strangers..

We had never met , never known

A stranger to me, yet felt like my own..

Closer than a sister and more accepting than a friend..

Yet we are neither..nor sisters nor friends

Happy being strangers coz we are us..no surnames, no marital status, no baggages..

The only time when we are ourselves and live and talk about I..

The I we forget as soon as we wake up and think about only when we are about to lie..

Dont ask me her name,her age, her marital status..

Strangers we want to be coz we want to be with the I..

Winter Rain

I lean out of the window to feel the water droplets on my face..Not just the rain but the cold winter breeze covers my face.. shiver a little and giggle a lot more..and clutch my tea cup a little tighter..holding on to the warm feeling on the cold winter morning..
A hand taps me on my shoulder handing me my plate of steaming aloo chaat and giggling while making her winter smoke ringlets.. Quickly popping one in my mouth I stick my face out of the window again closing my eyes and stretching my hand out... I hit a glass wall...the water droplets covering the glass but refusing to touch me.. A hand taps on my shoulder and hands me a copy of my next presentation... and without a smile she walks into the cabin... not stopped to look out..
I turn around and see two smiling faces standing there sticking their faces out and clutching their cups tighter.. Their smiles, the giggles, the smoke ringlets and the tea cups..am called in for the review.. I walk into the closed cabin trying to concentrate on the figures on the board..my mind straying back to the two faces behind the wall.. the ones I can see but not touch..till I break the glass wall that separates us..

Waiting...

I sit with you in the same room, reading the newspaper silently..waiting for you to talk to me..

I walk with you in a crowded market...rubbing my hands against yours..waiting for you to hold mine

I lean closer to you when all alone..waiting for you to hug me and kiss me more..

I lie next to you,as close as I can..waiting for you to hold me tight...

Wait!, you say and I stop in a second..waiting you would do the same..

I tell you same things, a number of times...waiting for you to listen in..

I wait each day, I wait each night..

I wait to meet the one I loved who always held me tight..

I wait to hear her talk,to see her smile to listen to me without blinking an eye...

Where did you lose my loved one.. why did you leave her behind..

leaving us like strangers struggling to meet our minds..

All world is a stage

All world is a stage said Shakespeare..Little did I know, he spoke about mine..

So many roles I play that I wish to play Me someday..

Sister, daughter, friend they call me but never in my own skin can I be..

Alls well as long as am with them..coz i know who Iam in relation to them..

In the midst of the night when am all alone, feels like being with a stranger than the soul..

Who am I? I ask the soul.. sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend and many more..

As i remove my make up I look at the stranger.. I will have time for you tomm... I promise with my voice weaker..

One more page has turned in the play of my life with many more lying ahead..

waiting with some new roles as and when the writer said..

Wonder when will I spend a day without any role..just the stranger and me on a stroll..

with whom the world will not be a stage and i just play ME for a change...

The ultimate city..

As soon as I landed the cool breeze hit my face leaving a smile..After a long stay in hot cities where rains only add to chaos than give respite, this city was a welcome change.. I had landed in Mumbai..

Before a Mumbaite starts celebrating this post is surely not about Mumbai.. but my sense of the city..

All my life I was on the other side of the eternal Mumbai-Delhi war..boasting about wide roads in Delhi, the space and how the city does not stink..My first visit to Mumbai was horrible..the city stank, it was humid and crowded and could hardly walk an inch without stepping/bumping someone..but with each subsequent visit..i started liking the city..and with this visit i loved it.. The small shops, the boys getting ready for the dahi handi festival, the local colony friends playing carom at night, the parlour lady talking in typical mumbaiya hindi..i loved it all..but above all i liked the city for its acceptance..

And thats when i realized why people despite struggling to make a living in the city, love it..coz the city is accepting of u...

And as a friend very correctly said "Acceptance is the main thing we all strive for"

It is this hunger for acceptance that drives us all to do what we do.. It forces us to lie, to pretend, to be someone else, to not be happy being who we are, to kill our own wishes, to live for others..

and a city that accepts us provides all that one can ask for-love,warmth,security,happiness,.. and thats the ultimate city.. 'the spirit of mumbai' does not lie in its local trains but in its greater level of acceptance...

at the signal..

I was standing at the signal waiting for the signal to turn red.. listening to the usual RJ chatter.. And as usual there were these beggars cum salespeople who beg and sell their product at signals.. There were these kids along with an older lady trying to sell bouquet with all dead flowers and begging you to by them.. One boy passed my car and I just happened to look at the flowers drying.. noticing me paying some attention he stopped at my car and starting gesturing me to buy it and begging..

I did what I usually do, ignored and looked away to the empty passenger seat and looked busy.. After a few seconds I could still see a shadow on my car window. The boy was standing there mesmerized looking inside the car..

I quickly locked my car from inside unsure of what he may do.. but then noticed something... The boy had placed his mouth on the glass and was trying to beg.. that had created a small patch of frost.. He looked at it all mesmerized and started drawing something..As soon as it dried he blew on the glass again and drew some more.. oblivious of my presence and of his purpose on that street.. He was living the moment.. Enjoying every bit of the lines he drew, the figures that came alive and with each new figure his smile grew bigger...

I kept looking at him drawing more and more on my car window deeply engrossed in his masterpiece..which were nothing but some lines..maybe trying to draw an alphabet or a figure..

What he wanted to make was not important but how passionately he wanted to make it was..

The signal turned green and i looked up to see traffic moving.. I turned to the window instantly but the boy had disappeared..into the darkness..back to begging..

And i was left wondering...

There he was, a boy in rags, begging, illiterate yet fascinated by such a trivial thing.. He would be struggling everyday to make a living, to fight the older boys and make something extra so that is spared the rod that night.. Yet in all the greater troubles that life has subjected him to..he did not leave his childlike fascination... the joy of making something.. of living the moment..

And here I was living in luxury, making a lifestyle statement yet so far away from the child like fascination which is so easy to nurture, develop and build on for someone like me yet so far away a thought.. the price you pay for being educated!!!

and there you go again...

"And so I decided not to tell them and do my own thing and probably come back and tell them later.." And so I went on and on about my day and tussle with my team. I stopped in between and said "U there?" "Aggrrhhh" He burped loudly!!! I was so annoyed "thanks for the reaction!!" He laughed and said " No dear..i always burp when am talking to you.." "That doesnt make things any better" I said.. "Think of it this way.. you are the antacid in my acidity filled life"..He said in a soft charming voice..My angry red cheeks turned into blushing red cheeks.

And with that I imagined myself wrapped in a pink/yellow packet walking around like digene.. and some pharmaceutical company makes me their brand ambassador and calls their anatacid 'Lochan' and the tagline..."She is the antacid in your acidity filled life".. Every where I go people will take my autograph. All people (men and women alike) would love to associate with me as I acted as their antacid. I will give regular interviews on various health related chat shows about how I have this innate quality of getting rid of acidity..I will have my own fan following with people writing me fan mails..I will have my face on a huge billboard on one of the Dhaula Kuan flyovers with the tagline "Mujhse dosti karo, acidity door bhagao"

My imagination had no bound and I already had a distant look with a smile on my face.. "Agggrrhhh" He burped again interrupting my trail of thought..Thats when I realised that I need to get him a check up from the doctor and stop his burping.. coz I got distracted while counting all the money I made..now I would need to start all over again!!! "Agrrrrhhh"