Thursday, May 09, 2013

One day...


The streaking sunlight made its way piercing into my eyes through the gap between my due-for-wash curtains. My long cherished fitness dreams of morning walk silently mocked at me. My morning alarm had shrugged and given up finally. It failed to ring. I got up scratching hard and hurting myself in irritation to see the bed bug moving away triumphantly after completing its mission. I had set the alarm for 6 o clock in the evening! The 24-hour format makes me use my much strained capacity for numbers and calculation… did I say capacity? I meant paralysis.

The worst of all compulsive disorders is the inability to enter bathroom when it’s not up to your mark of cleanliness. I pulled myself against the force that was pulling me back to bed where my villain was waiting with a smile. Sometimes I wonder how in God’s creation, a creature that is not 1/100th the size of my mole can destroy my sleep and wait to suck blood again hungrily. Thankfully, its territory is earmarked to the bed or any place that you may wish to stay poise for more than 30 seconds.

I thanked God with a deep sense of gratitude for bringing my mother back from her native when she came in with hot, refreshing Green tea with honey and lemon – a healthy habit, thanks to my recent lactose intolerance. I quickly made my compromise reluctantly with the bathroom after the customary phone conversation that takes place on all week days. It was Biju calling on behalf of Rekha, my travel partner to office. “Are you going today”? I said “Hi Biju, yes” in the most conditioned tone possible to avoid sounding like a just-woken-up. I could see his teasing smile beaming through the airtel towers “So you just woke up, huh? Rekha told me you might still be sleeping” My mind responded in succession – the alarm, the bed bug, the late night work… I thought forget it, I said in my natural voice “yeeaah.. so 9:30, near the cobblers shop”

My mother was alerted with a gun – “departure time – 9:30”. She coolly turned it over to my head- “you first have your bath”.

I am sure the hardest decision in every lady’s social & official life is the outfit for the day. Quick steps towards the wardrobe, a fast act of swinging the cupboard open and a then comes a long pause of staring endlessly at the stack of clothes that are disqualified for variety of reasons that unfold one after the other. Too loose, too tight, no matching dupatta, shows the stomach, shapeless, hand looks big, deep neck, too bright, same colour as yesterday, worn out, oh… no, not formal wear.. Shirt looks dull, makes me look like a bull… and its time to re run choices from the beginning again… Finally, I made my compromise with a dress not seen by my friends in a long time. When I closed the cupboard, the wise woman in me asked – why don’t I give away clothes with reasons resounding helplessly everyday.., The fool in my mind answered –  “What would I do without the choices?”

9:36 Am – this time it was Rekha.. “Shall we”? I said “yeah yeah… Please start” with a deep satisfaction for one reason – it takes her 5 mins more than me to reach the cobbler’s shop. I paced quickly towards the door mindlessly after the call when my mother gently said… “Your lunch!”. I swung back and grabbed it when I saw my dad showing signs of an imaginary chain around his neck. – “Your access badge!” His eyes looked bigger than usual at my absent mindedness while his pace and tone of worship got louder to express his displeasure. I said… bye appa.. he lifted his right hand and my mother came to the door to send me off.
I accelerated to the cobbler’s shop where Rekha was standing with Biju.. I breathed easy… atleast the next one and half hours of rallying through the unconquerable Bangalore traffic can be eased with both our strong and important views on any topic that comes our way. We were meeting after 10 days. Now there is also an insuppressible urge to process the happenings in the mind and supplement it with opinions and views and let it out to each other. Even the constant engagement in our critical views that is most important for the world today, did not help me notice the array of vehicles standing still as far as my eyes could reach on the main road. The yellow board taxis never thought of themselves as  anything  less than the “call 1066 for emergency”  ambulances. I wondered if driving lessons took place in a special place in hell where they were trained to make every other driver’s life as dangerous and miserable as possible. In my imaginary mind, all the vehicles on the road were yelling… ”Yes…  my dad owns the road” and each vehicle had one bad word for the other driver. The bad words were probably the reverberation of my mind.

The taxis can be forgiven for one reason… they attack you but disappear into the wind before your mind processes the happening and you blink with dropped jaws saying “Did you see what taxi guy”? and your companion answers “which one”? But the autos.. my mind recollected the bed bugs and the similarity to autos. They are small, less powerful ( I wished they had more power in their engines), they can never be destroyed. There is no such space in the world that they cannot occupy, no direction on the earth that they cannot turn without an indication. There is just nothing that they cannot do on the road. They are the most annoying barrier to every benz, audi and honda city and the Volvo A/c buses in the city. I suddenly realized in between my conversation with Rekha that an auto had abdruptly come to a halt in the middle of the road causing endless cascading jerks to every vehicle behind one another, just to consider his chances of picking up a girl who was standing on the median to cross the road. To calm myself from the fury, I imagined a JCB lifting the auto and throwing it aside in a land that is sound proof and human proof. I came back from my imaginary world just to realize that the auto fellow turned down the proposal and moved on casually without the slightest trace of botheration. And then there are the smarties of the road, the bikers who show off their heroism performing the zig-zag feat on the jam-packed road. The feat is performed with double excitement if there is a pillion rider girl holding the guy. They also use their skill of finding every inch on the road in any direction as close as possible to your vehicle. I remember not long back, the pillion rider foot rest of a bike that came very close to my car had scraped my bumper.. the biker was staring at me for the uneasiness that it caused his bike from moving forward and I was staring at him for the scraped out bumper. And we parted ways to mind our business.

