Nimbu paani

 

What does April mean to me?

To start at the beginning

A bit cliché

Summer Holidays!

Gully Cricket and lemon juice

Life didn’t give us lemons back then

Only lemon juice

And boy how we drank it!

Not a care in the world

Sticky mess all over

once white shirts and

Broken beach castles and sand filled shoes

You should also know that

April in Chennai was a month of heat

A month to quite literally sink in your teeth

And grab a juicy bite of watermelon or mango

That’s how life tasted like.

 

April is also the month

When I stumbled upon writing

26^th April 2010

A blog was born.

I felt the joy of creating something

My digital Disneyland

Every post a joyride

Traversing as per my thoughts.

 

April later still remains a month of joy

Albeit filled with chaos.

A period of gold rush

Before the courts close for may .

I still experience summer holidays

Albeit mixed with the beginning of the new financial year.

 

April has now made a full circle.

The month I again established something

Which will hopefully remain immortal

Like this blog.

My new law firm

Saaki Legal estd 15.04.2024

A watermelon or mango of love, labour and joy!

 

Nimbu Paani means lemonade/ lemon water in Hindi. 

Inspired by PU's weekly prompt 'April' 

Been a while but now you know why. Will post and visit you all more henceforth!

 

Fill in the blanks

 

I put pen on paper

with blind hope that

muscle memory will lead me further. 

While flexible poses fashioned my flighty youth,

I can feel the rigid rigor mortis

setting upon the dusk of my adulthood. 

Ah! I can indeed survive by merely scrolling

and autotyping 

and generally not using my brain. 

Play nostalgic games

cocooned in comfort 

in beer bosom.

Do the same work and 

not get off the treadmill 

even when I know 

I am never going anywhere

on this broken machine. 

I know I can but should I?

If the dart is hitting the middle of the forehead

maybe it is time to skateboard off to 

an unknown vortex! 

Karpagam gardens

So , I went on a walk today.

Roads which  once bustled with robust activity

The Covid addled streets were empty.

I was in search of a pharmacy

Which sells Coca Cola.

Yes , I am well aware of the irony.

 

As I was walking in the main road

I saw an ambulance racing past me.

I always worry a bit about my oldest relatives

After I see that despicable life saving vehicle.

Gave a mental prayer.

Alas! A van with an empty ice box followed it.

 

Mood properly ruined,

I whispered curses to myself and

Switched to a tiny lane,

Hoping for calmness rather calamity

In smaller streets.

 

That’s when I heard a loud male voice

Shouting with all his lungs in hindi,

On how she had tortured him for the past 2 months

On very damn thing!

And it reverberated through the streets

Even when I was fast walking away..

 

Now thoroughly pissed with myself

For not just staying home and

Running out of stamina

I reached the end of the street.

There I saw a couple play badminton

Like we are in the middle of some summer holidays

And thought maybe corona IS

A vacation for the rich.

 

My cynical view was somewhat defeated

When I was nearing the pharmacy

And saw this cute cat

Stretching itself in the middle of the road.

Maybe all will be fine if I just chilled a bit

And stop constantly worrying so much?

 

Maybe peace is something to search inwards for

In the turbulent waves of my heart

Rather than in the rosy exteriors of my neigborhood?

Happy with my midstreet epiphany

I bought some aerated slow poison and

delicious diabetic inducing treats

and made my way back home.

 

 

 

 

Liquid Heart

 

 ##skylover wordlist - Alchemy , implacable , knight , aqua , mask , aloof , almond , nocturnal , landscape , sting.

 

 

These nocturnal mornings..

A product of virus induced,

Unstable raging routines

Sting me just a bit more when

It dawns upon me that,

 

My knight in shining whatever

Will find it just a bit more impossible

To track me down.

My face covered with equal measures

Aloofness & N97 masks.

 

My implacable heart demands

An alchemy of sorts

Or atleast a reverse osmosis

Of this aquatic almond

In the centre of my chest,

 

To leak the leanings of my liquid heart

Unto the larger landscape

And hope love finds me

Before it is a bit too late.

 

I thank Kerry for her monthly word list. That really inspired me and I ended up incorporating all the words to make one poem. 

