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 

Drunk Ink Lines

Image Source- Google images 

The countdown has begun and I have a clock
and a calender with circled dates of separation
looming away in all radiance of anxiety.
I stare and wonder how this is going to pan
amidst the stealthy looks and poetry filled
books,
neither one the other is aware of.
If understanding is the key to love,
he's never perceived one.
I blame it all on him and
drown myself in alcohol and ink
hoping to feel better but
truth is all that it spills in righteous luminescence.

~Hemu

I'm Not Impressed

      Indian marriages along with their intriguing ways of working out has also brought along some jerks out into open who use women like testing fields for their own self and family. My friend was engaged to one such man before he called off the wedding after the wedding cards and invites were printed. His reason was rather simple- 'You didn't impress me.'
  So, it didn't strike him when he probably read up her profile or heard about her through his associates that she might not be able to impress him? After several meetings before coming to a decision, he didn't apply his mind? Must have been my fault. I thought he was a mind reader alongside being a brilliant man who decided that the girl must forsake her ongoing doctorate studies from the most reputed institution in the city after the wedding but not anytime sooner because merely telling his friends that his fiancee is pursuing the same gives him a sense of cheap pride in his friends circle of poorly-educated-wives.

      It was decided that she couldn't pursue her higher studies abroad after they got married because he's done the same. Where would that put him? A rung lower in his male chauvinistic society and thus that idea was turned down. In my world, you fell right down into the deepest pit, buddy. (And then punctured the earth and fell right through it)

 I guess he must have thought one fine day after half a year that he needed some fun in life. It's just that who he decided to inflict it upon turned out to be a great lady. He wasn't impressed with her because she didn't dress according to his likes and didn't express farce concern over a pretending son's depression to her future mother-in-law. He wasn't impressed because she didn't do her hair the way he wanted to and what not.What doesn't impress him next? The name? My date of birth? How about a permanent change in the colour of the eyes because you can't stare into the independence and strength of it, oh great one?

  These sort of men and women sicken me. Starting from my gut, it pours out completely in a nauseating way. She didn't impress you? What is she, a machine that has no mind of its own but that which abides by whatever you say? I'm plainly appalled at the way certain people can consider a prospective partner let alone a woman.

In all cases, even if the mistake is on the groom's side, the girl is being blamed and called names. She is to put up with all the wrong sides to the situation and her family is visibly upset. The guy, you ask?
He's sitting abroad, stretching his feet on the table and wondering what he shall do next in all his 'open-mindedness' and 'easy going nature' as his profiles might state..Which brings up a question. Are women mere living beings that need to impress men? The reasons men 'reject' women are increasingly galling and so are those men who think themselves to be the epitome of perfection and character. A small slap in the face would be to know that they are nowhere near that that. It disgusts me that some people can be so shallow and without any valid reason for their actions that causes deep pain to another.
What makes men and their families take such crude moves? I am unable to grasp a concept bereft of logic or emotions.
Is it because one is gender-wise a man?
Well, every other way.such people prove not to be. (Humans even)

Source:Google images

Disclaimer : Not all men are jerks,but the one I have mentioned above...Ah, he is indeed one.

She is one of the nice girls I know who is very well educated, well-mannered and holistically a great woman. I may not know her as a very close friend of mine, but she being a close friend of someone else who is very close to me, I know her in decent form. Even our short meetings and phone conversations have always been pleasant and so, when I heard what the person had to go through, it shook me with anger. I thought that I should perhaps touch upon these happenings as it is not the first time that I am seeing it happen on a personal level. Frankly, it's the guy's loss and the girl's good luck. No one has to put up with a 'man' like this with a mind so manipulative and finicky. 

