Thursday 16 December 2010

Wednesday 15 December 2010

- Leaving soon?
- Yeah… tonight.
- So when are you coming back in Jan?

(silence… thoughts… millions)
- I’m not.

- Oh. Uh…
- I just got done with my Convocation; I’m leaving for good…
- Oh okay… Congratulations! That’s wonderful…
- Yeah… (whatever) thanks.
- So uh… we’ll see you sometime?
- Yeah… sometime… I guess…

My God. It IS really over.
Silence. Thoughts. Roar of the ocean. Silence.

Monday 13 December 2010

Fable

You smell of smoke tonight, my love,
Ethereal, fleeting, like the wisps you’ve always been.
Your eyes are poison and your voice is hoarse
From my lies and your half-truths.

Through your tears into my nest
I touch your voice and watch it crumble.
Somewhere deep inside are colours
Which tell me that you still hurt.

Memory trains pull out of winter stations
Will you see me off?
Sometimes, though, you will be in need
Of the tears and the pain.

In your ashtray are the lost
Burnt and abandoned.
If they call you tonight through the blue,
Will you hear them?

Words are hidden in the furrows of your skin.
When I find them all, we shall craft
Your fable on parchment,
With treason and pain.

When naked winds shall
Streamline your ruggedness,
Send them to me with messages
And mauve melange.

As sunset tears me apart from
Your rain-drenched eyes,
Know that I am awash
In waves that speak your scent.

Fragile and tremulous, my love,
You are. And you may never know,
That ‘tis how I am too,
Without you...

Friday 3 December 2010

To Manipal IV

It has been a year since I left the place, since I left Gauhati too, but that’s for a different post.


It has been the most eventful year of my life, a year of twists and turns, surprises and disappointments. I have come from being unsure to being slightly sure, I do not know which is worse. I have met new people, befriended some, and loved some.

I have met a couple of people who are going to be close to me throughout my life. Yes, the year has been fruitful. But somewhere lingers the steady pull of the languid sunsets and the beach, the lazy moonshine and the fervent partying, the discussions and the conclusions. When time stopped absolutely still, then dragged, but found me on the other side of four years nonetheless.

Somewhere deep down, as I walk down office corridors, I still feel that soon it will be time to go back to magic land. Almost there… I think, as I go back for three days for Convocation. Not so much for my degree but for the relaxation, in the lap of everything that is good (not necessarily positive, but definitely good). I know this is the last time, the next time will come much much later.

But I am looking forward to going and secretly wishing that I don’t need to come back. But the slight joy: when I board my return flight, I’ll look forward to office and the people special to me here…
the grass, the field, the other side, the greenery...

Thursday 28 October 2010

Nostalgia

The other day, we had a long some-software-blah-blah session in office. As far as I got, it was for managing projects… now most of it didn’t interest me and I don’t like feeling stupid. So I stopped listening. However, snatches of “You can do THAT with just a click”, “Everyone can define rights”, “Wow, that’s so powerful” took me back in time a long, long way…


I have always been an organized person. When we didn’t all have personal computers, we had files. My files were stashed, colour-coded and alphabetically stacked, in neat rows. When there were projects, there were paper, scraps, scissors, tape, adhesive, and a lot of yelling. The sense of accomplishment was immense, something that click-click-clicketty-click will never achieve. Every file, every project copy, every scrap book was treasured.

Files that were catalogued and cross-classified would be found in seconds, librarians in school knew where a particular book was before we could finish saying the entire name. There was ink, fountain-pens, refills and calligraphy. There was pride… and now, ink is probably a hue and calligraphy, a font.

I miss the paper days and dread the taking over of human intelligence and emotions by mammoth computing machines…

Monday 25 October 2010

Erosion

Trembling in my arms,
Your fragile heart beats.
I watch it break sometimes,
And wonder what else I might give.
As the stars watched
Your soul lay bare, hollow
Wisps of desire haunt the night
In your words, in my dreams.
Hearing us both, you say
Is someone?
Does she take
The shape of my words?
Your rivers of tears
Erode the pebbles of my mind…

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Rituals

Little, seemingly unimportant, acts done in the same order, at the same every day, bring a lot of order in my life.

