It's a cheap charade...

THE LAST LEAR OF GIR

2012-01-05T22:58:00.000-08:00

May 2003. When I walked to the front door of the typical sprawling hauz khas house, space was an illusion. I stepped into a cramped up space where I could cartwheel twice to map the entire length of the room. On one side were three boys struggling with some graphics on the computers, and a long haired man in his cotton harem pants on the phone, who signalled me to sit. I looked around and found no place to settle down. So I clutched my knapsack in my hand to avoid crashing into anyone or anything, tapping my foot impatiently. The other side was occupied by a man with flowing salt and pepper hair, a smoke perched between his fingertips going furiously at his laptop. He paused, and looked at me amusingly, and smirked. “Tomorrow, 4.30 pm, Mezz. Be there.”

I almost choked out the words “What for?”

“Menwhopause are playing. Come and figure it out and write me an article for the next issue.”

I think i looked perplexed because he pushed his hair back nonchalantly and said “Ure wearing an AC DC t-shirt and holding your profound vomit of work in your hand. You’re not carrying a guitar so i assumed not a musician, *shrug* must be a writer.”

And no he wasn’t being condescending. He was just fuelled on passion, belief and taking chances. I first met him when I was 21.

Amit Saigal had dared to take a chance and a leap of faith in something he loved, believed and cultivated – music. This man, literally single handedly struggled for and created a haven for indian independent music ‘scene’. I would go to the length to say he’s a revolutionary of sorts, for constantly pushing the barriers, making exceptions, and providing a wealth of support to struggling musicians . Today, independent music is a flourishing scene, but Saigal gave this country its first music festival – the Great Indian Rock (GIR) in 1997.

Amit created a platform when there was none, he got bands gigs when there were no sponsors, he made collaborations happen, he encouraged original music, he was a friend, a toker and an occasional father figure to the aspiring musicians, he created a community that lovingly and aptly called him Papa Rock.

RSJ is truly an era. I’m not even sure when I boarded that train and when and if I ever got off it. I never ended up writing for RSJ besides that one article, but Amit had created something so pure, fresh and beautiful, which was like a little bubblebraid of music strewn all across the country in pockets where you could get together and celebrate music. It was almost a decade back and incidentally an entirely different generation, but it seems like yesterday , serpentine lines outside Hamsadhvani every January for GIR, randomness and ownage on RSJ forums, watching the bands grow from RATM covers to original setlists, 100 bucks an entry to a TC or Mezz gig (it was 50 at some point *chuckle*). Every single kid in that phase that got associated with RSJ, felt like they belonged with it, and shared the magic with one strong underlying sense of celebration – music .

This afternoon when I heard about Amit’s sudden demise, it felt like a wave crashing over asignificant period whose existence was threatened.And if you experienced that period, it just sucks the O2 out of you and creates a vaccum! It still seems surreal, the time travel to the fourth GIR , where AFS played for the last time, Themclones played with their initial line up with RJ as the frontman, and some 30 kids against the barriers wearing the same Kurt Cobain T shirt that they all probably bought at Pallika Bazaar *chuckle* It all comes back. I remember the RSJ forums – no holds barred explosive banter, GIR, Jazz Utsav, Pubrockfest where you wore your love for the music and the people on your sleeve, my first music documentary n a lot of other randomness. Lots of friends made, lots of bands came, played and disbanded, lots of different style of music emerging, growing, expanding. It was an addiction.

Somewhere the addiction wears off; you grow out of your phase, get preoccupied with your banal lives and trade your passions for a career. The friends I made here were also lost somewhere along the numerous crossroads . And today, while remembering Amit, all those moments, countless gigs, the madness, the rush of energy at GIR, the smoke of mary jane rising on either side of hamsadvani comes right back, as do some forum names – guitarsmash, sweating bullets, namesake, megadeath, GForce et al. ;)

Amit and RSJ represented, what we have forgotten and become oblivious to along the way. To take chances, to live in the moment and to just fucking LET GO. Most importantly, he dared to disturb the universe.

Most of you who haven’t been a part of this beautiful madness that Saigal created would think this to be juvenile, but this is what sucks the most about it. There won’t be another generation who would ever experience that again. Also it’s no longer a struggle or a revolution. Bacardi, Chivas, JD, Absolut have all joined the bandwagon. There will never be another day when the bands would go without a penny or a drop of alcohol. Dog days are gone. Sponsors in da house. The downside, it wouldn’t be the same anymore anyways. The romance has worn off. The brotherhood is jaded. The intimacy is lost.

Amit Saigal a.k.a Papa Rock. the era was magical, the legend will linger and thanks for rude reminder to take a chance, fly and let it go...once again and get on the crazy ride ;)

P.S: Some of you tagged i met through RSJ, some who've been dragged to GIR every year by me, some who worked on the documentary, and most i had lost touch with :) I just think THIS man definitely deserves a last GIR , done in absolute Papa Rock signature style – fully fantastic! Take a chance and make it happen?

tHe bEauTifuL oNeS

2009-07-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

Feels funny
Putting words on paper
Again…

The aroma of baker’s slice of fresh blue-grey sky
Through the filament curtain of rain
Could she be a muse?

I still struggle
But it’s hard to resist

The headrush of images
Clashes with the nexus of words
In space they float
On paper they play
A game so random,
In the trance however it makes absolute sense.

My feet against the wet grill,
the twilight sky in all it’s grey glory
Cleopatra in her morning bath
A mint glow
I smile
It makes me happy

A giant canvas
All colors in their brighter hues
Neurotic symphony in the colours and the headrush
Words
Images
Dissolve
A blur of random joy
I think.

It feels good to feel again

Rain, coffee, cigarettes
A tranquil equation of sorts
Opium for the mind

I let go

In my pipe dram
Comatose struck and sublime
The fingers curled and reached for the little drops
Against the grills
They released and let go
Feeling the feel
Satiating
Totally overwhelmed

I’m humbled
I’m a broken mirror…

In your own company
There is another
Who shares the epiphany and the climax
And in silence you sit
Still struggling
With the inevitable
Checkerboard of vivid images
Music sheets of words

If I were Pied Piper
I could have led the mice
To the valley of transcendent evolution.

It still seems unreal
The canvas sky
The rain
Me

I miss the banter

How were we to know
It feels strange

The radical rain still falls
The young sky is still vivacious
They all seem cheerful and animated/
The green brightens up cockily in appreciation
It all seems cheeky and playful

I must feel happy
But why am I still crying?

(background score: The beautiful ones – Poets of the fall)
“Why do we sacrifice the beautiful ones? Why when they walk with love alone?”

RaINbOw PumPkin

2008-09-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

The rain nursed her
The spectrum of colours spoke to her
“I need you to stay” she faintly mumbled to nothingness
Stray tear gone astray.
Raindrops matched the trickle on her cheek
Violet skies against the smoke
Drew a panorama of monochromic world
Crowded with just shades
No trace of colour…
She smiled.
She blew the smoke on her window again
It recoiled back to her.
She opened her eyes…
The rain, the smoke, the violet
Monochrome reflections
Her impressions lay buried.
The deep indigo made her restless
Patience coiled itself against angst
Her fingers wrapped tightly against the wasted joint
Her other hand gently rested on the hardbound leather book.
The word inevitable blurted itself “hope”
Her fingers nervously traced through the rusted pages…
The faint rustle echoed through the room
The smoke escaped her lips
The ache was oppressive
The echo suppressed her
Another drag, another calm, another chaos
Another colour, another vision, another illusion
The faint blue of the rainbow
faded into the drizzle.
The green was brighter
Than the shy grass that hid itself from the window behind a fence.
She let the window open
She read out the poetry
The ash fell between the yellow fold amidst blurring words
The words …‘the shadow’ got soaked in her salty tears.
The flirtatious drizzle rushed in…
She smiled a weak smile
Another drag sent her into a momentary delusion
The cheerful yellow and orange
caressed her thoughts
A frozen iceberg
She saw the sunshine
She felt the rain
A bittersweet rapture
She sunk in the moment of release…
A rush of pain and ecstasy
The last line read “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper”
She understood.
She felt alive.
Numbness sought a way out as the smoke rose above her eyes….
Grieving happiness engulfed the being that arose from above the illusion of surrendering
Her eyes shut themselves to capture the elusive moment…
A moment of desperation and hope…
She drowned in the pleasure
The rush of motley colours…
a kaleidoscopic climax…
the pinnacle of her release.
The red brought her death again….

WHOSE CHASE IS IT ANYWAYS?!!

2008-09-02T02:36:00.000-07:00

Why is it presumed that the man always enjoys 'the chase'?
Why does the woman always have to play the vulnerable puppy?
Do men get intimidated if a woman reverses the law of gravity for tomfoolery?

It’s often presumed that a woman enjoys being chased. I don’t deny that women enjoy the attention. Women love the frills and the thrills that come with the pursuit. They love being pampered. They love being cajoled. They love the flattery. They love the smooth talk. They love the surprises. They love the cheekiness. They are sometimes totally pathetic puppies… they totally love to lap it all up, the attention, affection, addiction … in that order.

However change the equation the other way round. It’s not a first that a woman would attempt pursuing the guy …but it’s just a revolting venus attack to men. It totally knocks the socks off their cold feet! Is it the “ick factor” for the guy? What’s really remarkable is that he could be the ‘I dig intellectual independent women’ kinda guy sporting a torn che-guvera t-shirt, worn-out floaters under his casual jeans, boasting about his favourite author Simone de Beauvoir, and air-guitaring to led zeppelin’s black dog OR alternatively he could be at the extreme end of the spectrum kinda slick, suave chap with a laptop bag resting on the shoulder of his expensive Gucci blazor, a pair of bright white Puma shoes to top his golf gear in his walk in wardrobe, relishing his dream date of four course wining and dining baby …but the stick snaps when a woman offers to buy either of them a drink. Is it the conditioning that makes the ‘switch’ in their head go – “WTF!!”

While it nurses the male ego to be pursued; it’s an insulting mockery to their narcissist roleplay of the playboy

Is it that the man equates some kind of powerplay to his roleplay as an occasional Don Juan? Men believe they are connoisseurs of seduction. Their roleplay involves taking the ‘lead’…be it the car, the dance floor, in the board room, the menu order, the bed … wherever. Thus do they feel robbed of that power play if the law of seduction gravity is transgressed by the woman? Or do they feel their male gaze is affected in the process? Do they feel effeminate to be pursued? What makes them insecure?

But what if the woman prefers to pursue rather than be pursued? "Is it worth an attempt to pursue that superficial numbskull wuss?" Besides that numbing thought that crosses her mind, I don’t think she cares about the judgement thatz thrown her way so much, coz she’s taken a conscious decision to transgress the equation anyways.

