Banana Pancakes...

I am listening to this song in a loop (btw, I have fallen in love with his music):

And then I have a sudden craving for this song: 

I can be like that.

P.S: How utterly delicious does Aamir Khan look in this video?

Your Mother...

I loved this story: Your Mother

*****
Your mother hated being photographed. She had romantic notions of how perfect her body looked at certain angles and to have them crushed by the awkward reality of a still life was simply unbearable. So I learned to capture moments using words and silences.

On this day, she sat perched on the first floor balcony’s platformed railing. Our room overlooked the magnificent Bay of Bengal – swollen & angry. We’d mistimed our vacation and landed up at Chinnakalpet in the middle of the Tamil Nadu monsoon. Swimming in the choppy sea was out of the question & even when it wasn’t raining, the weather was spectacularly wild. Earlier in the afternoon I’d run my hands through her hair and lightly kissed her neck as we looked at the stunning view afforded us by the balcony. When I’d asked her if she wanted to walk along the beach with me, she’d pushed me out of the room – “We don’t have to do everything together, do we?” And she was right. I took off with my camera.

With every step, my feet sank deeper into the golden sand. The effort it took to take the next step reminded me of how we were both getting older and how my body was beginning to express its tiredness. We had tried, your mother & I, to have children over the past two years but two miscarriages later she decided we needed to stop. “I have run out of tears, Arun,” she said. Instead, we decided to get into our tiny car and head off anywhere the wind would take us (her words, not mine).

The wind had led me here and if I wasn’t careful, it would sweep me further into the Bay. “Hold on to your hat, man!” cried a man coming at me from the opposite side. Considering he was the one wearing the hat and not me, I found him amusing.
“Nice weather we’re having, aren’t we?” I joked.
“Absolute perfection. I hope you’re bracing yourself for Cyclone Leela!”
“What? No! I mean, I haven’t even heard about it. My wife & I here on vacation.”
“Vacation?!! That’s rich, dear chap! I’d turn my ship right round and head back for shore. Nigel Forman, by the way.”
“Arun Desai.”
“Pleasure to bump into you, Arun. You will not be soon forgotten. Good bye & good tidings!”

And off he went, striding strongly, pushing back against the strong winds. I stood and watched the strange old man as he climbed the slippery rocks leading into the ocean. When he reached the farthest rock he opened his arms out wide, embracing the elements: the violent spray of the sea, the full force of the wind & the unending sky before him. You might say he had a few screws loose but in that moment I envied him his freedom.

I walked further, clicking photographs along the way. Perfect little seashells, fishing boats making their way back to the beach and the odd little picture that our resort’s quaint cottages made on that stormy evening. I began to miss your mother and so I turned back.

I took the cobbled stone path to our room. Along the way, I came upon the family that was staying across the hall from us. They were out on the lawn taking advantage of the few rainless hours. Two little girls played in the dirt as their parents relaxed over a cup of coffee. The younger of the two was an independent spirit. Barely 3 or 4, she wandered off repeatedly on her own, digging holes in the ground en route. Her mother would call out for her at regular intervals, but she wouldn’t listen. She would carry on on her quest; now a flower to be dissected, now a butterfly to be chased. And then there was the matter of jumping into that puddle. Eventually, the mother caught up with her little imp and hoisted her over the shoulder. Both mother & daughter, laughing, disappeared into the bushes and then out of sight.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I looked up at that very instant and caught your mother looking right at me. There she was, seated cross-legged on our balcony’s platformed railing. She had wrapped a dupatta around herself, one end of which was flying unrestrained in the wind like her uncombed hair. She had never looked more beautiful. I instinctively lifted my camera to capture her breathtaking image. But in the very next instant, I changed my mind and there I was, running up the stairs as quickly as I could. The door was open, I rushed right through it and scooped her up in my embrace. We held each other so tight that not even the cyclonic winds churning up outside could have torn us apart.
The next morning, we admitted defeat in the face of Cylcone Leela, packed our backs and returned home. Not long after that your mother announced that she was pregnant with you.

From, Aquatic Static. Do visit the blog, one of my favourites.

*****
Stories like these make it so hard to come back to the real life, no? Sigh.

Kaho Kya Khayaal Hai?

Oh, what a beautiful song! Makes you weep and smile at the same time.



