MY ANON

All my past attempts to fill this blog with pieces of work which reflected my true character, or the sureity of my thought patterns have failed miserably. All that i have been able to produce are a handful of experiences, bits from other people's discarded histories, my own version of romanticism and violent reactions to freindly squabbles (forgive me Mr.Ghosh , for a not-so-subtle reference to 'that' fight).

For all those times past, i assure you , i'm highly apologetic.

So, what i'll write today will be run of the mill.It'll be like a story you've heard many times yet you can't remember.It will be like your cup of tea, mundane in its purpose, yet eagerly anticipated in the morning.It won't be my best work.But it won't be my worst either.

___________________________________________________________________

She'd known it all her life.So had he.But he had had more guts.Always. He 'd always said it with out inhibition. And all she'd done was turn away, each time.Though she' d wanted to say it just as much....
"But it'll come out all wrong" she kept telling herself.
It was hard to hold back.Especially when his favourite song played over and over again in her ears.It had never been a Mills and Boons romance. There were never any flowers, or scented cards.There had never been any 'dates ' or anything that went with the conventions of being a teenage couple.She had wished desperately that he be a more pliable 'boyfriend' , though she hated that word.

But there were ' five-hour phone conversations ' , letters written in earnest words and beautiful handwriting.There were referencs to 'GOD' by atheists.There were musical debates about the supremacy of U2 over Coldplay , or Coldplay over Oasis. There were debates over debates. They used to walk past those parks and gates innumerable times, till they were all smudged into one big conspiring universe.Conspiring to keep them afloat.There were never any bold promises.There were only soft reassuarances. There were red sweaters and green uniforms, and paper's soaked in blood. There were unfurling of family secrets, of well-hidden scars. There were a million moments of gratitude. And conversely of ill-guised venomous hatred. There was a constant stabilty and yet a hundred reasons that shook that confidence everyday. There were scenes, both in private and otherwise.There were maths questions raised and solved.
There were passionate declerations of love. There were practical reasons for doubts.
And ofcourse, there was always 'PRACTICE' under scrutiny.
And there were a great many tears.

But now it all seemed distant to her.Like a dream that one cannnot quite remember in all its entirety.She had moved on and two years seemed like a lifetime ago. A lifetime that she'd lived every moment of. She hadn't thought of him every moment, but sufficiently enough not to let him forget her. She had been 'frequently kind' and 'suddenly cruel' to him. And he'd borne it all, with the greatest sense of forbearence and humility. She had put him in and out of misery. She had a right to. That was how it worked for them. That was how it had worked for them all long, even when it wasn't working at all.

She couldn't even remember what he'd looked like the first time he'd said her name out loud. She couldn't remember their first phone call. Neither could he. Yet, as she looked at him, emerge from the crowd that had gathered around the food stalls in a not-so-crowded concert, she knew she'd say it out loud. To him. To anyone he wanted her to say it to.It was the knowledge that he would never ask her to do such a thing , made her want to say it even more.
Yes, a story like this can only find culmination in your imagination. This could be its pinnacle, or even be near its end.You can never tell with these 'Strawberry Fields' tales.

They are just as mis-shapen and unhinged as the song is. What were the Beatles thinking.

HATEFUL

winter night.
cold, bitter wind.
sound of a dead leaf fallin'.
patter of feet on uninviting gravel.
One head shorn of emotion bears it all.
her hands deep in comforting wool.
her teeth grit with rage and shame.
Has she erred? In trusting,
in believing.
And suddenly its colder,darker.
In the knowledge that she is all alone.
Her heart is the abyss.
Her heart will be her pitfall.
She will die.
Queen of vanquished desires.
She will be undone.
It is her destiny.
How innocently it had begun.
Now it ends.
This rhyme does.
But she has to go on.Face it.
She will never escape.
Her destiny, destiny to be bound.
Ad infintum.

