Living in the Land of In-Betweens

Today marks a year of being away from my family in India, having embarked on a fiercely turbulent and beautiful period in my life: full of learning, leaving and living. It's been a year since I moved to this country to pursue my higher education. I can safely say I've grown and learnt more outside school than within classrooms as a student or teaching one as an instructor.

Leaving the streets I grew up in full of mongrels that know me, extended family living a stone's throw away, best friends on the next street, wrestling with brothers, standing about predominantly male occupied spaces like that roadside tea shop where the Tea Master knows exactly how you take your tea but never feeling threatened by any of them, and never feeling lost: this has been a crazy ride albeit momentous. Cultural shocks were always in the little things for me: neighbours whose living room I've never seen, the people who walked away after 'How you doing?' as I was knee deep in replies and, the absence of street dogs and terraces. Not knowing anything was one of the best things that happened to me and I thoroughly enjoy cracking jokes inside my own head, the intricacies of my language playing in my head, and meeting new people.

Is it all sunshine? No. Living with my parents all this time was a choice I didn't question or think twice about. It was a natural state of affairs. Living like that, I never questioned what home meant. If someone from my own city asked me where my home was, I would give them the name of my neighbourhood. If I was in a different state in my country, I would say 'Tamilnadu'. There are so many layers and social constructs to this sense of home that I never introspected upon. All these variations of answers thus far to 'where is your home' were never unsettling and never did not feel right. They were all culturally and socially understood. Now, in the midst of these versions, I have zoomed out into thinking about those terms across mere geographical entities and into a question of who I am and into a deeper sense of what the term could come to mean.

There are things I miss about India in this country and that is easily a cultural condition. The sense of a community here is constrained in my world simply because I have only been exposed to one version of what community means. I wonder now, if I miss knowing people on the road I happen to walk on. One of my best friends was forever skeptical to go on walks with me because I usually am familiar with the people on the streets (and their dogs) and I kept stopping to say hi to all of them, and that irritated her to no end. There should have been some sort of familiarity here by this point, I reckon but I am not sure if I have located any. On the other hand, I enjoy slinking away into the background and not being known or recognised. I live in-between ends like these two, swinging between sides and not feeling comfortable staying on either end. There are aspects of living in India that I adore, enmeshed parts of my life here that I am grateful for and enjoy; but neither of them fit anymore. Rather, I don't fit into either of these societies completely. I can't stay in one because I have been in the other, they're different moulds. This has led to living in a land of living in-between worlds. I could call it that or a feeling of not belonging in either of these places. All that said and done, this is not necessarily a bad condition either.

None of this is associated with sadness in its entirety. These are phases of growing and coming to terms with certain aspects of life that was buried underneath layers of a false sense of security at various points. Right now, to truly be in turbulence is interesting as it helps me let go of weights that make me feel put otherwise. I can now cast some over my shoulders and move a step on (just threw out some toxic atmosphere I had to live with for the last year, there is that progress). I have a wonderful local poetry community to be a part of since the start of my Spring and numerous acquaintances from there to be thankful for. My vulnerability has always been a calculated venture, a fort from my own past but aspects of it see tiny differences. My summer months have turned around to have me encounter some really interesting experiences. I learnt to be vulnerable on a slack-line with a great person, garnered some wonderful friendships (well, three to be precise) that has its own period of waxing and waning, forever plummeting and flying. These relatively newfound but truly close and important relationships have their own roadblocks that I am trying to break through in ways I best know how to. I wonder how they are going to turn out, but here is to hoping only for the best.

The land of in-between is every man's subjective land, I assume. We all battle with our own sources of discomfort, freedom and independence. I recently had a conversation with one of my childhood friends who is also abroad and she admitted to feeling the same way, though her version varied a little from how I feel at this juncture. We are all lost here. We are all trying to grapple away at the fray ends of the first thing that feels like home, like familiarity and relationships that remind us of our loved ones back home before it manifests into itself. These new experiences shape me as I encounter them and I'm learning of the many ways in which someone loves and prioritizes another.

It's been a year since I arrived at Columbus. I'm not precisely sure of what I learnt in the last year but that every moment has been a form of growth even if it comes with sadness or pain, every relationship a lesson, and also that I am three truly honest and genuine friends richer with whom I can talk about anything.

Also, home is no longer a place.

Home after all this, is a feeling. Whether I shall find it and acknowledge it the way I envisage it, however, is not something I know of. I can't control that.

Until then, from the land of in-betweens,

Hemu

Where Are Your Curiosities?

I met an interesting lady in the locker room at the gym, on campus.

Amidst women changing into workout gear and fleets of us just in transit with a towel around our bodies, I met this down-to-earth soul who wrapped herself around with a special kind of joy. I haven't really had much of a conversation here with anyone in the locker room because everyone is predominantly in some sort of a hurry. There are some smiles now and then, quick questions about the weather, workout and fitness, and occasional stories between friends there that comes to float over your head; but there is hardly any time to sit down and talk to someone you don't know. I cherish these kind of dialogues and I recollect having them with random strangers ever since I was young and had started traveling alone for my gymnastics meets across the country. It's a refreshing encounter, every single time!

In a locker room majorly occupied by young college students, she stood out to me: not because of her age but because of her demeanour that consisted of a special kind of radiating smile. She smiled at me and I did so too, I've missed that in a while. She is easily 60 years older than I am. She had come in to swim because it was 'liberating'. For a person like me who is mortally afraid of deep waters (even after swimming lessons), she was an immediate conversation starter. 'Do what you're afraid of', was what she told me and immediately added she didn't mean to preach. I feel culturally attuned to being open to other people's life experiences and it was strange for me to hear someone as old as her to say that she did not mean to 'preach'. It's an interesting crossover for me, a person from a different culture. I wouldn't mind it anyway. Some of the best conversations I've had are with people with a lifetime of experiences and even though I have come to disagree with some of their notions in the past, I have learnt to listen to them and respond, sometimes to gently disagree. Learning to convey disagreement of ideas in a placid and respectable manner are some of the curves I've come to correspond with at twenty four,I guess!

I have always had this affection for people with a zest for life and an innocent disposition bordering curiosity in their quest for life, especially if they're much older than I am. Here is this amazing women for whom walking is difficult but swimming is gently easy and embracing. We were joking about how there needs to be water channels instead of pathways on campus. I was extremely curious to know what education she was pursuing and she generated an entire list! She graduated in 1949, if I remember the year correctly. History (WWI, WWII and The Vietnam War), Literature, Music and French are among the studies she pursued and she is now with the music department again. 'I've been coming here for thirty years. I've been doing this for as long as you are alive and I love it.' For a person who sees students pursuing their undergraduate career with a little of a sulk and my own monster of graduate studies and its expectations, she shone with so much optimism for life and learning something new.

