Shaadigrapher

www.shaadigrapher.comMy friends at Shaadigrapher are up to some great stuff. I never thought too much of candid wedding photography until I began following some of their posts. Take a look at some of their stories in pictures or the posts that accompany their shoots. Much shameless advertising, but I must admit they have earned a fan in me. Shaadigraphers....keep making weddings prettier than they already are!

Reel

Sometimes I feel I'm living a reel, a badly edited one.

Yours and mine

Let’s remain this way. Let’s not look for names. Mine whispered in your ears and yours in mine. That will get us by. We are entities, we will remain, intertwined, separated, even distant. Our whispers will unite, our bodies, our names too. Sometimes I try, I can’t distinguish the smell of my perfume without yours, mine without yours. We’ve spent many nights, days even, holding on to catch our own breaths, touching just for reassurance.

Nakedness is a giveaway, clothes keep your from being, wires from breathing. Let loose, and all pours out, somewhere between yours and mine our space takes shape. This territory we tread with care, your ways are different from mine. You want me, body and mind; you want me not to look away. I stare, at all these times I stare into nothingness, I look for thoughts, and they are all over. I can’t gather them and it troubles me. The lines on my forehead betray, with a little practice I can keep them away. The images are transient, of you and me, our silhouettes in darkness. The sounds brief, of breathing, churning, of bills floating on the floor. Your skin feels warm against mine, it always does, and I know when my feet are turning cold. A story is building in my head, I wonder how it will sound when I write, and it makes me smile. You see it; you tell me I’m warm inside. I believe you, I let your fingers trace me; let you engulf the warmth you say you can feel.

I’ve thought of names, just as you have. I’ve remembered and let myself forget. I’ve never wished to see, speak even. I let the touch wander until I can feel it no more. You say I’m beautiful; I don’t want to hear it. Your hands speak enough; mine are numb, just as I am. Strangely, I can feel your breath; it’s a rhythm I can’t forget. A memory perhaps, I can even count. You crush me against yourself; my breasts feel tender when pressed against you. I feel the space diminishing, and then there is none. I hold you tight; my hands feel small on your back. I don’t want to give away; I don’t want to give in. I could keep this moment and every smell it brings. It’s now when my thoughts vaporize. I know it wont last, the memory of it will. I can feel your lips against my skin; I know you can taste it. We’ll remain, etched in time, etched in these walls, the sheets, our bodies our hands. Your lips suckle mine, I can’t get to close my eyes, I can’t soak in them, I can’t disconnect. The thoughts linger, I take time. I feel your hands on my body when they are away. My lips entice you, I can barely kiss. Kisses are for keepsakes, they stay for long after. I know you can feel it, you know I am shivering, you choose not to notice. I clutch and you know you don’t understand. We separate.

The space widens, mine and yours, ours barely visible. You lie on your back, the rhythm continues. I ache to feel you closer, I rest on you, your armpits ease me, your frame clear in the morning light. The sheets are soothing, our clothes a tangled mess, straps and fabric, I push them away. We drift into our worlds, yours and mine, separate. We let the gap widen, reaching out for embrace, a few times. My hands feel trapped under yours, my body is frozen, pain and numbness take turns, and I am scared to breathe. My fears lurch outside the door; they lie slumbering in those clothes. I can feel your pulse settle, I can feel ours unite, I can even hear the throbbing, rhythmic, a single rhythm. I lie awake as you fall asleep, I always do. I can almost feel it, as it takes over you. You are warm, still warm, it’s settling on my body. I remember heat transfer theories; I know I’m making you cold. I drift to school and back, I think of my backyard, I think of only one. I wonder what you’d say if you could read my thoughts, I wonder if you will talk. You turn away from me; I do the same, almost in reaction. We are now, you and I, two different worlds.

I’ve been there before, I’ve returned. I dread you being awake, I dread stepping out. The hours are passing; I can feel the sunlight on bare skin. I want to keep you from it, I want to protect, own perhaps. I fear too much, my body weakens me. I wait for sleep, long for your gaze. I reach out for you; you keep my hand and turn away. I’m afraid to move, afraid to think, scared of what touch can do. I know when you’ll be awake; I’ve watched you wake up. You hold me close, I know it’s time. I fight the thoughts, I want the moment, and I can’t hold it. I always hold you at the door, I’ve never known why. I know you will leave, the space will be mine, mine alone. I’ll sleep with your smell and wake up to it. I will sleep naked.

