kabhi kabhi shaam dhale,
jab baithey ho’n hum dono –
kabhi apne din ki baatein doosre ko bataatey hue,
aur kabhi bas aise hi, chup chaap ek doosre ko mehsoos karte –
dono ke haath mein ek beer ka glass,
tumhaare haath mein ek ke baad ek cigarette jalti hui –
tab lagta hai bilkul waisa hi,
jaisa lagta tha tab jab hum miley thay,
aur jaan rahey thay ek doosre ko, dheere dheere.
Yaad hai tumhein woh waqt?
art galleriyaan, starbeans ki coffee,
aur woh cocktail regent blues mein –
woh lambe din aur usse bhi lambi raatein jab sirf phone pe kartey thay baat,
aur shuru mein toh receiving mein bhi hota tha charge.
aur unn lambe din aur lambi raat’on ke beech,
woh lamhe bhar ki shaam
jab hote thay ek saath
hum dono.
kitney saal lage, kitne ghante,
kitne phone call, aur kitni baar hum miley,
aur dheere dheere jaan’ne lagey ek doosre ko itna,
ke vishwaas ho gaya ki yehi toh chahiye tha
zindagi ka jigsaw poora hone ke liye,
aur bas, kar liya tay ke tumse kabhi nahin bhi miley hotey,
phir bhi tumse na milney ka hota pachhtaava –
maaloom hota meri zindagi ko, ke ismein jis zindagi ko milna tha,
woh abhi tak mili nahin.
Tab se abb tak,
kaise aa gaye hum?
Humaare kal ne pauhunchaaya humein
humaare aaj tak.
aur ye aaj raasta bana raha hai
humaare aane waale kal ke liye.
Ye padh kar soch rahe hoge tum – ke kal hoga toh kaisa hoga?
Bas, aisa hi hoga, meri jaan – tum aur main, hum dono, ek saath,
aur humaari banaayi hui ye zindagi.
So, my little baby brother seems to have grown up – officially.
He’s left home to join a very prestigious course at a very prestigious institute – and it’s just what he’d wanted – and he’s happy – and so am I. 🙂
He’s lived at home way longer than I have. He was born in Meerut, and then lived there through school, and then way lucky enough to have an option to join the Institute of Hotel Management in Meerut. He’s done with college too now, and has gotten through what he’d wanted, and has moved into the new hostel just a couple of days ago.
He started classes yesterday, and he’s loving it!
Mom, Papa and I are just happy that our Brat finally has some discipline in his life! The poor boy has to wake up at 5:30 and go do P.T.!! The idiotic, lazy boy who didn’t bathe till you pushed him into the bathroom and locked him inside, is now bathing that early in the morning, and getting dressed in formals and going to class! Oooh, how I love it! *evil laughter*
Here’s wishing him all the happiness and love, and all the fun and hard work, and all of what he loves the most! 🙂
Last night, there was the loveliest and scariest storm I’ve seen. We live on the fifth floor of a building which is surrounded by almost nothing. Behind the apartments, there are a few houses – but they’re all just two or three storeys high. Behind these houses, there’s just wide open land for acres and acres – and you can see the lit up highway far, far away, after the acres of greenery. So, when there’s a storm, standing in our balcony is just an amazing experience. I guess the wind velocity would be high since there are no obstructions in the way. Last night, a bucket lying in the balcony, flew about with the wind. And in far distance, all you could see was the translucent dust rising up in swirls.
Beautiful!
This morning, what woke me up was the cool breeze, and the sounds of peacocks and koels. I opened my eyes to see the plants in my balcony dancing, with the wind.
Such a nice way to start your day, I think. 🙂
Many people ask us why we choose to live in the suburbs, and drive an hour or more, one way, to work everyday.
For someone who’d never stepped into a swimming pool ever, G has managed to learn how to swim in just a little over a week.
It all started when we moved into this flat, a year and a half ago, and saw the half-constructed swimming pool. It took a year or so for the pool to be ready for use, and the day we saw the notice that said ‘Membership Open’, we rushed to buy swim suits and goggles, and caps and ear plugs. So, I bought a sporty black and yellow racerback suit, white goggles and cap, and ear plugs. He was to get swimming trunks and goggles for himself, and he didn’t because, like he said, he wasn’t sure if he’ll actually swim or not.
.
