Friday, April 24, 2009

Look differently

I like to look at the world all the time. I think I would have liked to be some bird sitting atop some wire crossing my city Mumbai. I would have preferred to be in no hurry as such and look lazily at everyone down there rushing here or there.

On my way back home I take a taxi everyday from my office to a railway station. I like the ride and the time I get to myself very much. I like it when the taxi moves slowly and is stuck in traffic for some time. I like it even better when it gets stuck just opposite a book vendor with his shop on the footpath. His stock very up to date; duplicate books, most recent ones.

Then the taxi passes a hukka shop. In the middle of Mumbai I am not sure who looks at the shop full of hukkas every day. The lane is not a tourist frequented lane at all. Through the glass walls of the shop I always admire the arty looking glass work. There is blue, green glass making the wooden brown of the hukka look like some piece which would fit as a piece in the collection of a museum.

My taxi drop's me near a bus-stop every day. I cross the road and enter the railway station from there. I look at the bus stop to see who is waiting for the bus. I don't expect any known face to be standing here, I don't know where the bus goes. I like to look. Yesterday, I looked and my heart missed a beat.

On the iron rod of the bus-stand people usually rest their backs and stand. Two small hands held each other and stood there with their heads almost touching the ground. They were hanging like bats do on the same rod, where people stood waiting for the bus. I almost yelled out to them to be careful; when they swung on the rod and were hanging with their heads up now.

They were doing these circles , hands held tight, smoothly like some trained acrobats. Where people stood; on their feet, the two hung on looking at the ground for sometime and then going in a circle and again hanging there looking at the bus-stop from a different angle all together.




Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Surprised!

Have you ever planned any surprises? :) I have tried doing that recently twice. The thing about surprises is that when you plan them for someone and feel you are designing it, the surprise surprises you too. I like that feeling when you feel you are in control and the little scope where things can happen at their own will, actually change the whole course of things. It's like that one spontaneous step in the choreographed dance .

It's like you don't know what happens between the 2 words of a story. The words weave the story. So does the space between them.


As a kid
as I hid
behind the door
waiting to scare
waiting to surprise

I wouldn't wait to hear the steps
I peeped a minute later
or a minute before

laugh I would, aloud
Smile I do as I write this




Monday, April 06, 2009

Let go

Let go the feather you hold in your fist
Let it fly to the world beyond your reach
You like the feeling of wings in your finger
But it needs to fly without you

The feather lands in the hand in need
it stays in the fist till a time
when your fingers grow strength
let go
It needs to fly without you

There is someone at the other end
looking up at the sky
Let go