Cleaning up my closet

I rearranged the contents of my cupboard today….it had begun to mirror my mind…cluttered with thoughts. It’s almost like detoxification..I got rid of quite a few of my keepsakes that failed to serve their purpose and the exercise gave some semblance of order to my immediate outer space, which I hoped would seep inside….

Most of the things that I managed to unearth were reminders of a life that could have been, memorials of promises I had made to myself…. unrequited prayers and thankfully so. I also found quite a few things that I had forgotten were in my possession.. books and wisps of paper on which I had written my spontaneous thoughts, scraps of paper that once adorned my soft board….

Few of the things I managed to scavenge are worth mentioning:

1) Hand-written last statement of Timothy, executed for the Oklahoma bombing …

Out of the night that covers me

Black as the Pit from pole to pole

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstances

I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate

How charged with punishments the scroll

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul.

2) A tattered dress that my first doll once wore, which reminded me of my many ‘firsts’ – My first stereo system, my first day at college, my first job, my first salary, my first poem, my first ‘mini skirt’, my first prom dance…

3) Withered flowers and leaves

4) My cartoon sketch gifted by my school friend – a rendition of what my future self would look like…

5) Some handmade cards given by friends (I’ve been out of touch with) promising to be my friends forever

6) My English Composition and grammar book – with essays of prophecies of what I would be when I grow up

Apart from the archaic therapeutic ways like cleaning up, getting a haircut, comfort food…. and some other mood elevating stuff…I was contemplating about what works for me.

a) Finding a quiet comfortable corner.. settling in the bean bag and soliloquizing

b) Surreal conversations and coffee

c) Sifting through old pictures and revisiting good old memories at my own pace…

d) Sepia tone pictures complemented with Rumi poems

e) Writing poems and testimonials for friends…

f) Smelling my grandmom’s sarees

g) Dressing up…having a drink with a friend …trying out a new cuisine

h) Imli and star fruit

i) movies - especially world cinema - I'm a hardcore cinema enthusiast.

j) Stick ice-creams

k) Crazy Photo sessions in diverse lights and ambience

l) Long drives and retro music…vast stretches where the crisp air can be best appreciated through windows of a car

m) Sumptuous upbeat colours — aquatic blues, bottle green, passionate red, burnished gold and elegant jade…floral prints..polka dots….

n) Screaming in a giant wheel

o) Sitcoms

p) Children’s literature with pictures of dwarfs, cosy pink and blue houses perched on snow clad mountains, Tinker Bell, Winnie the Pooh, pretty tea sets, poppies, exotic fruits…

q) Calvin and Hobbes – my all time favourite

r) Talking to kids – because essentially basic is how we live. We can take inspiration from children in countless cases – They don’t incessantly judge themselves – they plunge headlong into activities – they don’t care about how they look whent they’re dancing – they shake their bodies when they hear their favourite songs – they are comfortable with their own bodies. I love practicing Madhuri’s moves in the privacy of my bedroom – and it really helps especially with dupattas!! Crooning into a hairbrush works even better for me – not being your prevalent critic allows stress levels to nose-dive. I also very unabashedly accept that having an invisible friend was a form of self-therapy for me for a long time as a kid. I think one can be more adjusted with one…since the idea of soemone who knows you as intimately as an invisible friend always comforted me.

s) Magical realism - It is an artistic genre wherein magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic natural setting – an altered reality. It operates in different realms of fiction, visual art, films. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories or the film ‘The Lakehouse’ are a perfect example of magical realism. My most serious problem like Marquez was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic .

t) The sea is my best friend – my confidant – Walking by the sea…sinking my feet in the sand and watching the water recede from my toes…the sound of the sea… thunderous and soothing at the same time..waves of white froth and azure crashing…like thousand silver bells and ribbons jingling and unfolding..It is easy to project with the sea – to see in it what we want to see – a roaring monster or a vast expanse imbibing your secrets in its enormity

u) Reading travel magazines especially Pico Iyer….The idea of having a home which is both invisible and portable has always captured my imagination.

v) Wearing Orchids in my hair

w) In case of Monday blues – planning something special for Monday. This way I have something to look forward to all through the day – its like working towards a reward

x) Gazing at Vincent’s paintings for their arbitrary forceful strokes or at Monet’s depiction of the countryside of Giverny and water lilies till I become a part of the landscape staring at me. What I love about water – ponds, lakes or seas is the fact that they mirror the changing sky, which in turn imbues the waters with movement and life. It’s easy to seek in art an adventure that we cannot sustain in real life.

y) Walk through parts of the city that I haven't been to earlier during the early hours with my music and having a hearty breakfast after that.

I guess I’m a positive pessimist. I like to turn the inevitable occassional negativity into a splendid affair.

Can I live my life a million times over? A different tale, each time?

F Scott Fitzgerald's ' The Great Gatsby' will always remain somewhere at the peak of my list of favourites for its scintillating language and sarcasm.

I couldnt identify with the author more when he says - I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me a victim of not a few veteran bores.

Unsought confidences would vex me earlier since I have never really perceived the role of an agony aunt as a desirable one but being privy to the secret griefs of unknown and known people did exhilarate me in a certain way. I was the keeper of stories - that’s how I preferred to look at it.

I always had a deep yearning for stepping out of my own skin to inhabit other worlds.

Books then were the best mode of transport that helped me glide to different places ..places unheard of ..places that have probably never existed. It is easy to travel back and forth between covers. Books have allowed me to take on new identities, explore new places and assume different roles. When it comes to a story, I could wish, I could write it down and I could have the world. You write the world castle and it conjures up one. The idea of love could be achieved with a single idea –a ‘glance’ - “his luminous eyes fleetingly held mine and my heart stuttered at the thought of him…his walnut brown eyes shaded by fanned lashes met mine…”. Words can sometimes help you invoke images more articulate and evocative than tangible objects. I always wondered what was the central cohesive element that propelled me towards books, pictures, films or peoples lives - 'STORIES'. Each one of them tells a story.

