fingers

somehow,

the fingers,

always stink, as a reminder,

of a terrible person,

and a charred, shapeless mind.

a book of me

oh what boundless joy,

if i were,

a hard bound book,

with not so white pages,

and seriffed text,

lavishly laid out...

kyun naye naye se dard ki,

firaq mein, talash mein,

udaas hai dil,

kyun apne aap se 

khafa khafa, zara zara sa, 

naaraz hai dil?

( excerpt from khoya kyoya chand )

O ye, of little faith,

thou shalt not be redeemed

of ghosts that haunt thee without respite.

O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt ?

Jam tomorrow

To drift with every passion till my soul

Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday...

- oscar wilde

All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.

 T.E. Lawrence

Aamir

i just watched Aamir, and after a long time, fell for a movie, not because it was beautifully shot, in picturesque locales, which it wasn't; but because, it has no frills attached to the subject,

no hohum, no giftwrapping, no 'thank you for special appearance'.

just the story, start to end, and just one character, Aamir.

Who for a change is no picture perfect plastic poster boy,

but an average good looking man ( with an amazingly ordinary name for an actor ),

straight out of ekta kaopor, melodramas;

and for a change, this one can not just overact, 

he can act perfectly well too, so much so, that even when he is not delivering a dialogue, 

his eyes, the wrinkles on his forehead, and his breathing do the the talking. Raising a level of empathy,

more basic and actual than when shahrukh sacrifices his true love for his best friend... ( so many times!!! )

the story is crisp, and gripping till the last second, actually, i find it a tad rude to call it 'a story'.

The plot is about a regular guy who comes back from the u.k, to discover his family kidnapped, and is forced to 

do things, he has no clue about, masterminded by this shadowed bald, religious fanatic. ( oh the cliches )

It got me thinking,

about, why religion has become the sole meaning of idenitity for some people, 

where people ask your names just to find out your religion ( its just so rude to ask directly)

the idea, of absurd customs, and rituals, and force feeding has gone beyond suffocation,

and now, it is, for the lack of a better word, asphyxiating all of us.

What is beyond me, is that how, things that were written to incorporate some discipline into our lives have now assumed gargantuan demonic proportions, and have become the pivot our entire existence.

People who have the opportunity to be in an environment, which lends them to think independently also give into the same old institution, because of unequivocal guilt. These rules, and conditional gods, have seeped into our every breath so much, that it is difficult to not be tormented by overwhelming guilt, the moment you do something 'wrong'.

Everyone i know, has very fixed notions of what is right, and what is not.

well what about the rest of us, who can't decide?

what about that small percentage, who prefer to just live, without boundaries of name, cast, religion, and sex?

( p.s- for this reason i just love the idea advert, which shows a senario where people have numbers as idenities, instead of names.)

and i figured, he can hear me too...

There is a little sketch that i drew, hoping it to come to life. 

The little boy, with sideburns.

I realized, he was alive, when he started breathing and blinking, 

but the stillness to his expressions intimidated me, 

so i hurriedly drew a smile on his face,

but that only made him look creepy, i erased it right away,

and let him continue, his guileless existence in my life.

Today, as i walked into the room,

he looked up.

a pencil box full of dreams

Clutching a translucent zipper pouch,

and a bitten apple,

she sits quietly,

awaiting her turn.

all her personal obsessions,

just in a fingers reach.

her stationary means more to her,

than most people do.

it is hers, all, the glitter pencils,

the isograph, the steel scale, the.7 ball point.

and the not so metallic Derwents.

they help her in her ever pervasive endeavor,

to momentarily escape,

from all that is around her,

also within a fingers reach.

a maddening urge...

to just

quit.

like water and oil

Today's whim

Today,

At every point, a backward glance 

romances only the notion of the ephemeral days.

and a slight disgruntled whim for every vignetted minute.

But only today, i realize, that

Every calculated decision, and every written word

was yet, a confused punctuation, 

in an extremely profane and undignified verse.

an ode to becoming a verse monster

"But only in their dreams can men be truly free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be." 

i sound my barbaric yawp,

over the rooftops

of the world.

w.w

found this somewhere.... 

(p.s the world doesn't care anyways, )

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
  Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
  And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
  Half hidden from the eye!
– Fair as a star, when only one
  Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
  When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
  The difference to me!

