Block again.

Every image that takes form in the grey cells looks like something I'd seen before. Every idea that crosses my mind seems to have been said or talked about before a hundred million times.
Blame it on lethargy or plain lack of inspiration, it is not happening today. The owl is wide awake. Looking at a hazy image of itself in the mirror at the other corner of a vast expanse. The bed light gleams in depressing blue, the same blue that looked like a source for the revival of senses just last week. The spacebar gives trouble functioning and my thumb thumps it after every word. Wish I had the power to change this futile brain as quickly as I could think of changing this out-dated machine. A Mac. A Viao may be, in avacado green. I am partial to green be it the deepest bordering on black or the palest leaning towards off white. Green - the color of life! Which gets me back to a lifeless state of mind.
A book, a short story, a little passage or just a sentence may be?
Why oh why?
Block - something that happens to non-writers as well, I realise!

Repeat.

I thought I'd blog about something that can flirt with your mood. Cajole it to change colors when it sprinkles a heap of melodious notes on your state of mind. Make your heart twich with pain or flutter with pleasure. So instead of stringing blah words that fail to grasp the magic of eternal music, I'll try capturing the soul of some of those melodies (I may fail, but shall do it neverthless) that repeat on an electronic device. More importantly on my senses.

Five for fighting - superman (it's not easy)
Something about John Ondrasik's vocals is brutally addictive. To believe me, run don't walk to youtube and listen to one of his songs. This is the kind of voice that can make the pressure cooker burst because you place it on the stove and foget to turn it off after two dozen whistles (nope, did'nt happen to me. I never risk pressure-cooking while listening to him - LOL) The keys on the piano in this song makes one feel the God-consciousness in oneself.

In Lamhon Ke Daman Mein - by the one and only Rehman bhayya sung by Nigam Bhayya. A combination conspired in heaven to bestow upon the human kind, the magic of a good compisition paired with a voice that can vibrate to capture the conscience of the composition. The lyrics sound like most of those bollywood lyrics but the melody is like never before. Just when you are in a state of euphoria Madhushree's voice breaks in like maple syrup on a hot fluffy pancake and your tastebuds pine for more. The song has Rehman written all over it with traditional 'tillana' kind of chorus and delicate drum beats. I think I hear something like a Jal tarangani in the orchestra. Pure joy. Nothing less!

Sami Ninne - Sankara Bharanam set to adi tala, composed by veenai Kuppaiyer.

The first one I'm getting to study. If classical music is not meditaion to seek the inner light, my knowledge fails me to understand what is. when the windows to the world close and give the ear drums a chance to do some seeing, the deepest emotions from the inmost of my being rise and gather like mist under the veils of my eyes. Believe me, It happens every time I listen to a well sung classical composition. And I mean every single time. Sankara Bharanam when sculpted in the voices of Bombay sisters floods the ambience of my soul, it gives me a glimpse of the cosmos in the form of a fluid melody. I try and fail, repeatedly to tread the twists and turns of this raga. Presently, I give up recreating the magic in my voice. I am probably way too impure to aspire so high. My limitaion notwithstanding, I am truly blessed to have an ear for divinity in the form of melody. Truly blessed!

Block.

Fruitlessly looking for inspiration around. My mind is dead tonight. The owl is almost asleep!
A few hours ago, the isles in Walmart showed off pink and red to me. Chocolates, candy, teddy bears, stickers, cards, trinkets, roses, tulips, bath gels, lip glosses, craft kits, prepackaged gifts, cello wrapped baskets with stuff toys, cute jammies, lingerie... all predominantly pink and red with heart motifs and cupid arrows. Love seems to be in the air like never before. Every corner of the humongous store was enitcing its patrons with bunches of fresh cut flowers and extra discounts on most of its wares. The store looked animated with men and women, boys and girls hunting around for thier tokens of love.
My half dead mind sifted through the clutter of those hearts and arrows. I did not find what I wanted. A half a dozen toddler spoons, a jar of play doh in fire engine red, A pack of thank you cards, A mini toy truck for a recepient that could hate it in most possibilities and a gallon of whole milk made it into the shopping cart and thru the check out line. I needed none of them, except may be the milk.
Pink and red, hearts and cupid arrows overwhelmed me and haunted me to my car and followed me till this very moment. I realise that I did not look twice at any of those things. Just one thought rotating in the clueless corners of my mind - An empty thought. As empty as this rambling.

Scribbles.

A jam of thoughts
Caught in confusion
Struggle to find a way
To their destination -
paranoid about missing
The much awaited metamorphosis
Of seeing themselves
In a feelable form.
Paranoid about
ending up in scribbles instead.

Mug shot.

She has a long, generous face and quiet a smile. It always makes one wonder what she is upto - sounds cliche, but it does. Her lips are usually pursed when her face blooms into that warm smile. She has perfect teeth. Something that people notice if she flashes that row of pearls, which she seldom does. He eyes are small. Curious and shining but small. They cringe slightly when she smiles making those eyes appear smaller. It somehow adds appeal to her face. He forehead is broad. Like the sky on the horizon over those straight, uncurved brows. Her pin straight hair falls gracefully to the sides where her generous earlobes sport understated stud earrings. Her nose makes her look very familiar and brings a De-javu kind of a feeling to the people who look at her. "You look like some one I know" is probably the sentence she hears the most number of times. Her complexion is warm - with strong yellow undertones creating an impression of candlelight focused on her face for special effect. Her chin is distinct and potrudes softly adding a cuteness to a girly face. A distince jawline adds the much needed character that strengthens and leaves a lasting impression when paired with that minnie-mouse kind of cheeks with high cheek bones. Her lower lip is fuller than the upper making us wonder if she is pouting in an exaggerated coyness. Hers is a common face with uncommon illusions. A face caught inbetween looking familiar and strangely mysterious.

