Grass on Fire

Dilli Wali: Day 178

2011-12-28T01:18:00.002+05:30

She’d come back all perked up. Shining with something quite beyond light. Dancing did this to her. And once she was done with the lying-flat-and-lifeless-on-the-dance-floor routine, after hours of monstrous practice, she seemed quite ready to take the world as a happy, worthy place, for a couple hours in the least. It didn’t last long this time, though.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. How can this be happening? I’m no dimwit, slow brain, douchy bimbo. I don’t fail exams. I don’t, you know. What am I even going to do?”
“Maybe it would have helped if you were a dimwit bimbo. People tend to.. you know, help those sort of people.”
“I would’ve kicked him in the nuts, whoever tried to help me with my bimbos.”
“My point is..”, but he burst out laughing and couldn’t breathe. A hi-five was in order.

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आ जाना जाने से पहले

2011-12-15T01:59:00.002+05:30

और डर कहीं ये भी तो है ना
के कहीं बस ज़िंदा रहने को ही
तो नहीं तेरी यादों को
ज़िंदा रखें हैं हम?

कहीं प्यार में दिल जो दुखाते हैं,
इसलिए तो नहीं?
कि चलो इकतरफा ही सही,
प्यार तो करते हैं

इसलिए तो नहीं दिन रात लुटे फिरते हैं?
कि ना लुटे फिरेंगे तो
बोलो किसके नाम पर फिर
ये दिन रात लुटाएंगे

raat ka shauq hai

2011-11-21T01:25:00.000+05:30

raat ka shauq hai
dheere se aana
sehme, darte dilon ko

roshni se bachana

san san si chale

jale dono ke saath mein
kaanpti, karaahti
saanson ke haath mein

baalon mein bhar jaye
yun sir pe chadh jaye
khwaabon ko neendon ke
bin aaye padh jaye

kuch raatein hoti hain
kehna nahi sunti
sapnon mein haqeeqat ka
katra nahi bunti

aur aadesh itne ki
sunne wale thak jayein
badi der toote judein
fir raat mein dhak jayein

udaan unchi zara zyada thi
aaj dil fat hi na jaye
dono jakde hain duje ko
ke kasoor bant hi na jaye

aag to raat ki thi na
to wahi zimmedaar hai
raat ka shauq hai
raat kasoorwar hai

lovely rotten tomatoes

2011-11-09T19:01:00.000+05:30

i think of the ticks and every cross

when i won and when i lost

and what did winning mean

what did it mean more than a toss

sometime or another one

i think of every one of them

how then can i say i'm done

and you i love or else, none

assuming you're the last to be

i have you and you have me

are we good enough for ever?

are you sure that you're happy?

and if you are and if we are

then how long do you think, how far

will we go before i change

and are you who i think you are?

you will be my biggest loss

if i ever lose you i do

i am sure i can't be sure

of love but i'm sure it's you

geelapan

2011-11-05T00:48:00.000+05:30

aaj bade dinon baad ek purana khat khola
peele se kaagaz ko sambhaal kar tatola
syahi wahi thi, likhavat wahi
jo saalo se kehta aaya tha, khat fir wahi bola

bola jaane bhi de, aaj to faad de buzdil
aur kitne saal, kitne mausam jalayega
kitni baaki hai aur rooh, bas ab meri baari hai
keh de aaj ki sard raat tu mujhko aag banayega

aag fir jali, thodi rooh thodi himmat udi
khat hawa pakad chillaya, fadfadaya
koshish thi ud ke laptein lapak lu
par ek to sir chadha pathhar tha
jo duniya roke baitha raha
aur ek ye geelapan, peele kagaz ko bhigoye
jo aag bhi choo le, to khaak na hone deta

Question:

2011-10-04T23:56:00.001+05:30

Hey there little bloggie, long time no see? Who got your goat huh? Life caught up with you finally? Or do you still dream of white lofty pillars with no roof and white smoky clouds all about them? How's that perfect world of yours coming along?

How does the fabric feel to your fingers? Is it rough? Cutting? Do your fingers have burns yet? Oh they will. It's not made to feel good, do you see? It's made for efficiency, to survive at the cost of its wearers. How's that poetry going?

You still write of shit? Such bad taste. Never get you anywhere.

Answer now, how do you think this ends?

________
Answer:

The way it ends is, I sit on a roofless pillar somewhere down the block, and breathe the stench of the earth. And think of goats crossing a mountain some green winter. And then I get up, climb down and walk to my car. I get in, I turn the radio on, and I sing like mad. Then I get down again, walk to my small, shabby little workspace, and I create. I spend a day dying a good death on my computer and I jump into the roof when it finally works. I walk right outside and shout 'Eureka' in my head a few times. And then I drive back home. I hurt my eyes some more. Absorb useless facts. And then i try to sleep.

I try to sleep every night. I succeed fairly enough, but always a tad too late. It's because I'm an optimist and I believe in two miracles a day. And because I always err on the side of overestimating myself. I like that about me, but I'd sure like to sleep just a little earlier every day.

I feel the fabric. It's coarse. It's rough sometimes, much, but in a meaningful way, and only when I was making an ignorant mistake. It's not smooth as silk, if it were it would slip right past my learning fingers and i'd never know what hit me. But it's grippy. It's the sort of rough that holds your fingers and teaches them to pull. It burns, i've got a few, but only when it slides too fast and you're pulling with all your might. The burns, they're good. Like marks on your nose from an accident. Like bullet grazes from that war you either won a medal in, or nearly died in. They're anchored points in time. They're history books.

The way it ends, for lack of a better word or ending, is satisfactory.

Only because, you know, it kind of makes sense the way it is. I wouldn't know what to change if i could.

Well, almost.

Dilli Wali: Day 185

2011-09-11T12:42:00.000+05:30

She was disappointed with herself. It was no one's fault. Not even hers. No, she wouldn't take this lying down. She sped past him and went straight to the Bar, as straight as she could manage. A martini would do. Shaken, not stirred. James Bond would be so proud.

"That man is harassing me! Can you please send some big guys to take care of the matter, please? I think he's a cop."
"Your boyfriend, you mean, ma'am?"
"Yes! My boyfriend! That rascal!", she said with clenched teeth, thumping the table.

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Pyaar ke pakode

2011-09-08T15:09:00.001+05:30

Gardan akdi hai,
Dil muh fulaye baitha hai
Rehne do, kehta hai,
kya padoge pyaar mein,
Kamar mein to dard rehta hai

Dilli Wali: Day 186

2011-09-07T22:16:00.001+05:30

“You’re really not going to put that out, are you?”
“No.”

He swerved the car for a tight overtake. She kept leaning out the window. Breathing in, breathing out.

“It’s hurting my lungs. You have no right to hurt my lungs. Please go sit on the roof or something.”
“Shut up and drive, I’m doing the best I can.”

She kept lying limply out the window. Watching her cigarette burn furiously in the wind.

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Presenting: New Blog!

2011-09-04T13:36:00.000+05:30

Saali Dilli Wali

Jitna baaki hai, utna kaafi hai

2011-08-31T20:44:00.001+05:30

Ek ghar sa chal jaye
Kya itna kaafi hai
Petrol nikal jaye
Kya itna kafi hai

Ek chhatri, coat bhar mein
Mausam sambhal jaye
Kya itna kafi hai
Chappal badal jaye
Kya itna kafi hai

Kaun poochega kya sochte the
Kaun sochega kyu poochte the
Ki khush ho na yun to?
Yun to khush the par sabse poochte the
Kahin jo aise hi koi
Hum-gham sa mil jaye
Bas itna kafi hai

Yun hi na tal jaye
Jitni bhi baki hai
Kisi ke sath khal jaye
Bas itna kafi hai

brb

2011-08-16T22:18:00.000+05:30

Amrood ki gatthi si hai
Gale se utarti nahi
Ek duvidha ikatthi si hai
Tute na, bikharti nahi

Dil dimag ke highway par
Accident se jam hai
Ek laal hari batti si hai
Himmat guzarti nahi

Raste bhi bichha dete
Diyon se jala dete
Pichhli baarish ke magar kuch ghadde
Bhar jayein to milte hain

Girlfriend

2011-07-07T15:06:00.003+05:30

Where's the gristle of grass when you seek it?
Where's your feet crushing straws?
Where's my hand tight-wrapped on your waist?
And your struggling, scratching paws?

Where do I look now?
Graves to be dug.
Hair to be smelled, more
Applicants to hug.

