Hear,hear....!!!

After much pleading and child-like pouting,
I hereby declare The Rainrider's birthday week (12-19 Oct) OPEN!!! :) :) :) The big day,by the way, is on 19 October.

Those who feel sweet enough to wish him may do so via comments to this post :)

Have yourselves a happy week!!!

Mmmmh,it's been a while since I posted anything.Not that there hasn't been anything to blog about.It's just that everytime I started writing,halfway through I'd lose interest and leave it unfinished.Consequently my google documents account has a lot of half-written unfinished drafts.Maybe I should just get clever and put them up as contests-"Finish the draft and win a prize....".Though I can't,for the life of me, imagine who'd want to finish my sentences for me.

Here's a whirlwind of an update:

• Worked nights all of September.It's been an eye-opening experience.I've learnt to value food and a good consistent healthy routine because...
• ...on one fine day,I had one of those dramatic faint-and-fall episodes at home.Result:doc prescribes 3 months worth of vitamin and iron supplements.Bleagh
• Went on a short weekend getaway types to Pondicherry before that with Dad,Mom and Amit.Want to go back again.
• The Mal family and the TamJ family have been exchanging sweets lately...Kaju katli and Nagapattinam Halwa.Sweet Business,that.
• 3 birthdays went by.Amma got two sarees, Dad got Peter England trousers and C-ma was wished over conference call and ended up with confusion about what I was doing with her nephew after a night shift

Yesterday was "catch-up on your chores" Sunday.After a really longish break, I managed to oil my hair before washing it as opposed to the usual run-in-shampoo-condition-run-out routine with Amma's yells trailing behind me accusatorily as I run off to work with wet hair tied up.

Spent some time with T and expressed deep dislike for his maidservant.I must've sounded like Amma when she goes off on her ranting trips about our weird maid with kleptomania;my reasons,however, were completely different and extremely scandalous.

We ate lunch at Subway yesterday.As always,there was one difficult customer making everyone in the queue behind her pull their hair out.Madam arrived in a car,stepped out on her stilettos and firmly ordered her boyfriend to "stay there" while she gets their takeaway.The guy must be stupid or henpecked or both because he actually parked the car and followed her in.Grave mistake if you ask me.He would've realized yesterday how crabby and whiny she can get at the same time.But like I said maybe he was stupid so maybe he's the kind who says stuff like"She's so assertive and aggressive....I love aggressive women you know?" *wink-wink* Bleagh.

Anyway back to our story....not that there is much of one here.Madam placed her orders and gave the already confused new staff an even harder time as she kept complaining in extremely high pitch about how she didn't want olives added, or cheese, or this or that.My God!!!Oh yeah she said that too."Go-hod!" with nose in the air and eyes rolling.Kinda made her look like she was having seizures,that over exaggerated eyeball movement.The S & H boyfriend, meanwhile, stood very close behind her for a while and when she started yelling, quietly went to the nearest chair and sat down.When it finally seemed like the order was getting around to being ready he stood beside her again and sympathetically enqured what happened."They screwed up my sub" was the anguished reply.Stupid woman.

On the other hand, T sweetly assumed his duties of deciding on our orders (he knows I can't order food even at gunpoint) and patiently answered the befuddled questions the newbie staff asked about toppings preferences.What would I do without him.

As we chomped into our respective subs, we watched a little girl who by all means was a dynamite in the making.She entered hand-in-hand with her father loudly exclaiming that he didn't give her time to wash her hair.Jaws dropped."She scares me",T said.Her father ordered and while they waited,the mite ran around her table scrunching up the menu pamphlets and throwing them at her father.The patriarch caught her, grabbed her close and did funny antics to make her laugh repeatedly.It was a really sweet laughter I thought.

"She sounds like a ringtone", T said reaching out to take a paneer cube out of my sub.

When the girl's food arrived, she took one look at her plate and loudly said "Baba I won't eat this!"

"Why dear?"

"Because I don't like it."

"You must finish it, it's good for you."

"Wait till I tell Mummy!"

