A Portrait of Death

I have a friend who likes to photograph cemeteries. An odd interest that once made me ask him why? His answer was there was something about the calm of death. I had no clue what he meant. I have never walked inside a cemetery or even showed any interest. Somehow I have always been leery of being anywhere near the dead. But I followed him one day on one of his shoots.

We drove on his bike into the heart of the city, where among the snarling traffic stood a Christian burial ground, flanked by busy roads on all three sides. It was not in use any more he informed me, as the grounds were full. I got off the bike and stepped on to the pavement. My friend found us the small Iron Gate that served as the entrance. The ground was covered by dry golden leaves and looked desolate.

But the moment I stepped in through the gates, something shifted. The sound of the traffic suddenly muted. The grounds were cool and shaded by the ample canopy an old banyan tree. There was calm, a library-like stillness, as if everyone –dead and living – obeyed the rule of silence, but not in any sinister sense.

It was an old grave yard, as the dates on the elaborately carved headstones indicated. Some had four or five generations of family buried side by side - the De’ Silva’s and Gonzales’ enjoyed the quiet repose. My friend took black and white photos with his Nikon SLR. As he started snapping, I found myself walking between the graves, a little leery at the thought of dead bodies. I alternated between quiet calm and sudden spells of heightened awareness when the hairs on my neck prickled for no reason.

Slowly, as the hour progressed, I started to see pictures instead of just headstones. Sometimes it was the angle of the stones, sometime the writing on them, but they were telling a story. I called my friend over and borrowed his camera for a few shots, which he was happy to oblige. Couple of shots later, it was time to leave.

I never got the chance to look at those pictures I took. My friend and I had chosen different career paths and shifted to different cities, with no contact at all. But that day spent on the cemetery made me a little less leery about death had given me a strange sense of peace towards the finality of it.

If you are interested check out this link to some cemetery phototographs on the net http://www.pbase.com/marchael/cemetery

Having A Bad day

Today was one of those days when nothing goes right. The glass has to fall, the milk has to spill and the traffic has to come to a standstill! Well that’s not exactly what happened but you get my drift.

The problem started when I was making my lunch this morning. I forgot to throw in the chili, which my hubby loves, as I was in a hurry (my maid is absconding and the morning is a rush job). So I decided to substitute it with chili powder. Of course, the container had to go flying out of my hand and all that red chili power to spill all over my recently mopped kitchen floor.

And this happened with only 20 minutes to go before we get really late to office. So I dashed for the broom and tried to sweep it off without getting any powder in my eyes or fingers. Even though the floor got cleaned my mood was already feeling the burnt of the chili.

But I didn’t have the time to brood. So I dashed off to get ready. Of course then I had to drop my earrings under my bed and then crawl on all four, while wearing that well-ironed formal dress looking for that earring. Got into an even crappier mood by then.

Thank god though the traffic was merciful and reached the office without hassle. Now, owing to the fact that my husband had an early morning meeting, I reached office half an hour before time. But I wasn’t worried as I planned on having my breakfast in the canteen, by which time my one of the guys would have turned up with the office key.

I work in small law firm with a handful of people. So we most of have a keys. But as luck goes I had given mine to another colleague the night before as he was staying late. So imagine my irritation and surprise, when no one turned up by office time. I called my lucky colleague and he shamelessly informed me that he woke up late and was still at home. Well same story was repeated with others until one guy turned up half an hour later.

Now, I am a true believer of every bad thing comes in threes. That was three things, so hoping I don’t have any more nasty surprises today. Oh god, don’t you just hate this kind of days?

Duniya ke Kone Kone Me Roaming!

Translated it means “Roaming in corners of the world”. My fellow country men who have joined the mobile generation, I am sure you have had amazing experiences with the mobility of mobiles yourselves by now. See, here is thing called roaming. Essentially this allows you to take you cell phone with you as you travel, so that the annoying credit card sellers can call you when your incoming costs around 3 bucks per minute!

But, as it happens, you will be lucky if those credit card sellers can actually call you. Because most of the time the network refuses to roam along with your phone. Recently my cousin came to visit me and I was parked outside the airport (parking fee in airports are sky high) waiting for him to call and let us know he has landed. When it was well past the arrival time, we called and were told by a sugary sweet sing song voice that that “the subscriber is out of network reach”.

Once we collected this hapless soul, after much waiting and coordinating, my cousin used my phone to call the customer care. In followed the instruction –switch the phone on and off, remove the SIM card, try manually selecting the network. Then it degenerated into “are you sure activated your roaming, did you have enough balance” and finally “It’s a technical error we cannot help you”.

