Showing posts with label Priyanka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Priyanka. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Scent of a Woman || Perfume by Priyanka

“Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice…” such goes the list of ingredients for a lovely girl. Ask anyone, even the hobo living in a cardboard box, everyone agrees: A Girl Always Smells Nice.
Nice? You mean like peaches & bergamot or lavender & honey?? I’m a girl and I demand an answer?!!
My favorite scent remains to be that of musty old books in the attic. Or of rain, just before it rains. Or of winter… when your breathe freezes fogging up your view of the sunset. Or like cheese oozing from a double burst pizza! Or like babies who have been squeaked clean and dressed up in pinks & blue, just perfect for a day in the park!!
But you never get these in a bottle in any store! Hmmm…
You know what all of it reminds me of? Home. My Mom.
Each time I return home for a few days, I pause for a moment before I enter. I fill up my lungs with the air outside, with all its smells… dust, grime, exhaust, litter… and then step in.
When I take in my next breath, it’s like being reborn…
They tell you about how when you hear a song that you once loved in the past and have it instantly bring you back to that moment in time? I think whenever I smell anything nice, I go back in time to this moment:
Entering my home again… right into the arms of my mom!
When you look around and notice how nothing has changed, everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same; you realize what’s changed, is you.
~The books, aging gracefully, even with the silverfish scurrying across… right as I’d left them in the box last year. The colorful pages which mom read out when I knew no difference between a and z
~The drops on my forehead as I run to cover, leaving mom drenching in the rain; struggling to save the achaar instead of herself
~The steaming cup of tea not helping keep my fingers warm enough, I snuggle next to mom as she keeps down her cup and hugs me
~The doorbell rings and it way before it’s been 30 mins, mom beats me to the door. The wide grin on her face as she opens the pizza make me wonder, “Who’s the kid here?” No one, or both of us?
~The Johnson’s Baby Soap mom still keep in my bathroom... willfully forgetting her daughter is older than she was when she bought the first bar for her first-born
That’s it according to me…. The ingredients of the perfect perfume for any woman:
Niceness inside-out.
Sweat, blood, tears, sleepless nights and aching muscles, slain dragons and dying dreams, birds leaving the nest or just stopping by for a moment… it all has to go in, without an ounce of dishonesty.
Love you mom!

Life in Slow Motion ||Gone in 60 seconds by Priyanka


WARNING: Extremely long story, capable of testing your knowledge of Pop-culture, patience and sanity on multiple levels. Not recommended for novices.


Sango came into being just as everyone else around her; nothing new in being thrown onto Mother Earth on account of the parent over-eating beyond herself!

As she was growing up, Sango’s mom started slowly drifting away, and then the inevitable moment came when as Sango looked around for that familiar comfort of her mother, there was just the sea of nudges and shoves. The neighbors, instead of bad-mouthing her mom for maternal negligence, instead pooh-poohed her as a sissy. No-one in their knowledge had latched on to her mother for as long as she did!


“What a disgrace of a progeny!” “Good for the poor mother, she practically had to run away. These kids I tell you…”


There was no way out: She had to go about her life in search of safety, livelihood and more. She was now capable enough to fend for herself; she had done well to learn how to hunt for food, which region to slurp water from, which places to rest for the night, how to mix herself into the crowd and how to avoid the stout fellows everyone called Grinches.
“They would hurt you if you go too close, or if they’re in a bad mood,” her mom had once told her.


But Sango still missed having her mom. She was the one with the answers to the endless stream of questions swirling within her, waiting to burst out, as if. No one wanted to stop and talk in this world… it was such a task!


“How does night replace daylight and then daylight replace night without fail? Where does the food go once she eats it? How does it feel to love someone? What lies beyond the Forbidden Sea? Why is she where she is? Where is she? What will happen next?”


Thinking of all the questions without getting a single answer made her wish she never was. Her life seemed totally pointless… eating, drinking, walking and sleeping. How could she have been created without a purpose?


“When will this end?!!”


She was walking along in another one of her seemingly pointless journeys, towards the food-rich plains when she suddenly bumped into someone. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you”, she said to the fellow she’d knocked down. The guy looked at her smiling wistfully, said “Oh no, it was me. I am just so over this pointless life... I just want it to end being so boring.”
Sango grabbed the stranger tightly, “ME TOO! I’ve been thinking the exact same thing!!” He managed to mumble a few words, by now almost squeezed to choking, before Sango took the hint and introduced herself.


“Hi Sango, I’m Three. I’m on the way to the end of the world, care to join me?” What more could she ask for, except another question: “Oh, hi Three! How do you know you are on the right path?”


“I have drawn myself a map standing at the top of the Blue Mountains. Have you ever been there?”
“No. How long will the journey take?”
“I have no idea. But I would rather spend my life reaching there than sleeping through. Won’t you too?”
“Where is your mother?”
“She left, like all moms. Didn’t yours leave!?”


And thus cross-questioning each other, they started walking off from the crowded city-streets together. Sango had found a friend. Three didn’t just answer her questions, but he asked her even greater ones!


Her life finally had a purpose.


Endless days they walked and walked as per the map Three had. They discussed their lives, their dreams and their questions.
“You know how does the light suddenly go out and night falls? It happens in a definite pattern. After every 3 cycles of day-night there are 2 nights. Ever noticed? ” “No Three! Never!!! How did you?” “I know something is going on, Sango. I just need to reach the Forbidden Sea to get a clear view of what’s beyond.” 


Someone overhearing would have branded them heretics, but they had out-casted themselves from society before anyone else could.


