Experiments...

A bubbling cauldron
a tightened screw
a pinch of imagination
in the dreamer's stew
a wonder in the making
or a living nightmare
its a mystery to be solved
with patience and care

Experiments...
So many things run through my head as think of this word:

A witch stirring a cauldron with a twisted handle
Dr. Jackyll working in his laboratory at his hideous creation.. Mr. Hyde
A faded picture of Einstein with his tongue out on a wrung out old white T-shirt
A cover-less copy of Sheldon's "Stranger In The Mirror" quickly stowed under the bed by shivering young hands
That hiccuping first swirl of Grey smoke from a best friend's cigarette
A rainbow coloured parachute lifting off a white beach with its cargo of closed eyes mumbled prayers and a pair of flying pigtails
A crumpled piece of torn paper from the back of a notebook with hurried scribbles of a first time poetess
Chemistry lab, with a whiff of that strangely alluring smell of hydrochloric acid
The bustle outside a Boards exam centre
The black dolphin on someone's soft brown skin
An unnoticed drop of orange on a plain white canvas sheet
The first trace of perfume on a smooth round neck
The tremble of uncertain feet on a brand new accelerator
The intoxicating smell of a blank checkbook's first check
The tingling memory of a first kiss
Sweaty palms before an interview panel
The guilty pangs over a faithful lie
The noisy intake of every soundless breath
The muted fizz of every spoken word



Experiments.. In the laboratory of life, every moment is an experiment, the results of some are instantaneous and others just continue long after we are gone..
Everything we are, everything we will be, every single thing we do... genius or fool.. criminal or saint, each is an experiment with the ingredients slightly varied, may be an extra turn to that bubbling broth or a an extra big pinch of that reddish brown powder..

PS:This is a result of the prompt on the sunday scribbles, something I came across while reading Veena's blog earlier today

A painter's gloves..

Pre-Script: Long short story ahead... so beware!!! :D

He shaded his eyes from the glaring sun with one hand, and used the other to dip his brush into the blinding white paint. He was suspended on the outside ledge of the highest story of The Royale, which at 40 stories would stand as the tallest building in Shellsville on its completion.
He looked down to three stories below, where a blue scarf with silver birds flew in the wind, and a dash of red gloves worked against the pristine white they created wherever they touched the wall.
As if sensing his warm fond gaze, she looked up to raise her hellcat black eyes to his soft Grey ones, their gazes met and relived the secret laughter they had shared from the first time they had met, 18 years ago, as toddlers on a construction site just like this.
He left the brush on the platform and cupped his hands around his mouth forming the words "meet me at the gate after the night shift, there is something I want to show you."
That night, after everyone had left, they slowly made their way back over the fence, and up to the top, on the rickety service ellivator, as it creaked and heaved up the inky sky, against the white mammoth they had been painting.
As they neared the fortieth floor, he slowly slipped her scarf off her hair and tied it on her eyes, gently. She didn't utter a word.. If there was one person she could trust dying, it was him. He put his hand on her waist next to where her beloved red and white painter's gloves hung, and slowly took her forward to the very edge of the grill less roof. He softly slipped the scarf off and let her look at her surprise. Her breath caught in her mouth. There, spread before her, was the whole city.. down on its knees in a courtesy to its queen. Yes, there she was the mistress of the world, at her feet... their feet. She turned to him then, and he saw the light in her eyes, thinking how like the night sky they looked.. the fathomless darkness with the twinkling stars.. her eyes..
that was the first time they kissed.
And later, as they lay there, wrapped in each other's arms, spent and glorious, tucked in the warm blue blanket of the midnight sky decorated with a million diamonds strewn in a careless pattern.. their eyes sharing their languid secret laugh, they knew what they had was more precious than the world spread out below them. "I am leaving tomorrow", she said into his chest "hmmm.." he murmured burying his nose to smell the secrets of her black hair. "I mean I am really leaving to make my fortune. I don't want to just make buildings any longer, I want to own them.." she went on.. "but"... "no, please, I know there are a lot of questions you want to ask.. answers I don't have, or may be just can't give.. just let me go.. please don't stop me.. let me follow my dreams" "Go.." he said as he moved down to plant a kiss on that high forehead. She reached up a little to where her overalls lay discarded and from its waist plucked out one half of her favourite pair of gloves.. "there keep these for me will ya? then i'll have to come back for it, if nothing else", and their eyes met.. his, a soft forgiving Grey, hers, a determined dreamy black and they laughed out aloud..