Vacancy's been advertised
CVs storming in
I can tell a girl by the cover
And some touch and sting

Tick, tock, point, lock
Shoot, slot, leave to rot
But the little that I fiddle
with is a promising lot

Don't get mad, don't be far
Don't be wasting a scar
Don't be early and don't be late
though losing out you are

2011-07-07T15:02:00.002+05:30

Tick it on.
Tick it off.
Flashlights don't burn.
They don't burn like a man.

Things in my backyard

2011-06-09T23:16:00.000+05:30

The future, lying around wasted since a long time coming.

2011-06-05T19:04:00.012+05:30

Conversation does, and people. and lots of banter, and lost threads, and loud claps and guffaws. and people around you staring, some of them wide eyed but with a smile. and lots and lots of lost breaths and table thumping. i like to thump the floor with my foot when i'm laughing standing. and i love it if the joke was mine. i don't care man, i don't care if you were laughing so hard you dropped the glass and my pants are dripping orange juice now. i just register the laughs. people man, people. that's who i love the most..

and kids! they love me. they love me smiling. and i love them laughing. i'm a good teacher. i'm a good piece of person to stand in front of them and tell them they're fine. leave it to me man, you don't need to excite me, i'm too busy turning you on, just leave it to me. and laugh. and be outrageous. and do what you want, but just go with me.

and rock your head, and fall backwards. and hide the after-laughs and late giggles under thin, pursed lips and red cheeks. and hold your jaw because 14 of your muscles are starting to pain. and have a sharp crazy look in your eyes, noticing everything i do. everything everyone does. and every damn sound, and think up a tom and jerry sequence for the sound, and laugh!

i don't know man. lets split and fall to the floor. you take that side of the room and i'll spread on this one and lets not be able to get up straight again.

Nonnet

2011-06-02T22:37:00.001+05:30

One swing at the eye and one dead bone
Send a swift kick up the thigh for
deeply moving, screeching groan
Connect a tighter one
to the bleeding nose
to train a spy
to never
pick the
phone.

Watch the spokes

2011-06-02T21:08:00.000+05:30

It's no wall to keep you in
but a treadmill
to keep you running,
closing on itself,
and you, you're the mouse

Of coins and choices

2011-05-29T22:05:00.001+05:30

How does it turn,
who rolled the die on your name?
Were you there when it creaked and stopped?
No? Me neither what a shame.

Who blows the wind,
who stocks and switches my dreams?
Whoever held a river in his palm,
who ever cut the little streams?

Is there a source,
do we walk to it or away?
The landmarks can see you
turning night and day.

Yet nobody loses
for long around here
The winners are easy to tell
but losers, don't fear.

You will live as well,
you will have your girl,
and money to feed her ass,
and vase and crockery to hurl.

Beware, what goes around is lost.
And although you've all along tried,
the toss that turns in the sun does never
know or choose the winning side.

gardenal sin

2011-05-28T23:17:00.000+05:30

and then He shouted, the apple was a curse
your race shan't ever be pure
the fall has begun to an end much worse
than death, for knowledge hasn't cure

your sin is tall, your love the deepest pit
my guinea little rodents, look, that's it
creation is for me, you are blasphemy now
get off my lawn, go, don't fake the bow

the apple lay still, a brain whirred on
lone and bereft but a hefty intellect
and as if a spark then hit right home,
Newton got up and took a bow and left

Up, Up and Abe!!

2011-05-19T21:22:00.004+05:30

The shoelace stuck to the ground all taut
      while I lifted off in the air.
My arms rose bare to a pose mid-air,
      "Superman!" shouted someone I swear.
But my other foot was there weighing heavy on the lace
      and the ground ran bam in my hair.

Heavy lights

2011-05-17T21:27:00.001+05:30

not a fist and not a thigh
nor a twist of cracking dry
bone or muscle, neck or thumb
could i wrestle out of a numb
nerve when i saw the light
curve to me on a road too tight

dear harlot in the parking lot

2011-04-22T00:22:00.000+05:30

o' fluffy lady
not to sound shady
but can you try and mime
your savage love this time

o' fine tempest
may i stress some rest
from humping on a rhyme
and caress you this time

o' beautiful dame
whatever your name
take another dime
and just talk to me this time

listen to me and nod
and nod real slow
then get up and dress up
and hug me and go

To Wife

2011-04-17T03:15:00.009+05:30

Hi,

So I thought I'll break the ice already. If you haven't noticed, I'm your future husband. Hi. It's kind of tautological so I suggest we just accept it already.

I've been thinking about us lately. Frequently enough to warrant this letter. And I say lets get a few things out of the way before we run into each other some weird place and proceed to fall in intense, irrevocable love. Just so we're on the same page really, no hurry or anything. So here's my stuff, make known yours as well soon as you have it figured out. Savvy?

I don't know how to break this to you, but, you know how everybody always seems to be running? Up the stairs, down the ropes, through the files, on the conference table, in the bathtub, klug klug klug, thump thump? Yeah, well, I'm not like that. I don't mean I don't run or that I just stroll past the flowers and they smile back at me. No I run, I jog, I jump for the grapes, and do all the crazy gymnastics around my pink piggy bank. And I can sure as hell sprint on my ass to tremendous widespread surprise. But I guess what will make it all finally worthwhile for me is that idle grey-haired stroll on the river bridge. Or the better hours of an evening on a park bench with lungs full of flowers, heart full of mirth and a head full of you. Yeah, that about completes it. Given the sex in the balcony later.

I'm a big man in my head. With big, ridiculous dreams, stretchy gummy imagination, and a rather compulsive thing for generalisations. But one couldn't call me ambitious, for my dreams are lazy dreams. Instead of ambitious, call me hopeful. And instead of dreamer, dreamy. But all the same, the crazy part is it seems to work. I find it hard to fathom at once the things I've achieved; and impossible to hold in one frame, the many moments I count as trophies. The rhythm of my lazy stroll seems to positively superpose the resonating frequency of the universe, if you get the drift.

But dear o' lovely wife, I see that it's hard to swallow the divine goodness of a conspiring universe. Well yes, I get it. I don't trust the universe either. And I won't get mad at it when it fails me, god promise. Because I have a body that moves. I have all this energy that I've nothing else to spend on other than pushing the universe about. All this time to keep trying and perfecting the right push until it gives way. I have enough. I'm lucky already. The universe can't fail me, it can only put me in my place. Where I reach is only its way of telling me what I deserved. And wherever it puts me, I doubt if it can disappoint. Given not its generosity, but my rather creepy knack at making good of things. Do you see where I'll differ? Wherever it puts me, my next step won't be to try and not be marred by the circumstances or try and not let the success get to me, all the while striving harder for bigger and worthier victories. No, my next step will be in the pool, I think, or the garden. And the next few generally about the place, see what I like, what I'd like more, get a grip on the place, that sort of thing. And then have a good night's sleep. I like my sleep, love, and you have to like your sleep if you are to tolerate it.

I like our kids, honey. I'm in tireless, timeless, egoless, selfless, ruthless, endless love with our kids. They'll grow up to be orders of magnitude better than us, how exciting is that? Not to push it or anything, but I want our daughter to be like you. Can you promise me you'll give her everything you had and more? And can you promise me whenever whatever little differences I have with my son when he figures I'm probably an overrated oldie, that you'll always take his side? I want to lose that match. Given, of course, the sex in the balcony later.

I love how much love there will be. I love how it'll all come together. But I have a last request to make. Don't come running too fast. For you'll either speed past me when my lazy old eyes miss it and I'll never catch you by the hand. Or I won't be ready and done running, sprinting, and jogging about the damn piggy bank yet. And we don't want that do we, if only for the kids.

More Delhi

2011-04-12T20:58:00.002+05:30

Cute cats with clean caps
Dying dogs with dirty dots
Eerie eyes on sneaky spies
and a lovely bout of wind

Fake tags on glossy bags
Scratchy skin in scratchy rags
Lowly brags of creepy drags
and a flaky leaf that sings

Bars and whores and cars and crores
Chattering brains on battering trains
Insipid and vicious, timid politicians
and a raindrop on my skin

Loudmouth jaats and foulmouth tarts
Dinner-table starts and god-blessed farts
Hurried up art in rained up carts
and more Delhi under my chin

2011-04-05T02:46:00.001+05:30

how easy it would be if i didn't know love
how sane and alright if i couldn't tell hearts
chains i break tonight again, aren't metal
how easy if they were but i know they grow again
all over my body
in bouts and fits and starts

kaun kehta hai

2011-03-27T19:05:00.001+05:30

So there's a theory that says, "You won't lose your wallet." Amazing theory. Kind of like the end of all misery. You fervently believe in the theory and it makes you feel so safe, like you're in control. And you like that feeling, and you go about your life. Sometimes, maybe once a few days, you stop in your tracks, pat your pocket, and giggle in awe of this supreme theory that just.. works!