It Lulls Forever After the Storm

The sky has been split and I can see the many pieces
as they wait to be pulled with a gentle tap
and a strong hand.
It is starless tonight with a weathered smile
from dissolving clouds that pour their sorrow atop my
misery already floating over the metre.
I decided to knock one and remove its facade;
made up my mind to see beyond the outside.
My hands were at work and
eyes beyond it
as the frame collapsed and fell on me, face down.
Fragile is what I expected but
unassuming and a whole of the part it was,
of the complete wholesome.
I wish I knew how to explain what I saw beyond
the clothesline that cut the sky.
I really want to tell you how damp the terrace floors
were after appearing dry,
I lack the will to show you the intricate bits gathered
upon my eyelids as I blink
and the ego to let that all go.
Lying back down and looking at the dark bit
I have extracted,
I can only assure you there are more tears in that dark hole
than that has poured;
sucked into the emptiness of no reason.
                                                                                         

Source: Google Images- Wikimedia 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Croaking Under the Sun

I run around with this paper cup in hand,

handing out smiles in return for cynicism and more laughter. 

I am probably stupid

to bear the misery they have to offer 

Source: Google images 

weighing my pockets down

just so I can be myself,

but it seemed so much easier 

than lunging around much heavier masks 

of happiness and sorrow;

prim and proper. 

Of love and hate colliding 

against the face that perceives. 

So, I chucked them all 

as people taught me to build 

the same

with restraint and probable intelligence,

to immerse myself in blissful nonchalance. 

I won't drown. 

Agony vanishes in water

and nothing else keeps me down

as I fight heavy judgmental

currents 

telling my tale to the fish that leaps 

forth into the air so bereft while full of life 

for brief laps of time,

enjoying the edge but always back to safety,

unlike me.

I don't know how to swim yet.

But croak I shall if I must 

as I am,

but never cloak.*

*It doesn't apply when I am flying around saving people. Just saying. 

My Shorts Are Your Scandal?

Recently, my college authorities had taken our batch on a north India tour which was prescribed as a part of our curriculum. The declaration form signed by our respective parents agreed that their wards would dress decently and in accordance with the dress code. Whenever a dress code is emphasized in any place, it is predominantly of esteem importance and pressed in the case of women. While we did have the 'liberty' to wear tee-shirts or shirts deemed decent and not provoking, (many colleges in the state are extremely close-minded as far as the topic is concerned. Salwars are what God has deemed fit for the average modesty clinging woman in the country) it was noted that if any of us girls had worn shorts or any such clothes during the official part of the tour, we would have definitely been asked to charge alongside derogatory warnings whereas it didn't really matter if the boys wore them. It is not the fact that we weren't encouraged to wear the clothes  of our choice during this particular tour but the premise that decides what we have to wear at any point in time by various authorities like schools, colleges, the moral police etc., that bums me out.
 
   I expressed the unfairness of it to a friend of mine wondering out aloud why girls couldn't wear comfortable shorts or three-fourth pants on the train while the guys could roam around the way wanted to. He only said  that no one would stare at men wearing shorts but they most definitely would stare if a girl does the same, especially on a mode of transport as public as an interstate train.

Source: Google images 

  So, why does a little leg hurt men, their hormones and the so-called morale people? (inclusive of all genders) Honestly, I still can't think of my legs being anything more than a part of the anatomy thus into evolution. I wonder why I get cold stares from people I don't know and anxious ones with perspiration from ones I do know.

   I have been a gymnast for several years and used to wear the gymnastics costume that is mandatory at various competitions, both state and national levels. Initially, I used to feel a little odd about wearing a dress as short as that, exposing the thighs and legs completely but got used to with time. I think this is predominantly possible because no one looked at any of us girls there, dressed that way with leering looks or creepy stares. It was not a problem when our shorts reached just inches past our groin during the practice sessions. As an athlete, I have shorts and sleeveless jerseys which are the best in terms of comfort on track. There have been a lot of boys around there, but it was not a problem for any of them. Why is it only okay when it comes to a sport? Is it the rules that align mindsets? Is it the fact that sports-people are a special creation when it comes to hormones and thought?

