I SPY WITH MY EYE...chip...No EYE..chip...

Thirty three years,two brats,two dogs ,two cars ,some hundred maids and thousands experiences , Three decades of joint strategic approach ,applied by my progenitors against us brats to brow beat us into unquestioning marshal discipline, softened by occasional lollipops to whip us into first rate humans ,you could say from input to desirable out put my family is a well oiled machine.

Constantly being in each others paths,secretly walking up when the other is talking on the phone and snack up on information updates,one would think that we would all know each others next thoughts,however,the number of times we say hysterically Oh!!! You JUST DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL scares me because only today I read about this software being developed in California that can know my personality ‘somewhat’ in 50 sentences I tweet online and in 200 tweets form a very comprehensive photo of my psychological profile. Its Ominous.

All that information I painstakingly fill out on facebook,my space,is secretly siphoned off by these computer spy soft wares to systems far away that are poring over my life,with a microscope storing me away in a microchip,slotting me into the  extrovert, conscientious, neurotic or open to experiences categories based on words I take two seconds to think about and three seconds to type out and send out to the world.

Not content with the sex,age,education and marital status image they want to probably make a robot that thinks and reacts like me,now that would be an idea, a clone robot to do all the mundane work and me just to enjoy and dive off into the ocean.well either the American spies are doing that for mine and your personal benefit or they are upgrading  you and me from a demographic bar on a graph of statistics to a personalized target for advertisements based on our psychological bent,which shapes our decisions much more than our marital status.

I must say the gentle Mr. Eben Haber from IBM in San Jose California is one smart cookie for realizing that ha can probably sell me my thumbs up if he makes it fall off a cliff rather than put it within easy reach of my extrovert ,open to experience self.

Basing his software on research which links words to our personality like a lot of ‘summer’ words could mean level of trust is high.Using too much ‘lazy’,’awful’,’heart breaking’;could stash you into the neurotic category.

Its already in practice using other spyware strategies but its all still in its nascent stage.

At the moment If the advertisements that reach me are an indication that the cyber mafia out there knows who I am,then I think they have cross identified me with a mafia lord,what with the number of property selling and buying messages I receive, I should be landlord of all I survey or actually with a bank account to rival the very rich Amabani’s at the very least.

And As I am typing this out ten minutes back I get pinged by an unknown number, the text of which suggests that MISS Ramya can’t live without me and to satisfy her panting desires I have to call up the number mentioned, So I repeat again I am not a Paan chewing ,dhoti wearing,flat renting buying Lord,who has a voracious appetite for Ramya.

‘can anybody hear me??is anyone out there??’

I am somebody who skips through decades surrounded by people I know, some just a surface glaze and some deep through confidences shared on rooftops,bonded by stories that are secreted out in our alcohol weakened  states. I have this way of moving, that everyday I treat the person as new, I do not slot you do not judge you.Hence this whole approach to consumerism, sets me back,I'm amazed at the level of desire to penetrate into our heads to get the cash out like diarrhoea,scary.

I would love to hack into the chip that has this data about me,its like a test of sorts ,the result of which I would never know,well till I start getting bombarded by end resulting  advertisements and walk around all day long with a burning desire to be in a shopping mall instead of wherever I was wandering at that moment.Basically a spending zombie with dollar signs in my eyes and a credit card hanging loose from my sleeves.

That’s when I would get worried.Right now they are just sharpening the blades,and I am a fool, blithely joking about ARMAGEDDON.

LOVE SPRINGS

In the summer I jump into my car and jump out of my skin because of the heat that sizzles me brown,gingerly holding the steering waiting for the blessed air conditioning to kick in which is also very temperamental in my Elvis(my stately hatchback)I drive, when my toes curl and loose sensation with the cold that's creeping slowly and wickedly up ,I turn the heating towards them and still I drive.

Do you drive to music? I drive to music,it livens up my spirits, transporting me in my aluminum can to a destination that only music can live in to cover up, for the world that's going mad outside,courtesy seasons or just plain mad traffic.So If I have to turn right and its taking me time,do I even turn and look at the poor soul glaring at me from the car behind,because what drowns it out?...Music.its only when the the summer chases the cold fingers away and that I turn it down ,and let the 'out' seep in.

