The repellent
Now comes across as plotting
His smile affable as before
Now looks to be surly
Words as soft as in the past
Now like threatening whispers
The past that lingers on…
He sickens me, the very sight of him
His voice provoking and his presence acerbic
The memory that he is…
Tracing my steps back to a time when all was… has been
He has been there, now he repels…
What Dreams may Come...
All still and dark, when the hands started shaking me… in silence, Out of nowhere I was cajoled into moving, a tired walk with barely the feeling that I was awake. In the darkness the first thing I saw was a distant light, a street lamp maybe and as I approached, heard the sound of waves somewhere in a distance. I wasn't able to place myself. Except I was walking towards the light…seemed drawn to it.
As I neared the light, I noticed a figure - ladylike. Not directly under but slightly away with a scarf that made it quite difficult to place the face. She exuded the kind of calm that was unnerving. An odd time for a woman to be alone…as I thought this, I just couldn’t place the time. A gust of wind made its way from behind me pushing me slightly forward and the moment took to a sudden chill
Laughing out loud, she started walking away, glancing from time to time to see if was following her… it felt odd, like she expected me to. That is when I recognized the place - it was the beach and she was rushing towards the lighthouse. I could saw the beacon making rounds spraying its light against the fog. I couldn’t make sense of this at all. I knew not whether this woman was some lunatic on the prowl or some divine intervention. And why was I drawn to her….i couldn’t explain.
She reached the lighthouse, she started running up the stairs. I took after her, wanting to find out what all this was about. I reached the top landing and stepped out, only to find myself alone… I went around the place a couple of times and found no trace of the woman I followed. Suddenly from behind I heard shrill laughs and I felt a hand on my shoulders. I was attacked by surprise, I turned around to face my assailant, a crazy look on her face as she was laughing and the scarf still hid most of her face.
I struggled with her at the railing I heard a knock at the door, faint considering the circumstances... In panic I heaved and pushed away wanting to get away… in the process pushed her over the railing. I hurried over to see her fall, down the lighthouse as the beacon made its way around as usual, slowly but surely, the shrill of her voice disappearing into a distance… I was shaking and completely numbed by what had happened.
It took a while for me to compose myself and I retraced my way back, opened the door to see a lanky guy. He said “That was lady luck you just killed, if you keep pushing at her long enough, this is bound to happen. All she was trying to do was smile at you. I tried stopping you, but then I knock only once - I am opportunity. You missed your chance.”
I was dumbfounded, tired, weak… and kept staring at the spiral staircase. Now the only way left in life is down…
Stunted Growth…
Deep in the attics of my mind, hides a child from the old times
Holds onto forgotten past, refusing to step into today’s cast
For, child is the father of man, I do all that I can
To let him have his way, but he tends to leads me astray
What he wants unclear, his demands throw me off gear
Refusing his advances, I take my chances
He returns in kind, confuses my mind
His tantrums terrible, making me miserable
Altered conditions of existence, for minutes of sanity
I would let him be, If he could just hold his peace
So I could hold my own, without a frown or a moan
For rest see me behave, like an odd child once in a way
Psychoso(auto)matic
I seek within, bringing out the pain
Only to consume it yet again
Wallow in the darkest shades of grey
Dank cold making me shiver n pray
It stinks, the smell of my own misery
I can’t get enough, not enough for me
And all the blood that’s draining
Numbing, my senses not prevailing
A slight smirk at myself, when I see
A pity of a man formed from bile of a sea
No pain no more, I am feeling a naught
Will I ever stop, and regain some thought
It cannot go on; even the deep has an end
So I was told, but I don’t want to pretend
In a downward spiral, I shall wake wailing
At the edge of the void and return to the living
And when I wonder, what came over me
Can claim my defense! A plea of insanity.
Chameleon Thoughts
Oh the life so brittle, the mind so fickle
Desperate leaps of faith to live a life in denial
Ups and downs, hyperboles n troughs
The wayward wind blows me around
The hands of time creep up in the dark
Chameleon thoughts camouflaging the night
Will they ever seize these voids in me
Or suck me down to the depth of debris
Forsaken thoughts and misshapen deeds
Wanton and volatile the life that I lead
To find a time n day that is my destiny
Will this farce end, lead me to my final peace.
A voice…
Wish I had a voice
Calling out my name
With playful refrain
That I could chide n feign
Ask me how n why
So I could give it a try
Tell me how it feels
So I could feel it too
Speak its heart out
So I could feel alive
For in a senseless shield
I have lost all I held onto
What was once close to me
Now a vision on the horizon
Alas the question remains
Before I breathe my last… Will I ever hear my name?
I woke up screaming.
Was dead by then.
Up in time to see myself dissolve.
