FRISSON

Bury Your Wings

2012-01-17T23:21:00.004+05:30

Bury your wings,
Do not water them,
They’ll sprout into
Little saplings
And will make trees
Of your false hopes.
Bury your wings, darling,
For,
Wings are ordinary things,
They do nothing,
They will only take you
From one loveless earth
To another.

Now Playing:: Neela aasmaan........Silsila

The End of the Affair

2012-01-02T21:29:00.003+05:30

"Two days ago I had such a sense of peace and quiet love. Life was going to be happy again, but last night I dreamed I was walking up a long staircase to meet Maurice at the top. I was still happy because when I reached the top of the staircase we were going to make love.

Then I woke up. I'm not at peace anymore. I just want him like I used to in the old days. I'm tired and I don't want anymore pain. I want Maurice. I want ordinary corrupt human love."

Now Playing::Fly me to the moon.........Doris Day

Umbilicus

2011-12-21T22:18:00.002+05:30

It seemed as if
Everything that I had owned
Was gushing into the
Ancient whirlpool of
The navel,
When he said,
‘You’re a peculiar child’,
Not a woman,
Not even a girl,
But a child…

Now Playing:: Lean on me.....Bill Withers

Apology

2011-12-18T22:41:00.004+05:30

No one at his club knows our secret, or so we
Would like to believe. They know me by another
Name, they know me as one who writes poems.
I flutter around wearing mother’s sarees and during
The brief time-outs when I keep to myself, men float up
And settle on either side of my couch trying to know my
Age. I smile and laugh with all the flamboyance of a flirt,
And occasionally one of them would politely ask for a
Picture, in memory of an evening spent with someone who
Writes poems. Once in a while I catch him staring at me from
A crowded corner of the hall, and then, affecting nonchalance
At the pretty sight of me clad in a saree and lost in the company
Of other men. “There is pleasure in this side of the world, too”, I
Tell him, when we later resign into the night. Raising his soft,
Liquid eyes he kisses me gently on the forehead and as I nuzzle
Closer I’m invariably reminded of another face,
Another set of arms,where I had found
A similar unsatisfying warmth…

Now Playing:: Wahin chal mere dil.......Suresh Wadkar

Remembering

2011-12-17T22:36:00.002+05:30

It must have been a thousand years old,
That face in the humble darkness,
Which speaks of a singular legend;
Of Love's unsatisfying embrace,
Of Man's slow swim into the forbidden.

Now Playing:: Itna na mujhse tu pyaar badha......Lata & Talat

Nothing Like the Sun

2011-11-12T21:28:00.001+05:30

" It was all a matter of a Goddess-- dark, hidden, deadly, horribly desirable. When did her image first dawn?"

Too Early, Love

2011-10-31T21:14:00.001+05:30

There’s a new man in town,
Who takes me on clandestine drives,
And we sin casually,
Very casually,
Because
There’s nothing much that
We can do for each other.
On dark, deserted stretches of concrete
Where his manhood oozes out
On my female stillness,
A smile breaks out in my mind
Because
Love has now become
A detached thing;
A mere force of habit,
That comes to us like madness,
Madness,
That grows and stirs, and
Then lies meekly exhausted
In casual smiles and goodbyes.

This, too, is love,
This passion in the breast,
That beats for casual affairs of the night
And makes a mockery of souls
For the rest of the day,

Yes, there’s a new man in town,
Who takes me on clandestine drives,
And makes me sin casually,
Very casually.

Now Playing::Jiya Jale........Dil Se

Yet Another

2011-10-24T22:46:00.003+05:30

And on nights like these
When the eyes are empty of sleep,
I realize how easy it is
To fall out of love with you;
To breathe the air
Reeking of wantonness,
That lies just outside of love,
How utterly easy it is, darling
To abandon the heart,
Just for a while,
In search of a peace so adult,
And settle in another's arms
For a night,
Yet another,
And yet another...

Now Playing:: Raat hamari toh.........Parineeta

Mood Music

2011-10-17T14:20:00.002+05:30

Tumhi se janmoon toh shayad mujhe panaah mile...

Taking Leave

2011-09-29T16:13:00.003+05:30

I remember you telling me, ‘there’s nothing
Like the sea.’ What made you say that, I would
Never know, but don’t thrust its shapeless,
Roaring ugliness upon me…how could you endure
That wave upon wave vulgarity that it perks on
Your face so shamelessly? I’m filled with repulsion
(of late I have begun to hate everything you like),
What's this country where there's no stirring of desire?
In the sun-drenched late afternoons when i'm speaking
without any listeners, see how the sea howls unabashedly
Like the voyeur who, couldn't take his eyes off me when
The curtains fluttered in the musty sea breeze. I long to
Hear a night-bird's cry, sweet, dull, and un-muffled in
The pesky yell of the sea; have you ever seen them
Coming down from the loftiness of the coconuts and the
Casuarinas? The sea alone survives here, darling, it
Survives with its illusion of the horizon and a pale sun
Settling in its womb, it's the same as everyday. I wish
There were someone else here, not you, someone
Equally corrupt as I. Don't look for me; I'm leaving,
I'm going home...there's too much sand in my hair.

Now Playing::Teri mehfil mein.....Lata & Shamshad Begum

Between Us

2011-06-12T21:07:00.001+05:30

It was the only unpleasantness between us;
He smelt like a man,
Like rough,
I was forever
Rank with dampness,
A mere
Locked-up smell,
Gushing with
Margins of errors,
Pining, Pining
To be, filled…

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

At Dusk

2011-06-07T23:42:00.002+05:30

If you could just wait for a while,
I would tell you how I met him.
Have you ever been alone with anyone
In the graying darkness of an evening?
No, there wouldn’t be any secrets
Between you and I. It was him, darling,
It was him again…
It’s terrible, it’s terrible, and there was
Something terrible in me too,
He was strong, darling, very strong,
I was wild on breath…
It’s terrible, darling, it’s terrible.