How do you do

Me (to friend who just moved to London): How is life there?
Friend: You can smoke in bed and kiss on tubes, the rest is the same.

No Oreo for me

I pick Oreo cookies and put them right back on the shelf. Thank you Rana Dasgupta!

Me.Now

They told us back in school, everything had its own time. There was no paying heed, the time was ours to kill, the days were ours through wakefulness. Four and a half months since I last held a job, about two since I last wrote something and perhaps a year since something accidentally meaningful resulted out of a compulsive typed babble. When in a rush life sometimes has its own ways of slowing you down. For now it's my time to sit and watch things pass, for life to take its course as I settle into every day. Every day is an event, almost an achievement to pass with about two items in my to-do-list. Everything comes a full circle to indicate its end in the most explicit way, there is little one needs to wait for hints to. Perhaps it's time, to build myself a new contraption, a brand new series of events that will eventually come back to right where I started from to its natural end. There's a passiveness that has built over the years to bring it to its present state where there is not much that calls for reaction, there is very little that does not lead to something familiar. It's all seen, all done, I can almost feel and taste everything that is mentioned around me. Most writing feels bland too, most days plain dates. The cycle of change will soon begin, the rush will soon be back. I will be back on my feet to tread a stranger aimless path. Little things will soon be little again.

Me. Now
1. Awaiting Xmas
2. Watching sitcoms clad in my nightgown
3. Loving December rains
4. Postponing work
5. Ignoring the state of my house
6. Rediscovering Come Undone- Duran Duran
7. Driving
8. Sleeping

Phew!

I've concluded I need recuperation after a day of this sort, where every one of your strongly held beliefs is proven the other way....Murphy presides over the happenings of each day of mine...Hail you...but let me be!
1. 'Twinkies' are kids I discover after being subject to 150 of them, with their parents in a single room, all screaming at the same time and relentlessly clad in sarongs set for a fashion show that was about to begin and never really did. Worse, I was there looking for something to place on my much esteemed page 3 for the next day.
2. After a series of American interns I've been subject to, I've been able to establish a rough pattern in the average questions per minute with them going as high as 10 for the American non-jews. After the aforementioned encounter with the twinkies I was subject to oversee one such at a film screening cum exhibition cum socialite-we-are-all-arty-farty-get-together where so many linked into one was a cause of much concern and many more questions.
3. All seemed within limits of handling until an outbreak which was to reveal the lack of anything page 3 worthy for the next day. Now Sunday in a sleepy Tam-brahm driven city is not particularly the perfect day to catch the skimpily clad in the photographable spots. Without much ado the emptiness of the watering holes was established and other options were witnessed being explored. Three hours of solving dire P3 crisis finally ended in the arty-farty posing p3. The next task in hand of course was to explain to the wannabe- journo- art critic- suddenly enlightened American that the to-be 500 word art piece was going to make it no more than a 150 word 'party piece'. And this I miserably failed at resorting to offering to do the smaller piece myself and letting him divulge as much info he wanted to through his first-hand journalistic attempt.
4. After the p3 for the next day was tackled, we headed out for coffee, in desperate need of it to calm my achin nerves I paid little attention to the road ahead, ending up crossroads where I was lost on my way out. The firang graciously offered to guide me back by directing me towards a cow he had seen on his way in. Screaming at that point and location did not seem advisable.
5. Coffee was a story in itself when the American, met the very American-like by far the two people who get onto my nerves the most in this city over conversations bordering around everything and leading to absolutely nothing.
6. There was little left to be done except down my coffee as soon as I could and vanish from this otherwise attempt to relax.
7. Leaving the American under the care of a friend, I said, "Please take care of him, and make sure he gets nowhere but home". To which he retorted, "In what way". Every bit of sanity and patience seemed to have escaped my nerves and I darted out of the door.