Smelly-fish

There is a fish-bone stuck inside Bakin's throat. It's choking him minute by minute. He doesn't know surely how it got there. He must have had something foul in his last meal. It disrupts his vital biological functioning; most significantly breathing and eating. It is not the first time this has happened but unfortunately he has forgotten the ways to get it out like the last time and this one time when his face turned water-melon red because of the sudden blood-rush caused by the multiple attempts to puke the bloody bone out. He has a vague memory of these incidents but he can't quite conjure up the whole event. Like an intense film seen long long ago. His folks tell him, he was sedated with memory-altering drugs to save him from an overpowering nausea that follows the bone-removing cure.

he loves eating out and is on the road for most part of the day. therefore he finds hard to resist the sight of a scrumptious fish curry. The adrenaline gush of the juicy first bite re-installs his faith in human as an able fish-hunting tribe just as he is about to give up on humanity. It makes him glad to be alive. Even with the awareness of his problem, he surrenders his primordial organs thinking atleast he won't regret not having what he liked the most when he dies. He saves up for the exquisite Goan-restaurant in the neighbourhood, promising this would be the last time he would eat out. But ofcourse, it's too late to rationalise all this now as he stands cringing, holding his stomach in the bathroom, begging his guts to co-operate in another exhaustive attempt to puke the rancid bone out.

relationships do the same to me each and every god-damn time..

A painter

she complained of chill, ununderstood by science. Laying there with death resting on her shoulder. The sun had been unmerciful, the birds were gone. the shrewd December sky kept mankind at bed. For some the bed becomes their morgue, unattended as they lay finding music in their stray thoughts to distract them of their ache. To Kayfan, loneliness came naturally. Not in a psychopathic way but as a blanketing need to protect herself from the world out there. Living by herself at the 4th floor of newly constructed krishenji apartments in the greater Noida where happiness stalks you, or so the builders claim. she moved into this house 7 months ago courtesy a hard-working job at Dutchesse Bank.

The job mattered little to Kayfan for her passion resided in painting. She moved into to the house with eight bank canvasses that were one by one stroked by layers of dust. Thick, bushy goblets of dust particles invading the whiteness of the canvas. The rest of the apartment too narrated tales of sloth and negligence in great volume. Cleanliness obstructs creativity, her practiced repartee to all those who complained of her bohemian lifestyle, most incisively her mother. The house, as a matter of fact, was disorderly but not unclean or crummy, as if done on purpose. The bookshelf besides Kayfan's bed was perhaps the only place which showed signs of discipline and human habitation. She devoted herself to reading after she was convinced that she can't paint anymore. I am not troubled as Van Gogh or would ever want to be, her most defensive answer to those who noticed the empty canvasses around including her maid and Jimmy the neighbor, who would occasionally drop his cats under her supervision before work-trips.


Lying on the bed, early in the morning, Kayfan flipped unread pages of Murakami. Her hair pour out on the pillow in an elegant, wordless significance. She was besotted by his prose. As if the woman in comatose from his novel was here, right next to her, sharing her grief without an inch of sentimentality. comforting, expressing solidarity in an elegant wordless significance. Mollycoddling her thoughts this way, Kayfan only grew more desperate for sleep and care. The cramps had begun to tire her profusely. her livid body was darkening in parts, especially her palms and neck due to constricted blood supply.
she was sure she was going to die but death wasn't even remotely on her mind today.

Waking up to the sounds that have a visceral dream-like echo has become a routine for kayfan now. She straddles between past and future through the telescopic eye of dreams and finds entrapped in the dungeon of these hazy sounds. It's not a joy-ride. not by any stretch of imagination. she experiences pain and pleasure in amplified proportions. Some days the weight of her emotions, clogs her vision forcing her to wear an eye-patch to work. Today, like day before and the week ago, her body lapsed into a death-like freeze. Dr. Chabra from neurolgy department of Matilda Hospital gave up on her after all the prescribed sedatives failed. He is aware of patients who find it difficult to wake up in the morning but this is truly an unusual case. The last time she approached him, he told her that she must stop visiting him as her condition had caused him nervous breakdown. She isn't sure if she saw him saying this in her dream or in real. Not that her frigid body could afford the luxury of a phone call to him.

The vortex and the hole

Until yesterday my head was cluttered with words of all shapes and sizes. round yellow, turd-like smelly. Academic mostly. The weight of those words pained my nerves. Until yesterday, it was hard to discern the transition from day to night. Sleep eluded me and on some days cautiously avoided. Like death and disease, words gyrating in the head wouldn't let me sleep. Usually, the week before an important submission, time chases thoughts, clock races against word-limit, however the general pace of life slows down. I don't remember the last time I combed my hair, wore a fragrance or went for a long walk. seems long long ago. Time slows down yet time is always running out.