My body passive and still
Like the dreams I had
of the dead waking up.
breaking this loop
of dreams that were real
only to find my life already dead.
Not a thing to do now
but roam a free spirit.
The spirit not alive
for it's already spent
It’s all surreal…
Be alive and dreaming
Or dead and still feeling
So confusing,
quirks of being alive and dead.
Just a dream either-ways,
surreal and so much real.
Stranger self
Don’t trust me
I am a stranger to my own self
Known you long
But is it long enough, to reach out in faith
What makes you feel
When I know not me, that you see me
Blind that I am
To pain that’s around, numb to the bone
Go far, stay near, little do I care
For, I am searching and seeking…….. Seeking my Self
Life, fadin with time.
Life, sneaks up on us with some revelations from time to time. Hard as it was to digest, It did so quietly one evening, leaving me wondering about the past.
I was seated amongst a few friends from the past, but felt like a stranger. It had been a couple of years since this particular combination had sat around a table. Let alone have a conversation. What once used to be such absorbing and entertaining was a depressing affair this evening. For me...
I couldn’t relate to any of the banter, wasn’t contributing to anything that was possibly what others considered an engaging discussion on current affairs of their lives. If I was sitting with strangers, I might have been more interested. But I seemed to be now caught amongst strangeness, familiar and disconcerting at the same time.
When had I moved on? To what had I moved on? Or have I moved off the radar.
I couldn’t see the bonds that made me want to have my presence there. From the second moment, I had been plotting my way out. For what? Have I forgotten all that I used to feel? How these familiar strangers… (I say so because, they don’t seem to have changed at all) but my perception and relationship with them has changed.
I couldn’t relate to them anymore…. Had I used up all that these people could offer? Had I exhausted the moments, the time and sense that used to be ‘my life’ in their company? Had I forgotten everything? What is the reality… what I felt then or what I feel now? Maybe both? It felt like… because I felt I was wasting my time now…. It seems like I had only wasted my time earlier… a very disturbing thought. Everything was wasted time.
What was even more disturbing was this…. The longer I live, I will just have more to forget and question. Isn’t there anything to hold on to? absolute and unquestionable!
A dog’s life could be better
She had been threatening to come and greet us for quite a few days. Wearing a grey veil and refusing to smile she paraded silently. The grey darkened as the days went by… and finally one Sunday she opened her arms and showered her love on us. The Mumbai Monsoon was here, finally. And it poured for days…
As it poured, I was wondered if the city was crying for all that I had to witness. I have to admit, I am not a great fan of Mumbai city. And I am more than a little disturbed by what Mumbaikars claim to be their indomitable spirit. My take on its spirit is this “This city is ruthless and it will crush you, accept it and move on, knowing everyone would rather pretend to be blind to its apathy than do anything.”
A walk in the pavements of Mumbai will bring to life how crowded Mumbai is. Normally crows and cats tend to run way or fly as the case may be in the presence of humans. In Mumbai crows hop around and refuse to budge even when shooed. Cats can even get aggressive when confronted. They have nowhere to run. For a minute I was wondering if we are encroaching into their space.
I cannot really figure out where life begins and ends here in Mumbai. I watched a very emotional scene that left me bewildered. A loving father was toting all his devotion and love on his kid. Holding the 5 year old in his arms affectionately, rocking her from side to side. I watched the girl break into a billion smiles in one single burst. She was experiencing heaven… a great feeling… just that it wasn’t so… from where I witnessed it.
All this was happening by the sidelines on the pavement in a busy junction. Far from being a loving scene, it was highly disturbing as I saw the father and daughter bond amidst the thick set crowd on the pavement, sitting a few feet from garbage cans set against the backdrop of a flowing sewer. A parallel to how life flows in Mumbai perhaps. As I wondered whether the little girl would ever get to know the concept of “personal space”, mine was rudely interrupted by a eunuch seeking alms.
It isn’t anger that surfaces when I encounter a eunuch. It’s a mix of fear and pity. If the handicapped are the children of a lesser god, then eunuchs must be children of a deviant god. If all the helplessness in the world were to be bundled into a human form, the result is a eunuch. And Mumbai is a haven for them - an accepting society. Just then I shelled out a 20 rupee note to spare myself of the guilt of being complete, my driver turned around to tell me that the beneficiary of my money wasn’t actually a eunuch, but guys who dress up like one to extract money. Mumbai doesn’t seem to spare eunuchs too. I found it disgusting.
After a couple of weeks of loafing about in this expansively crowded city, I called it quits for good. Mumbai was never going to be an option. I just had this to say as I kicked off - “Goodbye, Good luck”
* All characters in this are real and unimagined, and in the event of hurting any mumbaikar sentiment, i am sure your spirit will sail you through.