She laughed out again as she stood on the 40th floor of "The Royale", thinking of that night she had spent there 30 years ago. Today she owned this building, and thousands like it in a hundred different cities and in over 50 different countries. She was The Queen. It had taken a successful career, a broken marriage, a sense of dissatisfaction, 30 years of running away from God knows what and a hasty visit to New York the week before, to get her back here.
She thought of the day before. She had dressed in a black suit and with the old blue scarf with the silver birds, tied around her neck. She had built up the courage to go to his old house and knocked, standing there, waiting for the door to open, she had thought of what she might say...
A lady about her age and with soft Grey hair had opened the door. "err.. I just wanted to know if Mr. Todd Goodingson still lived here? " she had asked. The woman had looked her up and down, then turned to go back in, saying, "Wait right here now would ya, don't go away.. i'll be right back eh.." She had stood there at the door for 5 minutes.. wondering, anticipating, fearing.. The Grey haired woman had returned with something clutched to her heart, which she held out to her as she reached the door.. It was a frayed old red and white painting glove.. "He always said, you would come back.. ya loved that glove too much not to.. he used to say.." and they had both smiled..
She felt the breeze play with her scarf, unfurling it in little circles. Her soft hair got whipped about her face bringing her back to the present.
As she clutched the glove pair in her trembling hands, she could almost feel his nose burrowing into her hair taking in her scent, could hear his laughter calling out to hers, bubbling in return.. She swung her legs around the protective grill to reach to the other side and in that last moment as she let the railing go.. as she heard the whoosh of the wind, she outran.. as she saw the Grey of the ground rushing up to hug her.. Grey like that of his soft enveloping eyes..
she felt no fear.. she felt no ties.. she felt no pain..
she was free at last..
free of regrets and games.. free of guilt and nightmares.. free of dreams and unfulfilled desires.. free of the weight of freedom itself.. and free at last of pain and the cancer her doctors at New York had told her, had eaten her body through..
And as she met her kingdom in that royal clash.. the gloves hanging high up on the parapet, gave a tiny flutter, as if paying one last salute to the great queen and her hearty king.

PS: hey everybody.. this above was my first ever attempt at a short story.. Its very amateurish.. but I hope you like it

Life...

The Diver...

I looked across the rippling green sea, with something of a mixture of awe and dread.
After all, it was my first experience of deep sea diving, I didn't know what to expect below the slithering surface. My little boat rocked from side to side with each wave that broke against it. I stood under the hot sun watching it play with the sea, tripping its light on it and making it look like a beautiful green floor, on which buckets, of shining green emeralds and the whitest pearls, spilled and filled repeatedly. I was mesmerized to the degree that i did not hear my instructor screaming at me to get ready to jump.
As I put the oxygen mask over my face and got into my black and maroon diver's suit, I had this sudden feeling of being trapped. I had to fight a strong urge to peel that second skin off me and to remove that mask and throw it far across the waiting ocean.
I lowered my legs slowly into the ocean, it came lapping up for me, as if waiting hungrily for its latest morsel of food. It was an unnerving thought and didn't help the baby dinosaurs galloping in my stomach. I almost panicked as my head started to go below the surface, and even though i was tied safely to the boat by a long strong rope, it was scary.
But the moment i was below the water, it was like, a kind of peace stole over me. All voices from the world above ceased to exist. The base of the boat was a fuzzy shadow overhead. It was like being in a womb again, with my rope being the umbilical cord, and the ocean, the nourishing protecting liquid all around me. And as I slowly moved forward, lower and lower into that labyrinth, as the sun grew dimmer and dimmer, till it was no different from a pale moon out in some starless night, my fear grew lesser , and my safety completer. I felt free, free to explore, to see with my goggled eyes, a world that seemed more my own than the one I had left behind, to touch with my gloved hands, the sights more exotic than i had ever imagined. Suddenly I felt a slight ticklish feeling near my right leg. I quickly turned around, as the illusion broke and fear returned with full force. But it was only a school of beautiful tiny orange fish, that had brushed my leg. The safety had returned, but the fear remained, to mock me. I could feel the pressure of the sea mounting above me, I could hear the distant muffled roar of waves.
As it grew darker still, I switched on the light attached on my head, and it opened to me the mysteries that lay there quietly, or moved about swiftly. I saw long green grass like plants with huge slithery leaves to my left. To my right was a school of purple and silver fish, trying to get away from me and my intruding light, as quickly as possible. Below me I could see many an outcropping of rock, shaped into little caves. Strange bubbles were coming out of tiny openings in the rocks, accompanied by low rumblings, giving them the appearance of a huge monster sleeping and snoring away to glory.
A little to my front, I saw tiny sea horses, and a number of different creatures, of every shape, size and colour, I had ever imagined.

A little further on I could see the floor falling off steeply, like an undersea water-fall.
It was like a separate world here, with its own mountains, volcanoes, springs, rivers, ditches and what not.. only the atmosphere was water instead of air. And it was beautiful. The dim lighting gave it a soft romantic look and the semi-darkness blurred the shapes all around giving rise to new species in my mind. The moving water shaped and unshaped everything in its wake and gave the illusion of a universe in the making.

