Its that time again - I've noticed the nailpolish is chipping. It seems to go too soon. And then its time again, to take off that scratchy looking layer and open the little bottle full of swirling mystery.

Choosing it has been no small process. After having experimented with dull silver, pale blue, tangy mauves and dead black in the yesteryears, I have learnt to play safe with the soft pinks, the rich browns, the pearly peaches, the occasional muted red and yes, even the deep maroon. I have also learnt that the matts are better, this one too runny, that one too chippy, and endless other observations.

Strange thing: Applying that thin sheet of color from this little bottle is the most luxurious, leisurly activity. Smell that familiar paintlike whiff and the calmness starts to creep over you. The excitement that hits you with that first slab of color! But I don't know what hits me the minute I put on the fresh layer - in one word, its the fidgets. Though I'm usually a reposeful person, the calmth just vanishes. I must, I must rummage through that old drawer just now. I must run the bath, look for those lost papers, find that hair brush, like uh, just now. Give in to the urge and you have to start all over again. I know they advertise it like super fast drying and so on - but its never fast enough for me.

A couple of years back, someone on MS started writng to all the girls about his fascination with nailpolish. Why, I am almost in a mood to sympathize with him today!

The end of the academic year and the end of winters have come upon me simultaneously. Thus begins the exercise of cleaning out, organizing, throwing, storing, giving away, dumping and purging out the old to make way for a new year. I'm pumped up and ready to peek into the kid's cupboard without swooning.

Looking at the mess in front of me, I am amazed at the amount of knicknack a child manages to accumulate in such a short span of time. Staring at the mishmash of school stuff, activity sheets, secret diaries, assorted magazines, CDs, crayons, hangers, feathers, stickers and other girlish paraphernalia - my only thought is, " HOW am I going to get through all this?"

A good hour later some general thoughts emerge.
1. When confronted with a huge mess, take a deep breath. Stand, stare, refuse to believe - Its good for your sanity.
2. Still there? Leave things alone till they become imminent.
3. Divide the mess into smaller, seemingly more manageable messes. Contemplate, procrastinate, twiddle your thumbs - Its good for your sanity.
4. Divide tasks into central(what you have to do) and peripheral(what others can be asked to do). Try to lump the maximum into the second category.
6. Don't hesitate to ask for help. Remember, its not your mess alone.
5. After this huge mental exercise is over, sip a calming cup of tea and stare into space- Its good for your sanity.
6. In the midst of all this, complain profusely that you are so stressed out. It releases the tension and helps to bring in more help. In short - Its good for your sanity.

Some more thoughts that emerge after some time:
1. We buy SO many "necessary things". About 10% get used.
2. We keep so many "necessary things" away "safely". (Then we proceed to forget what was kept and where).
3. What I consider necessary and what the child considers necessary is two different things altogether. Respect it! (Or be prepared for a huge tantrum/ putting it all back).
4. Every once in a while, you will come upon a few things that will light up your heart with sheer joy. Store safely under the category of "Memories". (Strictly underline few).
5. Children waste a huge amount of crayons, colours, pencils, paper, gum, glue, tape and such stuff. Let them.
6. Unless you throw out the old junk you can't use, you'll never find time and space for new stuff that you can.
7. If you try to use everything, you'll end up nowhere.
8. Last but not the least, cleaning can be a therapeutic exercise and even fodder for a diary post. It occupies your hands and frees your thought process.

Thus I was
And so I will be;
Passing by
with a remark
at true wisdom,
a smile
at true foolishness
and a frown
at the true and essential nature
of the loneliness within

My mirror
is only areflection
of what I see without
My today
a culmination of what I did yesterday
I have stood over troubled waters
quietly
and ridden the tsunami
with fierce joy
understanding
still the turning of the leaf
and trickling through things
that were never meant to be

I am
time

They had been together since ever so long. Why? – neither knew or thought to question.

They just knew their long talks hadn’t come to an end with time. Each one would get up with a spring in the step, knowing the other would be there waiting. Each one had a dozen other friends but knew the other would be searching. Each one had problems but life became easier with the other around.

Hanging out together, talking books, music, insane interests – several years had drifted past. But they never thought of drifting away or apart. They knew the phase of life that had brought them together would end but friendship would not.

They were poles apart.

She asked him so many questions – he asked her none. But he knew everything there was to know.

He had so many people to care for him. She seemed so alone.

He wanted to dabble in everything. She was a guided missile.

She had so many convictions, ambitions, dreams. He knew them all.

He was friendly, she was aloof. Something still brought them together.

After so much time together, he had still never said anything about his feelings. She hadn’t questioned him. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like walking away onto their own paths.

Would any one of them ever glance back?

It was a day like any other. Not her birthday, or his. No festival or occasion for celebration but he gave her a slim book. She was puzzled. He was usually so undemonstrative– not given to grand gestures. The book was even stranger, at first glance a children’s story but beautifully illustrated.

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As she read on, she found the book started abruptly about Wendy and Peter – one day at school, her birthday, Peter kept avoiding Wendy. When she looked for him in geography class, he wasn’t there. He missed the arts period too, his favorite. In recess, she caught a glimpse of him but he hurried away. During sports, she asked him to come with her to the library but he said he was too busy.

As she prepared to go home, he turned up with a box in his hands. She was thrilled. For me!? It was plum cake, he said. He had learnt to bake it just for her. That’s why he had been so busy all day.

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Written inside the last page in his handwriting were the words “Love came so silently stepping that I, unmindful, forgot to make a gesture”.

She looked up. He was smiling that old familiar smile.

From Ananya (8 years) to Ateev(3years):

Dear my brother Ateev,

A very very happy birthday. I love you. This is the most happiest day for us. Have a very

good wishes in your each birthday. Repeblic day is coming on 26 so I wish you a very

very Republic day. You are now 3 years old. And you are now comming to my school.

