Sunday 30 June 2013

135. Every journey ends.......






 












                             .......for a new one to begin!



Saturday 29 June 2013

134. Once upon a time in Shillong!



I would stash away a rupee for him everyday. Though I hated buying his cigarettes, yet I loved him for who he was. In his own affable way, he would ask me to put my arms around his left arm, while he, dressed in the only 'best' black suit he had, would stylishly place his walking stick on the side-walk with his right to avoid hitting a wall or tripping over broken slabs. John wore dark glasses, not because it was in fashion but he was stone blind and I would always walk him from near my school to Police Point, where I would have to buy his cigarette and he would stand at a corner and smoke it away, while I walked off  towards home, after which he would grope his way to the mercy home where he stayed. 
Shillong rekindles fond memories from my school days and they are as fresh like just a moment ago!
Deepak, as far as we heard from people, was a very intelligent boy but who had parents who over-pressurized him with his studies. So, even though every evening, we saw him wearing his signature blue shirt over the same pair of faded grey pants, walking in a sway towards the Laitumkhrah market, we would always start whispering, "Hey see, there is Deepak pogola (mad). Awww..so sad. His parents didn't have to be so hard on him. Hey, you know what? He was excellent in Maths. Tsk, tsk." And we would go home and tell our parents not to put too much of pressure on our heads lest we go mad or something like Deepak.
Then, there was the infamous 'kidnapper'. Not that we knew of any kidnappings done by her but when she would walk down the street dressed in her red coat, a black scarf around her not-so-young-neck, a black pair of trousers and black boots to match her equally black pair of shades and thick open well-taken-care-of-shoulder-length hair, red smudged lips, we would fake being scared to death when she even turned to look elsewhere, maybe never towards us, squealing in the typical school girlie fashion, "Oh dear, the kidnapper is looking right at us. Run." Several years later though, we came to know that she was actually a cleptomaniac and would get into people's homes feigning to make a call from the land-line and get away with small things kept in the living room.
The Professor loved his job and loved his son even more. Every evening, when my friend and I would take a walk from our homes in Lummowrie to Don Bosco Square, we would invariably see the professor with his right arm clasped tightly around the left arm of his strapping young son of 21 years, talking to him about all and sundry, walk as fast as possible on the side-walk towards Dhankheti, deftly averting oncoming pedestrians. The son, oblivious of his surroundings would match steps with his father, while all the time having a  glazed look, hard for us not to notice and sadden us. At this moment, I really want to know what exactly happened to this father-son duo! 
Burrabazar in Shillong would be this famous one-stop market place where we would invariably buy every possible ingredient for the kitchen; from vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, eggs, brooms, locally-crafted knives and soaps. Even bags, shoes, flowers, traditional Khasi ensembles, dogs and what not. And right besides the woman selling neatly cut coconut slivers on a steel plate, would be this man with his guitar and a broad-brimmed hat cocked stylishly,  sometimes strumming happy English tunes and often melancholy Khasi numbers. His over-sized coat, with pockets bulging with kwai (betel-nut), movie tickets, safety-pins and what not, had probably never gone for a wash since the day he put it on. It would have been almost second skin for him had it not been for the equally patchy-with-dirt once-upon-a-time white shirt he wore beneath it. It was a quite a sight to see and I would make sure mother would stop near him for a whole song to complete till we moved on further and deeper into the putrid yet colurful market.
And this was what happened in Shillong, once upon a time......




Tuesday 25 June 2013

133. Tranquil Waters!


".......dragonflies in hoards flitted above the water creating a mystic pattern against the dark green trees, which lined the river on all sides. Dense and deep, they looked like they had untold secrets, waiting to be unravelled. In the distance, a bird  cried out in angst, maybe ecstasy. The high-pitched call of insects echoed all around. Nothing moved. Not even a leaf.  The humidity was so high, it seemed as if the overcast sky would pour any minute but it still chose to tease the parched earth. 

Time seemed to stand still for both of them as the only sound they could hear was that of their hearts, wildly beating as one. Even the water lapping gently on the sides of their boat seemed to understand the passionate emotions coursing through them as they held hands and looked into each other's eyes, almost for eternity. Just then, a cool breeze touched their faces and as they closed their eyes, they felt the bounteous beauty of each other's souls. If only they could freeze this moment forever......."

(This is a piece from a story I am working on!!)


