I Smell 2011...

Open every window you pass. You never know what you may find on the other side.

Like every other blogger, I too will post a tribute to 2010. What a year! It's one of those things that seem to have ended so quickly, yet left behind so many memories, I wonder where there was time for it all. People came, people left, people stayed, people remained out. I have so many regrets, but it's all compensated by harbored gratitude.

I learnt many things. I understood that "trust" is a word, now twisted around to mean "feel close to". I understood that you only dislike those you don't know too well, for you cannot get yourself to hate those you've known, and you cannot get yourself to like those you don't get. I understood that people who use cliches and cheesy lines to describe life, are just trying to look for comfort instead of making it on their own. I understood that there will be hoards of people who do something better than you, and you're only demeaning yourself by trying to demean them- suck it up and accept that you need to work harder. I understood that dance is poetry in motion, that theater is a more comprehensive expression and that art in general is the best catharsis. I understood that diets only make you more hungry, and that exercise is of no use if it isn't done regularly.

I learnt that prioritizing means losing somethings and being okay with it.

I learnt that the only thing one finds funny, is difference. If it isn't something you are used to, it isn't ordinary, and therefore laughable at. We only laugh at those who do not fit our prescribed list of things that are conventionally normal or regarded good. You laugh at effeminate men, at fat people, at clumsy people. They make you laugh because they aren't part of your "ordinary". It's difference that brings variety to life. If it weren't for difference, we'd all look the same, do the same things, talk the same way, think the same thoughts. Where's the diversity in that? Where's variety in that? Where's the colour in that? I learnt to respect difference. I learnt to be laughed at.

The new year is an indication of a future. The first of January could just be the beginning of another year, but it's the universe's way of gifting you a new beginning, 'cos you may never get around to doing new things by yourself. It's a push towards a chance to live it up, and live it good! It's the commencement of more expectations and anticipations. It's a promise of so many things to come, leave, stay in or remain out.

It could be twelve months of more learning, fifty two weeks of progressing, three sixty five/six days of accomplishing, but never eight thousand seven sixty six hours of living in the past. Look forward to every new day because let's face it, even monotony isn't that monotonous anymore.

See what's in store for you, this decade. Take it as it comes. Smile as you take it. Mean it when you smile. Feel it when you mean it. Be it when you feel it.

'Appy two oh double one!

Love Twist

"Day and night, your name I chant,

Name it now, whatever you want!

I'll never say 'no', 'no way', 'I can't',

Tell me now, don't tease, don't taunt.

I'll scoop the clouds in a silver spoon,

Cut up a thick slice of the moon.

Perhaps you want July in June,

I'll give you all, I'll make you swoon!

Is it a magical palace that you desire?

Hot snow, or cold fire?

I'll crown you queen, they'll call me sire

Serve you forever, they'll never tire.

I'll wrap up a rainbow in a pretty box,

Beautiful gowns, flowers, antique clocks!

Give you small diamonds in Santa's socks,

I'll take you through Eden on many long walks.

Tell me now, don't make me wait

I love you, Oh, don't hesitate!

We are together, it's our fate,

Say the word before it's late."

She looked about, where they were

Smiled, stroked her hair as soft as fur

She pointed behind him and let out a purr,

Said so softly...

"I want her".

?

If your walking stick led you to muck

If your corrective lens cracked into your eyes

If your encyclopedia gave wrong facts

If your dictionary misspelled a word

If your mirror showed someone else's face

If your heart decided to rest for a minute with no beat

If the ground below you decided to give way

If the air you breathe in turned to stone

If you can simply trust no more...

What will you do?

Sand in My Shoes...

They say it takes two to tango. Really? I don't think they realized it takes just two to turn the world upside down too. The two whose unstoppable laughter makes everyone else wonder what was SO funny. The two who can just about dance with each other to even the most non-rhythmic music. The two who, no matter how long a separation, are up to date with each other's lives within a few minutes. The two who need each other to strike a balance between impulse and patience. The two who are labelled "crazy" by everyone in the group. The two who are always asked to shut up. That's what we've been for close to seven years now.

Ever pondered over the being of a coin? The two faces are completely different from one another, yet absolutely inseparable, unless cut with some sort of special tool, I have no knowledge of. I'm heads. She needs me to keep her grounded, soothe the volatility that ignites in her at the drop of a hat. She's tails. I need her for all the fun, the hyperactivity and the special spark in an otherwise dull day.

I puke my liver out, and she tells me I look beautiful while holding my head and turning the tap on. She cleans it all up, refusing to let anyone else come near, and then gleefully says she loves taking care of me. Though, when it was my turn to return the favor, I wasn't quite so gleeful.

