Then & Now

From The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith

When a lovely woman stoops to folly
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom is to die.


From The Fire Sermon of The Waste Land by T S Eliot

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to
pass:
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

Not far away

Just the night,
That brings with it,
A long and distant sound
From the streets; of lanky frames
Beating the shuttlecock
In careful vengeance:
Pick, pack, pock, puck…


Now Playing::Aanewala pal.........Kishore Kumar

Mood Music

I had posted this one, as my Facebook status, yesterday evening and it continued to play all through the night along with Dil dhoondta hai phir wohi fursat ke raat din. The reserved longing and the subtle tendency of the lyrics, to hark back to the past, in order to clarify present events, is well nigh orgasmic for long winter nights.

I'm in for yet another long night and I know how to flow through it!

Dil na-umeed toh nahi, na-kaam hi toh hai
Lambi hai gham ki shaam, magar shaam hi toh hai!

Sepia

This evening when I fixed my
Hair and draped myself in one
Of mother’s sarees, the circle was
Completed, as mother and daughter
Greeted each other in mutual confusion
And the house later echoed with some
Mild laughter.


Now Playing:: Bhai batur.........Lata

The Prelude

How often,
At this hour of the night,
I’m reminded of a
Private fantasy;
Of being driven mad
With love,
When held
By the length of
My unruly tresses…


Now Playing:: Jajabara........Akhaya Mohanty

Among other things, December

There’s only the distant dream of sleeping too late and rising slowly around this time of the year. While life interrupts in its ever irritating pettiness throughout the year, December, however, is meant to make an unthinking stab at the proceedings, reeling everything back, as you wait for the cold ghost of the sun to swamp all over your body. But then, the lonely, belong to the wretched kind; they ask for too much too soon or for too little when it’s too late. Sometime in this month, a birthday would be remembered, amidst cakes, confetti, and lots of casual greetings, and a party that would stretch itself till January pulls out a new sun.

Winter is a lot less golden for me. It rings of distant bells, mostly that of longing, and a waiting that gets extended and extended. Lying in bed, curled up all afternoon reading an occasional classic, anticipating a phone call until a cold conversation with an imaginary friend begins to blur the lines and the eyes heavy with sleep. No longer the shrill cry of insects or the vexing flutter of the sparrows (if that’s what the brown ones are known by) when I sit by the window trying to see as much as I can, in what I believe are the last few months at a place where, I’ve seen the sun rising and setting, setting and rising for more than eighteen years now.

Nothing’s coming back;
Long walks are inevitable,
But seasons from now on,
Shall render memories,
Coherent.


Now Playing:: Dikhayi diye yun.............Lata

An End Like This

There’s a place, not too far away from my house,
Where runs a lonely stretch of concrete; so lonely
That you can hear the grunting and choking whine
Of mongrels, sniffing again and again at clichéd places,
Looking for absent morsels. When the darkness closes
In, all you can see is pairs of shining eyes and the sound
Of racing wheels lurking in the distance. How horrible
Would it be to die now! To die thinking about the absent!
Alone. Unwanted. Uncared. How horrible would it be, to
Watch the little one take short, bouncy steps towards a
Blind, lethargic wheel! How horrible would it be to die
On this concrete, without footprints, like the million
Mongrels that die without collars…


Now Playing: Aate jate.........SPB & Lata

Stranger and I

Always the same craving that leads us
To the same one-night cheap hotel, where
Certain floors smell of human urine; offensive,
But not offended, we hasten to the usual.

Sometime later, still lying on the wet sheets,
He inquires, if I remember the story of how
He was molested at the tender age of
Fourteen on a rain filled afternoon?

Laughing out loud, he gives my shin a savage
Tweak. My eyes follow him through the
Length of the room, and for the first time I
Notice his feminine hands on the door knob.


Now Playing:: Aye hairathe aashiqui..........Guru

Untitled

Today, a fellow blogger signed off saying, “its better we stick sharing our creativity, chatting isn’t a great idea, take care and hope you go on with your blog very well.”

What preceded it is a long story… I’m not surprised or shocked. I might have expected it at some level.

Meeting poets I am disconcerted sometimes
………………
Best to meet in poems:
Cool speckled shells
In which one hears
A sad but distant sea.
(Eunice de Souza)

Diwali

The hubris now lies spent,
Dull and tired.
Anger, is another country;
It reeks of impotence.
Yet, it grows more and more,
And asks me to seek a vent.
Doubtful,
I put it to sleep…

‘Imposter’, cries the hubris,
‘tomorrow they’ll light the lamps!’


Now Playing:: Chalte chalte.........Pakeezah

The Secret Sharer

Today,
Amidst every scanty piece of clothing,
I shall look for the secret sharer,
And ask him,
If he could
Rest my sick secret and
Cloud it for a night or two,
So that,
For once,
At least once,
I would know, what it is
To be
Free?


Now Playing:: Yeh safar.........Shivaji Chattopadhyaya

The Absent

I don’t know. Maybe it has always been the absence of the unattainable other half (read love) that has made me more distant, more romantic, more loud in my thoughts. Ah, how they allude to the charming Byronic ideals! But, that’s what they are, mere ideals. Ideals are wretched things. They peck at your nerves, bruising them here and there, and even before you realize they’ll make friends walk away, either in envy or in disgust; mostly in disgust. There is no charm in holding onto things real or surreal; absolute fulfillment eludes everyone. It simply does not exist.