Reality mirrors illusion
One fine day, half awake I was whiling away time. Sometimes the most simplest of things can leave you confused -
I moved my right hand touched my nose... a simple and perfect action. At the same time what I saw was - my left hand move and touch my nose. I had just seen the very opposite of what I had done. It was simply unbelievable. I waved my left hand and witnessed a right hand waving. I turned left, only to see the action being flipped again.
In the reality of watching my mirror, I was seeing everything the way it wasn’t happening. But then if am seeing them happen, how can it not be real? What was real and why is it at the same time an illusion. I just witnessed something that never happened. But it did. I closed my eyes – and I have a sneaky feeling the man in the mirror never did!
Is there life on Platform Number 4?
At 9.15 last night this thought popped into my head, staring at the desolate platform at Majestic Bangalore. Somehow the name is not in sync with the place. The railway station in
The journey to the station took a while, what with my auto driver blaming the inching traffic and unwillingly being a part of it. As I got down at the station I noticed a huge crowd squatted outside the main entrance, spilling out from the crowd already inside which I encountered in the next few minutes.
I had the longest wait for a platform ticket ever. It gave me the feeling once again that
I managed to buy the platform ticket much against my instincts, which are quite adept at flirting with disaster. The cheap thrill of getting away with something unlawful was pushed to the back seat for this evening. The queue seemed never ending till I reached the window. And the ticket vendor with a silent nod pushed a platform ticket as though, he held a grudge against me.
The journey inside the station is as bad as out on the roads in
This is when it got weird. Of all the platforms in the world, ok
I got there after a while. I had enough time to kill, but not a clue, how?
The moment I started climbing down to the platform from the overhead bridge, I could just begin to see how much of a dump this particular strip was. Barely lit, it had an eerie setting to it. Not one soul around. For a minute I actually turned back wanting to retrace my steps and wait in the main lobby till the train arrived.
Then, the instincts I was talking about – they were back. I stepped onto the platform. And then I saw still life, absolutely still. Watching as I stood on that platform, there was no movement, add to it no lights, no people, no canteens, no… there were two dogs and quite a few cartons.
2 Dogs were sitting atop the cartons - like they owned the platform. And they had nothing much going on either – they were sleeping! And I did what any half educated twit would do – let sleeping dogs lie. Waiting for the train, I stood there wondering if there was any life at all, on platform number 4!
A few minutes passed, and just as I was just getting used to the eerie silence, arose a disturbance that set the two hounds barking. I turned around shaken, to see a man rising from amidst the cartons, like a phoenix from the ashes. A drunk, disheveled and haggard, coughing incorrigibly, stumbled past me, and took the steps up. The two hounds in his pursuit barking their heads off.
It took me a while to compose myself and a few minutes later was laughing in relief as I saw a train make its way in from a distance… soon there would be more life on platform number 4. Possibly more than it could handle.
Jul 2005
Remembering the Future...
Times have been and gone
I have been and am
My mind, a wandering space
i go round and around
changes around me
takes me to places n spaces
I move along
living the moments, sweet and not
flip into the past
Call it deja-vu or imagination
I have been here
back in the future
have had these feelings before
thought these thoughts before
met these people before
like them and unlike them
And have braved these times before
and cried sometimes before
And now facing the present
I see what lies before
Great times of hope
And here I stand remembering the Future.
'06
As the day passes and bytes gather
The pirates of the east connect with the west
Streaming lites and screeching soundbytes
And all that’s left to discuss is DRM and my rights
I crank my machine and blast into cyberspace
I am speeding at terabytes and into the fibred lace
The world wide web or is it the web of deceit
For all that I gather is a mass of nothing at the end of it
The info at our fingertips have depleted our memories
And our thoughts into minions with no identities
With anonymity for company I set out into the void
Now I need not be human and can live like an android.
The sun was slowly dipping into the horizon. A reluctant goodbye. Sitting on the shores of Gokarn beach, admiring the golden embers reflecting in the waves that were threatening to eat the shores little by little, I was in a melancholic mood. Wave after wave enacting their desperation…
“So what brings you here?” I ventured.
“I saw depression setting in and I thought it was time for me to visit. What’s bothering you now and why this discontent?”
Don’t give me that Devil may care attitude was all I could respond. “You know very well what is in my head.” So do you plan to swim across now, he quips.
“What would you know about loss…!”
What did you lose he asks and I say “My sense of purpose”
He gave me a wry smile.
Devil: “Why don’t you just face reality and get on with life? Why do you want to fight and worry about what’s not in your control. Understand reality and move on.”
Jun 07, Gokarn
Raindrops...
We, mere raindrops
fallen unto the ocean.
We the mass miniscule.
travel the void high,
hot air fills and we collide
make a hue n cry
till our strains fill the sky
we seek and destroy
the end and
thereafter the dive
