azar baizan had recently adopted a new line of thought. till recently she was this power packed hi-fi executive working with one of the fortune 500 companies as liasion officer. good pay, a great place to live, more than a comfortable lifestyle, she was riding the high surf of life unabashadely, her arms flung apart and hair open. it was not until a solitary evening when she returned to her million dollar pent-house did she realise that she was wasting time and life was fast passing by her. it was her 28th birthday. she was meeting some friends downtown in a swank pub for some drinks and a dinner maybe later in the night. the phone rang. it was her mom who lived in a distant village far away on some other planet, in some other world. She had chosen to live like that, her mom, in a small village, a place that belonged to her mother, azar’s granma. azar’s mom, shinti, had always been an earth person. comfortable close to earth, as far away from ‘modern’ day life as was comfortably possible. although she did have an air conditioner installed in her bed room as she hated to sweat. but the rest of the house was quiet … rural. a one storey simple building, covered on the outside with a layer of dried brown mud. she had some land, farming on which she was able to get some money to live on. azar and her 2 brothers had anyway provided shinti with enough, but shinti had liquified everything and stacked it in the bank. she was like that, shinti, always saving up, every little thing, for her children, like a squirrel, looking for nuts, picking them up, and getting them back to her furrow, stacking them up.

shinti had called to wish a happy birthday to azar. “azar,” she said in her song-like voice, which seemed to be laughing joyfully on the other end. as always azar was elated to hear her mom’s voice calling her name. her brothers had always complained that shinti was always more loving towards azar. “i haven’t seen you in ages azar, i was looking forward to celebrating your birthday here with you. i’d called yesterday but couldn’t get through.” azar felt more sad than guilty. she should’ve called mom. she hadn’t called mom in more than 2 weeks now. “sorry ma, you know work” was all she could come up with.

“azar, do you remember when you were a little child, i think around 7-8, we had planted a sapling of a banyan tree together? … in that home we then lived in, in the city?”

“yes ma I do. it was on my birthday. 8th birthday. in the afternoon. and then we’d sat in the shade on the peepal till early evening. yes, i remember clearly.”

“azar, it wasn’t just the tree sapling. i had also planted there a soul … the soul of your child azar … the child you’d always wanted. do you remember azar? you’d always wanted a baby of your own, even when you yourself were a baby?”

…..

“azar?”

azar suddenly seemed to have lost speech. she went blank. her mind went blank. her hands felt numb. she couldn’t feel her cellular glued to her ear, which seemed to be getting hotter each passing moment. all these years … oh god … wat has she been doing. lightning struck, and it seemed to be just yesterday when she was sitting with shinti, in the backyard of their home in the city, the home where she grew up. they often used to sit there in the backyard, azar and shinti, when the boys had gone out to play football, in the afternoons, talking, laughing, sharing jokes, sharing stories. azar loved listening to stories about granma’s village from shinti, the village shinti always wanted to return to so desperately. that was shinti’s plan, to return to her mom’s village once azar and her brother’s grew up and “settled” down.

the baby, yes, the baby she’d always wanted. the baby she completely, stupidly forgot about by the time she reached college. she remembered telling her mom about the baby, her baby, and shinti making fun of her. although shinti had, once, gifted azar a pair of baby combs and brushes and little ribbons. they were still lying somewhere in the attic, among azar’s old childhood stuff. her baby, the baby she longed to hold and play with. she felt she was back in those times … just that it didn’t feel like those times. it seemed like timelessness. but she was there, in that backyard, that warm afternoon, the sound of the leaves of the peepal rustling together in the wind far above. the touch of shinti on her hands when she help that little sapling. she remembered shinti had made ker kiss the little sapling, so soft and moist, and smelling of the wet, fresh, earth. and then she remembered … that kiss. it was as if the little green leaves had turned around … towards her … streched a bit, to get nearer, near to her lips, her face. and the she had dropped that sapling into the hole that shinti had dug up. Ah! what had she done … and all this time. her heart cried, she felt a stab in her stomach.

“what are you saying ma? the soul. my baby? how? what?” at some level, azar could not make head or tail of what shinti was saying. all she was aware of was that feeling … the joy of holding that sapling, and then the intense, hollow, empty feeling of burying your child, the one thing you truly, purely love … knowing that you child lies there, in the dark, damp, earth, so, so, so damn far away from you. she wanted to scream at the top of her voice, cry so that the angels covered their ears.

but then again, there she was. in her suave pent house, a successful professional, no thought of having a “family”, which meant only being tied down.

“azar?”