I once had a friend who, talked of being loved but not loved enough. “Where do I go?” he would ask, “how do I cure this terrible, terrible loneliness?” There were no answers then, there are no answers now. In spite of the said feelings, he remained a cheerful person, and at times, answering his own questions, he would reflect on how most of us remain empty throughout our lives and die even without realizing that emptiness. Later, however, he would chuckle heartily at his thoughts and say that it’s good that we do not realize, because when the time comes, we would only fill the emptiness with all sorts of muck, and then, try to run away, because the stench inevitably becomes unbearable. What could I offer to such deep reflections, except a mild nodding acquaintance?

Almost every night I sit down to write about that friend of mine, struggling hard to remember all that he ever said during his moments of arrant disillusionment. Maybe, there was always a degenerate romance in the way he unfolded his frustrations, talked about his ordinariness, and flaunted his shameless, but frank individuality. His beliefs changed every day, his reasons varied to the extent of being whimsical, but the loftiness of his thoughts remained unchanged. There was something very reaching in his voice, which made one talk. Ah, fancy! How often it deceives the mind!

Of all the things that were exchanged, I remember him telling me that, memories do not last long, and that the absent are soon forgotten.



Now Playing:: Main aur meri awaargi………..Kishore Kumar

Abandon

Let someone else be your messiah,
I’m not a fine phrase anymore.
Abandon. Abandon. Abandon.


Now Playing:: Anjani rahon mein........Lucky Ali

I would be smiling for a long time!

On Shores of Auld Romances

Never visit the forgotten shores of auld romances,
Darling, no matter how horribly alone you feel
When the darkness closes in. There is something in
Degenerate romances, my love. They would reach
Out to you, they would make you talk, they would
Make you beg, and like termites they would empty
You of your pride.

If an unguided ramble takes you along those
Shores, stand facing the sea and hear it roar. Oh!
How we traffic in pain darling! Enough of it! The
Sea might give you the ruthless blows, my love,
But it will also make you feel stronger. Now walk
Away. Softly. Silently. Shut your thoughts darling
They’re filled with cold words.

Walk on. Walk on my love. Somewhere a new
Love is waiting to grow.


Now Playing:: Roobaroo............Rang de Basanti

Fare Thee Well

Enough, enough!
Goodbye to poetry.
It makes me dream and swoon
For men I’ve lost, than
The men I’ve won!


Now Playing::Om shanti om......Kishore Kumar

Someone Else's Song

I watch her haste to the wine not like a
Reveller, but like a dancing eunuch after a
Long day’s toil. Nothing in her face or body
Would flush a man with sex. ‘Why is she so
Ugly’ kids so often question their bored mothers.
Her folks call her Summer, yet she drapes her
Windows with curtains of black pausing the
Yellow without. As I watch her more and more
I detest her too.

All through the afternoon she sobs with her
Quiet tongue, and at night… I hear the frantic
Clicking of an auld typewriter reminding me of
Its almost human voice. The morning with its
Expected light mocks at my blank unfinished
Paper as I quietly go through her metrical
Contributions to life. Ah! How she talks of love!
But this was supposed to be my song! Envy,
It blooms like ink on blotting paper.

My soul would cry later, but my mortal hand
Didn’t clinch a bit to sign my name for
Someone else's song.

Now Playing:: Jaane kya tune kahi........Geeta Dutt

Closure

And then, there are women who,
When life tires them out,
Realize their modest dreams, and
Sit down to write verses.


Now Playing:: Iktara............Wake up Sid

Genesis

When mothers die,
They leave the daughters pregnant.
When fathers die,
They leave the sons with child.

Is it true?
I ask my auld friend
Of auld times.

That’s the only sign you
Can recognize, he says.
Why go to the river, when
Even the well reflects the sky?

What a pretty domestic scene!
One grows into the other just so soon!


Now Playing:: Yaad.............Shehzad Roy

Draupadi

On lazy summer afternoons when the tall casuarinas
Haunt my vacant daydreams, the ancient mango tree
In the yard sits brooding at the end of the dream,
Slowly spreading its boughs, like a spider’s gossamer
Into the lost hours of time. How easy it is to ignore the tree
And continue with my dream! But not today! Why is it,
That today, the stillness of its leaves scream of a woman
Who had once asked for blood to wash her grief? Why is it,
That today, I see that woman soaking her black density in
Streams of red, and her eyes humming in happiness like
Beloveds do at the sight of roses? Why is it, that today,
The look in her eyes makes me imagine, the lonely
Meanderings of the roots, coiled and twisted in the deep
Darkness… desperately grappling with the earth, so that
The boughs above could bear some fruit, and crowd
It for a season, for a sacrament?


