diwali (tuesday) night there was so much i wanted to put down, here, but then i woke up wednesday, got busy in life, and then completely forgot about it, everything. and today, in the morning, i remembered again, about this blog, my 2 dimensional space. and realized that i don’t express so well anymore. passion! i’ve never had much of it, except for times when i get drunk, which is rare now. i’ve always blamed it on my genes, my laziness, lack of … conviction(s), desire to pursue/persuade. “that’s just the way i am made … ” hmmm…..

the thought of the blog came to my mind in the morning when i was sitting on the pot (i heartily thank it’s inventor). i was thinking about how some mornings i don’t wish to wake up just because i am experiencing such happiness in my dream(s). like last night, or rather early morning today, i was with my mom, fighting/arguing over something trite, but i knew in my heart that i was at peace with myself. as a kid, i was passionately in love with sundays, cos on sundays i knew that mom will be home. it’s so weird. when mom lives with me, she drives me crazy. but i miss her only in my dreams. as in, i dream of her a lot. i should look it up, what it means, dreaming about your mother. maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something, for decades, and i take it just that i miss mom. shoot! i’ll do it right away.
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about the diwali (tuesday) night, i was very … angry. at everyone who was bursting crackers. people afterall are stupid, and that’s exactly the word i want to use. already our kids are suffering from asthma, respiratory problems, skin problems, and a zillion other ailments, and still they go ahead and make this beautiful day, a day of “much joy and happiness” a day of suffocation, intense ear-splitting noise, and unease, for people, for the poor animals on the roads. stupid. it’s sad i am surrounded by such (intense/dense) stupidity.

it’s diwali tomorrow. as kids, it was the most exciting time of the year. it wasn’t so much the new clothes, but all that mithai (sweets), and firecrackers. :) though i hate them now and tell everyone that they should be banned. in the north of india, it is a tradition to keep the doors and windows of the house open; they say goddess Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) steps in. but i think, the opening the doors and windows is symbolic that people have taken literally. i think in this festive season of love, joy, and happiness, it is one’s heart, mind, and soul that one needs to open, completely. and then all the gods and goddesses will step in … spreading love, joy, and happiness.

wishing everyone boundless love, joy, and happiness … :)

i only remember bits and pieces of my dream today. first, i am i think in the backyard of the NN house (where i/we grew up), and i think veer is around me, and i am drinking water, lots of it. i am thirsty and continuously drinking water. from lots of these copper outside, silver inside glasses, tumblers of various sizes. the water’s very sweet (not sugary) and tasty and quenching my thirst well. [i think that my body was/is trying to tell me that it is dehydrated. yesterday, all day, i'd had just about 2 sips of water and about 1.5 bottles of beer. i plan to drink at least a liter water today.]

i also remember traveling in an auto, in delhi, in/near NN again, on the road that goes to SN market. it’s night time and i am returning home very late. suddenly i see a huge crocodile on the left and i shout to the auto guy and the auto guy goes “what the …” or something to that effect and suddenly swerves to right. and then i see another crocodile in the distance and then a couple more. and then suddenly again i feel my right foot being bitten into and i cry in pain and i see that a crocodile’s huge jaw is attached to my foot. the auto guy speeds up and we manage to save my foot.

later i am in the kitchen of a house, seemingly my own, cutting up a crocodile. it must be a baby croc as it is only about a meter long. i turn it upside down and cut it vertically and then put it under the tap to clean it’s inner parts. then on the left, i … prepare its brain .. to be grilled or baked i think, in a mound, with some strawberry pieces on the side. i am very happy to see the results and turn and cheerfully show it to my mom who is working on the other side of the kitchen with didi. they both laugh and say something mean to me which hurts me a lot. i go out, in the other room and tell veer “i just had a high school moment”, that’s exactly what i say and make a cry face. he laughs and i can’t remember what he is saying ….

i have been rememberig my dreams now … somewhat. last night i saw that i had taken cy for an audition somewhere, and much like her first actual audition, she looks … plain. and i suddenly realize that i didn’t get any nice dresses or clothes to don her with. and for some time then i am … flitting about around there doing this, doing that, talking to someone who i now think is the coordinator. i later get an email, with the word ‘disappointed’ in the subject line which is literally glaring out of the monitor. it says something to the effect that i didn’t wait for the person who was supposed to audition cy and that person had heard so much about her … famous(?) smile, and that s/he was really disappointed that i left without having waited for her/him. and i am wondering what’s going on cos i, we, were right there.

