Why I love my Laali

Laali: I was watching Spartacus...

Pyaali: What men na!

Laali: I thought it was more about the script and the casting and the making!

Pyaali: I mean, they wear these little costumes, and they have such toned legs!

Laali: You mean, meat shops!

Pyaali: Nai buddhu! The legs, ahem, you know a man does all the kick-starting with his legs.

Laali: Why would you correlate kick-starting activity with a TV series? Stop reading Cosmopolitan! 

Pyaali:  let me be clear. After CENTURIES of men looking at my tits in stead of my eyes and pinching my ass instead of shaking my hand, I now have the *DIVINE* right to stare at a man's legs with vulgar, cheap appreciation if I want to!

Laali: Stop quoting movies. 

Pyaali: I can't drool over legs. Can't quote movies. Can't play my drums loud. Can't laugh out loud in a quiet coffee shop. Can't do the skippity dippity whack-over, check my arse rabbit jump! What is allowed?

Silence. Silence. Silence. 

Laali: Biatch! Go get me a cup of coffee. 

P.S. Please note that the "skippity dippity whack-over, check my arse rabbit jump" is subject to copyright issues. :D

The smells. The sights. & The survival.

No playing a female version of Shanta ram here. But sights and sounds are the alpha vital components of every day living . Sitting on the fifth floor of my work place, I inhale in the familiar smells of the furnishing as well as the coffee fumes which is a permanent fixation. I gaze down at the vehicles moving about in a rush. A car is trying to take a left diversion. A pedestrian is ambling on absent-minded, unwary of the cluster piling up on her way. A biker trying to squeeze through the little vacant spaces. There, a car nearly brushed a truck and now there could be brawl. 

From the 5th floor

Taking a top-angle view at the present moment could be uplifting. It makes me feel like God. Maybe because, each one of us is scrambling in the dark, trying to find an immediate solution or fixation to the problem on our hand. We just want to clear things off our tables and end our long stretched ordeals, so that we could go back home and watch a match or do the chatter-chatter with friends. Every day we enter our confinements, with a single point agenda-survival. 


It's like watching a bunch of teenagers enter a deep jungle. And you are gorging on popcorn and biting your nails off to watch them emerge out of that shit hole. You want them to. ( I sometimes stand up in the theater and yell things at the actors on the screen, embarrassing my friends) . You are willing to contribute. To think it out. To reason. And the survival happens. It makes you a happy person. And you go home content, like you have saved this billy from the crutches of death.


So, yes, coming back to the sights and sounds, it's the whiff of coffee, it's the familiar air freshener around your desk or even the mouth-watering spells of pav bhaji  made on a bandi outside your work place. It's the work-place buddy whom you are very fond of. Or the familiarity of your mail box or the pin-up of your work desk that you really worked hard at! (Yeah, I know I am being a drag., I get pretty excited when I write..a que for insancefckr...*blushes*). But it's the sights and sounds that amble us on, that give us those little connecting moments in between chaos. Survival could be deemed a huge monster term ( he he, got ya!) but, isn't it an everyday process, that gives us some hands-on experience! 

The writer's curse

I often write songs on the move and manage to amaze the audiences around me. As a part of this process, I am told that I am immensely blessed to be able to write so spontaneously. But not many know that I write to reduce myself of some burden and to free myself from the confinement of thoughts. Whenever I have something to pen down, the ends of my fingers crack up, like someone has plugged in electricity. There's an urgency to transfer these thoughts onto a paper through a pen or type out at rapid speed onto my keyboard. This urgency grips me and does not let me concentrate on anything else.

More often that not, when I am in transit or amidst many people, I have a flux of thoughts constantly occupying my head. This crux takes energy for processing and every thought is nevertheless meaningful. Oh! The sheer agony of deciding which one is more important. And the patience that does not seem to hang on until the end of the piece. The numerous inclusions that seem very relevant to make the piece look complete and the debatable perceptions which need to be mildly addressed. Not to forget the amount of research for stating a fact right or supporting an assertion and the endless runs of proof-checking.