Well, until you do lose your wallet. And how does that feel, Mr. Theist? Do you feel stupid? Angry? Isn't all the world a sham attempt by the Supreme One to pick at you, watch you twitch at every touch of the tweezers? Quite the victim, aren't we?

But how about the unthinkable, that the theory actually worked. Only that it wasn't about wallets, but about making you happy. Is that really so bad? Given, you know, the hypothesis that you'll just run into it tomorrow when it comes strolling out of that table in the far corner?

the pineapple pirate

2011-02-21T18:46:00.004+05:30

sinking ships
with
stout fat pricks
that
never know why
they're
dying just shy
of
moatfuls of gold
that
wait since old
for
pirates to lay
their
metal and clay
on its
shining studs
and
clang their buds
and
dance and swim
in
bottles of whim.

oh!
i know why
the
moat went dry
on
them so close
with a
cruel fire hose
and
burnt them toast
just
beyond the coast
of
murmurs and riches
hidden
doors and switches
scary
invisible ditches
and
mad barking bitches.

the pirate dead
had
an artist's head
it
loved to write
sure
however trite
an
inspiring sight
but
an awful plight
for
the pirate himself
as
he sought an elf
to
get his sock
out of
the writer's block.

the pirate's men
the
stout fat hen
had
no great ear
but
when they hear
the
pirate screech
his
romantic streak
in a
poignant pose
on the
mast when those
poor
souls would scramble
and
stumble entangle
then
everyone knows
its
poetry not prose.

one fine eve
with a
heart in bereave
the
pirate got out
and
made a pout
in
thoughts so deep
he
struggled to keep
his
head afloat
and
about the boat
when
then his thoughts
made a
U-turn to trot
and
hop and jumped
at the
sky and pumped
such
divine kicks
to his
soul in licks
that
he joyously jumped
and
.. fake humped
and
went inside
in
powerful stride
and
came out in tights
with a
handful of kites.

the stout fat pricks
then
didn't know the tricks
that
love plays on men
and were
happy by then
that
poems weren't kites
though they
hated the tights
but the
pirate didn't care
and he
flicked his hair
and
cried like a man
for
his sweetheart susanne.

the pirate thought
he
had to, he ought
to
confess his heart
lest
the moment depart
and he
got out a ring
with
finesse and zing
and
pouted to kiss
his
ring for the miss
and with
an intense fight
tied
it to the kite.

The rest is easy
the
gods went sleazy
at the
man in tights
a
pirate flying kites
and
touched the ring
with an
electric thing
that
touched the ship
in a
crazy trip
and
the poet and kin
got
kicked in the shin
and
burnt to toast
well
just beyond the coast.

lovers, amen.

tip, top, full stop.

2011-01-22T17:41:00.001+05:30

So what're you saying
are you saying there are fish
that fly in the dry
mountain airs and wish

that earth wasn't round
wasn't bound and existed
forever far ever
ran on amok untwisted

So what're you saying
are you saying there are trees
running afield cunning
their way from cows and geese

Who taught them to run?
who gave the fish the gall
to flap or flip or fly
or dream or dash or drawl

No, fish can't fly
can't try, the trees, to run
no it must be stories,
someone's having fun

mommy says don't ask me

2011-01-22T15:55:00.002+05:30

how much is enough?
and how much more is much?
can you tell an excess
by adjectives and such?

is less more
or a little bit more
than a little bit of less?
Why, no one's sure.

how do you think?
do you count every blink?
do you miss a few beats
or do you write in ink?

how do you tell
if this product will sell?
will they buy you as you are
or do you die in rebel?

what's the plan, son?
what're you going to do
hey don't ask me, hon
i'm wandering too.

my stuff is scary stuff

2010-12-30T19:03:00.003+05:30

my walls are scary walls
they whoosh
crack
tink
scratch
and the roof sometimes falls

my life is a scary life
it bends
ripples
tumbles
fiddles
and stomach can run into knife

my love is scary love
it frees
flies
stabs
dies
a red-lifeless oozing dove

my ways are scary ways
they're blind
plucky
haunted
lucky
and ages move with days

my tales are a scary tale
they scream
pretend
never
end
and leave me thin and frail

my words are honest words
they scare the shit out of me

Mostly Harmless

2010-12-29T00:20:00.008+05:30

Not a lot, not much
just a smooth careless touch
An arm brush,
a shy gush,
or a sneaky finger clutch

Get it rolling, play along
hold it light, easy-strong
Return a glance
like a dance
Ping pong ping pong

A sharp look and away
half a smile, half a sway
and a muted
undisputed
tell-all grin there to stay

Let the moment as it does
Keep the air warm, abuzz
Know you can't
Will it or shan't
stay, for stories do end thus

L: "I want to be left alone"

2010-12-27T22:28:00.002+05:30

Imagine a nut.
Imagine another.

The two nuts are talking.

R: Leo, I don't think we're invited here.
L: You can go.
R: And you?
L: I'm invited.
R: Oh yeah? By who?
L: Damn it, you want to be a wet little kitten you go be one. I'm not pussy.
R: Look I can be little and I can be wet, but don't call me chicken. Or kitten, whatever.
L: You can go.
R: Not without you!

The nuts keep at it. They bobbed up and down on the bobby, uneven ground.

R: I don't think I like this.
L: Yeah? We'll talk when you're sure.
R: I meant I don't like it. Can you stop acting smug?
L: Look puppy, you don't like this you go outside and bark. You're supposed to be feeling good right now. Don't ruin it for me, now you say another word and I crack you open right here.
(Pause)
R: I.. don't..
L: Off you go!
R: Not without you! Arrghh!

The nuts go without talking for long. One of them is scared, the other never cared.

R: Leo!
(Pause)
R: Aren't those teeth!
L: Yes they are.
R: But they're teeth!
L: I said I know.
R: We're going to get eaten! Of course, that's it!
L: Calm down you damn nut we're not going to be eaten. The teeth maintain their distance. It's part of the code.
R: But why? Don't they want to eat us? We're being softened for them, can't you tell?
L: Yes sir, Mr Tough Nut. We sure are so hard otherwise aren't we? You ask me, I'm hardest I've ever been.
R: The teeth are moving! The teeth are moving!
L: For god's sake, dammit! We don't get eaten, she does. And the teeth are going to just sit there and watch us getting wet, now shut up you nuthole.
R: But Leo that's so pointless!

(Pause)

L: You must be Right.

Rally Rule

2010-12-08T23:53:00.007+05:30

How about a tea, sir, what of a bread?
Follow me, dear dying, to the joined hands ahead
that, with promises made,
will sicken you but trade
your tonight's meal for it, as I said.

|

2010-12-08T12:55:00.011+05:30

I read somewhere a limerick
about an almighty dick
who so very hated
the women he created
that he gave all the men a disciplinary stick

Boredom is necessary, and Necessity mostly bored.

2010-12-06T23:54:00.011+05:30

Necessity is the mother of Invention, Boredom its father.

In Boredom, numerous potential ideas swarm about lazily, day in and night out. Most of them either laid waste by a lack of clear direction, or contained by the rubber walls of constraint, thus providing only intellectual and largely inconsequential euphoria.

But some day, one of them hits the sweet spot, fits the right keyhole. And a living idea is conceived. The idea grows and incubates in the laborious, nurturing environment of Necessity. Growing limbs and nerves it will need once it's out in the open. Gathering uniqueness, strength, and mass enough to fill the Necessity.

And once out, the two parents look on in pride at their Invention. The result of all the months of hard work, ready to find its place in the Market. The harsh, unforgiving Market.

While as before, Boredom will keep splashing new ideas at the drop of a nightie, in hopes of recreation. But at the end of the evening, it is only Necessity that determines what finally turns into an Invention.

It's not the same

2010-12-01T15:20:00.002+05:30

No, video games can't teach you driving. Why?

