Victim of time

(OK .... people I know I have been a lazy bumbitch.... and frankly speaking I wasn't even busy.....well…..I was a little bit ...planning a trip though.... So I already posted this poem on my poetry blog, but still I am posting it here: Hopefully I should be back in a week’s time unless some pilot decides to take a nap in the cockpit. Million other things can happen to a plane... but then I get scared anyways....always.....)

I think dying in a plane crash is really the worst kindda death….. but I think I am going to quote the closing monologue of American Beauty:

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches forever, like an ocean of time....for me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout Camp, watching falling stars...and yellow leaves, from the maple trees that lined our street...Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper...and the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird. And Janie...and Janie. ..And…..Carolyn…. I guess I could be really pissed off about what happened to me...but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... You will someday.

How it passes

And what it does

To people

Once kids

Then boys and girls

Then men and women

The core

And the shell,

Question?

And silently answer, repel

Run and cry

Vision and then the eyes

It is named time

A futile power

A living dead

And a deceitful truth

They say

No point in holding on to it

Repeat and memorize

Daily once, twice, thrice

But Oh! The beauty

That passed by

Still blinks in my wet eyes

People named friends

Those days and trends

That garden and those benches

Still….. still….

A few certificates

Remind me of my victory

And their defeat

Prize money is all spent

That time is dead

Not even a year old

In this new world

Everybody inquires

Of my past life

And secretly laugh

When I turn my eyes

These photographs

Are deep

An ocean of time

Like two Samosa’s

Dipped in coconut chutney

Or a bottle of soft drink

That passed till last sip

See them

A lot more

Is beneath them

A tranquil layer of vodka,

Lime, ice and a pinch of salt,

The froth of beer,

Aroma of the coffee,

In million card houses.

Sound of music,

Debates on feminism,

Chains of smoke,

Libraries and their ambiance

Hugs and kisses,

Diary entries and dope,

Rushing to the college

To show what you wrote.

A car accident,

When we were broke.

Losing control, after 8 P.M

Sleeping in the girls’ room.

Rain in the desert,

Full moon in the bathtub,

The kurta with the shloks

The teachers who became friends,

That bonfire and the holy smoke

Ashes and dew drops

Think about them

So….. many

So many moments

Make these photographs

Always remember

It’s just me

Another victim of time

P.S: About the tags....I will do them once I am back....happy holidays to me ...so much tequila is waiting for me...

in the balcony

We live different lives and we also live our lives in different rooms/houses/buildings. How does it feel to go back to your first home? Well you need to feel it to know it.

Yesterday I went to Kalkaji (DDA Flats) with mummy and saw the flat which was my first home. Mom wanted to go and meet her old friend Baby (I know too many Punjabi Aunties called Baby). Though she lives in Mumbai she was here visiting her father. Of course I was a toddler when we stayed there, but there was a weird familiarity with that place. I felt very comfortable there. I don’t know ….

It seemed like a metaphorical womb. It was strange to be there after so many years. But for my mom it was a lot more… She seemed thrilled…excited …I dunno…. I mean I was excited and all, but I had nothing to go back to…..you know like when I visited our house in Agra almost after 12 years (or my school in Agra) I had memories…. And there were so many of them, in all different colors and stories…. So much of “nostalgia”….

When she was standing outside, in the balcony, I swear I saw her trying to do away with her tears. I guess a lot was going on in her mind at that moment…memories of Vinny growing up and then me as a new born baby. All that time she spent alone in that flat, all the time she might have spent waiting for Papa.

It would have been too much of “nostalgia” for her; it was that time when we didn’t have a phone (Not that she could have called back home too often any which ways: STD Calls were too expensive back in 80’s). I know for sure that Papa must have been late everyday. Damn…that time must have been quite tough for her …all alone in this new city with us little devils... I guess that’s when she became friends with Baby Aunty and got cozy with the rest of her family too….I know, I am what I am because of what happened in her life….I wouldn’t have been here, if some other man would have been in her life. I mean it would have been some other damn sperm. But then it wouldn’t have been about me (it’s not about me anyways right now)…. How her life would have been then? Happier? It’s hard to say…..very hard indeed!!

While Baby Aunty was in the Kitchen preparing Chai, Mummy was in the balcony….. Perhaps in the flashback living through those seconds, minutes, hours, days she spent waiting for Daddy. She had no idea about the other woman then. Now, the fact that the only man she ever “loved” disgraced that relationship, sucks. She hates him now.

Be it a man or a woman, everyone wants to cherish each moment of their love life and take it to their grave. But mom really doesn’t have any of those memories…..it really doesn’t matter that we are doing pretty good as a family now (with Papa gone)…..She probably stands in the balcony thinking about all those years she spent raising three kids ....without much help from her husband. I wanted to go out in the balcony and ask her what she was thinking about…. But I just couldn’t….I don’t know why…..