Flashback
A 4-year old, little boy goes with his parents and older sisters to a big, swanky hotel to meet his cousins who’re visiting from abroad. His parents and the other grownups sit around, sipping tea. While, the older children all run around, playing. The moody little 4-year old sits next to his mum. He sees the other children playing and decides to venture away from the safety of being next to mommy.
The next thing he knows, he’s been pushed into the swimming pool by some boisterous cousin of his. He gasps for breath and madly flails his arms and legs about, till someone jumps in and rescues him. Maybe it took less than a minute for someone to see him in the water, and to jump in and get him out – but, to the 4-year old brain it’s obviously a huge trauma.
And this puts him off swimming for a long, long time.
.
Cut to April, 2009
G steps into the pool with me, imagines that his asthma is catching up again because he’s feeling short of breath. This is actually because the water’s cold, and he refuses to move. He walks right out, changes, sits by the poolside and waits till I finish my first swim of the season. All the while, I’m thinking how I was right and that the pest I’m married to has to, of course, do all the drama possible.
So anyway, that was the first day.
Second day, we couldn’t go swimming. Both of us got stuck with work in office.
Third day, and I see him jump into the pool even before I’d changed my clothes. And the pest just had to go and prove me wrong by swimming 3/4 of a breadth of the pool within three days. And then to doing ten breadths in a day, within the next 5 days.
I’m the one who’s grown up swimming. My brother and I would live in the club swimming pool in the Summer. So, for about a month before our pool opened here, I was (literally!) jumping up and down in excitement. And now, this pest is more excited than I am – everyday! You should just see him!
And this makes me so happy. And so proud of the pest. 🙂
It also makes me want to smack him – but that’s besides the point.
.
P.S. – Smack him, why? Well, because I’m down with the stupid pox, and he’s going swimming every evening! hmpph!!!
You sleep till late,
while I wake early
and wait
for the slumber leading from
the excesses of
Saturday night
to end.
Or sometimes keep
peeping into our bedroom, while
getting ready, watering the plants,
feeding the cats.
Looking in, at you sleeping,
like you do,
your nose buried in your pillow.
Smelling like you do,
(as I keep telling you)
like a rubber balloon.
Waiting for you to wake
up. So I can see your searching
eyes, looking for me
to kiss your sleep away.
And then you sit
up in bed, wanting
your hot cup of strong
sweet tea, and the news
of the day.
And after that first
kiss of the day,
I go back to getting ready,
watering the plants, feeding
the cats, and waiting
for the next one that comes
when you’re getting out
of our bed, and starting our one day
together.
So, remember the sale I was talking about? Yes, yes – I went finally. To pick up my “free clothes”. And apparently, this sale was so good for business that they extended it for another day, and added another offer too. So there was the shop for men’s clothes, and women get a 100% off on clothes of the same value. And there was a buy one, get one free thingie too! Quite fantastic!
So, well – yeah – retail therapy continues.
Here’s all the stuff I got…
the basic white shirt
–
formal gray trousers
–
a very well-fitting black top
–
a white and black tie-up top
–
slinky tie-up top
(wearing this one makes me feel very Julia Roberts-like in the Polo match scene from Pretty Woman)
–
—
And…
I also got myself extremely jazzy spectacle frames. For the days when I’m just too lazy to put on my contacts.
…all my troubles seemed so far away…oh, I believe, in yesterdayyyy….
🙂
—
I wonder how it is that G and I forgot how to spend the “doing-nothing” days together. ‘Coz that’s what had brought us close. That’s what had made us realise how much we love spending time together. That’s what made us think of how much we’d both love to spend our lives together.
So, incidently, that’s what we did yesterday. After months. Maybe after a whole year. Maybe after a couple of years. I don’t even remember when we last did. I don’t think he remembers either.
Lunch at Wenger’s, cheap clothes shopping at Sarojini Nagar, then back to Connaught Place for the hugely awesome Van Heuson sale, then drinks with friends and dinner at Nizam’s, and then the long fun drive back home.
I remember catching the 100 number bus from North Campus and coming to C.P. to meet G. We’d usually stop over at the Art Today gallery. I’d always stop in front of the Tanishq showroom. He’d always stop in front of the Reebok shoe store. We’d both go for the audio show that is put on at the Bose showroom every half hour. We’d have sandwiches and my favourite mutton shaami kababs from Wenger’s. Have always loved the shaami kababas there. Mainly because their kababs taste just like the ones that my Naani makes. DV8, Rodeo’s and Blues were our three favourite watering holes.