But it baffles me when men nonchalantly assume that ‘the pursuit’ is their prerogative. But then, no one’s pursuit is so easily understood or dismissed – the man or the woman’s.

But the law of gravity of whose chase is it anyways continues to tightropewalk on the reed thin line of -

What does it take to pursue your object of desire - a preferred choice or a preferred gender?

THE SLICK PFAFFER SYNDROME

2008-08-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

It’s a heady cocktail…
A shot of Charm with a quarter of nonchalant idiosyncrasy, a pinch of wit & intelligence garnished with suave demeanor. It’s aptly called THE SLICK PFAFFER.

A cheeky grin to steal your attention…

A smooth introduction to reiterate his presence...

A playful invite to a tasteful drinking joint…

A casual, pleasantly flirtatious rendezvous over first drink...

Practiced moves of cha-cha cha and jive at the ghetto…

He’ll indulge ...open the door, pull the chair, order you expensive wine, humour you at your rotten jokes, engage in your opinionated debates, diagress conversation with a mock-heroic one liner, glaze you on the dance floor, be immaculate in his appearance, be punctual at your date venue, compliment you on your new dress, will nonchalantly kiss you when you least expect it, will play by the book and transgress them when you least expect it, will know the names of all your friends and you’ll know none of his friends …

Meet the transitory toxic headrush – the slick pfaffer.

I call it momentary lapse in reason for its short lived association but an absolutely fantastic headrush. It’s like nebulous morphine that makes your head race through incessant impressions and illusions. You cant wipe the grin off your face until the drug wears off. And you are not necessarily willing to brush off the addiction after the occasional tryst with the tranquilizer.

Women often fall prey to the slick pfaffer syndrome. It’ll be unreal not to. But then is she prepared for it? You are never prepared for the onslaught of the slick pfaffer.
However, she knows the signs, she identifies him, she knows he’ll switch off after breakfast in bed yet she still wishes otherwise. It’s either a swift exit or a smooth headrush baby. This is when the headrush becomes a migraine at the end of the 5 day headrush.

I find them a queer but amusing species. They are confident. But they are rather insecure. They are charming. But they have their eccentricities. They are interesting … but just the first 5 days. You have nothing left to say except viciously repeat the conversation after the first few dates and the irony is the slick pfaffer assumes you’re having the conversation for the first time! ;) There is nothing admirable about them except their enhanced skillset . It’s an art of seasoned façade. Rather impressive. I’m not sarcastic when I say this, but I have seriously had some of the best conversations with slick pfaffers. They take their art extremely seriously and thus it’s rather interesting to have a holistic range of conversation with the from che guvera (ummm not many of them were aware of who he was) to blueberry cheesecake, to how Bush wronged the Iraqis!

But I don’t get the entire pretence. It’s the same practiced act with one after the other woman. I mean isn’t it a lil monotonous to have to conduct the same facade. What if they have a nasty cold and don’t want to perform on a critical first date? Can they afford to lose that first date impression? *chuckles*

Women are a rather quirky species too when it comes to their impulsive reactions to acquaintance with the SP kind. They delude themselves “this is too good to be true.” Then listen to your goddamn instinct woman!!!
Why do women hunger for attention, affection and addiction? Are they depraved?

I don’t mean to be degrading… but c’mon you can’t expect a slick pfaffer to go warm socks shopping with you for your cold feet. He just aint the kind.

Reality bytes:
He’s suave, not warm.
He’s nonchalant, not involved.

He’s into music, just not into your kinda music.
He’ll make a lil practiced effort; just dont expect nothing.
He'll make you feel like you own the elysium; but he aint sticking around sweetheart.

*shrugs* you gotta accept that they are just seasoned migration birds.

SLICK PFAFFERS are epicures of romance not the maestro of romance.
They perform. They don’t participate.
They appreciate the art and it’s finery. But they don’t possess the sensibility of the artist.

The peak of pathos about women dealing with SP’s is when they become oblivious to everything else if they get someone to treat them like the centre of their worlds. They omit the signs of disorientation. Or are they just pretending to keep up the pretense with the slick pfaffer?

It’s most unnerving to see women treating slick pfaffer idiosyncrasies as synonymous with perfection. The word perfection itself is an aspiration. It doesn’t exist in reality. Perfection falls under the optimistic category of words that inspires you to hope and expect and all that jargon that helps make this world a fool’s paradise.
The slick pfaffer is not synonymous with perfection but with fool’s paradise.
Unreal.
Elusive
Escapist.
Delusion.
Charade.

A relationship with a slick pfaffer is like a cheap drug addiction which wears off eventually. You are aware of it’s pretense and it’s evanescent nature. But you indulge in it for the headrush and the escape from mundane banal reality.

As long as you can avoid the 'still in transit' ambiguous hangover; they are harmless...

But just a final word on it - Slick pfaffer is the the tip of the iceberg; not the ice-breaker. He aint keeping you warm for long ;)

“Are you still gonna be my girl?” *chuckles*

submarine smiles

2008-05-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

The morning sun
She walked through the passage, a passage of light engulfed her
She bathed in the sunshine; let it soak in
Groping in darkness; the light was a welcome relief..but momentary, she knew.
It’s futile to fight the inevitable.
There are also two sides to everything…they say
But it’s a belief you need to restore or oppose.
Is it a choice or are you chosen?

The midnight lamp in solitary corner
He picked the pieces of rusted leaves in his book
He mused a while and succumbed to nostalgia.
He brushed it off and threw the leaves.
Making peace is a matter of fact; the confrontation is what some of us fear.
Is it pathetic or are we pathetic?

We react
We regret
We respect
My own space is most dear to me
Yet I want a few chosen to be a part of it
You can’t try too hard
You can’t be totally aloof
You can offer
You can dispose
Why do there have to be the can’s and the cant’s?

I’ve lost my humour
But then yours doesn’t amuse me either
Submarine smiles afloat…

the door ajar... year 2008

2008-04-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

It was just so beautifully simple to walk in and be around the familiar place again; it felt surreal. It felt unreal to feel belonged and yet not belong there. It was so peaceful to focus and think and not run a marathon in my head. It felt liberating to not chase for direction. It was so easy to slip back in time. It was so comforting to imagine familiar faces and feel their presence in their absence. Each little space took you back in time. Each walking step reminded me of something that made you smile. There were lots of smiles.

It’s stunning how a place can make you want to sink in and never let go. And if you do let go of it and come back; it embraces you all over again. It‘s the most gratifying feeling I’ve ever felt.

This trip back to MICA wasn’t wild like our days on campus. It wasn’t intense. It wasn’t three days of getting wasted beyond comprehension. No dunking. No assignments. No conflicts. No ambiguity. No rendezvous. No work. Given the halt in time we were going after; it felt like déjà-vu. You knew you were there before but the time lapse of two years just vanished. You could feel the presence of people around you. The memories were just so fresh, as if being screened.

All of us who went back relived the good ol times with each other…the madness, the cuckooness, the taboo sessions et al…but what was most worthy of it’s time were solitary peaceful moments on the campus. That place has such a sense of belonging about it .. that it instantly cheers you up. There is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. No restraint.

I know I’m going to fail miserably trying to put it in words…but I want to try so that I can keep coming back to it and reliving it…what Wordsworth called emotion recollected in tranquility.

A gush of stomach hitting nostalgia at the gate…
It swells you up.
A familiar route unfolds before you.
You know the twists and turns.
You head feels light….another drag
Each tree, each brick smells and looks the same.
It looks just the way you left it.
Dust might have invaded my room… but the door welcomed me and the walls smiled back…and it brushed off the dust from the oblivious memories of the entire year I spent there. My mind played games. The music played in my head. The blue lamp lit itself up. The posters on the wall perked up in acknowledgement of my presence.
I sat down and sank in the drag and the moment.
I walked down the door to through the passage and halted. I looked up. The same bright light hit my eyes.
The lights have a huge halo of expanding and contracting lights… another drag
The door ajar. Hendrix poster with spent joint was gone.
Walking down the brick and green lane, any moment I expected familiar faces to pop-up.
The door ajar. It was still the same. It seemed stuck in a moment. And so was I.

I walked ahead around the bend of amaltas. A barely lit brick road, a few drags and a few minutes walk to the open amphitheatre.

The lights were dim. A shadow play on the stairs. A circular seating. I climbed to the top stair.
It was half-spent. I re-lit it. I looked up and released the column of smoke into the wide spread of glitter twinkles above me. I stared too long and too hard. They changed shapes. They disappeared in clusters and appeared again. The smoke blurred their intensity and painted added to their form. So there was smoke shapes and twinkle shapes.
They were staring back at me. A mute conversation and david gray's freedom on loop. Blown!
They spun a web as I exhaled another passive drag…
It didn’t just feel surreal.. it was like living your present anonymously without any outside irritants.
A fantastic play of light and shadow on the stairs.
A tree that silhouettes itself against a lamp.
A sky on fire.

And every memory worthy of the place and my stay there; chronicled itself in a stream of consciousness narration.

I felt like I was within a movie and all the moments just clipped in frenzy editing played themselves against the vast screen displayed above me; the twinkles in the sky adding to their aesthetics. It was the most exquisite immortal experience. The closest I might have got to celestial awakening *chuckles*

Would I go back again?
I don’t know. I want to.

But a fear holds me back – fear of too much expectation. I might expect a similar experience and it might fail me.
But I’m still stupefied about how a place becomes primary and people or other familiar things become secondary.

MICA is one such place for me. It is ethereal in it’s embrace.

passive acquiescence

2008-04-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

Have u ever been stranded at a point when u say to yourself I don't know anything anymore!!!
Have you ever had this stomach pit hitting feeling that makes you want to sink and crouch yourself into a ball of nothingness.
Have you ever wanted to make trip to a hill .. only to stand at it's peak and shout your lungs out?
Have you ever been determined enough to make the mountains move to make things happen and nothing moves.
Have you ever browsed through your phonebook and found no one to call?
Have you ever just found yourself in the midst of questions with no answers?
Have you ever felt so lost amongst things which are familiar and intimate?
Have you ever wanted to weave a spider's web to trap your thoughts and not let them dissolve in oblivion?
Have you ever hoped that when you shut your eyes it all disappears?
I might sound neurotic .. but the final emotion destroys you.
It's a cuckoo climax. Delirious and quixotic. You believe you're a martyr.
It's a spinning film of emotion-motion anger, uncertainty, fear and trials. You want to escape it. You can't.

You're running a marathon in your head.

Passive acquiescence is an excruciatingly demanding task. And the obstinate self does not allow it. Atleast not easily.
I don't want anger. I don't want ambiguity. I don't want passive acquiescence.

