THE SHINING

Imagine.

A simple 7 lettered word, but very potent. A state of mind as well as a journey…..

For me the journey started almost 15 years back with simple bedtime stories.

My dad would tell us stories; my brother and me. Bedtime stories for us didn’t mean being read out classic fairytales from books in English with glossy covers. I learnt to speak English when I started school and that is when I was introduced to The Princess Brigade and made friends with Cinderella, Snow White and the rest of them dainty damsels.


My bedtime stories were about an African elephant; a brave elephant, who was the chief of his herd and lead them through a number of adventures through the dangerous and exciting jungles of Africa. Wrapped up in our blankets, snuggling close to our dad I remember begging him for a new story every night. All the poor man would have wanted to do I am sure is sleep his fatigue away but he’d never once turn away and go to sleep. He’d try and stall. Maybe tell us he’d say an interesting one tomorrow and to just sleep off the desire to hear one today but never once did he ever out rightly deny us a story telling session. Once tucked into our huge king sized bed dad would crawl in and ask “Ok, so what story do you want to hear tonight?”

The days the question never popped out of him were a sign of the extent of his exhaustion. Daddy really had to be bushed to refuse us a story.

I loved the elephant. He was so brave, so courageous, so exotic. He also had children: baby elephants who’d lead the herd when they’d grow up. Lying their in our dark bedroom with moonlight streaming in and creating eerie shadows, my father’s silhouette visible against the muted moonlight and my brother kicking me between the sheets I used to imagine in my mind’s eye the thick jungles of Africa and the enormous rivers that meant so much to these elephants. I used to imagine them migrate from dry, parched lands of their forefathers destroyed by wily, selfish human beings and go in search of greener pastures. Their brave escapades, scraps with lions {Wow!} which they obviously won and their ability to make medicines out of wild herbs for every wound possibly imaginable was riveting enough to keep me thinking late into the night, imagining. The days daddy did go to sleep I’d stay awake in bed thinking of the myriad situations possibly thinkable in a young child’s head. I’d imagine how the planet would have been before the arrival of humans and bleep: all mankind would vanish and a desert would remain in my head. Then I’d wonder what the universe looked like without earth and suddenly an image of all the planets revolving around the sun with the earth conspicuously missing would emerge. Then I’d try to imagine what everything would have looked like before the universe and then everything would just black out in my head. Then I’d screw my eyes shut tight, in concentration, trying to imagine something other than black because black is a colour and well, you only have colours in the universe not outside it. Then I’d get a terrible headache and fall asleep.
My father is an extraordinary story teller. I don’t say this just because he’s my father but because he really does have the knack to put across a story. His narratives were and still are always detailed. How the forest looked, the time of the day, the noises around, how the elephant looked with acute details regarding physical and emotional characteristics of the protagonists. It aided my effort to imagine, to recreate what he was imagining inside my head. He is also adept {as many who know him well, especially my mother would agree} at spinning yarns of a bizarre variety. You can call them fabrications, tall tales, lies excuses, whatever. The fact was that no one can come up with situations and reasons like he can, with the snap of a finger. It would seem almost natural, like a reflex action, the speed at which he would come up with stuff as if it was all there stored up in his head.


The best part about our tale-telling session was that not a single story I heard from him was in English. Not one. It was always in my mother tongue which is anything unlike English. My African elephants spoke my mother tongue.


The days my mother would come to put us off to sleep we’d be assured of a good laugh the next day. My mom was and is a working mom and works twice as hard as other moms. So that implies she’s twice as tired and that means she falls asleep twice as fast when she hits the pillow. While putting us off to sleep she’d be the first to doze off and relentless requests for a night time fable would result in disjointed sentences about
“There was a lion who was the king of the jungle…. Silence….. Mommy ? Hmph…. Yeah, he went to war and got hurt…..Mommy? {accompanied by a nudge in the ribs} Hmmmm…. And did you sweep the kitchen? The sink needed washing….you didn’t?”


Somehow the fact that household chores haunted my mothers dreams tickled me so much that I’d burst into peals of laughter with my brother which we’d later manage to smother, in an attempt to not wake up our drained mother.

My mother’s claim to fame was the letters she wrote: reams and pages of it to my grandmother who then lived away from us in India. I would always hear {and still do} my relatives exclaim in awe about her detailed descriptions and fluency of language. She is still the epitome of beautiful handwriting in our family. Funny thing is that she wrote my Gran in English who’d then have it translated by one of her nieces or nephews.
My Gran too is not far behind on the concocting- stories- front. The best part about having my Gran tell you a story, a real life incident or the episode of a show you missed is that by the time she tells you all of it there will be a lot of additions and deletions to suit her tastes. A lot more ‘masala’ would be the appropriate term. Even her emotions and reactions are always excessive to the action that triggers it in the first place. I always felt that she would have done very well as an actor. My dad thinks that if we’d sent her into movies or serials {and in Indian movies and serials emotional mothers always play an important role and capture the hearts of audiences} we’d have become millionaires by now. For my Gran everything has to have drama and be melodramatic; even emotions. Else life is never fun.
The best thing about mom was she was a book worm: an avid, voracious reader. I still remember her entire collection of books which I wasn’t meant to read since they ‘were books for big people’.

