Let it Fly

I got off the metro and assessed the fury of the sun’s rays. There was a breeze blowing which took out some intensity off the Delhi summer’s heat. I hurried out of the station and found myself a rickshaw to take me to the office. It was a long straight stretch of a road and it was empty. I plugged in my earphones to get some music into my system during the routine rickshaw ride. She came pedalling down the road on a cycle and overtook us. I watched surprised at the speed at which she rode. At first, she seemed to be an intense blur of pink and green hurtling down the empty road. She had her head tilted back as she enjoyed the breeze on her face and her dupatta streamed behind her like a pair of pink wings. She made me think of an angel in flight. Her sense of freedom reverberated in the air and made me stop the music and just look at her riding. My rickshaw driver took it as a personal affront that a mere chit of a girl had overtaken a gnarled veteran of pedal power like him and began pushing himself harder on the rickshaw as I clung on for dear life. We caught up with her at the red light and I was able to take a good look at her. It was obvious that she came from a background where each day involved surmounting the obstacles placed by fate and the fact that she was born a girl did not help matters much. Her cycle was old and but she had cheered it up by hanging colourful little danglers on the handlebars. She had some books strapped to the carrier behind her. Her face was ordinary, like countless other girls like her but her eyes had a glint of mischief and wait a minute….was it a hint of ambition and rebellion that I saw there? She stood panting as we waited for the lights to change. I leaned forward and asked her to tie her dupatta behind her else it would get tangled in the wheels of her cycle. She flashed me a brilliant smile which showed off a cute set of jagged teeth, got back on her seat as the lights were about to change and said to me, “ Aaj Udne Do………..”….and I was left wondering did she mean her dupatta or did she mean herself ?

One More Post

My Dear Long-Neglected Blog,



It is so good to see that you haven’t self-destructed as yet in vengeance for my negligence. To be very honest, I have missed you and have often wanted to return to you earlier, but circumstances and inertia have always got the better of me. It was so much easier to neglect you than to sit down and make a serious effort at churning out a post for you.



With 75% of 2011 over, I did some reflection on the months gone past and this feeling of stagnation at all levels is overpowering and hard hitting. The fact that I was (am?) drifting from one day to another as possibilities fade out and just getting older, isn’t something easy to come to terms with.



And so my dear blog, here I am, back to you. Maybe you’ll help me find a new direction, maybe you wont à but I do hope that you’ll help me take up and polish this rusted hobby of mine.



Much love,



TWB.

Untitled

A crisp autumn morning. A leafy Delhi road. A slight nip in the air. A kick of caffeine in the veins. An old melody on the radio. A memory of losses and lessons learnt. A replay of yesterday’s argument. A tug at the heartstrings. A stab of guilt. A desire to hold on. A number dialed. An apology offered. A consolation accepted. A left turn. A journey’s end. A feeling of peace. A bliss of love restored.

Potential Postponed

So many times I have begun pieces only to abandon them after the first few paragraphs by telling myself that I would complete it later and direct my attention towards things more important – my job, my responsibilities, my relationships…and somewhere along the line the things that I enjoy to do the most fades into the background.

I am certainly not the best of writers and cannot for the life of me churn out expressive lines yet I feel a sense of calm as my pen flies over the pages trying to keep pace with my thoughts and I see the words flow into phrases and the phrases into sentences that flow into each other.

I am able to write when I able to think deeply. Come to think of it I haven’t written anything for ages - does that mean that I have not been thinking deeply enough? Or on the contrary was I thinking so much that I lost my thoughts before I could them put them down on paper? Or was I so busy being busy that I just decided to postpone my potential for a little while longer?