Safety Nets

He took me on a roller-coaster ride

And just when we reached the top

He jumped the carriage

Leaving me alone and hanging

From the highest point

She came by then

And put a stop to the whining self pity

If he can jump she said, so can you

So, I listened. I jumped. I flew into friendship

And I have never flown higher

my people

When nostalgia sneaks up and threatens to choke you

You reach out and grab a fistful of the virtual
And curse every God in every reality

For writing different destinies

Then, they come in bits and bytes

Talking, sharing, saying silly things

And you thank every God in every reality

For writing them in your destiny.

writing for one person. me.

the problem with having a hobby that is also your profession is that somewhere down the lane, you stop thinking of it as a hobby and it becomes work.

words used to be my best friends
now they are colleagues.
temperamental and moody
sometimes stuffy
sometimes nice
sometimes good for a gossip
sometimes ready for a joke
always there for the client
but never just there
for me
and i feel abandoned.

gully seher mein re maaro ghaghro re ghumiyo

prabha and her husband atul are visiting us. completely awesome time we are having. especially prabha and me. we love ourselves some gossiping sessions sans husbands and baccha. also, i am discovering delhi with them. went to chandni chowk and bought a fancy soorma daani. the dukaanwala insisted i put the soorma on then and there. for a couple of very scary seconds, i thought the guy was trying to scoop my eyes out, but he managed to lagao soorma, and it didn't look half as bad. so full points to the man and full money also because i bought the whole schmoodle.

from there we went to the paranthewali gully. i am very glad i am used to eating in seedy looking joints. i am also gladder that i had had no breakfast and it was almost lunch time, so i didnt get second thoughts. the place is stuffy, filthy and full on crowded. BUT. BUT, those guys sure know what they are about. we chose to eat paneer parantha, aloo parantha, dal parantha and pudina parantha. prabha ordered the rabri parantha. i thought she was being extremely brave. only later we realised she had, for some reason, thought rabri = ragda. luckily for her, the parantha turned out to be amazingly yummy. only, it does not qualify as a main meal, it is a dessert. the choice of paranthas was a mile long ranging from the regular to the absurd (khurchan parantha anyone? or maybe you'd want a sample of bhindi parantha? or nimbu?). the lassi deserves a song written on it... "aye mere pyari lassi, tujh mein meri jaan fasi" types.

then we went to the red fort ... which was closed for honest tax paying citizens of India because some vvip was due to arrive on a visit. so sweet. after all, we are here to oblige and visit again at their convenience. atul was especially very sweet about the whole thing since he had had a similar experience at the Taj the previous day. he would have loved to meet the vvip and tell him exactly how cool he found them.

then we went to dilli haat in an auto. that had a meter. and the driver WANTED to go by meter. in delhi. will wonders never cease?

there is a metro line right upto dilli haat. super freaking awesome. considering how much i love the place.

now i am tired. and i have sent the visiting couple to see akshardham. later in the evening we plan to do some more ghooming.

happy days are here again.
and my comfort salwar kameez has suddenly gone tight on me.
the price you pay for all that happiness.

somethings, are meant to be forever

like the teeth in all our pictures. they have to show, they have to be the most commented about.
like the food mania that descends on us each time we walk down Ram Maruti road, Thane.
like the inner bitch who surfaces to crib, claw and disintegrate every issue and person when we are together.
like how time flies when we are gossiping.
like the look that passes between you that only you get and she gets and so does she.
like the pain you feel is reflected in the panic in her face.
like the smile you have thinking about juvenile cracks.
like the joy of saying fulao, fafad and laftof.
like being in one place at one time.
like dragging a scooter and a bike and planning devastation for the ones who dared to puncture our tyre.
like spending a lot of time cutting, pasting, painting stuff and finding immense peace in it.

true. somethings are meant to be. somethings, are just home.