Imagine the zealous curiosity and openness a person must possess to go from one education to the next, sprawling across different fields! She's even learning some Chinese and teaches little children to play the piano. 'I don't have a formal degree for it but I finally feel like I know enough to teach little children.' Listening to her made me question my own life choices, the long way I have ahead and the relative understanding that time and age is, to do anything. Mother of six children, some grandchildren and great-grand-children, this woman is jumping one hurdle after another like it is no big deal. She was so excited when I showed her my sketchbook and the kind of art I make, as it came up in our conversation of about 40 minutes; and I remember her remarking how it is absolutely amazing to come across the talents and skills people have. 'Imagine! Every single person has some sort of skill and creative talent in them, isn't that amazing?' she said. Well, isn't it? In this rat race of a life, that was a gentle reminder to acknowledge the strengths and talents of another person and to stop for a little while instead of trying to power through to simply make it to the 'end'.

In this fast pacing world, we assume we don't have the time for a lot of things, for our little sources of happiness, curiosities and circles of people. Perhaps, we don't make time for it? I used to write letters to my best friend between fifth grade and almost up until my first year of college. We have both grown up and though we still pick up from where we left things, we haven't been writing to each other because of each other's busy schedules. It was beautiful to me when I heard this lady recount that she spoke to her pen-pal over the phone a couple of days back because she is very sick. A pen-pal in France who was just 29 miles apart from the army during the war, a pen-pal whom she wrote to after a gap of 45 years after high school when she started French lessons again. Her pen-pal wrote to her in three weeks saying she was the one who opened the letter and here are these beautiful ladies keeping in touch with each other. When was the last time we sent a postcard or a handwritten letter to someone we love? I don't mean to romanticise the whole idea but I do wonder time and again, if our correspondences and its associated experiences are losing its tangibility and significance in this digital era.

She reminded me of my own grandmother back in India. My maternal grandmother is one of the most beautiful, kind and gentle people I know of. Her education consists only up until the eighth grade as far as I know but she's still one of the most malleable and open-minded people. I sometimes wonder if she grew into it or if being that kind and lovely is just in her. What is most beautiful in her is her curiosity. I love her curiosity and eagerness to learn. She doesn't know too much English but she plays the SpellTower game on the iPad and keeps generating new words. Sometimes, she forms words in the process of playing the game and asks one of us for the meaning of the new word she just landed on, learning one step at a time... with no hesitance or feelings of awkwardness.

Why is it that we don't have time and the countenance for our curiosities anymore? Why can't we be like children and much older folks to whom not knowing or learning something new is exciting? When in the process of 'growing up' did we cease to pay attention to our curiosities and why are a whole lot of us afraid to express them? I'm just wondering out loud here.

I found so much more openness to conversation, ideas and sharing the excitement of doing something new or simply having a chat with someone they don't know of, in her; the interesting lady from the locker room. We have exchanged phone numbers and I shall keep in touch with her, attend her concerts and perhaps, send a postcard even! :)

Life is full of curiosities. Strike up a conversation with them all!

Love,
Hemu

Image Source:https://memyselfandela.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/smile-of-an-angel/

The Words You Say

 | If the words you spoke appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful? 
I found this quote, so far shared as an anonymous one on one of my Pinterest browsing days. I can't even begin to express the kind of impact this single line has on me, never leaving my mind; only permitting me to constantly picture myself with all the words I say everyday, on my skin. Would I still be beautiful?  | 

We live in a world that is extremely fast-pacing, with more faces unregistered as we pass by everyday and words that escape us without any filter that we don't really pause to think about the effect we have on another person's thoughts and image of themselves.

   I can't probably explain this better unless I bring my case into the picture. I was (and still probably am) a very loud child in my days of growing up. I spoke to everyone without inhibition, believed that everyone I meet are my friends and that this world is a lovely little place. This optimistic outlook on life was not met on the same terms with everyone. I loved talking with people about anything and everything. I'd ask doubts during classes at the silliest levels if I didn't understand a concept. I didn't think it was a big deal, really. Why else were we in school? Owing to this, I was thus called the 'Doubt-mistress' of my class, not to forget 'Chatterbox'. During extremely boring sessions, my classmates used to nudge me and say, 'Hey! Ask some doubt and pass some time. This is getting really boring'. To that, there have been times when I have obliged and had my own share of fun. It's all very nostalgic when I think about it now.

   While all those happy memories live on, the problem arises when the invisible boundaries are crossed and kids or anyone for that matter, don't realize the impact of what they say. Sometimes people shrug off insults and name-calling with ease on the outside while it would tear them up on the insides. Being branded talkative wasn't something that got under my skin but the lightness with which everything I said was. It was/is hurtful to have people ignore, override and consider what you say to be unimportant without even listening to it. It still hurts me. I have been through it and so do so many other children and adults who in everyday of their life, undergo their own such battles.

   We fail to comprehend the impact our words have on another person's life. Bullying,stereotyping, limitless teasing and condescending attitudes are all a part of this spectrum of failing to grasp this simple working of the world and people. When I look back at my school life, I wonder if my own friends have been passive bullies in a way, forever scarring parts of my memory. I have learnt to live with it and accept the factors of age and maturity with it but it would not be true to say that it doesn't have any impact on me. After all these years, it still does. I believe that I have matured into a different person because of and despite all these occurrences, but who is to say that everyone will get out of the pit of name-calling and being slighted?

  We have no filtering system in our heads, most often. I have had my friends tell me how hurtful it is to be stereotyped on looks, mannerisms and characteristics. A very close friend of mine told me how it gets to her that everyone she meets comments on her physique and not on her lovely character that I personally know of. Gay. (I still don't understand why it grew into an offensive word) Fat. Ugly. Pimpled. Talkative. Duffer. How quick we are to categorize people into slots and call them so in a jiffy! Do we realize that it could potentially create low self-esteem and confidence, depression and other psychological effects for the rest of the other person's life?

  A lot of you may think that you know when you cross the bounds of your 'good-natured' humour. Honestly, most of you might not be aware of the subtle but strong impact your comments and sarcasm creates in your own good friends from work or college. Maybe you could ask them once in a while. Even the strongest of people you think aren't affected by the world's perception of them are at some level,are indeed affected by it. So, before you unleash some laughter for yourself at another person's expense, you could think about it again and see in retrospection, if it might hurt your friend in some manner or the other.

 I tell you all this because I have been subject to much of this and know how it hurts. I have known other strong people in my life very close to me describe how it goes with them. I'm sure you know what I mean. You may be bullying someone else without your own knowledge, creating such a deep impact that hurtful words from decades back still ring loud in their ears, after all this time. But so do the really good words. They stick around from the most random times in your life. Small words create a great impact.