Your car is not the fastest one.
The damage to your car will be no less than the others.
The side mirrors are indispensable.
There are three pedals that you work not with your dexterous fingers but with your damn feet. Which are not three in number.
You can't actually see your own car.
The purpose on the road is not to reach the finish line fastest.
It's just not your game alone anymore.
There are no extra lives.
And no you can't press Alt F4.

In fact, what would be a good way to understand real driving is to imagine yourself as the driver of the other cars in the game, those that stop on the red lights.

Cars

2010-12-01T15:18:00.001+05:30

Cars are really funny things. The way they carry themselves, it can be very amusing.They've got all the kinds.

The confused, the quirky, the drunk, the toddler, the honking socialist, the one with the shortcuts, the clumsy one, the rich and proud, the smoothie, the ambulance, the messed-up petrified one, the whore that will let anyone in, the jumpy one, the one with a winking disorder, the pink one, the virgin everybody wants to make their mark on, the swan that's actually a crow, the office-going suited one, the one with tattoos, the politician, the dreamy, the parking night-guard, the freak, the furious, the one without a destination, the siren, the voyeur, and the one just plain wrong.

There should be a facebook for cars.

spin tales

2010-11-25T12:02:00.004+05:30

happy bear happy bear
dance in front of me
raise a storm on top of your
bouncing bum for me

hey happy bear my happy bear
do you fly a plane?
do you drop and do you spin
and never hit terrain?

happy bear, dear happy bear
can i see you again
happy bear, will you say Chill
take me flying in the rain?

oh dear bear without fear
tell me the way to Lovies
I'll go with wifey, kids and dance
with a fruit hat full of berries

The girl with the book (Part 5)

2010-10-16T22:53:00.001+05:30

The girl with the book slept while the book's pages fluttered in the fan. The book was about an unnamed magician who had once been popular in more than half the inhabited Earth. His stories were many, but evidences none. Only belief and punishment had kept him alive all these ages later. Several millennia of second hand stories couldn't dampen his popularity and he only grew with every passing story. There were architectural marvels in his name standing for longer than anybody living. There were critics saying he was a myth and his magic tricks just fertile imagination. Fans up in arms against the critics and swearing punishment to them. Jokes on the internet about why he crossed the road. The book though dealt with a relatively minor portion of this most interesting story. It told of his magic tricks.

In her dream, the girl was standing on a bus station. The bus moved on, and tried to make it appear as if she had just been down from the bus. The other passengers around her too pretended to move away to their own destinations in such a diverging manner that she was led to believe they had all got down from the bus together, including her. She looked around to take in the setting of this unknown place and realised, shortly enough, that one of her hands was heavier.

She saw the book in her hand. And a pamphlet in the other. The girl was confused which one to look at first. She wondered what the pamphlet would be dying to announce. But for some magical reason unknown to her, possibly known to the book, the book opened in her hands and she began reading. It was about an unnamed magician who had once been popular in more than half the inhabited earth. The picture of the magician showed a serious looking seventeen year old who was sitting on a bed with his back straight. She wondered how a boy like that could be so popular and capable a magician that she was reading a book about him. Enough time had passed since the bus station that now when she looked up, she found herself sitting in a grand auditorium the size of which might scare an egotist to settle down meekly in a corner seat. She looked straight ahead, at the center of the array of seats that were probably infinite in number because when she tried to count she couldn't singularly point any one of them out. The center was not a stage, it was a large, open water tank.

The tank was circular in shape and in its center she could see a pole that extended from the tank up to the sky. She looked at her book again, and tried to find the page where this trick would be listed. An uproar of human cheering interrupted her and she was compelled to look up at the spectacle unfolding. A boy of seventeen was climbing down the pole towards the tank from the farthest you could see of the sky. He was also sweating profusely because of the hardship involved in the action and his dripping sweat was slowly turning the water tank red. Yes. Well the crowd was certainly very pleased.

The girl looked down at the book again and saw that it was the same page as the trick before her eyes. She read fast through, skipping prepositions, whole sentences that she suspected were only their for effect, and she skipped some spots of red on the page that were hiding crucial words from her. She was worked up now. This was not right. The boy climbing down was growing thinner with every step down and his efforts were visible. Every brow of sweat that he swept, seemed to take away equally from his arms and forehead while the water got redder. Every purposeful slide against the pole left his feet thinner as if he was butter sliding against sandpaper. The crowd cheered on in hopes of making up with its sound what he was continuously losing in mass. The girl read through the chapter furiously.

The book said that the trick was a particularly crowd-pleasing one. That it enriched people's hearts with belief in the workings of the world. That it was the dream of every magician to one day perform this trick in front of a mad, howling crowd and reach his destiny, an end representative of Truth and Law of the world. That it represented the inner mechanisms of Life itself. Of how, as a baby, life starts pure, free of loss, straight from the lighted heavens. How it continues down the pole of life, with effort, with learning, with pain. How you shouldn't sit and cry at losses but move on, move on towards more of them, and not think of climbing back up to fight them. How Time is a great healer when you have already accepted losses without a fight, the ones already past as well as the ones to come. How as you go down and down the pole of life you lose more and more of you, hence more and more unable to climb up and collect the lost, unable to give it time and set it right; unable to move slowly down at the speed that doesn't scratch your skin.

No, the gravity pulls you. Gravity asks you to get down fast and early. If you scratch your limbs then so be it. If you leave your limb with the scratch then so be it. To live is to move on. What is your age yet anyway? The pole is long and you have a long way to go. You have new people to meet, new places to go to, new ideas to explore, and then possibly leave them with a scratch too but then so be it. Life is effort. Life is a decision. Life is what life is. You don't fight life. You just climb down fast and end up as nothing somewhere towards the ground of the pole. The soul and its journeys towards heaven are myth. You don't fly up, you climb down. Get used up along the way and become the pool of red in the water tank. Where your scars swirl, and scratches screech. Where you swim with all that you ever lost and look at it through a red tint of light. You are not the summation of your journey. In the water tank, you're only the summation of your hurt. You're the red in the red tank and then they flush you. And the audience leaves after the good show of your short-lived fame and forever forgets. And someone else starts climbing down the pole somewhere.

The girl with the book was shaking. She had the book in her hands with the red pages and the face of a seventeen year old boy looking at her through a red tint. She clutched the wet book close to her heart, so close that it hurt. And the girl woke up.

She woke up with the book in her hands. She was holding it tight to herself. The book wasn't red, but it was wet. She had been crying in her dream. She opened the book to look at the pictures, there was nothing. She could see the seventeen year old boy in her mind though. She couldn't stop crying and she couldn't stop tearing the book away, page by page, cover to cover.

She looked at the clock. It was almost afternoon. She didn't have time. She stopped thinking about the tears, focused on getting up from the bed. She picked up the little chit with the two fighting sentences. They weren't fighting anymore. They were crying just like her and she couldn't bear to look at them. Of course she loved him. Even if she was no better than the stones. She clenched the chit tight in her fist. And she ran.

______________________________________

Part 1: The girl with the clenched fist
Part 2: The day before
Part 3: The girl with the unruly hair
Part 4: The boy of seventeen
Part 5: The girl with the book

The boy of seventeen (Part 4)

2010-10-12T21:45:00.004+05:30

The boy of seventeen wrote in his chit:

"I leave for college tomorrow evening. I've always loved you."

Nothing could have saved this chit. Nothing could have stopped her from making more than 8 folds of the paper and then tearing it into molecules. Nothing except the first sentence. They fought with each other, the first and the second sentence, and she watched in impatience. And her hands and eyes fought with each other, as she kept trying to tear it apart. Her hands couldn't move because the eyes weren't done with the text. Her hands wanted the piece of paper to burn, disappear, dissolve; while her eyes kept her brain and spinal chord on gun point inside and kept staring into the paper's innards going left to right to back again. All over again.

"Why the hell did he have to do this? We were fine weren't we. I knew he was going to go but that was still far. Of course he would go, everybody does. When it came to that, I would have been adequately prepared by the time. I would have said Goodbye. Then I would have come back home, and felt glad that I'd had a good friend. Maybe he would never have come back. So what, most people don't. Maybe he would come but I didn't. Maybe we would never meet again. So what, most friends don't. That's how life goes, right? You go to new places, you meet new people, you learn new languages, you live new worlds. I'll be in college too, soon. I can't wait to be in college. And I want to leave nothing behind when I leave from here. I'll live all of me there, as I am, and as I can be. And there is no telling where I'll end or being what. Why isn't he excited about college then? Why is that second line even there? Why didn't he tell me all about what college was going to be like? Why did he try to touch my hair?" She shivered.