Not quite but thanks anyway

my friends think i am stressed after reading the last post. i am not. well, maybe i am, but can't do much about it now can i? like sheetal says, if we talk like turtles, we ought to be shelled.

thanks for worrying though. it makes you want to fight back to know there are people who are backing you all the way.

meanwhile, ita says tars pretty confidently. that is stars for you. but i quite like the way she points out authoritatively and says, "amma, tars."

Not all relations have names...

Stumbled upon this group on Orkut sometime ago and it made so much sense that I joined up pronto. The introduction to the group goes thus:

Not everybody is someone's brother, or sister...
Or someone's father or mother...
Or boyfriend or girlfriend...
Or lover or friend...
Or......
Some relations go beyond the human confine of words...
Some relations which define you...
But you can't define them, no matter how hard you try...

There are indeed so many such relations that we come across through our lives. So many people we cannot call brother or friend or relative. So many faces that are dear to the heart, but have no labels attached to their names. So many acts of spontaneity that have moved and touched you ...

I want to say this to you folks whom I cannot for the lack of vocabulary (mine) categorize under a bracket:
You are the dew drops of my life. Rock on.

talk, talk, chatter, chatter, gossip

i spoke with her last evening. the one we used to call laddoo. she has been unwell for a while now... didnt know about it, until a chance encounter of the orkut kind. spoke with her for a long long time, about masala pavs and cutting chais, slimy profs and handsome editors, crazy classmates who are now papas and mommas.

i spoke with him last evening. the one i used to call ass****. he has been through a lot of crap. i did know about it, but never managed to call him as often as i should have. we spoke very briefly, thanks to bad coverage. we exchanged the mandatory insults, bitched about work, cities, lack of money, lack of time, lack of life.

i spoke with her last evening. the one we used to call bambola. she is the reason i have faith in God. she is the one who makes me believe in smiling when life comes up with a lemon after another. we spoke about the one who got married and the one who has got promoted, shared pjs, shared worries, laughed a lot and then she disconnected because an Amitabh Bachchan movie was coming on cable.

now i know why i don't mind travelling 50 kms one way to work. i get to catch up with people who matter...

Colours and some more

It sure feels good to blog again. really good. i should ideally start with the stuff i had typed out last week... the one about the trip to Jaipur... but i'd so much rather speak about Holi.

Such a beautiful festival... and i celebrated it like it should be... with family and friends and some of the loveliest people i call my neighbours. For the first time since i moved base to delhi, i felt at home. i felt like i belonged. that i mattered to people... and this holi, i am right where i should be... finally.

here are some more pics. colourful aren't they?

Cya next Sunday… be on time ok?

Week after week, every Sunday, at 6.30 AM, we met next to the tea stall, under the indicator of platform no 2, Dadar station, western line.

Week after week, for almost 3 years.

He would be late most times and so would I; Teju and Monu took turns … but never Preeti… she was always there on time. We arrived at the designated spot from a variety of directions. We bantered and argued our way to Churchgate and almost ran all the way to the Unit.

1 Maharashtra Air Squadron, NCC.

We trained
We learnt
We laughed
We cried
We shared
We fought
And of course, most often, we were punished.
Crawling
Frog jumps
Running
Marches

Blood and sweat fought to mingle with tears and smiles.
Torn uniforms… Dropped rifles… Lost berets … Missing badges … Shoe polish … were an intrinsic part of our lingo.

And then, one day… we passed out.
The mighty ‘C’ certificate holders.

The ‘group’ held on for sometime.

Some of us managed to hang in there, connecting, communicating, keeping the bond alive… while others floated away.

He … was one of the floaters
He … one of our best buddies
He … of the miserable pjs
He … the Jordan follower
He … who first coined the term mput.com … monu, preeti, uma, teju
He … the guy we called Pandu, PC and an assortment of names

He … who came back to our midst last week
We spoke, like always … a gaali here, a rotton joke there … 10 minutes of long distance calling to bridge the gap built over years.

Damn the miserable twit for getting me all choked up but I am so glad to have him back… just so we can skewer him to the first signal we come across.

Oh and, Thank you Internet for your billion networking sites.