Butterfly

Our little critter-
Is a friend of the flowers,
She comes with her dainty wings
Fluttering like the lashes of a baby!
Someone shut me
From traffic, people and chores
I need is a tete-e-tete
With the queen of colors.
she lifts herself, with a pro like ease!
Glides in the air
Oblivious, triumphant -
About her life changing journey
From creepy and crawling
To Pretty and startling!
She devours the blooms
Letting me devour
Her beauty in return.
Our little critter
She is the friend of meadows
Punctuated with creeks
And lush green bushes.
Someone shut me
From thoughts, tasks and duties -
All I need is one long look
At Freedom on wings
At the magic of metamorphosis!

Coming back.

I'd been hopelessly horrible in keeping up with blogging but you just have to believe me that I write in my mind- ALL THE TIME! - yeah, it is worth yelling that I do ;-) Some of the topics I'd pondered upon in my mind's blog ranged form very profound to utterly shallow. For instance, recently one of my uncles turned 60 and he wrote to all his well wishers saying he doesn't feel a day older than sixteen. I kind of relate to him now. A decade ago, I'd not have understood the downsides of aging, thankfully or otherwise, now I do. I kind of know why people stick to being 16 and don't understand why they are treated as old, ancient, uncool or dated. The person inside remains the same - the outward appearance changes and so does the way people look at you.
Age seems to be a ubiquitous topic every where. From peers wanting to know who among them is the youngest or oldest and feeling like they'd conquered Mt.Everest if they are young, to people saying Aishwarya rai looks old and ragged in Robot, opposite the ever young Rajnikanth - the talk about aging is everywhere reminding us that we are younger or older or just plain 'past prime.' I had the pleasure of meeting a particularly proud young thing in the recent past who seems to not get over how young she is - (she is legally old enough to consume alcohol BTW)
and I wonder why being young entitles oneself to feel so proud and accomplished. At twenty one, I was running a house hold and wondering if my future son would look like Aftab Shivdasani and don't recollect being proud of being twenty one. In fact, I was oblivious to my age. I think a decade passes in a flash and only a couple of flashes ago I was this language loving school girl with an endless fascination to strap sandals. Somewhere, somehow, I don't think I'd aged over sixteen from within though I seem to be more at peace with myself now than I was then. That being said, I feel like a very sane, sensible and savvy sixteen year old with stray grays in my crowning glory. So why is the stigma of age attached to Homo Sapience? Is it because age comes and kicks collagen out of your epidermis and makes you look a lot different from how you feel or is it because you are not just as fast or as healthy or as active? Is looking good everything in life and staying young the only way of looking good?I don't know answers for these though many women are probably seeking answers in their Derm's office with the aid of Botox and face lifts!
Say, we have no concept of age and no one acknowledges the outer signs of aging - will the world still want to hide their numbers and wrinkles under potentially harmful procedures? One can only wonder!

In my highschool days, I read a poem written by a very famous poet and social reformer that hailed from my home town in India. He grieved -
valibharmukha makrantham
Phalitenam Kitam siraha
Gatrani Sidhilayente
Trishnaika Tarunayathe.

Loosely translated from Sanskrit to English this means -

The face is conquered by wrinkles
The hair has succumbed to greying
The body is in ruins
But The Yearning stays youthful.

The poem got me very deep in thought. Here, the poet talks about how his yearning to be beneficial to the society is still in its prime while all his body shows intense signs of aging. Yearning - which more of a mental thing stays eternally youthful. So, though I was at a ridiculously young age to even admit to the fact that aging is the inevitable destiny of all living beings, I did drive home the fact that the heart goes beyond aging. Into my thirties, I am now aware of it more than I ever was since I see little shadows forming on my alleged 'million dollar smile' a few years ago. I count the years pass by and in a way, mourn the steady loss of youthfulness, but I still give a double take at a cute guy, or get all worked about painting my nails and going on a shopping trip. So, technically, I cannot put an age on my heart. I can just say, the my heart has no age and so does my mom's who will be sixty next year or my Grand uncle's who's one of the most handsome men I'd seen and is a good half century older to me.

It is very unfortunate that age and maturity are not proportional. I'd feel proud of being mentally mature than physically young notwithstanding how old or young I am - and that should be the hallmark of a beautiful person. The robust complexions and great metabolisms can take a chill pill since they don't really make a difference to any person in the long run. They'll all pass - but the inside will remain, the creases on the mind and heart - the creases of jealousy, selfishness and vanity are the ones that undermine our worth - not the ones that form on our bodies.

Never a Superstar

Here's a link to Harsha Bhogle's write up on V V S Laxman - info that threw light on the artist and the muse - the artist of Words and the muse who's lauded as an artist. An impressive work - either way!
www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/480388.html

Child.

