Phronesis

Life has always been funny and now it seems to break all dimensions.

Principles, they say are important in life. They guide you. For me, i will not deny, it has been true. At the same time, it has not made life easier. It has helped me find a 'one life' among all the digressions that life proposes.

But are digressions bad? No! they are fun. (and i realise i have again digressed from my point). Along with one life what is important is phronesis or the power over your emotions. But what exactly this is, i do not yet realise. i am still misanthropic in giving away love and when i am shunned it all stops or rather meets a dead end.. like a switch- ON & OFF.

the other person does not depend or want my feelings. i choose to give it. but when they commit a mistake i shut it all out.

in retrospect i realise i had no right to block it. OR am i thinking to much? Does the other person even care whether my love is required or not? i don't know. What i do know is i am a switch and once off i cannot get my self into switching it on! Oh bother! what an irony.

And i call it phronesis.

it ain't phronesis.

its simply an answer to the insult on my love.

a twister in my mind

all my life I've heard and still do that life is an experience that is to be lived... don't hold back but live..

Family and friends are those who who make life livable.

Then there were times when life became suffocating and quotes like "You cant change your friends you cant change your family you cant change anyone so rather change yourself " came along... making things more claustrophobic...

The discomfort stayed... till a few days back when i peered into my seven year old nephews book and found the picture of a cocoon silently making a point. Life in itself is great but what if you yourself are yet incapable of encompassing it's adulterated abundance.. you then need time to prepare yourself for the roses in life are not devoid of its thorns..

well then the cocoon or one may say the external womb comes in. Within however, homo sapiens this is a very internal scheme. my discomfort may have ceased but what took it's place gave me no less irritation...the cocoon seemed a simple answer but what hit me was its mechanism. i haven't been able to work it out. the more i think the more confused i become giving way to awe and angst at the same time.

if the mechanism of the cocoon whether literal or otherwise how does the mechanism go about?

if the purpose is actually of an exile from the outside til it develops to face it then how does this happen without any interaction with the outer world. And if there is a supposed interaction then how can it be not affected?

Again, hypothetically if i assume that there is no interaction? how can one survive in solitude for so long?

a twister in my mind ... i just cant seem to break the shell.. how and why?

of a home from down the memory lane...

its strange...

its a long gone feeling and its come rushing back as if it wasn't ever gone...

life in Bangalore has just started ma and baba have shifted in and today i stride in... in a small room that itself looks shyly at its inmates i find old dusty images of our home back from past.

its seems a weird feeling of staying again... only the four of us under the same roof as a family... no uncles aunts grandma no one in miles...

as i look eerily forward to the days ahead of us i know my association with this home will never be much... but what hits is when i am duly made to feel so.. anyways... but experiences and feeling if gathered are enough in a week than in nine months ...

its strange... very...

life has a its hiccups and this is definitely one of them... my home NO! bhai's home = baba's home is Not = my home... home is where the heart reside i think my soul is madly intoxicated by the dusty smell of my moth ridden table back home.. i cant think beyond it.. i know this will hurt at times to know that my three inmates will share a new space without me... a sense of jealousy? yes but carefully and yet suffocatingly wrapped in pride.. MY BROTHER's HOME...

well i guess... life is a box of chocolates. You never know what u'll get.

A testimonial to my friends in R.B.U... Seasons in the Sun...

what is it in u all that pulls me back home so much? now that i am here far off from u all, i realise. . .i realise that rbu was the womb from where we were all destined to be born from, into a new world. . . but i was too careful... extra careful to venture into a ruthless world so i came to a different womb... this womb is nice, sophisticated, experienced but at times it lacks the warmth.

. . . n now i feel the pull of the umbilical cord, more than ever. . . at times i want to return then i realise i cannot. . .

Natas

Satan, its not that i hate you...
I cant love you ... no one can

but i do feel

for the worn out beats of the heart are the only ones that remain in me pure.

once you were loved

... and then you paid.

a price heavier

... than the value.

you were close

... and thus now are far.

I can't be so brave to let go the person i love and take up hate for him...

I can be alone but not be lonely in spite...

