TrUe ShOe LOve!!

Why is it not believable if the poor old woman lived in a shoe! It was a woman and not a man so quite a believable plot. Nursery rhymes are rhetoric but this one does help me conjure up a huge burgundy red snake skin Manolo Blahnik, though if I wouldn’t live in it but I would definitely, certainly, positively live with it happily ever after. All of my species does dream of sleeping over in a shoe store at least if not in a shoe sometime or the other. But men, especially the straight ones can’t comprehend the obsession, the emotion and the experience shoe shopping and shoe keeping brings along.
Since childhood girls are subjected princesses and their worth writing about stories and shoes have been an important part of it. Every time when you sit back on the plush high seat and slip your lovely feet into the chosen ones it is the fairytale experience. You feel how Cinderella would have felt trying on the glass slippers. Well the glass slippers were literally the sole reason for her happy ending.

Possessing those blue suede shoes and strutting into those satin yellow sling backs to your friend’s bachelorette and stealing the thunder on your sister’s birthday wearing those pink floral open toe heels. Shoes not only elevate you but levitate your spirits, mend your mood and will heighten your attitude. Not only gives you an endorphin rush but is a prescribed therapy for the break up heartaches, post bridal blues, no date panic attacks and low self esteem syndrome.
Though avoiding those much needed shoe shopping trips might lead to J factor advancement and turn you green when you spot your neighbour walk out of the door wearing that sort after pair or your old and ugly boss suddenly starts wearing black and gold Choos.

Not just the buying but possessing them and cherishing them is an experience all together. So you keep them in the shoe houses wrapped in soft covers. So what if my feet cry for mercy when I wear the blue python peep toe stilettos or how does it matter that they go out gracing my feet but come back home in my arms. But sunning them, airing them, sometimes taking them for a walk, periodically shining them with the right cloth and applying the right amount of gloss; it almost equals to the joys of having prized pets and how overwhelming they do not leak or poop and would never die on you!

But all joys and happy times come with an expiry date. People around you claiming to be your well wishers would tell you, coax you to part ways with them. They would blatantly barge into your private space and rummage through the neatly lined little boxes of joy and keep chanting oh my god so many of them, so many of them; how would they know you cannot ever get enough. “You do not even have these many clothes!!” why would not they understand that there is no relation there I might buy a dress or two to wear with my best two halves. After lot of profound thinking and long fiery debates you decide to let go of few of them. But the hardest part is yet to come the ideal way have a graceful farewell for these beauties; it is painful but giving them away to those skinny friends who have had their eyes on my lovelies – not an option. Giving away to strangers whom you would never see might mean euthanasia. Why not burry them in my backyard at least I would know they rest in peace. Or just let me stack them in my attic or garage I would like to pass them on to my next generations, as it is my unshakable belief that even the Alpha Beta generation’s women will feel the love for these foot adornments.

Torentz To The Rescue

The other day I had these bubbles of excitement stirring and rising in my head I just couldn’t wait to get home. No it wasn’t that much awaited date nor was my best friend in town, nor was it the opening night of the most talked about club. It was a very simple story; I had just got my hands on the next season of my favourite series from my forgetful friend, but only after some thirty seven reminders and numerous follow ups. I couldn’t wait to get home plug in the external source to my laptop, microwave some leftover Chinese and a bowl of pop corn. And start watching the unravelling of the lives of my favourite characters. The makers of the series would have received blessings from many like me. They had given us a reason to come back from work early and look forward to the other day. They always left us with a glimmer of hope for the next season making drudgery lives bearable.
But then what about movies do they have the same affect. Yeah going to movies are fun but the stories last those measly few hours of a weekend night, we hardly get to know the characters before their story is over. Yes sometimes you spend Mondays discussing the plot and the actors over your cubicle walls. But with the series it is that you get a lot more to lap up about the characters. You tend to hate and love them and start calling them by their first names. Crime investigators, to the Manhattan girls, to mother of two who is a drug pedlar, to undercover agents, to small town girl, the vampire lovers; n yeah the weird friends, idiosyncratic families; All these characters being far far away from our lives but they become our passport to escape from our realities. Their lives exciting, funny, unbelievably real, enchanting, glamorous; you feel a part of the ride.
The best part about it is that u do not have to wait for a whole week to watch them and u don’t have to swap channels and estimate the break times. Uninterrupted storytelling and if you can’t satiate your intrigue you can stay up all night watching the collection.
Addiction yes but not that harmless if I must say ;)

