Milestones- I

If days had personalities, today would a chubby pre-teen, planning her birthday party. Comparing it to the last one, fretting over the details, going nuts over the prep process. The 31st is special like that for everyone, isn't it? We make plans, the more anal of us make lists. Of things that were great. Or not. We all party. Even if only inside the comforting confines of our own heads.

I do too. I love the energy of New Year's Eve. I love the idea of transitioning. Of starting anew. Of having a tangible point of reference every 12 months. Of being my own Santa and my own awards jury. And though anal-retentive doesn't even begin to describe the obsessive-compulsive twinges that drive my days, I make lists.

The following then, is a brief overview of some of the best books/writers I encountered this year.

Early in the year, I'd set myself the challenge of reading a hundred books. Rushed through some, devoured others minutely. And with tremendous self-congratulations, I tallied a total of 106. The smugness lasted only till I logged in to Facebook and saw that Ashok Banker, the prolific writer of the Ramayana series, reads 500 a year as a matter of course. Poof went the smug-balloon.

The great thing, though, was that I'd discovered some brilliant writers in the course of the year. The first big find has got to be Rana Dasgupta. I've always been just a little prejudiced against Indian writers. The style seems to be repetitive, the writing is patchy and there is no sense of humor even in what purports to be chick-lit. Rana Dasgupta was a revelation. Not only does he have an intensely individual voice, his technique is slickly post-modern. His characters are not the much-caricatured Indian stereotypes. They are complex and believable. I read his Solo and quite honestly, it was a slap in the face of all my prejudices. Quickly went on to Dasgupta's next, Tokyo Cancelled and again, the storytelling was enthralling. Here is someone to watch out for.

A book recommended by a friend and that I'd never got around to reading was Paul Murray's Skippy Dies. When I finally picked it up, it blew my socks clean off. The narrative is clean, intelligent and darkly funny. The protagonists are comic heroes that suddenly take on deeply tragic undertones. It is the kind of book that shakes you out of passivity without ever feeling the need to go papa-preachy.

The next in line has got to be Charles Frazier. I first read Frazier several years ago, after watching the movie adaptation of Cold Mountain. The movie hadn't quite worked for me and the book didn't either. From what I remember, I'd given up somewhere in the middle, not bothering to finish what was obviously not going to float my boat. Then, late this year, I chanced upon Nightwoods and decided to give it a go. This now deserves a melodramatic pause. Nightwoods was so good, it gave me goosebumps. The story of the dysfunctional family, from a period before the term was invented, Nightwoods is a page-turner, a thriller, a sad-sweet love story, a sensitive yet brutal narrative. Probably the best I've read in a long long time. Nightwoods is how I would want to write. It is my secret hope for the future. Now, I need to pick up Cold Mountain again and re-discover Charles Frazier.

Perhaps the one writer I'm most grateful for/to is Wendy Cope. In January, 2011, a dear friend introduced me to the poetry of Wendy Cope. Since then, I've been in love. Cope's takes on love, on relationships, on men and all things under the sun are so original, so witty, so empoweringly female. I did mange to procure two of her books- Serious Concerns and Two Cures for Love. Both are already dog-eared and pretty much set to be forever friends.

Last year, I'd read Anne Enright's The Gathering. It was definitely one of the best books of the year for me then. This year, Enright was back in my library with The Forgotten Waltz, another great book, another unforgettable experience. It resonated with me; it is bound to find a connect with anyone who has been in love and questioned the sheer irrationality of it. Her words are magic. They truly are. They are also a mirror. And to make sure the year begins well, I have another Anne Enright ready and waiting in my iBooks app.

A book that sneaked into my bookshelf and stole my heart away was Mary Ann Shaffer's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is a beautiful little story, touching and honest and sweet and speaking of tremendous strength. The humour is understated and intelligent. It uses the classic epistolary style and contemporizes it. If I had more friends who read, this is what they'd all be getting in the mail tomorrow.

I couldn't end this list without Richard Yates. Richard Yates who introduced me to a period of American fiction I was entirely oblivious to. His Revolutionary Road was disturbing and fascinating. It pulled punches and spun poetry. It gave character to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet when I saw the movie. It filled my head with images and made me spend endless hours at the laptop, trying to source more of his writing. This year, I hope I'll be more successful and Flipkart will be kind enough to deliver a few more Yates to me.

And now, I'll go back to Goodreads, look through my already-read list once more and bask in the satsfying, sunny company of the books I read this mad, magic year.