Great Things
Come in little packages?
Pin straight, stark black Hair
Cascading onto the forehead,
Framing a tiny face.
Little hands and feet,
Almost dangling
Out of over sized tees and shorts.
Power packed attitude
That punches in the palm
With a puny twist,
When asked for a Hi Five.
Sorrow filled tiny eyes
When the discovery
Of not bringing the lunch Dawns.
Monkey like gait,
Laughing, screaming,
Making havoc on the way
Sly, sassy, little kid
That touches the heart
With his lack of manners
And abundance of mischief.
Great thing, tiny package
A tot that is hard to be missed!

One more.

Birthdays were always fun - and this one is no different. I'm taking a deep breath and thanking God for all the blessings and great friends he sent my way:-)
Happy B'day to me~!

Number

The day I was ten and six
I loved sparkly things,
Lady bugs, drops of rain
Painting nails
reading books.
The day I was ten and six
I sang in the shower
loved splashes of color
collected earrings
wrote love notes to my lover.
The day I was ten and six
I stopped to watch the world pass by
I laughed and cried
watching comedy and tragedy
on screen and off of it.
The day I was ten and six
I was a girl woman.
I dreamed of my home
my kids, my chores
I wrote poetry and prose
and loved solitude
as much as I loved crowds.

Time passed, I became ten and six
twice over.
I am a woman girl
still loving bumble bees and lady bugs
sparkly trinkets
nail lacquer, well written books
Still smitten by my lover
Still singing in my shower.

ten and six or thirty and two
You just stay you.
The count-up of age is just a number
It might apply to your laugh lines
and hair density.
But
The inside remains the same.

Ponder

Ten years ago, when I was a newcomer into adulthood, marriage and this country, I was looking at things in a different paradigm - by things, I mean all things in general and kids in particular. I'd always been more compatible with people out of my age group and the older group of friends I have in my friends' dads and moms is evidence. My vibe with kids was great too. The curly haired, dimpled cutie that lived in our neighborhood was an instant draw towards me. I used to babysit her while her mom grappled with a younger kid and a career path. So, this little one, let's call her Farah, was like a roommate of sorts, sharing my living space and the secret to the stash of treats in my pantry (that existed to cater to all the little ones that I baby sat, out of sheer admiration for kids) Farah's personality was as vibrant as the color of her auburn tresses that cascaded down into Shierly Temple curls. Her middle Eastern descend contributed to her glowing complexion and soulful dark eyes. She was a very confident kid, that was not afraid of speaking her mind out. Once I let her into my house, she'd walk into the kitchen, open the pantry door and demand for a cookie or a candy. "Give me a treat" she'd command, and I'd follow her cues and give her what she wanted. Her confidence came with a fearless streak of curiosity. She'd look around the house and touch and hold everything, including my fine china that was displayed with pride in my "easily accessible by a five year old" kitchen Island shelf. Little did I know about the concept of child proofing.
Farah was an easy definition of a brat for all the neighbors. I was probably too young and immature myself that I'd actually expected a five year old to have impeccable manners and 'under-wraps' curiosity. I was borderline judging her and joining force with the 'holier than thou' mothers around me. For a good couple of years, I'd expected kids to listen, not yell, not demand and not throw tantrums when things don't go their way. It was probably the product of the influence of moms who either thought of kids in two categories, namely - their kids and bad kids, or moms whose child raising experiences went to college along with their kids, or young women like me who weren't moms yet.
And then, one day, in a telephone conversation with a relative about some bratty kid, I said it. "Kids are not dolls - how can we expect them to stay at one place?" I was far from being a mom, but the wisdom dawned upon me that Farah wasn't a brat- she was a kid and kids don't understand the concept of impressing others with their best behavior at all times. If I'd want a cookie at someone's place, I'd not ask them for it - I'll probably wait and get disappointed but would not ask, since I am aware. Since I am an adult and probably since I know how to pretend to not want something.
I say one thing to all moms that label kids - That " It is never a kid's fault. If a certain kid in the school comes and says an utterly rude thing to someone - firstly it might not be what is sounds like. Secondly, the kid is probably parrot talking from what falls in her ear shot. And from my own experience, I had realized that, more often than not, it is not the parent's fault either. In the process of growing up and assimilating all the data dumped onto their tender brains throuh what they see and hear - kids say or do inappropriate things. If an older kid is particularly pesky, I'd probably point fingers at too much pampering, but we never know why they say what they say. So my golden rule with kids is "Never Judge" I'd heard adults who brand kids as manipulative or attention seeking. If a little girl shows interest in dress up or feigns a bottle brush as a mascara wand, it doesn't mean that she'd grow up to be an attention seeking man eater. It is just an innocent process of growing up or at the most, the double Xs in her chromosomes.Many of us probably look it it as the latter if it is the fruit of our love - Sad but true!
In my early years of education, I was a pathetic student. I remember a teacher branding me as a ' lazy fool'. I was too young to understand what it meant then, but those words ring in my ears after a good quarter century. I grew up to be a school topper, but somehow, the "lazy fool" managed to stay fresh in my memory. They didn't cause me any damage - They could have.