Somehow, he managed to coax her into eating quietly.T, his sub finished, took a leaf from the girl's book and pleaded child-like for an iced tea.It was a complicated manouevre which involved me leaving my half eaten sub and walking all the way to the counter to get it.A few mock angry glares later, I fetched the drink.The girl had finished her food and was now running around pausing at tables and peering into faces of its occupants.

At one particular table, she gazed at a baby. The baby's grandma smiled at the girl and asked her if she wanted a baby.

"I already have one" was the reply much to everyone's amusement.

Kids are such sources of amusement.They put a smile on your face no matter what.I watched as the baby's father joined their table and bent down to kiss the baby's head gently before sitting down while his wife smiled at him lovingly.I turned away from the intimacy of the moment to look outside.A ragpicker passed by with his baby son in his arms wrapped in a cloth.The baby playfully whacked his nose and squealed.The ragpicker laughed and for that one sweet funny moment he might've forgotten about the miseries of his existence.

Sunday's here.Yay

It's 7:30AM on a pretty nice Sunday morning.As I write this post Elton John's Tiny Dancer plays on Winamp.I'm also downloading some stuff I heard on The Rainrider's ipod.

We went to the beach yesterday morning after my shift got done at 6:30am.I'd lost it the night before, snapping and snarling at every poor soul who dared to cross my path.The victims:Amma and The Rainrider.They understandingly put it down to lack of holiday and stress from doing night shifts.I decided that I just had to go to some place thats open.Nothing more soothing than sitting by the sea quietly, just watching and hearing the thoughts that go round and round in your head.It's almost as if one was taking a step back from the mad melee of life and choosing just to be an observer.Typical of me to like that kind of thing.One can't take rome out of the romans I suppose.

So we went.Him all grumpy and befuddled with sleep and me unable to stop grinning like an idiot because at that time, riding and listening to music seemed to me the best thing in the whole wide world.The wind blew my frshly washed and conditioned hair in all directions and I closed my eyes letting it caress my face.Rainrider's ipod was plugged in my ears and as I listened I realized how much I've come to love Simon and Garfunkel in recent times.Also realized that I miss good music so much that it is almost a physical ache.

We didn't spend too much time on the beach.Hardly any infact.Except for the few minutes that he went running behind couple of pigeons armed with his trusty canon powershot, leaving me to watch a boxing class in progress. I marveled at how one tiny little thing who was just as tall as the master's knee kept going smackety-smack pulling out his punches.Kids are such reservoirs of energy.They'd put a wound up spring to shame.

I woke at 5:30AM today unable to sleep.The night shift is leaving my body quite confused.It is also teaching me to appreciate the little things that I take for granted.Sunrises and daylight make really glad to be alive these days.So does a good restful sleep.

I wrote a little bit after I woke.The morning cool just as the sun rose felt positively delicious.It's nice to be awake when my family's up and about.And like I've said a thousand times before,there's something magical about a sunday morning.The world just seems a lot more relaxed and laid back.Rewinding after a week's worth of work might just be the thing that everyone's most grateful for.

I long for all the sundays from childhood.After waking up I'd switch on the tv and watch "Rangoli" on Doordarshan at 7AM and watch all the hindi movie songs.Amma would have to do much prodding to get me to brush my teeth.Then it would be back in front of the TV with my bowl of Bonny-mix,watching whatever cartoon prgramme my brother would happen to be watching.Shame they stopped manufacturing it.Shame I don't get to spend enough time with those I want to.

I've a couple of things to be taken care of today.Eyebrows need shaping badly,need to buy amma's birthday gift (her birthday's on wed),need to get 'finances in order', need to get around to organizing a weekend getaway.I also feel like making lunch.

Despite a bad headache,I've a feeling it's going to be a nice day.

Morose

It's 3AM and I'm at work, halfway through an eight-hour shift that runs from 10.30PM to 6.30AM.I'm feeling unusually hungry today.But somehow I just don't feel like stepping outside the team area to go to the canteen and eat.First of all, I really can't bring myself to like the canteen food.Secondly, going out now would mean seeing the darkness outside albeit through thick glass windows.For some reason, thats not a sight I want to see now.