132. Riotous ! 


Mom used to reprimand me for laughing all the time, saying young girls are supposed to be lady-like and not laugh out too loud, lest people start thinking otherwise. Well, I haven't been able to control myself much (Sorry mother!) and in school and college, the day I have tried, I returned home invariably with a splitting headache. When I would tell Mom it's because I controlled myself from laughing, she would give me a disbelieving look, mumble and grumble and stomp off to the kitchen. 
23rd of June, sunday evening  however was a riot with Abish Mathews, the stand-up comedian from Mumbai performing to a not-so-packed-hall at Terra Mayaa with his snide, subtle, gentle and sometimes head-on take on sex; a subject not many could possibly think of laughing at. I wonder what Mom would say if she saw me almost gasping for breath, holding my sides, while tears streamed down both my cheeks incontrollably. I loved what was happening to me 'cause when I am laughing, I am totally unaware of anything else in the world. 
Abish Mathews did an excellent job at making us laugh throughout his one and a half hours 'Son of Abish' Show, though he would have been happier had it been a full-house! Anyway, Guwahati is yet to open up to 'serious laughter'; it's time however it did 'cause when we compare ourselves to the rest of the world, we look and take life too seriously, managing a tight upper lip and behaving as if laughter is an infallible sin! 




Sunday 23 June 2013

131. Repeat Act!

Sometimes I feel like doing something over and over again, just to feel the happiness that it gave me the first time I did it. I remember wearing my hair in the same manner for every exam day back in school just 'cause the first day of my exams went well. Just wishful thinking or mere coincidence; whatever it may be but I still repeat acts which make me happy. 'Cause happiness is what I want, nothing more!!



So when Tirus clicked this picture, he told me I have posed like this before. I told him, "Please Tirus, can we get on with the click. I Love this pose."

Saturday 22 June 2013

130. Angels!


It takes me a while to be consciously impressed about any person, but when I am, that person definitely has to be someone genuine. I have met very few people in the city, especially women, who could create a lasting sense in my mind. However, some of the young women I have met are all angels; sophisticated, intelligent, stylish, well-heeled, down-to-earth, passionate about their work,  an A+ in communication skills and yet rock-bottom friendly!

During one of my sales jobs as a young girl, I got close to Shankhalina Deka, a lady beautiful! She had the whole world talking of her beauty and her heart of gold! She still calls me up in her endearing tone, reprimanding me about not keeping in touch and I can only say one thing,"I love you, Urmi."

Hussina Thockchom is this wondrous woman I met and felt I had known her for years. She spoke with a flair and passion for the 'magic' herbs she grows in her 'secret' garden. She would be the interpreter of the endless Manipuri films we censored for three years. This woman, I love.

Munmun Barua Shah is this angel I met through Facebook. Guess what? I get a call one afternoon and she tells me, "From today onwards, you are my sister...my cute little sister. Come to Pune and I will take good care of you. And you better keep in touch with me." And from then on, I have this beautiful, wonderful, energetic sister. Though we don't call often enough, but we know we belong! 

I am at this meeting at Hotel Dynasty and I see this most stylish young lady, smiling and glowing in her own aura, walk in and take a seat next to me. I couldn't help but talk to her and appreciate her beauty. Pallavi Chumki Barua, is much younger to me but I feel she is a wonderful friend to know because of her earthy, exuberant nature. Her's is a rarity of beauty, brains and love!

I first met Neetalie Millie Das, when she breezed into the terrace where we were all sitting discussing a play. She was dressed in a green salwar and I loved the way it flowed. I thought that her streaks went so well with the tone of her flawless skin, not to speak of her flawless and effortless skills while putting an act together on stage, her histrionics getting everyone into splits. I love this woman and she exudes a warmth rarely found these days.

Some women never fail to impress and they do it so effortlessly, it's wonderful to just bask in the warmth of their love and concern! Women par excellence, these and fashionistas to the core!




Friday 21 June 2013

129. My Baby!


A couple of days back, my friend, Prolad Roka's life came to a complete standstill; his beautiful angelic young daughter of 22 years died while doing a mountain expedition alongwith her parents. Everything was going great till the time she developed high altitude sickness. They tried with all their might to save her but they couldn't bring her back. 
When I spoke to Prolad, the only thing that kind of got me thinking a lot was when he said "Love your child a lot. Spend as much time as possible with them. 'Cause now it's not about you but about them. And you never know what God has in store for you."
So many questions raced through my mind. Am I being a good mother to Tirus? Am I spending enough time with him? Do I listen when he is trying to get my attention? Am I loving him enough? Am I taking good care of him? Am I teaching him well enough to be a good human being?
Tirus is my angel. He came into my life as a saviour. For now, I will just stop worrying about everything else and ' just chill out' with my sonny boy and go have his favourite ice-cream!