Now Playing:: Raat ka shauk hai...........Guru

Fermata

2011-05-04T23:41:00.001+05:30

It’s quiet now; he has stopped playing the piano,
He might resume it sometime later. It’s quiet now.
For a while. I can’t recall faces anymore, an eye here,
A nose there, a body waxed thin in the memory,
Each looking like a clone of the other. Faces contradict
The names; it’s always an alien hand that leans over to
Touch me. It flounders for a while reminding itself of my
Crevices, gently mocking at the carpet burns on my back,
Lingering on every memory that my body holds as secrets.
It’s not easy, darling, to erase a man from the body,
It’s much easier to measure longings…
There are other things, darling, that I wish to tell you, but
Oh, that wretched piano…

Now Playing:: Neele neele amber par........Kishore Kumar

Roué

2011-05-03T22:39:00.002+05:30

Why do you speak strange languages, darling,
You see, I don’t know all of them. Oh, what was
That word you wrote last night? ‘Roué’, was it not?
Oh, it hurt me when I looked up for it, how could you
Say that to me?

But now that it’s over, I shall go out for a long walk
That I had always wanted to. You never understood it
Darling, it was only your smell that I was after. Maybe,
I’ll take the walk tomorrow, the bloke at the end of the
Street has just begun to play the piano.

Now Playing:: Aapke anurodh pe.........Kishore Kumar

Not a Love poem

2011-03-01T19:57:00.001+05:30

You’ve grown older, older than I had expected
You to be… how wretched you look, how
Handsome you talk! Meet me at the old junction
Sometime, I promise I’ll behave. Weren’t we sixteen
Together? Do you dig into time, often? I do. I would
Tell you how much I missed you. No, I promised
I would behave. I would probably drive you down to
A crowded coffee house and we’ll sit softly amidst
Modern Love. You can talk books, Rumi if you prefer?
I would read him one of these days, I would say.
We would stay as long as the coffee in the cup; we’re
Older now, we know that works. I would drive you back
To where you were picked, and we would shake hands to
Seal the monotony of an evening that we don’t want anymore.
I promised I would behave…

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

Vox

2011-02-21T20:41:00.002+05:30

For a long, long time, a private voice had echoed
In the phone; a voice that had set something in me
Free; a voice that sounded like bliss; a voice that
Reeked of a secret language; a voice that talked and
Talked and talked, never pausing to listen, never…
How long has it been, since then? A summer and a
Winter? Will you be back this summer? For a while?
I do nothing these days; I read in the mornings, and
Then write for long hours perched at the dining table…
Mother says, it’s a long life, sixty years for everyone.
Drop a Hello, once in a while; a long tired breath for
Every call… it’s a long, long life darling and I do nothing
These days… at nights, I fancy the phone ringing, and
When I answer, it’s your punctuated breaths again…

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

Maazi

2011-02-17T19:19:00.000+05:30

I could never lure him into loving me,
His taste in women was odd;
Emaciated cleavage with the bone
Sticking out, seldom made his gut rot.

You’re too much in love with me;
Shed it; undress; take charge of the skin;
Be a furry creature; ape the apes;
Please me, the way you please words…

That was once upon a time,
And I’ve loved other men since then,
Loved them the way I wanted to;
Loved without shame or rage.

Today, the equality of sexes bore me,
I long for my maazi, whose desire
Made me female, and my shy panicky
Submission that rendered him, male…

Yes, it breaks my heart to see others in love,
Yes, it breaks my heart to see myself
No longer awake, even in dreams…

Now Playing::Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi...........Kishore

February Muse

2011-02-08T19:25:00.004+05:30

During one of his kinky streaks, he asks me if
I could work the lather on his five o’clock shadow;
An ordinary man with saggy man-breasts and
Hirsute complexion and a brutally loveless face (that
brought me to him), how often, he seems so unattainable.
What am I growing into? A woman who can no longer find love?
I agree. Therefore, I try harder every day.
As I shunt in closer I feel his heat getting stitched
Into my breath, buzzing a dull fever in the folds of my anatomy.
Come to me. Stay.
The day wanes in the summer dust of his slurping slippers,
And the future unfolds like a Faustian bargain…

Now Playing::Om namaha............Gitanjali

Love

2011-01-28T23:01:00.001+05:30

What time is it now?
Since when?
All the poetry there has been...

Now Playing:: Om namaha...........Gitanjali

Clichéd Heart

2011-01-23T20:33:00.002+05:30

Day by day winter is coming to an end; soon
It would be spring and the singing birds would
Stay for a while swirling their songs with anger
In the fragile crucible of my body…the heart is
Bitter, all it seeks is the brutal indifference of summer…

The heart, like a flat-chested prostitute
Looks for love in small exchanges;
Nothing to barter, it waits for rest and
Peace and a silent sunny dream to make friends
In dark crannies, once again.

Now Playing:: Kabhi Kabhi sapna lagta hai...Kishore & Asha

Then & Now

2010-12-23T23:20:00.002+05:30

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

2010-12-17T23:33:00.000+05:30

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

2010-12-11T22:43:00.002+05:30

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

2010-12-10T00:34:00.000+05:30

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

2010-12-07T00:55:00.001+05:30

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

2010-12-06T13:10:00.001+05:30

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

2010-11-29T23:18:00.001+05:30

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

2010-11-13T20:02:00.001+05:30

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

2010-11-10T21:32:00.001+05:30

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

2010-11-05T00:07:00.000+05:30

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

2010-10-14T13:12:00.000+05:30

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

2010-10-14T00:29:00.001+05:30

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

2010-10-12T23:15:00.001+05:30

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!