Now Playing:: Badi dheere jali...........Ishqiya

Ugly

It does not end there. Between dreaming and waking, I
Recall a name, perhaps even a face, and a voice that had
Once screamed, “ugly”! How many years ago was that?
Nine? Ten? Recent? I don’t remember. But now, lying at
The brink of sleep, I recall, I recall being called “ugly”!
When did the dream catch up? It’s hard to recollect.
If life rejects, would not death be kind? Maybe not.
Maggots and ants; would they mind feeding on an ugly
Sodium reeking body? When was it, that I last saw them?
Saw them, feasting on the distended carcasses of mute
Toads, whose fat bellies I had ripped apart for the sake of
Insignificant grades. But mother says Hindus burn
Their dead! Oh! Let me save some face mother. Fling
A handful of earth on me when I’m dead. Let the
Scavengers finish it off in a silent darkness, let not
People avert their eyes and reject me, even in death…


Now Playing:: Tu jaane na..............Atif

The Games They Play

There’s a list of games that they play. I shall
Some day write it down for you. What’s the need
Darling, to love a man, if he doesn’t walk along
With you? And what’s the need to love a man,
If he merely walks along with you? He’ll start as
A loser and make you sniff his pain like a dog. He’ll
Make you feel needed; call you an angel and fling all
The best words, till you’re ready to limp for him, like
A beaten street mongrel, hungry for love. And, while
You’re still licking at his bones, he tells you about
Other worlds, other smells, other bodies…
And, you with your dull, tired pride let him go.
Much, much later when he’s gone, you still find
Yourself as a guilty, brooding thing, crouching behind
Empty spaces, sadly smelling slabs of grime,
Waiting forever, hoping for too much…


Now Playing:: Jaane kya sochkar...........Kishore

S

It was just one of those days. In 2005.

S was still around. Life was focused on entrances. Competition was fierce. Yet, dreams were simple. The mind was relatively free of maladies. Nothing mattered. Laws of motion, chemical equations, microorganisms… that was all. Failure, disillusionment, and mania, were still impossibilities.

It was then, that S started talking. He was under stress. Crushed under the weight of his own expectations. Yet, he talked sense. I hated him. Precisely for that. He talked without gestures. Carefully breathed his spiritual fudge into my system. He talked of creativity. Of enlightenment. Of the Soul. Of faith. Of miracles. He intimidated me. To the extent of boredom. I asked him to shut up. I had stopped understanding. I was seventeen.

Today, I don’t see S around. His ideas never really got him anywhere. A wasted life. He’s very much silent these days. However, on certain evenings, one longs. For those rambling chats. Like a wrap. A sure protection. Against a cold, uncaring world.

Over the years, S has been in and out of oblivion. At times, its things like these that trigger him back to memory:

Many years later Billy was to say to me, ‘Things might have been different, Romi, if that wretched storm had not come up when it did. You see what I mean, don’t you?’ I did not, and I told him so; but then there were many things that I did not see which Billy saw and which, step by step, led him to the only end that awaits those who see too much.

P.S: Excerpt from The Strange Case of Billy Biswas by Arun Joshi. This post is largely on account of the rains I think.

Now Playing:: Jaane do na...................Cheeni Kum

The Fist

“That’s how one starts. Now, clench.”

She is not ashamed anymore. I am. We’re at it again. Let’s.

“Good. Now, unclench.”

It’s all female; that little thing beating between her bold, sorry breasts.

“Now, clench again and tell me what you feel.”

I stare at her. Pervert. Something in her reminds me of the sea. Wave on wave. I look away.

“What can you do with that?” I ask.

I return to the sea. I’m building thoughts. I stare at her still. I fix my gaze at no particular part of her body. She is all.

“What can you do with that?” I ask her again.

She mumbles something. Talks of power. Talks of the guilt held within. My hands get restless. I’m flushed with sex.

“You can do nothing with a closed hand”, I tell her.

She opens. Her sick secret leans against mine. For a moment I look at her shoulders. Brooding. Heavy with sleep. Like pigeons on lazy summer afternoons….

My fingers recoil. Waking themselves to war. Yet again.


Now Playing:: Humsafar hain sabhi.....................Kishore & Asha

Out Loud!

“We’re running late darling… the dial is blank… can you see the hands?”

“Never mind, it’s never too late.”

“Oh! It would be dumb and awkward to learn walking all over again!”

“Perhaps the darkness will make it easy.”

“Yes, yes. I hope my thin limbs remain anonymous and there are no pauses in the walk.”

“Even if there are pauses, you can always arrange your limbs and keep going… I see children doing that all the time.”

“Why don’t you tell me something that I do not wish to hear?”

“You are a happy woman!”

Now Playing:: Salaam-e-ishq....................Lata & Kishore

The Quality

He knows me too well,
He has seen me often.
He knows I move about
Like an adult; like a woman,
Yet I kiss like a child;
Asexual and indifferent.

He calls me frigid;
Adjusts his bites as kisses.
His fingers tremble and whimper
In the depths of my hair,
As he ventures to
Thrash his bone against mine.

He stands up angrily,
Yet turns away in a hollow
Silence of loneliness.
I creep into my knees,
Nuzzling my face in
The folds of my palm,

Breathing away the fever of
His hunger… his hurt.
Perhaps, this man knows me too well;
For, he has opened me enough,
And I’ve finally lost the need to
Reach into my mind, ever again!

Now Playing:: Chand roz aur.......................Kishore Kumar

Not a Dream

This is the nightmare:

Someday this roaming whiff of smoke would bring dad wondering into my room. It would be no use then to hide it or smother it into ash. The smoke; the riot of white between my fingers; the loose tresses; the awkward position of the body; and above all, the unapologetic me would break his heart, or worse, it would break his spirit.

