One afternoon

She was picking out tomatoes from her vegetable patch when the white butterfly flitted past her. It was four in the afternoon and she had just about enough time to pick her veggies and start on the dinner. She tried to ignore the stupid creature that was darting around her sweaty, flushed face. She tried shooing it away. She swatted at it. She even hurled a bad tomato at it. But it wouldn't leave her alone. Is it taunting me? she wondered as she dropped the good tomatoes in her basket. She wiped her hands on her brown skirt and watched the butterfly for a few minutes. Slowly she raised her right hand and in one swift move plucked the butterfly out. She held the insect, pinning its legs together, but not hurting it. She watched the snow white wings flutter violently; trapped and trying to break free. Maybe this is how I look in the bigger scheme of things. Maybe we'll eat out today, she thought, leaving her basket out in the sun for the little white butterfly.

Happiness

The rain breaks suddenly, giving the wind an excuse to act three. She runs to the window and tries to pull it shut. But the rain isn’t easy to beat. Little pellets of water ambush her. Cold splashes hitting her warm skin. The raindrops sting her face as they melt, in long tear-stained streaks. The breeze runs through her hair, flirting. She feels light and heady; a small smile draws up. She gives in. She sticks her tongue out, trying to catch a raindrop or two. And for those few minutes, she is truly and completely happy.

All in a day's work

They hovered around the sickly fire like three little moths. She could feel the evening chill settle down on her rickety bones. Spitefully, she poked at the fire. They should have been sleeping in warm beds, at some comfortable retirement home in the country, right now. In one of those nice blue room, with crispy green curtains; a crackling fire by the side, and fresh yellow flowers. But instead, here they were, crouching in a dingy cave, waiting for some stuck-up fart. It never works out like you plan it, does it? A noise outside broke her stream of thought. So, he was here. The gullible twat. She stood up, creaking all the way. She dusted her dress, and headed out. “Come on girls," she called, "let’s get this over with. Double double, toil and trouble …”

Out on my terrace the world seems just fine

I sit at the little table on my terrace and write. When it rains, I sit inside, with the doors open. It’s just as nice. All I need is one look around and everything solves itself. The exact right words come to mind and pretty phrases draw themselves up. And for a bit, I truly feel like I was born to write.

I haven’t made up my mind about working from home. I like the relaxed pace of life. I like doing things on my time. And, I manage to do everything, and on good days even more. Maybe it’s not the home bit that’s got me all confused, it’s the work I’m getting. Uninspiring. Insipid. Pointless. Boring. I feel less of a writer with every deadline I meet. But then I go back to my terrace, and figure, it'll be fine.

There’s something about this place, this view that really works for me. The thick green hills with pretty lego homes encrusted in between. I see little green, orange and maroon slanting rooftops, some shooting out wisps of smoke, some blushing into a rose shrub. I listen to the birds sing all day. Up till six, even seven and eight. It’s so soothing. It’s enough to make me reach for my pen.

There’s a twisty little road that runs past, and into the bend. Occasionally it throws up a car or swallows one rolling down. I know what I’ m looking for is just around the corner, around the bend. It will find its way to me. Someday.

The air is crispy, almost sharp. I can taste its sweetness. The sun is shinning through, throwing up different colours of green. A cup of coffee sits simmering by my side, the pages get filled.

I've always wanted to write. Even before I knew how. I was in the eighth grade and we had an English assignment. I penned a story; it was the only time I didn't mind doing the homework. By the time our grades were out, I knew this was what I wanted to do.

There's a new house being built, near by. I can hear the workmen all day. It's a funny house; the balcony looks the wrong way. I wonder what kind of a view they'll have. If it's even half as good as mine, they'll be fine.

SOS

I’ve been wondering and doodling and screaming out in frustration, over the last few weeks. I need to do something with my writing. I need to start somewhere. And I need to start soon, if I mean to accumulate a sizeable fortune before I hit 80. I was wondering if a creative writing course is a good place to start. So, if anyone has taken one, or heard of one, or anything else, please please please do drop me a line. Pearls of wisdom are always welcome.

Letters of love

He found the letters quite by accident. Maybe that’s what made it worse. He was, in fact, looking for a pair of misplaced cuff links, a present from the in-laws. Little wonder they stirred up so much trouble. He had looked everywhere, but he should have known better than to go snooping in her stuff. All he did was open the chest, and they just tumbled out. It was almost like they were waiting for him. They smelt of rich Cuban cigars and the open salty seas. There was even a hint of Old Spice on one. He read each and every one of them. They were heart wrenchingly beautiful. Some crying out in lonely desperation, some bruised by violent passion, and some so poetic, even the violets on the dresser blushed. He almost didn’t blame her. But it is incredibly torturous to read about another man’s undying devotion for the woman you love. He suddenly felt very old. And very used. It’s one thing if your wife is cheating on you, but it’s quite another if it’s your mistress.

