Cold Feet

Inside the house
it feels lonely;
the dog breathes,
the clock ticks
and your heart?
Frantic typing
on a chat window
only to delete it all
and say, "LOL"
at something random.
If you screamed
would you be heard?
If you cried
would someone hug you?
Right, not right;
Yes, no, yes-yes-no
Pity you never learned
Yes into No equals what
in that noisy sixth grade.
Drift, Lose, Worry;
can you change
what you have hugged close
what you have dreamed of
what you ached after
Just because,
you
have
cold
feet.

The gift of Time...

I kept touching my watch all through the day the first time I wore it to school. It was tiny, gold plated with an extremely small dial and even smaller needles. It was the very first watch I owned and I was proud of it, though it was a hand-me-down. 
In high school, I was crazy about square dial watches, they looked so trendy and cool. I experimented with my watch constantly : right hand, dial facing up; left hand dial facing down, and so on. I made up personality profiles based on how a person wore his/her watch-
Right hand : Too masculine (if the wearer was a girl) , or Too conservative (if it was a guy) .
The possibilities were seemingly endless. In college, I wanted a Raaga, the feminine watch. Delicate, with floral patterns and made for a true woman. My watch was my identity. I would be woe-struck if I misplaced my watch somewhere or if I had to wear another one, because the batteries in mine had to be replaced. In short, a watch was my most important accessory. 
I changed with the times, yet, I always felt a watch was an expensive addition to the wardrobe. It was a gift that came to you when you were being responsible. 
When you top that exam with flying colours. 
Or when you get admission into a good university. 
When you cross a milestone in your life, say, you turn twenty-one. 
The gift of Time was a grand occasion and you always had to prove yourself worthy enough to wear it, I felt.  I fiercely protected my watches, never letting them go. 
Yesterday, I bought a watch for someone I know. I went into the store expecting a huge rise in prices. After all, it was a WATCH and inflation is everywhere. Strangely, it was as expensive as the one I bought in 2006. Same styles,similar prices. Then it struck me. Time is everywhere. On our computers, on our mobile phones, in our mp3 players,in our cars and buses, you name it. It is no longer precious, made ordinary by banal display. Then I thought some more and wondered : is that why we are always short of Time today? Because it is no longer a gift, but a pervasive non-entity? Is this what happens when you get something you do not deserve? Where you spend the rest of your life caught in its clutches, trying to 'control/manage/allocate' it? 
Perhaps that is why Time always has the last laugh. 

From the pages of my journal

I write on a site called  www.750words.com, a private journal which is often therapeutic and sometimes frustrating. Last week, it made me ramble this way :

" ...Why do we think in words? Have we always thought in words? What did we do when we did not have language to help us out? Did we think in images? Or sounds? How do animals process their thoughts? Wow.. I have never thought of this.. My dog knows no language, yet he can think and understand that there is food on the table. How is this cognition happening in him? Interesting isn't it? How learning happens despite the lack of language? Is it instinct? Or abstract thought? But dogs express themselves too, through their growl.. their wagging tails... but how do they process information coming to them? Using what words? Like when I see a painting, I am awed, I say it is beautiful.. but the real feeling almost never comes out/ is never expressed.. what comes out are words. Since when have human beings been this way? How did we think as babies? Or is it just two basic things, like a cry for sadness and a smile for joy.. what about the other emotions? How did we express these as a baby? Hmm.. this is amazing.. how complex our thoughts are! Even the simplest one, like for example, I am feeling great... has no gestural support... a smile is just joy, where as great is something else! Something to think about..." 

Let me know what your thoughts are, they might spring another post! :)

Random Thoughts

Pensées, like I have called this blog, come and go, like the waves. You are lucky if you can find the right words to express them in a lucid way; luckier still if they remain unexpressed, for some day, they will write the story of your life, by themselves.

I have always loved words, but I love thoughts more. The split second before a thought becomes a word, that is where my soul revels. In that tiny space, it imagines a world like never seen before. I wish I had a way to capture it, that elusive moment where everything is crystal clear. Like all good things, however, it remains out of reach and I gather words mindlessly, trying to make sense of a thought that is already many miles away.

Well.. While I think some more and fill my notebooks with more nonsense, let me leave you with a reading list.
a) The Tenth Circle, JODI PICOULT

1                                    
b) A Moveable Feast, ERNEST HEMINGWAY

c) In a forest, a deer, AMBAI (C.S.Lakshmi)

d) How to begin, ANNIE ZAIDI

P.S : To keep your neurons firing away from all corners, also see
                                                 www.brainpickings.org

If you are a woman and need an instant pick me up (about your looks, for I am sure you are perfect in all other ways! ) do go here

Keep coming back for more book reviews, poems, stories and just some plain, wholesome fare : mes pensées! :)