Drug. Sex. Insomnia.

Its well past midnight and I am doing some serious ‘burning midnight oil’ and it’s all about sex and drugs, err…drugs and sex. Well, this is no romantic escapades I am chronicling, if reading this far you envisaged some juicy anecdotes in the following paragraphs! Be warned, I am gonna talk about some real serious, real deep and really heart wrenching stories. And it involves me…yes, poor me!

I am happy that I finally got over that writer’s block I was suffering from and I am happy that I finally have a complete report right in front of me! Ah, I remember I did promise someone that I would share this piece of work I managed walking through all those spells of insomnias – well, it is now ready for public consumption! And I am really happy. Its rather not happy but a feeling which is so confidence boosting, a feeling which feels like as if someone is whispering sweet nothings into my ears! Well, it feels nice. That nice kinda nice :-)

Drug. Sex. Insomnia and a sleepy moi!

Some nights, working on my notes, I find myself sleeping on my belly with my face perched on the laptop keyboard. And then after couple of ‘turtle hours’ I wake up in the brightly lit bedroom to the tune of Sinatra. This could have been a scene of some nice, romantic, ‘sex-capades’, but alas it’s in my dreams, I dreamt of those tight embrace and those thick muscular arms!

Like a flower….

Picture this: Norah Jone’s husky voice filled the balmy air in the bedroom. It’s in closed door-window mode with dust storm outside– precautions for poor lungs which cant suck in thick air. Marquez’s orange yellow paperback lays upturned at page 17 and ‘remember me with a rose’ brushing on those tulip bed sheet, in the middle of a re-reading mode!

Oh, that orange yellow cover covered that famed cholera…err ‘Love in the time of Cholera’. Somewhere, that Medical Anthropologist and that Public Health Specialist and that traveller loses herself to a thing in the past on an unknown Spanish road, camouflaged as a Latina! Well, it had happened before; she had lost her ways to find her ways in life. And that was Barcelona. From Paella to Park Güell to Gaudi to Picasso and getting drenched in cava in those old Spanish pubs. Seven years since. Flashback moments and there was love. There was that husky voice, cat calls as you stop by the paid phone booth to make those phone calls to hear to that thick baritone from across the ocean. Yes, ocean! Hmm….flashback indeed!

Well, to come back to where it started from, yes, finally, suddenly, everything around feels so light, unburdened, as if there’s that lightness, a certain high from the first puff you suck in, as if there’s that slight buzz when you take a deep gulp after a nice swirl in your mouth, as if you just got kissed eyes all closed, all dreamy and light and as if a light feather just floated on the naked body.

The writing on ‘drugs and sex’ is complete and I am done with! and it all feels so dreamy yet real. Yes, drugs-sex and a bit of insomnia.. err …dreams :-)

Deep into the dark sky there are some stars smiling. Nice fragrant gardenias fill the air. A hint of sandalwood oil lingers on the nape and those saffron threads float on the water.

Surreal. Ecstatic. Blissful.

Nostalgic Hallucination

It’s been a week now- seven long days since she had sore throat; seven days since she had flu. It has been seven days she has been asking why life presents such occasions.

It’s been seven days since she saw him last. She saw him from distance in that foggy morning; she found him standing just in front of her office. Yes, it was him, so unmistakably him! And it’s been seven years since she first saw him.

And it’s been seven days she is living in daze (this has nothing to do with foggy mornings, though!).

She thinks aloud in the middle of a busy day in her new office space, a dark (read no sunlight) room which she turned into a lovely work-station (thanks to her sense of harmony and creative ideas) which is doing rounds in her office building (that landmark building everyone wants to get into) and making a few colleagues to land up for inspection (or for inspiration, who knows?). And in her new husky voice (thanks to that recent flu she had) she ponders (as she discusses with another friend) whether finding him at her office gate was a coincidence or part of some plan. And more she thinks about it more surprised she gets.

Her mind laden in nostalgia and emotion takes her to the time when she would plan a rendezvous with him when one such was unthinkable and she would silently long for a meeting. And now, when a surprise meeting is taking place there is no splash of emotion…how things change, how we change….And she pinches herself.

Yes, you can’t act here, there are certain things which are spontaneous and they cannot be forced upon. There are certain things which are mutual and cannot be felt otherwise. And there are times one just forgets to respond. And she learnt that a week ago in that foggy morning in front of that pathway strewn with lilies and tulips.

Frozen mind and foggy vision.

It’s been seven days since. Seven days. Seven is such a mysterious number, oops…

Seven Seven...Dirty Seven!

