Story-part 3

"Neha sweets, how are you feeling?", Pallavi was mild."God! Pallu, what's wrong with you? In fact I should be asking you that question. Did something happened at the tuition today? You look so worried" I inquired.

"This might come as a surprise to you, but try to breath as I blurt the news out to you". Now she was mildly blunt that made my mind register spikes in it's activity.

"Anushka, Veerya's sister is found dead this afternoon", finally she let it out.

For few seconds I felt like I was orbiting in space with vacuum around me making it hard to breath. I felt dizzy sensing blood drawn out of my brain and heart beating  so loud that it was the only sound I can hear. Is Pallu still talking, I think she is, I see her lips move. "................and I couldn't believe it was a murder and the police found her body after 4 days!!!!".

"What?!?..... Pallu are you sure it was Anushka?".I mean come on, what on earth is going on. I can still feel her presence in my room, when I caught her making out with my brother.

" I know Neha, strange right!! I never experienced such a gruesome thing happening to a person whom I knew and that too the person whom I hated the most. It's all over the news channels and you will see the same in tomorrow's news papers as headlines.  At least that' s what my father told me as I was leaving home to come and talk to you. It is an interesting piece of article for these  journalists, like my dad. He is not even feeling sorry for her, which made me realize that I am in fact feeling bad for her death. I mean I would be the last person  to feel sorry about those sisters. But this is the time to express sympathy. Neha!....are you even listening to me.....wait where are you going.... let me come with you".

As I walk into our living room, I see television flashing pictures from behind the couch where mom and dad were letting sighs of despair. As I approach near the couch, I couldn't help but rekindle my memory that stored the same set pictures that were shown on TV.

Story- part 2

"Amma, Amma, where are you?" I shout with a shivering tone as I wake up suddenly from a nightmare. My mom rushed into my room, held me in her arms and enquired if i was dreaming something dreadful. When I nodded for "yes" I could barely snap out of the dream and couldn't let go my mom's hand from my grip. All her soothing words -- you are alright, it's just a dream, I am with you, papa is here too-- just didn't register in my mind.

"Neha", a loud voice fill my room and make me jolt into reality at last. It wasn't my mom for sure and I hear my name being called again and I finally see a familiar face enter my room. " Pallavi!?", I exclaim.  "What is she doing here" I say to my mom finally letting her hand go off my grip.

Before she can answer me, I say "Pallavi, How are you?, aren't you supposed to get ready to school?".  To which she retorted " it is half past 9 in the evening" and went silent. Wow that means I slept only for 3 hours and thought it's morning already. Silly me.But something was strange about Pallavi. She is not the demure maiden type who just answers to the question. She has a misplaced soul of a man's comical timing and contagious energy, in a 16 year old female body. She should chide me about my lost sense of keeping track of time and fill me up with her latest gossip about other school kids.

Mom left us both in my room to answer a phone call which apparently was from my brother. But my thoughts continued.

Pallavi  and I are friends since kindergarten. Both our families have know each other since then. We went to same classical dance classes, singing classes and tennis classes. Although she couldn't continue her singing lessons because of her episode with the teacher. Pallu ( as I call her) has this itch to prove her point and in this incident she wanted to prove that the teacher had made a mistake in the notes of Jhampa Thalam but the teacher condemned. The debate grew and consequently Pallu was dismissed from that session and subsequently from all the sessions. But Pallu declared to her parents that singing was not for her and hence she choose to withdraw from classes.

Truth to be told is that the teacher made a mistake that day, which she doesn't do everyday. But Pallu corrected her and she could not take the fact that a student corrected her in a basic Thalam.


This reminiscence  made me smile a bit and thought she must have bought  notes for me from the math class that I missed today. "Pallu, how did the class go today and did Joe missed it again? What's the latest on Sam?"

Story- Part 1

I was right there returning from grocery shopping, walking along the road under the dimness of city lights. The street was buzzing with plethora of voices. This day, my mom insisted that I go grocery shopping right after my math tuition which ended at 7:00pm after an hour long lecture and a sample test. It was my elder brother's routine to shop for groceries bi-weekly. Since he was away from home last week, the duty fell into my lap. Not that i complain, but the fact that I had to witness that particular incident make me sick to my stomach every time I remember it.

