January 24, 2011

Eyes Open...



You could be happy and I won't know
But you weren't happy the day I watched you go

And all the things that I wished I had not said
Are played in loops 'till it's madness in my head

Is it too late to remind you how we were
But not our last days of silence, screaming, blur

Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking out the door

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far

Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true

Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do

More than anything I want to see you, girl
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

*****
What if we forget the past and meet again? Do you think we will be friends again? Will we pass each other like strangers on the subway, never to meet again? Or do you think, we will still feel the connection, even for a second?

January 23, 2011

In These Shoes?


I once met a man with a sense of adventure
He was dressed to thrill wherever he went
He said "Let's make love on a mountain top
Under the stars on a big hard rock"
I said "In these shoes?
I don't think so"
I said "Honey, let's do it here."

So I'm sitting at a bar in Guadalajara
In walks a guy with a faraway look in his eyes
He said "I've got as powerful horse outside
Climb on the back, I'll take you for a ride
I know a little place, we can get there for the break of day."
I said "In these shoes?
No way, Jose"
I said "Honey, let's stay right here."

No le gusta caminar. No puede montar a caballo
(She don't like to walk. She can't ride a horse)
Como se puede bailar? Es un escandalo
(How can she be dancing? It scandalous! )

Then I met an Englishman
"Oh" he said
"What are you afraid of"
"Won't you walk up and down my spine,
It makes me feel strangely alive."
I said "In these shoes?
I doubt you'd survive."
I said "Honey, let's do it.
Let's stay right here."

No le gusta caminar. No puede montar a caballo
(I don't like to walk. He can't ride the horse)
Como se puede bailar? Es un escandalo
(How can one dance? It is a scandal)

January 22, 2011

The Empty Net...

I have been sitting under this darkening sky, by the melody of waves and laughter of the breeze, I have been waiting for you for centuries. Wanting to share my joys and my loneliness, I have been waiting all my life for you. And you still won't come.

And now I am sinking under this heaviness of wait and soon I will be buried under the sand of time. But you still won't come.

And now I wonder if you ever existed. 

The Indian Memory Project

My grandparents, paternal ones, died when I was just a baby, and so other than an old photo and the stories dad told us a few times when we were kids, I don't know much about them. And not having grandparents was something I always felt bad about. I always wanted to have a big house with lots of cousins and lots of aunts and uncles and grandparents. I wanted to sit by their feet on a summer afternoon, sip aam-panna, and listen to their stories; stories from their younger days and stories about the pre-Independence India. 

Though that can never happen now, they are long dead, this wonderful website, managed to give me a precious peek into the lives of many such grandparents and their stories. A treasure trove for history enthusiasts. Do have a look.  

January 21, 2011

Bake Not Roast...

I almost want to buy an Aga cooker myself. It seems, literally, something magical.

David Ogilvy's The Theory and Practice of Selling the Aga Cooker.

What a manual!

Whisper Of Sighs...

The physical distance is not what separates us. That, I could journey alone. I would travel oceans and continents to be with you. The distance that upsets me is the one between our hearts. That, I can not walk alone, even if I want to.

January 20, 2011

Living In Sin...

"Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you...it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind. It means being able to say, with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: "I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.

Responsibility to yourself means that you don't fall for shallow and easy solutions--predigested books and ideas...marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short...

...Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way."
— Adrienne Rich