Hmmmm....

A first gaze
A second glance,
A third look
A fourth chance.

Myriad dreams built
In a moment a broken Heart.
A Glaring hope
A Charm to die
Lost Forever….
In dreams now they lie…..

"Coach" Potatoes!!

The oxford dictionary has yet another addition,or rather should have one,my creation.The word''coach potato'',meaning-men on the train with nothing to do but stare at their female counterparts and eat like hunger stricken people in the process.
On a journey by the Kalka from delhi, accompanied by my friends (we were coming back from Jamia to kolkata from a seminar there..but thats besides the point!!) , by the sleeper class , i came across the above specimen in huge numbers. These men (with some political affiliation) had with them electronic gadgets which are so expensive that i wondered how they managed even sleeper class tickets. This journey also taught me an innovative pose of sleeping which i call ''the sight seeing pose'', whereby these coach potatoes put their heads in place of their feet and lie on their stomachs on the upper birth of the train wih their heads resting on their crossed hands..i actually believe this can be a great new yoga pose, we may call it ''disgustingstare-ashana''.
We were bothered when we ate, spoke to each other and comments were even passed when we said nothing at all! to add to our misery our train was 16hrs late stuck at mughalsarai for more than 12 hrs! We were forced to do a lot of things which sanity would not permit us to do othertwise like looking after chained luggage! and not sleeping for 36 hrs, ready to attack with pepper spray, deo, (yes they also have other use!!) ,neither talk nor giggle and most importantly not call each other by names, now thats what you call true freedom!! (they were farting away to glory at night,,while still wide awake ogling at us and saying things like “aah kaa baans” yuck!!!
With so much being talked about female liberation this experience felt as if being a girl was a crime and a source of enjoyment for the on lookers. Not reacting and even keeping quiet did not help. Well thanks to some distant relative of mine (sorry sir i do not renmember your name!!) some security people came to rescue us when the not so gentle men had crossed all their limits trying to take our pictures with their camera phones!( dad..i feel deprived) Did i forget to mention they were carrying MP3s! It would however be important to mention here that we did manage to transfer ourself to A.C 3Tier at the end for a couple of hours where some very caring gentlemen (and I m not being sarcastic this time!!) left their seats so that we could sleep and even offered to charge our phones for us!!

Moral of the story?? nothing much,,wanted to share this incident,,thats it!!

In the hundred and two minutes at my neighbour's place...

I was sitting today, in one of my neighbour's house, and thinking about a lot of things,,,,(i know my blank face must have irritated her to quite an extent, because ideally i should have been talking to her, that was the idea behind me going with my aunt to see her),,alright, i know i am drifting away from where I began. Coming back, i was thinking how on one hand someones absence can kill you and how on the other someone's thought can breathe life into you. I was wondering how someone suddenly becomes so important for you that all you do is think about that person!! Even if the person in question does never bother to ever think about you!! I am not essentially talking about a boy thinkin about a girl and vice versa (and i dont know why i m explaining that to you!!). I was wondering why for a moment people treat you like you are special and in another treat you like you hardly exist!! I mean why do it in the first place.......

I was also thinking about Death. How sometimes its so much easier to recover over someone dead than someone alive, i mean you know that a particular person exists, is breathing somewhere, you can atleast hope that he/she is, but you cant even cry over his/her absence because that makes you feel like you have lost em forever!! Then on the other hand the thought of someones death takes all life away from you!!!

I was also thinking about love!! What is love?? I still dont have the answer,,actually i could'nt think much about it in the hundred and two minutes that i was at this neighbours place,,,,

HANDS (a little short story i wrote about 2yrs back)

None in sikkim had seen and none could imagine that could ever be more beautiful pots in the tranquil hill-station or anywhere at all for that matter. No trace of fine lines, no finger prints, they seemed to have come out of some'big city machine'. Such was the skill of Shyamala but the irony of the situation, no one had ever seen the hands which created these beautiful pots, no body had ever seen Shyamala at all! Living in a very remote area in Sikkim, poverty stricken Shyamala's pots were so popular that nobody bought pots even to store water from anywhere else,and why would they,where else would they get such a bargain, such beautiful pots for such small a price.

