The perfect closure

Old roads. Strewn with gulmohar petals, dusted with a fading nostalgia. The play of sun and shade dancing on their parched faces. A stray bicycle leaning picturesquely on a tree. Trees and trees all around. Tall, stout, leaved to their very best of summer glory. Somewhere a peacock calls lazily. Not many anymore as in those days. The familiar taste of the paratha and potato curry in the Students' Canteen. And the more than familiar, bureaucratic superiority of the administrative staff. Revisiting the old spaces. The verdant nooks that helped many to escape the world. Be it badly turned assignments or matters of heart. Driving to the signboard 'School of Humanities' and taking a sharp U-turn. What if no one recognizes me? It has been a good seven years after all.

It feels like the perfect end to my love-hate relationship with this city. My second home and my first exposure to life outside my culture, this is a city that I had once loved to the brink of my heart never knowing that one day I'll be more than desperate to escape it. And I've realized, one necessarily doesn't bid farewell to the campus after passing out of the university. Or when you leave the city (for the second time) for that matter. It'll always live inside you. A stroll between the rows of cork trees, my favorite space in the whole of the sprawling 2,300 acres, was enough to tell me that. And whenever I'm there I'll always remember the wide-eyed, passionate young woman who had arrived one July morning, armed with her Shakespeare and Keats and a little of something that resembled a small-town shyness that has never quite left her.

Of books and writers

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and the sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.” 

~ Ernest Hemingway

It rained yesterday, a good, earthy summer rain. It has been raining now and then since the last couple of weeks - the first moody spells of the year that have washed away the lifeless, sun-baked stagnancy off one and all. I hope they'll wipe the dusty panes of my mind too, and let me see the world more clearly so that some calm can be restored in my writing/blogging hours.
And so, somewhere between waiting for it to pour while grumpily editing a convoluted manuscript and the echoing persuasions of "you should write more often" from friends and family, these strikingly illuminating words of Hemingway happened. They further took me down memory lane, to a good ten years back when I had to present a paper on Hemingway's short stories as part of the semester-end evaluation for our Modern American Literature course. As an ode to his bizarre, very shortly-written short stories (there are some that are barely a page long), the title of my paper chuckled, 'The Difficulties of Reading Hemingway'. Being someone who worshiped Hardy and Keats and tried to emulate their romanticism, I wasn't too enthusiastic then about his curbed expressions and economic usage of words. Literature meant to describe, to paint a world laced with words. I remember the awkward look of our professor, who was quite the proverbial taskmaster, when very emphatically I ended my talk with how the great writer of his times finally shot himself in the head. Yes, I was that thoroughly tired of his brilliance that apparently the whole world got, but me. In stark contrast, over the recent years, I'm amazed at the candour that I find in his writing. The very understated style that once annoyed me now astonishes me - the art of saying so much in just a handful of words. Not for nothing they say, you don't read a book once. As you grow, so does its world and the characters living inside it.

PS. My current reading stupour comes from Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul. A plot that skids between two completely different geographies - Istanbul and Arizona (peppered with bits of San Francisco as well) - and houses at least thirty characters of which about fifteen carry the narrative forward, it's a whirlwind of a read. At times I felt the urgent need of drawing a family tree so as to not lose track of who was where and when. But like I have said here before, the element that tugged at my heart amid this chaos was Istanbul - its charming cobbled streets, the call of the simit seller, the greedy seagulls hovering over a ferry on the Bosphorus, and the history that coats almost every building of the city. There lies the pull of the novel. So yes, go for the atmosphere and for a detailed critique of the general Turkish attitude toward the Armenian genocide.  

Tales of home and homecoming

"I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home."

~ Joanne Harris

Last month, somewhere between the joy of basking in the elusiveness of a tropical spring and the sinking realization that it was almost summer, the river did bring me back home. There couldn't be a more befitting sequel to my search of home, my Bosphorus of the previous post. It all started with a trip home, with friends who had come from the exotic Mediterranean to see my state, Odisha. And the sights and smells that were once so familiar and so much a part of who I am today, came rushing back to me and how. 

Despite the initial moments of foreignness, I refused to succumb to the touristy trap of continuously being taken as the 'outsider' by the presumptuous guides and vendors. All the time, I was acutely aware of being armed with a certain pride, one that comes with the prior knowledge of one's homeland. Also, seeing it anew, after more than a decade and half, with people who did not belong to those places gave it a fresh coat of perspective. The scenes that once upon a time coloured the canvas of our childhood, had gradually, over the years, faded into the banalities of adulthood. But the fact that they were still somewhere inside me, the significant details, while answering the curiosity of our friends was no less than heroic. The exquisitely-carved dancing girls of Konark, the roadside display of vibrant colours and mirrors shimmering in the hot sun, the crimson dusk framed by groves of coconut trees - little by little, it all came back to me. Or perhaps, I went back to it.   

