ALKA’S WORDS:

I had posted about a couple, writing to the Indian President seeking mercy killing for their son, Vijay Kumar. Their son has been diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia.

Doctors at CMC Vellore and Tata Motors Hospital, where Vijay is admitted, have prescribed a bone marrow transplant - the cost of which is around Rs 12 lakh, way beyond Ashok’s means.

I am pleasantly surprised that so many of you have expressed concern and want to help this child.

Shivam Vij, Mridula, Satya and Rahul Shukla helped me finding necessary information.And with their help I tracked down NDTV’s Kolkata correspondent Monideepa Banerjie’s mail, who had broken this story. She replied to my mail pretty soon. And with her help, I found out the necessary information:

Vijay’s father Ashok Kumar’s cell no. - 9334629441
If you want, you can send the cheque or draft at any of the three given addresses.
=============
His Bank: State Bank of India
Account No: 10590922630

Bank Address:
State Bank Of India
Telco Campus
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand
831004
====================
His Address
Mr. Ashok Kumar
Jemco Bus Stand
Mahanand Nagar
Telco Works
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand
831004
====================
You can contribute here too.

Donations to help Vijay can be made by way of a cheque or DD drawn in favour of the “District Collector, Jamshedpur�.

The cheque or DD, with a covering letter specifying that the donation is for Vijay, should be posted to the following address:

Dr N M Kulkarni,
District Collector,
East Singhbhum District,
Deputy Commissioner’s office,
Bishtupur, near Blood Bank,
Jamshedpur 831001

But remember, its not just money. You can spread the word by giving a little space at your blog for this boy.

its a beautiful, beautiful day todaY. the rain is falling like it does in paradise. softly, lovelingly, sweetly. the water seems to carry a love. its kisses the ground with eahc drop. and the clouds. the color grey has taken a whole new meaning. its alive. its vibrant. its the new color of love, joy, smiles. :) …if i was 10 years younger, i would’ve stayed home. or even quit my job just so that i could spend the entire rainy season at home. its awesome. the lungs naturally take deep breaths and fill themselves completely with the rich, cool, refreshing breeze. it seems you breathe-in the entire grey beauty of the sky in that one breath. i wish i could fly.

we had a memorable time last evening. everything was dark and grey, and the cool breeze was turning our plastic chairs on our office terrace. i love to sit on the terrace. one can see the distant hills and the thick tree cover in the small city. the spray was reaching us horizontally under the huge canopy kind of a big high roof. and then we lost power .. around 5. everyone was so happy and cheery and talking with each other excitedly. around 6 i decided that its better if i leave. i looked up and most of people were already leaving. i went up to the terrace, and M and Z were munching on a plate of pohe. actually it was Z who was munching, and M was just admiring her munching .. or maybe the pohe plate .. or just the chammach that Z was holding in her nice, graceful hands. i stood over their heads and demanded that we leave right away. it was an awesome evening and the thought of hitting the pool had taken seed in my brain. M took to the idea too with a smile. all we needed now was Z to finish off her pohe in a ziffy. we spent the next 5 minutes staring hard at her while she gobbled all the contents of the plate down her throught at an alarming rate.

when we reached home, sul broke our hearts saying that its too cold and that it might not be good for the baby to hit the pool. and i am so not used to having loads of fun without her. :( and there we sat .. for a good 2 mins brooding. but then i got up and sang praises about my baby’s strength and immunity (is that the word?). i decided that i’ll just go down and check the water. after all, it has been this .. rainy and cool for days now, and when we’d gone swimming last weekend the water was nice and slightly tepid. so that’s what i did. accompanied with a screaming, shouting, highly excited baby, i went to the pool and dipped my hand in. my happiness knew no bounds. the water wasn’t cold. it felt nice, and soft on the fingers. we rushed back to the house, changes, came down, and jumped into the pool all in one breath. the clear waters, the breath-taking view of the heavily clouded dark grey sky, and the lush green surrounding us. melodious sounds of birds, and the far off silouhettes of the flying eagles and other birds in the sky. and there, floating on my back i was thinking, if there’s heaven on Earth, this is it.