I have had the same breakfast for eight months in office now, and not for lack of choice. I sandwich my omlette in my toast in the same way, I use the same coffee machine, I follow the same order of going about in the café during breakfast, every single day. Now the actions have become automatic, I do not need to think while I do any of this.
I shower before I go to bed at night. Yes, I know, that is unusual, but I cannot fall asleep until I do. Every night, it is the same order of events, replayed. This, in turn, helps me go over my day and plan the next. It helps me take stock of life.
When I get ready in the morning too, I am swift and I know exactly what goes with what and what else goes with the previous ‘whats’. It is because I become like a wound-up doll, executing the same steps of the doll-dance.
The Sufis believe that all of existence is a dance, and I completely agree. The steps are actually sequenced and if we manage to follow them, we get past most routine activities without even realizing that we did. Rituals are good mundane. Rituals are good.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Running Backwards

Tracing your wounds
Back to where they belong.
Scars
Leading into one another,
Forming roads that lead backwards.
Falling, falling through space
Through time,
Through words,
Into her eyes.
Splash.
Tears form puddles on those roads
Without milestones
Endless, infinite,
Like the songs
She heard with you.
Your tears,
Silent
As they mingle with mine
In infinite waiting,
Endless, within and without,
Like those roads
That lead backwards.

Monday 23 August 2010

Papillion-ed

On Friday evenings, the parking lot and the place where the buses are parked are a battle zone. People, having put in more hours of work during the week than they’d like to, are always rushing pell-mell as if this is the last weekend they’ll ever get to live. It is almost amusing, how they barely glance at the people to who they wave goodbye every other day of the week.

Everyone’s got something else or the other on their minds. Last Friday, however, a very faith-filled thing happened. There was a man walking towards the buses in front of me. I didn’t notice him until he slowed down, veered off-course and stooped to pick something up.

It was a dying butterfly, the symbol of frailty. It was a tiny quivering mass in his large palm. The man then proceeded to slowly meander through the umpteen people, diagonally cutting through the parking lot (yes, I followed him) and placed the butterfly on the rain-drenched grass under a white-flowered tree. Fitting, I’d say, for something so beautiful. No one else noticed, no one stopped to save a dying butterfly from being trampled upon.

We have become too busy these days. But that butterfly did well to be found by him, and he was made a better man by that act. I get to hold on to faith. Kudos to the butterfly-man!

Friday 13 August 2010

Loss

I tend to feel most emotions on an extreme level. And even though I have consciously tried to tone the feelings down, I can’t seem to.
Loss, I have felt, as a void only after a certain period of time has passed. Initially, however, the feeling has been the exact opposite. It is that of a rising swell, like a huge wave of water, which rises from deep within and fills me to the brim. The feeling is akin to being in a closed space and water levels rising to fill it, eventually going down under it. Here that closed coffin-like space is my body. The wave is heavy and strong in its pressure against my skin, and it is all I can do to hold it in. If I try to let it out, it is just a dry, hollow sob.
As time rolls on, this feeling is replaced by one of needle-like pain, in pin-points. It is, as if, someone is inside me, jabbing outwards… and with every sting, remembrance of the lost, hurt in hot white flashes. Every minute is filled with a buzz of torture, of yearning and pain, of indignation and wrath, all directed within.

After a while yet, void. A void that will never fill, no matter how good the replacement is…

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Protean

Shifting
Like clouds on a windy day,
The ephemeral map,
Charting changing distances on the skies,
Like the places you took me to.

Infinite
Like the waves on the shores,
Receding only to swallow up,
Those paths mirrored across the sky,
Like memories forgotten.

Palpable
Like dew on forest leaves,
Raining down in gusty throes,
And disappearing into eternity,
Like the look in my eyes,
Where mysteries lie…

Wednesday 21 July 2010

To my Muse

Have I told you, girl,
How pretty you look
With your tresses wet,
In the rain. Drops of water
Flashing rainbow-lights
At my eyes, blinding.
In the first morning light
Your cheeks bathed in
Pale pink and orange.
Dappling and dancing,
You tease me, girl,
With your shy ways
And glinting eyes,
You lead me into sunsets.