A trip through October

                                                                                              

So September ended

And someone woke me up

As previously promised

~ Oh! The ever painful pinky

Always randomly hitting stuff

And bringing up pent up sh*t

Aren’t you supposed to be a secret? ~

I tear the daily calendar sheets

And suddenly here we are…

There is more torn than less to tear

IT IS OCTOBER

The month of Mahatma Gandhi

A magnificent man who

Truly walked the walk

All the way to Dandi

And paved the way

Towards democracy

with secularism ,

He took a bullet for it too.

#respect

Then comes navratri

9 days of steaming hot culture

Which defines  South India for you.

Sundals , ancient dolls and Carnatic music

All wrapped in a silk saree

That is golu for you.

 And to cap it all off

We have the crowning jewel of Indian culture

DIWALI – the festival of lights

The big boom of crackers,

The smell of ghee emanation from all the delicious sweets

*Ah all the calories

I already feel fat now*

The colour popping from all the traditional clothes

Can make even a blind man shy

This is India at its most glorious

All are invited

With family

Please RSVP!

I tear more sheets

and

The month is over now!

Absolutely no work done

I carry around a few more kgs

And a bucketload of memories J

Written for PU's Pantry of poetry proses : October prompt. This is my october for you :) added prose in poetry form to justify the prompt :P 

Join the fun. How is your typical october?

Me the living

Me – the living

Writing for myself

Of rivers and sunset

Don’t have to worry about my skill set

Or how the lines don’t mesh

with what people expect.

No likes , no comments , no shares

No feedback to feed my ego back

No more second hand living

It might actually be thrilling

To discover why I really write

All over again

Writing for an audience since tenth grade

Reader is my default

Writing not.

Somewhere along the way

Eyeballs glazed my edge

Was always a cat on the fence

Now filled with trepidation to jump in any direction

I offer platitudes and bromides

In shiny gleaming proses

Posing as something else

Content should always trump form

But then reality always bites on the backside

I can close my eyes and write a poem now

No challenge anymore

I need to push myself outside these boundaries

Do something different

Or something simple

Don’t care about the fancy words I use

Or the number of lines which might bore or please you

I NEED to write for myself and for that

This is the First Step.

Silver Linings

Silver Linings

One good day , One Bad day

Arthritic steps

slowly crunching on  

Best time for silver linings

Is when you are blindfolded

Trace them through your heart

Holding its shattered pieces in place

The hand which holds your hair

When you are unloading your stomach out

And which holds your hand

When you are unloading your heart out.

The voice which might be on a virtual screen

Million miles away

An emoji in the end

 which wipes that tear away.

One good day , One bad day

A spring in my step

Steadily marching on.

Nesting

Hi guys! I am finally done with my five year law course. While academically it is a big relief , personally it is taking time to readjust from one home to another. So I start this new innings with a supposed to be simple poem about the same. More inventive stuff for later.

What is the word Bittersweet supposed to even mean?

When you like Bitter more than sweet

I ain’t no Ayn Rand but

I do know when things get out of hand.

The streets of joyous past invite me in my sleep

It is all too real now

Once it isn’t tangible anymore.

I run and run inevitably into the white light

Only to wake up sweating underneath the not so noisy fan

All the pent up teardrops

Have made me moist from inside.

Even removing the corn from my foot

Feels like saying bye to an old friend.

It isn’t all doom and gloom

There is hope in the horizons still

Life just got a whole lot more interesting

I could be anything I want

Yet I can’t

It is the whole balancing act

That adulting is all about

I feel like Peter Parker with his superpowers

Fighting the infinity war

Hope I don’t disintegrate into thin air!

The new has become old and the old new

There is no such thing as status quo

Just a new list of never ending woes.

I twirl my hair more

To tangle it like my feels

And make decisions myself

Without sharing it immediately to my friends..

Feels wrong yet right?

An Exciting time to be alive!

Am I right?!

( I have used more rhyming words to incorporate my pre college style and ?! to show my state of mind. This is Part 1 Of my poem series on Adulting)

Home

4 walls and a door

Don’t forget the floor

That is the place I live

And not my home

Home is where the heart is

And lives

unequivocally enshrines the self

with a warm sense of belonging

No foreboding or fear

Can reach me here.

I am child once again

In this humble abode.

Raucous waves ~~

Sticky sand which won’t leave my slippers

The fresh smell of salt in the sea 

All welcome me home

How can I resist?

Filter coffee

Happy dog

Loving Grandma

That’s what makes my home

What makes yours?

