Musings on Monday Mornings

...I should have chosen a better title, but my brain is sluggish after eating so much. There was a lunch today at my grandparent's place and it was an event of celebration, after a year of mourning. Sitting inside, in something of a rare quiet moment I thought I saw my Nana from the corner of my eye, looking out on to the garden where the collected party was eating. I think I saw him smiling. I think I saw him saying "Well done Mahreen!" And I think he would have been pleased. He would have liked being there with everyone, his family, collected around him. He would have probably chosen the seat getting the winter sun. He would have approved of the menu. He would have cheered on his "Mars". We all miss him so. The house usually so quiet misses him... But when the noise is cheerful and festive, that house and its occupants miss him most. I like to think that he is still there in spirit. That he is standing there, still a part of everything. I'm glad I was ther...

Cinema Paradiso....I like to translate that as the Cinema of Paradise. Never having seen the movie I am at luxury to make it as I will. Also, I love the music (score) and I am afraid now that the movie will not live up to the image I have in mind. Very few things do....live up, that is, to the mind's picture. Why is that? Do we invest so much of ourselves in the ideal that that nothing compares. I suppose a lowering of expectations is warranted? How did she say it, "Anything less than extraordinary love is a waste of my time". Oh, how I used to love that line. I remember that actor. The movie is in black and white till the time the protagonist looks into his eyes. They go blue and then the movie gets its colour. I used to love the insinuation. He brought colour into her life. Or vice cersa. Indie cinema at its very best! I recently saw that actor again in a B-, bordering on C-rated, film. He had aged so much. Somehow it wasn't the same anymore. Also the B/C-ness of th...

It finally rained. A massive heaving of the skies, and still it's pouring some 24 hours later. That's a novelty for this part of the world. Any rain from the skies is a novelty...and it continuing for some 24hrs plus....heck, that's environmental change for you! I have rediscovered Alexandre Desplat. He throws me to others in his company, and I have a feeling my romance with Ennio Morricone will be rekindling as well. There is a certain calling within that sort of music. Sad, we are (were) never pushed towards the arts while growing up. I might not have become a Morricone, but I would have discovered him earlier. I hope D growing up will be familiar with these names. God forbid he's rapping his years to adulthood to the tunes of the Jay Z's and Britney Spears of this world. But that is the irony of life. God gives you a dose of the dreaded in your kids...probably to balance things out. My thoughts turn towards home and I recall conversations. There was a time when t...

It’s early December and today after months and months of dry arid weather, there is hope of rain. Come dusk to twilight however, so far my hopes are riding the wind. Not a drop as yet. But I'll wait. Twilight is perhaps the worst hour to write anything. The pixies, gnomes and featherlike felines are tugging at the seems of your consciousness and influencing the tilt of every word. You could swing from delicate ecstasy to melancholy faster than a batter on first base. But I am becoming course. I started in such finery :) I just saw a movie where the rhythm and light of Provence are still influencing my soul. I'll let it swing a bit longer before I have to submit to harsher truths.

I rarely ever put up pictures. But this one is an absolute winner. Its been some four months plus away from home, and two-and-a-half months into a change of status. We have a winning smile, favourite words, sparkling eyes and ...yes, I have fallen hook, line and sinker. (About time, I tell you!). A lifelong romance (even if one sided) begins. Life continues to a different rhythm. There is, guaranteed, less sleep, more trips to the loo, leaden arms and legs...but otherwise things are as before. Sort of :) We now measure days through feeds, burps and diaper changes. Through tiny grunts and attractive sighs. We are growing daily. As parents, the Mr and I tend to believe we have birthed the definitive genius...that is until the weekly update from babycentre tells us this is exactly how all babies grow. Damn, it's such an enthusiasm killer. Living as the typical new parent cliche, we take far too many pictures daily and assume everyone is interested in every "goo" and "g...

I am told I have a lot of life to account for in words. Some ten months of life. I’ve been putting it off so long now that the well has swelled so heavy that words don’t seem enough to recount so many days lived. So I will none of it. Rather, I will pick up the thread from here and now….at some 12.30am on a random March evening. Change: it’s been one of my major hesitations. Embracing change. Yet over time I have learnt to abide by the laws of nature …and for lack of a better phrase…go with the flow. Time ebbed and flowed and there was a recurrence of what was once ‘life’. We became clichés again. It is comfortable again …and this city is beginning to redeem itself. God Bless for that!! The change is mental, physical and spiritual. We grew … as people and as individuals. I am still growing (there is nothing that entertains like an inside joke) and there is hope in the future. Where there is life there is hope...and we have life. …I am returning home for a spell ...