And when you are furious,
You cut me with your dagger-words
And I, wounded remain
Waiting for your venom to dilute.
You are my witchcraft girl
And through your magic
Ways I see a complete me
Completed only by you.
When you weave your
Midnight tales, I am
Enchanted by your honey voice.
Your swaying moves and
Torrid love has enchained
Me for life.


I don’t want to leave you,
My love,
But our ways now, they part
And I must be on my way
But you shall wait
Now, wont you
With your enticing glances
Your warm, moist hands
Touching, swirling,
Inviting me.
Through the smoky haze
Of my memories I will
Ensconse myself in you
For ever, forever...

Friday 9 July 2010

To Manipal - III

I have lived in big cities and small, fast cities and slow. And I have always felt that big cities change a person, mould him/her into it’s own shape. Even a person like me has managed to go shopping to counter depression and loneliness and feel momentarily better on swiping the plastic.


Then there was a magical land called Manipal, where the sun was yanked out by its ears in the morning by the cacophony of hostelites and at the end of the day, it dipped lazily into the sea. People who came in first year complained and whined of the slowness, the non-availability of good food, missing home, missing shopping. Three years later they cried, at having to leave, at having to let go. The boys became men, and the girls, ladies.

Manipal was witness to the transformation. When awkward teens became suave talkers, shy adolescents became charmers. As I go back another time, the last time as a college student, I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that all will be fine when I get there, all my problems and disappointments will vanish and I will be at peace. Like the wind on the sea, the breeze through the trees, the salt-laden air hanging heavy and low, I too will relax.

Big cities mould you out, small towns soak you in for life...

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Witchcraft

Blue venom words
For your disgused self.
Your girl speaks
In layered tones.
Do you feel her ether?
Does she make you a man, boy?
Does she?

Don’t touch her so,
For she crumbles
Like splayed raindrops.
Rhinestones.

Hold her like a magnet
And be singed by her flame, yet.
Let her lead you,
Once, for her ruby red lips,
Twice, for her snaky eyes,
Thrice, for your silent questions,
Her unsaid replies.

Come, then, in smoke spirals
And foreign words.
Come in lilac, come in mosaic,
Come, for you
Shall be a man yet
If you believe in
The witchcraft in her eyes.

Friday 25 June 2010

These are a few of my favourite things...

Today is the last day of my six month long final sem internship. It was real, and good, and now it’s another phase of my life coming to an end. As I said to all my team members, this is just the end of the beginning.


Now the point of this post being, I have coffee. Innumerable cups have found their way into my system in these past months. One regular thing has been a cup of cappuccino/latte/mocha sometime between 3 and 4 from the CCD in the café. Every single day. For me, it’s like therapy, it keeps me going. On some days, I even argue about the differences between cappuccino and latte and berate them for having stopped making coffee-toffee (I’ve been a CCD regular for almost two years now).

Today, when I was asked to swipe my card, I couldn’t (the day being my last, I had to submit it). The dude who serves me coffee and usually just acknowledges me with a smile asked “Aap jaa rahe ho?”

“Yes”, I replied. "It’s my last day". For dramatic effect, I paused, and continued “I’ll be back on the first”.

“Here only? Aapki job lag gayi?”

“Haan”.

“Fir toh aaj aapki coffee free”.

He made me a beautiful large cup of mocha with a smile on his face. The other guy ventured into asking me where I was from and promptly added that I looked Bengali. They both congratulated me. It was a very little thing, a cup of on-the-house coffee. But it warmed me right to the core and for a long long time, I will remember the smiles on their faces as synonymous with the smile in my heart on the successful finish of this internship.

Thursday 24 June 2010

To Manipal - II

There are songs that, in my head, will always mean Manipal. Songs, that have been frozen to certain places, certain minutes… and every time I hear one of those songs again, I am transported back into those moments.


Leaving on a Jet Plane – John Denver: Practicingfor Paroxym Oct, 06, having mass-bunked BE (Sid, Soumitro, Nupur, Ronnie, Mridu)

Zombie – Cranberries: Meeting Anamol for the first time, singing at Revels Audition March, 07

Annie’s song – John Denver: singing along with Neelav, Anamol, and Fern… walking back to college from behind the Archi building

Iris – Goo Goo Dolls: Singing with Neelav on the bike, on some road around Badagabettu Oct, 09

November Rain - Guns 'n' Roses: Souvik. Forever. And the chats...