The nightmare should end there, but it would not.

Once discovered, I would draw a blank and out of sheer panic would go about arranging my limbs, and be the obedient—head down, chin buried in throat—daughter that I had always been. He would still believe me, he would still forgive me.

Next day he would smile at me; would lovingly pass on the daily; would even offer a lift to the university; and would make every possible effort to make me bid farewell to my guilt… but that man, my father, I know would have lost his sleep forever…

Now Playing:: Raah pe rehte hain...................Kishore Kumar

The Carrion

The flies are out there,
Crawling in unwonted places
Of the carrion;
It reeks filthy,
It reeks of you.

Why do I so often
Hate you in dreams,
But love you more
In my stumbling
Educated wake?

Leave some time sooner,
Then I shall love you twice;
Once, for life
And once more, to slake the
Fatigued wile of my dream.


Now Playing:: Mann behak raha hai.....................Asha

Being

It’s a strange thing
To be a woman.
It’s equally strange
To be proud of
Being a woman!

Pride never comes
With the sex,
It comes
With the gender.
It grips a girl,

Still in her teens, and
Senselessly strips her
Off of girlhood
And makes a woman
Out of her;

A woman, who childishly
Flaunts her sex,
In the blind arrogance
Of her gender!
A pitiful loser, who

Celebrates her stains,
Rejoices her ripeness!
Ready for sexual banquets,
She is no longer tempted
To sit in her father’s lap

And tug at his moustache,
For he too is a man after all!
Daughters become women,
Fathers retreat and
So do brothers!

Years later, sleeping with
A strange man, she
Longs for the gentle touch
Of her father,
And silently mourns

For being a girl too late
But a woman too early.

Now Playing:: Tum pukar lo...............Hemant Kumar

Relishing on Relics

The only way I could ward off my frustrations was by making a long expedition into streets where books are sold. There aren’t many of that kind in the city yet one is sure to find a suitable midnight darling depending upon your age, experience, and most importantly your “mood”, which prefers one writer to the other in different hours of the same day!

The city is not bred with rich literary tastes and the few shops which sell books turn out to be too modest in their collection, even depressing at times. But that is when you’ve a fetish to buy new books only and an intense disrelish for anything used and soiled by too many hands. The city gets absolutely seductive when you are on a hunt for books; old and yellowed with time. There’s some kind of a silly romantic pleasure that walks along with you in these streets and makes you stop at every nondescript shop nay, cabin and forces you to look for books of your interest amidst that eye-relishing heap of volumes.

It is highly likely that you might end up getting your hands on an odd volume of old English authors, or editions that have been long out of print, or anthologies of the finest collected poems, essays and memoirs.

I remember the last summer when I was high on Hardy and how an anxious visit to these streets to find more of him ended in something like a treasure hunt. I was literally hopping from one end of the street to the other as everyone had some other shop to refer to where almost all the English authors are likely to co-exist. Today, I’ve almost all of Hardy’s on my book shelf; a prized possession of meticulous English, which cost me less than a hundred bucks.

But somewhere down the line buying books on the net replaced every other modes of shopping and my visits to these streets became less and less frequent. Much seems to have changed now. Some of the big old shops are still there but the cabins have been removed and they now lie scattered in obscure places of the area. In one word the streets look neat and clean and organized, and the hunt becomes tiring and toiling, but its fun anyway.

Whiling away an evening in these streets, leafing through odd old volumes, I realized how much of priceless and rare antiquity lies unclaimed and neglected in these dingy looking cabins. If only people were novel enough to appreciate antiquity…

Whiffs of evening dust now began to settle on the books and a call from mom reminded me that I had to pick her up from her office. I was about to return with my prized find of The Metaphysical Poets by Helen Gardner, when all of a sudden I remembered that it was the 23rd of April, a date which is held to be sacred by all lovers of English literature.

It couldn’t have occurred to me at a better place, I thought! Shakespeare lay in an extravagant abundance in front of me…


Now Playing:: Jajabara....................Akhaya Mohanty

A Necklace of Skulls

Sprawled on the cool floor on a wild, blazing noon, with A Necklace of Skulls, I wasn’t sure what I was preparing myself for. Things began to unfold in an inert, unhurried, and sedate manner. There were occasional jolts of course, but I was safe. My eyes were getting heavier with every passing second and just when I thought I couldn’t further any longer, it began:

It was never a painful rain of blows, nor lethal enough to draw some blood. It hit me like a whiplash; its even more cruel because it leaves marks, right where they do not belong. But, as I reached the end, writhing and whimpering, I realized, what an ecstatic dance of irony it had been all this while.

Here’s a glimpse of those beatings:

Advice to Women:
Keep cats
If you want to learn to cope with
The otherness of lovers.
Otherness is not always neglect—
Cats return to their litter trays
When they need to.
Don’t cuss out of the window
At their enemies.
That stare of perpetual surprise
In those great green eyes
Will teach you to die alone.

Another Way to Die
Being eaten by maggots
Is fantasy

The real thing is
To touch the outlines
Of the hands, the hair
To find no body there

In a few hours
Or a few days
The bits reassemble
A breast flies back
A dull pain
Where the heart should be
An ache for a touch
Or a quarrel

For a while again
You are almost
Human.

