a summer's dream

It is a long drive from the city to the resort, nestled idyllically in the distant outskirts, and I occupy myself with songs on my music player - Chapman to Clapton to The Chiffons. And I eventually doze off, the summer sun beating down on the right side of my face from the untinted window by the side. I don’t know what I’m dreaming about, but it involves a lonely golden desert, a large bird and a candle. There is a certain strangeness about the dream, like exploring the unknown. I open my blinkers and spend the rest of the journey counting the mirages that tease and then disappear with shiny consistency.


By the time the gates of the resort greet us, I’m in a daze. The ride from the reception to the seaside, in the cute little white buggy, wakes me in totality, as it skids and skims through the winding, cobbled pathway. The Vietnamese man next to me announces himself as Ta Phoon Phan, or something like that, and says that the heat is too much, too much. I say, ‘Welcome to Chennai’. Inner voice says, ‘So?’ He gets off the buggy to go to Room No 63 (again, whatever) and I have two minutes of serenity before I reach the seaside restaurant. The thatched roof, sea-breeze engulfed eatery makes me feel glad for the merciless summer. For, as I sit by the side that opens out into the sea, I feel transported to a different time and place. The sea looks beguiling in blue, and the sun beats down merrily on it, creating a fine orchestra of crashing waves and golden silence. I watch as a tall, lumpy white woman comes out of the sea in a yellow bikini, walking and tossing her hair about as though she were Ursula Andress. Amused, I look away and see an old browned Brit talking with a random fisherwoman, who looks like a mean, under-nourished eel. They share a strange rapport- she gestures to him, in an imperious manner too, to buy her a bottle of water and he rushes in and gets her a bottle of Qua (that over-priced brand reserved for the rich and firang). I ponder over the queer nature of their relationship and wonder what they’re up to. But before I can put 6 and 9 together, the sound of a bell makes me turn to my left, from where emerges an ebullient waiter who comes bearing a bell and announcing the dishes and drinks for the day. I choose a tender coconut-based drink and sip on it, biting on the straw in that infuriating way that irritates all my friends, while the sea breeze uses my curls to whip my face in criss-crossing patterns. By now my main course has made its way to my table- tantalizing cuts, fresh veggies tossed in olive oil and spices, and I sit back after several greedy mouthfuls. The tender coconut water caresses my throat and slows down the number of thoughts running in my head from seventeen to three. In the distance, the blue of the water gets purple and the sky gets cottoned with clouds. I feel very glad for the summer again, while I devour a stick of orange ice. I feel like the summer was created just so I can enjoy orange ice, the sensation of sweat beads forming on my nose and feel the humid heat blow-drying my hair a chembata brown. At the other tables, an albino-esque Indian girl (this is what happens when you shun the sun) and her husband (judging by the numerous bangles that encircle the girl’s white arms, they are newly-married) are playing footise and there’s a couple where the lady is laughing so loud, you would imagine the poor fellow sitting opposite her is hard of hearing. But he is quite enjoying the hyper ultrasoncitiy, as it evident from his dopey smile. That must be it; maybe he is stoned. I walk away to the deserted deck which smells of sun-dried wood and seaweed. The sun whispers heated secrets to me skin, even as a pair of uncertain arms wrap around my waist. I am startled at first and want to kick hard, but I don’t. Crows screech above, or maybe they’re eagles, because crows don’t screech. I have this mad urge to screech. And I do. Screech. A light giggle erupts above my head. I giggle too. Had someone started singing like Aretha Franklin, I would’ve too. But no one sings like Aretha Franklin anymore. Aretha Franklin sang like summer dusk and almost as an ode, dusk arrives. The sun is bidding a tangerine farewell. So long, farewell. I take one hand from my shoulder and hold it in my hand, preparing to leave the deck. I turn around. But a table stops me. Not a fancy table. Just a battered oakwood table with a broad chair on its two sides. This table is surely for me. Only I could’ve imagined such a setting to be dreamy. I imagine Heidi and her grandfather ate at exactly this kind of a table high up on the Alps. A table laden with thick, hand-stirred cheese, warm fluffy bread and a steel mug of goat’s milk. Milk so sweet, it is no wonder the dear goats were made to graze on the choicest of herbs and flora high up on the mountains. But that’s their table and I won’t intrude. My table bears a candle at the centre. Not the long-stemmed, perfumed kind. But the kind you hunt for when the lights go out at home. Around it are two wine glasses. One with white, the other with red. No compromise in taste. I like that. He doesn’t pull the chair out for me, he notices I have hands. But he waits for me to sit before doing so himself. We start eating, a wholesome meal. I sniff the air. I smell summer, salt, warm candle wax. I smell a surprise too. It comes. Without drama. A ring. A thin gold band. No stones, no pearls. Just a band. The eyes ask and I put my hands forward towards him. Of course, I do. The band fits snugly on my finger. We continue eating.