If it was just about chivy; it's ultimate end would be inevitable hunt. You move on. But this is nothing like it. It's more approach and retreat and regret for not being able to make a convincing plea.
Have you ever wanted to never give up and just keep trying. You slack. Then try. You falter. Then try. You upset. Then try. You progress. Then try. You fear. Then try. You alienate. Then try. You end. Then try.

Is it the trying that's tiring? Will the mind's marathon ever end? Will you ever make peace with another again?
Will you finally surrender to passive acquiescence?

Mute Oyster

2008-03-24T00:26:00.000-07:00

A mind too crowded
Or a mind too numb
Eitherways, silence is the ice-breaker.

An iron curtain laced with mute sulk, her room deserted seemed ambiguous to her. She kept her book down and transported herself back in the zone of numbness.

A noisy café, the cheap smell of cigarette smoke, her friends laughing over a nostalgic incident, a million thoughts cluttering her mind and numbness chased her yet again.

She smiled, but not at the anecdote in her book, or to the joke her friends cracked, she smiled in oblivion.
Irony and contradictions were her comfort elements in isolation. Obscurity was her shield in company of others.

Silence was her most detested yet most worthy idiosyncrasy.

She was complacent in the company of a stranger.
But she was bewildered to expose her obscurity to a friend.

Ever felt the need to embrace to denial and completely surrender to nothingness? It’s not satisfying but it’s reassuring. It’s like a secure wrap around you, and you assume nothing can affect you. She thought the same. Did she alienate herself? She could still walk barefoot on the grass, she could still enjoy a breezy walk along the beach, she could still buy grocery from the stores, she could still be herself but in the company of others, she switched off. She became numb to anything familiar. She felt contempt for acceptance, expectations and hope. It felt disturbing to wake up from her slumber of denial.

Finding herself in the midst of company of random familiars again…
Smiles
Talk
Attempts
Ease
Smoke
High
Light
Elbows
Laughter
High
Thoughts
Running
Evading
Chasing
Clutter
Numb
Silence.

My only concern is with silence. Will she remain silent or will she always be numb to familiar surroundings. Will she ever learn to accept and hope?
She doesn’t wish to cope or compromise. She just wishes to let go. Is numb and silence the only scream of redemption?

Reminded of lizard king's piercing cry:
"Before I sink into the big sleep I want to hear, I want to hear the scream of the butterfly"

an open ended chapter...

2008-02-04T05:02:00.000-08:00

Closing a chapter of your life is never easy … there is just so much of yourself in there and to move on is nothing short of voluntarily chopping off a limb ..only the pain is more surreal…it’s a bittersweet piquancy.

I don’t know if it’s the uncertainty that makes my tummy churn or is the process of scribbling a mental end note to something beautiful.

You created a chapter, but you made a choice,
You chose uncertainty, but the stability was peaceful,
You chose to let go, but hanging in there was gratifying,
You chose to care, but being cared for was beautiful,
You chose to deny the tears, but all the moments brought in the smiles
You chose to suffer, but others suffered too…

Creating chapters has it’s significant moments. Moments which stay with you. Moments that made you stronger. Chapters don’t have to be ended, people put an end to them. You and me seal them.

I don’t want to seal it. I want to take it with me. In my solitary time with myself, take a peak into the significant moments and taste the bittersweet flavour and smile. Make my treasure of concrete moments and broken promises.

Someone told me once “Fear is a terrible thing, it leaves room for regret.” But like love…fear is overwhelming too. You make peace with it on your own terms.

And I chose to not end but leave my chapter open ended, to be treasured.. on my own terms.

dedicated to:
“you might have your reasons
but you will never have my rhyme”

iNcOmpLete pErFecT chOicE...

2007-10-31T03:12:00.000-07:00

Eclipsing the obvious
A chance to surrender
You long to close the space
Yet
Unable to grasp
Claustrophobia envelops
A restraint keeps your place.
A smooth conversation, paradox of passion, no inevitability,

Only precision of movement.

OR

Step into abundance
Smell the spring
Feel the sunshine
Yet
A pinion of chaos holds you
To your scattered fettered chamber
A gentle swift oscillation
Excessive indulgence, abandon of grief, no acquiesce,

Only minutes of the mind.

Yet i fret

i am devoid of a choice.

There are still oblivious blanks to be filled between
...

Fear ___________________________________ Bliss

The Second Coming

2007-10-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

What's a second chance…

Second chance is absolution.
Second chance is solace.
Second chance is euphoria.
Second chance is optimism.

Second chance is treading over broken mirrors…it’s mighty scary.

Getting a second chance is like being cautious not to spill your red port wine over your extravagant Versace cocktail dress.
Getting a second chance is like taking small bites of your piping hot truffle pudding and savouring each morsel; it’s not the messy hogging you did with your wobbly jelly. You don’t want to get burnt again.
Getting a second chance is not the smooth cruise ride into sunset, it’s a ride in the hot air gas balloon or a bungee jump for the more adventurous souls. You have to double check your safety net.
Getting a second chance is not like rushing in and chasing around like Don Juan. It requires you to be patient, you need to keep editing and re-editing the past.
Getting a second chance, is like trying to find that song that fits your frame of mind, but nothing seems to fit square.
Getting a second chance is like heading to the hills, when you really want to be by a beach, but hills are cool too.
Getting a second chance is like holding hands again, only you’re not sure that whether it ought to be his hand over yours, or your hand over his, or holding it gently or tightly.

Getting a second chance to start over with an estranged, unrequited past is like weeding out the unwanted jeeper creepers in your rose garden. You are careful with tendering the plant, you hope for it to bloom the way you desired, but you’re still skeptical until you see it grow...until you reach there. There is potpourri of relief and uncertainty. You sip from a cup of hope and anxiety.

What’s ironic is that you know you waited for the second chance to happen. When it happens; it happens it happens unexpectedly and you don’t know how to feel. Your answers become your questions. It’s a catch “head over feet” situation

Do second chances come with a buried baggage? They can’t be baggage–free coz there’s already been a first. So do you start over or do you pick the pieces from where you left it abandoned? If you start over, are you too cautious about not letting it fall-through?

It’s a trade-off with your pregnant ego, while your trust remains a little skeptical. But then everything is a trade off in some variant terms. The closest I got to figuring out ‘a second chance’ is that getting a second chance is not about preparing an exquisite, exotic recipe; it’s about keeping it simple…and mabbe a little garnishing. You can never be certain about how much garnishing...

who flew over the CUCKOO's nest...

2007-10-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

A very common anti-establishment debate has been – who’s to decide what defines sanity and insanity? Where do you draw the line?

A recent media coverage once again made a mockery of the ‘sanity’ in the name of ‘Breaking News’. An absolutely desperate, pathetic, depraved attempt at the portrayal of insanity to notch up their channel’s TRP ratings. A juvenile assumption and swift conclusion of linking drug abuse, moral debasement and insanity, reiterating the judgment the society casts on those they claim are ‘insane’. A cold, benumbed coverage of ‘Model Bani Bhikaran’ accessorized by views from the fashion junta to make their ‘breaking news’ in the market and to feed the voracious appetite of their voyeuristic audience! Amen to that.

I’m not sure who’s the loon here?
I’m not sure if it’s the media that feeds on society or the society that feeds on media?
I’m not sure if drugs lead to insanity?
I’m not sure what’s insanity?
What I do know is that I’m pissed and appalled at the mockery of an individual’s idiosyncrasy, their choice to exist in a form and being as they please.

The most obvious conclusion drawn by a leading news channel in the Gitanjali Nagpal ‘Ramp to road breaking news’ on their channel was, that she is mentally unstable. She is addicted to drugs. She is helpless. She is abandoned. She’s a victim. She’s a model. She’s sick. Quick to join the dots, the media blamed the pressures of fame and allure of the fashion world, the quickie lifestyle, the drugs and glorified Gitanjali as a victim of fashion and depraved existence. Almost like raising a bait to their quick to judge and hungry for sensational news audience – “Quick, here’s your bait. Jump up and reach for her.” Pathetic!

Famous fashion quotes cut and edited to reiterate their and their world’s assumption the channels quoted –
“It’s quite unfortunate what drugs have led her to.”
“We as fashion fraternity must help her. It’s our duty”
“She’s desperate, helpless, sick”
“She was alone”

How ridiculous does that sound.

Was Gitanjali looking for 5 mins of fame and limelight? Your guess is as good as mine, but then I don’t trust yours.
She never asked for the channels to cover her.
She didn’t weave a sob story or any story in front of the cameras. She was oblivious to them.
She didn’t care. Period.
And we just needed another story to make our life’s more exciting and to judge someone else. She was made out to be some kind of a freak coz she attempted to live life on her terms and because she was a woman. She’s not ‘meant’ to be a free soul.

Who’s seems lunatic - Gitanjal or the media?

brick wall.

2007-09-18T04:37:00.000-07:00

It’s the same brick wall
That built you up…
It’s the same brick wall
That tore you down…

It’s time you broke it down.

u got the 'brownie' m.u.n.c.h.i.e.s...

2007-07-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

Getting over an intense relationship is like eating your favourite choco chip brownie ..mulling over the last remains, not sure whether to save them or gorge on them, savoring each bite and the after-taste remains with you for a while and then the craving returns.

You don’t want to share the brownie with no one.
You eye the brownie with an appetizing vengeance.
You smack it with nostalgia and relish it.
You’re done with it.

Or are you really?

Does the flavour remain? The flavour always remains. You need the headrush again. An indulgent gratification. Addiction has no cure, but addiction consumes you. You loathe the brownie for making you a parasite.

It’s a bittersweet piquancy. No salvage, or redemption, yet you enjoy the acid sting of the hollowness and the saccharine embrace of the pain. You recoil into your own secure world, with your thoughts and bubbles and you wakeup to a stinging reminder of the reality that wants to pull you out of it. I’m not sure if your encounter with eating a brownie is just as intense, but it’s just so in essence.

It’s ideal. There is no confrontation. There is no beckoning. But it does get tiresome. Would you have a rotting brownie? Would anyone have a rotting brownie? But you might not want to throw it in the bin. Only that eventually you H.A.V.E. to! How long can you hang on to a decaying relationship? It’s pathetic!

You can keep the brownie in front of you and crave, but you can’t have it.
You can look at it and imagine it’s sweetness, but you can’t taste it – for real.

T.H.R.O.W it away!

Kill your past. It’ll keep coming back. The addiction to hold on is too strong. And sometimes you’re too weak to resist the sweet seize of anguish and suffering. You long to surrender. You eventually do…you release yourself into the headrush…S.W.E.E.T.