AT EIGHTEEN

At eighteen, I thought that my life would finally swing into rapid action, taking a detour from the ordinary and begin advancing in a manner in which I wanted it to. At eighteen, I thought, that a driver’s license would finally take up that coveted position in my wallet right next to my very first credit card (!). At eighteen, I thought I had finally fulfilled all principal duties of a school going ‘kid’, and could now sit back and soak in newly found independent status. Freedom, however, I soon learned was a purely theoretical concept. While it is mostly relative, one can’t deny except in a few cases, it is almost completely deceptive. Freedom (I was enlightened) was that lucrative carrot that your benefactors (read parents) dangled at the end of the stick when they wanted you to work your ass off (no pun intended!) at something.
So while you keep fooling yourselves and flashing your ‘I’m finally free’ tagline, back it up a minute and think about what you really wanted and what you actually got. Have you rid yourselves of the ‘I –told-you- so’s’ and ‘don’t think you are old enough to give me advice’ and the ’who do you keep talking to”s and ah! my personal favorite, ’If I were you, I would have done it by now….’.And heaven forbid, if you do turn out to be right in one of these unfortunate encounters, you’ve had it ! Being wrong, or even slightly so is what hits authority where it hurts the most. So tremendous is the outbreak of that torrential rage, so intense is its consequence, that it leaves you reeling and gasping, only to fall headfirst into another ‘grave’ situation, carefully covered up until the last moment, when it became too late, and you had to take that plunge.
And so while they plan and plot, we sit and rot, for they’ve tied us down with chains of protective autocracy.” YOU can run but you can never hide, from the shadow that’s creeping up beside you…” Def Lepard puts it well into context for hundreds of eighteen year olds like yours truly, ailing from the age old disease of ‘virtual freedom’. Do forgive me for being a tad cynical. I started out as an out right optimist, progressed to a visionary idealist, believing every minute that that which is mine would not be denied. I was wrong. Horribly so. That is when my slow descent snow-balled into a landslide and was reduced first to a realist and then the ill- fated, hardcore cynic.
In middle school, I once read a poem which went something like”…children should be seen and not heard.....” or something to that effect. I was pretty sure that it definitely entailed children not being heard, for that is truer than the sun –rises –in –the –east and the blood-thicker-than-water and other such universally unadventurous facts. While this sudden outburst of teenage angst may lead you to think that it just a bad case of pms, believe you me, I feel this way every two milliseconds, like thousands of my brethren.
Because really, I wasn’t “born to be wild”, but if you must insist, I shall not be ‘another brick in the wall’.

We all come back......

It had been raining all day. The drops fell in desultory manner, pitter-pat,patter-pitter,on the tin roof. Riana watched in silence, unable to drive away the feeling of aimlessness from her mind. It wasn’t just her mental faculties that seemed to be jammed; it was her entire mechanism that refused to budge. Lethargy had consumed her, almost wholly, and she’d submitted to its ungainful consequences.

Inside, the television droned on. Mostly news .She couldn’t bear to listen to another trashy remix video with scantily clad models cavorting to tunes, which once had filled her Sunday morning drawing room along with the warm winter sunlight. Now they were just perverted shadows of the originals, mocking the voices and the genius of all those years ago. Her father had religiously collected old records with a fanatical precision, labeled them, alphabetically, chronologically and even partially. His favorite singers were the always the ones stacked right in front. Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck. Cliff Richards, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Don McLean. She ran her stout finger over the edge of the shelf. The dust shivered for a bit, rose and settled down again on the relics. These songs were eternal, just like the dust on them.
Riana’s memory of her father was faint, and mainly supplemented through old discolored photographs. Her father had been thirty-five when he married her nineteen-year-old mother. All she remembered of him was his faint scent – a mix Old Spice and cardamom. Riana liked to believe that whenever she went through her father’s old records, or his books or the clothes he’d worn for the very last time, she could detect that faint smell till it filled her nose, and then head, only to leave her intoxicated for days.
Today would’ve been his fifty-fifth birthday.
With a faint trace of a smile on her face, Riana Shirin Sengupta dug into a piece of rich chocolate cake.

