April 25, 2008

He and She.

A shade darker than black was spilled over the sky, stars teemed on the blackness like the garden of the gods. The village was slowly drowning in silence, the streets became deserted, silence in the houses hurried along as the cold low breeze snuffed out all the light. Silent, the village slept a night's sleep...
Crunching the gravel below his feet he made his way along the street, towards the forests. His hasty steps were filled with anticipation and excitement. The night had just begun, he had time but he couldn't wait. The road got lost into the forest, in the darker realm, in trees and in the insectnoise, a tranquil and pure darkness. His steps slowed down, his footsteps sounded of bruised dry leaves, cool air too was slothing around, near the ground.
Slowly a familiar scent filled his air, a perfume that he can never forget, he held out his hand and his fingers touched a familiar surface. She looked like the ghost of Moon herself, her veil white over her face. He held her around his arms, they both drifted till she was blocked by a tree, he came closer and kissed her through the fine lenin. His lips thrust upon hers, she resisted but his touch was something she longed for...eyes closed, the night and the world disappeared.
He pulled the veil off her, caressed her face and they kissed again. The seal broke, desire spoke as the night sped on. They caressed each other, through their clothes, the fever rose.
The dam could no longer hold the force of their passion, the curtains fell, skin to skin spake. The breath hastened, heavier and filled with a million words. That night all bonds dissolved, in the blink of an eye. On the forest grass, they lay, in embrace.
No longer they sought for words, for one they were in mutual love.
So long they said to the world and all, so long to all that is, we no longer are human...we have become divine.

Afternoon's death.

Its a lazy afternoon, the sunlight is beaming into the room through the half-curtained window, the dust is as still as it can be, in the shadows I lie comfortably doing absolutely nothing, not even sleeping. The time is so perfect for a nap, but the quote 'Nothing is perfect' wants to prove it right now...the doorbell rings, for a moment I stare at the ceiling cursing it, then pull myself out of my comfy zone and sporting a disappointed, irritated and angry look on my face head to the door to just say 'Sorry, Hame kuch nahi chahiye.'...yup I know its a salesman, I know it is; because the art of 'piss-em'-off-in-the-afternoon' can only be executed flawlessly by a member of their breed...hell ya I'm racist...I feel like hanging the guy upside-down and smoking him with the same thing that he's supposed to sell.
Well anyway, for an afternoon so perfect, there has to be more trouble...no no really, there is some sinister plan being hatched to not let me have a moment of peace, up there. I open the door and m about to throw the I'm-pissed-off-line I see two women looking at me, with decent saris and some good amount of gold on 'em. Faced with such unusual situation I thought I knew where this would be going. Their 'aunty' eyes looked at me like a hyperactive squirrel high on sugar. All my instincts said was...
'Eh...'
'Akshay na?'
The reminder of who I was darted at me and in enlightenment I let them in. Then I called mom, cause I'm very bad at hospitality. Really! If I had been there alone, then I would've given them their fair part of water from our reservoir and start watching t.v. no respect for guests. So mom comes into the scene and engages them, its two on one; but no worries, I've taught mom everything I know.
'Akshay, these are my friends from college, I forgot to tell you they were coming.'
Well thank you so much for letting me know mommy!!
'Hullo.'
There are some smirks,
'OOH, Look how much he's grown...!!!'
One of the aunties exclaim immediately after the hullo, and I smile like 'Ya I'm surprised too.' Like don't they have any other pickup line? And anyway what do you expect me to do? Stay the same saying 'Hey I don't wanna surprise my relatives, they are heart patients.' the point is- when will they learn?
Then came inquiries about my academic front...yeah there my imagination goes bonkers...!
'12th na? Which classes are you going to?'
Bhakti classes, go there for eight hours everyday, you're too lucky you found me here...well this is what I REALLY wanted to say, even though I stopped going there after the first week of joining...but mom was there...so just gave minimum info that was maximum true.
'How much do you study? Better study hard...important year!'
'Ya I do study, abhi toh revision chal raha hai...'
Yeah right, revision, there hasn't been even on single complete vision, but you know, I would've studied, atleast in my dreams if you hadn't shown up...and what's all that crap about important year and all, eh? Important...who cares? I've been created to party...
So goes on the chat and my fragile and simple mind is assaulted by the 'care' and 'concern' of these very gentle creatures and thus the noon turns to evening, the time when the seal of homes over the unruly hooligans breaks, and chaos is unleashed into the playground...
The guests decide to bid farewell and there my friend, dies another afternoon.