Thursday 20 June 2013

128. What the heck?


While Uttarakhand continues to reel in the most horrendous situation in history, I continue to do my stuff; like waking up in the morning and getting on with my work as if nothing in the world has happened. Worse still, I go for my regular club meetings and notice the total disregard amongst the members for our brethren whose lives have turned into an unpredictable nightmare, while we all celebrate someone's birthday or the other, with no discussions or inclinations either on whether we could do something for the people there who have lost everything. Food supplies are minimal, not to speak about the health atrocities they are all facing. I, at this point of my life am feeling utterly helpless! Apart from prayers, there is little I can think of doing!
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So when the NEWS LIVE team came to my place to shoot for a half an hour programme on Sunday on 16th of May, what did I do? I simply sat through the whole shoot in my living room, while the anchor of the show asked me endless questions and two cameras caught my happy banter from two different angles. There you see, it was easy and I thought my mind would be terribly preoccupied with Uttarakhand. However, it still is and I am still thinking of ways and means to really 'do something'!!




Wednesday 19 June 2013

127. Black and White of a story!





                                                         .......and the story goes on, never to end!

Tuesday 18 June 2013

126. Day and Night!

14th of June, 2013

A non-branded cotton skirt teamed with a red and white  chequered top from Woodlands was great for the NGO meeting!





A top from WLS and a skirt from  Forever New  for my friend Miquel's birthday bash!

Monday 17 June 2013

125. The Heat is on!





*All pictures in the blog The Fashionista are the sole property of Tinat Atifa Masood. Any use or misuse without prior permission will be treated as an offence and will have legal implications.

Saturday 15 June 2013

124. Spaces

Though I call myself a people’s person, I have been a loner all my life and I have somewhat loved this space that I have created in my life. I can just be with myself and be myself in the most crowdest of places. There are moments when I had been lost but not lonely. I had walked into a roomful of people I may have never seen before but somehow, this has never troubled my inner self.

Way back in 2007, when Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar invited me for a book launch programme at Greater Kailash, New Delhi, I was in the lark, more so because after I reached the destination, a book cafe, I felt like a lonely Assamese in ‘phoren’ land (which was true anyway!) There were fair, dark, podgy, fit, tall, short, black-haired, white-haired, with pig and pony-tails, balding, bald men, in formal or informal ensembles, with beautiful, lithe, almost to a perfect T women in red, black, white, long, short, flowing, ‘slitty’, buttoned or zipped up, off-shouldered, one-shouldered, high-collared, collarless dresses, in tow. I felt I was the only one fully covered in a black midi skirt, a brown tee and a scarf around my neck. By the time I reached the seating area which had a bar to the left of the entrance on the second floor of the book cafe, there were already a few couples with their drinks half down. Everyone just turned to glance at me for once, gave an alien look and went back to their conversation.  I ambled up to the bar and picked a fresh lime for myself and went out to the terrace for some fresh air. I stayed there for quite some time in my own thoughts, relishing every moment.


Finally, when Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar arrived to launch Jug Suraiya and Ajit Ninan’s book, Like That Only, the seating area of the bar was filled with people I had seen for the first time, except for Suhel Seth, who I recognised instantly, for his shock of white hair to match his impeccable white suit. The launch was a fun-filled, informal one with Mr. Aiyar cracking off-the-cuff jokes much to glee of the ladies, while the men controlled themselves from passing snide remarks. And I as usual had an insipid smile and observed everyone, while sipping my fresh lime on the rocks! And the best part of the story is, though my chances of meeting these people again are one out of hundred, they would never know that I had woven a wonderful Page 3 story around them, in my space, in my thoughts!

Tuesday 11 June 2013

123. Memories!


School could have never been better with the exceptionally intelligent group of friends I had. We had so much fun together though I passed off as a daft nincompoop, taking ages to understand a strategy or a plan. 
Prarthana, the intelligent of the lot, would lead the whole lot of us into an adventurous game and get us thoroughly involved. Most of us (I for one) were petrified of her lest she lost her temper and flew off the handle, which she almost always did with me. 
Anita was deft at composing poetry, writing excellent pieces out of the blue, even while she was listening to something seriously important being taught by the History teacher.
Pragya was severely naughty, with pranks up her sleeve for every new day, much to the chagrin of the teachers, especially the physics teacher, who did an outstanding job with colour blocking as she waded into the class in blue, pink, orange, yellow, green, purple chiffon sarees and matching blouses. Pragya would tell us gory hair-raising stories of the room in her palace, which was invariably haunted (and where they had all locked me in on one of Pragya's birthday bashes.
Tabitha, Lisa as we fondly called her, was another supremely intelligent girl of the class, who sat next to the prim and 'propah' Seemtan, who was always neatly dressed to match her hand-writing.
Mala was the 'rich' friend who threw extravagant birthday parties at her home and gave away lovely gifts when we won the treasure hunt.
Manasi and Nabanita, with their hair oiled and combed perfectly, were the twins incarnate as they whispered in tones much lower than the word 'subdued' and acted as if we were all in for big trouble since we laughed more than we studied!
Rhea and Arpita constantly made it a point to make me shaky and wobbly about my Chemistry Exams, asking me if I knew about the lump of red deposit at the bottom of the beaker. Thanks to them, I never even had the wildest dream to study science.
Ambareen, wore the best blunt-cut in the class. Once, she was in a wild frenzy because Manjushree had copied her hairstyle and they had quite an argument over who was copying whose hairstyle.
Lal and Maria, the inseperable duo, were good at games just as great as they were with their studies! 
Nandini, my best friend, stood by me like a pillar, to support me in my inadequacies and foolishness (more often than naught!)
And Arpita took the crown for being the smartest, intelligent and fastest student amongst all the girls, as she grew from a below average student till Class 7 to a wiz-kid par excellence from Class 8 onwards, later going on to teach at MIT.
Quite a crowd of girls!! Love all of you!