My love - Hate Relationship

It is like one of those times when you are dating someone you have been besotted by, and he is just not falling for you. So you go on telling your friends how you hate the way he does not take your calls or does not hold your hand during the most romantic movie scenes. You go on listing out the things you can’t stand, habits you hate and stuff u wish he had in him. But when your gurlies ask you the question then why do you still have him on the last dialled and still why you keep his picture under the pile of clothes, why u still call him to tell him what a bad day you had or why he would be your first choice to go for that concert you have been dying to attend.
My relationship with this city is on the same grounds. So the fascination started long back when I had walked the streets of old Bombay with my daddy dear, it seems in another lifetime. The city was enchanting for its old architecture, amazing for the its magnitude and capacity. It was luring as possibilities of life seemed endless as the sea i was mesmerized with. Those were the days when a starry eyed teenager fell for this adonis of a city. Universe conspired to bring me to my love and somehow i was in my city of dreams.

Here i am living in mumbai but whenever I speak to my out of city friends I cannot stop complaining about how I hate the crowded trains and how I wish roads were wider and traffic signals went off sooner. How I whine about the filth and poverty everywhere. How i always am busy and everything seems so far. But when they fall in line and start picking faults and try to convince me to move; i vehemently defend my love.

Because even now the neon lights fire up my dreams, Till this day the buzzing traffic at two in the morning gives me a sense of security, I still am in love with the feeling of being near sea shores, I can not believe that my hunger for different experiences can be satiated by any other single place, I know for sure that even after living here for years i wil always have a new place to visit, new person to meet and a new thing to do and a new dream to live. I am in love with my city as much as i was as a young girl.

Old Photographs,city lights and a long night

I surely have come to believe this that there is a relation between the shutter and the grins. I dont see many pictures in my photograph collection where anyone was actually sad; ya maybe few unawares. But it is kind of funny how these old photographs suddenly complete the circuit and zip zap zoom on the hot wheels u r cruising down the memory lane.
For past half an hour as i was going through some of these cherished memories i was just smiling to myself and trying to think was i so happy at this point in time; it surely seems to me that i was. Strangely it just makes me think how looking back makes things look much better. The dog eared, yellowing black and white picture looks classic. My Eyes look brighter in pictures taken a few years back and I certainly look thinner.

All this certainly makes me wonder do we value present enough. Because when gone we look back and we surely miss it. Did i laugh hard enough that night when we drank ourselves silly, did i thank enough when i had the surprise birthday celebration, did i ......Just now at this moment i realized may be i dont look out enough of my window and that who knows how often would i be able to see the city lights from the window on the eleventh floor. Who knows we just might get a dog few months down the line and move to the ground floor.

When i think of things and people in this perspective i just want to call each one of my cherished people, old ones, new ones, forgotten ones, far and near and the ones i would die for. As this night seems so short and this feeling ephermal i dont know when next will i in this chaotic life stand at the window and stare out to just take in what i posses at this moment.

Ironi-c-ity

The grey tones of the sky,when everything looks out of an old picture album. I love the look of this city when it is cloudy. The old discolored buildings look beautiful, the sea looks as an extension of grey sky and the traffic seems less harsh. I like trotting off in the drizzle too when droplets keep hitting and missing sometimes. Its such a nice feeling, so romantic, so holiday like when you want to go for a drive or have coffee with friends and not work.
Yesterday was just like that when i was sipping my green tea and devouring the mumbai gossip columns. Suddenly i looked out and i could not see many of the buildings and hear much. It had started raining, rather pouring pails. I was all snuggled up in my dry home and was enjoying only the patter of the rain as pitter couldnt be heard. Suddenly my phone beeped and there it was the tolling of the death bells. I had had to go make a family call and visit the not so far in relation but geographically quite away relatives. I braced myself with the rain cheater, my bag in obnoxious poly bags and stepped out. I have been mostly lucky with autos in mumbai, but this time they pulled a bangalore on me! it was deja vu no autos and if there were turned a deaf ear to my pleas. my rain cheater got cheated by rain; and shoes not so water proof got soaking wet. Super optimistic i looked at the bright side in the cloudy weather and thought i am just a lap away from my place. I can wade through and get the inevitable weapon the umbrella. Yeah laugh out loud i was depending too much on the branded water proof zipper. I changed and again this time doubly ready with the umbrella and the right pair of shoes stepped out a little more confident. Lucky as i am i got a rick right outside my building; i couldnt stop smiling. i got in the royal ride and closed the tarpoline curtains; drawing them sometimes to peer out at the scene outside. It was all wet wet wet and splash,splash, splash. At this one traffic light i was rummaging through the profound thoughts of counting my blessings and feeling sorry for the people without protection from rain Gods. Suddenly my saving angel, that the auto driver snapped me out of the gratitude and told me that i have to take another auto as his had a flat. In disbelief the sympathiser became the empathizer. after five mins of struggle with the umbrella to get it to open and ten minutes of dodging the traffic and fifteen minutes of eternal wait for another of those knights in bajaj armours. I got an auto!
When i came back my toes had wrinkled to age 90 and my clothes had become the second skin, i still could hear the patter.
Today in the papers they splashed it all over that yesterday was the wettest day. Its sunny today but ironically no one wants me to meet them badly today.