It was around 10:45 when I waved bye to Rekha that I realized that I had gotten tired due to the talking, high blood pressure due to senseless and evil drivers and the strain on my leg due to driving. My department was in the next building. I was thanking my stars for getting a decent parking space when I suddenly realized that there is a 11 o clock call that I need to join. I had the meeting Id in my mail in the laptop. I quickly tried calling one of my colleagues, heard half a romantic song in Malayalam ending with “the person you have called has not replied. Please try again later”.  I raced towards the so called “Lift” in “minus 2” basement of my office to see a group of people waiting for the lift and my mind immediately started gauging the space inside an empty lift to accommodate all of us hopefully. I quickly moved a little forward near the lift when I got some stares from others that said – “You think we are all fools here”? I decently moved back and turned my face to avoid the “That’s better” glances. All of us were eyeing the floor indicator in the lift like watching India-Pakistan cricket match in a group outside the Samsung or Philips showroom. The numbers in the digital floor indicator could move up or down to any number like the stock market. There were totally 3 lifts out of which one was always out of service for some reason. If the number in one lift comes down over the other, the entire hoard moved towards it… and likewise to the other lift. This dance went on for some time and the lift never came below floor 3. It was 10:55. I thought of engaging myself in a phone conversation to avoid getting more impatient but when I called a friend, It felt as if the entire crowd was watching us talk on a stage. The crowd grew in size and there were reliefs in many faces when the much awaited lift landed in minus 2 without a space for even a single shoe to enter. Some passengers felt sorry while others were scanning our dresses, giving us glances from top to bottom. We continued the dance of moving to the other lift… this time with more synchronization and more in number. The next lift arrived and I was terrified at the thought of the person closest to the door of the lift getting his nose smashed when the door closed. It was 10:58 and I was considering taking the stairs but was horrified about going out of shape, gasping for breath on the way to 5th floor and dying out of exhaustion like the other day and have people think that I need an ambulance. Also, that action replay would make my team think that I am stricken with panic attack before every call… I remembered the power of positive thinking and stood firm to see the third one take off with more number of people standing in different directions to help from falling on each other. Finally I got a call from my leader at 11:00 asking me to join the call… I got a small comment and then the meeting Id with which I dialed in. While some people braved climbing stairs, I was still waiting for my flight to the most desired destination – 5th floor. There came another one with 2 or 3 slots. 13 of us looked at each other and the smart ones quickly got in. Finally, my turn came in when I saw a lady with a huge bag and a big free space behind her… I gently indicated to her and said “Can you please move a little behind?” with the sweetest smile I could manage. She shook herself in the same place like its some form of dance and gave a cold glance. I made my way inside and she stood like a rock… her bag around her shoulders occupied 2 more person’s space and I wanted to scream loud at her saying.. “this is not your bedroom”. We reached the 1st floor and she hatefully uttered “Excuse me…” I turned around to give her some space when she got through but her huge bag got stuck and finally scraped through us. She hit her head, murmured something hatefully and walked off when I realized I should probably step out in the next floor to give space for off boarding passengers. While giving my attention to the call, I stepped out in the 2nd floor decently for 2 people to step out and was shocked to realize 6 people entered the lift pushing me aside and then the sorry look and scanning from top to bottom again. Finally I decided to take the stairs to the 5th floor and when I reached my destination, I heard my name on the call and I said.. “oh..ah.. aah.. yes.. I am here”. And I heard my leader asking me “are you ok”?

When I reached my final destination of my seat.. I realized the day is about to begin...

You Want


You want space, with a closeness that is inseparable 
You want binding love with a liberating spirit
You want freedom with a deep attachment
You want compromise with an ever understanding attitude
You want fair play with all these demands
I would give it to you since I have the biggest wants of all
I want you… I love you.

Time to leave?


An inexplicable sense of peace surrounds when I see God’s cart rushing towards me
The gentle breeze fondling His tender cheeks
The eyes brimming with compassion speaks
And conveys the most enchanting message
In the most silent of ways - “I love you too”
Leaving me with the most ecstatic of moods
When your form can convey so much and well up my eyes in tears of joy
Well, then… how do you expect me to leave???

Give me Lord



Give me so much love that life’s insecurities don’t haunt me
Give me so much faith that waves of doubt don’t torment me
Give me so much attention that inferiority doesn’t grab me
Give me so much serenity that unrest doesn’t surround me
Give me so much inner strength that weakness doesn’t possess me
The path seems to be weary
Mind feels like a waywardly lost child
Craving to clasp the palm of the mother
The warmth of clasping your palm and marching across life
Endears, Elevates to the top of the world

Nothing is Enough


Nothing is enough.., Nothing fulfills this sense of gratitude 
Should I name is gratitude? May be not
No word can explain this intense feeling
Sparks of pride dashing across from the fire of ego

The thought that we sacrificed
Well... What have we sacrificed for thy sake?
Our desires? Not sure about that though
Our life? Haven’t yet had an understanding of that as of yet
Our worldly pleasures? So do we think!
Our time? Oh... making the best use of it rather!
Our Joy? Better not to speak of that

Rather we have sacrificed our faith by taking thy for granted
And even if we have sacrificed something worthwhile
No sacrifice, no amount of love
Nothing and nothing absolutely is enough
Even as a small response to thy love