Moving in a Wordless World

What seems the most possible way out of a world where words seem more of noise - their meanings, underlying implications, intended tones all seem hollow? Words, they should have never ceased to spread their impact, for talk it out if you really want to solve the problem is all they said when I was a child.

As everything loses its charm when used way more frequently; similar thing, I guess, has happened with these words. They do not create magic anymore, they don’t convey the feelings any longer, they don’t touch others’ hearts now; they just seem to bounce back like a crazy ball – as crazy as the sky is high.

Belief, trust and reliance were the neighbors mostly frequenting these words; they have changed abode now, I was told. Words all seem superficial, now. The reasons I imagine why they would have lost their sheen look all simple yet caught in a messy mesh. They must have been beaten hard, raped repeatedly, used dishonestly, spoiled with verbosity, wasted in empty talks, lost in translations, worshipped half-heartedly and victimized incessantly – words still did what they were good at: connecting.

The bridge seems to have rusted now, more of dilapidated, rattling hard. Words do not connect anymore; they just take the noise over. They don’t bring back belief, rather disbelief. Words are the new weapons of destruction, for creating the deepest pains somewhere in hearts, a few would do the job the best.

Phones, television, video calls, letters, internet – the world was, indeed, shrinking in; what never came to limelight was the fact that words were becoming handy to everyone, even those who did not know the rules of the game.

Talk more, talk day-night, they told an “arranged” couple – talk substance is something they never advised.

Everyone has got something to say; the world is full of words – as empty as the universe itself. What seems the most comforting to me, when wording to everyone has become a piece of cake, is a bird cooing somewhere in vicinity.

In this verbose world, the things which still do not cease to warm hearts, the things which are still underused and, thus, are valuable are gestures, deeds, mannerism and acts. They are the new words. At times, dwelling in a wordless world seems comforting – the power of silence giving power to my brain. Living in a wordless world looks far brighter than trying my hands at the art, for words don’t sound true anymore… they embrace warmly no more. With the bridges burnt and their power lost, words have found new aide to carry them over – noise. Together, hand in hand, they set out to let it off.

As truly said in a fairly famous Hindi song, my senses sing it aloud thinking how funny it is to relate to these words – the words which never ceased to create an impact.

 “Jo bhi main kehna chahu, barbaad karein alfaaz mere”

Anecdotes from a Crazy Love Life

This is the first time when I am narrating an instance from the very personal corner of my life to my readers; I am sure you would enjoy reading this as much as I have reveled in writing it and, most of all, in living it. This is surely one of those few moments, which keep cracking you up even after days or months when they happened. So, here goes a short, funny reminiscence which makes me laugh, cry and wonder all at the same time, thinking how my fiancé never leaves any stone unturned to add spice to our lives.

This happened a week back while I was happily chatting with my husband-to-be, sitting several miles away from me. I had been envying a lot of cute, just-married, couples on social platforms leaving mushy, gooey, cute messages for each other either in the form of posts or comments. Call my groom-to-be shy or hesitant, he doesn’t find it fit to spit his love out on social media (as if it’s venom) where there are hundreds of eyeballs trying to find some fault in it, if not any than grammatical. I hate his this habit as I am really active on social media and I don’t feel mollycoddled through his words on my posts or pics and I particularly hate it because we are engaged and there’s immense societal pressure (I feel, eh) on me to prove it to the world that my man is good with words and how!

So, I uploaded a pic, which looked somewhere close to this, but I surely looked way better; I always do, even in my out-of-the-bed selfies!

I knew my bae is never going to comment on the pic, as the best expression of his love is his “liking” the pic, and I fail to make him understand that out of 100 likes I got on the pic, his special love-filled ‘like’ will get crushed and tramped down (Sigh!).