2010-10-05T20:00:00.005+05:30

On Shores of Auld Romances

2010-09-14T23:31:00.000+05:30

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

2010-09-11T22:58:00.001+05:30

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

2010-09-01T12:34:00.002+05:30

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

2010-07-27T21:47:00.001+05:30

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

2010-07-24T18:53:00.002+05:30

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

2010-07-20T21:25:00.002+05:30

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

2010-07-14T22:40:00.001+05:30

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

2010-05-30T01:44:00.003+05:30

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

2010-05-22T22:26:00.002+05:30

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

2010-05-21T00:06:00.001+05:30

“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!

2010-05-14T19:57:00.002+05:30

“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

2010-05-11T22:59:00.001+05:30

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

2010-05-05T20:26:00.002+05:30

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

2010-05-02T23:26:00.001+05:30

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

2010-04-28T20:26:00.001+05:30

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

2010-04-24T00:31:00.002+05:30

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

2010-04-22T20:11:00.002+05:30

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

2010-04-16T16:10:00.000+05:30

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!

2010-04-14T00:47:00.002+05:30

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!

2010-04-07T00:04:00.002+05:30

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

2010-04-06T00:11:00.002+05:30

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

2010-03-27T00:15:00.000+05:30

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

2010-03-23T23:10:00.003+05:30

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...

2010-03-19T19:46:00.001+05:30

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

2010-03-16T00:03:00.001+05:30

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

2010-03-12T00:12:00.003+05:30

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

2010-03-09T23:13:00.000+05:30

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

2010-03-08T19:29:00.001+05:30

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

2010-03-07T19:49:00.000+05:30

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

2010-02-28T23:09:00.004+05:30

“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

2010-02-26T19:45:00.001+05:30

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

?

2010-02-19T00:33:00.001+05:30

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?

2010-02-17T00:07:00.002+05:30

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

2010-02-12T00:45:00.001+05:30

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

2010-02-06T19:45:00.000+05:30

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

2010-02-03T23:17:00.001+05:30

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

2010-01-29T23:21:00.001+05:30

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!

2010-01-28T22:40:00.002+05:30

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

A Note to the Reader

2009-12-11T22:02:00.000+05:30

Exams are now knocking on my dreams, doors, windows, and every other place where there is occasion for knocking, and therefore in times like these “creativity” hits an all time low. In one word, posts out here will be posted post exams. So come back again in Jan twenty-ten and we’ll celebrate a late new year together. Until then happy thinking and happy reading (my older posts I mean).

Ok now study time… no nap time I guess!

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

A Brutal Paradox

2009-12-05T00:30:00.000+05:30

Some men are like seasonal fruits…available
For once in the lifetime of a woman, and expensive too!
You don’t buy them in kilos! You pluck them! You wash them
To adorn your dining tables during the day and when the sun
Sets in the western skies you slice them into shapeless lumps,
Making them small and edible!

You might ask me, “who then has the upper hand in this
Passionate turbulence?” “Undoubtedly, the man!” I say.
Oh, don’t blow your feminist trumpet yet, just hear me out.
Answer me fellow women, isn’t it a submissive dominance
To make a pigmy of your body to his hardened flesh and blood,
And is not it a man’s loss when a woman feigns; punishing

Him when he fails to please! For centuries now, our bodies
Have been sullied with pecker tales of all kinds…but now
Let it give on till it can give no more, for we know what makes
A man, a man after all! And therefore, thrive for men more
Excellent than yourselves…pluck them when they’re ripe,
And let them rot with wild ambitions on your virginal beds!

Strip down to your soul and let him see your naked form;
Intimidate; and then allow him to sink into you; let him
Crush your womb and empty it of every drop of blood;
Make him toil, toil and toil. In the end, dear men and
Women, both realize the brutal paradox of sex;
Both get crushed to be elated!

Now Playing:: Daiyya yeh main kahan...........Asha

Yes, Professor!

2009-12-02T23:58:00.002+05:30

The department wore a deserted look as in mourning… and what a place it is to be in the reading room in these hours! The walks at these times, dear reader are so much one’s own that you can scarcely perceive how much it leaves one ‘changed’.

As I slipped in unperceived into a grove of Sandal Trees stealthily watching two women making love… when a familiar smell and taste of tobacco sent my entire being into a visible flutter.

Oh what bliss it was to watch him smoke, smoke and smoke! With the object of my longing and desire carelessly stranded in between the digits of his left, and those of the right occasionally coming down from his temples to flip the pages… he looked like a painter’s delight (and that my dear reader is no exaggeration).

Blessed with a language of exactitude; and speaking in terms of ‘thesis…antithesis…and synthesis’ his lectures have always affected the metaphysics… often raising the wonder and surprise of the listeners. He has the appearance of a saint but one increasingly becomes conscious of the unsaintly malicious glint lingering in his eyes. Ah! What a man to listen and admire forever!

And today watching him tame fire merely rifled his charms adding a triumph to my kink of getting attracted to older men….

Now Playing:: Kisike waade pe kyun……………………….Asha

Symbiosis

2009-11-25T22:10:00.000+05:30

It’s a nude, lonely walk from the bathroom
To the mirror in the bedroom; now halting and now
Shivering under the thousand shrinking and sliding,
Yet, clinging and hanging droplets of a watered bliss.

