The faces I grow

Dear Medha Tai,

You know I am a single woman. Like all other cows around me I nurture dreams of happily ever after hand in hand with my soulmate.
There is no river or land that has been snatched away from me. I have lived a happy privileged life I guess!
Its so funny that Sunday times story about you has stayed with me all these years. I was a little girl even then. All my dreams were about getting a chocolate boy to dance with me around the trees. And Failing and Passing in that desire isnt it strange that I come back to your face.
I have never thought of you as a pretty woman!There are all those pretty faces on Television which draw more Ooohhs and Ahhhhs. These faces are closer to what I am told to become like!(by people who lead happier lives!!) Their faces are not wrinkled in battles, Their fair skin hasn't been tanned in any fight!They are naturally beautiful I am told! I am working hard these days to reach that natural state.
I remember the comfort of sitting beside you once on a Dharna(I must have come there just for kicks!) And there in the sizzling heat of burning sun in Azad Park in Mumbai I saw The huge woman you were!How would you fit in any mans arm Tai? There was this whole community that leaned on your shoulders for strength. Your sari is always a little faded Tai.
I gulp my saliva in the tempering hot afternoons when I am thrown on to the hard real life and there is an uneasiness in me. I think I am graying and wrinkling and tanning to resemble you more as I grow up. The illusion that I could still be beautiful if that face wash worked is fading. The chocolate boys are all walking away.. The harsh boiling sun smiles at me more often these days. I sweat and smell of sweat in this grinding reality. I think I love the days I  look like you large and ordinary! I will never be naturally beautiful now.

My favorite hell

"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."

Hungry desolate ghosts walked on it night and day...they had little memories of the the period of abundance. They just remebered their hungers and kept weeping and crying for want of things. Their hungers and broken dreams were the only real things in their lives. No one could have blamed them for their small crying selves.

Then their were the tall giants who walked on that road.

Ben Okri- The Famished Road

Salt~

If it doesnt taste sweet
If it doesnt change color
If it hasnt burnt to become something else
If it doesnt loose taste after all the warm concoctions and freezing indiffrences breathed into it
If it doesnt harm the insides after swallowing
If it tastes bitter compared to other things at your table
If it still sticks to your 'full hands'
If you cant take it back once you've given it
If nobody can buy it nothing can undo it
Its salt!
The little salt that turned into an earring from your hand into mine...

Sand in my bra

Sipping chai at lonely stations
Sleeping with lights on in sickly cold railway compartments
Passing by the lights of the cities which have been home once
Wearing salt earrings to not forget what I have taken from the world
Fulfilling the promises made to random gods
Smiling at strangers kinder than you
Squinting and looking hard
Passing thunder and lightening on the way
Remembering the life I had prayed for
Living the life I have been given
The sand in my bra singing as I run...

Of being

When you are an elephant, born an elephant,There is nothing that you can do about it!(except be an elephant!)
You can only fall in love with elephants
You cant run away from your elephant hunger.
You cant squeeze yourself to resemble a porcupine( although it has much better defence mechanisms!)
You cant lie to yourself like smaller animals.
You cant run away fast from danger and threat.
You cant help your memory(even if you remember useless details which have long ceased to be a reality or the truth)
Your truth is the elephants truth. It weights you down and you carry it gracefully.
Someday you will scramble the whole bloody world if doesnt stand up to your elephant reality( and youre more than capable of it, let no one live in any illusions!)
You are hungary on life..and you shall have your elephants share!

I fear for the truth!

When my truth becomes so overpowering that it starts piercing into my veins
when I get up at night with clenched fists...holding the promise of my truth in my hand..it draws blood in my nails....its difficult to go back to sleep at nights these days...
Is it truth or is it madness that is growing within me?
I am helplessly blind as i stare into it to find out...
I have no way of finding out
There are growing shouts of slogans inside me...they shout louder everyday...does anybody else hear it too? Am I the only one who is supposed to be awakened by it...
This rowdy truth..this unflincing state of things within me...
What about the the larger world?
What if its just a pink bubble of stupidity....just a lot of my own shit smoking profound suddenly...and I a poor servant at...must carry it out...because it has fallen on my head..because its grown in my stomach..nurtured on my hopes and desires.
Its looks so precious...
What if it isnt the larger truth?
And I will forever fight everything that tries to break this dream...
The largest truth, the gods truth, the human truth...every logic, every rule, every single thorn on its way...
Its the truth of my dream.
Every thorn in its way pierces me like a dagger...every silly thorn becomes like a tank pointing at me...ready to shred me to pieces...because I have a truth growing in my belly.
and I fear for every truth of this world.

Empty bed blues....

Somedays I get up and feel this lump of great sadness in my throat.
Those days its a shame to look inside. There is a wet lump of lonliness dangling around somewhere..dont know if the world sees it..I feel it hanging down my shoulders.
And then doubts creep in like sand snakes on the shore
Has my love so far has been a total waste of everybodies time?
I havnt built anything that would last me and I havnt found anything that was really mine...All I wanted to do was temporary...my art, my work..all about fads that passed away gradually
I pray for grace...and I feel a kick in my gut...its not happening..
The prayers flare up inside...I cant be patient when I see nothing to hold onto in my hand.
Somedays its difficult to ignore these loud roaring questions.
Someday I must confront this emptiness and shout and swear at the world..
How long will I run and leave it all behind?
Where have you disappeared?
Why am I alone in all of this?
Why was I here all these years? For whom?
What have I been doing?
Has it all been waisted time?

There has been a change of plan

is there ever a plan?!