Either… Or

Either

Pessimism is her only refuge from false promises of happiness

Or

False promises of happiness are her only refuge from pessimism

Never a whole 2

Never a whole

He lived his life as a singular whole
Complete in his spirit, soul and mind
Then he scattered himself in her fragments
Only to lose what he thought he would find.

In the shadows

And she lived her life in the shadows,
hidden from the light.
Saying and trying to feel,
what was deemed to be right.
And when the real dark descended,
on her on the last night.
She left without knowing,
the vision hidden in her own sight.

More than furniture

O.K. So I was the soppy kind of a kid who used to absolutely loooovvveeee playing ‘houses’ when I was younger. (you can see how soppy I was by the way I pull that looooovvveee)

Last week an unexpected visit to Ikea left me with that same exhilarated feeling that you have when you are playing houses (yes yes! I am soppy!)– that of creating your own house, in a way you want, with your imagination and without compromising on your choice.

Of course – I was only buying a few knick-knacks (for the rented apartment with its already existing furniture) and not an entire houseful of stuff, but it suddenly gave me this deep deep longing to start playing houses again – only this time for real. Make my own house, maybe design my own house like an architect.

And in my mind I was already making up some 20 different houses with a different interiors theme for each of them – The one with the white walls and red windows, the one with the turquoise and blue curtains and lazed out sea-green lounge in the hall, the one with the black and grey dining table and chairs and the one with the cream porch with the warm brown cushion chairs.

And I could not stop co-coordinating the curtains with the cutlery with the bath-mats with the laundry basket with the sofa with the bed-sheets with the closets with the curtains with the waste-paper basket with the knife-holder, with the refrigerator with the lamp shades with the picture frames. And suddenly I wished I were an interior designer and people’s houses were my canvas and I paint my imagination on their walls and in their gardens,

The coolest part about Ikea is the do-it-yourself concept. For those like me who are so used to the furniture being delivered home by those wizened looking men in the white vest and tattered trousers on their ancient handcart, the whole packed-Sofa-cum-Bed-take-home-in-the-backseat-of-your-car-and-assemble-in-your-bedroom-in-fifteen-minutes concept can be really exciting.

It’s almost like making a sculpture or something. O.K not exactly like sculpting (I know I know ..,, I just got a little carried away) but closer to sculpting than most of us have ever been. And suddenly I want to be a sculptor and make beautiful figures in marble and clay that adorn living rooms across the world

And then I go into the kitchens – those tastefully made-up, co-ordinated, fully equipped modular kitchens and I want to be a chef only so that I spend all my time in that you-cant-believe-a-kitchen-can-be-so-beautiful-kind-of-kitchen

And once I spent hours strolling through this wonderland, I suddenly wanted to be the merchandiser for this store because that gives you the chance to select what you want to keep in this store, to provide co-ordinated material.

I knew Ikea was about building color-co-ordinated dreams, self-sufficient houses, perfect homes. But now I know it can also be about all those things I could have been but am not.

Don’t think they know yet, that they sell more than furniture.

Shoes

The funkiest pair of shoes I have seen..ever!

The ladder

And sometimes we make a big deal
Of climbing our way up there
Only to realize all that effort
Was actually for going nowhere.

Hole in my soul

And sometimes I was the wheel
That drove you along the road
And sometimes I was the lever
That helped you to cope with the load
And sometimes I was the mint with the hole
That freshened your life everyday
And you called me your sweet doughnut
When all the bitterness, I took away.
And I was your CD that sang your song,
Be it the blues, jazz or rock n roll
And in all those times I never realized,
That you could leave me with a hole in my soul.

Well laid plans

And sometimes the only flaw in all our well-laid plans is wrong measurement

Only for a little while…

And while you hide my flaws,
Will you also hide my tears,
Its only for a little while that I need your help,
Just until I drown in the beers.

Blind Folded

And sometimes when all the effort we put in was closing our eyes,
And blindly, not thinking, we went choosing
On which parameter did we measure our success or loss,
When we played no part in winning or losing

I wanta sleeeeeppp

every 10 minutes I am falling off my chair ….nodding off to sleep….

