Fiction as Escape

The thing about watching movies, sitcoms, reading books…all of it is more than just entertainment. It’s about that one hour, countless minutes when you feel that you are the person that it’s all happening to. It’s that one eternity you wish had happened to you and not only the characters in the fiction. It’s that bond you form with Justin, or Rachel, or Harry or Kurt…

Sometimes the resemblances to our own life are so uncanny that you stop and think twice, get inspired, get encouraged…probably make certain choices differently.

I have been having a little rough days and these days watching QAF has become almost like a haven and I already know that I am in no hurry to reach the climax. And I know what’s going on in there cause by default that has become a part of my world and I have become a part of Pittsburgh’s A-Gays!

All I know is when all is down, and when the world seems to be the place you don’t want to be in, that’s when I, you and everyone tend to take refuge in that imaginary world waiting for us…

Song: Poses by Rufus Wainwright

Going Home

I go home now. It’s not like I don’t want to go, I do. I really do. But more importantly, there is this heaviness in my heart. Like I have left something behind, something crucial…a part of myself which lived there and there alone; in that house, in that blue room, with the two dogs, with the people I met…with the people I love.

Home. I am coming back from.

Home. I am going to.

This is my journey. I am the Time Traveller. And also the Wife.

See you Again- Mychael Danna.

On The Train Back Home

The best thing that this trip gave to me was a perspective about human behavior. Meeting people, seeing people, reading people…not like books, but like an intricate piece of art, imperfect art pieces, allowed to be presented…

I see browns and greens passing my train window. And now I see rain beating itself against the window, like rivers on a vertical see through land, I wish I could take pictures. As I watch people around me I register the fact that we humans are instinctively distrusting…maybe we have become so with the growth of time. People we see on roads, trains, shops, wherever…we instinctively distrust them, thinking that they are out to harm us…no one else, just us…

I met this flower girl outside Sidhi Vinayak; her name was Kanchan, married to a shop boy, married at 17, selling flowers… She came to me, urging me to buy flowers and even though I showed disinterest, she stood there unabashed, not there to sell anymore but to just talk. And talk she did… she talked to me about me, about her, where I am from… hearing that I was from Delhi, she said “That’s good, its good there.” I asked her what she meant, to which she said the thing I had heard about Mumbai so often; “If anything happens here, no one cares…” Coming from a flower girl, for the first time I realized what this sentence had come to mean. She introduced me to little sister, Priyanka, shy, sweet, innocent…I told her my best friend’s name was Priyanka and she smiled…

Before I left…I bough the flowers, not for the God, but for myself…

It’s raining still.

I remember getting drenched in Mumbai, and how refreshing (and cold) it was. I have always had this connection with Water. That’s one of the reasons I love Mumbai. Though I really wish they would tend to their beaches. Marine Drive is a different story altogether…I can stay at Marine Drive for hours without any botheration in the world and the world can pass by… The wind, the water lashing, the peace, the calm; thats a moment made right there! Its inspiring, soul touching and a haven, to all those worn out souls, ignited people in love, people who just move inwards into themselves…

I remember the moment I landed in Pune. I remember the song playing in my iPod (it just started playing again). I was so nervous, tired, scared, excited…all of this for the land I thought I could refer to as “Somewhere over the Rainbow”…

Pune is , again, a different story, almost an antithesis to Mumbai. Pune is calmer, Pune has a homely charm to it; the rain drenched streets are not muddy, they shine in the gray light that brings out the beautiful color of the city. There is wind there, inside the houses, and if you keep those sliding bedside windows open while to sleep, you will dream of rain drizzle caressing your face all night long…

And now I am homebound…after two months of “somewhere over the rainbow”, I am going back home…To people I have missed for two months, to the craziness, to new excitements…Homebound.

The rain has stopped now, or to be exact we have passed that patch. It’s a blur now…all a blur…

Winters...

Winters are here…its cold outside. I had been waiting for them for quite a long time…you see with time I had gone masochistic, which my friends happily pointing it out to me all the time. They felt that loving winters which were so cruel came under subtle masochism. But my romance with winters isn’t something they understand…well for starters you have to see winters for its true self to understand…
It’s that cold…that chill in the air; there’s something about it that I love. And then the way that cold invites warmth, as in it invites the mufflers, and the mittens and the coats in which in turn bring warmth with them…I know it’s a complex image to paint…but I have painted it with a hope that people would understand. It’s that cold that chills me to my marrow that I love…and so crossing the first degree of masochism. Further that cold doesn’t only chill me but also leaves me with an unwanted guest: lung congestion…bronchitis. And yet I love it…
Its evening and I just woke up after my long nap (I had slept at five in the morning coming back from work). It was dark in my apartment and I didn’t get up as soon as soon as I awoke. The light flitting through the curtains attracted me…so I finally got up and went to the window, drawing the curtains aside…
“Winters are here…” I murmured to myself, and smiled.
I switched the lights on and turned to look at my room; well I had cleaned it just day before yesterday and seeing that I wasn’t home after that…it looked the same. I put some songs on…it felt strange and lonely sometimes living alone and so keeping the television on or some movie or songs really helped…

