On Such Days...

When I've had a crazy day like today
I go into my shell
and I want to be left alone
when I sit and make my grand plans

Those moments when I'm feeling like a loser
I want nothing more than a tender hug
I don't want to be told anything
I don't want to be asked
I only want to lie down in bed
in the comfort of your arms

No talk can reassure me
No conversation can be a balm
All I need is your touch
and a shoulder to drop my silent tear on!

So that I can sleep this night
and not go insane
So that I can wake up and face tomorrow
and shine all over again :)

Only, for now

the fear is ripe

of a damage that is etched in time,

on a concrete slab of white marble,

that refuses to fade

Only, for now

there are lies in a dream

fabrications

fabulations

memory creating fiction

between the canvas and the thought

Only, for now

the smile is crooked

half-hearted efforts

to consume strawberry jelly

without spilling

Only, for now

hope has lost its way

and encountered a black hole

where time stands like a ravaged momument

questioning all myths of progress

Last Night...

(Present day 15 October 2008)
Last night I dreamt the strangest of dreams... My tongue rolled back and chocked my throat, my upper teeth fell out of my mouth and no matter how hard I tried they just wouldn’t stick on the jaw again... I held them in my hand making a mental note of visiting the dentist at day break but admitting that all was lost forever... Horrified, I turned sides in my sleep only to face a monster bug with thorns sticking out ready to plunge into my ear and accidentally touching it, causing immense pain in my fingers... realising that it was only a dream, I tried hard enough to open my eyes but in spite of the struggle I couldn’t do it. That is all that I remember of the surreal night... the fear along with disbelief, the sense of loss in spite of hope, and dilemma that brought to surface the lyrics of a Green Day song...
Another turning point; a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist; directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.

vis-à-vis

(Down memory lane 27 July 2005...)
last night i killed myself....
and wept with tears of blood...
the passive longing of my nights turned into a death-wish
and drowned all my dreams in it.

i used to indulge in sleep-walking
today i have no feet to support me
i used to look up at the sun and mock its loneliness
today i do not exist!

there was a fire
which casted me in this mould
there was a shadow
which gave faith to my soul

but last night i killed myself...
and wept with tears of blood
because my "i" lost its essence
because there is no "i" anymore.

Adieu

Bidding goodbye to Montreal was not the hardest of tasks. It had been a constant preoccupation since almost a week, but when the time to leave the apartment came there was a crowd of familiar faces, who made Montreal what it will forever be for me! There was no kissing the door, no turning around to catch a last glimpse of Durocher, just a peck on the cheek that lasted as long as it takes for a tear to roll down – a moment that collapsed forever into itself – a hug which didn’t want to let go but also through that clutch conveyed its conviction of a better future, a smile through twinkling blinking eyes... and silence thereafter!! No words could have expressed the magnitude of that infinitesimally small moment – and that is what goodbyes are like in the real world. The “may be” and the “of course”... the hints at future possibilities of next-time meet-ups or the knowledge of them not happening ever... Is there ever really an end to meetings and partings? If there was then hope would stand suspect to emotion and moments such as this would cease to matter so much... but this was not such an instance. It was more like the time when you read a page and bookmark it for life before turning the leaf over... moving on...!!!

Written on the British Airways flight from Montreal to London (19^th August 2008) 00:35 (IST)

Postcolonial

We have always been here... stone blocks paved on the side walk... standing stiff, representing the character of the place that has its name after ours and we, we are nameless today because what we were earlier we can’t be anymore... time has eroded our cultural identity, water has washed out our social significance and in this postcolonial world we have to stand by the rules which the world dictates. Any act of identity formation is vastly nuanced and in this act an assertion of the self takes precedence but in our present immobile state, we lack the agency to assert...

Once we commanded and there was also a time when we allowed being lead but now we are generally tossed around... we do have a common faith that works as most belief systems do but we erect no stone idols, super-stone images of our own selves to pay obeisance to... what we follow is the golden rule of hierarchy... the ancient dictum at the Oracle of Delphi: ‘Gnothi Seaton’; carved stones never lie; guides our beliefs... do we possess a spirit? That kind of a question can only be asked by those who do not know what a spirit is!! Can you define it? And if you can, then you automatically know if we have one or not, therefore, we leave it up to your beliefs...

We do not know who we are... and we do not want to be loud about it... all we have left with us is our muted voices which almost sound similar to the sound made by dried leaves when they are crushed by the foot of a man... we empathise, we wish we could make our hearts bleed if that was possible in order to show solidarity; but do not show pity... we do not need yours! Give us a minute of your time s'il vous plaise, and in that moment we hope to make you understand how our apparent insignificance is of utmost importance to our own alter selves and we hate to be kicked around, trampled on all the time in acts of intimacy with the gum-stuck soles of your feet!