Broken – Seether & Amy Lee: Performing at Campus 18 (seeing Vishal, Sujata, Dhruv in the crowd) Jan, 08

Rocking in the Free World – Neil Young: Classic # performing at Edge Mar, 09

Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple: Being the groupie while Anamol, Devdutt, Dube, and Navneet practiced Feb, 09

Blurry - Puddle of Mudd: Sahil's endless attempts at cheering me up

Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits: CRI, Revels Jan, 09

Teenage Wasteland - The Who: Nupur & I, laughing out heads off, at the video

Shine on you Crazy Diamond – Pink Floyd: Cool Beans, Anamol and Pratik Oct, 09

Nothing Else Matters – Metallica: Ishi’s party at DeeTee Mar, 08

Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd: Utsav in Apr, 07

More Than a Woman - Bee Gees: Endless chats with Srini across rising nights and setting days

Across the Universe - The Beatles: Singing, in perfect harmony, with Pratik and Anamol at the Lake Mar,10

She will be Loved - Maroon5: Walking to and from Railway Bridge for the first time, Chocolate Soldier at Planet Cafe Mar, 08

In the End – Linkin’ Park: The whole LnD party singing, Ishaan being pissed off Mar, 08

Rise Up - Yves LaRock: Class party Aug, 08. Dancing with so many people

Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing – Aerosmith: Singing with Lester, Sep 06

Bleecker Street – Simon & Garfunkel: Nupur and talking to her… night-after-night

Hunter – Dido: Swapnil always wanted the song playing on my comp, whenever she was in the room

Violet Hill – Coldplay: Vasuki and I, at Hill-top, getting wet in the rain Aug, 08

These songs are related to so many myriad emotions, so many smiles, so many thoughts. There are people who I will probably never be close to, again, ever. They have moved on, and so have I. But then, there are the songs, and while it lasted, it was a pleasure.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Arguments

In nihilism and pain,
Your eyes, vacant,
Judging, asking questions,
But not listening to replies
Flung across meetings.
Tonight, my love,
Let me explain what,
Even you sometimes miss.
Of pain and prayer,
Have you heard?
Have you heard salvation
In my words?
Today, my love,
As evening melts, as
You fall silent and brooding,
Let me love you
Once more
As I always have...

Monday 21 June 2010

I have to pack. Again. I have to shift. Again. I have to see my life bottled up into 4-5 suitcases, things without an independent entity. Then there is the hauling up, the lugging around and finally the dilemma of what to put where in the new room... and trying to make it mine, knowing that one day, I'll leave again. I have to shift... and I'm so tired...

Monday 14 June 2010

To Manipal - I

There is a curious emptiness in me - the kind that seeps through all my thoughts and encompasses everything in numbness. My college life is about to come to an end… and it doesn’t seem true.


Four years is a long time, four years ago I didn’t believe it would end so soon. I know that with time, these emotions too, like many others, will fade. I won’t remember the colour of the walls or the graffiti on so many. I will not remember the taste of a lot of the food or the feeling on a lot of different occasions.

I’m scared. I’m scared that there are too many things I will forget, too many people who I will lose touch with, and their faces will blend into oblivion. I’m scared that somehow that’ll leave me less of a person, it being almost an obligation to remember. There are these random people who I met every day, we had so much fun. I will miss sitting in the canteen, bunking classes and having ice-cream for lunch and chatting with a sea of people knowing this would never end.

Life now will be lonely. It will never be the same or even close. There will never be so many people in touching distance who care so much that it hurts. There will never be the time and the spontaneity to catch a sunset on the beach or a trip into the woods. There will never be such revelry, such wonderful celebration of life… And yes, I will be less of a person because life will never be Manipal again…

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Big City Pulse

In mauve and pink,
The sky is setting, tonight
Into another morbid
City-lane.

In vivid, green and magenta,
Mushroom colours, a nighttime saga
Of cocktail parties and Marlboro lights.

People run into other people
And voices cut one another
Like fighting kites
On a sunny afternoon.

Like today’s past,
Except that such a sun
Now mourns for waters;
Inky for mauve
And trading blue for pink.

Thursday 3 June 2010

Since you left

I thought I would never write again.
When you left, I was standing in a stupid drizzle,
When drops stayed on my hair like moon-pearls,
Distinct, unreal.