I ask you now to think of all that you say to people on a daily basis. Think. If all of that appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful?

Beauty is not skin deep.

Next time, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

P.S: Don't confuse all of this with a dogmatic attitude or a person who cannot accept constructive criticism or good-natured humour between friends. There is a huge difference between what I'm talking about and all of this.

Original Artwork by Hemalatha Venkatraman. Copyrighted. Do not reproduce without permission.
 Find it on : www.hemusartblog.tumblr.com

Dangling Feet

   I’m borderline aqua-phobic. The line lies between that simple stance that my feet can touch the floor of the water bed and the assurance that drowning is not a possibility. It lies submerged in the sea-green blues of the waters, the fear of not death but suffocation unto death and the helplessness of it.

   Sixteen years of age was when I set out to Calcutta for the first time in my life en-route to Manipur. The train chugged away, pulling with ease the coaches that followed, sculpted with steel carrying people full of dreams. The locomotive sped at an immense speed as I edged my way to the doors of my bogie, swaying with the whims of the vehicle itself.

  It was noon and everyone had slept into obliviousness. The door was wide open, as I held the handles just on the outside and lunged my body forward for the erstwhile breezing wind to scream in my ears. Drawn to the avenues open to my senses; I merely collapsed and sat down on the steps, still holding on to the rails, feet dangling to the moving Jelly stones. The rhythmic lull of the wagons over the railway tracks seemed like the ritual of love-making between two as I closed my eyes; unaware of the people around me, singled out within.

   I don’t know how many minutes passed before my eyes opened to a change in sound, the return of the breeze alongside the summer sun. The rhythm was the same, but the echoes and sounds that emanated, completely different.  I gazed ahead to look at the calm blues staring back at me, its ripples moving from one to another, in constant motion.

   My fingers tightened around the handles as I peered down. Hundred feet below were deep waters that could devour me alive. It was the first time I saw seemingly bottomless waters below my own dangling feet. The initial flutters of anxiety and fear had drowned in the overwhelming feeling that was caught at my throat. I had never felt this comfortable, alive and fearless of waters. Transience and permanence loomed to and fro, as the moving waters coupled with the climax of the lulling pleasures put me in the moment, in complete awareness of my senses.

   I was neither in the past, nor an eon later. I lived that moment, completely, without the fear of suffocation and drowning lest I fall. In that unknown place, over an unknown water body somewhere in North-east India, I could then do nothing but smile as the cool wind kissed my face.
I have never felt that liberated, thoughtless and free in all my life, ever since.

~Hemu

I do NOT own this image. Source: Google images 

An Affair With Addiction

I don't understand those poets that romanticize alcohol;
attributing poetry to a glass of high
or a joint of weed.
I'm tempted to judge a man
who loves alcohol and smoke;
a daily dose of exigency
to unlock and  let oneself be.
But what right do I have to roll my eyes
at him, an artist
immersed in the illusion of beauty;
recovering and emerging from
a bottle of whisky
when my words spill and fall like
a momentous dominoes set
when I think of you?
The illusion and the addictive need
to romanticize the image of you?



~Hemu

Karna

|This happened to be a piece I'd penned last year right after I read this book called 'Mrityunjaya-The Death Conqueror'. The life of Karna is one of the most fascinating and tragic stories I've ever come across. He happens to be my most favorite character in The Mahabharata alongside Draupadi and Krsna. I keep attempting to sketch him again and again and never have I been satisfied with what I complete as it never seems to represent him in entirety. The artwork can be found on my blog, here. Cheers! Revel in His life, for it's complicated and beautiful. |



What is more trying by destiny, oh warrior

 than to be painfully oblivious to the origin of your birth?

You who slayed vice with smoldering golden rays

later blanketed in the smog of your munificence

sparked from vanity leased out in thy head;

exorcising material despair,

subduing with grains of praise the

licking ravage flames in your chest,

under the gilded skin armour, shut.

What could have been more ruthless

than the rejection of the dark-skinned maiden-

flinging insults like dung to a damp wall

while your strength lay untested and unapproved?

The woman you loved and hated within eons;

that your brothers  five later betrothed ,undivided

only to garrote you to shameful death.

What decremented your virtuous soul further?

the culminated fury abreast constant light

of doubt-ridden guilt about your legacy

Or losing your honour to jealousy

Beginning a vow out of an unnecessary jabbering

of the tongue unsaddled by righteous thought?

And when you saw your confounded flaws

mirrored on the deceitful glass of an angered moment,

You saw the image that your blue-skinned kin saw,

an enemy you endured with till your

chariot broke

while fighting with the universal wheel of time-

the only aid to defend the dead in you.

There were those grains of sand that fell through

the goodness, your blood dripping onto the muddy moulds

fusing towards an unjustified departure

defended in the karmic book of a godly conman.

The hourglass now contains merely light

in honour of a hero, tragic 

thus denied a deemed title

because his own blood feared the words

out of an unworthy stranger, spitting in the air.

~Hemu 

Source: Vimanika Comics 

Transcendence

What hasn't yet been swallowed by the billowing winds of change
catches itself in between the lines in my palms
that I stare at each morning as the sun shakes off its dust
in the quest for a clean, blue sky.

I wash my hands in the pearls thrown ashore
attempting to see nothing, hear no song nor see any dream;
but it has already stitched itself onto my eyelashes
that throw me in lands, I only can wish to see.

A land where transparency reigns over the transient world.
At the least, I'll know what's coming.
And where I'll not be going.

~Hemu

Still Little Moments

| Isn't it true that the smallest things, the most minuscule moments in life are what one reminiscences the most? There are some dishes that your grandmother makes/made that you can taste when you think about it, the carnivals you attended as a child whose colours are still fresh in your memory.

I generally don't post anything from my personal journals.This is the first time I am sharing anything from my personal diary. These are two little moments in my life from my past that I now look back with immense love and longing for, that I have recently written in my 2014 journal, Shon. 

Two little stories that I'd like to share with you from my past that I would trade my present with. The sportsperson in me that I long to meet again.

 I'd love to know what your memorable moments are. Please feel free to share it with everyone here.  |


#1
Synthetic tracks. My spikes dig momentarily into the rubber and shoots out just as quickly. My body leans in to the left, just a slight tilt; like the angle in the mirrored version of number 7. I'm out of breath and feel the pang of heavy wind and breathlessness burn my nose and throat. But the pain is beautiful. It pulls me and pushes me. My feet is never stagnant and there is no thought on my mind but the lines I'm bound within and the place I have to reach. That slight tilt in my body with my legs striding and the pulling within that's trying really hard to finish the race I started... that after that point my legs will be fine and the pain will subside. I can breathe without noticing my own breath and the necessity of air to my lungs. It is the time that I give nothing but my very best. That moment of tilt as I cover the curve of the race, that's when I'm the most steady.

