Qutub Minar

"Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you."

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

A mellow December day. The in-between balmy hours of late afternoon and early evening. Delhi, that mad, mad city, peopled to its brim. A bewitching mosaic of a myriad worlds. Two pairs of tired, yet eager feet hop on to an attractive, yellow-green CNG autorickshaw for a stroll around the Qutub Minar. Strange, how some places just refuse to grow old in your heart despite the number of visits. The road to the once ancient city of Mehrauli flanked by old peepal trees on both sides, chockablock with swanky cars. That's Delhi for you. A forever melting melange of the old and the new. The play of light and shade of the quaking leaves allow us intermittent glimpses of the towering Minar. Resplendent and majestic as ever. The fading winter sun baths the Qutub complex in a faint rosy light. A pleasing sandstone blush. The stage for the evening twilight is all set. The sleepy jasmines pout and preen for their nocturnal show. A flurry of pigeons and parrots search for their resting pads from the scores of nooks and corners. 

Amid all these enchantments, I try to find that lost world, when all this was true, when all this made sense. Perhaps it still does, to lost souls like me. Through its silent stone alleys and lattices, I try to unearth the magic of the bygones. I try to glue the fragments of a chipped history from the intricate carvings of the Quranic verses on the Minar's body. On the way out, I come across the bust of a half-baked dream, the abandoned Alai Minar - an ambitious imitation of the original, a dream that died with its dreamer. I remember being very moved by this story of unfulfilled aspirations when narrated by my father during my first visit to the Qutub Minar. I was fourteen then. Sixteen years later, nothing much has changed. I walk a little further and find a fallen tree, almost uprooted and spreadeagled on the ground in the most hopeless of manners, yet flourishing perfectly with the green vigor of life. May be we all need our stack of half-baked dreams to show us the path to that pot of green gold.
As the day finally calls it a day, whining about tiredness and the crowd, we walk out of the complex. And so do the birds.

Yeats and weekend

"I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

~ W.B. Yeats, He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven

This is the result of an ongoing Yeats overdose in the Modern Irish Literature course I am currently into, knee-deep and sleep-deprived. So it's Sleepless in Seattle literally! Although not my most favourite of poets, some of his poetry, especially the early period with the vanishing fairies and the intriguing Celtic folklore is quite seductive. They almost take you on a day trip to Neverland.
The later phase is where I get disenchanted. The political, propagandist Yeats is not my cup of tea. Try as I might, I could never get my head around it.
You see, the mumbo-jumbo is where I feel at home.

That said and nudging Yeats aside, I am two happy feet today. It's almost weekend (I am on PST and hence the more than half a day's tiring wait), which means a promised shopping excursion and all I have been dreaming of lately are scarves. Also there's a potluck dinner tomorrow and I am making methi chicken, which is chicken cooked with aromatic fenugreek leaves. So scarves and chicken - could I be more happy?!

Have a lovely weekend, dear friends.

Izz Aal Well?

There are so many I would love tos in me, listed every time and then as easily closed. There is also an If I would have which keeps lurking somewhere in the abstract abyss of my thoughts. These two incomplete expressions often remind us of the halves in us; one half that is bursting to come out and the other half that smothers it, being the more submissive one. This unreal half is always answerable to a system that is run by a set of shallow protocols. But it is the other half, the real one, that writhes and wriggles in all of us, where we all want to live. I have wanted to be so many people at so many different times -- a singer wishing to sing a Gulzar creation, sometimes a National Geographic photographer, a Himalayan explorer breathing the pristine mountains every day, and most of the times a brooding poet. Once there was also a juvenile ambition of becoming a doctor which I had to let go for my growing indifference to the world of science and figures. How we are always taught that passion is only fit for the dreams, in actual life it is practicality that works and earns. I have always believed a life lived fulfilling expectations is mere existence. The current B-town rage Three Idiots was a very heartwarming fare. Once again all the Ifs and Could haves lunged at me. In actuality there are very few Ranchos who rebel against the system and still live to see their name on the top of every list. It is such a rarity to see an idiot succeed. But the message that Rancho's character conveys is loud and clear, and worth pondering for a while. Our country is a bagful of idiots who have given up the call of their dreams for a stable and humdrum existence. But the hypocrisy of our society is such that we seldom hear these individuals complaining. Talents are let to rot and die, gathering dust and neglect, while minting money and following the wheel rut remain the eternal mantra.

Another year rolls past and a fresh year is waiting to flower and shower its surprises and shocks on the world. Peace talks, the raging consequences of global warming, recession graph, the Vancouver Olympics, the much awaited Harry Potter film, every possible sphere will once again make waves, waves of victory and defeat. And amidst this somewhere in some neverland an idiot will still be wishing for a handful of stars, just like this picture here. I just hope his heart beats croon the new confidence mantra Aal Izz Well!

Thanks for everything

Two souls snuggled

under a lone umbrella,

their cloistered world peopled with raindrops outside.

Rain, the divine intervention, as someone had once called it!

The umbrella is a shield.

It muffles the unpleasant worldly advice of caution.

Rain or tears...

Who drenched me?

I would not know.

I could not feel.

Could only hear a defeated, hesitant whisper....

"Thanks for everything".

My eye lids felt tired and heavy.

The dream sitting on them had left.

But the rain was there, still hitting hard as ever,

chilling me from skin to bone.

As if to remind me of the reality clock ticking away...

Ah! So it was a dream after all!

I kept thinking of the faceless stranger under my umbrella.