Shades of Red

Red is the most significant color in our culture. It is the color of seduction and power, red has been symbolically present on every auspicious occasion.

This color has made a recent entry into my life. my transformation from being a girl to being married woman, happened in a red lehenga,  with the almost red henna on my hands and was sealed with the pinch of red powder sindoor on my head. Like me most Indian brides are bedecked in red bangles and saris, and the ceremonial kiosk showered with red roses. It’s almost the most powerful symbol of leaving behind one’s adolescence and stepping into womanhood.

It was on my last trip to Delhi for Karwa Chauth, that I realized that this one color has so many shades and also degrees! From the moment I boarded the flight I knew that the city would be painted red, literally.  Even from thousands of kilometers away the hue was visible! Since we were in Bombay the clothes were different but the color was the same, red! The number of bangles may be lesser in this part of the country but the color that ruled was, red! I was already out of place in my pink kurti and blue jeans.

My awkwardness vanished the moment I saw my father in law standing at the arrival to receive us, along with him was my namesake cousin. Mum in law called the moment we were in the car and said “welcome home beta” that was when I realized, that all my apprehension was for no reason it was going to be just a red velvet cake walk!!

Karwa chauth is supposed to be a fast done by every married woman for the long life of her husband. It is almost as important as the wedding ceremony itself. I was told that it is very tough because u aren’t even allowed to have water, until moonrise. The moon that day getting all the attention basks in it and therefore is fashionably late! The lesser known fact about this festival is that it also makes the bond between the mother in law and the daughter in law, grow stronger. 

Even before I entered the house I knew what we were having for dinner, my favorite as always! mum does that every single time I am in Delhi and I look forward to it every time I fly in! She had already thought of everything that needed to be done and planned it in the minutest of details. After dinner we went off into the market, just so I could see the fanfare surrounding the occasion. It was 1.30 in the morning and we still could barely find place in the market to stand. Mehendi waalas charging 10 times of what they usually do, aunties trying to bargain, chaatwaalas temping the crowd also toy sellers shouting around..! this was the first time I had seen something like this, two minutes there and my eyes got accustomed..I now could see all possible shades of red!!

Crimson, Auburn, Burgundy, Carmine, Vermilion, scarlet, brick red, rust red, Cerise, Cardinal, chestnut!!! All of them and more! Lil red, lil more red, a lil too red every possible version of the colour was seen. From the tiniest girl with stars in her eyes, to the veteran grand mums with a nice white mane to match the red everyone was drenched in the color. This was the first time I had ever seen something like this.

 I stood there dazed, a little confused, when a hand slid into mine and held tight, took me in the direction I was suppose to walk in, I looked up and saw her smile! My mum in law has always made life easy for me, she has been there when I needed her, and just around the corner on other times.  All I have to do it just call and she has the answers to everything!

She woke up early in the morning and made everything I wanted to eat, I very nicely shared it with my husband, who was awake so early! Not just to support his wife who was doing this for the first time, but also eat what mum had made! Also who was up with us, was my father in law. Papa has been doing it every single year. Looking at them makes me smile always.

The day went past the way it was suppose to be, with mum leading and me in tow! Just like I would like to have it life! Both of us were dressed in the color of the day and were enjoying every bit of it.

Finally the moon had some mercy on the poor thirsty souls and made an appearance. It had never looked more beautiful than it did in that moment. With the pooja done and  me getting my much awaited sip of water, the mood of festive as could be, in all that I happened to catch a moment between papa and mum, it was a little gesture which made my eyes water, the color of the day was caught peeping through my eyes. Hugs followed and lots of wishes, for many more such magical moments. 

I saw all the shades of red in one day, the red that denotes strength and commitment is my favorite!

P.S. just when I thought I had seen it all and my day couldn’t get redder, H walked in with a tiny box which had the prettiest little heart shaped swarovski pendant which is red in color!! The color of love also happens to be RED!

Shattered by the earth.

Devi, 25, is distraught. The earthquake of 18 September in North

Sikkim is taking its toll. Her husband, who works for the GREF is

nowhere to be heard of. He was last seen heading down towards

Chungthang along with his work party. There is no phone in the area.

