A-Tisket, A-Tasket

“You are so much more than just what you are in this moment. You are everything you have been, and everything you ever will be.” -Me.

Warning: Cheesiness and melodrama overload.

I've been on the receiving end of the ‘Don’t talk to strangers’ speech from my parents and teachers far too many times in my childhood, and I continued to be fed this advice repeatedly by friends alike as a teenager, who knew that I was perhaps too naïve and trusting for my own good. I’d like to believe that I've changed. That I'm not the girl who believed in unicorns and Santa and true love any more.

Today, I call myself a realist, and more times than I could keep count of, I have friends questioning me with a tone of accusation – ‘Where’s the optimism gone, Resh?’ They squint at me with heavy suspicion, convinced I am the evil twin that has killed their lovable friend. One who urged them to believe in ideas that were ridiculously improbable, to have faith when the chances of anything good coming out of a situation were astronomical. Some will be bold enough to say it to my face – ‘This is not the Resh I used to know!’ And some others will try to mask their pity at how far I've fallen with the solemnly delivered lines, ‘So *pregnant pause* you really don’t think you’ll ever get married *sigh*?’

Honestly, I still don’t understand what the big deal is. Some things you believe in work till a certain age, and then you just grow, and believe different things that will work for you now. Why treat the whole episode like some part of you has died? Maybe it has just grown into something better. Just because it isn't filled with ‘Jab we met’s’ Geet-worthy giggles and philosophy doesn't mean it’s not a good life.

And then a few weeks ago, I surprised myself. Whether it was pleasant or not, I still cannot say.

I'm sorry, celebrating what?

Independence day is upon us, and I find it a laughable concept. 

Last night, my sister asked me before going to bed, whether I’d be accompanying her to our school today, for the flag hoisting ceremony in the morning (My family usually does this every year on this day, a chance to go back to our childhood happy place, and don our patriotic shoes.)  In reply to her question, I had a dazed expression on my face. All I have been thinking about since Monday is how I’m lucky enough to get some extra sleep this Thursday because it’s a holiday. I should’ve felt guilty (like I did the two years I didn’t follow this ritual because I was working on my college festival), but I didn’t. Independence? What Independence?

Happily Ever After

I must have sat down to type the following words numerous times, but refrained from doing so for the silliest and most serious of reasons. I want to write about my happiness. I want these pages to bleed with my joy and bring it to whoever reads it. But I feared doing so for two main reasons - I was superstitious about my mirth attracting the evil eye (silliest) and I was worried about undressing something so personal to me, and putting it out there for the world to mock, and judge. Here’s a statutory warning: If you are not happy with your work life and are prone to resenting the people who are, stop reading now. For those who can wheedle some smiles for themselves from my alacrity, go ahead, knock yourself out.

Colour is overrated

Forgive me if I am a tad incoherent in what I write here, I am still collecting the scattered pieces of my mind that have just been blown away by watching a brilliant film called ’12 Angry men’. You don’t need me to tell you what it’s about, you have imdb or google for that. This is not going to movie review route, don’t worry. I am aware that I suck at them.

I am writing this because I am constantly amazed by how much a well-written story can captivate me. The beautifully written characters with intricate backstories that give them a certain depth and complexity and make their motives confounding to the audience, and dialogue infused with genuine emotion sans melodrama and intelligent humour devoid of innuendoes and sarcasm. How can you not love the oldies?

Mirror

It does me good

Having you before me

To plot graphs of me

Eye cannot see

As opposites

We grow infinitely.

But this Parallel

Between us

Let it be.

For of what use

Are two mirrors

Stuck together

With nothing to reflect?

Stay

On the outskirts of my consciousness

Words come, touch and flee

Having made love to my insomnia

At dawn, they abandon me

0.2 Bigha Zameen

Seven years ago, my parents realised that we needed to buy a house. They gave up after a brief period of hunting in Bombay and Thane, and made a snap decision to use the land my father inherited in Kerala to build a cosy little bungalow there, like the ones we drew in our art class in elementary school.

