Let everything happen to you

"Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final"

~ Rilke

There couldn't be a truth truer than this. How many times I've checked upon a certain feeling, rehearsing its details like school lessons, only to later realize the sheer flimsiness of it all. To have nursed its sapling only to witness its green wither away gradually. To have wasted moments, sometimes days, holding on to it. Moments of epiphany crumbling into morsels of dust and nothingness.

No feeling is final. Rilke knows. He always did.

I wonder...

"I always wonder why
birds stay
in the same place
when they can fly
anywhere on the earth.
Then I ask myself
The same question."

~ Harun Yahya

I wonder a lot these days. Of open skies and floating marshmallow clouds. Of a free mind and untroubled waters. Of people who are true and their hearts green. Of rippling meadows and yellow-white chamomiles. Of birds and their unhinged freedom. Of humans and how limited our horizons are. 

Orange joys

With nothing much to tell and hardly any time for leisurely weekend jaunts, I have taken to capturing roadside colours and flavours. Being a lover of local sights always, and more so when one lives in a colour-chocked, prismatic country such as ours, it's hard to overlook the vibrant joys that are here, there, and everywhere. And quite interestingly, when I was trying to gather a coherent mood for this little post, these different shades of orange came together. Just like that! Like a jumbled picture gradually falling into place, it meant a lot, this little coincidence. Enough to tickle the Monday blues away, enough to remind me how fortunate I am to be surrounded by such an unassuming, permeating colour palette, and enough to bask in the joy of one of my favourite colours.

Brave gulmohars rising up against a belligerent monsoon sky. Baskets of feisty marigolds, those fluffy balls of orange wonders, thronging the weekend bazaar. Mouthwatering rows of roadside chicken tikka being grilled inside a rotisserie as we wait for our to-go, Saturday-night parcel. Two halves of an orange stare at me, trying hard to perk up my Monday-morning mood. And life, suddenly, appears to be not so bad. A little less dull. A little more orangish.   

Both sides

Having nothing much to say or share at the moment for a combination of various odd reasons, thought posting this song, that has been playing on my mind for some time now, would be a good change. When one finds it difficult to have one's usual way with words, I believe, one should best remain quiet. You see, they have to come to you, words.
And so, I will let Joni Mitchell's clever and comforting words speak on my mute behalf. They have often provided me solace in strange times, and the most when I have been a stranger to myself. When the whys and hows of the world are hurled from every possible direction at you. When you realize that it doesn't always have to be an epic, cinematic tragedy for the old heart to be tired. That a whimper is all it takes to break it, yet again.

 (Photo courtesy: Wikipedia)

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say "I love you" right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now 
From win and lose and still somehow 
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
I've looked at life from both sides now 
From up and down, and still somehow 
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all
~ Joni Mitchell, 'Both Sides, Now'

Of signs and tempting fate

God's exclamation mark! Will my day be funny?!

I am a believer of signs. Well, somewhat. The other day when sitting by the window, I was brooding over how supremely grey and monotonous a Monday morning feels, a flock of geese flew right across the patch of sky that I call my own. Arranged in their typical symmetrical V, they darted across like a beautiful feathery arrow. Just a flash, yet it did take some bite away from my sombre mood, thus leaving me dazed and in another world for a moment or two. That was a sign to me. That life is certainly much more than Monday morning blues, and that this too shall pass and make way for the weekend soon. Another frequent occurrence that is a sure cure for sore eyes and frayed nerves is the curious bunny who makes regular rounds of our yard. So potent are these beautiful distractions, or 'divine interventions' as one friend calls it, that the hovering worries feel half conquered by the time I rearrange my head to brave them. Haven't you felt like that on similar occasions?

Then there are moments that I call tempting the fate. When like a temptress I chase and flirt with fate for a flicker of a moment, when I feel immensely invincible. I play little bets with myself, both serious and ridiculous at once. Short-lived and punctuated with impatience, they go something like this - if the tea gets done by 3.15 pm, then the call won't come; or, if the neighbour's cat is still sitting by the hedge when I stare out of the window next, then something good will happen; or, if I reach the signal before it turns green then....