So a very very cratchulations to you. You are comming from April. Bey & take care in

you new school. A happy new year.

Love Ateev,

From Ananya,

As a writer, I may not agree with all of Ayn Rand’s philosophies. As a person, a character, the appeal of Roark is universal.

Whether you were in architecture or not, you understood Roark’s dedication to his craft.

Through his extreme meditation-like, trance-like, near-obsessive reverence for his work, he rose to a God-like status. Generations of students saw him as a symbol of their struggle for success. Over the years, he has been the youth icon supreme. He attained cult status through his irreverence, his refusal to tow the line, his contempt for the trivial. In his single-minded pursuit of his art, he approached sublimity - as did so many that followed him through the ages.

Howard Roark shunned ugliness and approached spirituality through beauty. Beauty of form and idea, yes. But also the sheer breathtaking beauty of total utter belief in self.

Imagine now if there was a Howard Roark in music.

*He would pursue melody with the same single-minded determination.

*He would practice endlessly to give beauty to his creations.

*He would pursue the lyrics that stirred minds and sentiments.

*He would explore instruments and thoughts beyond the ordinary.

*I can almost see his uncomprehendingly stare at the concept of rock groupies and pop charts.

But Howard Roark is dead.

Dev D is here.

He makes mincemeat of any mislaid concepts of melody with utter panache.
(Melody? What melody? Melody is not essential to music!)

With similar equanimity he crushes all musical elements of sentiment, linguistics and tarannum under his uncouth heel. No wonder the word ‘atyachaar’ figures there. Spare your poor ears. For music, he substitutes jarring baraati band-like noises that would drive a sensitive soul clean out of his/ her head. His voice jars you out of any solemn reverie or reflection you might want to entertain. He screams rot in your ear from every musical radio station.



Ugliness – that listened to over and over again gets popularity charts going - Just the opposite of Howard’s beauty.

If there was a musical Howard Roark, he would be turning over in his grave.

Maybe Keating will win after all.

People came – crowding me out with their footsteps. I retreated after a while, seeking solitude to look for myself……

As I peered into the depth, the muddy waters cleared again, the ripples spread, my face swam back into focus…….

‘Who are you’, I asked as always, my reflection, ‘ cloudier or clearer? Friend or stranger? Here or further?’…….

We shared a silence or two, laughed softly and were friends again

People came – crowding me out with their footsteps. I retreated after a while, seeking solitude to look for myself……

As I peered into the depth, the muddy waters cleared again, the ripples spread, my face swam back into focus…….

‘Who are you’, I asked as always, my reflection, ‘ cloudier or clearer? Friend or stranger? Here or further?’…….

We shared a silence or two, laughed softly and were friends again

Life -

uproariously funny

brought along drifting morsels

You never got what you want

but learnt to shrug and walk on anyway

and sometime later

just looked back

to think

what you got

was better than what you wanted

It is quite some time since I finished reading “A thousand splendid suns”, yet I can’t seem to move on – pick up my next book and go to yet another story. There is such an after-effect. It seems I will lose the thread of thought if I start another book without having completely savored this one. In a way I have read this book but in yet another way, it has read me. And so I’m quiet.

I can’t deny that I started my journey of books in Hindi. At the time, I found that Indian authors writing fiction often write social novels - barring some really superb historical stuff that I had the good fortune to read. While contemporary or rural Indian life was interesting enough for some time, eventually the need for variety took over. Growing up, the bestsellers that came my way were mostly American and English writers. Fast paced crime novels, Science fiction, horror, inspirational fare, tales of Harvard were all consumed. Probably the first story of the Moslem world that I read in english was Shame by Salman Rushdie, a story not easily forgotten. Another one that marked a milestone was Not without my daughter by Betty Mahmoody. With Arundhati Roy’sChildren of a Lesser God capped by Chetan Bhagat’sFive Point Someone, the fascination with Indian/Asian writers/ culture was complete. Instead of the sharp edged war, murder and mayhem stories, we had people talking a more wonderful emotive language - one that I was probably in a better place to understand now.

During the past years, I have heard the words Afghanistan, Kabul (Not without remembering the famous Kabuliwallah), Russia, war, the Taliban and many others. I heard them as if from a distance. None of them were really alive for me. I never thought of a city under siege – it was never real enough from the news, the stories or the stray video clips caught on news channels. I could never imagine the horror of living amidst exploding sharpnels day in and day out. Or the reality of being rescued just to realize that the rescuer was the worst enemy. All these came alive with Khaled Hosseini’s tale of Afghanistan seen through the eyes of two very, very (extra)ordinary women – Mariam and Laila.
Hosseini’s way of story telling was different in yet another way – it brought alive the people of a war-torn country with all its history of strife and beauty. Through this book you suddenly get a glimpse into the richness of a distant culture. You understand that the delicate balance of the fate of a country’s people can depend solely on the interpretation of Islam by its current rulers. Just as you get a peep into a culture where the delicate balance of a woman’s life can be dictated completely by the nature of her current Lord and Master. It makes you wonder, have things really changed?

After reading this book, the words no longer remain distant or vague. I can feel the richness of the shawl that Rasheed presented Mariam with. I can feel Laila’s terror as she sees her father’s headless torso land beside her. I know what the Taliban promised and then failed to deliver. I understand the desperation of living in a regime that denies a person basic enjoyment of watching TV in the name of corruption. Knowing the characters involved intimately just widens your eyes to the fact that regimes change but the people inhabiting the country remain the same. Their lives do not change at the deeper level till the enemy inside and the enemy outside change. Even then, for some it may just be too late.