its been a year at this god forsaken pardise. all of a sudden it seems a year has whizzed past my ear with me even realizing it.

as i look for a word to gather m feelings for this place or this phase in my life, i think the only only word that seems to encompass the entire spirit is RUN.

Run away from home, from courses, from classmates to roommates, from friends to acquaintances to finally running away from self and to the self.

Hyderabad has been in every terms of the word a roller coaster ride of fun, fear, joy, angst and emotions that i had never known before.

i love it. iv always loved life. it never stops teaching you.. never gives up on the stupid stubborn student that we all are.

At this time of flux, i have learnt to be patient, to no longer await or excpect because i have learnt the end hardly matters. what matters is the journey, the struggle, the pursuit..
the urge to keep the flame alive in you, to not not just live to the end but live with yourself to the end.

HUMPI

a strange glimpse from a past that had once been, and a present which is its astrologers could never have predicted.

a land of ruins with the tungabhadra flowing through its veins.

a beaker with purple bubbles at the brim, a lipstick stained paper cup that had long been drunk from.

a land of hippes, of astrologers, an astronomer's paradise, a dreamer's dream.

in the midst of all this a bunch of twenty somethings, all dewy eyed but with aspirations all different from each other.
Cycling through the valleys of hide and seek, through a past long stained by its oh so different present.

humpy humpy humpy,
where we all went jumpy :P

how do i describe you,
a bride? a portrait or simply an illusion that harps back to a time of decoral grndeur?

a sunrise without a sun,
a sunset among the enclosure,
a peacock calling from behind the bushes,
epyphanic sloth bears flowing a HUNNY trail.

a tt who refused to take bribe,
an "authentic thali" for Rs.15,
a ghost by the river,
a tree that promised wishes come true.

a brother whose shoulder was a pillow,
a sister whose smile meant the sun,
a friend who led the way,
a child whose energy killed us,
a doll who held us together (every bit of pun intended)


a trip to savour?
a trip to learn from?
a trip of adventure?
a trip of fun?







A TRIP TO REMEMBER :)

what if kubla's dome actually attained wholeness?

what if no shadow fell between the hand and eye?

what if godot actually came?

would you be happy?

or would you fear?

would you dread?

or would you just be blessed?

the frost has to visit at midnight to leave soon,

if all the festes were to gulp down all the jimmys,

what would life be like?

would not it be a wasteland with all hollowness achieved and thus hollowness renewed?

would darkness not lose meaning and thus become visible again?

it is our imperfection that gives us life,

better to be a fra lippo than die a del sarto,

Paradise has to be lost for it to be regained again!!!

i look at the trees, i look at the sky,

i look at the clouds.

and ask,

God wherein lay thou?

i look at the concrete,

i look at the fuel,

i smell in the fowl,

and ask,

God why thou'st hath these.

i look at the bank,

i look at the lilies,

i see the banks,

i see the notes,

and then i look back again..

if beauty thiu be truth and truth thou be this?

wherein do i find my dear father who hast long been....

buried beneath creation.

if creation thou claim to be him,

wherein lies your beauty?

in truth or in artifice?

if therein all lay you?

what do i look at?

your tears or your smile?

the lotus in your hand?

or the spear in the other?

the father you've been?

or the ruler that i see?

i bring in tales of happiness,

i bring i tales of love,

i bring in tales wrapped in fresh dew,

i bring in tales of the holy Jew.

i bring in tales from Araby,

i bring in spoofs of the Caribbean.

Of the parrot in the abandoned isle,

Of the witty beggar in the northern isle.

But oh! the dear bird at my bedside,

who lulls me up from my waking sleep,

the song she sings i cannot hear,

For it s a holy dread i cannot bear.

i songs of tales from shadows afar,

yet those near, elude me far...

i sing of tales from a distant land that reminds me of today as a distant dream..

a dream to belong, a dream to beware, a dream to dream of a dream that was yesterday..

if life were a song yet to be sung,

what would you sing?

a song of six pence with a swollen heart?

or a song to twist the sinews of the hart?

a life to be lived or a life to be gained?

a life to be pondered, a life to be spent?

a life is after all a dream to be dream t.

the dreams of a yesteryear, the dreams of today?

the dreams of a million, or the dreams of a simpleton?

dreams are but dews of a paradise of which we have been long denied.

ekti tarar khoje...

aj jano akashe takale khujina kono tara,

aj jano bhirer majhe khujina kono mukh,

aj jano jiboner moddhe khujina kono mane.

khujite khujite hapie jawa mon,

jano aj peyche nijer moddhe notun kono jon,

notun hawa notun pawa..

aj shotti je chaina kono chawa,

khali duti phota akash, duti phota batash,

ar chad'r arale jibon ke jorie dhore thakar bishash...

aj shotti je chaina kono mane,

khali chae jibon mone prane...

antaheen akash

ure jete chai shei antaheen akashe ...

abar bhabi eka pore jabo na to?

okhane jete chai kintu bari to amar ekhane?

shobar majhe...

naki bari ami nije... shob kichur urdhe?

chari pash ta je ar bhalo lage na...

boro je ochena lage...

ba nije ke chenar majh ochena...

ki korbo?

chena di ochena chinbo ki ochena di chena?

shob kichu je gholate hoejae,

ei chena akasher arale...

What is it in us that holds us together and yet holds us apart?

What is it that makes the future so dark?

Is it us or is it just me?

Or is it the shining sky above that pities the impotent headed race?

Is it enough to know that the present holds promise ?

And the future lies dark?

Can one live today without a hope for tomorrow?

Is life so fun without the mysterious future that tempers the present?

Is it possible to live without knowing death lies ahead?

Life and death are not dichotomies…

The transition is…

I loved you, I was you.

But now I am myself and too full of it too.

The I that hit you, the eye that betrayed you,

Is no longer the one that loved you.

I am the sinner I am the saint.

I am the betrayer, I am the betrayed

I am the one that was best at the worst game of our lives.

a meaningful life?

everyone asks me what would i die for?

i say "a meaningful life".

... but meaning does not descend.

in the last god knows how many days i have rocked my head or rather landscapes have been shaped and reshaped by earthquakes and avalanches have stepped in when when all seemed picture perfect.

what is a meaningful life i ask?

and the post structuralists in my head reply: meaning cannot be achieved.

but then this does not also lead to the loss of meaning.

meaning that foul deceitful thing will always remain, eluding us from our path, showing us mirages that intoxicate and leading us to new places that have never been. and in our Sisyphean madness what we reckon is the pursuit the journey and not the destination. when we realize the illusion that we have lived the why does not arise for the toil tends to fill us up with a sense of fullness and we look for future pursuits!

as i continue with the rupture of my head and soul, i think the same madness has engulfed me too and filled me up with pride. i do not know what i want but i do know what i don't. i would rather live to see my head and soul rupturing in quest of something for infinity but i will not be able to stand a Cartesian split between the two.

better the unhappy wise than the happy fool my young blood says.

but then from somewhere within that damned voice whispers come sunset will it matter? will exhaustion not come in and the body-soul ask for rest in the arms of someone dear?

and an uncanny silence sets in preparing way for the storm again the next morning.

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