She mellowed, but couldn't stop her brain from whirring.

"What did a boy of seventeen know about love", she thought. "He's wrong if he thinks he's in love. Like so many others. He's going to go to another land and he's going to see things he's never seen before. He's going to meet so many people, so many stories, so many ideas that will blow him away that a silly friendship from childhood won't even stir his imagination anymore. He doesn't understand it now, but he will. He will know how peripheral this time is to what his life is going to be. How old are we anyway? And who's We? Playing underage games doesn't make lovers out of people. Fighting over lollies doesn't make them husband and wife. Talking trash about books and movies is fun, and utterly meaningless. And where was she even going with this? Lovers? Who are you kidding you deadhead, you pig? How could you betray my trust in us? Wasn't I always clear? Weren't you always clear? Have you gone mad? Why the hell did you touch my hair?" She looked at the mirror and her hair. She waited. She put her hand through them, softly.

She felt a strain in her. She should go to sleep. Whatever had happened had been dealt with for now. She was sure he was now back at his home feeling stupid about what he'd been thinking. Maybe even a bit guilty. And he would have a good night's sleep and wake up fresh, ready to go to college. Whatever he did, he did it in the stupidity of the moment. She admitted, she never knew he could be so stupid in the moments. It was a good thing he was going to college, she thought. And closed her eyes with that decision.

That night, she dreamt about the book.

_______________________________________

Part 1: The girl with the clenched fist
Part 2: The day before
Part 3: The girl with the unruly hair
Part 4: The boy of seventeen
Part 5: The girl with the book

The girl with the unruly hair (Part 3)

2010-10-09T19:11:00.007+05:30

The girl with the unruly hair started at the knock on the door. It started the book too. They had barely started to enjoy themselves. She reached out and jumped off the bed, with book in hand. Her mother's voice called out from behind a few doors and said, "Tell me if you two want anything to eat or drink". Ok so the knock wasn't her mother's. A guest then.

She trudged with her slippers beneath her, sliding on the floor rather ungracefully for such a beautiful day. The book and her girl reached the door, the book chose to position itself in the other hand while she reached out for the door knob. And then the book, in a fit of fantasy, pretended to rotate the door knob by its magical powers. The knob rotated.

And in peeped the boy, his head through the door now adequately ajar. His left hand holding the door knob from outside, his right leg intruding the boundary of the room. And his right arm hanging loosely, but fist clenched, loosely enough to be in-suspicious. He said, "Can I see the miss?"

The miss in question, surprised by the suddenness of the appearance of his face, was smiling teeth-wide. She lunged for the bed in a few short jumps, sat against the wall in as graceful a posture as she could manage, and said "And who shall we say asks for her benevolence?"

"'A gentleman', shall suffice dear lady. For no other description shall offer more truth with lesser pretense."

"You may come in, sire. The lady awaits an account of reason for the gentleman's presence at this unseemly hour"

He was sitting on the edge of the bed now. The door was still ajar. The book lay wasted in some forgotten corner. The smiles in the room were electric.

"The hour is but a number, dearest lady. The acceptance of only the proper, and a summary rejection of all that is improper, however honest as it may be, would never have lifted this loveliest of races from the traps of a one-bedroom attached-kitchen no-sanitation caves in the times of the Stone, o' Fairest."

She was impressed, she admitted to herself. The boy too was expecting a slight gush from somewhere in her eyes but she wasn't giving it to him. Sure she didn't always win, but she never really lost. The boy tried to hide his disappointment at the denial of his wordless request for appreciation but she was good with the eyes. Hers as well as people's. Her eyes showed no gush and he understood he was no victor. Throwing the thought aside, he climbed the bed for a more comfortable posture.

"So what's up then, eh?", she blurted.

He attempted to hide the answer with a first thought whatsup joke but decided even against the joke. She never took nicely to them. And so he stayed put, with the lame infinitely repeated joke punching the insides of his head asking to be let out.

"Fan?"

It was she who said it, but he wasn't sure if she meant him to laugh now. She let out a smirk and he laughed. She joined him. They were so good. Until he blurted out, "No, a thicket of unruly hair". So that was the one he was holding back, not the fan one. She stopped laughing at the obvious reference to her own head. He did too, it was not such a good joke. But he felt released.

Nobody had yet noticed that the boy's fist was clenched. Ok, maybe the boy was aware. Ok, quite acutely. But she hadn't. The boy said, "I'm leaving real soon. Just came to see you really."

Her eyes glazed at this, very slightly. Her mirth jumped an imperceptible speed breaker. What did he mean? He must've come for the book. It really was an awkward hour to come and he did seem a bit in a hurry, fiddling with thoughts in his mind. What does he mean, see me? I'm not his girlfriend for god's sake. He's come for the book right? "You've come for the book right?" "No" "I'm still reading it, last few pages. I was going to return it tomorrow. Thought you could wait you pig." She said it as a joke. But the problem was she'd never called him pig before. In groping for the nearest funny word, this was what she'd come up with. The humor had a clear strain of effort. And his little monosyllabic reply was not even acknowledged in the least. It was now that the boy looked past his own fiddling to look at hers.

"No", he said, "what book? Oh, the book. You can keep it stupid, that's not what I...". He lost the remaining half of the sentence in trying to decide for himself what he'd really come for. He actually fumbled. Never a good sign.

Her mother called her to the kitchen loudly. The loudness broke through the doors, stopped at nothing, flew the settling molecules of awkwardness into disarray and dropped in her lap as an excuse shaped like a knife. She grabbed at it, cut through the lonely strands of monosyllabic replies and strained humor, got up in a jerk, smiled at him, and said she'll just be a minute.

He sat in the room dazed. What was going on? He knew why he'd come there, it was simple really. He had to, right? Of course he had to. Then just why the hell was she behaving like she was? And he really was in a hurry. He had slipped out from home unnoticed to come here. A risky thing to do. What was his age yet anyway? Coming here, so far, crossing a bridge, in the dimness of late evening. His leaving for college had been preponed by two weeks. He was going to UK and there was no telling when he'd see her again. And therein lay the lovely little reason for his fiddling. Yes sure he'd come for the simpleton reason that he kept taking refuge under, that he needed to tell her he was leaving tomorrow. But he was fiddling for another cause. The innocent hide and seek in his mind was with a single thought. Or even a sentence, because that's what the thought had condensed to after long hours of blank eyes sitting on park benches. With a pasted stupid grin some days, and fiery internal thumping some others. He wasn't leaving without letting her in on it. He'd come prepared with a contingency if he wasn't going to be able to say it. He clenched his fist tighter.

The girl meanwhile, stood before her mother. She took the plate of biscuits. Thought of eating the boy's head off with them. And walked slowly to the room. This was totally uncalled for, she thought. If it was what she feared it was, that is. She knew him and she knew herself. Only too well. No it couldn't be that. He was smarter than that. Being a year older must mean he was smarter than that.

When she entered the room, he was sitting on the bed awkwardly. Straight back, straight eyes, straight breathing, and a tightly curled fist. He was serious. She was scared. She couldn't turn and run back, could she? Why did he have to be here? Why wasn't he normal? He looked at her and nodded his eyelids. Made a jerk to mean he wanted her to come sit. She couldn't afford to show him she was scared. She walked jerkily to the nearest edge of the bed and sat so uncomfortably that the bed could've been removed and she would still be in the posture.

Through the crushed rotating rubble in his brain, there were hardly any gaps for him to realise the earthquakes setting off in the girl's mind. He knew now he wasn't going to be able to say anything. There were two thoughts in his head earlier. That he was leaving tomorrow. And that he had to tell her he loved her. The first one was the simple one, it was the savior justification for why he was here. The second one, instead, completely wanted to crush him to pieces. And she wasn't helping at all. But the resistance from her made him pledge tighter. Because he believed in what he was going to say and leaving it now would betray its truth. Awkward truths are still truths. He stood up and sat closer to the girl. The room, that structure of brick and plaster, felt so awkward it wanted to get up and leave. The boy didn't relent. The girl's eyes were as wide open as tightly she wanted them shut. His hand moved and the clenched fist slowly struggled through the air. His mouth didn't dare forming a sound, because all that would come out would be the rubble in his head. The fist was now at the side of her hair, and opening. The hand felt through the hair, leaving in its wake a small paper chit. The unruly hair held the chit in its folds. And the eyes right below, held anger. Folds after folds in her eyes were opening up and they held fire. The boy's mouth, unable to accept such defeat at the hands of his hands, blurted out, "I..". It didn't close for the rest of the evening. Not while she exploded, flew to pieces as a hundred fireballs and converged again, was present in the whole room at once, and then stood there straight as a pin, in form as well as feeling, holding the door for him.