The mall that houses my office is all shut down and dark as well.Darkness somehow reminds me that while I'm here, my loved ones are all fast asleep at home, secure in their respective slumbers.Here I am at this obscure time of the night fighting all the anxiety that's knotted in my chest.How I wish I could go back home and crawl into bed and under the covers.It's funny how much I love my bed considering that it's actually a 'diwan' on which two very old foam mattresses have been placed.Infact I think the mattresses are more than a decade old.

A meeting is supposed to happen tomorrow.Not the official kind.I might have preferred the official kind.It's got the significance of being a step towards "building my life" as my mum calls it.And now at the very last hour,I find myself wringing my hands in sheer restless apprehension.Some unexpected regressions in what Fred and I planned are sending us down the road to hysterics.

Also I'm fast approaching a deadline and I've made hardly any progress and I'm really disappointed with what I've managed to do so far.Not like I'm able to make any difference to that either.

Baba once jokingly called Amama "Mrs Vepralam" which literally translates to mean Mrs Anxiety.Looks like that trait has been generously passed down the lineage.

I'm tempted to call the rainrider just to talk.But slumber is such an essential requirement.Especially when one's stressed out and upset.I don't have the heart to wake him.

Also toyed with the idea of calling Amma.That would alarm her.Given the way her BP has been fluctuating like India's performance in international cricket, I'm pretty sure she'll freak out.Especially if I tell her that I called to say I'm feeling kinda lonely.

So I've decided to stick to my desk and chair in the corner and count the minutes.

Highway of sadness...

I travel to work by the same route every afternoon.Yes,afternoon.I've been on the afternoon shift all this month and that gave me the chance to do a lot more people-watching on the way to work.In the morning shifts,it wasn't really possible considering that there aren't too many people out on the streets at that unearthly hour.Also I'd spend that 20-minute ride pulling my eyelids apart at regular intervals.But now,however, the city is halfway through it's day by the time I start mine.

There are two sights I come across everyday.A female beggar with a bad leg is one of them.I'm not quite sure what is wrong but her left leg is always in a cast-like covering,from the knee all the way down to the ankle.And she moves around with a crutch.A cynic's impulse would be to consider her a fraud who begs from sympathetic people.But somehow I can't really bring myself to think of her that way.It will be apparent why,when one takes a look at her face.Her eyes are always dull and she constantly wears a look of misery.She also contorts her face in pain frequently.

The other is a beggar on the pavement just outside my offfice.He looks like he has serious malnutrition issues.He is painfully scrawny and his back is badly bent.I've never found the courage to look at his face or his limbs to see what state they are in.He has a stainless steel container that he uses to catch the attention on passers-by by knocking on the pavement.

Yesterday it rained hard in the afternoon.As soon as I woke from my 'power nap', the storm clouds gathered in a jiffy and within five minutes it was pouring.The rain God must be one heck of a cheeky blighter.After gathering my anti-downpour weapons (namely my brother's windcheater and Amma's embarrassing John's koda) I set off to work.

I saw her first.She sat under the Egmore bridge, seeking shelter from the rain.She wore her miserable expression and massaged her bad leg.I couldn't figure out if the droplets running down her face were the raindrops or her tears.

I looked around for the man with the bad back when I got close to the office.He wasn't there.The puddle water from the road kept spilling onto the pavement in murky brown waves.I wondered where he was taking refuge.

He was back today again at his usual place, knocking his container on the ground with an alarming clunk clunk.People stopped by sometimes to drop a coin into his container with a loud clatter.The others just walked on either out of indifference or out of a sense of helplessness that their meagre change was not a permanent solutions to this man's strife.A sense of helplessness that I can identify with.People give him change out of pity.But how much is that rupee or two really going to help him or others like him?If only there was something one could do to really lend them a helping hand that galvanizes them on their way past poverty.

This reminds me of an argument I once had with a friend.A heated argument with Abhishek whether "whatever happens is for the good" or not.Being the self-righteous bum that I was back then,I told him that I agreed with the cliched phrase.He reacted in apparent anger and said "what about the plight of the millions who are suffering around the world?" I managed to provide some weak,ineffective replies then but now the argument is vivid in my memory.

No,life isn't fair and I guess it wasn't meant to be that way.But as long as the scales are tipping in your favour,I suppose you might as well be grateful.