Source: Google images

  I come to think of it as the fact that they get used to it. It is not thrust upon them that it is a sin to wear clothes so short in case of their women peers. It is told that it is okay. They eventually see women around with their legs exposed who don't think of it to be weird and neither do the people who are exposed to it, eventually. It is the effect of time and the mindset that evolves, that knows that it is comfortable for women to run in shorts and not full length tracksuits.

  On a parallel track, while I do think we are in that transition phase where legs are being revealed;(probably along with hands and cleavage) where it is not a sight uncommon to see a girl wearing clothes of her choice. But it is also the phase where the woman wearing such clothes is being labelled as a slut, whore, immoral and a big-time bitch. During a recent discussion with a few fellow bloggers on an online forum, I was plainly appalled and disgusted by the way some of them chose to see women. I wouldn't even say it was their perspective of women as much as objectifying them.

   I was glad to see the many open-minded men and women on that forum as well but two front-running speakers in opposition to most of our views said that man is still an animal and shouldn't be provoked. That women's dressing is one of the chief reasons for rape. Well, I believe that even if 'revealing' clothes are the ONLY reason for rapes, it isn't justified. Unless the other reasons fall to ashes and this is the only reason that's being pointed out, it isn't even on the table for a debate or arguments because obviously the flaws lie elsewhere.
I am irritated to see the hypocrisy in men I know.. in my friends, brothers and other relatives. While it okay for you to indulge in a drink in a pub, it is immoral if a woman does the same? Of course I have to admit at this juncture that many men are what their mothers made them to be and there is a blame that lies in the upbringing of the child, from the side of the parents as well.

  But we all grow up don't we? We use our rational mind to dissect right from wrong without bias in most issues but this one. Beyond a point, don't you think one has to evolve beyond it all? Beyond whatever ill-ideas are planted in one's upbringing, society and peers' opinions? If that hasn't happened, it means the respective person is shutting down a part of his mind to the obvious truth in front of them and clinging on to the hopeless strings of male chauvinism and ego. And if then, they debate or discuss with that closed-mind on such matters, it only seems like a joke to me.

   Legs are legs, whether they are that of men or women, breasts or chests, cleavage or no cleavage...it makes no difference if you are straight in your head to know that what anyone wears is his/her subjective choice and not be moral-policed. Don't let's make even the basic, comfort of woman scanned under the lights of your male-chauvinistic twisted ideas because frankly, no one gives a damn. Let me walk in peace.

P.S: This post does not in any way promote you running nude on the roads or asking someone to do the same. If you do so on the accounts of a very stupid comeback, I'm not bailing you out because I think the message I tried to convey here is pretty clear.And oh, in case you do get caught, smile for the mugshots. You only get one chance.  

Bereave

Night is when it hits you, in the silence of the skies

and the waning of the moon 

in the peaceful assumption of the living 

that some have already passed the test. 

I'd rather you'd failed for the name not called out 

in months together

is now rolling under my tongue and searing in pain.

Oh, I wish you had failed. 

Source : GOOGLE images

~Hemu

Give

Give me the mountains and hills,
all the nooks and crannies between the bushes and the cracks in the stone.
Give me their void, give me their echoes.
Give me that which gives back a hundred if I send across one.
I'll give them my love,
thus not wasted on many supposedly alive.
Let's forget them, shall we?
Instead replenish it all

on the
mountains alive
and the echoes real.




(Originally written on the road-towards Shimla. With minor changes to keep clear of profanity here)

Hemu

Wrath of Death : Road Accidents

India is a great nation where I'm guessing human lives aren't as important as the 'cultures' or the 'everyday protests' against simple issues of women's clothing or a celebrity couple kissing or hugging onscreen. A life just isn't valued. A general sarcastic line of thought is that, given the population of this country, a loss in that count doesn't really matter. We read about it in the papers everyday, happening to someone, somewhere in the city/country. But the intensity strikes only when it happens to someone we know personally.

