On women's day

i open your wardrobe. i get a faint smell of you, warm and fresh. Wonder how you remain smelling good throughout the day even when i cannot do it. i close the wardrobe immediately, fearing the smell would fade. It was my wish to stay back and hold on to my job. Thank you for understanding, and giving me that space.

The house seem big and the bed even bigger. i miss curling up to you, i miss you keeping my feet warm, i miss you reaching out for me and for my hands; even when you are asleep.  i miss the talk and updates between morsels of rice, and also the cleaning together after dinner. i miss the small pleasure of watching movies together on the laptop. i have not finished "band of brothers" because we started it together and we couldn't continue. i miss you complimenting me, and forcing you to compliment. i miss you saying,"You look really nice. For tomorrow also, 'You look really nice'. So, don't ask. :-) ". i miss the weekend evenings on our balcony, you on the guitar and me singing out of tune, over chicken and drinks. Now, i stand in the balcony all alone, and look at the lights trailing in the distance from vehicles, only the cool night breeze and my thoughts for company. Everything seem so distant. i miss the financial planning and THE financial planning and the financial planning over and over again.

The days go on. i keep myself busy. Work is cool. Colleagues are good. The pay is nice. i am managing well, but through it all, i have missed you.  i hope this separation pays off.

And today is the day we celebrate Women's day. The woman that i am, the woman that i want to be somehow doesn't add up without you. i pray the months fly, and i could be with you as soon as possible.

Silence!

“I was reminded of something, an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment, a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever."~ The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I look out of the window and see the mist forming; the weather is just salubrious in namma Bengaluru. I love this place. If I hadn’t met with the accident, S would have been sending pictures of snow to me from the US by now, like he did last year. I have never seen snow in my life, not even been to Darjeeling.

I have memories of childhood, they say memories are selective. I have good memories of those with the siblings, friends in the neighborhood, good memories of mom and us, good memories of me and dad, but, I don’t have any memory of us as a family laughing together. I have some, of us playing Ludo and watching Cricket, Wimbledon together, but beyond those games, I have no memories of pep talk in the family over the dining table, over a cup of tea: mom, dad, and us children, or laughing like nuts over the antics of one of us or a silly joke. 19 years of my life, until I left for Bangalore, and no memory of us having a good time together as a family. Dumb brain!

Perhaps, my views in life have been too idealistic and my brain chose to remember what was worth remembering. Oh yes, it was the year 1989. We came for a South India trip and all of us went to eat chicken biryani, in some restaurant in Chennai. I remember that. I was too young, but we seemed contented. Perhaps, my family was a happy family.

thinking pictures

You immortalize some relationships by talking and writing about them, while there are some, which you carry only in your heart.

anniversary

S, my husband, the one I conned and married two years ago, on this day by dressing up like a doll, going around him seven times and showering flowers on him, and bowing with my hands folded. S, my lawfully wedded husband… well, he just got smarter. Initially, he thought life is going to be like the wedding day always, like a king and the wife bowing and showering flowers.

Well, my friends, time changed and so did the smses, from ‘I love yous’ to “I bought tomatoes and potatoes, you get the rest on the way home” He realized that the wife just doesn’t smile but also talk, and talk nineteen to the dozen, even while asleep.

In the morning, while he expected coffee in bed, the wife has jumped out of bed with a hair that would put any religious leader to shame, and jumped into the office bus, to start her so called very important day in her very important career.

So, when Uncle Sam came calling on the pretext of some consultation, S, my lawfully wedded husband ran away for three months, leaving me in Bangalore, to paint the new house in pink and blue polka dots if I care.

Happy Anniversary hubby, missing you dearly. There are bills to be paid and the fans need cleaning.

Falling in love

I love good beginnings, the prelude to good things in store, like for*play.

I love the falling in love bit more than being in love. Being in love needs labor and conviction. Falling in love doesn’t require anything, not even brains. Yet it keeps you on your toes and makes you behave like a blind rhino, lost but positive to find a way out.

