DEFEAT

Faster, faster – the cheers were loud

I lost sight of the surrounding crowd

My eyes were on the competition, running furiously fast

His intense focus was on not being last

Step by step, he pulled ahead

Across the finish line, first he sped

I beat you, I’m faster, hooray, he cried

I had lost the race, yet it was a moment of pride

I felt I had won the most coveted prize

When my DEFEAT shone as victory in my 5-year-old’s eyes!

PRISONERS OF TIME

So I stepped into my 40^th year in this world today. Of course, the fortieth birthday as such is only in 2014, but the connotation of the big four oh itself is supposed to be a milestone of sorts, a hill that you’re going over, an age where you’re considered more old than young.

I’ve been asked by people what I want to do to mark the occasion – perhaps do something crazy like sky-diving or whitewater rafting, or achieve something like travelling the globe or climbing to the top of the career ladder, or even just create a bucket list of things I want to do before I die. Truth be told, I have no desire to do anything “special”, simply because I don’t feel that turning 40 or any other age should define what you have done, should have done, or should do with your life.

Are we prisoners of time? Or do we have any control over the way our bodies change with the passage of time (botox and plastic surgeons notwithstanding)? While we’d like to believe that we do have some control, the irony is that as we grow older, the greater the lengths we go to, to hold on to any physical vestige of youth. We try to do things to reassure ourselves that we’re not really growing older, and that age is just number we should try to stay ahead of.  

I’d like to be a prisoner of time, I’d love to hold on to a part of the past, the part where our souls are still whole and we’re children who haven’t lost their innocence. In an ideal world, it should be the erosion of my soul and not the erosion of my youth that should cause me concern. It should be the scars on my conscience and the black in my mind more than the wrinkles on my face and the white in my hair that should give me sleepless nights.

I know that who I am today is the sum total of all my past experiences, some have changed me for the better, while others have made me bitter. So on my 40^th or any other birthday, I only wish for one thing to define me – that I am more of “better” than “bitter”, in spite of anything that may have happened in the interim.  

FERVOUR

Amma, I hate this, she cried out in pain

Why do you make me go through this again?

Temples that are crowded are not my thing

I’ve made it clear, right from the beginning

It was best to ignore my blossoming teen

Rather than react to her venting her spleen

My darling daughter fails to recall

How she loves rock concerts, even a crowded mall

Any argument right now would be considered flawed

Cause you understand FERVOUR only when it’s your own God!

EXPECTATION

Every race she ran, every test she took

She was by far the best, in everyone’s book

Her teachers loved her, her friends did too

She was as sweet as she was clever, that much is true

A lissom lass, she grew up to be

Said yes to the guy who went down on bended knee

As always, she gave her best to her married life

But he didn’t agree, and rejected her as his wife

The ways of humankind are unfortunately set

And the best is the best, only when EXPECTATION is met! 

CANDOUR

His hands smarted, the welt deep red

His teacher had wielded the cane till he bled

All for a lie, a half-truth in truth

Chalk it down to the folly of youth

No more lies, he decided then and there

It wasn’t worth it, no, he didn’t dare

Then one fine day, this question came his way

Darling, do I look fat, oh please do say

Alas, poor lad, he paid the price        

For CANDOUR with a woman, truth be told is a vice!

BOREDOM

I’m bored, she says, let’s do something fun

He caters to her wish, she’s second to none

A movie at the mall, shopping till they drop

He didn’t want the evening to end up a flop

A five-star dinner, with dancing and wine

He treated his lady, in her eyes he hoped to shine

Dance she did, but with another

He watched her eyes, light up like never

Slowly he retreated, into his own private hell

He was the Boredom, she needed to dispel!  

ANTICIPATION

You open your eyes, your heart skips a beat

You hope today’s going to bring a real special treat

You’ve waited so long, now the moment is nigh

You can almost taste the sweetness, the joy and the high

You’ve got your heart’s desire, you’re delirious with delight

Your heart’s aflutter, ready to take flight

But what’s that tiny feeling, a little blue?

Could it be sadness, a tear or two?

Oh why, oh why, when a happy day has arrived

That maybe so, but Anticipation has died!

SAHASRA

How time flies!!! It seems like you were born just the other day. I remember holding you in my arms and thinking you were the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. You took to me immediately, and the bond that was forged that day has only grown stronger through the years. Today, you’re a teenager, you’re on the verge of blossoming into a beautiful woman, and I can’t believe that it’s been 13 years since the day you were born.

I look back at the days you spent with me as a four and five-year old – you would miss your mum at nights, but you wouldn’t shed a single tear because you had promised not to, when you cried and pleaded to come stay with me; you would beg me to carry you around the whole day, I would tell you that only little girls who were shorter than the dining table could be carried, and you would give me that sad look which made me lift you up and hold you close; you would line up the chairs on my verandah and pretend you were their teacher, and they would get a dose of your strict classroom discipline as I watched indulgently from the sidelines; you would take your plate to a corner of the room and pretend to eat with your imaginary friend Karthika, carrying on a pretend conversation with her; you would watch your Barbie Princess movie over and over again, and drive me nuts in the process; and most important of all, you would always be able to make me smile and laugh even on the darkest days.  