The lush green paddy fields. A melange of various greens; roadside poetry at its best. The Sun Temple at Konark, a world heritage site popular for its Kalinga architecture. Where Tagore had once claimed "the language of stone surpasses the language of men". The glimpses of a reluctant spring on a red cotton tree. On the ground, roadside swamps blanketed with beautiful water hyacinths and the cacophonous croak of frogs. The centuries-old Udayagiri caves which were built as monasteries for the 'arhats' (Jain monks) during the rule of King Kharavela. The Shanti Stupa at Dhauli, that magical place that offers one the perfect sanctuary away from the bustle of the capital city nearby. Blessed by Buddha, and an important site in the history of the Kalinga empire, an overwhelming serenity veils the place. Pipli, the little village known for its popular mirror-applique work. A visit to the Bay of Bengal sea mouth at Chilika Lake, the brackish wetland that's home to the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, scurrying red crabs, and more than a hundred species of migratory birds that visit every year during the winters. A refreshing drink of tender-coconut water, the perfect cure for a hot, sticky day. Rowing back to the shore amid the soporific ripple of the waves and a breathtaking setting sun. Surely, homecoming couldn't be more picturesque. Or poetic.

Taj

Taj Mahal. The first glimpse.

There are places that mesmerize you. There are some that sing to you. Others listen to you, borrow your sorrows for a while, and even heal a deep-seated wound or two. Then there's the Taj - it does all of that and then, just claims a portion of your heart, a considerable size, and simply refuses to give it back. In alluring echos, it calls your name again and again till you return one day. And return I did last month.

Legend goes that if you turn and look back, just once, while leaving through the gigantic gateway, you are bound to come back one day. It was a sultry June afternoon, the kind that sticks to your skin when the monsoons are just a taunting fortnight away. A wide-eyed teenager and all of just 14, I wasn't sure of many things back then. But I do recall a feeling of sadness, one that was beyond my years or being to fathom, that had lightly touched my shoulders while leaving the place. I also remember being so overwhelmed by what I saw that I was unusually quiet for most of the day, as if to speak would break the spell.
Only this time the magic became somewhat decipherable, but not enough for me to put it into words. Not yet. Perhaps it is something about not being able to bottle the wonder, the exquisiteness and bring it back with you; for try as much you would capturing it, inch by inch, standing there in front of it and getting awed by every single detail is something else altogether. The unparalleled Mughal architecture, the poetry in every little motif, and the strange calm in the midst of a frenzied crowd - it is nothing short of a trance when they all come together. And I am still swooning in it.

Through the Great Gate, when the sky was blue for a moment or two. The cliched, postcard Taj from the entrance. The beautifully landscaped Mughal gardens. The Taj Mahal mosque and its stunning sandstone interior. Photogenic doors with years of history locked behind them. A peek of the Taj from the mosque's entrance. The eastern view of the mausoleum. One of the four minarets framed by a misty Yamuna in the backdrop. The latticed entrance to the tomb, displaying the signature 'jali' work of Islamic architecture. Its walls plastered with breathtaking Persian plant motifs with colorful 'pietra dura' on the borders. The geometrically patterned marble of the huge dome. Calligraphy of Persian poems on the arch shoulders of the tomb. A very wintry view of the Taj as a resolute fog gives way to an early dusk. Quietly flows the Yamuna.

A fading dream

"And, as always happens, and happens far too soon, the strange and wonderful becomes a memory and a memory becomes a dream. Tomorrow it's gone."
~ Terry Pratchett

A year has passed and how soon! I am thankful for many things, but mostly for the possibility that I won't be able to bring up the constant reminders that begin with, "Remember last year, during this time ..." Time has walked, more likely trudged, a full circle and there no more will be trading of places on the calendar. Starting today, I won't be able to go back and tally the days or tag the months to certain events.
A trifle of a thought, I know, but something worth ruminating. Someone had rightly told me once, "You'll see, after a while it all feels like a dream. One big, beautiful dream. As if the years never happened to you ..." True, it's like a distance I never walked, a meal I never ate, a place I never lived.  Chip by chip, I can sense the shreds of the old life fading away, its contours patchy and bleached, with only the fragrant essence of belonging filling our hearts. The strange feeling is very similar to this blurry dream-like path, which once upon a time framed a corner of our everyday life, gradually disappearing under a thick veil of late autumn fog. 