I was lost in the beauty of the moment, breathing in the solitude, tasting the bittersweet taste of freedom, testing myself under pressure, all the while, with a million different thoughts running through my head, like the billions of colourful fish, that zigzagged all around me like lightening, with a splash of colour.
Just when I thought i could live the rest of my life suspended in that living saline world of shadows, I felt a sharp pull on the rope, tied around my waste. That was it, time to rise from the womb and face the world outside. I felt dread at the very thought of it. How would i ever be able to face the chaos of the world above after having seen the dynamic order of this underworld? How could i survive the noise of a million voices when I had experienced the seductive silence hidden below a million roaring waves?

No! just let me be, let me lie in my comfort, in this soft rocking cradle, which was making me dizzy, putting me to sleep. I wanted to cut away the cord that held me to them and sink to the very depths of this kingdom of dreams. There was a sharper pull. I realized I had stopped moving up. They were pulling me out, they were forcing me to quit my sanctuary. I wanted to scream and struggle, but something deep and primitive within me stopped me from doing that. I knew I had to go out and fight it. It was in those moments, just before I hit the surface and rose out onto the boat, that I realized what a baby about to be born feels.. what fear, what reluctance, what sadness, and yet that something in us, more powerful than all these things, is there to make sure we come out into a world waiting for us to tumble head-first into it.
I collapsed onto the deck of the boat with exhaustion. It was not until I had come out, had I realized how much the sea had tired me, how it had sapped me, how it had robbed me of my sense of direction, of light, of my very senses
I recovered my strength and my senses, a couple of hours and a hearty meal later, but what I gained in those moments in that dreamy exotic land shall stay in my mind and heart for ever, the taste never to be lost, the touch never to be confused, the sights never to be forgotten and the silence never to be unheard.

PS: I have been to sea n number of times, but I have never gone diving, so this is a purely imaginative post, hence, forgive any discrepancies as to the actual experience. To be honest, a month back I watched a movie called "Bridge to Terabithia", in which this girl writes an essay about going scuba diving and gets the first prize describing it, without ever having gone scuba diving. This got me thinking and I wrote this, though my description and take on it is entirely different from her's.

PPS: I am going home for over a week for a vacation. So, won't be able to write any new posts over the next few days.

In The Park

The green grass is parted in places to reveal the upturned moist brown soil, where it had been pulled out by unseeing hands.
The tree in the corner is swaying to its own rhythm, swinging its arms around, shaking its head from side to side like one of those stoned standing babas of Shantaram's Mumbai.
The isolation of the small triangular area within its cream, cracked, vine-covered walls, mounted with green grills, is almost complete.
The sound of drills and the shouts of workers pierces the wind which carries it, and yet, in its own way, the silence here feels undisturbed. Moments ago it had seemed almost oppressive, but now it has grown to being a silent companion.
The sun is like a big lamp wrapped in white fleece, so that its light is coming out in a warm glow rather than a piercing stare. Its rays feel like a friend wrapping himself around you in a comforting hug, drawing out your heart's sorrow with each passing minute and destroying it with the warmth of the embrace.
The wind is not freezing, in fact it is a little too warm for a cold winter day, playing with hair, twirling a stray black strand around its playful finger, chasing a few more out of the already loose braid.
The bags strewn in little heaps on the ground are an indicator of intruders that have been and soon would be again.
The empty bottle of Pepsi lying like an alien on the grass is a quiet reminder of the game of truth-truth played there a few minutes ago...aaah truth.. a phenomenon often a lot trickier than its infamous counterpart.. a lie.
The bottle was a witness to the games people had played, games far deeper than the apparent children's play they had been making. It had felt the emotions that had been like the acrid smell of burning plastic in the serenity of that park, had tasted the sour taste of concealed hostility and silent attacks.. had smelled the bittersweet stink of politics...

There are voices calling out.. the intruders are back.."bache.. chal uth wahin khate hain paranthe yahan uthake lane padenge"... "kiddo, we'll have the paranthas there itself, else we'll have to carry them to this place"
time to pick the backpack.. say a hasty goodbye to my silent companion, as the sounds from without strangle it again.. put the mask back in place.. flash that false smile.. and loose honesty amidst the everyday pretense of life..