Each drop celebrating its wicked sojourn meanders
Through every indentation, fold, and dimples of my
Anatomy, refusing to change its mood, devouring every
Dreg of my female scent in a pale motion of sense and
Lust, before ending in a failed autonomy, merging with the
Nebulous patches of my wet naked footprints!

This wet form in the mirror has no talent of its own
Although love and lust seem to come pretty easily to it.
Pondering over this form in a deep silence, and peeling
Off a good number of skins later, I finally reach the Soul.
Oh! What a detestable, ghastly image! The Soul has become
Sense too! Oh darling, is Lucifer my guarding angel now?

In haste I stitch the skins up and recompact the Soul.
My evil, sensuous Soul doesn’t deserve this outer form,
Maybe a cut here, a slash there or a burn someplace else
Will complete this auld symbiosis of the Body and the Soul!

Now Playing:: Hum tumse mile..........................Rocky

Winter's Eunuch!

2009-11-20T23:17:00.001+05:30

Hate me not darling, for the winter has
Made a eunuch of my body; sterile and unfulfilling,
Inflamed with a platonic love than lust!
Hate me not darling, for I’m not smooth anymore.
The skin’s cracking and so am I…. leave me alone darling,
Don’t come in between my legs, don’t make me
Fight this frigidity; don’t make love to me as a rational
Passion…. I hate it!

Let the winter pass in silence darling, let the silence
Creep into my bones… let my body crave for yours,
Make me wait darling, make me wait and wait… then
I’ll be at your mercy; turn me in or turn me out, I shall
Comply. But now leave me alone darling, let me hide myself
Like a reptile in hibernation… let this barren loneliness
Manifest itself into an obsession with sex… oh, let me wait
Darling, for there is more pleasure, even in this world!

Now Playing:: kaheko rootha……………………….Asha

When the head runs upon you in a fit of madness....

2009-11-19T20:05:00.002+05:30

But, what’s the point in taking all those drugs and numbing the senses and putting my manic brain to sleep, I wonder? It hardly serves the purpose because it makes my waking life more unbearable…. leaving me perfectly confused and out of myself. Yet, dad insists on something which he calls the “the larger good”. But, how do I make him understand that these drugs make me feel suicidal…. But, I should hold my thoughts there lest they put me in a cage….. the possibilities of which have already been hinted by the shrink. Honestly, dear reader I don’t know what I’m saying, I feel like I’m on a high, and the reason for this documentation is that I’ve been asked to observe and put down my thoughts, in short I’ve been asked to help myself to restore normalcy.

This makes me feel genuinely sorry for my parents…. certainly they don’t deserve the kind of humiliation that I put them into, besides it must be so difficult to live with a constant knowledge of the fact that they have a daughter whose brain borders on insanity. Perhaps, its nature’s strange way of keeping everything in balance; I guess it was only natural for me to be imbalanced when my brother is perfectly balanced. I wish I could be like my brother and make mom & dad feel proud of me, but it is equally vain to sit still and wish for what I cannot achieve.

I hardly have a clue how I came to develop this condition. It probably began with my inability to deal with stress. At first you get depressed as stress increases and then eventually your mind gives up and goes manic. Its more of a mechanism of the body to take an automatic break from hectic life. I could’ve avoided it, if only the warning signs were much clearer. It’s like a state in which I sink into even at the slightest contemplation of stress and its only in my climb back to normalcy that I actually perceive the extent of my distortion…

I never had an intention of posting the above thing to the blog, especially when it’s three months old. But it’s probably on account of the rains or a recent recurrence of the madness to the head that has made me return to it. It has been some days now, and I can feel that “funny feeling” (which shrinks call ‘mania’ and laymen ‘madness’) running all over me. This time however, I could sense it before hand. It always begins with a mild irritation apropos of nothing, and then you can feel the energy levels slowly rising above normal, till you become hyper energetic; a state in which you continue to dwell for some days or hours, irrespective of all the drugs you take to bring the levels down to normalcy. A maniac is like a totally sloshed person with ten times more energy. And interestingly during the mania time you hardly feel any “needs”, be it hunger, thirst, and sex… nothing at all!

Hyper energy can get dangerous on most occasions… you feel like riding a bike in full speed and hitting a wall, and that’s precisely what made me resort to public transport when I perceived that I was indeed riding a tad too fast. My legs still ache with all those long walks but its better than being dead I think! One cannot talk sense in mania and it’s always better to spend those unwholesome hours either with yourself or people who would tolerate your rambling chats, but the hyper energy levels would drag you to places where there are more and more people, and you end up staging a play of your own insanity. However, the best thing about going manic is that it makes you stoic for a brief period of time… you simply lose the ability to feel pain or pleasure, and even better is that when you happen to recollect your mania time during normal days, you feel that things and events come to you in fragments… it becomes almost impossible to say what followed what… trust me, you’ll be thankful not to remember a lot of things that you’ve done or said!

I haven’t slept well for some days now and I hope to sleep like a child tonight, for I can sense sanity returning. Well, those are enough details to make you shrink with fear and think twice before you come sauntering again to this space and therefore I better clap the extinguisher here. I hope to see you again when the mind is relatively free of such maladies.

Now Playing:: Pehli nazar mein……………….The Burning Train

Waiting...