But this time, I collared him (virtually, of course) and forcibly asked him to comment on my pic. Poor he, he thought this was probably the toughest time of his life, tougher than taking board exams. He immediately started ‘Google’ing severely romantic shayaris ever written and after half an hour, came out with this (on a pic that has me smiling and pouting, all at the same time):

Koi Aankho-Aankho Se Baat Kar Leta Hai.. Koi Aankho-Aankho Mein Mulakaat Kar Leta Hai…Bada Mushqil Hota Hai Jawaab Dena, Jab Koi Khaamosh Rehkar bhi Sawaal Kar Leta Hai…

Sawaal?! Bearing a question mark on my face, I complained about his bad judgment and how he could not think of something as simple as ‘looking pretty’! Why, at all, he needed to Google compliments?

He started digging further into the world of internet and this, for a moment, made me feel guilty wondering if I am asking too much of him. Never mind, this feeling was as temporary as my thought bubble which was again pricked by my beau who had found something he thought worthy:

This pair of small eyes, Help in saying big things, Love not expressed from lips, Is confessed by a wink. At any place in the world, Her eyes keep searching for me, Sparkle of her eyes is moved to her lips, After she finds me. Each feeling of her heart, Is said by eyes of hers Whenever I leave her, Droplets of water stroll down in form of tears. Can always find, Unconditional love for me in her eyes, Confirming the thought to be true, That the pair never says lies. I have a feeling, She has a straight heart to eye connection, As she expresses everything, by her eyes, That's needs to be mentioned. When I can't find her eyes around me, Don't know what happens to my day, Smile from my visage, Remains at bay. In the night when I lie on a gathered hay, Under the starry layer of the endless worlds, I trace your eyes in the maze of stars, Like a pattern laid out by two beautiful pearls. This pair of small eyes, Help in saying big things, Love not expressed from lips, Is confessed by a wink.

Well, I did not want a lengthy, 200-word essay on my pic, which already had some 10 odd comments by now, so I frowned a bit and asked him to quit whatever he was doing. To this, he so innocently said “but I’d honestly fallen for your eyes. I think they add spark to your beauty”. Well, this worked! I was flattered and thus, he got another chance to look for some nice comment to post on my pic. Here’s what he fetched:

Girl I'm not a shy guy, but you got me feeling like I might die. Those beautiful eyes, got me melted inside.

I thought of killing myself – not because this was too cheesy, but because I wasn’t looking for anything artificial: anything he could write that could make me feel I belong to him. I guess he picked up from my cue of not replying to this message that I disliked that, too. So, here’s my bae’s another attempt at pleasing me:

I miss the beautiful eyes that I can sail through forever. I miss the smile that send me to heaven

By now, I was banging my head on the wall being frustrated to the top-most notch. I, my last try, asked him to compliment me in Italian (I remembered he had championed this language way back in time). At this point, I could guess he was baffled, too, for how he was just not able to make me happy and how he's been ignorant of this new avatar of me, a girl who’s crying for his love, spelt out in sugar-coated words, written right on her post.

I would surely have fractured my limbs laughing so hard after what happened next had he not gotten me out of that by finally saying bye. This is what he said, “Here is my username and password, can you please comment whatever you feel is appropriate yourself?” Imagine me, pretending to be him, leaving romantic comments on my own picture! All my anger and frustration was bubbled in a matter of microseconds and I was actually feeling silly for have asked him to do something he just isn't good at: expressing himself under the sun! 

I shut my laptop down and retired to bed, just when I received a notification on my mobile saying someone has left a comment on my pic. It was him and this is what he wrote: Ti voglio molto bene! (Meaning: I love you so much!). I bet my day couldn’t have ended in a better manner J   

There's A New "Hair"sitter in Town!

A long stint of trial, patience and hard work but were the efforts all worth it? You’ll have to read on till the end of this post in order to get the answer. I am talking about my hair and the amount of efforts it has demanded of me to bring them up right. This might be the first time in my life (another first!) when I have thought of cultivating this natural harvest to the extent it happily could and I dare say it has brought out the best in my behavior. How? Ohkay.