“Happy Birthday to youuuuuuu…Papa” she cried in choked voice. He smiled at her, from across the giant-sized mahogany table, his fingernails drumming the varnished wooden top.
“Thank you my love,” he whispered,” but…don’t let mama know, or she’ll stop my coming here.”
With this, the faint shadow of a fifty-five year old Akshir Sengupta glided across the room to the front door and turned back to look at Riana, just the way he had, nine years ago. Frantic crowds had slaughtered him, that very day, nine years ago, for marrying a Muslim girl, almost half his age.
He’d been in his way, to buy a rich, chocolate cake….

“Thank you Papa, for bringing back the cake…”

This Year's Love

She lost herself to memories again.Blame David Gray.

It was freezing.Beyond comprehension.It never ceased to amaze her,the absurdity of weather.How from profuse sweat you went to biting frost and both left you wanting more of the other.The grass always seemed greener.....

Among the clamour of what seemed like a million voices....she snaked her way towards him.Once near enough, she stopped short."What will i say?" She grappled for an appropriate subject, an opening statement, suitable words.....anything.It was he who broke the pregnant silence,"Drink?"he said , motioning to an abandoned whiskey glass.She shook her head in refusal and instantly chided herself for not speaking.

She went back to the sangeet.The older ladies threw her disapproving looks." Where have you been?" they thich eyebrows questioned.She looked away, too embarrased ,too hurt.She'd fail to make an impression. Again."The first impression is the last......"she told herself to shut up.
She stepped out again, this time to be by herself.Dressed in a flimsy , lavender chiffon salwar kurta, she'd gathered the ire of many a old hags bundled in pashminas.
Her teeth chattering , she wished she'd listened to them.
"You 're awfully cold..."said a voice behind her.She turned to find the object of her attention, leaning against the whitewashed walls of the corridor, still nursing his whiskey.She nodded in acquiesance. He smiled and offered her a sip.This time she took it.The bitterness flowed through her mouth and burned her insides.She din't grimace.Something about "first impressions" rang through her mind again.
He looked at her face and found her to be grown beyond her years.She was a typical dehli-ite.Tough, brazen, outspoken, public-school polished.His year at Stephens had taught him all he needed to know about them.Mess around, and be done with it......
But something about her seemed almost familiar.She was intrinsically earthy and her eyes bertrayed everything.He took a scrutinising look at her, her shimmery ,black hair,straightened especially for the occasion, her small nose, her funny pout and her crooked teeth,her smooth, creamy neck , her shoulders thrown back, her.......
Some commotion broke his reverie.He cursed under his breath.It was only a burst of sound from the semifunctional speakers.She realised what had happened and smiled.
And he knew exactly why he was risking pneumonia in the dead of winter.

**********************
Pressed together in a close embrace, he told her how pretty her eyes were.She looked away,embarassed.More becuase she knew it wasn't true....he was lying.Added to her attire now was his black coudroy jacket.The Mills and Boons romance had begun...desi style.
Walking down the deserted motel corridors, she felt her hand slip into his.They walked together a long time, long past the time the hotel staff had gone to bed.All that remained was dim glow at the reception, a discouraging sign to any misguided soul looking for a room on a cold december night.
It was mutual realisation of the conspiring elements, the ambiguity of it all.And to a silent audience of the night, the crummy sofa -set, the stained coffee table, the scattered newspapers and a dysfunctional lightbulb , they began a story without a definite end.
He drew her to him.Slowly but surely she raised herself on her toes, her high heels unsuccesful in bridging that height gap.At that very moment she could mintuely recall all the romance she had witnessed in pages flash before her eyes, her story tale had come alive.He kissed her.Softly.