2009-11-15T00:41:00.002+05:30

The waiting is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It’s like a moment that gets extended and extended and, extended. I have been waiting for a while now… waiting for the séance… waiting for the delayed outburst… waiting to hear him speak… waiting for a good night’s sleep that would eventually answer all my questions. But things do not come to us when we want them the most, although the law of attraction says that they do. He did turn up though, albeit much later and as usual he seemed to be in a hurry, but I could still perceive his darting eyes and an auld and obvious inclination to smile about the mouth, and a vibe full of strong purpose and feeling. Of all the things that were exchanged between us, my waking mind recollects only this one thing that he said:

“The more airs of childish self-importance you give yourself, you will only expose yourself to be the more ridiculed and laughed at!”

Now Playing:: Poocho na yaar kya hua...................Asha & Rafi

Dad, Can I Smoke?

2009-11-06T00:56:00.001+05:30

Dear reader, maybe I’m troubled and need help, but tell me is it that horrible to want to smoke? In fact it has been some days now and I’ve been only wanting to smoke, smoke and smoke…..to the extent that I can almost fancy the taste of tobacco in my mouth, and the smell of smoke on my fingers. Well, these are confessions of a strange order but I can’t help it. I’ve wanted just this one thing to make me happy, but wanting that, have wanted everything else as well! I hardly have a notion of what I might turn into if the rules of discipline were to be suddenly lifted from my daily walk through life.

And perhaps, this wasn’t a mere recording of a dream after all…..and sadly all my dreams tend to produce a world of dirty monochrome in which nothing can possibly happen, except to make the head nod and the eyes heavy with sleep. But even sleeping seems to be a rare occasion these days. I’m sleeping for less than three hours a day now, and the less I sleep, the more I want to indulge in smoking…..and even as I write this, I can smell smoke, boy, its driving me crazy…

Now, there are occasions in our life when we must make something happen, like flinging a splash of color into life, but I’ve simply lost the urge to do that….I would rather flounder into heavy chairs and put the body, mind, and the soul in hibernation, till I gather my scattered wits.

Meanwhile, can I smoke dad?

Now Playing:: Yaad piya ki aaye……………….Shobha Gurtu

Inside the Mirror

2009-10-27T22:47:00.003+05:30

It’s a torture…
Standing naked before the glass
And to face the skin’s mute hungers, and
Watching the slow rise of the body
From a little girl to a woman!
Why the growth? Why the loss of innocence?

But, can any woman be innocent?
Are not all women alike, when you lift
The veils of their weaknesses?
Don’t all women froth with desire
For men more excellent than themselves?
And how the thought of desire breaks the myth!

Innocence and tenderness are reduced to
Mere platonic virtues, and the body in the
Glass stands proud, cold, and triumphant
With an impersonal lust…that darts the skin,
Reminding the body that its essence
Does not lie in virginity!

Now Playing:: Huzoor is kadr………………….Masoom

In Parenthesis

2009-10-23T23:28:00.001+05:30

Some days back this space turned two years old. NO BIG DEAL! After all, it’s the law of nature that things must keep moving. I mean, people and things keep getting older without any special interference as such, and FRISSON too would continue to age irrespective of my active documentation or lazy negligence. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you but blogging for me has always been something that I station in parenthesis and, things written in parenthesis seldom contain any grand theories or notions to attract or interest one deeply and thoroughly! You simply tend to pass over!

Now, coming back to FRISSON, I’ve been able to sort out a few distinct differences between my attitude (in writing) at present and the first year of blogging. It began with the keeping of memories and recording of experiences and all the other furniture that brings out the existing side of an individual. This virtual space became my way of relaxing, of working off my frustrations over my incapabilities, in other words, it became my strange way of compensating for not being a genius. I guess I was living under an illusion that there’re no evidences beyond experiences and in the writing of these experiences, I thought I was simply expressing my existing side, but there’re enough evidences beyond experiences and it takes a while before we get to acknowledge their magnificence!

And in one of those odd silences which sometimes fall on blogs, I started to worry about “words”. For, whatever else we may do, we’ll be using words all day and every day, words continue to matter. Words are the vehicle of thoughts and I knew I was reaching nowhere because I was using all the wrong words for locomotion and I was as good as a heap of stones could be. That was when the waiting game began, and when the words came, they came not in masses but mere numbers, and all I could write was poetry, although the prospects of prose continued to seduce me for a long time. But a return to prose has been really painful and uninspiring for poetry tempts me more and more.

Be it prose or poetry, I still lack the gall to speak my mind, letting the truth out only in half explained words and phrases. To me at all events this deposit of vagueness would be preferred more than all other confessions, for it is physical, wholesome, nourishing, and refreshing to the last degree!

Thank you dear reader!

Now Playing:: Wake up Sid (club mix)

Enter

2009-10-20T23:07:00.003+05:30

It’s around two in the afternoon when I return from college. Not a soul seems to be stirring at this hour of siesta. It’s a closely knit colony but, the neighbours would hardly notice even if I get murdered. The first thing that I take notice of, is the huge lock dangling on the front door of the house and a depressing consciousness that comes with the said imagery ,that there’s nobody waiting on the other side to open the door, and worse luck, you play your own guest! I have been returning to a locked up house since the past six years now. You don’t have much of a choice when you’ve working parents and siblings who would rather settle in far away countries than in familiar spaces. Dear reader, I’m unfortunately blessed with so much of privacy that I’ve almost forgotten what it is to be in public and to be social?

But strangely, I manage to leave these anxieties and ill formed depressions at the threshold as undoubtedly the home seems to compensate for everything the moment I enter into its calm confines (although I see enough clutter around). Ah! It’s like visiting the scenes of early youth all over again! I literally throw the bag and the dupatta on the couch (and they remain there, till I collect them very late in the evening, probably when mom’s back from office) before opening the window that would bring the garden alive. The enormity of the garden has struck many and it continues to strike me every time I see it through this window. Although it’s trimmed and maintained, yet it seems to have a hint of a quaint wildness, which could be scary at times. I don’t spend too much of time at this window, especially at this hour, however it remains one of my favorite corners of the house when it “rains”.

