Experiences

Here's the first of my vlog series on Happiness Hacks. Hope you like it! Please do share your Happiness Hacks as well! You can read more about happiness here .

I’ve read this about hyper dimensions a long time ago (I’m paraphrasing freely, of course): If you are a species that cannot perceive the dimension of height, then if I slip a hula hoop on your head and place it around your feet, you will be my prisoner forever, because you wouldn’t know how to step over it. I never learned to ride a bicycle or a scooter or drive a car because way back when I was a teenager, girls were not allowed to learn such things.  By the time I was no longer in small town India, the diffidence was overwhelming. “Terrible sense of direction,” I said. “Such a bad sense of space that I’m lethal with the airport cart,” I joked. But really, it was just a hula hoop that imprisoned me. I am driven everywhere, mostly by men—drivers, friends, and relatives. Even our all-girl trips by road usually has a male driver. Off late, a small percentage of rides are with my girlfriends, but these are strictly within city limits. So when A suggested a 2000 kilomete...

15 years ago, I met a boy from South Bombay. He was quite ridiculously intelligent and creative. He was funny and crazy to boot. I was a neophyte in Mumbai, all wide eyed and wondering, with the metaphorical small-town-South-Indian-coconut-oil still on my hair. For all our cultural differences, we could’ve well been from two different planets. No this is not a love story. Definitely not one with a happy ending. This is the story of the fast vanishing Art of Conversation a.k.a. “talking shit.” We talked miles and miles of deserted streets in Fort, Church Gate, Nariman Point, Colaba and Marine Drive. We talked hours and hours of Roxy, Metro, Sterling, and Eros theatres. We talked years of All Stir Fry , Under the Over (alas, not there anymore), Churchill and Crystal. We talked shit man. From “leading a life of quiet desperation” to Douglas Adams, Martin Scorsese, Incubus and Succubus, Warm Water under a RedBridge , sizzling brownies and the “greater creative question.” ...

Fuck Companionship! Some days I think That the companionship argument is valid— I think this when I struggle to Change the light bulbs Fix the leaking gas tube Whup the recalcitrant carpenter's ass Or win a “couples only” lucky draw pass. These things I cannot do alone. These things defeat me. So perhaps it would be nice To have a man to take care of me There is perhaps magic In matched footsteps on quiet walks. But on most days I think— Fuck companionship! I want adventure everyday. I want seduction every moment. I want the lightning jolt of awareness. I want hot kisses in dark autos. I want warm breath and cool fingers. I want the selfish urgency of need. I want the suffocating weight of desire. I want smiles that light up rooms. I want jokes that stop the heart. I want banter, sharp as a knife. I want ideas, bright as stars. I want ideals, hopeless and impractical. I want big surprises, silly gestures. I want ...

I mean very free verse. So free that you might wonder whether it is verse. But I have been writing these poems regularly for a few months now, usually in the mornings. These little spurts of creativity help me face increasingly stressful days at work and give me a reason to feel good about life, on a day-to-day basis. The Ride Outside my balcony was a fluffy cloud "Hop on, time for a ride," it said. I jumped over the rails, nimbler than I thought Fell headlong into its cushiony softness. We soared towards the orange streaked sky Cold wind swept my hair, my nose tip froze I waved at a flock of birds, they nodded at me We swerved sharply as a plane passed by (Deafening noise, btw, I am now hard of hearing) We met a minor God, rushing to an appointment We talked, my cloud and I-- Water bearing is not as easy as it looks Bombarded by hills, zapped by lightning! It talked of the trauma, the hard life I talked, about nothing in particular. Eventually, silence bef...

We were standing on the sticky sands temporarily abandoned by the low tide on Juhu beach. It was a pink twilight. The sea was a placid lake, lapping at the edges of our toes. The roar of the city was subdued, far behind us. We could see the graceful white lines of the Sea Link to our far left. And a building blazing like a torch at its top to our far right. Amidst these and before us, an eternal quietness – old, all-knowing, and all encompassing. Life seemed suspended. Is this how holding “infinity in the palm of your hand” felt like? It seemed apposite to ask philosophical questions: about the meaning of life; about the grand design. It felt like the answers were just out there, tantalizingly close. And suddenly, the pink twilight darkened into dusk. The water rose quietly, quickly, inexorably. We walked back to the beach, exchanging bemused glances. It was an unusually quiet evening at the beach with very few people around. The nairyal pani-wallah had a surreal patio arrangemen...