A few days back I came across a picture in the newspaper. It spoke volumes in a silent sort of way amid all the cacophony over whether Salman Khan deserved the sentence that was handed out to him for killing antelopes of the endangered species. It was a picture of a woman from the bishnoi community hailing from a small pocket of Jodhpur. It was a telling picture of the woman breast-feeding a black buck fawn. Therein lied a huge story of compassion, of reverence. A blackbuck fawn was injured by poachers, who wanted to make away with it in their jeep. The Bishnois rescued it and the fawn, which was only a few days old, was brought home by a young man. His wife who had borne him a child only few a days ago felt really moved by the plight of the fawn. She breast-fed the fawn along with her own son and both of them would sleep with her on the same bed. The fawn grew up and when it was able to fend for itself, they released it in the forest. It kept on visiting its foster mother and the house it grew up in even after attaining adulthood. The prominence of stories in the life of a journalist can never be exaggerated. One of the spin-off benefits of being a journalist is the opportunity to catch up with people, who unwittingly teach you a lot about yourself. Vicarious learning is one form of learning that we tend to discount but people’s lives and their eccentric dreams can be your classroom.

Imagination can be your vehicle. Fantasy sometimes can provide an ideal excuse to tell the truth about the quirky quality of human existence. Stories can miniaturize the vast space in the expanse of my mind.

Fortuity smiled upon me and my job allowed me the chance to meet P Sainath, the Magsaysay, Asia's leading development journalist - a term he himself avoids - writing frequently about issues such as poverty and the effects of industrialization on India. He is the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature and creative communication arts. A very pertinent observation that he made was that a lot of what we call journalism today is stenography to the powerful. We are stenographers to power. We basically reflect what the establishment reflects.

Media is in the business of implicit consensus…the focus of each medium is to dwell on what the competitor has covered and not to concentrate on something that probably all the media had overlooked. The most important function of journalism is to bend it back to whence it sprang- to the lives of common people.

In 1992, many poor peasants from Thane, mainly adivasis, marched into Mumbai in protest, with their starving children and they congregated near the Stock Market. That day, the Sensex touched an all time-high of 2,000. The press churned the staple photograph with an obvious caption: "Farmers Demand Remunerative prices". Actually, those farmers were saying something else. They were saying the devastation inflicted on the public distribution system was hurting them, the collapsing public health system was endangering their lives and that they could not afford the new costs being inflicted on them at a time when spending on the poor was being slashed. Their march ended at the Stock Exchange but we were too busy monitoring the Sensex to notice the protesters on the ground. Two weeks later, 29 children had died of hunger-related problems in Thane.

Then of course, the press disparaged the Government; there were big stories that exposed the government's public distribution system. It was a failure though of the media to have missed the huge story of the crumbling public distribution system earlier. He was queried in terms of what was the best way to sell such a story to your editor in the age where news content is driven by TRP ratings. His answer to this pertinent question is something that will always guide me throughout my career as a journalist. He said --Don’t state statistics…tell the story that lies beneath. He gave an example of how one of the ‘Lakme Fashion week’ events coincided with the high incidence of suicides of Vidarbha farmers. Statistics in terms of the abysmal ratio of reporters covering the plight of these farmers to the number of those covering the ‘Lakme Fashion week’ pointed towards the story which was screaming to be told….but we obviously missed it…we missed the juxtaposition. We missed the juxtaposition of the buoyant emergent superpower of a country that India is touted as with the country, where the dominant population consists of toiling agriculturists…farmers. The irony was that the models strutting at the Lake Fashion week were displaying cotton wear…and the Vidharbha farmers who were killing themselves were cotton farmers.

Paradoxes make the best stories… the magic of conflict….as I love to call it. Tell it like it is and the irony will work its charm lending a luminescence to a poignant story.

To digress a bit, I would love to mention one of my friends who has been among the ones who has been feeding my passion..whose many observations and points of views have been a source of redemption for me and whose friendship will always be a sort of emancipation for me….and I stand by the testimonial I wrote for her on Orkut…she tunes into the secret hopes and dreams of people…including mine..and verbalises some of the most inexplicable feelings – Indira.

She kindly parted with a few of her favourite lines from Tarun Tejpal’s “Alchemy of Desire”.. which broke the spell of my mental block and urged me to write this blog after a space of about three months. Here are those lines.

"More than anyone else, it is lovers who need the gift of the story. They need to tell stories to each other continually to keep themselves from disappearing.

Passionate love has nothing to do with any obvious attributes of the lover - class, intellect, looks, character. It has everything to do with the stories the lover can tell.

When the stories are stirring, complex, profound - like great fiction they need never be crudely true - then so is the love. When the stories are thin - their grammar sloppy, their life-force weak, their plot tawdry - then so is the love.

The stories lovers tell each other are tales about themselves, their past, their future, their uniqueness, their inevitability, their invincibility. Stories about their dreams, fantasies, the nooks and crannies of their fears and perversions. Those who can tell their stories with power create powerful love. Those who cant, never know the emotion.

Love is the story - the wine in the bottle. The teller is merely the bottle, of some significance only till the wine is tasted. Grand bottles die on the shelf if the wine fails - if the stories flounder.

We all know beautiful people who have never known love.

Like great fiction, the stories lovers tell each other can be about anything and can be told in any tone. They can have the exuberance of Dickens of be spare like Hemingway; they can teem as Joyce or confound as Kafka; they can be mad as Lewis Carroll or sad as Thomas Hardy. They can be anything - grim, comic, philosophic, loony. But they must be true.

In the peculiarly false way great fictions are true.
In the peculiarly false way great love is true."

-This is one of the most convincing explanations of love I’ve read by far.

One word probably to describe me is someone who is perpetually questing. I have always ruminated about the one passion that defines me, gives us a name other than the one my parents gave me, one space that I can call my own, one activity that I can claim to know everything about, one identity besides the one everyone knows me by….and I wish I’m known someday for the stories that I tell .. stories that I’ve heard and recounted.