i have nothing to say
yet i try
redundant words
broken thoughts
tumble down my mind
fall through the keyboard
yet
i insist
i press the keys
with soft finger tips
trying
not to be random
catch my fleeting thoughts
that are not really thoughts
just an emptiness
swirling in my mind

i had a nice long night. although i was completely prepared to get bored, irritated, frustrated all night, but it was just fine. hua yoon .. i had this really, really strong urge to have tea at about 8 in the late evening. whenever i have tea after 7 or so, i cannot sleep. not only i cannot sleep, i get active like i have just woken up from the best sleep ever. so i went over to my next door neighbour’s and got two books to read, as i just finished “Remains of the Day” and didn’t have any fresh book to read. with nothing interesting coming on TV most of the times, and no HBO, i knew that i’d end up tearing my hair if i don’t get my hands on a nice book to read. so i did. my nice neighbour gave me ‘what they don’t teach you at harvard …’ and some other book by sidney sheldon .. or was it john grisham. i forget which i eventually got back home. i started ‘what they don’t …’, and then went and switched the TV on. they were showing Almost Famous. i had seen it in bits and parts, so i decided to sit and watch. it was a nice movie and soon it was 3. and then i felt this huge rush of inspiration and i sarted my laptop and tip-tapped for a while. and i remebered the old times *sigh*.

will write more about that later. have a meeting.

mat khel jal jayegi
kehti hei aag merey ma kee
mein sangini piya kee
main bandini hoon sajan kee
mera kheenchati hai aanchal….
munmeet teri har puka-a-r.

don’t play you’ll burn
says the fire in my heart
i am my lover’s companion
i am bonded to my lover
my anchal (a part of the saree or dupatta that falls over the shoulder. it has great symbolic significance) gets pulled
with each call of yours my heart’s love

this song has been reverberating in my head since i stepped out of the house. the sky is grey, laden with dark clouds. the bluish-greyness fills the horizon on all sides. its been drizzling lightly. like each water drop is stepping lightly so as not to disturb the Earth.

here’s a line i read recently in “The Picture of Dorian Grey” by Oscar Wilde. its said by this “society-type” character Lord Henry while discussing someone’s murder, and i really liked it:

“…murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.”

another example of how a sick mind works. some sick person left some stupid comment regarding me on my brother’s blog. it seems to be sexual in nature, and i think my brother deleted it. i had no idea about it till this morning when by chance i tumbled on the comments-communication between this evidently .. obviously, pea brained person and my brother. my poor brother; the kinda things one has to suffer in the name of being nice to the general public. i am sorry veer, for if it wasn’t for me and my “forward” thinking person, you would have been spared these tortures from people who don’t have anything else to do in life. people who get an erection just at the mere mention of the word ’sex’, even if it is closely followed by the word ‘education’ and is being spoken in a class of 12 yr olds. tut!tut! you sick, have-no-life people of the world. i feel sad for you, and will try and remember you in my prayers. which will be hard because i have problems remembering even the important things in life, and then there is you. the cockroach can hold a candel to you.

to be writing such sick things about a sister to a brother… tut! tut! what kind of a family you had growing up. did you even have a family?

o sick person, i wonder what you are trying to achieve here. to attract my attention by your stupid ways, or just create mischief by leaving such comments about my blog content on my bro’s blog. which in itself is such a immensely immature thing to do. i so didn’t want to even react to this, but then i thought one must at least try and show the redundancy and stupidity of your actions to you. how else would you know that what you do is so entirely devoid of any logic or sense. besides, i haven’t added a post for a whole week now.

look child, its not about a brother and a sister. its about mature individuals living, enjoying independent lives, irrespective of what each individual believes in, or agrees about.

the views i express on this blog (and they are rarely of the sexual kind, but i don’t shy away from putting them up here whenever they do pop-up in my brain) are just that. my thoughts and views. your interpretations and aweful, completely off-the-mark judgements just show the kind of environment you have been brought up in and the the kind of things you stand for (or not stand .. pun intended). i consider all to be equals. equally mature (so obviously not as is evident from your comments) is what i deem appropriate for all my readers. they are not an “invitation” for sleaze like you. yikes!! and if you have something remotely related to a “view”, there is the comments section for all to civilly express those.

of course my brother accepts me the way i am. have you ever understood the meaning of the simple word F-a-m-i-l-y??? it does not at all mean that he shares my views, or even agrees with anything i do. he doesn’t need to. that’s how “families” ideally function. but somehow you don’t seem to be able to understand that and also many of the people who leave weird comments on my blog. maybe you’ve never had that kind of a family. i feel sad for you.

