Fabulous lines from Tashan’s signature song-Dil hara- rasta bola, garaj ke aandhi hogi, baras ki tufaan hoga yaheen ruk ja..Lovely, the energy, the syncing with drums- just this one single para, and the turn the line takes after, superb!

I begin to hum, just hearing the fluid notes the hero outlines, words of an age-old composition pulled out of a twenty-five year and rusting memory, of long afternoons spent rehearsing, out-doing yadayadayada. I trip on the name of the raga- Neer Bharan Kaisey jaaon from Khuda Key Liye is in Tilak Kamod, not Piloo. But not bad.

A year since Baba’s operation. A year since I watched, sleepless, the pale wash of colors that filtered beam-like from the AC, a vigil moist-eyed till the colors blurred to a stunning clarity. Some lessons you never forget.

A flock of green-black parrots dots an orange-peach sky, a tiny speck of a chopper whirs past, oblivious of the birds, haze, or matchbox-like cars in busy lines on the highway.

Soaps.
Sandalwood, and the scent lingers long after. Medimix, a bad brand name for a soap so delightfully herb-fresh.

“Because the mother-in-law was once the daughter-in-law” heads the list of Indian soaps that the Afghan government has banned. We should ban them serials too.

Promises to be a scorching summer.

I LIKE crime, the financial sort, nothing messy; also sci-fi, with six moons orbiting an airless earth, to WRITE about, of course, but most of all I like the way it gives you the freedom to Dali-like, stretch ho hum reality way past the escalating price of greens, grain and fruit.

In the few minutes that I scrounged after the meeting, I reached the garden back home, where the first thing I saw was the badam, broken, snapped into two, twig-like, by lightening and the windstorm or so they say; but the asopalav were all right, they could bend to the force of the gale.

The lady in the seat behind mine was traveling with her young sons, all the way to Toronto, this evidently was her first flight ever, she was moving bag and baggage, on permanent resident visa to a land she’d never seen, a language she didn’t know, new people and a new life, and I wonder what is it in our genes that makes us pack up and move, and makes some stay put, come hell or high water.

We’re eighty-five today. Everyday a new day, touchwood. So lukkha he won’t even treat me to peanuts, nah you can’t, he cackles.

Watching the golden orb rise beyond the horizon-line, past the few straggly trees on dusty scrub and the huge pipe that runs to the distant reservoir, one can just imagine onceuponatime, itwaslikethis packed lush green, bird calls to a crescendo, insects buzz, suddenly a rustle in the undergrowth and …silence.

6S, Volume One, publishes today.
Congratulations to all my friends- Crusty, Quin, Babyisland, who've written; this calls for a toast!
For book details, pls visit sixsentences.blogspot.com.

Two sticky learnings. Someone’s long due salute to a writing class teacher who sent her back-“live life, get bruised, then write”; elsewhere a child with cancer celebrates a rare day in school, then sends in her homework.

Nothing newsworthy. Life is even-keel.

Sometimes the shortest way west is to first go east and take the bridge over; you never quite know what particular brand of surprise you’ll find, like that cut-rate second hand bookshop with man-height tall stacks of books, but you buy a train ticket to cross, much to the horror of the auto driver who drops you there.

Blame it on a Mercury retrograde. Two trips into town for one pair of specs, because the opticians forgot one minor measure. Its rather hot already, even with the fast trains the commute is one hour minimum including a fifteen minute trudge through shortcut lanes, but ok, if that’s on the cards, so it is. Did find a new way to reach Crawford market though, a walk that involved some nifty turns past old shops and derelict heritage buildings. Later learnt some personal history- I’d trudged past the now dilapidated office where an uncle once started out in life with shared table space only-law practice; yes, this is the city where anything can happen, anytime.

And for once I have shoes that are not Bata relics.

From the park

After all the social chit chat over dinner, after asking about the health of second cousins whose names one can’t remember, you talked about your work with the salt-pan workers in rural Kutch, teaching them micro-finance, helping them source loans to buy bicycles with, and streamlining age-old work processes; this is REAL WORK, not sitting on a chair in an air-conditioned office, or so I think.

Ah glee! A patli gali, new shortcut, traffic-free- a road that twists and turns, goes up hill and down, mocks the flashy expressway that it briefly runs past but that one’s traffic-heavy, past buildings that perch higgledy-piggeldy on what used to be a hill, tumble-down shanties, a track that goes past areas that are not so nice, repair shops for trucks and tempos, take a left, take a right on to smooth concrete and then viola! home…