A Tale Waiting to Unfold

The song might be pretty relevant to the post below. It is another one of the songs in my life which weaves a tale of its own spanning ages and I mean this literally.

Thanks to Chantal Kreviazuk and John Denver for the song.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn
The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

I'm ...

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing

Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back I'll wear your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time, oh, let me kiss you
And close your eyes and I'll be on my way

Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times that I won't have to say ...

Oh, kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go

'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

And I'm leaving on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go

But I'm leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)
Leaving on a jet plane
(Ah ah ah ah)

Two Weeks Ago…was when it all happened!

It’s been an unusually long amount of time since I did a crib-post. Well, I have been venting out myself so often that I have decided to reserve this place for more sacred topics! So, that brings me to the current topic and no I am not cribbing tonight.

Something really interesting happened last week. After having slogged for almost 11 months in the profession of a BD executive, I got to do what they really ought to do. I got to meet the Clients in person and sell myself (all you guys, relax your grey cells, no pun intended here.) and it was to be not just one Client but three of them across two metros. Yes! I was on official trip to Bombay and Delhi for almost 10 days. Amazing, is it not? Actually, it is my equivalent of being on an all expenses paid trip except that one has a baby to babysit. So, what does one do in this case? Very easy, put the baby to bed, and all the remaining time is yours! However, the trick is how one goes about that as it is one’s profession after all and one is there on the trip just for that. That was really made extremely convenient by one’s manager A who had to prove to his boss that he is providing this executive with enough exposure to the Client and in putting up the entire trip, he considered letting me have the extra work-free days. Yippie and I am definitely not complaining.

Rewind to a day before the trip starts.

Time - 14:00 Hrs

A’s Boss: What is your name?

G: It is G Sir.

A’s Boss: Could you help me with this please?

G: Sure Sir, may I have a look at it.

A’s Boss: Hmm.

G: Oh, it’s your daughter’s history project! Which class is she in, Sir? (Why me?)

A’s Boss: She is in 10^th. If you need any help you get in touch with her.

G: Sure Sir. (I’ll take help from a 15 year old to do her history homework!:( )

A’s Boss: And make sure you finish this off before you leave on your business trip.

Boss struts off.

I slog on and on while aware of the other commitments of the day. I still have some pending work to finish off and A checks on me every now and then if I am free. Eventually he gives up and tells me he’ll do my work as well but I should make sure that I do the homework. Wow, I love him. Plus, I have to also meet Dad for dinner.

Around 20:00 Hrs

A’s Boss: How are things?

G: Still going Sir, should take some more time.

A’s Boss: It’s alright, take your time. Work on it during you free time and make sure you send it to me within next two days.

There I have my baby.

I meet Dad for dinner at around 20:30 hours, and we have splendid time together. I get back to my place, clean up, pack up and by the time I get into bed it’s already around two hours past midnight. Late, isn’t it?

A few hours later.

I wake up with a start and squint at my wrist watch. It’s 05:45 in the morning. Oh bad! My plane leaves at 7:10 and I have to get ready and get to the airport. So, I get into my business suit while I am still gathering my stuff, run out of my apartments while straightening my clothing, get almost run down by a lorry, get a cab to drop me off to airport in record breaking 15 minutes and I pay the driver 200 bucks for driving me 15 kilometres at breakneck speed so that I don’t miss my debut business trip. I love him too. I meet my manager at the airport and all is well.

Two hours later, I am in Bombay. It shall always be Bombay as it was when I visited it for the first time and Ma and Pa tell me, it was the place where I was conceived.

Next two days are spent in meeting up with the Clients and I go to see off my manager at the airport who decides to share some words of wisdom with me, “G, try not getting too adventurous here in the evening” while I try maintain a totally innocent look on my face and totally failing at it. And yeah, Bombay traffic sucks big time but nightlife, malls, eateries, shopping streets and what not, make up for it. I meet the really old time friend I am staying with on the second day and it’s amazing. The no-man’s-woman is now R-man’s-woman. I love you Cat. Weird, I think to myself though it is all a jubilant feeling for me!

The following day, I hang up on the Boss because I thought it was some random call from some random number. They do a lot these days. He informs me of his identity through an SMS. I finish off the history homework for the Boss’s kid well within the schedule and go on a shopping spree to Linking Road with S and get back at around midnight and totally exhausted. We fall asleep talking to each other. The following evening I leave for Delhi and which is an entirely different tale, or a fairytale maybe.

More Nostalgia

In this post, I introduce some lyrics that I came across a long time back when I did not care to find out who their progenitor was. I was, I guess, then lost in a world that was not much different from what most of us find in our dreams, and now I am wide awake, I see things clearly, I am conscious and curious of things around me. It also reminds me of what my auricle or ventricle (or maybe it was whole of my heart) told me that I could dream all I want but while I lay there snoozing on my own, I was surely going to miss out on a lot of things in the real world.

The following lyrics were conceived by the early fourteenth century Persian poet who went by the name Hāfez.

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being.

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

Friends Do Things Like This

Friends do things like this:

Tell which mat their house key is

Hidden under.

Hafiz, jump over, cut through

All the small talk today:

Look beneath the right-hand corner

Of the Kirman behind

The barn

(Where my sweet dog is usually

Sleeping

Don’t worry, she won’t bite)

For you would not believe

The extraordinary view

Of God

From my bedroom

Window.

A song that reminds me of so many things...