From her balcony

She loves her balcony. She stands out there and watches the world. She knows its patterns by now. Everyday at nine, the girl with the curly brown hair comes running to the coffee shop. And a minute late she runs out with a steaming cup. How old is she? Is she married? Is her hair really brown? She wonders why the girl and the man with the black bag never talk. They are always standing next to each other in the bus line. She thinks it’s strange to see someone everyday and never share a word. The old man from the building on the other side of the street always shares a word. He leaves home at 10:30. He buys a paper in exchange for a joke. He buys a coffee and shares a laugh. He likes whistling as he walks down the street. He reminds her of Gramps. Gramps with a rounder belly. She thinks he is lonely. Maybe his children don’t call anymore, and his friends are all gone. Maybe he just needs to talk. The mailman comes in the afternoons. He is always on time. He looks so sad. Like the schoolgirl. She’s not sure why she noticed her in the first place. The street is full of kids when school is out. But this girl is different. She would look beautiful in a classic tragedy. Maybe she is in one. In the evening, a young man passes by her place. He stops below her balcony and buys flowers. She wonders if he likes buying them, or is it just a habit. She stands here everyday. One day someone will look up and see her. Maybe they will wave or smile.

Pearl Jam – Live in Concert

26th June 2007, Copenhagen

The selfish, they’re all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind

Tuesday morning started with a desperate wait for Tuesday evening, and for a change time flew just as fast as we wanted it to; maybe time is a Pearl Jam fan too.

They said the gates open at 6, and the show starts at 8; so of course the crowds began to gather the night before. The stadium was packed. Danes, Swedes, Brits, a few Indians, and some other accent owners that I couldn't place, all crowded around waiting, watching...

The waiting drove me mad...
You're finally here and I'm a mess.
I take your entrance back -
Can't let you roam inside my head.

And then it happened, just like that, he walked on to the stage, with his guitar and sang. Eddie Vedder was singing on stage. Some people froze in awe (me included), others stomped to his tunes, and others wore looney grins. It was finally Tuesday!

No starry airs, no rock star antics, just a song -Throw Your Arms Around Me, a big hello and an introduction to the opening act - some big noisy mistake from the UK called Future Head. For the next one hour this poor band made their noises under the pressure of opening for Pearl Jam, while the crowd caught up with friends, hoarded up on the beer and queued up to the loo.

And then they were back. Pearl Jam. With a mind blowing set - Long Road, Corduroy, Why Go, Do the Evolution, In Hiding, Love Boat Captain, Love Reign O'er Me (performed live for the first time ever!), Severed Hand, Light Years, Marker in the Sand, Given to Fly, Breath, I Am Mine, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Hard to Imagine, Life Wasted and Porch.

Throats were burning, legs were cramping and hands were sore, but the music kept flowing. The first encore began with a much expected anti-war message -No more (a solo, brilliant of course) followed up by World Wide Suicide, Down, Once, Black and Alive.

After this any hope for the throats was lost, it just got crazier and crazier. No matter how tired you are of Alive, you just couldn't help jumping up and down and screaming out the song. Stomp, stomp, clap, clap, scream, scream.

Turns out Pearl Jam played on the same day, 15 years ago for the first time in Copenhagen. The second encore began with a thank-you from the band to the crowd, and a few words in memory of the accident that killed nine people during a Pearl Jam performance in 2000. Eddie Vedder was as brilliant with the little speech as he was with the music. More screaming, more clapping, more stomping.

Betterman, Yellow Ledbetter and then the lights came on, for the last song of the night – Rockin’ in the Free World. I am not sure how to describe it, I could say it was sensational, but that would be insulting to the band, I could say it was orgasmic, but it won't cover the emotion, I guess you just had to be there.

Any regrets? Sure! No last kiss, that would have been sweeet! And yeah I’d have liked to switch places with the Swedish girl (in my head - COW) who got to jump on stage and exchange kisses with Eddie, loads of little Swede girl voodoo dolls doing the round in Copenhagen, I hope.