I, now, feel as if, being a child psychologist, I am writing the best of parenting techniques parents should practice but I must concede growing your hair right to see them how exactly you’ve wanted them to be is no way a lesser job. I have seen myself go through a lot of behavioral changes in order to accommodate the pain: tears, worries, fears, anticipations and, finally, bliss that growing my hair right has brought along. I confess I am now more patient with them falling and have learnt how to toss the blame on to the environment - you have to control your tears when you see them going down the drain or leaving their home to elope with the comb – great deal of perseverance, indeed. You have to make friends with the fact that some seasons are there in existence because they have some number targets of hair strands they have to register as fallen before they bid adieu to that place.

I get a feeling that I have become an erudite “hair”sitter, capable of writing a book on good “hair”sitting (I would love to call it that because I hate to repeat what I’ve said before). I must have read thousands of magazines and blogs online talking about the best hair care tips by everyone from amateurs to professionals – I had a patient ear for everyone. One side-effect of this whole activity was that a lot of times, I was directed to some fabulous recipe websites from these blogs; there was so much food to be applied on either hair or scalp being talked about that I finally gave up on covering my head with them and thought of becoming an unrepentant sinner indulging herself in gluttony J

Anyway, one year of persistent determination, eating right, oiling my hair twice a week, taking multi-vitamin supplements, working out regularly, combing with utmost care, breathing right, burping less, blogging more, praying even more, turning a blind eye to all the ‘good’ things in the world, watching lesser television, drawing constellations on assumed-to-be starry nights, bitching less, smiling to all the relatives, saying yes and all the ‘sane’ stuff those blogs could ask me to do - I have done IT ALL; some tips worked, others were fun to try; some gave good results while a few reassured there’s more to life than long, healthy hair. Finally, here I am, with THE results. I am sharing a few pictures with y’all – a few experiments I have done, now that I have learned to tame my hair. While I prepare myself for my first trimming session in all this time, I pray to God that I don’t return with a bad face and a back-on-track behavior (to hell with perseverance, I want them to stay for long!) J

The Aura of the Airport

This is one first-hand experience, ‘another first’ this year, of seeing someone off at the airport. I have always been on the other side of the story, happily bidding adieu, boarding the flights while looking forward to my journeys. During all these farewell cheers, I could never understand why my parents used to shed tears, for a dimwit like me had never felt that heart-wrenching sentiment of biding au revoir and returning home with a feeling of having left something at the airport.

This time it was my brother who decided to take his career to a new level, stepping out of his comfort zone, punching hard the challenge, right on its nose. And there, a new experience set its first foot in my life. The aura there, it just gets into your nerves, slowly reaching each limb, weakening them from within, making them anorexic that you just go weak and cannot help but cry.

I stood there, noticing the scenario around and here, I've tried jotting down the snippets of the things I can, now, only sum up to call it all a ‘feeling’. I saw parents hugging their kids tight, with tears in their eyes, though waving their hands, still unable to say goodbye; fathers clutching mothers’ hands and holding them while they walked out of the parking spaces; spouses leaving and the partners who got to stay not able to bid adieu with a smile (I also saw a couple or two cuddling, which, apparently, made my heart grow fonder and brought along an 'aww' monent); a few grandmothers who were checking from a never-ending checklist the things their kids, who were leaving, should do when they land and the things they should never do when they land; friends exchanging hugs and high-fives — uncounted prayers, well-wishes, hugs, kisses, talks - sad and happy - all enclosed in oodles of LOVE. You don’t feel the world is going to come to an end, you want to forget about wars, you don’t want to remember all those who have been hostile to you, not helped, never cared… you only want to remember this moment, the feeling, the thoughts, what you should say, what you shouldn't, the prayers and the best wishes. The only thing that makes one cry is the aura of the airport, which makes LOVE flow along!

I remember this dialog, which actually made me skip a beat when I'd heard it for the first time, from the movie, Love Actually:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

I concede that I shed a few tears when I was seeing my brother off, but I cried my guts out during my travel back home – this experience possibly drew me closer to him, way more closer than I’d ever thought I’d ever be. I think the distance does that to you, the AURA does that to you!