The vortex grows dense. words are actively in motion, thoughts more or less resigned to the cataclysmic deadlines. Necessitating the deployment of security squad at all corners of the room to prevent the anxiety bomb from exploding. yesterday was the last sumbission. what should have brought comfort, pierces the mind. What should have flown into the drain sticks to the sink. Sits devilishly on the hole. Distorting memories of a happy day, a soulful song, a puppy's face. How does one answer logic-defying questions, what does one do about the existence of the hole/hole in existence

Current Love

The anglerfish

Relationships are a constant tug of war. When there's love, you manage to pull the other person to your side/become like you and in the absence of love, the rope breaks apart.

or like Guardian explains
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/20/love-animals-anglerfish-gender-human?fb_ref=U-zNA68_zIX97t40d9I3dLFP-CFCONX01FRS-33e8xXXX,U-ZdGbZvFy977l4jqCJwWFol-CFCONX01FRS-33e8xXXX,U-UMRkQTyQSggI4aAeKz5Wwa-CFCONX01FRS-33e8xXXX,U-c4408cab79f9d3ff14444c-CFCONX01FRS-33daeXXX,U-DYOmpiiJRc7n4JUxIPqqZJ-CFCONX01FRS-33daeXXX&fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads

Professor Hobkins was last seen humming, what may aptly be called as the most melancholic rendition of Its --now or-- never, at the brink of the dusk in the memory of his late wife. Margarette died of an unidentified heart condition two years ago. Her death continues to haunt the medical fraternity. She had a remarkably healthy lifestyle for a woman of 50. She drank sensibly, allowing herself not more than two glasses of wine on festivals and birthdays. At 48, she quietly slipped into menopause. Although her delicate waist and firm bosoms offered a different narrative that seem to defy her age. The only medical leave she took in her life was during a wisdom-tooth extraction in the pulp of her university days.

She was taken to hospital after complaining of breathlessness caused by a series of vertigo. The doctors found her test-reports normal but admitted her for a night, as a precautionary measure.She fell asleep in the usual way, curling up to the paper-back edition of Kafka's Trial. Hobkins dozed off in the waiting lounge on Margrette's persistence. She did not wake up next morning even though her heart was beating. The nurse attending to her reported her heartbeat getting fainter by the hour. The doctors were left clueless, she showed no response to medicines--she passed away at 5.45 in the evening. In the exceedingly mysterious circumstances that led to her death, Hobkins insisted doctors to perform an autopsy on her dead body. They found all her vital organs undamaged, except her heart had shrunk to the size of a keyhole. Hobkins twitched in disbelief, it was the most animated he ever got.

he had begun to detest an excessive show of emotions. Margarette joked about his hormones responding to the contemporary nano technology.over the years, he became restrained but not entirely unaffectionate. Once in a while, he would leave her a couplet or two discreetly in her book under the pillow. Subtlety was always the essence of their romance. Back in college,they would exchange notes on Marx's Das Kapital with love-marks designed to look like Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
"You're lovelier than Bach's symphony, Margaritta..Only If i could plant you along with geraniums in my backyard, I would stare at you from my window, all day and all night".

The last time they made love was 14 months before Margarette's first vertigo attack. The last time she shared the same bed was ten weeks before her death. Three months ago, Margarette baked him cheesecake hoping for an intensive night of love-making, just like old times. Instead, Hobkins refused to eat the cheesecake on the pretext of having tooth-ache. Few days later, Margarette found a note in her book that read

"Passion must not be allowed to collect like winter-snow on the roads to our academic paths".

Hobkins did not shed a single tear when Margarette passed away. His friends found him turning severely cold and lifeless like an unattended wound resigned to nature's healing (or may be not). Isolated from the world, Hobkins wrote furiously the next two years after Margarette's death. Not a word of poetry though. he earned himself unparalleled respect in the department of Physics at Maxwell Academy as a scholar. Its now or never were the last words that came out of his mouth before he fell on the ground and collapsed. He was declared dead due to an unidentified heart condition.

Holy Sonnet X
by John Donne



Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow
And soonest our best men with thee do go
Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppies or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!

Feel Good Inc part 2

Pollock's action-painting. Pollock, the film works effectively to understand the method to madness in his drips, even though the film is abound with stereotypes.

Laura Marling's My manic and I. The lyrics just mirror the McCarthyism i exhibit towards an increasingly growing population of insecure people around.

Aesthetics (Thierry De Vue, Griselda Pollock, Prof Blackmore(this is a sobriquet for someone i closely know)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, The subtitle goes like this “This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.”

Daydreaming by Dark Dark Dark

A stray cat I recently made a pass at and for once he responded positively by not scampering away after being patted

Woody Allen's prose- A one-act play on paper

Sheldon's wisecrack: "“A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink. The bartender replies, ‘For you, no charge.’”

Andy, April, Ron Swanson, Leslie knopp from Parks and Recreation-admiration in an ever-changing order.