So much to take, so much to give
Before I leave, a million lives to live.

put the responsibility of your happiness where it belongs…with you

What is the difference between saying “I feel hurt” rather than saying “You hurt me”. When you say the former…you are not blaming or attacking your partner. You are simply providing information. When one person expresses his or her feelings, they provide information to another. All we can do is provide information to another person. The rest is up to them. Thus, the more we value a person or a relationship, not only the more interested we are in their feelings, but the more likely we are to make changes voluntarily, without feeling forced, or coerced. Part of the value of clearly identifying your feelings, if not the primary value, is to help you decide when it is time for you to make a change. This change may take many forms, but the point is to take primary responsibility for taking care of your own feeling. Ask "what would help me feel better that I can do" rather than thinking in terms of what someone else could do. Thus it is necessary to assume responsibility and ask for help, rather than expect or demand your partner do anything to help you feel better. Learn to change your demands into preferences. Accepting responsibility releases resentment.

When one person is shouting, angry or walks away, they are most in need.

People's feelings can change quickly. Expecting consistency will lead to disappointment. Instead, try to accept feelings at each moment.

Disappointment can be avoided by having no expectations, or by at least not having unrealistic ones. Remember you create the disappointment more than the other person.

You are primarily responsible for your feelings of resentment and bitterness, not your partner.

Define your terms, for example, respect, support, listening, and friendship. Discuss how you each believe love is shown. Agree on a method for resolving conflicts. Discuss the concept of punishment- for example, withholding communication, changing plans to hurt the other person. Find out if your partner uses punishment when they are hurt. Find out what your partner does when they don't get what they want. How they resolve problems. Find out whether they have bitterness from past relationships; how they felt with their parents. The fewer unmet emotional needs (UEN's) we have, the more we are able to be interested in our partner's feelings. If I am very needy, for example, I am only thinking of, because I am feeling the pain of, my own unmet emotional needs. It is unlikely I will be able to feel much empathy for my partner when I am hurting myself, since taking care of one's own pain is fundamental to the survival of the species. In evolutionary terms, individual sacrifice seems to make sense only in extreme situations, where life or death of another person or the group is at stake.

Whoever needs the relationship most has the least power in it. Do not depend on your partner for your happiness. Remember that happiness is something you bring into a relationship more than something you get out of it. Be sure you don't confuse loving someone with needing them. Need is based on insecurity and dependency. When you need someone, you believe you can't live without them. When you love someone, you can be happy alone and you can continue to love them even after you are no longer romantic partners.

People don't fight about real issues but about symptoms of their inability to work things out. It is healthy to be sensitive. What is unhealthy is to feel insecure and to be insecure. The secure, sensitive person can feel something and express their feelings without fear of rejection and abandonment. The more sensitive one is, the sooner one can feel it and express it. This has the potential of averting major conflicts down the road.

Stick to the issue. Don't fight old battles or draw in other people.

Don't react passively. Everybody needs feedback. But I would say try to limit your feedback to your feelings and a brief explanation of them, and I would add: Don't label the other person and don’t use general terms…like always..never…be specific about incidents…

Once begun, don't leave the room, except to calm down or take a needed break until you have reached some agreements and you both feel better. [I would say: Try to listen to the other person for as long as it takes till they feel fully expressed, but be aware of your own feelings and take a break if you need it, while giving assurance you will return. Also, don't pressure the other person into continuing the discussion when they have made it clear they need a break. Respect each other's feelings and boundaries during the process. Try to reach compromises, without feeling sacrificial.]

Try to keep a sense of humor, for comic relief, but don't joke around if the other person isn't smiling. [Remember though it is easy to invalidate with humor, even when completely unintentional- especially if other person is feeling hurt, insecure, inadequate, defensive, needy, etc.]

Don't tease, mock, or ridicule the other person (i.e. don't invalidate!!) Find things to agree on, even if you can only agree that you disagree.

Most importantly…put the responsibility of your happiness where it belongs…with you!!!

If you believe that the answer to your happiness lies in someone else’s hands you’re in for a lot of trouble!!! Even if they manage to accommodate you with occasional changes, you’ll come to rely on those for your continued happiness. Eventually you’ll be let down and you will be left feeling discouraged and left feeling helpless and dependent! I’m not saying that our parent’s actions don’t affect us or that you wont be upset if your girlfriend or boyfriend left you by choice or circumstance. When your life isn’t working, you need to make changes to see things differently. There isn’t a relationship good enough to do it for you. This is a very empowering insight. In fact you are making a statement to yourself that while your relationships are a priority, you have the power and the ability to make yourself happy. This means that you are okay when things around you aren’t going so well or when people prove to be human.

You are also taking a great deal of pressure off them, by communicating that you can make mistakes, or that you don’t have to pretend to be in a certain way when you’re with me. When you take responsibility for your happiness, you open the door to new kinds of relationships based on honesty ,responsibility and courage.

Sometimes.... just listen!!!

Beliefs can be debatable. Feelings are not. Therefore Feelings at most times unite us more than beliefs. We still often indulge in ‘scene stealing’, advising, sending solutions, correcting, grabbing their arm and shaking it when you want your partner to listen, shouting their name over and over again when they are silent.

Be with them in silence. Reach out and intertwine your hand in theirs. Show them that you are there, waiting patiently. Give them time to speak when they are ready. Figure out the reason for their inability to speak. If they are weak and they fall on the ground while talking…don’t ask them to rise…don’t ask them to stop crying. Don’t quip… "We all feel alone sometimes, but ..." because nobody is like them. Our life experiences are unique…they may be similar not the same. Offer a hug.

