Open Mind

Often, sometimes I think too often, I have reached out to the willing, the reluctant, the reclusive, the inconsiderate and tried to weave in my place in their lives. By keeping the communication channels always open, I was closing myself in. Somewhere it became my crutch, my lean-to. It became impossibly important to know I belonged, had an active part to play in everyone’s life.

I was wrong.

I did not need communication with others to be connected.

All I need is one line. One connection. With myself.

I learnt.

The insane shackles I welded on to my own feet are broken.

I am free.

Monkey does as Monkey sees

I do not remember having as many toys, books, gadgets and games as my daughter does, but I do not remember asking my mother what to do when I was bored.

Because I was never bored. In fact, I always thought the day lacked hours because I always seemed to have so much to do. We played every chance we got, with dolls, with blocks, with the resident stray. We rolled on the ground, we sat in abandoned pipes, we climbed trees, we hid under blankets and called them tents. On school days we finished our homework and were outside at 5 o’clock sharp and we got home two hours later to a family sit down. We played carom and Ludo, we read books and we had discussions over dinner. We were a nuclear family of four during the weekdays and a joint family of around 16 over the weekends because that was ritual too… visiting and spending time with family.

So what’s with kids these days? I could easily blame it on the gadgets, because once I let my girl use the iPad or kindle, the hours fly by. Once the gadget is put away, I see an immediate slump in the mood or a spike in the temper. Yes, I could very happily blame technology and its evil spawn.

But I won’t. Because it is me, the parent who is at the core of it all. Not because I got her the gadget but because I did not teach her, did not show her how to use it sensibly. I did not teach her to think beyond the next prompt.

Monkey does as Monkey sees.

I am addicted to the internet. I love everything about it, from the information it has to offer to the people it connects me to… and I do not know when to stop accessing it. For a while, when I was technologically challenged enough to not look at buying a smartphone, we were okay, since over and above everything, I was too lazy to switch on the laptop after I got home. Now things stand differently. Even though I do not read every joke, motivational message, dire warning about a new virus… I still check the phone compulsively all the time and if a headline catches my eye, then God help me, I forget the existence of everything save what is happening in Bulgaria.

For the past couple of months, I put the phone away once I get home from work. For about two hours, I am just mamma who does regular stuff, like holler about the state of the house, the food that has not been consumed, the incomplete classwork and the reason behind why she thought it appropriate to stuff clay in all the keyholes. One would think she would be glad to have me go back to my smartphone. But strange things happen and she is okay with monster mamma person as long as she is the point of hundred percent focus.

And she is okay when I limit her access to the gadgets.

Because Monkey does as Monkey sees.

The Magical Land

Everyone said Spiti was a beautiful place. A place that would dazzle the eye and soothe the soul. No one warned me about how it would seep through my pores and get permanently etched in my imagination. And certainly, no one prepared me for the people who live there. The true meaning of the word ‘Sonder’ came into existence in Spiti Valley.

Everyone I came across, from a local to a visitor, from the very young to the very old, from the settled to the nomad… every single person had a story to share. And that, more than the mind numbingly brilliant scenery reached in and grabbed my heart. Hence, the people of Spiti will be the first in a series of posts. A jumble of words, images, expressions and feelings. Sometimes unstructured, but always poetic because its people deserve it and the place commands it.

I could only manage some pictures. I missed clicking snaps of:
The ‘Amchi’ –local medicine man (practitioner of Tibetan medicine also known as the Amchi System of Medicine)

The ‘Chouwa’ – local shaman who fed us yak cheese and tea in his house and then proceeded to try and answer our questions on our past and future

The Garhis – nomadic sheep herders who move from one terrain to another based on the availability of food for their herd

‘Angdui’ – Our local guide who teaches in a local school and is capable of cooking up a storm
Vishakha, a Mumbai girl who runs the Himalayan Café at Kaza

Siddharta, an ‘almost nine-year-old’ boy near Dhankar Monastery who loves math and who nodded sagely and said, I had to study hard to get past grades I, 2 and 3. Now I am in grade 4, I will have to study harder.

 Should post the next update in a while. Meanwhile, I will wallow in a state of semi-existence.

#Bikers

#Spiti

#monks

#oldman

#oldwoman

#sarahkashyap

Spooked.

We have been talking of graveyards and ghosts

Of the mysteries and the intangibles

Of fear and dark thoughts

And I somehow end up thinking

Of you, 

who left too early

And of you, 

who left it for too late

But most of all,

I think of you

Who didn't know you were gone

And I wonder

About what could have been

If our places were swapped

And I cannot but think

You think it too.

That elusive future

Wrote this way back in 2003 and strangely, future is still being as elusive as ever.