Memories.

I somehow started prefering an abstract writing form to the solid prose which is too much of work for my lazy mind. It also lets me feign poetry. LOL. English being what it is and I being what I am, I stick to the easier way for now since it is already past midnight and the owl in me is kind of unusually asleep today:-)
So please look through spelling as I am almost sleep-typing now and as I'd said, the spell check doesn't work which forces me to add that I am a techno moron added to the many more morons I already am.

Greased, soft tresses,
Washed with Aveeno
A tiny bundle of joy
Turns two today.
Mom plays with her
Like she is her custom made
Version of 'Baby Alive'.
Mustard brown contrasted
with maroon accents her
Flawless skin.
Tiny bangles like circles of color
stack on those dainty hands
As if she is a christmas tree.
She amuses everyone saying
'Anemone" when asked where Nemo lives.
"Nemo Tucch the boath" she keeps
Repeating to all her friends.
An off pitch and off tune
Birthday song plays in full throated ease
When she sets her eyes on a
Tres Leche decorated with
Strawberry shortcake.
Now in a yoke frock
Made out of the softest cotton
Which makes her more cuddly,
She walks around
Almost in a dance like glide
Blowing kisses and offering hugs
To all her admirers.
Happy, bright
and quick to repeat words
that fall in her ear shot
Reminding people of a parrot,
She sprinkles "please"
On her every request
Like an extra helping of brown sugar
In the White chocolate mocha
Her mom craved for, when she
Carried her.
A dimpled cheek and and extra pinky toe,
Dextirity stronger on her left side,
She croons happy birthday
Off tune and off pitch
But nothing else can be more
Music to the blessed mom's
Ears, than that very sound!

Inspired.

...In desperation, I attempt to capture in words, what I cannot deep within my soul.

Wishes

Aarti turns two today!Here's a mom wishing her daughter a great childhood and a happy and content adulthood ahead.11th also marks the rebirth of moi as a mom. Happy b'day to me too!

Whatever.

Intricately embroidered
Sequined
Fringed
Adorning a dainty stalk
Blooming youth.
Fragrance of beauty
Penetrating the air,
Annoucing the arrival
Of a nymph that came
To the Earth
(Was it bad Karma?)
Trapping many a heart
In that fringe.

Loot.

Just around Aarti's second birthday, I am all geared up to look at the birthday culture and compare it with the good old 80s when moi was a little girl:-)

My earliest memory of a Birthday dates back to early eighties when I was in Kindergarten and first grade. It used to be fun since you get to spare yourself from the teacher's spankings and everyone in the class treats you like a princess. I particularly remember a period of time during my 3rd grade when I used to start counting days to my next birthday the day my birthday ends this year. Now I dread b'days altogether and they seem to come upon me every now and then, like an unwanted guest.
Okay, staying on track, it was fun to be the birthday girl. If I was very fortunate, I used to score a present or two, usually gold toned earrings and garrish red nail polishes that were probably made in that color alone. I used to go distribute candy in our neighborhood and our next door neighbor, Bunty's mom (a very cosmopolitan, city bred woman) used to give me little trinkets for gifts. They were a big deal for me - a pair of plastic hair clips or a cheesy bead necklace.
I never had a memory of recieving serious gifts, except ofcourse, those Ampro biscuit packets and Parle poppins.

Things have come a long long way in two decades. last year, when I was in India to celebrate Aarti's first b'day, I stayed with my sister in Mumbai for a good one month. My nieces Eesha and Sriya used to come home from playschool every other day, bringing loot bags filled with packs of crayons, water bottle co-ordinated backpacks and even personalized folders and bath robes. These were the "gifts" or "goody bags" they used to get from kids celebrating b'days at school. I was baffled to see the kind of things that had substituted those hard boiled sugar candies I used to distribute for my birthdays when I was a child. The kind of candies which would be recalled here as choking hazards were such a treat back then.

Another shocker was the kind of moolah parents spent on theme parties. During my one month stay in that metropolitian neighborhood, I learnt how birthdays ought to be celebrated with proper themes, theme related food and snacks and theme related dress code and return gifts. My one year old came home one day with her Aunt and cousins after attending a b'day party bringing back a pair of coolers, bandana and a framed photograph in which she was seated on a Kawasaki byke sporting that bandana and goggles. The theme was "Dhoom 2'. Slowly, I learnt about event managers who earned their livelyhoods organizing b'day parties and businesses that personalized water bottles and beach towels that are meant to be given away as gifts to the party animals.

I sit back and think how much of joy those little plastic clips brought or how much it meant to own those cheap fashion earrings. I feel bad for Aarti who would never have the joy I had when I was a kid. Not due to lack of enough stuff but due to lack of moderation. Every time she goes to a party here, she comes back home with a gift that she'd get bored of within minutes. I feel bad that she'd miss out on the fun of having ice cream like I had on those special days of the year where a "kwality family pack" would be stored carefully in that teeny tiny freezer compartment and my siblings and moi would guard the fridge till we get to eat that treat. I feel sorry that she'll miss out on having just enough and cherishing what she has and dread about inculcating in her, the value for things and finding joy in simple pleasures.

I do not know if it is a good thing or bad, but I do know that too much of a good thing can definitely not be wonderful!