The best listeners focus on feelings, not facts. When you tell someone that they should not feel the way they do, you are invalidating their feelings. When you try to solve the problem of someone who needs to be heard, they end up feeling underestimated, disempowered, offended, pressured, and controlled. Don’t offer solutions. Just Listen! When they ask you to listen, they may be faltering or depressed but it doesn’t mean they are feeble or helpless. Once you accept the way they feel, they don't need to spend their time and energy trying to defend themselves or convince you, and they can focus on figuring out why they feel the way they do and what they can do about it. The emphasis should be on ending the isolation in the feeling..in the pain. What you think are "irrational feelings" always make sense if you take time to listen and understand your partner. There are some things behind a thin gauze, waiting to emerge. There may be questions grappling for anwers, timid hopes, pain and remorse and apprehension, which is difficult to share. The gleam of a smile, look of pain, occasional nods, eye contact ..can convey more than words. So its essential that you respect the others freedom and encourage without rushing. Understand that some things may never be brought to light
but others may emerge if given time.

crazy lil thing called love

Plethora of definitions of love can be found in some of the mushiest numbers by some of the most popular boy bands. Manifestations of popular culture have succinctly testified that most people enter into romantic relationships as a gratifying assurance of their own worth.

It would be difficult to present a typical picture of love or a long-standing relationship, but according to social psychology it is made up of 3 components-intimacy, passion, commitment. Most of the short-term relationships are based entirely on passion. Friendship is what endures when passion wanes. I have come across few people who understand the importance of conversations, of communication. I believe that the best foreplay is of the verbal kind!!!

I have seen people walk into disasters for relationships (I have done that myself) when they get into them for all the wrong reasons. Self-analysis should be the important step for the person on the brink of a relationship. Love is when someone fits in what you know of yourself. Thus love begins with accepting yourself after which you can accept your loved one. It would be unfair to twist a person you love with your own image; otherwise you only love the reflection of yourself that you find in them. If there is mutual acceptance then you don’t have to endow your partner with something he does not possess. You don’t have to delude yourself into seeing in this loved person an ideal perfection you have never been able to realize within yourself. You are less concerned with appearances. A relationship is definitely about a few sacrifices but it is not about a surrender of selfhood. Love cannot really be love if it drains one person to nourish another. Love is not an all giving or all taking relationship. It is about sharing, sharing dreams, sharing the small pleasures and pains of everyday lives.

Love is not always an all-consuming response like slipping over a banana peel. It does have its high points. But happiness in love would be an attainable goal if you consider love as a peaceful coexistence, an experience where your uniqueness is appreciated as a separate self. It is friendship at its best. Love is when you find someone inexhaustible.

Its not like Im a pro at relationships….but in my next few blogs…I intend to radiate some of my psycho gyaan on relationships !!! My attempt at challenging stereotypes!! It is not easy to change life-long habits and to 'recondition' yourself to react in more emotionally intelligent ways .the new ways get easier with time and practice and I consider myself living proof that one can make major changes in their lives.

mangoes and the koyal

I opened one of the Sunday magazines and found something.

‘Yun Guzarte Hain hum zindagi se,

raftaar si lagi hai seene mein,

Gar pal do pal hum gunguna lein,

toh kya mazaa aye phir jeene mein…’

As in

With speed in our hearts we live,

If once in a while we break into a song

What exuberance life could give…

It appealed to my corny heart since lately I get unusually startled by loud piercing sounds but I have a huge appetite for sights, sounds, and smells (yes yes yes my orkut profile reiterates that).Especially sounds…sounds that soothe, that energise….sounds emanating from the sky..the sound of the sea .The Koel’s lilting voice has perennially enthralled me and so I decided ages back to name my daughter Kuhu…and I still stand by that crazy whim….

I love to pamper my senses…and what intrigues me most about the Koel is its elusiveness….it unsettles me with its loud ascending whistle and then I keep looking for it in vain. It can apparently be easily identified by its entirely glossy black plumage, tinged with blue and green, and its striking red eye..I’ve never seen it…except in pictures.

My enduring love affair with the Koel began when I was 10 and I would visit my hometown every summer…. The first thing I did every time I reached my house in Satara was to hug my granny…I loved the smell of my granny’s saree. All grannies have this distinct baby smell…. that’s the most vivid pleasant recollection of my childhood days….my safe haven.

After that, I would rush into this room, which overlooked an expansive hill…it was well stocked with mangoes every year around this time. I loved to spill the mango all over me…and lick it off my hands. My granny well aware of my obsession for dabbing the mango all over my clothes refused to clothe me…and I was most happy with mango all over me.I don’t really enjoy eating mangoes anymore since I can’t eat them that way anymore….hehe…

I would then open the backdoor of the room and at regular intervals a koel hummed. I longed to see it…. to know the source of that mesmeric resonance. This koel motivated a trail. My inquest led me to the canopy of berry and guava trees in my garden and around my house…all the elders found it amusing when I cried over my abortive search. During my exams last month, I heard the muffled voice of a koel..and I couldn’t concentrate. It barely managed to rise above the din of the traffic on the main road….It was like a stifled sound….after prolonged intervals….but then I remembered the koel in Satara.

All my memories and dreams are in the form of myriad small packages of multi-sensory experiences…they don’t really hurt me…in fact they are liberating with their tingle of nostalgia even when they ache….

I loved to spend the beginning of the rainy season in my hometown…I loved the rhythmic sounds on the tin roofs.

My first encounter with bright sights of the dawn was in Satara…the clouds would roll by in the sky and the dewdrops would shine at the tips of the lush green leaves in winters. My granny is up before anybody else and she sits in the veranda. That is her private space and time…she loved reading at this time and I gave her quiet company. She is a picture of poise. Nothing in the world can fill me with as much serenity as looking at her during those early hours…. those were my fragrant mornings as I sipped my tea listening to the sound of silence…. entwined with the swooshing of the brooms in the garden. Then one hushed whistle of the koel…and i waited as nothing followed.I called her bluff then.

My romance with the koel has stood the test of time…I have this heightened sensitivity to its voice only because it leaves me insatiate….and my mom still laughs at me when I get hassled over not finding it even after she bends over backward to point towards the high branch on which it is perched. Then I get a fleeting glance. I hate its speed and agility.