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in the morning, i was thinking about how in this country, if a lot of people are doing a wrong, it is ordained as right.

raj T should be tried under the terrorism act. his party, or organization, or whatever it is should be deemed a terrorist outfit and banned. he, and his hooligans are spreading terror and unrest in this country that anyways has lost almost everything.

so this is what i was thinking in the morning, that people in this country are not only uncaring, insensitive, and thoughtless, they also lack spines. the good Lord Almighty only knows what they fear. but they fear it so much that they are afraid even to ask questions or doubt what goes on around about them each day. and hence they just suffer, silently, thinking that that’s what’s “normal”, the “done thing”, what “society” approves of. i realize now, i do wanna move from here, take cy someplace else, where she can get at least basic amenities like education without mommy having to pay so much money which mommy could have put to other good uses for her future.

dear God, please help me wade through these … difficult, depressing times. please God, give me some strength and hold my hand, and pick me up, and support my weight … just for a while …

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and i just remembered .. in my dream, i am sitting at a table (it looks like an eating joint or something) with friends and my dad sitting across the table. my friend across the table (i think it’s M), sitting beside dad, offers me pot, in that clay ganja joint pot pipe that’s so common in delhi wherever you go … i take it and notice that dad is looking at me disapprovingly. but i give him a smile, like it’s ok or something and suck it in.

two rather small points popped into my head this weekend; marriage and love. nothing much, just ruminations. a fear has gripped my mind of late. a deadly, deathly fear. and i have started to think about marriage. why? of course because of that fear. in my time of … need, i am looking for comforting, for solace, for some … company. and there’s a huge possibility that that’s how marriages came about. (apart from the fact that the male of the species had some point to prove about possession over the female of the species.) so, there’s a huge possibility that for many, many more, marriage is a crutch, and not “do atmao ka milan”, a la what-it-should-be. i need to work on my fear, and not look towards marriage, or another human being for that matter to provide me comfort.

about love … hmmm … :) .. just thinking about it makes me smile. i like love … :) i love cy … :) i love this world, cos cy’s in it, her pretty feet walk it’s surface. so in the morning today, when i was sitting in the shared auto-rik heading towards the ’station’, i thought that of course love is God and vice versa. for the simple reason that to love means to not think of your own self anymore. you naturally include other(s) in your interests and thoughts and actions of well-being. and what’s interesting is that my ongoing attraction to the state of being married got me to that thought of love. i was thinking, rather wondering about ‘the one’ who will decide to be with me … as of course, it will be a decision, a big one, post which that one will need to stick to it, for some time at least, and then consciously decide to unconsciously include me and cy in his thoughts (and his kid(s) if there are any), before he includes himself…

i am suddenly bored … yoon hee … dunno why. i guess it’s because i made this plan with my friends to go out for some drinks. and tho cy is going out too with her friends from pune who are here in hyd visiting their granparents, i feel, i dunno. i mean, just some time back i was thinking, rather getting angry (or trying to) at shm for having … i dunno .. dumped(?), well i wouldn’t say dumped, cos i love … hmmm … shit … i mean .. he’s free to … do whatever, be whatever … not that i am not, but .. i. and now that i am … going out, without her .. i dunno … i feel … well … teary eyed. what’s wrong with me. i am such a .. sissy … ** sniff ** ** sniff **

these words came to my mind (all with music and all) when i and M were planning about what to do in the evening last sunday.

make it all about me-he-he-he-he
do what i-he wanna dooooo

a small house/cottage in a big place near the sea somewhere, maybe near mountains. one veranda, overlooking a small garden. one kitchen garden in the back. i will grow baingan, bhindi, tomatoes, garlic, onions and potatoes, and maybe carrots and radishes.