A week had passed since that incident took place. Today, again I am suppose to ride that way on my bicycle to attend my tuition. I decide to pretend sickness so my mom and dad would not force me to go. As I lay on my bed tossing and turning around, modulating my vocal chords to deliver pain filled sounds, my mom rushed into my room and took me into her arms and stroke against my forehead where I pointed out being painful. She summoned the maid to get some Zandu Balm and some milk. After being rubbed with the ice-cold, minty, tear-prone balm, my mom left the room advising me to drink the milk before it turns cold.
As soon as she left the room, I wiped my eyes, hurried to close the door and overheard mom explaining the situation to dad who has just come home from his work.

As planned my parents fell into my "sick kid" trap.  But walking towards the bed, a different kind of pain, a pain of guilt, hit me hard. Sitting on the bed I turned the television on and started watching pogo. Emptied milk in the glass into my gut and started watching Mr. bean to forget the day's anxiety and guilt that prevailed in my head.

Took the trash out.....

Last week i felt the weight of trash on me in tons. An accumulation not surrounding me but inside my mind. Although my yoga classes helped me to clean the toxins inside my body but could do only little to clean the toxins that occluded my thoughts. Procrastination has been a frenemy till now. But somehow i got bounced back to realty for all good reasons and  realized it is the time to declutter  the brain cells. And so i initiated a philanthropic effort to help my needy mind.

Catching up with old friends always gives you a freshness to the buried memories. This task was indeed first on my list. Just a phone call to dear old friend swept off the cobwebs of  lifestyle induced Amnesia.

When i swiped my library card while checking out Malcolm Gladwell's "The Outliers", little did i realize how much energy this book is going to pass onto me. A thought provoking book on how human thinking is falsely misguided with conventional wisdom.

A marathon of  Tom and Jerry and The Little Mermaid have truly brought back the relaxation and child's excitement to the windows of my brain which on a rather regular day are glued to unending lines of code. There might be only a handful out there who wont agree that Ariel's youthful exuberance will lift off your spirits. The rest, you very well know how i must have felt watching those videos.

Whether its summer or not, a Watermelon on my kitchen counter always gives me a glimpse of summer. When i blend its interiors into thick juice and drink, i always feel like summer has skipped its routine just to shook me with mirth. I did treat myself for this, just one more time.

There could not be any better day in an entire year that Holi must have choosen than choosing last saturday. Holi, a word which resonates with "Holy" is an Indian festival mostly know among unknowns as " Festival of colors". The vibrant colors on and around me infused an effervascent oxygen like matter into my complexified molecules which gained double momentum afterwards. 

Best things that revitalize us are everytime around us but we just fail to attend to our surroundings everyday. I realized i should take cues from things which are least important in life but have most impact when acknowledged.

 Do you sometimes feel your mind is filled with trash? What do you do to flush these mental toxins?

Recuperating from my blog sabbatical

This is what happens when work dictates your 24 hours every day. But staying committed  to your passions would not have hurt a solid one hour at least on weekends. Although i was distracted away from writing, but true to the previous statement  i have committed my weekends to my other passion, i.e. Reading. I sure did got off the writing road and flagged down a taxi for the reading land. During my stay there, i summoned Salman Rushdie's Historical fiction- Midnight's Children, had a joyous ride with Sophie Kinsella's heroines, analysed George Bush's presidential decisions from his memoir, appreciated individualism portrayed by Ayn Rand's characters from The Fountainhead and finally could not get enough of drama and mystery from Lisa See's novels. This list might take few more lines if said in full.

 The warm putrid air in the subway car, the sound of mixer blades blending ice cubes with coffee at Starbucks, sparkle of  lazy sun rays making way through window blinds, the mild swing of hammock while i rest made those hours of reading worthwhile saving from being lost in memory.

Reading, like movies or theater is a form to try peer unobtrusively at author's ideas. The best ideas which surprise you, weep you, smear a joy streak across your face and marry you to the book till the end. Hopefully this enormous insight and experience i got from my reading break will help in organizing my thoughts into beautiful words...wish me luck :)