To oblige my curiosity she got me some of my own. It started with baby editions of Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, moving on to my favourite: - Enid Blyton. The first time I read her collection of short stories I felt I’d get a headache {I felt the same when I read Harry Potter for the first time, so you can imagine} but soon I was fast friends with gnomes, pixies, fairies, elves and friendly witches. I had images, of what I thought they’d look like burnt into my brain accompanied by my deductions of what the English landscape looked like. From then on there was no looking back and thus started my lifelong affair with books.

I’ve moved on since Enid Blyton and my African elephants and grown up enough to realize that not all mythical creatures actually fit my description of them and that the African elephants were a part of a series of stories my daddy learnt way back in school. Then somewhere along the lines I wrote a song, some short stories in school, and few bizarre essays about magical women in red who haunted empty woods riding a white horsed sleigh, and a rabbit who was given a secret treasure by a wood nymph {I am not sure if it was a wood nymph} and things like that and then came poetry…..


My father and mother are regular people doing regular 9-5 jobs, rearing two kids and trying to achieve the dreams most normal people have like buying a house, educating their children the best they can and being good human beings. My grandmother was one among the many young widows who raised three kids on their own and raised them well. There is nothing spectacular or exaggerated about them but for me they are raconteurs, authors and actors. They have something within them that shines through and reflects on me and the things I do or love to do. Maybe they never thought much of it and no one else did too because they were simple, unexciting behaviours. But it’s their ‘shining something’ that lighted up new avenues for me.

We all have that something we don’t think really matters but I think we should stick to doing things we love or things that come automatically and is second nature to us. Maybe it takes someone else to recognize the light that shines within us and find us special. Perhaps our little ‘shinings’ are there within us to provide light to others.

Yours, trying really hard to recollect what the African elephant’s name was.


Falak

Sweet Nothings

We were asked to write a story in our Communications skills lecture beginning with 'IF ONLY. Before I realized I had a list of if onlies that sounded maudlin and gloomy. As if having a professor hell-bent on making you write, and snooping around to check on you wasn't gloomy enough.


I decided to be positive and modified the list to the extent that now it’s completely different from the one it originally took root from. The only common factor is that it begins with ’I’. After all, its all about me.....;)


I like.......


I like it when it's still dark in the mornings when I am on my way to the college. Nothing beats the serenity and tranquility of early morning darkness when everyone and everything is lost deep in the lairs of slumber.


I like it when I can switch the AC on in the middle of winter and wrap myself up in a blanket and go to sleep like there is no tomorrow. Come to think of it I like it when I have access to the AC 365 days a year.


I like it when my hands are hennaed and we are having chicken for dinner since it invariably means my Dad or my brother will take turns feeding me since my Mom is a vegetarian.


I like it when I dread the walk to the railway station on a hot afternoon and suddenly the sun decides to hide behind a cloud.

I like it when I hope for a lecture to be cancelled and cancelled it is.

I like it when people spell and pronounce my name right. Don’t ask me why but I simply like it.


I like it when the watchman becomes beneficent and lets us have water for a few extra hours on a Sunday because it means I get to sing under the shower and not bother myself with a bucket and mug.


I like it when everyone has to go to work but I get to sleep late since I am the only one having a holiday.


I like it when everyone tries to put my baby cousin to sleep and she doesn’t but within five minutes of my trying the same she nods off. {The secret is my singing. Do I hear the Indian Idol guys at my door?}

I like it when an outing that my friends and I have been planning for months; actually materializes since most of our plans that includes me never do.

I like it when some stranger I see daily but don’t really know smiles at me and then I smile back. Before we know we are ‘smiley friends’.

I like the fact that I have come across a lot of horrible,
exacting, self centered, rude and disgusting people; and I like it even better that I get to spend a lot of time with them, since it helps me appreciate with full intensity the wonderful people who come into my life no matter for how short or long a duration.

I like it that my i-pod has songs belonging to 6 different languages and I can speak only 3 of them fluently. The rest I just sing along with.

I like the fact that nowadays exams mean not having to worry about Mathematics.

I like the fact that I completed two main public exams and only have 1 more left to go while my brother and cousins haven’t finished the first one yet.

I like my unusually large feet - makes shoe-shopping a breeze; always pick up the snazziest pair available in my size which is almost never.

I like it that I get to live in two countries simultaneously even though 300 out of 365 days it puts me in a conundrum that I find difficult to come out of.

I like it that I’ve never seen snow in real life. Just gives me another reason to visit a foreign country.

I like it when my students at my place of social work ask me why I didn’t turn up for a day or two although my initial response is to remind them who the teacher is.

I like surprises, good ones where I am the center of attraction. No wonder I hardly get any.

A cool breeze on a hot day is something I like. The same stands for a single rose that survives for days in just a glass of water.

When someone tells me that I am neither fat nor thin but am just perfect, I like it a lot.

I like playing ‘house’ with my little cousins. { I have a huge stack of cooking toys}

I like it when my brother makes a mistake in French when I  teach him since it means I get to smack him on the head.

I like it that the girl sitting next to me in the train is trying to look at this as I write it.

I like the smell of wet earth during the first monsoons before it turns into disease infested slush.

I like Josh Hartnett, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Channing Tatum, Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, The Jonas Brothers, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, George Clooney etc etc etc{ toooo many to puthere;)}........ 
But I LOVE my Father and my Brother.

