voiceless.
silenced.

on clocks and inspiration

the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless ones. take diamonds, for example or rainbows.

by the same count, if the measure of true beauty is utter and total uselessness, then i have something that should be a joy forever. the lovely clock that i won as a giveaway on all the purchases i made at the annual scholastic book fair at school is refusing to either tick or toc. it has a second-hand that is refreshingly original - it moves anti-clockwise. its other two hands are truly worthy of greeting a teacher's bleary morning-eye. they move at a sedate and dignified pace in any direction they like.

all this is hugely inspiring.
every morning, in the midst of the daily race against time, made more exciting these days after the arrival of The Clock With an Attitude, i find lots of inspiration. yesterday i got inspired to be radical and swim against the tide, and today the inspiration to be sedate and dignified dawned on me. for tomorrow, i am already inspired to fill every minute with sixty seconds of distance run.

totally plebian people like my mom fail to grasp the import of the revolution taking place in my room every morning right before my bus is about to arrive. if gobbling an egg, downing a mug of milk, combing a lot of hair and wearing glasses in five mintues is not proof of my increased state of enlightenment, what is?

blood and gore

the receipt for B's wedding gift lists 'one neckless' bought and paid for, and our DTH service proclaims 'the service may be temporarily unavailable due to a mechanical or weather condition at your end'.
my end? which one? the one that is struggling with helpless incomprehension or the one that is painted black at the tips? someone educate me.

no quick-fix

cracks never fully mend, i find. grime has a way of finding itself into the most carefully held-together spaces and lodges there. being whole again is just an illusion; shattered easily at sudden moments.

dental agony

there are times when i really wish i were a damsel in some exotic tribe that required women to cover the lower halves of their faces -or else!- even when they ate tricky things like spaghetti. i live in fear of mirrors, spoons and other shiny surfaces. my life has changed. i shall smile with innocent abandon no more. i take recourse in modest smiles and quivers-of-lip-ends. i am the next mona lisa.

my broken front tooth was to me what his moustache was to poirot, buffaloes to laloo, mummies to ancient egyptians and rats to cats. too dear to part with, serious claim to fame, glamor quotient and source of pride and glory.

it had served me well. on childhood playgrounds, one carefully administered bite with the nicely pointed edge had rendered helpless many a worthy -if villainous- opponent prostrate with fear and pain. on growing up to be a flower of young indian womanhood, it added charm (if friends and admirers are to be believed - and i choose to believe. i am a believer) to my already charming smile, paralyzing many an admirer (or so i am told. reasons for the paralysis to be discussed later) with admiration (or so i am told. again.)

now it is gone.

the small man with the wicked looking tools with support from my traitorous mother took advantage of my helpless fascination with the gleaming thing descending towards my agape mouth and stuck on the rest. half-toothed no more.

now i am like the rest of the mortals that walk this earth.

green and gold

it would be good to be a blade of grass. to look up at sunlit trees. to take root and stay and never move house.

mobius

objective detachment; carefully held wisps of dreams. both absolute when they come. both unbidden. twisted, separate, yet the same. too many differently shaped bits. some fit together so well. yet the ones that get left out form pictures too. fragmented ones, near-complete except for the few missing bits. loop going into loop going into loop.

nothing and everything makes sense. depends from where i look inside.

people are only people afterall.

waiting for Janus

end of another year. water under the bridge.

spring cleaning in autumn

cleaning cobwebs. all sorts.

clingy, immaterial things. nothing to be gained except getting one's hands dirty. still, how lovely they manage to look sometimes. holding up heavy drops of dew, minor rainbows in every drop. like something magical to be treated with care. too fragile for heavy handedness or haste. one can get so completely taken in. the spider's lair.

so much time wasted.

the land of plague and floods

the diamond city is far from glittering. it is a dirty, dusty eyesore. at least the old city is - garbage piled up around street corners, encroachments bang in the middle of main roads, ugly broken down buildings, dust and grime all around, factory chimneys belching smoke in heavily populated places...a total municipal disaster.

as one enters the city, a giant hoarding proclaims the biggest lie i'd encountered in a long time - Welcome to Surat. clean city, green city!

mass apathy or mass illusion.

• 
  

the evening saved the day from becoming one more statistic in the most-boring-day-my-life register.

dinner and conversation with mr. and mrs. sharma, my gracious hosts for the evening at their lovely home. watching the comfort of an alliance of long unfolding in an equal, if different, partnership. the sweetness in being taken for granted.

later, a walk in the garden made fragrant by the flowering of the ratrani, the full-moon glow and the sound of crickets in the stillness. on the drive back, i notice that night shows the city off in kinder light. the warts are hidden in the dimness and the neon lights add a touch of festivity. an obligatory dressing up.

the car cruising over the flyover with the windows down and the breeze all soft and whispery, companionable silence and the comfort of being with a friend in a city of strangers....not a bad day.

small blessings abound. and i am thankful.

all in a day's work

my class has a severe problem with writing. they whine more plaintively than a galley-full of ill-treated slaves when faced with a writing assignment of any sort. which means that my brain is constantly addled with all the thinking i have to do to disguise writing in sheep's clothing.

today i decided to introduce some dirty competition into the academic equation. poster-making - topic of choice; individual or pairs; tone-persuasion/awareness/warning; 30 minutes.

