I have learnt to deal with it. With the phenomenon of life fading into images and then images dissolving into light and then the light being superimposed by the brighter light of todays. It does not matter any more who is gone and who remains. I feel I can deal with everything. And that, is a very scary thought. Sometimes, I wake up from the dream that what is, never was. And as I go about my day like every other day, a little elf sits brooding at the back of my head, thinking, 'What if?'. I suppress the question, but it keeps coming back, and it annoys me that I know the answer and still pretend that I don't. I start thinking of all the people and events that affected me more than they should have when I was too young to have exercised control over them, and I wonder if somewhere, some of it, has scarred something too subtly and deeply for me to realize; if I could be someone different from who I am. 
But then, who am I but a miniscule speck of dust? How is my existence more significant than the flap of a butterfly's wings? That thought comforts me at times.
I need to journal this, so that tomorrow, when enough time has passed for my words to become precious as history, and be romanticized beyond its actual worth, this darkness might infect another mind, and seek the same answers. Because these questions are bigger than you or me. 

Sometimes, on evenings such as this, I think of the undefined that is you. You, who make me melt in the honey-flavoured sunshines so that I turn into something as abstract and immeasurable as you are. Like poetry. Or love. Or summer. Or the nothingness that fills my heart on days when there is nothing but an existence, a unique existence, content in existing. 
I know you only as much as I know me. Yet, you belittle me. Like that younger version of me that used too much of the words 'love' and 'change' and 'beauty'. Tell her she is missed. That she still manages, in all her confusion and uncertainty and ill-decisions and failures, to inspire an awe. That she stirs the stillness in me and reminds me that there is nothing like past or future. And so, I brought you to this moment. To see how I am still trying, still wondering, still creating word-weaves to keep us warm when winter comes. Will you look for me then? Outside of the comfort of your winter afternoon sun and the softness of the cream-heart on your coffee? Will you seek me out if I hide behind the heap of the pebbles I am busy collecting throughout spring? Will you spread some of your sunshine on my bread while we talk of sweet mundanity?
And I will tell you how, sometimes, in meaningless poetry and untuned instruments, I have heard the rattle of our souls brushing past the meaning-and form-obsessed mess of this world. In imperfection, I have found our song. An imperfect song of formless submission. Intimate. Free.

What if..

What if this night
never ends
And you and I
are left forever
in separate continua
of disjointed dreams?


What if we stop
running in the darkness
because we forgot
what we started for?


What if we never
wish to wake up
to lucent haze of dawns..
What if darkness
is what we need after all?

Rains.

Rains. They trickle down my being every time I experience them. They bring up these alive memories with all their scent, taste, wetness and humidity.
My clearest childhood memories of rain are of that small town that Dad was posted at, and that snug house we lived in. Those houses would always have verandahs, and we would invariably make tiny paper boats and float them on the streets. Then Mom would call us in, and place a chair in the verandah for me to sit and watch the rain. Bhaiya would climb the bicycle kept at the side and would cycle backwards, speaking incoherent stuff with such ingenuity that it sounded like a language. It would always crack me up. When I say that, I picture myself laughing an insane childhood laughter, thinking for the infinite time, how amazing and funny and wonderful my brother was, while looking outside so as not to miss even a tiny bit of the rain. Mom would place the tea pan on one side of the gas stove, and the kadahi with pakodas on the other. We would never have electricity when it rained. So I would sit on the verandah and imagine Mom cooking in the kitchen while the scent of pakodas filled my nostrils. I would wonder why she would rather cook and not come out and enjoy the rain. 
I loved watching those droplets that moved over the wires on the street and then fell down, giving way for newer drops. That sight could entertain me endlessly. I would ask my brother silly questions about gravity and the water cycle, and he would enthusiastically explain them to me. I was always fascinated with the water cycle. I would imagine a far-away sea from where enough water would have evaporated to form those beautiful thunderous clouds. I had never seen a sea. Rains would always kindle my craving to be near a sea. 
I loved sniffing Mom's aanchal. She smelled of detergent, starch, pond's talc and of the incense that she would light everyday after bath. She always smelled the same, but you could never have enough of that smell. Sometimes, she would play the tape on battery. We had very few cassettes, and the song being played would most probably be from Abhimaan. It would float out to the verandah, filling the spongy place inside my heart, that would soak that music forever. As childhood.
But then, rains also made me think of the birds, whose houses would be destroyed. I would think of where the dogs would go, until it would dawn upon me that there were people whose houses would be flooded and destroyed too. I would imagine Papa working in his office, oblivious to the rain, and I would feel very very sad for him. I would wonder whether the paper boat would have made it outside the gully. I would find that out, once the rain would stop. And in the triumph or loss of whose boat made it how far, I would forget all about the birds, the dogs and the homeless people.

Scribble

Perhaps in that time when shards of broken stars did not hurt the eyes, and every dusk, with the downing sun, something did not drown in the heart; in that age of unclaimed innocence, in some odd undefined moment, I started to believe in you. 


Ages and hazes away, now, I wonder; if you ever existed.

Of Cotton Candies And Marshmallows

‎"The special thing about a sizzler dish is that it appeals to all your senses, including the sense of hearing. You hear the sizzle and it arouses all other senses, and all you want to do is devour it."

"I'd prefer a mute dish. Something like marshmallow. Something that soothes my senses with its texture, like a serene, quiet scenery. Something that moves your heart with its ignorance of its own effect, with the almost humility with which it melts instantly in your mouth, giving itself up, entirely. There's an innocence about marshmallows and cotton candies, may be that is why children like them so much."

"Innocence? I always thought they were quite pompous with their bright pink, almost gorgeous exterior."

"Yes. Gorgeous AND innocent."

To be a book

You need more than creativity to write a book. You need experiences. Deep, rich experiences when your mind has already started working on the book. When it translates the wind into a metaphor, the sand into time. It requires surrender of ego. It requires the ability to step outside of your comfortable self and be like another. It requires the acceptance that there can be bigger, greater inspirations outside of you, inside the heads of others, even the people you dislike. An author can not be judgemental. She can not like or dislike people or things, because she is seeking to learn, because she is begging for inspiration, from all people and things. And when you achieve that, that level of submission, you find all inspirations within you. When the wandering is done, all the experiences, the vices, the idiosyncrasies, the characters are you. And so you can make love to the sun every dawn and dusk while it grazes gently on your skin, and you can both go about your business during the day. You would knead the moonlight in the bread you eat and dissolve a few drops of it in your evening wine, and then lie freely under the stars. And then, just before dawn, you would wait for the sun to gently peel the stardust off your skin. You would live many lives, slow, promiscuous identities, until the day the book is done. And you'd never be the same person again. You need a lot to write a book. You need to be a book. You need to be opened, and you need to give.