 I have seen two deaths in the gap of only over four or five months. One, a personal friend with whom I studied with up until my tenth grade. Till date, the image I have of him in my head is that of a smiling one. His was a hit and run case. The lorry driver who hit him riding the pillion did not even bother to stop and see what he had done. The second was that of my close relative who passed away only yesterday after he skid and fell off one of the huge mounds of earth that was dug out for some reason, in the city of Chennai. It saddens me deeply to see a spate of such happenings one after the other. To lose both these people meant a lot to me and many others like me. Both of them were college students and students came in huge masses to pay their last respects to both of them at the cremation grounds. 

   There are many reasons for such happenings in the city. When I was at the police station yesterday, I heard a policeman mention that there have been over hundred odd casualties that year. There is such an incident happening almost everyday. Everyday, some parent is lamenting over a lost child who they lovingly had brought up for over 20-25 years. To merely think about it overcomes me with grief. 

   I don't have statistics to support what I thus write, but a large number of the students from my knowledge don't wear helmets. Racer bikes with riders who don't know the difference between rash riding and speed, eventually end up getting hurt. Moreover, Indian roads are not suitable for such kind of rides. There is always some part of the road that is dug out for the one of the million reasons the Corporation has enlisted. But the speedy progress and the attention given to attend to whatever the problem may be before digging out the roads and while doing so isn't there after it is done. Mounds of earth lie on the centre of the roads, on to the sides and hard,rock jalli is used to close some of the dug-out areas. This becomes highly difficult for any commuter on a two wheeler or vehicle, as even crossing the road becomes a worry. With the Chennai Metro Rail in progress, there are several one ways and the already shortened roads spell trouble with uncovered pits, uneven and extremely rough-terrain-ed roads. I wish the Corporation connects more with the people and finds out the root cause of all these problems so that they may be repaired. 

  This works on several levels. There are several cases of hit and run. Why can't there be a speedy nabbing of the accused personnel? I wonder, how do these people sleep at nights given the horror and grief they push on the family of the deceased. I don't know where to start and I don't know where to end. I just felt I had to write this at the least. 

Whatever may it be, I request all of you who are reading this to wear your helmets and ride safe. Indian roads are not for racing.

Cheers and love, 

Hemu 

(For Deepak and Pappu) 

At Sixes (and Sevens)

Someone once told me that the most important thing about the command over a language or your prowess is about how much you can condense your text and not in the many pages that you manage to fill up. It has been tiring to sum up my life so far in merely six words for the Chennai Bloggers Club's 'Six-word memoir' happening among the bloggers here, but it's definitely worth it as there is some introspection needed there.

Here go.

Insouciant gossamer of infinite ice-cream castles.

*BGM *

It was fun, this tag.The baton was passed to me from Reflections of my mind to you!!, which is a free hit information place for anything that you might need; views of the blogger ranging from movies to sports to philosophical inclinations in life. The tag thus follows to BeerSting ink , a blog as unique as its name that unravels into the creative imagination of the author in the form of articles, short stories and poetry which is a pleasure to indulge in. The blogger though, is not responsible for mugshots post luxurious drinking.

   

Love and cheers, 

Hemu 

Image credits : http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/09/six-word-memoirs-students/

   

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/

Untitled

Walk hand-in-hand with your fear and dump it in the nearest well.
Jump after it and push it underwater.
You might think you're the one drowning,
but remember,
fears never learn to resurface as will does.