Jehan's poster. most people liked it for its striking use of color and graphics and the catchy slogan. the poacher looks rather woebegone though.

Appy and Dhruvin's poster. i liked the symbolism of the graphics and the artwork in general. nice and pessimistic, that is us.

hitarth's broken arm proved to be pure serendipity. he left the writing monochromatic because he could not finish coloring it in time, but the audience liked how the no-smoking sign stood out against all the white and black of the rest of the space.

Meet's work. i like the spotlight effect created by the two circles. a rather glamorous family - everyone is very cosmopolitan and smokes! i especially liked the copious amounts of tears the rest of the family is shedding. enough to drown them all. the dead body looks on quite cheerfully from the pyre.

These and two more went as prizes. on-the-spot artwork by the teacher. perhaps there is something wrong with me. everything i draw turns out to be wide-eyed. something freudian perhaps.

sunday philosophy

A promise made is a debt unpaid.

discoveries

today is a day of discoveries and introspection.

discovery number one: my heart is made of india rubber.

inevitable perhaps, me being the granddaughter of a smallish rubber plantation owner. break-resistant and flexible, it insists on bouncing back. i have no future as a wilting violet, alas.

discovery number two: there is distress and i am (so far) a damsel, but i'm not in it.

no wonder i'd been scaring off all the knights in shining armor waiting for me to fall into distress. it is more entertaining causing the distress than being in it. i cannot ride horseback and i think horses stink, anyway. perhaps the knights stink as well.

discovery number three: i am not built to be a saint.

ahhh.. the bliss of being able to tell idiots that they are idiots. nothing compares. ultimate bliss. all the strain of trying to keep a stiff upper lip and behaving in a suitably dignified, ladylike fashion that is expected of a spinster lady in her mid-twenties was too much.

discovery number four: being a bitch comes naturally to me.

my dear well-meaning teachers at the convent would be shocked. despite being a 'fair, convent educated, homely girl from a good family' i excel at pithy one-liners and crushing sarcasm. sometimes i think i could very well be the reincarnation of that mightiest of super-bitches - the great Groucho Marx.

the weight of all these ponderous revelations has given me something to chew on. i think i'll now go and bite someone or something.

april girl, thats me

now this guy had taste.


Always Marry An April Girl

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

- Ogden Nash


but of course, we april girls are no wall-flowers. we have alternatives. namely;

If No One Ever Marries Me

If no one ever marries me -

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty,

And I'm seldom very good

If no one ever marries me I shan't mind very much,

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage

And a little rabbit-hutch;

I shall have a cottage near a wood,

And a pony all my own

And a little lamb, quite clean and tame,

That I can take to town.

And when I'm getting really old -

At twenty-eight or nine

I shall buy a little orphan girl

And bring her up as mine.

- Laurence Alma-Tadema

so there!

daily dose of tragedy - not mine this time

the worst tragedy that befell me happened on the 19th of february in the year 1989. the pest was born.

i tried the best i could to persuade my parents to donate him to charity, but they adamantly refused to listen to reason. since that terrible day, he has made it the chief purpose of his life to bug me to distraction.

now to my joy, the hateful little neighbor has a little brother too. i don't mind having a little brother if everyone else has one as well. misery loses its edge when distributed evenly and fairly. and by all that is holy, if anyone on this wide earth deserved such a punishment, it is she. i'd like to see how long she can call her famous red tricycle her own and for how long her favorite toys remain saliva-free. hahaha. pride comes before a fall.

the neighborhood baby brother is a dangerous person in the offing, one can tell. his optimistic parents have gone and named him Harsh and he quite lives up to the name. perhaps they forgot to tell him they meant it with the Hindi connotation and not the English one. he glares at passersby in a harsh manner and dribbles saliva all over his chin in a harsh manner too. his harshness reaches new peaks when he is wet, and we are all treated to the sound of him protesting very harshly indeed.

perhaps he feels that

A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.

