Islam, iftiyari and me...

i have a colleague. i'll call him...uhmmm....SRK (he's a total fanatic).
he is muslim and for the past 2 days a very beautiful happenstance is happening with us...as in with the team.
yesterday was sheer madness. another colleague of mine...i'll call her... Songbird... who is a proper food junkie came to work all hungry and exasperated (cabbie had apparently taken her for a ride...). food, she declared...i want food...and the choice was made. SAMOSAS... not one but 2 each. so that happened in the morning 11:45 ish. after 2 samosas...a lunch seemed slightly discomforting but we did taste some tidbits...
then came evening. what to eat? what to eat? and SRK announces..."break roza with me today..."...ooooh...what a super idea! and i still remember how the stalls overflow with food in that area of our city. Oh my God... it is phenomenal. the variety, the colours, the flavours, the textures, the aromas... such a small stomach and so much to eat. bhajiyas, pakodas, mini samosas, shaami kebabs, naans, ragda, kachumber, falooda, fruit salads....sighhhh!
6:40 pm he said. the time was 4:30. 2 HOURS. how those 2 hours passed only i know. and when the time arrived, we heard the magrib or is it isha (not sure) from a distance. it sounded like divine music to our ears. SRK smiled at me. i smiled at Songbird and Songbird smiled at Shoutfest (colleague number 3). yayyyy....time to stuff our faces. we went upstairs and sat down and ate to our hearts' content.
you know something, i don't think even SRK after his whole day of roza would have waited with such anticipation for the break as we did after our 2 hours roza. and when we sat there... all of us huddled over the overflowing paraats...damn... i felt one with SRK and im sure so did Songbird and Shoutfest. that little sharing of food brought us all together and at one point we all felt that even we should have gone through the niyat ceremony.
the same thing happened today. i'm eating so much. it's not funny. but it feels so good when all of us sit with SRK and eat and pray for him as well as ourselves. it's super beautiful. i still remember him mentioning with a smile (after he'd finished eating) ... "and now off with the topi and on with the dandiya...". he's a dancer so...yeah...he's gonna go dance for the Goddess too... :-))) how much we've gone through as far as our respective religions are concerned. yet when it comes to simple life events all barriers are broken and oneness is achieved.
and i am so glad to be a part of this pure, simple ritual because in a day of turmoils i feel so full of peace when i sit down with the rest of them and .... eat. :-)))))

Gyaan Guru ... Autowallah

i don't know why ... but i took an auto from andheri to bhandup. it was one of those days when i wanted to just sit back and watch people go by, vehicles go by, animals go by...like a blur. and that's exactly what was happening. if i had my way...i would have wished that the ride never ended. it also happened to be the day when an Eternal Knight was born. so yeah, there was something in the air...
then bhandup arrived. and i was asked whether i had to go west or east. and as usual i didn't remember. so i said west. again as usual...i was so wrong. so i did a 'wise' thing. i called a colleague and asked her whether it was east or west. i could hear loud guffaws in the background. OH WELL...SO WHAT???
i told the autowallah...go eastwards, my dear man... and he shook his head. his face expressed many emotions. frustration, helplessness, resignation... i mean...can't blame him, na. he was riding forever. oh did i forget to mention...it was raining and the traffic was SUPERMEAN!!!
then he said (i represent a translated version here. but it is verbatim): "please don't take offence, but i have been watching you. you have been staring into space and thinking. the entire time. remember one thing, there is no point in thinking about something that you're never going to get. in fact it is an utter waste of time..."

okkk...whatever!!!

Guillermo e historias de la calle

it took a blue-eyed spanish teacher turned photographer to drive in some home truths and to convince me that im not being foolish by being too trusting or by loving people who think they ought not to be loved.

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"i dont' think i can travel alone. i dont have that kind of courage."

"how can you say that if you've not tried. fear is something which you ought to get rid of. when you're confronted with something that you're afraid of do something unpredictable and the source of fear will vanish. for instance there was this guy who tried selling hashish to me. i avoided him. but he caught hold of my hand and you know what i did. i started waving my hands and laughing loudly. he looked at me for sometime and then he walked away."

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"but they are dangerous, unpredictable guys. you have to be careful."

"unpredictable, maybe. but dangerous...definitely not. see there maybe people in your life who give you every reason to not trust them, or be wary of them or not like them. but if your gut instinct asks you to go ahead and trust them then without thinking twice you should go ahead and trust them."

Gracias!

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i came across a new word today - transubstantiation - which denotes a process in which a substance gets transformed into another substance...

I Tend to get Attached with a Sense of Detachment

…quoted a wise man. Did he suggest that I do the same? I don’t quite remember, but that is beside the point.