My version of OccupyWallStreet- Occupyparkinglot in the vehicle clogged city of ours.

Most importantly a room of my own in JNU but that's better off as a subject for another post.

Emotions are like cubes of ice. if you let them out for long, they melt and flood your reasoning.

pink spring

Dressed like the new bride,

your coy, saccharine breath

walks gently on the aisle of my arms,

cooing a lullaby-

to pacify the passionate night of storm

"Sleep, my precious"-

Words sprout and wilt,

and fade into the music of your breath

More tender than a kiss,

I call it my own diva of the dawn

The everyday apocalypse

Pointy, the submarine sits curled up nude underwater. The falcons above him watch his chest bloat in abysmal horror. The hours of his body clock are ticking fast. He can sense the rush in the movement of the tides above his head. Laws of buyouncy obfuscate an easy route out of his vision. He is convinced this reasoning would buy him a couple of more minutes in his underwater cave. Meanwhile the vessel outside is beginning to gather momentum. A vessel can take only so much pressure before it explodes to particles of cataclysmic nature.

The changing colour of the sky appears shamanic today, so do clouds in orange bandana holding their dreadlocks in place, desperately looking for cheap thrills around. The choir from New Orleans performs Symphony no 5. Pointy reminisces of the first day of his school. He visualises kids of his school running like bees amply seduced by the fragrance of fruitcream.

He was happy then. overweight but happy, which seems an exceptional myth today. He gets up, dons his khakhi shorts and vest, picks up his briefcase and takes baby-steps towards his wife. The scent of her body compels him to plant a goodbye kiss on her cheek. He chooses to not look at her. Armed with wisdom of his salt and pepper beard and a degree in Merchany Navy, he boards the vessel. He fastens the sleep belt and orders for a gin and tonic hoping to rest the convulsions inside his belly. He feels better but not quite at ease and orders for a repeat. The lights in the aisle are switched off, the sound from Pointy’s headphones seem to be the only suggestive sign of life on-board.

He woke up to the clamor of
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, This is Julianne your captain speaking. It was my pleasure to have you with us on this bright and chirpy day, the temperature outside is 34’C. Have a nice journey on earth and resist eating octopus”

Diary of another insomniac

Living in the mist of your fragrance,

Today, tomorrow, tonight.

As the curtains of passion,

Fall upon a dishevelled night

Dancing to the symphonies of your breath

The artist in me comes to life

Forsaking the gazillion gaze

Of the awkward morning daylight.

Fantasy writers can't escape reality either

Just a thought

sarcasm provides the cheat codes to the tedious game of life.

What is art?
A father curing a child's insomnia by handing him pictures of a sizzling hot slut next door for him to jerk off and sleep. Unable to contain the excitement that follows, he turns it into a song which is to be remembered for the next two decades and may be even more

Pictures of Lily-The Who

Feel Good Inc

To make Alex Turner's babies after listening to Submarine's OST.
To relive my teenage years inorder to be Oliver Tate's Jordana

A very cool quote from Anurag Kashyap's 'No smoking':

“To be is to do - Socrates

To do is to be - Sartre

Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra”
― Kurt Vonnegut


To be in limbo has become a way of life these days
The dark circles on the other hand testify me as pre-mature serial killer

Cockerel has an I.Q of a washbasin,
4 minutes of conversation with her desecrate 400 cells of my brain.

The bird and bee is a very cool band, because they make glam-doll Rihana's lyrics sound surreal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tgLHLFxLBY

Shiroshima is the coolest dog ever, I miss her.

Double espresso shots works as lethally as double malt sans the morning hangover

a super sad true love story

There will be a day when there no longer will be a perfect day
Rainbows will bleed colours and the sky will be stained
Of Pukeypinks and slimyyellows,
The whispering couples would no longer be heard
Ambushed in concrete brothels,
Hung like a clumsy kiss on brittle whiskey-dried lips.
Their ghosts will visit us for dinners everyday,
Smelling of scandal and mudcakes, from the neighbourhood bar.
Where Poetry (like this) would fetch, only a few misdirected stones
Scarred of the lover’s curse and lip-stick marks
There would be noise but of the unholy kind
Elvis died in nineteen ninety seven, his soul still suffering from insomnia.
Whodunit fights would decay the innocence of the infantile rosebud
Plagued by a very deadly unsympathetic pathogen
Till then.. drink the wine from your lover’s eye
hold hands and form cupcakes on a rainy night
strum Dylan to her after work, by the beach
and write about the naked encounters with fishermen and freud
hide where the moon cant find, the lambency of a libidinal night
consume love before love consumes you.
Weave no promises because tomorrow will be gone
Like the ash from an astray ashtray
Colour it now with majestic magenta and passionate purples
Because there will a day when there will no longer be a perfect day.

Let go.