The closest and only one is a satellite phone manned by the ITBP, 5 km

away, across a land-slide prone remnant of a road. The quake has left

her already rickety house in shambles. There is no place to store

food. Ironic, as the only road leading up to this area is blocked and

there is no way for rations to reach the shops.

     

This is the case all over in North Sikkim, a place where a persons’

status is still measured in the number of yaks he owns. Where houses

are constructed with yak dung and mud. Mobiles are not heard of here;

there is no network coverage. Communication with the world outside is

only when tourists visit and stop to take pictures of wooden houses

and pagodas, or visit Lake Gurudongmar.  There are only a few

television sets in this village of a population of about a thousand.

There’s a collective sigh when one of them mentions having heard the

villages’ name on the news. Perhaps there’s still hope, they think

that the rest of India knows they exist.

     

The damage is hardly visible here. A few cracks here and there, some

leaks. All easily repairable; in due time. The real story begins

inside with men mourning the loss of yaks, their only source of

livelihood. Falling rocks have crushed in the skulls of three as they

stood tethered outside their homes. Others have been swept away by the

flowing mud or scared away. The continuous rains make it impossible

for the families to dispose of the bodies. All construction work in

the area has stopped. All equipment diverted to clearing roads. The

men have no work to do. No way to earn their bread. Prema is here all

the way from Nepal for the working season. The tin-sheet-house he

shares with 6 other men and women has already run out of food. He has

no clue what to do and spends his time foraging the mountains for

edible roots and shrubs. Here, at 14,000 feet, vegetation is  scarce

and the task dangerous. Without trees to anchor the soil, every slope

is a potential deathtrap.

     

The Army is helping out as best as it can. Temporary shelters and hot

meals are being provided. Food, though, is turning out to be a

dwindling resource. With roads cut off for 50-odd kilometers, there is

no supply. Helicopters seem to be the only way to replenish this area.

The helipad is teeming with collection parties every day, but the

inclement weather and near-zero visibility is preventing any flights

from being conducted north of Lachen. The ITBP is doing its bit too.

Their sat phone is being used 24 hours. For the plethora of the Army

personnel scattered here as well as the civilians, this is the only

link with home. Most are rewarded with a couple of minutes of talk

with loved ones back home, some turn back disappointed as the sat.

phone does not connect with certain numbers.

     

Television news loop clips of Govt personnel visiting the injured in

Gangtok and Rangpo, the most accessible and fastest addressed places.

The people wonder if anyone will glance in their direction, whether

there will be any help forthcoming from their State Govt. They pray

fervently for the Gods to deliver them from this disaster. A fresh

bevy of prayer flags are placed all over the mountain sides to appease

the Gods and prevent a land-slide from sweeping away their homes next.

     

Any kind of deliverance, they still look towards the sky, be it

helicopters bearing food and supplies or divine intervention.

P.S. This is written and sent to me by @capnsaurabh.

Its an eye witness account and not a work of fiction.

Betiyaan!

Kya likhun ?…

Ki woh pariyon ka roop hoti hai…

Ya kadakti thand mein suhaani dhoop hoti hai…

Wo hoti hai udaasi ke har marz ki dawa ki tarah…

Ya os mein sheetal hawa ki tarah…

Woh chidiyon ki chehchahahat hai,

Ya ke nishchal khilkilahat hai…

Woh aangan mein faila ujaala hai..

Ya mere gusse pe laga taala hai…

Woh pahad ki choti pe suraj ki kiran hai…

Ya zindagi sahi jeene ka aacharan hai…

Hai woh takat jo chote se ghar ko mahal bana de…

Hai woh kaafiya jo kisi gazal ko mukkamal kar de…                    

Kya likhun ??…

Woh akshar jo na ho toh varn maala adhoori hai…

Woh, jo sabse zaada zaroori hai…

Ye nahi kahoonga ki woh har waqt saath saath hoti hai,

Betiyaan toh sirf ek ehsaas hoti hain

Woh mujhse australia mein chuttiyaan, mercedes to drive,

5 star mein dinner ya mehenge Ipods nahi mangti…

Na woh dher se paise piggy bank mein udhelna chahti hai

Woh bas kuch der mere saath khelna chahti hai…

Aur main kehta hoon yehi…

ki beta bahut kaam hai.. nahi karunga toh kaise chalega…

Majboori bhare duniya daari ke jawaab dene lagta hoon

Aur woh jhuta hi sahi,                                                            

Mujhe ehsaas dilati hai..