He was in no state. His state was none. He was emptier than a blank. And she was holding the door. He was moving slowly, through the door. It was shut. He was gone. She stood with the door knob. The door knob was melting in her hands. She was on the bed, and killing the bed sheet with her stillness. She sat for a long time. Angry at herself for doing what she did that evening, angry at him for making her do it, angry at his unruly hand that went through her unruly hair, angry at the room for making this action seem awkward, angry at the mirror that held a chit in her hair. What? She fumbled to open it, read it, and sat motionless again.

Her anger wasn't over yet. Later next day, she would be so angry at herself she would make trenches in her palm with her nails, in a clenched fist.

______________________________________

Part 1: The girl with the clenched fist
Part 2: The day before
Part 3: The girl with the unruly hair
Part 4: The boy of seventeen
Part 5: The girl with the book

The day before (Part 2)

2010-10-07T11:23:00.007+05:30

The day before, she had woken up with a stark, quiet, and unassuming clarity inside. She knew who she was. Where she was. What was going to happen. And just where the hell the world was moving. In short, the world made sense to her. She got up, staggered out of bed, looked at her teeth in the mirror. It was very satisfying. She knew that she was going to brush her teeth now. And then eat something filling. Her belly would thank her. Then she would take a bath. Slip on her new dress. Sit at the window. See the falling light on her arm on the window ledge. She looked forward to enjoying the friendly warmth of the sun that makes a fresh, newly bathed skin swell with satisfaction.

Her mother didn't know the daughter was expecting so much from the innocent day. Or she would have cooked something better. Maybe pies. Sweet, fresh, softly melting pies when the mouth offers them its loving. How it would have fit with the easy wind from the window that pads a freshly washed face of a girl in a new frock. If only she'd known. And since she didn't, she served her walnuts. Walnuts with unbroken shells.

The girl, however, knew not of the possibility of the pies. Had not had the wish for it, for her imagination at the moment was already filled with the sunlight and the warmth and her own after-shower smell. And what contained this filled happiness in itself, covering it, completing it and making it feel safe inside, was the new frock. The frock embraced her loosely. It was as if all the happiness she felt inside would evaporate away with the breeze and sunlight, if only the frock didn't lay on her.

The frock's, in fact, is another story to tell. It was a prize possession. She had seen in the frock her own likeness. And it wasn't easily that she'd finally got it. Her frock, if it could feel, would have felt really proud of itself, as well as her. In this contentment, she tilted the milk glass and ate the walnuts with such love that they felt guilty for not opening up by themselves.

The day, you might say, was so serene that surely it could have had no inkling at all of what waited to show up. If it had any clue in the slightest, it would not have let the girl drown in it so absorbingly. Maybe shown some signs, flew some harmless dust at her, put in some warning clouds among the beautiful fluffy beings that sailed otherwise. Just prepared her for the obligatory bits of evil that all the good in the world brings along. It didn't, though. Maybe it lost itself too. Which probably explains the surprised, unpolished coarseness in its behavior when the tragedy finally came down. It, like the stones, and like the proverbial humans, was also vulnerable to the dangers of losing itself. In good or bad. Happiness or anger. In beliefs or cynicism. But as said somebody who knew, "At least err on the side of optimism. For the side of cynicism doesn't even allow errors. You will be as much a loser as you think you are."

She read beside the window sill for a few hours, then shifted a little in. In the coolness of the room, she sat and turned page after page, each in their due time, the book about an unnamed ancient magician. After lunch, she sat with the book again. It was near to finish. Once it finished, she could give it back to him. And he would make some smart comment about how he was sure she'd understood nothing in it. And she would look at him with a straight face, completely not surprised by his low stoop. And so he would have to stoop lower and say, "you know, because it's in English". And that would break a small crease on her face, an attempt at a snide smirk to make it obvious to him how utterly stupid and lunatic the boy was and how she was so fed up with him in general anyway. While all along, the crease would hold a breath of a smile in an inner fold. For she knew he was holding a smile in there too, and he knew she knew he was.

She conversed with him in her mind some more and then came back to being on the bed in her room. She came in through the window, and was still staring outside listlessly. If the book could see her, it would be real jealous right now. She picked up the book again, put it on her lap gently, thus thwarting any possible repercussions of any kinds of jealousy, and started reading again.

The boy knocked on her door.

_____________________________

Part 1: The girl with the clenched fist
Part 2: The day before
Part 3: The girl with the unruly hair
Part 4: The boy of seventeen
Part 5: The girl with the book

The girl with the clenched fist (Part 1)

2010-10-04T20:47:00.007+05:30

The girl with the clenched fist stood on the edge of a bridge. Not the edge you stand on to go from this side to that, but the edge you stand on to go from this life to none. When, looking down, you see splashes and broken waves at the edge of your frock. And when looking up, the white foam of the broken waves is flying overhead, unobstructed, in and out of the sun. But under circumstances such as these, you rarely notice what it is that you're looking at. You rarely even look at what's directly ahead, however beautiful the turns of the river may be, if only you looked at them.

Though she didn't, but if she had, she would have noticed how the river itself was a wave, much like the ones that were breaking in it. Breaking only because the stones were blind. Because the stones never whistled to them. And never got jealous of the whistling air. While the waves dressed up, polished their curves, perfected their feminine flow from afar, dancing to the whistling air. Flowing and blooming and waiting for a gushing hug from the love it waited for while it was still young and bubbly. And yet they come crashing in to the stones that stones were. Crashing. The broken waves still circled the stone, in hope, looking for eyes, looking to wake them wide by a splash of cold water, but the stones were blind. Heartbroken, the waves would continue. Try to move on. Try to dress again. Try to impress again. To find eyes in another stone. Or jump off a hopeless cliff.

She stood right over some such heartless, ruthless stones she decided. Because though the stones themselves were hidden from view by the bridge, she could still see the white tears of the crashed waves. Still reeling from the shock of indifference, and circling in hope.

Her gaze was steel. Her mind was not. She wouldn't move her eyes a flutter's width, but she continuously absorbed everything that lay there. Down in the river. Breeze would sometimes try to distract her. Try to move her. Try to sway her clenched fist. And she did sway. But she swayed in whole. She swayed as sways a statue. In whole, all as one.

Except the unruly hair. The hair that gave away the wind. The murderers, those unruly hair.

Soon, in her choked mind, there was no space for thoughts. No space for moving thoughts anymore, surely. For thoughts there were, but only those that already were, unmoving and tightly packed. She could think of nothing else. She couldn't even think about those very thoughts that were stuck packed in front of her. She just held them. Barely. If she could think, she would have decided her skull had shrunk and become a tight, dense peanut. All incoming doors and senses closed. So much that the sensation of fingernails digging into palm skin couldn't reach her brain. She didn't know her fist was clenched.

Slowly, as the particles of darkness rained from above, a crescent started to peek from the cloudy foam. The whistling winds must have won the hearts of a few relenting waves. For the wind running straight into her was now carrying droplets in its arms. And in the stillness of the stars, the winds slowed down too, now that they had partners in a passionate brace. May be the stones had a heart after all, but only the kind that roars in jealousy when someone else owns what could have been theirs, without ever extending a steady arm of confident ownership themselves to ones that once loved them. Even so, whichever kind, may be they did have a heart after all, for now they roared. In the stillness of the falling blackness with mixed silver of the moon, they made a noise much coarser and louder, now that the air was gaining loving humidity. The blind stones, they seemed to lack exactly what humans lack aplenty. A sense of the strength of love's string. A sense of when to give way. When to accept sans anger. When to stop stretching. And love back.

The humidity must've entered her. Must've knocked at the hard covering of the peanut inside, and softened a way in. Must've soaked the rocks inside and hugged and filled them bigger. Much unlike the time when it tried to do it to the stones in the river. Maybe what that means is that, only those that have been loved before can ever inject love into another. God bless the winds that whistled.