I cannot pretend to work any more………..aaaaaaa

I wanta sleeeepppppp.

A little bit of Voldemort

And we all put a little bit of ourselves in all those little things around us.

We put our memories in that torn dog eared comic book from when we were ten and hide it in the cupboard lest anyone borrow it.
We may turn thirty and yet every morning we drink our tea from the mickey-mouse printed coffee mug that our dearest buddy gifted to us on our birthday when we were fifteen because he could not afford anything more.
We might not wear it now, but in the dark recesses of our drawers we still treasure that tiny pendant which once adorned our necks but which if worn now, will make us stoop with the weight of all the love it once carried.
And the cheap plastic ring that we sometimes wear because it reminds us of someone else in a different place and time.

And the little bits of our souls that we put in those around us and forge those connections with those whose souls we attach to our consciousness

Guess there is a little bit of Voldemort in us all.

Bad Boys and Good Girls

And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts

- Tom Petty

Perhaps…

He kept saying he loved her. She never believed him. She was afraid to. She would smile at him and then shyly look away at some strangers face.

‘Perhaps searching for something that I am not’, he thought.

Then one day she wasn’t afraid any more. That was the day he left without a trace.

Consequences and Regrets

I would rather live with the consequences of things that I did, than with regrets of those that I didn’t.

O.K. 2

O.K.

The last time I had this feeling was when I watched the movie ‘American Beauty’ for the first time.

I cannot describe what I felt.
Actually because I didnt feel anything.
Actually no. It was more because I didnt know what to feel.

Kind of weird actually.

I didnt feel happy and I didnt feel sad. I didnt feel lost yet I didnt feel I complete. Mixed? No. Clear? No.

Just a feeling which felt like feeling something which is like nothing.

Hmmm…..

O.K.

O.K.

I just finished the Deathly Hallows and all I can think of saying is What the Fuck!

Gift

Damn! His favorite three shirts. Stained with a nasty brown. Huge messy patches of the color on the sleeves and the back.
Damn! Damn! Damn!

Its her new capris. She remembers carelessly tossing them into the machine after the party with the rest of the clothes.

‘I am so sorry. I am really really sorry. I am such a jerk! I know I should not put new clothes in with the rest of the clothes before checking them for running color.
I am so sorry!’
‘Its all right babes…. Its ok’
No..its not…I just ruined your best three shirts!
‘Yep…its ok..just dont do it again, all right?’
‘Yep..sorry. am so sorry’

‘I will make up for it. I will. I will’ she promises herself.

Two new shirts. Chosen after one hour of trepidation.

Do you have this exact shade of orange?
Sorry Mam..not available.

Shop 1, 2, 3…..6, 7. Sorry Mam..not available.

Ok…this is a nice orange shirt. And this one with the grey and yellow lines looks smart.
Will he like them? Are they his size? Will they suit him? What if he doesn’t like the color or the print?
She hasn’t been shopping out for him before. It’s the first time she is buying something for him. Hope he likes it.

Is this cotton? Will it be comfortable.
Will you take it back if he wants to exchange it? How many days? Ok….thanks…

Fingers crossed.
Hope he likes them…hope he likes them.

He walks in. She looks at him at a smile lights up her face.

Hey.
Hey… listen I am sorry about those shirts.
Hey its all right… just forget it OK?
No…. I cant ….so….I went and got you this!

She smiles hopefully. Gives him the bag. Crosses her fingers as she hands them over. He doesn’t see that.

He looks and shrugs. ‘I didn’t want compensation. Would have preferred a gift’ he says.

Who am I this time?