If someone wise had opined that children are like God, they had meant it in the same exact sense that children are free of malice, pretense and presumptions. So, the ones that are all grown should step out of their malicious, pretentious, presumptuous shoes and take a second glance at what they are evaluating.

Farah moved out of our neighborhood a few years later - for many, she might be the bratty, ill mannered child. For me, thankfully, she'll always be this exceptionally pretty angel in a child's disguise.

This and That!

These are really individual blogworthy, thought worthy topics - but I'm determined to put these across before they fade just as soon as they emerged - so here goes the ponder hodgepodge.

After a long long, really long, ( did I mention that it was very long?) time, I actually got to watch a full length bollywood movie, in all it's mushy glory. The movie - named "Pyaar Impossible" means "Love Impossible" in literal translation, dwells upon the thought that people just get attracted to each other based on looks and love cannot actually happen if someone doesn't have the first recommendation in the form of looks. While the though on which the movie is built sounds pretty convincing, I beg humbly to differ and not attach the stigma of looks to love, since, in my own radar, I'd come across men and women who were not conventionally handsome or pretty, but still managed to attract a whole bunch of the opposite sex towards them. Any relationship cannot sustain upon the foundation of good looks (for long!) So unless you are a teenager, or mentally a teenager, you should not take the thought very seriously. Whether you are a babe loitering around in scandalously short dress (to work) or a dude with over sized geeky glasses and overgreased hair - Love is never possible nor impossible based on the length of your dress or the thickness of your glasses, Period. So, the thought the movie is based on is semi flawed. Priyanka's character is totally flawed. She is shown as a self made, successful professional but fails to reprimand her six year old daughter when she puts her nannies through borderline torture too good to tolerated even when it comes form a light eyed, cute little girl. May be it is the mom in me over reacting, but I'd lose my credibility as a person if I let my little girl get away with calling someone "froggy" or "my slave".

As much as I hate to admit, and given my hard to please criticism, I should give the credit where it belongs and agree that Uday Chopra, for once, came across as talented. After all, he has the same genes as his dad and older bro. It seems the dialogues and script were written by him and that's where the amateurish streak comes into play. May be I should just let the compliment be and not dilute it.

Finally, I cannot believe, that I actually watched the movie, squinting and oblivious to the six course meal that was being prepared in the background while I watched away at my friend's place. The Hollywood type chick flick was all I needed to call my weekend relaxing - thanks to the gang who took care of Aarti while I forgot my surroundings.

On a different note, I did get a chance to feel 25 again since Aarti went on an extended playdate which actually became a sleep over/live over for a couple of days. Sarat and I had our usual spiritual talk on the way to a friend's - which happens every time we get a chance to be alone. So the topic this time around was 'Karma"

The concept of Karma baffles me. While on one hand we say kids are like God, on the other, countless kids across the globe are put through abuse I cannot fathom or put in words. This was my question for the spiritually enlightened other half - "why does God put kids through this?" Why cannot someone bare the fruits of his or her Karma once they are grown and actually understand the profoundity of the ways of the world as we perceive them. The answer was pretty convincing - God does not put anyone through anything. It is just the choices we make that put us in situations. So, the person who is harming a child does it out of his free will - and God doesn't have control over someone's will. So folks, Choices it is - Between Good and Bad and Evil and Divine. So may be, if each of us is more introspective about the choices we make, may be the world can be a place free of child abuse.

I was also a bit creative, dusted my SLR and took some pics that might revive my pic blog, if I can get past the inertia.

Ego

I, Me, Myself
Oblivious to all else!
Making the world revolve
Around one little "I"
Or what I like
And What I believe!
I, Me, Myself
And my religion.
My love for power
And loathe for all else.
My little self
Occupying the center stage
While there are wails
Of pain and hunger-
Of plight and Fear.
I, Me, myself
And what benefits me
Me and Myself alone.
Love and lust
All for myself -
Shunning all else.
One day, this I, Me, Myself
and My love for power
Shall probably be replaced
By the power of love
That looks beyond
I, Me, Myself
And embraces all else
As my own!

JLT

Clusters, bunches, collection
Of thoughts
To ponder upon
No will to write
In sight!

iFad

I saw this being touted in our hallway, my kid brother showing it off like Heidi Klum would walk in the Angels ensemble, complete with wings ;-0
I must admit, it was smaller and lighter than I thought and I could dump my idea to buy a kindle for this hot new dude on the block.
The iPad could be at these finggertips pretty soon.
To buy or not to buy!
Decisions, Decisions!! ;-)