Yet i cannot love you for it is forbidden...

but feelings are not tame...

but pity would put you to shame.

so ....

i just ignore you.

An Epilogue for Myself....

When i die, let it be on the shores of Ganga
When the sun sets and the leaves droop.

The sun sets daily with no wails, no cries
only to rise tomorrow anew.
Let me rise daily not as the record of the past
but of a nostalgia lost somewhere beneath the rubble of the day.

The Ganga flows ...
with no one to mourn it's departure
Let me stay ...
not as a monotonous grief but as a song that refreshes time itself.

Leaves bloom, droop and drop to be the food for the earth.
Let me bloom, droop, then drop to be the fodder of the lame.

a pinch of nothing . . .

He says: I love you
I say : That's what i fear.

He says: I want only you.
I say: That's what i dread.

He says: I'll always be with you.
I say: That's only what i long

Home

home is why the heart aches,

home is why the pang breaks,

home is where the heart stays.

to stay from home is like to stay heart without soul,

where you cant shout,you cant cry, you cant fight

you can but just smile.

to stay from home teaches you,

to wear a mask to meet the masks,

to tuck your shirt in, and hide the heart

to know you are but alone.

i have a home, a lonely home,

where the mother shouts and the father cries!!

what i thought to be pain was actually love

what i see to be love is actually pain

Me And My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

The thin needles pricked me,

Once, twice, thrice and then twenty odd times.

Five on each wrist, ten on each elbow,

Till they announced them damaged for use.

I called God,

But when no pity appeared in sight,

I felt lost, i felt betrayed.

Then You appeared,

Showing me only three,

Whose stains would not go,

For which you pined and pined,

But little thought how cruel was your dad.

Jottings

What is it like to sell a kid who has no mother?

What is it like to rape a girl who has no brother?

It must be fun to be a predator,

To forget the self, the being and be a beast!

Tame it not! Tame it not!

For we are the beast that devours itself!

Who knows no limits, no boundaries, no barriers . . .

A Peep into Myself

Who am i?

How am i to know who am i?

i am the one who's felt all but her pulse,

i am the one who's smelt all but her hair,

i am the one who's heard all but her heart,

i am the one who's seen all but her own face,

i am the one who's knows all but her herself,

Feel! Feel! Feel! they say,

Feel to live and live to . . . exist?

All i feel is the dead bird stuck up my throat,

All i smell are the tablets in my coat,

All i hear is the late alarm in my bed,

All i see are the ink blots in my head,

All i know are the mirages that i once thought to be myself.

Relationships

Am i happy?

Well it aint crappy!

But at times i miss the i that was . . .

At eve i met you and lost me.

I can not find it back again,

All i see is the mighty we.

You borrowed all my sorrows,

And made eve become morrows.

I am you and i cant be anything but you.

you have filled me, you have engulfed me,

I cannot be anything but you

The Fence.

When did we last build a fence?
And say bro, lets tread no further,
For yonder lies our end,
So why more do we intend?

I gave you happiness,
You took away my tears,
But just the moment I had no fears,
Came in the dreadful fence.

Division was always bad for me,
But now it seems the worst of all.
For though it seems indivisible,
I foresee, naught is what the reminder will be.

What do you do, When life gets you?

What do you do,
When life gets you?
Holds you, hugs you, suffocates you?
At first, you giggle in shame,
Then you wriggle in pain,
But next you're idle again.
It holds you, it moulds you,
And doesn't let you be.
You're angry, you're helpless,
But you are no less!
You wait, wait, and wait,
In hope of some bait . . .
Then one day he leaves,
You meditate, you celebrate,
"Oh! I've won!"

Days go by,
You wonder, you ponder,
Bout the other little bait,
One day you see her . . .
She sings! she laughs!
(And you cannot but cough)
You ask her, you task her,
"Did you surrender?"
"Why? No!", She says,
"I hugged him, my son."

Lazy Confessions

I love the sun but hate its rays
I love the tiger but hate its ways
I love my God but hate his says

I love reading but mugging
I love writing but hate noting
I love Art but hate dissecting

I love life but hate living.

In search . . .

