Morning Coffee

One could call it anything they want. But it wouldn't matter. When she woke up in the morning and felt his arm around her waist, she smiled. Almost in roleplay of a married couple or one in preparation of what was to come, he demanded that she went and got him his morning cafe. The newspaper was amiss. He sure did have the right to ask this of her. And though she complained and stuck her tongue out at him at the demand, she smiled inwardly. And obediently went and got the coffee in a tray, holding it with shaking hands. There was something really beautiful in this. She asked him how many spoons of sugar he wanted and put those many. They sat on their porch and drank their individual cups of coffee. Strong. Wonderful. Very sweet. The coffee, that is :)

She

She lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. There was a feeling of shame and guilt at the same time. She knew she had to be strong but knew not how. There was an embarrassment that flooded her mind. She was afraid of looking at herself in the mirror. Her breathing was much too fast for her own liking. She wanted to jump in anger, though unaware of why she wanted to do that. It was not 'jumping in excitement' and the desire to do so made her doubt herself even more. She was unsure of things that were happening around her because her reality had been shifted. The gravity under her had been seemingly moved. She tried to shut her eyes and sleep it away but that was impossible for the images would flood her mind, without her consent. She just lay there staring up...

Sign language

I stood there devouring the puchkas. He came there when I was halfway through the first plate and stood next to me. A thirty-something man with a checked shirt and formal pants. He might have been craving those puchkas since morning but had been stuck at office. There was an eagerness to him. His eyes probably met the puchkawala's for he was given a plate to hold. I told the puchkawala that I wanted one more plate of those delicious, sinful round puffed puris with the potatoes and spices and the seemingly dirty but excellent pani. I saw the man next to me turn to look at me and seem to be shocked. A girl's appetite is not supposed to allow 2 plates of puchkas is probably what he thought. We started getting the puchkas on our plate. After the first one, the man pointed to the water container. In his next one, he got a puchka with much more water. I was oddly fascinated and I think it showed, because he looked at me and frowned. I frowned as well, but more because of confusion than anything.

After we finished eating, he gave a 50-rupee note to the puchkawala. He was told that there was no change. He went to the kulfi stall close by and showed the man the note, and made a sign with his hands to ask for change. It was something like a cutting motion. On receiving the change, he smiled and nodded with gratitude. He came and paid the puchkawala and walked away. The man was mute. Not shy, not snobbish. Mute. Special. Lucky, in his own way. I thought about people on my walk home and looked at those who passed me. I realized that enough and more can be said by sign language, through gestures, through the eye, through hand movements. If something has to be communicated, there will always be a way.

The Waterfall

Like people, it has two faces-the brute side of nature being a part of the fast-flowing violent course of a river. Or perhaps, something that calms you down as you see the layers that the water falls in if you stand still and track its flow.
You throw in a coin and make a wish.
The denomination does not matter because it is simply the giving up of something that is yours to Nature. You see the shimmer from atop as the coin awaits the flow of the water to consume it and allow it to begin its journey.
And then, the reflection is gone.
The coin is taken into the depths of the water, mixed with the soil, and accepted as an offering of something made my Man to Nature. A token of appreciation for all that it has to show you.
We are all like the waterfall-playful at times, wild and violent at others. Exploring the course that the river of life is taking...

The Winding Road

The winding road he took.
He could not be sure of what lay ahead.
He never saw it coming.
He did not regret.

Vice vs Vice

Two months without one,
The best day with the other.
How good they both can make you feel,
You remember in rainy weather.

One becomes your vice and you keep it at bay,
The other, a life, that is here to stay.
While one is rejected, and you have gone astray,
Welcome the other with a smile on each new day!

Alone

It's something that you would have felt at some time or the other in your life. The only time that you wouldn't have felt it would have been when you were truly attached to your mother with an umbilical cord; i.e.biologically not alone.
But in the everyday reality of your existence, being alone is a part. A major or minor part, but there. It is an inevitable feeling with or without your acknowledgement of it. But that does not change the existence of the feeling when you are locked up in your room or at a social gathering with a bunch of familiar faces but none that you can relate to.
That is not to say that it is necessarily a bad thing if someone feels alone. It is a much needed way to sanity in crazy,tumultuous times. It is in an escape route when the world seems to be gaining in on you. It can lead to a creative expression of one's thoughts. In Ruskin Bond's words, Loneliness is a vital part of an artist's creativity.
It is what it is. Writing about it doesn't make the empty spaces go away, doesn't help gain control of the feeling.
The world spins madly around you but you are still. You are not swept away by the wave. Your frequency does not match with anyone else's.
So be it.