Ki jaise sab kuch samajh gayi ho..

Lekin aankhein band kar ke roti hai…

Jaise sapne mein khelte hue mere saath soti hai..

Zindagi na jaane kyun itni ulajh jaati hai…

Aur hum samajhte hain, betiyaan sab samajh jaati hain..

Disclaimer: This is not written by me..its something that has touched my heart deeply and therefore is here. Its written Mr. Shailesh Lodha for his daughter!

"PMSing"

I am a die hard optimist, and therefore have a very positive approach towards life, gliding through it, smiling and giggling about things that come my way..I hit a bump, that transforms me into something I am not..and this happens once a month.

I get cranky, and very irritable. Things that normally do not  make a difference to me, become huge issues. My stash of tears almost goes empty. I say almost, because somehow I never run out of them. I become a total bitch. Snapping at a drop of a hat. retorting back at things which on other days I would ignore. A total emotional wreck, on the top of the hill and under it within minutes of each other.

There is no warning bell before it starts happening. Its like one day you are perfectly normal and the next day u feel a sudden surge of emotions at things which u never knew were so important to u. 

A weird feeling in your gut, a jump of heart beat, tears u cannot explain, anger on the driver for not wishing u good morning, and then on the car manufacturer for not making better seats, on random people for being on the road at the same time as you. when the temperature in the air conditioner can never be set to perfect, no matter how many times u change it. 

Your coffee is either to hot or too cold. when u someone laughing into his cell phone while u are trying to have a conversation, makes u gesture him to shut up. When the world seems like a very ugly place to live in, even when u stay in a beautiful room in a three star hotel, surrounded by pine trees..the days when dislike become hate, and bad becomes horrible, and dark becomes blyack! when being polite and patient become not just over rated but soooo over rated.

Even dreams change, I mean come on, one day u are the princess of the world and from the other day, till this phase passes, u are just another loser. From being an astronaut with nasa and landing on mars, to getting lost in south africa the natives having you for dinner.

 U hate the way u look. That one spot on your face becomes a reason of misery, in my case there are two and therefore double the misery. your hair start acting up on you as well, when on normal days its just a 2 minute affair, suddenly no matter what u do, u just cannot get them to look perfect.

Your perfect guy and relationship becomes the most imperfect ever. He not picking up your call, goes from anger to distress to sheer panic. 

He not calling you for a few hours could mean anything from he being a insensitive to he not being in love with you altogether, your accusations make no sense to him at all, he says he is acting perfectly normal when u think he is being unreasonable, nothing he says makes u feel any better, he justifies and u disagree until he runs out of patience, hangs up ..taking you back to square one, another few hours of tears and thought of his insensitivity clouding your brains.

this continues until he calls..this time to say sorry,  even when he has absolutely no clue what he is sorry about. It makes you melt in a nano second..followed by the tears (again)..and thoughts of what a fool you were, for thinking he does not love you..no one in the world can love you more than him.

The irony is the worst hit of the pre menstrual syndrome are the men. Poor guys have no idea how, the 'only death can do them part' relationship can be threatened by a harmless game of CS. how suddenly the honey kissed words of the love of their life have become venom tipped arrows, hitting him and he has no idea y. how not calling for a few hours suddenly makes him insensitive.

Then one day, u wake up into a day of perfect coffee and conversations. U are back as the king of your world, with the perfect guy in your life. The spot on your face compliments you, and looks cute. Your hair color looks dazzling and u have the confidence of winning a miss galaxy competition. Songs on your i-pod have transformed from noise to music, life is beautiful again. 

U have managed to pass the bump and get back to being the good you. Now its time to make amends for the mistakes u have made when your hormones were ruling your life.