Making love

She makes love all the time,
this girl I know.
Wavy hair on the rough side.
A clown adorning a crooked smile
that lights up really small eyes.
A girl who has already fallen in love with words
before, while and after she fell in love with a man.
If the first that peeps from the sky is a worm,
she'd write how beautiful it was
with its rings sparkling all through the night,
inching its way across the infinite realm of God.
If that little niece of hers puddles on her lap,
she jumps up in antagonising joy
while enjoying the warmth that lives
before she showers herself 'clean'.
While you only just read it in your head,
she articulates it in her heart and shouts
in passion that,
she lives in conditions unknown outside,
that she cannot track the number of words
nor the wrangling between her two different selves.
She cannot decide which side to go,
what to do about a boy she probably loved
and the rejection that sheathed itself in her heart.
Ramblings churn their way from her soul
losing its way in her blood,
sometimes hitting hard at the head;
which led some to think that
she has lost her senses.
I pity them,
for beyond a small nose and legs,
a large forehead and an independent stature,
they can't see that words swim inside of her
that give her more pleasure
than any boy EVER could.

~Hemu 

The Airport Effect

So, I enter through rotating glass doors to look unto a sweeping stretch of dotted spot lights in a high false ceiling,  white-marbled huge columns, steel barricades and the tiled flooring of the airport. I never understand what runs in my mind when I go to the airport. Technically speaking, it should be like going to the bus depot or the railway station. Why does it feel more enhanced here? All of them are sentimental at various levels of distances between dear ones and one thing always reigns everywhere : separation and reunion.
But those two words are the global synonyms for 'airport' all around the world, in particular. The first thing that strikes anyone.
   
             As I did mention before, I never understand what runs inside me when I go there. I love staring at the activity around me. I feel like I have been trapped beyond reason and have my eyes following the pilots in their smart uniforms. When I was young, I wanted to be a pilot...and now, for some un-understandable reason I am in the course of studying to be an architect, which I love too. I guess that patch of yearning remains in my heart forever. I stare at wide-eyed babies and old people pushed about in wheelchairs, newly wed couples excited, elated and nervous at the start of a literally and figuratively new journey, working professionals, and tourists trying to fit in with the locals with our style of dressing. It floods my brain which suddenly seems to becomes a blank canvas. For no reason at all, I visit the over-priced snacks bar and the probably-clean washrooms. I climb on the bars of the barricade and look around at nothing in particular. (well, there are the pilots...But other than that, nothing-I swear) I make faces at the kids when their parents are not looking and smile looking at sleeping passengers-to-be. I feel completely blank- a combination of nothing and everything.

     The emotions I feel cancel each other or fuse to create a sense of patience and un-bored nature in my mind.I feel yearning and loss, joy at the reunion, excitement and the heavy feeling that I have not yet begun to travel as I had always wanted to. Mere counters, paper money and cold steel bars in an air-conditioned volume of space has stopped me from reaching the corners of the world, you know.

   I wish there is a word for the tingling feeling in your stomach that feels full of nostalgia and curiosity, the heaviness of the heart at the brief separation with tears in the eyes, the hope that we'll meet soon again and the excitement of a start of something new.
  Do you have such a word or phrase?
   I call it the 'Airport Effect'.

P.S : I'm still under the airport effect and that has made me write this post. You'll have to excuse me if you don't understand the point of the whole thing. I don't too. It's some sort of a drug.

From google images 

Hemu

The Girl in the Mirror

I stared at my gymnastics coach with the a big puppy dog face. It was yet another of those times when we clash head-on in silence. Well, at least it was the language of signs for me. He generally won.
'Please Sir, just this once?' I pleaded with every ounce of yearning in me.Every single time.
I always got the same answer.
No.

I had never know how it feels to brush my hair all the way till my shoulders or more almost until I reached my  seventh grade. I never did know how it feels to even brush Barbie's hair. I never had one. I was curious to know how it felt like to have hair any more than the Bob style that I possessed. People would sit together- my parents, sister and my coach. Mother realized that in the daily ruckus I created every morning, it was going to be impossible to sit and plait my hair. My coach decided that it was too difficult for him to help me with my floor elements if my hair kept coming in the way. My father was fine with anything that got me out of the house in the right time in the mornings. (Why wouldn't he? He had to drop me at school.)
As for my sister.. she liked to see me go through the misery of having my hair cropped till my ears.
So,  that was decided then.