And that isn't the end of it. I mean this is just the premise. A writer writes for the audiences out there whom they hope to connect with. But certainly, as it had been proved multiple times over that it isn't a fair world out there. There are thousands amidst anguish waiting to tear down everything coming their way. Opinionatedness and  perceptions rank high, beginning with the brand of daily cereal. Whether or not actions exist, ideologies do, in excess. so when I express my thoughts, I do not always receive nods of agreement and pats on the back. I write for audiences who comprise the soul of an ever-changing, cruel world. And I know I shall receive some choicest of brickbats.

What was I saying again about being blessed? To want to write, to desire to write and to announce your thought, is the curse of a writer. And to choose to be cursed, isn't wise, isn't even normal. But like me countless writers endure this curse, only to be able to write, to create. Because, behind every curse is a creation waiting to be unleashed!

My book is worth its punctuation and words

Statutory Confinement, I can hear myself being a control-obsessed freak, a near-Monica Chandler Bing or even a reflection of the English teacher  whom I detested the most. A writer's obsession with the punctuation is a mystery that the non-writer world is yet to crack. And something that no longer surprises me Its a passion that can only be savored when you arrive at the secret recipe, your writing draft.

Its a pleasure to write, carefully tracing out the lines and break-ups and separators. Nothing can suffice the simple high of drafting a piece without many errors. It is a sure way to measure progress and not to forget focus. Sigh! If only the railway station paperbacks understand this. They would cover themselves in a more dignified way. What about the cheap sales of master-pieces? Print-offs. Rip-offs. Replicated without as much as a thought and so much of any mercy (This coming form a person who has printed out adaptations while being a freelancer)

If only you've known that I spend hours, carefully verifying and cross-checking punctuations in every piece I write. Because I am filled with wonder constantly at the character they lend to the lines. At their unique shapes that make my wrist turn, when I write and not type out. Their ability to stand out against the letters, stopping them, prodding them, allowing them to introspect. Imagine your life's story-line being completely devoid of punctuations. No time to pause. No time to stop and celebrate. No time to question motives. No time to be in awe of experiences. I'm sure living would lack a deeper meaning, to begin with.

Looking at the sad paper-backs make me think of punctuations and the words that they interrupt or crown. So, next time you are tempted to pick one of those adaptations, why don't you end your thought with a question mark (?) and action with a full stop (.)

A novel about my wife: Emily Perkins

It was motion and stillness both at the same time! The story altogether transported me into another realm, sucking me into a nimbus, slowly lulling me into stillness, while the world around me moved! This book means so much to me. Because not only did it wake up the avid reader inside me, but it also inspired me to pen greyness. Tepid. Flawed. And real. Emily Perkins shows how vulnerable a man’s world can be beneath that stone-face, funny mask and heroic aura! How much does becoming a father mean to a man! But all through she maintains a fine distance from raw, naked emotion. No, it does not hit you in the eye, the emotion in this book. It gently tugs at your heart strings and tells you that it is all right to be vulnerable, to dream with the lurking shadow of it breaking to pieces following suit. For there would be someone who would find you beautiful, even at the rock-bottom of the pit!

Inside my apartment, I lived with Ann as long as I read this book. I could see her, vividly, pace through my living room, trapped in her own imagination. Ann, the female lead of the book suffers beautifully! Sometimes you’d want to just reach out, bury her between the contours of your womb and comfort her! Sometimes you’d want to chide her for being too strong. And throughout the book you'd want to scream at her that she is ruining her own marriage by living in that world she built inside her head! The book explores the possibility of confinement existing within our own mind and how during vulnerable stages we succumb to it. Ann is beautifully complemented by a husband who suffers from reality! The ocean of love that he possesses for Ann overwhelms him and fills him with gratitude at the same time. His world is airy, bright and beautiful because of this woman and he is grateful that she is his wife. It is this selfless gratification that warms you up to Tom Stone. Not his persona.

