Month: February 2016

The Taxi ride.

laughterbubbles ROFL, The people around us! , , ,

The husband had a school reunion – which in my priorities of life is way up there, somewhere way above back seat driving and just a notch below spending an evening drinking with good buddies.

We left home together, I took a cab from  half the way to meet our friends, and he was to join later.

We stopped our car, next to a taxi driver. He was staring ahead. And he was rocking himself mumbling something.That itself should have deterred me! Nevertheless he agreed to go to our destination and I got into the cab.

Oh! Man. The man was a certified maniac. He drove of at top speed and screeched to a halt at the next signal. Then he tried to weave his way between three cars. Yes!! Truly! I’m not joking. He was hallucinatory – because he kept thinking he was driving not a car but a road racer cycle with wheels no broader that 5 mm. He kept backing up and trying to squeeze his car in between whatever he could squeeze it between, cycles,car, hawkers, bus, ambulance, the wind!

At one point he over took three cars, not one after the other but all at the same time. They were all driving next to each other, keeping to their lanes. “This wont do!” he thought, and with a surge of adrenalin, he vigorously  changed the gear of his car, and took off, over taking all three cars, till I realised I am on the other side of the road,  – the wrong side. I screamed and lamented, but the bizarre man, just shrugged it off saying there were no cars on the other side and its ok to use that road. Thats when I started reciting the Hanuman Chalisa.

After many such sudden rocket launching type take offs, and race car type skidding halts, we reached the bottom of Malabar Hill. Now Malabar Hill, is actually a small hill. Not like those fancy streets named Brooks Hill, where you see neither a brook nor a hill!

The climb is pretty steep. When I directed him to take the left to the top of the hill, he just paused at the bottom of the hill. Seeing his hesitation, I asked him if his car will make it. In answer he grunted, rocked back and front twice, took a deep breath, and launched his car. In his mind he roared “Jai Bajrang Bali, aaj to tu dikha de isko!!’ (Salutions Oh! Monkey God,  today you show this woman what I am capable of!)

He was hoping there would be no other car ahead of him, and that he could take off at the same gear without having to stop his car. Unfortunately, cars kept coming up ahead of him, and he had to keep halting. That man did not take his legs off the accelerator, and whenever he had to stop he would pull the the hand brake – with the same ferocity he used to change gears. His entire body would jerk with either action. As a result the tyres would keep spinning even when the car had halted. My prayers went up with even more fervour.

Finally when we reached the top of the hill, his car slowed down in direct proportion to his and my own heart beat. Two minutes later we stopped at our destination. I scuttled out of the car,and peered through the window and asked his final fare. With a weak voice and a giant pause,  he gave me the amount.

I went away happy to be in one piece. Just once I turned around to see what he was doing. He was slumped against the seat, rocking back and forth, very relieved to know – I am sure – that he did not have to push his car uphill.

 

Writing workshop – A letter to my dark side.

laughterbubbles ROFL , , , , ,

This is for a workshop, a bit of me, a bit of fantasy!

 

 

Write a letter to your shadow, your alter ego, your darker side, or the parts of you that you have repressed in favour of your more socially acceptable persona. Try to include the reasons why you disowned these parts (or characters) and propose a reconciliation.

Listen Witch,

I have left you many years ago! Why do you haunt me now? Why do you come back as a sniveling cranky hormonal laden bitch and make my day a harrowing hell? Why do you leave me in tears and make me take out my hormone induced shit on my loved ones. Why do those tears at that time feel Oh! So right? And why does the damn sense, that blasted common sense which used to be my constant companion, desert me in my hour of need, and then come waltzing in after I have had a crying fit. And then proceed to make me feel like what I am – A hormonal laden nut case, fit only for the mental asylum.

You idiot! Why do you expect from men, the kind of love and tlc you need? They are too busy cranking up their own testosterone to bother. You had become a nice independent human being. Why have you turned into a blood thirsty vampire?

Go back to work. Learn some meditation. Get a life. Damn it – get another man for all I care. Just let go!

