I lose track all the time

How did I reach this place right here
I need to know now
coz if I lose my way
I want to come back somehow
Fifteen times over
At 4 am sometimes
so many smiles
I lose track all the time

The dissolved scars
the forgotten lies
the time when it felt dark
does not even matter this time
The healing
The telling
The chasing and the learning
The conversing
The singing
The meaningless old loss
The brand new beginning
Fifteen times over
At 4 am sometimes
so many smiles
I lose track all the time

The coconut gravy
The cold comfortable balcony
The words and the weaves
The golden brown leaves

The song so slow
the swing so heady
the pull so strong
the spin so steady
Fifteen times over
At 4 am sometimes
so many smiles I lose track all the time

My expirience at a F*** F*** show

On the last night of the trip, there wasnt much I had left to do in Thailand but go for the sex show. Also, having that expirience on my travel/quircky-things-done resume seemed apt. In my head I had a picture of hot Thai girls, gyrating up and down a pole to erotic music in a kitch, psychedelically lit night club. A few drinks here, a few shreiks of disbeleif there, some girly giggles after a few local Singha beers and the night would be done I thought. Here is why I was mistaken. The street was called Pat Pong. Thailands most dingy, suspect and neon lit street. We got off the cab at a quarter past 12; wary and suddenly very concious of being language-illiterate tourists.The high waisted dress I had on and the giant black clutch seemed a tad misplaced; class did not seem to be the running theme at Pat Pong. Little thai men jumped at us from dark, hidden corners of the narrow street and offered us small laminated cards listing the various glitzy activities inside. This plastic card was disturbingly similar to the menu card you receive when you are eating at a roadside cihnese stall in India. Let me substitue the most used word on that card with Puppy. The card read something like this- Puppy Ping Pong Ball, Puppy bottle opener, Puppy firecracker and so on and so forth. After dodging a few touts and giggling uncontrolabbly at the gesticulations they resorted to inorder to communicate to us the meaning of some of the names on the card, we finally decided to go with a tall boy who said, as everyone else there said" No money madaaam, just buy drink there". Khapunkhaa, we said (meaning Thank you, I do know some thai) and followed him into yet another suspect lane, dotted with strip clubs and lady boys shooting inviting glaces our way. Some even treated us to a quick flash of cleavage and fluoroscent pink lipped pouts. We enteredthe almost dark circular room and looked around. Middle-aged women, who I could bet never went to a gym their entire lives were placed on top of a round stage. Having nothing on, they moved lathargically to some beats that DJ Hominee was dishing out. We took a table, crowded around each other like it was 0 degrees and we were around the last bonfire. Ordered the mandatory drink and I tried to behave like I was cool with the derogatory acts put up on stage for solely our benefit. Ping pong ball were put in unimaginabe places and if that was not enough, it was aimed at men in the audience and propelled across. In about 15 minutes of the show, four women posibbly as large as a Thai Arnold Shwargnegar made a circle around us and slapped us with a bill of 5000 Thai Bhats. I got up from my stool, Clutch in place and in my firm scary voice told Ms Bouncer lady that we were told all we had to do was buy drinks at the place. She punched the table so hard, that in one quick motion I fell back to my seat, this time clutch on the floor. We tried telling them about the boy who got us here, and what he said. The loud thundering responce this time wäs " This not that boys club, this my club" I swear I can still hear it in my sleep sometimes, Its safe to say Ive been scarred for life. The Schwarzanager look-alike took my clutch and my 1000 Bhats from in it when I told her I had no money but cab fare.My friends tried similar protests, were met with similar responces. I told the big lady "lets take this outside" with my brave dont-mess-with-me face on, all the while shaking like a leaf. She gave the table another hard bang and I abandoned the effort. Three of us coughed up 1000 bhat each, left the dingy club feeling violated, stupid and moneyless. Found our way to an ATM, and then into a tuk tuk and quiety came back to the hotel room like three chip munks shocked with the effect of a stun-gun. So much for the F*** F*** show.