I certainly don't have, even the slightest inclination to put the name of the poet out here, as she says in Don’t Look for My Life in These Poems

Poems can have order, sanity,
Aesthetic distance from debris.
All I’ve learnt from pain
I always knew,
But could not do.

Yet one is tempted to scribble the name of Eunice de Souza.

Now Playing:: Aaiye meherbaan...........................Asha

Heat

All day long one lies inside the house like a hostage; quiet, lazy, and soaked in the salted dank drops of sweat, doing absolutely “nothing”, for when there is nothing to be done one does nothing!

With the doors and windows shutting the gentle summer sounds without, one is left alone in the silent semi-darkness of the house, too reluctant to turn the lights on, and finding nothing much to do in that state, flops into bed amidst the gyrating noise of the ceiling fan which neither dissipates the heat nor lulls one into a profound afternoon siesta.

Meanwhile, the heat catches up more and more and again and again.

The arrogance of the heat without and the sheen of sweat growing heavier within the depths of hair bring a crowd of ideas and fancies; a wild restlessness that refuses to doze off, keeping one awake for long… too long…

One wakes up from that half-sleep thoroughly drenched in sweat, and finds boredom hanging all around like a landscape in swoon. One might let sleep wash away the ennui but one chooses to pamper it into a ‘tranquil boredom’, squeezing things cool into glasses of glass, taking little doses of the antidote, killing the heat in a pale motion, until what remains are the still traces of the boredom which one no longer wishes to stifle and allows it to hang around like the common cold which, during its stay makes one miserable, but once it leaves, it also makes one crave for that sexy phlegm once again!

One might as well trick the self into the pleasures of reading, but then one is still reluctant to turn the lights on, and the heat continues to catch up more and more.

Eventually, one switches the computer on and lets the music take on a different turn.

One fancies the idea of writing, but then, to unfold writing materials and to put down thoughts systematically and grammatically sounds no great zest in contemplating.

One lingers around for a while; flutters frantically on the keyboard; styling thoughts into ill-formed blog posts before they slip away as vacant daydreams, and the evening with its senseless cooling makes a sacrament of the all vital heat…


Now Playing:: Mora saiyaan mose bolena................Khamaaj

Incredible!

Incredible, perhaps it is
For a woman
To be smitten by one,
To be addicted to another,
To worship yet another,
And to passionately desire
For someone else!

Incredible, perhaps it is
For a woman
To talk about
The animal longings
Of her limbs, and
Never to resist
Parched lips even
When the sun is
Yellow with burning!

Incredible, perhaps it is
For a woman
To be falling in love
Again and again,
Unknown to herself, and
Yet not believing
In its reciprocation
Even for auld times sake!

Now Playing:: Jaiye aap kahan jayenge...................Asha

Smitten!

On days when I don’t see, meet or talk to my professor, I realize that my imagination goes sinking and floundering. Nothing excites me readily, not even books, and a chance encounter with his presence in the reading room begins to loom larger. Well this seems to be the classic case of ‘being smitten’ but one wonders as to ‘how much’? Ah! It’s a good deal I feel but it’s a lot less when I sit down to think. There is probably no hypothesis, theory or evidence which can at least guess, what it is that repels or attracts us in our dealings with people. But, as Ms Austen puts it, “silly things do cease to be silly if they’re done by sensible people”, therefore I wouldn’t mind entertaining an equally silly thought of ‘being smitten’!


Now Playing:: Kajra mohabbat wala...............Asha & Shamshad Begum

One More

Why do his thoughts, so often
Like geckos on the wall
Out-pace my lassitude?
Why do they keep licking me,
So often, both
Within and without?

Maybe it’s a dream after all,
That shall end in a waking relief,
And make me mock and laugh
At the lust which
I once conceived
For a man,

Who made a sacrament
Of every embrace;
Clinging to me like
Mortals to goddesses,
While all through it was
I, who was worshipping,

Every inch of his frame,
Seeking comfort in
The superiority of his being!
This should be a dream after all,
For I have slept too long, and
Had other dreams as well…

Now Playing:: Jajabara......................Akhaya Mohanty

Crumbs

Ever seen the eyes of street
Mongrels, darling?
They are moist.
Moist with hunger.
You feed them once a day,
Maybe even twice,
Yet the hunger stays on!

Look into my eyes,
Don’t feed them
Over and over darling,
They’re street mongrels,
Born to survive on crumbs,
Don’t kill them with
Generosity!