I hear a tune flow in the room.
despicable like a dying river
Burning-ember by ember
the glory of an ash-smeared moon,
Across the hall, silence galore
imprisoned by the hands of his
unsolicited testosterone
Chasing what must be left alone
Quite uncanny testosterone

clench-fist

Don't pour sand in the ocean,
let the wintersun pass by
don't wave goodbye to a jet,
a passenger might cry.

The tiny heart stretches the mind
to a place it doesnt belong
High above a maple tree
singing a hopeless love song

Grief swallows time
or time swallows grief,
a book too well-bound
often, makes it hard to read

just when i begin to wonder
All that's gone wrong in the world
I am struck by the flash
of a silver, silver mirror

My bones go weak,
shivering to the winter shrill
i am struck by numbness,
i find it hard to tell

And days leap to months
while i run aimlessly alone
to catch falling stars
and give up what i own

while the night performs seduction
in her own feline ways
a poet grasps for breath
Sweating in merciless May

Tracing the unworded skyline
of his clueless mind
Before storm decays memory
of a subliminal real time

My monumental romance

With little contemplation and a lot of monument-hopping in the last two days,I can confidently say monuments exhibit curious human traits- human relationships to be precise. Not collectively, but through fragments of memory one lives through in the course of the whole trip. The Jaipur monuments at first intriguedme with tantalizing sights offered by glossy guidebooks, like a cute face leering at me from a friend's facebook album. I wanted to meet him, touch him, experience all that the metaphorical wildlife does to your belly. My curiosity grew reading the generous words published about the monument(s) on the internet. There is never a dearth of romantic bloggers, Is there?. The ones who exhaust all the adjectives in their vocabulary within a word count of 100

Anyway, so I walked up to the guide enthusiastically to unveil the mystery around the monument I had scheduled for the day, this tendency being akin to the act of poking your crush's friends to know about him all that you could possibly know. The first date is likely to go awesome because you've built a stupendous image of the monument in your head. In my case,Jodha Akbar and Hum Saath saath hain forced me to overlook the tedious film production qualities, shepharding my eyeballs to the majestic visuals of the Rajput forts and palaces. I knew i was going weak in my knees. So on the first day when i visited the first monument here, I was essentially hyper as demonstrated by the incessant clicks of my camera.

What followed was the usual dating protocol. Looking was not enough, I wanted to feel the monument-throwing my palms on the walls, pillars and minarets. See it change its colours to the changing sky. As if turned into a possessive lover, I had issues with people thronging my monument. Any click that doesnt emanate from my camera is noise and must be avoided dutifuly. My romance with Jaipur monument picked up both fast and slow. The more i saw,the more i liked and the time it it rained,I felt the fall on my knees in need of a rose to complete the picture perfect.

After a couple of rounds however, i was beginning to get tired of the same stories echoed by a bunch of guides around. The dreamy romance was soon to be obscured by thoughts like How long would it take me to return? What if there are bats on the prowl, How much more is it left to visit?. But then being men of heart we dont stop meeting people and accumulating memories we're to savour in the casket of our pillow. It works the same way for monuments. If one offers ravishing view,the other compensates with its meticulous fine art. Like humans, monuments are not perfect but victims to poverty ill-health, negligence or simply fate.

Mankind is a virtue through the nature of its diversity and complexity. The word monument evokes the same sentiments in me. I fall in love, grow out of it,revisit it with a twinkle in my eye, reliving the rains that are never to come back yet never to be washed away.

#bagpackerdiary,N.India chapter
17.7.11

Diary of a dead gramophone

"As I sit beside an ageing evening
with dreamy eyes and folded palms
My heart races to forgotten melodies-
Of lovers , poets, mimes and whores.
Of multi-coloured bows, hats and cloaks
Their passion curled up in their beautiful souls
Their souls curled up in their passioned songs
Pleading for change like neglected bedcovers
Their vocals mellowed to honey-dew whispers"

In another L.P, you can feel their hormones swell up
Smelling like your favourite curry;
From the neighbour’s kitchen.
You savour the last notes of your favourite track;
Tasting much like the curry hung on your ringfinger.
That sullen, love-struck melody,
Conjures vivid summertime memory-
A walk on the beach under the silvery moon
You, him and Clapton’s croon

And when the world dwarfs you in dismaying ways,
Hope blares from the dying gramophone
To ward dust off from your blue suede shoes
Hurling you to tap those toes once more.
You’re now on the top of the world-
The ringmaster of your galaxy,
The shoeshine of the disco ball
You want to thank god
for the miracle named rock n roll.

"And tired when I sit beside an ageing evening
I no longer see plastered walls and plastic toys
But promissory kisses and long distant calls
Friends smoking in bars and lawns
Such were the 60’s that injected in our father’s vein-
The blinding (vowels in the) songs of fr-ee-d-om.
That held together tightly;
a generation in its flowy pants
and its immortal spirit."

