Tag Archives: musings

My Heavy Cart

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It’s still a fleeting thought, but it seldom fails to return

For when I pause and reflect, I see you, basking in the rays of sun.

You dance without a sign of worry, your jaws clenched into a wide smile

With a pang of envy, I watch you from afar.

The sun is shimmering, as though rejoicing in your dance

And the leaves keep twirling in this windy space of love

My cart is full, overflowing through the brim

And you don’t even seem to own a cart?

I’m tired of dragging, some things do tend to fall,

But I care less, as I’ve already lost it all.

Your charisma is strong, you notice me not

I try to push my cart away; but it stays, it stays, it stays…

I stretch my arms to you, to reach closer I try,

I touch your arm, then at last, my cart slowly fades, it fades, it fades…

– Suri

My Melody

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The melody of your voice, has always been a little too dear to me. I held onto it like Scrat from the Ice Age held onto his acron, at times a bit too possessively and at other times, obsessively. I feared that if I didn’t hold it tight in my grip, I might lose it forever. So much that it did not occur to me to relish it in the present, just as Scrat. I kept on pursuing it, holding it close, but doing nothing else to ensure its safety.

Until there came a time when I started living life afresh, experiencing new things, things I never imagined I would ever be able to do, like moving seven oceans across, to a completely new land. I actively grew more engaged in changing how I would deal with certain emotions. Before I knew it, I had stopped thinking about you altogether. The new environment had a lot to contribute for it.

The other day, while rummaging through an old, dusty pile of e-mails, I accidently stumbled upon your voice recordings. That crisp, croaky sound gave me company for a good full day. While I was nearly going back to forgetting your voice, the following week, I came across a couple more of these recordings. These ones, probably the last of the lot that I still possess, took me back half a decade down the memory lane.

Its funny how such minute long vocals of vibrations confined in your recording devices can affect your mood, your emotions. How subtly can they give you goose bumps before you even realize it. How they can cause these tiny little droplets of salty water traverse the path down your lower eyelids, through your round, bumpy cheeks, then steeply down your jaws, and then jump down on your clothes making them moist.

It makes me wonder if you too ever find such broken pieces of our memories and if you take some time out to dwell on them a little, and try to fit those pieces together along with the salty water doubling up as glue. If you too cherish the times, while listening to the same old songs that we both loved listening to. If you too would want to go back to those moments and live in the melody of our love, if only for a few more minutes?

– Suri

To New Beginnings

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I was once travelling in a car, I do not recollect what day it was or month, but the scenes I see so clearly. The house, our house, my friends’ houses, our playground, our school, our market, our grocery shop still flashes across, like a happy memory, yet distant, someplace I’ll never set foot again, at least not for long at a time.

There was a time when everything was different, and there soon will be a time when everything will be different, again. As I leave, I try to imprint as much as I can in my head, the blossoming of the gulmohars and the ripening of the mangoes in summer, the harsh and wet rains, the sole fabric of extra layering required in the winters. I think I’ll miss our neighbourhood crows, parrots and pigeons too, for they kept me going when times were dull. I hope to fix up these happy memories in my eyes so as to remember and revisit the place forever and ever, without having to come back. The sad ones can be wiped out, or if possible be burned up, to never be restored again.

A sparrow sitting on the branch of a Gulmohar tree, adjacent to our apartment
(which unfortunately fell during the rains this year)

— Suri

Quarantine Musings #12

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It’s almost three months of us now, living under lockdown over here.

But do I see a change? A decline in the number of cases, perhaps? – Not really. Not a bit. In fact, the figures are skyrocketing, making new daily records each new day.

The lockdown is now slowly ‘unlocking’, giving relief to some business owners. But instead of being more cautious, the people are now starting to care even less.

Hearing about all these cases in our neighborhood itself is giving me a fright! If I wasn’t already OCD, I’ll turn more like it by the time this pandemic ends.

How’s the situation in your neighborhood/ city/ town/ country? Hope you are all doing well. Sending loads and loads of good wishes and warm virtual hugs. 🤗

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #11

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Monsoon in Mumbai feels so eerily different this year. Each year after bearing the scorching heat of the summers, we find ourselves longing for the rains. This year the longing phase was so abrupt.

