rashmi-vasudeva.com

A friend wished me at the end of 2007 (actually she was not a friend then just yet...and don't know whether she is now....never mind) in my kind of way, my kind of language. She made a random list of the things that happened to her and what she learnt from them and added a post-script saying it would be nice if we could do the same with our lives and our year gone by and send it across. Well, it has taken me a whole year to do what I then wanted to do. I am sure there is some learning here as well but haven't quite figured it out yet. Actually, I have and am sure you have to. So here goes.  

* I have decided to label this year the year of just-misses.

*I quite dislike this year and it is some kind of a blip in a continuous run of good years from 2000. There were only some patches of sunshine.

* It started with hubby receiving a somewhat alarming piece of news which hopefully is proving to be some kind of a false alarm. Let's just call it a positive just-miss :)

* It then kinda brightened up with me scheduled to go to Brazil. What can be more exciting? Travel half way across the world and spend a day in the deep forests of the Amazon. Wait, I don't give labels just like that. Suffice to say it did not happen quite in the last moment

* Next, I missed a promotion that was more than due though I say it so myself. It did come later but having to walk into a cabin of a kindly-looking- embarassed- to- death boss' cabin and him pleading 'don't tell me anything' before I could utter pro...kind of sucked the joy out.

* 'Living' was a joy and it still is. I love the thing. I love everything about it. Even the despair at being unable to think of the next lead. The frustration of PRs calling up before during and after sending an email. The earnestness with which some doctors write about piles and gas problems. The pathetic attempts at neo-feminism by some others.  I don't how long this loving will last. I am scared about the end.

* I began writing more regularly. That patch of sunshine I was talking about. And writing about subjects I want to write about. Not fashion. Not cancer. I learnt that if I love to write about something, I can do it sometimes in 10 minutes. I also began writing poetry again. And I learnt how much I had missed it.

* After 10 long years, thanks to a persistent friend who loves reminding me that she is a true-blue Scorpio, I met the man I used to hero worship. The intravenous scholar. My english teacher. I learnt how when you don't see the person you truly care for for so many years, for reasons nobody can fathom, you get back the piece of heart you left with them. Intact. Fuller.

* I completely dazzled everybody at a marriage. Yeah yeah I am saying it myself but that's the thrilling truth :). Ok won't go on.

* I realised I am absolutely addicted to gmail chatting. I have spent many a five-minute just staring at who's got a green dot and who's got red. And I am addicted to reading and re-reading status updates. Actually it is not addiction. It is my very own OCD.

* I realised I am still intrigued by my brother-in-law. Perhaps because he is like a mirror.

* I have truly understood what my definition of love is. And I love it. And I realised I do not need any props for it. And my thanksgiving for giving me the kind of everyday dose of love I have got has only doubled. My garden of light.

* I also realised that my inner life is crawling and alive and truly healthy. Enough for me to last long in a deserted island.

* I missed going to Poland by a whisker. The whisker part is a guess. But instinct tells me it is a right guess.

* I haven't watched a single thoroughly memorable film this entire year. Though I finally found the CD of 'A Walk in the Clouds' That kind of makes up for all the near-misses.

* I continue to be fat and continue to exercise in spurts. I have also, I think, lost most of my stage fear.

* I have learnt that I will perhaps throughout my life be a sucker for the silliest of romantic tales. Now, no judgements.

 * I am perhaps discovering, as my friend wrote last year, 'my cause'. Never before did I feel so powerfully about something like I feel now for universalism. For xenophilia. The best words I have heard in the entire year -- rabba sacheya, sabar de do jo tere nede karde (O true God, give me the patience that will take me nearer to you).

* This website was the best gift I have received this year. I re-learnt how much my birthday means to me and was surprised anew that it does not mean so much to the rest of the world :P

 * The Wasted Vigil was the best book I read this year. Close second is Bill Bryson's Here and There. Diametrically opposite books.