Now Playing:: Yun neend se...............Kishore

A Rather Dull Post

I remember having a decent childhood; school, sports, music, vacations, doordarshan, summer hair-cuts, numerous family outings &c. Although it was quite an active childhood but I was always lethargic at heart. And no matter how good or bad it sounds but whenever someone says, “oh, childhood is the best phase of one’s life”, it has only made me sick and weak, at the sheer absurdity of that generality. I wonder what do the children have to say regarding childhood? They would obviously say ‘no’ considering the fact that they’ve to sit for exams every year, and therefore would prefer growing up straight into adults rather than be a child and lose brains over education. But exams are only the puerile basis of the argument. When you remove all educational pressures from a child and let it live on like there is no other world apart from the world of the playing field, no child would have qualms staying a child all life. But then, the child knows of no other phases of the human life, so how valid would be a child saying that childhood is the best! That ‘childhood is the best’ is obviously a grown-up’s view of the human life, and certainly a particular kind of grown-up who had a relatively happy, smooth, cosy, and trouble-free childhood, in short one belonging to the Haves! Oh, how much does the human life vary from the haves and the have-nots… so much for the mighty double standards of these generalities! If only people could recognize that nothing’s absolute in this world, everything’s so bloody relative…

Ok I shall clap an extinguisher on all that high sounding stuff especially when I hardly possess the complexion to write on matters of philosophical origins, so let’s politely shift to something lighter, ‘I, Me, Myself’. But I realize that even that may not interest you to the hilt, so you are free to pursue your business elsewhere and the rest… well, could I be any happier!

As a child I never did more than I was told to do, and be it for good or worse it still remains one of my character traits. I hated school but I read my books well. I do not harbor a sense of gratitude or indebtedness for my school, for the simple reason that I hardly learnt anything there apart from the knowledge of alphabets and numbers, and friends are never the reason to say ‘I love school days’ no matter how beautiful and good that sounds to be. Teachers were dull and uninspiring and overtly prejudiced but smart enough to smother your confidence and drive you into well nigh depressive disorders. I guess these were the culprits who planted that seed of mania in me which burst into life three years after school.

But my life in most ways began after school, after tenth to be precise. It wasn’t smooth and gliding, even horrid at times, but it was the real one—there was grit in it. It did breed character. Eleventh and twelfth gave me new perspectives, brought me in contact with new friends, and people who would eventually be responsible for the kind of person I am today. If my school made me hate teachers and their profession then it was college which made me their loyal puppy slaves forever. Today, I cannot imagine myself being anything other than a student and willingly barter all my life for an hour or two spent in the company of my professors. I think I can write a book on them and the mere recollection of their faces and frames makes me giddy with enthusiasm. Ah! All that sweet food of academic life! Boy, I don’t see myself in any field other than academics… what a thrill it is to be a student!

Today when people ask me, “what do you want to do in life or how are you going to face the world with this kind of an attitude”, I wonder what makes those miserable people ask me those questions. Is it their lives which are miserable or is it mine! The fact is I give a damn to what they think about me, I’m sick and tired of explaining. I’m happy and contended in my own skin and I’ve managed to break the shackles of the great expectations and I’m free at least in my mind…

Now Playing:: Lakho hain nigah mein....................Rafi

If Only...

They talk, they weep,
They ache, they laugh,
They breathe
In each other
Like shadows of
The male and female,
Tossing and turning
In the beatings of their minds,
Clinging to one another
Like strangers
Caught in a nightmare,
Waiting for a merging
That simply cannot be.
If bound by the soul,
Why do they often
Meet when they’ve
Parceled their bodies
To someone else?
Oh! If only…


Now Playing:: Maine tere liye………………Mukesh

Words

I do not have any grand swelling theories
To impress you deeply and thoroughly,
Yet words grow and impinge on me
Like moss on auld, sad, beaten walls
That have lived so long
Against their will
Compelled by a ceaseless doom,
That any prelude of the slightest quake
Makes them judder in their eerie silences.
Yet they live on
To tell their dreary tales
Over and over again…

Now Playing:: Roobaroo..................Rang de basanti

I

This noon he said a silly thing to me:
You are done. You are done as a charmer.
The woman in me slapped his guts,
The bitch in me squirmed harder.

And then he said it again:
You are done. You are done as a charmer.
The woman in me buried her shame in the pillow,
The bitch in me gave a breathless grunt.

Sometime later he said it again:
You are done. You are done as a charmer.
The woman in me felt delightfully liberated,
The bitch in me greedily begged for more.

In the evening the woman and the bitch in me
Became I. While the woman reclined to write a dirge
For the love affair, the bitch remained by her side
To remind her of an auld forgotten banquet!


Now Playing:: Aakhon se jo utri hai dil mein...............Asha

Some Other Time

At best I can write about it. But then, it would be called a confession. And confessions, no matter how imperative they might be, should be intelligent because the confessor has to continue living with himself in spite of those confessions. I realize that even my confessions should be natural in a self pleasing manner because to hear of it after many years upon a chance encounter, when I would have built up my life quite differently, wouldn’t be peculiarly attractive because confessions dear friends, go through a great deal that’s bad. In plain words, it takes muscle and guts to confess, to show the world what you actually are, and have vanity enough to stand by your thoughts once they’re out in the open. At present life’s like a chess board and with every move I realize that there’s no point in being blatantly honest for all the game requires is a stealthy and measured glide like that of a chess player. So confessions can wait…

Now Playing:: Chalte chalte.....................Pakeezah

To The Other Man

Did you see me
When I appeared on his arms?
Didn’t you see how the faces turned
When I curled up later
With the sun burning in my face?

“Enough, Enough” you must have yelled
Deep down!
Haven’t you learnt to believe what
You see?
Oh, how can I pity thee!

Betray me dear, get out of my thoughts.
Leave me alone.
Fling some earth on me,
Make me a street mongrel,
Don’t clean the scabs!