Something has changed; it makes my insides feel warm and fuzzy. Maybe it is because in this moment, only the moon, a smattering of stars (that have managed to peek out through the grimy skies) and the sea know our secret. Perhaps that eagle too. Eagles are known to be prophesiers of grand fortunes. A wild breeze rushes towards us, spearing grains of sand into my eyes. I shut my eyes and blame the little teardrop, on the grains lodged in my still-shut eyelids.

elemental

Silent grains of pollen fall upon the face

Veiling the ache in jaundiced beauty

Swirls, streaks, sinews

Yet the doe eyes tell the tale

Through the seed-spotted lashes,

The red rims, the swell of a crystal tear



Flashes of sunny brilliance tint the soft tendrils of the hair

Blinding all to the raven darkness within

Gloss, gossamer, gushes

Yet the stray strand lays bare the story

Through soundless floating melancholy

The loneliness, the pain of abandonment



Rivulets of fluid fervour reflect against the lithe limbs

Distracting one from the taut tension

Affective, aesthetic, allegoric

Yet the terse tendon pulses passionately

Through throbs of pilfered potency

The hurt, the twinge of forced surrender



Cowlicks of feeding fire caress the soul

Burning mercilessly the water of life

Coy, come-hither, cooing

Yet the undiscovered drop dances

Through pirouettes of pleasure

The joy, the abandon of a second chance

Kilianthara

When my chachan, the patriarch Vincent Chacko, made the journey from Kottayam to Kilianthara in search of farming land, it was a move driven by necessity. It was around the time the Second World War had come to a threadbare finish and famine spread like the common flu. Directly affected by the acute shortage of grains in the Pala and Kottayam areas, my grandfather, along with Ammachi and several other members of his family, set out in search of cultivable, affordable land. Land he could also make his home.


And that’s how he came upon Kilianthara. Nestled cosily in the mountains, the virginal Kilianthara (located at the Karnataka border) was sufficiently affordable and cultivable; as a bonus, there was already a tar road (connecting Kerala to Mysore) that snaked through the village. Rife with wild animals, delirious with flower and foliage, gushing with little brooks and streams, and resounding with raw fertility, my grandfather saw in the intense expanse, potential. In what would be a defining moment for several generations to follow, chachan made up his mind that Kilianthara would be his home.

Several years later, to mark the 41st day after the death of my mother (who so dearly loved my father’s native home), the whole family congregated in the village (we usually come together during the Christmas and Easter seasons) in June. Lovely cousins were everywhere catching up on the latest news, nephews and nieces played around noisily; the aunties parked themselves in the thinnai outside the kitchen, cutting and slicing as conversation flowed freely, the men made themselves useful by doing particularly nothing, enjoying their day off from work. And there I sat by the slope of the driveway nibbling on a jackfruit pod ruminating on the rudiment of my existence. Kilianthara was undoubtedly where the seed of my existence lay. And yet, I knew not even what its name meant.

My good Joychen uncle solved that problem, giving me a quick recap of history. Back in the harrowing period after World War 2, Kilianthara was best known for the cashew and rubber estate that was owned by AV Thomas and Company. And at that time, the local tribals had a brave tribal chief- one Mr Kilian. And so, the floor (thara) where he ruled came to be known as Kilianthara. When my grandfather arrived, he had a task at hand. There were beasts to be domesticated, greenery to be cajoled into submission. And of course a house, for expanding family to live in, to be built. So, he built The House. The house that still stands, resonant with voices and memories from the past. But while it was Chachan who built the house, it was Ammachi who really made it a home. Running the family with lots of love, values and an iron fist (I am still not convinced my white-haired gentle granny was as strict a matriarch as made out to be by my aunts and uncles), she is to this day, though she is no longer a physical presence, remembered fondly throughout the village. The house too, like her, will soon cease to be a physical presence. This grand old dilapidated structure will soon be torn down to make way for sturdier livings quarters. It will be sorely missed. We cousins discuss that a lot these days. It makes us feel older and more mature, discussing the good ol’ days- when we’d alternate between playing hide and seek in the house and playing hide and seek in the woods behind the house. By the time Joychen uncle is done with the story, I’ve inadvertently gobbled up another five jackfruit pods (and I don’t even like jackfruit) and I mentally scold myself.