“Touch me dear…pure and true…
Gift to me…forever…”

I had randomly clicked on the play list and realizing that song I had played laughed out loud to myself… Okay I agree that there is something “gray” about winters…like sad…to a large extent and to a lot of people; but that aspect is glossed over by the fact that sun does shine here…and so the rays do bring with them warmth…and promise. Then it kind of becomes a matter of perception... Well as of now I was thinking that I should switch the play list to invite further “gloom”…though there was none there… I had no problems with Des’ree playing seeing that I wanted anyway to have a mellow evening…but…I changed the song anyway…The beats, with which the song started, though slow, jolted me into motion…like in a movie I inexplicably went with the song towards the window again… This time it was a different view altogether…lights were coming up at places. Early night…winter night…silent night…

“Drink up, baby down…mmm, are you in or are you out,
Leave your things behind cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me, too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps…You bubble wrap
When you've no idea what you're like
So let go, so let go, jump in, Oh well, whatcha waiting for
It's alright, cause there's beauty in the breakdown…”

This time I was singing along…with a smile on my face…
*
Walking the streets on a cold winter day has its own innate pleasure…bundled up against the cold, whiter than before, lips pink as if the cold took it upon itself to bring out every feature without the trouble of make up. I let out my breath which came out as fog absorbing everything around me; the snow on the roadsides were disturbed by the moving cycles and carts which left channels behind them…which looked like rivers traveling through snowy mountains; the kids threw their last snowballs at each other before their mothers called them back in…
“Get in here Tim…the cold will bite you!”
“Does it have big teeth momma?”
The mother laughed at her son and hugged him tightly…Warm…Fire and Ice coexisting…
I finally settled on a street bench, along the walk. I had a view of the whole square from here…especially the lighted shops and the houses, decked up for the coming New Year. There were people around me too: an old couple, a young couple, some friends chatting away…and a dog resting on a corner. There was also a middle aged man sitting quite near to the dog, staring into space. Wondering that which no one could see, no one knew…and by the looks of it no one cared. I felt somehow more at peace here amidst this little bustle than at home alone…this is what I came for. Earlier while getting out of house I had got a call from my friends calling me for a get-together, but I had declined to which they reprimanded how I never spent time with them and how I was totally ignoring them. Funny how people fire up when there own cat meows at them…but by now I was too much of an ice to care about that fire. I didn’t regret not going, let them have a taste of what they used to do… And now, I didn’t even think about it.
So winters has this reaction in me that I feel in tune with it… I can’t even get to describe it! Sitting there in the cold, my thoughts to myself, the season cast its spell…it reminded me of all the things lost, and all the things unfound, all the things cold now, maybe do to negligence? Or maybe they were never warm? Winter whispered in my ear how people use tags like “cruel”, “cold”, “bad” and how dreadful it felt hen it heard all of this being said…I told her how people are willfully blind these days, how a girl would curse the cold but somehow fail to see that it was giving her a reason to sit close to her lover…maybe around the fireplace, with the snow falling outside…I told Winter to take heart for maybe that girl had none. I told her to forgive those who call it cruel…they would never realize that their food was cold not because of you but because of their negligence. It might even be that they realize it but can’t face it…somewhat like my friends back there…maybe they are just cold cause they are angry. Fire and Ice.
She smiled now and left to be with the old couple. I smiled to myself and resumed thinking of the things which were present in their absence. Masochistic. Think about what you don’t have but which you with adamant hope believe you will have one day. I wondered at that girl, who at least had a lover…but took that fact for granted most probably. She would probably never realize the warmth she was missing…I sighed. Another year going by…and I was still alone. I was happy, yes! But alone. Not lonely…that part only came sometimes, but yes…alone. And thinking about loneliness, here it was as I watched that old couple get up and walk home hand in hand, it was almost tangible, the love that existed there…it made me smile again. I was suddenly very old, feeling the absences which winter reminded me of and yet bore the sadness with me…it didn’t leave me alone. It shared my grief… But then I wasn’t here to grieve…I was here to be happy. I am here to be a masochist. I laughed to myself. My life was different; I had gotten over wounds, and falls, I had risen each time through all the pains that had been in my share. And here I was…stronger. The cold taught people to endure, I always thought that. It made you stronger, firing up that innate power to hold and power to burn. Too complex… so I finally just settled down to enjoy it without thinking anything…I thought of the bar nearby. A drink wouldn’t be a bad idea and so I got up and went there.
The bar was warm and cozy, and pretty crowded. That made it nice somehow. I took up a drink. By the time I was done all this, it had started snowing outside so I settled by the window…A while later I had a guest. The middle aged man who was sitting with the dog outside came towards me…

“Do you mind if I sit here? It’s pretty crowded everywhere else…”

“No no…it’s totally fine. Please…” I replied.