Living in a small wooden house with no windows,the door of which was never opened to strangers,never to anyone at all. It was always locked from the outside and the keys that opened the lock belonged to her 12 year old son,Bhishu. Bhishu was in-charge of selling the pots his mother made. Every morning he carried on his head a basket full of pots of different shapes and sizes and colours and displayed them in a corner in the market floor. He did not have to make an effort to sell them.One by one people would come and buy the pots priced such that, never once did anyone complain and try to bargain with the young lad.In fact even tourists who could not resist but buy these were sold the pots at the same price."what a fool,you can easily sell these to the sahabs for triple the price.God knows why your mother sends you to sell them when she can earn a fortune with a bit of marketting skills" fellow shopkeepers would say,but Bhishu never bothered.he was doing what he had been asked to.

A group of tourists visiting sikkim were recommended by their guide to 'surely' buy atleast one pot from the village as it was as good as buying a souvenir."everybody buys these pots didi,they are simply beautiful,nothing like have ever seen before".Renu dissaprovingly replied,"yes, yes,of all things in the world i would spend my money on breakable pots.Are you suppose to be getting some sort of a commission out of this?."No didi,not at all, they are very cheap, only Rs 15 per pot". "we will see" said renu and ended the discussion.

The next day, on a visit to the market place the guide did not urge Renu to buy the pots but simply took her from the way the little boy sold his mother's masterpieces. What followed came as no surprise to him.Renu stopped at the sight of the pots, stunned.having an eye of an artist herself she could not believe her eyes. Ten pots lined one beside the other. One painted yellow, the other green, the third red and so on. Their shapes so usual, yet so unusual. Each pot looked diffetent from the other. One had a high neck, the other a square bottom.one had a wide opening and the other a beautiful wavy texture.Renu wondered what it was that made these ordinary pots so unordinary,why was it that they seemed to ask its onlooker a thousand questions? There is something to this.I must meet their creator, she said to herselfand urged the guide to ask Bhishu to take her to his mother. "you ask him madam, he understands hindi".Renu did ask bhishu who coldly replied in his broken hindi, "ma nai milega,lena hai to lo nai to idharse jao". "see madam" said the guide,"he says this to anyone and everyone who wants to know about his mother. I did not ask him again as i have repeatedly done so, so many times that I feared being insulted by the little boy this time" Renu was not going to give up. She planned to spend the rest of the day in the market keeping and eye over him and planned to follow him when he finished . She could not imagine going back to Kolkata, her hometown without seeing Shyamala or atleast without paying respects to the hands which created such pieces. She had a lot going on in her mind. she was even planning to take the woman whom sha lear'nt was called Shyamala and her son to the the city which has always welcomed talent and appreciated it."What if she says no"she muttered to herself. "Never mind, then i will buy all her pots and urge people to see her or atleast buy a piece! or maybe i can earn some money for myself too in the process.Buy this beauty for Rs 15 each and sell it for atleast a hundred and fifty in the city and i can also send Shyamala a part of the profit" she said to herself,"or even better/ i will make her a partner in the business,that would do her good too,living in such remote and harsh coonditions as she is which such a talent.What a pity? Engrossed in her thoughts she forgot all about Bhisu who left just an hour and a half before she came back to the real world."Tomorrow perhaps" she muttered to herself.

The next day Renu started a little late as she an idea about when Bhishu will go back home. She went up to the market at around 2pm and saw bhishu getting ready to leave just an hour later. She followed him quietly. Bhishu climed down the slope singing a sweet local folk song. Renu was careful to keep a good distance as she knew that a single mistake on her part would mean depriving her eyes of witnessing those hands.Bhishu walked fearlessly through sleep hill slopes,crossing waterfalls. He had been quite used to this road now,after all he had been using it since his father died in a road accident when he was only six years old. Renu could now see a hut at not much a distance and her heart was now beating with great speed.Careful though, she did not let her heart take-over her mind and hid herself behind a tree in front of the house.it was a secluded place.she could see no one around, but the boy. She saw Bhishu unlock the door and vanish inside the darkness of the hut.She had to go inside to see those hands and tell their master of their true worth!she banged open the door and was awestrusk.There was Shyamala sitting and making pots, but there were no beautiful hands. Shyamala had no hands at all! she was sitting there making pots with her legs! Renu ran out of the hut and up the hill to her hotel.She had to go back to that hut tomorrow and ask Shyamala to forgive her.for what?Shew knew not.The next morning she walked up the same path leading to Shamala's hut. She knocked at the door and her knock was surprisingly answered,it had never ever been answered to any stranger before.From inside came out somebody unfamiliar. It was Bhishu's chacha Ram."i want to meet shyamala" she urged."There is no shyamala here" he angrily answered."you mean there is no shyamala here who makes pots with not her hands but...", before Renu could conclude Ram asked her to come in.He told her that Shyamala who lost both her hands trying to save her husband being knocked by a truck did not ever come out in the open as she did not want to be sympathised with and wanted to lawfully earn her own bread without anyone's help.

