The girl within

(an attempted short story)

Smriti stood there in front of the mirror... She was wearing a faded orangish pink kurti over her jeans! Somehow this is not what she wanted to wear that day! She was tired of her usual style- a kurti over a jean or a salwar kameez set! She did not even feel like wearing any of her skirts and tops! I mean- she was going on her first official engagement and she hadto look smart and at the same time absolutely gorgeous!

And the kurti did not make her look gorgeous! She looked plain Jane and 'usual'!!!

USUAL! oh! She was tired of it! She dragged out of her cupboard that lovely top she had so dreamily bought at a sale... the very top she mostly was never allowed to wear as it made her look good!

She was going to some 5 star hotel for a conference. Big shots were to be there... all lovely ladies in the latest trend setting designs! And she- dressed like she'd emergd from some other planet!

She stopped thinking. Took that lovely top, put it on!

She hesitated before moving in front of the mirror! Maybe it really was tight! Or maybe... it just did not suit her!

She hesitated for a second more!
And..
she stepped in front of the mirror and ...

She was walking on the road to catch an auto! Everyone was giving her a second look! "WHO was this babe?! WHO is it? I've never seen her EVER in thsi area!!!" kind of looks! They were giving her approving glances! NOT lecherous looks but looks of- "oh! You're a babe too, you know!" type.

And they were giving HER the looks too! And not just her pretty friend who ALWAYS got those looks! They weren't thinking of her as someone who merged with the background.. as someone who was so girl-next-doorish that you could think of her only as a 'kiddo' or 'sister' or 'just another of those gals'! She looked NICE! And she KNEW it! She KNEWshe looked the best on the street that moment! She KNEW!

And she wished she could hold this one moment of beautiful girlish pride to herself forever! She never could dress up this way all the time! She will go back to comfort over looks! And she'd STILL want people to like her the way she is and NOT due to how she looks and dresses up and all! She'll look nice, maybe occassionally even pretty! And she'll look smart or niceeveryday too! But that first 'golden' hour of 'best' will never find a more precious substitute!

The girl within a girl seldom finds a face... It hides... for fear of being vulnerable and hurt and ridiculed!

Thoughts/Thoughtless

And the world moves on...
Without a care
after all the stares
No reason why it should stop to mourn.
There are others who'll live
and yet others who'll die.
The dead remain, but in passing memories
And at all other times we think not
nor do we care
Oh! What stones we must be
to not bleed at another's tears!

Thoughts/Thoughtless

And the world moves on...
Without a care
after all the stares
No reason why it should stop to mourn.
There are others who'll live
and yet others who'll die.
The dead remain, but in passing memories
And at all other times we think not
nor do we care
Oh! What stones we must be
to not bleed at another's tears!

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In life, everything works by barter. There never is any happiness till you receive and give without expectation of any returns. But sadly..that never happens and that accounts to life's unfulfillment.

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There's nothing so terrible and depressing as false hopes! Especially when you are buoyed up by the happiness that those very hopes create only to realise...in the end... that they were, after all, false!

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Life throws things unexpectedly at you...And things you want to forget..give up...release forever out of your whole, come back...and seize you with such a power and..mystery... that you're left so shaken and vulnerable- exactly the way it had left you, the first time it crossed your path!

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You don't give up on fantasies as you grow up! Fantasies give up on you...for turning into yet another of the world men!

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Sarcasm is something I can't take at times! It's evil in intentions and cruel in act.

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God sometimes gives through miracles, what reality can't provide!

SHALL WE DANCE? ;)

Well well well... I'm just back after watching the really beautiful movie 'Shall we Dance?' It was truly a step out of the ordinary! The movie's got a great depth of characterization, excellent casting, brilliant dialogues and some mind-blowing awesome dance!!!

I guess I LOVED the movie more because I could REALLY associate with the passion the people on screen had for dance! I simply LOVE dancing! It just makes me feel so good..so out-of-the-world and just oh-so-happy!!! :)

I've been dancing ever since I can remember! I was not too confident of my dance for a loong looong time as my school's dance teacher used to be partial to all the bharatanatyam dancers(those who learned it ) and I, who has had absolutely no training, was sidelined!

It all changed in 8th standard when we danced a nice Dandiya number for our Intra-class dance and the judge gave me a special mention even though we did not win! The moment was beautiful! I was so filled with joy! Someone was able to see that I'm SO passionate about dance..so that means my passion for it was reflected in my movement..so that means I'm a good dancer?!

But the beauty and pride and sheer blushy joy of the moment was taken off by a classmate B who told me, they must have mistaken me for her or someone else! Sadly and stupidly, I believed her and again started a slump in my confidence.

But, I never gave up!

I couldn't! I loved dance too much! :)

I'm GLAD I didn't lose hope and heart over the jealous words of a fellow dancer!

I switched schools for my eleventh and twelfth leaving behind a wonderful 12 years at a school that practically cherished me! I had many apprehensions about shifting schools- it was going to be start-anew for everything- from making friends to adapting to new environment, new teachers, EVERYTHING! And there was also a deep hurt that I NEVER could get the coveted School President/SPL/Head girl post in a new school! No matter HOW much you establish yourself, there's something called 'the years you've put in' that counts for that most lovely position! I was upset!