You got the ‘brownie’ munchies. It needs to feed on your fury.

Would you really give up your favourite choco-chip brownie...?

Inconclusive...

why you oughta take that flight?

2007-06-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

Reason is tricky. Sometimes things are more meaningful without a reason. Sometimes things become complicated when you apply reason to them. Sometimes reason makes it easier to justify to yourself and others. Sometimes reason makes it blurry for you and others to understand ambiguity that seeks you.

Reason never made much sense to me. Maybe professionally, but personally, if anything I’ve just found myself complicating things at the altar of reason.

Have you ever been in a panic situation, where you hit the distress button, hung on to woe and let yourself go speed ahead with abandon, without reason, without a moment’s contemplation about the conclusion. It’s an addiction. And the feeling of not being dependant on reason, the obscurity of not being able to explain to yourself, the experience of complete chaos and varying peaks of high and low is beautiful. It’s futile no doubt, coz you wake up to a reality that demands a reason for such transgression.

Sometimes, you don’t want to wake up. You find peace in the chaos when you’re confused. You’re distressed, but you don’t want to let go. You’ve lost hope, but reason is not an option.

In his nightmares, he sleeps so sweet like a child...This is my December.

...regret sucks even more!!!

2007-06-22T04:43:00.000-07:00

I’m the things you’ve done, and cannot undo.
I haunt you…
I’m the shadows you hid behind and took refugee in
I betray you…
I’m the pain you caused them, I return to you
I sting you…
I’m the sadist who made you detest and despise
I defeated you…

I’m the woe that got you high
I made you an addict
I’m the illusion that made you build your bubble
I made you burst it
I’m the whore who made you push them away
I made you distant
I’m the denial who made you run away from the truth
I made you apathetic

I took you to the peak
You soaked in the sweet glory
I pushed you off the edge
You still held on to me
I dug a grave for you
You never questioned me
I threw sand on you
You knew I betrayed you.
You lost them
You lost yourself.
Goodbye.

You’ll never fly, my sweet child.

I’m the voice in your head
You’re my bitch
I Control you
I’ll destroy you piecemeal.
Cry. Scream. Hide. Run.

Out of the closet
And into the open
You thought you wouldn’t betray them
I betrayed you
You’re drowning in your own hurt
But it’s too late to say I’m sorry.
Guilt sucks!
Regret sucks even more!

I loathe you.
Adieu.

Two Times November

2007-06-08T05:43:00.000-07:00

She soars higher
With the tease of a mild zephyr
Floating purposeless
She enjoys her random flight
An ascending high
Only to be plummeted by tug of a string
A kite’s misery
Her brief escalating sail reclines

Flying ..carefree
Soaring…eyes closed
Plummeting…dejected
Two times November
She glided a kite’s flight.
Two times November
Twice jaded.

Wax dreams
Ladder in a bubble and a string of hope,
T’was delightful
Against the vast blue spread turning from cobalt to Prussian
Her silhouette charcoal
Burnt under the twinkle of a fading Star
Like a flying Icarus
Burnt and fallen.

Dreaming …unbound
Feeling…perfection
Burnt… foolish
Two times November
She became the fallen Icarus
Two times November
Twin tragic-comedy

A bitter-sweet chronicle
Two times November
Two times sewn

about an oxymoron i knew...

2007-05-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

Personal is your path
come to scientific
and inventive maturity.
Ectoplasm of indistinct clarity
turn black and white...
wandering souls in stable quiddity pause.

- Franco Battiato

A slice of butterfly effect pie

2007-05-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Ummmm… just pondering if the wider axis your world rotates on, collapses ..how much or how little does it impact you… or do you impact it to collapse to begin with?

As a case example –
You arrive at a new place thinking nothings going to turn out right > you have more then enough friends to keep you preoccupied and you yearn for space > you get the space, you long for company > your work becomes less productive, not because it’s any different now but coz it seems monotonous somehow > you find solace in something/someone, but decide to give it up just like that > what you thought would turn out right turns out sour > you are uprooted from one place and made to shift to another > your boss quits > your CEO quits > all in a span of 3 months
Is it the butterfly effect, one ripple that causes a huge tumultuous wave, a cause and effect of one negative energy or thought to begin with? The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear.

However such a chaos theory is proclaimed to have an effect in the external environment, but does an internal stimuls lend itself to effect the world around us? Would things be any different if you were an optimist or willing to give it a chance? Is it all in the head. Do smaller thoughts or actions have a butterfly effect on our lives? In simpler terms, thatz quantifiable and more conscious. For example – If you *think* someone is a constant source of irritant (they may or may not be) but in your mind you build a negative picture of not liking someone, while in a relationship with them, it’s only going to balloon into a powerful negative portrait and we know where it’s headed next– over the edge.

All of us have been at crossroads in our lives, and questioned ourselves where to head next. But some of us question things and people around us all the time? Or do we not? Does this constant stream of questioning and complicating often lend itself to being an impetus for initiating a chaos theory around our little bubbles? Is it all in the head or is it a nexus between the external and internal stimulus? And does it effect me alone independent of others or does it effect people I don’t know? I’ve already been blabbering …

But it seems like such a wicked vicious circle. There are moments when I wish I could be more headstrong about getting things out of my mind and focus coz they don’t seem to fit in my scheme of things. Yet it’s a vain attempt. I unfurl myself unknowingly into being involved in and with things and people i might hesitate to. I restrain myself ..at times. And at times I love the free-fall and the headrush. And then there are moments when i wish for a space in my own head – a mind cluttered with questions, images, stories, memories, faces, regrets, songs and just so many scattered thoughts swimming in your head like each have a life of their own. And I yearn for a little more solitary space to create and paint yet another illusion. And then there are times like this time, when I was unconsciously harbouring and nurturing a thought, a feeling, a ripple and before I knew I had lost the calm before the storm coz I was in the midst of one …or perhaps I’m just being melodramatic …a.g.a.i.n.

But whatever it is; it leaves me with a taste of a minute butterfly effect in my mouth ..a smack of it ..it’s tangy..or so I think.
;)

c.O.L.o.U.R.s 'n' F.l.a.V.o.u.R.s

2007-04-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

The sand slips the mind stays still the road ahead no one knows which colour a purple destination an orange bee creates a buzz and you smile a cheer you drift into another land you paint your colours and flavours it’s a peaceful haven with chosen skyline and a bed of cloud only to return to a jagged reality and you lost what you had won you remember the time you heard it on the computer a certain weeping willow and it brought a smile to both your faces a movie barely watched a trip to the corner to light a smoke and make a cuppa coffee talk some more and head back to the willow and then you are now treading on a tighropewalk trying to regain the balance figuring why is everything around so pale , so dull crumbling like a stale cookie you lost your colours your flavours your turquoise turtles your weeping willow today they’re free, you’re not yesterday I was free, you were’nt tables turn, she digs into her bag she finds a memoir she wants her illusion she wants her reality she knows she has none arrrrgggghh am going that way again .. snap out of the loss gain loss routine we all think a while move into our comfort zones for a while rejuvenate to free ourselves of the cross of guilt the cross of failures the cross of speculation and cross speculation but it’s not something to be grieved I reckon coz we all need to keep rediscovering our colours and flavours some however just stay forever.

*They say jump and I say how high?
They say jump and I say I might…*
- stereophonics

P.u.R.P.L.e.

Just struck me …something about colours … they make me happy. Think about it a fuschia sky melting into gold grass illuminated with a flaming orange sun breezed upon by a silver tree the purple flowers and a hint of mustard where the bees drew nectar.Yet if I was to paint a picture ..i’d prefer it monochromic or a sepia tone. Nothing i do, nothing i think nothing i feel, nothing i see, nothing i hear ever seems picture perfect. Or mabbe I need a hint of optimism ..what coulour or flavour is that?

it does!!...your universe does shrink ..n then you need a shrink!

2007-04-13T06:11:00.000-07:00

It changes everyday... pretty dynamic i say ..sometimes it changes five times or more a day ... your "frame". On bad day ..it just seems to be a ceaseless prcess of switch on and off. Sometimes you feel XL, sometimes you feel L, and then there are days you feel a M, S, or even XS. I’m not talking about you shrinking physically to fit into your favourite pair of hip – hugging jeans, coz usually when you manage to fit into the absolutely flattering XS levis’… it’s a priceless moment. Inversely, when your mind is feeling XS, it really isn’t the most exhilarating moment or the frame you want to be in for long.

I feel XS today.

What r the symptoms that u r feeling XS:
- everything seems to be rolling over the edge. You try to contain your cup of hope n despair ..but you see it half empty nevertheless.
- No clarity with regards to everything, everyone and anything!
- Your boss makes no sense ..AT ALL!!!!!! Your friends seem to talk gibberish. You folks at this point obviously are living on another planet and talking the alien lingo.
- And you don’t have a dog to make you feel wanted.
- You wish you had not left things undone and unsaid …like should have completed the training in flash and after effects!
- You listen to Stereophonics 24/7 and depress yourself even more so.
- “Cheech and chong up in smoke” does give you the splits anymore L
- 24 hours seem to stretch to 108 hours!!
- You feel like a micron of the scum of the earth.

You bury your head in a pillow and u’ll only feel smaller. It’s the XS syndrome …

you need a shrink!!!!

Kula Shaker had sung intelligently
“If your were alone,
No one would know that you were crying
If you were a dream,
Nothing would seem high or low”

And rightly so… and thank god for that!! imagine not being able to feel high or low ... XL or XS!!!

turd sulk!

2007-04-09T03:50:00.000-07:00

Shoestrunghopepeaches – are u sulking?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – who me? I’m not.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – yes you are!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – am not!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – you are!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – NO! am not!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – But you are. I can see it!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – am not!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – you’re sulking

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – I’m not sulking!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – why would’nt u admit it.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – coz am not sulking.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – ofcourse u are, u mofo!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – listen you nincompoop, I’m not sulking.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – yes you are!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – am not!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – but why are you sulking?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – *red-blue in the face* you’re beginning to piss me off.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – sure, whatever suits you, but seriously, I’m concerned, why are you sulking?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – Read my lips - I A.M. N.O.T. S.U.L.K.I.N.G.!!!!!

Shoestrunghopepeaches –Aww… c’mon, now u’re sulking and u’re pissed.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – *ignores*

Shoestrunghopepeaches – you need to let it out of the system. C’mon lets take the chariot of fire out.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – leave me alone. Go!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – can’t leave you. You’re sulking.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – what would it take you to believe that I’m not sulking!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – Tell me, what are you sulking about and I’ll be gone.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – nothing! I’m NOT sulking! Arrrrgggh!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – bro, yes you are!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – am not!