Tug of War!

She was tugging at my hair trying to calm down the waves and i was looking deep in my eyes reading the quagmire of dreams and fears i was losing myself into. I was the un-tameable just like my hair and today it was being harnessed! But why was i giving in why was everything shaping up in shapes i did not consider befitting me; i was being driven into each of those molds. It was suddenly as if all the planets decided on a whim to line up against me. An aspiring New Yorker was trying to settle for a fake of Big Apple manufactured in India. Consolation was i could at last live in this lovers paradise. But as if with every perfect deal there is a fine print which they did read out aloud though at a sprinting pace. It soon occurred to me that this paradise was still under construction, the worst i realized the workers were fleeing off the site. But being a twenty something, i am an incorrigible romantic and foolishly hopeful about the next day, year, decade and even my old age. Everyday when i lay down my head watching my favorite sitcom and smiling in my sleep dreaming about the days to come. But waking up into a nightmarish reality that i am the same but my circumstances are not me and this is not where i thought i’ll be. I just find myself drifting far off from my ideal self. The one i thought i will construct out of myself.

“Who we are” and “who we desire to be” are always on a plane but opposing each other at 180 degree angle. I wonder when the boundaries will ever blur here.

But it is a threesome in this place, there is also this one person we pretend to be. SO there is who we are then who we would want to be and the one who we pretend to be – who is that? where does it stand in the tugging. Is it more on the side of who we are and not letting us who we want to be or is it on the other side towards who we desire to be. But then the pretension should just make us super models or billionaires or whoever that aspired self is. So many times we discount many calling them pretentious but aren’t we all pretending to be someone who we are not. I remember that day when i scared the lizard out of the house just to prove that i was the brave enough to, but still thinking about it makes my skin crawl. Pretending to be generous, giving out an aura of “ I am the Queen of this world” but deep inside we feel like a homeless freak. I am beginning to believe that it lies somewhere in the middle, it is not letting us sink deep into the unwanted reality and not let us float into the fluffy dream. Pretension is our survival tactic, our defense mechanism.

Our reality, our aspiration and our make believe self that is who we are a struggle, a war we need not win.

Tanushri

and where did i loose it...

I wanted this post to be the big blockbuster as a comeback but i soon realized like the movie stars who are missing from the scene too long can hardly create ripples; but then what the heck i say, i ain't holding up money for this one to be a hit!.... so where did you loose me!

Loosing things is a part of life that yellow umbrella i don't remember was it the lecture hall or the crowded train where did i loose it; my precious snoozing bear key ring i lost it with the key but where?my favorite book and that cherry red T shirt to whom did i loose that? it bites and you feel like hitting yourself when you loose things. But at the end things are things - so much replaceable; but what about when you loose those months, and hours and minutes when you look back and think where did i loose all that time. When wisdom suddenly gets better of you and you realize the lost opportunities. When loneliness strikes and you think about on which turn did i loose my friends. When in retrospect you think about those drunken nights and blurry days you wonder where did i loose my mind. Your innards squirm and your brain starts rattling logic as a consolation when you loose more than things.
I would just pass on the consolation and say you loose some and you gain some. Hoping the balance sheet doesn't wait too long to get equal on both the sides!