But then again, in Kilianthara, food is a way of life. Conversation surrounds it and is surrounded by it. My father gains a good two kilos on every visit to his village. Because, eating is primarily what everyone does when we have gathered for an occasion. There is puttu, kappa, kappa biriyani, meat, coconut-laced veggies, spicy mango pickles, crisp papadams, mounds of fat red rice, pulicheri… every bit, every drop polished off by greedy tummies and hearty appetites (yes, it is the mountain air). Most of us don’t eat at the table (some of the elders do), but there’s always someone eating, so you’re never alone. Sometimes, to wash down our ablutions, there is fresh toddy that is rationed out generously to everyone. Even the girls. Actually, for those of us interested, the uncles are most-willing to part with a share of alcohol when there’s a booze session happening (‘just make sure, you never drink anywhere outside’ we’re sternly told). And it is on one of these booze sessions in the evening when the grasshopper has just begun his song that my father tells us that when they (his siblings and him) were kids, chachan would always share any alcohol that he’d got equally with everyone at the table. He was a forward thinker, that man.

Chachan also cultivated in the family a certain joie de vivre that honestly not many other families can lay claim to. We love life. We also love bathing in the river, we love drinking toddy while at it, and splashing around like happy fish. We love water. Sometimes, during the monsoon nights, when all is quiet, one can hear a distant stream, or a little waterfall gushing down merrily down some obscure slope. But my all-time favourite water memory is of when the vanilla plantations (Joychen uncle apart from being a pioneer in organic farming in his region also dabbled in the vanilla venture briefly) still existed. It was a rainy afternoon, and I was aimlessly walking about, when suddenly I stumbled into paradise. Heavy, chilly mist enveloped me, the light aroma of vanilla wafted about langurously, bottle green shrubbery preened with moist grit and the only sound was that of a stray insect. For all practical purposes, this was the mist irrigation technique (wherein, lines of overheard tubes release mist) used to cultivate vanilla. When not in the water, we are in the woods. My generation of cousins, we spent our vacations in the green expanse behind the house, happily uncaring about the resident snakes and the like around. To me, the woods were like the Enchanted Forest. I had my favourite corner, where stood a tree whose trunk curved like a divan, and I could repose and introspect. I liked doing this alone. On one such occasion, I vaguely remember a gigantic white pig grazing away at a distance. I have other random memories too. Like watching a ladybird scuttle around in circles, even as someone in the house was getting a real telling to by Beana aunty. There’s another I tree I loved, this tree I joyously shared with the cousins. The great mulberry tree, which we’d climb bravely just to gather the prickly little fruits. At that point, my most favoured fruit in the world was mulberry. There were other options to choose from too, sapota, cherry, passion fruit, jambanga.

Waking up every morning, surrounded by the mighty Western Ghats, with virility surging forth from every patch, bursting with green goodness and fresh air, the family knows it has to be thankful. So we go to the church (the act of going to church is more of a religion than the actual religion itself, for most) to relay our thanks and best wishes to the Mighty One above. We usually walk to the church together. The ones from the US, the ones from Glasgow, the ones from Delhi, from Bangalore, from Chennai, from other parts of Kerala…we all walk the small distance. The walk, another religion. In my early childhood after church service, we’d unfailingly head to Babychan uncle’s little sweet shop for free treats. But talking of shops, beloved Kilinathara still doesn’t have its own pharmacy. In fact, it only very recently got a departmental store (courtesy my second cousin). For better shopping options, one can always head to Irrity (the nearest town), where you can get anything from tacky umbrellas to quality organic products. The price to pay for decent shopping is a half an hour drive and if the car is not free, a very bumpy bus ride.