Nightfall

A dungeon awaits at the dawnbreak,
Where dreams enter
Into rocky, rugged crevices
And look into the eye scathingly;
Oblivious to the temple bells
That roar and exasperate
onto the open fields
My dreams, like dead foetus
Flows into it
Namelessly
Leading me to the ocean of lament
In the hastily sinking universe.
At the dawnbreak-
eachday,
The world wakes up
to birds, beasts and bells
leaving me behind to
the sound of
a lonely lonesome tear.

His colours

Violet,
like a primrose growing in
the boulevard of your smile.
White,
When you turn the sky a canvas
and i draw you stars
Green,
The monsoon of our romance,
in the thick of May
Crimson,
the colour of solitude,
shared between you me and the sun
Purple,
The robe of my desire
you arouse me in now and then
Maroon,
When your words begin to sparkle
in the company of fireflies
Grey,
the weight of your thoughts
in the casket of your mind
Pink,
embossed on your palms,
the dreams you blossom every night
Yellow,
a cocktail of your pranks,
fruity marshmellows
Black,
the curtains that are drawn
before our ballet is performed
Blue,
the ocean of your existence,
i dip my toes in.

An evening

I will draw constellation
on your palm someday,
colours i will not reveal,
but leave your senses to fill.
For all the unspoken words,
I'll draw you a star
From the ink of the smile
you showered upon me

The story of half an M.A

This is a time-travel piece. Usually this kind of prose flood New-year editions of the overpriced glossy publications. On this blog, it is not aimed to sound celebratory, loathesome or tear-jerking. it modestly wants to talk about THE Jayenyoo Experience-which was the only buzz word in my processor a year back.

So i remember passing through sullen Bio-tech corrdiors- a place so morbid, likely to interest Ramsay Brothers to shoot their next film. The corridors raking of chlorine led me to a massive auditorium compound. Massive for a University charging measly 200Rs per semester tuition fee. The compound read School of Arts and Aesthetics gleaming on a sprightly sunny day. Nothing aesthetic about the defaced pillars that supported it though. It was our orientation session which left me more intimidated than what i had anticipated. The heavily kohled, Khadi-wearing Professors at once seemed the kinds who could prattle till the end of the universe, theorize about everything the universe is made of-from the fauvist palette of their blouses to How the auditorium can appear more Baroque and less of of hastily-constructed Catholic church. These were the more endurable fragments of the overheard faculty conversations, i am not kidding.

During the faculty introduction, the phrase "absent-presence" gained the widest currency, as four professors announced the news of their sabbatical and how we must make use of the time they're available on campus, in order to capitalize on their "absent-presence". The expression made little sense to me until this March, when Pinky-the cocky storyteller of a professor took a month off from his sabbatical to take lectures of ancient and Medieval Indian art. On the orientation day I also remember guffawing at the blue-eyed Bong professor whose deliberately ill-fitted blouses till date are severely distracting-taking my attention off her subject to scribbling Marlyn-Monroe type caricatures of her in transparent sarees. She is the daughter of Utpal Dutt. So just in case you stumble upon her pictures on page-three, do look out for her grey-blue contacts which will be far more aesthtical than the dirty-yellow ones, she wore on some days.

After the faculty introduction, it was our turn to introduce ourself. The Delhi crowd as expected appeared infinitely catty and smug, as their eyeballs trapezed to in all directions to take a look of who's who in the batch. The Bong gang clubbed together in one corner of the room uttered crisp yet over-deterministic sentences, throwing a reasonable competition to the Delhi gang on the decibel score. The Bongs accounting the faculty, constituted a majority here, reducing the introductions to bong or non-bong classification. i personally never paid heed to regional classification of a batch until the enormous regional segregation experiences in ACJ, not to miss the epic Tambrahm jokes that have now scaled popularity through their online presence.

The experience throughout the year has been more or less the same as day one except I engineered myself to be able to laugh at it. To stop for the pink bougainvilleas that soothe mind fatigued by churning term-papers in an assembly-line-production fashion. The space around the center stretches beyond what meets the eye, leaving enough room to drift away in a more poetic world of bougainvilleas and butterflies.

Because

because, swollen eyes have dreams within-molten, visceral tartar like

Because, world is shrinking, yet distances are growing

because, technology replaces touch

because, people with feelings are immideiately typecasted as sentimentalist

Because, birds, babies and bats are no more musical

because, beauty resides in the heart of plastic

because, primroses are not poetic any longer

because, sarcam hides more than it reveals, yet keeps communication alive

because, happiness is yet to become a popular brand among the youth

because, there is nothing that mastercard cant buy

because, voices that objected have long disappeared

because, giving up is so much easier than giving in,

because, words are toys-manipulated by anyone and everyone

because apples are not oranges, they're infected with deadly H1N1

because, most deaths happen in hospital premises itself

because, gravitational forces doesnt explain sudden dizziness and loss of breath.

because, mortality is a pain, and immortality a tragic coincidence

because, end is approaching steadily near.

because.

