Celebrating Darkness

A travelling womb. Hysteria. The fear that this thing between you and me is a mirror. Acquiring. Losing. Sending messages to a mobile phone that chooses to be switched off. Hiding when people aren't seeking you. Trying to find words that hack away at this silence all around us and within us. Two stories. Intertwined. Parallel. The snail and the bird. A patchwork. Tomorrow, the colours might change their names. Their significance. Turn on the lights. Turn off the lights. Over and over and over again. Let it burn out.

Bum Buttery Flit Fluttery

Seriously. I mean there's apparently something known as "The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain." I don't think the ukulele is a British instrument. Or maybe the name isn't British but the instrument is masquerading in Britain as something else.

Anyway, it's not bad when you play Greek stuff on it.

Youtube throws up a track called "Misirlou" when you run a search. Apparently it's good for a Jewish wedding as well as for belly dancing.

(Although I think my ears are hot mainly because of the untimely white rum. French Toast in white rum. Not a bad prescription when the mercury jammed at 3.7 and dipped no further. Uncomfortably, uncomfortably numb.)

You know I finally figured out why I don't like getting photographed.

I'd much rather be a bird in the "loverly spring" and fly away. Not a parachute that has to float down.

A photograph doesn't let you travel. Or scratch your itch.

Did I Hide Too Well?

The Nokia Xpressmusic Mobile Handset jars my senses. I am blocking friends on Facebook. I'm too scared to close my eyes. Feelings lurk behind the paintings in art galleries. They don't speak to me any more. I have been pretending that I have Writer's Block. Everytime my mobile stirs, I hold my breath. I don't want to walk. I don't want to climb. I don't want to shout. I can barely speak.

I don't want to go to a gym anymore. I got my hair straightened. I can cook you a meal. My hands are soft again.

I'm a girl. I'm a girl. I'm a girl.

I can learn.

I can try.

You can teach me.

I'll watch you play. I just asked the score. That's all.

I'll hold on. I'll work on the brakes. I'll smile, not just inside. I promise to bleed when you cut me. I lent you my silence. Please don't give it back.

We're neighbours. In my mind.

I'm sorry I closed the door.

I'm sorry.

We were like Mark and Callie, remember?

Hunting. Gathering.

Can I put that in my CV? "I hunt and I gather"? Doesn't it show androgyny at work or something? (My birthchart says I have equal masculine and feminine influences anyway).

Or should it be in my Facebook status...somewhere...someday...

The other thing is I tried incorporating "purr" into the words to make it sound like a feline fetish but I got nothing. Made a couple of sandwiches. A lazy lunch as the mercury continues to drop. A cup of "Lean Tea" went quite well with it.

Oh and you don't need a can opener.

It Was The Song, Wasn't It?

It all started when I walked into the turkey being chopped. I managed to glide out without letting the emotion spill over, but when I returned, I saw birdfeet and birdnails - teeny tiny ones. Strewn on the kitchen floor - almost like my own nails - after one of my hasty encounters with the nailcutter.

I pushed it back.

But a couple of nights ago, when I was at this Winter Jazz Fest at the India Habitat Centre, listening to a Cinematic Jazz track named "Losing Control" from the movie named "Ratatouille", I kept thinking of a sickle or a kitchen knife, making sudden contact with my knuckles, my fingers, my skin. Hacking at me. Continuously. It didn't help when I dug my fingers deep into the recesses of my overcoat pockets.

Oh God I don't think I can continue this.

A Stitch In Time...

I've been scrolling up and down. Feeling like my fingers are hovering over the concluding paragraph of a curious tale.. just like the golden snitch.

I've been 15 for a while now. Sometimes, that was too old. Sometimes, not old enough. I'm teaching people how to be... well, how to BE. I'm cautious..lest they turn into me. (It's so easy to BECOME. The rise of street theatre makes me panic. Deception is everywhere. The stage is all around me now. Who controls the make-up guy?)

Unbelievable. I just fooled myself into dreaming up an apocalypse.

I chant his name sometimes, like a sigh, like a gasp when I roll my eyes.

I believe I came back to school because my childhood has hurt me.. my school didn't see me.. and I've been denied my album of happy memories. This was part of the plan.

Paawani

Some days... you don't need to think of a title for your blog. The images give your memory a gentle nudge and you comply.

Paawani Trivedi is a Seventh Grade student. Well she's more than that. Paawani is literally the pure one. She is that flickering tongue of bonfire that sometimes leaps majestically in air and mesmerises us. Somewhere beyond her dreamy eyes, there is a warmth that draws close to me when I cross the threshold and enter the room. She glides and conjures many a charm bubble. They aren't gaudy, bejewelled ones. They are all faintly yellow, glowing dimly like the gentle, benign truth. We don't talk much. We don't need to.

The totem?

Well it started months ago when I read the first in the series of "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid". I liked it and asked for the sequel. It wasn't with her and I prepared myself for a long wait. Holidays came and went. A new term began. Somewhere, like every relationship, the insecurities crept into the one that I shared with them. I realised that I'm not new anymore. What if they got bored and didn't love me?

Why did they shout in class one day and why did I leave, broken and hollow? What snapped? I don't know. It felt like a break-up. They apologised, got punished and doodled for me. They wanted to be forgiven. I wasn't even sure they knew what they had done.

But the day I came back, there she stood with the sequel in her hand.

Some days ago, I missed out on classes for 3 days in a row. I wasn't well. I was depressed. And very, very preoccupied. When I came back, there she was again. Book in hand.

I took it this time. It's more than just a book. It's her secret... and it has healing powers.