“azar? its there. its waiting my child.”

it was a dark, cold night. the moon was playing love with thick black clouds heavily pregnant with water, one moment covering its entire self, another just peeping through. that little girl was standing aimlessly in the black space, lost, sad, eyes dry of all tears. her cute, fair face shining like another little moon on the black roads of a blacker town. her mommy was sitting right beside, curled up on the side-walk, a string tied to her wrist, with the other end tied to the little girl’s foot. Mommy knew that she might just drop un-conscious any moment, and she didn’t want the little girl to stray. Mommy lay spent, exhausted and wasted. she was empty of all power, all life, all thought, just lying there, empty. there was still a far-away thought though. she had just 3 bananas and 4 apples left with her. just enough to last till the next day’s mid-day meal for the baby, her little angel. she herself hadn’t eaten for 2 days now, and had been surviving on water.

it was a ghost town. all houses empty, most doors lying open and broken, half hanging from their hinges like someone had beaten the shit out of them, and left them there to die. when mommy had seen the town from afar in the twilight of the evening, she had run in its direction with such joy. her lifeless arms that had gone numb with picking her child all day and walking found a new force and clutched the toddler harder. her aching feet in torn shoes had started moving faster with a new-found strength. she gathered enough strength to raise the child to her head so that she could make her sit on her shoulders, allowing her to walk faster. she hadn’t eaten, her feet hurt, and she felt quisy and sick. the joyous smile left her lips when she arrived at the door of the first house. not only the peculiar, dusty, emptyness of the roads, but the torn, hanging door made it blatantly evident that there wasn’t a soul around.

aaj phir jeeney kee tamanna hai. aaj phir marne ka irada hai.

:-)

kal ke andheron se nikal ke. dekha hai aankhey maltey-maltey.
phool hee phool, zindagi bahar hai. Tay kar liya. Ahaahaa … haa … haa … aa!!

Insha Allah!! :)

Just to make a conscious effort to take my mind off the miserable state of affairs of my mental being .. I will try and talk about something else. Last evening, Cyra, S, and me went out for some chinese. We had casually walked out of the house, to get a facial done, pamper ourselves. And then S expressed this desire to have chinese. Actually she’d mentioned it in the morning too .. that she wanted to have chinese. OK. I din tell ya. S came back yesterday … after a month, which seemed like 6, she came back from that horrid Chennai trip of hers. :)

There’s just one decent chinese joint here in Powai. Far and East! [Rodas] We’d never tried it, so we walked in, all 3 of us, in good mood and with empty tummies. Relaxed, and looking forward to having a good time. We entered, and we liked what we saw. The ambience is good. A well-lit place, done largely in whites and pale blue. Well spaced, with geometrically aesthetic tables and chairs. Nothing over-done .. just right. The hostess was a charm. Bright, not your regular hello, and welcome types. Very sweet too. She so happily and genuinly took Cyra for a little walk around the place, and amazingly Cyra went with her looking happily here and there. [Cyra's temperament has rather improved after didi's visit.] They even had a baby chair. :) Now-a-days this is the first thing I notice about any place I go to. Whether the place is child-friendly or not. This place definitely took tha … whassa word?

The drinks menu we didn’t dig deep into. We just wanted to have food, and couldn’t wait to be served. So we just scanned the drink’s list. Seemed good. And reasonably priced too. The food menu came promptly. Good presentation over all, of the menu. It was a bamboo little collection of rollable mats kinda thing for the top and bottom. Didn’t like the inner layers though. A satinee dark burgundy and pink cloth collection. Very against of what we’d seen of the place till now. But the menu list was commendable. Especially their prawns and fish selection. We ordered a wanton clear soup first. Cyra really enjoyed it, and finished it all. A compliment to the chef. Next, we ordered a tiger prawns dish, cooked in capsicum, green onions and brandy, and noodles that out host recommended, followed by peking rice. We didn’t have to wait long for the food. And I must say, the first bite I took, I was glad that we came to that place. The food was not only well presented, but tasted good too. Although I’ve had better chinese, it was surely a treat for a hungry tummy. It was evident by the way we all gobbled it all down. The vegges were done just right, and maintained a nice bright color. The chef had been sensible enough not to fiddle around with the prawn much, hence retaining the original, soft flavor, not adulterated with much spice, or over-cooking. Cyra had some difficulty handling the noodles with the fork, so I got her served rice. She gave up the cutlery and finished her helping happily with her fingers. Not a great desserts choice though. We were looking forward to appease our sweet tooth, but there was nothing greaty tempting. There was an ice-cream n cointreau thingie that kinda interested us, but we didn’t wanna order it with Cyra around. To top it all, Cyra threw a tantrum when we prepared to leave the place. She started giving out her patent screams like no body’s business, shouting “amma baithu (mom sit)”, slapping the seats that we’d just vacated. My darling!! :) Actually it was my fault. She was really enjoying the rice, when I suddenly noticed (thank God!!) that there were bits of egg in the rice. Cyra is allergic to egg. So I just snatched the plate from in front of her as a reflex action. And that was that. She just wanted her rice. But we picked her up and quickly took her to this bowling place next door. They also have video games, car-races (Cyra loves car races, she loves cars … and bikes.). We entered the place and in less than a fraction of a moment there was a smile on her face. I love to race cars too (never tried in real life though :)), so I got tokens for us and we proceeded towards the large black seats with steering wheels and the rough tracks on the screen. Nice night!!! :)