#2
It's almost 5:00- 5:30 pm in the evening but my coach is relentless. I can't go home until I land on my feet from the Round Off Backflip Back Somersault. It doesn't matter how many times I fall down. I can't stop, I'm not allowed to stop. If I left for home now, I may never set foot in my gymnastics training every again. The hall on the left wing corridor on the first floor of my school was empty except for black mats, my coach, a picture of Gurudev with a walking stick and a smile and myself. Anger welled up as tears in my eyes. It's unfair that the other kids are allowed to go home and I am not. My coach didn't care. I just want to leave. I muster my strength and run with quick, agile steps and completed the element, landing on my feet.

I landed right!

I did the Round off Backflip Back Somersault for the first time in my fourth grade.

My anger reaped happiness. My coach merely smiled. I did it a couple of times more and landed right every single time until my coach asked me to stop practicing and go home. Oh, at that moment I never wanted to stop performing the element nor go home.


P.S : I still remember the first time I performed the floor exercises on proper floor. The height, the stillness in the moment when I was in the mid-way of my element, in mid-air and swiftness that existed at the same moment. The perfect landing. It still takes my breath away.

Image source: www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk

~Hemu

Unclog

Source- Google images. This picture is not mine. 

There is just so much to say
that thinking of them all makes me tired.
It never rests though, the constant sound of feet pacing about;
sometimes running and at times heavy and weary,
tapping along the edges of my thoughts
and wiping away the colours of my dreams on a doormat
in-between certain transitions.
Maybe,
if I just said it all, there would be nothing
to worry about.
No colours to end up on dirty ends
but in the sky or my love's eyes.

~Hemu

A Junction

There is this particular junction I cross everyday on the way back from college. One of the main roads in the city which is now a huge mix of one-ways,complicated yet simple routes that has been changed from its main course ever since the construction and all the digging began for the Metro Rail project.Envisaged by the traffic policemen in white and fluorescent overall-ed workers regulating the traffic with red flags, I am like the flock of sheep they push towards a certain direction every single day,to and fro the same route.

By now, after years of riding, I am more or less mechanical, with the music playing through my player and regular checks on the rear-view mirror, I am good to go at any point in time. But something struck me of late. I have been using this route for a long time before the construction process (with huge cranes) ever began and never noticed anything extraordinary. Just the same old schools and colleges in the locality, the buses and the ever impeding vehicular traffic. I guess that's the thing about two-ways. When you have the option to look and you don't? Or is it just that a whole lot of obstacles have been removed from the view for us to appreciate the possible beauty?

 

 I get a couple of seconds to admire the sky and the overall setting everyday while waiting for the traffic to move. Sometimes I wish it was more because everything looks so beautiful. The way the cranes' load stands in mid-air and the steel containers lie still- it's almost poetic, that I could keep staring at it for hours.  Sometimes, the sun is out in the open blinding me and at the other times, dark, rolling cottony-clouds set the perfect background for all the cranes and the tiny people in small helmets. A natural hierarchy exists there. Colourful hemets, little people, the containers, the cranes and the sky. What's more astonishing is the ability for the setting to change everyday yet appear similarly enthralling and beautiful. Some days, the crane is moving and some days its still, but for the sly wind to brush against it, different sky settings... but it's lovely, every single day. In the entire half hour ride back home, that's a scene I neither look forward to nor avoid, but enjoy just as it comes. In that singular couple of moments.

 I wonder if the junction is in new light or if I am perceiving it to be.Am I supplied with a new choice or have I trained myself to look around? Whatever it is, it is beautiful. Maybe, I could apply it to my life and move on as and when the signal turns green.

Do you have a similar story? Finding something utterly peaceful in the midst of chaos and loudness?
Please do share it with me here. I would love to know what I am missing out on. Cheers and much love! :)

~Hemu 

Turning Twenty-Something

I am soon reaching the first quarter of my life. It sounded beautiful when I was fifteen. To be in the twenties. To be the woman I have never dreamed of becoming when the bob cut lived and dirty pants from the evening out relished the present. I never saw it coming. Never. Not this.

   It's beautiful, to be able to say that you are now a woman in a little more of a true sense than from the words that ring in your ears when people say it around after you have your first period. Well, to hell with them. This started out as a post to see where I am heading with this whole quarter life crisis, to analyze and see if there is any hope's ray hiding amidst the bushes, to wonder which other university will be ready to accept me after another year of undergraduate studies or if I should start working; you know- like trying the whole 'responsibility' thing. To give back something to my parents instead of taking from them all the time.
 
     An unplugged stream of thoughts flip around in my head. About this period full of magical twenties. It's tough. It's tough because I have no idea where I am heading to. I imagined that I would be globe-trotting by now, making new friends and getting drunk in an Irish pub. Wild dreams and could-be-made-possible dreams aside, I just want to share some of the best times in my life which happened when this number called 20 hit me a year or two back.

        Several things. The taste of knowing how it feels like to be in college. I most certainly did expect it to turn out differently and I completely blame the movies and all my books for it, not to mention my own imagination. This was an experience in itself. The day, that moment my sister got married and when I cried because I didn't know what else to do. To send her off to another home and for her to start her own life at her own accord. To feel in-charge of family.

Source: Google images 

  To fall in a possible whimsical version of love. Revelations all the way. As Scott Fitzgerald would say : ' I wasn't actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity'. The many number of boys who might have struck my senses hard for just a minuscule side of them that was blown out of proportions in my mind. The way a strong rock spreads into dust after a blast, I had words escaping from within. I just had to put it down. Somewhere. Anywhere. In scraps of paper, tissues, my several diaries, the less-personal ones on this blog that you read. And once that strikes, you'll never be out of words. Twenty lent me more  mature writing. Or should I say this tender curiosity alerted my senses?

 
Growing up saw my elder brother confiding in me and treating me as an equal alongside the little sister look. I saw a change in the way he conversed, the way my sister told me about her happenings, the joy trip that I took with my cousins.. Just seeing that stroke of acknowledgement that you are old enough to understand what they say.. that's amazing. The way I look at my own cousins with a smile and understand what they're going through because I've been there and done that. To feel proud that your baby brother is growing up in the world's eyes, yet an immature kid in my own is all that you can perceive. Well, I don't know how to exactly classify this. Should I feel sad that I am growing up in numbers or gape at the progress in thoughts : emotionally, spiritually and befitting the age; passing on what I know to the other smaller ones.
 