He settled down. Now that I had a view of him by light he wasn’t exactly middle aged but quite young,, elder to me of course but definitely young.

“It’s pretty cold outside…I like that.” he said.

I didn’t think he would talk but a conversation wasn’t unwelcome. “Yeah. Not all people realize that fact, its beauty. I love it too…”

“Well seems like I have a comrade-in-arms.” He smiled. “I didn’t think it would snow here. I just moved to this part of the city.”

“Oh. Well it does snow often. It was last year that it didn’t. I still remember the newspaper headlines: “Put snowfall on your wish list!” “Santa’s grudge”. Like Santa sits up there and plots against Christmas!”

“Hmm. Sad business…sad…” he sighed.

He seemed more grieved by something other than the absence of snowfall of last year. I don’t know what made me ask it but still I did. “Is something wrong?”

He looked surprised for a moment, looked right into my eyes for another. He must have seen something there for the next moment he chose to answer. “Nothing and everything. I just got over a rough patch in life…” he stopped and continued staring out of the window.
“…But I am stronger now…” he ended smiling.

“No wonder I found you there alone by the square thinking all to yourself… I guess there was a kind of similarities between all the people sitting there…winters…” I added thoughtfully, though I don’t why…

I could see it that he understood it anyways. He smiled and asked “So why were you sitting there all alone?”

“Let’s just say I don’t have anyone to cuddle with at the moment!” I laughed, and he laughed with me with an inquisitive look in his eyes. Winters … Outside the snow blew on accompanied with the wind this time, that laugh of winter air…
*

“So will I see you soon?” he asked.

“Yes…I will show you around the other side tomorrow…by the river…”

“It will be frozen I guess?”

“Maybe that’s why I am taking you there…that’s one sight to behold…”

“I bet it is…” he nodded.
We both turned towards the square which was empty. We had traveled miles in our small talk in the pub. It seemed al natural…like melodramatically “meant to be”…
We silently stared at the falling snow, standing right where I was sitting.

“Well I think it’s till here for today, all that could have been on a first impromptu date.”

He laughed again and the snow blew stronger… A flake got my nose and he removed it with his hand, slowly. Fire touched Ice.

“Do you know each flake has a different design? Two never the same?” He was looking into my eyes and talking about the flake…I looked back into his warm eyes and said I knew it…Winter can be shrew! I wonder how much more it will make me shiver…

“So tomorrow, one?” he asked.

I smiled “It’s a date.”

“Date.” He smiled.

“Thanks for a wonderful evening-”
I felt Winter push me a bit; a shiver ran through my body. I stood on tip toes and pecked him on his cheek…it was red there already, when I withdrew, it was redder. I just smiled and walked away… I had a feeling that he would still be standing there if I turned. I did. He was...though not alone; winter laughed all around him…
*



I poured the steaming coffee into a mug and wrapped y hands around it. It was very soothing to do that. I thought over putting the music on but decided against it… I turned the lights off, total darkness, except the lamp that was glowing beside my bed. Picking up a blanket I settled down on the chair beside the wide open window, the steaming coffee in my hands. I was the fire…and the winter outside as the ice… and I stared at it…with a small smile on my lips…

****

Project Kill-boredom!= JEANS into SHORTS!!!

(A) Take an old pair of jeans which wud actually survive all the cutting and still manage to look good!

(B) Put thm on and decide the length u want them to be, then take a marker and mark a point an inch more than the desired length so that u can double check later.

(C) Get a sharp knife and be sure you dont think of your boyfriend or girlfriend at that time fr then the chances are that the knife would find its way to ur wrist! :p

(D) Cut the jeans on the marked point, be careful while doin it! The knife wil give you a frayed end while a pair of scissors will probably give u a smooth end!

(E) After ur done, put the jeans on and see wheteher u wanna further cut them...if u do, well then do it! If u dnt like the frayed end u can fold the end and sew it!

(F) Be sure that u clean the mess so that ur mom doesnt get mad at u. Shes alrede gona flip wen she thnks abt the "expose"! ;-)

Now look fab and watch for other projects (if they come to moi mind!)

ABCDD2EF

Narcissism...the beauty of being in love with beauty!

Almost everyone knows the legend of Narcissus, a youth who daily knelt beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how Oscar Wilde ended the story. He said that when Narcissus died, the Goddesses of the Forest, Oread, appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

“Why do you weep?” the Goddesses asked.

“I weep for Narcissus,” the lake replied.

“Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,” they said, “for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.”

“But….. was Narcissus beautiful?” the lake asked.

“Who better than you to know that?” the Goddesses said in wonder, “After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!”

The lake was silent for some time. Finally it said:“I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.”

To all those PEOPLE who think i am NOT narcissistic but NARCISSUS himself, i dont SPURN people who love me as he did. And he is dealt with in a very non sympathetic way, i mean i know he had faults but thats another story. My point is not all who are into themselves are narcissistic, they simply LOVE themselves! =)

I wonder if i even got through the hard skulls :\

To know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

Beauty Misunderstood