 When I move my eyes up wards, the sunlight streams through leaves,who part this light,partitioning it into rays that fall separately onto my vision frame,softening the same scenery which will be angrier and harsher in its toll on me when I go past them in the angry summer sun months.switching hands on the steering to cool them off.

This is the time for butterflies,to fluff up their wings and spread them into a flutter over the path kissed by sun streams.

I change the gear,a little to the left to let the car behind me go ahead,my feet and hands move automatically enlivened by the magic that is winding up my system making it easy to lose my self once more,slowing down,because the impact  of the bloom each flower brings,is an effect that a bouquet on credit card delivery can hardly compare.Drugged.

Riot of colour, they line the sides of roads, as I drive past, some of them are in an orderly,lined,manicured and absolute gardeners’ pet flower show perfection display,and some just growing in wild abandon,straining in all directions to grow just a little more.throw in a little breeze and you see them Dancing to the tune of the golden globe. Awarding it with their colorful turn out.

I am drugged.I am totally intoxicated.Why am I so touched?do I  have a poetic soul?Why do I feel the rhythm of each flower swaying?Why does the golden sunlight make me feel rich?I don't know.Plus  my mommy taught me I have to accept gifts with grace.And It was only when I was very little and a little less greedy that I had the ability to refuse money given by relatives;however as the years crawled by I became the professional,one time shy no,second time grab it with thank you girl.so even today whatever the gift,whoever it be from,I grab and generate happiness NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Returning to the drive in spring that throws beautiful golden bouquets at me which makes me so poetic.

The chords in our little setting are strung right from heaven to create a music in my heart.I am serious there is a warmth around my central being that makes me almost saintly benevolent.Almost!

 And it all sounds too poetic,but its this music that makes me love spring.The happiness painted around sneaks into my system.Looking ahead,my vision softened by the golden fire that has spread to my heart,bringing the happiness that starts right at the bottom,playing catch up with me as I speed ahead,leaving behind a trail of chains;chains of rigid cold fingers,chains of weeping monsoons,chains fallen off hopes that were tied down to invisible spider threads, to spiral and settle down mingling their identity with the sands of time,to loose their very essence,freeing me to zoom ahead.an explorer to destination unknown.

(Actually Im headed home,to tea,peppermint in my light blue Jug of a Mug,nothing unknown about it,but a little anonymity on my mug's behalf for the sake of poetry...AHH!!!an easy sacrifice )

LOST AND FOUND

What happens when you live in a city for almost thirteen years, and you still thank god for the day GPS was built? Hang your head in shame that’s what.

I used to think, think being the operative word that my directional capabilities rivaled that of batmobile on autopilot. There was a belief in my system that booted and rebooted itself into the bloodstream till it became a reality in my mind,self belief in directional capabilities.

If you keep the city I live in as a mathematical symbol, it would best be a circle.

Say the circle was concentric to another circle, and filled in between with a large cobweb,

And as arachnophobia is a bona fide defined fear,and we shall discuss the dangers of creepy crawlies later for the moment we shall send the spider to play politics, while we figure out the system.

On the outer diameters my vehicle,or Elvis as I lovingly call my old boy, we run along just fine, zipping mindlessly past the rearview’s of sedate travelers, moving with a surety and motion full of swerves,all maneuvres of the very knowledgeable.

As we glide deeper into the city circle, we do not loose our edge,the confidence is I agree not at the peak,and as the web keeps spinning roundabouts with four extremely similar exits at us,the stage from confidence to self doubt to frantically whipping out the GPS is traversed in a nano second.

When it comes to admitting or self realization that I am stumped,its usually situation dependent for example if I kicked your shin under the table of twenty people for a slight that I absolve my personal responsibility off and put you on stand ,I can guarantee my angelic smile will easily pass your accusatory scanner as you move on,this LOST situation is not an external calamity but an internal emergency due to genetic shortfall,so I quickly do a mental hands up and hand over to technology, mentally berating the errant navigational gene that passed on to my brother but decided to take the lazy day off when it came to me.