Woven into me

You’ll be gone soon…

And I’m trembling with trepidation…. not because your exit will debilitate me…

It’s because I’m struggling to vacate the corners of my mind…. to make space for your several impressions….

Its like a traveler’s anxiety which I feel when I lock my house to go out for a long vacation…. constantly wondering what I have left behind or left unfinished.

I mull over your reminiscences.

I can’t leave out anything…I want to pack everything in the valise of my psyche…as you pack your bags to leave…

Allow me to stay riveted …allow me to be immersed in you…allow me to stare at you for long…..I want to memorize everything about you…

Your eyes…I’ll miss them the most…. Unforthcoming as they are when they look at others….

They have been my voluble companions …. speaking to me beyond your measured words…

The way your eyes carry that heaving hushed unsheltered sea …with turbulent waves

The way your fleeting look traces the crumbling coves within me….and holds them there….

The way you embrace me till you lose your otherness…

The way your one glance deliquesces frozen spaces in me…

The crimples around your eyes when you try to convey something poignant…

The way the creases on your forehead unfurl when I wring my hands and pout just after I have gone ahead and done something that is forbidden…

Their intense gaze when they disentangle all that I manage to entangle….wires, earphones, ribbons…. the strands of light in the snarls of my hair… and even the medley of my groping mind…

And now you leave me here enmeshed in the web of shared moments …passionate, inexplicable and perennially mysterious….

Let me look at you till my eyes are flooded and then I will shut them…

Go wherever you want to go now…

Just stay there between my closed eyelids

exam blues

this formal education is ruining me..im cramming for law exams.....my mind wanders almost all the time..thinking already of all the things that I'll do after exams....
I feel like a prisoner of my own device....wish there was a better way of evaluating us...
will scribble in this space after the 30th of this month....
i miss my blog space :(

thats the kinda someone i wanna be with...

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

An image from the jigsaw of my mind

Azure, turquoise, indigo, violet, sapphire, purple …

A riot of different shades of blue…

Rustling leaves beneath our feet

Strawberry Fields

Vanilla skies

A hammock….naaah…

A swing to soar across the sky….

Above the towering trees shielding that expansive blue

Lets take a walk…

To places that stir in me moments that have been long expunged….and moments that are still ineffaceable

A tree house…

My Meandering mind

It hovers around till it perches on a twig on an old memory…

Then on the plush seat of a fluffy cloud in the midst of the cerulean space…

Trying to recall a half remembered song….

You follow me and sing it aloud

The one that I’m struggling to sing in my mind….

Your shoulders..sweet slumber…

The silly tune…your prompt remembrance

giving rhythm to every rhyme…

My Stumbling feet…your steady hands….

My playful mind…your faraway gaze

A dive into the gushing gold of sunset colours…

And then we glide gleefully towards the shore…Pink sand…

A quayside jetty…our dancefloor…

An intricate dance without stepping on each others toes and without invading each others space….

A mystic mutuality…a rapturous eye lock

Sounds of Silences…

Peach margarita, Appletini, Sparkling wine…

The moonlight lending its luster to the sea…

A scintillating spirit…

The rooftop…

Your fingers carving playthings galore out of clouds and stars…

Balloons, Parachutes…. miniature elephants…

My crazy performances

Your cheering as appreciative audience…

Lets take a walk…lets brave the squall, the dust, the thorns…

Years down the line I want to see you across that fence…with silver hair… with me

in solitude .. in songs

In anguish… in exuberance

In naked truths..in euphemisms…

In ‘tunelessness’…in rhythm…

In oblivion ..in surety…

My feeble arm looped through your elbow…

Our heads tipped together…

In long habit..in firm belonging….

My fragile dream...an elusive perfection...

Lets find neverland

dont mind it..i was jus practising the whole image adding thing....

Ephemeral ....

Please forgive me for coercing you into reading my juvenile poems...written by me when i was ehhh juvenile ;)

Days fly
Every moment is accompanied with a sigh
I know time wont wait for anyone
It asks me to catch up and run..
Passing moments unfold the fabric of a relationship
And it becomes harder to hold on to a gradually loosening grip...
Are these moments spent together a pathway to a dream come true...
Or are they among the myriad short-lived few
Nevertheless I treasure them...
They teach me to dream..to dare...
Will these moments teach me to accept my fate
When the path of life seems long and my strength inadequate?
Or are they a mere mirage,that will soon disappear
I hope that with these months
the feelings inside are conveyed
Even though the golden words are unsaid...

Now as i watch you go
i hope that the regrets behind my smile
are not shown
The bittersweet moment, when your eyes through mine
I knew i had lost those moments forever with time...

With these passing moments
the tears in my eyes will wipe away
but the pain in my heart will always stay...
As we carry the burden of unspoken words
and a love story goes unheard!!!!

cinema

The alarming irregularity that I‘ve displayed in filling this blog space is probably succinct to prove that I’m lapsing into languor…. but that’s not the case. My computer breaks down regularly and my drowning in work…and all my experiences that I long to record only explode in my heart and fail to find their way to this blog…

Im starving..i haven’t managed to catch up on any of the movies that have been released lately..Black Friday, Music and lyrics, blood diamond, eklavya, honeymoon travels…none….

Fortunately after having scoured Radhi’s cupboard…I got my hands on ‘Chokher Bali’…was dying to see the movie…. The story is set in Bengal of the early 20th century against the backdrop of the freedom struggle.I have always been fascinated by Calcutta.I've never been there.I’ve longed to see the Calcutta that I have seen in period films…and this movie depicts Bengal replete with the barge and ghats of Varanasi…Even the use of the opera glass and the courtyards was visually appealing in creating a sense of the time…the idea of leisure…
Though im not sure as to how true to the book the movie is…I was sure after watching the movie that only Tagore’s novel could achieve this…a period setting making a universal statement.The movie effectively portrays the dissonance brewing within the family and the society at large. There was a reshuffling of the human society beckoning a new social order…and binodini (Aishwary rai) stands for this resistance to claustrophobic practices…and the enforced bland celibate state on women. She is the spirited, singular woman, a widow who chafes against constraints and is struggling to free herself from the oppression of widowhood.She is articulate…defined and constrained by her identity of a widow…shes sensuous…but this sensuality is repressed…and this repression breeds a destructive edge…Ash is generally believed to be a plastic femme who merely lets a few tears roll down her pretty face to give a semblance of emotion..but i think is brilliant in chokher bali and raincoat...

