Here I am...

It was hard, but I had to. The guilt was killing me, for abandoning a space that has given me so much in the past, for letting the morsel of thoughts and words dry up so willingly, and lastly, for closing a wonderful cathartic window. So here I am, a fifteen-months-old mother, hacking away ferociously at the keyboard as the toddler naps and wishing this peace lasted for a little extra handful of minutes today.

Here I am, brimming with all sorts of change and newness, and most times I'm not sure how do I handle them all. When I look back --- and I did read some of my old posts before composing this --- it feels like someone else's life now. The books, the bakes, and the truckloads of sweet time that I basked in sipping tea, composing Instagram posts, following late night reruns of Friends... Before I diverge again, it's the newness that I must concentrate on. So much has happened in this past one year, so much so that, if I could I would (my favorite expression/excuse these days) dedicate one post to each of them. But time isn't my best friend at the moment and hence, I mustn't tarry.

Here I am, trying to get adjusted to a new clock and a new country (a new continent for that matter!). We moved to London earlier this year and it's only since a fortnight or so, that it has begun to feel a little settled. Of course, between all the peekaboo games inside the shipment boxes and the bubblewrap-chewing help at hand, we feel immensely victorious (and proud!) that we could actually put together a decent home in terms of functionality and aesthetics.

Here I am, watching a mimosa tree flower recklessly in our garden downstairs. Such an assuring yellow, its blossoms! Spring is here --- yes, finally --- and with the blossoming of the earth, I hope to blossom back my way here despite my mindless shutting down of this blog in a feeble attempt of hoarding my nostalgia just like old clothes and photographs in shoeboxes. It had to take one big, earth-shaking move and even bigger moments of creative frustration that convinced me to reopen this vent, revisit what was and will always be mine, and in turn open up through words. Ah, the darling words!

And finally, here I am, with a new name --- Scattered Poems ---- because that is who I am now, I feel. A bit of everything, a bit of everywhere.

A big, blooming, hello to all my blog friends.

Curiouser and curiouser! 

Chasing shadows

It's May, that paradox of a month when it's green and just the right amount of pretty on the other side of the globe and all we are left with is a big, blazing, burning sun that never shies away from showing off its summer might. Unfair!

As I sit at the kitchen table and watch the morning sun flood the apartment in rays of gold, many things scamper and skid through my mind. Off late, I have been chasing shadows a lot, of all shapes and kinds. Some go years back in time, when the sun was mellow and seasons were a part of life, and some very recent whose bodies are too patchy to give a name to them.

In such times, I came across Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows — the heroic story of a woman, spanning decades and their history, who wears the scars of her past on her skin, literally, and carries their ominous shadows across the length and breadth of the world. Hiroko Tanaka, a brave, resilient Japanese woman, miraculously survives the horror of the 1945 Nagasaki bombings and trails her journey across the world, mapping her life through the troubled territories of Delhi, Istanbul, Karachi, and New York, in turn witnessing more death and disaster brought on by man upon man. Battling her own ghosts, she sees it all — the waning years of the British Raj in India, the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, the rise of terrorism in Pakistan, and finally the harrowing episode of 9/11 in New York. She sees it all, living and losing through each of these catastrophes. But what pestered me through the pages is this nagging question — whether the shadows just announced themselves wherever Hiroko arrived, or it was she who kept chasing shadows relentlessly all her life?

Some people have a reputation of casting shadows wherever they go, after all. Just like some carry a legacy of brewing storms in picture-perfect calmness.

A French affair

It has been somewhat unruly since my last post - a writing assignment, the transition from a prophetic Yeats to an enigmatic Joyce in class, the depressingly gloomy Seattle weather and the usually moody me. It was also migraine fest since the past couple of days, adding to all the above mentioned drama. So out of impulse and habit, I inched towards what I do best in such confusing times. Baking.

