Roosting Home

The other day, when I was forced to abandon the sweet kachoris I was having in the warm fuzzy world of my dreams, for a visit to the cold practical bathroom, when the first fingers of dawn were yet to spread their silver light across the dark velvet sky, I heard the distant crowing of a rooster. Rooster? My still sleepy ears perked up. I hadn't heard the squeak of a mouse in recent time, forget a whole rooster!
Strangely, the sound of a rooster crowing always brings back fond childhood memories.
I remember Board exams and getting up early to memorise awful chemistry stuff- who cared what vulcanisation was anyway- and the sound of the rooster crowing somewhere in the distance signalled the beginning of a well deserved ten minute nap before rushing off to take a bath before my sister. Our backdoor neighbours, I assume, had quite a jungle living with them- parrots, rabbits, white lovebirds, a cat, a mangy dog (who wasn't mangy as we discovered later but bore the marks of a severe cat- dog fight and was now best friends with the same cat) and a tall and handsome rooster. The same rooster who was as much a part of my growing up as Bon Jovi and Tom Cruise.
However since I'd moved to the large and cold suburbian town of Mumbai after marriage, I longed to hear the same sounds which shaped my adolescent years. Sadly, there were none- for in this huge bustling crowded place, who had the time or place, to pet a rooster?
That's when it struck me. Sitting in the bathroom, with the gleaming marble floor reflecting my dishevelled state- I realized this was it. 
Mumbai was home now. And the rooster had followed me home.    

3:30 am

'Who do you write for', asked the wily sage, bent over a bible type of book, the incandescent lamp casting a glow around his flowing beard, his smooth white hair. 'What do you hope to gain from your writing and why do you write', he continued. I moved forward to answer him but no words came out of my mouth. I looked around at the fading tent, the dissolving ground and the rapidly disappearing form of the sage. Wait, I wanted to stop him but he soon faded to a mass of nothingness as a goat came and chomped up the few blades of grass left behind where his tent once stood, atop a snowy peak. When I looked down, I saw the soft snow had become weathered wooden boards beneath my feet and they were crumbling away and I was falling... falling through space, feeling a little like Alice down the hole, my hair flying around my face, the wind slapping me into wakefulness as I rubbed my eyes and looked at the time. 3:30am, the wall clock blinked radium green. 

'You have the power to move millions', he said, as I gazed respectfully into my master's eyes. 'Don't waste it', he said, as I sat at his feet, massaging them with rose oil. How do I do it, I thought, but before I could say anything, he got up and left me, staring through the bamboo blinds onto the grassiest patch I had ever seen. As I watched, the grass grew taller and bigger, even growing inside the thatched hut, soon it was everywhere and all around me. I started drowning in a sea of green and as that sinking feeling set in, I woke up with a start. Time on the bedside clock: 3:30 am.

'Be true to yourself and the words will flow. Don't try to be anyone else. The innocence of your words will dent a thousand hearts. The pictures you create will bleed long after you've finished. Get started now', said the gentle doctor, guiding the chalk over a dusty blackboard as the words formed and dissolved in front of my eyes. No time to waste, he said, as the benches and chairs started shaking. Soon the plaster started peeling off and bricks became dislodged, flying in all directions, while I looked around confusedly, for the doctor. He was lost already and as I dodged a heap of bricks, I suddenly turned right and woke up with a jerk of my neck. Time on the mobile screen: 3:30 am

The left of the right

I'm a right brained person. I have known it all along- where I excelled in creating poems out of words, my sister bested her own score in Super Mario each time she played. Each time I would take the joystick I'd make such a mess-because my hand-to-eye co ordination was pathetic. While I would struggle with the controls, my sister and mother would collapse in heaps of giggles. It was the same story with learning to drive. After days of unsuccessful attempts and sneering jibes and months of why-didn't-you-stop-at-the-placemarker-you-killed-the-pedestrian, I finally gave up. Who wants to drive anyways, I thought- what are drivers for- and i've been extremely lucky to have been blessed with a driver all my working life.
Another manifestation of my right brain-ness is my high school marksheet. Topping the school in English- to barely scraping past in Math. I hated Math and all it's branches- and secretly was pleased when they didn't lay too much emphasis on it for the MICA written exam. Analytical abilities are tops- cause I realised it's just interpretation of English- but pure Math? No way!
But as the years progressed and so did my station in life- I was faced with the daunting task of interpreting sales numbers on excel, having to head a small-ish empire. That's when I think, my un-used left brain decided to take over. 
Now I'm proud to say, that I have a balanced head on my shoulders!

The relativity of reality

(Inspired by a chance status update on FB)
Are people really as happy as they seem to be? With their trophy spouses, posing in front of exotic locations and delectable cuisines? 
Isn't there a real life somewhere- one, where the pains of everyday disappointment are not masked by fake smiles? One, where the place settings on the breakfast table isn't just-so-right with the orange juice and the fluffy omelettes? 
It is every person's wish to be successful and happy. Since we cannot be happy all the time we invent little manifestations of our has-been happiness- postcards, events, joyful words.
And when we start living the lie, we find it hard to accept reality.

Wounds of the Heart

How does it feel to leave the only house you've ever known? Known so well that you can walk blindfold down the winding staircase and your hand automatically flicks on the light switch on entering a room. Known so well that the faces in the mosaic refuse to be replicated elsewhere and your eyes search for that Michael Jackson-shaped crack on the ceiling plaster.
Known so well that even before you leave it physically, you see it in your dreams each night- reliving a tiny part of yourself in muddied colours.
The wounds of the heart are deepest when one doesn't realise the extent of hurt.