I could really use a wish right now.....

I was one of the few children in school who knew Santa was a myth, he didn’t exist. I lived in a desert where it didn’t snow and none of our houses had exclusive roofs let alone chimneys {we lived in flats}. And to top it all we don’t celebrate Christmas {my family isn't Christian}. But then again, deep down I’ve always liked to believe in things that others thought were balderdash.  I like to make a wish on a fallen eyelash, the first star I see in the sky, hope for good luck if I see two mynahs {starlings}. I waited for a letter from Hogwarts before I turned 11, dreamt that my ancestors had super powers that I inherited after it skipped a few generations or some such romantic claptrap.

I don’t know if magic, miracles or enchantments exist. I secretly like to believe they do but my rational side, measured and cut by experience and polished by dogmatic notions of reality hardly give a sliver of a chance for my esoteric side, rough-hewn as a result of doubt to take lead.

What I’ve always hoped would work is the magic of the smoke from birthday candles when you blow them out. It is almost surreally mesmerizing that something dynamic and consuming like a flame feeds from the depths of a saccharine dish, draws out the sweetness of hope and extinguishes into white-grey wisps of enchantment that twirl and twine around a breath full of wishes and transports it into magical realms. I don’t know if there will be cakes and candles today so I’d not like to allow this special request of mine to be left at the mercy of the vicissitude of birthday plans and decisions.

There is one path to miracles I’m absolutely sure of. Group prayers. You need not believe in God for this. Just the same little request escaping many lips at the same time creates a vibration of positivity so strong that not even the steely bars of cynical rationality of life can cage and thwart the fulfilment of any wish however itty-bitty it is. So this time around I’d like to ask that come 25^th of December  a fantabulous, strong, optimistic and lovely lady and writer named Erika can sleep peacefully without battling her arch enemies, phlegm and mucus, ever and also that her gorgeous baby Izzy {Izabella} can enjoy every single day without seizures, vomiting and other torments that her little being is subjected to on almost a daily basis. Erika was hoping for Dear Santa {who I’m sceptical about} to hear her out.

I hope every single one of you who is reading/reads this blog and this particular post; { although I know there aren’t many} and decide to don the Santa suit for a day because those two could really use a wish {and many more} right now. After reading this if you feel an urgent need to put my request into action and can't wait for Christ's birthday which is a fortnight away then please go ahead! If you think it takes a birthday to make magic happen then you are in luck, for today is a birthday too. Well, not Jesus Christ's but a 19 year old girl's. Inspite of all this if you've never had childhood fantasies of playing Santa then maybe just be nice and grant a Birthday Girl her wish: that another’s wish comes true.

Wishing I could cast spells,

Falak

Perceive-r-ance

As children my brother and I used to be overjoyed at the sight of stuffed shopping bags strewn all around the house. It spelt HOLIDAY. It promised us a vacation, new clothes and possessions, and the assured company of our parents and Grand mom for more than the prescribed 6 hours we saw them in a day. While shopping, we’d bump into friends, teachers and other families and have a gala time discussing holiday plans. What to buy for whom, choosing sari’s of myriad colours, soaps cakes, powder tins, cream bottles, jewellery and stacking it all away in suitcases, deciding what to assign to which relative were tasks of priority. Most of the time these shopping excursions culminated into eating out at our then favourite restaurant ‘Super’ which was anything but that. Who cared? The waiters knew our family history and we theirs, they had literally seen us grow up in front of them, doted on us, got us that extra dish without charging and we loved the unhealthy fried rice and chilly chicken. We never ordered. The minute one of the ‘uncles’ saw us our special was ready on the table.