Across the distance, far far away

I view my future

Sitting on the highest branch

Of a mango tree

It stares at passing birds

Wishing on falling stars

Dangling its legs fearlessly

It weaves my tomorrow

The other day it hung upside down

I missed a heartbeat

A smile lifted my shoulders

My future steadied itself

Sometimes it has company

The animals, the stars… the others

Nothing seems to affect it

As the wind continues to blow

I waved to it today

Hoping in vain to catch its eye

As it plucked another cloud

To make a warm quilt

I tried crying out its name

Sent a message in a vinegar bottle

It chooses to ignore me

Doesn’t it know it belongs to me?

Doing right is not always easy

For years and years I put the memory of this place behind
And avoided its people.
For years and years I tried to get over one incident
And one person.

And now, after years and years
I volunteer to go and meet those very people in that very same place.
Because it is the anniversary of a question
And it is time to let go of baggage.

I wish I could say I was being brave.
I wish, I could be.

Finding a purpose

At 18:
I wish for a career that would let me fly

At 28:
I wish for a career where I work work work and grow grow grow

At 38:
I wish for a career that would let me fly

The twenties were clearly about misplaced aspirations.
Oh wait, forties are just around the corner. What are you going to bring me?

Different

She: I see animals in the clouds, shapes in the rocks and faces in the gnarled roots of trees.

He ticked on special wing, padded rooms.

Parenting is another name for karma

Every time I start to yell at my girl
For not getting up on time
For not cleaning up after play time
For not eating right
For being sassy
For being rude
For whining

An ever present elder nods sagely and informs me, this is how you were when you were younger, imagine how your mom must have dealt with you.

Whoever said Karma comes back to bite you on your ass, I do not like you.

Touched by angels

Not all relationships have names

These nameless relationships

Are at once love, friendship, admiration and more

They come and they go

Leaving behind a whiff of something intangible

And yet so infinitely important.

Unintended

I thought of her yesterday
When I was giving my girl a bath
I thought, she would have done it for her daughter too
And I felt a little sad.

I thought of her late at night
When I was reading a message from a friend
I thought, she would have giggled at the words
And I felt a little sad.

I didn't think of her this morning
As I was aimlessly surfing through various social media platforms
I didn't think stumbling on her name
Static and cold would cause so much hurt,
Beyond sadness, beyond pain.

Permanent

I look at a stone and I think of you
I hear a song and I can hear you humming along
I eat a spoonful and I imagine you dipping into my plate
I see a puppy and I know how you would melt
I feel the rain and I see you dancing in it
I sigh at the mountain and I feel your awe

Sometimes I forget
You are just a memory
But then again
Memories are a fine thing
Because you are in them
Whole, beautiful and alive
And most importantly,
Forever.

#memories

The fool's folly

There are days like today when words seem to come from someplace else.

He reads and worries that the words are from a well that is deep and damaged.

Untrue and unfounded

Baseless

I argue

Because these words are not mine

They don’t belong to me

I am but a tool

The fool is someone else.

And a fool’s folly

Is in waiting for the inevitable to happen

And

To hope against hope

For a way to stop it

Because the fool’s heart

Believes in miracles

And sometimes

A fool’s prayers

Can turn the world upside down

And the tool’s destiny

Is to watch the inevitable destruction

And write words, deep and damaged

Stranger in the mirror

What are your colours today?

Orange, yellow and red I said

She laughed and laughed

And called me a liar

And pointed to the grey, blue and black

No, I insisted

No

The all knowing stranger in my mirror,

She laughed again

At my denial, distress and dismay

Grey grey grey and black

She repeated

Under the farce

Over the lie

Is your colour true

And that, is black so dark

It is blue.

Be still my beating heart

The vagaries of the heart
Is never clearer
Than when you sit and stew
And brood and vent
For hours and days and months
But forgive and forget
And dive right back in the deep end
Because the phone rang.

Hooked

Like an incomplete painting
She has got a piece missing
And like the incompetent amateur
I fail to see what it is

Is her nose a little wayward?

Her pose, awkward?
Is it the clothes she wears?
Or the way she stares?

I miss the eye
The key to see
The flaw may be in her
Or maybe, it is in me.

I try to ignore her
And sometimes, to out-stare
She wins, she draws, she pulls
Always and eternally, my incomplete muse.

word.

How does a stone cold diamond outweigh the depth of a warm couplet?
Words woo. Words win. Every single time.

 

Jump

You must be a remarkable person to know what the other person is thinking, what the other person is, by simply looking at them.
You must either be a great psychic to possess such detailed insight into a stranger's character or a seer who has read it all from the stranger's eyes.
You must be beyond brilliant to know what a person will do in a certain situation even when the person in question is still struggling with a decision.
You must be God.
You must indeed be.
God of Assumption, Presumption and Jumping to Conclusions.

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.