Psychedelic Slippers

It’s been a really long year, and we have just started with 2015 and I guess it’s still not too late to jump into a retrospective post about the year. This year has been crazy at many levels. It all started with a bang, an eventful bang that changed a lot of things for me. It started with a lot of hopes. Like for the first time I had almost half the year planned out in excruciating detail. I should have known better, for like most things planned so carefully it didn't work out that way. I now have a list of resolutions that I never got to strike out (maybe I could carry them forward  J ).  To begin with, I lost someone really close to me. And despite of all my claims of having mastered the art of losing, I realised I was a novice again. I had thought years of experience of getting close and letting go of people might have now made me more adept at handling such delicate matters, but as I learnt, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it’s the first time or...

Its five years since graduation. Five long years, since we walked into the real world. I look back with awe at all the years gone by. We start off with dreams, almost everyone does. Just out of college and you are ready to take on the world, or so you think. You are looking for a story, an awesome incredible story that you can write and call your own. There is naïvete in the way we perceive life to be, in the hope, in the promises we hope to keep. There is a longing to be together. The tears are fresh, and so is the pain of separation. We haven’t hardened to those ideas yet. We believe miles are only numbers. We keep in touch. We write love notes on walls and pledge together forever. Slowly that flame withers, and life takes over. Some of us toe the line, get a job, get settled, get married; the others still wander, searching for forever. Then you chance across a photograph, a video, an anecdote, that friend you bump into the café, that autographed t-shirt stashed in a long f...

I don't remember how old I was then, could have been 6-7 or 8. There were these bunch of play mates i had, who would always bully me, and I would rush crying home every evening. I would keep cribbing i don't have friends. ( I have always been obsessed with that word i presume) , so one fine evening, dad picks up a story book, puts it in my 3" palms and says, "Here, books are your best friends, they will never let you down". I don't know if it was my blind faith in everything that dad said, that i took the words so much to heart. But from then on till date, they've stayed by my side. Faithfully. Through thick and thin, time and again, i've found solace in books, from adventures in the magic faraway tree, to Santiago's (ref. Alchemist) desert odyssey. They have advised me, in the most exquisite ways. They have taught me to fight, love and empathize. They have always opened my heart for this one other perspective, that one can always accommodate. ...

How to come to terms with your past? It’s a question that probably haunts many of us and we choose our own ways. It was a crazy night, last one. We sat talking through it. Whether there was a real need, m not sure, but then it had to be done. I was supposed to start, I wasn’t sure how to, I placed a question. And he drifted ten years back for answers. His journey was detailed, steady, slow. He remembered the good, the bad. He wept. When we build relationships, and when we fight for them, for a long time, the roots go deep. I was smiling. May be I wanted him to feel where those roots are. But he prefers to dump those thoughts away and move on. I am smiling. My story is haphazard. There’s no start or end. I pick up stories from memory and tell him. I am not sad. I can only smile at the pure joy in those moments. I can only smile at his innocence, and feel happy for it. That it was a part of my life, once. I can’t remember the fights, the quibbles. I can remember they happen...

Its been a hell of a time since i wrote something... well so here now we are... Writing is almost like puking for me. You wait till it gets to the brim, and you cant contain it within you any more, and have to pour it out. (okay skip this line if you find it gross) Before my fingers start battling against smileys let me get straight to where we began from. To read, run and laugh. We all have this something in us that we have to keep doing, something that keeps us senile, something that helps us retain that delicate balance of mind. I read. I read to absorb all that I can. Its a therapy of sorts. I love to get lost in the worlds of words. I could probably push myself to reading anything but i cannot laze on bed whole day, and do nothing but stare at words and ponder over them. When I read, I absorb, to ponder I need to walk. I need to walk and stare at things relative to me. I have to see things move to propel my thoughts. I have to walk to keep pace with my thoughts. My thou...

I have a brother. These are four very powerful words. Loosely translated in hindi it would mean , “Mere paas bhai hai”. (Of course not the “bhai”s of the “once upon a time in mumbai” kind, but i admit trying to give the same effect atleast once or more in life). I have used these words time and over in school, to ward- off guys... “bhai” would become “BHAI” then. Then that guy who’s dying to pass that love letter to you, would think twice, “ arey uska bhai hai re”. The physique of the bhai dint matter then, all it mattered was that there was a “bhai”. As you move out of school , and life’s troubles move beyond warding-off guys, you tell yourself, “I have a brother”. The words still give strength. I have a brother. My brother has a well-formed face, well developed, agile limbs, and a teddy-bear tummy he wishes he’d get rid off. We’ve been in two states for more than a decade now.It took me a moment to count the years. Of what he has been in this past decade i dont much of rem...