There is this boy I know. He is young, very young. Every time he looks at me, he quirks an eyebrow and gives me a lazy half-grin. And my heart skips a beat. If I wasn’t governed by the child protection policies then I would have just grabbed him and kept him with me till eternity. And he speaks to me about his experiences at school and about the fact that he finds math a little tough…and all this in that laidback lazy manner which is so signature him. At times I feel that if everything was fine I might have had a son like him. Sigh!! Of course I will have a child someday…but you know…so I listen to him and I gaze into his face and capture all the expressions that flit across and animate his oh so incredible features…and then he abruptly ends the conversation and says bye and goes away. And I smile for the rest of the day. J

The context here is the fact that in the work I do, we tend to see a lot of things that are not normal. Our children are survivors. And at times it gets difficult to resist the emotions that tend to overflow inside the heart towards a particular child. But you are then forced to hold back and be strong. Not just for the child, but for yourself and for the cause too. The trick then is to strike the correct balance between attachment and detachment. Hmmnn…

That Human Touch

what is it about a touch that creates such contradicting reactions within you. it either makes you feel loved and protected or it makes you feel vulnerable and unpleasant. i see some of my children, the really chintu ones...and i just can't help lifting them up in my arms and holding them close to me. but then everytime they see me they start crying because they want me to carry them and i at times don't have the time to do so. but that apart, what really makes a difference is the fact that although their mothers love them, those women do not either have the time or the energy to shower their babies with the love and affection that they crave for. i mean i can literally feel their tiny bodies relax completely when i carry them and walk down the long passage that leads to the gates. and it is so amazing ... there are times when i walk back the entire stretch and i find that they've fallen asleep. how they love it when they feel a touch of another human being. of a familiar human being. and how pure they are... so trusting. all it needs to get them to melt is that loving touch.
and aren't we all like that. no matter how old or young , a hug or a caress is all that it takes to fill us with a sense of contentment.
sigh!!!
:-)

i went to colaba causeway yesterday. we took a pitstop at this place called piccadilly. it's this lebanese/iranian restaurant that makes very tasty food and reminds you of that Planet Food serial where they featured Lebanon. such a pretty little place. and then we came out and all prettiness vanished. there was this really black, looming sky above us and the moon like a sickle blade waved menacingly. the sky was really incredibly black, i don't know how. not a single cloud to mar the blackening effect. extremely chilling. if it wasn't for the hustle bustle and the lights, the scene would have been quite scary. i mean imagine the gothic architecture of VT station and the municipal headquarters with all those gargoyles, with this sky and that sickle-shaped moon in the back-drop.

Tcha!!

:-/

When nightmares see the light of day

It was 3:15 pm. Five of us came out of the school and walked down to the circle. A police chowki touches it on the left. We heard shouts. A man was abusing a woman and thrashing her - right there, in the middle of the road, for everyone to see. He kept punching her on the face. The skin near her right eyebrow tore and she started bleeding profusely. He kicked her and then he punched her on the stomach. Then he walked away. She sat up slowly. With an effort. She was from the north-east and well past her middle age. She touched her wound. The blood flowed into her palm and trickled down on to the road. Suddenly he came back and kicked her on her face. His feet were stained with her blood. Then he crossed the road and walked away.
We were rooted and speechless. The nature of the violence was extremely clinical, sadistic, remorseless. Have you felt so nauseated that all you can see in front of you is a white sheet. And all you can feel is your head whirling. That's how i felt. He came back. We decided that if he touched her again we are going to bash him up. But he came back, held her head in his hands and wiped off the blood. I don't know what else he did because by then I had walked off.
All this in front of a police chowki - WHICH WAS LOCKED- and in broad daylight. Well, we are going to do about the police chowki being locked. But you might ask, what about the woman? Why won't we do anything for her? The answer to this is - we have tried to intervene in the past. But the women have lashed out at us and asked us to mind our own business. That was between them and their 'aadmis'. Despite this we took the decision to bash him if he hit her again.
EVERY SINGLE WOMAN that I have seen here has some or the other indication of violence on her body. At times it is self-inflicted too. I am confused about the way these women define a relationship. I mean they take utter crap from men whom they are eventually going to leave. It makes them so damn vulnerable. I know, i know - pot calling kettle black, blah, blah... but, hell!!!

You don't need to understand...

What i am trying to say...

these days i'm so charged and on high alert at work. i mean every milisecond of non-focus creates utter chaos. so at the end of some days when i log in to my blog page and stare blankly at the screen with millions of words hurricaning inside my brain i try to achieve some sense in all the entanglednesses. and then i resign myself to the fact that i neednt try to achieve sense. and hence i started by saying that you neednt try and make sense out of this either.

i contextualize the above sentiment with an art exhibition that i visited the other day at jehangir art gallery. six artists from a school in pune had showcased their work. one of them was untitled. the canvasses covered one entire wall of the room. the paintings looked like a satellite view or an aerial blueprint of a slum or a scrapyard. the colous used were as varied as a bright red to a soothing blue and a crisp violet. there were the dismal greys too. the strokes were forceful, they spoke of an energy and a volatility...i had a chat with the artist and i asked him what were his paintings all about. he said that his paintings had no message. they were pure abstracts and were done with a mind that was devoid of thoughts. he had the canvas, his paints and his brushes. his energy flowed from his body into the canvas and created the work that was being displayed. Hmmmnnn.... lofty, ain't it? but pretty simple too. i mean there are times when you want to be meaninglessly meaningful...

the other night (i was on a late shift) when i was walking to the station i passed a crowd of men. i threaded my way through them. it was like one of those ballets where the dancers weave in and out through their co-dancers like garlands. without touching them. yet the movements are so graceful. i sometimes wonder what it would feel like if i were to close my eyes and walk on the road. everything seemed to move in slow motion at that moment. even my thoughts.