Chant of the Rain

A collaboration by Golam Wahedur Rahman and Bindu Babu. 

It started off with me commenting about the rain in Hyd, India and Golam wanting that rain in Bangladesh as well. Looking at Golam's dialogue, I wondered if we could collaborate on a poem. I asked him to begin first and he came out with this beautiful poem titled ‘He:’. It was quiet challenging to come up another to match his and I ended up with various versions. Finally I decided on this one, titled, 'She:'. 

He:

When the humid wind turned soothing cold
and the sweltering sun buried below
the dark grey clouds,

my wait to greet the rain - I could feel, 

would be over soon.
As Gods played Diwali in the sky,

Thunders, blue and white

appeared to my eyes.
I thought I could hear your song

and your sigh!

Yesterday you said, it was raining there,
and when I asked you for some,

You replied, 'But that I cannot share'!

Deep down I knew,

your love was too sublime
to deny me anything from your heart.
So when the raindrops smelled like you
I wasn't surprised at all, I was,

rather soaking wet

from the rain

and glowing from your love.

She:

I stand in the balcony

watching the downpour, watching for you.

As the rain dances down my skin

I wonder if you hide behind

these dark clouds,

playing with my tresses

while I shiver under your

lingering gaze.

My thoughts are like

paper boats sailing here and there...

and the wet chant takes me

to a buried moment.

Of incense and crushed rose petals.

Of candle light and soft kisses.

Of slow strokes and silken sighs.

Of thunder and faraway lightning.

I am drenched in those memories

and time grows heavy with longing.

I wonder if the caress of the breeze

carries my unspoken song!

For the wind blew strong

and the raindrops smelled like you,

I knew I had found my sanctuary!

I found you!

Photo Courtesy:

http://www.boostinspiration.com/photography/35-really-beautiful-examples-of-rain-photography/

http://www.boostinspiration.com/

Bob Marley...and all the men I know

What if we (as in we women folk) found that perfect man...he could be our friend, partner, lover, and husband and perhaps even a 'partner in crime' as my friend Poli Gupta says, :).

Wouldn't that be wonderful? It would be wonderful provided we are perfect too, but who is to decide what is perfection? What is the yardstick? Where are the standards? And ladies, knowing us, we would still end up picking a bone just for the heck of it...:D.

Just the other day, Poli, shared the following picture on her Facebook wall. I simply loved it. This picture I dedicate it to all the men I have known, from my father to my husband, to my brother, cousins, best friends, friends, colleagues etc. They are all special in their own way and I have cherished their affection, warmth and their caring.

And my heart goes out to some of them for their undying patience and loyalty to a nutcase like me.

Sigh! Sigh!!

Source: http://www.facebook.com/#!/whatweseee

Unnamed Letter

Over the weekend, I spoke to an old friend of mine. It was nice talking about college and friends from the past. Somehow the talk veered to assorted crushes, pretty girls and 'studs' of the college.

She suddenly if I remembered so and so and how I had a crush on him. Sigh! How can I forget him and what he did!!! Well it all began with this boy always staring at our group of girls in the campus. He was tall and cute and played football for the college...:) :)...Now we were all confused as to who he was looking at. Then one day he turned up wearing a red polo sweater and jeans and I could not take my eyes of him. The girls decided that he was just right for me. I must have sighed a hundred times making 'goo-goo eyes at him.

I nearly died when he walked towards me and smiled shyly. And then I died some more when he said, "I heard you write poems. I need your help. There is this girl you see..." He hesitated looking at my expression. He continued when I said go on, "Well, do you know so and so from 2nd year BArch? I was thinking of proposing to her..."

I still can't forget the looks on my friends' faces and how they howled with laughter every time they saw him in the campus. Well what can I say...it broke my heart but not my pen and yes, I did write that poem and helped him woo the girl...sigh! This poem is in remembrance of that event.

You wrote me a letter,

with perfumed ink

and your heart laid bare.

You said I was your dream

your fairy dust,

your magic!

You said I made

you breathe

and your heart beat!

You said I made you fight

and slay dragons

with your might!

You said I was your prayer,

your temptation

and your redemption.

You said I was your love,

your desire,

the light of your fire!

You said I was your drug,

your addiction

your obsession

You said this

and you said that.

And I happily wandered

through your words,

only to notice,

they were addressed to another.

 

An Insurance Call

Did you know that Heidi Klum's legs are insured for $2.2 million and Aquafresh has insured America Ferrera's teeth for $10 million (The Ugly Betty Star)? You dont believe me? Then will you believe me when I tell you that Tom Jones insured his chest hair for $7 million? Sigh, I see you do not. Then do click on the link below for details,

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-of-the-worlds-craziest-insurance-policies-2010-3

You will probably go through the same feelings of disbelief that I went through.

Insurance calls are common aren't they? They want to provide insurance for various diseases and against accidents. So, they all provide insurance for our lives and health, why, because the body is a "tangible" asset? But what about about our hearts and minds? What about heartbreak, disappointments and failure? Don't we all get hurt and more?

They will provide insurance for JLo's butt, but your heartbreak and mine aren't worth a paise...pathetic aren't we?

“We insure everything madam”,

said the voice on the phone.

“Will you insure my heart?” I asked,

breathless in anticipation,

“against heartbreak and pain?”

“And what about love and lust?”

“What?”gasped the voice,

 “Can you insure me against

foolish hopes?”

“Perhaps against never-ending optimism?”

“Excuse me?”sputtered the voice,

while I ran away with my propositions.

 “Do you have a policy against disappointments?”