Nostalgia

"Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you."

~ John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

A terrible green. A never-ending, unfurling sea of green. On the wet, mossy branches of dark trees. A dewy carpet of newly sprung grass. As tiny throbs of life waiting to sprout on slippery, naked boughs. I miss that green. That quaking, trembling, ubiquitous green. That terrible, terrible green.

Rewriting, retelling

It rains this afternoon. It always does at this hour, when all is quiet and half of the day lies decaying, paving the way quietly for the other half. Searchingly, I run to the windows, for a glimpse of the rain-fattened sky, or may be a full-bodied, leafy tree to watch the drops do a dandy dance in the shaky caress of the drunken leaves. A rumble of thunderclap and I wake up from my wishful thoughts - my windows open to the neighbor's bedroom walls and my balcony offers only more concrete and broken vista. Devoid of any scenery, I make do with the familiar fragrance of wet earth that fills every corner of the house.

This obstruction in my rain-peeping brought back mellow memories of an always drenched place, when not so long before I would watch the rain drizzle on the dark pines from my patio that gave way to a magical peek of the cloud shrouded Cascades. All this, of course, seems to be a far fetched dream now or at best something like Coleridge's blurry fragment.
But this sudden burst of uncontrollable nostalgia surprises me. Was I not the one who would relentlessly complain of the sodding rains then? Was I not the one who would vent rain-soaked rants here, there and everywhere? How, then, did the once annoying rains become so dear today? Of course, I am moulding and mending the unpleasant bits of past to suit my precarious present. I am beautifying the once desolate, rain-beaten landscape into something romantic. And nostalgia is always romantic.

As luck always has her own way of mocking you, she couldn't have shoved a more appropriate read my way - The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Just a hundred and fifty pages, yet it manages to turn you round and round as if the whole time you were on a mean, never-ending roller coaster. Tony, the protagonist, takes us on a flashback journey, primarily a solipsistic one, where we meet his mates and their youthfully pretentious, philosophical takes on life. The plot thickens when the most "clever" of them, the Camus-quoting, always serious Adrian commits suicide. Justifying the title, Barnes makes sure we sense the end after a major twist, only to be further distracted by his unreliable narrator. Tony weaves people and plots from his foggy memoir that spans more than four decades, while all the time the reader sits on an edge doubting the selectivity of his memories. What we remember as the truth and what really is the truth are two very different things. With his patchwork of additions and subtractions, permutations and combinations, he finally arrives at the truth. One that could never be retold.

"How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but - mainly - to ourselves."

~ Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Jasmine

"Plants that wake when others sleep. Timid jasmine buds that keep their fragrance to themselves all day, but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out to every breeze that roams about."

~ Thomas More

Sam came home yesterday with a surprise - a garland of jasmines (my birdbrains had expected samosas instead)! For his flower-loving wife, it was certainly a big deal. Now it is very common here, in Southern India, for women to adorn their hair with jasmine garlands. Therefore, to find the roadsides laced with vendors selling fragrant flowers in heaps and bunches is quite a familiar sight. However, instead of going local, I chose to hang it from the mouth of a tall vase in the hall. How soon the little white flowers filled our home with their sweet, hypnotizing scent and with that tumbled along the bittersweet jasmine nostalgia.
When we were kids, how we cousins would get up at the crack of dawn and pluck the full-bodied jasmines in our grandmother's garden during the summer holidays. Groggy and half sleepwalking, the seven of us would tip-toe on the ticklish, dewy grass, lest we commit the unforgivable sin of waking up any of the parents. We had to be really quick because once the sun's rays fell on the flowers, they would go back to their shy sleep. Later in the morning we would all sit with grandma, over breakfast and mythological tales, and sew jasmine garlands for our gods and goddesses.

It has been twelve years since dear grandma passed away and since then we children have more or less qualified the huge test of being called grown-ups, managing tight, tiny universes of our own. But despite death, distance and differences, these small joys linger forever. Just like the unforgettable fragrance of jasmines.

Sea

"The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude."