They said sometimes,
You have the words, the love of a beautiful woman.
Made beautiful by the timelessness
Of your thoughts.
When the clammy air swirled around me,
You left.
And I thought nothing would ever rhyme again.

Futile, faithless
Like enormous clouds of moisture-dust,
Life is a severed sky,
And nothing, since you left, has rhymed.

Monday 31 May 2010

Sunset

Peach, purple,
Pale mauve and dip
Into the sea
And behind those
Distant hills.

Colours left
Lingering on the palette
Of the sky until,
Until the brush strokes,
Ignited by the fire
From the embers
Can no longer paint.

But fade out
Into the inky blackness
Of tonight…

Friday 28 May 2010

Breaking free...

I need to go somewhere, I need to break free. I need to feel the wind in my hair, feel speed, dance in the wind… I need to fly, once again, I need to feel free, not be tied down by the shackles and bondage of this life, this barren everyday life. It is sapping me of life and leaving me dry. I need to weave through space and merge time according to my whims and my caprice. I need to stand atop someplace high and scream…


Take me away,
Through sun and space
Where the rushing waves
And the ebbing sands
Shall melt into me.

Take me away
And lead me to a
Cosmic ball-room
Where the stars shall
Dance with me.

Come, lets weave scarlet magic tonight…

Tuesday 25 May 2010

To Your Eyes

In your large, brown eyes,


I have seen infinity,

Stretching far beyond visible horizons

Continuing into your thoughts

Unconnected, mysterious.

I have read in them,

A lyric, composed for timeless wonders

That I can never touch.

In your large, brown eyes,

I have felt faith.

It just exists, not knowing where

It will be mirrored; so far

Having stumbled upon but broken glass.

I have found peace,

That you have not found yourself.

In your large, brown eyes,

A concoction of tears and love,

Of ennui and passion,

Of hope and yonder…

Thursday 20 May 2010

Hair-Raising

A nugget of truth: most people aren’t happy with their hair. They’d rather have it in a different cut, texture, colour or not have it at all! I have met people with all sorts of hair; long, silky, curled, horribly curled, rough, smooth… and it would be a unanimous vote to them being unmanageable. On the very day you want your hair to settle down, they’ll come up in spikes. It’s almost as if the moment one goes to sleep, their hair decides to play on their heads. The result: an agony filled morning looking at oneself in the mirror wondering why on earth all hair is standing on one end. Then there are the gels, the hair-brushes, curlers, straighteners, oil, shampoo, softener, conditioners, strengtheners yada-yada-yada… they will not listen, they will not conform. You shall be doomed to facing peoples’ looks. But fear not, it stems from their insecurity. Have faith, for they’d rather have hair like yours! All hair has become followers of Medusa…

Monday 17 May 2010

Dread

When you shall


Make your uphill climb

Solitary, alone

When there shall

Be none to break

Your fall…

Its to me you’ll turn

Lost and jaded

Me who you spurned

Aeons ago

And I shall take

A candle flame

And burn your heart

As you burnt mine…

Thursday 13 May 2010

This is one of the most shocking pictures I've seen.


I was five then, which would approximately be this girl's age... and I know people (notice how I say people, and not a someone) who heap their plates with food they aren't sure of, or don't like.

It's wrong, to say the least. If you do it, STOP.

Wednesday 12 May 2010

On crying

I just got back from the washroom a couple of minutes ago. As I walked into a stall, I heard a sniffle from the adjacent stall. Slowly it turned into sobbing and then a violent outburst of tears that the girl (it could’ve been a lady, but she sounded young) kept trying to stifle. I felt so terrible and helpless… what does one do in situations like this? I am a strong believer of the fact that a person cries only when the pain is too great. The human heart has an immense ability to stand pain, the limit is almost astonishing. So when one is driven to tears, it is the person’s last ditch attempt at holding on to sanity.
As I stood there debating if I should call out and ask her if she was alright, I realised that each of us, at some point in time or the other, has felt lost and despondent. Would she wish for company? Would she wish to be asked? I didn’t say a word; I didn’t know how to handle it. But I was moved. It has been quite a while since I encountered anyone crying like that, as if her world was falling apart. And at a point where I feel, my world too is just a house-of-cards, I hope she’ll pick up the pieces too, as I have been doing…