Tagore apparently regrets the end of his novel..but i somehow feel it depicts a dignity and a trimph of the human spirit...Binodini struggles to be on her own throughout...but somewhere shes desperately seeking a man to hang on to...and i believe that towards the end she rids herself of this dependence...though its melancholic its dignified....
Anyway...
in my house one of the must haves is a huge space for screening films...
wish i cud make a movie...the kind of movie thats the expression of the explosion in ur heart....
that taps into who you are...

hmm im a dreamer....

Rain

She wondered why when she grew up she never let the rain seep through her existence. She remembered herself as a child…. just a whiff of the rain and she would delightfully rush out …and hesitantly put her hand out of the window. She loved the shiver of the wet drops.

She remembered her early teens, which saw her perched by the window…all complete with her pen and diary just to capture the dreams that the rains stirred in her. There was nothing as sensuous as the first raindrops. The beauty of the experience lied in the anticipation that the rain awakened. She waited… She waited for someone who could discover the vast continent within her…who could unclose her…. The hurt inside she could not justify. She just shied away from human affection…but she waited for someone to come along who would grow that loving space within her. She believed that love was like the rains that opened up purple jacarandas along the highway…. She knew when it rained…. love would feel like this…Love would be like the moist earth that weaved chiffon of dew after the rain.

But many passions burnt and died. The raindrops started burning her skin …Gradually the rain stopped being beautiful to her. It didn’t comfort her any more…something went dead in her. She stopped tracing patterns in the evening clouds. A surprise shower was uncomfortable for her.

He did come along then…he soothed the past creases in her soul with just his glance and his smile. He spread like the sky. She gazed up in his blueness…. the clouds wept her tears and she was drenched by the rain. She was seeking warmth in his passion. She reconnected with the rains. Earlier she was a passive observer. Now she learnt to dance in the rains. With him she was like the roots of a tree buried in the cold heart of the earth…with familiar soil enclosing her and the wet caress of the rain.

He vanished like the dust of a storm…. she wondered if it was a mirage that disappeared. The monsoons had ceased. She waited….

It is strange that all memories have one quality…they are completely calm .It was the alarm of their silence that forced her to lay hold of her sleeve and close her eyes and let the tears flow. This stillness is the reason why the memories don’t awaken desire so much as a vast sorrow. Once she had such desires but they are past and they belong to another world…that is gone from her now. They are powerful remembrances that come from within her and also mysterious unattainable reflections that haunt her. If these scenes were given back to her she wondered if she would be able to regain the old intimacy with them. She could pass these scenes like a traveler…

But he had really traveled far into her …had crossed boundaries that enclosed her.

She waited …smelt the scent of the rain in the air…she looked back..he wasn’t there. But it did rain again.

There was no way he could leave her now…he would be here in the rain, in the thinking, in the longing, in the suffering, merging in the million drops which would know no bodies., only this mystic mutuality.
She didn’t need his presence to let the rains fill her senses.

Perhaps...

Juvenile poem ..i wrote in my juvenile years..when i was madly in love...hehe!!!

I don’t know what love is.
Perhaps its the feeling i get when the soft corners of
your mouth turn into a beautiful smile.

I don’t know what love is.
Perhaps its the twinkle in his eyes that drags me into a
Whole new world of wonders

I don’t know....
Perhaps its the time I hate the moonlight b’coz its
Beautiful and he’s not with me to see it.

I don’t know what love is
But I know that u are the best thing that has ever
Happened to me.

I don’t know what love is….
Perhaps it’s the time that I feel that want to memorize every feature of your face, the color of your eyes, the feel of my name on your lip but I laugh away the thought cos try as I may, I can never forget you ….

Timsy Ki shaadi

My readers better have missed me...mere yaar ki shaadi thi...there was jus no time for anything.Finally something we were ranting and raving for the past one year happened..Timsy got married....everytime i looked at Rahul and Timsy it was overwhelming.It seems like it was only yesterday when she was telling us how she likes this boy called Rahul.Our loud..high energy high drama high voltage friend was trying to act coy. She couldnt retain that mask for long though....when our quintessential ghati music began playing...she was the same timsuuu...our ghati dance partner...actually nobody does it better than her.Honestly nobody does a quite a few things better than her.She probably must have been one of the few brides who danced more than anybody else at her own wedding...

Timsy is one girl i know who has lived out her fairytale...there she was in her pink outfit.She had planned on wearing that outfit since she was a kid....shes still a kid.When she does the pardesi pardesi train song , sticks out her pan stained tongue, or screams in the background saying 'give my clothes back ' when our guy friends are talking to their girlfriends on the phone....its alomst feels like her wedding was an unlawful child marriage... actually if it was not for Timsy we would never have discovered the child within us....

Its almost like one phase of our lives is over....this building was like our safe haven...its like a landmine littered with memories....you step on one square and there would be an explosion of a myriad memories....

Rahul is the prototype of those Princes on white horses (as much as i know that its a chauvinist idea ..we all do thrive on candyfloss notions....without expecting every one of them to materiliase)...hes like those attentive calm guys who dont lose it when u lose it..who actually allow you to lose it without talking you out of it....and he perpetually has that look on his face when Timsy does mad things where hes almost saying to her...I STILL LOVE YOU...or rather..thats all i love about you....Couldnt have invoked a brighter star to shine for her...