If you don’t know ,

Go search, seek , build !!

If you do know ,

Visit it more often.

Treasure the warmth it gives you

Even if you live there all the time.

Especially If you live there ‘all’ the time.

(image borrowed , not the one of my dog though :P)

Silly Billie

Here comes Silly billie*

Along the lines of my mojojojo

She was a silly billie *

My chikni Chameli ,

A wild cat to her inner core

Untamed by mere homo sapiens.

She unleashed her claws every chance she got

Scratching more than the surface of

Every person she met.

She was a silly billie

My very own chikni chameli.

Not a Soft kitty

Not a Warm kitty

And definitely more than a little ball of fur.

Cats get things done

Humans don't .

Queen of the concrete jungle

She looked down upon everyone

With a smile of smug satisfaction. 

Silly Billie

All behold and worship our very own Chikni Chameli

I miss her though.

* billie in hindi means cat

written for poets united midweek motif 'cats' 

The F word.

Failures rock.
A year back , no one would have believed that I believed this. Now , people at least try to listen to me when I try to convince them of this. Baby steps.

It is easy to believe in something when it is only an ideology and you don't have to experience it in action. That's why most people are hypocrites. They don't want to be but usually the gap between concrete action and lofty thoughts swallows 'em up. I always believed that I didn't care about failures and it is a stepping stone to success and etcetera etcetera. Only when I experienced it , I could take a proper look.
Initially it sucks , pains a lot more than you think. Nobody likes change and when things don't go your way it is highly frustrating , stress inducing. Everything feels like falling apart . The same welcoming world of yesterday seems to be menacing . But these so called failures are actually good for you and I will tell you why.

What are these failures anyway?
Society manufactured standards of practice which every person is forced to follow by pressures of socialization such as family , community and organised institutions. However , cool we like to be and not care , every human being lives in a community and social disapproval goes a long way in shaping one's attitude.
Okay , I realise i sound like my 11th standard sociology textbook. Dry , abstract and boring.
Let's lighten up with cliched examples. Eg. The 10th standard board exams are a redundant concept. Nobody should care about those marks. But , most people care about it because these marks are used by families as indicators of intelligence and social prestige. I know a certain family member who makes a list of all the kids she knows who are writing their board exams that year and calls them to check their marks. This inordinate amount of curiosity is the reason why kids run to America lol
What I have realised is most of the failures are not even failures. It is such a strong word with so much stigma attached. They are minor setbacks to one of the possible routes through which you can attain your possible goal.
So hereon I'm gonna use the word setback.

So why does failure setback rock?

It makes you think! I wouldn't be writing this original content on my personal property if i didn't suffer a setback. Usually when one attains what they want a tad too easily , all the problems get swept under the carpet. We just want to enjoy the fruits of our victory that we ignore the weeds. Till they grow long enough to coil around our necks. Minor setbacks make us trim our gardens better ,i.e , keep us well aware and in control of our weaknesses, I would rather lose my way in the play offs and peak during the knockouts rather than have a perfect run in the leagues and choke due to my deficiencies in the finals. 

Usually people who are used to success , define themselves with it. When they lose , that's why it hits them hard. They feel incomplete without it. They even loathe themselves and hate the version which doesn't have it. Accepting and loving who you are is very important and that is not going to happen with the constant halo of success hovering around you. Your happiness should never rely on a contingency . Happiness should be found even in the darkest of places and shouldn't be concentrated in one holy spot. It is the journey and not the destination, I mean sure , if the destination is fun that is definitely an added bonus, 

People have a very narrow definition of success and planned road drawn towards it. Life is never going to let that happen and that's what makes it so interesting. Nobody can control fate and people used to success know that in their heads but never feel that truly until the door is abruptly closed on their faces. It makes you more creative and takes you to paths never travelled before to reach that goal. So it keeps you fresh. 

So failures make you a better at what you do , makes you love yourself for who you are , makes your happiness more intrinsic and makes you creative and understand the uncertainty of life, It is the best teacher there is. 

Most importantly it makes you

STRONGER to take the next blow and probably stand up and deliver the next punch. 

And shows you the ones who truly care. Because life is about those people. You need someone to share all that hyped up success with,

(P.S - All pictures are borrowed)

So yes. Don't be afraid to fail. Don't think of what might happen if x goes wrong. Something can always go wrong. Just give it your best shot and move on. Enjoy your failure , like you enjoy your success, There is nothing derogatory about losing. 