I like it when people in my family get married since I get to dress up on the wedding.

When a random stranger’s angelic baby bestows a toothless, drooling, pure as love grin on me I like it a lot.

I like it when people I like address me by my nickname or as sugar, darling, sweetheart etc.

When my mom and dad are around me I like it a lot because then there is always someone to give me a hug and a kiss.

I like bikes. The ones I like look great in the showroom and not on my bank balance.

I like it that others love my hair.

I like writing and receiving letters and I like it when I am the first to call up my best friend to wish her at midnight on our birthday.

I like the sound of pen on paper, crunching of dry leaves, breathing of a sleeping baby and laughter full of mirth and glee.

I like the feeling of peace that overcomes me when I tell the truth, do the right thing, be kind to someone and when I write and when I pray.

I secretly like receiving gifts.

The fact that this is longer than I expected it to be and is proving to be inexhaustible is something I like.

I like the fact that this Valentine’s day I finally learnt to love myself.


Yours liking the fact that you’re reading this


Falak

Bangles all the way....

This happened in November last year. It was one of those days when I had to take a late train and not the empty, early morning train I am used to. A late train means rush hour. Rush hour means crowd. Crowded trains mean not getting a seat. It was exam time {shudder}. As usual the huge swarm of office going women who were scattered around the platform a few seconds back made a dash to the edge of the platform when the indicator indicated time left for arrival of train as 1 minute.

They looked like warriors: dressed in multi-coloured uniforms that ranged from jeans, t –shirts, skirts and formals to saris and salwar kameezes, armed with huge handbags, glares shading their eyes against the mid morning sun and earphones plugged right into their inner ears as though the music was the command from headquarters that’d help them survive this war. Entering local trains in Mumbai during rush hour IS mortal combat. Two rules to remember are: do or die {push the other person or jump into the running train}.

       We were waiting, crouched to spring and claw our way in when the chugging train would come: blaring its horn in announcement of its arrival. The moment of push came and I successfully squeezed my self into the train, overcoming life threatening hurdles of manicured and un-manicured nails, boulder sized bags and hands, watches and bracelets that would most likely get caught in my hair. I got stuck against the pole that has been very considerately placed right in the middle of the entry so that the aged and disabled can hang on it to it to make their way in and unsuspecting students like me can get caught with one arm around the pole.

 A huge mass of human bodies were ramming their way in and when one of them realised that I was the reason for the hold up, a mighty shove and a heartfelt expletive were hurled my way. Thanks to the same I made my way in and scampered towards the seats as if sitting atop one was the only thing I lived for. After I had successfully perched my self comfortably with my bag on my lap I realised I was sitting in the direction opposite to the motion of the train. One might think about what difference the direction my seat faces makes since after all I got a seat.

                        Matter of fact is that it does: sitting opposite to the direction in which the train moves means that when people hop in at other stations and cram themselves into the bogie up to the point where every inch of floor space is occupied by human feet and no room is left for air passage {since all space is blocked by various body parts of various human beings} results in my resembling a dish towel used to wipe the water off the cutlery used in a seven course meal during a wedding. It also means that the efforts I took in the morning to look like a human would all be in vain. 

With a sigh I decided to make the best of at least having a seat to sit on and got my text book out to do some last minute revision.

Luckily for me it was a relatively crowd-free train and my toes which were curled inwards anticipating some serious trampling relaxed and I decided I needed a break from half an hour of mugging up political theories relentlessly. I let the book rest on my lap and started idling away time staring at my co- passengers and listening to some interesting conversation that floated past me. I’d occasionally turn towards the window closest to me to take a look outside at Mother Nature but the lack of nature and more of garbage dumps urged me to look back into the compartment. I was busy looking at the hoard of people that blocked both the doorways at either side. I was secretly thanking God for only having to get down at the last stop which meant no rush at all. People getting down at places in the middle were brave and I respected them but I had no inclination whatsoever to exchange places with them, ever.

The train jolted to a halt at some station and suddenly the book on my lap slithered forward risking a fall on to the dust, leftovers and peanut shell infested train floor. A quick bend and swift hand movements saved my treasure trove of constitutional knowledge from becoming the germ hot spot of the century. After I straightened my self up and placed the book back on my lap I heard someone heave a great sigh of relief. I turned to my left only to realise it was the lady sitting next to me who had been holding her breath for the entire few seconds it took me to save my book. She looked so ecstatic at the save I had made I wouldn’t have been shocked had she stood up and done a victory jig because that’s how dirty the train floors are. A group of old ladies in front of me nodded their approval and some college going girls flashed me a smile that went ‘Go girl!’

The college going girls had their hands hennaed; right from the tip of their finger to their elbows. The intricate designs and the rich red-brown of the henna against their skin had me looking with envy at their hands for a considerable amount of time. Gradually I noticed that a number of women around me, some clutching on to the handles on top some smothered in a sea of human bodies, some chatting on their cell phones and some just sleeping off the 1 and a half hour journey had their hands hennaed. Few of them had their hennaed arms covered with red and white glass bangles with stone work on it. I smiled in realisation; it was November, the wedding season and most newly wedded brides from the North of India would sport red bangles for at least a month after their wedding and bangle free women with hennaed hands were the ones who must have attended a wedding in their family. Some were dressed in power suits and some in traditional saris and salwars. There were also the occasional jeans and t-shirt clad bride. It wasn’t atypical because you could find some of these women in little black dresses in discotheques and the bangles would still be there. That’s tradition for you.

