mid-week cheer

on a platter :)

take a step back

what i really need to do. to take a step, two steps back. reconsider. words read long ago come to mind. when things around you are not going right, it is time to evaluate your thoughts, the why of your choices. there should be a better way to live than be weighed down by life.

let's get on to things i can talk about. like how i have started six books since last April and have not read through a single one. i start, get engrossed, one of the kids gets sick, a break of a week or so till things get back to routine, open the bookmarked page and ______. yes, blank. cannot remember the plot or it takes too long to place the characters that my reading time is over.

it seems easier to pick up another book, new people, a fresh story, excitement... then an impromptu trip to somewhere, struggle to get things back to normal and by the time i can sit back with a cup of sweet ginger tea and look for the bookmarked page, *sigh* back to square one.

there is never a clean state. but, to step into 2012 abounding in unfinished books, incomplete stories, characters flitting in my mind without closure makes me uncomfortable. sad actually. am challenging myself to get done with these books. might have to start from the very beginning, i am sure it will be worth it.

PS

bought three new books, the size of dictionaries. while putting them on the shelf, all i could think was, if not now, then when.

kikki

in her dignified avatar



then, it itches



it scratches



and, she loses her head over it.






PS
at five months.

Old Delhi wired

the Jama Masjid

Hauz Kazi area

near Chawri Bazar metro station

alley next to Kareem's

from one of the gates of Jama Masjid

the Red Fort

also, the Red Fort

on the cycle rickshaw ride to Chawri Bazar

the masjid's last sight

PS

memorable :)

so he can run like the wind

this is a place a twenty minutes drive from where we stay. we have seen goat and cattle grazing, and today a sow with her piglets, all fourteen of them. he loves to run, the blackster. not possible on walks on the road. how he loves this place!

our precious one

kukku, dearest kukku,

all the barking and all the screaming

cannot take the place of your incessant chattering,

your melodious calls.

you will always be our little one, our precious one.

the house is silent without you.

(feb 2010 - nov 2011)

PS

we had been away on Delhi. she was staying in the petshop, like she always does when we are not home. the night before, she was being given her drops when she decided to test her wings and dashed against the ceiling fan. she was declared blind by the vet who was rushed in immediately. they called us next morning and we decided to leave then and there. we were in the taxi to the airport when we got the call that she had succumbed to the injuries.

Vipesh, the petshop owner, was as sad, as devastated as us. he had hand-tamed kukku. and, this man is really passionate about his pets. so much so, his wife left him the third day after his wedding because she could not take all of it. he has given us a four-month old african grey, he couldn't the bear the thought of the kids looking at her open cage, he says. we call her kikki...

... kikki does fill up the void for now. she has two ardent fans jumping around her. but, i have resolved not to get attached. my kukku!