Fish Curry

The swollen white beads of rice, still moist from the clay utensil they were in minutes ago, made a delecious sight. The weather outside the window was wet. Birds, distinctive in colour and plumage lit up the landscape and infused colour into an otherwise uniform spread of bright green. It was a beautiful June in southern India, far far away from upscale London. When he brought back his attention to the plate, the steam from the rice fogged his glasses over and broke the trance. She came over from within the kitchen and placed a pot of hot curry on the wooden table. A large spoon with a deep cavity was placed into the pot, causing the liquid to stir and the aroma to make its was serreptisiously to his nose. The pungent waft was enchanting and made him reach out for the ladle and pour a copious serving into a hole in the mountain of rice; she created the little rice gulf right before she retreated back into dimly-lit kitchen. He used his hands to mix together the portion and picked out the slice of fish and placed it on the side of the large plate. A dumpling of potatos, flavoured with green chillies and mustard seeds was served and he began his meal. The boost of rich curry blended into the rice had the same effect that an overheard line in one's mother-tongue would have on a lonely immigrant. The traditional south indian gravy, burst into flavours of every kind. The pugnacious red chillies ground with cloves of garlic and peppercorns. Corriander ground into a paste with turmeric, curry leaves and some mischevious tamarind.The thick, burnt-orange mix setteled into his mouth and comforted his flayed, homesick nerves. He made little balls of curried rice, mixing it with small pieces of the gravied fish and chewed it slowly, savouring each bit delicately. The mash of potatos added rythym and a hint of surprise to the mix. He was home.

Random adjectives I associate with myself

Word collector. Rain drop chaser. Gluttonous reader. Sports illiterate. Non- conformist. Part Narcissist.Sundried tomato enthusiast. Closet pink-lover. Dog freak. Beleiver. Agnostic. Traveller. Writer. Brooder. Romantic sucker.French manicure loyalist. Information junkie. Lazer. Sunset watcher. Dream weaver. Bead collector. Delicious mushroom maker. Loner. Movie nut. Obsessive dancer. Bargain hunter. Mac make-up lover. Mango Patron. Fitness fiend. Pizza saton. Anti-establishment. Part pessimist. Delusionally optimistic. Whimsical. Can be non-commital. Constant googler. Flat shoes supporter. Animal rights activist. Not very Patriotic. Yann Martel fan. Agressively dreads sun tan

The ton of Bricks

I’ve often wondered what it is that makes ‘it’ click. What is it that makes something feel right. What is it that makes you giddy with the tremendous possibilities that even one minute with this one person can offer.
What makes even the glaring wrongs easily disregarded; the largest of inconveniences win over the most comfortable of conveniences. It’s safe to say it’s not merely good looks, a fat pay check earned or the right perfume worn. Not even the most mush-infused dinner date at a restaurant with a view that is in the book for making knees go wobbly. It is also not merely laughing about a joke at a coffee shop. Not even looking just the right amount of perfect in just the right amount of candlelight. It is not the pouring sheets rain. Not even spending an evening in a cozy home with giant bean bags which have the magical properties of quicksand.
It is something that you cannot touch, or quantify, but can surely feel with the intensity of a colossal head-on collision. It is something that disarms and topples the carefully placed guards. Something that creeps up on you when you least expect it and leaves you with a lingering trace of a casual moment. One day, and every day after that for the rest of your life, it hits you like a ton of bricks. The quicksand, this time being that exact moment in time where you slip and surrender deeply and irretrievably - willingly and sometimes extremely unwillingly. When it does not matter if the place is romantic or the joke is funny. Where nothing is needed to play catalyst to the click—not long calculated drives, rehearsed romance or beautiful words.
For the lack of a better word, the ton of bricks goes by the name Chemistry. Crackling, elusive, bright as crimson, delicate as fern chemistry. A simple hug where coils and bends on one body fit into the respective right places on the other, with a precision that may look deliberate but, is in fact, purely instinct. A touch that transmits bare electricity back and forth; a current that then travels to your eyes and gives them a glossy, sometimes silly shine. A smile so simple and effortless it breaks your heart. An iridescence that does the job of a glow-worm in a dark jungle. When the rainy day outside has nothing the do with the chill in your spine, just like how the hot summer day has nothing to do with the flush on your cheek.
It is probably laughing like children in a noisy room, where the pleasant din in your head is the only thing louder than the cackling crowds. Where not much is said but that is enough. Where conversations form cushy cocoons from where the world looks like a safe place and everything looks golden brown. Where it is easy not to notice the absence of sugar in the coffee, but it is as easy as breathing to sense even the slight dip in the mood.
It is also probably a rare delicacy like truffle mushrooms, an endangered species like the dodo or an urban myth like a hidden country . Truffles because they are expensive, have an acquired taste and an initial sting. Dodo, because they are known to be stupid and for functioning outside the boundaries of reason. And a hidden country, because no maps lead there.