I haven’t seen those people in 2 years. That restaurant has been demolished and a new one is coming up. I’m rambling now, going off at completely another tangent. It’s all beside the point I’m trying to make or maybe it really isn’t. I don’t like the sight of shopping bags around my room anymore. It ultimately means I’m leaving my family or they’re leaving me. I truly abhor shopping and hardly visit the mall that’s only a 3 minute drive from my house.  My friends would kill to live there. I don’t desire new clothes, new accessories, footwear, nothing. I don’t fancy passports and tickets especially when it says Mumbai-Dubai. And I’d kill to eat that unhealthy fried rice and chilly chicken every single weekend despite the fact that I’ll be complaining about piling on the pounds and will be even more under-confident in public that I already am. Do I feel at home in UAE? Honestly there are times when I feel like a Martian, completely out of sync with the drastic transformations in the life I once led, my schoolmates, the people I knew and the places I used to haunt. So if ‘Home’ ceases to feel like home; then does Mumbai feel like home? Can’t really say, because it’s difficult to lead two diversely separate lives. I can choose to adopt one and give up the other but I can’t. My UAE life is who I am and was; and my Mumbai life is who I am and will be/can be. Moreover, like my mother very succinctly puts it I’m a hoarder by nature and can’t let go of easily. So I amble from a set of 6 months to another surviving solely on the short holidays that pop up in between like greenery in a desert, compartmentalising friends, clothes, routines, hobbies and food into two sections: Mumbai and UAE.

My perceptions over the years have changed. Bags of joy now herald the advent of bleak-looking six months, life the way I lived it for 15 years has now been broken up into parts and the mention of fried rice and chilly chicken that made me flash a 250 volt smile now creates saline pools in my house. But I’m trying, trying really hard to change that, achieve a state of equilibrium and merge two disparate aspects of me and ameliorate into a whole, complete person. I hope perseverance helps me to perceive differently.

Meanwhile, seriously contemplating burning off those shopping bags,

Falak

Ardently, Fervently, Seflessly, Selfishly

So what has Falak been up to the last two weeks? There has to be a reason to substantiate her extended silence after the pledge she undertook to write continuously.

Answering my own question, she hasn’t been doing outrageously exciting things to keep her away this long from the blog. She was busy forging a temporary alliance with a certain individual by the name of God Almighty.

She was busy discussing ardently, alternatives to completely blanking out in front of her exam paper, methods to circumvent studying a syllabus of oceanic proportions, and having the brain power to remember enough to fill in the pages of the answer sheet. She was busy fervently formulating terms and conditions of treaties to sign, pacts to adhere to. Terms and conditions involved were: if only stuff I learn comes 3 coconuts for you, if I manage to remember everything I painstakingly mugged up; 51 rupees for you.

After sleeping continuously for 4 hours every day for the last two weeks, burying her head within her books, hardly eating for the fear of suffering from an upset tummy, refusing to step out of the house except going to college to meet her arch rival the papers, the marks-talks ended successfully. It was ratified by the council of Love with Falak having all her demands met at such short notice and God still waiting for his.

He’s still waiting without creating a ruckus, without impassioned appeals of ‘why me always?’, ‘I know you hate me’. Biding his time he’s still sticking around here.

Why though?

Simply because he believes in her.

But does she trust him as implicitly?

Do we?

A very, merry, exam-free soul.

Falak

Sonny side

Before you start reading just letting you know the words calignious, tenebrous, crepescular simply put mean dark..... I just wanted synonyms instead of using the same word again and again. I used a thesaurus. ;)

I haven’t written for a month and 19 days. I was planning on a little something to celebrate the 1^st birthday of the blog, wish it Bon Blogaversaire maybe. This blog does warrant that kind of gratitude on my part. There aren’t ample avenues or outlets available for an 18 year old to vent out her frustration and let go of her reticent nature bit by bit. 

Yes, a year back on the 13^th of August this blog was born as a cumulative effect of boredom, joblessness, the latent desire for positive recognition and a genuine, intrinsic love for words and language. But the day the blog turned 1 I got hit by an auto rickshaw. The accident in itself didn’t leave me much to remember it by, at least not the day I got hit. A random stranger from the same rickshaw helped me stand up from my horizontal position of repose on rain drenched tar, I went home in a partial stupor, got cleaned up and then was again on my way to college. The next day I couldn’t hoist myself out of bed: consequence of a sore neck, numerous bruised and aching body parts and a busted right leg that is still tender to touch. It was the closest I’d ever come to being killed. Already a multitude of events had led to a lot of mental unrest and turmoil. This ripped off the bronze lining on my characteristically Cimmerian cloud. And then there were the gratuitous interviews I gave to two departments that organised the college festival. The first rejection nipped at my heart but it didn’t hurt. The second rejection didn’t hurt. It nipped my craving to write at a very subterranean level.