Now Playing:: Saaton baar bole bansi................Asha

The High Noon

No more the hazy sunrises.
This year the sun will burn,
Infatuate, distract and madden!
Soon it will be you and I
And the “sweet summer sweat.”
Hang, cling, or recline darling,
The noon’s high and wild and
Loud with silence.
Rise. Ravish. Revel.

I see it all in my mind’s eye:
The cool floors purling beneath our
Burning bodies,
The see-saw of entwined breaths
Truncated and punctuated and
Flushed with a joy so simple
That it renders sex an outside
Place in reality!
Sink. Settle. Surrender.

The Indian summer stings darling,
And the Indian bodies like inert logs
Of wood wait to be chiseled and cherished.
Dim, flattened and constrained in their
Compulsive confinements they curse
The sun, the heat, and the sweat and
Hopelessly wait for the showers to
Make some senseless love.
Dull. Distant. Dismal.

If only… if only they could give
Summer a chance; a chance to throb
Lives quick and warm.
Let the season develop and mature
And picture its stark quality
Like that of nudity. Therefore,
This summer come hither darling and
Let the sun expand our souls
Beyond the skins!
Live. Love. Leave.


Now Playing:: Ek hasina jab se mili..................Amit & Asha

Signature of Time

“But Time will heal everything.”

“Oh, there you go again. Don’t let yourself be deceived by hollow maxims… let the world amuse itself in those hallucinations.”

“No. It couldn’t be that absurd as you make it sound to be. Do you have to disagree on everything?”

“(Laughs) I’m not sorry for that. The fact is, people will believe everything except the simple, downright, plain truth.”

“Which would be?”

“You know Time is the most foolish concept that human beings could have invented. They know it very well that they can’t win over Time, yet look at all the useless races which they run… they’re too small to win and when they lose, look how manipulative they get… they say, Time will heal everything! Bastards!”

“But it does heal.”

“Oh, don’t put all that “healing” crap on me, what the hell has Time healed till date? Zilch! The truth is, Time does nothing, except putting our lives into three sexy categories, Past, Present, and Future… fuck them if you like or be an impotent and wait for Time to give you a Viagra. Good luck!”

“Past is dead and gone my friend, the present is messy, and the future, ah, that’ll always come in the end! Don’t let me stop in Time…”

Now Playing:: Pyaar jab na diya......................Kishore

The Street Sedan Named, Life

On certain calm mornings, as far as
The shades of the retreating night
Would allow, amidst
A low-lit mistiness like sweat on leaves,
One spots the yellow sedan
Breaking into a halt;
A skein of dust and smoke
At the blush of dawn.

Some say he’s a monk, while
Others call him a woman-eater.
No one gets out of the sedan,
No one ventures near it.
Screams break out in houses
With phones ringing and
Messages beeping, tearing from end
To end the dull anti-noise!

“Don’t stand in the balcony, and
Keep the windows closed, we’ll go
Get some saccharine,” the usual
Panicked husbands say to the wives.
The husbands disappear, the sedan remains.
Staring and staring at the sedan, silly
Female shapes begin to breathe again.
Finally they sense an alternative!

Somewhere a door creaks open and
Shuts itself and a pair of brown bandy legs
Hurry towards the sedan. Cacophony of a
Silent “Yes” breaks into numerous female hearts,
For not all souls bargain the best! Some return
To their saccharine-stained beds while
Others wait for that blood-smeared antidote;
The street sedan named, “Life”.


Now Playing:: Fanaa......................Yuva

?

When people begin to make inroads into your thoughts and you’re quite sure that serfdom is nigh, what do you do? When acts of violence and desire reign supreme, what do you do? When the need to destroy and be destroyed turns into a sublime obsession, what do you do? When waiting helplessly eats you to the point of nausea, what do you do? When a pair of inimical eyes stare at you in the mirror, what do you do? When people treat you as a push-over, what do you do? When the mind starts to broker between coherence and incoherence, what do you do? When you resort to talking, because you can’t stay silent, what do you do? When you feign tears because you can only laugh at your misery, what do you do? When you wait and wait endlessly, hopelessly, what do you do? When looking at the clock becomes your favorite pastime, what do you do? When you search for long prefaces to say a simple little thing, what do you do? When you’re in no hurry to tell your story to the world, what do you do?

The answer dear friends and readers is quite brief and modest; you simply begin to Hate Yourself. Thank You.

Now Playing:: Gali mein aaj chand nikla.................Alka

Addicted, Are You?

As is apparent by now that I’ve lost my knack of writing. I no longer write long posts; in fact I’ve simply lost the urge to write beyond a hundred words, all of a sudden literature, be it reading or writing makes me feel limp and useless. My thoughts have grown clichéd, even my dreams have grown clichéd, and I feel as if the same dream haunts me every night. Ah! Long live inertia! But inertia is what addiction of any kind leads to! No, I’m not talking about addiction that you associate with drugs and all, but those kinds of addictions which are hard enough to cure. Well, you might argue that all addictions are hard to cure but when you get addicted to people, you’re like a moving thing, pausing once in a while to empty yourself on you know not what. Your thoughts become repetitive and suggestive rather than comprehensive. Addictions of the flesh and blood kind are hard, in fact too hard to cure, and you can trust me on that.

