Making love out of nothing at all, Air Supply.

I am waiting for you, in the backyards of my house. I want it to happen again; the same way as it happened a few nights ago. Ours was not something that was planned. The tryst was destined and was forecasted by the heavens. But like all forecasts and predictions, I was as cynical as I would always be. I paced up and down for a few minutes and looked at the heavens. I had a premonition that you would be coming.

The last time it happened, it was wonderful and sublime. It was a feeling I never had experienced before. Though you didn’t give me a chance to see you last time, you did give me signs of your coming, before you came. I did pick up the signals of your arrival, like how a patient wife spots her beloved’s footsteps, amidst other tramps.

My heart was pounding and my adrenals pumping.

You neither let me speak a word last time, for you were aware that I knew you too well; true, we didn’t have to. Of all the eligible ones thriving on this earth, you chose me. You gave me the simple, priceless pleasure of being the first to experience you. Thanks for the honors. I felt liberated – liberated from the shackles of my own personal restrictions and inhibitions. That day, I did find the reason for my habitual, sleepless explorations into the wee hours. It now seems to me that the nocturnal intrusions of emptiness were designed, just for you.

I feel sad that I experienced this kind of revelation only after nearly two decades of my existence. I don’t feel ashamed on my meek surrender; I only feel happy that the wait made me realize your ruthless power to engulf my senses. I still admire and wonder the way you nonchalantly doped me but still managed to empower me.

You gave wings to my restless, struggling mind. After you had devoured me, I was floating in the air, weightless, leaving behind all the impending worries - the heavy-weight worries and the light-weight silly thoughts of mine. The worries – big, small and silly worries, that fill my senses like those big, small stones and the silt that fill a jar to completion.

Yes. I did feel you. Do you remember? A few people even gave us our due privacy, evacuating their bivouac on the terrace. They just couldn’t continue their slumber after you had come. I only felt gratified when I caught a glimpse of their envying faces after they saw your impositions on me.

Now, here I am waiting for your palpations, in the godforsaken hours of the 24-hour cycle - waiting for you to feel me, waiting to submit myself and to feel the liberation, waiting to float again. Won’t you do it again please, I beseech you, and won’t you reign me, O! Rain?

;-) Ppl!! I knew you were gonna fall for this! This is a perfect example of an anti-climax, isn’t it? Though, I still have my doubts if this is a likeable piece... anyway, hope you nsoi-ed it!!!

I would like to say a few words about the title of this post. This is an excellent song I recently happened to listen to and I just fell for ths song. A few of my blog-friends would know the extent to which I adore this song. A simply amazing song, this one, especially the place where it goes...

"But I don't know how to leave you, and I'll never let you fall;
and I don't know how you do it, making love out of nothing at all
(Making love) out of nothing at all,...."

This song was released as a new entry in their 1983, Greatest Hits collection. Air supply, the Australian soft rock group was originated by Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell. They became very popular in the late 70s and early 80s.

This is an amazing song and do listen to it, if you can.

And, yeah! thanks for listening for so long!!!

Rambling

Ppl!!! You must listen to this… the moment this happened I thought I should be blogging about this. Here I go.

Life was getting pretty heck-ed up and inertia was setting into me. Things were moving at a pretty fast pace but nothing moved me – I was like the coin in the inertia example in the physics text books. Machine-washed clothes piling up on my bed waiting to be moved into the wardrobe; maybe they would need another washing, if I let them lay there for long enough. All the bills that the shopkeeper gleefully gave me, in exchange for my money, his profit and the commodities, were inside the myriad small covers – the ICICI and ABN Amro bank covers. This along with the ATM slips were eagerly waiting for an entry in my expense tracker, like a child waiting for its share of second helping of the ice cream.

All the Frontline issues that were untouched were also piling up. If it had ears it would have felt so grateful to my mom – for having bought it and mentioning, “Why don’t you read Frontline instead of sitting like this”. My thumb having settled cozily in the narrow groove between the up and down buttons of the remote would not let me budge. The neatly arranged books were all covered with dirt, like those snow clad mountains.

I love cleaning and setting things right, except for I need goads at the right spot to set me into motion. I started with those lovely dirt clad shelf of mine. The last time I arranged this shelf was in early 2004, I guess. I kept piling sheets of papers and notepads on to it. And now, it has grown into being an untamed, recycled forest. One after another I picked them, dusted and kept them on a table that was a few feet away. Segregations and categories kept increasing - like how I add another column in a table in MS Word, after I decide that adding it would enhance the meaning of the table.

So, I have these categories: sheets that have an unused side, sheets that needed shredding – expired bank statements, missives that were never exchanged. Birthday cards, thanks cards, all-the-best cards all on to one side. Sheets that need careful examination – God only will know when I will take these up!!!

I was shuttling between my shelf and the table. I know. By now, if not for the mosaic on the floor, the path that I traced back and forth would have a rut. The rut the bullock cart left on soft earth – the arcane path that I always want to trace.