From a Railway Carriage

You're allowed to, and more like supposed to be excited before a train journey, right? And I was. That was before I got onto the train and found my place-the upper side berth, Seat no 24, the lower occupants of which was a couple who chose to block everyone's view by keeping the curtains drawn the whole time. That meant that I could not sit down till my co-passenger wanted to sleep. I felt betrayed by the railways. I could not watch the trees and fields and scarecrows pass me by as I would when I was younger. 


R.L.Stevenson's poem, 'From a Railway Carriage', with its hills and mills and the wonderful line 'Each a glimpse and gone forever!' was always something I remembered on any train journey I had made since the day I studied the poem in the school days. I could not keep to my seat for the whole journey. I was determined to watch life pass me by in the form of blurry moving images. Sitting in the compartment opposite mine was impossible since a Gujarati family of nine members occupied it. The lack of space and the picnic-like atmosphere(Yes, Marwaris are not the food obsessed ones. Not like it's a bad thing to be food obsessed. But, I'm just stating what I observed.) in that compartment was enough to not even keep that as an option. Besides, they disliked me anyway, since I refused to switch seats with them in the beginning of the journey.(In my defence, the seat they were offering was right next to the toilets that don't smell too pleasant. Also, being the first time I was travelling alone, God knows how I'd sleep close the to the door thinking about how I'd be among the first few victims of a terrorist attack if they decided to use that door!)


With gathered optimism, I searched the coach for an empty seat that I could look out of the window from. The only seat available had a family with a squealing baby. The parents must have been so immune to the torture that none of them even bothered trying to shut it up(I mean, 'make it quiet with a gentle pat on the back'). I returned to my seat, slept, woke up to loud music(decent song, though),wrote, slept again. Now is when I'm awake, amused at my situation, and writing this. Thoughts of someone have kept me going on this journey. The last few days before this journey have been so amazing for me that this journey's not being among the best in my life, doesn't even matter. 


I wish this journey involved his being here, next to me, (jokingly) cribbing about the lack of space because of my hugeness. I know that that journey will be made on another day. Maybe with a thin me. Maybe.  For now, Bill Wither's Lean on Me is getting me into a sleepy mood. On removing my earphones, I hear the happy family next to me talking about cheese dips, moving on to talks of goat cheese, and now, goat milk vs buffalo milk. 


Help! I really wish you'd been here! At least, I'd be laughing at this. Or blocking out the world around us by lying next to you. Or better still, in your arms.


Damn. Reality sucks!

Awake/Asleep

One of the things that makes life interesting is living someone else's experience in your own context. You read a book, hear stories, watch them happen...But when you become a character in the story and live it, it really is something else.

There have been many occasions where one has heard/read about the feeling you get while watching 'someone' sleep. (The inverted commas should get the point across to those who'd know what I'm talking about.) Just the simple act of observing the person as they sleep. You watch from afar, observing the slight frown on the forehead calm itself, careful of not waking the person up with a sudden movement. You watch the chest moving with each breath. You notice the little details of the face that you hadn't till then.

You smile to yourself.

You feel slightly strange because you realize that if a third person had not noticed the intertwined fingers of the two concerned individuals, he'd have taken you to be a stalker!

After a while, the person wakes up from dreams of Pokémon Red and you look away, pretending that you'd only been listening to your iPod and looking at the road in front of you the whole time...

The Wannabes

Lack of originality.
Inability to think for themselves.
'Going with the flow' taken too literally.
Aping.
Hypocrisy.
Lying to themselves.
They are the 'Wannabes'.
The ones who just HAVE TO follow the trends, regardless of whether it makes any sense to them personally or not. The ones who are always trying to fit in. Those who go out of the way to buy the new Ray-Ban shades that the 'cool dudes' are wearing or the tank top that all the apparently beautiful girls have adorned. What happened to the concept of beauty within? Of never judging a book by its cover? Of accepting and appreciating everybody for who they are?

Has the time arrived to say that we have entered the era of The Wannabes, who are now penetrated so deep into our social structure that their roots are already too deep to be uprooted? Is there a possible way out of this madness or will we all slowly succumb and convert? Why aren't people making a huge hue and cry about an involuntary conversion of a faith this time? Is it possible that this is not even a new concept but has always been ingrained in humanity and it is only now that it is surfacing due to circumstances? Has mankind paved its own way for disaster in the form of an army of people who, due to social facts, no longer wish to be how they are but in fact, choose to be Longfellow's 'dumb, driven cattle'?

Changes

For thirteen years had she walked hand-in-hand with the man,
Now, from his thoughts, she withdrew and ran.
An unexplainable loss had entered her life,
This newness would be followed by many a strifes.
Pondering over her past, she found nothing she could forget
Though these memories were things she could not beget.
She waited for the sign to let go of herself,
And when it came, her whole world finally changed.