last, but definitely not the least. leaving comments meant for 1 person on another person’s blog is pretty … whassa word … immature? senseless? … i’d say stupid.

its guys like you who rape a woman just because she was in a mini and you take that as a form of invitation. sick!!!

i was thinking about it yesterday morning. sunday morning. i love sunday mornings. both saturdays and sunday mornings. and i was standing there, in front of the bathroom mirror, and it came to me. the entire post, from word one till whatever length. but i just didn’t feel like putting it down. opening the laptop, waiting for it to start. i even thought of pen and paper, but gave the idea up just as promptly as it’d come up. i just wanted to sit there on the seat and go through the newspaper. which i did. i’ll try and .. recall. the problem is that i can’t even remember how it started. though i still remember some parts of it, but the initial argument was crucial, which i have completely forgotten about.

here is one bit i remember:

we love God (not that God is God) not because s/he is really intelligent, or sharp, but because s/he is understanding, loving, and caring.

now i can’t remember why i started thinking on these terms. maybe i was thinking about myself .. that i am not intelligent, or sharp enough.

a nice soul gave me dino morea’s number. veer laughed that i might start stalking him on phone now. no, i don’t intend to do that. :) niether do i intend establishing contact. its not right .. or even proper. just call on someone’s private number. tut! tut! if destiny intends for me to meet dino morea, it’ll definitely carve out a better path than that.

they say
don’t think bad things
they’ll come true
i say
i don’t
i think good things
but they don’t

they say
don’t keep frowning
your face will go crooked
i’ve been laughing
ever since
my face
still is

you are a good thing
my good thought
i think you
and i smile
i guess that by the next century
i’ll have a nice face too..

and then i heard you laugh
run around me
playing, pushing me
its still ringing in my ears
your laughter that i heard
last night in my dream
we were so happy
we looked so happy
running, playing
in the white sun
it was
as if
our happiness had (dis)colored
the world around us
happy, bright light
white, cool light
the sky
the horizon
the far-off building
our clothes
our smiles
we were in a play-ground
the swings and the slides
were white
and they were full
everybody
white
i woke up this morning
with that laughter
still on my face
..and the white..

i just re-formatted my laptop. again. somehow i can’t shake this irritating feeling that the guy i bought my IBM laptop from duped me somehow. i’ve never been truly satisfied. for one, it takes ages just to boot. it takes a good 3-4 mins, by the watch, for it to start.

if you’re a regular reader, you’d remember that it was no easy job getting this laptop. i couldn’t find one decent IBM dealer in the whole of mumbai. it was really weird. as far as i can remember, i couldn’t get any clear communication from the dealers listed on the IBM site. many never got back to me after i called them regarding my quest for an IBM laptop. the guy i eventually got this laptop from, i guess was the only one who actually talked decently to me, from all the guys listed on the IBM site. but it was really weird. the couple of guys who never called back. it was like, they didn’t give a damn whethere someone bought stuff from them or not.

anyways, of late, things had gotten so bad that i actually found myself abusing the innumearble IE browser windows that opened up on their own. it was so irritating. but what really pissed me off was when a couple of times my laptop shut down on its own. the weirdest of things. i used to get this message that my machine is going to shut down in like 60 seconds, and actually there’d be a timer going backwords showing the seconds decreasing: 10, 9, 8, … ahhhh!!! .. at first i thought its a joke. but at the end of the 60 secs, the machine actually shut down. i had had enough of it. so today, all hot and dizzy, with a disgusting bitter smell of high fever in my mouth, i opened my machine and pressed the reformat button. i am so glad now. i actually feel clean. squeaky clean.

and i am beginning to miss God. it seems like ages that both i and cyra have been bogged down by this stupid fever. last evening i was actually feeling .. depressed. the house felt weirdly silent. there’s a word in hindi, sannata. i felt that. literally, it means silence. but it doesn’t just stand for silence .. not a peaceful silence, but a sad, depressing, hollowed silence .. like in a graveyard. and then i switched on the TV, and saw the most depressing, coupla horror movies. cyra fell asleep somewhere midway. but i saw the second movie till the end. and by the end of it, i wasn’t feeling depressed .. but scared. its like i had touched another life, an eternity. a realization of the existence of an everlasting, dull, hellish exsistence. when you are not in pain, but just really depressed, and sad, and alone, and you know that you will be like this forever. i was so scared. i even felt that there was a presence around our building.

