November light

Diwali. The festival of lights, the time I wait for, for most part of the year. A golden warmth spreads to the root of every heart. The earthy scent of the oil-drunk clay diyas. Orange-yellow marigold patterns adorning doorsteps. The crisp November air thick with an amalgamation of smells, mostly that of fried sweets and noisy firecrackers. Happy people, reunited in a bubble of joy, tucking away their differences for a day or two. A perfect world.

Happy Diwali dear friends.

June

It rained. 

Has been raining for the last two days. 

In showers and drizzles. 

Need I say more? 

Just that, it rained. 

At last. 

And I feel like this dragonfly.

Savoring the green silence.
Hoarding the moment.
Making it mine.
Forever.

Diwali

The diyas are out again. Everywhere, on doorsteps, on terrace borders, on balcony lattices, and inside homes, warming them up to a toasty perfection. Glitzy and pretty, like small wonders they shine, as they unveil the hidden joy from bustling city lives. Gone are those days when lines of traditional earthen diyas would adorn every veranda in the town. I still have fond remembrances of  the crisp October-November evenings, when I would sit beside grandma and watch her make wicks from coarse cotton, which would be later dipped in diyas filled with castor oil on the evening of Diwali. Sadly, the lack of time and tradition in our urban lives and rampant consumerism have replaced this beautiful ritual with ready-made jazzy and colourful lamps that are mostly a cross between a diya and a candle. So this time, I got little pot-shaped lamps filled with wax with a wee bit of fancy lace tied around the neck.

We have been waiting for the last five years, and how desperately, to celebrate this much loved festival of lights in the home country. And here we are at last. What adds a big dollop of happiness to this Diwali is the joy of lighting firecrackers, a thrill we so dearly missed in the States. The husband has gone back to being a gleeful ten-year-old (himself, that is) and has come back from the market with a bursting bag of firecrackers. We can't wait for the evening twilight to fade and the night sky to turn into a twinkling canvas of light and colours. One luminous, kaleidoscopic feast it will be. If only I wasn't bitten by nasty cold bug! Nevertheless, wrapped in the warmth of festivity and well-being, I hope to make the most of it.
'Tis time then, to pop, fizz and sparkle. Wishing one and all a very happy Diwali.

PS. Here's a glimpse of our cracker craze!

A little bout of self-love

What do you do when you are happy? I cook. Yes, and pretend as if I'm the queen of the world, more so when it is the least expected of times for anything worth celebrating. I am finally done with the Creative Writing course that I have been doing for the past few months and to be honest, I could not be more pleased with myself. Off late the course was getting too much to live with and let's face it - how could one be even remotely creative while chalking out one's cross continent relocating plans. But I trudged through it all somehow, all thanks to our ever patient and understanding tutor.

Now to hop on to the actual reason of the celebration (I do meander a lot, don't I?!) - the result of the final assignment, a short story, came in last week and ever since then I've been floating on cloud nine. Fortunately, I had a plot tossing and turning in my mind, the rough draft of which was lying abandoned from a couple of months. Despite half the work done which made the final draft a tad simpler, I remember I had submitted it halfheartedly. Of course, my routine procrastination played some role in that too. But with the feedback including chunks and bits like "skilled and stylish piece of writing" and "polished and confident handling of dialogue and narrative", I can't help but be a show-off. Well, for the time being at least!

Fanning my amour propre was the sudden rise in temperature to an early summery 72 degree Fahrenheit. Cool evening breeze, a long walk down the old lake trail, counting the cackling geese on the newly leafed trees, a very late sunset followed by a simple homemade dinner of pea and basil pasta - one roaring weekend it was.

Farewell September

"September: it was the most beautiful of words, he'd always felt, evoking orange flowers, swallows and regret."

~ Alexander Theroux

Come October and it will all be about spreading the joy - puja and its colourful air, glittering diyas and aromatic sweets, fat pumpkins and lovely pies. 
And yes, bucket-loads of bright chrysanthemums and smiles galore.

The first bud

"Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
~ Hans Christian Andersen
I spotted the first bud on my baby orchid plant today. There it was sitting pretty with a magenta pout amidst its family of older blossoms, who had walked out of the store with me. And since this is my first orchid, this wee bit o' bud made me really happy, very much childlike. I had often wished to buy one but something or the other would come up in the way. It must have been the geraniums. Their plump pink and scarlet clusters would always lead me astray. Wherever I have lived, however the climate, I've always had a geranium. It has been a bit like carrying ones own weather around!

When it comes to plants, I can be quite fussy till I have read and reread the instructions that come with the pots and sometimes even after that I'm not happy. I hunt down every little detail about them in Wikipedia, just to make sure nothing goes wrong in their nurturing. I have never been so thrilled about my flowers except the time when I was the proud owner of a potted lavender in Seattle. Lavender has a special place in my heart - be it the colour, the fragrance or the flower. I would sit by it every evening with a book and would have my own little sessions of aromatherapy in the patio, lost in its balmy fragrance. It was a hard time, watching the frost get it and eventually its death during the first snow of that year. All that remains is a handful of the dry blossoms carefully preserved in a little silk pouch. Sigh!

