Some Disjointed Thoughts

Vomit
Spill it out
Spill it out
What you kept buried for so long
Words that you have been chewing
Never letting escape
Vomit it out

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I am pissed
A cheap pirated DVD and a Linda Goodman
Suddenly kept away
Have decided my day

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Bland tasteless minutes
Multiplied by directionless hours
And more hours minus you

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Let it itch
Let it itch
This urge of touching where the hand doesn't reach
This moth eating into my mind
Let it itch
Let it itch
This awareness is like life
Like oxygen to my sleeping dreams
Let it itch
Let it itch

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It's not fair
Think of my humiliation
I bear with patience
The mishaps of your temper
Its not fair

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I live in a valley of bliss
Where there is a no one to disturb me
I live in a silence of peace
Where there is a noisy little heart
I live in a deep well
With an earful of gurgling ideas
I reach out to the water of the deep
And travel many mindless forests
I wander through many forests
Some green some dead
I meet many animals
Always ready to pounce on mine
I live in a valley of bliss

Dawn

In the wee hours of the morn
When I wrap the misty coolness around myself
And hear the crows caw in the distant corner of my ear
When truth and illusions have naked conversations
I hear you alight on the soggy layers of my consciousness
As a smile plays on my lips
And half dreaming
I hear you whisper...I love you

Embracing the shadows

Tides of Naukuchiyatal II

Right after the lunch began the activities. We split up in our allotted teams. First was the intro round for which no one had prepared any thing. Then began the quiz, in which my team played really badly. We didn’t pass any question, as a result of which we got a lot of negative marking. So while before the quiz we were at least the third best team, after the quiz we were nowhere.

Thankfully after the quiz was over, we were given an interesting brief. We had to name and think of a TVC idea for men’s and women’s undergarments. For this we were given 45 mins. It is really so funny that all advertising people tend to think alike and most of the teams came up with the same brand names- Adam & Eve. It was total chaos, once again the TVC was practiced for the first and last time on the stage. I obviously played Satan besides prompting various other dialogues. The story went thus:

Raihaan (Adam) and Pia (Eve) are sitting bored below a Tree (Rakesh and Dinesh with few branches). Adam walks away bored, just then I (Serpent) enter the scene with an apple to tempt Eve. Eve shockingly continues to ignores the apple. Confused I return with another idea. I present the new brands ADAM and EVE. Both Adam and Eve grab them in much confusion. As the voice over starts they go behind the tree and the tree starts shaking suggestively like those 60’s Bollywood songs. The cut back shows a pregnant Eve (Courtesy a towel rolled under her tee) appearing from behind the tree with Adam..

The amount of laughter our TVC produced told us how funny it really was. While our branding was common the way we presented it and our TVC idea wasn’t. After the TVC’s we were given a one hour break. In that one hour I had to choreograph, synchronize, learn, teach, get dressed and blah blah blah... Doing the item number was great fun since I love dancing. Everyone was very surprised to see me dancing. I am supposed to be this boring serious no-nonsense girl. After the item numbers was Antakshari which we again lost miserably. And finally we were free to hit the floor. From the minute the DJ started playing I never stopped. Sadly, they stopped the music as early as at 11pm. After that we had dinner, dinner as expected was good.

All evening I had the great opportunity to unveil new characters. Characters who come alive after getting drunk. It’s amazing to be an onlooker in such circumstances, an onlooker who is sane always. Afterwards Diggi Parul, Sreena and me sat chatting in the balcony. Others also joined us soon. The group soon turned adventurous and starting smoking grass. I retired to my room unwillingly. Got to know the next day that everyone had gone on a laughing spree after that. Missed it!
The return journey was really low key compared to the onward one. Even the ‘Nana Party” (the group who ended any para of any song with Farhan Akhtar’s song Meri laundry ka ek bill…nana nana) was quiet. Maybe this was also because a lot of us suffered from motion sickness. Avomin couldn’t help much in this respect but at least it put me to sleep. When I woke up I was feeling much better. Lunch was amazing because it was yet another picnic. We stopped in the middle of Corbett and had lunch on the open roads. More pics followed.

