YESTERDAY IN REVISION

A peek here, a peck there,

A nudge for words gone astray.

A pinch when no one is looking,

Yesterday was an apple fallen and eaten the same day.

The hopping, the tripping, the strolling, the shuffling,

Vanity made certain pride never lagged too far.

The creep of the night was that affectatious doughnut,

Who stole a spot on the phoney pants after all.

But the highlight of yesterday remains unspoken,

To find the meaning, or seek the truth.

The dilemma of making the split second decision,

To be the cold, jittery coffee hands, or the warm, sleepy heads in the lull of wine.

This is how I (will) feel about yesterday,

Today, tomorrow, as a yesterday in revision.

B for Birthdays

No, it was not a 50 shades themed party.

As a child, I was a super excited, high-on-sugar kid waiting to be allotted/warned for something so I can constantly be on my toes. And it felt so right; after all how many times exactly do you get to live? Why waste it! And so, birthdays naturally looked like harmless, hearty occasions where you could dance and celebrate the bejeezus for you being born… until I realized getting old was a thing.

At four, I remember my paa buying me a blue shirt and red pants (Picture Hritik Roshan from his Koi Mil Gaya Item number, only groovier) and a big birthday cap and threw a party where all my friends and cousins were running around, awaiting the cake cutting impatiently. He always thought of me as his son, and so, short hair and trousers soon became my signature style. At one point, I remember Saturday being my favourite day of the week so I could wear my white shirt/pants with plum coloured suspenders to school. I was encouraged to do everything I can do (and be good at it) and it only helped that I detested anything that screamed girly. Until one summer, boobs sprung out and I took a liking to cricket. I was told to ‘drop the ball’ since cricket was only meant for boys. That birthday I learnt that accomplishments too have a gender.

At six, I learnt a new habit (that was sulking, btw!) that hit new heights at my brothers' first birthday party. Suddenly after a little short of five years, them entering my life (together) came as a rather big deal to me. ‘Why they needed more time from my mom’, ‘why their birthday parties were a much bigger affair’, ‘why everyone suddenly found them cute and me weird in a boy cut and a rather new party frock’, my list was endless. That birthday party seemed like the worst day of my life. And yet, as I watched the grown-ups around playing the game of perspective, arguing if my drawing was of a boa constrictor or a hat, there was a rather sweet release in finally understanding the cause of it all. That birthday party, I learnt subjectivity is a thing best left for lovers.

At 16, coming to college felt like coming of age. Well, at least, the teenage part of me felt so. People are super nostalgic about their school life and what not, but for me college was the place where I found my core and learnt to celebrate it too. But one thing in college I particularly enjoyed was observing people, witnessing them as they come to their true self for a flip second, only to get behind their garb of what they think of themselves again. And birthday parties were the best place to do that- The day your vanity submerges into your ego.

This was the year I learnt the concept behind birthdays- that these son of a bitch days are not just for showing your happiness on that person being born but also to mend ways with a friend you haven’t been talking to for ages, to get an excuse to call and check on your ex you promised you won’t ever call again and sometimes, that obligations come packed in all kind of beautiful wrapping papers, and sometimes, just to live up to others’ expectations more than yours out of a birthday. And amidst all of this, I was proud of my sense of objectivity. But as a consequence, love became difficult to hold and another birthday later, I cried my eyes out when empathy and not love was all I could offer to someone’s honest, overwhelming love. 

Turning 18 is hugely overrated. So we won’t talk about that. Instead, at 19, I got what was the best surprise of my life- An understanding on the concept of love in the shape of a series of surprise birthday gifts, each telling a story as I found them. Sometimes, a feeling dies, but a moment continues to live and be passed on with stories. No wonder people fall in love with stories so easy.

At 22, life was giving lemons (sans the soda so I couldn’t even make lemonade out of it) and I found solace in running away from time to time that people called travelling. Finding my own sweet spot only to wonder what’s next. It was in the midst of skepticism and impulsive hope then that I decided to celebrate my third and last birthday of the year away from home and all things familiar.

I picked a city where the lost is never intended to be found, told my office I was getting engaged, and left with little to no expectations for a five-day trip. It was messy, I won’t lie. It had its hiccups and I have never been a very good planner anyway. But there was something very comforting about spending your birthday with strangers who had no idea it were your birthday and cutting an upside down pineapple pastry for a birthday cake with a stranger who didn’t really seem strange after all. And so, on my 23^rd birthday, I learnt the gift of loving thyself, and eventually that charming mess of a city I’ll later have an affair with.