Ah! What a bliss it was to read The Mayor of Casterbridge in this corner. As I hung in silence over some of the pages of that great classic, I could feel the garden coming alive, as if Nature too was listening closely to the story of Henchard! Ah! Let me still recall that scene, so that it may breathe fresh life into me and I could live that birthday of passion and romantic pleasure over again!

There’s still a better place in the house and that’s my room, where I presently venture into. Now, solitude, dear readers, makes one fall in love with three things viz. music, books, and thy self. I cannot possibly imagine my life without the first two and although I get wearied of myself on occasions still I cannot resist my own company, and I wouldn’t trade it for any better. Presently, I turn the laptop on (earlier it used to be the PC) and let the music flow. I usually dally between Asha and Lata at this hour, preferably the former in most cases. The volume remains on an all time high as I freshen up. And then, amidst Asha/Lata and the gyrating noise of the ceiling fan I flop into bed. Nothing can exceed the unruffled calmness of this moment as music lulls me into sleep, although I see strange shapes in dreams when alone, still I look forward to these moments every noon.

For more than seventy percent of the day, what I see is what lies inside my room. There are “my stuff”, like a PC which no longer works, a double set of speakers, a laptop (the latest addition), clothes carelessly scattered around, books, books, and more books…they occupy the shelves, half of the bed, whole of my one time study table, and some are packed and kept elsewhere in the house. In one word the room’s gloomy, yet it has put me in some of my best thoughts amidst the worst of clutter. I rarely invite people into this part of my world, for if there’s anything personal in my life, then it’s the solitude of this space, although it has bestowed upon me gifts of no real value. But, it has made me think I’m happy, I can do things I like and people can’t…I think I’m “different”…an expression I hate, yet I cling to it.

You do realize reader, that a mind thus constructed should be partially lame or torpid, with all the sensations at a cold rest. However, having said that there’s also a strange feeling of “happiness” dwelling within for reasons probably known and unknown!

Well there are other things that I can document but too much of self indulgence would only result in making this post painfully lengthy and boring, so I better take your leave at this juncture, until I catch you some other time.

Bye.

Now Playing:: Shokhiyon mein ghola jaye……………….Lata & Kishore

Seasons

2009-10-18T20:19:00.002+05:30

Summer’s dead and gone darling,
Shut the world out and come in!
Be the cold ghost of the sun,
Let’s feign heat,
Let’s get cold and numb!

Ever wondered how futile
Love making is in winter?
Where’s the sweat…where’s the
Nudity, darling?
Ah, how they nip and shrink me!

I am bound hither darling
‘cause you love winter,
Where nothing grows, not even
Lust, and all the love’s labour;
So unproductive!

Still, make your move darling,
For the spring’s ruthless and
So is summer. Besides, a
Woman’s body can never find
A better raiment than that of a man’s!

Now Playing:: Beqarar dil tu...................Sulakshana & Kishore

Ah! These Séances...

2009-10-14T00:27:00.002+05:30

Even when manic his rambling chat always made more sense to me than all the sense and sanity that the world could offer. He was giving me the feeling of a caged vastness as he continued to talk without gestures. And, in the dim light of my séance I could see his thoughts running upon his head in a fit of madness. Witnessing his half-seen face and motion in the blinding winter mist I felt a dread…a horror, and for the first time in five years I felt genuinely sorry for him. While a drop or two fell from my eyes, his lips seemed to be shut in the firm fashion of a smile…maddening my brain and numbing all powers except the nerves of anguish and a dull lust for death! No matter what, it was always love for a real person, however transient it may have been…

Now Playing:: Piya baanwri…………………….Asha

The Missing

2009-10-11T22:55:00.001+05:30

Let me still recall them; my
Midnight darlings of early youth.
Men, who had hit my taste,
Smelling of sweat and coffee breaths,
Men who were sweet in the mouth, but
Hacking their way into me, they
Hardly cared to knock!

As I moaned in silence beneath them,
They taught me what passion is…
Oh, let me still recall them! Men,
Who buried their eyes into mine, and
Made me acknowledge the actions of
The bodies…men, who preferred to
Sink, than settle!

They’re family-men today, yet my
Married body longs for their intimacy.
Oh, let me still recall them, for I’ve to go
Home to a man on a dull, tired bed, who
Gets rid of his raiment at the chance brush
Of the legs…oh, if I could only see his eyes, but all
That remains is a swollen organ of release…

P.S: I’ve talked too much, Asha, chalo sing me a song now.

Now Playing:: Jaane kya baat hai…………………Sunny

Inter alia!

2009-10-07T00:28:00.001+05:30

I can feel the idle vein returning upon me, and therefore I subside into my proper element of prose, besides, I missed talking to you, reader. So, tell me how have you been?

As for me, I bunked college today and I don’t think there’s anything much dreadful than being left alone for almost a quarter of an hour in the company of a sensible, well-informed man who is hardly interested in the works of the bard, on whom he wants me to present a paper on! It’s certainly not the prof’s fault that I’m not profiting more. I’m not affecting ignorance, but unfortunately, my brain isn’t spacious enough to oblige high sounding theories and philosophies without aching. It’s like a vulgar illiterate getting caught in a refined medium of communication, without an escape alley, and worse luck, to find all the refinement slowly setting a shop in his own murky system.