   Twenty later told me it's okay to watch adult movies, it's okay to laugh over such jokes because you are an adult. Authorized to know. It sounds dumb, but I have always appreciated the way technological and other information reached me at the right age. It reached me right when it should have and when such an exposure would have made a difference and dwelled within. To just go through your own old books and realize how silly you were. To learn to remember that we enjoyed playing in the mud and making sandcastles. It's beautiful.

  There is a voice. There are people to listen to. My niece looks at me like I am from the outer space when I play with her. She's the first baby I have carried before the head would stay stable. To see the way her entire hand can't encircle even my little finger and her gibberish sounds- it's beautiful. To feel like a mini-mother, (Oh, not the complete one) to hold something so tiny in your hands and weep out of joy.. that's when I feel it's okay to grow up; when that little bundle of joy looks at you with big brown eyes and kicking your chest.

  For all this, being in this whole growing-up phase is lovely.

  But every other way, you're screwed. Pray your soul doesn't roast like the souls in hell.

Source : Google images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thegoodtribe/4470200634/

Wishlist to a thirty seconds memory!

When I was younger and even now, people told me, 'Wait till you see the real world'. I said I will. In images and sketches,my dream of the real life floated : designs of an exposed brick work house filled with framed pictures of my life, traveling toes, love, financial and personal success, a little studio and work that I love. It ran in my head that I'd earn all the cash I need to trot around the world and do all that I want to. To dote on designs by virtue of livelihood and live in writing as filled with heavy passion. To read all the beautiful books in the world, sometimes the bad ones- just to know the worth of the good ones, a cosy personal library.. Ah, dreams. Clouds dressed up as angels looming over our heads giving us hope and then filling us with the sweet sweat of the sky. So many things. Little little things.
   And I'm still dreaming of them all.
   It's fun to float in there.

~Hemu 

What next?

What next, they ask me? What next, I ask myself a lot of times. I know just one answer to it, which does no justice to the question itself. 'I don't know.'
What are you going to be in 5 years? In ten years? Fifteen. Fifty. I still tell them 'I don't know'.
The vague outline of vision that education offers is so faint that sometimes I have to trace it and chase it around to find out where I'm off to. To meet whom? To earn? Or to learn? These are just only a very few of the questions that keep popping up in my head.

   Life goes on. I was enrolled into a school when I barely learnt how to walk properly before teachers asked  me to 'sit down' in a place. Just when I was learning how language and sounds roll under my tongue, I was asked to keep quiet. (I'm still told the same, mind you.)Maybe it was for the good, I was trained in the basic 'skills of civilization'.. like every other kid. Ran through primary school, secondary, senior secondary and now college. But if I look at the net result as to what I have learnt and what I want to be... I think I'll have to un-'study' most of what I was taught.

 ('Don't talk back to your elders.' - So, what if they are teaching me something wrong? What if I'm being stuffed with something I don't want to know if I did know how it would lead.)

So, what do we learn? Or do we learn anything at all? Do we just study, score marks, get a well-paid job which most of us hate to be in, get married, 'settle down', reproduce, get old, die. Why do we have this pattern? Why do we have these definitive words like career, salary and life-partner? Why not unconventional ones like dancing, music, farming, one-night stands and hiking? When people ask me what I'm going to be doing next, I say.. 'Oh, Finish studies, work for a year or two, study for another two years, start my own architectural firm'.. when what I actually want to do is to let all of this go. Keeping ambitions aside and working towards a goal or what not.. I've probably forgotten how to live.

   I want to attend or go to an educational 'system' which lets me enjoy the freedom I already possess, I want a 'job' where I don't want to sit staring at a laptop screen for 8 hours straight when all my heart lies in the last few lines of the book I read that morning on the train, I want to fall in love with someone who is willing to spend time on crossword puzzles, tea and sufi music- not through a profile that talks about his height, weight et cetera. Is that who one is? What happened to the soul one had? Knock Knock. I'll be surprised if someone does open a door to that one.

      The saddest part of it all is to know you're on a path that you don't want to be in. The problem lies in staying on this path that you like and are comfortable with and not on the one you would love and feel completely passionate about. Where 'identities' such as doctor, engineer, architect, farmer holds no meaning. Where craziness, joy, love, kind, stupid are the probable tags... and I want to live there in that world where salaries don't contain any meaning, where educational qualifications mean nothing... where only what one holds, loves and stands up for makes sense.

  I'm not there yet, but I know I'm changing tracks. It's going to be difficult but to learn to live in the moment is a long term dream I hold, as paradoxical as it may seem. Next time someone asks me what I am : I hope to answer the question to myself first.

 What am I going to do?
Roam through roads I haven't set foot on yet. Travel. Read. Write. Design. Sing in public washrooms. Eat farm cheese. Play Frisbee with my dog. Break a couple of roads. Get into a bar fight. Fall in love. Dream. Sleep on bare ground staring at the stars.

What am I going to do?
I'm going to live.


~ Hemu

Image from the internet : 

http://vi.sualize.us/toburnthreadswho_am_i_to_imply_black_and_white_portrait_painting_art_picture_vMcC.html

Speak up!

Meaningful conversations are few, intellectual discussions are rare and a lovely debate treating the other as an equal happens once in a blue moon. But what happens very easily, like snapping one's fingers arises counterattacks in an argument owing to reasons silly, stupid or even on a higher plane of thought.. but the approach just brings down the whole level of importance and pertinence of the subject as the topic finds it's way down into deep blue seas while we just end up with the skim of an oil layer on its surface- mucky, icky and annoying.

   I am a person who enjoys everything of the above to a good deal. Invariably conversations, discussions and debates arise only in a circle of close friends whose thoughts and ideas vary from mine, but knowing our base and the underlining factor is the same. Sometimes, it so happens that conversations and discussions with many others that I might initiate leads to arguments, which might not be as healthy as the above.

     Having an inclination towards the notion of women to be treated for who they are, varied views on religion and spirituality and the ever living subject of love, sex and life as such,  I always land up in discussions-turned-arguments. Though I may not enjoy the rather diversified opinions of chauvinism or practices that don't have any relevance to the current world, I must say I thoroughly enjoy and have fun talking about it with logic, rationality and some emotion. But, what saddens me nowadays is the unwillingness of people to ever sort out differences or atleast talk about the different views without involving oneself's emotions riding an upper hand.

   Frankly, I guess I was on that side.. I used to let my emotions, rage and anger fall through with the words that I say. I have even felt like slapping a few in my hotheadedness. But looking back at it all, I feel silly to have done it. I realize it's of no use getting agitated in a debate as it doesn't put one's point across while rational, logical points do. Neither am I going to say that I don't involve my emotions in any sort of such scenarios. But to know and realize that the whole exchange is fun-filled, an opportunity to learn and converse, to know that that very essence has been lost in a whole crowd nowadays is sad.

