A Struggle with Cancer through the Lens of Angelo Merendino

"These photographs do not define us, but they are us."

These were the words that Angelo uttered when asked of how he could bare seeing these photos. These are not the photos of someone who is struggling with cancer but of someone who was loved every day o her life. Sad and haunting, yet silenced in love.

Courtesy : Angelo Merendino

"The Pictures tell it all, love, hope, despair and death"

In Her Beautiful Eyes

Everything I know of that day I know from the myriad reflections it casted on her beautiful eyes. Everything thing about that day I remember not from sensing but from watching shadows it casted on the deep abyss of her eyes. That is where I was looking, that is all where I could bring myself to look, they were insidious like the fire was to the moth, captivating, entrancing. I am sure a million stars twinkled that night for eyes they out sparkled the finest of diamonds. What I did that day what I said that day, a different being of consciousness did for I was too busy witnessing the miracle that she was.

As I held out my hands to the open car door, I first saw her legs, with the freely flowing tunic caressing her smooth skin and soon enough a delicate hand came resting on my hands and a smile on my eyes. I was transfixed in that moment in time and a part of me shall forever be. She held my hands, trembling yet firmly holding on to mine as we ascend the stellar stairs. There was on her lips the most fabulous of smiles, one that befitting of the princess she was. Slowly we were shown to the dimly yet intoxicating lit tables placed near the dark waters of the pool that reflected the whole of heaven above and that which were ours to be taken. The dim yellow flickers of these half dozen candles played on her face the most coquettish of dances, seductive and sultry they suavely moved. A vision so serene you see but seldom in life that the mere sight of such paradisiacal beauty stops all of time and nature about it. I knew the light smile that have had strayed on to my lips and was slowly creeping into my eyes which but now filed with an almost animalistic desire. 

I think there was a man singing a beautiful European melody that may have ones made love bloom in the hearts of many a lovely princessess, I cannot vouch for his being there but the music I remember. I remember because of the subtle moments she made in lieu to the rise and fall of rhythm. There was wine I remember the red liquid creeping onto her flawless scrumptious lips, they say they twitched under it's spell I remember. 

I remember talking to her and I remember kneeling before her moments later. I know I was transcribing my heart to her in not the most eloquent English I have mastered. I remember stumbling and I remember stammering, I remember my agonizing search for words, in moments when they seem elusive like the mystery of the heavens. I remember the sole stone on a solitaire and the teary diamond that formed in her eyes. I remember a feeble dampness on my hands and a feebler still response. I remember hearing my heart beat so loud that they were both deafening and horrifying . I remember the deafening silence and the moments when time stopped agonizingly still. I remember the feeble nod and the ring move slowing as our settled on her hands. I remember the taste of her lips seasoned with tears.

And that was the platinum moment of our love.

Happy Diwali

Hi Friends,

I know probably you wont have time to read this, I hope and wish you don't have the time to read this. I hope that you are at this time celebrating the festival of light as it ought to be. Like years back when the whole of Ayodhya welcomed back their beloved king Rama, I wish this Diwali you would be welcoming another era of boundless happiness, immeasurable love and infinite prosperity.

To all my friends... err.... no...

To everyone I wish you all a Happy Diwali..

Regards,

A Breast and Chicken Debacle

It was not as bad as Homer got it

Every once in a while we end up doing or saying something stupid that will haunt you for life or at least the foreseeable future. This is the very short story of my 'slip of the tongue' moment that ended up putting me in some of the most embarrassing moments of this year.

It was on the day one of my team mates, quiet an elderly fellow at that decided to treat us for the valuable years he has burned away at our office. Needless to say that this sudden gesture of generosity had more to do with relentless nagging than a compulsive need for expensive celebrations. It was on this forsaken day that the blunder than that became my Homer Simpson moment occurred.

We were leisurely sitting in one of Chennai's finest Italian restaurants ( I intentionally am leaving out the name lest the management decides to throw me out the next time I step in) when in the process of giving our order my colleague ( not the same as the poor soul who had to pay the bill) asked me what I would like and I answered him casually

"Anything with chicken breasts is fine by me"

And with an unmissable spontaneity he started laughing and I realised I missed the words  "chicken"

The rest is history that I am trying hard to forget and harder to make others forget ( with remarkably low success )

Aisle be Damned by Rishi Piparaiya

Rishi Piparaiya has truly outdone himself and has shown himself to be a master of satire. He has shown great care and acute observational skills in picking the most annoying and embarrassing of things that happen in one's day to day exchange with the airport and it's queer inhabitants and projected them in a hilarious and thoroughly entertaining way. He has given an whole new outlook to the things that happen in and out of an airplane. Seriously who would have thought that my missing jacket was actually stolen by the Italian mafia. 

Rishi uses a delicate and simple style of writing to convey his story and that too with an even flavor of humour and satire. There is a chance that his sense of humour, predominant his style of humour would come across as slapstick to some but it is undeniable that he got a suave way of making his readers laugh. Anyone who has ever been on a flight and anyone who has seen the way the various quirks of the aluminium tube that flies will find it interesting and can relate to it seamlessly. It is just an understatement to say that Rishi has outdone himself.

They book though randomly satirical, is not random at all in organization. The book is neatly edited and organized as in the order of which the events would occur in an actual flight, from take off to landing and this differentiate 'Aisle be damned' from a regular book of jokes and into a humorous page turner. I will though advice the ones who have not flown to keep away, you don't need to add to your aviatophobia do we and secondly most jokes would appear to be tasteless and blown up to a person who is unaccustomed with such an environment as an airport. 

But for everyone else this is hilarious and light hearted, and would make your stomach hurt from laughing. I personally found the beginning and end to be rather bland and tasteless in nature as compared to the rest of it. I give the book a 'good' status and recommend it exclusively for all fliers, frequent and otherwise. The swaying hips awaits... *chuckle*

In Association with Jaico Publishing House.