“You call this cooped up place over another man’s roof a house?” my mother would say about flats. “A house must have its foundation embedded in soil. The soil we grew up on.” I rolled my eyes at her corniness, trying to mask my anger. At 17, I believed that my parents’ house would always serve as a base for me too, and I didn't want that to be a place I’d barely lived in.

The Seven Year Itch.

(Dated Dec 3, 2010. Reposting this here from my Facebook notes. Because I will always need to remember this.)

I’ve known him for as long as I  can remember, and that’s a really long time. I can never tell you when it happened; pinpoint the exact moment when I started falling for him. But I can tell you this, even with my uncertainty of early childhood memories, that it was love at first sight.  All I know is that by the time I was 15, even though I had no clue as to what the future held for me, I was irrevocably in love with him. Back then, I had taken it for granted that it was a lifelong affair, something you believe by default when you lack options.

But options were aplenty when I went off to college. I wavered, drifted apart, but I will never admit that I made the wrong choices, because I had what really mattered. I held on to him, incredibly, almost impossibly, as impossible as studying Math in the Arts field. Exactly like that, in fact.

Coming out

Unrelated to my previous post, this one is about all those cowards who hide behind their smartphones and laptops.

Long ago, not so far in the past that a 90’s kid couldn't remember, but long enough for the Facebook generation to not know, there was the era of pen pals. You could develop a friendship with a person across the globe or country just by corresponding through letters over a period of time, and perhaps never meet, or even know what the other person looked like. Remember, these were dark times, much before the internet came into being. The need to meet such a pen friend was completely alien to most people, and there was a certain beauty in retaining that level of anonymity, the fun of not-knowing, not just for then, but not ever.

When I was a little girl, out of the million fantasies I had of meeting my knight in shining armour, one of them was this- falling in love with a faceless entity, someone with whom I corresponded through words and formed an opinion of solely based on their ideas. It was a wonderful romanticism, and I hoped I would have the fortune to meet my soul mate this way when I was older. Today, this is one of the sharp memories I have that make me want to travel back in time to hold my younger self condescendingly to my bosom and exclaim, “Oh, Resh!”

The L word

Today, at work, as we shared a long session of laughs and gossip over coffee (which, mind you, doesn't happen too often in a college staff room), the conversation steered towards sex-change operations. It felt like I had to make a physical effort to not give my strong opinions an outlet. ‘Careful, Resh’, I had to tell myself. ‘You really like these people and they seem to adore you. You don’t want to mess it up.’ But thankfully, no one seemed to have an opinion about the subject, it was a general discussion of facts, about public figures, and people we knew in real life who underwent the procedure. And then, one of my colleagues commented on how a sex-change operation was still an accepted practice, but lesbians? Shee! I can never accept that!

I want you.

(Sometimes, I don't want to twist words into cryptic phrases that sound poetic. Sometimes, I  just want to adhere to a rhyme scheme and write poetry the way I wrote as a child. So here it is. Because I can. )

Unwanted

I resent

This resentment

Who sought no consent

Slithering through my mind

Soot-ing it with lies

I do not feel

Who told you

It was okay

To fill secluded recesses

With your smut?

(I had some dreams

To paint them

With mediocre faith)

Scour it out

Let the vacuum be

Being numb shall trump

Perhaps

I’d rather feel nothing

Than this.

Pity

I grieve as she sings

Her woes of broken wings

That will not fly

Because she won’t

And in sync with the refrain

Rattles the wretched chain

That holds her hostage

I persist to open

And unlock her voice

That must have more to say.

She holds it shut

Having made her choice

Unyielding, as I pray

I try I try I try

To drive her out

I cannot stop

I cannot let go

‘How could you not want more?’

I cry.

She pities from her cage

She pities my freedom

Wasted on her

‘Just like you don’t’

She tells me.