The road i take is all so fake.
The song i sing has no zing.
The life i lead is but a seed.

A seed that grows into a rats furrow,
Of little space, so full of pace,
We have no time to feel God's grace.

Stifled cries are heard,
In a plea to let us flee,
And run to a place that has a better face.

An artist in me.

There's an artist in me
Who refuses to be.

She is drunk, covered by junk.
She is lazy, life's too hazy.

She has a vision but is busy in revision
She cannot dare but pay life's fare.

What can I do to wake her up?
She's down in sleep ever since sup.

Needs she a vintage of the soul?
Then that will be my very goal.

For she needs a vibe to let me jive,
And cry Hallelujah! I'm alive.

Acacademics

Poco pomo Momo Homo,
Life is but a mingeld measure,
Is there any place for pleasure?

Acacademics is all, but knowledge.
It is the sea of marks,
Where the hungry shark lurks.

The sea is quite to night.
The sharks circle in wait of a student
Who aims for a true sense of nonsense . .

''Nonsense'', i say, '' it is all''
Yet in love of thee dear Art,
We partake . . . with a mild hope to crack the shell.

The Flight.

Rushing across the dew washed morning to reach the airport was a pity. One could barely wait to take in the fresh air and feel the Almighty's presence in it. A mouthful of sweets, a quick shampoo, a hurried change of clothes and I was ready . . . ready for the BIG day. I had gained a long awaited release from the caged existence of my life. In between the busy schedules of daily drudgery, my family had at last found time to shake off the routined chores and spend a quick weekend at Silchar, my homeland.

As I soared up above the clouds, I felt dazed. Gaining the birds' eye view, I seered above what now seemed to be toy houses and cars. The birds have a greater insight I felt. How I wished to be a bird . . . to juggle between the land and the sky, to have a clear view of the world beneath and the universe around . . . Oh! It would have been amazing. I would fly throughout the sky . . . no traffic jams, no pollution, no life disturbing philosophies. . .

The land beneath was a strange sight. If the fields, lakes, trees, farmlands made Mother Earth look wonderfully fresh and alive, urban places made the sight seem charred and cracked. She looked ill and suffering from some dermatological disease. (True Angel: I am a product of that disease).

To be or not to be, that is the only question.

" When I look into the mirror, i see two things: what I want to be and what I am not; My chest will never be so huge. My legs are too thin. My nose has an odd shape. I want to be like the man in the Gillette commercials." Any boy today will echo these lines for it is this desire for the hyperreal that instigates any individual to long to a certain space so as to grab the other's attention. Advertisemnts tend to trap us here, promising ae elevated state of existance.
Utility no longer remains the main feature that determines consumption. In fact on produt today is even sold on this lone feature. Every product today brings an image of a particular lifestyle attached with it. Moreover, due to a diverse industry, a consumer is given a wide variety of products (and concequently socio-cultural images) to choose from. This makes the consumer transcend mere necessities of purchase and commit himself to personalise to something beyond it. Choice is thus between the socio-cultural images: whether to belong to them or not. These series of instituted signs constitute society while providing the idividual withan illusiory sense of freedom.
On classifying, we get a diverse range of ad-images: the image of the indifferent but cool student- Virgin mobile, Menthos, Center Fresh; the macho image: Bajaj Pulsar, Axe, Marlboro; the independent woman in Asmi Jewellery, Scooty Pep, Fair & Lovely. The list is never ending. In the contemporary world, indivduals have less control in self realisation and therefore adopt to these images to describe themselves. The 'self' reduces to an object of market dimensions. The image turns back on its creator to control him or her, for objectifying to an image assigns thim or her to a particular place in the overall socio-economic order. Thus the consumer is commodified.
Trudging a foot further, consumers today also have become images themselves. Fiction has become real and real, fiction. I may not be studious but a series of heavy books in my roomguarantee me the image of a bookworm. A tattoo of Che Guevera and not the knowledge of Das Kapital make me a self proclaimed Communist. Carrying my books to college in a Pantaloons packet ascends me higher up the Socio-economic order. We are thus proletarised regardless of class . . . a function of the advertisements around us.