She is that friend who I feel I need to be around for. I need to listen to the smallest of her problems and give that confused child some optimism. Even though she's found her sunshine (albeit a severely dimmed one), I want to be there for every bad decision she makes, just to say "Should have listened to me". I can just see us wreaking havoc in the old age homes together.

I know I'm going to be there for every grey hair that eats up her silky black locks. I'm going to spoil her kids, rotten! Hell, I'm going to be there for every step she takes, right or wrong. I'm going to be watching forever, and even she cannot take me off her map. That's the kind of liberty I can take with her, the way I can take with no one else. I can yell at her, I can insult her, I can snub her, I can slap the living daylights out of her, and even she cannot say anything. She WILL not say anything because our love is understood.

She will always be that person who turns me into a child. We will never cease to find each other funny, regardless of how much the world may scorn at us. She will always remain a yearning intellectual, who can never see her own smarts. Exasperatingly dolorous, though she may be, that quirkiness will forever be part of her existence.

She forgets dates.

She writes poems that don't rhyme.

She gets hurt easily.

She loses her temper like the Knight Riders lose matches.

She eats ten times as much as an average woman does.

She thinks too much.

She talks too much.

She reads too much.

She writes too much.

She can be very spiteful.

She listens to amazing music.

She played Basketball with me.

She danced with me.

She caused many a stir in school.

She banged on benches, sang and ate everyone's lunches in school.

She's explicit about all unnecessary sort of information.

She makes me laugh.

She shows me fun.

She speaks more than she listens, and yet

She gets it.

So many years together, and yet so little I can say. How can I sum up some of the most eventful days of my life in a few words? How can I describe the kind of understanding we share in any words at all? You need to be us to know it.

We've made so many memories, so many stories together. The day we start reminiscing will be... Well, let's just say that once again people will ask us to shut up.

We won't. :)

Food For Thought

I see them eating fried food,

Crunch, munch and gulp

I see them drinking juices,

So rich with all that pulp

Their bite marks in melting chocolate,

That chaat they gobble down

I watch them eat their chicken roll,

They wonder why I frown

That smell of egg, a whiff of spice

The half-empty bottle of coke

They watch me eat up my veggies,

I wish they would all just choke!

Cookies, cream, cake and candy

Butter, biscuits, bread and brandy

A little taste in my tongue would come in handy

A little food in my tummy, fine and dandy

Because...

When you're chubby like me,

You'd be a riot

That's why I'm under a

Stupid GM diet

Too late.

She lay there, thrown on her soft, yellow sheets, clutching hard onto the wholesome red cushions that sat beside her. The room was silent and dimly lit, the only sound being the continuous monotonic grunt of the old air-conditioner. Over the tears that rolled down her cheeks, staining the light yellow of her bedspread, she thought fleetingly about getting that dammed mechanised breeze-blower fixed. Absolute peace? More like obsolete peace. But it wasn't the AC's fault. The voices in her head relentlessly spoke like dramatic mike tests, giggling and laughing as though mocking her weakness, translated into sobbing. They only made her cry harder. She was almost breathless, her cushion drenched. She lifted her swollen, red, moist face up and looked around.

Was weeping a sign of weakness and cowardice? Was she really not as bold as she wanted to be? But why did this process of leaking from one's eyes, feel so emancipating? She justified it to herself saying the tear-shed will lift her out of pain and give her the energy to fight it.

She got out of bed, splashed water on her face, stared into her own bloodshot eyes. She could not hide her true state, by blaming it on cutting onions. Insert shrill sound of a car horn. On wiping her face with an extra-absorbent turkey towel, she gulped down half a bottle of water and stepped out.

There she saw him standing with a look of anxiety on his face.

"Why did you call me in such a hurry? What is the matter? Why are your eyes so puffy? Your face is pale! Oh, Lord.. Your nose is red! Wha-"

"STOP!"

His mouth half open, he stood there, searching her face for answers.

After ten excruciating seconds of silence she finally spoke.

"I'm pregnant."

Now it was his turn to look pale. She wanted to walk away to give him some time alone, so he could process the information. But as she turned to go, he grabbed her arm and gripped tight, piercing his fingers into her skin.

"I am not the father. You understand?"

"But you are."

"No. Memorize this. I. Am. Not. Your. Child's. Father."

"Are you accusing me of being unfaithful?"

"Whatever the hell it's called. There is NO part of me inside you!"

She knew that persistence would only pay in his bursting a vein, so she simply stood, waiting. He shuffled about, fidgeting, looking more edgy than a nervous pre-school kid, just about to ascend the stage to deliver his very first speech. She laughed inside, at the comparison.