Thus began my pondering in and out of the kitchen, trotting in and out of food websites. Remember my time and again allusions to France and my obsessive love for anything remotely French? Well, today I thought I should celebrate that and hence settled with the classic French dessert, clafoutis. Luckily, there were some handful of cherries lying abandoned in a corner of the freezer. And with their season gone, I did not have the heart to throw the pretty little things away.
So there I was, the temperamental baker, amid my favourite things - eggs and flour. And when it is French food, I better not look any farther than Julia Child. Having baked it once before, I find her cherry clafoutis to be non-fussy and quite honest as well. Just what I needed today. Other than its comforting warmth, my most favourite part is to watch all that beautiful puffing and preening magic that goes on inside the oven. There, I already was half-purged!
But before digging your spoon into this half-cake, half-custard awesomeness, one must dish out a perfect, cackly 'Bon Appétit' like Madame Child.

After being transported to the beautiful French countryside with my soul's fill of clafoutis, I wondered what else could be done to give this French love affair a classic end. It didn't take me long to figure it out - Amélie! I have lost count of how many times I have watched this endearing movie, yet every time it ends I know I'll come back to it again. I'm hooked, head over heels, to its quirky and quotidian soul, to its charming, vintage pockets of Montmartre and most of all to its dewy-eyed, wonderfully weird heroine.

And just like Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, mine too perked up! It had to, with this clafoutis-like heart-melting smile.

Neruda and rain

It rains today. It had rained yesterday and the day before as well. And a few years back, inside me, around me, in blinding downpours.
There is something about these nascent drops of water, in the wee bit o' quivering life trapped in them. Something that sneers at the pretender in me. All those things that I am not, that I can never be. If not for this world and its suspicious ways. Once I turn my back to them, I like to be me. And the rain makes me just that. It inspires me to sing and dance like the possessed raindrops cascading from the far-flung sky, before the ground swallows them into its dank, mirthless world.

As I watch the reluctant drops trickle off the edges of the yellowed leaves, the rain seeps into me and waters the dry, dusty bylanes of my head. And I start living again.
Just like this baby jade that shows off its grand green glory post a good shower.

When in between such swings of rumination and the chill invading the sock and stealthily climbing up my toes, what better than the trusted, heady combination of tea and poetry? Today it is about love - the unadulterated, unconditional love that Pablo Neruda celebrates in his initially infamous yet oft quoted Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Although translated, who else croons love's myriad tunes with such intense perfection? Let it all rush to the head, then!

A few lines close to my heart, from Sonnet XVII:

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."


What do you do when it rains?

Seattle loves them who love Seattle II

It is that time again when nothing feels right. Nothing, except the place and its faint cry of belongingness. Hence the sequel.

Before chaos gets to me full throttle and warps my grey cells with life's little surprises, I better scribble away the updates. True, after wasting almost half a year cocooned in a monotonous hotel suite, one does become somewhat disoriented with spaces. And I am no different. Having said that, howsoever greedy it sounds, I am insanely preoccupied with hoarding every single minute of domestic bliss; etching my presence in every nook and corner of the apartment as if I never ever lived in one.

Since food plays the utmost important role in man's comfort, our story must begin from the kitchen. I had missed my baking sorely, but mostly it was the aimless loitering around in quest of ideas and ingredients. Nothing feels more cathartic than basking in swirls of aromatic goodness crawling out from the oven, and watching the sun set amidst a cluster of mossy pines. To put it in an elegant way, the calm reverberates T.S. Eliot's evening - "a patient estherized upon a table..." During such moments one does wish the reverie to continue, for the calm to live forever. Unfortunately, I am a creature of the real world and return must I to it.

The most precious icing to my perfectly baked Seattle cake is the thrilling proximity of the dramatic Cascade mountains, aka "America's Alps". While returning from an evening stroll a few days back, we spotted it for the first time in all its glory. There it was, hovering like a spreadeagled creature on the evening sky, humbling and towering at the same time. The best part is, on sunny days (which are oh-so-rare here) when the skies shine, I can catch a glimpse of the magnificent snow-caped peaks from our patio. What more could a mountain lover ask for?!

If the mountains humble and soothe my frayed self, spring does a beautiful patchwork on my ever tattering quilt of hope. The burst of colours in my patio infuse an unknown courage in me, one that I wouldn't know otherwise. What else is life after all? You dream, you fly, you fall and before you know you are dreaming again!