There comes a time in everyone’s life, when you begin to see the other side… and life as you know it is changed forever. “Marriage” After you’ve grown up to be a certain age, suddenly everyone’s obsessed about marriage. Then begins the “Big Search” from matrimonial sites, to random suggestions from family n friends, you undergo one of the most grueling phases of your life, sometimes even worse than job search. I used to laugh at the old movies where the girl comes with a tea tray in shivering hands to sit coyly in a corner infront of the “ladkewale”… sadly it still happens. I thought times had changed, yes they have, they don’t ask you to sing any more. That’s it …. Rest all, observations, speculation, analysis, goes on just as before. “Wedlock” is reduced to a well calculated choice… like buying a car. 1.        You wanna buy a car, you check up for various models. You check snapshots. 2.        You shortlist some...

**I tried to put it all in one post... but it didn fit in well, so here's the first installment. you might wonder what i am trying to get at by the end.. but please wait til the next one...** If we look back in time, to the days of Rajas and Maharajas, we’ll find many women that stand strong. Then may it be Rani Lakshmibai or Jijabai… not only were they well educated and adept to stand amongst strong men (strong here implying by valour and stature) but they were also very independent women, who took decisions that shaped not only the destinies of their families but history as we know it. Somewhere along time the trend reversed, women took a backstep, and their role in society was diminished to merely home-makers (I am not undermining the task of home-makers here, it is indeed a huge task). Men earned the bread, women served it. It is said education empowers you. In the pre-independence era many prejudices plagued the society, one of them was the social inequality faced...

been a while since i blogged, well hello yeah fellas... life's moving, and well there's lots to be caught up on i guess. well when was the last time i spoke about what's happening, anyway seems very very long ago. id blame it on fb... it never allows for things to accumulate a lot to become worth a blog, and all potentials for blogposts is wasted on fb updates... umm so well i am 2 weeks away from home. this blog for most had always been things that touch me, or mean to me in some way o the other. and as the frequency of my posts drops i wonder if it means things have stopped "touching" any more..or have i become more of impatient (cos sitting in a place and putting your thoughts down needs patience) or have thoughts lost the coherency they had before... that apart... a lot many things have happened. i almost broke a leg... no twisted my ankle real bad and was condemned to 2 weeks of bed rest..(that in itself would have deserved a blog post but as i said bl...

a little late as usual, ... celebrating 4 years in blogistan. Love to all... will get back to scribbling soon :)

Its been like over a month now, a month of constant resistance…But the enemy is still strong. And the rising mercury for some reason unable to weaken him. We d thought it will come to our aid. The temperatures that was definitely an advantage counted, but it’s not working. New strategies need to be worked out. We are unable to understand how the enemy manages to mute out all voices, all sounds, till the sun is way above horizon. And it takes repeated THUDS to break the enemies sound trap. It started at the onset of winters, as we gradually allowed them into our rooms… they lay limply in a corner first, and then spread their expanse to engulf everything, glued us to them, kinda addicted. But little did we know that the enemy in disguise would someday turn so strong , and we would helplessly return to him every night, and stay there unable to release one from his grip. we do not have the strength yet to lift him and bury him deep down, ther’s a fear of another cold wave… what if one...

I have this swing right outside my house.. I loved swinging on it, esp in the evenings. A seaside sunset, swift breeze, rhythmically gushing waves, tall palms…. And a vast open sky above and yes clouds… passing clouds. My most vivid memory of the times on the swing is with my cousin. I guess I started sitting on the swing cause of him. We would fall back on the swing, staring up into the sky, riding clouds… throw a lasso over a cloud and wander into “neverland”. Then talks on life, the universe and everything else would ensue. Riding clouds would never be possible if not for him. … when I return home this time, he l be a little more older, a little farther from “clouds” and the road to “neverland” may be lost forever as he grows up.

well this time, this had to be the last post. Resolutions.... 1)wake up early... i have been grappling with "arising" problems since winters, and since my classes dont start before 11, i think i need to pump in some serious motivation to wake up early. 2)Communicate... since Kanpur, i ve let go of a lot of good habits that i'd maintained in Pune. Being in touch was one of them. The people i'm regularly updated about has dropped to an alarming level. So apologies to all you guys who i haven't been in touch with, n hoping the new year will change that... (pucca) 3)Spend less time on phone... umm not much comments on that, but yeah that's something i resolve to honestly give a shot. and to keep both (2) and (3) may require resorting to older forms of communication, but well that's that then.... back to pen-friends, n e-mails.... 4)Diary... that tiny little book that helped me focus... i've lost the habit, so reviving that... 5)Exercise... i've bcum su...