"Get rid of it. I'm not paying bills, running to the hospital or lying to people about why my girlfriend is putting on so much weight, all of a sudden."

"I am not killing my first child. I am going to come clean about it to my mother this evening. She will erupt, but she knows that at the end of the day, it's another human being growing inside of me. She won't abandon me. I'll take care of this child on my own. I've seen this scene in movies, read it in books. You know. The whole breaking-the-news-to-the-father routine. I just didn't think it would be the exact same enactment in reality too."

"You can't raise that thing on your own. You need me"

"I did the only thing a woman can't do on her own, with you. Conceive. Leave the rest of it to me."

She took a few steps away, did a graceful one eighty degree turn and said "And by the way, that "thing" happens to be your child. Your insides are inside me, deny it all you want. They are making another person in there. A real goddam person."

She felt satisfied at how dramatically choreographed her parting lines were.

A real goddam person. That he helped make. It began to sink in. He loved her. But now he felt a sudden emerging love for something that did't exist just yet. Something that felt like a physical part of him; as if his own arm had grown into a new life form. A bittersweet excitement. He felt like cutting his own tongue off for saying those disgusting things to her. For saying those awful things about his own, little new human, just a few months away from slipping its button-sized, cotton soft hands into his fatherly grip. He had to stop her. He had to tell her he would be there for every inch her stomach grew.

He turned around with a smile.

"Hey, lis-"

THUD. Her body flew and skid, stopping right at his feet.

The loud sound of vehicle horns, punctuated with yelling voices. The sight of her face scraped, covered in blood. The gathering crowd.

The scene faded into a dizzy blur...

I Have a Friend...

They say you can travel the world, see new faces, visit new places, but you always want to come back home. The familiarity and acquired comfort, draws you back in, like Jerry's instantaneous swerving-through-the-air along the trail of the fragrance emanating from a block of cheese in the distance. Home: The conviction of being known, loved and probably even appreciated. You could be caught in social tangles, stuck in mercenary webs, or struggling out of the quick sand of romance, but there will be something your eyes open themselves up for, at any given moment. A place that you call your own.

I have a lot of things I can call my own. A lot of things I feel connected to. People, places, perfumes. Yet, my home is a boy I call my best friend. I could love a hundred people, laugh with them, do everything I want to do. But it will always come down to that chubby white face, with silky black hair falling on the forehead, incessantly producing nasal whines from the slightly chapped lips of a boyishly handsome self. Everyone knows his name. He struts about wearing his ethnic Fabindia kurtas, branded jeans, gathering crowds everywhere to giggle and gossip with, to no end. He knows what you did last Christmas.

"Step one, you say we need to talk..." we sing along with 'The Fray', sitting together by the shore. Picturesque, really. Long walks, intense talks. We've done it all. He hasn't been with me too long, but he's never not going to be a part of my bustling life. Yes, he has no time sometimes, what with being cursed with extreme popularity. Yes, I get mad at the way he prioritises. Yes, he whines and broods about the smallest of things. Yes, he craves drama.

"I love you", he says. To everyone.

"I miss you", he says. To everyone.

"You're my best friend", he says. To everyone.

"Seeeeeeeemaaaa", he says. To me.

And no matter how grotesquely upset I am with him, I grin. That attention-seeking social butterfly does it to me. He understands. He knows what makes me feel better. He knows I'll be there for him at any given minute of my life, despite my detached exterior.

He squeaks like a girl and sings like Justin Beiber, trying to put out the fire on his behind. But gets away with it. He makes everyone laugh. Looks to most like he's always in need to be in the spotlight. He is. But there's a little child in him, constantly in introspection, moping away with insecurities. How can you resist loving a brat, like that?

He cries like a baby, spreads secrets, brags, yells, laughs, thinks he's the best thing that has happened to the world. He wins.. Everything, everywhere.

We defy the theory of 'When Harry Met Sally'. A boy and a girl really CAN just be friends. Some believe us, most don't, others think we're cousins. We laugh at the non-believers.

What does he do to me? He gives me things to remember and smile about. He makes me want to yank out my diplomacy and love him most. He makes me laugh. He already has my wedding planned. He gives me ego boosts. He makes me feel comfortable. He gives me new friends. He listens and participates during my drama queen phases. He makes my family believe I'm in good company. He tries to make a woman out of me. He mothers me. He needs me to mother him. He buys me food. He gave me windy bike rides. He gave me an eventful life. He gave me a six foot something gift, that defines my 'forever'.

Now he's going away. To the land where The Thames boasts just as much as he does. To the land where he'll find more things that eat up his time for me. My home is leaving home.

Where will I stay?