My New Home

I've long since moved to isawanda.com, out of an urge to experiment. But what's that they say about never putting all your eggs in one basket? I miss Blogger. But I'm yet to fully savour my time at Posterous. It's a fun thing, this unfixedness.

Call in the movers

To coincide with my possible impending move from the city, I also decided to move here.

Blogging here has been wonderful. But all future posts go there. Thanks, everyone, for a great time.

If...

(for Anannya) 

If I were a month, I’d be December

If I were a day of the week, I’d be Sunday

If I were a time of day, I’d be 6:00 am

If I were a season, I’d be winter

If I were a planet, I’d be Earth

If I were a sea animal, I’d be a dugong/manatee (I can't help it, I was told)

If I were a direction, I’d be East

If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be a rocking chair

If I were a liquid, I’d be water

If I were a tree, I’d be a great oak

If I were a tool, I’d be a pair of pliers

If I were an element, I’d be Air

If I were a gemstone, I’d be Amethyst

If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a duitara

If I were a color, i’d be sky-blue

If I were a emotion, I’d be Serenity

If I were a fruit, I’d be an orange, or wild berries

If I were a sound, I’d be strings plucking under the night sky

If I were a car, I’d be a Beetle? A Beetle.

If I were food, I’d be momos, or blueberry cheesecake, or Putharo-dohjem, or chocolate tiramisu with rum, or Syrwa dohsniang with tyrso and tungtap, or a really spicy biryani.

If I were a taste, I’d be tangy

If I were a scent, I’d be fruity

If I were a pair of shoes, I’d be a no-fuss pair of Converse

And if I were a bird, I’d be a robin

And If I were to tag people I will tag

Juhi, Karuna, Sanjukta, Ashmi

Sundown

The whispers in the trees tell you something you want to hear:

something old, deeper than the shadows they cast on the ground  at sundown.

Secrets that they know, things that they’ve been witness to.

You listen, and you hear, but you cannot understand.

The cold mist sweeps down and covers everything in its grey mantle.

It tells you that it knows.

It knows, because it has swept over these same hills for hundreds of years,

 while your ancestors, they came only yesterday.

And then much later when the Welsh came,

they made you forget that you could read the mist, and understand the whispers.

And you, you took on their faith and loved it, it became your own.

They gave you words, and you remembered to write your songs down.

They also gave you their language,

but it can never be yours.

And now you want to listen again,

to see if you can hear that ancient voice, and its echoes in the songs of your heart

at this twilight hour, and finally understand.  

In Blue

(Shillong, February '10)

Companions

To the Skies

Since I seem to be putting up a lot of aerial stuff / skyscapes, here are some from two years back, that I'd posted elsewhere. Shillong, early-autumn evening, 2007.

Halves of a Monsoon Sky

Onset of a strange September week in Delhi, when temperatures dipped and days were cloaked in cloudiness and incessant rain.