There is no prevention or cure for this syndrome. It is a side effect of being the fairer sex,  having better carved bodies, beautiful eyes..and sweeter voices.

It is difficult when its "that time of the month"..but I would rather have this than having hair grow on your cheeks and a sausage hanging in my pants!

Serendipity

Words like magic and destiny have a certain unexplainable thing about them. They make u believe that there is something beyond the everyday life that we live. But serendipity has been my favorite word for the longest time!  the mere sound of it makes me smile..fortunate accidents..hmm!

Serendipity happens to all of us, at times when we are busy making other plans! If you notice it, it changes your life forever, if you don’t, it just walks past u as silently as it came in! 

My life in particular has been marked by many such occurrences, every single one making it better. It could be a particular book i pick up at a given time, which makes an impact just when needed, or a sudden turn of events, completely unthought-of, yet changing everything. Or it could be the people that i meet! I have been blessed or lucky, if i may, to have met the most awesomest people (tht isnt a grammatical error, just a super superlative description) and all of them at the point wherein they were needed the most!

I met one such person a few years ago, plainly by accident, who calmly walked into my life and changed it forever!

We were exactly opposite and this I knew the moment we were introduced. The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a certain calm to him, unlike my charged electron like state. He was sure of every word that he said, unlike the very confused me. He knew where he was and where he wanted to go, when I was still waiting for gps co ordinates from life! He was deep into the sea, sailing away into the sunset, when I was standing at the shore..trying not to get my feet wet!

I have never believed in love at first sight..maybe that’s why it did not happen to me. It took me sometime to realize that this guy who stole the limelight from me in the place I ruled, became much more than just a friend in a time span best described as a jiffy. I looked towards him while  making some life changing decisions and he calmly smiled back with answers making things simple. He became the grounding to a  high voltage me. I got used to he being around and he became something no one had become till then, my best friend. That’s what we remember as the beginning of our story!

I have learnt a lot from him, I still look up to him, sometimes for confirmation on, if  I am doing the right thing, at other times for consent. I trust his judgment more than I trust mine. Since the day we met, he has held my hand and led me into a life I could have never imagined. He has stood by me through all the good, bad and ugly I have created. He has endured happiness and pain with equal conviction.

Our story, like most blockbusters, has lots of twists and turns to it, we grew from being irrational 22 year olds to mature adults together. We fell and got up, dusted each other and walked on.

Its been six years since that fortunate accident happened. Surprisingly I remember every tiny detail of it, the shirt he was wearing, the words he said to me, they way he stole looks to make eye contact with me..the teasing, the leg pulling, the apologizing! The smile that made it all ok! 

I knw I sound clichéd, when I say, it was like the universe conspired for us to be together! But I believe in it! The setting was perfect, the terrace, the wind, the rain!

He still makes me feel the way he did then..secure, like nothing in the world can touch me when he is around! loved and cared for..like a princess! Wanted like no other.  He is the reason I am what I am, he is the reason I am how I am!

Wherever I am, whatever I do,  H is where home is!

P.S. opposites attracts isn’t just for magnets! 

Soulsisters!

    

I did not know or believe in the existence of this word a few months ago..i have always had more male friends than female for reasons unknown. so to have a connection so deep with any woman that she becomes a part of your life was unheard of for me. but as life may have it, things changed..and how.

I bumped into two people almost at the same time, we struck a chord, became friends and a few months down we are best friends. yes i have two best friends, its simple logic really, every single person in my life has a specific place, one doesn’t trump the other and i love both of them equally! They met me when i was trudging through life all alone, a phase wherein most of the people i knew, had lives which did not coincide with mine. i had a tonn of acquaintances but friends i called none of them.

Two fem fatales entered my life, bedazzled me with their aura and ever since have held my hand through thick and thin, cried and laughed with me..gave me warmth and made my world a better place to be in!

"Akansha" she walked into my life laughing and giggling! the first thing that u see when u look at her is her smile. it has so much innocence that it instantly lights up your world. her childlike ways although uber cute, are just a deception..she is as deep into the ground as she is on top of it. She could rule the world if she merely thought of it.

