Footpaths or mud tracks… Deep Ditches or overflowing gutters... nothing stops the Mumbaites from taking the route that would make sure he gets to his destination at least a minute early. At an impatient traffic signal, pizza and death delivery boys fidget with their helmets, cabbies glancing at the mirrors just to get a peek at his fares, drumming fingers and necks straining to see ahead, to find an inch of space where a two or a four wheeler can squeeze itself. Blaring horns, cursing voices (Chal be...Dikhta nahi kya?) and a girl in a cab will add, “Oh Bhaiya... Sambhal ke"
Then, a great initiative will change all — a clean entry spot, deft manouveurs, driving along hawkers, pedestrians and double parked cars, will get someone right in front of the cars, autos, trucks, buses and slow-witted bikes. Not to worry, the traffic cop won’t chase him. After all, it’s nothing out of the ordinary… for him or for the cop :-) Plus, as our brave traffic spartan leads at least 15 other someones would’ve followed suit. Yes. Even if there’s a maddening jam on the road, traffic flows freely in these roadless by-lanes. —“Adjustment” at it’s best.
It seems as if all the world comes together, bursting at its seams with people, Vegetable Bhaiyas, cauliflower stalks, beggars, flower sellers, wadapav walas, ricksaw smoking beedis, marwadi pan shops, parked Santros and Carts… BEST buses trying to get to the bus-stops where people have queued up to get atleast one foot inside, artisans waiting with their tools for someone to give them a call,newspapers trying their best to draw attention to whats going on in and around them, all just wanting one common thing - a desperate need to squeeze into that wee bit of space we proudly and Oh so lovingly call Mumbai.
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Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Windmills of your mind
Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
You were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of her hair
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
- Dusty Springfield
This song always reminds me of all that I've lost, and all that I may have found. Things. Clothes, Books, People, Scribbles - and I had many. To the memories I've spun, to lots of laughter and conversations, to friendship and love...It takes a loss to unlock memories. But now there are only echoes of symphonies. This week has been mostly Blank. The enormity of stories around, of experiences and so much more. Time to absorb, to formulate responses. Sigh! Such a long journey, but still have miles and miles and miles, thousands of them, everywhere I turn
And the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
You were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of her hair
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
- Dusty Springfield
This song always reminds me of all that I've lost, and all that I may have found. Things. Clothes, Books, People, Scribbles - and I had many. To the memories I've spun, to lots of laughter and conversations, to friendship and love...It takes a loss to unlock memories. But now there are only echoes of symphonies. This week has been mostly Blank. The enormity of stories around, of experiences and so much more. Time to absorb, to formulate responses. Sigh! Such a long journey, but still have miles and miles and miles, thousands of them, everywhere I turn
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Distances... Within!
I came across this article on a friend's blog and was amazed at what it said.... because it said what I want to... so naturally... so precisely... as if its me whos written it... It says all that my heart does ... so i though i would post it here... as i cant find another perfect way...
It's an article by Ms. Shipra Shrivastava on an HT tabloid site i visited after catching this on someone elses blog...
Oh this long distance love!
"It is very well said that "distances grow fondness among people". It indeed creates fondness but takes a toll of emotions, efforts, time, energy and many times tears to keep it going. I might sound like a 'guru' of relationships but no; I am myself a victim and member of the Long Distance Club.
I guess people are right when they say that men are from mars and women are from Venus. 'We' are so different in every way. Apart from being different biologically, we are different to a great extent in the way we think. Something which holds great importance for me might just be a normal issue for my boyfriend.
And of course, dare I disturb him when he is at work. "I am busy. I have work. We will talk when I get back home" This is the response I get. But these things are quite a normal feature and easy to handle when you stay in the same city, meet everyday and can always explain things and make up for it if something goes wrong. But what happens when you are trying to measure the relationship across thousands and thousand miles on the globe?
And how can I forget the time factor? I mean why do we have different time zones? It's like when one is free to talk, the other one would be snoring and vice versa. When I call my boyfriend and ask him to come online, he is either sleeping, or at gym, or at work and ultimately either I stay awake till morning waiting for him.... What pain!
With the advent of technology and the conversion of the world into a small global village, we find it quite easier to contact people through emails and chat programs.... Email might sound as a substitute for phone calls but it is surely not. The tone, language and intensions can be often misinterpreted and infact that's exactly what happens. But then being a little diplomatic on emails is much better than being answerable for looong phone bills. And phones? What can I say for them? The time you call, you are more worried about keeping the phone down thinking about the huge amount of tariff on international calls and at the same time you end up discontented and unhappy for not being able to express what you really wanted to.
There are surely times when one starts remembering all the good moments spent together and the next thing is you pick up your phone and start dialing. But what if your boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't answer? You call again? Again he/she doesn't answer? Here is when our minds start going on a wild goose chase. Has he run away? Has he started dating someone else? He must be with a girl, that's why he is not taking my call and so on and so forth. And in the end, one ends up being unhappy and upset. I call these MUS - "Missing U Syndrome"
To sum it up in one word, Trust is an important thing in any relationship but it is the "most" important thing in long distance relationship. It is like a stone on which the relationship rests. It can make thousands of miles seem like just a phone call away.
A huge list of things including phone calls, letters, cards, gifts, sweet messages, voicemails, SMS, emails, chats and so on are needed to keep a long distance relationship alive and kicking. And one should always remember, Distance is not the end of the world in a relationship. Rather at many times it's the beginning and a strong one. How? Well, I said in the beginning, "Distances grow fondness among people". And trust me…it surely does!!!"
It's an article by Ms. Shipra Shrivastava on an HT tabloid site i visited after catching this on someone elses blog...