We reached Bandra {a station} and majority of the crowd got off and a matronly lady in a purple sari entered the compartment. She had a few red glass bangles on either hand. I guessed her to be from one of the Northern states of India since it was typical for married woman from these parts to wear at least 1 red glass bangle on each wrist. During my train travels a useful bit of information I gleaned was that if you wanted to make a wild guess at which state a particular lady originated from you should check out the colour of the bangles{if she has any} on her arms. Maharashtrian ladies would wear green glass bangles. Bengali women would have a mix of maroon and white bangles and this entire theory held true only if the said ladies were of the Hindu faith.

The train jolted back into movement and a young woman in formal office attire of black trousers and a pale blue blouse standing near this lady in purple lost her balance toppled forward. The purple lady clutched the young girl’s arm and helped her regain her balance thus preventing her from falling face down on the train floor {shudder}. The young woman thanked her profusely and the lady in purple feeling satisfied wit her good deed for the day decided to lecture the young woman on train safety. ‘What a way to say welcome!’ I wondered. The woman began with how we must always clutch onto something like the handles on top or at least the walls and young people don’t understand how dangerous it is to stand on the doorway etc, etc, etc.  The poor young girl had no idea I supposed, that losing her balance and stumbling would result in receiving an earful till the very end of her journey. She had a look of forced interest and attention on her face because she didn’t want to upset the lady who saved her from being infected by a thousand pathogens.

I assumed the lady in purple to be one of those aunties you meet in the train; who’d go out of their way to make you comfortable and then lecture you on nothing in particular and my assumption was proved right. I empathised with the young woman but at the same time I was enjoying their one- sided exchange. Suddenly the old lady realised she had nothing more to talk about  after having ranted out all the safety rules the railway officials must have ever dreamed of .The lady in purple kept mum and I could almost hear the young woman mentally let out a profound sigh of relief. Her body language which was rigid until then became relaxed. After a blissful fifteen minutes of peace that she gifted the young woman, the purple lady realised that the young woman had her hands hennaed. A knowing smile came upon her lips and I clutched my book in fearful anticipation all the while thinking ‘Poor girl! She’s in for it again.’

The purple lady turned up to the young woman and said “It’s difficult to go back to work so soon, right? Almost too soon isn’t it? And what with all the dress codes you young corporate girls have to adhere too! How did your in-laws feel about you not wearing any bangles???? What can they say when office doesn’t allow, right? You need job for food to come home, na? At least you can keep the mehendi {henna}! They can’t ask you to remove that now, can they?” 

And she cackled in delight as if it was her personal victory over big firms across the nations who according to her weren’t respecting the traditions that this woman couldn’t get rid off the henna on her hands. The young lady looked stunned at the little verbal Niagara Falls that had flooded her a few seconds back.

     Once she regained composure she quietly asked “What bangles?”

 The lady in purple tutted disapproval at the young woman’s irreverence and said “Your wedding bangles Beta! How can you forget them?”

The girl looked like someone had accused her of being a kleptomaniac. 

“Married? Me! I haven’t finished my graduation yet!” she declared with indignation. It turned out that she was a management student who had a seminar that day and so she was dressed in formals.

  The purple lady was purplexed but concealed her confusion with an awkward smile and said “Your hands have henna and it’s the wedding season so….”

The girl who had had enough of the purple lady’s inquisition by now replied in a matter of fact manner “It was Eid yesterday and I hennaed my hands like most Muslim girls do on Eid.”

*---------------------------*----------------------------------*-----------------------------*

 I was trying to laugh quietly and it hurt. It hurt because I wanted to laugh out loud but couldn’t. Bottling up animated laughter within a human body results in bruised ribs and holding your sides tight with your arms in an attempt to stifle laughter only adds to the soreness. Only in India could you confuse yourself with a Hindu North Indian bride and a Muslim student. Talk about unity in diversity. I didn’t hear a squeak from the purple lady till the end of the journey. But I did hear a squeak from the alarm in my mobile which informed me I had exactly an hour till my political science paper and I still had half my portion to revise.

Yours, from Mumbai - the melting pot of cultures in Incredible India 

Falak

Sibling mail order

Dear SRjr,

“How are your studies going on??????” Ok, if I start a mail which begins like this you will surely claim me to be the most God-awful, boring sister you could find on earth. Ok then, so let me start by asking “Found a girlfriend yet????” Well, that makes me predictable and such a prying nosy parker! If I ask about your health you might think I'm nuts because no one apart from me knows how exactly exams can abet deterioration of one's health. The next option for me is to start off the conversation with something shocking by telling you “KEVIN JONAS IS GETTING MARRIED TODAY!” and you'd reply by saying “Urghhhh, psycho teenage sisters and their obsession for cute boy bands” rolling your eyes in mock disgust and exasperation in spite of the fact that you don’t mind them and love their songs too and well you’re as shocked as I am but you will want to be all manly in the gangly, unsure way most teenage boys are and say something cliché like "Do I look like someone who cares????" Then in an attempt to redeem yourself in my eyes and sound more humane you’d mumble a “Good for him”.