I used to be very proudly vocal about the fact that I don’t have any regrets. Now, I regret ever having said that. No, overall, on a macro level, I love my life, and I have abundance of things I need to be, and I am, thankful for *Thank you God*. But one thing that I have fallen short of, due to my then completely I-don’t-give-a-damn, regret-free attitude is time. At 30 (almost), I am still where I was at 20. An almost zero bank balance. But then that’s just one way of looking at things. I have grown, tremendously. Does that make up for the 0 (almost) bank balance? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

In my mid-20s, I was a completely reckless, careless (amounting to foolish) person. That is the time I regret most. Its embarrassing when I think how stupid I was. I was aimless, lost, uselessly lost. Not that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just didn’t stop and think about it … something one does in the very early twenties of their lives. And what I regret most is that I made a decent amount of money then, and spent it all. Its amazing, I just spent it. How foolish can one get. And now, I am having to consider every means I can of borrowing money, taking loans, getting discounts, just for a measly laptop. Life does come full-circle. What I regret was that I was doing what I wanted to do, live how I wanted to live, and I wasn’t even enjoying it. I really didn’t get anything out of it. What I remember most from that time, is waiting for this guy, on a warm, sunny, afternoon, so damn alone in the whole wide world. I just waited, wasted so much of my time. I could’ve done something constructive. I just wasted time, life, just sitting and doing nothing, not using my own brains. Add to that the last 2 years of my life. Spent, or rather uselessly invested in a relationship I thought I could make a life out of. It was another pretty stupid thing to do.

Why I am thinking about all this now is because I should’ve done what I am doing now back then. Work towards a better life, a better me. Hmmm … At 20 I was careless, reckless, stupid, and completely clueless about being a person, a human. I was thoughtless and selfish to the core. I was mean to veer *sorry veer :(*. At 30, I am a better person, careful (try to be) about where I am going, just as stupid but now just a bit more refined in that stupidness, looking desperately for love :) … and I am a mommy. :) I did try looking for Dino’s email ID, but couldn’t find it. :( The search goes on. :) Insha Allah!!! :)

Chanda re, merey bhaia se kehna.
Behna yaad karey.

What am i going to do in this life. Its such a long life. Sometimes I feel I am bored already. I have taken some steps to start working from home, but it is too damn early to quit from my curent 9-5. But the way my completely stupid, senseless heart (my achy breaky heart) is made, I just wanna quit and go home, and start on the new mission. Mission to Mars!! :) I still don’t have a laptop. This stupid 9-5 thing is completely eating on my time. This ‘crunch’ (the word has started pissing me off big time now) project shuru kya hua hai, khatam honey ka naam nahi leta. And now that I have kind of brought things under control and tried and put everything in shape, today I might get late, pretty late in the night cos we have to FTP the deliverable, and I can’t leave untill all the zillion MB of files have been uploaded, so that I can then mail to the client that the stuff has been FTPed. I’ll try and get an extension for today’s deadline. Cos our US client have weekends off (stricly:)), one day extension would mean that I’ll be able to get an extension till Monday evening, as our evening will be their morning. I hope this works out, nahi to aaj I’ll have to stay in office till 10-11. *sigh*

Cyra has been dead bored too. Its been raining incessantly, and the poor, sweet, child can’t go out to play. The little thing, spends all day in the house, and if I get late reaching home, that’ll be the death of me. I love waking up with her, and then spend the entire morning just lying by her side, looking at her, loving her. She too keeps loving me with her soft little hands. Even after she wakes up, she keeps lying down, close by my side, looking at me, smiling her cherub smile, and then at times she kisses me softly … my baby!! I miss you. And when she sees me getting ready for work, she screams “amma kappa tao” (mommy take your clothes off), “amma shoes tao” (mommy take your shoes off). *sigh* My sweet, sweet, little angel. I wanna give you my life, I wanna hold you close to me for all eternity. I love you!! Insha Allah!! :)