Her effervescence is addictive! There cannot be a dull instant when she is around. The best thing about her is her resilience, no matter what happens around her, and how she is affected by it, she will come back to her original chirpy self at the first chance. Selfless as they were made..she could go to the end of the earth for u, if she deems u worthy of it! There is no wrong side to Akansha, if u do not matter to her, u do not exist in her world. She has made my life a brighter place, even her name displayed on the screen of my phone brings a smile to me!

She is the daughter any parents would be proud to have, she is the sister i wish i had, and she is the friend that makes life worth it!

Akansha means desire, and a desire she is!

"Manisha" If you know me, you know her! we are so similar, yet so different it baffles me! we think alike most of the times, talk in similar sentences, have similar thoughts, but when we arent doing that, we are exactly opposite..very unlike each other. its as confusing in reality as it reads here! there are times when we could pass as exact copies of each other and other days when we qualify as the equally opposite of the other! this isnt uncertainty, there is some method to this madness!

she is the one person who i would trust my life with, with my eyes closed.

She has the strength of a lioness and the poise of a deer. She gave my life a certain balance and surety, when in doubt about anything under the sun and may be even above it, i knw i have to just give her a call, and she will have the right answer for me!

I am in awe of the clarity of thoughts she has, she exactly knows what she wants from life and also knows how to get it...an admirable quality!

when u know her, u wish she was a part of ur life, u wish she cared about u like she does about the the people she loves..!

Manisha means a wish..and a wish she is!

Its not been very long since we know each other, but today i cannot imagine life without them in it. The connection that we have cannot be explained in words, its something that only can be felt ..and it is as deep as our souls.

P.S. for the skeptics, "Soulsisters" is a word which will only make sense to you when it happens to you. If it doesn’t, u will never know the depth and the beauty it has!

The Halo and the Horns!

Halos are from heaven and horns from hell! 

each from different worlds on either side of us,  putting us right in the center. Here in this world u get to see glimpses of  both, the one above, and also the one below us. 

You see someone doing something nice, u can imagine the halo around his head..the white almost transparent sign of being good. 

Angels are said to have halos.. angels, God's henchmen! 

They are all things nice that make the world go round. They are pure, the good guys as we mere mortals call them. 

The guys that always do the right thing, do not falter, make the right choices, and can resist temptation when it gets to that.

To stop the world from just falling off into nowhere, a balance has to be maintained. Therefore enter the bad guys.. devils minions if u might! 

The angry looking, manipulative, doing what he feels like person that we all have met, known or at least heard of! that dark personality we see, with the aura of negativity around him.

if u peer harder u can make out the horns on the head, sharp, pointy red colored things..as if issuing the "Beware" warning!

Here in the central world we also have a species who have mastered the art of pretense.

They could be either, but pretending to be the other at will..The real bad guys.

The halo bearers do not pretend to be horn dawned..as far as i see it.  if they did, they wouldn't have had the halo in the first place! 

but the horned ones, these guys are master deceivers , comes with package i guess. These are weapons of mass destruction, created to leave a long lasting effect. They just hang around in the wrong costume around you and make the world  collapse, one "screw" at a time. 

This species needs to be eradicated, or exterminated. or may be sent to another world where they can self destruct. dont care how, but they need to be stopped before they make this world a horrible place to live in.

As evolution would have it, the genes has mutated. we now have a whole new grey colored species..Not white, Not black..but grey! 

The guys who are not as good, and not as bad at the same time..They make the right choices, but live the life they want to, along with it!

they have an innocent smile and naughty eyes both at once. These are the guys who are not afraid to make a mistake and accept that they did it. someone who wouldn't hurt u on purpose and be very sorry if it happened. 

someone who u see hammered all through the weekend and smiling on the way to work on Monday! (not smiling may be, but at least reaching on time) 

These are the good bad guys! they are too good to be devils and bad enough not to qualify as angels! 

The world around me has all of the above..some i admire, some i detest and some i identify with..makes life interesting, while trying really hard to balance my halo on my horns!

There could be endless variations to these,  who knows what evolution churns up next! wait and watch is all we can do!

P.S. if i may suggest to dear evolution sir, wings would b a nice idea! will save the world from destruction..think about it!