If I try for off hand-casual and start with “So how’s school????” You'd grunt and shrug and then with a little more prodding on my part {I was always great at wheedling stuff out of people} you'd start grousing about all those crazy kids in class and give me the details on who did what and update me on school scandals. And I am supposedly the older sister.

If I ask you about sports day in school you'd whine {such a typical Virgo} about how cold it is {which is only expected since your doing march past in the middle of a desert country in the middle of winter} and how unnecessary the whole charade was but you had to put up a face and bear with {instead of bunking it like I had done for as long as I could remember} it since mom and dad were the parents this year who were invited in the guests of honour category to distribute prizes at the event even though you'd be bubbling with inexplicable pride and joy inside of you. {I am too. Though I’d very well like to ask the principal why she chose to bestow this honour after I passed out.} If I ask “How are mom, dad and gran?” you’d start off on how they nag you to study and how you had the upper hand when the marks finally came because it proved you do study and do it well too. Maybe if you are in a good mood you'd pitch in about how you outsmarted all those smart alecks from the IGCSE section twice your size, weight, age and height when playing basketball with a lot of repetition of the words basket, dribbling, travelling and something else that sounded as foreign as Greek and I’d smile inwardly thinking 'my lil’ macho man!'

Then you'd ask me if I had my violin class which 90 out of 100 times I wouldn’t have had because you know how busy with concerts my tutor is and how he has a forgettory for a memory. Then you'd tell me about stuff that you learnt in your music class, about the new tunes you can play on the guitar and the drums. I’d say something like “lucky you” to hide the slow emergence of envy inside me and then lord on you the tunes you should learn to play and the sites you should go to because if Bev can do it on her own and {Bev is such a musical whiz without lessons} then so can you. You'd say something along the lines of ‘Shut up and mind your own business’ in a more respectful way acceptable to me and grunt a reply that’s neither affirmation nor denial since most tunes I want you to learn would be a JB song.

If we are speaking around mealtime then we'd ask each other what exactly we are going to have for lunch or dinner. You’d name something exotic and even before I can reply about the meal at my end you'd pitch in about what I am having and be right 99.9% with the answer of rice, Sāmbhar or chapatti and some veggie dish and smile smugly {How I hate that!}.

Then you would tell me about how you downloaded all those movies I’ve been dying to watch and the songs I’ve been dying to hear although I can watch and listen to all of those only when I come down tothe UAE next March and you know how much it irritates me that you can and I can’t. But it’s like a cat bringing a dead rat to its owner. “Look I had fun doing it but it’s all for you”. Even though it repels the owner they adore the gesture of love. Nothing I typed here implies to you being a cat and me your owner. {I’d like to though, but no thanks. You’d scratch the hell out of me}

You call up on Raksha Bandhan and bemoan the fact of how you are not earning, you’re dependent on mom and dad and so can’t gift me a thing and I’d say that’s totally fine and send you the Rakhi through our cousin who’s here for a visit only to receive a courier package with the book “THE HOST” that I have been dying to read.
It’s only been 2 and a half years since I got myself a phone and its been doing pretty well until last month when it became terminally ill and start dying bit by bit. First the screen blacked out and then I couldn’t hear a thing: blindness and deafness. Sigh…… I was mourning the slow death of my loyal cell and you were jumping for joy. You buggered mom and dad into getting me some hi-fi phone with touch screen, Wi-Fi and god knows what by letting slip things like “She needs a phone quick. How else will she keep in touch with us??? Alone out there…… and it needs to be good to look at. She’s a college going kid, isn’t she???? And her birthday’s in 2 weeks and you can’t make it to be with her this time and she most probably won’t get any gifts from family.” As a result I have a splendid phone now: the envy of all around me. One, I treat with as much care as I would a work of abstract art {I don’t really understand abstract art}.

We fight over juvenile things like the remote control and escalate it into something serious and end up brutally beating up the other {scratching, punching in the stomach, banging the other on the wall etc are included}. Our respectful form of love lasts only through the first week of my visit. No one incites mad rage and violence in me like you do. If you tell my friends in college about how violent I can be they would take you to meet the counselor.

You keep grumbling about how mature I am in all other aspects except when it comes to the JB and how I start acting ridiculous like a giggly schoolgirl but you will still record their show for me since I can’t watch it here. You coerce dad into getting me their latest CD before it releases here in India so I can gloat about it and make Bev go green with envy. You’ll complain about how I totally forget you when I meet up with my friends and hate the fact that mom and dad send you along with us incase we have plans to hang out in the mall till late in the night. Still you’ll talk to them and gang up with them to pull my leg {it’s appallingly the same length still, though dad would have been happy had I grown a few inches taller}.

Still when we are making our way out of the mall you will shepherd me and my friends and shoot dirty looks at any male species daring to look our way. And then when you hold my hand involuntarily like a reflex action and keep falling onto me in the course of walking and keep doing so until you have achieved the desirable proximity that assures you I am not going to gather my skirts up and run away somehow you’re once again the little chubby, curly haired toddler who’d hold my hands and look up at me with eyes full of trust that said “my big sister bestest”.

