Beyond me

I want to be held every night by someone who loves me. I want to fall asleep knowing that the people who matter most to me are safe and happy. I want to die a quick and painless death.
But I don't know anymore. I don't believe I have any control over variables of such magnitude.

My heart goes out to everyone who has lost a child; a mother, father, lover or friend in the hideous Delhi blasts. Lives taken and families torn on a whim. Those who left their homes with light hearts and careless smiles. Always innocents.

Perhaps there were unresolved arguments. Sentiments waiting to be expressed. A husband would take home sweets and trinkets to his wife to compensate for the previous night's misunderstanding. A brother who was choosing a silver bracelet for his sister with his first month's salary. A child tugging at her mother's saree pallu towards the stall selling firecrackers.

I don't remember exactly when or why I stopped kissing my parents goodnight.
Maybe I grew out of it, maybe because we had argued before we went to sleep.
The I love yous would come so easily when I was away from home.

I want to sing a song in every language on Earth. I want to change atleast one person's life for the better. I want to love without fear.
I want to live every bit of life I have because my life is not my own.

Blog Quake day

Cars to ignore people in buses; phone calls to avoid a human face.
Strange how civilians are the worst affected in the event of war. Funny how the poor and homeless suffer the most during natural calamities. Ironical how we splurge on i-pods and sports cars but hesitate to hand over a portion of what is ours.

Please give. We owe it to the people and to our collective conscience.
Desipundit lists organisations involved in relief work and related links.

Justice pending

I just finished reading this book by the man who was forced to be Uday Saddam Hussein's body double.

It took me three hours. Cover to cover.
No, I'm not trying to prove anything. I was rushing through the horror, hoping that once I finished I could sleep at night.

Didn't work.

Housewarming

It's a strange sort of nostalgia.
Ha-dadu's farmhouse. I remember coming home to this place when I was much younger. The split levels. My underground bedroom, the enormous kitchen, too many ways to enter the house.
And ha-dadu on the divan in the verandah. I'm told I called him that ever since I was two. Ever since I heard his deep, throaty laugh. Ha ha ha.
With ha-dadu gone, it wasn't the same. The house seemed hugely hollow and we moved into a smaller, more manageable place just next door.

So the new house and the old house and ma's montessori were all in the same compound, but the old house was eventually ignored.
I'd walk friends around the place pointing to where my old room was.
Underground, I'd explain, recalling how Z used to think the place was haunted when we were kids.

Recently, ma decided she actually liked the old place and wanted to move back. But not without some major changes. I missed the renovation while it was underway and came back to a 'new' old house.

I walked through ha-dadu's place trying to remember where exactly things used to be; turning corners and climbing stairs that never were. My room isn't underground anymore but it's bright and cosy.
We're all a little wobbly; still finding our feet. Deciding where to put paintings, rearranging the furniture, arguing about whether the gramophone and valve radio stay or go. (Baba and I want them on display while ma's made extra room in a large closet.) We're still wondering how to fill up all this space.

In all this madness, it still hasn't registered that I might only be passing through. Stopping here on my way to elsewhere.
But in all this madness I've thought to myself more than once -- it's good to be home.

In solidarity

Management insititutions that buy entire pages of newsprint in order to be noticed will, of course, be noticed.

Desipundit has all the details.

Show your support. The bloggers have mine.

Tagged

This is a tardy response to Kaashyapeya's tag.
Semblance of a story in 55 words.


He said I was beautiful. I believed him.
Before the lies over late dinners. Over complicated entrees. Steaming soup.

And the dinners grew cold as I waited. Soups were seasoned with hatred. Drizzled with disgust.

And now I can bear to look at myself.
Black eyes. Red blood. Blue bruises.
I really am beautiful sometimes.


(I'm not technically tagging anyone because mine is a sleepy little blog. But if anyone's reading this and wants to precis-write, consider yourself tagged.)