~ Kate Chopin, The Awakening

I have grown up by the sea, the Bay of Bengal to be precise. Over the years, I have seen its many moods and musings, albeit in flashes. As a child the beach would be my vast playground, never-ending and always welcoming, dotted with a treasure trove of white and brown shells. As I grew up, the sea ceased to be a playmate and unmasked its willful, mature face. A little daunted and defeated at first, I gradually learnt to unearth that characteristic loneliness that the sea alone brings with it. It's a different feel altogether, churning marvel and mystery, scratching sealed old wounds open yet pacifying your most loathsome fears - all at the same time.
Always a biased admirer of the mountains, over time, the sea somehow grew on me. On sultry summer evenings, I would secretly wish to be left alone by my garrulous cousins on a beach outing, so that I could bottle its hum and roar and bring back its salty seductiveness with me. Today I long for such a visit.

Why am I talking of the sea today? Because despite the fortnight's vacation in my home state, I could not visit Puri, the famous tourist magnet of eastern India where the devotees of Lord Jagannath throng the brackish shores to end their pilgrimage. In a ritual-like regularity, every summer I would visit my grandparents even if it was just for a day. Thus I turned to list the things that I missed for the third consecutive summer and while my aunt's spicy prawn curry topped the chart, the beach began to haunt me like never before. Like a gush of warm blood, the memories of innumerable summer vacations flooded my thoughts. And now, amid all the crazy running around for the new home, I long for its reassuring lull; to sit near the waves and immerse myself into their monotonous drone; to bury my rues and regrets into its dark, greedy expanse; and above all, to reach out to that bittersweet loneliness.

How I long for all these and much more, in some corner of my tired heart.

April

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."

~ T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Although we here, where the mountains are just a sneak peek away, continue to see flashes of unpredictable weather, it sure feels like it. A quick walk and some hurried shots in the nearby park told me that. And spring rain is what we are blessed with for the weekend - one of the many reasons why I couldn't resist this Eliot piece. There's a lot that could be captured both in words and sights, but as much as I would like to, I hardly have the time for longer ruminations these days. Despite the brooding intertwining of 'memory and desire' at the back of my mind, life's banalities demand the chunk of my time now.
We are already past the first quarter of the year and it only seems like yesterday when I was getting all slathered and choked up on emotions regarding our move back home. Strange, how time flies, and even stranger how it continuously fortifies you till you are left with not even so much as a whimper.

To time and blossoms galore then. Happy April.

Bright and blue

"And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
'You owe me.'
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky."

~ Rumi

A medley of blue skies and peeping cotton clouds. A welcoming bounciness in the air. The dizzy dance of patterns as the sun creeps in through the windows. Light and shade. Tiger lilies basking in the sun. A happy coincidence of colours. The yak bone Buddha girdled by a dear Tibetan necklace. Some fond memories of two newlyweds. Despite times and places, the piney scent of Darjeeling lingers on. Spring sure must be somewhere near. Very near.

So the first week of February actually brought a spell of sun. Hurrah!

Dusk

"Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day."

~ Virginia Woolf

This is how dramatic it looked today as dusk fell and I was one of the fortunate few to treasure the scene, for it hovered for just about ten minutes and then melted away into the fathomless expanse of the moody evening sky. Then at once a curtain of calm fell upon the dying day and hushed the accumulated hustle and bustle. Sheer magic!

There is something quite stirring about a winter dusk that excites some very strong, bittersweet emotions. Such evenings back home, as I recall them, were much awaited for by everybody. No snow, no biting chill and certainly no getting bundled and lost under layers of clothes. Just a few months of fog, fragrant gardens (yes, some of our most beautiful flowers bloom in the winters) and a more than welcoming respite from a cruel tropical sun.
I can feel a throbbing, warm gush of nostalgia as I write this, waking up a string of memories that have and will continue to keep me warm through the years.

Ma's steaming hot tomato soup waiting right after homework. Weekend music lessons on the tutor's verandah. A delighted me listening to abridged Shakespeare narrations by father. Neighborhood badminton fun. Giant dahlias, almost the size of our happy faces. Frothing coffees in hostel mugs. Baggy jumpers and long roomie walks. Chicken roll from the favourite fast food corner. Deconstructing matters of heart under the pretext of literary theories. Cardamom chai sprinkled with warm giggles at the university cafeteria. The mock sentimental ghazal nights. Roasted corn on the cob rubbed with lemon and salt. Pillion riding on the motorbike with the then-boyfriend, now-husband. Samosa with fried green chilies... 

Strange, how food rules most of our fond recollections, isn't it?!