Dhadkano ki taal baaje
Saanson ka iktara
Aangan mein sajaye baithein
Sooraj chanda taara

Dhadkano ki taal baaje
Saanson ka iktara
Aangan mein sajaye baithein
Sooraj chanda taara

Chalo baant lein hum zindagi
Zara aaj yun kar lein
Kaho kya khayal hai

(Bengali chant)

Ik jahan chota sa apna
Ik jahan tumhara
Muskaan chahe meethi ho
Ya aansoon ik khara

Chalo baant lein ghum aur khushi
Thodi guftagoo kar lein
Kaho kya khayaal hai

Aap se do baat kar lein
Yaadon ko jebon mein bhar lein
Aaye hain hum kuch dino ke baad

Yaaron ki saubat mein aake
Dheere se kuch gunguna ke
Yuhin kat jaate hain din aur raat

Muthi mein tum bheench lana sawan hara
Ek dhanak tum bhi tod lana falak se zara
Muthi muthi baant lenge kiranon ka katra
Ik sikka dhoop humse lena gar kam laga
Betuk hi Be matlab hans le hum
Kyun na is lamhe mein
Haan jee lein hum

Chalo baant lein hum zindagi
Zara aaj yun kar lein
Kaho kya khayaal hai

Aap se do baat kar lein
Yaadon ko jebon mein bhar lein
Aaye hain hum kuch dino ke baad

Yaaron ki saubat mein aake
Dheere se kuch gunguna ke
Yuhin kat jaate hain din aur raat

A Thousand Kisses Deep...

Don't matter if the road is long

Don't matter if it's steep

Don't matter if the moon is gone

And the darkness is complete

Don't matter if we lose our way

It's written that we'll meet

At least, that's what I heard you say

A thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened

Like a lily to the heat

You see, I'm just another snowman

Standing in the rain and sleet

Who loved you with his frozen love

His second hand physique

With all he is and all he was

A thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me

I know you had to cheat

You learned it on your father's knee

And at your mother's feet

But did you have to fight your way

Across the burning street

When all our vital interests lay

A thousand kisses deep

I'm turning tricks

I'm getting fixed

I'm back on boogie street

I'd like to quit the business

But I'm in it, so to speak

The thought of you is peaceful

And the file on you complete

Except what I forgot to do

A thousand kisses deep

Don't matter if you're rich and strong

Don't matter if you're weak

Don't matter if you write a song

The nightingales repeat

Don't matter if it's nine to five

Or timeless and unique

You ditch your life to stay alive

A thousand kisses deep

The ponies run

The girls are young

The odds are there to beat

You win a while, and then it's done

Your little winning streak

And summon now to deal with your invincible defeat

You live your life as if it's real

A thousand kisses deep

I hear their voices in the wine

That sometimes did me seek

The band is playing Auld Lang Syne

But the heart will not retreat

There's no forsaking what you love

No existential leap

As witnessed here in time and blood

A thousand kisses deep

- Leonard Cohen

Tea...

Weekend Meditation by Dana Velden (from the Kitchn)

Making a cup of tea, a proper cup involving loose Assam and a strainer and gently warmed milk, is a start. So you go to the kitchen and put the kettle on and pull down the old white pot with the bright flower decal on one side. You start to feel the comfort of your task, the purpose of it filling up some of the empty space that sadness has carved into your heart. There's a reason for ritual, you discover, as you pour in a little hot water to warm the pot and then encircle it with your chilled hands: the repetition, the body memory, the soothing rhythm of things happening in a certain order and with intention. 

The tea is hot and milky and for a while it is enough. But soon you realize that even though what you are experiencing is sadness and loss, there is also a request, a whisper, for celebration. A tiny acknowledgment that life and appetite must ultimately prevail. So you go to the pantry and find a crinkly package of butter cookies, just three little star-shaped ones with red candy centers, and a clementine. And a pretty plate to put them on because the request for beauty is somehow penetrating, sunbeam-like, the fog of sadness. 

The clementine is, of course, a little too cheery but you gamely dig your thumb into the peel for you know that this is your responsibility now, to turn towards the brightness. The clementine answers you with a gruff, almost rude, spray of juice, sticky and fragrant. Suddenly you find yourself surrendering to it, to this little orange dictator that demands your attention and appreciation. And of course it is sweet and fills your mouth with joy. 

The tea cools, and the clementine detritus curls on the table before you like the skin that a dragon would shed. You listen to the sounds of home, the tick of the clock, the refrigerator's hum. A few random and practical thoughts pop into your awareness: are there enough quarters for the laundry, will the package make it to Milwaukee on time, do hummingbirds migrate? 

Slowly life gathers around you, urging you to get up from the table and start back into the busy doings of the day. You resist, lingering in the sorrow for a while longer, for that's where you last saw your old friend, the one whose passing has brought on this little one person tea party. Eventually you realize that sorrow isn't done with you yet, that it will be your companion for a while longer. So you rise from the table to sweep up the dragon's skin and wash up the dishes, a clutch of tears caught in the back of your throat.

But it's OK, it's alright. You're human and you're built for this.

HT: Divya :)

Stuffed Owl...

I wanted you to be the first to know - Harper & Row

has agreed to publish my collected letters to you.

