Suruma Writes On...

Today morning I woke up to see one of those black cats( the animal) in the hostel, sitting on my legs, on top of my blanket. These people, who come uninvited!

It's strange how some people come into your life and then leave, but leaves footprints, carved in you for eternity. I was sifting through my older posts when Venugopal Uncle came back to me. I've met Venugopal Uncle only twice or thrice- not more than that. We've never really talked much in person. If I were to see him on the road, I don't think that I would even be able to recognize him properly. But if today I have the motor in me to write and vent out my thoughts, I owe a lot of it to Venu Uncle. Venu Uncle's comments for my posts as a 9 and 10 year old girl, meant a lot to me. I used to wait for his comments as if they were some priced possession sent from afar. I wrote a lot so that I can read more of his comments and feel elated. Reading these comments now make me feel so silly. When he said that he "shuddered" reading about a snake in my trip to Ooty and that he immediately felt better reading about the waterfalls, I was too naive to understand t...

When the storms settle And the leaves stop bristling, When the waves stop lashing And the sea birds fly again, They will come down, those walls, Crushing to the ground, powdered enough for us to walk over them. Those walls that divide.

Otherness was a cage, Truth obsessed with tiring things.

In life's narrow alleys, I met a poet. If only I had realised, that I was the poem!

And then they came, Like a gale refusing to pacify, Like a weapon refusing to calm down, Like a poem, refusing to be penned.

In dingy alleys that smell of people, In crowded streets where every inch is a battle, In narrow roads where the sound of a motorcar resonates before another dies out, In the metros that race past the windows, Lie stories, weaved in and out enmeshed like a web, skillfully laid down for a prey. In the electric wires that criss-cross the havelis of Chandni Chowk, In the shops that line the Jama Masjid, like an adornment, well suited, In Regal cinemas, studded by fancy lights from the tall white buildings of CP, In the narrow lanes of Nizamuddin that smell of athar and rose petals drenched in the sound of the qawwali, In the convoluted roads that run in all directions near the parliament street, in the saffron flags that embellish Kalkaji, there seems to flow a river, that brings with it the silt load of an entire history, written and erased. In rickshaw bhaiyyas who strain to pedal, In shopkeepers who refuse to bargain, In auto bhaiyyas who say "what dif...

It came lashing down the window sill, Like logs of wood rolling down iron sheets It came knocking on door steps like destitutes, adamant It came flooding our homes, silently like uninvited guests, till we were left devoid of choice. When the rains that come and go like saintly fakirs with stories many, finally found a resting place to unleash its sorrow, we cried with it. We cried with the fierce wind that sings melancholy We cried with the trees that swayed and fell We cried with the water that bruised our feet We cried with the soil beneath our feet that was swept away. As the water, like stormy seas rushed into our lives, we stood across the verandah, in tryst with silence As trees fell and homes collapsed, like silent spectators, we watched on, frozen As lives extinguished before us in a flicker of a moment we lost all voice, in a complete blackout. We looked on at the rain of helplessness Silent. Helpless.

Farman tells us that he wants to be an "Archicad". We correct him. "Architect". But he is firm and says that there isn't a "t" in between. He then takes out a visiting card that he has carefully kept in his pocket and shows it to us. "Archicad", it says. I look it up on google and realize that it is something related to architecture( I hadn't understood that it is a software,though). We smiled at him. Farman turned the pages of his notebook and showed us a picture that he had drawn- a house. A completely built house, with stairs, rooms, doors and windows. On the next page he has made his teacher write "door, window, room, stairs" in English, so that he can mark them on drawing later. 13 year old Farman is just one of the many children whose eyes gleam with dreams. Rufaida's smile in itself is a dream. The first day we visited the place, when we were standing in the hot sun, 7 year old Rufaida came up to us with her little...

Nizamuddin Dargah at night is a beauty unparalleled. Though I've been to the place quite a few times and all in the mornings and despised the state of the place at all times, the dargah at night made me fall in love with each of its corners that I despised and each of its people that I felt sorry for.  There is something magical about its air once the sun sets. Adorned in the soft glow of  yellow lights and coloured papers that hang mid air, the dargah and its narrow alleyways are a sight to behold. And then there are those small shops inside its alleys, selling rose petals, colourful 'chadars', athars, rings and tasbis that beam in the glory of the night, adding to the mystique of the place. As a qawwali enthusiast, I've literally grown up listening to qawwalis that sing praise of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (most of which were composed by Amir Khusro, whose tomb lies just opposite the sufi saint's). And the first time I visited the place, I expected to be transcen...