I will come to you in the daytime
I will raise you from your sleep
I will kiss you in four places
As I go runnin' down your street ...

six whole months

Six months ago today, I got married, which makes this my half-year anniversary. I am not being mushy or anything, but you have to understand how dangerous the situation could have been, and how sane I have actually turned out to be. In the last six months I could have accidentally burnt down the house, drowned in the dishwasher, slipped in the bathroom, gassed or electrocuted myself, food-poisoned the Husband, or worse scared him away, starved, walked into a tram, frozen to death, suffered severe pani puri withdrawal, choked on bland firang food, acquired a new accent, punched someone in the face (knee more likely) for asking a stupid India question, collapsed under the pressure of being surrounded by skinny Eastern Europeans, collapsed under the pressure of Husband being surrounded by skinny Eastern Europeans. Instead I have survived it ALL, which can mean only one thing: I am really good at this marriage thing :D

OMG!!

omg omg omg!

Now, if only they can manage NOT to screw this up...

Bruised

She was walking around with a huge purple bruise around her eye, not the most convenient accessory to have. She tried to hide the ugliness behind dark glasses. But dark glasses at 8 in the evening just don’t work. She tried to mask it with makeup. But purple isn't a colour you can hide easily. She got sympathetic glances everywhere she went, the kind a sickly little dog gets, just before it dies. It was disgusting. They’d ask her how it happened, and she’d tell them. “Umm, it’s really embarrassing, I, um, kind of walked into a door.” They’d nod at her, like they knew all along and then they’d say, “You should report him to the police, men like that deserve to be in prison.” It had taken her a good week to realize, sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth.

Whoooohoooo!

Finally, something to cheer about!

Aai ga!!

More on the coach tamasha, looks like Sunny G has prevailed, and Whatmore will not be making as much money as he hoped. But here's the spanner in the works, we could have this guy for coach. Damn promising, this is turning out to be...

A good match

She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but maybe she wasn’t going to regret it. Her mum had called the previous day and it was the same story.

Beta, listen to me, there is this boy.
No Ma.
Just meet him once na.
No Ma.
Just once. That’s all.
…

And here she was. Shockingly this guy didn’t seem too bad. His was nice looking, well dressed and his hair wasn’t an amalgamation of goop.

It’s going to be just a coffee Ma, no dinner-vinner.
Arre, but it will look so bad.
Coffee Ma, nothing more.
Sometimes, I really don’t understand you, you no.

She had picked the café. A quiet little Italian place with a tiny faded bookstore next to it. She was addicted to both. Coffee and a book, a potent combination.

Really he wasn’t bad. When she mentioned she’d pay for herself, he didn’t gasp in horror or defend his masculinity. A first. He didn’t faint when she lit a cigarette, he didn’t even stare at her tattoo. She could already see her mother doing a little jig at home, lighting the diya, thanking the Gods for “settling ” her daughter.

Can we stop at the bookstore for a minute?
Uhh … sure.
I just need to pick a book.
Sure ... hey look at this, isn’t this a movie? Now they've made a book too? God, Hollywood!

She heard her mother’s heart break into a hundred little bits.
It was too good to be true anyway.

The right ingredients

She jumped off the bus at the main market. It was just nine in the morning, but the place was alive. Already there was a cluster of aimless men, sitting around gossiping. The radios were on and the voices were rising, some hawking some haggling.

First stop was Papa Pierre’s. Thankfully the grand old man wasn’t around, which meant no small talk, no chatter. She picked up her bottle of oil, some matches and a packet of cornflour, and quickly made her way out. She could already feel the touch of water and flour on her fingers and the patterns being formed.

The crowd on the street was growing, and she struggled to make her way to Big Rosa's. She loved this store. It was always so dark and cool. She enjoyed this break from the sun as she went about looking for the right incense sticks and candles (four of them, one for each corner), saving every bit of energy she had, to make it through the herb market.

The herb market was always hard, to rummage through heaps and heaps of herbs under the blinding sun was no mean task. But she could make no mistakes today. Carefully she picked her way through the heaps for the ones she needed, some rare, all strong.

It didn't take too long to get the wine and the chicken, and there she was done. She had spent more than half her month's salary today, but it would all be worth it. She thought of her chilled glass of wine as she ran her finger across the squawking animal’s tender throat. Very soon dear Richard was going to find out what happened when you cheated on a Haitian girl.

Horrors!

Somebody please tell Kapil Dev to SHUT UP! In a horrifying snippet from Cricinfo, I gather the man has been thundering nonsense again. I know that's what generally happens when he opens his mouth, but this time, I worry that someone from the Board of Cricket and Chaos in India might be listening. Worse still, they might pick up on this idiocracy and put me off cricket forever!