Hysteria

geranium mornings,
Mulberry nights.
Spring in the air,
sparkle in the sky.
We walk by the peach trees,
wearing pink robe of desire.
with dreamy eyes,
fixed upon the skyline.
a touch of dew,
sway the maverick leaves.
melting blushingly,
into a whiff of breeze.
butterflies gyrate,
to the melodies of spring.

amen

In dark alleys, across the subway, stone-eyed men walk with a hunchback, and grey umbrellas. Humming tragedy in chorus, to fill up awkward silences building like cowebs on their dusty minds. a vermillion spider infests in the prickly gaze of their unappreciated talent, and trickles down to the feet of street urchin. mocking smiles are exchanged, as they fathom hope in glittering golden pyre. Odourless blue toes, stretch on the floor of a bottomless ozone. Pain-wretched clouds gather in mourning, passing a tear from one to another.

An elegy is composed and roses are arranged.

a prayer is recited, in two-shaded baritone


A star falls unblossomed in papercups of sand.

time smells of disease, in abysmally sinking universe.

unearth

tiny egg-shaped dreams
turn into relics of a memory pristine
of cicadas turning into moths
of wood burning, slow and green.
of musk spiraling into grainy sky
and flowers wilting bone-dry
A house tumbles down,
into hillock of nameless sorrow
a bird perches atop
in a comfortless stupor
and croaks an unyielding song
looking into pale yellow horizon
scraping little pieces of earth
to see a speckle of her reflection

Morning appears in its blemished robe.
Gaping at sun to unleash history untold.
Bleeding questions from the ink of
Horizon.
Beseeching gods to protect her uncouth son;
From the devils hiding beneath her
Flawed skin-
As she toys phantasmal dreams in shades of pink


Her skinny hands tied up with boundless
secrets.
Of an island marooned and it's nightly keepers.
Yet, she rushes towards a future
incongruent
Like dew spreading its legs on the windowpane
A morning, like many mornings refuse to settle.
Her life replete with a child and a chisel.

painting-Amrita Shergill
its degeneration- shewolf

Another poem

long mercurial nights
- soaked in absinthe of his unruly gaze.
surreptitiously devouring blackholes
and their blackened torso.
Like a squeaky, infantile cloud.
rambling headless without a pen and paper,
longing to slip into night's scarlet bossom.

Black swan

The sprightly night lays itself bare,
to the husky shadows-
tiptoeing vehemently in the room.
Amidst a passing moon, singing a familiar tune.
Her snowy eyes reverberate her story,
of a young firefly-
yielding its well-grown secrets
in a golden casket, before dawn rises in his velvet jacket
Plundering innocence from her ignorance
yelping for help,
singing misery in chorus.
While she brushes off the dust
from her black satin robe
Swirling like orchids in the ocean of lust.
She looks at the mirror and cries defiantly
"oh sun be kind and gentlemanly to me
i have scars stamped allover on my body"
The night looks away in deep derisive despondency
Buckle up child, if you ever want to be mentioned in the history
Spread your darkness and light
in equal quantities.

turning 22 in transit

The lamps at the Ghat made up for the absence of candles on a bunch of pastries that looked quite like the devastated face of Hiroshima Nagasaki...

It all started with four of us waiting intently for The Magadh Express to take us to Banaras. The trip was planned instinctively to escape all familiar words and voices that make up for the usual birthday commotion. The last few birthdays have accurately revealed my discomfort towards 'the special day'. i define it as a day thrusted upon you to greet (a few) friends and (mostly) strangers with affection in response to sugary words spoken about you. I mean come on! see your facebook wall on our birthday, and you will probably choose to agree with me here. The people who truly care for you don't need this one day to come out of the closet and tell you what they feel about you and to all seasonal acquaintances you dont really have much to say after a polite thankyou. But wait, i am not entitled to be cynical about birthdays for this trip wouldn't have been half as wild as it turned out to be.

Coming back to Magadh express that was to leave at eight ten got delayed by over 7 hours. The station was impregnated with melancholic murmurs. i felt thwarted like a new-born denied the right to live. the seven hour delay was conveyed to us in intervals which led to gradual poisoning of our sanity. We spent a few hours playing Black Jack in a modestly filled cafe that involved some nasty bets; non-monetary ofcourse. The luck was by my side, the smiles were resurfacing the action inside the cafe was getting increasingly embarrassing. At about 11. 00 we got to know the train was delayed by another five hours. According to conjectures the chances of cancellation were steep. On a regular day, the delay would have infinitely dampened our spirits but i was to turn 22 that night and Little Prince, Lady elegance and Parole had a little surprise ready for me. We drank some wine and treated ourselves to some chocolate mudpie, blueberry cheesecake pastries at Parole's house in Vasant Vihar.