In the manner of a true bedouin, I'm guarding every inch of my newfound space, soaking in its every single drop - decorating, gardening, baking and of course ruminating. Like a caterpillar devouring a leaf's green life, I, too hold on to these little quotidian moments ferociously before life comes knocking again. The caterpillar knows being a butterfly ain't easy after all! Beautiful? Yes. But certainly not easy.

To have a room of one's own is probably the greatest of all joys. I have learnt that well during all these years of the on and off living out of suitcases. Virginia Woolf once wrote, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". Since I own no bank, a room would do just fine. For the moment.

Baker's delight

Plum cake, one of my much prized initial successes as a baker

I came across this little piece of truth in one of the cooking websites - "Nothing is more attractive around the home than the smell of fresh baking". It has been a month and a little more since the baker in me has been on a full-throated song. I must have baked more than five cakes, completely mindless of the bursting calories, and thus jeopardizing our fitness routine and dietary resolutions. I have always enjoyed cooking but had never given much thought to the age-old, classic art of baking. The only baking that I had ever dabbled in before was the traditional American fudge brownie from the oh-so-convenient brownie mix. And that ain't much of a talent. So after reveling in the pride of a frequently complimented cook, the time had come to don the mantle of a real baker. I wonder why it took me so long to think about baking from scratch. May be because I am a little idiosyncratic, therefore the 'new' or the 'different' does not strike me immediately. Somehow I am always stuck with the old, repetitive pattern. There are many 'lates' in my life, including Harry Potter and Friends, both of which have become so crucial to my existence that without them my world would seem rather drab. Before I stray any further, let us get back to baking. So there I was, scouring through allrecipes.com for a simple cake, something that ran the least chance of being a disaster. I went for the orange cake for I wanted something exotic as well, and there I was beating eggs and grating orange zest. I had planned it as a surprise for Sam but the heady aroma of orange and baking gave it away. However the cake had turned out really well, the way cakes should be - moist and soft. Hurrah! With such a triumphant debut, there was no stopping me. I searched for variety and more flavours and ended up making them all - orange cake, chocolate cake, banana muffins, fudge brownies and even a plum cake. The trouble is, if I am good at something, I become obsessed with it till I have had enough of it and this is exactly the situation with my current baking spree. It just feels the most perfect thing to do.

What I love the most about baking, other than the hypnotism of the senses, is that it keeps my mind off from wandering away. I feel a soothing calm while baking, as if it was a healing process. The little swirls of aroma crawling out from the oven purge my mind of the buzzing monotone of life. At the end of a messy day, you know when you add eggs and butter to flour, it turns out perfect. And nobody can take this comfort away from you. Absolutely nobody.

Autumn therapy

Wings of feisty yellow and fiery red

flutter elfishly on the earth's mosaic-ed face.

A subtle pattern here, a mellow contour there

a delightful burst of life all around.

The greens of yesterday have emptied the sun,

having drunk its moods and colours, sip by sip.

Maple reds, Birch yellows, Oak golds....

Sure, there's a spell I can hear!

For this surreal, painted landscape --

Can this be real?

Must be the heady smell of the ripe, plump air!

Or perhaps something with the sun kissed colours

that nudge a nostalgic nerve of lost, forgotten years.

The flaming canvas ignites a soothing warmth

in the cold, dark chambers of my mindscape.

This golden panorama rekindles

a lost sense of tranquility.

Maple reds, Birch yellows, Oak golds...

Yes, colours can cure.

Sure enough, autumn does heal.

A summer rain

Pomegranate blossom in rain

The rain waltzes in with the august company of myriad hopes.

The oozing odour of the wet earth
unhinges my complete being.
I strip myself of the much accumulated worldliness
to partake in nature's pagan celebration.
My thoughts march ahead and rest on the rain drenched greenery.
Green... the harbinger of optimism!
Isn't rain cathartic?

I watch the quivering leaves flinch,
feverish with the weight of the promiscuous rain drops on them.
The droplets dangle precariously,
queued on the edge of the leaf,
as if to leave would mean the end of the world!
But, isn't life all about holding fast?
To someone, to something?

I can hear the rain seeping into my head.
I can feel my vision blur.