 As I did mention earlier, many discussions have been turned into arguments nowadays. To know that people you love might have a wrong notion about something (Well, so may I. But that is what a conversation is all about, isn't it?)
and it might directly come in the way of your life or of someone else's whom you care about, is not a great feeling. It is not an interference but a mutual togetherness towards betterment and understanding.

   What I do want to tell people is to just stand up and talk and not discontinue when a small spark of conflict arises. Friends bond after fights, families hold a difference in opinion always, relationships' parties have a necessity to know the others' mind and for the last cheap happiness of having gotten a message across to a total stranger are all tiny little facts whose personal stories run across the skies. Everyday I see more and people moving away from talking about or indulging in healthy arguments about the issues that don't go along with them.

  What is there to fear? Why is it so difficult to say what one has on one's mind? From many personal experiences, I have noticed people getting away from an argument or a debatable topic. There are times when you need to preserve another's ego and moments when you have to shatter it for the good of both parties involved. And it so happens that some of them even perceive and think I might want to start a fight if I put a point across firmly.. Why have we reached a state where a healthy conversation turns into an unhealthy phenomenon, where cartoons are beginning to lose their very essence called humour in the eyes of many with the happy and full-bodied life going in for a toss.

   I am not asking you to initiate fights but spark off conversations. Let's all try to open up our minds and pour out our conventions and ideas.. to plunge into great talk and not always small ones.. to discuss what bothers oneself and find solutions.. to lead a new revolution, to learn to speak our minds and argue like crazy animals in a fight yet developing a maturity to drop it when need be and to have dinner or tea together. For only he is a truly evolved human being who can respect another persons' opinion while retaining his own and debating or discussing it about it for the greater good.
 I think we should all stop fighting cold wars, drop our inhibitions and talk without fear. So, yeah, Speak up, mate! :)

P.S : I must warn you that indulging in a discussion or debate without an open mind is of no use and you might as well stay away from one if you have no intentions of finding out the truth.

Images from the internet 

Jaunts waiting to be relished

To wander through streets lonely and full,
staring at passerby's with flaming red and soothing black hair
as the spaces next to my feet gets quickly filled with feet
holding and supporting heads held high and tears dropping low.
To be there for the unknown baby that unclasps her hands from
her mother to run on the grass;
to help her up as she falls while her gray eyes still gleam with joy,
to have that face registered in my memory, to forever remember that smile.
To have some tea in coffee houses as the snow falls slowly
scared if it'll hurt the earth;
to stare out of those huge glazed windows as the next page of my book awaits
in silent understanding of my thoughts that fall along with every snow flake
finding its journey to the next level.
To love the winding roads as they take me with it
like the curves of a woman on and off a diet,
to enjoy the sunshine that plays between my hair set free
To enjoy a bonfire with people I don't know of
and get drunk with all shots mixed
so that the dance in me mixes with the rising and falling fire
in its blues, yellows and orange.
while in the end I gaze at the stars and get myself lost in constellations
trusting the moon I love to take care of my guitar who lies alone
in the darkness that lives.
To eat food I haven't eaten before and laugh like I have never,
to dance and sing in speeding trains
as strangers smile in amusement looking at who might be a retarded girl
losing her mind over good ice-cream and waffle rolls.
And probably
while I walk back colourful alleyways and paved paths
to a house I don't know of,
I find someone who plays with baby monkeys and takes solitary walks
at the cemetery I land up at with a notebook in his hand.

                                          Image from the internet

~Hemu 

Men, Women, Sex and Chauvinism

I had a text conversation with one of my friends some days back. It was in regard with one of my poems that I had put up earlier on my blog. From an outsider's point of view, it might have been a wholly feminist attitude, but to me it was sheer anger at women not being seen the way they should be or rather, being seen the way they shouldn't be seen.

  One thing led to the other, we had a good discussion on women, some meaningful conversations that I have with a few people until we reached a point where chauvinism came into blown up view. Not that it wasn't present until then for it is always a constant presence that runs in the sentences framed to express views. Or as I noticed, most of the conversations that the two sexes share falls into one of the following frames.. One with people who hate chauvinism (which mostly turn out to be women like me), one in favor of it (men and women who genuinely feel and think that women are meant to be under men) and the ones in between. Now, it's easy to argue with a male chauvinist for you can never possibly discuss issues with him/her. You see, most often, they never listen. What happens to begin as a discussion would lead to an argument where mindless shouting is all that is left at the end. I generally avoid discussions with such people. I just smile and walk away with a hidden smile of the knowledge that their thoughts always tend to amuse and baffle me. 

    

      On the other hand are my co-people, who are against chauvinism. We, for the record are not female chauvinists. I personally feel men and women are on two different standards altogether. One just can't be compared with the other. It was actually a late realization that I had, some years ago when a friend managed to knock that into my head which until then was hot with the ideas of equality among men and women. I used to think men and women are to be considered equal whereas the whole two groups couldn't be equated at all. One was different from the other. The grounds of measurement weren't the same. Though, I believe in both genders being treated equally. 

   

    Both these kind of people are easy to handle. It's actually rather simple. You either hate them or love them. The third are the difficult lot. They are those men and women who are in between. Out of the mass of this kind, its predominantly the men that I come across. I don't know how to almost always converse with them, given I don't know which side they are inclined to. These are the regular people I come across everyday. The boy-friends I know of, the educated uncles who fall here due to their age and all other sorts of people. I don't mean to offend them for it's with some of these people that I talk a lot, though it is difficult sometimes. I learn, I realize and feel more mature. 

     Well, as I was saying, I am guessing my friend fell in the final category of people. The conversation was smooth for when both parties involved talk with an open mind ready to accept something they are convinced of by the other.It did until I reached a point where it reached Women, men, sex and chauvinism. Women, men and clothes. Women, men and skin. 

      I think this is something I could never get or get over. The whole idea is rather muddled to me. I noticed that most of such people have an attitude that a woman whose skin you can see is either morally 'retarded' or a counterpart fully covered and clothed being a 'better person' upon the first impression. Agreed there are women who wear revealing clothes just to get attention or what not? But what about the ones who are comfortable in those clothes? What if that is what they are? Why doesn't it ever occur to people, men and women alike that a woman can wear clothes of her choice? Why does she have to be judged, stared at and be morally backward to wear clothes of her choice? How does it affect you lot? It's like judging a man and saying he is of the 'wrong kind' because he wears lungi and roams about bare-chested! 

