Friday 28 December 2012

Falling Into You ...


Oh my dreamland.

I won't take your name, not for now, not in a public forum. But all I can think of these days is getting to you, coming to you fast enough. I have no plans for New Year's eve, and here I am, spinning dreams of spending 31 December, 2013, in you. 

When I visualize time in my mind, especially the period of my life from now until the moment I land on your shores, all I can see is a black nothingness. As if the dates have been plucked out of the calendar and hurled into a gaping void. And all becomes unusually magical after I have reached you.

I pine for you. But I also want to make the most of today, so when I look back I can let go of Singapore with no regrets. And join you, to embrace my future in you, knowing well I have made the most of the opportunities I have had in the past.

And now it is time for bed. Time for dreams, for bed-time stories that I will pen down during the day.

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Evening Breeze


When I listen to this composition, I lose myself in the moment. I usually have this playing in the background when I am writing. It helps me imagine.

I may be sitting in my living room on the sofa but in my mind I am in some sort of a fantasy tale. Mostly this melody transports me to the outdoors, where I lie under the shade of a tree in a large tract of forest, birds twittering, my heart leaping with joy at the sight of sun rays beaming through the leaves of the tall trees, sunshine keeping my bones warm and my skin radiant. All the wood creatures are my friends and we have several adventures together, and I write tales of our adventures and of magic and of fantasy, and children and adults in all corners of the world read these stories, and like me, they are transported to a different world even if only for a brief period of time. 

I am a dreamer. My dreams are so vast that my heart often gasps in pain trying to contain all the thrill and zest that dreams bring along with them. 

And I am also a wee bit scared. There, I said it. Not a wee bit, but actually quite scared. The sensation is overwhelming. When I write, I feel as if I am consumed by some sort of paradisiacal bliss. 

That is the only real world for me, the only one that has any meaning. The world conjured up by words. Where everything is only as real as you believe them to be. 

Sunday 23 December 2012

The Wait ...


I am waiting for the big move to happen in 2013. I won’t reveal details now, but the anticipation is killing me. But I am also beginning to understand that I must take this time that I have and use it wisely. 

There is some sort of surreal beauty in waiting. It is filled with so much hope and faith, the belief that our dreams will come true is so strong it eventually manifests itself as reality. I have seen this happen before in my life, I have no doubt as to where we are headed in coming months, the signs are all there, the Universe is on our side, there is no reason for anxiety, I keep telling myself this over and over again. Faith grows elusive with the cynicism of age. Ironically, that is when we need faith the most. 

I must seek solace in the innocence and blind faith I had, all those years ago. I must now prepare myself for the move. There is so much to be done, so many stories to be written, so many more to be read, so many more to breathe life into. 

Wednesday 3 October 2012

My Muse is a whimsical lass

The car turns around the bend
I throw my head back
To catch a glimpse of her by the window

We have an intense resemblance,
I know we do,
She is me 

From long ago,
From a forgotten era
From another world

I dare not bring her along to work
She is awfully naughty, you see
Peddling dreams, spouting poetry,

And what a boisterous laugh she has
I’m afraid she’ll ruffle some feathers here
And leave me to do all the explaining
(And oh! I am so terrible at that)

And so I leave her at home
I bet she is not pleased with that
But she is a naughty one I know

For when I return
I can see her eyes are brimming
With her adventures of the day

But the stories are not to be told, she says,
You have not the heart to listen,
And I have my secrets to keep

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Move over, London! Sydney is my new love.



For a long time now I have been wanting to stage my life in London. And because I haven't been able to so far, I have been pining for the city with the kind of longing and unquestionable admiration I have for all things nineteenth-century English. This is something I have never been able to rationalize or explain, even to my self. The language, the accent, the mannerisms, images of the beautiful English countryside that Enid Blyton and other authors have filled up in my head over the years, anything even remotely English comes across as tantalizingly charming. Even the horrific insights into the iniquitous minds of wicked characters appearing in fictional murder mysteries and thrillers set in the English village have done little to dissuade me from pining for life in London. I have devoured Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, watched the television adaptations of these stories, watched The Inspector Barnaby series, Jonathan Creek, now glued on to Ruth Rendell, as much for the thrill of watching a mystery unravel as for the descriptions of the English people and their ways of life, seeking some sort of voyeuristic pleasure through a mental transportation to their land, even if only for a brief spell.

But the devotion has always been one-sided. And this kind of blind unrequited love is honestly quite depressing. I lived for a few months in London way back in 2007. It was the first time I had gone to live abroad on my own and the move ended up being an utter disaster. I have godawful memories of being mugged in Islington, of being cheated of 200 pounds by a property agent when I was looking to rent an apartment in Telegraph Place near Mudchute in the Docklands, of discovering how cruel and wicked kids can be, of beginning to fear the sound of approaching footsteps, of being homesick, of finding myself absolutely inept at navigating corporate politics, of bursting into tears in the Tube one morning on my way to work, of beginning to be terrified of big black men (which is a pity really because their deep voices have always made me go weak in the knees for good reason), of being scared and cold and lonely, of standing alone on the pavement, smoking a cigarette and gazing longingly at people and their friends making merry inside the warmth of pubs, of wondering why everything was going so utterly and horribly wrong for me. I returned to India less than four months later, not wanting to leave London but too overwhelmed and browbeaten to persist.