“Three..” “Ya?” “You’re so amazing! I never thought I’ll find someone to love, ever”, Sango said one day. “Have you gone mad! You know love is nothing, it’s a lie!! We’re both independent, self-sufficient beings… we’re together just because our goals are the same!” That was the only time Three had shouted at her. Sango never broached the topic again. 


Her mom had told her about Love... it was rare, but it wasn’t a lie.


They covered harsh ground covered thinly with grass, hurting their feet even as they walked. They barely had enough water to keep their throats from drying out, forget water. And then they came across an entire colony of Gremlins! Three held Sango very, very close to himself... even their breaths were synchronized, Sango could barely look towards him. 


She found herself thinking of Love once again.


As they crossed the colony safely, Sango saw an expanse of deep blue water. She ran towards it and suddenly found herself falling freely down towards it; dragging Three along! Those few moments till they crashed into the waters of the Forbidden Seas seemed so long… their entire life flashed before them… And just as they were about to hit the water, it happened:


Three turned to her & they kissed!


When they emerged from the water, Sango looked ecstatic. They decided to stay by the Sea itself as it was night again. Food was no problem and there were no Gremlins in sight. Three smiled at Sango as they slept off dreamily looking at each other.


With daylight came the discovery. There was nothing beyond Forbidden Sea.


Only a few paces from where Sango & Three had rested was The End. A solid which seemed stretching into nothingness. Three started climbing it up when he realized it was like a cover over their heads… it allowed the light to pass through but was just, endless.


“So this is it I guess,” Sango said.
“Yes, we’ve reached the end of the world. I bet we’re the only ones!” Three almost yelled as he jumped up & down.. Sango said, “But what next?”
“Nothing, this is a great place, food, water, safety. We stay here.. and love each other. Not that we are going to die, ever,” Three stated what Sango was waiting to hear forever.


Thus ends the story of the two inquisitive, love-lorn, Single-celled organisms being studied in the Microbiology lab at some University. They probably held the key to some drug-discovery which would save millions of lives, or earn the big-wigs billions of dollars. But such was the 60-sec peek into their lives… maybe they will go on to reproduce the un-conventional way… love makes the impossible happen each day!


And yes, they do live on forever, unless the student in-charge of the petri dish accidently heats it to a 121.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Week 3 Challenge


Just Chill!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Writer’s Block – An Urban Tale || Priyanka

A blank screen with three words at the upper left corner: Due at 11:59:59 PM.

A look at the time and Sara wipes her brow once again and lets out a sigh, which immediately freezes in the cold Brooklyn loft she shared with four other “wannabes”. 20 more minutes.


What to write?


The editor seemed really pleased with her portfolio. But then who wouldn’t be?


It was the perfect world in there: a series of stories on a Southern Belle who grew up on a sun-kissed ranch, went out on pony-rides alone since she was 6 and fell in love with the neighborhood’s most promising gentleman at 10. Thanksgiving dinners with a table for 40 and glittering Balls where she waltzed away with her Prince Charming till the moon went down.


She could write more of the same stuff… but her editor wanted something, what did she say? ... something.. “Un-Disney”.


She could write about being born without a father’s name, about a little girl waiting at the playground for her turn to ride the swing... a 10 yr old trying to make out the letters of her mother’s name in the ER where she was dying of being poor and cold and homeless. She might mention the poor orphan being sent to a school where she found more broken dolls like her, all broken beyond repair… how she learnt to find her way through the heartless world where no one was looking out for her. She could possibly also do something on a teenaged girl being pushed into drugs by a friend.. the nights full of colors floating around her... and her downward spiral from there to the day she sold off one of her kidneys to get high and.. to forget the pain.


No, but they would be too dark for a magazine audience. Something more inspirational maybe…


How about putting a turn on these grim storylines, yeah, that’s what they are.. uh-huh.. STORYLINES..!


The Southern Belle again.. she’s loses her father in a war and is heartbroken. Her family breaks up over property and she and her mother are homeless, roaming the streets of a big, bad city. The mother gets a job at a book shop and the girl gets into a school… she learns to read and write and becomes very learned till one day, she joins her own father’s company. And as she struggles to regain the lost empire, her mother dies a cold, lonely death in an ER.. no! Why bring an ER here.. it does not make any sense!


The writing needs a hint of romance.. yeah.. the childhood friend who promised he’ll always wait for her.. he joins her in the war against the evil cousins! And finally the day dawns when she returns to her family mansion and restores all the former glory to her mother, and lives happily ever after…


Another peek at the wrist watch with the broken strap and a shiver runs down her spine."3 more minutes. And I’m back on Disney-ness.. ugh!! I’ll never get this job… Let me turn in whatever @#$% I wrote.”


A week later, a package arrives at the doorstep of the run-down loft in downtown Brooklyn addressed to “Ms. Sara” .. it contained her letter of appointment as the columnist for Femme, a leading women’s magazine in the state and a cheque too.

Sara, needless to say was relieved. She could finally pay the rent for a better place and get away, not just mentally but also physically, from the druggies she had for room-mates.

She stepped out into the December snow, strangely feeling free of all the blocks she had in put up her mind. The blocks had been put up as a means to hold her past away from her present; but slowly over time, they began to take shape as her. They were the foundation for her future now... the building blocks.


She decided to go visit the father she never had at the mental asylum he was in. She stopped over at Joe’s for a turkey sandwich for him.. after all, Thanksgiving was only a few days past. 


"I do have a lot to be thankful for!", she said touching her lower abdomen.
______

The writer claims she completed the story in less than 20 mins and was suffering from a bad case of Writer's Block aggravated by a bout of runny nose. Rotten tomatoes (or other vegetables), therefore, are to be saved for later. More of such irrelevant stuff at http://pri-amble.blogspot.com/

 
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