Stocking..

Am inspired by article in paper to make Wish List. Apparently, some secret Santa type individual, (who will first have to read my extremely subtle blog) will do needful.

* I wish wish wish for miracle project that will not be pretentious, downright business like or inane and will instead be mind numbingly perfect and hencefoth change my life.

* Make that two.

* Magical potion that fights flexible Indian hips and will allow me to eat absolutely anything. This wish to also be merged with being stuck in Hershey factory for very long.

* Three months in lonely English mansion holed up with a certain author, and writing his memoirs. It must be raining outside and we must not ever need to go out for anything. There must be no doorbell either.

* Closetful of pretty flat shoes. Refer to Piggy's post for exact description.

* 5.45 a.m must become bearable. I wish to not start every morning with desire to sleep till 12.

* Anand will magically enjoy Japanese food and proceed to get drunk on Sake.

* I will wake up one morning magically fit and not be reduced to humiliating puffer on track behind runners. I will also attain insane flexibility and show off stretches at the stadium that no one else can do. (Warning that this surpasses the rest where possibility is concerned and must therefore rely entirely on magic.)

* Superstar will call me patient, organized, calm and paragon of virtue. And will bow before my tap-turning-off ways.

* Love will continue to amaze me.

* Superstar will decide to take us to Vienna for all expenses paid trip.

* I will be able to bake extraordinary dessert.

* All paedophiles will rot in collective sewer for rat type people.

* I will have overcome fear of heights before thirtieth birthday.

* Also marriage.

* By some strange inheritance, Cinema Paradiso will turn out to be mine and so will my three favourite bookshops.

* I will still love everyone I do today when I'm ninety and they will too.

* Santa will turn out to be entirely desirable sports personality with red hat and charming smile, whose whole life's mission it is to make me happy.

Attrition..

Last night we saw something beautiful. Naturally perfect, sitting there, on that smoothly polished surface that seemed created uniquely. The angle was just right, the lights softly caught the odd imperfection put there to assure one of reality. Reflections of a glassy red ashtray shone through with friendy ardour. The single engraving, almost a dent, dimpled up at me enchantingly. Coffee gold is a colour, I sighed to myself.
We were a little wary though. Perfection is misleading and often has disturbingly disappointing interiors. We gingerly listened in silence. And the sounds lifted us up, enveloping in their simplicity and full of promised intensities.
This is the one we want. Or at least the kind that deserves to be longed for.
Sigh.
Why would he have terrible feet?

Separately, I felt a bit sad with something I discovered yesterday. Also slightly glad. I had been really confused for a bit. I couldn't get how someone could go from being dedicated and full of potential to average mediocrity within a few days. I could be terribly brilliant at dancing tonight and really bad at it tomorrow? How does that work? I was reading one really bad poem that had this decent last line when it sort of made sense. How good or awful I am as a dancer, really has to do with how I feel about dancing. Reverence, honesty, commerce, conflict, love, lust...how you treat the art form/ person/ even object, is returned or rewarded in full force by the art form/ person/ even object in question.
Scary I say.
I cant dance, but there are plenty of days I grudgingly do something connected to what I love.
And I've seen very closely how easy it is to slip into being average despite having potential.

Pepto Bismol anyone?

I'm going to archive a bit. This is a bit of a gummy pasty collage that I want to not forget or lose within the various journals, scraps of paper ( My biggest moments are hastily scribbled onto various flyaway sheets!), photos, letters etc etc collected over the years.
These are the ones that stuck, that always make me grin, the nauseatingly sweet ones, the funny sad ones...the bits that I'm afraid will drown inside my cellphone rehearsal noisy life.


Sand...big, huge, sporadically wet piles of it in school, that I allowed to invade my black shoes and white socks..

Lying on wet grass in the only garden home that I've ever lived in. Clean fresh air and my dad's alarming attempts at barbecueing.

Swimming when I was tiny...with dad in the sea. One palm against my middle was how he ensured I didnt get washed away by a wave.

Winning. I've always loved the feeling since I was old enough to win. Even if it was a small birthday party game. It gave me a thrill that only my work has replaced over the last few years.

My wobbly little sister , following me around and earnestly growing up wanting to be me. ( Now she wants to be Angelina Jolie. )

My grandmother. We were both certain that neither of us had kissed any single person as much as each other.

Finding books that would change my life.

The first song that was sung to me. Oh I loved this absolutely. Stars in my eyes in the moment and all that.
Now that shes back in the atmosphere
With drops of jupiter in her hair,
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that theres time to change,
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like june, hey, hey

Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there

Now that shes back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation,
She checks out mozart while she does tae-bo
Reminds me that theres time to grow
I wish it were possible to feel that age again.


The phonecalls with my best friend in school. No conversation was enough.


"You capture my imagination."
Person in question currently does not notice if I get a haircut. Or a second head I think. It must be all the glamour. Snicker.

A 56 hour conversation with a stranger that stormed into and out of my life.

Feeling freedom.

My first cat. I made him smell of peach shampoo.

January and the telephone call that promised Someday.

Discovering that food and creating it was intoxicating.

Discovering the Pencils.

Laughing with Superstar.

My first flat. The feeling of ownership and possession.

Feeling. Wondering if I'm in love.


I suppose there'd be more if I tried. I dont want to. They'll come.

Airplane story

I think I'm a little too absolute about my Pencils.