Keechu

Some names just stick on - like Keechu. When we first bought home our 2 month old lhasa apso, I named him Casper. He was later unofficially christened keechu, largely owing to the fussing, mollycoddling and for the want of something less anglesized and more comfortable, more homely. Keechu has no meaning as such, sounds mostly like a noise or maybe a sneeze, but it stayed. With my neighbours, maids, friends from school, and grocery delivery boy - Prashant. Even my rickshaw kaka who would come to get me at 7:30 am sharp still remembers him by that name. But thats probably because he had the additional task of detaching all the kids who spilt out of the auto to fuss over the new pillow-like puppy and piling them all back into the rickshaw.
He was promised to me when I was living in Saudia Arabia, a country that denies women the right drive and families to own dogs. So in many ways, Casper was my very first expirience of living in India. Where my mum did not have to wear a burkha, where I could own a dog without having to appply for a license to the royalty in Riyadh.
Keechu has always had a calm temprament, much like a budha on fours. He has big brown eyes which he adeptly uses as his primary weapon of blackmail when he wants something. The secondary one being the light yet calculated placement of his chin on the thigh of the soft target in the transaction, most often me. He is beautiful, and I'm not just being a biased owner. He looks like a bear cub after his bath on sundays and regally walks the green tree-lined lanes of my colony, his white freshly-scrubbed face standing out like an april blossom.
I remember the day we went to bring him home as clearly as now, 13 years later, I remember the recepie to his chicken broth dinner. He was the last pup left of the litter, and this extra time with his mother gave him precious access to her wholesome adulation and mommy milk. Fat and furry, he fit comfortably into the picture I had created in my head from the age of 5 of how my first dog should be. And there and and then we bundled him into a carton which was lined with a pink checked blanket and drove back home. He slept in a Prestige Preassure cooker box, opened at the top for most of his puppy life. He emereged from it at meal time and retreated back after a hearty fill of milk.
He woke up with me, pottered around when I brushed my teeth, ate some of my dabba as my mum packed it for me, and finally waited on my porch to say bubye to me untill my rickshaw disappeared. I looked forward to coming home to him then and its exactly the same today too.
He is apart of my daily routine and most of the chattering and conversations that go on around my home. He sits at our feet during lunch and has a peculiar fettish for desert. He particualry fancies the malai peda my aunt brings to our home on Rakhi day. He loves my family and knows no ther way than to love my family. No matter what.
Today he is older, slower and doesnt bouce around as much as he did on his evening walks. He still does the pórch-waiting thing, each time either my dad, mum or I leave the house. He gets jealous when my dad and I go somewhere together - he thinks it is as much his right as it is mine to get a drive in the car. He is gentle with children but gets annoyed when puppies scramble around him, awe-struck to be around an older dog. He sits around when I am reading, knows when i'm sad and recognises my perfume even in a crowd. He is my keechu, my big fat furry safety blanket and stands for 'home' - in big bold letters.

The Track of My Tears- Smokey Robinson

People say I'm the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I'm blue
So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.