You see Ann’s beauty through his eyes, not the handsome chiseled face and perfectly crafted features kind of beauty but stayling alive enough to feel hurt, pain, discomfort and yet not lose your strength EVER, kind of beauty! You worry with this man when his wife starts hallucinating and you feel equally exhilarated when he finally becomes a father! You feel his loss when his wife dies and you mourn while he relishes the moment! This book drew my attention to something important that has always been ignored, that only in confinement shall you experience the greatest sense of freedom and only in the eye of the storm would you realize your true potential!

. If books are indeed about transporting you to another world, touching your life and yet not changing the person you are, then I claim that through A novel about my wife, I have experienced this and much more!

Abrupt conversations1

Artist: I create and I destroy

Aide: What do you destroy?

Artist: I destroy whatever I create.

Aide: Do you destroy other things too?

Artist: Not intentionally!

Aide: You did not answer my question. Do you destroy other things too?

Artist: Sometimes. In the process of destroying whatever I create.

Aide: How do you feel as soon as you destroy something?

Artist: Like God.

Aide: Do you think God destroys?

Artist: I think God also destroys.

Aide: Then why do you want to destroy? Can’t you wait for God to destroy whatever you create?

Artist: I did not think about it.

Aide: Well now you can think about it.

(He thinks, deep and long)

Artist: But then, I AM GOD.

Aide: You said you feel “like God”. So you aren’t God!

Artist: I am not God?

Aide: No you are not.

Artist: Then who am I?

Aide: You are someone who creates and destroys. You do not have any creations to show to the world, because you would have already destroyed them. This world will never wake up to your greatness; will never make you GOD-only because you destroy every masterpiece that you create.

Artist: But I want to be God.

Aide: You can be God.

Artist: How?

Aide: Create the greatest of things that man can only dream of and then, RETAIN everything. Let the masterpieces roll in the gold dust of mankind and let them be the statues of Buddha that will forever replace Nirvana.

Artist: And then I will be God?

Aide: Yes, you can be GOD.

Artist: Whatever it is that you said, I mean what I have to do in order to become God can you write it down in simpler language?

Aide: How much more simpler?

Artist: Simpler without the Buddha, nirvana and gold dust. I am allergic to gold!

Empowerment of soles

A lot of ‘soul clutter’ around me. Enlightenment of soul. Liberation of soul.  Mating of souls.  And I have only begun.

A completely random thought amidst this soul chaos: I wonder why do guys (I am particularly sure that only guys can do this) forget to wear their socks. That is quite a distracting sight.  Not wearing a sock(s) is ignoring your sole. Your feet, I mean sole helps you in walking ahead, moving forward, catching your bus, collecting your pay cheque, letting your hair down on the dance floor, buying hot samosas in the rain , walking to and fro the coffee machine at work and a host of other activities that define the very essence of life! How can guys ignore to pay attention to the soles?

The socks became an integral part of the greatest of civilizations. There are evidences that the Greeks covered their feet with socks made out of matted animal hair, from as early as the 8th century. The Romans were only happy to follow suit. By the 5th century AD, socks called ‘puttees’ were worn by holy people in Europe to symbolize purity. By 1,000 AD, socks became a symbol of wealth among the nobility. The invention of a Knitting Machine in 1589 revolutionized the process of making a sock. From then on socks could be made six times faster and a host of design elements found their way onto socks.

With a history as rich, your pair of socks, lying to some corner of your room, maybe unwashed, has a lineage of respected ancestors. It lies there ignored, hoping that you would put your socks on someday! That someday it shall see the light of the world. That someday it shall fulfill its responsibility of protecting your soles and giving you warmth.

This is my honest appeal to all you brothers out there who are habituated to ignore your pair of socks. You are gross. Grow up and contribute your share to the empowerment of a sock. (This comes from a person who has countless number of fresh socks waiting to be work. Yes, I am wearing red polka-dotted socks right now)