Oh boy, that’s precisely the kind of vague literary jargon that our profs expect us to write, and being the ideal student that I am, I’ll surely exhaust the whole fund of antiquity on the blankness, that’s their “faces”! At times however, the puzzling formulas of physics offer a better language of thought than all the words of literature taken together.

But that was not what I intended to write tonight. The main reason for this post was to recommend American Beauty and boy what a movie that was. You may not remember anything of the movie but what remains with you is the smile on Lester’s face (Kevin Spacey). There’s nothing special about the smile except that it reaches his eyes even in death. Perhaps, that’s what maketh a man, a man after all!

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

Brevity

2009-10-04T23:25:00.002+05:30

We always had to hurry, since
He came in between meetings.
A mere monstrous orgasm
Ceased our bodies into a
Single shock of pleasure, and
We would be done for the day!

There wasn’t any place for nudity
For the brevity of the act said it all.
“Why work on expositions and
Common endings, when all that our
Bodies understand is a climax?” he
Would say.

As we advance and exhaust our
Fund of passion and taste the
Pleasures of lust, their spirit
Evaporates, intimacy palls; and nothing
Is left but the phantoms and the
Lifeless shadows of what has been!

Now Playing:: Piya baanwri........................Asha

P.S. Asha, please keep on singing this song until the night comes to an end...

The Bestseller

2009-09-22T23:25:00.001+05:30

I have been pilfering lust all my life;
At times, hiding my body in the dark,
And at times flaunting it like a shameless tart.
There have been occasional sales
In the markets, and before I could bargain,
My body became my book.

As the weight of the flesh kept crushing me,
I celebrated the rare occasion of being
The concubine and the wife. On every
Bridal night as love invariably petered out
Into lust, I began to learn something more
About men and their kind.

Most of them rejected my face, like
The foreword never mattered for a book.
Shrinking further and further down the
Pages, leaving bold and ruthless signatures
On dark climaxes; undaunted by the cold
Phraseology, they made me readable!

Today, the book wrinkles with signatures,
A handful of whom I still retain amidst the
Folds of nostalgia. But, I have lived a contended
Life full of love for lust, never seeking indemnities,
However, a framed PhD in the closet reminds
Me of the price paid for it!

Now Playing:: Jaane do na........................Saagar

The Notebook Poet

2009-09-16T22:48:00.003+05:30

A lonely breath of poetry
Thrashes against me, as I sit for
The umpteenth time, determined
To make a clear work of it.
I wane, stumble, and falter,
Writing a few meager lines;
Surviving on crumbs!

I stop half way down, after
Trying in vain to pump up any
Words, images, notions or apprehensions.
A return to prose beacons, but
The slender digits grow cold and cramped,
Raising a mere prosaic skeleton of some
Mathematical puzzle!

As I break into a nervous sweat
Over the blank unfinished paper, I realize
I cannot write fast enough now, but the
Unhurried movement of my thoughts
Say much more than I can perceive,
And maybe…maybe, I’ve finally become
The notebook poet!

Now Playing:: Dil dhoondta hai......................Bhupinder Singh

Scared at 21!

2009-09-15T22:50:00.003+05:30

I don’t know why parents do it to children? First, they raise us with the concept of ghosts and apparitions, and evil beings, and then they leave us alone to sleep in the dark! Parents probably do not know what they do when they leave kids alone in the dark and, leave them helpless to face the gory manifestations of their own imaginations. I am 21, and perhaps I’m a different kind of a grown-up when I confess frequent nightmares in my sleeping excursions. You’ve no idea reader, what a terrible shaking it is to my nerves; to wake up in the middle of the night with the forehead drenched in sweat, the feeling about for a friendly hand, or a familiar voice, when I let out a muffled scream…and then finding none to soothe me, I bury my head under the pillow, for all the unwholesome hours to come! The night time solitude and the dark have become my hell, as they continue to fashion my prosaic dreams into nightmares, and they’re all geared up to try my childish nerves rather more seriously.

Dear reader, I’m almost ashamed of such a confession when I say hags and devils come to look at me by my bedside; and I do know that they’re indeed a figment of my imagination, but I cannot elude their presence and I continue to fight and grapple with them for my fair share of a blissful sleep!

P.S. The sketch is my poor representation of a Kesey masterpiece!

Now Playing:: Chanda re…………………Hamsika Iyer

The Two Kinds

2009-09-11T23:12:00.000+05:30

This time the faces and frames
Are much younger. A package of
Juvenile intelligence and
Testosterone has been flooding
The jungle, but “Where are all the men?”
I wonder!

The men sit apart, dreaming about
Fair skin and generous bosoms.
They hardly notice my brown skinned
Body or my college girl’s breasts, but
I loiter around them anyway. One of
Them induces a small talk, and my

Body goes numb with fear and frenzy.
A carnal frenzy that strips me naked
In my thoughts, and the image of
Two entwined private bodies
Begin to loom larger. Someone from
The younger lot hands me a note,

On which is scribbled,
“I love you!” Meanwhile, the man in
Conversation draws me closer and
Whispers, “I wanna make love to you!”
I know not which “love” to choose, but
How long can one resist temptation?

Now Playing:: Hum kis gali ja rahe hain....................Atif

A Defiling Parody!

2009-09-09T23:52:00.001+05:30

When he opens my lazy legs,
What does he see there?
Hunger?
Pouring his spittle into
My burning mouth,
What does he feel?
Lust?

Performing the auld motions
Of intimacy, what does he expect?
Passion?
And finally, cushioning his
Fall against my breasts,
What does he pull off?
Catharsis?

I moan too.
But what do I feign?
Ecstasy or hurt?
Oh, what a parody we
Make of the routine, and
Slander it more by calling,
“Love-Making!”