i am going to the gurudwara with cyra and sul now.

i experienced a ‘weak’ moment just now. cyra had a bad coughing bout. she puked mucous 4-5 times and kept coughing badly. i completely lost nerve. i almost broke down and cried (that is so not done in front of my baby). more so because every doctor i called (i called 3 doctors and 2 clinics), sounded so i-don’t-care. it was 12:00 noon when i called, really panicky, shouting in the phone, my baby’s coughing non-stop and puking all over. and one of them even said, get her to my clinic after 5 pm. but then i sat, and thought, and decided that i shouldn’t lose faith in cyra’s own doctor. this is just a “tough” moment, a bad phase of the illness (she’s been suffering from a common viral fever) that will soon pass. i did what her doctor had told me to do. keep giving her warm water. :) things have the simplest of solutions most of the times. i did. she is feeling perfect now. we both had a nice warm shower. and now we are both sitting, in the breezy balcony, with our respective “machines” (hers keeps shouting “press the button”) on our laps, listening to the voices of the workers working on the construction going on nearby of a big residential building. the trees near-by are green and happy, swaying to the breeze, singing along with the koyals: koo-hoo, koo-hoooo.

i love the sound of the trains passing us by. powwwwww!!! and i know why those air-force planes were zooming past so fast these past days. our president was here in pune on thursday. and he even sat in one of those planes. cool! once the construction of that building by our side gets completed, we won’t be able to see the planes. it’ll block the entire view of the sky beyond, the dense green trees. sad!

i haven’t yet established a “relationship” with her pediatrician yet. like her previous doctors in delhi and then in mumbai, i used to keep calling them all the time. time i guess. i just need to give it a little more time. i have seen this doc just twice in the past 9 months. i should visit her more often. even if cyra’s ok. i will..

its so beautiful
this cool-cool breeze
the cloud-laden
alive grey-silver sky
the moist-cold whispers
that the wind leaves in the ears
the rustle of leaves
chattering with each other
sharing
the joyous mood
the celebration
the coming of rain
god’s blessing
in the form of water
on our blessed skin
the blessed earth
each tiny speck
of the blessed dirt
drenched
in utter happiness
smiles
that come forth
from within the soul
the heart shouts
the mind soars
arms spread
and we take a leap
together
from the highest peaks
into the dense clouds
we jump
we fly
we sail
together

i don’t feel it anymore
the heat
the desire
or the passion
it seems
the volcano
is dead
d-e-a-d
and it feels good
this
coolth
the calm
the vaginal opening
not contracting anymore
it doesn’t hunger
it doesn’t scream
its just there
the way i am
just there
here

if there’s one thing that i would’ve liked to do i wasn’t doing what i am doing it now, that would be making and selling clothes. my family is that of tailors. after my dad and all my aunts and uncles, we (me, veer, and didi) are the first geenration that have nothing at all to do with clothes creation. dad is good with needle and threads. i too have tried my hand in embroidery long back,a nd i was good at it. i used to do it as hobby. i’ll ask mom if she saved any of my works. my paitnings and sketches are now all lost i know. i was never in the habit of keeping anything “properly”. and now i think about it from time to time. rather, day dream. yes, that’s the better term. i day dream, of setting up a clothes shop. designing clothes, see them getting made, order fabrics, mix n match. if i had gone into that line from the early years, i would have been good. i know. i can feel it. :)

but i love where i am today. nowhere, yet, everywhere (m always online) :)

i am thankful.

its getting colder each day in the evenings. esp. with my arthritic pains acting up big time in this monsoon season. i feel so cold in office with the ac still at full-blast. and people actually like it .. this cold. :/

i had the most marvellous weekend. saturday started routinely enough .. but with one difference. the cool, grey beautiful, awe-inspiring sky of the monsoons. after a good breakfast of a makki ki roti with cream (the regular jam-butter sandwitch for cyra), i noticed that my feet were itching. i lingered around in the balcony for a while, tut-tuting at the new building being made, blocking our view of the sprawling green land beyond. i tempted Sul, cyra’s nanny to go up to the top floor with me. i realized that its been almost 9 months that we moved here and she as yet hadn’t seen the views of the hills bordering Pune from the higher floors. its awesome (my new favorite word). so up we went .. to the 6th floor. cyra, laughing and jumping, just cos we were getting out of the house. the moment we got out of the lift, Sul went Wahhhhhh!!!!…. and i smiled broadly. i love giving Sul such moments. its good fun. we stood near the corridor wall (about 3 feet?) for sometime, gulping in the view of the distant hills. and then, without hope, we went up the stairs leading to the terrace, hoping against hope that it be open (the terrace remains locked at all times). it was. our happiness knew no bounds. in her 4 years of a small life, it was the first time cyra stepped on to a terrace. but for her, the most amazing site was the pool down below. she screamed happily and shouted, “mama, look the pool”. i left Sul and cyra there, with their eyes fixed on the horizon(s), and ran down ro get my camera. we spent some more time there, clicking pics of the views and some of cyra and Sul.

