The Dark Skies of Chennai

The skies of Chennai depress me, they are void of all art and all divinity of God's creation. They are uninspiring and unimpressively bland. I remember the time I used to look up at the sky from my home in Trivandrum, they were full of innumerable stars, my skies were always like that, until now. They always inspired me, they always made me close to God. Every time I look at the sky, every time I witness the masterpiece God has drawn I feel like I am having a conversation with God, an thoroughly personal and exclusive conversation. It is impossible for anyone who has witnessed the beauty of the night sky, any one who has come to terms with the overwhelming presence of the universe to doubt God. It can't be pure chance that out is so beautiful.

This is what I miss here, the intimate moments with God, the humbling vastness of the universe. The stars, the constellations, the comets, the wishing stars... It is impossible for the jaded skies if Chennai and it's countable stars to project that kind of power. The lost skies of Chennai can no longer make one wonder nor ponder. They have grown impotent, they kindle no dreams nor any aspirations. They are like the barren desserts of the north west. They have forever lost the magic. It saddens me to think that when I have the skies of my home, when I have the memories of those magical moments the children of Chennai has none, they have missed out on a miracle. Unfortunate and pitiful they roam unaware of the brilliance of the skies.

I wonder what astronaut shall come from under these skies. I wonder what any child can dream from under these skies. And what troubles me is that may be on a day in the foreseeable future these skies shall forever turn dark and only the radiant light of conquered moon shall pierce the doomed hearts of this city. Sad and desolate, it fills me with an agonizing melancholy. 

Children seize the skies, seize it today because they are your inheritance, your heritage. They are the gods gift to you. They are yours to look at. They are yours to dream of and yours to be inspired by. Seize your skies, they are yours.

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 )