The tentative title is Exorcist in the Gym of Futility.

Unfortunately I never mailed the best one,

which certainly was one of a kind.

A mutual friend told me that when I quit drinking,

I surrendered my identity in your eyes.

Now I'm just like everybody else, and it's so funny,

the way monogamy is funny, the way

someone falling down in the street is funny.

I entered a revolving door and emerged

as a human being. When you think of me

is my face electronically blurred?

I remember your collarbone, forming the tiniest

satellite dish in the universe, your smile

as the place where parallel lines inevitably crossed.

Now dinosaurs freeze to death on your shoulder.

I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash,

how I once held the soft audience of your hand.

I've been ignored by prettier women than you,

but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence

so far, without spilling a drop.

Jeffrey McDaniel

Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines...

This ruined my day.

Sigh. That delicate delicious ache when you love someone.

(Sometimes I feel I must have been a man in my previous life and I must have loved a woman with all my heart and maybe, I still love her, in this life.)

I could weep for days today. My soul is not satisfied.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.

Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

A Whore's Heart...

Suddenly this defeat.

This rain.

The blues gone gray

And the browns gone gray

And yellow

A terrible amber.

In the cold streets

Your warm body.

In whatever room

Your warm body.

Among all the people

Your absence

The people who are always

Not you.

I have been easy with trees

Too long.

Too familiar with mountains.

Joy has been a habit.

Now

Suddenly

This rain.

-Jack Gilbert  

Life Is Sweet...

It's a pity
It's a crying shame
Who pulled you down again?
How painful it must be
To bruise so easily inside

It's a pity
It's a downright crime
But it happens all the time
You wanna stay little daddy's girl
Wanna hide from the vicious world outside

But don't cry
Know the tears'll do no good
So dry your eyes

Your daddy he's the iron man
A battleship wrecked on dry land
Your mama she's a bitter bride
She'll never be satisfied,
And you know
That's not right

But don't cry
Know the tears'll do no good
So dry your eyes

They told you life is hard
It's misery from the start
It's dull and slow and painful

I tell you life is sweet
In spite of the misery
There's so much more
Be grateful

Who do you believe?
Who will you listen to
Who will it be?
It's high time that you decide
In your own mind

Tried to comfort you
Tried to tell you to be patient
They are blind
They can't see

Fortune gonna come some day
All gonna fade away
Your daddy the war machine and
Your mama the long and suffering
Prisoner of what she can not see

They told you life is hard
It's misery from the start
It's dull and slow and painful

I tell you life is sweet
In spite of the misery
There's so much more
Be grateful

Who do you believe?
Who will you listen to
Who will it be?

It's high time you decide
It's time you make up your own sweet little mind

They told you life is long
Be thankful when it's done
Don't ask for more
You should be grateful

But I tell you life is short
Be thankful because before you know
It will be over

Cause life is sweet
And life is also very short
Your life is sweet

HT: Swb (Thank you :))

Hereafter...

duur ek gaon hai 

wahan thandi chaon hai

behti nadiya hai

jaana hai nadiya k paar

Masoom...

If you haven't watched the movie Masoom[1983], you're missing on some great cinema. A must watch.



Tujhse Naaraaz Nahiin Zindagi
Hairaan Hoon Main
O Hairaan Huun Main
Tere Masum Sawaalon Se Pareshaan Hoon Main
O Pareshaan Hoon Main

Jeene Ke Liye Sochaa Hi Nahi
Dard Sambhaalane Honge

Jeene Ke Liye Sochaa Hi Nahi
Dard Sambhaalane Honge

Muskuraaye To, Muskuraane Ke Karz Utarne Honge
Muskuraauun Kabhii To Lagataa Hai
Jaise Honthon Pe Karz Rakhaa Hai

Ho Tujhse Naaraaz Nahiin Zindagi
Hairaan Hoon Main
O Hairaan Huun Main

[Zindagii Tere Gam Ne Hamein
Rishte Naye Samajhaaye ]2

Mile Jo Hamein Dhoop Mein Mile
Chaanv Ke Thande Saaye

Ho Tujhse Naaraaz Nahin Zindagi
Hairaan Hoon Main
O Hairaan Huun Main

Aaj Agar Bhar Aai Hain
Boondein Baras Jaayengi
Kal Kyaa Pataa Inke Liye
Aankhein Taras Jaayengi
Jaane Kab Gum Kahaan Khoyaa
Ek Ansuun Chhupaake Rakhaa Thaa

Ho Tujhse Naaraaz Nahin Zindagi
Hairaan Hoon Main
O Hairaan Huun Main

Tere Masum Sawaalon Se Pareshaan Hoon Main
O Pareshaan Hoon Main 3