Skip to main content

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts
I am so missing home... home is India (for those who didn't quite figure that one out from the immigration rant!) ... Somehow 8 years into living in the US surrounded for the most part by people who are understanding, can point to India on a world map and intelligent, I still feel very alien... Just want the morning sounds back, the milkman dropping off the bags at your door, amma saying her prayers in the morning, cycles ringing their bells, smoke-belching buses roaring past the house, vegetable vendors hawking their fresh wares, kids running to catch the morning school bus!!... and the smells of coffee, milk, food cooking for breakfast and for lunch boxes, garbage bins overflowing (okay so I don't really miss that one too much), agarbathi lit up ...hmmmmmmmm
I think I had a pretty decent life back home, affluent but not filthy rich with a certain groundedness that comes of travelling in full buses and hanging out the door by one hand and praying you reach safely befoe your arm gives way. It makes it much harder to live here without family and social structure where you don't have to watch how you behave everytime, the only people who understand it ar epeople you pretend you don't want to associate too closely with... the FOB experience (fresh off the boat for the uninitiated) oh well better not get too teary I have a job to do... Good morning America!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Of pigeons

All dressed in gray, with a touch of black and white, The mighty pigeon heads home tonight! Why, if I had only the right, I would give them such a fight. A peskier bird you would be hard pressed to find, Annoying and fit to drive me out of my mind! Pigeon poop as sticky as glue, I hate the pigeons, I tell you I do. Pigeons, oh God! the dreadful pigeons, they do talk at you, Gurgle-gurgle...would it be so hard to coo? Many a time the nonsense they spout, Makes you want to chase them out! Flapping their wings, all a-flutter, They do houses clutter, While annoying the poor housewife, Driving her to madness, within an inch of her life! So, dear friends, I beg of you, When a pigeon you find, Chase the feathered menace away, Before you do lose your mind! P.S. This was from a long while ago... And now I know the answer to the pigeon riddle, I hide myself away and don't give a fiddle!

Blessed to write

I spent some time tonight going through blogs and thinking about stuff...I've spent a few years locking myself away and have grieved only one thing the most..the loss of my words...a comment on another blog left me grateful and humbled...when the mind finds a way to read, to write, to paint to dance to sing, it's a gift that ought not to be taken lightly. I spent a joyous half hour with my daughter tonight ostensibly helping her write a speech...what it helped was to free me from self-imposed cages of the mind. It's a hard habit to break when one pretends one does not need to write. especially when it is the one thing one cherishes the most...so I shall see how long my gratefulness and humility last...how long I can put pen to paper and try to write...not to publish nor be read but for windows to the soul and for the soul...a voice that begs to be heard apart from the recesses of one's brain....so write I shall till I can...for it makes me whole again...

Tears

Funny thing they are, tears...for when you're happy and when you're sad... always there and only missed when they don't flow. For over two years now, I've not cried...at least not much and never for myself...I've felt no grief no anger no feeling... when they came I would look away and try not to cry...a weakness, a foolishness... except, the dam... it's broken... or certainly sprung a leak...uncomfortable...little dribbles at happiness, in full flow at grief, a wobbly smile at an emotional movie, sorrow at memories...I cry for love, for the lack of it..I cry for songs and for battlesongs...I cry for symbols of hope, for lost souls...I cry for myself...as I am for who I was and for what will come...I cry for what I want, what I have...I cry because I am loved and I cry because I want to love and yet cannot...I cry as I write, I cry as I think...I am brave and yet I am not...cowardly and yet not...soldier I am and victim the same...words that want to come but w...