He also told her that because Renu saw her, she has gone to some other place without telling a soul,including him,with only her potters wheel!

My First (usual) Meeting!!

It is a moonlit night, I think,
I am sure the stars are shimmering in their utmost glory,
It is our first meeting!
I touched the modern sand clock and it felt seven thirty
I know I am an hour early
But could I help not being?
Two days ago, she had called me,
Saying she wanted to see me!
See me!!
I could not believe it then, some silly joke I thought.
She called me again.
You see, she had seen the inner me in my work,
She had read my pieces.
She told me from over the other side
That she admired me! Admired me?
She even wanted me to sign for her,
One of my creative pieces.
I was all delighted to see, err, and hear a beautiful voice ask me out for dinner then
Today morning, I was all apprehensive.
What do I wear, what colour do I wear
But then it struck me
How does it even matter to me!!
Called up my help and he dressed me up, I packed my typewriter and kept it in the safety of my black cupboard.
And now, here I am waiting for her with my eyes open
Oh! I did not realize she has been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes
And I! I have been thinking about her!
Oh! She is coming closer to me, I know she is, now that I am back to my senses, I think.
What?! I think I just heard her sigh and felt her tear on my palm
"Will you be able to sign your book for me"?
She is asking the man who has written it!
For once I thought it did not make a difference
For once I thought I would feel a woman smiling
But, such is destiny
This blind man in his endeavour to feel one smile, made another one cry!

A sad city of joy!!!

A SAD CITY OF JOY

hello all, i had done a little shoot for CNN-IBN on another beggar like bilal,,,,the shoot was not aired and the beggar dissapeared!!! i was too guilty[because i feel i was the cause of his loss of livelihood-god alone knows where that disfigured beggar remember;the one near the park street metro station went] and scared for bilal and thus did not do any shoot for him. Heres a little something that i found out abt Bilal..............
"Every Kolkatan at some point has walked on this footpath, but it is surprising how very few or none have noticed Bilal.I always remember seeing Bilal, in his mid 40s, with no hands and a body so frail that one could easily count his ribs. According to the hawkers of this choringhee footpath Bilal has been lying on his stomach, shiverring, for the past 10-15 yrs.
Kolkata is full of men and women like bilal, some handicapped, blind with no rehabilitation and some like this man outside the park street metro station, literally rotting away in pain! and some so old that it is shameful to see them, from the comfort of our cars and taxis, having to stand in the sun and beg!
Unlike others who have made begging their occupation out of choice, People like them beg because they have no choice; who will give an old man or a man with no hands or legs a job today? There are others who wander with no clothes on without a trace of shame as a lot of them are mentally challenged.
The question is, what is the government doing? Where are the ever active human rights activists and NGO's? When it comes to people like this, where does the spirit of the residents of the city of joy go?Its Eid, Puja and Diwali time, people like them do not require those extra ten rupees that you have generously decided to spare, they need HELP!!
The agencies concerned, the citizens have to join hands to rehabilitate them and ensure them of their basic right, their right to life!!"

colours

Colours

Splashes of colour filled my eyes
I could see them all, red, blue, yellow and green.
But, but they all looked the same!
Strange? I know I had seen them all!
But they were all of the same colour, they were all black!
How do I known then whether black is black,
or like the other colours, just appears to be so!

It all confused me, but I came to the conclusion:
That all these colours were just playing with me,
Fooling me perhaps.
I smiled, shook my head, took my stick and left!