I spotted a small notepad that endured the weight of the stack all these days. It brought back memories of the train that I took to my hometown from Pune. I flipped through the pages one after another, with my hand tracing the semi-circular path - right to left. I see an address there – the address of a friend that I made in the train. I see her name written in both Hindi and English – it showed that she hadn’t rehearsed the English version well. She was a tenth drop-out and all she new was Hindi and a lot of Marathi. In spite of my unused Hindi, we did exchange a few words and had a good time.

And then, I see this...

“Well! Valentines Day? Phew!!! That’s the ways life is. Even the bags have a place to rest! What an irony? We were supposed to travel in the third class AC compartment. Even a second class should have been a luxury. We landed in the compartment of proles. I think ‘proles’ is an over-statement. Anyway let’s talk about the observations or interesting facts that hooked on to my mind. In fact it is like the-Madhavan-style in Anbe Sivam. But my fall was from a smaller height when compared to his.”

My hand draws another of those semi-circular figures in the air, eagerly waiting to read more from the next few pages. I had a feeling that I might relive a few of those memories again. My mind imagined all those it can, within the few seconds my hand drew the curve. I flipped. And what do I see now? - A circle with four diameters, with a square on one of those thin pies.

What the hell does this mean? It meant nothing. It meant that I apparently got interested in other interesting things that happened in the train that I forgot to write about it. It just meant that I needed a good break from the cleaning sessions. It just meant that I had to play a prank on my brother and have a light hearted laugh, when I saw him go, ‘enna di ithu? michham enga?’ - 'What is this? Where is the rest?’, after he drew a similar geometrical figure in the air. It just meant that I had to re-live a few of those moments of a day in February, 2003. It just meant that I had to leave a rambling incomplete, so that I could blog about it. And it probably meant that my train-friend could have had a few coughs when I thought about her.

And now! I just wonder, ‘how many virtual semi-circles will a library have...?’

Days of ignorance / innocence

Quite unbelievable; but we, I mean our family, didn’t own a TV until I was 10 years old. Thank God for that. I am sure it was a blessing in disguise. Prior to that, I didn’t have much access to TV either. My mommy would probably let us, I mean me and my brother, watch ‘OLiyum Oliyum’ (tamil) – ‘Light and Sound’. I pity the English language for not having been able to express lucidly, the fact that it’s the light and sound that constitutes a song (read movie).

With regard to pronouncing those words: oLiyum oliyum - you should pronounce the 'L' in the first ‘oLiyum’ with the tongue curled inwards and the ventral part of the tongue touching the upper gums. The 'l' in the latter 'oliyum', with the tip of the tongue touching your upper gums.

Coming to the point, the fact being that I was not very interested in watching TV, I hardly bothered to peep into my neighbors’ small screen. Oops!!! I think I am compensating for all those that I missed during my early days – the moment I come back from office, I am all hooked up to the TV.

We got our first TV... don’t ask!! We, I mean my parents, bought a brand called ‘Pyramid’. I mean, the irony being within about 2-3 years of its existence it became extinct!!!! I shouldn’t be saying this because the very first mobile that I got – Siemens A50 – that’s about 1.5 years ago, is now a non-existent model.

So, we got our first TV – a black and white TV with no remote control and with those sturdy knobs. There were these smooth operating knobs to increase the volume, decrease or increase the brightness and contrast. Then the knobs which were hard to turn till a threshold and beyond the threshold it would rest, with a ‘click’, to its next position. The latter was to change channels, apparently.

I am all done with explaining our first TV; so let me come to the crux. So, I the Ms. Innocent, was eagerly waiting for the TV to work. Did it work? Of course, it did. Otherwise my dad would have ripped off the heart from the electrician’s rib cage!! Now, what do I see on the TV? – A commercial of the ‘pyramid’ TV. Your highness now comes up with a brilliant question – ‘Hey!!! How can our TV show an advertisement of our own TV?’

Ok!! Ok!!! I didn’t know the laws of electromagnetism then, please pardon me. I can even hear somebody comment, ‘nee chinna vaiyusilae erunthae eppadi thaana?’ which means, ‘you have been exhibiting such radiance right from that small age, is it?’

Guys, enough is enough!! Now that you have had a good laugh, I consider it responsible of me to explain myself at this juncture. Maybe I thought that if the viewers already had that brand, then why is he wasting the precious time space on air? Well... I know I was too small to think about advertising strategies then, anyway...

And then, there was one another excellent thought of mine which, people in my family had had a good laugh over it. Ok. Let me explain the background first. My mommy works for a central government organization. Saturdays are usually an off for them.

Once upon a time, when I was about 6 – 7 years of age, she said she had to go to work that Saturday also. I asked her ‘why’, for which she said, ‘Our chairman is coming today. So we all will have to be there in the office.’ I was all confused and nonchalantly asked, ‘why do you guys have to be there? It will be a trouble if you guys are there. How will he clean the chairs then?

