Check-mate

Wiping her tears, he opened her hand, and placed the white king and the black queen. “To remind us, we’re different, but will always be, on the same board.”

Years later, she held the pieces, tears flowing freely.

He never mentioned, it may be the same board, but the game could never be won, together.

Colour Scope

You see your fingers move across your keyboard, the rhythmic tapping noise a constant of a background score that life seems to grow around. It’s one of those moments where the whole world around you seems to move faster than it should, that you feel like reaching out and holding on to the cinema reel, and make it pause, slow down, take a break, somehow.

And yet, as you lift your fingers, you look at them with amazement and realise they move slower than life, like a step by step relay of each moment, each movement, where each nerve and each heartbeat pulsates through your very being, in no hurry, like it’s going to be, forever.

So you stay here, stuck, in this amalgamation of time frames that refuse to merge, yet exist all the same, putting together each day, the same as the last, the same as the not-so-promising tomorrow, a mirage of being, a constant.

In black and white.

First Impressions

She scowled at the boy alternating between his loud ShahRukh impersonations and checking his hair’s reflection, and thought, “Rowdy twerp”

He raised his eyebrows at the disapproving look from the girl buried in her Ayn Rand and thought, “Pretentious snob.”

Years later, their wedding invite read, “Love was never meant to be, at first sight.”

What’s Up!

Well, a lot, not all of which I can mention here. But enough to make me happy enough to settle down with a comfortable case of writer’s block. You know, the kind where there’s so much happening that you just can’t decide what to write, and how, so well, you don’t.

But here’s a tiny summary, you know, just to get over the block and hopefully onto figuring out more artistic ways of killing people. Pardon the disconnected randomness.

Zara has now joined Aldo in my brands’ hit-list. While Aldo pissed me off with bad shoe quality (My Lajpat Nagar roadside shoe store gives me shoes that last longer for 1/10^th the price) and pathetic service, Zara is on its way to being a very close contender, with a white shirt that tore every place it stretched. I-kid-you-not. More on this when it hopefully gets back from the much mysterious quality check. After blaming my ironing capabilities, of course.

While London seemed as crowded as Sarojini Nagar, I realised it’s easy to fall in love with it if you have a willing friend to walk around with in the middle of the night along the Thames. A very willing friend, in fact, who will force you to walk even when you’re practically blind in one eye, till you somehow manage to stumble on a very flat pavement multiple times and establish that you’re just too old for 24 hours of staying awake now. But, despite getting close to being almost toe-less and turning into a pirate with an eye patch, I shall forever be grateful to the friend for pushing me enough, or I may have always remembered London with a crinkled nose and too many heads.

On a slightly different note, people in UK are surprisingly happy. Specially so in the little town near Wales where I put up. I can’t ever imagine smiling so much at seeing an auditor, really. But then again, I can’t imagine leaving for home at 4.30 PM and having a half day on Friday.

On a completely different note, I was very very disappointed that nobody asked me “Ma’am, would you like a cup of tea?” in a highly accented fake British accent. Bleh.

But I did finally have scones and clotted cream. I’m still not sure what to make of them. Except wonder at Enid Blyton’s choice of tea time snacks.

My birthday was one hotch-potch twenty four hours where nothing, and I mean nothing went as per my wish. But everything, and I mean everything, was perfect thanks to the huge amount of effort and love put in by someone who cared.

And an e-mail at midnight from someone who I like to believe is my blogging soul mate, who somehow always manages to know just how to cheer me up, even when she doesn’t actually know me at all. When actually, she knows me so well.

I’ve realised that sari shops can leave me blinded and bruised. Literally. The majentas and shiny stones… My eyes just weren’t meant for them. And some of the Dilli wali aunties fighting for the last pieces on sale... My body type definitely wasn’t meant for them.

And most importantly, I’ve learnt that life doesn’t work as per the theories we make up along the way. Whether it’s life in Mumbai, our good luck charms, our negotiations with that bitch called Karma, or the Chopsuey theory…some things are meant to change, or meant to be understood better, as we finally grow up. Except, we never really do stop growing up, do we?

Oh! And I managed to cross off some more items from my Wish-List!

P.S. I really haven’t managed to come up with any innovative ways to kill people lately. You guys. Help!

P.P.S. So much that I’d like to tell and can’t. But one day, soon! :)