As it happens,the technological marvel in question is my super ultra smart phone which in terms of technology is practically comparable to an octogenarian in all of its two years of life, in a cranky mood.How the quality of Korean products or maybe made in china is deplorable, is a money draining topic you and I could discuss with long faces some other time.Right now we shall just mourn the functional loss of my phones abilities. Mourn its ‘age old’ right to vibrate at all the wrong moments,(not pleasurably so I must add,just a deathly shudder) signaling its will to shut off and restart in its own time.That usually happens when it decides it has been overworked,or when I decide its time to switch on the GPS.whence my lovely yellow beauty decides its life is too low on power to sustain such a drain on its functions .Even as I stare in disbelief, yet again ,at the flashing battery that is ready to die,it again gives its warning vibration shot,before blinking me down.

I tell my friend from out of town with a phone in its teens to utilize her shiny new jazz of a gadget to get us to where we wanted, and yes I do try and be a little sheepish about it.She is an out of towner and I am the directionally challenged guide.(there I said it)But what shame in admitting you need another helpful phone.

Armed with the latest technology and My internal homing device working on the familiarity bred by studying your college degree in the vicinity of the area that was our destination for the feast,got us swiftly till the point where I handed the baton to my friends shiny dependable new device,for the final few kilometers. According to my approximation we were ten minutes away.

How even after half an hour we were talking to a nepali clueless guard,is something I have been told  that occurs when you depend on technology too much or Murphy decides,it's just not your day.

In attempt One at a direct approach, we entered a govt. housing society and not that we were judging the food standards by the look of the colony, maybe the epicurean standards of the cities highest rated restaurant was all for its home cooked ,served hot,experience on the roof top,with domesticated street dog at your feet.

.

But even in all sensibilities looking up trying to figure which rooftop,and coming up to a blank with all shirts and kurtas hanging out for drying,hinted at either abysmal décor standards which were wickedly aiming at ‘Homely’orrrrr we were in the completely wrong place even as the GPS mimed "you have arrived at your destination."

Definitely not at the right place , we got down to good old, roll down windows and ask 'bhaisaabs' for direction,but I guess the genteel helpful race of 'bhaisaabs' is also a dying breed.'bhaisaabs' directions were either to his house or maybe just a local colony darshan, because ten minutes and four lefts and two rights later we were chatting with our lost Nepali guard at a locked up dead end, who’s most helpful information was turn around,which we did,only to find ourselves on the other side of theNepali guard's gate in say another ten minutes.

Attempt two, three, four, I have even lost count, saw us do a lot of doubling up,but the humour levels in the car minus the testosterone were relatively upbeat lacking the sexist jokes on ‘lost chicks’. Suddenly to our left we crossed a temple and god must have taken pity on our growling stomachs and found us a good guide who said straight ahead in 200 mtrs," you cannot miss". 

And that’s how we found ourselves eating chicken tikka in a place that is out of the box.

Sitting down on a  highstool,under the night sky,surrounded by the youngest most buzzing crowd in the city,we had arrived.

Biting me back to earth, besieged  by mosquitoes I curled my exposed legs under me, awkwardly balancing in my fight against possible malaria(I left my faithful repellent in the car,or you could not put it past me to lather my self up, all sweet smelling, in front of this genteel crowd)

We reached home in one shot, thanks to my short term memory in retaining directions working in top condition,I am home tonight, but keep your DPS(dad positioning services)on speed dial,a good old paper Map,for your girl scout moment.

But if you are with your blinkers on,staring at your sleepy phone and  god forbid were the spider to arrive and  invite you into its parlor,and you are without trusted friends with a Big Moose built I would suggest do your polite refusal with pepper sprayed confidence,stay glued inside you car seat, do not step out and make an equally speedier,footloose exit towards the lit part of the circuitous web, or dial 100(if the battery sustains)

 I would love to tell you its a furry little spider or fluttery mosquito lost on its way home with an equally stunted directional gene,But watching the piling newspapers burdened with tears of young girls dead, its a chance that I would recommend you don't take and trust that you don't place, as I am afraid the mosquito repellent is just getting ineffective in the fast mutating carnally ridden desires that ,diversify ,amplify and become more horrifying with every illicit orgasm.

HOT WHEELS!!!

It was a wooden house in the cut of a hill,part of a long line of houses that were separated by wooden panels.We were in the hills because we were part of the gang that moved along with all the trucks carrying our whole house in boxes across the country ,the only permanent members to be added to our quartet over the years were Our dogs,Sheena the first one and Tuffy(who should have been ideally stuffy because he could stuff into his little stomach almost any cuisine under the sun,not to be discriminating against the one that’s piled in bins as well,were he ever to get a chance.)Tuffy was Sheena’s child marriage off spring,they were Pomeranian Spitz(or so we were told),got basically as yelping guard dogs but like i said Tuffy dreamt of food while snoring,Sheen was the only one who had grains of sherpa blood in her.

