Leap by a Year

As a kid, I used to wonder if people born on the 29th of February felt bad about not having a birthday every year. I wondered if they under calculated their age because of this silly day. Silly or not, somehow it is a special day.

Just googled. The next special leap year day would be February 29, 2016 :)

Wedding Woes III

Today was one of those million fights this house has witnessed. I was told to shut up because I have been spreading negative energy talking about dowry and divorce, bitching about punjabi rituals and customs and getting angry at obnoxious innovative ideas for spending money. 

The other day I was told, 'You are being young and stupid. You will succumb to all these things when its time for you to get married. We'll see where your idealism goes then.' I remember thinking how discouraging my family is about my suggestions about saving money. I just laughed at the stupid comment, although it called me a hypocrite in so many ways.

Today, after another fight, I was told, 'With the kind of aggressive behavior and attitude you have, we all fear, you will probably never get married.' Honestly, that really hurt. But given the number of failed marriages I have seen around me, this is probably not a bad idea at all!

Between A n B

A: I need good music in my life, all the time. I really miss it.

B: You are someone who gets his peace of mind from music?

A: I guess, you?

B: I grew up in a house without a source of music. We didn't have a cassette player or internet or a cd player, nothing.

A: Thats sad. I grew up listening to music in my sleep. My sister used to study in the same room. She played it on the cassette player.

B: That's cool in some ways.

A: What's cool? Yes. My childhood wasn't bad, it was 4 of us taking all the shit and then slowly I was the only one left.

B: Growing up with music I meant, to be introduced to it by an older person in the house. I wish I had something to blare music on, very very loudly. That way I would not have to hear what my parents said in the other room.

A: Well I am the youngest, so I was introduced to most of the things by someone else. You had thin walls?

B: No.

A: Then you didn't have to hear it.

B: I had to.

A: Why? What did they speak about?

B: Nothing. It's not so bad actually.

A: Yes, its not.

B: Growing up without music, I meant. It comes to you sooner or later.

B: I got dc. Sorry.

A: That's fine

Food Lovers

Like kids
we fought
over food
for it was that food
that bound us
and found us
together
lurking
outside that same restaurant

Erasure

She
opened the door
and said,
'there's no one at home'

The Last Song

I remember the first time I saw raw footage of Bade Papa's interview. It was the first time I saw him after his death. His dead face which I never saw, had come alive, in full flesh and blood, within the two dimensions of that video. I dreaded that editing process. Not even a month of not seeing him dead, I had to see him alive, over and over again, for a month. The first day of editing, I felt nothing. Then I felt the need to cry. Then I told myself that I should just cry as much as I want to and get over it. I told myself to get over Bade Papa's death and get over the need to cry every time I saw his living face.

I would go to the edit room, start the machine and open his sequence and watch his whole interview. Everyday. I remembered how he laughed, how he looked up like a lost child when he forgot, I remembered the bulging veins of his hands, his hearing aid, white hair and off white shirt. Always that off white shirt. With time, I stopped crying and started laughing at him and his toothless smile. How cutely he sang the song and got all the lyrics wrong. How adorably he laughed while singing to me, how unaware he was of the camera and crew that surrounded him. How deep in this thoughts, he made all of us wait and still didn't remember that song!

That was the beginning of the period, by the end of which, he had completely forgotten me.

That day he lay on that bed and stared blank at me. His body had given up. I had picked up his pained legs, shivered at his excruciating screams and sat next to him rubbing his hand. He looked at me blank like he didn't know me. I screamed in his ears that it was me 'shippa', that I had come from 'bambai'. He just played with his hearing aid which buzzed from time to time. Maybe he never heard me, else he would have remembered me. I even sang our song 'chan kittha guzari ai'. His lips had parted to smile. Maybe he did hear me after all. Then why didn't he give me our last moment together?

Sometimes I revisit my film only for him. Perhaps it has that moment.

Wedding Woes Part II

A month back, when we made a list of things to do, it looked like this:

1. Clothes

2. Sehra

3. Joota

I am proud of my family for not having a clue about things that need to be done. The last list looked like this:

1. Clothes

2. Sehra
3. Joota

4. Wedding Cards

5. Mithai with wedding cards

I am very proud of my family for goofing up the text on the wedding card! Today they realized its 10 days to go. Its time we invite people. The latest list of things to do is:

1. Get wedding cards reprinted

2. Split areas and workload of delivering wedding cards

3. Candid photographer

4. Clothes

5. Joota 

6. Sehra

Yes we are in for a fat punjabi wedding! God Save Us!

Ticketless Travellers

An old song
with you and me
stood ticket less
at the door
of the train
that passed the sea
and listened to
soft whispers
of silhouetted lovers
forever
found staring
at hopeless eternity

Goodbye to shady love poetry

Sometimes
I miss you before 5.30

Sitting at your screen
with your boss
you pass notes
that once belonged to me
with jokes in a secret language
from the days
when we aped
each other's laughter
and voice
and hairstyle

from the days when
we sat in the sun
and did nothing
at all
when
we cycled
and bused
and lined
for cheap cinema tickets
and gali cricket

Sometimes before 5.30
when you can't meet me
I look for ways to kidnap you
from a place which allows
half an hour of lunch
and fifteen minutes for tea
Fifteen minutes for tea?
Really?

Sometimes
I find ways to find you
like I knew you
penniless
in borrowed clothes
with second hand books
and pages marked with photographs
when you wrote shady love poetry
and played the guitar
dared to empty time out
to meet me
and be with me

But now, my friend, before 5.30
when I want to be with You
you are busy
attending a con call

Miss call me sometime

Or just come
back to class
sit by me
and learn with me
and pass those chits that belong to me
and not your boss

And for god's sake
Please!
leave that bloody place which allows
only fifteen minutes for tea!

Come! Meet me before 5.30

Love Potion

1. 

you just walked

past all our memories

2. 

how 

can I redeem 

these two cities 

of all our love

3.

like lovers

on a mountain top

kissing 

under the crescent moon

we held hands
behind my back

and braved the storm

that blew into our souls
we rose
with waves in our hair
and fell
spiral free

in the whirlpool

of magic

some love potion

it must have been

now

I am just hung over

Wedding Woes

Recently I

1. Googled how to wear a sari

2. Followed a video and wore a sari on my own

3. Got confused while wanting to pee in a sari.