but the itch (in my feet) had grown, and it spread to my heart. there’s this huge mall i had heard of (i love malls). so we came down back home, had quick showers, and headed for the mall. i shopped after about a year (maybe more) for myself, and it felt so good. i got a coupla trousers a shirt and shoes, and also some stuff for cyra. we just went around looking at things. cyra spent a nice time in the kid’s play area, then we had a nice, little lunch in a small cafe there itself. it was all like a happy dream. :) we came home at about 5 and ended the day with a nice, long walk at night after food on the tree-laden streets. its a beautiful place where we live.

sunday too was good. i woke up to the glass shattering noise made by the fighter planes practising in the Pune skies. they practice every other day. but this time it was different. i had never ever seen them so near. it was .. a-w-e-s-o-m-e. and it wasn’t just 1 or 2 planes. there were about 6-7 of them in the sky, doing these just awesome stunts. it was just wow! i called up veer and screamed my excitement into his reluctant (still in bed i guess) ears.

it was a good, good, weekend. *sigh* :- )

about moksha.

no, desires are not against moksha.

suppressing them is. big time…

understanding your desires, and dealing with them in a healthy positive way, is a way to understanding yourself, and hence pro-moksha. being desire-less is a state of achieving moksha. many achieve it by thoroughly giving in to all desires, so that no desire remains. you have to do it voluntarily, not because you “feel” that’s the right thing to do, but because you don’t really feel those desires anymore.

there is so much bitterness, hate, and negativity in the world, because we, people spend most of our lives doing things to “conform”. forgetting that we are answerable to ourselves, our souls.

to moksha… :)
and good sex… :)))

long, long back, i think about the time i was born, i gave up trying to do something/anything ‘useful’, ‘worthy’, ‘for-a-cause’. veer kept on trying, relentlessly till very recently, to make me .. a woman of substance :). now, i get appreciated and loved, not because i ‘have’ something, but rather becase don’t have anything. a lot of people have told me that i put them at ease. and i like that. when people tell me that they feel “comfortable” around me. and i tell them back that that’s how they should be feeling all the time .. comfortable .. irrespective of who they are with, where they are. and it suffocates me, to think that (so many, too many) people are always on their toes, about how they are standing, about whether they’re wearing the right clothes, about if they said the right thing. i wish people would get a chance to grow up like i did, like we did, me and veer and didi … in nauroji nagar .. *sigh* … a paradise of so much … time, relaxed time, relaxed people, strong individuals, smiling faces (veer and didi used to quietly giggle, looking at me, everytime mom used to take me aside for a tight, resounding-in-my-head one) .. but it was so much fun.. :))) i miss those days.

i wish every kid (person) be taught, be made to feel, the importance of breathing free, of being naked (openly till about 3, and around the house after that, for the inhibited :)) and knowing its OK, of splashing mud on just-washed clothes, of sitting still for however long you want, of eating whatever and howmuchever you want. of not worrying that mom/dad is going to be home soon, so lets quickly do this, do that. and also worrying that mom/dad will be home soon, so lets quickly hide this and hide that … :)))

the monsoons are here. its my favorite time of the year. i love to watch dark, grey clouds on the horizon, feeling the cool, strong breeze on my face, my body, my arms, my hair.. when we were kids, it used to pour cats and dogs for 4-5 days together. i don’t think it happens in delhi anymore. but i remember somedays not going to school because it was raining so hard. people, kids, used to come out in groups and get drenched. i’ll try and keep my camera with me all the time now. capture pics of the rain, ask veer to check wats wrong with the pic-loader and then upload them here. for all to see what i see. how the monsoon rains, washes not just the dust off everything, it also clears the soul, of everything it falls on…