Daddy Was a Thief

I have challenged myself to complete a blog in half an hour – a ‘first’ in my life. I guess I want to give a new dimension to 2014 by filling this year with a series of many ‘firsts’ – things I have never tried before. So, this is one THAT thing I would want myself see doing.

I am digging into my own life to look for something worth sharing – which could be my one great writing and your one great read. Alright, what better than this new game that I have downloaded from Android store – Daddy Was A Thief!

I know the name is extremely funny and suspicious, too, but this game is surely worth a download, two hours of casual playing as long as it continues to entertain you and kill your spare time and lastly, an uninstall, too. That’s what Angry Birds did to us, right? We all have had enough of it till it started to taste stale!

So, Daddy here gets pinkslipped, seen with the harsh “You’re FIRED” letter from his boss, doesn't think anyone would give him another job now that he is out of work and further thinks of robbing a bank for he worries about the survival of his “boodhi ma and kuwaari behen” J How I wonder these guys are least concerned about their own selves but their families.

Anyway, he jumps off, having robbed a real big bank (exactly like the one we saw in Dhoom 3), from the rooftop on to a building and THERE, your role begins. Apparently, it’s YOU who has to save daddy from being caught or worse, from being dead. So, you help him break his way, apartment by apartment, to a lower floor, so as to reach his way to the ground so he could catch his way back home. These floors are worse than that of the buildings we find in Mumbai or Old Delhi – Daddy just has to jump hard to break them – eh?

Anyway, the houses are equally funny, with a grandma, with exceptional martial arts skills, moving across any single floor, a bored man fiddling with a TV remote which apparently passes current and might possibly kill Daddy if he comes in the middle of the TV and the remote – well, who cares about that ugly, bored man J – and a few policemen wandering inside the houses.

I wonder what made the game developer slate the game's name in past tense, for every time you play this game, Daddy turns into a brand new thief – a fresh pinkslip, fresh wounds, fresh robbery and fresh motive to cause mega destruction and fresh struggle to find his way out of this sky-kissing building. Step into the shoes of Daddy who would never be a proven thief if he never gets caught.

No, this is not a promotion campaign that I am running to promote this game. I am admitting you might find it extremely boring or rather cold if you play a lot of similar games on your android device but this game has apparently got a decent rating (4.5) and cool number for downloads (close to 10 millions). So, as I said worth an evening’s play and worth THAT uninstall if you think watching Aravind Kejriwal on TV is far better than playing this!

And yay! I successfully completed a 30-minute blogpost J

Cheers amigos for reading this!  

Keep Calm and Use This!

It is one of those days when I feel the presence of so many bitches surrounding me, keeping a check on me to know what I do, how I do it and if doing nothing, then just being there like a spy counting my breaths. It’s like you were leading your life peacefully, oblivious to all the political, social and miscellaneous shit happening around and suddenly, you get poked in your ribs, jabbed on your back and punched on your face for the sheer reason that you were not paying attention. Why does the world starve for my attention to begin with? I doubt if it is made of gold!

There have been instances when I was so less concerned about the people around me that they had to do something as silly as climbing a tree on their back to get my eyes on them. And then, there have been those instances, too, when my response to any situation they pulled me in was appalled at just because my (weird) thoughts fertilized those words.

I am a person who loves to live in my dream-bubble, which is so often gemmed with luxuries like creativity, experiments, yearnings, desires, aim, talent, plans and more plans. I am so happy dwelling in my-this-prized-mansion that many a times, I do not feel the need of any next-in-number thing around me (living or non-living). Since the bitches around do not pay attention to the implied meanings of my face expressions, most of the times, they end up calling me anti-social or worse, arrogant.

This is one of those days when I see my ‘self’ getting lost in the smoke these bitches have filled my mansion with. Well, I stay calm and wait for this bad air to get cleared. I am sure moods change and so do people; for bitches, I could never say anything with absolute certainty but I am sure even they would someday get tired of being ignored and would opt for an alternate path to tread on. I wish I had something like this to shoo them all away!