Rang Deeni or Homecoming

Teri mal-mal ki kurti, gulabi ho gayi..

(Your silken shirt got colored pink) 

You never know when it happens, when your soul feels like a sense of home.
And it’s there.

It cud be a person, idea, place. But it’s home.A sense of belonging, like someone or something’s taken your heart, Like the heat on Connaught Place (Delhi’s elegant Central square) .Or the Nirulas ice cream your Dad buys for you.

Or the love of your life, Like those guys on mobikes, walking around like Aamir Khan in ‘Jo jeeta wohi sikandar’,
Out to win..their goal and your heart. 

Finally she’s home.

The wandering girl, has come home. To Nirulas and the gol-gappas (North Indian street snacks). And the guys on bikes, looking like Aamir.

With the gajras in her hands. And the Holi color on her face.

My favorite festival of all. The color, the rang, the spring with the high people.. and the water on your skin, with color stains on your hands and your face and your eyes..and your soul.

Home sweet home

Finally, there is the smell of formaldehyde
and the sight of microscopes.
Divine designs beaneath their rim
microbes flickering around,
stained with blue dyes.

The sight of Self, underneath the cell.
It is a relief to be back home.

Home sweet home,
where the Medicine lives and heals.

The progression stages of cancers and difficult diseases.
the intricate delicacy of genes , peering on the edge.
One or or the other, they can save lives or stain them.

The subtleties of medicine are breathtaking. higher than any mountain, the sight of Sinai or the face of life.

Walking in those hallways, tinged with the auras of wise men and the fumes of labs,
churning away the sickness into life.
Brilliant minds walk around drinking coffee,
and we talk about cells and not soccer.

The cells. Oh the cells.
The sweet smell of cells, stained with dyes blue like the sky.

As Meredith Grey ('s Anatomy) says:
"There comes a time,
when it's more than just a game".
Welcome home.

----
Part deux

I gobbled that Oncology book, like a thirsty man drinks water.
Missed two buses and couldnt get myself to leave..
like a lover being forced apart.
I can't wait to swim in it's reams..

Multiple myelomas and the stems cells that create them.
We can tailor them, change them, suit them, train them to save lives.
Make vaccines out of them or give them to children to live.

We can plunge needles into them and suck out the the marrow of life.
And to find that "when we came to die, we had lived".
(Walt Whitman, Dead Poet's Society)
 

Bliss in the Bauhaus

It's amazin'
So amazin'
I'm the only thing I believe in..
- Kanye West

The bliss has found me
the bauhaus cafes
bliss in the best lattes
and simple words
the air I can breathe
in capitol hill
feels like I have come out of the madhouse
into the fresh air
I cannot breathe in those bourgoise ghettos
from the world of the hausfrau.

The place has a very anarchist
Tahrir Square kind of vibe
Coffee meets Kunst (art)
meets LGBT angst
films festivals scrawled
on the wall
Some of the most intellectually brilliant and liberated people on the planet
phew!

The smell of UW closeby.
art books are everywhere..
I feel like I am in a Parisian version of Tahrir Square..
the smell of revolution and cigars is in the air.
And I can breathe..
Diana Penty has become Deepika..
(from 'Cocktail')
 

The return of Jugni (The Firefly)

I recently saw the movie 'Cocktail' again.
And was struck was the fabulous performances of all the three main leads. An unconventional Indian movie for chamge.

While Saif Ali Khan's performance blew one away, the one that struck me most was Deepika Padukone's performance as the golden-hearted, bohemian Veronica. Albeit a bit too wild in places (a la Bollywood), she plays an angsty, gutsy female character who has no qualms on talking about the hypocrisy of Indian society, male double standards, feminism and being in love at the same time.