Well well!! the folks at home, especially my brother and my mom had a good laugh and asked me ‘What?’ I answered, ‘isn’t a chairman of a company, a person who takes care of the chairs, clean them and maintain them?’

I know, i can hear people guffawing now!!! Anyway, It is justification time!!! I would have probably derived the explanation from the fact that a post man delivers the letters or a milkman who supplies milk or a cowboy who tames and rears cows. Isn’t it a logical conclusion? I know you guys would say, ‘fat chance!!!’ anyway...

Quite funny these anecdotes are, I know. But then I couldn’t help sharing my ignorance or innocence, which ever it is - you guys decide. As always altruistically yours wanted you guys to have a nice time at my virtual home – at my expense!! Hope you guys enjoyed it; as much as I did, writing it. Like how every time, when I am in public, I compensate a loud laughter with a tight, pursed-lip grin when I visualize kushboo asking janakaraj for an address with the street name nae-sa-ma-ni-ponni-ya in the movie annamalai. I can hear more laughther this time!! Way to go, people!!

Transmigration

After pacing up and down for a few seconds she sat on the parapet of her terrace. There are a bunch of school boys who were improving their reflexes, reacting to the ball thrown on an unevenly surfaced wall. A few others on the same balcony were, apparently, discussing cricket. There is a guy on a distant terrace showing signs of interest towards this lady sitting on a parapet wall.

The sun was just about beginning its slumber. She stared at the falling sun. It looked as if the tower behind which the sun was hiding was its final resting place. Her soggy red eyes made her blink in a consistent but slower frequency than the inconsistent normalcy. The sun’s brightness seemed to fade with every blink.

She looks at the boys who were ceremoniously engrossed in improvising their fielding skills as if it was the last minute of their exam preparation time. But all she saw was a hazy black patch. She would have wondered myriad times about the ephemeral existence of the black patch every time she looks at anything, immediately after she reaches the core of the sun, battling her way with the sun rays to reach it.

Her stomach was grumbling. But she despises eating food with a lump in her throat.

She thoughtlessly gazes back to her earlier area of focus. By then there is just the tower – the tall, svelte tower; like those long skirted American blond beauties whom she started admiring a few weeks ago. The sky was painted with a faint tinge of pink on a light blue canvas with the intermittently scattered, persistent, ever existent white patches.

She reverts to those boys. Now, she could see their faces clearly. They had retired from their play and were chatting. She thought they should have quit due to the fading natural light. She turns her head further away from the west and traces back to the terrace where she saw the guy, whom she thought was conscious of her existence. He had gone by now.

The music from the walkman had stopped long ago. But she realized it much later – after she reasoned out as to why the boys had quit their practice.

All along her life she worshipped music and had immense faith in it. So much so, even when she had a headache and her friend asks her to anoint, she would amusingly say, ‘I shall listen to the walkman.’

She took the walkman from her trouser pocket, gazed at it for a while, with the same affection a mother would, when she sees her child after two long days. The walkman was revivified. By now, she seemed composed and was in a much better frame of mind. Her eyes had the enough thinness of the watery film to look at things in the right perspective.

She now turned her head towards the western skies and it was crimson red.

Dated: April 02, 2005

Impromptu, Random Thoughts!

The aspiring cyclist who keeps trying to pick up a race with every speeding vehicle, that fast approaches him from the rear and eventually zooms past him in a jiffy,

The commoner who desperately tries to pick up a cue, from the girl who travels in the slow moving bus,

The killer-stare from the meekest of all the pedestrians, who has been offended by the sudden and unexpected barge of a vehicle venturing in the wrong side of the road,

The happy and well dressed mannequins of a posh boutique,

The smartly trimmed coconut leaves and the stickler-pleasing army haircut of the common trees growing in the familiar but arcane distant houses anchored in the street farther from yours,

A car’s rear wind shield, which bears the similar sounding names that are apparently related to the owner of the car,

The confident bitter-better half who signals to the world that the shoulder or the lap of the rider is safer than the strong, designed-with-care steel loop fastened to the two-wheeler by a sturdy and time-tested nut and blot,

The deliberately deglamorised and minimized version of a witty road safety billboard that might have an opposite effect, if read on the move,


The stealth smile and the memoirs that a particular song manages to evoke every time I listen to it,

The beautiful eyes of the dark colored cleaner of the bus that I travel,

The pink lips of my new found friend,

The sands of the beach, enclosed between my cell phone and the cover, that I, the Ms. Immaculate, purposely forget to clean,

Well…, below are the various titles that I came up with, for this post…

Common and not so common facts
Common and not so common facts – common ones listed first
Untitled!
Untitled thoughts!
Impersonal and Personal thoughts…
Random thoughts!
Uncensored Random Thoughts!
Ad-lib, Uncensored Random Thoughts!