Don't think so much

The smell of raw animal fat has always made her gag. She wonders why she hasn't turned vegetarian years ago. He plays with the foil from the cigarettes, folding, unfolding, ripping and twisting the little pieces. If the carton could talk, it would have plenty to say.

"So." She looks away.
"So." He looks at her.
"What now?"
"I don't know."
"Hm."

He lights a match. Staring away from her, he searches for the faces of the passing travelers in their belching machines, as they maneuver a route through the potholed highway. The match burns out.

"When's your train?"

He lights another match and with it, a cigarette. He inhales deeply, the cigarette between his lips. She can't help noticing how his lips crease differently in the moments before they kiss from those when he smokes.

"Friday."
"Should I come to see you off?"
"Um...no need, really."
"You're sure?"
"Ya."

She is very tempted to ask him if he will miss her.

"I'll be back in a minute." She stands up.

In the minuscule loo in the back, she stares at her face in the grimy mirror, recognizing the very moment from the many films they had watched together. She smiles as she realizes that now would be a highly appropriate time to burst into tears, sing a sad song and sink to the floor theatrically, clutching her handbag to her chest.
To do so would be below her.

Meanwhile, he has finished his watery tea and has begun to dig for change in his many pockets as the waitress hovers hopefully in the background.
He wonders if he should knock on the loo-door.
He wonders if she has left through the kitchens.

She has, in fact, left.

She drags her slippers across the highway to the waiting bus. The rattling red monster does a U-Turn and she sees him through the two layers of glass, still sitting at their table, striking a match to light the cigarette pinned behind his left ear. For a brief moment, he sees her too, but looks away in the direction of the loo as if to brush the image out of his head as some sort of passing illusion.

"Them"

You are likely to find this type anywhere you go in the world, albeit in different avatars. They could be your classmates, your workplace colleagues, your rich cousins, your boyfriend/ girlfriends friends but they are one hundred percent likely to exist in your life no matter who you are or wherever in the world you are. "They" are the people who like to think they have the final word on whats "hot" or "cool" or whatever temperature is in fashion to be labelled desirable. There are whole generations of them on social networking sites, plenty of them in your classroom, at the local pub, cafe or concert. This breed does not have an official denomination or post. They are entirely self- appointed, given a little bit of good looks, luck or talent, or worse, combinations of all three. There is even a breed that has neither of these three but still likes to believe it calls the shots. What i find murderously funny is that there are a whole lot of people who look upto creatures such as these and take their cues from this lot. Independent thought seems impossible from the worshipping breed, what with them being lobotomised by hours spent watching Vh1, surfing orkut communities, reading Cosmopolitan and watching stupid American sitcoms to see what everyone else thinks so they know what not to say.
An even more intriguing breed of creatures is the one that does everything the "cool" breed does not do, just so it can be, you know, "anti- trend", or "the real deal" and denounce everyone else as "posers". Oooh, hiphop is "in" so lets all be metalheads. This band is commercial, so lets only worship obscure trashy stuff that no one's really heard of and therefore not really in a position to criticize. Ooh, thats so "gay". Ooh, "fucking poseurs" said with a grimace and Black t- shirt with little known Scandinavian band on it. Or alternatively, Ooh, Cosmo says- did you know nicole richie did- that is sooo, like- ow my gaaad.
A few questions: Since when and why has Cosmopolitan magazine started dictating the way you wipe your bum? Pencil- fits or bell- bottoms, who the fuck cares, really? Would you consider it remotely possible to take that straightening iron out of your behind? And you, you there with that oh-so-cliched-obvious "Im trying so hard to NOT be like everyone else that i'm having trouble holding my stomach in" look on your face and your "Dark" "personality", take that black nailpolish off before someone mistakes you for a malnourished delinquent. Why is every musician that makes pots of money labelled "commercial" like its some infectious disease? OH, I'm sorry, musicians live on love and fresh air right- nevermind that it costs the earth to own decent musical equipment or afford to stay out of mainstream work to make a proper career doing what you love best? And "Poseur"- well seriously, with words like insanity, truth, blood, fear, hatred, lust, "blackness", "darkness" being a constant refrain with you, and you being a quite ordinary teenager with a few mild issues with your folks not "understanding" your need for a blood-and-gore poster in your room - i mean, you'er not exactly a long- suffering-Palestinian are you?! Or Alternatively, if you think the Pussy Cat Dolls are supreme in terms of song- writing abilities, you seriously need to switch that television off and look through your Dad's old records and see if anything there catches your fancy, because sweetheart, believe me "me, he" "you, do" "kill, still" "mine, fine" is not the be- all and end- all of lyrical beauty.

to be contd.

what Roadie?

Ok that does it. When it started out, Roadies, wasn't half bad. People did do some actual biking on it. Never mind that a lot of time was spent doing random stupid dangerous things and bitching about team members. It absolutely gets my goat that they still call the bloody thing "Roadies", like it has anything whatsoever to do with tarmac except for the fact that you might want your skull to make contact with it if you sat through later episodes. Please, PLEASE, its time for a name change.

10 things i am NEVER going to do ever again.

1) Drink neat vodka.
2) Attempt to make intelligent conversation with anyone who uses the word "killer" and "poseur" in the same sentence.
3) Walk into a room without knocking. Ever.
4) Use my teeth for a bottle opener
5) Offer to take out my exes current girlfriend shopping when she comes to bangalore.
6) Fall for gorgeous gay men.
7) Fall for other people's boyfriends.
8) Mix needlework/cooking/nailfiling/complicated surgical procedures with death metal.
9) Eat lunch at Siddiques
10) Forget my boyfriends birthday.

metaphors of the soul- written 4-10-'07

Pop! The Bubble burst
Killed- the cocoon
Boiled- the silk worm
Dead- the bamboo flowers
Morbid- am I?
Moving pictures flash a million corpses casually
Blood and victory- Madre Dios! Where are the trees?

small fuzzy balls of terror that go "Meow!"

Mean kitty and Momo cat- the latest additions to my family and their fascinating habits:

We 've toilet trained them with a tub of newspaper- they've learned pretty fast except now they insist on peeing and pooping in anything that vaguely looks or smells like newspaper (this includes Papa'a official documents that he leaves around the house and my psychology notes that have been hurriedly compiled a week before my semester exams)

Mean Kitty has taken to Papa (inspite of Mum being official Mamma Cat) and loves to pottyfy all over (only) his clothes/bedsheets/blankets/shoes. It doesn't help that she does so only when he's around to see it happen- like peeing on his blanket when he was still inside it fast asleep, early in the morning.

The first night the cats slept in my room- something creeped me out and i woke up- Momo was siting on my pillow and staring at me. There was light coming into the room from the streetlights outside and i swear i could see he was staring with his eyes wide open- spooky! and believe me when i say i am not one to be easily spooked! my theory is that he's probably someone i used to know in his last life!



to be cont'd...

a green vans shadow

bumpy roads- afternoon heat
a quiet park- lovers meet-
a church, it stands
new, unmanned
i ride on past- plastic slideshow
girl- meets boy- dark skin no no-
i smirk- what crap
sweet sticky trap-
my skin- the sun fries
beggar child bawling cries-
a pang- low and guilty-
was i born wealthy?
A green van- my face tans
shadow i find-
to the left- behind
wrong side of the road- gutter moat
us from them- safely keeps
they that cry- us that sleep-
dusty van- paper cargo
rattletrap can- how it goes.
i find its shadow
unsafe but cool- a fool i am
no brakes- small feet
big bike- shitty heat.
nevermind- on its way, the van went-
and i.