Saturday 8 June 2013

122. Love passionately! What else is there to do?


"Love till death," has been my mantra since I was a kid and it will continue to do so till the end of eternity!
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5th of June was World Environment Day and I had a pretty much enjoyable if not exhaustive discussion on the conservation of the environment vis-a-vis the youth at the studios of Prasar Bharati, PPC (Northeast). Though the theme for this year is Think, Eat and Save, the discussion centred around a general idea of conservation of the environment. 

The young people sitting for the discussion seemed pretty enthusiastic about the whole prospect of being associated in putting things right around them, as far as the environment is concerned. They talked about their contributions through their individual way and also through their institutions. Professor Shakeel Zamal, Associate Professor of Physics from Handique Girls' College gave that extra edge to the whole programme as he gave important inputs on how the youth have a very big role to play towards the conservation of their surroundings, starting their work from home. Instead of becoming hedonistic, his advice was to think intelligently and save the environment. 

Neha Agarwal, from the Asian Institute of Management and Technology, said that it is so very important for the parents to play a role model in shaping the minds of young children. Ankita Talukdar, also from the same institute stressed on soil erosion and the traumas thereof. Both of them were brimming with ideas to make a change. Trijaya Nandan Choudhury , from Don Bosco School had a lot of ideas to share as he went  onto speak passionately about the positive impacts of peer pressure.   

My remarks ended in, "We have had discussions like this umpteenth number of times. So, what happens when we go out of the studios? Do we forget our responsibilities or do these discussions give us that springboard to think out of the box and do something different and hence save the world?The future is yours, so its time you switched off that light as you leave the room, try to use less of CFCs, conserve fossil fuel by turning off that ignition at the signal crossing and most importantly to stop throwing empty chips and juice packets out of your cars.  Think of reducing your carbon foot-print and leave a world where the generations to come can breathe easy!"



Prof. Shakeel Zamal, Trijaya, Neha, Ankita


Wednesday 5 June 2013

121. Just do it!

I have taken a giant leap from being a lazy, irresponsible, lewd remarking person and a 'road-raging' demon to an individual who is doing her bit to change the world, inspite of the cynicism of some people. 
"How long is it going to be before I get to see some change around me" was the question I often used to ask myself? What the heck? Why should I wait? Life is too short to wait for a SuperNova to happen!
So, one fine morning, I decided that I had to take responsibility for everything, more so for my behaviour towards the world. I now take full responsibility of my city and its people, who I think of as my family. The only feeling I have towards them is love.  Never mind if they sometimes behave in a manner which might be hurting; family members have every right to behave in a way they wish to.
Okay, I know, it's not possible to change each and every person in this world, but who knows; impossible is nothing! 



(Tirus took me to watch the 10 minute 7D movie at the HUB last Sunday and I decided to wear this non-branded blue frock I picked up in Shillong. I was screaming at the top of my voice and held onto Tirus for dear life as we were 'literally' taken for a roller-coaster ride, free-falls, waterfalls, spiders tickling our legs, giant wind-mill blades and what not. It was so exciting that by the time we were out, my hair looked like a crow's nest and Tirus was beaming from ear to ear!! I asked him to take me again for a different show!)

Saturday 1 June 2013

119. OM!

Stephen Hawking is reported to have said that we are on a minor planet of a very average star located within the outer limits of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies.
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What happened before the Big Bang? No one has an answer for this question 'cause everything started existing only after this huge field of energy burst forth to form the galaxies, the constellations, the planets and so much more. The energy field is constant, while there are several other activities happening all over the Universe. And the Universe is constantly expanding. While I simply cannot understand how our planet Earth can be called minor (although I wouldn't like to exchange this planet for another one), I have been made to understand that the Sun is a middle-aged star, which will probably die down in a couple of million years and pull all the planets around it into itself. Mind-boggling! And now we know that there are more Universes several light years away from us. 
As the scientists continue to make new discoveries in this regard, I continue to feel that even though I am just a dot in this canvas, I have contributions to make to this great painting, a legacy to leave behind and make every second of my existence a moment to rejoice. My religion is to understand this!
And when Krishna tells me to do my Namaz, I can only raise my hands and bow my head in unison and chant the eternal 'OM'.