The peanut was now like a pie. Her brain found breathing space. Blood was circulating now. The statue was dampening. Maybe this is how the medicinal dose of Time works. Her body found limbs again. The thoughts in her mind started splashing its walls, mixing with each other, running around trying to achieve an acceptable, stable fill. It would take days for the splashing to stop. It would take weeks for her to feel any kind of a fill, however momentary. It would take months for the fill to be acceptable to her. Years for the accepted fill to be stable. And the stable, accepted fill would still only ever need a poke to turn into an unruly splash in the skull. Unruly like the hair outside it. And in the moment at least, her fist was still clenched.

She was conscious of herself now. Thoughts could now cross her mind, with however effort as they may. Like trying to wade fast in chest deep water. Like trying to run on cake. Thoughts would cross but she couldn't tell what she was thinking. She knew she stood on an edge of the bridge without a railing. She could point with her eyes the direction of her home if she wanted to. She could feel the tug of the wind on her dry, lumpy hair. Hair like an old unkempt Barbie doll's. She could actually feel the stillness inside her now. And she could feel the sharp trenches in her palm, under the swords at the outside end of her fingers.

When the peanut in her head had held her blood in impossible immobility, and thoughts were trapped in the packed shut window of her mind, she could see one image pressed hard against the window, gaping at her in insolence. Pinching her through the window much after it had pinched her numb already. The image, right there in front of her, was a painful rendering of the reality right behind her. The image was a ground of wet mud with tire marks on it. Wet mud on the bridge. The bridge with the tire marks. The Jeep had left. And left these marks, two straight infinite footsteps, right behind her. Right behind her. By the Jeep that left just ahead of her.

Her hair weren't always barbed. Sometimes they could stick well to her head. Only sometimes, a shampoo could beat them limp to the floor, drained of arrogance and spine. And only then would oil be able to rein them in its folds and make them stick it. Chain them to the skull. The chains would dry and hold if they slept long enough. And when the hair woke up, they would look rather decent. Decent, suave murderers.

The image stuck in her head was now giving way from the immediate to the remembered past. She was, slow as the shifting dunes, moving backwards in time. In her head, the image of the pressed and imprinted wet mud behind her had given way to another now. The image of a boy sitting on his bed, straight-backed, and serious.

The boy had visited the previous day. The boy had felt her hair in his hands. The boy had told her he was going.

__________________________________

Part 1: The girl with the clenched fist
Part 2: The day before
Part 3: The girl with the unruly hair
Part 4: The boy of seventeen
Part 5: The girl with the book

The Shoulder Shrug

2010-09-27T00:16:00.002+05:30

Part I - News

The hands didn't twitch

The legs didn't itch

for a maniac stride,

tearing the stitch

His eyes didn't jump

The heart didn't thump

He said nothing, but not

that his throat was a lump

Life had dealt again

cards with burns and stain

He looked on at them

with a quiet refrain

He was facing the walls

where breaking nails crawled

It was tempting to imagine

himself on the floor, sprawled

Part II - Future

The bars might explode

into pencils flying slowed

Their black streaks will fill

the eyes, he forebode

There would be a noose

And a limited range of hues

And a cracking floor on the feet

that'll set the colors loose

A uniform will shout

A hangman will out

the shimmering ghost of death

that doesn't fool about

He thought of the sound

that the plank was bound

to make when it cracked

and was no more the ground

He thought of the stretch

that would sure make a wretch

of his neck and his breath

But it looked like a sketch

Maybe the tongue will out

and gasp or flutter about

No, it would just hang

and leer at them no doubt

This prison set him free
Its lock gave him the key
The endless time told him
life was just a moment to be

Part III - Friends

He had come to have friends

in not people but elements,

friends he need not talk to,

or talk, it all depends

Like Air. The first of them

Comforting, stable and a gem

Never changed or turned on him

No habits or evil to stem

Sometimes she was grim

when she came to him

with the loss of someone loved

whose stench it held to brim

Other times, however rare,

she would buzz with a fresh affair

Someone must've been let in or out

and she'd smile from my ear to ear

Another friend I soon fell for

was Water, though it was much more

elusive and rare to come but when

it did, it made it up damn sure

The stretches that went by

without it made me shy

of the pleasures we'd had

that left me spent and dry

I wish I could bathe more often

But I never asked the one

who came and unlocked the doors

Maybe 'twas the right amount of fun

I could talk about it no end

about the shivers it sends

through me to touch and be touched

by water, its streams and bends

But lets move on to the third

companion of mine, the earth

The solid, still and steady

The friend with no mirth

This friend, I always wondered,

was it a friend of just under

a debt, guilt, an oath?

to hold my weight and blunder

For it never talked, or told stories

Never had a mood, teary eyed memories

to share with me, to let me in

on them, oh no, hard from the quarries

But I give it for a quality rare

It cares for me when I'd care

And slaps me hard when I slap hard

The Ground, my friend, is ruthless and fair

Part IV - Enemy

Life's good, yes, with friends like these

But what is life without enemies

An enemy I'd always had

It was the Bars, the Bars that tease

They stand with backs all straight

In never a mood for debate

Stern, alert, too proud in power

But it's how they're serious I hate

And look how they stand

all formal and grand

in equi-spaced files

Not one freak errand

It used to be a distraction

Their stillness waiting for action

Their steely observing gaze

and their judgments showing no fraction

Sometimes their spaces between

would tease me and demean

Surely the escape wasn't through them

And escape I wouldn't, but why act mean!

Part V - Life

My crime in that other world

where Light existed and swirled

had been unforgivable

Some nights I shook all curled

But the new friends had been sweet

Acceptance had turned down the heat

They released me, stood there, let me

They folded my conscience neat

Life was good.. no wait,

it was just life, zero and sate

No clue how long it had been

without real urge or hate

Couldn't tell when I slid

to peace that respects the lid

on top off my head, now settled snug

that used to blow off when it did

Couldn't tell when I started

to love the caress good-hearted

of the truest mirror, the floor

that still couldn't answer being farted

Couldn't tell when I missed

the third person tone, to insist

on my plight and took on to 'I's

Oh maybe you noticed and were pissed

Part VI - Dream

Couldn't tell when another

friend of mine, or rather

this secret acquaintance wild,

turned up in metal and leather

I'd met this friend a few times

in moments unguarded, sublime

who left me on the rope when it cracked

invariably, every single time

So you see, this rude friend, Dream

would barely shake hands and beam

trying to introduce me to Death

but me, such a brute, I scream!

They scamper away, hiding out of sight

Dream, the matchmaker; and Death's cold bite

and I'm left panting, blinking, being stupid

caught by the mighty Ground's might

And as I said, I couldn't tell

when this Dream fellow swell

came back one day

with a sin-dark smell

It's like it had purpose, oh sad

It barged in, like always it had

But no, it was different this time

Darker and calmer, not half as mad

The first time ever did I hear the Bars shout

Not all of them but the closest ones i doubt,

the closest ones to metal, and uniform and leather

The three of them came in, calm throughout

The uniform spoke, clearly, slowly

The leather shuffled, the Ground made lowly

sounds of disapproval, impotent screeching

And the uniform said, the same words holy

That this was the day, that I was to die

But it didn't seem as evil, can't say why

And drawled on, didn't run to me

Didn't push me down, didn't beat me or tie

Didn't do anything, except stand and talk

And told me honestly, didn't leer didn't mock

Just stood there, calm, let a bit of silence pass

then turned and left, like breeze would walk

The metal rod, the leather shoes,

the uniform, the Dream whose

previous meetings were awkwardly violent

left this time without tying the noose!

Part VII - Apex

I stood for long and spoke to Air,

had a chat with the Ground bare,

they told me it wasn't Dream at all!