Yet, when I look around, I am not too sure I would change a thing. I am being selfish, development is much desired by the locals, but I fear it will kill the splendor of my land. For once I don’t feel badly for my selfishness.

How I earned a brownie

There’s nothing more blissful than waking up late on a working day. Or so I thought, when I woke up at 9 am today, a working day. But by 9 pm, I had realized in entirety that there was in fact nothing more blissful than a brownie. Period. Err, no, actually scratch the period. You earn a brownie, you don’t just eat it. And today, I earned it. Bliss. Now, period.

I wake up at 8 am today, as usual, but instead of creaking out of bed, scratching my neck, I roll over to a more comfortable position with evil pleasure. It is the time when all my colleagues are busy getting ready for work. And her highness is still in bed, lolling about in a sea of faded pink linen. At 9 am, when I finally crawl out, I decide I need a change. So, I take a pair of scissors and chop off the front of my hair. I now have a fringe. Then, the ablutions happen, I scrub myself with a rough coconut naar till i turn crimson and feel sufficiently clean. I get dressed, say bye to daddy and Lola and hop out. I manage to scratch the side of my car by skillfully grating it against the gate two times and then get caught in a traffic jam for one hour. I hate West Mambalam. May it be banned and sent to jail in some obscure place like Uganda. Ok fine, Somalia. I finally manage to get myself to my assignment destination- a hotel where an aqua aerobics demo is already underway. I watch as well-toned bodies and fat, podgy bodies dance in the pool to loud blah music. I take notes. I leave. I get caught in a traffic jam for half an hour. And my ipod cable refuses to relay music to the speaker. May the cable suffer. I shall throw it away in the kuppathotti at the end of Venkatachalam Street – officially the dirtiest kuppathotti. Rot cable, rot along with stale kalyana saapad, rotten banana peels and E-coli infested, decomposing unrecognizable masses of nonsense. I reach office. People say I look like a poodle with my fringe- then I remember, I now have a fringe. I say ‘whatever’ as coolly as I can and sit down at my desk, when Srini the Kalyana Correspondent tells Purba via chat that there’s a poodle in the house. She comes running, looking for a poodle. I stare at her with puppy eyes, not wanting to disappoint her. She smiles, but she is still disappointed. Noosh apparently doesn’t hold a candle to Poodle. Can I be Noodle (Noosh the Poodle) by the way? Meanwhile, Lak, my bezztezzt offizz friend, watches as I apply Vaseline on my lips and says I look like a bimbette. B for Bimbette. She is B for B****. I watch her cringe maamily when I say the B word and with much satisfaction, get down to writing two articles. And I’m soon off to a food review with Purba. The restaurant is fancy and we do a fair bit of visual eating before getting down to the truffle, morel, porcini, creamed spinach and broccoli. And the panacotta. Slurrrrp. Lakshmi is already frenetically calling me, demanding that I come right away to the office to honour our Winner’s Bakery appointment. I reach at 7 pm. We go to some random community hall to get ‘a jean’ (Hey, you are wearing a nice jean ya), and are pissed off that the pimply boys with blonde ponytails are more interested in staring dumbly than showing us ‘the jean’. So we go to Bestsellers where Lak finally gets a pair. And I buy two topss, because ‘tops’ is singular. For example: ‘Noodle wore a nice tops today’. Then, Lak starts whining because she wants a brownie. We go to Winners Bakery. No brownie. We go to Coffee World and ask for their Famous Brownie. Out of stock Madam. Coffee Day or Anokhi? Noodle says Anokhi and Lak follows because Noodle is older and Noodle has trained Lak to listen to elders. At Anokhi, we sample all the tables in the al fresco area before deciding we’d rather sit in AC comfort. We order a brownie each and look around to see if B-face look-alike is present. Absent. Glee!