   Of course, there's the anatomy. But is that the only thing? 

   And oh, coming to sex. Virginity in women is a prize for men. At least the one marrying her, right? Casual sex from the side of men is something that has been passed over as ordinary and 'ever-happening' while one move towards anything even hugely less in magnitude on the woman's side is wrong. And it beats me out, how the men always scorn and condemn those women a.k.a 'whores' they hook up with ? It existed generations back when it was broad daylight and accepted for being so. It exists even now, but just to be observed under microscopic light. The so-called broad-minded guys with trace amounts of chauvinism they so claim wouldn't take a girl who has been with another man, while he can have all the sex he wants in his life. Who's there to question? Why is it always down to women? The women of the kind is labelled a 'slut' with an intense connotation while the guy of the type is called a 'playboy' with some sort of pride. I really don't get that one. 

   The friend of mine had said it was for genetically good reasons, to safeguard women and the like of phrases which I found to be utter rubbish. Okay, working towards the society? What about that woman the guy just hooked up with? She doesn't count? (Unless 'she' was not a woman). My point here is not that me or many others like me(women) want to have sex and are fighting for the right to do so. One may exclaim : "Alright. Go ahead! I'm not the loser." This is not the point. Point is why is it right for men to do so, while a shame if women do. I'm from India, a land where women are taken to be Goddesses. Well, we don't want to be on that level but you could stop treating us like shit. How hypocritical can guys get?

   I meet multitudes of people. For all that I have known, I have hung out with more men than women. Let's say sometimes they are a lot more comfortable kind of people to be with. Brothers, friends.. everyone I have ever seen, ever in my life have chauvinism in them. Agreed you are born with it. You are brought up with it. But don't you have to evolve at some point of time? Open your eyes and see what is actually going on instead of you just judging the woman in shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt? Judgmental attitude, my friend is tiresome. 

   Please shrug off those covers of pretense that you have. I think all the lines of 'we do this to protect you' and 'I'm not the loser' are just pure crap. Try to respect the woman you see as a human. She surely is not a cross of the road-side 'bitch' and a chimpanzee. I'm sure you do agree with me on  that one? And at last, please stop acting like saviors. I know you are physically more strong and can ward off men who pose a threat to our 'honor' but that doesn't give you the right to define how we live. 

   Thanks to those hormone-raging men out there (I mean only those sexually perverted guys out there. Not everyone.) I can't travel the country or the world as I wish. I love, totally love being a woman. I'm so proud of being one. But sometimes it doesn't feel good when I'm made to regret for being born as one.  

 I hope I meet one guy who will know and feel the way I do about this issue. But I guess the other guys might not find him to be a guy/man at all. 

Anyway, cheers still! 

  

Woes of an Architecture Student : Site analysis

Dear Awesome Professors who think the sites you hand out are heavenly,

 I visited the site that you had 'sketched out' for us the other day. Architecture, despite draining all the senses we may have leaves us with a sense of hope and inspiration, a small little tiny factor called imagination. Of our designs. Our concepts. Our life. Today, seeing that brilliant site that you had so painfully 'discovered' for us, ( I must admit it is quite a discovery. It took quite some time for my friends and myself to locate the site in what seemed like a garbage disposal area) the very little idea of building something even in our dreams came crashing down.

    Would it kill you to give us a nice site for once? How is it that the other batches get scenic sea-facing sites while we land up with Koovam-facing ones? I mean, you give us such a site and say, "So, what are you going to do about the smell?" Well, we were thinking of room spray. (probably the one in which animated owls, bunnies and kangaroos are cast.)

  Anyway, let's concentrate on what is in our hands. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.(Even that sucks anyway.) It took us half an eternity to find out the preposterous dug-out land where you want us to build luxury apartments. A friend of mine told me  that the coconut-seller right outside the place (who also uses it as his private dumpyard, in Rajinikanth style flipping empty tender coconuts in the air ; beyond the compound wall where it lands with all the other useless things in life) welcomed her to visit the site. He seemed to have been accustomed to the students who come there, for god knows how many years. His hospitality and generosity amazes me. Has some deal been signed between the institution and the guy?

   The site, it so seemed looked like a green haven. Not just one shade of green, mind you. A lot of them. It so complemented what seemed like poisonous little trees all around and the different-coloured-stale-kurma-like mass of liquid/fluid. ( We didn't dare go close.) I could totally imagine the swimming pool that you want in the mass of moss floating on what seemed like a piece of earth tilled out to lay foundations for a dream castle to be built in the next century. There was just one small problem. If I could see the swimming pool, I couldn't see the building blocks and vice versa. Certainly, there is all the space in the world for me to design a wading pool and children's play area. Just when I was settling into the idea of consoling myself saying I could somehow squeeze all the requirements in there, a friend of mine said : "Hmm, so what will happen to the community centre?"

   I mean, how many people are we talking about here, man? Trust me, no one is going to buy a house here and most certainly, no one is going to indulge in the happy times of a society with all the noise and air pollution  from the road where even pedestrians might need sound horns and SARS-like masks to move an inch. What were you even thinking of? That we'll build something in the air eh? Actually, we don't mind. But, even in that, you'll ask for structural details.

   On top of all this, there is a transformer right in the front and huge, many-acres spreading out to form an industry on to the side releasing heat waves in the air. Exactly, which bugger told me that there were buffer trees over there? Open your eyes wide my dear friend, those are called overgrown saplings.

   The only thing good about the whole thing; well, probably not about the site, but just opposite to it is the pizza shop. Also, we might not have to do anything for building a basement. It's pretty much there. All you have to do is to just locate it among the trash. Still, if you want to provide all the services our senior design professor asked us to add for a qualitative living, I would suggest you look for extra site area. Maybe not a garbage chute. The place is pretty much one. We shall give you the liberty of just chucking it out of your windows. Whomsoever throws it the farthest shall earn a special bumper prize. You can take the apartment that faces the awesome coconut trees that might transport you to Mallu-land. Each day one-one person. Okay?

   Anyway, have fun. We shall soon inform you of our tempting design offers for luxury apartments in(out)side the city, where you can bring up your children in lush green landscaped areas with privacy exceeding any other, to grow up to all the difficulties of and in life. ( pun intended).

Site Analysis Complete.

         

The F-word phenomenon

It's been quite a usage of the f-word today. Not the f-word that probably strikes your mind first. No, certainly not that one. I meant : Friendship. I heard too much of that today- Friends, friendship day, friendship bands, friendship texts, friendship wishes. Just a little less than truckload of viewing of the friendship day effects.
 