My clouds of dark moods are as seasonal and expected as are the clouds of monsoon but rare have been the occasions where the hopes of a sunny day have been shattered. I don’t mind criticism or rejection when it’s straight forward and people come up to me and say “Falak, your writing sucks.” I might feel a little blue {but then who doesn’t} and recover shortly feeling grateful for the constructive criticism. But to have yourself and your writing lambasted within earshot is a crushing experience. The organiser of the second department, a classmate of mine did just that; very subtly without using names but just highlighting the gender and topic and a lot of choice expletives while describing ‘this girl’ to her friends. For weeks on an end I was recipient of filthy looks from her and every time I’d cringe within. That I guess was the last straw that broke the under-confident girl’s weak spirit. 

People with broken spirits take a vacation; it’s rejuvenating and helps you clear your head. When things became too much to handle I took a hiatus. The place I visited was stygian in its setting. It was perpetually night and the only recreation the people here {some tourists, some permanent residents} partook in was the masochistic pleasure derived from deriding self and ability. We emulated the citizens and conformed easily to their existence: denying ourselves the calorie-laden sweet meats of happiness, the sleep of the content person sure about their self-worth and salubrious dreams that provided exercise to the grey cells. I dined and wined myself to bursting point on the choicest dishes of self-doubt and tears served cold, visited museums and admired paintings of self-destruction and spent hours in theatres watching and analysing the entire diatribe meted out to me by OG extraordinaire which was replayed incessantly. The sky was forever nebulous and moonless when looked at from my tenebrous lodgings. Later I would aimlessly weave in and out of winding caliginous streets that kept going round in circles and bringing me back to the place I began from: I can’t write. I was such a law-abiding visitor that the authorities were planning to bestow an honorary citizenship on me and I was seriously perusing the possibility of accepting it.

I was handing in my letter confirming my endorsement of the same when a visitor was announced. She walked right in and I was blinded for a moment. The crepuscular evening was suddenly aglow with the luminosity of her being and the gloomy inhabitants scurried to bury themselves deep in the city’s labyrinths to avoid her resplendent smile. Everything about her had always been golden and light: gold streaked, brown hair, warm caramel eyes and that smile. She dragged me through the corridors, talking nineteen to the dozen, holding my wrists in a death-like vise. As she yanked me she illuminated the streets I used to walk in despair and suddenly I saw new paths that could lead me out of the circle. She tore up my citizenship papers which then blazed aflame in her hands. The same hands that warmed my entire being with a simple touch and eliminated the cold and numbness I had accustomed myself to. She started ranting about the evils of the vacation I had taken and threatened to wallop me black and blue the next time I gave her the slip and bolted. The idea of her hitting anyone {non-violent soul that she is} made me break into convulsions of laughter; pure gleeful laughter the sound of which I had almost forgotten. She got us both out of the hell-hole I had created within me and I assure you I haven’t stopped smiling and she hasn’t stopped talking {she never does} at all since then. If you don’t believe me, try looking for the elusive dimple that only appears when I’m really smiling. She’s still working on blotting out the memory of ‘I can’t write’ and to look straight into the eyes of Miss dirty looks and give her a cool smirk. We are making progress.

I just wanted to wish my blog a happy birthday and to thank You ‘Femme d’or’ who lit up my dark skies with a brilliant sun.

You truly are my Sonshine.

Love

Falak

Blast from the Past

Somehow my old poems just end up saving the day! I am upto my neck in work not only at college but at home too and thus end up neglecting my blog. And as icing on this messy, botched up {YET TASTY}cake called life I have decided to take up tuitions for a certain 23 year old girl from the coming week and the cherry on top is the upcoming french presentation I have which I still have to prepare for. This poem stands true for me with the same meaning and intensity that it did three years back. Hope you like it.