While on this topic, I am reminded of two French movies that I watched recently (yes, all a part of my bourgeoning Francophilia!). The Girl on the Bridge, through the relationship between a middle aged knife thrower and his zesty young target, explores the fragile link between luck and togetherness. Luck is an absent concept and therefore the human urge to build it through signs, love and life. In A Very Long Engagement one comes across such nonchalant bets with oneself by a young woman who is in search of her missing fiance during the World War I. At once hopeful and miserable, she trades with time, place and situations that would lead her to him.

Before I digress further, is gambling with fate more or less a woman thing? As far as I know, men generally don't entertain such follies. At least the ones I know, don't. We women do it all the time in our heads, this eerie permutation and combination of situations and their possible outcomes. Or am I the only one out here?

Of migraines and ghazals

I must begin this post with a warning - *Rant alert*! There are days when I feel particularly glum, as if I am hanging from a solitary cliff (in a similar dejected fashion like this bug lady in the photo) from where there is neither an escape nor any possible return. Today is one such day. It is partly the irresolute and moody weather, partly the throbbing migraine and mostly me. By which I mean there is always an unsightly, unreasonable side of me that often brings on my own doom - one that is difficult to let go or do away with. Hence, sloshed with tea, Jagjit Singh and an ice compress balanced precariously on my head, I write this.

First about the rogue migraine, 'the Beast' as I love to call it. This was a fragment that I had recently written on another day of attack:

"There was nothing she could do now. Absolutely nothing. The Beast had begun its fortnightly prowl, slowly pounding its way ahead, choosing its favourite place of attack. Her sanity. Desperately, she clung on to it, the last shreds of it. What awakened it this time? May be her mind, that keeps ticking like a tireless time bomb day and night. Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock. Or was it Red Dragon? Why must she watch it when she has absolutely no control over her peeping, pestering imagination? But there's Ralph Fiennes, that dear, dear man. How achingly beautiful his eyes are. Even when a bloodcurdling psychopath! Argh!! The Beast is finally there, waiting to unleash its savage strength. She could feel the thud of its giant, heavy paws that shook her like a wretched tree in a storm. There, the incessant hammering starts. BOOM!"

Then there are these thoughts that are of no particular dimension or consequence and therefore deserve no mention. Or are they just the always-to-be-blamed hormones, at their moody best? Or is it the near death of summer in Seattle that threatens me so? Whatever it is, I'm going to sing the last of my rants here. A haunting ghazal written by Ali Sardar Zafri and sung by Jagjit Singh that has been playing over and over again for the last hour or so. It has no choice, poor thing, being the only track on the playlist.

"Mere darwaaze se ab chand ko ruksat kar do

Saath aaya hai tumhaare jo tumhaare ghar se

Apne maathe se hata do yeh chamakta hua taj

Phenk do jism se kirnon ka sunehre zewar

Tum hi tanha mere ghamkhaane mein aa sakti ho

Ek muddat se tumhaare hi liye rakha hai

Mere jalte hue seene ka dehakta hua chand."

I have attempted a rough translation of the lines for my non-Urdu readers (if any!):

Bid farewell to the moon from my doors,

That which you brought with you from your home.

Remove that glittering crown from your head,

Strip your body of the golden jewels.

Only you, alone, are welcome into my house of misery -

For ages I have kept a moon blazing in my burning heart, for you.

Love songs from my kitchen

Pakora, when it pitter-patters raindrops

Tandoori chicken, get a whiff of the roaring highway side dhaba

Shrimp bruschettas, the perfect bite-sized dreams

Pan-seared tilapia, let your taste buds sing

Penne pasta & Minestrone soup, bask under a Tuscan sun

Hyderabadi chicken biryani, royally yours

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.