Jaisalmer and Sam dunes
Standing in the desert is like standing in an ash-tray. In the bright sun, the landscape is always like an over-exposed photograph. If the people were fair, they would be ghosts. The camels leave you sore as you have no option but to hump when you sit on them. And they take you over the desert waves, full of slippery sand that responds to the warmth-bringing sunrise or cooling sunset instantly.
The camel riders. Their long kurtas and lungis and draped shawls flutter in the wind. Their loongas (ear-studs) glint and they smoke bidis with squinting eyes. A local, 7 year old kid races past bouncing away on an irritable camel. He is all colours and movement and panache.
Ajay, the shopkeeper in Jaisalmer was the second wise-man I met after Toronto’s Jamaican cab-driver. When we went to his shop, we realised that earlier shopkeepers had fleeced us. Ajay said “Never mind. You paid a little more. What is done is done. Don’t worry... Just imagine you missed beer or a lunch at some restaurant.”
He continued “Did you go to the desert? In the sand..?
With friends or boyfriend?”
I answered friends.
“Oh.. you must return with your boyfriend next time.”
His eyes narrowed and he leant forwards savouring each word…
“It will drive you crrr—aa—zzz—yyy.
They say that couples who are about to divorce come to the desert to spend their last few days together. On leaving, they are unable to get a divorce.
I think there is something in the sand.. scientifically.. that has this effect on the mind….
The foreign-girls who come here fall in love with the camel-riders. It’s no big deal for the riders. Girls come and go. It’s casual flirting. But the girls lose it.. they go mad!”
At night, all strangers were friends and music was a-thumping in the heart. Ramesh and Kamlesh - two performers in drag did the Rajasthani dances, swirling, bending touching their chins to the ground while raising one eyebrow after another. We followed their steps with intense eye-contact and before I knew it we were all dancing together around the bonfire.
Going going .. gone?
I`m leaving on a jet train. My bags are not packed. I am not ready to go. Not even playing cricket. Imagining with Eva Cassidy that there are no countries. "Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace." Oh my god! She is too hymn-y. But then as she says she is a dreamer and not the only one.
Floating. Can't cycle. So no flying. My knee is busted coz of stress and Ronny says `Teri akal tere ghutnon mein hai!`(Tee hee hee hee hee ha he goes).
Hunting music. Catching Etta James lyrics
I want a Sunday kind of love.. to last past Saturday night
. . . .
At last my love has come along, my lonely days are over, and life is like a song
Bye bye blackbird
. . . .
Now you say you’re lonely, you cried the whole night through, well now you can cry me a river, cry me a river, I cried a river over you
Now you say you’re sorry for being so untrue, well now you can cry me a river
You drove me out of my head while you never shed a tear
Remember, I remember all that you said, told me love was ** for being, told me you were through with me and now you say you love me.
. . . .
Something told me it was over when I saw you and heard talking
. . . .
I don’t want nobody if I can’t have you
I can’t love nobody unless I am loving you
The way you hug me
The way you squeeze me
The way you kiss me
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
If I can’t have you
. . . .
My funny Valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you`re my favourite work of art
But don’t change your hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine
. . . .
One thing isn`t very clear my love
Should the teacher stand so near my love
Graduation is almost here my love
Ahh.. c`mon and teach me tonight
. . . .
Baby take off your coat
Realll Slowww
Baby take off your shoes
Here
I`ll take your shoes
Baby take off that mess
Huh
Yes yes yes
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat on
You can leave your hat.. onnnn…
Go on over there
Turn on the light
No
All the lights
Come back here
Stand on this chair
That`s right
. . . .
And Eve feat. Alicia Keys adds "I ain't your average baby gurrrrl.."
Buying Bread
He rides through the traffic on his bicycle. Against the flow. Head-on. Swiftly flying. His coat fluttering behind him. A few beads of sweat though it’s icy cold. And sure enough, as he goes downhill, he skirts past a car and bangs into a big red truck. Cartwheeling, freewheeling.. he is tossed like salad. His cycle is bent. He gets up. Dusts off imaginaries. Picks up the bread. Puts it in his coat again. Puts on his shoe. He twists the cycle back into shape. Gets on. Goes away.
Oh noo! Ha ha..