IT IS OKAY TO FAIL. 

But , Have you?

The day has come

where Meredith is without Derek

Castle is without beckett 

and there is no sex scene in game of thrones 

I repeat ,

and there is no sex scene in GAME OF THRONES!

The day has come , 

Sachin is seen without his bat 

his perfect persona somehow incomplete ; 

csk is without a match

its heart still beating 

in the million hearts of its faithful fans

The day has come 

you are finally out of college 

All those million dreams 

you got in bed early for , 

have suddenly become real.

Point is , the day has arrive 

But , Have you?

Be careful what you wish for , 

they so often say.

When you shut your eyes

a bit too tightly 

you tend to get removed 

                                                                          far away from reality 

You open your eyes 

sudden glare of reality 

overpowering your dreamy eyes

into tears of submission.

Wearing the cooler of attitude 

through the seemingly 

eternal summer of reality

can shade your perceptions forever 

in almost irreparable ways.

Only time will tell, 

if you can outlast your

current state of affairs 

But Don't 

be too happy if you do.

cz the winter hasn't arrived yet 

but maybe this time 

you can arrive first. 

Let's talk Books

It has been a terribly long time since I've written something,apart from my usual diary entries or exam answers. Both are generally very rambling in nature , so excuse me if I sound so in this post.

For no particular reason , I'm going to share intel on the books I've read this year with you all. But before that:-

Reading books is an activity which is fast becoming a dying one amongst kids these days. So much so that my mom bugs all the children who visit our home by asking them what book they are reading currently. The lack of immediate answer on their part scared me enough to write this,

I am 19 years old , consider myself a 'grown up' now ( although many might disagree) and books were a huge part of my childhood and the reason why I have such a vivid imagination. An active imagination is the only chance for independent thinking. I don't think watching umpteen repeats of chota bheem is going to develop one's thinking capacity. In fact , kids reading more books might help them create better serials in the future than the substandard ones on offer these days.

I hope the point is made.

Now in no particular order , I am going to briefly share the interesting books I happened to read this year. All the books I have read this year can be found here :- link 

1. Mightier than the sword by Jeffrey Archer 

My review at the time of reading the book in goodreads :

 Best Archer book ever! Atleast his best in a long long time. Can't go into any plot points without revealing too much. What I've noticed in this book is that all characters have been well established over a period of 4 books and the 5th one is the best time to introduce new villains , wacky situations and problems for our characters to overcome. Really loved how Seb has developed , harry's moral compass is stronger than ever , Emma is as bold as ever , Cedric Hardcastle :') and all the villains are despicable enough.

The book is set in a period not usually found in Archer books and I really enjoyed the political and cultural circumstances of the 60's and 1970.

What sets this book apart from the rest in the series is that Archer is ready to embrace failure , go past the cliches and happy ending. Hence , it is scarier waters for the reader to swim in before reaching what seems like safety.

REALLY LOVED IT!!

Added bonus of meeting the man himself in the book signing of this book for the second time in 3 years! Man am I lucky :D 

Now : - 

Well , it is not his best book. I say that after I read every book of his. Still one of his best! It is book number 5 in the clifton chronicles and pick of right where it left. Highly recommend a new reader to read the previous four as this is a saga of character development which is better understood right from the start. No one writes drama like Jeffrey Archer and he proves it here again. What sets this book apart is thathe has a moved beyond his clichés and thrown a punch here and there. So even a seasoned reader will be on their those when they read this one. 

My rating - 5/5 

2. Agatha christie - Hercule poirot 

I managed to read 2 books with hercule poirot as the lead - what can I say? The little , egg shaped gentleman has captured my heart.These books were  like math puzzles - but fun ones :P and somehow you can never predict the ending and have to keep turning the pages. 

a) Murder in Mesopotamia - Christie uses her experience in middle east ( her husband was a archaeologist) to dish out a murder mystery based in Mesopotamia. A house full of suspects , an archaeologist set up , a time frame , map of a house. Very systematically thrilling. Only poirot can find out!

b)  Murder on the orient express -  I finally read this insanely famous book. A running train , chilling murder , Poirot is in the next compartment when it happen , the murdered guy's room is locked from inside , no one seems to have the motive but everyone seems to have the opportunity. Things are way more than what meets the eye here. Ending was superb but also a cop out of sorts. 