Shoestrunghopepeaches –you are!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – no!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – yes!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – no!

Shoestrunghopepeaches – whatz with the crease on your forehead?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – what crease?

Shoestrunghopepeaches – that crease?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – WHAT crease?

Shoestrunghopepeaches – that one?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – Is it a long crease?

Shoestrunghopepeaches – *intent gaze* shyte, it looks like a canyon in the middle of your forehead..it’s pretty long I say?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – long and deep, aye??

Shoestrunghopepeaches – hmmmmm…THE crease.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – what about it? What does it look like?

Shoestrunghopepeaches – it looks like you’re sulking.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – ahhhh! You mean ..like it is …it is THE sulk-crease.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – yup! thatz what I’ve been telling you, mofo!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – *shrugs* so awrite I might have been sulking.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – *ecstatic* hell yea!!!! YOU have been!

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – so?

Shoestrunghopepeaches – you owe me the sulk!

[Shoestrunghopepeaches exits]

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – was I sulking?

Turquoise Turtles...

2007-04-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

[digs into the pancake]

Shoestrunghopepeaches – cheer up, can’t be much longer

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – In this post modernist era of dejection and megalomania, how can you harbor hope for someone to come rescue you or your ambitions? It’s just hopeless.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – C’mon we just need to travel a little further and we shall arrive?

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – arrive? Where? What direction are we headed in? We’re aimless remember. We’re vagabonds. We’ll never reach coz our direction is wayward.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – *gives up* alright we’ll just wait at this crossroad until we decide where to head.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – heh ..you want to head in all directions, yet fear to tread. You’re excited to explore yet u’re tied down by a routine obligation.You’re willing to risk it, but u’re never sure if it’s worth it. How will you and I ever know if it’s the right direction? And what is the right direction? What is it that we’re looking for or are we just looking? Sometimes we want, we explore, we abandon, we regret. We call it a waste of time and effort. And then sometimes we just vegetate, like now.

Shoestrunghopepeaches – Until you move in a certain direction, how’s one to know, if that’s what will make you jump, skip , hop.

Bluedyedcynicalrecluse – Jump. Skip, Hop? If u’re seeking happiness then why are you whiling your time taking a refuge in dejection with me. To relish suffering you do not move on. It’s a society of appearances. You appear happy, but you enjoy suffering. Or sometimes you detest suffering and compromise yourself completely coz finally you think you’ve discovered happiness.. But it’s a slap in your face. Coz it always evades you…smiles are momentary.

*black out*

Sitting atop a scenic café, it’s pitch dark. Only the stars shine but their light does’nt reach them. It's a surreal moment. Revalation yet denial. Shoestrunghopepeaches and bluedyedcynicalrecluse continue to gorge on a chocolate pancake.

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Ever been a state of complete abandon..when you’ve thought about nothing in particular. Think that’s what they call some strange peace…a momentary repose. No linear thought, no mind games, just surreal pictures in a bizarre movement. They make their own stories and sub dialogues. You’ve just let yourself sink into oblivion. It’s self-denial. It’s scary but it’s a crazy free-fall.

cocoon crash...

2007-03-05T03:36:00.000-08:00

An obscene sense of satisfaction ..in the process of chasing them away. Distress eclipses after having chased them away. A perverse sense of complacency at not making an effort, a vulnerability envelops when I make an attempt towards making an effort. That’s exactly why it seems so futile. That’z exactly why you want to remain in your cocoon…secure and uncomplicated…away from eyes that seek…away from eyes that perceive…away from eyes that question…away from eyes that are brimming with nostalgia. You want to push it all away. You seek solitude n repose…but it gets lonely somewhere, sometime, somehow.

And then u realize what a complete mess u’ve made of yourself and those who cared about you …once. It’s a horrible sinking feeling. To chase illusion you destroy reality. It’s a price you once chose to pay, but you live to regret, coz it’s not worth it. You just grow to realize you enjoyed the suffering …and now you don’t.

Heh ..ironic ..i thought I knew it all ..but things never did turn out my way ..and the loss was entirely mine.

“I thought I knew it all
I thought I had it made
How could it end this way?”
-Megadeth

ruminating...any regrets??? i reckon, no.

2007-02-26T05:39:00.000-08:00

The last time someone asked me if it was ok to be messed up, I said, ‘I reckon, yes.’ And yet when I turned around and said “you’re being ambiguous and obscure”; I get a swift revert, “if you see it all as obscure, its just testimony to you being unable to grasp what another person could be feeling or going through, which is something i now understand about you.” Mabbe rightly said or mabbe just as misunderstood as always.

And where did this all begin …? From a signature on an email that said “…narcissism is terminal”

‘The movies will be at my desk tomorrow.’…typical, very typical.

Post clockwork orange, we decided to do our own bicycle diaries (which amounted to a measly 5 kms away from campus over a span of 5 hours.) Were we slow? No we just explored places around campus. Took some pretty photographs, parked ourselves by a dry canal, got chased by dogs, and followed the cows at a snail’s place and topped it with a bird eye view of the village from a watertank-top. Nothing remarkably adventurous, just something we happened to cherish ….later.

Lots of backlash, lot of accusations, just a lot of expectations. “I switch off”, I scribbled on the portable wipe-board that hung next to the floyd poster on his wall. It seemed like an ugly anomaly to the poster.

Heh. I can’t help smile thinking about this. The brownie night. Walked up the same stairs, paced my steps as always, the door ajar as usual. Parked my self on the bed. Lay the brownie, next to the table. It was typical. You could be sleeping, singing, reading aloud, or just sitting silent by the bed and it would be the same – you’re there, yet not there. The fingers stretched to reach the brownie, a glance back and a sheepish smile. I get up, plant a kiss on the forehead, take my share of the brownie and head back. Sometimes it was just the serenity that was more expressive.

It was striking, how the same surroundings could sometimes make you feel so inconspicuous. The silence almost became an iron curtain.

One of us – a narcissist, the other – a nihilist. One time, we walked all the way in silence to the canal, just to watch the reflection of moon in the canal. We walked back in silence. And yet there were times, when we closed doors on each other and on others.

It was at the orphanage, where we finally broke our iron curtain again, after a lapse in time. It was notorious, playful, peaceful…it was liberating to be in my own skin again. The orphanage, became my refuge, it felt secure to be there. The streets of Lokhandwala seemed bright n festive..it drizzled a little. The bookstore felt like our wonderland. Yeah he even picked up comics …sheesh! And yes, there was an overdose of the absolutely sumptuous brownies to wrap up a perfectly well spent evening, from brownie point, bandra.

Sometimes, you rush it. Sometimes you just let it fade. Sometimes, you never let go.

In a minute there is time for revisions …and then in a minute you annihilate, coz u’re a nihilist or u're just really stooopid.

any regrets??? i reckon, no.

spool it...spark it...smoke it... ;)

2007-02-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

It was a revelation, it was a separation
It’s apprehension, I guess I’ll make my way somehow
It’s messed up, I guess you always liked it that way…

Spool it, spark it, smoke it

An anonymous stray joint
A comforting column of smoke
Abandoned by passion, embraced by chaos
We kissed and rolled our cannonballs
I remember when I first walked through the door…
You were apologetic, you turned up the volume… it was oasis
I smiled, you dwelled in your cocoon
You were more human then, than now…

Spool it, spark it, smoke it

Another drag, a cloud of smoke
Yet another, and a cornucopia of stars
Bitten by bliss, nursed by anguish
We both sought, we both let it slip.
The Jews, they wore their scars on their arms
You wore your scar on me.
Sometimes Welsh, sometimes Kubrick, sometimes Jude
There was always more to explore.
You were more familiar then, then now…

Spool it, spark it, smoke it

At the edge, me and the spool
We’re both spent, we’re both wasted
The final cascade of smoke, a final plunge
You and I, we both flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
We had our moments, we discovered our madness
Deception of obscurity,
Was it about the smoke and mirrors
Was it just another beautiful detour?
Another amorous form of smoke arose,
You and I, we created a space
A space for recluses, a moment to reflect
The smoke shields my shadow
I walked into your shadow
You eclipsed my pride.
Optimally spent, from ivory to ebony
The joint lay somber between the nervous fingers.
Who’s more wasted, you or i?
The last time we said that
We laughed until we cried like raccoons
You were more real then…

Spool another, spark another, smoke another…

I seal my eyes, I touch the ground, I feel the sun, I cry and smile
Spooling, sparking, Bobbing, Spinning…
You were so real then to me
You’re just a distant perception to me now…

Us WAS Gloom
Us IS Gone

Spool it, spark it, smoke it

I don’t want to leave my fingerprints
I don’t want your impressions.

Pulp of frigid reflexes

2007-02-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

It’s a …
How do you put in words…
A crafted vision…spread like an omnipresent painting on the canvas of your mind. A few impulsive strokes, a few aesthetic illustrations, lazy outlines…you sketch your pipe-dreams. You trace out all the elements-there’s hope, there’s apprehension, there’s confidence, there’s hesitation; yet it’s a happy vision. It makes you smile…a happy smile. There’s a perverse narcissist attachment to your painting. It starts to possess you. Your perceptions get distorted. You seek the happiness in your painting, in your mind. You’re unaware that you escaped it in reality.

You escape hope in the real world
But you seek it in the painting.
You are unhappy with pessimism in the real world
But the doleful painting makes you happy
You chase away your ecstasy in the real world
But you chase euphoria with a delirious passion in your painted strokes.

You can’t explain it.

The only thing I understand is that there are moments of absolute painful unrest; there are moments of intoxicating, frenzied happiness that makes it worth it. And then sometimes you wonder – is it?

Sometimes you attempt to, but find it excruciating difficult to alienate the painting, because of the baggage attached. Each stroke that was etched on the campus has a twisted tale to narrate. They are rooted in your experience, your beliefs. They are rooted in the nascent memories, that built a hope; some are sourced in the bitter moments that you never grew to accept and thus the painting molded itself on your mind’s canvas to give you an alternate space where you would recline once in a while and smile at will.

I still can’t put it in words…

It’s not just a vision i sketched.. It’s an alternate space of being…but inherently shared by those who YOU allow to be present. The canvas becomes your sacred space and the strokes are the people and moments you treasure. Often (subjectively speaking) it’s not people; it’s just one other being along with you.

The painting lends itself to manifest itself into an Elysium for the two of you. It’s an enamoring experience. It’s a storehouse of reclusive and shared moments. Even when you cease to exist with the person in real, you take repose in the Elysium and seal your eyes and feel happy.

The sky never felt this close.