And then the brownie comes. It is cold and hard. So I ask Chinese person # 1 to heat it up. Lak copies me. Copy cat, kill the rat. When my heated brownie arrives, I shut out Lak’s inane conversation entirely while soaking in the aroma of heated chocolate. I feel the warm chocolate coursing through my veins. I feel happy, relaxed with every bite. I have endured so much today. Traffic jam, heat, being called a poodle, not being accepted as a poodle, suffering Lak’s inane conversation… I had truly earned the brownie. Sigh.

ghetto in colour

I cruise along the dusty roads, staring at Sun who paints my ghetto a honey gold. Stifling a slow smile that threatens to bubble over into a lazy laugh, I throw back my arms and turn right to look at Stevie Moe. He lazily maneuvers the car with the surprised amusement of a manic pianist who’s just accidentally mastered Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Concerto. I chuckle. Stevie Moe chuckles too. The traffic lights seem to be laughing with us. The yellow, green and the red, they all blink dark room red. We slink forward anyway. Because Moe has mastered the 3rd Concerto. Stealthily we turn right and left, checking to see if anyone noticed. Then Mr Pauncho Cop rides up next to us and looks all gruff and angry. I think he noticed. Then I smile sweetly, Moe smiles sweetly too and Mr Pauncho Cop rides away. We watch as he quickly becomes a speck in the distance and realize we’re moving at turtle’s pace. Moe is kicked. He’s a quack quack duck to be sure but the idea of emulating turtle walk has got him whopping. A yellow lady with a big red button on her forehead peeks out of the auto and bares her red fangs at us. We instinctively show her our superpower rings and shout ‘Go Captain Planet!’ Err Moe, we’re short of three hands, ditch it wotsay? We timidly look up at Fangula. She looks mighty hurt. Oh Moe, she was only smiling at us. Unlike the sun that be throwing an indigo blush on rustic ghetto, making it look like the jackal that fell into a vat of indigo dye and was mistaken for king. Don’t blush too pretty you silly ghetto; in the morning when your true colours are revealed, and they are gaudy and vile, they’ll know you are no king.

Due advice doled out, we zoom ahead at snail speed, towards that frothing mass of salty Medusa. Frothing Medusa throws forth gossamer strands and voluptuous bunches of artfully angry mane onto the golden grains that contain her like a vast vessel. We haven’t reached yet, but we already hear Frothing Medusa hissing and roaring like first-thing-in-the-morning toothpaste gargle. At the vast vessel, we equip ourselves with icy orange sticks that drip rivulets of orange liquid down our arms, making Moe and I look like zebra-clown hybrids. Then we step onto the utterly hot Gold Grains, and he yields temptingly, tempestuously. He wants me, bad bad bad. I look up to sneer at Moe and am upset instead. Gold Grains wants him too. Shrugging, we sink wordlessly and lay back, winking and blinking at Sun, whose indigo blush has now been replaced by spinning chakras of crimson. A stray chakra leads our eyes to one corner where Jimi Hendrix is puffing away, doing yoga in technicolour and playing a psychedelic tune that rocks our world in silent sepsis. Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison are there too, sitting in a hazy maze of Pandu pinks, gaga greens and yabadabadoo yellows. They are performing the ritual of the Dead J brotherhood. Hood. Wood. Weed. Whatever.

We leave them to their devices, dusting Golden Grains off our backsides and limbs and setting off towards Frothy Medusa. She’s wearing tiny turquoise beads of salty spray, her body bathed in a swathe of sheer champagne, cappuccino and cilantro. She’s tough on the outside but she throws locks of white that greet our feet coolly. Soon we’re in knee deep, as filaments of our imagination merge with fibers of her raw power. Little turtles swim about us, turtle doves fly above head and a turkey sandwich cooks in our heads. Pauncho Cop looks like powder puff. Moe admits to Fangula in a stage whisper that we aren’t Captain Planet or Powerpuff. We head back out of Frothy Medusa and search for Gold Grains and find he’s aged a gunky grey. But we like them old men. They are like wine, divine, mmmmm. We lay back and look up to find that the magnanimous Sun has let his supporting cast take centrestage. Many of them are stars. Moe agrees. He especially likes that one he is pointing at, it seems to like him back too. I’m annoyed and throw Grey Grains into Moe’s eyes. He does the same to me. Soon we’re tugging and tousling, against a spurt of floating particles and spew of colours that Frothy Medusa and Sun are making together way at the back, where they are at peace with themselves and the world.

Their lovechild will wake up as a glorious baby-bottom-pink morning and gain legitimacy as the peace that runs through its filigree veins reflects, itsy speck by bitsy speck, by the Moes and Mes of the world.

My room, me

My room, my world. My room, me. My room named Room.

