Carrom by street light

How to keep your room clean when you live with 11 cats and a younger sister...

YOU CAN'T.

Umm..

Spread out your feathers

Startle your whiskers

Stretch your feet

Uncurl your tail

Wiggle your feelers

Feel the bone in your wings

Itch your scales

Brush your teeth

For it will take a very long time

(The previous stanza did not rhyme)

To evolve into that

Oh shoot, dammit, drat

Which animal would need

Wings, scales and webbed feet?

Perhaps in a world

That has fallen sick and hurled

Its oceans over every shore

Leaving no land and therefore

A need to swim

And to fly at whim

This was amusing

For while I was drawing

Was simply reclining

No poem came to mind

No theories opined

Only animals combined.

Chapter One

From the road, a cobbled path led to a wrought-iron arch. Through this arch was an ill-maintained garden, long overgrown with weeds and wild berries. Every few feet, blue bells peeped out over the little white flowers of the berry bushes. A long-winded mud path showed the way to a heavy door with a metal knocker adorning its center. To the corner rested a three-legged footstool. Creaking on its hinges, the door opened into the vast living room. It was modestly furnished with a sofa-set by the fire place, a table- upon which rested a dim lamp, a book and a pair of spectacles- and a grandfather clock in the far corner. To the right of the room was a door that led to a dining room and to the left, broad stairs went up to the rest of the home.

On the first floor, Sam sat in the study that used to be her father's. He would sit in that stuffy, cabin-like study  for hours at end reading and writing till his eyes were sore from the text and his fingers stiff around the fountain pen he held. Busy scribbling down one of her latest masterpieces, Sam was lost, deep in thought, with her glasses nearly slipping off the end of her nose. "This just isn't right.", she whispered to herself and threw her father's old, worn pen into the ink pot- making blotches all over her long essay. She sat in the shapely, velvet blue chair, rocking restlessly, thinking of a way to fix her work, searching for inspiration.

Hearing the moaning squeak from her overused chair, her mother popped her head into the study and let out a gentle, "Sam?". Sam jumped in her seat, startled by the sudden break in monotonous creaking. "Searching for inspiration, are we?", asked mother mockingly. "Yes, though my brain seems to have no more space for inspiration of any sort! I am very inspired. But not for the topic I write of.", said Sam weakly. "Maybe the market place will be of some help. Get us some bread for dinner, won't you?", saying this, she left a basket at the door and left before Sam could refute. "That sly, old woman knows me all-too-well.", laughed Sam after her as she took off her father's white-turned-yellow work shirt to reveal her simple frock- laced with light blue and dotted all over with little blue flowers. She dusted off her sleeve cuffs, wishing she had straight sleeves like her father's instead. She pocketed some coins and her unfinished work, picked up the basket and fluttered out of the study. The coins jingled in her little pocket as she hummed down the stairs. She set down the basket to pull open the front door and left.

The sun pierced her eyes. It had been days since she left the house or even sat by a window- bent over her work, she merely stopped for dinner. She slowed down her pace and considered going back in for a large, straw hat but decided against it. Her eyes passed over the garden that seemed to have grown considerably since she last saw it. She never took the mud path. Straight through the growth, she shuffled through- looking down at the freshly bloomed bells and the little berries sprouting. She noticed a white rose bush growing in a corner and made her way toward it. She sat down, examining the plant- looked around to find anymore. She found a baby snail climbing along the fresh shoot of the bush. She put out her finger and waited patiently as it climbed onto it. Touching its mucilaginous feelers, she timed how long it took for them to extend out again. This tiny creature made her forget her work and engrossed her completely. She laid out her coins on the ground and made a passage for the snail. She set him down on the first coin and waited for him to walk over their cool surfaces. She sat cross legged, head in her hands, staring at the tiny snail follow the trail back to the rose bush. She christened him Shell-o and felt around her pocket for more coins. She found her essay and took it out. She began reading it aloud to Shell-o, asking for his opinion. He seemed to have very good taste in English literature and found him a sympathetic critic. He gave her some curious suggestions and she suddenly cried, "You're right! Come along, we must fix this at once." With that, Sam pocketed her coins, her work, a good many rosebush leaves and a rose (just in case) and tenderly lifted Shell-o on her finger and bounded back to the house.