Hear-say

Your voice cracks over the miles;
It's raspier than I remember.
Those extra cigarettes you smoke,
Provoked into substantial truth.
In your voice I hear the crispness
Of the now chill air of our shared home.
It spikes into frost shards,
Angular, like these sharp winter mornings.
It laughs at jokes I haven't cracked yet
And perhaps never will.
Your voice never walks a straight path to me;
It turns into alleyways of the past,
Sneaks into narrow windows of tomorrows.
It spills out of the earpiece,
Exuberantly exploding technical confines.
Your voice makes promises it isn't going to keep.
It is a trecherous no-gooder, I know.
It is the circle to my square,
The ambivalent anti-hero to my gorgeous female lead,
As also the answer to my multi-layered question,
Sometimes.
The air to my fire,
The Aquarius to my Sagitarrius,
Ultimately, mine to know, to love, to hate, to keep.

Miscreant Morning

Morning is no time for sweet nothings
For canoodling, for necking, petting, coochie coo.
Not anymore, boo and hoo.
Morning is for sleeping in.
Or trying to.
For chasing that newspaper chor
And the HT he steals from outside my door.
Morning is when doorbells ring
And loudly, wretched birds sing.
The dhobi hollers, the brat next-door whines,
On the radio, for white-skin-u-girl, Dhanush pines.
In the lawn outside, an unlikely drama unfolds:
Silently, the yoga yuppie contorts all his parts,
He pulls and stretches; his tush breaks many hearts.
Morning is for tepid, tasteless, twice-tortured tea,
Tripe that does nothing but make you want to pee.
Through it all, the dog barks his head off
At Fat Kitty, lounging on the terrace half-wall,
Rotund and smug, she's like some scamster's moll.
Morning is so overrated.
It sucks, it's a killjoy, a bore , a pain,
I wish I'd never see a blasted morning again.

Caffeine Detour

Two inches of coffee in a tall glass.
Steaming, hissing as it slinks to your lips.
A thin ribbon of mist snakes out,
Sneaky, also apologetic.
Like it was embarrassed being there at all.
Poor, sexless child of heat and cold.
Hardly does it touch the surface
When the cold air swats it away, cruelly.
A vanilla wafer conjured out of your desk drawer
(You gluttonous love, you)
Dunked into my half-empty glass
Soaks up all my organic arabica goodness.
Just as you soak up all my time, my energy, my life-fever.
My woody-sweaty-nicotine flavoured wafer-dude.

Not-quite Winter Yet

Bright as a two-rupee coin fished out of a back pocket,
Silver-brushed, faintly three-dimensional.
This grey-blue, sun-spooked morning.
An old Gulmohar across the narrow street,
Scantily clad, like an anorexic South-Delhi social Czarina,
Shivers in the beastly breeze.
The struggling pine on my terrace
Beckons to it, waves in commiseration.
Trapped in a pot three sizes too small,
It sheds it's scrawny arms in silent protest.
There are no butterflies here
Only a few fat wasps,
Disoriented and far from home,
Meandering through mazes of stocky jade stems.
One little bird sits huddled on a parapet
Wings tucked in, eyes resolutely shut
Hoping, like me, to wish the sun aflame.

Dreaming Up Christmas

It is a winter morning. Mushy, somewhat blurred at the edges, tottering on the edge of a cruel winter. The sun's struggling to break through. I slump in my misshapen grandma chair, waiting for some sunny magic, working out the to-do list for Christmas.

The tree was chewed up by Birthday-Boy Zo two years ago and last year we had to settle for a Christmas Bowl instead. This time, I'll probably just put together a tree-substitute, hang lots of bling, throw in some glitter and call it a day.

The snoozy warmth of my sun-kissed terrace needs to be put to use. So Christmas lunch it has got to be. A few friends, a few bottles of wine, beer for the guys, and lots of finger food.

And on to the food. A couple of meringue pies, a roast chicken, mushroom quiches, devilled eggs and a brandy-soaked cake. The fruit needs to be soaked, the spices need to be stocked and the spirit needs to be cajoled into 2 days of intensive labour.

And while I've been day-dreaming, the sun's sauntered into my part of the sky. The breezing is brrrr-ing up, the greens are slow-dancing into sleep. Time to drop everything else and snooze, earn a few wrinkles, dream up the perfect terrace-sunshine-lunch. Happy holidays!

Mean Insomniacs

Some nights are difficult
Others are impossible.
The hands of a clock are passé now.
Digital seconds denuded of poetry.
An airplane flies overhead.
Noisier than nails screeching across the board.
Tearing into the silence of the winter sky.
The moon hides in a sleepy cloud
Shamed into wakefulness by a cheeky star or two.
You sleep too.
Dreaming dreams that daren't intrude into daylight.
I see your scars healing
In the unclenching of your fingers
In the lazy throw of a leg on a wayward pillow
In the long exhale of an overlong day.
Eaten with envy, I claw at your shadow
Willing it to voodoo you awake.
Somewhere, a howl of protest.
A kindred soul?
Unable to forgive the somnolent.
Together, the stray and me, we exact our revenge.
He, crying inconsolably.
Me, pulling at sheets, breathing in your ear, chasing dreams into nightmares.