Of course, this may not be the actual onset of the monsoons, it might just be a by-product of the Nisarga cyclone (which I had mentioned in my previous post Quarantine Musings #9 )- which quite conveniently has dodged (and saved us!) away from the city to other parts of the state.

We have been receiving these pre-monsoon showers for a good four days at a stretch. And yet we already have the hashtag #MumbaiRains trending on Twitter!

As local trains aren’t running anymore (except for essentials), in light of the current lockdown guidelines – I wonder whether we would still be hearing news of waterlogging on the railway tracks, like each year?

Monsoons remind us Mumbaikars of bhajiis and vada pavs and garam garam (hot) chaai (tea). This year instead of buying it from those roadside stalls, shops and tapris, we’ll have to savour them by cooking it up inside our own kitchens. Now that should surely be a healthy change!

Wishing you all a Happy Monsoon!

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #9

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What would you do if someone tells you that you only have a couple of hours to live? – Me? I don’t think I would do anything different, other than being grateful for everything I am blessed with.

Don’t worry, things are fine over here as of now. We are expecting a cyclone in some hours, on top of us living in the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in our country. Monsoon has apparently arrived earlier than expected. Yesterday morning we woke up with the pleasant petrichor of the early morning – first – rain of the season. It’s cloudy since yesterday, which is kind of a sudden change in the climate after a really hot summer in May. Take care, folks!

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #8

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I wonder when would people stop politicising things, stop accusing and blaming each other at least during such delicate, unprecedented times.

I wonder when will people come together as one, and cooperate- to plan for a peaceful future.

If we could achieve that, then it would be like winning a small battle.

If all of us take the initiative, standing together – strong and united – we might as well overcome the struggle.

When every individual (at least those in the forefronts) keeps their political differences, their religious preferences, their caste, race, colour aside, it would just be the most positive impact of this crisis, it would feel like winning a war.

Nobody was prepared for this, we all are still in the process of preparing for it. The blame game just delays and worsens the process. Together there’s hope, individually we are all just broken pieces of crumbling economies and failing health care infrastructures.

But of course, this is all just wishful thinking. I will only keep wondering about such utopian world, where people come together as one, and diligently plan for the wellbeing of each other. I might as well wait until forever for it to turn into reality.

Take care, folks, wherever you are! All good wishes. 🙂

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #7

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These occasional spottings of airplanes and helicopters, are like rays of hope that things will soon come back to normalcy.

Hello, Helicopter!

Living in a megacity, I had grown habitual to the regular noises surrounding me. Of vehicles, of trains- local as well as long distance trains, of airplanes. Now that it isn’t a regular occurrence, I’ve realised how much I’ve taken it for granted.

So much depends on those airplanes. So much depends on those trains. So much depends on those vehicles on the roads. Be it a passenger train, be it a goods trains, or an import-export plane. There are people willing to travel to meet their extended family or even their immediate family living in some other part of the country (or even in some other part of the world), amid the crisis, taking a huge risk.

I feel extremely privileged to have a roof to live under and a loving family with me.

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #6

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Never did I think that one day I would have to make a strict timetable of sorts to ‘watch and consume news updates’.

Apparently my grandpa feels like watching COVID-19 related news so much each day that we barely get to watch anything else on our television!

How does your family take in the news updates?

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.

Quarantine Musings #4

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” गजब का है दिन, सोचो जरा
ये दीवानापन, देखो जरा
तुम हो अकेले, हम भी अकेले
मजा आ रहा है, कसम से, कसम से “

Someone in our neighbourhood is trying to make our Sunday afternoon pleasant by singing such old Hindi melodies on the karaoke. I cannot see the person who’s singing, but the selection of his songs are enough to let the Bollywood buffs come spilling out from inside all of us. We’ve heard him sing earlier in the last week, a couple or more times, during our dinner. But today his volume was a teeny bit higher so we could hear him even more clearly.

Do you have any such stories of lockdown in your neighbourhood- wherein you notice people around you are doing something that’s out of the ordinary?

— Suri

What are Quarantine Musings? Just some random, trivial, light-hearted (or maybe even deep?) thoughts that pass through my mind during these lockdown days.