my muse
you flatten me
you stop me dead in my tracks
with that one soft word of incredulity
that laughter of yours that dissolves my grandiose
does away with my ego, my pride
and leaves just warmth behind
and a reassuring honesty

new faces old faces familiar faces...they are a changing. just like they always have. i saw mine in the mirror the other day...i too was changed.

envy is hideous. the tragically funny part is that its rarely well directed. its most often directed at the obvious, the end...rarely if at all at the cause, the fountainhead. then again maybe the survival itself of this base instinct (make no mistake, it is primal, even atavistic) would be at stake if it were not so. for while 'success' may foment idle poison within the neighbour, 'hard work' may yet provide inspiration. so with thought or without it, we unleash the green monster at all those symbols we would like to stake a claim to for ourselves, mind you, sole ownership at that.

the dark finds its own...much flocking and many tales later...

i am back

i went to get my hair cut. to the same place i've been going for the past six years. to the same man (and occasionally his brothers). as he cut my hair i told him i got married last year. he was much surprised and much congratulatory. he always offers to 'champii' my head and yesterday i did have the time as well. he took 'thanda tel', oodles of it, and ploughed furrows of it through my trembling hair...a while later me and hair had both settled down to a languorous contendness...

shankar was advising me to buy 'property' in the city if both me and the wife were planning to stay on for a while...having ascertained that both of us were working he assured me with much sageness that credit would be plentily available...aahh how those knots in my shoulder come undone...i was telling him how to get his nephew's cellphone fixed (it fell into water) since it was the same model as mine...the fingers of my hand were being cracked...we did however get stuck on the location of the cellphone service center since 'Ulsoor Road' which is how i know the area didn't exist for him...he was methodically thumping my back now...however we reached an amicable understanding on this issue after much deliberations and many references to trees, a lake, two sets of traffic lights and a few 'left' and 'right' turns...at some point, Shankar also gave his blessing to the fact that my marriage was not 'arranged'...i was almost dropping off now...'champii' and hair cut over, i headed home...

why would i write about this...don't know really. same reason reason why i told Shankar i got married i guess...which too i dont know why. he is however the first person i told this to, outside of people who i would have had to tell anyway. not that i was attempting to classify my marriage as a state secret (as if such things existed in my beloved country anyway!)...but still this was the first voluntary sharing of this personal detail...

again, same reason why i came back i guess...