Well, that helped a lot. Of course the fact that my cousin is a lawyer means they are going to get skinned when he gets back to his city (he refused to sue long distance). Anyhow, this happens so often then most people know what the Technical support is going to say beforehand and only calls them if the usual techniques don’t work. Yes, shaking the phone is also a technique.

This reminded me of an episode in a comedy show where this guy couldn’t get a reception and was finally asked to stand in a kona (corner) cause as the advertisement says Duniya ke kone kone (corners) mein roaming!

The Song of Life and Chains..

An Old poem, to those who know me.

Everyday of giving way
Feeling the air being cut away
The circle closes in,
While your heart still beats, and mind still leaps
Only the line keeps you at bay.

They buried you alive!
That's how you feel
Only that the they have no faces
Not afraid of the darkness
Only the pain of being...chained
Alone

Always Alone,
Even when love surrounds you
The mind still wonders
"Tomorrow, I will again be alone"

Looking back over the shoulder
It's not a habit, just a way of living
There is too much pain in the past to bury it,
leave it behind alone...like yourself.
Carry it with you,
in hopes you can look to the past in hopes of future

The fire still burns
The passion still flows
But you know better than Icarus did
So, the circle still closes
Mummified in your own desires
Preferring to live alone
Knowing with certainity
You will always be alone.

There are mornings
when you look out of the window at the green grass
And hear the call of your heart, the call to run
to hope, to live, to follow your hearts desire
And then the rest of the world comes into view
And the dream disappears in the veil of morning coffee

Life goes on
The circle closes in
Leaving just the hope
In death, you will answer the call
Of that beautifull morning dawn.

Haflong Days: How I Met Super Cat!

Over the growing years I have had a number of cats. It wasn’t that my parents were cat lovers; rather they didn’t like the added responsibilities that these pets brought. But we had rat-problem. Imagine rats the size of kittens, moving from house to house by using the networked ropeway (read cable TV wires). I swear they looked like commandos, hanging upside down, scurrying on the wires using their paws.

Well, as you can guess, we needed cats. So we had a running supply of - feisty cats, wild cats, cowardly cats who got scared by rats, dumb cats who chewed on socks, circus cats who hung from curtains, cats who like to co-exists with rats (I used to like tom and jerry before that) and many more such specimens.

Some died, some were sent back to their breeders. And one ran away. I took the presence of cats quite pragmatically until that cat. Then came my one and only dog Leo, who traitoriously passed away after one year due to some disease, leaving me broken hearted. I swore never to keep to another pet. And I stuck to my guns until super cat arrived.

On a nice sunny afternoon, which was incidentally my birthday, I came home to discover an energetic kitty on our verandah. Now, I was realistic enough to know that this couldn’t be a birthday present, not even if hell froze over. So this led to me to ask my brother who shrugged nonchalantly and replied that he had tossed the cat out a number of time but it has come back stubbornly. Weirdly enough no one seemed to mind his presence.

The next day though came the shocker. The tom cat’s mama turned up. Now, she was a bona fide wild cat. Hissing and spitting at any movement, its eyes furtive and muscles quivering with alertness. It was evident that the she-cat was very uneasy in its present environment.

My first reaction was there goes another one. But to all our surprise, she merely played with the kitty for an hour or two on our big lawn and then left. This was repeated everyday, the games getting to look more like training as days went by. There was running, climbing, hunting, ducking all rolled into that play time. And, boy was the mother a task master. She would have made an awesome drill sergeant. She pushed and swatted at the small kitty whenever something went wrong. Within a few weeks we could spot the signs of the skillful predator that the little cat would turn out to be.

Suddenly just as this weird training had started, it stopped. The female cat stopped coming. We surmised, she appointed us foster parents because she couldn’t do it and left once she was sure the cat could handle life. Strangely human.

Of course by now the whole household watched all this like a soap opera and heaved a sigh of relief once it became clear the cat would stay. And it did stay with us for six years until we left Haflong. I will confess I had considered bringing the cat with me to the city. But, apart from the cost and hassle involved, I thought it would like to stay in that beautiful place rather then a city. I kept getting updates on the cat for the next few years from my neighbors who had grown to love that odd-ball cat of ours. And then the news stopped coming, I hope he forgave me, but guess like many parents I too thought leaving him behind was best for him.

If you want more on the Super cat adventures, let me know. I am known to ramble on about him and I know for sure that now everybody wants to know all about my cat. So requests please!