The End

How weird are the constraints of time
Which thus hold us back
That to make idle conversation
Of time we have lack

The breeze no longer I enjoy
In the rain I no more revel
No fault of mine it is for
On such innane pleasures I have no time to dwell

It’s ages since my feet
Has felt the grainy sand
For running I am always
Thus my feet hardly touch the land

Summer heat or autumn wind
Springtime cheer or wintry chill
Nowadays to me feel the same
I have no time to feel their thrill

In this constant hurdle race
A minute lost is a penny gone
Losers have no right to complain
Neither to look woebegone


The feel of a tree is a memory
Lost deep within the confines of my soul
In my life nowadays
Nature to play has no role

The warm bed, the waiting book
Are my companions of yore
Anything that isn't a matter of consequence
To me now is an eyesore


Healthy meals, friendly gossip
Has now in life no value
Months or years, I am not aware
Since I saw a fresh drop of morning dew

Gadgets are all around me strewn
They are my only existing associates
I think I now don’t even keep
In mind the visages of my playmates

Movies are a distant dream
My existence's ancient pleasure
Music is a bonanza
That my ears treasure

Fatigue is a climber
That around my body has coiled
Still I just don’t notice
As in my work deeply I am embroiled


A fresh cup of home made juice
Is an age since I drank
In my blood stream now caffeine
Holds the highest rank

Of beaches and of roaring waves
Of gurgling streams of whispering lakes
Nothing I know as with water I am
Related only for the showers I take

Its ages since my hair
Has wildly flown around my face
For says the common etiquette
That it better stay in its place

I earn and earn all the time
So for spending there is none left
I don’t know what life would mean
If of this money I am bereft

This override is taking its toll
Just as they told me it would
But no one understands that I would have tried
To battle it if I could

The only thought that gives me solace
Is that when my end approaches
Nature in the form of a wood pyre and the presence of loved ones
Will give me company and wipe away all my reproaches

History repeats itself

Hi to all
With the advent of the new academic year and playing simultaneously the roles of  "Mother " and "Sister" to my little brother {who has come to India for his studies now} and the sudden graduation from 'Young Adult' to 'Responsible Adult' has made blogging a luxury I simply can't afford for a few weeks to come until my Mummy Dearest flies down and holds the fort. Somehow my conscience keeps chiding me about neglecting my blog that has helped me meet so many wonderful people and also explore my creativity. So as atonement I decided to post something I wrote way back in 2006 when I was just a little kid { not that I feel any older now}.
Hope that disclaimer prepares you for the childish philosophy it is filled with. Maybe, you might like it and maybe not, but do leave your comments. My 14 year old self is curious to know how people would respond to the 'ME' of the past.
Happy Reading
Falak


EXPERIENCE


My life is constant winter
Something I never realized
For I kept holding on to what were
Moments of my life that I prized




Those weren’t the spring days I thought them to be
Nor the summer nights with a full moon
They were just the sudden bouts of sunshine
That God bestowed on a cold and clouded winter noon




Those sunbeams that warmed my cold heart
So they did for a little time
Were just like the rain clouds that made a farmer
Hope that all things would be fine




The happiness that enveloped me
Knew no limits nor bounds
And such was the intensity of the cold wind
That was sharp, cutting and profound




The sunbeam that gave me joy then
And the chill that the sudden wind gave
Were the ones who in my life
The path to maturity pave




The spring I longed for always
If it came I never knew
But the wind that hurt me always
Never stopped and still ble




My strength lies in the cold wind
That made me forever strong
It blew forever in my ears
A meaningful long song




The sunbeams still keep coming
I simply let them be
For when I’m lone and cold all over
It’s only the wind that keeps me company




The warmth of the sunbeam I still love
But no longer do I depend on them
For now I’m the sturdy young tree
That grew a woody bark from its weather-beaten, delicate stem

Guess Who Came To Tea!

“I’ll cook”, said I and saying so, very enthusiastically made my way into the kitchen to make Tomato soup or my version of what I thought it was. I am a decent enough cook and I know that if no one else will my brother for sure will vouch for my culinary skills. He'd better, after all the pastas, sandwiches and whatnots I made for him. I was busy chopping, sautéing, pounding, washing and marvelling at the joy cooking gives me. When I am on my cooking spree I am in what some people may refer to as ‘a state’. I tend to be overtly elated, boisterously jovial and am predisposed to overlook the little things around me. For instance how I came skipping out of the kitchen in high spirits balancing a plate full of humungous just washed tomatoes without realising that my uncle who had come home a few minutes back had brought a friend from work along with him. On becoming aware of the new person I sheepishly made my way back into to kitchen mentally admonishing myself for having made an accidental display of my crazy state. Once back in the kitchen I was in the company of my mother who was busy making potato bhajias.