As the years went by, I got to do many crazy, yet fun things with you – like the time I decided to take you on an impromptu 4-day trip to Hong Kong, depending only on an on-arrival visa that we got after 4 hours in immigration, even as all around us wondered what was wrong with me to even think of such a thing. Or like the time I decided to gift you the entire set of Famous Five books for your 10th birthday, even though your mum thought I was mad to do so. Or like the many times we both have stayed up well past midnight, reading under the covers, knowing fully well your mum would yell at both of us the next day, and yet laughing about our cheekiness together. And perhaps best of all, like the times we get to discuss Harry Potter and Percy Jackson (which you made me read), since you’ve grown up to share my intense love of reading and books. Truth be told, the more time I spend with you, the more I seem to become your age, and love to do all the things I was told I couldn’t do, yet longed to do as a child, simply because I see that you enjoy doing those things as well.   

The other day, you were lying next to me in bed and mentioned casually – You’re just like me, Perima. I ruffled your hair and replied – No baby, YOU’RE just like me. And you rolled your eyes and gave me that look that all kids give adults who they think are trying to act too smart, and began to complain to your mum about how I was allowed to carry my book and read during a family function, while you were not.

It’s uncanny, but so true – you’re a mini me in most ways; you carry around a book to read all the time, just as books were my constant companions when I was younger; you finish books at the speed of light, taking me back to the days when I used to get through three books a day and still long for more; you stay up late and use a torch under the covers just to finish the last pages of an absorbing book, just as I used to lose sleep over many a thriller in my day; you write excellent essays and have begun to experiment with plays and dramas, reminding me of my days at school when my classmates used to envy my good grades in English and wait to read my essays; and weirdest of all, you too daydream of being surrounded by books of all kinds, just as that was my foremost fantasy when I was a kid – the only difference is that I used to dream of being in a room filled with books, from floor to ceiling, and being allowed to read to my heart’s content, while you fantasize about lying on a beach with all the books you want, and your iPod to keep you company as well!!

Thank you for making me the luckiest woman in the world - who else gets to take such immense pride in a daughter who’s just like her, without giving birth to her? Happy thirteenth year sweetie, here’s wishing you all the best that life has to offer, today and always!!!

MONKEY MENACE

When you wake up to find yourself face to face with a monkey, there’s no room for anything in your mind other than pure shock, and the only thing you can think of is to chase it away and escape without being bitten or scratched. It happened to me the other day, when I woke up to find a huge monkey peering in at me through my open balcony door. I had left it open so that the breeze would lessen the stifling heat of a surprisingly sultry Bangalore night, but rather than welcoming some cool air, all the open door did was issue an invitation to a big, fat monkey to admire a sleeping beauty.

Needless to say, I became a screaming beast after the reality of what I was seeing reached my half-awake brain. The monkey vanished from sight on hearing me yell, and I ran to bolt the balcony door with a sigh of relief. As I stood there, I heard a noise from the kitchen that raised the beating of my heart to thunderous proportions, and with a sinking feeling realized that the door leading to the other balcony from the kitchen was also open, and that the monkey was now inside the house. When I peered around the corner into the kitchen, it was at the dustbin, looking for leftovers to eat. No amount of shooing and banging doors budged him from giving his entire attention to scrounging for something to eat.

Things got worse when he turned his beady eyes to where I was, and disdainfully bounded into the living room, and straight on to the corner table which must have looked very appealing to him with all the shiny knickknacks like keys and mobiles scattered on it. As I watched with wary eyes from my post inside the room, half head out and the rest of me safely behind the door, he picked up the very thing I didn’t want him to notice – a shiny packaged box that contained in it one very, very expensive Swatch watch. It was meant to be a gift for a dignitary who was supposed to visit our office the next day, and now, it had become a toy for this self-crowned king of my home who was examining it carefully with his chubby paws. I prayed fervently that the monkey wouldn’t end up making a monkey out of me at office – how could I go in and explain that a monkey had made off with the watch? It sounded suspicious even to my ears, much like stories of dogs eating one’s homework.

And to my horror of horrors, the thing I wanted most and the thing I dreaded most, happened simultaneously – the monkey scampered outside the room and to the balcony just as I had been praying it would, but it carried away more than ten grand worth of goods that didn’t even belong to me. I ran to the kitchen with my heart in my mouth, and to my immense relief, saw the package abandoned near the dustbin. I rushed to get the door closed and bolted, and a few days after that, monkey-proofed the grill on the balcony with GI wire to ensure that I would never have to wake up to simian intruders again.

But I did wake up to many more monkeys, all of them monkeys on my back. They’re the ones that sneak in through the doors of doubt that you leave open in your mind; they stare you in the face as soon as you open your eyes each morning, and remind you of the burdens you must bear every day. They induce a deep fear in you, fear that you will be scarred and hurt by your cares and worries. They run when you shout at them to go away, yet they worm their way in through the other doors you’ve left open – low confidence, fear of change, and wanting to please others all the time.

They feed off the garbage in your mind, heart and soul, and they look for everything that’s shiny and new and nice inside you and in your world, so that they can make off with it. And if you don’t step out from your hiding place behind the walls of fear and mistrust, you could end up losing all that’s good in your life. Unless you’re extremely lucky that is, and the monkey drops off your back, and also drops off the hopes and dreams it’s about to carry away, into your being.

I guess the need of the hour is to monkey-proof myself, so that any monkey that thinks of climbing on my back and being a millstone around my neck, faces an extremely slippery challenge posed by my confidence in my capabilities, my never-say-die attitude, my heartfelt hope that every tomorrow dawns bright and sunny, my optimism that life can only get better, the unquestionable love and support I receive from my family and friends, and my unwavering faith in God.