Oh look at this paragraph that I found in a PG Wodehouse –
‘Oh look,’ she said. She was a confirmed Oh-looker. I had noticed this at Cannes, where she had drawn my attention in this manner on various occasions to such diverse objects as a French actress, a Provencal filling station, the sunset over the Estorals, Michael Arlen, a man selling coloured spectacles, the deep velvet blue of the Mediterranean, and the late Mayor of New York in a striped one-piece bathing suit. ‘Oh, look at that sweet little star up there by itself.’
In Regal Style
De Paul’s cold coffee at Janpath. Walked around Connaught Circus on a warm winter night. And finished with an impulsive movie at Regal cinema with Prasun, a friend. Late night show.
The guy behind the counter of the very very old classic cinema hall was not in uniform like the PVR guys. He was not business-like. He did not have to ask us if we preferred ‘Gold’ seats. He was an uncle who sweetly told us that they weren’t sure if they would screen the movie “Luck by Chance” at all, since only Prasun and I had bought the tickets. (The film is supposed to be doing well over India.)
So, we killed time until 9:30 pm. Amir Khan told me my weight at a super-cool weighing machine - the kind which has lights in all colors and you have to wait for a red and white spiralling disc to stop. Then you insert a 1 rupee coin.
The lobby of Regal had sweeping staircases, a nautical vintage wall-clock, posters pinned with thumb-pins on soft-boards and sepia-toned photos of Madhubala and Raj Kapoor. Apart from Balcony seats, there is the entry to the ‘Box’.
The hall itself was lined with big electric fans. The seat numbers had been imperfectly painted in large digits behind the seats. And as the movie started and I could put up my feet on the seats in front and somebody clapped from the back row, the lights dimmed. The beginning of the movie was the best part – a tribute of sorts to the film industry; to the stuntmen, the dancers, the sound-recording assistant, the make-up man; the many people who go to Bombay with stardust in their eyes.
Her morning elegance, by Oren Lavie
Click here and listen to the song. Don't read ahead without the music!
Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case
Soon she’s down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up
And she fights for her life
as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
as it pours
And she fights for her life
as she goes in a store
with a thought she has caught
by a thread
she pays for the bread
and she goes…
Nobody knows
Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love
And she fights for her life
as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
as it pours
And she fights for her life
as she goes in a store
with a thought she has caught
by a thread
she pays for the bread
and she goes…
Nobody knows
And she fights for her life
as she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
as it pours
And she fights for her life
as she goes in a store
where the people are pleasantly
strange
and counting the
change
as she goes…
Nobody knows
Tagore’s Luscious Frivolity
Rabindranath Tagore's Birthday Thoughts
July 1887
I am in my twenty-seventh year. This event keeps thrusting itself before
my mind--nothing else seems to have happened of late.
But to reach twenty-seven--is that a trifling thing?--to pass the meridian
of the twenties on one's progress towards thirty?--thirty--that is to say
maturity--the age at which people expect fruit rather than fresh foliage.
But, alas, where is the promise of fruit? As I shake my head, it still
feels brimful of luscious frivolity, with not a trace of philosophy.
Folk are beginning to complain: "Where is that which we expected of
you--that in hope of which we admired the soft green of the shoot? Are we
to put up with immaturity forever? It is high time for us to know what we
shall gain from you. We want an estimate of the proportion of oil which
the blindfold, mill-turning, unbiased critic can squeeze out of you."
It has ceased to be possible to delude these people into waiting
expectantly any longer. While I was under age they trustfully gave me
credit; it is sad to disappoint them now that I am on the verge of thirty.
But what am I to do? Words of wisdom will not come! I am utterly
incompetent to provide things that may profit the multitude. Beyond a
snatch of song, some tittle-tattle, a little merry fooling, I have been
unable to advance. And as the result, those who held high hopes will turn
their wrath on me; but did anyone ever beg them to nurse these
expectations?
Such are the thoughts which assail me since one fine Bysakh morning
I awoke amidst fresh breeze and light, new leaf and flower, to find that I
had stepped into my twenty-seventh year.
Making Brinjal Bharta
Burn it
The fucker
Sizzles and hisses
Spewing saliva
But burning alright
Softening like ugly old age
I think this isn’t cooking
It’s therapeutic evil
It’s sweating now
Mangled beyond its fresh purple shine
And I turn it
To see that the pig is well roasted
On its butt, on its belly
It has been forked
Incisions have been made deep
So that the flames lick it from inside
I am beginning to feel sorry now
For the soggy sod
Is it done?
I have no idea
Like a first time killer
Who doesn’t know if
He should shoot again
Just to make sure.
Blink. Blink. A lil Think.