This season it's going to be just the good old sturdy chrysanthemum. Or as the Americans call them, the 'mums'. No one else can put up such a brave show in front of the harsh north American winter. Thank god for their stoicism, for in spite of the chill and the snow outside there will be colour, warmth and a kindling hope inside.

Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar!

It has been two days and a few hours in Dilli (I love it that way), and our homecoming could not have been any better. Our visas got approved, we gorged on lovely food and splurged on ethnic wears. Nothing could dampen our enthusiasm except the obvious complaints of the scorching heat and the blaring traffic. Seriously, we had no idea that the circumstances would be so favourable, especially after a harrowing flight journey of fifteen long hours followed by the fatigue and disorientation of jetlag. There were the rains too, accompanied by the nostalgic smell of wet earth and childhood. So this time the Gods weren't crazy! Ever since we got into the taxi from the airport I cannot stop humming the peppy number "Yeh Delhi hai mere yaar/ bas ishq, mohabbat, pyaar" (This is Delhi my friend, the land of love), one of my Rahman favourites. What else but this song, so simply yet so perfectly, can describe "Hindustan ka dil" (India's heart) and the eternally unbeatable mood of its people:

Iske baayen taraf bhi dil hai, iske daayen taraf bhi dil hai

Yeh sheher nahin mehfil hai.

(It has got a heart on its left as well as right side

It's not a city, it's a celebration.)

Homecoming

A moonlit summer night back home. This is our mango tree bursting with this year's harvest. Thanks Bapa, for sending the seasons attached in emails.

So the restlessness has finally made its way into my days. The time has come when nothing, absolutely nothing can inspire me to be at peace with myself. My mind feels like a giant time bomb, ticking away furiously. In just another week I shall have what I have been longing for since what feels like ages. At last, after a year and a half, I will be home, that one word which is so powerfully potent of exciting so many emotions at one throbbing gush. The carnival of faces of your loved ones, the celebration of the familiar, the surprises because so many things have changed...

At the moment I feel a little blurred with emotions and so I have run out of my word bank. I think I must borrow the haunting nostalgia from Agha Shahid Ali's Postcard from Kashmir, which has often been by my side whenever the longing for home has swallowed me up.

Kashmir shrinks into my mailbox,
my home a neat four by six inches.
I always loved neatness. Now I hold
the half-inch Himalayas in my hand.

This is home. And this the closest
I'll ever be to home. When I return,
the colors won't be so brilliant,
the Jhelum's waters so clean,
so ultramarine. My love
so overexposed.
And my memory will be a little
out of focus, it in
a giant negative, black
and white, still undeveloped.

Little somethings

An unexpected drizzle in a summer afternoon, a falling autumn leaf, the wafting aroma of ginger tea, a restless squirrel scurrying up and down the tree, the surprise of a perfectly golden dawn... These are just a few of such countless everyday scenes from regular life. Yet there's a little something in all of them. Yes, the little somethings.
What is it exactly that often catches us unawares? Like magic we travel across borders of time and space with a fuzzy, warm feeling in the stomach. I, for one, get ecstatic whenever I would manage a little jig in the rain, or see a new bud popping out on my frail potted geranium. Such moments witness an abandonment of the cares, as if a world bustling with urgency and responsibility could always wait! At times like these I often find myself wrapped in high spirits and aboard Aladdin's magic carpet. Of course, I'm an incurable romantic! But there is certainly a lot more to it. These otherwise mundane happenings spread a certain positivity and hope. For some blessed moments it feels that the world around us is forgiving and innocent. That it actually has one single, straight face. Hypocrisy seems like a myth that has gathered dust over years of neglect. A mellowed tone blankets my thoughts, which otherwise normally take an erratic course on foggy days. An incredible feeling cracks me up from inside. A voice sings to me - "life is beautiful... tra la laa laaa..."
But sad it is, that quite often we brush aside these innumerable eloquent moments as mere insignificant trifles. In the name, or rather excuses, of aims and ambitions we nudge the beautiful slideshow of life with a cold, indifferent shoulder. If only one knew then that once gone, they go away for ever. For the flowers do have a mind of their own, never the bird will sing the same song again and not always a morning rises up with rosy, golden hues. So carpe diem, my dear friends. Seize the day!
Perhaps I should turn to Gulzar, who always does perfect justice to my incoherent thoughts --
"Choti baatein, choti-choti baaton ki hai yaadein badi,
Bhoole nahin beeti hui ek choti ghadi."
(It is the little things in life that are remembered the most,
And I haven't forgotten a single such moment spent...)