Monday 3 May 2010

Parting

(to the one that left)

Blue…
Your eyes, lingering,
Like your voice in my head.
Random moments flit past,
Images, half-hidden
From view, like stars
On cloudy nights.
Pale…
Your serene face,
As I left you, solitary
In a bustling world. Your smile, your hair;
Stations in time,
Fabricated colours.
Void…
My days, strange and
Surreal in wait.
In anger and pain.
Void – your first look to me,
My last look to you…

Thursday 29 April 2010

Desires

Someone to fight my battles… sometimes; to teach me how to fight the rest of the times.
Someone to hold me tight and squeeze the pain out
Someone to listen to half-baked truths and strange lies
Someone to tell faraway stories and sing forgotten songs
Someone to let me wet his cheeks with my tears and not dry them
Someone to look and find new mysteries in my eyes everyday
Someone to live for, someone to die for…

Saturday 24 April 2010

Haven of words

I found this on a friend's profile, it sums up almost entirely what I want to say, or write. Well, almost... other emotions I can't even begin to put into words...


“I try to talk to you, but I don't know what to say. I am afraid you don't want me to say anything. So I don't. But inside of me there are words waiting to come out. And tell you how I feel-like how I miss you. How I love you despite my broken heart. How I need you in my life. Especially how much I want you. But those words may forever stay in my heart-locked inside. Sometimes I wonder if there are words locked inside you too... but I'll never know. May the love hidden deep inside your heart, find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays...”

Friday 23 April 2010

Houses

- for U.
(written by the fantastic poet in response to the one below)

Shining inside a forest,
Your eyes capture the night,

Sight and dream look for home,
on a wild terrestrial adventure,

Sky maps unfold in your song,
New villages come alive,

We speak of the universe,
and it's fresh dance,

Your body once more,
an orange factory of truth,
my words are sore and clever,

Sit softly on the stone,
It hears your breathing,
Hears your prayer,

Hears your voice as it moves
through the snake
lanes of love.

Come running tonight,
Come in poetry tonight,

Come in spirals and grey architecture.

Unchained

(to a fantastic poet, friend, fellow-being)

Serenades of purple darkness
Streaking from your pen,
Onto pages
Forming fragile images
And fractured tunes
On the night-fabric.
Rivers of pain,
Acid, ash, embers;
Orange tongues of passion
Splayed on walls of thought.
Whorls of emotions
Ensconced in poems, songs
Words
Empty, filled.
Ebbing now, brimming again.
Strains of the forgotten music
Mix with
Strokes of the brush
Forming you
Unbridled, unconcealed
On your rampant ravages
Through space...

Thursday 22 April 2010

Distance

This was written quite some time ago. Its about how nature, in the form of trees, depicts platonic love... the pain of wanting physical comfort and not finding it from the one you love.

Down the road of wintry lights,
Where autumn’s coffin lay,
Where golden days and silver nights,
Have always had their way.

Footsteps etched in coppice, heath
And water lilies born.
Where dawn heralds the dewy wreaths,
That emerald grass adorn.

Azure the skies with cotton clouds,
Brilliant the wind that sighs,
Steadfast trees standing proud,
Reflected in the eyes.

Trees that whispered windy songs
To birds that glided past.
Rippling streams of stories long
Gurgled though the valley, vast.

Two trees that stood on the bank
A lifetime of knowing hence,
Wished upon each other’s flank
Pining for each other thence.

The ash tree, she sang for him,
Her oak, her forever love.
Songs of caprice and her whim,
For her only true love.

“Come to me, O stranger you,
To become one on starlit nights,
To make dreams of us true,
To stretch our arms to greater heights.”

But cannot move the oak great,
Nor can the dainty ash,
For roots beneath the soil stayed,
Not yielding to thoughts rash.

Springs melted into summer heat,
To touch with fingers, was all to do
“Autumns into winter retreat,
But I can’t be one with you…”

“I wish for flight my only one,
To prove my love to you.
If only we were not held down,
That I would be one with you.”

Years passed by in furious haste
Till that one fateful night,
When a storm put all world to waste,
And everything in its sight.