We boarded the train at 5 in the morning, cold as wild turkeys. Little Prince had booked a Sleeper for us which on normal days is an extension of Bombay locals on a busy evening. The arrival of the train at an ungodly hour, however, reduced the passenger count which implied empty berths, noise-reduction and four happy souls.

The train was running five hours late. Magadh Express became our new fancy synonym for slow. "You are not only dumb but also Magadh Express,Tortoise should race against Magadh express to feel happy about its existence, Magadh express is probably the only train that hasn't been upgraded since Industrial Revolution". For a long time i was completely oblivious to the growing apathy towards Magadh express. the phone was buzzing with messages and mails that read "hope you're having a blast, party hard!' Indeed, i was having fun- just the way i imagined. my mind was engrossed visualising Keruac and his idea of escape. What would birthday wishes mean to him? In his time, he wouldn't have the phone buzzing. How easy it would have been to lose a sense of space and time. Alienated by capitalism and wealth, we express our anxities on social networking sites to feel reassured, to be heard, to be noticed. I switched off the phone to alienate myself from the joys of a virtual world. i want to be remembered for reasons other than my birthday. contemplation was in progress fueled by soft breeze that smlled of sugarcanes and jaggery.

Banaras is a huge glob of our cultural identity- the batter of which is prepared through a smooth amalgamation of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Referred as Kashi in ancient texts and epics-it thrives on faith inculcated in these very many religions. The activities on the Banaras Ghats-jolts you out of your urban stupor. It is a sight of majestic paradoxes. The river they worship so ardently is gradually turning into a drain with abundant puja thalis and carcasses of dead bodies. You spot a woman brushing teeth with the holy river water adjacent to the pudgy priest performing the last rites of a funeral. You are forced to revisit your culture and think of one religion that talks about scathingly polluting your dear God.

Banaras incubates the notion of India being the land of mysticism, even to an Indian. It leaves you in a holy haze to form a coherent, tangible impression of the holy city. At macro level, it all seemed to be a giant business laid on foundation of religion. 50 rs for a holy 'theeka', 150 rs for 'gotra' puja, 250 for performing for the liberation of the deceased soul. Being a tourism driven city, goods and services are costlier than usual and locals embody the myths pervading our ancient religion. The Benaras experience is incomplete without a visit to The Burning Ghats. It is said every sinner is entitled to moksha if he is cremated at The Burning Ghat. The emotional texture of the Ghat is foregrounded by the rigor mortis of the men setting up the pyres. They appear to be preparing pyres in an assembly-line fashion, playing merchants of death. The sight of a haunted palace is not rare either. Darkness lurching over these Ghats after the sunset makes it sufficiently uncanny for you.

The mysticism is accentuated by the evening prayer performed at the sunset. The whole town conjures a collective devotion towards Ganga Maiiya. Lamps are arranged to float on the river, making up for a sight truly spectacular. This is the time of the day when Benaras converts into a Mecca for photographers. The coruscating moon gently rises from the lap of the river and adjusts itself to form an 18th century painting-silencing cynics like us. Melting us. Healing us. Enchanting us.

Biblical

Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
my pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
the day's divinity
First thing you see.

A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.

Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
the time has come again
choose now, they croon
beneath the moon
beside an ancient lake

Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
everything is broken up and dances.

Indians scattered,
On dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s,
Fragile eggshell mind

We have assembled inside,
This ancient and insane theater
To propagate our lust for life,
And flee the swarming wisdom of the streets.

The barns have stormed
The windows kept,
And only one of all the rest
To dance and save us
From the divine mockery of words,
Music inflames temperament.

Ooh great creator of being
Grant us one more hour,
To perform our art
And perfect our lives.

We need great golden copulations,

When the true kings murderers
Are allowed to roam free,
A thousand magicians arise in the land
Where are the feast we are promised?

One more thing

Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light
Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light

A city rises from the sea
I had a splitting headache
From which the future's made

...Jim Morrison

Dhobi ghat. La cinema de art?

In the age of swashbuckling BMW'S and SUV's Dhobi Ghat is a cinematic moped. A light-weight, breezy vehicle that lets you feel the rain fall on the naked skin, with arms wide open; and when it gets dark, it exposes you to the dingy, rat-infested bylanes of Bombay suburbs. All this at a comfortably slow pace (14 minute long takes?). This interval-less ride elicits the heterogeneous character of the city, through the narratives of four different character interwoven at the site of the Dhobi Ghat. You are compelled to ruminate their relationship with the city. A recluse painter-decidedly refraining the chic cosmopolitan urban crowd. A slumdog washerman aspiring to become a Bollywood actor. A small-town girl jostling to find her feet in the abundance of the metropolis and finally, a New York banker- flaneuring the city to ripen her photography ambition, while enjoying her sabbatical. The film enables the contours of the city to map their individual struggles and dreams.