But even after the few unpleasant months I had spent there, my love for England only intensified. I had foolishly pinned all hopes of happiness on the city, I believed I would never be happy anywhere else. And I wasn't, for a very very long time. It makes me so sad, writing all this down does. Sigh... It now appears to me as some sort of a romantic tragedy. Me being the jilted lover, London being courted by too many beautiful men and women to heed my affections. Many of my friends made their way to London in the months that followed and have now made the city their home. Either the city has been kind enough to them or they were able to muster more courage than I had been capable of all those years ago.

I visited London again in February 2011 and enjoyed myself so much that all my yearning for the city came back to deal me a swift blow in the gut and knock the wind out of me. I started to look for London in every city I subsequently visited. In the shallow materialism of Singapore, in the familiar environs of Bangalore, in the relentless but heartwarming chaos of Mumbai, even in the insipid metropolis of Houston.

Briefly I thought Manhattan would fill the void. I was up there for three days this May. The city was segueing from spring into summer. The air was crisp, the leaves wet every morning from the showers of the previous night. Walking through Central Park and later along Park Avenue, always a Starbucks takeaway in one hand and an umbrella in the other, I remember saying out loud, "Move over, London! New York is my new love." I am still very fond of New York but I have admitted to myself the dirt and grime of Manhattan barely merit any comparison to the charm of London.

And so I have carried through most of the past five years like a jilted lover, looking for my long lost love in every new relationship, unable to savour each new association as it were.

Until we travelled to Australia this month.

One part of me wants to put words to every sight and smell and sound of the places we visited there. Tell you how beautiful and special it is. But the other part, the writerly one, tells me it will be a futile exercise. Suffice to say, what can be more delightful than clear blue skies stretched out as far as the eye can see, the ocean filling out the expanse underneath, just as blue or bluer, green in some patches, turquoise in others, surfers teasing the waves under their surfboards in graceful dance moves, the sun warm, and the ambience filled with joie de vivre? 

London, I will remember you sometimes. Like one remembers ex-lovers long after. With a strange fondness, having grown wiser and capable of more affection after a broken relationship. Knowing I have moved on. This time, without a shred of doubt.

Monday 24 September 2012

Grandma, I will always have a fond memory of you.



Grandma died today.
My paternal Grandma.

She was 85. Or 86. 
She would have turned a year older tomorrow, if one were to consult the Hindu calendar.

They say she was bedridden for a month, slowly losing her faculties. Incapable of speech, unable to eat, barely able to move by herself. 

The tears did not flow at first, not when Mom broke the news to me this evening. I shed them when Dad came to the phone later. My mother has died, he said simply.

My last memory of her is at the time of my cousin’s engagement ceremony in Madras. As is wont to happen in occasions such as these, there was the plethora of uncles and aunts and distant and not-so-distant cousins and their families and friends and their families and friends and their families and friends. I don’t believe that the cousin, whose engagement was being celebrated, was anything close to a celebrity to have warranted such a crowd. All the adults there had come to see Grandma. All the kids were being introduced by said adults to Grandma. She was the popular one. She always had been. They were all queuing up to greet her. I remember saying to her, “Look at these people queuing up to see you like devotees in a temple waiting to catch a glimpse of God.” My remark pleased her immensely and she did not let go of my hand for a long time that evening.

That will always be a fond memory. I remember little else about her. I wish I had known her well enough to feel the pain of loss. I only have some vague remembrances of brief visits to her house. In some other era. In my childhood.

I miss her. In some odd way. The way you miss the halcyon days of childhood and youth after they are long gone. You know it is lost forever, but you don’t halt there. Life moves on. And so do you.

I hope Dad is not hurting too much.

Death of a loved one always makes us confront our own inescapable mortality.

Take care of her, dear Cosmos. I hope you have taken her to some happier place.

It happened sometime this morning. At 8:45 am. I hope she slept well last night.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

In which I say to you "Hello, again"


God, or whoever created the Universe, must have had a fetish for rotundity. Why else would the earth be round or life come full circle? 


So let the Creator be blamed and tormented in Hell for driving me back to the handle ‘Impulsively Me’, which, I had first laid claim to more than five years ago. Or was it six? Doesn’t matter, not very much anyway now that I am back here and it feels as if I had never left.

On second thoughts, let me take that back. It does feel all new and familiar at the same time, much like trying to seduce a forgotten lover all over again. I try the same old tricks at first but damn, they won’t work anymore. And so we go in circles, you and me, round and round again. Eyes locked, lips quivering, hands on our hips, sweat on our brows, marking our territories on each other. Only this time I am wiser and I make no promises.