I still remember the time when you were in kindergarten and I was a first grader and after school while we were waiting for dad to come pick us up I was making most of my left over breakfast when the school bully decided to push me over and drop my food. You went and shook the guy, your little hands hardly catching hold of more than his blazer. Later, I also remember standing at the supervisor’s office, the bully being yelled at and me administering a cold, wet handkerchief to your fair soft cheek red with the imprint of that idiot’s hand, all the while emphatically shrieking out to the supervisor about how " he slapped my little brother!”
I also remember coming home once and fuming away to glory, venting out a 7 year old kid’s frustration at mom {which mostly included tears and crying and gritted teeth} because "that lady” {your class teacher} asked me not to visit you at break time because after I left you’d be sad and want to come with me. My anger was justified, I guess because who are teachers to decide when brothers and sisters meet??????

You always get me gifts. For birthdays, great results, some achievement or the other. But just remember {and revel in the fact since I don’t give you a single thing in return} that you are my most cherished gift. Thank God mom and dad had a baby boy…… Thank God he gave me a little brother who is almost a foot taller than I am.

This is exactly why I don’t call you up because I know what our conversation is going to be like. So why waste time and money?

And before I forget I just came to know about how you messed up your French paper….Such a careless boy…..Call me up, we have to revise the grammar rules again….. God! How many times do I repeat the same things before you understand how to go about it?? Do you know  that your mule headedness drives me over the wall? Well, just call up ok…….. Or do I have to do that too now????

Well, at least sending a mail to you has its perks. I can post it on the blog.

Yours the eternal bossy big sister {who Loves........ to boss You around}

Falak

High-Strung

“LSD’S are also known as designer drugs and are used mostly….”


“I wonder if the designers are as famous as Gucci and Versace….” quipped my friend Yo and we giggled.


“Oh man! Look at hash! It looks like a slab of chocolate” declared a classmate.


“She knew it was hashish even before the name was projected on the slide!” I whispered to Yo as discreetly as was possible with only a few inches of distance between the said classmate and us.


“You know hash is slang for hashish huh?” questioned Yo, one slim eyebrow raised in amusement. We sniggered once again.


“It’s easy to recognize symptoms of addiction among your peers. Youngsters might suddenly decide to wear long sleeved outfits to hide needle marks…..”


“Hey! Haven’t you taken to wearing long sleeved outfits Falak? C’mon show me the marks…..” ribbed Yo


“I can and I will. The only problem is that the marks are sunburns and not needle punctures so sorry to burst your bubble”


“……other symptoms include wearing sunglasses to hide bloodshot eyes, frequent visits to restrooms, mood swings and extreme emotions……”


“Falak! Ha! You’ve started wearing sun glasses too….” accused Yo”


“I won’t from tomorrow….. Just get me some under eye cream to protect me from damage due to UV rays...”


“Ok!” conceded Yo “But the mood swings symptom is sooooo you!”


“Fine I wont be moody but just don’t ask ‘why aren’t you writing anything’ or ‘why haven’t you posted anything’.” I concluded with a smug smile because I knew she just couldn’t attribute the last symptom left to me.


“Ah, well the restroom visiting is way out of your league…… You only use the college restroom if you have been downing like gallons of water since morning.”


“Yeah, I guess people use pigsties to relieve themselves only when the other options are 1) embarrass oneself and 2) embarrass oneself.”


“Yeah, whatever but you’re our ‘addict’ ok?” proclaimed Yo and I replied with a nonchalant grunt and didn’t bother to retaliate with a witticism since I had been called worse in jest. I was secretly making diabolic plans of how to pay her back when the opportunity came.


The lights in the audio visual center were dimmed so that we could watch the slide show on drug abuse…. Dimmed light also translates to private discussions during lectures .


“Cocaine is considered to be a recreational drug that heightens sensitivity to stimuli and has no side effects. Famous personalities like Freud and Rimbaud were known to use it. Even Sherlock Holmes was portrayed as someone who used cocaine since it was believed to accelerate cognitive performance and enhance creativity….”


“So addict, what do you freak out on?” this question was accompanied by a painful nudge to my ribs and I mumbled “Cocaine my dear, cocaine.”


“Why cocaine?” queried Yo. “Didn’t you see? All smart people use cocaine” I managed to say while trying to soothe my sore ribs and pay attention to the presentation all at once.


“Oh wait! Is it because Rimbaud is a poet and you write too???” Well, if that was the case” I replied “then FYI Rimbaud was also gay so you might want to jump a few seats away from me?”


We burst into giggles at our own ridiculous joke and managed to stay awake through a boring 8 o’clock lecture early in the morning


“Oh man! Why do they want to teach us about drugs? Like we don’t know already!” commented a guy to our right with his perpetual hey-I –really-am-so-smart-to-be-bothered-about -what anyone- else-has-to- say look on his face to which his friend replied “It sounds more like they are informing us about what drug to use and how to use it. I am so sleepy!”


“Let me guess…” I said feigning an expression of profound thought on my face and whispered to Yo “Is it the lecture on drugs that is making her sleepy or taking the same drugs before the lecture?”


Smothering a fresh string of giggles we resumed listening to our foundation course lecture on drug abuse and other social problems since the lights had been turned on.


“I wonder why people would want to do that to themselves!” exclaimed a girl in the row in front of us when a gory picture of an addict inserting a needle into his arm was shown.”