Am I the one who has loved
With the passion of a raging fire
Or am I the one who said ‘I love you’
And in same breath called myself a liar

Am I the one who has written
Glorious lyrics that a few have ever seen
Or am I the one who fit the description of
‘The worst poet’ that most think, has ever been

Am I the one who has laughed in the sun
And felt that ecstasy that runs so rare
Or am I the one who flitted for months
Among foggy clouds of my own despair

Am I the wanderer that I claim to be,
The traveler of all the world’s market squares
Or am I the one who enjoys the solitude
Of lying buried in my own library’s lair

Am I the one who loved them all
And am I the one, her soul who shared
Or am I the one who fought her own battles
And along the way never really cared

Am I the one who worked for a cause
Am I the one who walked with a dream
Or am I the one who drifted in time
Belonged to no man, no woman and no realm

And then sometimes I stop the watch
And I lazily compose such a rhyme
Knowing I will not answer the question, I still ask,
Who am I this time?

I wonder…

And there are times when I lazily wonder,
Am I a deliberate effort or am I God’s blunder?

Paradox of Matrimony

And I logged in into gtalk….. broke into a smile on seeing him online (I missed him..not seeing him for so many months!) and instantly said a hi! (just that…one hi!)

And he blasted….

cool
tu bata
the world is filled with hypocrites
and there is never a true love
man as a creature chooses to be unhappy by choice
choice fuckin spoils him
hence i will only get married to the girl my mom finds for me cuz then i wont have a choice
i will blindly let my self believe she is choosing the best chick out there
and i agree here to I am making a choice which i knw i
will regret but i have negated the paradox of choice by not choosing and thus put the burden of suffering it on my folks
what a load of crap
i can finally breathe

I love you dude!

(Non?) Fiction no more

He wrote through his different Alter Egos.

Quoted Garden State, masqueraded as the smoker boy, proclaimed himself to be a fan of Jack. Daniels of course.

He sang like Rafferty, read Vikram Seth and played with forty four words.

She wrote about him and waited for his clues.

After all he was a man-who-scrypted stories.

Alter Ego

She wrote. He commented.
She read and smiled. Visited his page.
She commented.
He read and smiled.

They watched. They smiled too. They read something more than the posts.
An unwritten story.

Unknown to them, she saw their glee and smirked. Weaving stories was never this easy!

After all, he was here in her fingers.

Tring from the past

Hello…Hello!
Yes, this is the 1930’s ……

I walked into this swanky-polished-shiny surface-glass topped bakery-eatery and straight run into this 1930’s look alike tring-tringg…..
…could not help smiling

The Rainbow beneath my feet

And sometimes we try to find the rainbow in our sky,
And forget to see the riot of colors that stains
The very ground on which our feet lie

Dear Parachute,

Dear Parachute,

We are same, you and I,
All packed up and ready to fly,
Just need that one, willing to try,
To open our wings and take us high

Free Fall

Wish all free falls were as easy as sky diving.

Dedications

Reading the third page she smiled.

Years back, she remembered writing those lines. For him.

A lazy flick of her hand and the ashes stained the page. Like her memories now staining the dedications in his book.

To his wife. Using her words.

Slowly, she turned to the author’s note. ‘My husband’, she thought happily.

I hoped

Sometimes I hoped you existed somewhere, against all of my reasoning.

Dream

I saw a dream I was afraid to see.

And then I didn’t want to wake up
for I was afraid again of a different fear.

Choices we make

And I realised it’s all about a choice.

A choice between wanting to be happy and not having the courage to make that choice.

It’s always easier to not be happy, ain’t it?

The flip side

The flip side of learning that there is nothing and no one that you cannot live without, is realising that there is nothing and no one to live for

- Anon

A little bit of Ginger

She floats along on the web and reads
Sees them and smiles at the realization
A little bit of everyone in Ginger.
A little bit of Ginger in everyone.

Walking out

She wanted to love, but didn’t have the courage to.
When she finally found the courage to, she lost the will to.

First love walked out on her and then she walked out on love.

Does anyone know?

I asked them all,
Do you know, what you don’t want in life?
And I was flooded with a host of answers.

Then I asked them all,
What do you want out of life?
And no one could answer.

Million Dollar Baby

Watched Million Dollar Baby on the weekend.

One word review for the movie – Intense.

Wanting to love

I look into your eyes
And I want to love
But guess I am struggling
To gather the nerve

Self Lying

When I do things not from my heart
But because they are easy
Am I cheating someone else?
Or am I lying to me?