Oh this long distance love!
"It is very well said that "distances grow fondness among people". It indeed creates fondness but takes a toll of emotions, efforts, time, energy and many times tears to keep it going. I might sound like a 'guru' of relationships but no; I am myself a victim and member of the Long Distance Club.
I guess people are right when they say that men are from mars and women are from Venus. 'We' are so different in every way. Apart from being different biologically, we are different to a great extent in the way we think. Something which holds great importance for me might just be a normal issue for my boyfriend.
And of course, dare I disturb him when he is at work. "I am busy. I have work. We will talk when I get back home" This is the response I get. But these things are quite a normal feature and easy to handle when you stay in the same city, meet everyday and can always explain things and make up for it if something goes wrong. But what happens when you are trying to measure the relationship across thousands and thousand miles on the globe?
And how can I forget the time factor? I mean why do we have different time zones? It's like when one is free to talk, the other one would be snoring and vice versa. When I call my boyfriend and ask him to come online, he is either sleeping, or at gym, or at work and ultimately either I stay awake till morning waiting for him.... What pain!
With the advent of technology and the conversion of the world into a small global village, we find it quite easier to contact people through emails and chat programs.... Email might sound as a substitute for phone calls but it is surely not. The tone, language and intensions can be often misinterpreted and infact that's exactly what happens. But then being a little diplomatic on emails is much better than being answerable for looong phone bills. And phones? What can I say for them? The time you call, you are more worried about keeping the phone down thinking about the huge amount of tariff on international calls and at the same time you end up discontented and unhappy for not being able to express what you really wanted to.
There are surely times when one starts remembering all the good moments spent together and the next thing is you pick up your phone and start dialing. But what if your boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't answer? You call again? Again he/she doesn't answer? Here is when our minds start going on a wild goose chase. Has he run away? Has he started dating someone else? He must be with a girl, that's why he is not taking my call and so on and so forth. And in the end, one ends up being unhappy and upset. I call these MUS - "Missing U Syndrome"
To sum it up in one word, Trust is an important thing in any relationship but it is the "most" important thing in long distance relationship. It is like a stone on which the relationship rests. It can make thousands of miles seem like just a phone call away.
A huge list of things including phone calls, letters, cards, gifts, sweet messages, voicemails, SMS, emails, chats and so on are needed to keep a long distance relationship alive and kicking. And one should always remember, Distance is not the end of the world in a relationship. Rather at many times it's the beginning and a strong one. How? Well, I said in the beginning, "Distances grow fondness among people". And trust me…it surely does!!!"
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Fairy Tales...Really?
Books lie scattered. A glass of water teeters on the edges of The Maximum City that lies close by waiting to be read. I pace. I sit back to write. Everything is hazy except the space filled with words. Words arranged a certain way, words that want to say specific things but I don't seem to get the arrangement right. Voices of people jostle for space in my head.
Today words seem wild, unmanageable. Theres this vehement need to restrain them and I love this feeling. This absorption of the body, mind and soul while creating - the restlessness outside and the stillness deep inside me.
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and of course not to forget Cinderella - I believed in those fairy tales. They promise us a world that is not! As we grow up and get into the real world, we have our innocence kicked out of us everyday. In my case, what little was left, I was holding onto it for dear life But Alas! Now No More....
Experiences of people around me has started troubling me. Can you love and hate someone at the same time? Can you wish someone out of your life, while knowing you'd be the first one to miss them if they were gone? Why does life take such sudden turns and Why are you stranded at such a crossroad all alone?
Don't you sometimes wish that people could read your mind? That you didn't have to say, they just knew? That you didn't always have to ask, they would just say what you wanted to hear. I've been feeling like that for the last few days. And then I realized how futile it is and It's just hard to snap out of it.
STILL, I can't shake those tales off. Damn them! Everything I've seen in the movies, sung or swooned over in books is turning out to be baloney. My romance with life seems to have come to an end and I feel like somehow I am supposed to realise it and shake it off…But something inside me just doesnt let me... just tells me that it'll fly by. And my smile might just reach my eyes again.
I think I just want what everyone wants, something real, that I can't corrupt with my pessimism. And I want to share these moments with somebody and have them feel it too. But where's my joy? Right now somewhere faraway…. I Guess! :-(
Today words seem wild, unmanageable. Theres this vehement need to restrain them and I love this feeling. This absorption of the body, mind and soul while creating - the restlessness outside and the stillness deep inside me.
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and of course not to forget Cinderella - I believed in those fairy tales. They promise us a world that is not! As we grow up and get into the real world, we have our innocence kicked out of us everyday. In my case, what little was left, I was holding onto it for dear life But Alas! Now No More....
Experiences of people around me has started troubling me. Can you love and hate someone at the same time? Can you wish someone out of your life, while knowing you'd be the first one to miss them if they were gone? Why does life take such sudden turns and Why are you stranded at such a crossroad all alone?
Don't you sometimes wish that people could read your mind? That you didn't have to say, they just knew? That you didn't always have to ask, they would just say what you wanted to hear. I've been feeling like that for the last few days. And then I realized how futile it is and It's just hard to snap out of it.
STILL, I can't shake those tales off. Damn them! Everything I've seen in the movies, sung or swooned over in books is turning out to be baloney. My romance with life seems to have come to an end and I feel like somehow I am supposed to realise it and shake it off…But something inside me just doesnt let me... just tells me that it'll fly by. And my smile might just reach my eyes again.
I think I just want what everyone wants, something real, that I can't corrupt with my pessimism. And I want to share these moments with somebody and have them feel it too. But where's my joy? Right now somewhere faraway…. I Guess! :-(
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