- Ogden Nash (Reflection on Babies)

illumination

seemingly lasting things erode away so very quickly. nothing lasts in this constant flux. fragile things constructed out of prayers, leaps of faith, half-hopes, daydreams and wishful thinking are so easy to dismantle. so very easy. set on collision course from the moment of inception. on impact, nothing is left, but fast disappearing mockeries.

not every toad turns into a prince.

is it just me, or is the world really out to get me?

last day of term.

true to the frighteningly efficient form the H.R. had been exhibiting throughout the first half of the year, we got this form to be filled in at the most urgent, a generous 10 minutes before pack up. one more form to fill in is indeed my idea of a fun way to spend a few minutes, compared to totally fruitless activities like getting a drink of water or going to the loo. forms, they are something.

this one was extra special. it requested exciting details like the date of birth of one's mom, and sex (where one has to work hard to squash one's desire to write a truthful 'never had' )

hennyway,,trouble is, it required one to fill in one's details IN BLOCH LETTERS and no less. now i have had as substantial a general education as the next person, but i'v never been taught to write in BLOCH letters, much to my shame, so i gave in, and just filled it in in humble block letters.

and the evening held a few more revealing glimpses into my total lack of in-with-it-ness.

this sign for example, in the friendly neighborhood mall which commanded in no uncertain terms - LADIES DRESSES AVAILABLE HEAR!

career crisis

i think i'l start a new phase in my life. the current one is getting jaded.

i have decided i'l be an agony aunt. not that i am not one already, but i have decided to go professional.

three life-altering years as an elementary teacher has taught me all i need to know about human nature. plus, quick thinking, decision making, personality analysis by just looking at the twitching of a nose or the flicker of an eyelid, pronouncing the final word and succintly summing up a situation are all now second nature. i am perfect agony aunt material.

i dont see how any self-respecting newspaper or magazine can get a better deal. on top of all my other qualifications for the job, i have one more. i can supply the question as well ! two for the price of one.

Q.

dear agony aunt,

i suspect my husband is having an affair. he comes back from work very late, and smiles at me! he also has the smell of another woman all over him. what should i do? should i just confront him that i am wise to his villany?

mrs. suspicious

A.

dear mrs. suspicious,

how can you be so certain that there is another woman involved? if it makes you feel any better (then again, it might not), it could be someone of an entirely different persuasion. anyway, why not look at the silver lining? atleast now he smells good when he comes back home.

Wisdom, and the places to find it.

time was when i used to think wisdom lay at the threshold of turning twenty and entering the magical world of adulthood. all gawkiness, social misery and lack fo witty repartee would be things of the past. blushes would never again drown me in red pools of mortification, nor would the foot-in-mouth syndrome strike with such alarming regularity.

well, it seems i was -yet again- wrong.

i have found this most underrated quality of the human race in the most unexpected of places. in the sharply observed one-liners from my mother which condense a character to its essence; the startling see-all gaze of a child which cuts throught layers of feigned interest; the quiet understanding of old friends when they let one rant a self-righteous soliloquy; the solid common sense of old people; sometimes in the most unlikeliest of them all - in myself.

still, for someone who lives in words, wisdom is a rare commodity nowadays. all is dash and flourish and clever sentences. intelligent perhaps, but not wise.

one writer who is a contrary delight is Alexander Mc.Call Smith. the gentle humour - not ascerbic but sympathetic, the keen observing eye, the deft characterisation and the feel of leisure his writing brings, i have yet to find it all in another's writing, except perhaps, that of J0anne Harris. even now, i am struck by the -that word again- wisdom of his lines.

perhaps there was no real point to our existence -or none that we could discern- and that meant that the real question that had to be asked was this: how can i make my life more bearable? we are here whether we like it or not, and by and large we seem to have a need to continue. in that case, the real question to be addressed is: how are we going to make the experience of being here as fulfilling, as good as possible?

or,

we all fall in love, and some of us are sentenced to unrequited love, talking about it over cups of coffee in flats like this, with friends just like this, and oddly comforted by the process.

How to acquire fans and impress people

.....provided they are armpit(or below)-height people.

anyway;

Ingredients:

Item Description Quantity

child small a few

window foggy one, to begin with

finger preferably your own one, for starters

Process:

Make sure intended audience is not (a) sleepy, (b) fighting with its neighbour, (c) busy sticking its head/hand out of the window, (d) reading a book - it happens sometimes, (e) picking its nose - it happens often.

Do something to grab attention - simple things like vomiting, bumping one's head against the seat-back opposite one, or putting up both hands over one's head and wiggling one's fingers work generally.

Once attention is grabbed, work fast. juvenile attention dissipates faster than the fizz out of a cola bottle.

Draw a figure on the foggy glass with your finger. Try a fish for starters (If you cannot do even that, go and die immediately)

Wait for someone to notice "fish" in a bored voice, and then proceed. Draw a larger fish, with a more sinister expression.

Next, draw a turtle.

Then draw a whale.

Follow it up with a starfish.

Wait for awe to descend on the audience. When suitable amounts have descended - it is characterized by shrill voices yelling Madam drew a fish/turtle/whale/starfish,,,look, look - continue.

Graciously oblige further requests and draw on demand - jellyfish, sea horse, octopus, sea snail, sea anemone, and shark.

Listen to awe-stricken comments in the nature of Wooww madam, you have such nice drawing.

Bask in the glory.

Follow-up:

Bestow benign smiles on said conquests when you meet them next, and wave a royal palm at them when they yell hellos/goodbyes at you. Sure to make parents/teachers wonder at your animal magnetism.

I now have a devoted following, who sit very close to me in the hopes of there being a repeat performance the next time it rains.