The emphatic absence of a typical Bollywood plot, condenses the film to some exceptionally elegant moments. Sights and moods that facilitates you to trudge on the emotional landscape of the four protagonists.For instance-Munna practicing how to pose ahead infront of the mirror-ahead of his portfolio shoot is both honest and entertaining. If realism is the leading manifesto of an art film, Dhobi ghat manages it effortlessly. After all how many contemporary films attempt to capture the utter abysmal mundaneness of life. Shy's character for me is the most identifiable out of all. Her uneasy, dazed state of mind after an incidental one-night stand with an attractive artist, her hesitance to get romantically involved with a good-looking Dhobi indicate the strength of the screenplay.

diegetic soundtrack, hand-held camera, lucid visuals, lack of closure and long sequences of inactivity reflect director's understanding of art cinema. A deliberate departure from dramatic narrative allows you to engage with the visual language of the medium. Like a modern painting, the form becomes the content. Here i am tempted to recall the chase sequence in the climax, where Munna hurriedly runs to Shy's car. The most fascinating aspect for me is while the film clearly is an ode to the Maxim city, it does not come across celebratory or self-loathing, (as in the case of Slumdog Millionaire). it speaks through its subtlety, reminding me of the effervescence of Lost in Translation and My Blueberry nights.

Having said this very generously, i have to mention of some of the very cliched moments in the film that come across rhetorical/redundant. death of munna's brother due to a gangster skirmish sounds foolish and rather unreal. An unsuited development that doesn't add much to the story but weakens Munna's character-who's grief is very amateurishly dealt with. Mysterious death of this nature unsettles the realistic atmosphere created by the film otherwise. Arun's obsession with Yasmeen purely based on some dusty tapes is hard to gulp. It's totally acceptable for an artist to find his muse in unexplored pockets of life. But for an emotionally stoic person, who is shown to be a failure in matters of love and relationships-breaking down this intensely over a virtual figure (and here i am referring to the way he performs this particular scene) left me with it a straight-face.

However, in these precise incidents, there was a greater potential of falling to conventional drama and predictable twists a`la any run of the mill Bollywood film. Afterall how hard is to imagine Shy falling in love with Munna, who post-interval would have turned into a dashing, sucessful filmstar, thanks to our photographer prodigy. No! instead the film seems in complete control in keeping the disquiet and melancholy alive consistently through th film. The film is as real, as it could get without the ground-breaking exposures and sting operations (No pot shots on Bhandarkar or Jessica ji here). And, conjectures stand correct-Prateik Babbbar effortlessly steals your heart.Lastly, the cherry on the cake award goes to film's incredibly intense soundtrack, that circumscribes film's overall intelligence and subtlety.

Wilde Wilde Winters

"..Welcome to new Delhi Indra Gandhi Airport. The temperature outside is 5 centigrades. Hope you have a comfortable stay in Delhi"

It is that time of the year again when saddi dilli develops cold feet, snorts, shivers, nearly freezes and depresses a certain someone me(rubs cold shoulders with me?). There is no light at the end of the tunnel. The sun refuses to show up. The roads are deserted after 7 pm and the cultured family of ours advises us to be mindful of the creatures of the dark a la film noir type. But thats least of my worry. Winter does irreparable damage to my body. When i'm done cracking up like a diseased reptile, I balloon up- ready to explode any minute. The dialectics of hibernation can be understood in two ways:
a. I eat all the time to remain warm
b. I sleep all the time because i've eaten a lot.

It takes one season to turn me from fit to fat, a television abstainer to a wholesome crunchy couch potato. Evil Star-world like channels air 'winter specials' propagating the greatest vice of sloth among one and all. Under adverse weather condition like this, there is no reason to leave the wonderfully warm confines of the bed until you absolutely have to.

'The world may call him a recluse, but he's never been more worldly than now'.

By the virtue of 24x7 news channel, i now save humanity by a twitter update on train delays that i have absolutely nothing to do with. Masterchef Australia has terminated my prolonged curse of being a terrible cook. Yes, ladies and gentleman, i also save humanity by offering them a chocolate-fondue which has been hailed for being finger-licking good.

Perhaps winters aint that bad with a hot cup of Cappacino to sleep with and a chicken soup to wake up to. The rare sight of sun coruscates my room. The mere hope of seeing the sun, gives me reason to wake up before noon. And if the person reading this happens to be my mother, you would know what it means to us. To think of a Winterless Delhi is to deprive oneself of highly sought after Winter break and the enterprises i undertake. Reading Wilde by day and watching films by night. It is also that time of the year when it's reasonable to be tucked in the bed all day long. When you walk away guilt-free for slumbering more than required.

Happy Winters I say.