When you get addicted to a person you can trick yourself for a while into thinking about love and then your addiction simply becomes a loving gift for that person. But then it won’t solve anything for how long can you let that deception cheat you? So what do you do? No, don’t come running to me for answers for I’ve none. I don’t understand love but what I do understand is that although love maybe a kind of addiction but all addictions are not love. I confess I am addicted to a person and it makes me realize that getting addicted is more like a bee stinging, but love would be more like a bug slowly crawling over the skin. Now, a bee stinging and a bug slowly crawling over the skin could be equally disgusting but it hurts when a bee stings and in some way the bee leaves its after-image on the skin, right where it does not belong. And that’s where the whole riddle gets interesting for me.

And how difficult it is to fall out of addiction, especially when it leaves you dumb and inarticulate and you’re quite sure that you’ll never find the like of it ever again! The solution then probably lies in letting it stay in the system for a while until it exhausts itself and its essence evaporates and then nothing shall remain but the things that are done, and eventually a “good riddance”. I guess I have reasoned out my ideas fairly well and now all that remains is to quicken events towards an issue. I’m reminded of some lines from the song Main aur meri awaargi, which goes something like this:

Ek din mili ek mehjabeen, tan bhi haseen jaan bhi haseen
Dil ne kaha humse wahin khwabon ki hai manzil yahin
Phir yun hua woh khogayi toh mujhko zidd si hogayi
Layenge usko dhundkar…main aur meri awaargi…

Now Playing:: Cheeni kum hai..............Shreya

The Virgin ll

Sin, the mistress-daughter of Satan,
Why does she have to lurk behind the glass
When the Virgin is lost in narcissistic lust;
Imagining herself for an utterly wicked moment?

Oh why do older women chide her
When she calls herself pretty, and parts her
Lips while loosening her soft tresses on the
Nude anatomy of her virginal paradise?

Oh why should she be ashamed of
Ripping the mask of the “good girl”?
And why should she be ashamed to indite
The innocent longing of her desires?

Oh why should she be called names, if
She wants to be tethered by a Man and not
By boys of chocolate origins and
Inert faces of pale frames?

Ah! what a prelude is virginity to a woman;
Vaguely sinful and barren! And how interesting
Would be the following erratic years in which
She would never see the like of it, ever again!

Now Playing:: Dil cheez kya hai.....................Asha

By Proportion

I was feeling dizzy when I woke up in the morning today, but I thought it was probably on account of irregular sleeping habits. However on my way to the department which is on the third floor I thought I would collapse in a nervous fit as a sharp pain darted through my head. My breath grew short and I felt like throwing up, simultaneously I felt light and free and I secretly wished it not to be a recurrence of mania but a passing dizziness due to lack of proper sleep. Perhaps, it will take years before I can even think of living a life without epilims and bromides. But it would not be easy either. The warning signs have always been scary as if all the energy of my life would simply boil over and waste itself into useless steam and froth. My fate, from now on would be titanic I think! And worse luck is to live a life by proportion!

Now Playing:: Phir wohi dil laya hoon....................Rafi

The Descendants

When friends meet as lovers
They’re like strangers in auld playhouses.
They deceive themselves into gay pseudo-fictions,
Into giddy delights of their pathetic contours, and
Luxuriously riot in the elegant scenes of the
Male-female puzzle, childishly clipping their own
Wings when they’re free to soar!

The long lost battle of love finds its victory at last
In this friendly lust, that neither devours nor sets free
The pulsating excitement of the skin’s mute hungers…
It clings like the passion of a python, now halting in
Chocolate houses, now consuming on benches in the park,
Repeating and repeating the same clichéd dream
Of dying in one another’s arms!

With heavy breaths and still heavier souls they
Eventually carry the pride of their bodies to beds,
Only to wake up in the morning with their backs facing
The smothered pride of their guilty visages.
Ah! Long live these descendants of sex and their
Haunting requiem for an otherwise beautiful relationship!


Now Playing:: Sheeshe ke gharon mein.................Kishore

Sedation

The air began to grow dusky and I knew
The sea was somewhere near. Whiffs of sand too,
The sea couldn’t be far now. “Holla there woman,
Don’t go that way, it aint safe there!” a voice neither
Male nor female came slapping in the dusk,
And then I heard it no more.

“You need sleep darling, lots and lots of it”, the
Waves were strong and silent but the sea was
A silhouette. The sand reeking of blood and
Sodium and darkness purled beneath my
Stumbling feet. The shore was unlit, but the
Book had to be read!

The waves grew predictable as my eyes
Licked the black inanity from the pages of
The book. “You, woman get out of here!” a shapeless
Voice came at me, blinding me with a sudden
Jolt of his boot on my chest. I think I heard myself
Scream but it was just the sodium in the brain.

The book lay somewhere far, even farer than the sea.
Pages rustled in the dusky sea air, and I remember
Crawling towards it, groveling in my own flesh and blood.
My private voice was dead and so was the sea and
In my climb back to the land I heard him saying,
“You need sleep darling, lots and lots of it!”


Now Playing:: Humsafar hain sabhi..................Kishore & Asha

In Love with Ms Dixit's Hands!

p.s: Since all of us survived as jolly candidates for twenty-ten, so for everyone connected with this space I've just one word: PROSPER