I feel that in most of her books ,the build up is so good that no conclusion seems good enough

3.  Divergent by Veronica Roth

Writing about this reminded me that I have to read rest of the series. A famous fantasy book that teens read - certainly not my type :P I generally crinkle my nose and this book taught me that these books are pretty fun to read.  After harry potter and 39 clues , this is the 3rd actual fantasy I am actually reading.

Book description on goodreads : Society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue, in the attempt to form a 'perfect society'. On her Choosing Day, Beatrice Prior renames herself Tris, rejects her family's Abnegation group, and chooses another faction.

On paper,this book seems like a simple mash up of hunger games , harry potter , 1984 and 39 clues. However , it managed to create its own identity somewhat by the end of it all and the characters and the situations they are in are pretty interesting. The pace at which it all goes is pretty quick and that certainly helped matters

verdict - A very readable fun book. Very excited to read the future books in the series.

4.Two lives by Vikram seth 

After the monumental yet fascinating Suitable boy  , I am a huge admirer of Vikram Seth. He is not a writer but an artist who paints words beautifully and poignantly. Two lives is an unique non fiction done by him on his late aunt and uncle with whom  he had a good relationship. Both his aunt and uncle were impacted by the holocaust and this book covers that and many other little things a work of fiction can never quite cover. The mediums he uses for this book elevates it to the next level - first we get vikram's point of view , then that of his uncle through interviews with him and through the rich letters his aunt used to communicate with her relations from germany who were later wiped out in the holocaust and pictures too. 

The quirks of a long marriage , love of the realistic kind , loss of a spouse , sickness , idle old age , family histories , the tensions that arise in a family when money comes into play , dementia , dentistry , Europe the book deals with a lot of topics with élan. Take this one if you're in a mood to read a different but intriguing biography  about two ordinary yet extraordinary individuals. 

5. Cut like wound by Anita Nair 

Here comes a type of book I have been wanting to read since I was born!( pardon the exaggeration) . A procedural crime thriller covering the Indian diaspora by an Indian author is what I have been looking for forever. There are mystical giants like Salman Rushdie , and so called entertaining authors like Chetan Bhagat who write books to be made into movie scripts , so it invariably involves romance :( but a serious shortage of crime thrillers!Except Falooda by Satyajit Ray maybe.

The book is set in Bengaluru,the hub of modernity and cosmopolitan culture in India. We have Inspector Gowda the brow beaten unsuccessful police inspector whose personal life is also going nowhere. How does he deal with a set of murders,which his famous instincts tell him are connected. This book touches upon the status of transgenders in our society in a non preachy way. There is an adulterous love story , interesting side characters and modus operandi and police procedure to keep us interested. I would really love it if more people encouraged books like this and also if this book becomes a full fledged series! 

So what books have you come across recently? They don't have to be deep , pretentious looking ones actually. Every book is has its own personality and traits which will rub off on us. I don't believe there is any such thing as a bad book. We always learn a lot indirectly when we read. 

So please leave a comment , recommending a book. Who might know? We might just find our next favourite book there :) 

Semi

The guilty hypocrite

When I renamed my blog , I promised myself that I would write only about topics which absolutely gripped me and mattered to me. Filling space is easy. But filling space is why I write exams. I want my words to matter here. It is not my intention to not write in this pretty blog but college life , examinations , holidays - basically life makes it tough to stay true to your other commitments.
And with that assurance of my bona fide intentions,  I begin with this post.

What do you do
When you wake up one day
And find out that
your entire life was a lie?
Not in a Paranoid Schizophrenia way
Oh no sir!
Something which is more subtle yet
equally life altering.

Every positive thought
Every negative one,
Which you may or may have not
admitted to yourself ,
About yourself -
Turns out to be
TRUE!

What do you do
When you wake up one day
And find out that
You are your worst nightmare?

You are everything
You asked others not to be .
In short . you never practised
but  screeched what you preached!

Do you let your new found hypocrisy
eat you up alive?
or
throw up all over the place?

Do you change your morals or your actions?
Or do you wait for this overwhelming wave
of hypocritical disgust which has hit you
to recede back with time
so that you continue to be yourself?

Hope that time will make you
forget this discomfiting discovery ,
so that you can 'move on'
with your self concept intact.

Answer me pliss ya .


- Semi