But then, all I said above is futile. You and I live in the real world. Your painting never really existed. Never will. The painting is just a manifestation of all the trash that resides in your head . It a heady, intoxicating concoction of liberating moments, blissful smiles, ascending hopes, piercing bitterness and a faint stoke of hollowness. It's just a rotting pulp of wasted antithetical emotions. the painted pulp is an unnecessary refuge.

What we say is meaningless
What we see is contrived
What we do is monitored
What we think is conditioned
What we expect is despair
No hope, only boundaries
No dreams, only termination

We are parasites who grow and manifest into forms we are expected to. We stay dry, numb, unaffected in a cactus land . We’ve grown so indifferent to our surroundings that it ceases to amaze us when we hurt someone and don’t regret it. Where’s the fucking time to admire a painting in real life, to create an alternate aesthetic space of being on the canvas of the mind. These are just cotton candy words weaved on the hollow string of hope. Do not be deceived! Ironically it's probably more liberating to remain conditioned to the rat-infested density which our minds have fundamentally been conditioned to.

Create a plague, Spread the plague, Respect the plague.

It’s a …
Nevermind trying to define what it is; but something relevant what T.S Eliot penned, comes to mind:

“Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow
… This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

R.I.P. Elysium

rip van winkle...

2006-12-19T05:15:00.000-08:00

Enter uninvited
Escape uninhibited
They fix you
Mirage of hope
Dungeon of fears
They offer you salvation
Moist nostalgia
Biting memories
They leave behind a bittersweet taste
They possess your space…

In no particular direction,
They head
Discreetly wavering
Consciously plunging
They enslave you
You struggle
You surrender
You lose yourself
It’s a vain attempt
They possess your will…

Sometimes a castaway
Sometimes a conqueror
Sometimes a banal reiteration
For that momentary lapse of consciousness
They possess your entity…

Struggle within
It’s a blasphemous combat
Captivate
Stillness
Chaos
Exhausted
You will them to leave

Eyes shut
A sigh escapes your mouth
Implore
Pleasure
Climax
Desperate
You will them to capture your being

Your thoughts… they possess YOU…

court jester's travesty...

2006-12-08T04:34:00.000-08:00

Parody of the obvious
A relentless act
Lampoon of the melodrama
The protagonist chaffs to appease

A teasing satire
Come close, and let go
Never was meant to be kept…

Mock heroic attempt towards courting woe…

Bent over
The desolate barren tree
She sheds her olive green
And revels in her melancholy
She suffers the banal
And makes a chance surrender…
She waits for the spring again
And anticipates a fury of passion…
A swift circle

and the void beckons…

She stands again
Naked and exposed.
The tree mocks her grotesque existence
The gyre remains redundant
And blissful…

Tramps have it easy…

The court jester smiles
A clandestine smile
Like her, the weeping willow
she blossoms occasionally.
A forsaken nemesis…
They both are fated
To be mocked
They both revel
In their perverse quintessence…
A travesty…

Laugh Out Loud…(insert burlesque laugh)

evasive chase...

2006-12-07T03:50:00.000-08:00

She wrote again
An epilogue
She buried again
An awkward silence
She embraced again
An apathetic nothingness
She felt again
A release

Cracked his waterloo..
He succumbed.
She withdrew.
She welcomed again
her emancipation.

Like a broken bough against a high cliff waterfall
In his surreal surrender, she felt
She abandoned the cascade…again
Severed his pinioned embrace…again
As always…

Incomplete and nebulous
That’s how she liked
Prick and twist the needle
That’s how she liked
A kiss and then goodbye
That’s how she liked
To watch her cookie crumble
That’s how she liked.

A swift intense hurt
Incoherent words
Blurred saline tears
Smile. She did.

Secure with indefinite,
Illuminated obscurity,
Pure incoherence,
Parallel chaos,
She liked it such…
Her amorphous trance.

Her impregnable Elysium

She wrote again
An epilogue
Alive. She was again…

watz yr status quo...

2006-12-01T01:32:00.000-08:00

Spaces and boundaries
Liberation and confinement
A revelation in each…
A pleasant discovery
An unpleasant deja-vu

No frontiers
No edges
No periphery to encounter
Eyes sealed

Unfettered mind
You narrate yourself a scenery
You bring to life your illusions
You stare into oblivion
You dither in a state of unconsciousness
You smile at nothingness
A cup of hope n perplexity
You’re happy bovine…
You hold dear the freedom to rediscover … Imagination fills the void of your existence
…when far from it…you feel incomplete…

Rustic attic
Locked door
Locked mind
An invisible fence
to hold your imaginary flight.
A sinking feeling
Evades you and then chases you
Every day is the same as yesterday…
You can’t see the sun
You can’t hear the whimper
You can’t feel apathy
You’re a fossil
You hit rock bottom
You’re drifting …you fight complacency…
You know it’ll be long before they retrieve you…you’re an amputee waiting to feel your limbs…
Either way…
It’s always a capricious denouement…

Distance and proximity
Stealing time…
Holding on to nothing…
Miles to reach there
You’re comfortable.
Miles besides yourself
Nobody besides yourself
Immediate presence of another
unsettles you…
Stray meandering
You enjoy the labyrinth
It’s erratic
It’s enigmatic
Makes you laugh with yourself
Either way…
It’s always a capricious denouement…

No inclination to hide
No inclination to seek
No inclination to rush

Is there somewhere you WANT to be?
Or is there somewhere you HAVE to be?

Or maybe you want to rest the hour-glass…sink in the spaces and boundaries …revel in the distance and the proximity…feel the ground beneath you…seal your eyes ..narrate yourself another anecdote ...before you navigate yourself to another destination …
Either way…
It's always a capricious denouement…

“In this quiet little place
I can't remember having known a different pace
In this quiet little place
I can surrender to the beauty of its face

… And now everything I feel
Whether it's fiction or it's real
It's so much clearer
Like the color of this light
It seems more dangerous and bright
But I don't fear her

… And no matter how I try
I can't seem to think of anything better to say”

- K’s Choice

...

2006-12-01T01:13:00.000-08:00

"Hold your breath and count to ten,
And fall apart and start again…”
- Placebo

specious horizon...

2006-11-16T05:58:00.000-08:00

You’ve written the epilogue
You’ve thrown the sand on the coffin
You’ve sealed the window
You’ve crushed dried flowers
You’ve dropped the curtains
You’ve exhaled the regrets
You’ve thrown the key away to lose it
You’ve shut the memories away
You’ve alienated the immediate
You’ve removed the brush from the canvas
You’ve broken your journey
You’ve reached the end of your rainbow.
You’ve discovered your pot of gold.
You still feel hollow….
Why?
Mabbe coz the horizon’s not real.

The horizon is a sadistic tease, seems well within your reach...like spurious search for mississippi muddpie...
A utopian disillusion, but sometimes, ignorance is sunshine. It keeps you warm.

However when you bury this ignorance of the horizon, and know that there is no meeting of the sky and sea; the real seems disoriented.
You are an ardent traveler; thus you continue to pursue other landscapes like the exotic rainbow. You make your way to the end and discover your pot of gold. You’re still not happy.
Are you stupid? Are you fundamentally not a happy person? Are you chasing lost ignorance?
Your fallicious illusions appease to the real world that surrounds you, aesthetically perhaps, yet you pursue the real in your illusions. However, when the real is well within your reach, you withdraw or feel like a sinking ship. It isn’t conscious. You cannot control it.
Are you stuck on your own illusions?
Are you apathetic to the real?
Are you happier pursuing an illusion?
Does the real disturb you?

There’s something incomplete here…
Mabbe coz the horizon’s not real.

so so soooo utterly random - 'in vain'

2006-11-10T03:44:00.000-08:00

It began with one thought that a friend put in my head today...Sometimes words fail you.
Led to - Sometimes your emotions fail you. Sometimes your idiosyncrasies seem alien to you. Sometimes your broken spirit betrays you. Sometimes you can’t explain it. Is it catharsis? I don’t know
Is it a turmoil? Mabbe
It’s exhausting. Yes
It’s pointless. Yes.
But can you evade it. I tried.
It caught up.

The world around you doesn’t stop.
You delude yourself into believing, it’ll pass.
You’re stuck in a timeless whirlpool. It sucks you in.
It’s a fierce battle. You and your …I don’t how to address it (words fail me).. I reckon we can call it 'inane shadow' (I don’t know why, just.) Mabbe b’coz it’s an extension and reinforcement of the phantoms inside and is desperate for an outlet. So offshoot it and we keep it as the inane shadow. You could also call it diabolic shadow..coz it sure as hell is viscious and seems possessed but i prefer 'inane' coz it's vague, it's frivolous, it's foolish, it's loony, it's quixotic..it's indispensible. Wtf ..call it wat u want.
It trips you
It fails you
It confuses you
It tugs on your strings
It breaks you down into miniscule atomic pieces. You never gather yourself together apiece again. Ever.

Is it evil? No
Does it revel in sadism? Mabbe

Does it mock you? Yes
Does it nurse your pain? Yes

Is it empty? No
Is it prosaic? Yes

Is it a vagabond? No
Is it wayward? Yes.

Is there any rationale to it? No.
Is it idealistic? Mabbe.

Is it tangible? No
Does it feel real? Yes

It’s not strange.
Yet. It doesn’t seem worthy of existence.
Yet. You become dependant on it. Like a parasite.

Mabbe I don’t make sense.
But it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t seem to feel the need to justify itself.

Do you still excuse it for sneaking up on you and throwing you off guard and for failing you? Yes.

There’ll be no better time
There’ll be no better way

Call it absurd. Call it nothingness. Call it figment of my imagination. Call it tedious. Call it my stubbornness. Call it wat you may. You know that YOU too have been dependant on it. Many a times. And YOU will continue to seek it's presence. YOU will continue to take refugee. YOU will continue to curl up n lie there, waiting for it to irk you..again.

I’m still at ground zero. Running in circles. Talking gibberish. Self-deluding. Still indulging in idle chat. Still surviving. Still slipping. Still breathing. Still musing. Still pmsing. Still reading. Still working. Still cooking rhetorical questions. Still making my storehouse of nostalgia. Still faking. Still listening. Still playing weeping willow on a loop. Still fakking coping with monotony. Still choosing…
Still figuring it out.

As an afterthought: (like mint after a complicated meal)
Heh ..even though I still haven’t figured out how to cope with it, I just absolutely absolutely love the way Depeche Mode fakks with this dithering state of being, with our friend, the inane shadow. D. Mode ignores “it’s” presence and continues to assert with nonchalant conviction:
“Don’t say you’re happy; out there; without me. I know, u can’t be. Coz it’s no good.”