 Our mini circus moved every two years,lock stock and the snoring and guard dog's duvet’s in barrels.

In the wooden house My brother and I had our bed bunks alongside, where when tucked in at night we would pretend to be floating in a river within egg shells,that bounced off the crests in the river.

I remember I used to squeeze my mother's hand and make a good night mumble (ta!! dare you laugh) then burrow my nose,into the quilt to sniff the smell of Napthelene in my cotton stuffed quilt,the quilt had a fawn velvety cover,and there were dark brown trees drawn on it.I loved burying under and pretending to be in a different world,And now I cannot even bear the weight of my feather quilt,which finds my feet wrapped over it.

I remember a lot of things from that house,I was five.I remember standing around trying to figure out what the excitement was all about,maybe someone told me or maybe my mom got too busy baking the cake, whichever was the correct case,I found my self standing in the welcoming committee lineup as the blue little four wheeled drive rolled up the slopes,to brake in front of us, our very own car.A car that took me on a three hour drive to buy my wedding lehenga, a Car in which I sat and took my first dog for a vaccination, a car in which Tuffy was taken for his last few examinations.

So yes ,basically the car also trundled  along with our circus,and when it got a few marks on its ceilings we bandaged and camouflaged it with stickers.Always,proudly roaming in it where no man has rolled before.(okay enough of star trek,but there were hardly any cars then on roads,you cannot blame me for my flights of fantasy,in my blue shuttle.)

And years later, even after we left Sheena and Tuffy as underground guards of the houses we homed in,the little blue stately wagon car of our family continued along faithfully.

I can safely say that this year that car went out of production.

we have become heartless or maybe there are hard walls around our slumbering hearts,we keep noticing  his coughs,noticing the lack of airconditioning  in the sweltering sun. However there is still one guy who stands by his wagon,the head of our travelling circus,My dad.

He takes ‘sabun dani’,(soap dish) as we lovingly call him to his doctor for regular patch ups,my father stands in the heat,hovering over it like a worried parent.If it were to be recorded , maybe every part under its bonnet has been under the mechanic’s concerned gaze at least twice in its life,for reasons more severe than regular servicing.

I am as loyal as they come,when it comes to people, I am a dog when it comes to loyalty,you can probably just love me once and I will always wag my tail with joy when I see you next,for the rest of your life,whether you are in it for a guest appearance or in the leading roles.

But I also suffer from the he dunnit not me syndrome.So placing the blame squarely on advertising,YESSS!!! it’s the advertising which makes me continuously unfaithful.Its unfair how they actually throw cars luscious curves at you challenging you to be young and free, I always have my hands on my cheque book and my feet pointed to the loan department in the bank after seeing ten close friends camping in Leh!!!!!!! See you know what I mean.

There are enticing sunroofs in cars,where I always imagine just lounging back and looking at the night sky(its too hot to imagine me staring up into a sunny sky,so I settle for a starry night dream),there is voice control which reminds me of Knight rider,climate control that simulates airplanes,basically one day I am Living it up in My SUV the other day in my sleeky cury ,showing me the moon,BMW(I am dreaming, here I should punch myself)

Hence the inference that when it comes to cars it strikes me that I am blatantly fickle and shallow around the pocket area. (I am open to negotiations on donations.)

Switching gears back a few car generations when we come back home now,we have to still roll down our windows,using both hands and keep our face out like dogs hanging out excitedly,only in our cases it’s the green house effect that is pushing us into the flapping air whooshing along outside the car.

Its doors close with a BANG,almost as if the old boy is hard of hearing and needs the loud reassurance that all is well at the back and we can key in , gear up and accelerate out.