She pulled the footstool, knocked hard several times and waited twiddling her toes. Her mother came to the door and on seeing the basket on the floor, shook her head with a sigh before yanking it open. Sam jumped inside with a big grin on her long face and her big, brown eyes beaming at her mother. "You were right, Mum-o! Inspiration is out there!", saying this she lifted Shell-o to show her mother and then darted back up to her study. Weakly, mother followed her upstairs and looked inside to find her propped up at her desk again, with Shell-o surrounded by a bunch of leaves by her ink pot. Sam looked ever so pleased with herself, that mother just smiled and left with the basket, half wishing she wasn't so much like her father. 

28th Oct 2012

8 years ago, I rushed up the stairs of the nursing home where my mom had spent the day. There I found my grandparents sitting together. I sat across from them. We looked at each other with anxious, half-smiling faces. We heard a baby cry. I nearly jumped. My grandparents said it's a boy. At the age of 10, when all I wanted was a little baby sister, I blatantly disagreed. Just then, the doctor emerged from the delivery room. His sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows and his pants rolled up to his knees. He held his shoes in one hand. He looked at me and said, "Congratulations, it's a girl." I was over the moon! Not only because I had a sister, but because my prediction was correct. With ants in my pants, I tried to stay seated in the waiting room. A few moments later, the nurse emerged with a big flat tub. Inside was my sister. She whizzed past us into the nursery to get her warm. I got just a fleeting glance of her. A small, pink lump with short limbs sticking out and a head full of hair. Next to leave the delivery room was our mother. She was being wheeled back into her room on a bed. She looked tired and terribly worn out. I followed her into the room and sat on the spare bed, looking around me at all the people passing by, doing things. No one noticed me sitting there, but that didn't matter: I had a new sister.
The nurse walked in holding the baby. She walked over to our mom to hand the baby over to her. But in her weak state, she told the nurse to give the baby to me first. I was touched. I had expressed a desire to be the first to hold her long before she was born. The nurse walked up to me with very suspicious eyes. She curtly told me to sit up straight, back to the wall with my legs crossed. Then she gently placed her in my arms and stood over me, watching keenly. I took no notice of the nurse. In my arms was an incredibly tiny baby. She had a wrinkled up, chubby face, slightly closed but big eyes, lots of very soft, short hair on her head and little red hands. Her small hands and little stubby fingers were so cute and felt so sweet in my hand. I didn't get to hold her for long, but I loved those few moments. Holding a cute, warm bundle that filled up my arms completely. That was the start of a whole new life for me; one with a sibling that I waited a long time for.

Today, I don't remember what life used to be like before this hyperactive, monkey-ish, humorous, witty, silly sister of mine was born. But I can't imagine life without her now either.
Happy birthday Ilina!

Volatile moods

I can't take it anymore. This city. These streets. These buildings. These bridges. These cars. This house. This lack of activity. This lack of excitement. This static scenery everyday.

There is no greenery worth looking at. Nothing is lush. All the trees have a carpet of dust on them. The green is dull. There are no hues.

There are too many people. There is too much noise. There are too many shops. There are too many signals. There is nothing to do. There is no simplicity. There is no beauty.

It's claustrophobic. It's nauseating. It's disgusting.

Jessica Ghawi

It's been two months now since I read in the paper about one of the victims of the shooting at the Dark Knight screening, Jessica Ghawi. She caught my attention because of what the article stated. Ironically, she had escaped open gunfire at the Eaton Mall only 20 days prior to the fateful day. The article mentioned a blog post she published after having survived the first shooting. I made a note to read it but never got round to doing it. But today, I did.

A Run On of Thoughts, the blog that she maintained, opens to her last post; The one speaking of her near-death experience. Reading that made me realize how much for granted we take each waking day of our lives. How lucky we all are to have been given another day. When we put something off for another day, what's saying we'd actually have that day? Life is so daily, but still, so unpredictable. Death is inevitable, unavoidable, but we never know when it's lurking around the corner. Should we never take steep turns then? Should we never skid off a cliff? Should we never unbuckle our seat belts? 
But more than thinking about when, where and how death awaits, I really feel for Jessica. When she saw through that first shooting, she was snatched away from the jaws of death in the nick of time. She must have felt like she was given a second life. She was barely given the time to assimilate what she had been through and change the way she wanted to. Her outlook changed, but did she really have the time to live that change? To begin to appreciate all those around her? 
How scary it must be to look at an injured person lying on a stretcher- bloody clothes, crying their heart out, staring death in the face - and thinking that could have been you. 
Oh so many ifs, buts and phews! 

Modelling lessons from a dog