Mad Blind man.

Afternoon sun, time has past since the noon; the city is divided into day and night. Close creeping buildings, covering over each other like collapsing lovers and their shadows; dark alleys cold and quiet, as if to brew a sinister mystery. The wind was unforgiving, sucking out all your dreams and all the comfort of the passed night.
A man, buzzes up and down the forsaken alley, blabbering, chanting as if in an endless convulsion.
'Go go go away, go away from the lie, your unheard cry, deep within your stoned heart.
fie fie...
Run away when you can....be wise not brave...
Hey where are my eyes? where are my eyes? you took my eyes! give them back...
Curse you mortal curse you....
Your fagged lonely dream will rot in your head...
rot! I tell you
Why do you run...eh? come face me, FACE ME!.
Cowards, bastards....you don't have no home....masterless futile creations...
Oh....just end your perdition...just kill yourself
Do you have time? Time? stay with me...
tea? coffee? I have biscuits I cannot find...
I'll go to the heaven...will you come
I've one extra ticket....
Just for you, if you give me back what's mine.
Come on, lets go to heaven...
This place is a shitpile, there's nothing left for you..
come come...
Coward! Coward! Go hide in your hole.
She touches my face. O the one angel's name Le nore...
The angel of death... she's gone she will never return...
Nor will you...Slave!.....'
Thud! He falls unconscious. Still blabbering in his head...angry and insane...
He forsake the world.

What have we become!

I was resting on my bed that grew out of the window wall, staring out of the grilled outlook, I looked at the Peupul tree that grew just outside. At times like these, when I'm alone...when I'm not 'supposed' to do or be anything by any one, I think. I think really hard.
Last night when I was talking to my best buddy it all came out; all the discontent, all my complains; complains about myself and about all of us. Yes we as Indians are proud of our culture, our legacies, our epics and the traditions. If you ask me, I'll say we aren't that great; our families are born out of desperation and there is no communication or a huge miscommunication. Hate me if I'm being a fat-arse, sitting on the couch and complaining, but this is what I see.
There is never a problem when everyone in the family is happy, everyone is tolerable, loveable. Everything is fine when we are as we are 'supposed' to be; rules form the binding element of a family, algorithm for your behavior, a guide to how you should be and not love. And this is not a demented way of looking at things, just a different way. Think about it, when we are kids there is no restrictions to our thoughts, we show what we feel and say what we really want, but as we grow older, we become more intelligent, more responsible [I really doubt that] and then we become what we are supposed to become.
Really, look at yourself, there's something you've been meaning to tell your parents about but can't because you are afraid of how they'll react. Children have to think a thousand times before speaking to their parents! What is more pathetic? If they really love you why then such a distance, why a wall of expectations? Are we that useless?
Frankly people, where has all the love gone? Buried under the weights of traditions and rules and 'suppositions'. All this crap about traditions and society is all in the head, our heads. In reality we are just individuals, weak and afraid, unable to talk to each other...that's why there is the need for all these artificialities, all these guidelines.
Let me remind you here I'm not talking about you and the rest of the world, I'm just speaking in the context of you and your family. When are we going to love people we say we love? When are we going to lead a better life, walk a path that we choose, that we desire? Do we really need something else to tell us whom to love, how to love and how much to love? Are we that useless? Tell me, are we that weak?

April 23, 2008

The Bait.