But every single time I plop into the back seat,I remember touching the small window railings ,as we drove out of towns leaving friends behind, Every time I slide into the front seat I remember sitting on one butt cheek with both feet sleeping from inactivity,  folded and confined,dreaming about their next stretch, sharing the space with my grandfather,who would lovingly ask me every two minutes if I was alright,and I would say yes,much to the relief of the backseaters,who included my largely present grandmom,mom,brother and my aunt,on whose laps I would definitely be transferred to, were the answer to be negative.They were all already strategically lined up in the one to the front, one to the rear,and the one on the flanks turned slightly towards doors, position.Guaranteeing maximum fit,with mini comfort pockets, packed like this  we drove some mad distance away, I am sure at this stage someone did mention the ‘dil mein jagah honi chahiye!!”(eyes rolling totally dramatically)

 The feel of my grandfather lovingly petting my hair,and the continuous gossip from the back row,the wind as it blew through my father's then black hair as he concentrated on the road, these memories can never be unlocked were I to step out tomorrow of a MERCEDES(For a jaguar I swear I will try my level best to simulate,just hold on to the thought of gifting me one, we will come back to that.)

These feelings make this car a bonafide member of the gang and anyone who has ever owned a Maruti 800 would know which era I am talking about.Yes we grew up in the same decade,secretly watching Bold and the Beautiful,admiring the suave Mr.Remington Steele and openly ogling at babes in Baywatch slightly later.

The world may be churning out 90 lakh cars a year, maybe more,but there will only ever be one car that will be family to me. Thank you for being there,and even though today there is Cherry, Elvis(the hatchback of my independent life) and Black Beauty lining the drive way in front of you, I promise to LOVE YOU forever,and there is nothing fickle or shallow about that declaration.

And no amount of advertising can erase and rewrite over that bond with my first car.Sorry Elvis.

STRAIGHT LINES.

When I was little kid like somewhere around the fourth grade, I was packed off in the afternoons of the summer vacation to a painting class.

There I remember,sitting on the ground in a circle around our teacher,a group of about ten.

The only sounds in the beginning being those of shuffling and sharpening of pencils and opening of pencil boxes, repeatedly erasing and retrying how to get our pencils to move along a straight line,highlighting it clearly,giving it definition visible to sight,making them stand up from the white oblivion.Magic.

 I also remember a very plump girl’s skirt that decided to do a Marilyn Monroe, just as she bent to pick up her pencil box to pack up for the day,a last minute sway, positioned me directly in line for a torpedo attack,were gaseous warfare to be declared.

Wrong positioning, but this time it was just kill by sight as the gentle breeze generated by the slow moving blades of the wooden fan,lifted the light cloth off its designated camouflaging position.The other sounds that Ithen remember are shocked intakes and two boys giggling away at the back.

Hence from my painting class I took away straight lines and a dimpled thigh,forever.

Straight lines have a way of evading most of us,it’s a difficult concept to lift off from a painting book and enforce it,over and above our itching little,twitching bodies.

Starting from school assembly lines which will be crooked till the class we graduate out from. Even though our monitor is entrusted with the sole job of military discipline, children shuffling in curved assembly lines remains a global phenomenon.

However from school on, most countries pick up and head straight off to the top of the line,and that’s where our little India gets confused. How to pick up and walk straight,is a genuinely puzzling concept to the common Indian,brought up on the 'tedhi ungli' lore and no its not a concept diluted with all the Whiskey in the system,and its not just in the poor confused Y chromosome in the family who gets everything first, it’s a general affliction or epidemic of Popeye adrenalin which works on the principle ‘so what’s wrong with a little shoving and pushing, if you are fighting for birth rights,while paying ‘chutta’{small change}first in a paan shop.”

Straight lines are they a personal stumbling block or a national stumbling mammoth disaster???

Its almost as we we struggle against asphyxiation if we are left grappling behind.

 In the Metro Queue or in the bank ATM line, thankfully I have graduated from running onto buses ,slipping past stinking shirts slippery with sweat, wading through masses of people,trusting people with my two rupees for the ticket,(yes it has been a long time) seeing the two rupees get relayed across the bus,and thankfully clutch the relayed ticket back, you would think that the amount of trust generated would put you at ease,yes it does, unless you start feeling the eyes.I am fighting a war on two fronts,one my peripheral vision is watching out for the cheeky men in the line behind me trying to get the seat right in front of me either willing to brush past, or happily brush against.Not really discriminating against the end results, both are great and sail his boat,or launch it should I say?