If only…

...clueless

2006-11-07T00:59:00.000-08:00

I’ll be alright I know
But never felt so defeated.
It’ll fade away they say
But never known hurt this intense
Clarity will reign
But it’s never been this ambiguous
We both broke our mirrors …at last

The impressions will stay...i know

sunshine (marshmallow tarts) in my bag...

2006-10-30T23:56:00.000-08:00

Like an amputee who can sometimes feel a stinging, piercing pain in limb he no longer has, we often cling to a history that was never rooted in our existence. It is an intense feeling rooted in the mind, like the pain in amputee’s head.

It’s the most satisfying feeling to create an entire surreal utopia in our heads, however it becomes extremely difficult to pull yourself out of the macabre of the false world until we start to believe in it as an extension of our beings.

Over a cup of coffee yesterday, a friend casually referred to Freud’s theory on the structure of mind - ego, super-ego and the ‘id’. He further elaborated on the subject, which further digressed into a brief discussion on voyeurism. Within a few minutes intellectual view points were being tossed around, until it was sealed with one of us randomly claiming “My id is gone.” A few laughs and then everyone conveniently slipped back into common, banal conversation over a cup of black coffe and two frappes and the free choco-chip cookies…

However, Id stayed. Ego (which is our rational self) and Super –Ego (primarily our moral self subject to some amount of conditioning in a nut shell.) does’nt fascinate me so much. What interests me however is DA "ID” (Id is not pronounced as I.D (identification ID)..it's just id). The Id which is apparently buried way beyond even the deep sub-conscious is the state of our mind in the most primitive state, reflective of all our primal instincts. It’s stubborn, immature and irrational “I want it and I want it now”!! Id wants instant gratification. This is when a human’s voyeuristic instincts come to the forefront. However, Id IS primal, yes, but by primal I also mean impulsive; but i primarily believe that Id seems more substantial than just the savage instincts of man, i.e - hunger, rage and sex. Through imagination, it can be cultivated into something more intense and considerable than just primal.

Coming back to the amputee… what does an amputee’s id seek? He’s a human. He seeks the same gratification, as the rest of us. Only it becomes physically impossible for him to gratify himself. However, the faculty of the mind comes to his rescue. The power of the mind becomes his strongest sense. Imagination feeds and devours on him like a parasite. Imagination grows to be so intense and real, it could make his essential sense of being surrender to it. It’s liberating. It builds for him his alternate world. It is a ‘construct’ of his mind, nevertheless it offers him a release from the mundane reality of his existence.

If id can offer such surreal sense of space and self of being to an amputee who can feel the pain in his non-existent limbs; Id could lead you or me to my path of a surreal emancipation.

Id explores the repressed, unconscious state of being. If one was to explore this pandora’s box within us, by releasing our id not in the physical state of being but in the mental state of being, it would be a trance like paradise. A subordination of reason and rationale to the will; a space in the mind outside of the real world. No limitations, no boundaries, no fears, no inhibitions. A utopia. A self sufficient world. An alleviating headrush. And as Wordsworth (who I detest) once said “emotion recollected in tranquility.”

Assembling the memories from the personal unconscious and rendering a shape to them into a visionary illusion within the realm of mind. It’s the most beautiful place to be in – a liberation from the banal, the real. It never disappoints you. It’s a constant spring of happiness. Even the pain is alleviating, something you enjoy indulging in. It is an oxymoron – a living death, like Petrarch said. It’s your own inspired space of absolutes, it’s an anomaly alright; but it’s removed from any ambiguity. It gives you an opportunity to build your own illusion in your mind and experience it. Experience the tears, the mirth, the laughter, the tears, the decadence, and the perverse. It’s as real as it gets. Imagination can be overwhelming, and this is exactly how it feels. You feel overpowered by a feeling, an experience, a thought, an illusion you know is not real, but it feels like the absolute truth..similar to the amputee who feels the pain in his limbs that don’t exist. It might be a history that was never ours, it might be a relationship we were never in, it might be a book that was never written, it might be a person who you loved, but remained unrequited, it might be marshmallow tarts, it might be anything, absolutely anything under the sun in your mind ..it’s like sunshine in your bag ..heh :)
It’s fascinating, your surreal imagination, your utopia, with your people and your creations.

Some might brush it away as mere escape or criticize you for living in a fool’s paradise. They might jibe such dreamers for not comprehending the real or absconding it . However what falls beyond their comprehension is that you’ve transgressed those mundane conformists and their conditional trappings. You have managed to experience the abstract in an absolute experience. Who’s the fool thus? Us or Them?

However, the reality stings harder than before when you descend from this surreal elusive space back into your mundane grounded domain

Nevertheless, you know, that unlike others who lack the power of imagination or cannot tap into their emotion recollected in tranquility, you can always liberate yourselves from the trappings of the mundane and release your ‘id’. *subtle smirk*

P.S: A song that describes such abandoned state of mind n soul - Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz..heh

I ain't happy, I' m feelin glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long the future is comin' on
- Gorillaz

her pantomime...

2006-10-11T02:55:00.000-07:00

ACT II; SCENE V
[a dimly lit chamber]

[He stands across the wall; she enters]

play light
play shadow
a nexus of discrepancies

Two spoken
ambiguous words
Two souls
estranged and suspended on strings

Amidst
Union of light and shadow
words incoherent
actions persuasive

t'was a classic act
streaming ochre light
bounced off the glistening tear
shadow on the wall
held it's back to the light

[Aside] a mute mime
suffering passion
momentary lapse of compassion

Pause.

Was it an applause?
Was there going to be an epilogue?

At
the travesty of their distress
A painful parody of her feigned existence
Mockery had her last laugh

The strings snap
Silhouettes dissolve
words-obscure
actions-absent

shadows fade
ochre turns ginger
light extinguished

He stood soul-stripped. numb.

The curtain drops
She weeps silently

[exeunt]

height of quixotic-ism

2006-10-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Miles beside himself, miles below himself, Miles behind himself, am I inside myself ...

- Alice in chains

(You must have to be dead, to be this quixotic!!)

kafkascope on loss - lack??? duh!

2006-10-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

…rather than memory loss, it was more a memory lack..

“there’s a big difference between loss and lack. I suppose it’s like – well, imagine a train steaming down a track. The freight’s disappeared from one of the cars. A car that’s empty inside – that’s loss. When the whole car has vanished –that’s lack.”
- Prof Tsukayama
(Kafka on the Shores by Haruki Murakami)

The lack vs loss debate is a little too convenient to swallow nonchalantly. In fact it’s not very agreeable or palatable. Mabbe the context in which Tsukayama explicitly explained the ‘loss’ as distinctly different from ‘lack’ is not rooted in the same context that I am applying to the incomprehensible reasoning unfolded by him.

According to the Prof, when the “whole” car is vanished - it’s LACK. When the car’s “empty” inside, it’s LOSS. Hmmm…When Moby sang “Why does my heart feel so bad” ..was he suffering from a lack or loss?? If my ‘context’ here is a ‘low-down empty soul-searching heart ’ – and if I were to apply Prof Tsukayama’s reasoning, an empty heart or heart searching for answers – it’s a loss! But if’ there is NO quest only – it’s a lack??? Something seems amiss here...

Sometime the quest of an empty heart is for something/ someone whose ‘absence’ in your life has a strong presence. And the inevitable denouement to that : revelation of feeling a certain, commonly known as “Lack”. Loss is something you experience after the presence of ‘lack’ is erased by physical and tangible presence of the object of affection in our lives and that person/thing makes a quick or prolonged exit from our lives. Only then can we comprehend and recognize "loss".

Lack and loss form a vicious circle. Like mentioned above, only once we recognize what’s lacking, and find the ‘absent factor’ and amend it with fruitful presence of a dear someone/something in our lives; do we recognize the loss that follows his/her exit from our lives. Simultaneously, sometimes invariably we get extremely comfortable with the 'presence of lack' in our lives that we don’t wish to trade it with the tangible presence of what we are actually lacking or subconsciously seeking. We refuse to accept the missing piece to complete the puzzle; the void becomes extremely comfortable. This intimacy with presence of lack in our lives becomes an extremely complacent and snug existence. The intrusion of a physical presence seems disturbing. And thus we remain cocooned...This translates into a loss – a loss of experience, a loss of hurting and hoping, a loss of experiencing sweet, nauseous, pleasurable pain. a loss of living belong illusion, a loss to challenge the real, a loss of knowing what real or literal destitution is all about.

A couple of days back, a high-brow, savvy acquaintance of mine sincerely remarked – Why does shit happen. How do you fix it? How do you struggle with emotional baggage, fears and hopes? And why do we feed the same bullcrap to someone who’s trying to reach us and end up alienating them?

This is exactly the kind of circumstance when we nurse ‘lack’ into ‘loss’.

You are so absorbed with your hurt, pain, fears and hopes and wishing for the lack of the presence of the object of your affection (obviously you think it’s a loss that he/she is no longer in your life.). He/ She has exited – it’s a loss. But over a period of time, if you’re still grieving - it’s a lack – your lack of comprehension, your lack of vision, and your lack to cope-up with a break up. And thus you begin to feed and nurse this “lack”. You begin to feel vulnerable without the pain and hurt. You find it comforting to nest in the confines of your ‘emotional baggage’ that comprises of stale mourning, decaying, fading memories, bitter agony, sense of betrayal, bruised egos, and great deal of excruciating pain and hurt. In such a situation, a certain someone from the world you’ve reclined; extends a helping hand to retrieve you from the swampy hole you’ve laid buried in since your last ‘loss’. And you are obviously oblivious to the opportunity that walked to your door to restore the ‘lack’ in your depressing existence. You continue to mull and brew cotton-candy illusions about your abandoned muse. This is when your lack again turns into a loss!!! A major loss...you just lost out on the one person who cared enough to pay attention to you in your sullen state and was willing to help you move on without your baggage, to help you struggle with your fears and to help you render concrete form to your hopes and you blew it away like sand in your face. You’re a fool…serious fool!

Anyways, I’ve digressed from where I started. I started with a distate for Prof Tsukayama’s rigid expression of lack and loss, but maybe the context in which he used the above, he needed to be a little stringent about it. However, in real life loss and lack have a twisted and devious – a cause and effect reaction and existence in our lives. One leads to another, almost sinisterly and sometimes pleasantly. They are ambiguous and normally believed to have a very inconsequential part to play in our lives. Not really.

“Someone live my life
I’ve got to know what dead men know
Someone to love”
- Moby
(dead men knew no lack or loss)

I can see
I can feel
Hate to see
Hate to feel
- AIC

inevitable- a mortal's dilemma..

2006-10-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurt.

H.O.P.E. junkie

2006-09-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

H.O.P.E. junkie..