They say ...we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.Those were really the best days of our lives....We are like those tiny kids standing at the crossing askin each other to hold onto to each other tight while crossing....cos its a big wild world out there and we have to stick together to stick it out....i feel a part of our human chain is missing now.Gradually none of us will be within yelling distance . I feel content knowing though that those were the best days of our lives..and i am what i am..cos my gang was a part of 'growing up' years.Growing up is almost synonymous to mari TIMSY RADHI ane Balkha.

LOOOVE U GUYS....

Friends vs Real friends

Friends help you move. Real friends help you move mountains.
Friends laugh with you and have fun with you, real friends help you clean up after the party.
When you cry friends hand u a tissue paper, you can drench a real friend’s shirt with tears.
Friends are out of sight out of mind, real friends drop you post cards from their holiday locales Friends want to talk talk talk, real friends listen patiently when u blabber endlessly.
Friends report the latest malicious gossip about you, real friends zap the crap out of gossip mongers.
Friends are now and then here and there, real friends are forever.

Those who always believe......

How do some people muster the courage…
to go on when they can’t….
to dream yet another dream when the ones that came before were irreparably crushed…
to start all over again for the nth time
to love when it hurts..
to wait when previous passions have burnt and died…
to fight when one cant stop shivering…
to take that extra step after you’ve always faltered and been shoved ….

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far
To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this

That one man, scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star
(From the Man of La Mancha)

that happy happy feeling

I’m trying to conform to my set of resolutions as much as possible and my blog should be witness to that. I intend to document picayune things which manage to elicit from me that happy happy joy joy feeling. Yesterday my colleague bought this John Legend Cd…called ‘Get Lifted for our listening pleasure – an antidote for those morose hours where we stare at the computer screen, brain-dead. He’s apparently a three-time Grammy winning African American R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist. It helped me get into an upbeat mood….
Oh live it up

We can go crazy

Live it up

You and me baby

Live it up, live it up, live it up

We're flying high

Don't wanna come down

We'll let 'em know

All over town….

Music does that to me….its my stress buster. It acts like a constant companion who traces the emotional graph of this girl who is sometimes anguishing, sometimes exuberant and always questing (that’s me!!).

It has started working for me… I sing when I’m sad, confused, bored and jubilant...…
There are certain songs which might not say something different from what we already know….but there’s something about the honesty of the emotion and the simplicity of the the way its expressed – sometimes its all wrapped up in that one line of the song….and crazy me listens to the whole song waiting in anticipation …that one line.
“I swear I left her by the river, I swear I left her safe and sound….’ (Richard marx – Hazard),
“I like the way your eyes dance when you laugh”… (I love the way you love me)…
“I don’t mind standing everyday out on your corner in the pouring rain, look for the girl with a broken smile, ask her if she wants to stay a while”….(maroon 5 – she will be loved)..
“She’ll only reveal what she wants you to see”….(She’s always a woman to me…)
“What I’ve felt, what I’ve known never shined in through what I’ve shown”….. (Unforgiven – Metallica)
“Let me sing you a waltz, Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts… Even tomorrow, another arms, My heart will stay yours until I die”…. (Soundtrack – Before Sunset)
“Its not easy to be me”….(Superman)
“….And when no hope was left in sight on that starry starry night. You took your life as lovers often do; but I could have told you Vincent this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.”(Vincent - Don Mcclean)
“You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.”(Imagine – John Lennon)




Strangely I can’t recall more at this point. The song Vincent, more popularly known as Starry Starry night….is my all time favourite….Its about Vincent’s incessant struggle with insanity and also metaphorically expresses how his paintings are his eyes which watch the world since he is gone. Van Gogh committed suicide.

Starry night is one of the most well- known images in modern culture by Vincent Van Gogh painted from memory while in an Asylum and not outdoors, unlike most of his other works. Every line in the poem in the second stanza carries references to other paintings of Vincent. The violent strokes of brush reflect his erratic emotional state of mind. There is the night sky filled with swirling clouds, blazing stars alight with their own luster, and a bright moon. The picture sets your eyes in motion. The sky keeps your eyes gyrating as you pursue the curves, creating a visual dot to dot with the stars. The heart of the town is the tall tower of the church, which reign over the smaller buildings. This tower descends a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of seclusion. There is also a massive dark structure that develops an even greater sense of isolation.


It is actually worth quoting in full…

Starry, starry night.

Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,I
n colors on the snowy linen land

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.
Colors changing hue,
morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,
Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the strangers that you've met,
The ragged men in the ragged clothes,
The silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I understand
what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will...

Necessary Illusions....

I chanced upon an observation about resolutions, which I found to be absolutely germane – “We’re often too cynical about how resolutions are never kept…but we shouldn’t be. Resolutions are perhaps lies but they’re lies of good faith. Necessary illusions.” I like the last part – necessary illusions…. That’s what resolutions are for me…elusive but beautiful ‘chimera’s.

I never made New Year resolutions because I felt that I would never be able to adhere to them. I had an erroneous way of looking at resolutions, I guess. Inherent in resolutions is a pact to break them. So I decided this year to not pursue those so-called emblematic resolutions (WILL LOSE WEIGHT, WILL BE MORE ORGANISED types) but will revert to those lil dreams I saw but never had the courage to chase.

1) I will not silence that tune I hum in my head.I will sing that song out loud…. and I will believe people when they tell me that I have a lovely voice…

2) I will not brood over anything lost that is so obviously undeserving (least of all…men). I will not cry alone. I will squeeze my dearest friends to death and drench their clothes with my tears and then go out for ice cream.

3) I will review everything that I took up and left unfinished….and try to do at least one of those things….like DRIVING…(will at least attempt those).So here I come my dear fragmentary promises…you’ll are my only solace. Dear “Promises I made to myself” – you’ll have to help me love myself.

4) I will take up those dance classes – SALSA.