And then there is nothing to pity

Because she won’t she won’t she won’t

The Spell Breaks

Silence she startles

With her witch-cackle

And ignorant folk

Unacquainted with the joke

Cluck their tongues

As she empties her lungs

Into staccato peals of mirth

To me they turn

Expecting communal scorn

I return a look perplexed

They want the joy annexed?

How shall I dare rebuke

Laughter that might nuke

The cries of despair stark

Only I hear in the dark

Freak

Rejoicer of the mundane

I watch from my sanctum

As they paint their faces

with plastic smiles

And each other 
with kisses

that mean nothing

And I am the FREAK.

Traitor

Eyes clench

in a redundant endeavour

To hold her captive

as she abandons me

She knows not

That I care not

About losing sleep

But

The dream

That dissolved

In its wake

(crying) At the movies

I was eight years old when my father took me to watch ‘Titanic’. I bawled like the child I was when Jack froze in the ocean and Rose screamed herself hoarse asking him to come back. (I always thought she was talking to him, not the rescue-boat.)

Then came an array of ridiculously cheesy Bollywood movies I now abhor, and I cried in the climax of every single one. Openly. I never cared about what people thought of the copious tears that flowed from my eyes at clichéd dialogue. I can still vividly hear the sniggers of the college-going kids in the back row as they pointed at me blowing my nose loudly during the mother-son reunion scene in K3G (along with every alternate scene in that movie). My mother shook her head lovingly in my direction as I cried over the deaths of protagonists in k-serials who would eventually be re-born.

Friends and family chided me playfully throughout my childhood about the involuntary nature and eagerness of my tear ducts. I responded by smiling shyly, because it was never something I was ashamed of. On the contrary, I think I even felt pride at the thought that only I could feel this way. These stories and the characters in them spoke to me like they did to no one else. I smiled like I knew some secret they didn't.

Saving face

‘I'm out with family.’ The lie falls seamlessly from his lips, as he presses his index finger to them signalling me to stay quiet, cradling his phone with his other hand. 

I momentarily phase out staring at his mouth, thinking of all the different ways I've imagined him using it. Quick and passionate in the rain. Lazily tongues sliding together as we lie in the grass on a breezy afternoon. Tickling my ear with whispered nonsense as we hold each other close. 

He coos a vomit-inducing endearment into the receiver that snaps me out of my reverie. To me it sounds profane. He hangs up with almost bored, obligatory words of love that would sound real to an untrained ear, but I have been studying him too well to not see through them. I realise how pathetic I am to want those counterfeit feelings, in the very least.

Ruler

His miniature fingers

Scratched the colours

Across the page

Into a collage of nonsense

And they called it Art

But then he grew up

And they forced into those hands

A ruler

And a warning

To stay within the lines

Now they say

He knows his place

After they made him forget

Still Standing

You put me on a pedestal

Out of your selfish need

Not expecting the upheaval

Of rebellious minds I’ll feed

Unbound by your rulebook

I refuse to perform rote

Your tried and tested methods

Thieve my right to emote

Don’t hand me the power

Unless you relinquish it whole

I don’t want your half-truths

Play-acting is not my goal

You strip me of my license

Again, a path I’ll find

Rising above the dissonance

I will speak out my mind

Not good enough

There are some times in life when you feel hopelessly inadequate. What makes it worse is that it appears to others like you are fishing for compliments, seeking attention. Maybe you are. But it really sucks when you aren't.

Alone

There is no witness

To testify my longing for you

Only my pillow

Which swallows

The whispered expletives of your name

Woven into my short breaths

As I shiver

With my hands between my legs.

Flute

Look at us

Two broken pipes of wood

Each trying to falsely assure

The Other

Of the music inside

That was never there

Shadow

I revel in the shadows

watching you be

as you would if I wasn't.

Your embarrassment

when you're caught dancing

You thought no one was looking.

I thrill myself

 in those sheepish smiles

Not a pleasure sadist, no.

But joy

that surges from the knowledge

of new found kinship

My heart swells with childish pride

at the discovery

That in the countless moments

I cannot witness

You are perhaps

Just as silly as I.