just back from a long break back home. well yeah looong if you could call 20 days that. i was hoping for a well-planned holiday, cos well i had a plan in my head, but then as every plan, it dint work that day. each day was on its own till i reached the last 2 days, n i had to cram lots o ppl into it. yeah in Goa my days are counted by the people i meet on tat day. i d hoped for a long loafing sessions wit friends, din happen. partly cos loafing like in col times will probably never happen again, and so much time is spent catching up that there's hardly time fr anything else. yeah we managed a small trip to terekhol though. (Terekhol is a fort on the Goa-maharashtra border that is now converted to a resort, and where we had one of the most expensive lunches ever) i spent more time home this hols, partly cos there wasnt anyone around, and partly cos i just wanted to be home. My trip to my native place was one of the highlights. i drove all the way till there (my first looooong drive)...

6:12 pm… a damped soul releases the latch on the door. Flings bag on the bed, the first desire is to fall flat on the bed, but then decides otherwise… A tiny packet of “lamps” is all it takes to release the festive spirit.. 10 tiny lamps… that make me long for the stereotyped diwali conversations… “arey sandhyakal jhaali ajun pantya nahi lavlya” “aaai pantya” “lightingchi maal kadh” “arey ajun jhala nahi kartik? Kevha udya lavnar kay?” “aaj ratrpali vatatay?” Glue, paper, scissors, a sleepless night… 10 tiny lamps…make me smile, cause I am still in sync with whats happening at home.

gearing up for "that time" of the sem again my aids my tools rearranged desk space, rearranging head space

Our college cultural fest is going on, " Antaragni ". Yesterday was opening night. Pro-nite was a play titled “Love letters” by A. R. Gurney, performed by Rajit Kapur n Shernaz Patel. Loved the play. The performance was just awesome! It sketches the life of 2 people over a span of some 50 years (or something), through letters that they write to each other. There’s hardly much beyond 2 people reading letters at 2 ends of the stage, but the actors put so much life into the characters, tat for the hour n half that the play lasted I was completely lost in it. Parts of it took me back to my own tryst with letters. Ahh!! The days when penning it all out was much easier than talking. When I would jump at the sight of the postman. I had a bunch of pen friends then. I just loved it. Writing long letters, n then posting them, n then waiting for a letter in return. Constructing a whole you for someone else was a task. I dunno how far I managed. Slowly the letters dwindled. Now the...

on 10th october, i stepped on homeland after like 2 months... looking back it doesn feel all tat long. (except for the one time when i booked my tickets when i was really dying to get back home). my home trip turned out nothing like i expected it to be. when i stepped in the car outside the airport, i d expected myself to burst into a chatter, o atleast be bombarded by a series of questions. neither of which happened. we drove home jus like usual. i was greeted home by lots o ppl, who were like just waiting fr me to step in so they cud move out. daaa.... freshened up n i was out on the sofa. i had surprisingly even fewer things to say. made me wonder at my inability to talk. is it tat words feel more futile, o thoughts jus cant find words, o m i too lazy to jus take the effort to voice it out. hmmm nt pretty sure. wonder wher the verbose me went. my normally cuddle hater cousin, din mind me cuddling him for 10 minutes the day we met. the dinner was the best part... fish curry rice... m...

It feels like spring again. i can see roses around me, and tulips and anemones.. hope sputters out of cracks of despair, like peepal in cracked walls. its clear again-- visions, dreams,directions. ...... . flickering yellows make u smile. (butterflies)

m well a month old here now. almost gotten myself into a routine here, though try hard to avoid that. weeks are full of lots o work to do. there's alwes an assignment o a quiz round the corner, n weekends sometimes crawl and sumtimes fly off. Time s flying overall... n i think it won b long b4 its december. Got a bunchful of gals out here that make up my so called comfort zone. times with them are full of loads o laughter. i'd never thought i d ever get along with gals this well. Our class is all but ten ppl, n m gettin to know some of them only now. Esp after our dept provided us with a readin room. Thankfully i m nt so sleepy as the first 2 weeks here. The other day we went shoe shopping, ended up with much more than shoes... Shopping always cheers me up. It had been a LOOOOOng week n shopping was just wat i needed. we went to the city in a rick, n then into a mall, shoe shopping, then went further to another mall in search of a lappy shop. but there was none. decided jus to ...