Come December

"God gave us our memories, so that we might have roses in December."
~ J.M. Barrie

December at last. A faint yet heady fragrance of the anniversary roses fills the kitchen space while I go about my regular chores. Still wearing that fresh and dainty look, they sit perkily in a neat square vase. With a quick, pleading look shot at them, I say to myself, "please don't wither!"

With the autumn gone, a dear friend too has left for a long vacation home. Now Mona and I don't go back a long way, but in the unpredictable rule book of friendship that hardly matters. Within a span of mere six months we grew onto each other, moulding and shaping ourselves as per the other's needs and situations. And quite surprisingly, we've had a fair amount in such a short duration. Life!
Despite the rarity of likes and dislikes we share, she comprehends me like very few people have done. Even the ones who have known me for years. I read her like an open book and that is what she loves the most, the needlessness to spell every tidbit out. We would meet regularly over walks, lunch, shopping and sometimes in the weekends with the husbands. And if that couldn't satiate us then we would manage an hour long phone talk in between all the day's work.
Now that she will be away for a couple of months, I feel a little vulnerable and lost. Like a petulant child, I long for the potato and mint soup she brings over whenever I'm down with a migraine or a cold. But of course I cannot be selfish, or is that allowed in such friendships?

Then trudge on, I must. For it's starting to look a lot like Christmas. And I cannot wait to capture some of that sparkling red and green glory that has been decking up the nook and corners of the city.

So roses sprinkled with some toasty memories - J.M. Barrie couldn't be more happy!

P.S. The blog header has gone from blue skies to black and white, just as the landscape would in a few days. Those are the Olympic mountains captured from an evening ferry. 

We've got everything...

... because we have each other."

So says the card. And our four years of togetherness.
Of sharing, carefree laughs, days bad and good
Weaving lost, cherished days of childhood.
For we go back a long way
And how, this little story will say...

From morning assemblies and sleepy Math lessons
To strange Latin names and ugly potions
They fought, they argued
Yet as the best of friends they stood
They signed vows to stick through thick and thin
Just as their teenage, highschool days had seen
He, to his engineering skills rushed
She got her Shakespeare and Byron rehearsed
And so friends they remained 
Till one fine day destiny intervened
Could there be more than just friendship
He mulled over it, thoughtful and neck-deep
Flabbergasted, she thought it was weird
The minds raced and hearts feared
But it was meant to be
That, they too, could well see
And so it has been ever since
A world painted with rosy and golden tints.

Of monsoons and memories

It is almost a year and some stubborn bouts of homesickness since my last trip home. I remember the monsoons had just waltzed in, washing away the dirt and sins of a merciless summer. How deliciously green everything looked! Shining with innocence and stripped of pretense, the very air smelled of love. And by love, I mean that first teenage crush, the galore of unexplained giggles and the ignorance that it can never end. Blessed foolishness!

The feisty gulmohar, in its blazing orangeness, played the perfect coy mistress to the hilt. She was the star of the garden and who were the dashing paper-kite butterflies to resist such charm?! What a grand garden feast it was! The pomegranate tree carried a confusing weight of both the blossoms as well as the tiny fruits, as if in a hurry to greet the rains. Amid all this burst of life surrounding me, a mean viral fever tried hard to dampen my joy, but in vain. The bedside window wasn't good enough when the earth was crooning its most romantic song.

The plump mangoes had fallen of their branches, impatient to rest on the fragrant, rain-kissed earth. How we had devoured them - raw with salt and red chilly flakes, chutney-ed, juiced, pickled. There is something about mangoes that always brings back childhood memories, of summer vacations and grandma's old house. That is the place where stories are told and memories are spun, where parents cease to be themselves and allow you to make a clown of yourself.

The rains also brought a winged guest one afternoon - an enchanting kingfisher. I had never seen one from such proximity and thus was thrilled beyond imagination. It sat on the same branch for about an hour, in its blue finery, as if brooding over its hapless past. Sometimes it made annoying faces and ruffled its beautiful feathers, as if I was a paparazzi interrupting the precious meditation. I was only too fortunate to have a treasure trove of some perfect birdie shots and how effortlessly! As if the kingfisher knew it takes only moments before I would get tired from perfection, it flew away, perhaps to some faraway distant place.

Just like I did after a fortnight.

What's in a name?

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose,/ By any other name would smell as sweet."

