Of times..!!

Have you ever put your hand in flour and played with it?? You feel the texture....and yet don't feel anything. You cant grasp the essence of it. I find writing about emotions very similar to that feeling. No matter how much i play with it and fiddle around...i can never seem to grasp the crux of it. Talking about it or wanting to write them down always makes me feel like I've not completed a story. Like something is loose and not neatly tied.

I want to talk about love and loneliness. About how i feel for him. There's something like wriggling in my heart when i think about him. When i think of times spent and memories made and days that are yet to be.

I cross streets, wait for trains, listen to silly announcements, eat popcorn, laugh on mad things with friends, get irritated and yell, i travel, i talk, i sing....the clutter called 'everyday'. The clutter is too great to dig out little little smiles from yesterday. Like putting your hand into your handbag and blindly looking for something...you find everything except what you're looking for. But then sometimes..without fiddling inside...some sounds, voices, laughter just come out and stand in front of you,you're surprised at the flash of a memory or discovery. Sometimes you forget that you kept a rose that he gave in your planner...to preserve the memory. There, in a flash...it comes to you as you search for mundane things. The stale fragrance, the faded color, stained page of the planner.

How do i live my day? Get past time that definitely isn't flying? This is how.

War of the sexes..!

One day feminists all over the world woke up and smiled. Prof Karim Nayernia of Britan was the reason for all those brilliant smiles. The prof claims to have created human sperms in his laboratory from stem cells. Meaning, the ultimate role of the male specie has been rendered irrelevant. We don't need their tools anymore.

The battle of the sexes continues. After having spent centuries being beaten,disgraced,raped,exploited...perhaps women feel liberated from their dependency on men. Its only fair to think that and wish it more than anything you've wished for. Who knows, maybe we'll have a different version of the original sin, it was infact Adam who ate the damn apple and chickened out in the end and put the whole blame on Eve.

Hundreds of theories,thousands of books,mars & mercury, yins and yangs later...the two species still remain mysterious to each other. Sterotypes have helped a LOT in categorising and giving a head start. We continue to battle it out, each day...dismissing each other as 'trouble'. 'All men are the same,bastards', 'Dude, whats wrong with you? Your' getting married? Thats the end of freedom buddy'...statements we hear day in and day out. We continue to understand and misunderstand each other, demeaning, underestimating, overestimating, abusing each other. In the midst of all this, we find love, friendship, companionship.

There is a beautiful line that goes, "hum hi hum hai toh kya hum hai,tum hi tum ho toh kya tum ho". What's the fun in having to produce babies with silly laboratory sperms..whats the point? Next thing you know they'll make having sex barbaric. When you have alternative options, indulging in pure pleasure can be termed criminal.

I am extremely gender sensitive and beleive in equality. But I think this whole fight between men and women is just pure silly. Men put women down in words all the time..those who can speak up do so whemenently. There is absoultely NO basis to saying one is superior to the other. Of course they are different...but not unequal.

Women need men for more than procreation and men need women for more than sex.

Then add a little bit if Faith..!

Silent prayers, folded hands, flowers...heads bent and hands folded..in reverence...in faith..!Quick steps...short glimpse...a thousand wishes. She waited patiently for her turn, when it came...she bent down to whisper her deepest desires into the ears of the mouse statue outside the ganesha temple. She spoke, spoke and spoke some more. Wishes and hopes and dreams held so close to the heart...were now being poured into the ears of a mouse statue that would surely deliver her message to the lord. Fulfillment will come and so will happiness. Faith. I, who stood looking at her as a bystander envied her. Not her chance, not her leisure but her faith.

They say faith can move mountains.

I am an agnostic. I have never been enthusiastic about going to temples. The only reason being, I didn’t feel FAITH. I just didn’t feel anything. I've seen people moved to tears while praying...being lost in a world of their own...walking a hundred miles! Maybe mountains moved. Maybe they didn't. But what do i know, I try and push hard...very hard..and go back just to find the rock where i left it!

Coldplay - Shiver

All in your head!!

"Amma where is my white t-shirt...why do you have to rearrange my things...?"/ "Nothing will ever be the same again.." - she said as tears rolled down her cheeks/ "Why the hell does Philip have to go and open his mouth every single time?"/ "Chal yaar sutta marte hai...forget this crap": Sometimes characters in my head just scream out these lines. Different people, vague faces, no names...just voices..!! Faces and glimpses, momentary emotions that i try and capture in a story but they fade off...like smoke...!

They are not people, yet, they are waiting to be. Sometimes i try and give them an identity and sometimes just let them be...as they live the moment and faze off. I forget them most of the times and suddenly recognize some voice that i had relegated to the back of my head...kinda like meeting someone for the second time...'Hey...I know you..don't I??

Some of them will be born, live and grow. Some will die and yet other's will never even be born. Nonetheless all of them have at some point or other, been a part of me...and will take a little of me with them.

I would watch this every single time it played on Doordarshan...just LOVE it..!

If you're happy and you're gay...clap your hands!

A shy, smiling man in his mid 20's escorted me to the room inside. He told me his name was Rahul. He showed me the book case where all the books i needed for referencing were neatly stacked. He was kind and patient. He told me that he had a boyfriend who he met regularly, there at Humsafar center. It was a haven for homosexual men and eunuchs. A hide out from the beating, threatening, insulting policemen on the road. I later spoke to Mr. Ashok Rao Kavi, a leading gay activist. A long and tumulus journey was etched on his face. The worry, the passion and compassion is what i remember of him.

A time of triumph for people who love their own kind. But legal acceptance does not in any way guarantee societal acceptance. Coming out the closet has been made smoother not easier.

What is it about sex that makes the world curl up? Well, not the entire world, but most parts. Sex is a taboo. A 'dont say the word' topic. Something you cringe at and in India, if you find someone talking about it..you normally say 'dirty mind' in a way to suggest as if that concept or thought has never occurred to anyone. We feel cities are different....people are more forward and open. Not true. That is 0.15% of the population, roughly. Most people are uncomfortable talking about sex or sexuality. Tell me, how can you talk about the population of a country without connoting sex? How can you go up to someone and ask in casual conversation, "aur aapke bacche kitne hai?" without acknowledging the act that went behind making them.

Practically and logically speaking, why should anyone have a problem with what people do behind closed doors, as long as there are two consenting adults? Its none of my business. Why should i be the judge, who am i to say what he ought to do and what not. Why should it concern me? Do i hear, "This is not Indian Culture?" "Yeh hamari sanskriti aur sabhyata ke khilaaf hai?" I don't know when was it that we turned away from Kama Sutra!!

Preeti suffers everyday. Stuck in a marriage with a man she does not love. Stealing glances at the woman who comes and buys vegetables at the same bhajiwala. Feeling the excitement but going back to a forced, closed life. Vijay the local newspaper seller in Lucknow has his escapades with men. But knows his family is searching for a suitable bride and expect him to be a responsible family man and grant a heir to the family. I dont know how the new law will help preeti and vijay come out of their suffereing. But yes a lot of preeti's and vijay's will find the courage, will stand up and smile. Times they are a changing.