I DIG NOT

Unwashed dishes, strewn about clothes
I don’t dig a pig sty, and why should I?

You angry?- Take a deep breath and calmly tell me why.
Harsh, earsplitting words, I don’t dig.
A thumping racing heart, hell no, I dig not.

Want help? – It doesn’t hurt to say please.
You sorry? – Say it like you mean it.
You were helped?- Don’t just sit there and smile. A ‘thank you’ would be nice.
You had to burp, didn’t you? Seriously, it’s okay. One question though.
Couldn’t you have asked to be excused?
I don’t dig discourtesy, you see.

It’s so un-cool to hear honking cars, impatient drivers
But, it’s even-more un-cool to be kept waiting.

Communication is important.
But sending forwarded messages isn’t that!
You couldn’t steep any lower or could you?

Oh wait a minute! You did call, you did…
Only to elaborate how busy you’ll be
Tomorrow it’s tight, the day after its damn right watertight…
There are other ways of hanging a person without respite, if you want to!
But this way? I dig not.

Sigh…
I dig none of the above and none of what’s below.

Honesty is condemned.
Trend today is a white lie.
Fidelity is on trial.
Discordance is made an alibi.

I could go on but then I’ll risk sounding like a scary lullaby.

For my sister, with love

Not so very long ago, a group of teenyboppers, all girls, sat squeezed up in a 6 ft by 8ft room, bored to death, wondering how to enliven things up.

In you walk… oops, did I say you walked in?...No! Of course not! It couldn’t be! You didn’t glide in….Rather, you’d crashed in through the door tumbling all over the place, excitedly screaming ‘Oh my god! Oh my god!’... looking at all our stunned faces, while you were jumping up and down.

All psyched up by then, 2 of us held you down, and badgered you to tell us what was throwing you into bouts of excited screams.

The reason for your excited screams is not what I want to highlight here

Point is by then, ‘You’ have managed to wake us all up from our bored stupor.
You’ve always done that for as long as I remember you.
Engrossed in a book, you would laugh aloud at something funny the character in story does. While you read a book, we end up reading your facial expressions. It changes with each turn of a page. You enchant us, my dear.

Oh, I am sure I have never told you this but my love for books, my interest in reading was inspired by you. Remember those days, when I was busy running errands and completing chores while you were cozily wrapped up in your blanket gorging on a novel? That’s when I decided to ‘beat you at it’ – I planned to read one book after another, racing you to it. Little did I know it would become a good habit. Point is ‘it is all because of you’.

I grew up to from a clumsy teenager to an independent, assertive and somewhat no-nonsense yet, fun-loving individual because of all those times you’ve allowed me free reign, never stopping me, even though you are my older sibling. You’ve never stopped me. You watched me grow. Allowed me to trip and fall cause then you would come running with a band-aid.

Wow, I never gave it a thought before, but hell yeah, I have the coolest elder-sister EVER!!! How many of my friends can say that? Not many, am sure.

I admire you for a lot of things; you’ve been my ‘quiet hero’ many times. I didn’t hug you then cause I respected your ‘anti- hug campaigns’ :P (i can never understand this though!Are you allergic to hugs?) LOL

Life has not been a cake-walk for you. You’ve come across one mountain, climbed over it, while another one heads your path.

For a moment when I thought of you I wanted to bow down in prayer, bargain with the Creator, asking him to take away all loads (heavy or light)off you.
But then I thought of the story of how gold is made (read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho), how the clay gets molded into beautiful pottery (read The Bible). I stopped dead on my thinking tracks.

Yes, this is it. This is it! (Eureka moment)

The reason why you are encountering one mountain after another is simply cause you are headed out to become the complete You- magnificent and benevolent, kind and gentle, wise and compassionate, beautiful, invaluable YOU.

Patience my dear, have patience.

In no time, it would all be fine- ‘just as it should be’.

Here is something for you:

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most,
Just gotta keep going

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith,


If you feel like you are doing it alone, you are not.
Stretch out your hand, mine will be holding yours.

From Easters Past

The morning air was crispy when I woke up to the sound of church bells.
Dressed in pink frocks my sister and I would wait for our cousins to join us.
Once they arrive, off we’d go for the sunrise Easter service held at the church we frequented every Sunday.