"Who is Whatmore," he thundered in an interview in the Telegraph, the Kolkata based daily. "Why do we need to talk about Whatmore? Or, for that matter, anybody not associated with our team at this point in time. In my opinion, when Ravi (Shastri) isn't available after Bangladesh, the Board should give the coach's powers to Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, both of whom have played international cricket and are currently working with the boys."

Aaarrrrh, Robin Singh, I can try and understand, but Venkatesh Prasad! Come on, he isn't even a real cricketer for crying out loud!! Seriously when you're trying to un-rubbish the team, you shouldn't toy with them, or the few fans left, like this :(

I spy with my little brown eye ...

This is what my terrace opens out to :)

It looks even better if you've got some hot coffee and a good book by your side.

D-Day

Today was the day. Finally. It had taken a year to get here. From the first time her parents had met him, and had totally hated him. She remembered every minute of that torturous dinner. Worse still, they had hated his parents, if it was possible, even more. That was an even more vivid memory.

Never.
Over our dead body.
Is this what we brought you up for? To see this day?
Our very own daughter. *Sigh*
Why didn’t I die before having to go through this?
We gave her too much freedom. *Sigh*
No!

This story had all the ingredients of the perfect Bollywood pot-boiler, now, if only she could sing and dance to it all. It had taken months of crying, screaming and threatening to convince them that they had no choice. It had taken even longer to get the parents to be civil to each other. To be honest they never really got there. Though they did reach a sort of semi-civil state of being, where they ignored each other completely and went ahead and did just what the other didn’t want.

Horoscope.
We don’t believe in all that.
Diamond ring.
We insist on gold. It’s tradition.
Temple Wedding.
Fancy Wedding.
Fancy Wedding.
Temple Wedding.
Our style.
Our style.
Bombay.
Bangalore.
Yellow sari.
Red sari.

It went on and on. She didn’t have a say in any of her wedding preparations. Neither did he. Apparently it was enough that the parents had (reluctantly) agreed to this match, and from here on they would run the show. And the way they went about it, it was more like four parallel shows, all running at once. At times during the year, they wondered why they hadn’t just eloped. It would have been so much simpler. And so much more enjoyable. But the drama had stretched out the year. And survived. And from a Balaji production, this show was heading for a Yash Raj finish. Today. This was the big day. Their big day. The day that they had all struggled towards. Today was the day they tied the knot. Today was the day she was going to call it off.

Page number ...er .. umm ...

I am numerically challenged. I can’t remember phone numbers or number plates, or any other important information made up of numbers. It’s a malady I first noticed in the sixth grade. I would be reading in my room when my mum would yell for dinner; reluctantly I would look up the page number, shut the book and sulk my way to the dinning table. When I’d get back an hour later, I’d flip the book open in search for that memorized page number, but would mysteriously draw a blank. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t remember my page numbers. So when I discovered the bookmark, I became an instant fan. I began treasuring my bookmarks. And over the years from a random habit, it developed into a hobby. I am now a bookmark hunter. Wherever I go, I first scout the place for interesting bookmarks; and in a bout of self indulgence, I am putting up a few that I totally love …

A Japanese paper doll, by far the most gorgeous bookmark I have

Adding a bit of Mumbai to every story

In pure leather, from Norway

American and practically impossible to use, but it's just sooo cool

King Tut and his words on Papyrus

Beyond brilliant while travelling, discovered during a stop-over at Vienna

A wooden Tulip from Holland

A hand crafted banana boat on a Palm leaf, from Kerala

P.s.: If you find one that you think I should absolutely have, please do the needful …. :)

At Home

He is sitting behind me with his bag on his lap. His hair is gelled and neatly parted in the middle. He wears a formal shirt and strange fitting, ugly pants. A black jacket and a pair of sports shoes complete him. He is looking for something in his much used blue handbag, intently shuffling through its contents. Where is it? His brows bunch up, and doubt begins to cloud his eyes, but his relentless hands keep searching. The group around him, his group, shift from one leg to the other, following his search with greedy eyes. They mummer to him, maybe words of encouragement, maybe rebuke, till he finally finds what he is looking for. He breaks into a crackling smile and pulls out a packet. A wave of cheer goes around the group. Riiiiiiiipp, opens the packet of shev bhujiya and instantly gets devoured. Kurumm-kurumm-kuruumm.

I don’t feel home sick anymore.