“Who’s that?” I asked her stirring my saucepan full of chopped garlic and onions. “He’s your uncle’s colleague, don’t you know him? He’s come here many a times before and likes your brother a lot!” replied mummy dearest. “Maaaaa” I drawled, “I don’t live here for most part of the year or have you forgotten that now?”


My mother winked and gave me a lopsided smile. We then returned to our specific cooking chores. She went back to frying potato bhajias and I went back to sautéing onions. When the bhajias were done I went to serve the guests with a plate of the same come hot off the stove. The guest smiled fondly and said to my uncle “My daughter too is only as tall as she is”. I smiled sweetly and went back to my chopping at the same time listening to the conversation that ensued between my uncle and his friend. “Ahh, she is now, is she?” How old is your daughter?” and general things like that. Suddenly our guest states forlornly “Daughters grow up too quickly”, which my mother who came out of the kitchen with a fresh batch of bhajias affirmed saying “Yes, you’re absolutely right!


Munching on bhajias my uncle filled in his friend about me, “She studies in India now, in Bombay. All of us go to India on vacation but this girl comes here to vacation!” and saying so they shared a laugh over my mixed up life.”


Listening to him speak I realised he was speaking in Urdu, so he had to be from someplace up North in India and most probably would be a Muslim. He confirmed my hunch by telling my uncle how the same bhajias are made at his house during Ramadan and how his daughter would make yummy kebabs. ‘There comes the daughter again” I thought smiling inwardly. I wondered how much the poor man must be missing home cooked food, his daughter and family who weren’t with him in the UAE ...


“These bhajias are really delicious!” said my uncle’s friend. “Please have some more, don’t hesitate”, persuaded my mother and uncle simultaneously at which our guest took a few more. He seemed to me to be a timid, gentle kind of person with his quiet and considerate countenance and soft spoken voice which had the exotic lilt indigenous to Urdu speaking persons, reminding me of my Pakistani friends from school. I offered him some juice to go with the snacks which he accepted after a lot of cajoling on our part. “Thank you Beta, God bless you” said he with a lot of feeling. He seemed like an amiable soul.
As my mother and I were seeing my uncle and his friend off, we gave them a few more of the bhajias wrapped in tissue on their way out.


“Oh please! There is no need for all this!” exclaimed our guest. “It’s okay, take some for the road.” We said.


Smiling he took it once again reiterating how delectable he found them and how wonderful our garden looked and it was such a pleasure to the eye to witness open green spaces in a country where you associate houses with cooped up flats. We thanked him and after waving them goodbye came back in.


“Where is he from?” I asked my mother. “Kashmir” she said, busy scrubbing vessels. “Yeah, it’s kind of evident from the way he speaks and all.” I replied.
“He’s from the Pakistani side of Kashmir, the one there, not the one in India”, my mom added. “Oh!” I mumbled lost in deep thought while my hands prepared the soup automatically.


I’ve known Pakistanis practically all my life. I’ve had best friends who are Pakistanis at some point of time in my school life or the other. I’ve shared food with them, sat on the same bench, gone on school picnics, cheered for our school houses, fought with them over India-Pak cricket matches, watched the same Indian movies and sang the same bollywood songs. Then at some point of time they opted for the International syllabus whereas I continued with the Indian syllabus. Then we lost touch and they became memories of my childhood. Having lived for the past 3 years in India they have become more of the arch enemies that most Indians in India who have never seen a Pakistani in flesh and blood consider them to be than the friends of my memories.


This particular visit from this man only enumerated certain facts I already was aware of but temporarily forgot.
1) People across the border have daughters they dote on and miss like hell.
2) They are reminded of Pakistani daughters when looking at an Indian girl the same age and not of daggers and knives.
3) They behave like the perfect Indian guest: refuse some, thank a ton, bless a child.
And the most important fact,
4) They too love potato bhajias.......



Yours enjoying the Tomato soup and bhajias,
Falak