“I know!” said I corroborating the statement. “Can’t they understand that the stupid ‘high’ that they keep looking for is going to kill them and totally destroy them?”


“Maybe this ‘high’ is so great and drugs are the only means to experience it so then they forget all else.” Yo contributed.


“I wonder what feeling or emotion could be so great that you'd want to sell your soul to the devil knowing that it’s the point of no return during the take off towards your own destruction.


“I wonder……” was all my friend replied and that was the feeling we left with when we walked out of our FC lecture that day.


A number of rich, well to do kids in my class are established drug abusers. Their rave parties and well, parties in general are not news to us. They don’t peddle drugs or force it upon others. They just get sucked deeper and deeper into the quagmire of addiction and before they realize it it’s too late. They think it’s fashionable and that it’s acceptable. Most start doing drugs because they feel stressed or ‘strung up’ about their life in general. Well if tension is the reason that people do drugs then like my friend Yo says I should have been an addict years ago. I am one of those people who love worrying about everything and nothing in general and hold myself responsible for everything. {BTW I am responsible for everything that happens to me and oh I am not a junkie he he}.


That evening when I went for my violin class my music teacher finally taught me to hold the violin between my shoulder and chin and pluck it with my fingers. I played a couple of exercises and he praised me saying I had practiced and it shows. I was over the moon since learning to play the violin in it self is an achievement for me so being told that I was doing it well enough was a bonus. I was really happy. I think I went a little loony and was singing quite audibly in the rickshaw on my way back home. Come to think of it I think the rick driver reached me home in record time because he thought I was demented.


I practiced my violin lessons with more gusto than usual and felt like I was floating mid air for the next few hours and then the good feeling died.


I then logged on to this very blog and saw sweet comments from total strangers and again that wonderful feeling that set me free from within got hold of my system and I was deliriously happy for some more time. The buzz crashed in 20 minutes and then I was back to normal.


My baby cousin woke up and I went to play with her. She rewarded me with a wide toothless grin. My heart and head grew wings and flew to some remote paradise at the sight of her merry face. Later when I was listening to my favorite songs after eons, again that weird sensation grabbed me from within.


At night I was speaking to my mother on the phone and her voice laced with concern, irritation {because I didn’t call her for two days} and tiredness after a hectic day at work suddenly sent a warm feeling trickling all over my body: like someone had switched a heater on somewhere in the region of my heart. I smiled to myself.


It was 11:30 in the night and I had to go and sleep. It was quite cold and I was snug and warm in my bed wrapped up in a cozy blanket and suddenly realization hit me hard like a cricket ball hits a window pane and I searched frantically for my cell phone in the darkness. On finding it I clicked away a message to Yo that said:


u dnt need drugs 2 feel high. U need luv a sense of being belongin and achvmnt. D feelin tht u get due 2 dese emotions is a high. music in gnrl helps. For me the strings of d violin trigrd it. I was high bcoz of strings. High-strung hahahahahah. Gn Luv Falak




I only wish I could pass on the same message to those classmates of mine.


Yours addicted to little joys in life


Falak

Right Angle

There is a baby in the house…… She is adorable.


The second she arrived the timetables of all the inmates in the house have changed drastically. Most of them sleep when she is asleep so that they can play with her when she is up and about. Moreover when she is awake she cries: so there is not even a sliver of a possibility of sleep then.
 We have adopted a new language that involves blabbering downright gibberish.
Old uncles thought to be grave and stern have tossed the tough exterior façade into the bin that came their way first and have taken to baby talk like a fish to water. We sound more like rattles that resemble men and women.

I have become the human version of a bike that goes vrooooooooooom when she wails. She likes it. We plan to ride to countries on entirely separate continents on a bike: just the two of us. I wonder where the money for petrol is going to come from.

I can give all the spies a run for their money because I have mastered the art of tip toeing round the house in the middle of the afternoon and also the gift of opening creaky old steel dressers oiled some two decades ago without eliciting even a squeak from it{three cheers for me!!!}.


The house looks like a live advertisement for baby clothes. We have learnt to watch the television with the volume somewhere in the neighbourhood of mute for the fear of waking up the bawling siren. She sleeps, she eats, and she sleeps more and eats more.
 She yells and we all scurry to attend to her whims and fancies. She expects us to understand whatever it is that she requires by just keenly listening to the change of tone in her high pitched wailing.
I guess we have great sense of pitch because somehow we do the right things and appease the little lady. She throws a tantrum as often as a fisherman throws his net. She loves staying up late in the night and keeping us awake. She hates being fed when she wants to sleep and vice versa and I am sure she thinks of us to be imbeciles because we are too slow to recognize the call for a nappy change.


It’s only been three days since she’s come home and we are already dancing to her tunes with the practised air of a ballerina to Mozart’s symphony.
Everyone has accepted her presence in their respective lives without giving a thought to the matter. It is as if her being there was just one of those many things that are meant to be.   You either adjust to the fact or you keep your complaint to yourself.
We have put on these pair of spectacles through which we view life with her in the picture.