There was lightness in our steps and excitement in our expressions.
We looked like little dumplings (between 3 to 5 years old) tottering along, without a care in the world…excited because it’s Easter.
Easter meant good cheer, lots of singing, clapping and bonding in church; best of food and sweets at home; neighbors visiting each other, a general merriment all around.
It was like a mini-Christmas without the caroling, new clothes, gifts, Christmas-tree or Saint Nicholas (santa-claus) riding on a sleigh.

Unadulterated joy, uncorrupted smiles, you laugh when happy, cry when you are sad- oh if not for the innocence of childhood, we all would have been a humanity bereft of real, absolute, irrefutable sense of goodness and bliss.

Little did I know then the true meaning of Easter.

It was a family prayer meeting. She looked radiant and serene in her cotton house coat. With a bible in her hand, prayer in her lips, mom spoke about the real meaning of Easter.

I was sixteen. Rebellious and disobedient, defiant and sulking, presumptuous, snobbish, vainglorious and all puffed out in my attitude (adolescence at it’s best); I was everything but sweet.

But that day, when mom spoke, I listened. Dumbstruck I was. The revered Jesus Christ was crucified. He was found guilty for no wrong. My sense of justice was stirred. How could anyone kill a good man? Peeved I was. Anger turned to humility when I learned that his crucifixion was a sacrifice, for the atonement of humanity’s sins.
His triumph over death was victory over injustice. At sixteen, this story had poetic justice. I was contented.

Through the years, Christ’s death on the cross came to hold new meaning for me. Each time I read a verse from the gospels, it’s like pealing off a petal (one at a time) from a rose bud. With each petal, I learn a truth. Each revelation mesmerizes me.

I am no theologian neither am I a saint.

I see those foot-prints in the sand. Sometimes there are two pairs of footprints- Christ and mine. Sometimes there is just a pair- His. It’s because at those times, Christ is carrying me, since my bones are weak and I cannot walk straight.
Yeah, I am just a simple (at times, foolish) girl, clumsily-stumbling my way through life.

But, Christ death and resurrection holds more meaning for me now than it did when I was that girl-child in a pink frock.

Waking up this morning in Bangalore city, more than two decades since I was five, memories of Easters gone by swamped my thoughts. In each of these memories, I remember her. She seemed to be the central figure- the one with the smile and the hug, who made us wolf-down a breakfast of bread, cornflakes and milk before each Easter sunrise-service; the one who cooked a sumptuous lunch & dinner after-wards.

I wept.
For I miss her dearly. Last Easter, I was with her in Chennai at one of the lodges. She was recuperating from one of her chemotherapy sessions. We had prayed together. I did not know it would be our last Easter together.

I wept cause Easter was her favorite celebration.
I wept cause I am remorseful of not-following most of what she’s taught me.

And, believe it or not, I weep cause I am a wee bit excited.
Excited & slightly afraid about new-beginnings.

That Easter morning when Christ resurrected, it marked the beginning of a new-era.
If I humble myself, it could be the genesis of a new lifting attitude within me, a new-creation.

When mom was around, by this time, our garden would be blossoming with the all-season red and yellow roses, the red azaleas & pink camellias, the purple sweet pea and her favorite, bougainvillea.

Her blossoming garden was the mark of the advent of spring.

If I humble myself, my heart could herald the beginning of spring.

Ah, in the word’s of Robin Williams ‘Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"

One Sweet Day

(This is dedicated to my Ma- The only mother I’ll ever have; Mei-ieid- my grandma; Shariba- the friend I’ll always cherish even though we were together for only a short while. I miss you Ma, Mei-ieid and Shai)


Sorry, I never told you, all I wanted to say.
Now it's too late to hold you.
Cause you've flown away, so far away.
Never, Had I imagined, yeah, living without your smile.
Feeling and knowing you hear me.
It keeps me alive. Alive!

I never showed you.
Assumed you'd always be there.
I took your presence for granted.
But I always cared
And I miss the love we shared.

And I know you're shining down on me from Heaven.
Like so many friends we've lost along the way.
And I know eventually we'll be together.
One sweet day.

Although, the sun will never shine the same, I'll
always look to a brighter day.

Yeah, Lord, I know, when I lay me down to sleep,
You'll always listen, as I pray!

(~ this is a song ‘One sweet day’ sung by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men)