The white plastic purse

I lay today, buried in my quilt with angry tears running down my flushed cheeks... raging like i had countless times before at my non-understanding parents
thinking how they have never understood me
how they have always wanted me to live their life rather my own..
forever saddling me in chains..
taking away my right to a life...
the right to take my own decisions and make my own mistakes..
crying out my frustration hating them for never knowing what i really want and what are the things that are important to me..

and through these tears, rose before my eyes, i don't know from where.. a long forgotten image..

a little white plastic purse.. with a layer of deep blue gelly water swimming from side to side in its outer jacket.. i could have sworn the tiny yellow and red fish bobbing in and out of the stardust tinged waves were as real as you and me.. and seems like a couple of stars had taken a mighty fall and landed in the shimmering mini sea to give the little fish company..

and just like that, i was back in class 1 waiting with bated breath for my first ever school trip.. a one day excursion to a nearby picnic spot "The Bombay Picnic Spot". No no it wasn't anywhere near Mumbai, the city of dreams.. but for a 5 year old, who lived in a small town, which took 15 minutes to go from one end to the other, it was dreamland all right.
I had been going there for years, ever since i was a baby and it undoubtedly was my favourite place in all the world.
But that was not what had kept me awake the whole of the night before.
It was the fact that i was going there on my own without my parents to look after me. of course, the teachers would be there, but still.. How proud i was, just thinking about going up to the ice-cream man, in the bright orange and white uniform, all on my own and getting myself a softy. How many times had i rehearsed it in my head as i lay there in the dark...
watching as the smiling softy wala bhai took an orange cone from the tall cone building by his side.. as he pushed the liver on the big steel machine.. i could feel the vibrations from the giant and watch as the soft snow white cream swirled out of its tiny mouth in that single fluid motion and settled into the cone, forming a perfect inverted spiral...
aaaah and yes, for the first time, i would be handling my own money, a full 100 rupees.. at that time it had seemed like a king's ransom.
I had been rehearsing my favourite songs for a week now 'coz ma'am said there would be singing in the bus.. aah i couldn't wait to get on that wondrous white bus

but what was that? that feeling in the pit of the stomach?
was it fear?
what if i made a fool of myself in front of the whole class?
oh! i could almost hear them all laughing at me now.. could see the look of disappointment on Seema ma'am's face.
how would i ever go back to school with that?
i was petrified.
i didn't want to go on that stupid trip
the next morning brought fresh terrors
what should i say to mummy so she won't make me go?
mummy... she had been bustling up and down since early morning, as excited as i had been.. packing my bag.. making sure i had everything.. dividing my money into small parts and putting them all in different places.. telling me what to do and what not
but i wasn't really listening.. i was imagining the disaster that lay before me.
she suddenly stopped talking.. had i said something aloud?
no i was sure i hadn't..
but she just stood there looking at me, and then took me silently in her arms and told me not to worry, that everything would be fine that no one would laugh at me and it would be the best trip i had ever had.. that no matter what she loved me and would always do
and standing there in her arms then, silently feeling the safety pin poking into my chest as the hanky it held in place was crushed between us, i knew it would be just be like that..

and it was..

the bus ride was great.. everyone loved my songs...
The softy had never tasted this good when my dad had gotten it for me.. the rides had never been this thrilling on the countless times i had ridden them alone...

I saw it while going towards the popcorn stand to get those sweet honey flavoured popcorn i had loved..
It lay among all the rest of the toys.. yet, there was something that separated it from all the rest of them..
Its milky whiteness and that deepest of blues attracted me, making me forget my special popcorn..
I picked it up and tilted it this way and that.. and there in my hands, the sea was alive.. the waves formed and broke in their little closed up world.. the fish swam forward and then disappeared again into the blue depths.. as if shy of the hand rocking their world.. and the stars.. aah the stars twinkled and shone like diamonds on a liquid piece of velvet..
It was undoubtedly the most beautiful thing i had ever seen and i knew i had to have it.
"Uncle iska kitna hoga?" I asked the gray haired attendant for the price of my jewel.. "tees rupaiya..30 rupee" he replied.. that's all i had left, which meant the pop corn would have to go and so would the candy floss.. but i didn't care as my tiny hands fished in the little pink purse for the 3 ten rupee notes and placed them in the rough hands of the man, and off i went with my little plum.
I hid it deep inside my bag which i held on to all through the ride back home...

That night as my mom got ready for bed, i covered her eyes with my little pink hands and then placed it in her lap
as she looked at it, i saw her smile change to wonder and then... then she was crying.. and i was so scared.. scared that she hadn't like it.. that she was angry i had wasted all my money on it

and then she was hugging me and telling me that i was the best daughter in the whole world and i told her i loved her and she said she knew
she looked at the purse again and said that it was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given her and that she would always keep it with her..

she has kept her promise..
she still has it at somewhere in the back of her Almira with all the other things i have given her over the ages..

I hope things could always be as simple.. i wish i could still be that little girl who thought of her parents.. who was not afraid of showing her love.. i wish mom would still hug me one of these days and tell me that it would all be ok and that she loved me no matter what..
and i would stand there again in her arms believing every word she said..
i wish i could just hug her and tell her how much i love her and that she would believe me too..