The river creased like liquid glass through the plains and the forest, the sun dancing on its waves like an orchestra of gems. Reeds waved to the current and their leaves' tips dipped under the river surface like the hands of little children playing with the water. Joshua walked along the bank, by the reeds and the watergrass. The forest around him was whispering him a thousand secrets at a time, secrets of passion, poison, blood and gold, but Joshua did not care much; he was more attentive to its silence as it caressed the river's evenflow and the sound of the water blushing under the sun. His feet were unaware of all this, the sounds and the smell, the strange colors that ran through the world...but they were attentive, through the shoe, they could sense every grass shoot that went under, every shape of every leaf that they trampled. Like Argus, Joshua's entire being becomes eyes, perceptive and awake...like a rosefilter, beautifying everything...beautiful the world was, as beautiful as him.
A snake, black like the night sky, his scales gleaming under the afternoon sun - the stars; slid into the current and disappeared, as if it were a stream of ink. Joshua stopped and stared at which he was looking all along, he sensed the pull inside his stomach and sat down. He was hungry. The canvas carrier was laid to rest, now on the grass; his body stretched till he saw his face in the stream, kissed himself and drank the sweet water that carried the smell of grass. Rolled over and he sat up, readied his dagger, a flint and his bamboo fishing bow.
The fishing bow was an arm long bamboo shoot, that was dried till 'twas yellow, a friend had made it for him, because Joshua always made him laugh. It had a fine silk string fixed at the paler end of the bamboo, the other end of which harnessed the pike-end hook. The bow threw the hook back and lashed it into the water with a plop. The traveler backed onto his canvas back-pack and lay there watching string dance in the current...erratic but melodious. A dead leaf fell from an unknown tree on the watersheet like a drifting boat; it swiveled and ran along the current, passing his fishing line, ignoring the happy leaves above; Josh found it awfully familiar. And as the leaf turned around, the forestwhispers, the afternoonshade and the waterdance put him to sleep.
After sometime he felt someone by his side and opened his eyes. Josh saw a face in the mist, very near to his. It was a small girl with the most charming face and the most disarming smile he had ever seen. The little one still looking at him...
'You forgot the bait...'
The vision collapsed back into sleep and after a moment's silence Josh startled up to find no mist, but line still in the water and an absent child. Standing up he withdraws the silken string to see a naked hook. A cool breeze wipes his face and looking at the sky, where the sun has neared the western end; he rolls up the silk and puts it in the bag, conjures up his flint and blade, he slings the canvas pouch over his shoulder. Looks at the running stream with dancing goldflakes on her hair, laughing at him, laughing to herself...
'I forgot the bait'
Joshua burst out in laughter, unable to believe himself; he laughs. Tears tumble down his eyes and now regaining his composure he wipes them off and looks at the sky again.
'Well...I forgot the bait'
The light was receding from the sky like a huge tide and he needed to get to the village quickly if he must sleep under a roof...if lucky. Smiling and shaking his head he thrust himself upstream. This is not the first time that he had been without a meal, he thought to himself and walking toward the humbling sun he smiled and marched along.

April 21, 2008

Humans...

We live our lives in ignorance. When we are children we are free and full of possibilities. He said a man is born free; all the bondages come later. I feel we owe the society a lot, for it protects our fears, nourishes our prejudices and saves us from self destruction. In all this noise of me and you, culture and responsibility, family and tradition I suddenly find myself lost; lost for words, lost for dreams, lost for courage and essentially lost from myself. I've forgotten who I am, reduced to a machine, a gear in the big system of hallucinating small gears like my self....and the problem is that somehow I've stopped hallucinating.
Come to see and I couldn't withstand the freedomlessness, man I had to break free but I learnt the hard way that I can't....FOOL. I thought I could beat the system; all that I am - one itsy-bitsy person, like a Jew trapped in Rome. Is that all we account for? as individuals, when are we going to be free. Some would say that it creates chaos if such a thing ever happened....but I say we will create a new system...a new order. Bah... these are just the dreams of an old rebel.
Afterall, what are we in this huge world? Puny people weak and afraid. Small puppets with strings tied to each other. So powerless, so helpless. Numb and withering away. People the days of bravery and glory are gone...Now comes the Night of the Slaves. Slaves without a master - no good. Come on fellow answer me what are you? Show me who you are....all alone bleeding, watching the moon. Where has the God in you gone? Oh, where atleast the Satan in you gone?
Hopeless....all we are in the end; are just Humans.
Just Human.