i wake up, fresh, wake cy up (i love to kiss and hug her in the mornings), brew whatever, or not, go out, sit in the veranda, watch cy play in the mud, a rich moist mud. maybe work in my garden a little. go swim and bathe in a nearby stream, or bathe in our open bathroom, hopefully no peeping toms around. then sit and write/type a bit, then maybe cook something nice for cy. i would love to cook for cy, different things, nutritious things, tasty, yummy things that she will never refuse just because they look green. play with cy, go for long, long walks. teach her things while walking, or sitting out in the garden, or lying under the stars at night. hmmm …

where? … what? … how???

i don’t have words to define the 4-day weekend trip to mumbai, and so i won’t even try. just that right now how i feel, i wish i could feel that for all eternity. :)

i feel happiness, joy, and most of all i feel love… there’s so much of it … all around. i wish my life is blessed enough to not get buried in daily/weekly/monthly conflicts and squabbles and lose this beautiful vision. dear God, …

it started in a pretty cumbersome way though. thursday (8th) night, the bus ticket promised that the bus will be there at 8:30pm. the guy i had talked to earlier on the fone to confirm the place of boarding and all told me that the bus will be there at 9pm. i did reach the place at 7:30, as i am finicky about reaching ‘boarding points’ (much) before than the assigned time. we whiled away time till about 8:50pm petty well. i was standing there on the side of the road with two packed tight back packs and my big red hand bag, and my darling, little angel by my side. by 9:20pm i too had started showing unrest. at 9:30 a bus came with the words we were looking for earnestly on all buses that passed us by; sangita. i noticed that it didn’t have the number (on the no plate) that the guy on the fone had told me. but i marched towards the door, flaunting my printed-out of the ticket in the conductor’s face. he humbly informed me that that was an “a/c” bus, and that the tickets i had for was an ordinary bus. that was the first shock. i had got the tickets booked online on makemytrip.com on a sleeper bus. for those who don’t know, a sleeper bus has berths instead of seats, stacked one above the other throughout the length of the bus, on both sides, with an aisle running down the middle. some days back i got a call from redbus.in (i guess they coordinate this thing for makemytrip) telling me that the sleeper stood cancelled and that they would put me in a “hi-tech” bus. i said ok, assuming that the “hi-tech” bus would be, well .. hi-tech. my mistake. big mistake. both of our excited-about-the-trip faces dropped when we saw “our” bus. everything in it seemed broken. i didn’t mind the “no a/c” bit really, as the nights are cool around this time. but the seats were bad, bottle and magazine holders on every seat were broken, and the guy stopped every now and then. the trip that should’ve been made in 12 hrs, took us 15 hrs. we were … baked by the end of it. but there ended our miseries. :)

M now lives in powai, the place where we used to stay when we were in mumbai. going there was like walking into a life, that, that seemed my own; home. i am thankful to M for letting me experience that. it felt so … normal, to be walking those familiar streets again (though not so familiar as a lot has changed.) and i don’t know if i would like to “start living” there again, but it felt good, and wholesome, just those four days. just enough exposure, the right amount of dosage. the same roads leading to andheri, juhu, bandra … it felt good.

and now everytime i listen to rock on songs, i think of mumbai. the time we’d spent in M’s bandra cruising around bandra. :) cyra loves rock on music and kept hitting the CD button, and we all swayed .. :) i, personally like to listen to the songs on speakers and not on my headset. dunno, they sound better, more enjoyable that way … i like the song ‘tum ho to’ .. it’s so simple and sweet. just the way i like things to be …

i will be “out” from 9th - 12th .. :)

kal yoon hee aasman mein urd rahi thee mein
kisi ne de diye they pankh udhaar mujhey
aur kuchh sapney,
kuchh merey, kuchh uskey apney
un sapno ne diya thaa naya aadhar mujhey

aur aaj, aaj ek din fir shuru hua hai
kal ke sapno ka nahi; aaj ke sach ka
ye sach jo jeena hai har roj mujhey
ye sada, phika pani, jo peena hai har roz mujhey

un sapno kee yaad kuchh rang, kuchh swad layegi
meye phike pani ko kuchh rangeen, kuchh meetha sharbat bana jayegi

cy’s not feeling too good. she getting mild asthma attacks, but even now when she is sleeping, i can hear that (scary) sound in her breath. i hope and pray that she feels better by the morning …