~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Who would dare to refute the Bard?! But I do wish to skirt around a little with some amusing stories woven from my rather unusual name. A few days back a friend, who happens to be a classmate in my Contemporary British Fiction course, asked what my real first name is. Bemused and cold-shouldering the old feeling of unease, I told her it is the one she already knows - Mickey. Now this is not the first time when someone has asked me this peculiar question. Ever since I have been put on the frills of society and have made friends and enemies on my own, my name has always been a part of many interesting discussions.

When I was a child, I would often be cross with my parents for bestowing me with such a strange name. Moreover everyone at school had it the traditional way - the perfectly poetic bhala naa (good name) and the affectionate daaka naa (nickname). My unconventional father, to avoid this whole fuss of two names decided on just one. So there I was, a girl with the name of Walt Disney's most famous poster boy. Errr... mouse?!
Then comes the second aspect of naming - the surname. I wasn't destined to have that either. Once again my parents decided to be a little creative and went ahead with - Mickey Suman - a flashy, unique name which when roughly translated means 'Mouse Flower'! In a class packed with kids with names that carried a whiff of chaste literature and Sanskrit, I would often feel like the other, the outsider.

As I outgrew my childhood and ploughed my way through the usual lawlessness of teenage, the name theory and my rebellion, both started growing in leaps and bounds. There even came a time when I was all set to go to the court and change my name. But sadly that never happened. My predicament of those days can be best exemplified by The Namesake, a mainstay of my shaky emotions. Like Gogol finds it embarrassing when the mental health of the Russian writer (his namesake) is discussed in his literature class, I too, wouldn't enjoy the Mickey Mouse presents that my birthdays brought along. His father, Ashoke, has a heartrending tale behind this name - Nikolai Gogol is his favourite author and if it wasn't for a page flickering from The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Ashoke would not have been spotted by the rescue team during a major train accident. Hence, the gratitude and dedication.

Another 'how I was named' incident dates back to my graduation days, when me and my best friend Asha had been theatre-hopping to catch the latest Bollywood blockbuster. All hunky-dory and free from the claustrophobia of boring lectures, it was when we chanced upon one of Asha's school seniors, a guy. While she was introducing me, he flinched and asked, "Mickey??!" Since it was almost my twentieth year on the earth of being used to this bewilderment, I just smirked. Immediately, in a desperate attempt to undo the flinch and display his humour vein he blurted, "But you don't look like Mickey! You should be Anarkali..." Just when my pride was about to take a thrilled flight, reality shook me hard - I was still Mickey Suman! May be the only common link between Anarkali (meaning pomegranate blossom in Urdu) and my name was the floral element. Taking Anarkali's legendary beauty and Madhubala's eternal charm (the epic Mughal-e-Azam just tags along) into consideration, it might just have been a bombastic compliment. I sincerely hope it was one.

Over the years I have had so many cackles over this obsessive-compulsive tirade against my name. Like everything betters with age, I too, have gradually understood and accepted, if not loved, my name, especially the singularity of it. Also, parents and Shakespeare are always right. Well, most of the times.

Of birthdays

I remember how I used to draw little glitter stars every year on the 2nd of September in my diary when I was young and happily dumb in the ways of the world. It's strange how fast, and with what vengeance the years creep ahead and very often it's with a jerk of strong emotions we realize that things have actually changed. I got my father's first email birthday wish today and needless to say, it felt 'capital'. I love the fact that in spite of the infinite miles we can communicate in more than one way. Although his mail has the natural eloquence that is expected of a retired professor of English, every time I read it I somehow stop at this one line --"Every year this day, I remember the night you were born and the subsequent birthdays we observed together." It has been more than four hours since I got his mail and I am still not able to shake off the nostalgia.

Birthday is the most awaited of all days in a child's calender and I was no different. I remember this day when Ma would prepare a grand feast for my friends in the evening and how after all the hullabaloo was over we would watch a movie that was rented especially for the occasion. A certain uncle who is a close family friend and also happens to be one of my father's oldest students would take my picture for what he called a 'memory photo'. This was an unfailing ritual for him every year and I reveled in the moment all decked up in my birthday finery. After all I was his beloved Sir's 'little girl'.

All this feels like a long lost era now. In the meanwhile this little girl grew up into a rebellious brat and now has a little world of her own. Where did those days go? Sure there are the ever faithful memories, and a trunkful of them I have, to revisit these happy days. But they don't help every time, they are not the real deal. Sometimes I wonder why do we have to grow up at all? Because then we grow out of certain moulds and fall into some less cherished ones. Here I am, a woman of 27, going on 28 arranging and rearranging the clutter of emotions inside my helpless head. Still, the one thought rules -- Why do we have to grow up?!