April 20, 2008

Under the microscope 1

Today I want to analyze the poem called 'Tales of a drifter' by Aditya K. A close friend.

The dark clouds rest
As the sun comes out
Dawning of a new era
As my feet set out
5 To a never ending journey
I'm yet another vagabond
Never sought interest
Except dusk and dawn
Son of two intellects
10 Hardwork and adversity
No, never did I learn
Despite all tragedy
I had to move on
I was a faithful dog
15 Earned my two meals
Doing different jobs
Never cared of money
It never stayed
As a new day began
20 I started again

This piece contains 20 lines exactly. This work has no particular rhyme pattern...but as you move on [from l.5 onwards] he does rhyme at some places using the classic combination of words. For example - ..dusk and dawn.., ..learn..move on.. and so on.
The central theme of this work is the Adi's idea of a drifter and what qualities of a vagabond's life appeals him. From the first four lines we can see the optimism he wants to highlight, we can also see his dire need for such a moment by the direction of the notes, the direction is forward or the future. Then l.5 marks his desire for continuity. With l.6 he turns us into the present and bends the sails to hit a recap, but we don't get a recap quite literally as he still describes the present from l.7.
L.7 can be quite misleading in context to lines 8 and 9 as l.8 marks a transition of subject i.e. a common epithet for both l.7 and l.8. L.9 he tells us that the universal truth of 'dawn and dusk' he has realized in his persona. But lines 10 and 11 show us his stubborn nature, hence contradicting with the earlier ideas. Thus Oscar Wilde reveals himself....Yes my friends Adi's works deeply portray ideas in paradoxes [Which I feel excess]. Lines 12 and 13 show the optimism again, not as something what he seeks but as something that he's experienced, but this line and its placement also tells us that he's left behind something dear and the 'moving on' hurt him.
Line 14 again is very broad, but I'd like to think that he was a 'faithful dog' to is responsibilities. L.15 to l.18 show his vagabond lifestyle and his take on wealth. The last two lines again show the need for optimistic approach to life....

[Well so much for an unasked review. If I read everything so carefully...man I would've topped the class....hehehe.]

The Walk.

The rain was crushing down on the pavement, water flooding the small cementlines of the pedestrian causeway. A smooth sole slapped against the fineskinned bricks to hold the ground. Joshua has returned after his years of wandering; now he was a bit old and awfully lot wise. The straw hat he wore he had traded for a catfish from a peasant working in a flooded paddy. He loved his hat and the smell of rain through it. He had all the time in the world, a vagabond they called him. No one loved him nor any one hated him to be, he had lot of friends but no one ever asked him if he could stay awhile longer; how he loved the feeling. Meanwhile in the heavens the clouds still continued to rumble.
From b'neath his hatline he could see the wet pavement now starting to flood, he saw the rain drops as they hung onto the hat's strawends and he observed them as they fell into the native pool and made ripples of the cloudy sky above. He smiled. He smiled at himself for being so like a kid, rugged and simple. Water was now entering the weak cloth that covered his body, the hat started smelling very damp and uneasy. The Market road turned into the Shoe street, where he trod alone making noises from his smoothened shoe; in the afternoon, city slept.
One shoe-mender, old and alone in his shop lifted his head from below the table and silently inquired about such a bad state of a sole. He saw Joshua coming towards him, still the same, no change; he still walked like a child. As the returned came closer, the old man sat up and bespectacled himself and watched the young man clothed in a maroon tunic and grey fieldpants walk under his shed, his wet shoes draining themselves at the stone steps. The youngster then took off his rain coat and hung it over the bamboo that came out of the roof, the canvas bag he owned was once white and new, now it was as old and dark as the old man but like him it was strong still. Joshua now removed his wet shoes and slid them over to the old man.
'Fix them.'
Looking at the beaten apparatus the oldie hung the shoes onto his fingers and slung them into the waste.
'Chacha, no. Those are mine....'
'Arrh Josha, they are no use. Now give me your feet I need to take new measures to sew new ones for you'
'Well if it was anyone else than you I wouldn't have let him do this. But perhaps I really need a new pair.'
Josha kept his feet in front of the old-timer, over the scales. The practiced eye took note of every dimension of the feet and the brain started calculating and sketching a new pair. The material, the stitch, the curves, the volume; every cut was memorized. Then the shoemaker turned to his table and writing something he said-
'So what have you been up to lately?'
'Nothing just roaming. Did you hear of the raid at the village of Tabacus?'
'No, what about it?'
'I wanted to buy some tobacco there, but ended up fighting in the village gang.'
'How much did they pay you?'
'Well, that's the best part of the deal, 1 bronze for each bandit, I tell you I had a feast with wine and rum that night old man, we all enjoyed.'
'Fool...threw the money to the monkey. It could've helped you later.
'Could have...but the small tobacco transit earned me more than I needed. So what use was this money?
Enough chit-chat old man, throw me the boots. For a man as fine as you, those new boots must've been complete a week ago.'
The old man withdrew from his scribbling and laughingly pulled out a draw and gave the new shoes to the youngster.
'Five coppers.'
'Here...no use bargaining with you. So long old timer.'
Sliding the money into the cashbox, he watched the boy gather up himself and move on, disappearing into the sun's scarlet hue. The rain had since stopped but the street was wet and the new shoes were making a different noise.
'He still walks like a child...A wise child...'

