after you leave i come back the whole way which we crossed a little while ago picking up scattered moments i fill my pockets, one by one here, we laughed, for a reason without here, we ran up the stairs, and breathless you were and sitting on a seat like this, you’d put your head on my shoulder
after you leave this small room, turns big and empty i fold and keep away
the joys, you didn’t wear this time i keep on the table, once again the words, that were left unsaid and bookmark the dreams that are to be worked upon
. . . after you leave the eyes still well up sometimes in wait of the day when you’ll arrive, not to leave again
we celebrated holi at the office on Tuesday. i came prepared in the morning itself, wearing a chaka-chak white shirt, waiting all the way for some kid to throw a water balloon or some colors on me before i reach office. but sadly, delhi’s kids are not so daring anymore. there is an absolute lack of the holi-spirit in the bylanes of this city now-a-days.
dejected by this lack of application, i kept on working till the early evening when Sanpreet came and suggested that our IT guy Arun is distributing free gulal (dry color) to people who agree to be colored by him. both of us quickly grabbed the opportunity and there started our in-house Holi celebrations. had so much fun after a long time. smeared everybody i knew with colors. by the time i reached home, i was drenched in dry colors!
in the first photo, it is me waiting for some unsuspecting target to go by with Umananda my fellow copywriter being the partner in still unhappenned crime! in the second pic, the holi players gang! from left to right, back row, first a guy i don’t know, then Umananda, then me, Deepak – one more of my copy talent, then Ritika, Sabu and the new trainee girl whose name i still don’t know! in the front row there is Rajesh, our chai-wallah, then Vipra and then Sanpreet.
anyways, the TV comes to life. hmmm. the Indian team is batting. something inside curses him for wasting golden hours every holiday morning. “there is so much to do on a morning like this, when you don’t have to go to the office, go for a walk, exercise, read poetry, check the neighborhood, watch cricket matches,” scolds that something inside. more hmmm. “but why is there no picture on the screen?” and Sachin is playing. hmmm, with a tinge of rapidly swelling joy. Sachin is not out, still playing and has already made a century. joy goes for a dive, and panic sets in. “why o why this damn TV is not showing any picture?”
somewhere inside the house the tea is still on boil.
things get desperate by now. “the stomach is troubling, the tea is on boil, Sachin is scoring boundaries after boundaries and this god forsaken TV set… no no, this sweet little TV of mine is not showing any picture. where is the vision in television?” for the next few minutes, the TV is treated like a proper human being. gets spanked on various sides with varied degrees of force, coerced into good behavior like a turbulent toddler, worshipped like an angry god who has taken avatar just to be appeased by mortals, talked to in endearing terms like achildhood buddy… even emotions reserved only for the to-be better half are brought into force… but to no use. almost teary-eyed, the guy goes to the kitchen and fetches his morning chai.
by now it is about half the quantity is should have been.
another, shorter round of treating TV like a toddler, friend, deity, lover, follows. no use. by this time, one flat mate, bleary eyed, staggered walk, comes across to greet him a very good morning. “what good morning yaar, sachin is playing and this TV is not working. a radio would have been better than this.” a quick shift of the eyes and a short mood assessment later, the room mate explains to the guy that the TV has been like this for quite some time now. “its picture tube is damaged. by the way, if you hit it hard on the sides simultaneously, it comes to life. we make it work like that only.”
fighting his hurricane like anger creating a low pressure area in and around his mind, the guy asks his room mate, “what?”
“yeah”, the room mate replies. next, he tries his hand at spanking the wretched thing but finding no breakthrough, he asks for a matchstick. our guy’s eyes light up. “maybe, he knows a trick or two. after all, it is they who have used this TV more then me. maybe, i’ll be able to watch some part of Sachin’s innings finally.” the guy runs inside an grabs a matchstick from the kitchen. clinging on to that thin, wooden black-headed splinter of a fire lighting equipment, he hands over his life (well, almost) to the room mate.
“thanks.”
the room mate lights his cigarrete from the empty matchbox in his hand. “what was that for?”, the guy asks. ” thought you were going to do something to the TV!” bleary eyed, staggered walk, the room mate cautiously walks away, “i was up whole night, you know. i heard you and thought you would sure have a matchstick. needed to light up this cigarrete. have to go to the loo. what’s the score, once again?”
…
dejected, depressed, de-illuminated, the guy sits down near the now audio-TV. Sachin is still playing, and till the time he’s on the crease, the rumbling stomach, the cold getting colder tea, the desire to get back at the room mates… the whole world can wait.
it was a nice, cricket-filled Sunday morning when Sachin scored his 43rd one-day century.
I’m loving it. Arre, this new channel. Yaani, I mean its not new, but I kind of recently discovered two serials on it which are good.Aise hi channel surfing karte huye I came across ‘Jasubhai something ki joint family’ on NDTV Imagine.
Liked it. Much better than most of the over-the-top comedy shows and corny humorous family dramas.
Then the second one, ‘Kyonki yeh toh ghar ki baat hai’ is even better.
A very today’s husband and wife, so very much like what me and Dee will be when we get married. (i hope) if i remember right, they take your one hour between 9 to 10.
And then the next one is Farhan Akhtar starring ‘Oye It’s Friday.’ The first episode i watched had the whole Rock On’ team visiting the show! This channel rocks man!
