Monday 13 April 2009

Air-conditioned love

The streets outside lie empty, as if the whole city was hit by a zombie virus. But none of that post-apocalyptic scenarios, I say, it's the heat that's re-embracing its eternal love, the Juliet to its Romeo, this city of Delhi, a dusty hellhole where the fires of heaven cannot remain clenched for too long.
The cold was only a sham. A mirage to lure travelers into its deepest bowels, and residents into believing climate change is finally a reality.
I can feel the hot tepid air on my face as if it never left me. It sucks the air within my lungs, leaves me gasping for another breath even as Helios pours out its love for this city.
In this heat we wander.
And in this heat, that crowded-to-the-brim but air-conditioned metro system seems like an oasis.
How easy it would be to fall asleep while standing under the vents that give out cold air like manna from the heavens.
Yet in this heat we wander.
In circles and spirals, I say, around a maze of glazed white circular constructions--a remnant of the colonial past. Was it any cooler then?
We wander as we relentlessly seek out the elusive watering hole, that one spot in the desert where prey and predator alike beat the mid day heat.
And in our post-modern, cyber-punk, techno-junky, reality-tv-stupified society--it is none other than an enclosed cafe, another modern invention of expenditure, a haven for get-togethers of young couples who hands and kiss each other in the corners of this fancily-lit, magazine-studded, exotic-brews-advertising cafe.
Air-conditioning is as inseparable from us as the shoes on our feet or the underwear that we wear.
Love brews in an air-conditioned environment.
In that heat, an embrace leads to a shrug-off, a seeming rejection of the affection.
Inside the cafe, the embrace becomes an excuse to come closer.
Love needs air-conditioners to survive in this heat.

Friday 10 April 2009

of grammar and idiosyncrasies in the air

i is just coming back from the land of the bombay, where the merry gujhu bhais has setting up a merry own stall of theirs in the airports. i is flying by spice jet one morning [maybe that is why guju bhais choosing it-teekha teekha] when i realises my plane full of patel chacha and hingorani chachi eating theplas merrily merrily merrily.
they coming back from holy pilgrimage of vaishno mata as it was holy time of nine nights....and they is going back to the dhandha in vashi....
i enter and i see plane is full...
i thinks to myself stopover from jaipur with so many peoples inside...
then i hear the melodious voice of a million gujju bhais going ping pong and air hostess trying to calm them by giving them sandwiches......
but sadly air hostess herself was not aware of the demand for garam chai inside and the foot next to the kettle which she sadly dropping on my foot......
all hot hot tea falling on my foot....
i screaming....air hostess--beautiful she was; christina her name was; good eyes too--she keep saying sorry sorry but the harm was done.....my heart was getting stolen....
therefore i is not being able to say much except it is okay.
anyway. back to my uncles.
i like them. they are very nice people. very funny too. filled with joy and pride at the world.
one man being so courteous that he donated 5 sandwich packets, 4 juice packets, 3 water bottles, 6 cashew nut packets [the munchies come on] and 4 chai glasses to the beautiful air hostess
litter bag....
and then very generously offering another aunty [i do not knows if she is known to him. it seems like so. but aunty's uncle was also present. so i dont know what to make out of it] a sandwich which he is saving for the taxi ride from bombay airport to mira road....
so sweet no.
that's exactly what i is thinking.

before i forget, man, i hear this man talking on phone to his mrs. telling her sweetly she is not obese, only little bit fat. to eat tanduri chicken, not butter chicken. so sweet a husband he was.

bombay airport--my my--as crowded as bombay itself....but one good thing i saw.....viveik [i hoping that is his spelling] oberai meeting his friend....
i is being in double mind over taking autograph or not....then i thought i is too cool for him....so i did not....
now i think, i did mistake. i could, maybe, sells it later on ebay.