Posted in retrospect

The heavy fingers that are typing this aren’t even aware of where they’re falling…it is my first brush with thoughtless writing, albeit in a drunken state… I’m not writing because I want to write..I do it because I have to! There is something inside which swells up as if I am pregnant with an idea, and then wants to come out on paper only to assert its existence. Existential… it does exist…essentialism…it is there! very much a part of the rose that I drowned in…not so bothered about the next few hours really, I take just 20 minutes to pass into the netherworld where the fingers are heavy…it is a huge task to lift the fingers and drop them down … the brain is sending the right signals out and the outward demeanour is all cool and composed but of course I’m lost to this world already..The brows are getting heavy and the mind is playing its wicked games... how do I spell right? It is only because MS Word has a grammar check on me and I keep going back to whatever it suggests in terms of changes...these software guys do a good job...actually not just for the computer but they make life easier for a lot of us... I’ve often wondered if it’ll be a good idea to date an Engineer...someone from pure sciences...a guy with a rationale...a stable outlook...ideas that are almost formulas... rule book in one hand...do this, don’t do that...I-hate-philosophical-talks-coz-they-waste-my-time type of a guy... how’ll I ever survive???

Hail, rand...save me...send me a John Galt please will you? He was a pure sciences guy, not like Rowark, who was an artist...but Galt...he waited and waited till it was time...only Dagny never knew...will I never know??? But she did get Galt...oh whatever!!! It is about time I move on really! The other day I couldn’t relate to these things and in my drunken state I want nothing more than this....Interesting, right? How one can be so hypocritical WITH one’s own self at odd times is definitely interesting...only if my foot wasn’t broken right now, I would have been out having fun doing something more interesting than typing random stuff online which might have spelling errors and gross grammatical mistakes..You think if I tried Hindi it would make more sense? After all it is my mother tongue. My mom was a Hindi poet...she wrote a poem about me once and I cherish it...my mom!! I miss her every second of my life...and I’m so drunk right now that she wouldn’t have approved of this craziness...like love does...of course I know the smell of love...if you don’t...I pity you, but it is an experience worth cherishing...you never know how and when you’ll get it in life...it just knocks on your door as if it is just passing by and it is up to you to let it in...Well, not so easily if you’re in a phase... lots of things matter then....lotsa things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may wonder if I’ll puke tonight after so much drinking but it is a therapy, you see...after my broken ankle there isn’t much I can do sitting here on the stupid dining table for three hours...I want a party for a group of 7-8 and that should be fun and I want to cook for them just like right now when I’m doing nothing but typing random stuff on my keyboard that I will visit tomorrow morning with the realisation of the mess I made here....just coz I am drunk...only excuse that! But does it work in most circumstances... maybe it does I don’t know...It sure does at times.... but I won’t relate those to you...sorry...it is definitely the craziest writing I’ve ever done and I’m so darn aware of all those things I shouldn’t be writing about that its funny.. We talk about self-reflexivity in writing and this, my dear students, is a live example... I never knew that one could be so perceptive in a drunken state... and why the hell am I typing anyways ... not to prove to the world that I can make sense when I’m so... sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni, sa...I don’t care about you...I only want some sleep and a big warm hug.....anyone willing out there? Anyone making sense of this rainbow that has more than seven colours and is not a semi-circle to say the least! Well, good if you don’t get it; but if you do then climb the sinking boat and let us sail as far as we can before plummeting into the deep recesses of the wide ocean of incoherence... I am experiencing the delight in release, in letting go.... Randomness, I love thee!

C'est la vie!

The sufi dervish made a sand castle. A princess bought it from him for a hookah full of tobacco and barred the emperor from entering it.

The little girl in a polka dot frock skipped on a rope keeping count. The gunshots grew louder as the count increased.

The lovers met over a cup of hot chocolate at half past midnight. A group of street children tumbled past them stomping all over their dreams.

The sky turned a mild orange above the Rockies. A seagull flying high got caught in the wings of a seaplane adding colour to the wind.

The heir less tycoon proposed to buy a womb for a million bucks. A prostitute aborted as her unborn child belonged to a man from a lower caste.

The hunchback carried elixir in skin pouches. A group of wandering minstrels quenched their thirst with it and acquired wings with which they flew towards the sun.

- 16^th July 2008

- On the bus from Montreal to Toronto!