******************************
It was sweltering now.Beads of perspiration snaked their from her determined chin down her neck, into her cotton blouse as she stood in front of the college of her dreams.The only difference was......dreams never came true. The cavernous corridors of Stephens din't seem friendly at all.The starkness of weather.It never ceased to amaze her.

This summer day seemed vaguely analogous to that cold december night where she'd begun dreaming in a motel lobby, wrapped in the arms of a stranger ,whose famliarity din't seem questionable at that time.
And now he was a perfect stranger.
"Don't you love me?" her eyes had cried the last time she saw him.He had merely looked at her, impersonaly, like you would, at a guest in your house.....wishing they'd leave soon, so you could go back to whatever it was you were doing.She 'd never forget the look in his eyes.The look of complete disengagement , of alienation from a world she'd envisioned with him.
The language of expression had obiliterated everything that had mattered to her over the past seven months.

This summer afternoon....so obviously different from that winter night.Not just because of the physical parameters of heat and cold.She'd travelled a long,unpleasant distance emotionally too.She knew she'd be okay in a awhile.The life with its unique humdrum qualities would prove to be larger than her.But right now, reeling with a hurt she never known before, she returned home.Her fantasy had ended.It was time to pick up the pieces.
Stephens had let her down just as he had.And now the perfectly pathetic comparison stared her in the face.

"This year's love had better last....."

AUGUST ELEVENTH

It has been a month.....

A month since that day when a lifeline bled.A month since the day humanity came under siege.A month since normalcy came undone . A month since , atleast for a little while , a city lost its direction.A month since hundreds last saw the light of day on their way back from work.A month since the day a nation wept and the world mourned.

A month since the day Mumbai was torn open, ravaged and mutilated by the serial blasts.

It doesn't hurt that much anymore...how could it?Afterall a month is a phenomenal number of days in the world's calender.Much has happened since then.There has been war, a mole, a leak, prince rescued and numerous ego battles,which has become the norm of functioning in the government.

Who has time to mourn? Or even remember....

We have accepted,albeit reluctantly, terrorism and its hateful consequences as a normal occurence of daily living. The "Terrorist" has become us, merged his identity with ours , existing in a normal, unscrupulous manner.His description is stereotypical.Bearded, Asian, evil.Muslim.

It is this very description that misleads an entire populous...that drives nations to war......that misconstrues faith and sanctity of religion with reddened edge of the blade.Yet we can't escape it.It is the elusive antidote to a sadistic cancer.It gnaws away at the concept of life.....

The only thing that one remembers after a deafening blast is the eriee silence that follows it.It isn't too hard to hear the deathly quiet.It is that moment of introspection when you look within yourselves to find answers that you know you wouldn't get.....there is a certain nakedness of feelings evoked.Your masks wear off ...and everything is razed to the ground, literally and metaphorically.
Then you look beyond yourselves to the outside and grope at nothingness for comfort.The mood is supposedly solemn,but a nervous energy excites you and keeps your mind ticking.
It is in the face on tradegy that one thinks with pristine clarity.

The Mumbaiker spirit became the face of the ugly scars.It was a great upheavel.For mumbai,for mankind.The Indian suddenly gained that much needed maturity.Actions were lauded,praises sung and bodies burnt. Wet eyes searched for loved ones , their hands and feet numb.The seemingly helpless were helping.The broken were picking up shattered pieces .The lonely were walking back home, without news or hope......
We allowed the Mumbai spirit to rescue us from a certain death.The death of beleif in a decadent system that under rot and ruin is giving away.It channelised the angst , disawllowing an encore of the Godhra debacle.It did wonders to indian optimism as opposed to indian cynicism.Scarred,Mumbai reared it shorn head again the very next morning,on its way to work and school.It smiled nervous smiles.It held hands with strangers.....the lifeline was off once again.I did detect a slight apprehension making its way through the placid exterior,i thought i saw the resilience give away a little.But i put it down to the (in)famous Indian cynicism.