    It was not that I didn't enjoy the bob hair that bounced with my every step, but as you all might know, the grass is always greener on the other side. I was the tom-boy (girl?) at school and the short hair helped no more. When you're young, you tend to look at the fallen hair with attachment in the barber shop that your father frequents. There was only one hair style in that small saloon. He had no issues with me, that barber. Boy-cut for the little girl, every time. He did a satisfactory job, I must say. I was once approached by a curious boy after my gymnastics class who wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl.

   So, when you ask me my childhood stories, I'm all tears for the fallen-could-have-been-pretty braids.But there is a smile that assists me on my mirror. That kid smiles back at me all the time. She had a tiny comb the size of her palm and ran that through her thick hair and felt its bountifulness. It fell all vertical when she did her hand-stands, back flips and back somersaults.
 (Not to forget that fountain on my head when I attended school and classes.)

    As every story goes, I grew up. (Damn!)
   A small change in the scene that you see up until now.
  Now, this was when I wanted to cut my hair short while everyone around me insisted I grow it long. Beauty parlours became the new saloons and I had hair styles to choose from. Hair dressers got tired of waiting on my indecisiveness as I sit down with the nylon cape round my neck.
   I entered third year in college and sat around with Barbie dolls for the first and last time at my friend's place. I wonder if that exactly counts for growing up but let us just safely say I finally learnt how to dress a Barbie doll with different clothes and hair styles. (I still don't know if it's the right way to play. Like I said- that was the first and last time.)

    Again, the grass is always greener on the other side. I now want short hair. I want to go snip, snip, snip and my mother gives me deathly glances and amazing warnings that fall a little short of threat that my hair would never grow back if I cut it too short now.

  It's amazing how we grow up into something we were the opposite of. My mum wants me to nourish my hair until it falls till my waist and I want that bob cut from the times when the boy on the street didn't know whether I was a girl or a boy. Ah, how times change!

For now when I see the girl in the mirror, she tugs at her curls and smooths them over. She has three different types of combs and other materials that compliment what it probably was. She now knows the difference between ordinary braids and fish braid.

She's grown up now. And wants that hair short like the girl in the mirror from the fifth grade.

But for change, the world would be boring. But for some constant entities, the world would have now perished. Do you know that ever-changing and ever-constant girl in the mirror?

I really don't.

Image from the internet 

~Hemu

This post has been submitted for Indiblogger contest in association with Dove. 

   

Radio Love!

When the days where much in the past filled with joy and innocence, when technology hasn't taken an advert turn forcing itself down our necks, but during a time when we were the masters of the same, there lived a radio in my home that made my whole family's day from morning till the night falls and gloats. This post is dedicated to that radio that braved everyday along with us, thorough the thick, tough and the truce times after many fights and eternal love.
   
 When I was still in my underwear, trotting around in elementary school,  there was no proper television at my place. ('proper' with reference to nowadays) It was a tiny black and white square box of red and black colours holding up the black oblong Philips radio on its head. (That, was the sole purpose of the television other than Sunday morning happy times watching 'Rangoli' on DD channel where the colours kept filling the Hindi subtitles as the actors danced around the trees that Bollywood had had planted for the very purpose!) There were a couple of buttons, a round disc to tune into radio and a cassette player. I used to wish I had a bigger television to watch cartoons and more movies, but now, I thank my parents for never having bought one till I was much,  much older and myself for never having pushed them for one. I was content with the people who spoke to me through that black being's speakers.
 
     Mornings began with the radio broadcasting devotional songs for which my mother was highly grateful. I never was awake during those hours but I remember those hours as my mom would chant or sing along with the radio working her way through the kitchen. It was dreamy, with the Tindell effect working it's way into our house's mosaic floors and the smell of food rising up in the air. Sometimes, I would be in and out of sleep  when I would hear her voice in all my drowsiness. It was beautiful.
 