It ripped apart the oak in two
While the ash survived;
Streaks of lightning electric blue,
And a fiery red sky.

Down the road of wintry lights,
Where autumn’s coffin lay,
Are strains of song on lonely nights,
This is what they say…

“O love of mine, my soul of yore
Now you are but free,
From bondage then, for evermore,
Mine in death to be…”

Monday 19 April 2010

Betrayal

(to the one who broke all the promises)

If you had stayed,
Perhaps I would've remained too.
This is a strange malady
That you have me in.
A part of me has flown with you,
The other knows not what to do.
If you had known all along,
You should have wished it for me,
The same you wished yourself-
The walking away, the going apart;
And then I too,
Would've found a way
That led away from you.
I wouldn't have hurt and you,
In your stony silence,
Would have heard my nails
screech against the glass
Of my loneliness...

Numb

There are days when I don't feel like moving, or doing anything. I want to wake up and lie in bed, unthinking, unfeeling. I don't even want to talk, or eat, or do anything to improve this state of mind. I want to stay in my numbness, cold and biting, like ice in my veins.
Today is one of those days, when I want to go into a coccoon and not peep out, time-warp this entire day. I am at work and everytime I have to say something I have to will myself to open my mouth and make the words come out at an acceptable rate. It seems like such an effort to just get myself to act upon anything. I wish everything around me would freeze and stand still for just a little while.Everyone to stop talking, stop moving, just stop whatever they are doing and sit still, unfeeling...
It would be good too, if I lay somewhere and bled out. If my blood kept flowing out of everywhere and drained me of life, sapped my of strength, and then I would just waste away and not be. That would be nice...

Friday 16 April 2010

MURPHY & i

Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.
Well I am Murphy’s all-time favourite. At airports, my luggage is always the last to appear trudging on the conveyor belt. When I am at a restaurant with a group of people, my order invariably comes last. The glue always finishes before the last picture is to be stuck and sizes are never available for the clothes I like.
Things like the above i can deal with... I can curse and stomp my feet and vent my anger. But I also happen to be a real person with real preferences. I hate moving, hate shifting. I have had to move and live in different places all my life. And yes it is lovely to travel and see new places and meet different people. But no, it isn’t worth the effort of moving your entire life and losing your old friends.
I hate partings, I hate knowing people who move on, fast and easy. They leave their old lives behind and keep up with the need of time and I have to deal with moving on and carrying the emotional baggage of their absence.
I hate times when I am having difficulty in coming to terms with my problems and someone comes along and says “Oh I am so used to it”. Well, I wish i could get used to ‘it’ too. I do not like change. It seems to me too, that it shouldn’t be very difficult to have my life in a corner, one job, one house and a little space to call my own; forever. Friends that I’d have had for years, places and roads I know like the back of my hand, the same joints, the same bookshops, the same life day-after-day, year-after-year. Oh to be mundane... anything for mundanity.

Wednesday 14 April 2010

Dialogue

Are you talking to me,
With you voiceless lips
And loveless eyes?
Strains of our old songs
Are struggling with
Your smoking cancer stick;
Have you forgotten them already?
Your naked, fragile fragrance
Is whispering things to me,
Are you making it?
O mad lover, when you
Tried to make you mine,
What stopped you? Or
Was it just that
My love was too much to bear?
And you sneaked away
Scared and wounded
Like me...

Sunday 28 March 2010

Repose

The night, carbon.
Your eyes and glinting
Starlight, poking needles
And disturbing in their stillness.
Lost, I, in your candidness.
Trailing, you, in my thoughts.
When love bled out
With memories and I, unsure,
Fragile and tremulous,
In your arms lie,
Waiting for you to break me
In your love
And fix me in your dreams.
Take my hand, there’s
No need to tell,
And let us be unthinking.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

A week in-sanity

This was written ages ago, one of my desperate attempts at writing prose...

Day 1:
Visions of a masquerade, not knowing, unseeing, dancing… dreams of daggers, tales and of charting unknown places. Desires which inspired to deceive, being caught in a web of lies and randomness. Scared minutes of the home-coming of truth. Earth-calling and running… running away, far away… until annihilation, nothingness and oblivion became one and the same.

