Snapshots

The mornings are of purple skies streaked with deep crimson. It smells of cinnamon and coffee. And of course, of love. One wants likes to think that being whimsical is what one does best. It is when one is happiest.

Then he came along. And suddenly there was chaos. She could not think what was it about him that confused her so much. Feet. His feet. First time she told him that feet are the first thing about a person that attract her, he said it was very wise. "Clean feet are the basic sign of hygiene. If a person cares enough to keep his feet clean and stink-free, you can live with that person." She had sighed an exasperated sigh then. Trust him to take the romance out of everything.

She looked at him now, searching for his glasses that were on top of his head. Wondering how he is going to live with his absentmindedness, she reached up to pull down his glasses to his nose. He smiled, that amused, indulgent smile of his. She grinned back. It was going to be quite a morning.

Her

There is something intrinsically beautiful about dried flowers. Like photographs. They remind us of some beauty we once experienced, the memory of which still lingers, like the musty fragrance of a dried petal.

Which is why she never had the soul to throw away the flowers she received. She liked to preserve them, leave them, scattered in through the intermittent pages of books. So that someday, she turns a page, and is unexpectedly faced with a yesterday.

She said she hated it when people got her flowers. Perhaps, it was the burden of that carefully preserved memory that tired her. Perhaps, she lied. Perhaps, this ping-pong game of today and yesterday is what kept her locked in her own head. Perhaps, she just didn't want what she thought she wanted.

As the tea goes cold...

It irked her no end that people did not have time to talk anymore. Not the usual whining about work, kids and beyond, not the "discussions" on all things important, but just good, old fashioned, while-you-have-other-important-things-that-can-wait-or-go-to-hell talk. Like that time in college, where she and that friend who always made her laugh snuck out of that very boring class of the pretty teacher, and sat by the football field to ogle at Wasim Akram lookalikes. Or that time, when that friend and she sat on the steps of her then house and discussed life and love. She was in her night clothes and the friend was in a tee and a towel, but the fact that they were out, at 3.30 in the morning, sharing emotional gossip both of them pretended not to care for, gave her a sneaky sense of gladness. Then there was that time, when she fell asleep, as her tears dried on the shoulders of that friend, the one who never ceased to bring immense calm into her always chaotic life.

One day, she hopes to set a table for two, pull out some old, chipped mugs, that hold more memories than tea in them. And she hopes, those friends will come and talk to her again.

From the Pages of a Long Lost Book

It is curious how one thing can remind you of something completely unrelated--something that is from a different world all together. In the train today, suddenly we passed this stretch where they were burning weeds. The smell of smoke brought back the once-familiar smell of cashew nuts roasting. When we were kids, ma's tharavadu was this veritable haven of everyday wonders--of delightful sights and smells of unadulterated village life that held endless fascination for us city kids.

We would watch enchanted as our grand uncles, the formidable men of the house, would build the fire and toss the cashew nuts in heaps into its crackling goodness. This, of course, was done with great panache of seasoned showmen for the benefit of us impressionable kids. We would then watch enchanted, as the cashew nuts, with which we used to play a caroms till the day before, crackled and spluttered in the fire.

Occasionally, one of the more "grown-up" and hence, more adventurous, amongst us kids would dare thrown a small log into the fire, to be immediately chastised by the real grow-ups. But the immediate increase in respect and popularity amongst us lesser (and younger) mortals made it worth the mild reprimand.

The smell that rose from the fire--a heady mixture of smoke, cashew nuts, and a combination of firewood and dry leaves--was made more palpable with the collective excitement of us kids. And just about when we are about to lose our heads to the smell, someone in the grown-up party will declare that the cashews are just about done. The fire, if it was not breathing its last already, is killed.

And then begins the part that was my favourite in the grand ritual: cracking the nut, and of course, eating it. It used to be so much fun to watch the mighty men of the house go squirm squirm-twitch-twitch-and-jump trying to hold the hot cashews, while trying to get the outer (and now burnt) shell-like skin out, and get to the nicely roasted nutty bit inside. (This, of course, even the most adventurous amongst the kids never tried. The hot embers looked mean enough for all of us to stay away!). The whole house would smell of roasted cashews, and happiness.

Smells are such funny things. They are always lurking around the dark corners of your mind, waiting to jump at you at delightfully unexpected moments with equally unexpected memories. And I'm so glad :)

Conversations

Don't you wish sometimes that you could dive into the depths of yourself and pull out that self that you once were? Become that stranger that you once used to be? So that all your todays are as your yesterdays, and your yesterdays are as today?

Or perhaps, you wonder if you have such depths to pull yourself out from. Wonder that if you try and dive into it, you will only realise the shallowness that is inside of you. Is that so bad--this lack of distance between the surface and the self? The skin-deep being the only presence and nothing else that is real?

Aren't memories a twisted trick that our mind plays on us? Or perhaps it is only to protect us from our own past selves. It is easy to remember yesterday fondly. To think of our past as a long lost friend, with whom we lost touch with somewhere. Someone you can bump into at a curious bend, and feel a surge of happiness, a rush that comes from meeting our once lost self.

Do you wonder? Or perhaps you are so rooted in the details of everyday that you don't have the time for such flights of whimsical imagination. Perhaps, you like to think you live in the reality of today. Perhaps you even believe that there is a reality of today.

What does that make me in your eyes? And what does that make you?