But there were other wonderful things in store for me! I, who never had the confidence to sing or dance(even though I ALWAYS did to overcome my sagging ego) was part of the school choir and in my class dance team!!! :D I in fact , lead the school choir! All along, right from childhood, I've been branded the hoarse voiced loud mouth! It was advantageous during speeches and talks but in singing, it gave me a big inferiority complex! Now.. that was dispelled forever! Came college and my voice was lauded by so many! At last... at last... a dread and fear and low confidence in singing was overcome! :)

We danced for 'Dola Re' in our Eleventh and won the second place(I STILL believe we deserved the first! We were awesome!). I was soon known as the girl who can dance well! :)

College followed. During our Freshers Party in a beach house, I was made to dance by the seniors. What followed was a sheer elated performance by me and my god... everyone was raving about my dance! It felt soooo good! I NEVER knew I was this good! All along I'd believed I was ok, passable, decent.. but I never KNEW I was good!

I was taken for the Zonal NASA dance team after liking my performance for the inter-college group dance competition. The BEST dancer in my department chose me as his partner and my god... we were AWESOME on stage together!

I KNEW how Paulina would have felt when dancing with the perfect partner. I had a perfect dance partner too! We had awesome chemistry on stage. In Zone NASA, everyone who saw our dance told us they couldn't take their eyes off the two of us! It felt GOOD! We won! :)

The next Zone NASA, I was made the cultural secretary! :) Awww... It was one proud moment. I danced 3 dances!!! :D With change of dress and all! :)

I'm soooo waiting to dance! I BADLY wanna dance now... but owing to a terribly stiff back due to swimming, I'm unable to! :( Speaking about swimming..I have been dancing inside the pool.. he he! I've been singing songs(old English ones, melodious Hindi and Tamil numbers) in the pool! Mostly I've been singing 'Moon River'... the song's been haunting me for almost 5-6 months, ever since I first heard it! Crossing th pool somehow makes me feel as if I'm crossing the Moon River itself(in the literal sense!)!

HearAudrey Hepburn sing "Moon River" (a .MP3 file). (Music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Johnny Mercer)

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

Aaaaah!!! What wods, what a voice, what a song!!! :)
Ohhh! I'm so glaad I wanna dance! I hope I could go to the Farewell this week and get one last dance with my dance partner! :)
Till then...

"Shall we dance?"
;)


(P.S.: This post is just an off-hand rant of what all I felt after watching that awesome movie! And I absolutely loved richard Gere, J Lo and Susan Sarandon in the movie!!! Actually, Loved Evvyone in the movie!!! Awww!!! :D )

The Painful process of growing up...

It all starts with the wonder that is of birth! And then.. from the second you step into this world from your mother's womb, it's all about growing up!

You learn from the fall... only to fall again some other time, someother way!

It just keeps hurting you all along! The world's a cruel place... You get hurt yourself and then hurt all over again on seeing others getting hurt!

Oh! I wish I could just rewind time to 2 years back! Oh well.. but many of the beautiful gifts of these 2 intermediate years wouldn't have been mine!

I guess I should bring out some deep hidden inner strength and motivate myself to move forward!
It's tough.. it's trying! But well.. I got to try!

The Olden Golden Madras

The other day, after a refreshing dinner of typical South Indian vathal kozhambu and cabbage poriyal and paruppu chaadam, when the whole family sat down for a relaxing post-dinner chat, the topic turned to the Madras of yore and what made it so special and cosy than what it is today!

Talking old times tale is one favourite past time of ours! There never is anything more interesting than looking back at the pages of the past, smelling the old scents of long-lost time and with a dazed look, landing back to the mundane existence of today...with a bitter-sweet feeling!

After bringing alive the 14 transfers that my Thatha had to undertake in his job under the Electricity Board, our conversation moved over to his life in Egmore and appa,thatha and paatti began to relate anecdotes from it.

They remembered nambeeshan kadai butter and his happiness when the butter rates were raised from 10 paisa! They also fondly spoke of the Panchami Complex on Egmore High Road where they bought their provisions and Balan's brother-in-law Narayanan from whom they got their vegetables! Elcose Cloth shop was still vivid in their memory.

Amma remembered how, as a young newly-wed, she went to see Malayalam movies in Sapphire Theatre(near Gemini Flyover). 'Iyer the great','CBI Diary kurippu','Number 20, Madras Mail' and many other Malayalam classics were witnessed there by my entire family!

How times change! The past always seems so golden! Madras seems more close to the heart than the clinical Chennai! People and places of the past have become so insignificant, and yet, at some nostalgic hour are remembered so affectionately!

Alwar kadai in Mylapore is still there,but in a de-glorified form! I remembered my own childhood favourites- Hanaha stores Bilal, who always had a pleasant smile and from whose shop I bought a notebook with a painting of a lovely lady with a horse. I still have the book. That was the last Item I bought before the shop closed down. It was a big shop with everything from tennis racquets to biscuits in it! I used to be fascinated and look around in awe every once I went there!

There also was Siva stores near school-now replaced by a watch shop. Siva had the most yummiest Kadalai urundais(groundnut cakes) in the locality! They were garnished with grated coconut! Siva was a very good friend to our family and he came home with his kid Aarthi and wife before he closed shop!

Who knows where these people are and what they are doing! Do they remember their shop-flockers as fondly as we remember their shops? Do others still pause, rewind and play again, the good old days and reminisce about the people of the past like we do?

Life's become so fast that we just don't have the time to communicate and keep in touch with every person we come across in the journey! But well... on some relaxed day, over a cup of coffee or after a hearty meal, it still feels nice to think of everyone whom we came across!

A REASON TO SMILE...

Give me a reason to smile
They don't come on their own anymore
You don't give up on fantasies as you grow old,
Fantasies give up on you...
for turning into one more of th world men!

And then you find no reason to smile
There's nothing worthwhile anymore
dreams-you know may never come true
and love and laughter are so momentary!

What stays? You ask and ask again!
Oh.. but only this emptiness and search!
I need a reason to smile again
To trust more wholly
to live more heartily
to smile the smiles again!