Day 2:
They were all resting on the fierce reds and purples of the glade. In a faraway corner, a solitary movement unsettled them all. White, yellow, blue, the whole lot of butterflies rose all at one into the air akin to a brilliant display of fireworks. They didn’t settle down, just flitted on higher and higher until all the colours were splashed against the sky and the diffused painting from an unknown palette was created.

Day 3:
It was the first ray, the early morning sun that dappled on the flowing brook, on the still fresh dew and on the clouds; changing their expressions every fleeting moment. Far into the distance, as the first bird chirped, the world exploded in sounds, sights and business. There was laughter, talks, light hearted banter even as the little one hid the tears from the trauma she went through… again.

Day 4:
The wick caught fire instantly. The candle danced into being as the light cast grotesque shadows on the walls. Flickering images, making stories out of the shapes and hues marking the existence of light, faintly crackling, disturbing the quiet darkness. Steady sounds of the passing time, shifting in and out of focus as the whine of the dogs drowned out a few seconds. Tick-tock tick-tock…

Day 5:
All the landmarks sped past as if they were riding the legendary Pegasus. Every speck in the distance was as fleeting past too quickly. In the speeding glimpses of the passing villages there arose the images of folk tales, of dinner on banana leaves, the girl next door who was married off last week. Lonely looking bulbs, casting a bile-yellow glow in tiny rooms with thatched roofs. An occasional firefly until the train disappeared into the tunnel…

Day 6:
Rain gushing down, on the sidewalk, on the window panes. Water on the face, pelting, blinding, accompanied by occasional flashes of lightning. Rumbling thunder, reminding them all that it wasn’t over, not yet. Tears mixing with the raindrops, screams becoming one with the wails of the sky, words lashing out as the rains were melting everything in their path. How things become clearer when blurred…


Day 7:
Running down a slope never seemed so much fun. Crushing the pale pink blossoms under sturdy sneakers and trying to catch the wind in open palms gave a feeling of much needed exhilaration. The crunch of yellowed leaves and gravel, hurtling past wind, to win, to win, to win over that something… always the desired. Morphing into the wanted, camouflaged in the rush of the winds. Running down the slope and meeting someone else…

Musings

“The waves of panic and nausea and faintness that flooded up through a suffocating throat to a mind dark and spent and sinewless, a mind fighting with woollen fingers to cling on to the edge of the abyss, a tired and lacerated mind, only momentarily in control, wildly rejecting the clamorous demands of a nervous system, which had already taken far too much...”
(The Guns of Navarone)
Fear comes in shapes that lunge at you from the darkness. It comes in different forms, in different ways. It means different things to different people. To come to terms with it, is a purely theoretical concept. You can never really curb your fears, especially if they result out of emotional ordeals. Eventually, no matter how much you succeed in deluding yourself, your fears will catch up with you when you least expect them to. You will have been having a perfectly normal day and suddenly something trivial will happen that’ll unleash all those demons and from there on, you will have to flail your rationale to clamp the avalanche of emotions... the jitters, the goosebumps, the cold sweat. Only someone experiencing it can truly appreciate another’s distress. It is thus, only a matter of time before one has to keep looking over one’s shoulders in alarm... and in vain...

Thursday 4 March 2010

To the 'Tea'

There are these coffee vending machines at work which spew tea that has a lot of froth on it. Yes, I like drinking tea. So when I get myself a cup, I find a quiet corner. Bubbles on it... big ones, small ones and all sorts... they keep bursting. It's a beautiful, whispering sort of sound. On some days, it sounds like the crinkle of wrapping paper when gifts are being opened; on other days it's like the rustle of leaves. I weave stories around those sounds everyday, and for those five minutes, until all the bubbles burst, I stay lost. I ended up drinking 9 cups of tea today and heard, with my eyes closed, sounds from the inside of a conch-shell to dew falling in the wee hours of dawn. It was a good day...

To wishes

Smell of moonlight
And memories; streetlights
On endless distances.
Real colours and
Unreal thoughts
Blended and formed your picture.
Who are you, O mad lover,
That came in wisps of smoke?
Like scratches on
The fabric of the night,
You left scars.
One spoke of
Tragedies and mysteries,
All at once, like
Seaside stories of suicidal,
Unvisited beaches.
Oftentimes I believe
That it was real, true;
Like unfulfilled wishes…