Later, the radio was tuned into one of the famous radio stations. Songs kept playing and radio jockeys kept talking to us. There would be music while I brush my teeth, when I take my bath, when I put on my uniform's belt, while I gulp down my breakfast, while my father helps me put on my gleaming white canvas shoes and till I run out of the door with him. They made my day into music, into notes and lyrics that kept playing in my head all the time. Back then, with no remote or buttons to immediately change the channels and given our busy or lazy nature in the mornings, there would be but one channel floating it's offerings through the wind. We listened to the RJ speak about women's issues, about America, about the traffic and last night's rain.There was continuity and an anonymous bond that existed unlike now when radio means more often the time killer during the wait in traffic; in cars with buttons to change the channels every second.

But this was completely different. There was something about it, that radio.

   The morning news would be relayed on the 'Aakashwani' which told me of the time. My father and I would beat for the door, for it meant the time was 8.15 a.m and time for school. The newsreader had such a pleasant voice but it also meant I was late and so never during weekdays did I ever get to hear her recite the news fully nor during the weekends for I would still be dozing.

The radio that we once had at home! 

 Evenings, when I think about it now, were pleasant. No television sounds, no serials and soap operas, no movies. Just good music that assists you finish your evening chores, that helps you relax with some good milk, that helps you read and that helps you write. I wonder how much I would be into either reading or writing if I had had a 'state-of-the-art' television at home. Radio, music and RJ's taught me so much more than an idiot box could ever have. Just as they taught me to fall in love with the old Tamil and Hindi songs that were played well into the night lulling us to sleep. I do remember vividly how my entire family would gather and sit together to listen to one particular RJ during the nights. His voice was the most soothing one ever and his thoughts were stringed in such a beautiful way that all we could ever do was listen to him and smile. I wonder if he or any of the other RJ's knew how much they moved us, made us smile and tear up or just plainly engage without an idle mind for company. Well, they made our day always, starting up the next day where they had left the night before.

   There were no fights in the evenings for the television remote or what channel one wants to watch, merely songs that we all loved and listened to, as a family.
  To the rushing mornings with peppy music and liveliness, to the evenings that helped us run around and the soothing nights of family dinner and sheer dulcet mood before our eyes drop into dreams, I am forever thankful to that companion, our dear radio!

                                         Images are from the internet and not owned by me 

~Hemu 

And my client said : An architect's woes

So you come to me; an architect and say,

'I'd like you to design this dream house in my head.
A large wooden door and a window at the bay,
The flooring I want, in dark dark red.
Now, let there be the stairs above into three rooms
basking in sunlight and skylight
whilst the closet be onto the left here for the mops and brooms.
I almost did forget, the doctor did cite
for some of those oak paneled wainscoting
along with bricks red,grey and brown.
Please do take these down as you see the drawing
of where my land lies, in the alleys of downtown
where water stands still for days together if it sees a little rain;
but should that be a problem for a basement around,
tucked just a little in by the room for laundry gains.
I want my kitchen just right here for my wife feels the vibes that surround
here, doesn't really matter if a window can't be placed
there dear. We'll puncture some of those holes and put some grills.
My dog wants his kennel in the hallway, my daughter dearest dazed
says the cupboard under the stairs gives her thrills;
so if you could clutch in a toilet and some cupboards for clothes,
a tucked in bed and neat line of shelves, it would be but great.
I want to see the sky when I doze
and a long corridor for my son to skate.
Put my treadmill right over here where my neighbour can see it;
a couple of plants on the balcony on the top.
If there ain't any portion left, we'll put the pots on the roof for a bit
but let there be lines that don't let it bop.
Splash the insides with colours of blue, orange and yellow,
I want some cheer like the magazines said.
Let's keep the loo right there where it is mellow
and the settee over here ad right there, the bed.
Make the landing smaller than usual,
I'd adjust and the people in my family are small.
We can use that here to put a room below that's unusual
for the visitors' eyes, that's good enough to host a ball.
Well, I'm a little tight with space as you can see,
but that shouldn't be reason to stop you for designing for me
with a little challenges along with some money that should be
an honour for you and a privilege for me.
Oh, lest I forget, may I add,
I want the grounds open to play catch with my dog over here,
I'm sure that can be arranged, it's only a lined fad.
Don't forget the front porch and patio behind where I'd like to drink my beer
and a nice sturdy barbecue grill  by the side.
My wife is allergic to concrete dust, so if you can tone that down,
it would be nice. The rest I shall abide
but not the these little details I have envisioned and sown.

