeping at the time and was woken up for tea. This fellow has been talking of costing (coasting), increment, interest rates, selling (sailing), market price, products, competitors blah blah blah ad nauseam. All 'strategizing' in the world is apparently happening on this very train. I couldn't yawn more. A while ago I saw him reading a book (which got me to take note of his looks in the first place). Through the corner of my eye I caught the name on the spine and realised that even this was a business strategy kitaab! I now overhear that it has been gifted to him and it talks about the right to competition and strategy and how to make max. profit. And now that he is explaining to others he declares with pride, "the author Michael XXX says "don't compete to be the best compete to be unique." How I wish he would shut THE HELL up.

Everyone else on the bogey is listening with rapt attention. The earnestness on the chap's face makes me feel so sorry for him, his book makes me feel how poor we are, my lack of interest in this 'enlightening' conversation makes me feel like this train won't ever halt, and my being stuck in this cabin makes me claustrophobic.

GO DIE! (It kinda catches on.)

Train Post 1

Date: January 31, 2013, 

Somewhere in Gujarat or Maharashtra, 

Time: whatever it is it is LATE

I write this from the train. En route Bombay. As always happens with me, I wrote in bits and pieces last night. Not a word do I recollect although at the time I was sure of my unfailing memory. The train that I am travelling in – the August Kranti Rajdhani - is an hour late, because of fog apparently. I'm wearing a salwar kameez and feeling cold in the air conditioned train.

Last month was quite eventful. It breakfasted in the hospital, lunched in Tanzania and hopefully will dine in Bombay. Being a Delhiite I can't help but see Bombay with a little disdain. I am perhaps too used to the space around me - the circumference where my 'aura' prospers, you see. Yeah, I am a spoilt Delhi girl whose daddy gave her a car when she turned 23.

I miss having long conversations. I miss being inspired. Have been trying to find the right word for "prabhavit' (no, 'affected' doesnt sound right enough) I think 'inspired' could be one.

hard times

It's 2013 now.  Christmas, New Year have all gone by in the hospital. I rescheduled my return to Delhi to come home early so I could be with her. And in this time I prayed, I cried, I shivered – while spending sleepless nights in the semi-ICU ward. She is better now, though recovery shall take 2-3 months. 

Up in the Air

Date: 16-17-18 December 2012 (depends on which time zone I should follow while some 40,000 ft up in the air, in between continents and whether or not I have the energy to add or subtract silly hours.)

Place: Read above.

Time: Ditto

(Somewhere in constant motion, above a constantly moving earth – is where date, place and time have a threesome?)

I am still in the plane. Still 4 hours to go before I reach my destination –  London. I have been communting since last night and its already evening in Delhi - the place I started from. Travelling 5-6 hours back in time has its advantages. No matter how late your flight is, how much you have to wait at the airport, no matter how much sleep you have lost – you will still be arriving earlier than you would have expected. However, that is not what this post is about.

For so long I had been sitting, itching to type but didn't wanna make the effort to pull out the laptop and really do it. Because there isn't much space around me, and secondly, I don't really enjoy jotting down most uncomfortable of times – grief, gloom, tears and pain I can write pages upon pages about – it's the physically uncomfortable that I can't write much on.

But then – while watching a crazy movie (my third on this flight) I just started to write – in the head.. and it came out beautifully. Wishing to capitalise on the moment, I lunged for my bag, took out the laptop case, extracted the laptop from its case, sat up straight and here I am typing away 'feeling important' – the memory of what I was writing (in the head) having completely wiped off.

Nevermind, the laptop is here now. I will wait to return.

by the way.

And on a regular note - I bought myself an overcoat today. A khaki colored coat with a furry hood. I am sure it will keep me warm - and if it doesn't well, there is Zara and there is a discount. Gosh, I hate shopping so much that I fooled myself into eating a plate of papri chat just so that I could procrastinate a little more in the mall today. Shopping alone has its benefits. No one to judge you. I also bought a winter hat/cap, it looks cute in a fuzzy sort of way. London is freezing I am told.

My tickets for Arusha, Tanzania are done. And the trip is for longer duration than I had thought. I will be gone for good 7-8 days. Reach Arusha over three connecting flights and come back via two other. Upon return I am to pack again for Bombay and plan on staying put. Before that I would be staying in some part of Delhi for 2-3 days for orientation into the fellowship program.

Oh yea, did I mention? I won the Maternal Health Fellowship jointly awarded by Harvard University and Maternal Health Task Force. Hence, the London and the Tanzania and the Bombay. Gee. 

Lb ju.

exeunt omnes!

Not a shred is left. Not a word. Not a syllable that we existed. Is it that we love our selves so much or the fact that we essentially don't? Or is it the necessary absolutions of our people infested lives that some have to, just have to go? Sometimes they walk out themselves and at times we would have pushed them out and banged the door shut. Either way we suffer. No matter which side of the stage we find ourselves at the end of the play, it is all just the same.

This is not a piece wrote in any of the extreme emotions we are wont to feel at moments like these. In fact, I am surprisingly cool. It is just emptiness that's staring back at me. A strange emptiness - not the hollow kinds - but the kind that fills every nook and crevice of my daily life. The emptiness is all-encompassing, taking up all space there ever was, beautiful in itself and tranquil. Yes, it is very quiet and still.

Or is it simply that I am talking much more to myself, now that the noise (yes you!) is no more? 

I am such a hopeless brute, I am even enjoying this, right now, here.

sprawl scrawl

I am in bliss. True bliss..drunk in sunshine on my rooftop.hardly being able to write..but each part of me feels so soft and nurtured..like a newborn babe. Im so blissfully dizzy in a sleep that only sunlight and warmth can make possible. im sprawled on a thick blanket doubled up to give me some comfort and my body is covered from head to toe with ma's warm shawl..making me my own warm Eden..i can hardly open my eyes - i am that cosy -  but i am feeling supple and well slept.

The morn saw me get up early..snuggle upto ma..it being hers and my dads wedding anniv (35th!) after which I laced up my shoes..wore myfav puma trackpants with a jacket on top and went for a run. Twelve rounds and an hour later I returned home to have a shower, my breakfast and laze around and now I am on the rooftop .. with my book.. sleep now and then replacing the book..off come my glasses and I lumber on with my seista. Lovely lovely Delhi winter it is - best spent on lazy rooftops..sprawled and comforted - nothing could tear me apart from my drowsy heaven! muah!

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