:(

I've a nagging suspicion that I've lost the ability to write.I haven't written any poems for AGES.
And when I do brace myself and sit down to write a couple of verses,all that happens is a few lines of immmature trash end up at the top of the page after which the paper is hastily crumpled and thrown away.Who'd want to treasure a reminder that screams "you can't write for nuts!!!".

I happened to read my last few posts and felt that each one was more mundane than the other.Caught up in the daily grind like the author.Also noticed with a broken heart that visits or comments to my blog have become a well rounded zero.PR has never been my forte so I'm not going to bother with the publicising.

Kinda reminds me of what Tim Allen said in an interview.When asked if humour was a gift or a talent anyone could develop, he said its a gift and he's always afraid that it'd disappear one day and he wouldn't know what to do.I know what he means.My 'gift' seems to have disappeared.

Solitude

Yesterday after a long hiatus, I ate a meal all by myself in a public place.

Though the new job and current set of colleagues are nice and likeable, I can't say the same for the office canteen.The food is uninspiringly boring and doesn't carry any traces of anything such as delicacy. Also a couple of us have the morbid fear that it's prepared in quite unhygenic conditions as well. Amma doesn't always find the time or good health to pack me dinner so I have to eat from work. However, the likelihood of me eating anything from the office canteen anymore is extremely low.

Thanks to T's habit of turning up at dinner to spend time with me, I've been eating food from either one of the food courts in Spencer's plaza. One has plenty of choice as far as food is concerned in the plaza but then again, continuous indulgence in the same might just have your pocket moaning after a bit. Together T and I sampled stuff from Pizza Hut, Pathankot, some north Indian place I can't remember the name of and our very own Saravana Bhavan, that God sent blessing to mankind - especially the kind from Chennai.

So yesterday I went back to Saravana Bhavan to eat dinner.And while I silently waited for the food to arrive, I had the opportunity to indulge in the long forgotten pastime of mine - people watching.

The mall was crowded. All kinds of people hung around in every nook and cranny possible. Large families of 18 or 20 members just stood in the middle of corridors blocking everyone's way.When they did eventually move, they moved as if they were underwater and to the unfortunate one stuck behind them, it took truck loads of patience and fervent praying before they shifted and stood in front of someone else in a hurry.Where there are large crowds, one can also expect the lewd and the lecherous.They made pathetic attempts to "impress" every female who passed by irrespective of her age.With such loafers, even little girls aren't safe.Some of them stood at strategic spots and gaped open-mouthed, saliva beginning to dribble down the corner of their mouths. And when one shot them a contemptuous look, the assholes would think they're being 'checked out'.Profound idiocy as never before.

The restaurant was crowded. I sat in a section that was a narrow corridor off the main area. The walls were tiled, giving one the overall feeling of sitting in a bathroom rather than a restaurant. As part of Independence Day celebrations, they had artists painting 'patriotic' tattoos on willing bodies. Couple of kids ran around the restaurant, absolutely gleeful about the flags they got painted on their faces. One fat little one waddled along and stopped short when he bumped into a waiter.The kid's nose was in contact with the man's stomach.He then slowly looked up into the man's face and got a kindly smile.The kid glowered at him, shoved the man aside and resumed waddling behind the other brats who were too fast for him anyway.

Just before dinnner arrived, I ran into a friend from school who I haven't seen in years.I got the "you've lost so much weight" dialogue again much to my pleasure.Two minutes later friend disappeared into the crowd and food appeared.In the course of dinner, I messaged Uncle and was thrilled when he actually messaged back and was indignant on my behalf that I was working on Independence Day.After some more quiet masticating and mulling over thoughts of the Rainrider in my head, I was finally through with my dinner.When asked for the bill, it was brought four times faster than the food itself.The change however was another story altogether.

On my way back up the stairs to work, I thought about how not very long ago I used to sit by myself at one of the popular cafes in the city day after day, reading or writing. I missed that solitude at that moment.The feeling of being part of a crowd,yet lost in private thoughts in my head.Maybe I should do that sometime again considering that I've found better places than that cafe to write in peacefully.....