I am good with words and not numbers, well thats how I like to think. But my report cards always told me and especially my dad that I have a thing with numbers!

Now what??? Numerology or Algebra? Well, none of that. I realized I remember things and also numbers, wow! Its about the cruise on the Nile and our group of Seven: three couples, who adopted me on board 'Nile-Ritz' and I.

Who are these couples? They looked like retired couples on holiday when I was assigned a huge table, all to myself right next to them. And little later I knew their food preference as they were not able to fill their plates with Egyptian delicacies. I was observing them, well, not that I was smitten by any one those three men but I was a vegeterian myself that time. (What?? travelling in Egypt and vegeterian! Yes... ) I guess the manager on the deck was also as observant as me and decided to join both the tables, obviously after getting a nod from both the sides. And we became SEVEN and we had ONE common thing between us: greens...go greens...ooops, yikes!

And for those 4N-5D it never occured to me I started the trip alone. We talked, joked, ate, drank, danced, played (I still remember those games of table tennis, hope they got back those ping-pongs I sent all over!), and again played (this one is for those games of cards and Tambola or shall I say 'Bingo') and had a blast.

The list of common things increased as we mingled, which included two languages, one vacation a year and then a common civilization (the Indian Sub-continent). Thus started our story.

Anyway, coming back to numbers: how Dirty Seven came into being...read on...

If you have ever heard Sudanese/Egyptian accented English then you would comprehend this one better: but I give it a shot with my words! In this part of the world (or shall I say people from here) 'T' is spoken with a slight dip in 'Z' and thus all words starting with a 't' like 'the' etc would sound like 'zte'. We had a winner in our group in everything, be it the Bingo game; or belly dancing or fancy dress competition.
It was that game of Bingo again: it was when we needed a 37 to complete the row and win a 'pyramid' and we were not able to locate a 'zirty seven' on our bingo coupons! And then one among us said 'Bingo' and prompty went for the prize and then another started to shout "Dirty Seven- Dirty Seven' and our group got a name. And we were christened as 'Dirty Seven' ever since. Long live SEVEN- SEVEN- D-I-R-T-Y-S-E-V-E-N!!

So, where is Dirty-Seven heading in 07? Well, where else but to one of those SEVEN wonders (have you checked the new list, its still there, no??)! Seven...oops see you there!

She Walks in Beauty

Every one is going ga ga over her; she was talked about in the past and she is being talked about now and why not, she is the epitome of beauty! While everyone is at it I also grab my moment under the sun…err moon (Though it’s so very unlike me. I seldom tread a path taken by many just so you know!). She is a gorgeous thing on earth ever since she happened and this one is my ode to love, my salute to something so eternally beautiful (oops..again this is so unlike me, worshipping beauty and I? Well, there is always a first time, no?).

Folks, hold on, stop rolling your eye-balls, she is not any female (hetero is the word for me..hic!) but she is our very own Taj Mahal!

I was waiting for that moment to set my eyes on her white marble body, for that special moment under the full moon light. And it’s such a whale of an experience. Wow! and I was floored, my eyes were moist, my throat was dry and heart was beating fast or dancing with joy??!! My joys knew no bounds and I was thrilled…well, that joy was short lived thanks to some rude security personnel who goofed up their watches from the pick-up point and then again at the screening points and my love affair lasted for just about 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes for which I had paid a special sum to ensure my date under moonlight…well, don’t you know good things don’t last for ever?!
But the ‘die-hard’ in me has plans to make it last longer and here is wishing that I could work with Uttar Pradesh Police Force one day and get night shift patrol duty at the monument and quench the romantic in me. Wah, what a thought! I very much could spend all my life admiring the charm and the romance of those moments. Who knows that could open doors for alternative career options of a poet or a creative writer...making of a maestro…ahhh…the 'alert me' says shouting, “wake up! You dream a lot.” Oh, yeah...its time to get practical!

If visiting Taj under moonlight could be so heady, I can only imagine how Shah Jehan used to feel looking at his beautiful wife, the great Mumtaz Mahal. He decided to make this beautiful mausoleum, befitting her beauty who died at childbirth in 1631, a tribute to love and beauty from a husband, a lovelorn, heartbroken Mughal Emperor called Shah Jehan.

Well, now I know for sure ‘beauty rules’! Ooops, why did not I know this before….alas…all those beauty crowns could have been mine…ha ha ha!!! At least someone mentioned a Taj souvenir to me, thats not bad!!