     Frankly, I didn't realize it was 'friendship day' today. I thought it was a week back and ended up texting four of my very close friends a genuine 'happy friendship day' message, meaning every letter of the three words, the spaces amplifying what I wanted to convey.. cherishing the journey we have had together until now. I have to tell you, I have amazing friends.Why? None of them knew when the 'real' friendship day was and ended up texting me back, from the various parts of India and Chennai that they live in, a happy friendship day. Cool friends I have.
 
    This evening brought me into an encounter with friendship bands after quite some time. Around three years or so, to be precise. Friendship bands. They share a great part of my childhood times and an even greater part of my growing adulthood. I remember how I used to buy wool and strings of different colours ; weaving and braiding them- making those bands by hand. I thought, it's for friends, it is a personal acknowledgement of how happy their company makes me. I used to make them day in and day out, with a definite list and later making a few extras for impromptu situations. Situations where someone who you totally thought would never tie you a band turns up beaming in front of you with one in hand. Sometimes, they're so genuine that you have to tie them one back. The entire school used to be bubbling with energy, recesses having corridors full of us kids with hands with colours and strings many. There were times when I even felt jealous about the numbers that reached my wrists and the varying others'.

    Now, I think about it all and realize how ridiculous it has been... how the notion had been etched in our minds, how friendship bands were given an importance which it didn't deserve(or it has lost it's importance- however you see it) and how blinded by numbers and popularity we were. None of those bands, as far as I know, carried a genuine happiness of having someone else as their friend. It was about popularity, establishing an unsigned official contract, joining in a rat race of being friends with the school stars and in the process of getting there too. Bands were just numbers- no significance, no friendship and nothing attached to it but strings. (pun intended) I suppose it still is. I don't know, I quit tying them. You can imagine the rest- no one else tied one for me as well. Ah, I'm glad as far as that goes.

  Think about it for a while, so many of you wish on the account of friendship day, do you mean it? Do you cherish that relationship you share? Does the other person make you feel special? Do you type that text out or was it a group forward that you forwarded too? Much better, did you end up sending it a few hours earlier just so that your balance doesn't run out because of the special text costs? Do you love them or respect them for who they are? Do you really feel the depth of the whole thing? Does a facebook tag of a friendship quote or picture signify what happens between you guys?

  Friends don't happen everywhere. Not everyone you meet are your friends. They're termed as acquaintances. They're people who you happen to meet everyday, every week and month. Time spent with someone everyday doesn't equate them to being with friends for a few hours every weekend or possible holiday. Next time you're about to wish someone a happy friendship day, think twice. If you have no reason, don't say it. Understand the depth of your words for half the time, we're here returning wishes we don't mean, cherishing memories we don't share and  giving away words that don't belong to us. People are special and so are the words. They are not free. They're worth every strain of the vocal word, every stab and smile of the heart and all the intimacy of the emotions fabricated just for them. =)

   

So spake a building you think is one.

You think I don't know a thing, that I don't feel beyond what I'm made of. That's not true. I've experienced more than anyone of you can ever see, feel, hear or grasp. I've heard so many squeals of children running around, their cries when they fall down, the laughter of the old ladies who think they're cracking jokes when the younger counterparts grin in quiet tones at the befallen comment that isn't close to humor, the shouts of the people calling out to one another, the singing on one side and the instruments amplified in the presence of my greatness.
 
           I've seen many traditions, rituals, too many silent tears in the washroom confining many a people, individually, all of them crying inside and yet on the outside, pretend to be strong and smile in each others' presence. I've seen colour always : of flowers, clothes, lights and faces and what they contain, beautiful smiles of  blushing brides and more moving energy than all your lives put together in one fleet of running parents, striding across my magnanimous being to greet people and attend needs.

       Yet, after all the time I remain where I am, I still cry soft tears to see her go. A bride in her mother's arms seeking comfort and merely a shoulder to cry on. She cries, the one leaving 'home' , having to shrug all that responsibilities as a daughter to being a wife, though I know a daughter shall never forget them, and shall remain a daughter forever. I see mixed emotions in her eyes, that glint with happiness during the dance with her husband among the huge crowds that surrounds to cheer her and a large sense of sadness attached along with anxiety and fear. I've seen of every single 'Her' : a silent thought not to cry and induce the mood into others and yet breaking down at moments many. I sense, every single time that she can't sleep in total peace like when her father covered the sheets around her with a goodnight kiss, for she doesn't know if her husband shall do the same.

          I'm not concrete and brick. I'm emotions many, if you pause to rest your shoulder on me and look around. If you press your ears against my pillars of strength and listen. With every footstep you take, I have had so many others jumping on the same.. where you stand, that was where one girl fainted in her father's arms.. where you laugh-many have cried and where you hug, many of them had to be pulled free. I am not what you think I am.

         I've seen a little girl pulled free of her father's arms and thrust into another mans'. How the father has taken care of her, I've always seen.. it shows in the eyes and the tears and smiles she sheds. How the man does, I never know, for none of them fulfilled an obligation of coming back to me to whisper how they are. They think I don't live, they think I don't exist. I don't blame them,  for they are daughters leaving home. I shall remember every one of their tears that had been wiped off my floor with a mop, not knowing it had already reached my insides creating an imprint.
       With false promises and some true ones, they take her away from whom she loves to someone she'll learn to love. She cries, silently and breaks down again as she gets into the car to drive away into nothingness for a few more minutes before she realizes what's happening.. and as the car gets out of the driveway I tend to hear loud cries and huge tears from the sisters of the bride... ones who, with great difficulty held them all back so that they don't cry in front of her making her departure more painful.

   I see this, day after day, hour after hour.. one wedding after the other. I never shall get tired..for each bride has a tale to tell, moments to share, hours of fatigue, and one instance that they all share.. leaving home. At that juncture, I become their homes, for the second they wave a bye to their crowded families, who with moist eyes and a smile on their lips, wave back till the car goes out of sight and sometimes even minutes after.
   I hope they are all happy somewhere, with children who'll grow up to get married the same way they did. They have always been my favorite. The daughters leaving home..
  Even if they're across the road with roaring traffic, I shall still hear them say with nostalgia  :
"There! That's where I got married"
   

This was my entry at Saarang Writing Awards 2013

Of Creating a Memory

Take me, with my eyes covered, so I feel and know you are always there next to me..

Take me, anywhere, where the sounds cease to exist

throwing the music of silence into our ears, amplified,

that way, every word you say, will reach my heart.

Let's go around the same way, describe what you see, 

'cause I'm comfortable with my eyes closed and hearing you say 

things you don't even see. But, I'll believe you anyway. 

Let's go away from prying human eyes and live, 

with no cameras to record the moment, 

no sketchbooks to replicate..

Just you and me. 

Now, that'll be a memory I'll never forget.

 ~Hemu