This is an incident that took place about a year back or more. We were in our car, waiting at the red light near the roundabout near Palms.Maybe it was winter, maybe Ii was drowsy, maybe it was just night. For some reason, all I remember are the flashing tail lights of cars and bored, uneventful wait. Just as the traffic stirred, a little puppy, not more than a month, came bounding onto the road from a nearby contruction site.
Complete mayhem. I drew in breath and warned vek, who was at the wheel. I'm sure many others like us noticed this completely baffled, excited puppy that went this way and that. Many hurried screeches followed. Cars jerked to a halt, moved around him, carefully avoiding his leg/neck and sped on. Obviously, no one wanted to crush the poor baby. And, yet, almost everyone knew someone else would.

A game of horror, of fun - for some, ensued.I prayed, somehow, he would make his way across the road, but, then, on the other side was the other road, with moving traffic. Why couldn't anyone do anything?
 And then someone did. This fellow in a scorpio, stopped his car on the road, ( the right most lane, if you please!) got off the car, scooped this unnerved little thing and jogged across the road. No, he didn't stop there. He stood there to check if that wild thing had found his way back....as it happened it didn't. It came right back...scampering. He  picked it up again and jogged some more into the bushes and only when he was sure the puppy was safely away, he jogged back, got into the car and drove away.

Surprisingly, in that rush hour traffic, not a single car honked at the unattended scorpio that was parked on the road. No yells, abuses, nothing. Traffic moved on just as before.

Tense neck muscles released.. that big guy in his big car had not only saved the puppy, he had saved each one of us who watched the entire episode.He did what each one wanted to, what each one of us knew was right but didn't have the courage to carry out! Each individual sighed with relief, for he had absolved us all of the guilt of something we didn't do. What stopped us? I often wonder. Our fear, for sure; what will others say? what if i can't get to it, in time?

One thing is for sure, each time I am sickened by the rapes and cold blooded murders in the newspapers, it's incidents like this one and seeing people stop and help accident victims on Gurgaon roads that gives me assurance - life is worth living. All is not lost.

vine of desire

Longing stirs again,
not very pretty but
like a birth pang,
shooting, aiming for its end,
with no discretion or regrets.

I pine again
for the impossible,
each pore craving nirvana,
no peace till its reached,
where it belongs.

I twist and turn
each passing moment, only a wait
for the expecting, next one.
Maybe, just maybe i'm lucky
even for a little while.

For a presence
that drenches my whole being,
quenches with only a sip,
only for a long wait,
that"ll surely be stronger,
hungrier than the first.

...and that's a goal!

i have a long list of things i want to do everyday, someday. right from the teachers diary or job applications or to-do lists, having things on agenda is so important. so, i thought let me be more 'organised'. and I just penned three( can't get too ambitious....instinctive working mother of one) of the things i most want to do everyday and wrote them at the back of my planner. they were: a) i will not let nishka cry today, b) i will read something today, anything, c) i will eat a fruit.
i could accomplish just one...nish didn't cry n i was totally stressed because i didn't react to anything she did wrong! Well, do i belong to the group who don't set their goals right? just plain disorganised? or belong to an absolute unaccomplished lot who can't get simplest of things they want?
could be either or none. I've seriously considered blaming it on a lacking gene or plain bad luck, had i not found myself sitting in this workshop on left-right brain orientation. don't get me wrong, they didn't say a thing about 'goal-less' behaviour or the 'type' that typify it. just that some people just don't work that way. linear. and it was a great relief to know i wasn't abnormal.
i have always found goals limiting at best and useless at worst. why should i have any at all?
How does one know that on reaching point A, one would be happy /satisfied, and by the time i reach point A, i would still want/value A the way i did before? Aren't goals based on the assuption that people don't grow or change? Also, on the way to your 'goal' don't you ignore many more that could be yours? or give up 'distractions' that could be far more enjoyable or meaningful? And if you change the 'goal' as and when you like, won't having one in the first place useless?
Why do programmes, books, grown-ups stress so much on wanting 'something', for only when you 'want something' can you achieve it. i disagree. i want. And more often than not, i can't say what.
But does that take away from me or others like me ( i hope there are more) the learning or satisfaction that comes from achievement or an experience? Not really. but i shouldn't look out for peer approval for obviously apparently you didn't want much anyway!
'Goal-directed' behaviour is understandable but highly overrated.
At the end of the workshop, what stumped me though, was the feedback form. it said, "what are your goals in life?"
WOW. i didn't have any for the workshop or for the day, in fact.
And somehow, i don't feel too bad either. while others reach their 'aims', i'll reach what they didn't even 'aim ' for! Pun so intended!!

the taste of things

A lot of our memory is visual or auditory, even dreams or childhood memories are best remembered as flashes of scenes, sometimes connected, sometimes sporadic...lately i've found that the strongest feelings come to us and more importantly stay, among other things, as taste...
Maybe being a punjabi has something to do with this overdeveloped, particular sensory experience or perhaps it's purely biological. This is how each one of us has first experienced the most important things in our life....the warm trickle of mother's milk and the consequent love and affection.
Also, sometimes perhaps the feelings are too strong or unpleasant ot be recounted as visuals and so, one would rather forget the look on a face or the tone of a voice...what probably stays is the aftertaste - that one cant do away with despite a conscious effort.
A fight, as an aftertaste of a chilli - unbearable agitation, so strong that the sweetest words cannot forgive the initial sting, promised not to go away for a long, long time. Love, as the first hungry munch into a hot jalebi....washes over everything else, sudden, warm, enriched with depth that quenches beyond the palate...indifference as the hardest bite, with awkwards angles that scrape the soft inner cheek as they are swallowed with tears.
This and much more that makes up for each history....and each one making one more aware of the other taste. the only time one thinks of the cold, refreshing gulp of water is when one is most parched!

the excess baggage

....with the yearly diwali preparations, as i take sadistic pleasure in throwing things out - unwanted, redundant and prosaic....i wonder if that's what one should do to oneself too. the old must go to make place for the new....and yet the new must one day became old...as i wonder if its time to start using the anti-aging creams yet, what do i need to throw out of my mind? to be new again? 
cant say i've gone through all but there some insights for sure....regrets, to begin with. Heavy, loaded with implications, inferences often futile, if not wrong. they pull you down faster than th stuffed school bag. they must go. too much knowing. knowing what i cant do must go. knowing i don't have time for things must go. knowing she's not my type must go. knowing i must live up to be me must go....wow...that's a lot already.
hope Diwali, my favourite, clears the cobwebs most annoying.. the ones in my/our minds. everything is brighter, and full of hope. i must rid of the excess baggage, everywhere.
in the humble effort ...is this blog.
read at your own peril....i never promised to make sense!!