Room is like me. She likes to stay shut. No, don’t get her wrong. Room likes other rooms too. But Room is scared. Scared that if she opens her door, the dust and germs from other rooms will invade her and make her icky and dirty. Oh no, Room is not squeaky clean herself. She has her own ick and dirt, they are her own. But Room doesn’t want to breathe the dust and germs from other rooms. That makes her sneeze. But Room never learns her lesson. Every now and then, on a thoughtless, euphoria-laced experimental spree, she decides to throw her door open to other rooms. Room always regrets it in the end. Because, beneath her hard-as-oak exterior, she is really a naïve Bird-brain. Room can’t tell the good rooms from the bad, rotten ones. There are rooms that seem so spotless and clean and lined with interesting artifacts. Room is enamoured. She starts to think, ‘hey, here’s a roomie I could like!’ But before she knows it, clean, spotless, lined-with-artifacts room has pooed and puked all over Room. Clean room leaves a stinky mess that takes so long to air out, Room starts to forget what it is like to breathe her own smell- the smell that is made of books, Chinese food, silence and Lemon air freshener.

Promptly, Bird-brain Room shuts herself out. ‘Closed’, her door reads. And while she broods and adds another element to her olfactory repertoire- the smell of ‘forever-occupied’- dappled, dirty room, who smells of beer, smoke and all-things-evil-and-dangerous-and-fun, comes knocking. Room pretends she’s not there. But dappled, dirty room knows she’s there, because, well, she’s right there. At one point, Room opens her door, because she can’t take the noise of the knocking. She opens, a tad, just a sliver of a creek. And dappled, dirty room is standing there, saying, ‘are you done brooding, roomie?’ Room sniffs and retorts with self-importance and self-pity, ‘leave me be. Can’t you see the ‘Closed’ sign?’ Dappled, dirty room says ‘no, I don’t see things I don’t want to see. Now be sensible and open your door. Not all rooms are all bad, ya know?’ Room is touched by her unlikely roomie’s concern, and she smiles a small, watery smile through the creek. A few moments later, Room shuts herself again. She won’t get pooed and puked on again. She will never open Door again. Never, ever, ever. Because, Room is Bird-brain.

Room is not Bird-brain always, though. She learns things. For instance, she has learnt that there are some rooms, like the entertainment room. He promises nothing but fun, nothing less. ‘Nothing more, baby’. Room is accustomed to entertainment room now. She also knows that there are intimidating rooms that have stone doors that refuse to budge even when you use a steamroller. But tickle her in the right place, and she will fling open her doors with a delighted ‘whoop’! Then there are rooms like dappled, dirty room, that all Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms warn you about. Room now knows that while the Victorian-tight-upper-lipped rooms have the smelliest, germ-infested, poo-plastered underbellies, dappled, dirty room is so airy and carefree inside, once you care to, err, dare to, enter. Then, there is squeaky-clean room. He is Room’s potent shot of all-things-wholesome-and-nice-and-warm. Squeaky-clean room is all hers, she takes him for granted. But, it is the rooms that are like herself that Room has all the trouble with. Room never understands them. Room doesn’t truly understand herself.

But, Room discovers something new about herself every day. There are cobwebs under the dresser that she needs to memorise. They are ick and dirt, but they are her own ick and dirt. There are little crevices between the shoe rack and cabinet, where, if she just strains harder to look, she will find old memories tossed about carelessly. They might make her smile. Then, there is window. Room is protective about Window because she is the window to her soul and she doesn’t want any peeking Tom Cats. But Room knows when she decides to open shop ultimately, she will start with opening Window. From the little opening of Window, she will observe World and learn and learn, till she is wise and witty. And wily too. One fine day, Room will throw open her door. And she will be the finest Room that ever was. Sparkling, wall-hardened, window-strong and smelling of lemongrass, basil and books, she will stand the test of time.

My room, my world. My room, me. My room named Room.

PS- The name Room for my room was inspired by Emma Donoghue's Room, one of the most uplifting books I've read in recent times.

I come a full circle

I don’t know who I am.


I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.

It is a pain in the bum, living with a stranger.

When I am in a dilemma, I don’t know what to do, because I don’t know what I want.

When something hits me in my head, I don’t know how to react because I don’t know what reaction is the right reaction.

When danger stares me in the eye, I stare back. I know I should run, but I can’t help but play with danger. It is enticing. It is dark. It is sensuous. It cajoles me with sinuous fingers that curl around my little heart till it is sedated and sated. Passions abated.