Reluctantly, i switched off the television.My weary eyes shut out the world, it shut out the worst kind of human tradegy i had ever witnessed.
Finally, the deafening silence.

Broken Shards of Glass

Do you ever look at your mirror image with a sort of hidden anticipation...fearing what to expect? Does it serve the purpose of introspection or a mere assurance of your superfluous well-being?Is it an extension of your being, a silent follower or a provocative competitor?
Have you ever looked at mirror and felt a dispassionate disconnect with the person staring back at you?
I have.

I have felt an overpowering urge to shatter the mirror.Lest that image turns around to point a stoic, judgemental finger at me. I can't stand the ignomny ,the shame of being caught.I peer into the eyes of my fiery opponent and she stares back,unblinking,unabashed.
I'm scared now....does she...does she know everything? All my misgivings,my faults ,my scars...
Why does she smile then..is she pleased?
Or is it a pious, self rightous supremacy that she commands over me?
No one can judge her...she is safe.Safe within those aluminium confines.

But what if i set her free,what if the mirror shatter into miniscule pieces?Would her smirk disappear.....
Will She stop staring back?

Or would I be looking at my broken self......
Will the jagged edges of glass attempt to replicate any greater unevenness of emotions......

One can never escape that which is innate..that which is inherent.

My shadow remains..one step behind...not quite the companion, nor the stalker.
Always remembering...always reminding.

my attempt at sadist poetry

‘I’ CE BERG

I feel cold, I feel blue,
I feel like its two degrees when it’s actually forty two.
I’ve been down and out, without exhilaration or empathy
and the days just seem to drag on.

They tumble into each other like ripples in a lake
and it spreads unevenly,
the expanse of emptiness that multiplies
like the rotten undergrowth within my sunken heart.
I have lost the vastness of my expression to occasional brilliant streaks,
like blitzkrieg.

Once fallen, lost forever into oblivion.

I do not know what runs through my mind,
for, in an instant it changes sides.
From being responsible, I become careless.
From being emphatic, I become devoid of concern.
From being involved, I become uncaring,
and in my attempt to discern right, I often end up doing wrong.

My once effortless smile doesn't reach my eyes any more,
my mirror image tries hard to improve it,
but the much celebrated twinkle is lost.
My throat hurts,
it is sore, like a ravaged beast.
I can feel the sores expand with an unfeeling ferocity,
its nightingale - ish quality is gone.

My vain streak has run awry and demands of my character
much more than it is receiving.
I am not too proud to ask for help, though lukewarm will be my reception
to any such effort.

And through the watery haze that has now overtaken my vision
and lent a subliminal ,mystic glow to my dark environ,
I end this rather pathetic description
of the storm that rages within my mind and soul.

But a word of warning....this is just the tip of the iceberg.

my tryst with technology....

the title is self explanatory....
i was never your average whiz-kid.....i never aspired to be one.....the craze that single handedly consumed the entire nation- of compters,then moblies and finally the once-elusive i-pod....my inclination towards anything technological or scientific has always been little, at best.But i cave in to populist notions.i have to keep up.....or else be left behind in the delgue to cope with my handicap.....
The want of companionship...the feeling of being understood or accepted.....is overpowering....the mechanism of society runs awry if peple in it don't comply with elistist norms of acceptance....we all in a way seek approval.Approval of our conformist methods...or aproval of our rebellious attitude...
rebellion in itself is a desire to be accepted.
Accepted as the anti-thesis of common ideology.....
Ideology- the most underrated word.......empires lost and kingdoms found...
by application of an ideology.
Im in search of one....but till such time...ill pose to be your set next door neighbour..mildly intelligent..and immensely emotional.....but beware... i only act a part....
I love the use of un common phrases and un-strung pieces of work....the theme of connectivity is passe'
I have come in to this world a little late...bear with me...for i feel quite lost in the world of the technologically superior.