Next time you get into a fit where you feel you just have to cry and find excuses to do so, do me a favour and walk away. Take a stroll, go hit your punching bag, go take a dump. Just get out. Deep breaths, deep resonating breaths, deep ultra fulfilling breaths. That will help. Men wont. Your dogs might!

But seriously, this shit you throw around, only you can understand. This urgent need to cry, this urgent need for a hug. And of course you are too egoistic to ask for it.

Get a grip on yourself. And if you cannot – lock your self in your room and take it out on yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself a good round of shouting at! No point doing that to anyone else. They wont understand. You know yourself that you have lost a few good friends, who you thought were menopausal raving savages. Do you want to be one of those??

I’m warning you – you had stayed away. I had pushed you away – those many years ago! Damn it I will do it once more.

The hands that warmed my soul – a short story.

laughterbubbles The deep well of words. , , , , , , , , ,

I was being wheeled away into surgery. It was time to face the inevitable.

The brains were already a little fuzzy with the sedative they had administered an hour before. I saw serious faces around me, peering from above, trying to push their positive feelings into me through their touch. But it was all superficial, because no one was feeling positive.

And in the middle of all this I was giggling. Not because of the sedative, but because I knew this was the end – of something. The final point, the final dance, the final sigh!

As I sunk into deep sleep, and slipped into oblivion, I felt cold all over. Almost immediately, a warm hand slid into mine and lifted me up. I did not hang around the operation theatre. I did not see the surgeons. But I heard them – there was no panic in their voice. The body was still breathing they way they deemed perfect. But the breaths I took, when I left with the warm hands were deep, and pure. It felt that if I leave those hands, my breath might just leave me altogether. So I clung harder. I felt complete and utter trust.

The breaths were different. My chest did not move, my nostrils did not flare, but still the lungs filled with deep satisfying pure oxygen. We flew over the hill, across the sea. I could see the lights of my city fade away. Somewhere inside that city, in the hospital, they were still operating on my body.

The hands holding mine had no face. Just a feeling, of intense love, of happiness and freedom. A massive heart warming energy. I could see a formless floating body next to me. The hands stayed steady in my focus, but the body kept shifting and stirring.It was like every movement of the air, did something internal to that body and changed it’s appearance. It shifted form but the colour remained the same. Weird colour. I could not put a name to that colour. It was somewhere between a hazy transparent thready blue grey. Everytime the form shifted, the colour got more or less intense, more or less transparent. It had no face yet it had a contour. No features yet I felt the eyes on me and the breath sweet on my neck. I named this creature Love. Because no other name seemed to fit better. And no other word was in my brain. All language and its accessories had vanished.

There was no feeling of space or time. No thought of wonder. No anxiety about where we are headed. Yet my mind was clear – of the pre surgery fuzz, of the anesthesia. My body was floating, mindlessly, but the mind was all there. I had never felt clearer, or more confident and intelligent, yet at the same time more thought free.

There was no talk. Just words communicated by the touch of warm hands. I felt enlightened, filled in with what seemed like very pertinent information. I knew that information, but if that time some one asked me to write it down, I would not have the words to. If someone asked me to communicate through osmosis I could talk volumes!

We did not float, as much as just moved. It wasn’t jerky. It wasn’t even smooth. I felt like I am skidding along a wire, balanced to perfection – with no fear of falling or even a perception of plunging into a depthless pit. Like I am a creature who has done this since the time I have walked.

I don’t know how long we were up there. To this day, I have lost the sense of time.

We did not meet anyone else. Did not see any other person. Nothing. Just plain blank space, yet a feeling of being in connect with everything and everyone. Connected but not disconcerted. Involved but not disturbed. Happy, but not excitable. A perfect state of being. A utopia of emotion.

We neared the city again, and I started hearing distressed voices. As we neared the hospital I heard everybody in the operation theatre shouting “ We have lost her! We have lost her!” And I realized I had died.

In the next instant I was in my body again. But not in the theatre. It was just that moment when I was fuzzy brained and people were peering down at me with concern and I was giggling.

I went in – and the entire story repeated itself.

I was trapped in the astral plane of happiness forever and ever.

 

 

( I have joined a writing workshop – the prompt for the day was – stare at a picture and write a story on it)