“Or one for spill-over tears?”

“Wait, wait” wailed the voice...

“Is your premium high for

failures and setbacks

frustrations and regrets?” I continued.

“Hold on” cried the voice, “we don’t

deal with nutcases,” and slammed

the phone.

“Neither do I” I replied to dead phone,

“but I am only human.”

Headstone on my grave

Do not be fooled by your pedestal.

Its foundations were sunk

into my heart long ago.

Only now, your foolishness

is eating into them!

And they are surely rotting away

from the maggots of your words.

Tomorrow I will be dead and gone.

Then you will come down to the earth,

For then your pedestal will be nothing

but a headstone on my grave.

Go ahead...

Go ahead,

blame me, condemn me, accuse me, stone me.

Pick your brush and tar me.

Was it not just yesterday,

that you did not allow the great Mary

to shed a tear,

and tore her reputation to shreds.

What am I but a tired savage

wallowing in the mud of your love.

But I laugh in your face, for you,

you are only living in a glass house.

Happy Being Brown

Now I ask you, what kind of a race are we? I meant us, Indians, when I meant 'we'. I call us a race because, we have so much mixed blood and we don't belong to one particular race. We are a bloody 'mongrel race'.  

And there is one particular trait that is unique only to us. I mean what kind of people, are racist against their own. When we notice people darker than our own, we start ridiculing them, they become the butt of our jokes and we also have special names for them, for example, kaalu, kaalia...

I would have never realised it myself, until I went through the marriage market. It was fine that I was a pretty girl, it was fine that I was an engineering graduate, it was fine I was working, it was fine my parents had money, it was fine I would be married off grandly with enough gold and property, but...no, no, no, make that a BIG BUT!

"But the girl is a little dark, no?” the aunty would say, and the uncle would nod in agreement. Only their son would be staring with longing in his eyes. Only he would not have the guts to offend his folks, but hey who wants to marry a blind bat, who can't see beyond my colour.

And why I would I marry someone who is bald, has a bad nose, has a big forehead, and well who is darker than me. Well go ahead and have your prejudice, I will rightfully have mine as well.

It was then my mother suddenly discovered, I needed to become fair. So the tryst began, starting with lime juice, turmeric, honey, cream, almond paste, milk, curd, tomato juice, grated potato, mashed papaya, you name it, I have put it on my skin, and then she discovered the chemical bleaches...

Until we discovered something. I come from a healthy stock of dark South Indians, and you know what means...tee hee...I would revert back to being brown in a few weeks...So I would be wheat coloured a few weeks and cinnamon coloured a few weeks. And no I am not black or brown (how dare you) I am warm honey-toned or a spicy cinnamon colour...sigh what I can say...

There is a fairness cream,

there is a whitening cream,

there is a bleach,

there is a whitening powder,

there is a whitening this and a fairness that.

And now you are calling it radiance something.

I don’t care for your propaganda

and nor your racist ways.

It is funny that you are Indian.

That you are cream and I am chocolate!

It is funny that the pot

wants to call the kettle black.

You want ME to change

because I am brown.

But you can’t make me

feel ashamed of

this delicious cinnamon skin,

and you can’t make me hate for

who I am.

Coming Back to the Earth

What is the quintessential comfort food for Indians? Especially after a hard days of work, after a hard night of partying or even after a spending a lazy day at home! Especially what would you eat after you reach home after a second show movie, or a disco at 3 AM.
After talking to a lot of my friends, the following have turned up, Khichdi, Dal and rice, Curd rice, Rasam rice, Rajma chawal, Roti and Butter Chicken, Roti and Dal Fry, Biryani and even hot Idlies sold on the road side...some of the others have not made it to the list as they are in a minority. It seems the body needs a good dose of carbs, carbs and more carbs...

So the other day we had a chance to go overboard with the alcohol and low on food. And the choice we had was driving down quiet a distance to eat midnight buffet at this popular restaurant or check out the local bandi.
And believe me the sizzling tawa, the steaming Idli cooker and the smell of the Sambar was heavenly. But the immediate vision that followed was sheer torture, the scenes from 'Delhi Belly'. The man selling Tandoori Chicken!
Oh man....not again, not again...why am I cursed with this vivid imagination. But this one time I did not give in to temptation and remind my friends about the Delhi Belly! :)
Forgotten was the car we were driving, forgotten were the expensive togs we were wearing, forgotten were all fancy-shmancy things, for once the sizzling tawa had more power than anything else...Delhi Belly be damned....this is how the following poem came into existence.

Coming back to the earth

Vodka on ice and chilled beer

and a hundred other spirits

in a dark noisy hole.

A mad DJ and the floor

becomes livid with grooving bodies

and crazy laughter.

And come midnight,

the cavern spews out a crowd

into the unforgiving darkness.

More laughter as I try to

open my car, and a friend

chucks out her guts.

Weaving through the empty

roads with wine in our veins,

we seem like heroes for the night.

Only to come back home with

hungry stomachs, to realize

that the balm for our soul

lies in plain old rice and dal.

Memories

Memories memories

Like roller coaster rides

Going up and down, round and round

And then tumbling after.

Through a tunnel of blue cotton candy,

weird mirrors and haunted house

stories; memories that begin

with lazy summers and melt

with never ending winters.

This Ganesha Festival

Green mango leaves and

deep orange marigolds.

Wafting incense and jasmine garlands.

Rose petals and soft

sounds of the Veena.

Sweetmeats and savouries,

and a houseful of children running around.

And somewhere in between is a peaceful oasis

with one clay idol gazing serenely,

touching my soul.