Good day ye,

I shall drop by evening to collect what you got
and let's start work tomorrow if you're free
there are still some nuances I missed that you got to jot
and then I shall pay you your fee.'

So, I wondered as I watched him out of the door
staring at the sheet of pencil smudges,
the site was gone and my brain jumped a lot into being sore.
But right now I need that fee, so I hold back all grudges
and pull out the papers onto the board
picked up the pencil and let my imagination soar
as it came back to where it all floored,

'I'd like you to design this dream house in my head...'

Oh, what I have to do for some tea and some bread!

When I have a son

  And when my little son walks in while I feed my infant,
  I wouldn't shoo him away and draw up my clothes;
  but hold him by my side and give him a kiss.
  I'd tell him, 'Son, you drank my milk like this when you
  were much younger.
  These are breasts that fed you
  and I am the woman who gave birth to you.
  Stare at your sister's eyes and see the joy
  in the suckling that fills that tiny little body
  that you see everyday
  and learn it's only flesh that is different from
  your own.'
  I know,
  he'd ask me the six questions of his beginning
   language.
  I'd answer while my daughters' eyes droop
  and his vision grows bigger...
  and when he finally asks me 'Why' I'd say :
  'So that when you're older and in a circle with
   some other boys like you into adolescence;
   When they show you pictures of women clad in an
   air of nudity visible through poring eyes
   and sneer at the woman who is open to her ideas
   and her
   sexuality,
   you'll know to say:
   'I've seen those. My mother has them too.
    And so do all of yours.'

~~ Hemu

                                           Image Source : http://www.chroniclesofanursingmom.com
               

The Heart Rout(e)

There are always those paths in front of you,

sometimes forked, sometimes parallel;

some of them tiny at the beginning opening out into a thicket of sunshine

and some that narrow down into walled fortresses. 

Every single of those places have a sliver of light, a flower that blooms 

to merry, 

fighting warriors abreast with swords awaiting to lash and

many a shores of the beaches where you can soak your mind. 

You get to choose but one of those

beginnings so deceptive; 

you get these eons to stand and stare 

at the stars above you and the ground below, 

the trees that hug each other and the colours that hang around. 

Some smell of the petrichor, some like baked cookies. 

A lot of them have sweet smelling flowers and 

a handful that smell like tea. 

You get to stand there and make up your mind

that wanders down all these roads once

and you weigh it in your head from what you see. 

Sometimes you move out of instinct, some after you set

out after logic

whose crown falls tumbling down another avenue 

that hold your emotions by its reins

or even the little lure of your favorite sound. 

You tell yourself, I'm not going to regret this

and go down that adorned pathway 

hoping you'll find a charming prince or the fruits of heaven

whilst your parallel mind notes the joys that lie 

in the path that separates you by choice and helplessness. 

You'll most often live there, 

in that parallel path where another traveler dreams

of standing in your bright little blue shoes. 

                                           Photo credit :

                                          Image from the internet : SteveRossman's blog. 

                                          http://steverossman.com/2011/11/11/two-roads-diverged/

                                         I do not take any credit for the picture put up here. 

~Hemu 

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