Its who I am. Ever since I've had formed thought, they've mesmerized me, and drawn me..towards a lifetime of worship and adoration. They define me and define the life I live, the food I eat, the relationships I forge, break, endure, exhaust. They are me, I am them. They give, I hungrily take. I give, they seem fed and nourished by the constant love I feel. They freely possess me, just as I possess them. There are my moments of doubt, despair, suspicion, angst. They reach out and reassure me with the sacred connection we have.

I've met people over the years and been close, or held hands, or felt indifference or boredom or thrilled....and the Pencils have always had something to do with it. It was how they had influenced the bond, that defined the worth of it to me. It was them that I wanted to be nearer as I drew nearer to men and women. It was them that kindled conversations and more. And them that led to diffidence or suitcases. If A loved a Pencil he had seen last year, and B used to collect them in school, I was excited. If C had a lucky Pencil and D drew for years, I was hooked. They, and their fleeting images in the faces that I met, became all I wanted and held on to. And the minute I saw that connection slip, the minute I felt that reverence fade, even a little, I felt nothing or less for the face or film in question.

And then I met the rest of us. Every now and then, as I grew and sought, I discovered kindred spirits. That adored and were ignited similarly. It was like finding a home. That I could not bear to be separated from. Or even momentarily parted with. And I carefully, painstakingly built that home and that life and within that, a me, that nobody could take away my beloved Pencils from. My world revolves around them and finally I had filled my surroundings with the few that could see and sustain me.

One day, a very special one left. I was bewildered, confused and hurt. The Special One had loved them just as much as I did. The rest loved them, but were not replenished and exhausted and dependant on them as we were. And for the first time I had found one of them that would and had, given his life to the Pencils. What could possibly replace that? What fantastic occurence could change a devotion that had given us more joy than what most people are entitled to? It seemed that I mattered more than the Pencils and that I was expected to have a life where they took second place?? We etched out a long, bitter parting that will haunt us both forever. and violently , suddenly broke into two halves.

Life went on. The Pencils were there and all I needed. The rest was found in strong connections that if not equally, did cherish, in their own way, the magic of the Pencils. I had, however, begun to feel a nervous fear. I guarded the pencils jealously. Nobody was allowed to degrade them or taint my sacred shrine the way The Special One had. Weaknesses were intolerable to me and only the Questions prevented fanaticism.

The Questions were what made the Pencils beautiful. People asked and the Pencils softly answered for themselves, smiling indulgently at our collective outraged arrogance. They were so true and pure and gentle in their stature, that most people fell willing slaves. I laughed with joy to see the inflow and its quality was of no distress. As long as I and a few others and those far greater than us stood still in our cause and the joy it gave us, the Pencils were safe. I was safe, and happy. they had made me a better person.

Then I began to want it again - the companionship that sharing brought. Where the wonder for the Pencils was the connection between two selves. Where the joy was mirrored at the discovery of that fantasy world....and where nothing mattered more. I guess a part of me needed to see that image in someone else, for the strange shared fulfilment that love translates into.

I saw a friend form. I saw a growing attachment in her for the pencils. And that peculiar talent to understand them as only a few of us can. I saw her revere those great men and women, lovers of my loved ones, with some strain of what I felt. Something in me wanted that desperately to form wholly and be bigger, brighter perhaps, than what it was destined to be.

She glimmered in the potential of shining and seemed to reflect that light of purity that defied age and boundary and represented instead only greatness in the future.

I saw it eagerly once, was captivated on the second, third glimpse and had greedily convinced myself of the third.

And then it shattered, when I saw that it was not the Pencils, that fuelled her, and instead, the words they could write. For her. The tragedy lay in how simple it was, how undramatic sorrow is and how deep disappointment can dig.
I got greedy. And in some ways I think the Pencils punished me. She will find her own path, and I have found mine. Its all mine and perhaps for some time to come, only mine.

I think she saw some part of my hurt. Not all or most of it because she hardly understands. But some part.I loved her deeply and will continue to do so. I have grown and suspect that this will be one of those permanent bonds. And in that, perhaps The Special One was right. There is more to life than the Pencils. Its just that, the Pencils are my life. More, is what they bring me.

Update..

Well, travel and much illness has followed me around faithfully.

Yesterday, for the first time in a very long time, I atually felt like I was recovering. I actually felt healthy. I kid you not, to someone who's been that ill, this is a step short of salvaton.

And a little sad because I was going to be letting go of a part of me that represented purity and innocence and a 3 centimetre dream that I suddenly, insanely wished was real.

I met family and friends and strangers who had watched me grow up. Most of them seemed unreal. Wanted to constantly know why I had grown so much. I kept explaining that tragically, there wasn't even a centimentre to add to the medium length that I'd been a year and a half ago. My grandmum thinks I'm too thin. Yet, she keeps bringing up strange men who've never met me, and insisting that the time is ripe to harvest with one of them.

My cousin looked pronouncedly happy as she declared me fatter from my last visit. Her pierced chin was the cause of many merciful distractions though.

I met a writer, who, lke most writers, seemed on the lookout for a readymade muse. Since I had only one small suitcase and a ticket back home, I think I fit the bill. He was interesting in that he seemed to be mesmerised by attributes that I am unfortunately certain I do not possess. However, he made my phonecalls back home more animated. He also gave me a book (The Edible Woman...yes, I have not yet lived that down) with the first page filled with suitably mournful prose and we parted on the note that I reminded him of his aunt.

I also discovered brightly coloured markets that were such a joy to trudge through. And I happily bought gifts at twice their price.

I'm back now. With lots to do and get done. Sigh.