Next halt was for snacks at Hotel Skylark where we hogged yet more. As the journey was neared end, energy also sapped. Old jokes were revived but they lost humour. There was a last sutta break and sadly we were back to the humdrum of Delhi.

Tides of Naukuchiyatal I

Naukuchiyatal is a still, pristine natural lake stolen from the hustle and bustle of daily life. I had some doubts whether this was the ideal destination for an office trip. I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be otherwise.

Why is it just after the moment is over you don’t want to talk about it any more. Probably you feel words won’t be sufficient to describe the beauty of the moment. The beauty of Naukuchiyatal something like that.

It was an excellent trip. 10 hours of journey. 10 hours of going. 10 hours of coming. In all, we just had a day in our hand. And I am glad I made the most of it. No regrets at all. The theme of the trip was Pirates of the Carribean. The names of the teams were Jack Sparrow, Captain Rake, Boot Strap, Red Beard and Davy Jones. Not having seen any movies of the series I had to use a lot of my imagination for the activities.

I woke up around 8.30 am when I heard voices of some of my colleagues outside my room. Though I was dead tired after the journey, I couldn’t stay in bed for too long. The reason was the lovely place, not to mention the rooms. The girls had the special liberty to occupy the spacious lake facing rooms. Once again I was glad I am girl.

Coming back to the morning, I freshened up and rushed to the lawn where everyone was having tea. It was quite cold, much colder than Delhi. I lied down on a hammock, a fantasy come true. Soon photo sessions began, our organisation has quite a number of photographers. Prarthana made all the models really pleased with themselves. None of us had had our bath yet, we were not even dressed properly and hence were quite happy with the snaps.

Photo session was followed by breakfast. And what a spread the breakfast was. It had toast, butter, cutlets, upama, cornflakes, fruits, tea / coffee, juice, omlette…Considering my no breakfast or milk and skip lunch working days this was heavenly. After breakfast, we sat under the shy sun with little gossips and giggles for company. Some of us then set out for a trek. The trek was beautiful, everyone went mad taking snaps. But when I thought about it, I felt almost 70% of Assam is like this. There we don’t have to go out for a holiday. Our life is a holiday.

Anyways we soon reached a dead end and realized that we had taken the wrong way. We retraced our way back to the resort. On the way back there was this particular Brigadier’s home, a very pretty bungalow with yellow and red roofs with lots of flowers in the lawn. Reminded me of lost times. They also had two big dogs, observed desi dogs in the hills have furry coats.

I broke off from the party at the resort for a quick bath. Kishore came knocking on my door afterwards. The smiling lake had beckoned for boating. I hadn’t expected to enjoy boating all that much, boating turned out to be a really soothing experience. Absolutely beautiful nine edged lake embraced us in its lap. Sleepy, hazy, sun kissed, legs in the air, with the infant gurgles inside the ear, and a deep warmth inside the mind we got off on the other side of the lake.

Now it was time for horse riding. Pawan and Sikandar were two of the handsome horses. Pawan was extremely well behaved. As far as I can remember I have ridden horses only once or twice before. To get up on the horse was quite a task, horses being tall and me being short. The first time I got up I thought I had torn something in my thigh. But thankfully it wasn’t anything I remembered after 10 mins. I realized I quite liked horse riding and I didn’t feel like getting off once I was up. We went to a height from where we could see the entire lake. As we laced the treacherous edges of hills, I learnt the difference between a trot and a gallop.

We crossed a big Hanuman mandir, I didn’t make the effort of getting off the horse. Around 12.45 pm we reached the resort. The headache of group activities was still on my head. I had to collect all the truant team members to practice the item number for the first and the last time. It was not even 1.10 pm when we had to split for lunch. Lunch was again amazing, with everything one could wish for. I didn’t know what to have and what not and ended up having soup after the lunch.
...contd.