It’s weird then that the same people find it difficult to accept a teenager into their lives without hesitation. Well…. There isn’t a lot of difference is there?
Teenagers speak a different language…. Maybe you could take the effort to understand. You might even end up liking it. Instead of baby clothes they strew their clothes around the house. They like the volume turned down when they are burning the midnight oil for an exam the next day. They eat and sleep a little more than you do and that’s because of hormones…. They are children who are still growing up……. It isn’t difficult to understand what their mood is or what is bothering them. Just pay attention to their grunts, nods and monosyllabic answers: there is a perceivable change in its quality with a change in mood. Babies wail and throw tantrums as a part of growing up. Teenagers throw tantrums and brood and are crabby as a part of growing up. They hate it when you tell them to study when they want to have fun and have fun when they want to work. Babies like deafening rattles teens like music, preferably loud. Teens too like staying up late in the night. Best part is they don’t expect you to keep them company.


They get snappy at you mostly because most of us never understand that behind the ‘I-am-big-enough-to-take-care-of-myself’ pretence all they want is a hug and the reassurance that ‘I’ll be there for you’. They feel lost because the same set of adults understood them and their various needs just a few years back The fact that they don’t anymore is unnerving to a child no longer a kid but not yet an adult.


Maybe teenagers aren’t all that difficult …. After all they are just a bunch of babies trapped in almost adult bodies who really don’t know what’s happening to them whether they are 13 or 19.


Perhaps it will help if we slightly alter the angle of the glasses we wear, to accommodate them somewhere in the picture.
 Maybe then there won’t be questions or any hesitance to accept. Maybe……….




Yours vrooming away to glory,


Falak

A Thousand Times Over

Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do. It just makes my life comparatively more convoluted than that of those around me.



My friends are busy planning a lunch for tomorrow while I am busy planning my ten day whirlwind visit home, to UAE. Their hands are busy flipping through menu cards whereas I am busy checking my ticket and passport.


They are asleep in their comfortable beds anticipating the start of the sudden holidays whereas I am turning and tossing around in bed mentally reviewing to- pack and to -do lists.


The next day as I glare cheekily at the immigration officer who has decided to take his own sweet time to stamp my passport I wonder if he is actually memorizing my details or something.


That done, waiting in the lounge in front of the boarding gate for two hours does nothing to soothe my back which is on the verge of going on strike against the grave injustice I am meting out to it. Can't blame my spine and seats of learning… I subjected them to the torture of staying still and ramrod straight for four fifty minute lectures earlier in the morning. Poor them…. And then my arms that last exercised when I went swimming four months ago, cry out in agony when I haul my suitcase around. As I make my way to the plane, 'goodbye and happy holidays' SMSes that flood my cell phone confirm my hunch about my friends being busy watching movies back to back or doing something a million times better than ending up with co-passengers who snore.


An hour later, when the lady sitting next to me manages to stop snoring and, I manage to pay the courtesy visit to my long lost friend sleep the steward decides on an impulse to stomp his way from one end of the aisle to the other. Nice… he scared my reticent and shy friend away. It is 10 in the night and the plane is an hour late. Nora Roberts does nothing to ease the cramps in my legs which are the result of sitting in an auto rickshaw with one leg over a suitcase for an hour and 15 minutes to reach the airport.


My stomach is grunting and emitting low rumbles that reminds me of a growling dog with its hackles raised. I think the last time some food soothed my innards was at 2:30 in the afternoon. How I wish the plane would take off and the crew would serve me some chow. It is now exactly 12  in the night and the air traffic control finally decides to be gracious and permits us to fly high.


Finally, after 4 torturous hours the plane decides to land itself at the Sharjah Airport thudding all through the runway and then some more. No jolt or thud ever made me so happy. If my back had hands the clapping and cheering would resemble the crowd at a FIFA final because I could finally stand straight, after more or less 8 and a half hours of remaining seated.


As I wait at the luggage carousel, mentally counting the appearance of a particular suitcase for the 10th time in a row I wonder why am I doing this, when I can manage to be snug in my lumpy bed in Bombay and wake up late the next day looking forward to an outing with my friends. I finally spot my bag after a wait of almost 20 minutes and stop short of whooping in glee. I just realized that standing doesn’t agree with me either. I push the trolley with my bags outside the airport almost breaking into a sprint, all I can dream of is going home ASAP and crashing into my cozy bed. HELLO UAE. Imagination becomes reality.


Next day I wake up groggy and ravaged with jet lag. Once again I dwell on the sensibility of my decision to not study in the UAE where my family is and moving back to India to pursue my higher education. Compared to this hassle of travelling every 6 months and the whole rigmarole of packing and having to keep adjusting to my surroundings and two totally different lifestyles the former would have been a better choice. Add to that the miserable feeling of not exactly belonging to any of the two places in particular, I feel like I am stuck in a limbo. As I wallow in self-pity and depressing thoughts of this variety early in the morning, the phone rings. I pick it up and hear my little cousin's chirpy voice.


“When did you reach?” She squeals, "Early this morning honey" I reply


“I am dying to meet you! I wanted to be there to receive you  at the airport but I had tuitions this morning. I am so glad you're here, I missed you!!!" says she.


At that particular moment, it became as clear as crystal to me why exactly I have been doing this whole travel gig since the last two years despite the aches and pains that come with it. And especially after spending the last 2 hours writing about how obnoxious travelling back and forth is.


I have, and I would travel to any remote corner of the world a thousand times over just to hear a loved one tell me that.






Yours recuperating from jet lag


Falak