The Grand Conjuration.

Currently playing....Grand Conjuration by Opeth [ Ghost Reveries ] ....
The riff of the song is very broken and might sound very erratic technically but as the song moves on the timeline it develops its own pattern. The drum work by Martin Lopez is very supportive and fulfilling to the rhythm[riff]. The rhythm also shows a dark and assertive nature in it, lending a very hunky base to the song. This song is the Headbangers' dream.
Another instrument, the keyboards...this guy just elevates the song into a higher realm of darkness thus giving me a feeling of an inner atrium in the composition - the best example of internal helix in modern music. As the guitars and vocals along with the drums backing them up, build to a strong momentum, the keyboards sing few but definitive notes enlightening the song.
Now cometh the solo. This monster of pace arises from the momenta of the bass and the guitars. like a foreseeable orgasm, you know its coming but still can't figure out exactly what it is. The lead just explodes on the scene screaming and singing with his guitar. Though the solo is not divine or technically 'GOD' but within the timeline of the song just make you lose yourself.
Just as the solo dies away so does the main feeling of the song...but these guys[Opeth] have so many tricks up their sleeve, the solo's end marks the end of their tempo's peak and gradually and intricately the composition spirals downwards revealing the keyboards and the inner helix of the song. Enlightenment. The keyboards weave a fine solo and start to mark the real orgasm or 'peak-fall' in the song. With the end of the solo [key] you begin to anticipate what's next and with unique Opeth style the riff restarts...like a Phoenix arising from its ashes....You want this cycle to never end....
But like all good things my friend this number does end. Truly a 'GRAND' Conjuration. Apt.

Moving on...

After an arduous time in my life recently...I finally decided to relax and take my pick. Not wait for the rain or the sunshine, as you're thinking; just relax. Time for all those dogmas, complexes and prejudices in my skull to feel very unwanted and find somewhere else to stay. My friends are far ahead dancing and singing, touching the sun's smile...and I'm still here brooding over the days, forgone. Regrets I do have many, infact so many that they give my memory a colossal spam and I fail to re-account them. Regrets...they'll always linger around me like dead friend's ghosts; seen only by me.
As I turn back and wonder who I was, surely; then I was happy. I had friends by my side and we enjoyed every passing time. I wish that I become that person again [Play K-Os' 'The man I used to be..' track]. Wounds heal, I learn if I give them the time. But some memories are just too painful to heal. They are just too deep and silent. So silent that sometimes even I can't hear them screaming...'Asshole what have you done?...' Yeah you really get used to this shit....
Well now I'm cut-off from most, I'm relaxing...where ever I'm still bleeding inside, the blood now collects behind my skin and rots. A horrendous package of filth and plague I will have to carry and rush forth to meet my friends. Join in the party.
Oh, well that's that. That something which the world calls Moving on....

P.S. - I hate you all.