I now live in the same charming mess of a city. Few days before, I celebrated my 27^th birthday. There was nothing remarkable about the day, not that I wanted it to have any. But at night, I slept happily in the awareness of the fact that there are people on earth who are capable of feeling unconditional love and they happen to love me. And with the hope of someday getting comfortable with that, I found my peace.

And for those who couldn't believe my innate sense of groovy fashion was there right from childhood, here you go:

A for Aam ka bantwara

Home is where you're one, no?

“Kyunki aam phalon ka raja hota hai,” my daadu explained with the cutest possible made-up expression to participate in the excitement of kids hovering around him. What followed for the next 20 minutes, I don’t remember particularly, for I was busy in my head absorbing the new-found fact and comparing every possible fruit that was ever dear to me with this now-reclaiming king of fruits.

There was apricot with the most perfect blush, there was majestic guava with its sneaky seeds that would trouble you for hours after eating it, and then, of course, there were grapes in all colours and glory. So many of them! But then, the garden at my grandparents’ house was a realm in itself where all fruits could compete for the juicy throne.

Most of my favourite stories from my grandparents’ home revolve around the mango trees- The night it was so hot that we decided to sleep out under the big one, only to wake up with rain and storm and lightening so bright that it may have been our best family photograph till date. The day me and my brothers spent fighting, in its entirety, over the division of mangoes from the garden (Eventually, we each owned a certain type of mango, another solution by daadu). The afternoons I'd spend with relish on rented comic books I devoured along with the kachha ambi picked directly from the trees. The times we would place our charpoy under the tree post afternoon meals to listen to sharbat chacha’s exaggerated stories. Or the time I tried climbing a tree for the first time and had a nap in the wooden, wise arms of one of the oldest lives in the garden.

Right before the storm.

Right after it.

You can’t find any grander entrance than the one to my grandparents’ house back there. The place is nestled right at the feet of some puny and some not-so-puny mountains. Lazily settled between a village and a town, my hometown is everything that would make you feel away from the city life and yet just there.

Two minutes before my home and you can find yourself ogling at the magnificent garden of mangoes and litchis. Take the turn into the locality and I promise every household, no matter how far away they are stretched out (there are farms and puny canals in between most of the houses), would take a peek to find out and give you a shout out if you’re recognized too. Their pets soon follow the suit, of course. 

Hit the gate and there’s a good 600 feet of wedding aisle like green pathway with fields on either sides, directing you to the real entrance to what we call home.  A verandah as big as a society playground and a byre good enough to be our adventure home welcomed you to the rest of the house. But my favourite spot was always the terrace where the night was so purple and the stars so yellow that it looked like I had been colouring my drawing books with a wrong sky all this while.

From the charpoy, under the tree. No filters whatsoever.

On your left, from the verandah.

And amidst all this was Johny. Sitting under the jackfruit tree, Johny loved watching (read scanning) the people approaching and mostly scaring the shit out of them. In my on and off 26 years of summer there, we’ve had chicks and rabbits and cows and buffaloes and baby birds (picked as patients post a storm) and dogs and cats and even tadpoles; but Johny was my favourite out of them all. That weak, slimy-eyed, ferocious son of a bitch almost went to dog heaven as a pup when a jackal picked him once for a nice midnight snack. Thank god for my aunt who did not seem to agree with the jackal about his diet choices, and thus Johny stayed with us.

As little Johny grew up, us kids realized he’s not the usual hungry-for-love dog but rather selective-with-one-and-all kind. He may have been a dog but I often suspected he was a cat’s soul in a dog’s body. His trickery and the art-of-suspicion was no match for ours. Feeding him wasn’t a free pass, one needed to win his love first and foremost. The all-black fur and growl at a moment’s notice didn’t help much either. But once you won the free pass, he was all yours.

However, what we enjoyed most was our non-negotiable yearly ritual. His bathing ceremony. The entire year, Johny came under the hygiene radar none but once- when I would visit home. In a household of 20 members (come summers), I was the only one he listened to, a fact that never failed to put a rather pleased grin on my face. He never allowed anyone to bathe him and depending upon the frequency or rarity of his swimming escapades in the canals, his fur could be a homogenous mixture of sugar, spice and everything nice (Just kidding!).

It needed my brother’s help to pick him up and my firm resolution to have him bathed, because nothing else would work. He always acted rather miffed with me post bathing, which evaporated by the time he dried up, always in all the eagerness to show off his newly cleaned fur and catch a cozy afternoon nap with me. Too much of love always made me feel special and uncomfortable at the same time. And I stayed special and uncomfortable for years to follow. Later, during one of the summers I missed going home, I was casually told on a call that Johny was dead. And just like that, I was ordinary and comfortable once again.