As I lie in my bed tonight, some how this song starts playing by itself in my head. It has been ages since I last heard it or thought about it. It has been almost 9 years! And tonight, it suddenly pops out of nowhere bringing back memories of so many things I couldn't hold on to and that many of them were such trivial things and but they did not seem so then. For instance, I had this really cute pen drive that Dad had gifted me (I could never find anything like that again.) I lost it in about a year of using it and I remember how I had cried (I was 21 then.) It's not so long ago if you see.

The song also forces me to think about the other things that I would not mind parting away with and the ones I would find it difficult to give up on but would eventually move on and be all fine, as good as ever actually. Ohh, on a brighter note, the pen drive was of course replaced, though I couldn't get one as cute or sturdy but yes, Dad got me another one, and this time he travelled over a 500km just to bring it to me, just to give it to me himself. Changing my mind, I think this one is much better than the previous one and I still hold on to it like all the other beautiful things and people in my life.

Ohh, and here's the song. It was performed by Emilia then, I am not sure who it really belongs to but I'll credit this to her.

I'm a big big girl

in a big big world

It's not a big big thing if you leave me

but I do do feel that

I too too will miss you much

miss you much...

I can see the first leaf falling

It's all yellow and nice

It's so very cold outside

like the way I'm feeling inside

Outside it's now raining

And tears are falling from my eyes

Why did it have to happen

Why did it all have to end

I have your arms around me ooooh like fire

But when I open my eyes

You're gone...

I'm a big big girl

in a big big world

It's not a big big thing if you leave me

but I do do feel that

I too too will miss you much

miss you much...

Hmmm, Good night. :)

A Poem...

...I wrote it down in such a hurry, I wanted to send this across to him, to tell him a zillion things...to scream at him, with him, but it's still here with me...

I took a walk down the memory lane

Making my way past the yesterday

Washed down by the anxious rain

Keeping me from straying away

The rain gradually dissolved in to the mist

Trying to find shape in my imagination,

Leading me to the one I thought I missed,

Leading me to a precious manifestation.

I pursued the haze as if in trance

Finding my way into emotion true.

What brilliant blend of time and chance,

(I wondered) Had led me to you!

Homed

The roads stretched ahead

Into thousands of winding miles

And I quietly led myself to venture

Through invisible rooms and aisles.

I knew not where I was being taken to,

For I let the merry breeze be my guide

To the new and the untouched realms,

To the one, in who I must confide.

I longed for the thrill that novelty brought

But alas! How long does novelty last?

“The world is all new”, they say, “until

You have not discovered it fast.”

Or could it be the familiarity that

I craved for, which I found in you?

A safe hide-out for all my thoughts

That shall forever be new.

I wished to get lost yet not lose myself

In your deep and meaningful eyes,

Promising me the delight of adventure

Non-existent under the deep blue skies.

And while I slumbered in your arms

I heard voices from the whispering dome

Waiting for me to decipher them.

Softly they answer, “I am home.”

Love?

It is the topic most widely written on, it is the word most softly whispered about and it is the emotion most desperately desired to be felt. Many people say love is all about sacrifice, about selfless giving but somehow I have never been able to see them eye to eye on the notion. Like all the zillion times before, and again today, I wish somebody could define accurately what it is all about. Why does it capture one’s fascination the way it does and make most of us feel like some starved souls ever hungry for that piece of love? And does pain essentially have to be associated with love. Why did a human being ever come up with its depiction of an arrow brutally piercing a red heart! I never intended to think on those lines but my thoughts themselves seem to carve out a course when this topic creeps up. Yes, it creeps up close stealthily, lodging itself in all those places where one is sure to take notice of it which would then give it the liberty to divulge more about what it is capable of!

What fascinates me even more is how it transcends all barriers! In a country like mine, where marriage is a much rationalised event, where for centuries it has been a ground to breed superior progeny, where the groom and the bride are practically oblivious of each other’s existence until the day they are told that who they are to be spending the rest of their live with, one does not come across existence of a reality from the last century where love did transcend barriers. On the brighter side, thing are changing but on the darker side is it for the good? I don’t intend to spark of a debate and somehow every topic not matter how remotely it is related to love is so debatable.

Now, what I truly intended pen down was that I did come across one such reality that though they do not transcend many big barriers but are no less than a fairytale. Imagine a young man five feet and five inches tall, weighing seventy-six kilograms proposing to a young woman standing five feet nine inches tall and weighing thirty-eight kilograms at the very first meeting! A stark contrast, is it not? Further, the two are extremely ambitious and have ambitions that no matter how much they try will not let them stay together. Call me myopic or what you may, but I shall have never considered this relationship successful if it was narrated to me by someone other than the five feet five inches tall young man, Robert (though old now and a father to two beautiful young ladies). Robert tells me that love is important, but what is even more important is the understanding that he shares with Dorothy. They never left trivial things disrupt their conjugal relationship and that they had taken a vow together to deal with any matter of such consequence within the very period of twenty four hours and never to sleep on it. He further adds with a satisfied smile that their children are the strongest bonds that hold them from drifting apart. A successful relationship is one which matures with the time spent on it, nurturing and tending to it like a well-kept garden. A fruitful twenty-two years later, he lives in Madras with his two princesses while she lives in Bombay and comes home to her family every two weeks. Robert looks at me excitedly when he speaks about her being home this weekend!

I don’t know why I am more satisfied with the thought of love being the consequence of an association rather than the other way round. Like always, this debate will forever go on!