5) I will draw that book of mine called ‘BEING DIPTI –THAT GIRL WHO FIERCLY LIVED OUT HER DREAMS’ out of that corner of obscurity in my drawer .It will not be in shambles any more. Will read that book to educe those dormant promises I made to myself…

6) I will continue to go fida over SRK and his dimples and not intellectualize everything.

7) I will get those black and white photographs clicked of mine…. and my notice board will have more snaps and souvenirs.

8) I will not wear my spectacles on every occasion. I will be comfortable about the person I am sans spects..cos that’s who I am…I was not born with spects. I will not hide behind my glasses. I will buy glares though (Prada…. months of saving up. agony agony. But my style guru radhi shall help me pick the best.)

9) I will count myself as one of the lucky people in the world when I manage to claim that window seat in the bus in the morning and switch on the radio to hear a long lost favourite song…

10) I will smile when kids actually think im fun..and I will lose it with them….

11) I will discover new spaces in Mumbai – contemplative spaces…. riveting spaces, spaces from where I can get the best view of the city or of the sea. I will persist in believing that a stimulating conversation is better than or at least as good as an orgasm (or any other peak experience…hehe)

12) I will also discover spaces where I can walk down that lane with friends catching up on our lives or my constant companion – my music….

13) I will believe that a mosaic can be more beautiful than an unbroken heart and that life is about loose unfastened ends and yet not give up on my naïve faith in happy endings.

I will actually understand that happiness is really an inside job….

Secret garden

Shell let you in her house
If you come knockin late at night
Shell let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
Shell let you deep inside
But theres a secret garden she hides
Shell let you in her car
To go drivin round
Shell let you into the parts of herself
Thatll bring you down
Shell let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, dont think twice
Youve gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you cant remember
And you cant forget
Shell lead you down a path
Therell be tenderness in the air
Shell let you come just far enough
So you know shes really there
Shell look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
Shes got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

Bruce Springsteen

Babel

I saw babel yesterday.It wrenched my heart out.Im glad that i ushered in the new year with two good movies...babel and capote....

though critiques liken Babel to Crash because of the interlocking structure of three parallel plotlines in terms of different lives revolving around one dominant incident..(here it is the firing of a rifle in morroco and how it affects the lives of a Mexican governess,an american couple, and a japanese father-daughter ), I preferred Babel because it poignantly educes the difference in conditions of first and third world countries and the issue of how the very existence of immigrants has come to be illegal in the country of america which is fervently making draconian laws agaisnt immigrants(despite America being a country of immigrants).In Babel,the very white skinned amreican tourists were willing to abandon Brad pitt and his wife in the middle of a middle Eastern country.She is shot at accidentally by a goatherd and American investigations flout it as a terrorist attack.It is the locals (so called terrorists) who come to their rescue.This incident actually brings the couple closer who are desperately trying to slavage their marriage. The visuals of the far-flung places are visceral.The film stresses on the need to circumvent communication barriers and prejudices.The Japanese deaf-mute girl delivers an excellent performance as a sex-starved teenager(i felt though that this part of the plot was a bit of a misfit).Crash also attempts to do that but Crash for me earns negative points since i felt that it somewhere trivialised the systematic longstanding discrimination against blacks in america in its efforts to drive home the message that we are all at heart prejudiced...so in that sense i thought it was insidious.Babel despite the irony and the muddle takes a stand.

The name Babel is derived from a tale from teh Bible..where the tower of babylon is built by people to reach heaven and people invent different languages and lose their way in this morass and confusion and fail to meet the desired end....

A dream deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--And then run?
Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes

The possible fates of a postponed dream...the severity of a dream that never turns into a reality...

A coerced zest....

I guess it’s not too late yet to write about bringing in the New Year and about taking stock of what happened in the whole of last year…..

To begin with ….I really wanted to do something fun and something that I was not allowed to do since i was perpetually grounded for new years and also cos timsy's not gonna be around next year.

Most of the things in life…including new years parties are not worth the hype that we bestow upon them. It’s a coerced zest….i don’t intend cribbing but the best part about my new years was observing the assimilation of different kinds of people at that conclave called a ‘commercial party’. The other thing that I incessantly had resort to was (as Radhi calls it) activation of the ‘Puke alert’ mechanism….u have to watch ur step. Me dazed as I am…was shielded by my friends from the spontaneity of people reveling in unlimited booze.

Strangely I dint feel like drinking at all….and my feet also seemed frozen. Probably I was not smacked by the euphoria that people around me indulged in making the most out of every penny that they spent. Full paisa vasool!!Actually the Marine Plaza party was better than the other commercial parties or so I was told. There were like 5 parties…in the same building with different themes…sadly I was missing the point cos they didn’t feel any different.

How different can they be actually? Music on Saturday nights in most of the places is the same…actually on all weekdays…that’s the popular music after all. It sounds jarring after a while…I was desperately seeking a quiet corner…that was too much to ask though. I do enjoy thumkaoing to bollywood dhincak music but only after looong intervals, not in the same month.

Im generally not so boring…but part of my usual gang was missing…and I guess that’s what I was missing. The point is at occasions like these…u really don’t care so much about where you are as long as you’re with all your people. I mean that was the difference between the couple (20 something) right next to me dancing like nobody was watching them with glee oozing from their faces and me…..it was just so much fun watching them together.

I finally found my corner…up on the rooftop…they were playing…. my kinda music…. Retro…songs I thrived on..hadnt hread Alice..and that song I mentioned n my previous blog ‘stand by me’. Walk of life…Come as you are….Wild world…Take on me….actually it was a live band..but they did a great job. I found my sweet spot from where I could stare into infinite expanse of the sea without having to look at the streets where people past midnight were still trying to make it to one of those much coveted party destinations. I had the sole drink of that evening listening to In my life, Ive loved u more by the beetles. I know by now u guys must be tired of my painful tendency to break into songs but I’m sure u’ve loved those songs too..so here I go….

There are places I remember All my life,
though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
there is no one who compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love u more

The bit about reviewing the whole of last year..i’ll do it tomorrow….