Her performance in the 'Jugni' song is incredible. I was told I am bit like her :-) though being in a Hindi movie, everything is stereotyped about an independent herione -  she parties too much, doesn't like cooking et al..- the usual stereotypes (why doesn't an 'independent' girl like to cook, is baffling)
 
The bottom line is that Indian cinema  finally showing 'normal' girls, with human feelings, emotions and self-respect who don't chase after men, dying to be 'pati vratas'. She probably loves more passionately than any character, but she is real, honest and strong. She becomes a Jugni in the process of love, but perhaps she doesn't need a man like Saif Ali Khan anyways..
A really nice,  but slightly patriachal guy who goes for the more homely, 'desi' Diana Penty. Perhaps the lesson of the movie lies in that.. that women like her need someone who will respect the Jugni (Firefly) in them, not not try to repress her light. She is shown with open options at the end of the movie..a Jugni ready to take flight..

The Smell of a scoop

So, I do realize that I have the rare 1941 edition of William Shirer's 'Berlin Diary'.
As published by Alfred A. Knopf, of New York.
Talk about a nose for journalism.
I found it stacked behind large imposing racks, in Powell's in Portland.
Something in me, smelt something in it.
This was the book that Blanche Knopf, co-founder and wife of the legendary publishing house, had asked Shirer to write..while the Second World War was brewing in Berlin.

This book could have been touched by Hemingway, Shirer, erswhile New York journalists and editors at the New York Times..Jewish refugees or crusty British diplomats..

Wow!

Hope

Saw Spielberg's masterpiece today.

The sound of 'Hope' kept ringing through my ears.. and I saw Stars falling through my eyes.

Silent
burning stars
of hope.

'As long as the eyes flow,
the hope will live on..'

Even in the land of exile,
the longing for the home
will last..
the hope will live on.

Ever since I heard it,
felt like I have come home..

Gatsby in New York

You walk down Fifth Avenue
"walking cane here by your side".

You're the sound of the jazz bar in Sting's song..
'Englishman in New York'.

You cannot belong to boundaries..
Sound
stubble
eyes like black coffee
sophistication
like that Barney's hankerchief
you carry in your left pocket

Stopping
by the same window,
every night
looking into see if she is there.
You drink the black coffee in Stumptown
and like it ground a certain way
Fine but not too refined
like yourself
like that jazz note
flickering
hovering
over the ground
in Brooklyn
where the dark eyed Jews reside
by your
Leah.

Reclaiming the light

She runs towards him..
like a barefoot 'Katrina' in Jab Tak hai Jaan..
running towards the ray of light.

"Jeevan dagar mein,
prem nagar mein
aaya nazar mein
jab se koi hai.."

Ever since you have shown up on this path,
this town of love..
my heart wonders..is this the One?

 

Re-claim the sunlight

I will find you.
I will find you again.

No wordly walls, Bastilles, revolutions
can keep us apart.

You were mine..
all through the centuries
and we have drunk coffee, bread and mind-soul together.

Everything we are
is each other.

Every flesh and sinew
in our being
belongs to each other.

Pledged from the beginning of time
history, destinies, empires, dictators
bullets
couldn't separate us.

What's a little bourgoise ghetto?
Break free of the Bastille
and reclaim your light.

The sun that is in your soul
is me.

 

Re-union, Part Deux

I feel it already..like the 'Exodus' has begun.
Ever since I came back from Portland..
It was no coincidence I took the book with me there.

I feel like the system has blown and the lid has come off.
It is happening as we speak..
The lid of fake covers, IDs, layers, bourgoise ghettos, death, smell of decay, 'morals' and 'rituals'..
We have taken them apart.
You and I.
Since that day in Berlin, when we last met, we had black coffee together. and promised.
We would find each other again.
My anarchist revolutionary and your Karpinski Leah.

We were torn apart.. but never separate.
We kept the promise.
It is time to redeem that pledge.

Live fearlessly.

(And isn't it interesting, that I stopped at the 'Zeitgeist' cafe of all places, en route to Portland? The smell of dark coffee, books and revolutionaries in the air..a la Seattle)