Today, it feels like all this just happened yesterday. Except it didn’t. Ever since daadu died, every little character in my stories evaporated too soon to preserve a proof that they existed. Grandma stayed with us for a long time afterward, so all the cattle and pets were given away or sold. Gone are the malpuas that my daadu cooked specially for me every time I went there, and so is the rental comic store, for who reads comics these days! The lavish farms are now handled by someone else, and sharbat chacha now struggles with an advance stage of parkinson’s and keeps all the stories rather to himself.

The mango trees, however, are still alive. Quiet, but observant. And they still remember everything. Hopefully.

A-Z

SO what do you do when you want to be regular at it and ace it as well? What do you do when the frequency of your writing escapades are getting lesser than even your ‘that time of the month’? What do you do when the idea of an idea looks so good in your head that you detest anything coming close to it in real life? 

THIS.

Starting over from the scratch. Starting from the A-Z. Trying an attempt to pen down A-Z that matters/mattered/will always matter from Little Wench’s jungle.

Disclaimer: Frequency of the posts would be directly proportional to the endearment of the topic picked or the difficulty of the letter involved.

STAY TUNED.

P.S: Meanwhile, get your groove back with this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NFIdgK7Qpw

Quickie- Part 2- Self Destruction

Image credit:  A very cool artist with username Kwikdraw on Queeky.

Little by little, inch by inch, I shall feed you more of me. 

Little by little, inch by inch, I will suffocate you with every inch of me.

Time and space will lose their worth, the continuum would spill love and some blood.
Little by little, inch by inch, to live, you must learn not to love too much.

Quickie-Part 1- Your Arms Feel Like Home

Your arms feel like home.

After madness, and before sunrise

Your arms feel like home.

From the ample hours of laziness

to the hurried minutes of passion

Your arms feel like home.

In between fighting for the cake,

and having it off you

Your arms feel like home.

Moments of puzzles rebel in the warm comfort 

as I lay in your arms

Your arms feel like home.

So Someone Pinched My Bottom Today

Just the fact that I could find thousands of pictures with guys ogling at girls but just one with the other way round speaks enough. Enough said! Now lemme stare! (Picture credit: Telegraph)

Okay, I am lying. It wasn’t pinched. It was a handful of grabbing, squeezing my butt cheek. Like it were the new-found official horn that a man had to honk in order to declare his manhood had arrived.

...and I did nothing. Don’t get me wrong. I am usually not one of those to stay quiet (Not even when asked to, sometimes!). But for that one moment, I was surprisingly warped in the speechlessness that came with an instant realization of being the ‘fairer sex’. As I regained my ground, I yelled at him in high pitch to come back, at which he turned and flashed a grin as he and his bike faded into dust. My friend walking next to me asked in a casually cautious tone, “what happened?” But her eyes revealed she was just trying to confirm what she already knew.

That evening, as I walked back home after a hard run at the park, I realized him grabbing my tushie wasn’t the worst part at all. It was when I found myself sub-consciously turning into the corner every time a bike went past me; it was when I frequently looked back to check if he’s coming again, trying to remember the faint red of his T-shirt. It was when for that ugly iota of a second, I considered the possibility that it was a wrong idea to go for a run late evening to begin with; if my pants were too snug a fit; if two girls 10 minutes away from home at 7.30 p.m is not a good move at all.

But does this mean I should grab every opportunity of doubt I get and pounce at every guy with disdain and lack of trust?

On a usual day, I am the girl who never asks for a ladies’ seat from guys sitting already. I am the girl who never screams at guys who mistakenly enter in the women’s compartment in metro. I am the girl who doesn’t create a scene the second there is an unknown touch in a crowded bus, instead trying to justify the validity of the crowd (or his intentions). Yes, I do face occasional ‘unpleasant’ encounters in between like every other woman, but that usually doesn’t deter me from believing the world needs more of the hopeful breed and less of scepticism.

And after all, what’s the alternative? To go around looking at everyone with apathy? Go all ‘feminist’ on them? Because from what I remember, feminism is not about superiority or a privileged status for women or just one sex. It strives and fights for equality of sexes, not superiority of one. And men have as much right to feel offended, vulnerable or much rather, angry. But instances like this make one question everything right to the basics- Is this really worth it?

Hours later, I was at my cousin’s with my (not so) little brother. She went to get cola for us, leaving two of us alone in the room. Before I could put a filter on my thoughts, I was already asking my brother point blank, “Have you indulged in eve-tease ever?” I could see he was a bit flustered with this kind of question coming from his elder sister.

“No, never.” “I may court girls, flirt with them if the situation permits but always within the limits of respect.”

Nodding, I was relieved. One more person to restore the balance. One less reason to lose hope.