But its in car jams that we get seriously challenged to remember what’s straight…Its all those cars that creep past you to stand onto your right in a traffic jam,blocking a four lane two way road by nearly just climbing into the tree that stands planted well off the road,leaves saluting in the opposite direction,waiting to welcome traffic from the other side which would trickle through if it ever makes its way past our smiling neighbours,who mock our sedateness,through the car windows.We suddenly loose them,with head reeling speed,apparently their peripheral vision works fine too that or the goading by all the co passengers at the 5 mm opening in front,activates the accelerator.We loose them from our right wing only to be replaced by another like minded brother, who has managed to squeeze ahead to our right exploiting his 5 mm opening too.and because we are still reeling from the speedy exit of the first one we miss the celebratory glances of our new neighbours.

I Love straight,straight men,straight shots,straight flights,straight lines(except in my cupboard,where shapeshifting is a phenomenon that Stephenie Meyer could have picked up the concept from)

I also sometimes wonder at the missing straight when I am zealously guarding my spot in the metro ticket queue,which is absolutely ripe for a hostile take over if I slip my guard even for a bit,or in a hospital, waiting for the doctor to give me the time of the day,freeing himself of people who self importantly waltz into his office,I keep expecting them to be spat out,but they somehow get swallowed inside for the longest gestation period,they spin out with a very healthy unrepentant walk,right by our frothing brimming angry presence,only to ignore us in their healthy peachy existence,when our angry redness is getting enhanced only by our 103 degree Celsius fever.

 But focusing on the brushing past, somehow when the lazy, ambling generally snail paced regular,pot bellied Indian man,and why only man, Saree clad,soft spoken,chappal yielding Durga’s also reveal themselves when they  find themselves encountered by a straight line.

 They discover in themselves a propelling urgent desire to break free,its as if centuries of mothers food fed lathered with Ghee,and not being dramatic,maa ka doodh and tea served in bed,suddenly manifests itself in a display of speed and alertness and desire to be the winner in the race of money withdrawl in ATM queues,these Alpha males or Chappal wielding, feminist dialogue spouting,mini spitfires validate their presence, through these acts of breaking free from the system.seemingly reveling in this feeling of freedom of shoving which comes as fresh air, for their bound visceral mundane lives. Minor Seismic Vicissitudes of life.

 The Mystery of the straight lines is a question asked to me by many a foreign travelers to our country whose unwritten bible rules are never to get in the way of an overzealous Indian in a queue,if they are here just for two weeks,make way.

The other rule is that,if you are here for the whole six seasons, then the only way around is to perfect the snooty,ice cold stare that does seem to effectively freeze the semi ambitious muddlers, and part time line offenders.

A  question we most ardently discuss sitting on bar stools, flocking down from the celestial heights of our glassy,day chambers, sipping Cosmopolitans and Bloody Mary’s,bearing in mind we are all  of Aryan-Dravidian descent, and still 100% Indian, is “why can Indians not stay in lines?

This question we discuss animatedly,owning the rights to the critical subject,thanks to our genetic descents which are from the geographically same area,as the country we vote in.(hopefully vote in).

Each member provides deep insight into the psyche that needs to change at the grass roots,Or deeper still, the discussion of the 1.27 billion population being like a stumbling elephant.

(The poor elephant is now over burdened by the Indian heritage, he has been stumbling for so long in its epitomizing description of Indian-ness that the poor tusker may never wander onto the straight path,because it is scarred by the mammoth problems of New age India.)

Pressing the gelled hair back the guy on my table (not my regular company) passes a smile at all of us,probably doing a mental hi Five to his un-gelled,uncontrolled,savage ape man,alter ego, at  successfully distracting the waiter off his projected straight path. He tucks in a 500 note in his pocket ensuring a completely warped path for the waiter for the rest of the evening ,directly translating the slick gesture of monetary kindness to our placement STRAIGHT to the Top of the restaurants food chain.

I should really tell him off mmmmmmm next time..100% pakka,shachiiiiii…Ma kasam….;)))))whenever my genetic right to assert itself critically of its geographic genetic neighbours’ wakes up from the deliciousness of my watered and full existence.Next time i will come straight to the point.

LIFE IS ALSO WHAT HAPPENS INSTEAD……..