The bubble wrap

As I waited for him at the airport, I went back in time to recollect if we had ever hugged. We had been friends from a very long time, but beyond the high fives and the pats on the back, we had never really touched each other. Oh yes, we had. We held hands in a school play. Thank God, I was the girl and he was the guy. Considering the way I was, I could have very much acted as a guy too. I have portrayed the role of a drunkard with élan and the trophy at home is witness to that.

I have hugged my boyfriends, I mean my friends who are boys, but I guess I have been a little reserved towards him from the beginning.

Suddenly, I could see his head and then the trolley. At one glance he saw me, and pushed the trolley towards me. Now that we were a couple, suddenly, I felt shy. Is there a phrase ‘shyly excited’ or ‘excitedly shy’? I was feeling that. He proposed me from across the miles and I accepted. It was inevitable in some way and somehow, I knew it all along that this is going to happen though I had dated other people.

A meek ‘hi!’ escaped from my lips and I just smiled. Had it been any other time, we would have been in a group shouting and cheering. His friends would have asked him which poison has he bought and then gang up to finish it. I remember us converting the dollars to rupees. If somebody used to spill a drop of the drink, we used to say that 50 Rs is gone.

We headed towards their apartment. It was the same place where I had met his gang of friends, the gang whom I named albeit fondly, the Trophy gang. They had this habit of lining up empty bottles-alcohol, deodorants, water, coke, and even ash-trays, as if they were some trophy. It was the same place where we had strummed the guitar and sang ourselves hoarse. I am sure the boys had their own pet peeves for having to run and get dressed, to look decent when a girl was visiting unannounced, while they laid nonchalantly in their bare basics on a hot summer day.

We met M in the apartment. Came to know B had moved out with his girlfriend in another flat and C had moved with his sister. M will be married in another 3 months and he decided to retain the flat. So, he would be staying with M for a month. The gang would be coming in the evening again I was told.

The room was suddenly quiet. I didn’t know what to do and took a bubble wrap from one of his gift items, and started bursting one by one. He took it from my hands suddenly and gave me his palm. He asked me to read his palm as I had often boasted of knowing palmistry. I played along. I traced the lines of his palm with all seriousness knowing very well, the trap. This was not a handshake; this was not our high fives, this was the first touch of new lovers.

S

I have been wishing to read Sea of Poppies (Amitav Ghosh) and The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay (Siddarth Sanghvi).

A few days back, when I came home from work, the ‘Sea of Poppies’ in a hard cover was waiting for me. I flipped the pages and I saw the following written in my husband’s beautiful handwriting.

“ To Arunima,
For the voyages, and all the adventures,
past, present, and future.
S. "

I smiled and then jumped and thanked him, then hugged him, then kissed him then I ran back from the kitchen again to read it and re-read it, and thanked him again and kissed him and smiled and jumped and hugged and kept on smiling.

that young woman

I first thought she is a kiddo who is giving her 12 boards. I came to know she is a kiddo who is giving her 10th. Well, she has passed her 10th with flying colors. She is all grown up and she is taking on her father on whether to attend CBSE, ISC or ICSE.

Read what she has written to her readers in the side bar of her blog and you’ll know that she means business. She is witty, she is smart and, she has ATTITUDE! At her age, I would have perhaps, liked myself being addressed as a young woman but, I can’t help saying that she is so so cute.

Dear All, meet Ramya. She has given me some awards too, honest scrap award... wait, let me scream out loud. Honest Scrap AWARD and Friendly Blog AWARD.

Thanks kiddie, I never knew people your age read my blog. She is 15. Hell, I really don’t know if people read my blog at all.

You make me feel like a fossil at times but, it is really nice to have you around.

In the news:
I have started gymming because mother-in-law is coming.
I have realized that my husband is very learned. Remember, without blinking an eye, he gave me the statistics of models appearing on Playboy. How learned! How confident!