Hey You !

Rain and roses always reminds me of the song Raindrops on roses and Maria. And of love on a rainy day. Thanks to the android phone, I manage to take a rainy day picture just as the droplets hang from the petals. Just like before the teardrops fall ! This rose bush like most of the plants in our unkempt garden , came from Bhagalpur, my ancestral Shoshurbari. And it was my father in law who would supervise the house and the garden. Giving instructions to the gardener, to his favorite Man Friday "Lokhkhidhor"( It's much later that  I discovered that his actual name was Lakhindor as in the Behula tale) The house these days is going to seed. My OCD works overtime, but my energy is showing signs of a car that is having starting trouble.  And my writers' block is working overtime - and I could not complete the write up for our poojo souvenir. Writers' block did I say? I laughed at that - cos I am no writer , really!!! Just jotting down randomly and getting 50 likes...

"So you live in Delhi?" "Yes" Overseas airports are strange places at night- strange,cold and impersonal, yet you meet people who mattered the most or at least did once upon a time. The  coffee vending machine whirred and I payed up the slot machine and filled my cup. " You haven't changed much!"  Is he being polite? I smiled. I have changed from a girl to a middle aged lady, from a teenager to a grand mom...I have changed in many ways, yet it was nice to hear some  one say I haven't changed. Though I cannot say the same for him....He looked changed and different- older, richer, balder except for his eyes! So I still remembered his eyes?I smiled again and he smiled back. Wonder what he is going on in his head.The warm coffee was a balm to the chill. And the last 45 minutes of bumping into a stranger whom I knew so well was a twist in the tale. The WhatsApp pinged, " Hope you are awake...Drink your coffee and don't fall asleep - S...

This morning I watched a video going viral- on periods and all things related to the taboo. I am amazed that in the days of open relationships, open sex and all other openness why do we still wrap it all in a whisper? I remember when my peer group started theirs and how it was a matter of being the privileged one with the cramps, sit outs in the games class and and discussing the color of Stayfree. One by one my friends all belonged  to the club, all except me - I was considered the baby and not to be taken into the inner wheel of the red young ladies. Being fed up of being the outcast, I faked chum to be with my bumchums !!!! I faked cramps, sit outs in the PT class, though I hated it, and spoke about imaginary stayfrees !!!! It's a different matter that I finally started my periods while I was almost 13 and almost 2 years later than my friends. The periods of course made Ma look red - she was forever worried that me being me I should not shout in glee!!! Her sermons were long a...

And we have been living with this big,fat, stinky mole since God knows when. It has a way of finding a way in the house and digging into the kitchen bin despite me putting up all kinds of barricades at all the probable entrances. This mole is certainly not cute and civil like the Mr Mole of Wind in the willows - Chibu's regular bed time read when he was a child - but this one is squeaky, noisy and poos at all odd corners and beats the pest control at all cost. Last night as I pushed the pedal of the kitchen bin with my foot , out jumps the creature on my foot and slid under the gad burner, while I screamed down the neighbourhood. Bhaskar probably thought I was having some kind of an attack and before he opened his mouth it was " What kind of fauji were you? You cannot even protect me from a mole.....no wonder we had infiltrators....bla bla bla..." I raved and ranted....The mole peeped out and looked at B....." Ahhh look at his size and yours... He must be petrifie...

" But you don't say I love you anymore"- He complained as he watched her tinker around with the Sunday chores. She sighed .... "I love you, do I have to say that? I keep your house sparkling, pillows fluffed and combs clean! Doesn't that show that I care ? What is love anyway?" He sulked and she grimaced. Life brings in that  monotony where love takes a backseat amid Sunday cleaning, shopping for the week, overseeing kids projects to be submitted and parent visits. She went into the kitchen and thought about it . I love you - how easy it was when they were dating , writing notes to each other and texting and saying sweet nothings out of the air. So where has love gone? She peeked at the mirror that she was polishing with a piece of wet newspaper - umm not out of the magazine cover surely and certainly not a person who will turn heads anymore! Another sigh! It's been so long that she actually looked after herself, thought about what she wanted and di...

Misty morning and a railroad to no where...a far cry from the city I was visiting a week ago. I had looked up at the skyscrapers and sighed.... I had wished  I was living here for a bit and not on a whirlwind. This city was my first flavour of traveling abroad. With its shimmer and sing-song accents  and glitter and all things legitimately sinful it was my first taste of all things glitzy and foreign. And this was all so different , yet on my wish list for almost a decade and a half! It was barren and basic, yet the simplicity makes you realize you want  so little in life after all. The warmth of the people and the village boys and girls dancing lithely to the beat of the drums beats the discos across the globe. Two different world, two attractive in different ways ......and the morning made me ask which one should I choose if i must, if I have to....Ahh mornings and solitude are never good for my head and my heart. And I ran into Saraswati poojo right here amid the...

Circus season is here ....and with all the cries of animal cruelty the circus has actually lost it's charm. I watched the tents being put up at the Patuli just as winter arrived in the city. The lights started to shimmer again ,  and the place was buzzing! Each year I plan to visit the circus , and it never happens....When the tents are taken down at the end of the season , I just watch the elephants as I am passing by. And I miss being there again. Circus used to have a place in my imagination, thanks to the stories by Enid Blyton, who made life in a circus so exciting- with it's trapeze acts and animal stunts it was indeed a life of nomadic adventure- of glitzy shows and life in a caravan. My first brush with circus happened when Dada took me to the Gemini Circus and I was so fascinated with the pretty foreigner in a short pink dress, who walked in with a huge Hippo and fed her one loaf of bread after circling the ring. And there were the tigers and  the lions and elephan...