W.W

reverting to the home page

strangely enough

i find myself being sucked into 

sad thoughts,

and a strange sort of emptiness,

that existed within me, a few years back.

and i also find myself

refraining from

any further statements,

on the stable state of my mind.

hopelessness, is too strong an opponent,

and hope too light to care about all that,

hence,

i find myself stuck,

somewhere in the middle,

floating

only  a few inches above the ground

so low that

any uneven surface,

causes hurt.

for a while though

i wish to be completely away from the ground,

or completely under it.

found this hilarious and simply lovely piece on my sister's blog,
couldn't resist posting it,
it written by the famous hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan

Loosely translated for the non-hindi types:

Scared of the trials and turmoils of life,

my sons ask me

"why did you give birth to us?"

and i have nothing else 

but to tell them

that my father gave birth to me 

            without taking permission from me,

and without asking my father, his father gave birth to him,

and his father gave birth to him without asking him...

the trials of life, 

           existed in the past, 

           and continue today, perhaps a little more,

           the future will still carry them, maybe even more than now

you take a new stand,

ask permission from your sons, before giving birth to them!

type crime

do you give in

to your fancy whims

and type arbit alphabets

that come together

to form, a horrible horrible person.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.  George Carlin

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. 

George Carlin

At the wall where

people read prayers,

and wish for all that they don't have

cry and mourn

at this wailing wall

O' Jerusalem

i wish

to quietly slip a blue paper note

in some remote hidden corner

with illegibly small handwriting,

saying no farce, 

only two words

thanks buddy

Image stolen from Wikipedia 

aarghhh

if i come across the words

"hats off to her"

"not to forget, last but not the least"

and

"bottom of my heart"

one more time,

i swear,

i will stab someone!!!!!

go get yourself a thesaurus people!!!!

( teeth clenching, fist pounding in air)

( very very violently)

Smearing raindrops

snowflakes, that melt coyly

raindrops that smear

wash down

everything

and let it be that way,

for once don't begin afresh,

just lie in the dust

and inhale filth

feel closer,

to that way, 

it was meant to be.

smeared, 

a person shaped hole

No matter how cynical you get, 

it is impossible to keep up.

Lily Tomlin

Unnecessary drama

Sometimes, walls can be extremely dense, 

other than these times, they quip about endlessly,

of the strange illnesses ( read homo sapiens ) that infest them,

old and new alike, are suffering. 

This can only be blamed on the craze of good lifestyle

and moving away from their (mud) roots.

They have suddenly discovered, a thing, 

which most homo sapiens suffer from

which they call

unnecessary drama.

Therefore, in the next few days, this new disease, will grip them,

and our walls will cry

laugh

dance

and scream

much to our dramatic disapproval 

edible, real

Chocolate flavored fingers,

Eyes the shape of magic

Some people have strange lovers

edible, unreal

Mine,

apart from being delicious

is also

disturbingly real.

Where the spirit floats

This place,

it exists,

without context,

in isolation

it thrives.

We of this place

carry our own cocoons

in rain and dry spells alike

to pull over

every while in a once

the day of purging

is disastrous,

disembodied, bits of cocoons

floating, mid sentence

helter skelter,

chaos is restored after a spell of peace...

but unfortunately,

the spirit,

hates dislocation.

it stays,

in isolation,

in those very lawns and gates

while the outer

spiritless

drags through days 

of inconsequential routine. Homeless.

Never to be 

the spirited cocoon

that it once was.

Resonate, the very thoughts,

that blur, 

in the cramped spaces,

of recesses of memory,

yet half crystal, resonate 

with the same perspiring yesterday.

The middle class

The world belongs

to two classes of people,

the ones that have

too little space for themselves and their family,

due to which 

by default, they are out,

staking claim, 

on roads,

parked vehicles,

public monuments,

and the pavements

and the other kinds

that have the money

to buy,

the roads,

the vehicles,

the monument like houses,

and the pavements,

only the middle class,

is stuck with its own prejudices,

of their own rooms,

and their own beds,

and their own bloody two wheelers.

music can sometimes be orgasmic

The white of the night

Days will turn to months,

and months to years,

before we realize,

how long it has been.

and even after so long,

there will always be

a lingering scent,

of those speck like white flowers,

that bloom only in the night,

and the overwhelming stink,

of regret, and loss,

that will slap our nostrils,

out of the beauty of those nights.

names of things

In times when everything i need

is within reach

i don't need to know the name of anything

or call out

only when i moved

did i realize, that somethings

do in fact have lovely names

and that calling out has a fun of its own

and some of the names, like yours,

their sounds

taste lovely in my mouth.