* I have come to realise that my love for the Urdu language was not a childhood-related amusement. I plan to do something about it.

* Music seeped into me through many crevices this year but none so powerfully as Atif Aslam's. Serendipity. That's how I discovered his voice. And then him. He is the single brightest patch of sunshine this year.  

I suppose that's it. For now. 2009 is waiting.  

Today, I rode on happiness again. Last time too, I could not do the barn dance. I was in Delhi and had just learnt that I will be going to the city of my dreams, London. This time, the world was too much with me to dance with abandon. There were people staring at me in the bus -- I know my eyes were shining. I was even happy to feel the crush of the shivajinagar crowd automatically pushing me inside the bus. I was thrilled that I didn't get a seat. I rode on happiness as I told you. Atif Aslam is performing in Bangalore. This day I will remember, more than the real thing. Unheard indeed is sweeter.

After a long, very long time, I have been imprisoned again.  I always used to be imprisoned like this. Every week, I had a different jail to stay in. And I had friends too, who loved being chained like me.

Chained by a tune. Sometimes two lines, sometimes a lone line, fluttering through every crevice. There was 'Bade acche lagte hain' which was stuck in my throat one morning in class. And was stuck in two other friends' throat as well. In different tunes and different pitch. Well, all of us had barely managed to listen to it, for the first time in our lives, at the 10 pm chayageet the previous night. And it had imprisoned all the three of us. And since we were feverishly gulping songs at that time, we had to belt this out to each other. That was the whole purpose of our existence. Chaya, if you are reading this, do you remember the other line...dekho kasam se, dekho kasam se, kehte hain tumse yaar...there was Shammi in front of us jiggling his plump arms or so we imagined (I for one, have not managed to see the actual picturisation). We beat rhythm with ponytails (forget it, am not going to explain this). And it is possible for bliss to sneak out. Ye duniya usiki, zamana usika. Kashmir ki Kali. Rafi in deep soporofics. This song's like oysters. You either love'em or hate'em. Then there was 'Aa khel khele hum ek khel khele hum' This one has an intrinsic rule built into it, methinks. Those who know this song sing it in unison. I sang it, after many years, in unison of course, with another.
And so today morning while in the auto, two lines washed over me. Khamoshi guftugu hone lagi hain; Zindagi khwab mein khone lagi hain. It's a song originally composed by a band called Auroh from Pakistan. I love watching Pakistani television on you tube. The words soothe my intense desire to visit Lahore. Mashallah. Shaque-o-gumman. I can see the city in my dreams. I imagine stately men in achkans, men who have swallowed Faiz Ahmed Faiz whole. I could see London also before I saw, that is. Not that it resembled. I can still smell though. Let's not go into smell now. That deserves another time.
And those lines sung in Atif's voice. It sounded, (I have told atleast four people from morning), like feeling warm raisins. Now, have you ever eaten raisins slightly warmed indirectly? They have to be sultanas, mind you and you have to keep them in a vessel already heated on the stove. And keep them for only around three minutes. Feel. And then listen to this song. Not the original. Atif's cover version.

By the way, this kind of of imprisonment makes me want to hug everybody I meet. Makes me want to call up old friends and rediscover. There is lot I have rediscovered this year. It has been special in only that way. I am hoping it will make me write to one estranged friend too. It definitely made the grumpy auto driver look affable. I did not even ask for the five-rupee change back. I think today, I will forgive saint Diana Hayden too.

Here's the link for those who want to accompany me to jail. Don't look at the video. Listen in the dark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwH3XXtQmM
And the lyrics.
Bheegi si ek raat ye
Le aayi kya saath ye
Dhadkane jo hame kehne lagi hain
Khamoshi ke darmiyan
Kab chahe thi baat ye
Dhadkane jo hame kehne lagi hain
Na kaho Na suno
Khamoshi guftugu hone lagi hain
Zindagi khwab mein khone lagi hain