I am at conflict with myself. I like the way my skinny jeans caress my ankles. But I rip it in half because it is so hot outside. I like my new skinny shorts. But I miss my skinny jeans.

I like ice cream. I eat ice creams all the time. It bothers my tonsils sometimes. But I don’t mind the pain. I like pain, depending on my mood. Like the pain I feel when the one thing I cannot truly possess looks me in the eye with anguish that equals only mine. Some pains are nice. You gladly suffer them. You feel enriched by them. But that tonsil might need to be looked at sometime. It might have to go under the knife. May be the one thing I cannot truly possess will go under the knife too. Sometime. In good time.

In good time? What about time is good? It just keeps passing you by doesn’t it? You cannot control it. I find that I dislike the feeling of not being able to control something.

No, I am not a control freak. I let my dog Lolakutty do what she wants, when she wants. I am accommodating.

But I will not accommodate that pesky rat that chews up my shoe laces. It will be punished. Creatures that destroy strings- shoe strings, heart strings, blah strings, bloo strings- will face my wrath. I can be evil.

I can also be Holy Mary. Like when I helped that man who had fits on the road outside my school. He said thanks and said I was like Mother Mary. Hah! Hail Mary. Hail me.

That was the past though.

That immature letter still lies in my treasure chest. It means a little more than the rotting banana peel lying in my rubbish bin now. But it is my past. I like holding on to the past. When my past phones me to say I am not the past yet, I wish I was the past. Perhaps I like the past because I know the result of the past. I know how the past plays out, pans out.

Which isn’t to say I am fixated with the past. I like the future too. I like the future so much that I dream silly dreams about it. May be I like the future because it is as uncertain as the location of my next monthly zit. I hope it isn’t my chin again. I like my chin. My cousin says I have Vyjayantimala’s chin.

Personally, I’d choose my eyes any day. They are magic. They cast a spell on you. They say I have cat eyes, not because of the colour (I have gloriously black irises) but because they hold an unsettling feline guile. They called me Catwoman in college. Promise me nine lives, baby! Pffft…I can never look as hot as Halle Berry in a catsuit. But cat or not, my eyes are something else. They look into your listless eyes and decide if you are the part of the past or the future. In the present, they play mind games with you.

The present is the only tense that bothers me. I rant and rebel against the atrocities meted out to me. I grovel and grumble about the unfairness of it all. I am discontent with the present.

I love presents, though. Especially materialistic ones. I am a material girl.

Oh, except when I preferred the look in that person’s eyes to the look of that shiny, fancy gift wrapping that held promise of some hardcore material bliss.

That stupid girl, who thinks she’s doing womankind a favour by being a feminist, calls me a hardcore male chauvinist. Yes, so I happen to think men are awesome. But does that mean my core is hard? Because let me tell you, when I die, my core will putrefy faster my memory. Not that you’re going to dig my grave and check. Shudder. Someone just walked over my grave. My mentor recently read that when someone walks over your final resting place, a shiver will race up your spine. If it was you, go back and place some nice flowers. Actually, I don’t fancy flowers much. They wither.

I don’t like things that wither. They look ugly, they litter the place and are a reminder that beauty is but a phase. Hah, but have you seen my mother or grandmother? Their beautiful phase lasted an entire life time.

A life time of undying stability vs a life time of adventurous instability. What would I choose? Well, who says it is in my hands?

My hands are small I know, but they’re not yours, they are my own hands- Jewel, singer.

And I like it when those big, warm palms wrap around mine and lead me on.

But let go of my hands at some point. I don’t like to be guided all the time. Like that time I went on a treasure hunt and I was almost there when you came and annoyingly told me where the prize was. I would have found the prize on my own. You ruined it for me, you imbecile. Constant guidance takes away from self-satisfaction.

And as a scar, I despise guidance of all sorts now. My father tells me to skip. I won’t. I might have skipped, had I thought of it on my own. Daddy, it is that imbecile’s fault.

But it is always my fault. I am faulty. I am faulty by default.

I am also intelligent by default.

I am intelligent because I don’t know my own intelligence.

I don’t know my intelligence because I don’t know who I am.

I don’t know who I am.

I have lived with myself for close to 23 years and yet I know not what I am, who I am, why I am the way I am.