On second thoughts,

Is knowing this and still doing,
The same as self-lying?

Weekend Work

Working on Weekends is bad for health.

I am severly ill

What do you want me to be?

If I was the change, you wanted me to be,
then would that be you really knowing me?

Never a whole

She lived her life in compartments
Always fragmented – never a whole
and when the devil came to take her
He never knew, which was her soul

Untangled

The invisible lines that connect us, hope they remain untangled!

Everything?

Everything that is, was will be and will be was.

Unfaithful…

We can’t do this!

Why?

No! She’s my best friend and your fiancé!

Just once please

If she hears, she will kill us both!

She won’t guess

It’s unfair to her!

What about our feelings?
It’s her diet and we aren’t allowed sweets! It’s unfair to us! Let’s go get Pastries. Just this once please.

Short Story

Ten years of believing
Nine phone calls
Eight days of waiting
Seven p.m.
Six glasses of wine
Five course meal
Four candles
Three hours.
Two faces.
One memory.

Infinite happiness.

Whatever

The single most expressive word – Whatever

Next Two most expressive words – Who cares?

Next Three most expressive words – What the fuck!

Next Four most expressive words – My ass I will…

Next Five most expressive words – I give a rat’s ass.

All in all…… Whatever!

Again

I am killed by your words
And scorched by your silence
But yet again and again
I submit to your violence

I wish…

He said Women are complicated.

I could not agree more.

Sometimes I surprise myself with the number of things I am capable of feeling at one go. I am surprised I dont burst with the tension inside me.

I sometimes so wish I was just a guy. Living would have been easier. Boring… but easier.

Phew.

I’m Free… Free Falling into nothing

O.K.

Ginger Girl ticks off one more item from her list of things to do before she dies.

This weekend, Ginger rejected sitting inside walls,
Ginger went up into the sky and had a great fall.

From 9000 ft.

Let me attempt to describe this. No amount of imagination can prepare you for what you experience there.

Words are not enough to understand what you have no time to feel when you are mid air.

You tumble out of the plane into nothingness.
There are no defined lines – you don’t know where the sky starts or earth ends.
Everything is one blur – it’s the color of noise.
You are hurtling towards the earth and you see desert and sea everywhere below you
The air pressure pulls the skin back from your face and roars in your ears…..
You cannot breathe for those seconds of free fall.
It lasts for 30 seconds, feels like 30 years.

You cannot believe that you are actually crazy enough to do this. Jump out of a plane.

Then when it’s over, you look back at the sky and promise yourself you will do this again.

(Yep…thats the plane my Dive Master and I jumped out of.)

Unfinished

The only thing that’s as irritating as unfinished sentences is…

Candles

Once, he promised to light the candles with the light in her eyes….

…Now she lights the candles with the tears in her eyes.

Silence

He left in silence.
All she was capable of doing was screaming. Instead she kept quiet.

She thought the screaming in her would stop. She would be able to speak again.

And the silence killed. Slowly. Like poison. Crept into her and choked her soul.

Left behind a void so dense, not even sound escaped.

Afraid

For fear of being read, he is afraid to write.

Escape

And we are each other’s escape…
…Is it from ourselves or from the world?

Consolation Prizes

I hate consolation prizes. They are a big fucking insult.
“Ok honey, so you are not good enough to win the game, but we will still give you a prize to try and make you feel better (pity, pity)”

What the hell!

I either win or I lose.

If I win, great!

If I lose, shit!
Either, I try harder next time, or I say fuck it; I don’t want what I didn’t deserve the first time.

Life doesn’t give any consolation prizes.

Why?

Run, fast, quick, soon, swiftly, hurry, faster, now!, speed up, right away, of course, rapidly, quicker, rapid, accelerate, zoom…

Halt.

Why?

Stop.

Breathe.

Relax.

Breathe.

Phew.

Unwind

Breathe.

Slow.

Breathe

Start. Run, soon, quick, run, run run run run….. Why?