Now Playing:: Breathless...........................The Corrs

Perhaps!

2009-09-03T20:43:00.002+05:30

Perhaps he was always there on the other side, but his appearance was different from what I had anticipated from seeing him before. He stood at a distance, and in the dim light of my séance, I could see a strange wildness in his aspect, a dusky obscurity; he was silent like he had always been. Here, was the proof and touchstone of all my cogitations, drenched in the cold dank drops of dew, stretching his hand and asking me to join him!

This is the man, whom I hide from the society, but I can’t help it, he always had a hunger for eternity! But, it has ceased to matter any longer, I’ll be joining him sooner or later, but until then, I need others for survival. He agrees too and says that his life was comparatively a dream; but it was a mere dream of infinity and death; no resurrections or judgments will ever come his way. It’s a romance in these degenerate days, and you are not to resist it, he adds.

But this is not to my purpose. For once I want to turn the tables around and get him into the human business of “guilt”! You’re crazy and stupid, he says, how else the demand of something which you know to be false in your waking sense, come to affect me at all?

I am not to disbelieve him; after all there is no canon to judge my séance!

Now Playing:: Woh shaam kuch…………………Kishore

The Namesake!

2009-08-26T22:55:00.001+05:30

I don’t mind when
You explore my contours.
I don’t mind when
You slash your way in.
I don’t mind when
You leave tokens of lust on my body.
I don’t mind when
You leave your flavor
In every nook and cranny of
My being!

I don’t mind
Any of these darling.
But, I do mind darling,
I do mind…
I do mind, when you
Take my name!
I don’t claim autonomy
I hate it!
Let me save some face darling,
Don’t let people know me
By my name!

Now Playing:: Yaad…………………………Shehzad Roy

Why?

2009-08-25T22:08:00.002+05:30

On most nights the need
To feign is paramount, after all
Not all bodies speak the
Same language!

And when he’s done,
I saunter into the streets,
Applying my knuckles to
Other people’s doors.

Turned out like a dog
I retreat to the river bank,
Where I hear strange, wild
Men come to take refuge at nights.

They lure me with their
Occult theories and practices
Involving the gracious business of
The bodies. I, turn in!

The morning-after, neighbours find me
Helpless, like a worm by the way side,
Crushed, bleeding lifeless. They ask me,
“why”?...“why”?

Now Playing:: Naam ghum jayega………………………….Kinaara

The Virgin!

2009-08-18T23:30:00.000+05:30

She keeps stretching her
One dimensional nudity,
On sheets of white, waiting
For long hours for
The hallucinations to end,
For the limbs of the man
To recede, but she still feels
Them reaching out for her!

The calm of fulfillment keeps
Eluding her forever. Love becomes
Sex and sex becomes love, and
Both defile each other again and
Again.

She beats her sorry breasts
For a moment, her tongue tastes
Blood oozing from a pair of
Parched lips, and lust keeps
Eating her to the point of
Nausea.

What’s the point in having
The devices, she thinks?
When she has so few places
To hasten to?

Now Playing:Ek baat kahoon……………..Golmaal

Face Off!

2009-08-13T19:57:00.001+05:30

No, it stood upon its own merits fairly. There it was. It was his mark, his token; that which he was known by.

P.S. But, most faces, involving notions, are hard enough to render; it is too much to expect me to translate a sound, a face, and give an elegant version to a jingle. I am not Ayn Rand!

Now Playing:: Phir wohi raat hai.......................Kishore

One-Oh-One!

2009-07-07T14:54:00.001+05:30

Tell me reader, what is it that you do when you’ve all the time in the world just for yourself? You know, times like when you feel as if you’re passing out of Time into Eternity and all! Ok, now don’t even bother to answer that one for; these are precisely the moments when you feel as if your head is running upon you in your madness, as much almost as on another person, who seems to be the more immediate cause of your frenzy, than your dear self! So did you make anything out of the above documented so-called sagacious stuff? Ha, obviously “no”, so let’s quit our mutual “idiot wonder” and talk something “light”!

Well talking of something “light”, reminds me of my blogging journey, which to inform you has reached its first milestone of a hundred posts, and with this one the count gets to one-oh-one! Thank you dear reader for frequenting this space of eternally recurring madness and so crammed of incoherent thinking (that’s because at times even I do not understand what I indite), you know it’s more like a mad rush of thoughts having an orgasm! But it’s marvelous how this freedom of thought operates and most blogs I realize are indeed ‘confessions’, albeit prompted by different themes.

Do confess, fellow bloggers, but confess fairly, cautiously, more in a self-pleasing manner, and a naturalness that should not seem strange to you, or else insensibly your visitors will become fewer in number, and will come less frequently.

I do wanna write more reader but somewhere I lost the punch and there’s hardly a point in writing in so rambling and inconclusive a manner, so I better take your leave for now.

Until then……..

Now Playing:: Meherbaan............Ada

The Flamboyance of Lust II

2009-07-06T13:17:00.000+05:30

Do not knock,
Walk right in.
Recline in my bean bag,
Or fall back against me, and
Wait, while I do
What I think proper to please you,
The innocent-little things,
The imagined-the expected.

You think of all
Those women whom
You had wished to know, but
For once
Explore the wide wilderness
Of a young girl;
She’ll make you small and
Edible.

For centuries your Kind
Has been clinging to
Famished nipples,
‘married for eleven years’, you say,
And you still wonder
What nakedness is?
Oh! And you do notice
The couple next door!

But, none thought of love!

Now Playing:: Rimjhim gire sawan……………Kishore