Raining Thoughts

I've always been fond of certain words, though I've never been able to explain why. Certain words like elusive... insane... perhaps…reason…poignant…absurd…tranquil…twist…. TWIST!...  Let me stop and breathe for a moment… A recent turn of events on a bygone evening certainly seems to have caused a few tectonic shifts in my perspective of words. Looking back it seems that I've always loved certain words very much, as they have always maintained a safe distance from my life. Tranquil, Absurd, Poignant & co. are all welcome for tea at my table, provided they have the tea, samosas, chit-chat and leave my table to never come back, unless I request them to return. But this guy…Twist… Well, he came for tea, uninvited, ate up all the samosas too and never left. A minor road accident which involved zero vehicles, but ‘n’number of loose gravel on a busy road-side and who else, but the miserable me. Wish I could just rewind and delete off that ill-fated minute from my li...

There’s something that I share in common with the famous fictional Prof. Robert Langdon.  No…it’s neither religious iconology nor his love for dead languages. Neither do I have Cordovan loafers or a signature Mickey Mouse watch to match. Not his eidetic memory or his un-paralleled swimming skills either. In fact my memory has always been as dusty as the old soda bottles in some Abdu Bhai’s paan shop and if dropped in water, I might as well just go down gurgling and sit there ogling at the piranhas getting thrilled about my arrival… Ever felt the fear of being stuck in crammed-up spaces?  This is the part where I empathize with Langdon. It is this fear of enclosed spaces that has always haunted me ever since I could remember. Elevators, basements, crammed dentist cabins and even spa cubicles scare me. I have tried this so-called psychological self-counseling therapy during such claustrophobic stints. It sure is useful to a certain extent, until the moment you st...

                   I've developed a most annoying habit of frequently missing buses. This often happens due to the various ad hoc  undertakings that I manage to get involved in, be it at home, in the office or anywhere for that matter. Most of these events manifest abruptly and at the eleventh hour…often leaving me to grapple between odd options.           Not long ago, one such last-minute feat left me with a Hobson’s choice between taking a dive into an already crammed bus and missing, what looked like, one of the last buses available during that hour of dusk, heading towards the part of the city where I lived. As it was getting late and dark, I didn’t want to wait any longer or waste time considering different 'imaginary' options.            Along with the tussling techies, certain North Indian building laborers were also trying their best to throw themselv...

              It was one of those slapstick moments of life when my husband’s aunt pulled out the chair on which I was about to park myself, from right underneath my bottom. Swish! Plop! A crash landing right on the floor.We both were lost in our respective conversations to different people, when I thought to sit and chat comfortably and simultaneously our aunt felt that it would be better to grab a chair to get a better look at all of us ‘seated’ around the table. My gleeful husband lent me a hand & at the same time congratulated me heartily on this achievement. On taking a 180 o  sweep of the surroundings I could see that our cousins were also trying hard to suppress their bubbling laughter. I rose up from the other end of the table, with my picture-perfect 32-teeth grin and a crushed bum, with a highly apologetic aunt hovering over me, apologizing profusely and trying to pull me up even after I was ba...

                                                        The year was ending with a twist. And the twist came in the form of rain. Trivandrum rains have always been a beautiful sight to behold, especially to the tired after-office eye. Most evenings were blessed amply with a fair amount of rain or at least a slight drizzle, which made my short walks from the bus stop to my home through the lane a pleasurable or a deplorable experience, depending on factors like the centimeters of rain received, wind speeds (to fly or not to fly with a flipped umbrella) as well as my ability to dodge the mud-splashes contributed by passing motorists.                               One evening it so happened that I was ...