So anyway, yesterday we did just that. And it felt amazingly wonderful to do just exactly what we felt like doing. Without any planning. Without thinking of the money being spent. Without having to reach home for something or the other. Without having any pending work to finish for office.
Oh, also among the things to put down here for posterity, is my first experience of claustrophobia.
So, we were walking down Sarojini Nagar, with me entering a shop, getting out and starting to walk back in the direction that we just came from, and G getting extremely frustrated with my awesome directional skills. This, m’dear, is a skill I get from my mother. Saahil and Papa and I had spent our entire Nepal holiday laughing at her forgetting which way we’d come from, and I’d laughed the hardest – so, of course, I have now come by my just desserts. And quite ashamed of myself I am. But, of course – this is all your fault, Ma!
So, anyway, we walked up to the first floor of this tiny shop. And when I say tiny, I actually mean – TINY! It was this little pigeonhole of a room, with racks and racks and frikkin’ racks of clothes all over, and at least 15 girls with either fawning mothers or fawning boyfriends helping them select clothes. I saw some nice formal shirts that I’d liked on a mannequin downstairs, so I reached up to the rack, and was trying to get one of the hangers off it, when suddenly, my head went all dizzy and weird – and I dropped about eight of these hangers (with shirts hanging on them) on this girl’s head. My upper chest, y’know the part that’s just below the hollow of your neck, felt like an iron iron (a clothes iron made of iron, that is – you know the kind that dhobis use – the kind that you put coal into) had been placed on it. The aforementioned part of the chest hurt, it felt like someone had used up all of the oxygen in the tiny pigeonhole, and my head was staring to feel really funny. Through the haze I hear the shopkeeper telling off the girl that I had dropped all those hangers on. Then I heard the girl complaining that she hadn’t dropped all those clothes – “SHE did”, I heard her say. I remember mumbling a “sorry” before I pushed all the women, their fawning mothers and boyfriends out of the way, and running down the stairs and out of the tiny shop, into the lane outside, and knowing that my face is a bright lobster red, and I could feel my heartbeat all the way up in my throat. It still felt like there was no oxygen anywhere. I looked back towards the shop, and saw my darling husband appear through the hordes of women I had pushed out of my way, apologising and holding all our packets and trying to explain to the guard that his wife (G’s, not the guard’s) had run out not because she had stolen something but because she wasn’t feeling too well. By the time he finished the apologies and the explanations, and reached me, he already had his asthma inhaler out. A few Asthalin-filled breaths and a bottle of water, and getting to the car and putting the AC on, and in another 10 minutes I was fine, and wondering what the hell just happened.
Now, I was one of those kids who scoffed at other kids who would faint while standing in the sun during March Past in school, or in the Chem Lab with the smells. And here I was feeling like I couldn’t breathe, just because I was in a room that was a little bit too small and a little bit too crowded for comfort!
So, yes – this is something I’m going to have to live with. The fact that I did get claustrophobic once. And, here’s hoping I don’t – ever again.
Oooh – and as a continued effort at the retail therapy, bought four nice shirts for myself and a pair of shorts for G from Sarojini Nagar. And then – there was the awesome Van Heuson sale. Men could buy whatever for say, x rupees, and women would get 100% of the men’s shopping bill as a voucher to shop for free. Now I understand that it was a marketing gimmick, and all it actually was, was just a 50% off sale. By targetting the women shoppers though, they pulled off a verrrrry smart gimmick. There were women of all ages who came to the store dragging their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, nephews, neighbours – whoever – just so they could get Van Heuson clothes “for free”. So, well – we picked out two very very nice shirts for G, and I get to go this evening to pick out my “free” clothes! Yay!!
—
So yeah – the day was fun. India gate, the President’s estate, talking, my favourite mogra flowers, our favourite cocktail in the world (this one called Don’t Dig It, from Blues), Wenger’s sandwiches, Nizam’s kathi rolls, singing together on the drive back home.
I wonder why we stopped doing this. Good we’re back to doing it again. 🙂
—
Sitting on the balcony right now, and the sky is overcast with rain clouds, and there’s a cool breeze blowing – and this is the song that’s playing in my head…
Three Drinks Ahead 