Strange how films go off-screen these days within a few weeks of releasing. As if, jitna paisa kamana tha kama liya, no more promotion required now. first they bombard you with endless promos and teasers and what nots, and then, complete silence. ‘release ke baad ki khamoshi.’
man! I loved the show, Farhan rocks, such a good conversationalist. Waise I wonder how much of it is staged and if repeated takes are allowed. oye! its already 20:50!!!
i better be making a move, if i’ve to watch tonight’s episodes 🙂
do tell me, how you liked the shows. c ya, and you better have a happy weekend. love ya.
no, not that Pacific! i’m talking about the Pacific Mall in the eastern part of the city. a few weeks back both of us met a friend there and did lots of masti together. the Pacific Mall is located near the Anand Vihar, inter-state bus terminal on the eastern border of delhi. it was a saturday and Nidhi (our friend) had to shop for our birthday gifts, with we in tow! i went there directly from my home in kalkaji, south delhi and dee came from her school. Pacific is one of our frequent hangouts and we’ve roamed around these area so many times that nothing interests us anymore 🙂 anyways, while waiting for Nidhi to come, we decided to do some serious window shopping. and in the middle of our expedition came across Spencer’s food court. Located on Pacific’s ground floor, Spencer Hypermarket is your usual middle-class shopping destination, full of organised chaos. We really liked its food court though. A bright ‘n cosy place or perhaps because it was early afternoon (and not a Sunday), it was more or less vacant and thus appeared to be so.
That apart, it has a nice little menu of food options from Indian snacks and mini-meals to Western snacks and desserts. We’d a Rajkachori first, spicy and really fresh. Then after Nidhi arrived, we ordered some ‘moong ki dal ke pakode’, ‘pao-bhaji’ and ‘shahi dhokla.’ All this from the Rajdhani counter within the food court. This is the same Gujarati Rajdhani which has popular eating joints in CP, Gurgaon and NOIDA. Had a light lunch and clicked some pics too. Then we went a floor above to Westside, where Nidhi got me a nice, light warm, grey and black striped tee. After that, we went over to look for a kurta for Dee. Normally Westside’s Indian ethnic collection is quite appealing to the senses, but this time round the collection was a disappointment. So we went to Globus instead. And there Dee struck a goldmine. With one beautiful pea-green kurta as a gift from Nidhi, she also got two knee-length dress tops (one white and one beige) from me. Somebody was happy and grinning from ear to ear 🙂 All this simple shopping took us about two and a half hours (god knows why girls take so much time shopping for dresses!) and as we were feeling slightly hungry again, one more time we scampered to the Spencer food court. This time we had only liquid nourishment though, juice and cold drinks. then as the curfew hours for the girls were coming into effect, we said hurried goodbyes and i came back home.
it was a nice day overall. i was apprehensive how it’ll go, ‘cos i was quite unwell but we’d already promised Nidhi so couldn’t cancel the program. in the end, everything went well. have realized one thing, shopping does lift my mood *lol* especially, when i shop for her!
take my advice guys, the next time you are feeling blue, grab your better half, throw in a couple of good friends in the mix and go out for an impulsive shopping spree. there’s no better joy than seeing your loved one smiling with all the spoils of the day. ofcourse, you’ll get so much more love in return for the next few days 😉 here’s my shopping queen! and till next time, stay away from the blues!
“His long pointed nose, tells me that someday this boy will be a very successful man”, said the wise one.
How and when, nobody told him.
The darling of the world, the vision of his father’s eyes, the envy of the neighborhood parents, the pride of his workplace, so many sobriquets garlanded him all through his still young life. All his life, he’d been made to believe that he was a special kid-boy-man.
when reading a Hindi poem an unknown word flashed across my eyes i asked myself, in English “what is this” and chuckled silently on this impertinence of mine
for years, he had been looking at the world through others’ sight. then one day, he got hold of his own pair of eyes. and he was startled to see so much, in what was essentially only ‘his’ way of looking at the world.
each day a new exploration, each moment trembling with anticipation, a play of shadow and light, and colors, oh my, they looked as he was seeing them for the first time. green was so green, and red? so full of life that he gasped at it. blue, ah blue and brown, so earthlike.
the ashen beauty of a foggy morning crow, the sad silence of a pinwheel laying still and the impish rouge on his love’s cheeks that took birth by itself when he stole a sudden kiss in a public place. suddenly, he was alive. as he was never before.
for years, he had been living with a borrowed vision. not anymore.
now, finally he’ll be able to see the world as he wants to. this is his journey. and you’re welcome to be a part of it.
“if i’ve to type here whatever i’m not thinking then that would be a luxury i can’t afford. ‘cos whatever may be the case, i’m always thinking. sometimes, i wonder… no, i’m pretty sure that i’m thinking even when i’m sleeping. its just that i don’t get to know what i’ve been thinking. sometimes, the last dredges of that mindful sleep come across as dreams that are vaguely remembered when i get up, but majorly i don’t get an idea what my mind was working upon all through the night.”
Born in New Delhi, India in 1980 and is a retired pessimist (still) living in New Delhi. He has Haryanvi ancestors, a Punjabi girlfriend, friends all over the world, two (or more) yet to be born children, (many) memories of (many) pet dogs and no cats ever. He holds an honours degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and creates advertisements for paying the bills. His interests are universal, and include: living, eating, sleeping and when not sleeping, daydreaming. Other abiding interests include reading, writing, street photography, newspaper editorials, watching the moon and planning trekking trips that never materialize.
Born in New Delhi, India in 1980 and is a retired pessimist (still) living in New Delhi. He has Haryanvi ancestors, a Punjabi girlfriend, friends all over the world, two (or more) yet to be born children, (many) memories of (many) pet dogs and no cats ever. He holds an honours degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and creates advertisements for paying the bills. His interests are universal, and include: living, eating, sleeping and when not sleeping, daydreaming. Other abiding interests include reading, writing, street photography, newspaper editorials, watching the moon and planning trekking trips that never materialize.