HOPE…a word loaded with expectations, faith, belief, dreams, sanguinity, a secure existence, desire, intuition et al; inevitably lead to a baneful denouement – despair.

Knowing the false security you are bluffing yourself into, you heavily depend on your dosage of hope. Consistently indulging in a game of tomfoolery with your own emotions, you ascend and descend the ladder of hope; playing hide and seek with prolonged moments of melancholy and ecstasy.

Hope is addictive.

Sometimes a head rush while daydreaming; an Elysium of broken dreams and mushrooming expectations; a vision of rendering a concrete shape to cotton-candy hope. Unseal your eyes and poof! Hope evaporates.

Pleasurable moments of indulging in alleviating melancholy. A prick from a needle, the thrill, the immediate acceptance of pain. Hope churns up a mediocre mix of stinging hurt and discourteous pleasure. It unceremoniously deludes you into believing that the Elysium you built in your conscious mind will take form. Dragging you to the edge, and send you rolling down a ceaseless vacuum.

They say to hope junkies - “If you never try, you’ll never know”. It’s a little complicated to assess whether “trying” is worth the agony and the resentment. If you rise from the ashes and the trance of hope, you’d be the phoenix that resisted apocalyptic addiction; else hope would crucify you nevertheless.

Hope is a lethal drug. Slowly erodes the sense of self, devouring and consuming the spirit, it disintegrates your essence, desire, vigour, will and strength to live a nonchalant life. It raises a human wreck which corrodes into oblivion!!

Time, effort, spirit – melting, vegetating, broken...

You’re a decaying pile of debris
You’re burnt out on hope
You’re a h.o.p.e junkie…

Wasted…

h.o.p.e…
An easy word
A convenient shield
A betraying illusion
An idyllic trance

A soaring tower of
Belief
Faith in serendipity
Afloat in paradise,
No different from the delusional
Eden’s utopian spread…

A wasted routine
An impulsive addiction
Carcass of broken spirit

Tightrope on hope
Hurt you will,
Out of the blue
Into the black…

The pain might fade
Erased it will not be

…Coming back to hope
A vicious cycle…
A perfect mockery
The joke’s on you.

Pinion of enslaving illusion
Pinnacle of self-destruction
h.o.p.e.

...malady returns

2006-09-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

Fierce battle

A broken trench
Cold silent combat

A Machiavellian foe
Artful
Crafty
Equipped with
Aesthetics of guile
Crossing swords
Raking sore past…

Attacking the
Achilles heel
An acid sting
Raw
Agonizing
Spiteful
Malicious

The bugle resonates

Armour unfastened

Almost to rest
Fading
Hidden
Tranquil
No more remorse

Combat neurosis

Malady stings again…

Another vain attempt
Unrequited repose.

boHemiAn BullcRaP cAnvAs

2006-09-18T02:46:00.000-07:00

18th Sep'06

Phenomenal absurdities…relentless discovery…rules in the book…transgressions…observing …silence…headrush…nostalgia…an instant shot of pain…release …ecstacy…habitual smiles...cacophony…finding yourself in a crowd ..stars...lost in narrow spaces…beacon lights…addicted to the pursuit…conditioned to wander aimlessly…it’s never over ..chases and chases …a constant pirouette, the gyre keeps unfurling beneath you...

a bohemian hangover ...

19th sept'06

ennui ....alas!!...sigh ..the bourgeois subdues a revolution ..the capitalist slavehouse can be extremely anal!!!

washed down in quicksand of contradictions and substitutes...retrieve the debris.

12:49 PM: wandering soul defies to be subdued.
an urge to quit
quit the obvious
quit the past... the present.

Glass in front, reflects ambiguous truths.. a mirage of barely visible forms;
A sea of obscure forms brought from the past to the foreground
into the glass they mingle with barely visible forms...
The glass tells an array of stories
Clock strikes...
It's a different story.

20th sept'06

Lukewarm day ...stable existence …where’s my beer?

Highpoint of the day: nothing changes :(

21st sept'06

wasted state the morning after...
arrgggh...hangover and slow day at work ...lethal!!!!!!
brain collapsed...detest it!

25th sept'06

juxtaposing euphoria and apathy...
a messed up cognizance, it remains...
a parasitic dependence
a familiar sinking feeling.

29th sept'06

"I gave a weak smile; he came close and put an arm around my shoulders; I clung to him and wept quietly. The warm physical pleasure of tears running down my cheek. What a relief! It is so tiring to hate someone you love."
- Simone de Beauvoir"

keyhole perspective...door_ajar...

2006-08-24T01:04:00.000-07:00

Insecure door; ajar
A naked view…

First glance:
Ebony Hendrix
in morbid silence
pasted in blue
A half spent
Burnt chestnut, glowing ember
ivory joint
The smoke evading
His somber eyes
He lies plastered
On the entrance
To his haven…

Second glance:
Hendrix on his open door
Beckoning
Inviting
Try to look further
The room darkens
A silhouette occasionally appears…

A closer look:
An open door
An easy access, u might think
A Delusion
A smooth entry to the room
But not to his space…
…his soul
He, a closed quintessence
Charming to the real world
A mockery in essence, on the sane…

An opaque canvas:
The room turned towards the inside
It grew smaller
Plastered Hendrix smiled a mock smile
Air smelled pungent
Faded orange lights grew dimmer
They crowded my mind again
In the distance
He was oblivious
I was’nt scared
I was just tired

one light on...
one room...

colour_dwhirlpool..

2006-08-24T00:42:00.002-07:00

Inhaling…

She sealed her eyes
She embraced nothingness
She liked turquoise

She liked the world
She liked it eyes shut
She liked the stars

She liked ghetto music
She like her the numbness pervading her senses
She like the colour purple

She liked the haziness
She liked Eliot
She liked mint and chocolate

She knew the night, her friend
She knew the end
She knew the pain
She knew …
The unrequited
A ridicule on her.
Yet a prey of reckless hope and passion

She didn’t like green
She didn’t like white
She didn’t like the sound of time
To the world, a happy soul.
Vanquished, she was a refugee
A prisoner of her mind
She revelled in her memories
Until the obscure blur faded,
Until the grey trip wore off
Until then
Her utopia was timeless, colourless space, eyes closed…

Exhaling…

stoner's_perspective_on_a_'J'

2006-08-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

The ember gyre came alive
…for a split second
a vortex, colours, flashed
iris orgasm
till erect fingetips relax
lips part
u can see her virgin form
as she emerges
her shadow on the wall
cascading sensuously
rose above the flame
mesmerizing …
the violent springs into
leaping gold
seducing the
veiled aphrodisiac form…
awaken absurdity
a return to earth…
when the chronicle unfolds
yet again…
the ember gyre spins again…
whirl
tight shut
high
colours
blurry
second
orgasm
absurdity
shadow
colour purple
amber
who me??????

wAkiNG liFe...

2006-07-31T04:11:00.001-07:00

Narcissist indulgence
A sinking feeling
Pursuing the pursuit
With renewed aggression

Dejection
Chaos
A fool

Throbbing pain
A drag of Elysium
Rears it to the subconscious.

The nebulous smoke
Subdues the immediacy…

Refrain held back the conscious
Anguish pushed it to the front…
An unsettling conflict
Over unrequited pursuits;
Combat neurosis…

Exhausted
Crippled
Denial

Idealism spoke:
“stretch your hands; reach it”
grounded in the obvious
it seemed far-fetched

Waking up
Trying to find
Four-clover leaf.
Blyton said it was a lucky charm!

Again and again
The pursuit continues
Again and again
The dejection
Attempts to sink

I don’t wish to accept
The death of it…
I don’t want to break it
Just yet…
Wasted efforts
They all say
I find it comforting
To be with the pursuit

Hollow
Yet
Protective
My pursuit, it tames me

Should I release it?
Should I release myself?

Recognition
Apathy
Surrender…not yet

I reckon..
Will wait a while
Before I wake up…

what is it; is it irony at my heels?

2006-07-03T04:07:00.000-07:00

What is it
That they
call emptiness?

Self-reproach of a jaded wasted soul
Or seeking reassurance with fragile arms outstretched
Through a barbed fence?

What is it
That they call darkness?

A blackened spirit
Broken and devoid of love
Or a solitary existence
In an abandoned fortified island?

What is it
That they call elusive?

The melting time
You chase round the corners?
Or a the touch of wind
That stealthily caresses your eyelids?

What is it
That they call addictive?

A rare moment
Of gratification with a stranger
Or a moment of
Satiatiated alleviation through a needle?

What is it
That they call idyllic?

A ride on the
Cotton clouds
Or a moment of seclusion
On a remote island?

What is it
That they call forbidden?

Deconstruction of a warped rigid
demeanour called morality
Or an over-indulgence in
seduction of unrestrained passions?

What is it
That they call utopia?

A cloudy suspension
removed from faded reality
Or a pandora’s box
Of broken memories?

A mirage
She co-exists
As a tangible entity
Ambiguious and cryptic
She is transparent as a mirror
Surreal yet rooted in reality…

What is it?

Different interpretations
She never has a same gift of fate for all…
Yet…
Irony is our forlorn shadow…

elUsiVe cHaNGe

2006-07-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

she saw …
the same crowd
the same lights
the lighters in the air
heads moving to the rhythm
hands hailing in the air
the guitar strummed the same tune
the bass louder than usual
a piercing shriek on the vocals…
but it wasn’t the same …
or so she thought …

unlike before …
It wasn’t a feeling
She understood well ..
It wasn’t an experience
She anticipated…

she couldn’t figure out
who had “change” retrieved -
the inconspicuous surroundings??
the ambiguous crowd??
The opium satiated rhythm??
or oblivious her??
was she the unsuspecting victim ..?

i sketch my dystopia...

2006-06-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

It takes
One word…
One photograph…
One object…
One memory…
One person…
To push you back…
Into the blackness
Into a void
Into a whirlpool
Of jaded euphoria
Of a forgotten part…

A vision of the irretrievable
A yearning for the unrequited
A desire for the forbidden
A sullen regret for the wasted attempts…

Like a child
Colouring the space
Of my mind
With one’s own memories
Building a patchwork
Of stained experiences
And strokes of endless laughter
I sketch my utopia.

Feeding on my existence
The memories grow
Envelope my parameters
Redefining my space
Constantly…

An incessant evolution
No particular direction
A wayward past
A meandering road ahead
The crossroads
Stop and stare at me at every turn…

It’s a shame
You haven’t had a chance
To know me better…
In your stagnant pool…
You stay confined…

While I continue to
Illustrate my utopia
And paint it with
Hues of my myriad wax visions…

It’s not me..
You…
made a fool of yourself…