 We are a generation that can attach ourselves to clouds and then probably float down in our dreams, sliding off the edges of a rain drop as it splashes into an ocean. Which is probably just having a bad day sloshing around in god’s gigantic wine glass (sorry, but my God is a Greek epicurean God!!)

We are also an all knowing Apple and Banana {republic;)} following, Right here,right now, if not,  I will Google you here and I know exactly what I want, generation.(not very far ahead of Adam & Eve and apes)

Generationally challenged, In my dreams I was obsessively crunching over unknown similar looking pebbles, striding purposefully towards a coffee shop, imagining losing myself and my lips inside a foam that is sprinkled with nutmeg and cinnamon, just so and finally my tongue discovering that hot bite of chocolate beneath the foamy surface Ahh!!( I do not like coffee),but what I know is that the door I am opening has got me exactly where I want. I stand inside the shop breathe in the aroma ( I love the smell of coffee). I feel I have arrived.

 With this feeling I simulate my emotions to mirror a smug cat, with creamed whiskers.

To be where you want exactly, is a placement in the dimensions of the universe that is governed by equations, which are a function of Time , space and variables.

Now what happens when you do not fit? What happens when your purposeful walk is halted by a closed sign?All those images on hologram mode star trek style come crashing around, to the pebble level around your feet.

Do we take it as a sign that the equation was not meant to factor in the heat of the hot chocolate,do we quietly stride away?

Variable in question now is intensity.For me because I have a vivid imagination,the images are like a live news flash with HD CLARITY and DOLBY sound effects, and as we are the google on my smart phone generation So(if the time factor in the equation permits)I Google walk following my nose (please refrain from images of a monkey sniffing in the air,it’s a more refined gentle sniffing walk,preferably insert images of sauntering diva)  I walk till I find myself holding handles of a door that has an open sign.I walk because I know opening those doors will get me exactly where I want.

If I factor in a walk along with an over active, desirous imagination,then the conclusion my dream would reach would still be the same. This time though the governing elements were different from knowledge of the path and everyday Hi- Tech autopilot. The equation is also variable, we realize. It also exists in multiple dimensions and there is never one correct answer and there is never one correct way of getting it right.

This time a different approach gave me the same smug cat look albeit five minutes down the dream lane.

However at the end of any timed , evaluated dream sequence,(maybe you dream of winning Jet Ski’s and lucky drawing Louis Vuitton’s,or just a constant rain shower of Tom Cruise,Brad Pitt and Bradley Cooper’s,or of simple men who cook you meals ,while pouring you wine,its just dreams after all) 

After giving it our best shot(not sling shot,more the dart board focused shot)if we still do not arrive at the conclusion we desire, even after factoring in the constant and variable elements like knowledge,Dedication, hard work,love, luck,black magic,voodoo,magic charms,and in my case warped Google Maps. I realize when we get our test papers back that the “what” was wrong and I was as they say barking up the wrong tree. And no amount of astrological charts will align me with the path A.

But as every solution is an answer to a WHAT. The journalistic “what” in this is a very important point, we are all levitating around.

The need is then to look around and discover the INSTEAD WHAT,or Path B.

And work on that. Maybe it was Hot chocolate I wanted but something else I NEEDED.

Transmuting of desires is a lesson rigidity will do well to learn from.

As I condense down in my dreams, eventually, clutching that rain drop (holding my hot chocolate with one hand does not help with the grip) and crashing into the ocean.

I get thrashed around till I sink right in, level after level,dreaming still of the skies and soft tuffity nutmeg clouds.

But all of us cannot always land up in the clouds again, Evaporation is an extremely tough concept for some lazy people like me, ^ what like flying and then skydiving?  Seriously????? ^

Crashed and burned once already,this dream is seriously making me work. I join the army of droplets floating around lazily brushing against each other in the ocean,some of whom will end up washed up on a beach,sipping a Gin and Tonic which is actually my first LOVE before hot chocolate,and always an answer to WHAT do I want? ;) I plan to be that ‘some’, C’mon this is not a nightmare it’s a good happy ending dream. I will let my self flow with the tide, on the life raft of droplets floating gently towards the beach.

So, with sun warmed sand conducting right onto my behind and in between my toes. With one hand curling around my chilled glass and one hand in the chips packet, I feel exactly where I want to be and more so. SIGH!!!!What equation? What plan? What dream?  Just ‘In the moment’.