Okie then. Since I have nothing else to write, I’ll write about what’s been happening. Nothing’s been happening. :( S is not here. So I don’t go out much … at all. My elder sister and her kids were here a while back. Had a great time. My bad luck, this stupid crunch project started just the day they arrived, and lasted exactly till the day they left. So I used to be at work most of the time, while they spent most of the time with li’l Cyra. Waisey its good, cos with me around Cyra doesn’t leave my side. The kids had a whale of a time together. It was beautiful. I have never seen Cyra play like that with other kids. My sweet, sweet apple. :)

I am seriously planning on working towards alternative ways of earning bread. I’ve had it with this truly pathetic, and disgusting 9-5 routine. Its gut-wrenching, mind-numbing, makes me wanna puke. But it will take me another 3-4 months to make any ground solid. I hope things work out. Life is tough! I don’t know how I will manage. Need to keep the faith and my senses alert. I tend to loose track of things so many times. Keep wasting my time doing completely redundant things without realizing till its very late … need to stop doing that. Need to start making a good, useful task-list and stick by it. Need to take stock of all the tasks I need to accomplish in order to achieve what I want to achieve. Would I be able to? Am I that smart? I have never thought of myself as a smart person. I am rather dull. People often succeed in making a complete fool of me … or rather … I always end up allowing people to make a complete fool of myself … whateva … in the end I am the fool. So it scares me at times. I have a little child depending on me. Can’t afford to do anything stupid. What if the alternative mean doesn’t work out in the end, and I don’t even have my 9 – 5. Eeeoowwww!!! That doesn’t sound too good.

Its amazing. There’re so many people in this world. They’re all doing something or the other, to live … survive. Struggling!! And then I think that I should be thankful, grateful that I at least have this 9 – 5. That I am not doing just any job that comes my way and try and save whatever little I can from whatever little I make. Not that I am doing any saving now, but life is not bad. I don’t spend anxious moments thinking how am I going to pay my bills and installments. There were times, when I was in Bangalore for a while, that I use to have no money and there were still some days to the payday. But I was never anxious, or worried, or even bothered for that matter. A couple of times I remember borrowing measly amounts from friends to make-do till payday. And it was OK. I can’t do that anymore. Back then I was living a carefree life, in a one-room accommodation, with nothing but all the things in a suitcase to call mine. Today I have a home, and a child, a sweet, sweet little sugar ball, my sunflower. Every little thing I do has a direct impact on her. I wonder if I am … able enough … to live the way I want to live … happily … and also make sure that I am able to provide for her more than she deserves or even needs. I love her so much. All I need right now is just a little bit of … sense. :)

I can’t talk about all the things I have been thinking of, of late. I won’t. Although I had started sail on Teerathyatra as a medium for me to express my inner self, today I refrain from doing so. My earlier thoughts were to key in everything I do during the day on Teerathyatra. More like a personal diary. Not the “I got up at 7 and then sat for an hour concentrating on my belly button for it to push inwards” … but a more thoughtful catalogue of how’s life going.

Life is going good. :) But then why am I not … sitting happily on my happy, comfy, bean bag of a life? Why do I wanna still get up, open the door and venture out? I don’t know what’s out there, or even if it is what I want. But I want to go never the less, wanting it, whatever’s out there, reaching out, anticipating a great journey, a breathtaking experience. I am jumping, a bit edgy, and restless too. What do I want, what do I want to do?

I know what I want. I want to live.

I want to wake up, and not hurry to the shower cos I need to reach office by 9. I want to be able to pick up my camera and leave when I feel like it, with my back-pack, and li’l Cyra packed in it *puchie to her*, to a distant place in the lush green hills and click to my heart’s content. I want to just sit, if I want to, for the entire day, by the sea and just watch the vast, deep, thick, body of water reaching out to me, feel the breeze make my skin sticky. I want to play with my little Cyra, my treasure, all day, all night … and not leave her sad every morning.

Insha-Allah!!! :-)

Kabhi merey saath koi raat guzaar.
Tujhey subah tak mein .. hey karoon pya .. aa ..r.

… this guy has sung this song so beautifully. Really nicely. He has such good control over his vocal cords. I’d like to meet him … and hear him sing. :)

… i wonder wats ‘abra’.

The words are:

Bheegey honth terey.
Pyasa dil mera.
Lagey ‘abra’ saa mujhey tan tera.

I have been listening to this song non-stop since friday now.

The words on top mean:

“Spend some night with me sometime.
I will love you till the morning.”