And all I managed was an empty stare

Death was coming, surely, sure,

but not like a bull running through the door

Rather like a calm, honest kinda chum

And somehow, this gore, it didn't feel sore

So my hands didn't twitch

My heart didn't tug

And my legs didn't itch

but my shoulders did shrug

resistance to futility

2010-09-25T20:59:00.001+05:30

turn me human and a man again
end this dangerous path you tread
i will resist and kill and murder
and bite and devour and bare and shred

turn a table, the one that's wrong

pull up a chair, sit with me please?

talk me out of my pounding brain

slip a little promise like a sneeze?

bhaag khilone kood re bandar

2010-09-25T16:12:00.001+05:30

kya aapke bhi kamar mein chabi hai?

dil ki dhadkan par tick tock haavi hai?

damroo bajta hai, chabi chalti hai

thako to chabi aag si jalti hai

chabi aisi jo bharti tab

jab paer ruke hon, shaant hon lab

jo ghoomti hai, kasti jati hai,

aur dard mein ander dhansti jati hai

jo kehti hai, zindagi daud hai

nahi bhaagoge to shame shame

rakhti haar jeet ka record hai

zindagi thodi ye to game game

zindagi aaram nahi hai jinme chabi hoti hai

tham kar bas do saans jo lo chabi gussa bhi hoti hai

ilaaj nahi hai koi jab chabi chillati ander ander

chal nigode, fudak re ghode, bhaag khilone, kood re bandar

water is blood

2010-09-25T14:41:00.001+05:30

pick at a sleeping man's ear go ahead

pick at a simmering blob of fire

pick at the Lord, or another man's bread

or pick at a holy devil's ire

pick at the bull charging at your cart

pick at the elephant over your head

but don't ever pick at a man's jealous heart

unless you want a world wet and red

a zillion morals can't stop that red

neither a zillion stranger smiles

to stop his arms wreaking sheer dread

stop the damp in his eyes

one blinding angel from the clouds please

2010-09-23T01:50:00.001+05:30

run to the church
or fly away afar
fly away to mountains
or the town bazaar

and come back with a pill
or a miracle herb
or a promise from the lords
to heal, to curb

to curb the skin
to stop the crawl
of the mice and snakes
inside my shawl

inside my skin
sliding on my spine
pinching, the leeches,
the sons of swine

there must be cure,
some holy water pure
some blister buster
or a potent blessing sure

it bleeds it bleeds
but nothing leaks out
i'm a big red rash
burst-filled and stout

but i know what i need
i know what'll do it
i need a needle
with a silver feather to it

all the pus will be out
with all the rage fickle
the needle will sew the wound
under the feather's tickle

Words I'll write

2010-08-16T02:39:00.002+05:30

I'll still

still cry over you

and you

you will never

never know why.

I wish words would

take it from me and keep it

keep it with them.

Maybe one day,

when I find words

words good enough

Words that I'll

forget the tune of

and read someday

those words that'll be

meaningless without it

But words I'll write

humse daro, magar khud se to hamari baatein karo

2010-08-01T21:33:00.003+05:30

bolo kitne haathon se
apne kaano ko dhakein?
ke cheekhti aur chup tumhari
surat mudti na dikhe

bolo kitne pairon se
kitne meter gaj chalein?
ke fat bikharti hasi tumhari
in kaano mein na pade

bolo kitne chehron se
apne chehre ko dhakein?
ke kadam tumhare bhoole se hi
meri taraf na chal padein

hamara

2010-08-01T21:01:00.001+05:30

likhhe syahi se rang
jo udte hawa mein
uchhal kar bajti taaron se
tere haathon ki razaa mein

aur awaazein bhar jati
kaano mein nidar jati
thoda bawaal karti
aur ander bikhar jati

uthe naach ander hi
dhaara laal jo behti hai
laali chadh gayi laal gaal pe
man ka hi sach kehti hai

mera hi gaana to tha
par mujhse zyada ho gaya
jab taaron par tere haathon ne
padh liya, hamara ho gaya

(chug) (chug) ... (chug) ... ... (turn)

2010-08-01T20:32:00.001+05:30

run because its fun,
and wait when you're late.
let the bet get
hot and then you trot

pages

2010-08-01T20:03:00.001+05:30

read
not in greed,
the page
be let age.

cease
an easy breeze
and discern
as they turn.

the trope of dope

2010-07-30T15:08:00.001+05:30

The fact
of the act
is not
a lot
of information
for damnation.

The view,
in lieu
of the talk
and mock
in words
with turds,
is required
for a tired
heart
to part
with love
for love
just feeds
and breeds
on a dope
of hope
that just does not
require thought
and keeps climbing the dangerous height.
And falls, for the cynic is always right.

2010-07-28T23:06:00.002+05:30

i dunno how but,
seems to be
most people see
themselves in me

An understanding of the popular text about a dumpty egg, Mr. Humpty

2010-07-28T21:54:00.000+05:30

A certain Mr. Humpty Dumpty, with the proportions and measurements of a large egg in general, one day figured it would be cool to sit on a wall. Well, he thought, what the hell. It must've been a good view it is hoped, what with all the king's army, soldiers and horses around. You could wonder how such a tense atmosphere would provide for a cool view, so to say, but what can you say about an egg's wish..

Precisely. Nothing.

So Mr. Humpty, while enjoying the view and the action, must've either done something stupid or embarrassing in view of the general mood of the event, or maybe just went out on a limb to look closely at the details of the ensuing action. But hey, God didn't foresee such a creative wish on the part of that species and Mr. Humpty's evolutionary family tree had not provided him with the faculty of a limb. And hence the absence of such a limb, and also the fact that gravity is such a nasty bitch, Mr. Humpty enjoyed a perfectly natural windy free fall from an innocent wall in the middle of a war.

A fall was provided by the ground, after the fall from the wall. And it broke poor Mr. Humpty's heart. He couldn't bear such a travesty to have fallen on him. Why, it wasn't his fault if his genealogy hadn't been as creative! Fuckin' ancestors, he thought.

And the weirdest of all things then happened, as if we weren't already uprooting some fences of imagination here. All the king's horses, and all the king's men, well, stopped and came over. Mr. Humpty the egg seemed to be broken and they must've felt it inhuman as well as inhorse to not help a poor egg in distress which they might've eaten away the next day anyway, if they had survived the war that is.

And behold, what can you say about such things. They tried, and sweated, and the horses' hooves must've felt really useless, but the fact remained that despite the shiny evening spent in helping an egg instead of warring, they just couldn't put Mr. Humpty Dumpty together again.

Yeah that's it. Really.

I wonder what they did after.

Other than feeling generally useless and lying about on the ground like wasted lives and pondering on the futility of evolution in general.

2010-07-27T23:29:00.000+05:30

johnny johnny
yes papa?

wassup man?
awl kool daday

ciao kiddo
yea take care dad

funny poem eh?
ha ha ha

2010-07-26T13:37:00.002+05:30

you know what'll stay with you,
wherever you be?
the feeling that you still
miss being me

don't be scared, people

2010-07-26T13:37:00.000+05:30

two scared kittens
cute? ugly? no.
just scared kittens two
but with much ado

clutching each other,
shivering all damp
in an imaginary rain
in an imaginary rain

preparing for tomorrow
while scared of the same
just scared kittens two
but philosophical too

so they can justify the fear
and coldness and the damp
of the imaginary rain
in an imaginary rain

2010-07-25T13:31:00.000+05:30

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
stood there and laughed at the egg and its hen

face it, what else

2010-07-12T01:00:00.000+05:30

white hair
furrowing forehead
bifocal eyes
big nose
more nose
nose continues
moustache with left over food
weird curve of pale skin
yellow teeth
bitten tongue
yellow uneven teeth
chapped lips
dirty facial hair
and adam's one loud apple
so beautiful
lets put some water on that face

this is the 144th post

2010-07-11T22:22:00.000+05:30

it's not 143 anymore.

stupid blog doesn't know anything..

2010-07-09T22:48:00.001+05:30

fight some

and write some

and end up with more

of something your

own for you

can't ever tell

if what you achieved

was enough for

the life that you spent

without repent

but which now lies bare

and empty everywhere

crying to be filled and

dying for a thrill

for a thrill that hopefully

will come some early

than the end of this

life that wants to kiss

and live some more before

it dies too early for

someone to remember you

and cry like you do

its a wasteland

and i want my hand

on you again or i

can die

for real

am not sure of my

will or abilities

or the

strength

of the dam i try

to hold up straight

and strong

against the floods i cry

i hope i live

i hope i do

before i stop

writing poems for you.

i wont. i will

always love you

but i cant take it

how can you

it was only normal life

but i dunno what i've made of you

are you

for

real? are you?

ugly human

2010-06-28T12:57:00.000+05:30

whiz whiz whizzin'

a whizzin' wind blows
my hat!
a whiz whiz whizzin' in the tree.....

sit sit a-sittin'
a sittin' bird watches
you!
a sittin' bird watches when you pee.....

piss piss pissin'
a pissin' flow of glee
it flies!
piss piss pissin' noisy....

flit flit flitters

a flitting bird disgusted

ugh!

a flitting bird hates humanity....

love love a-lovin'
a lovin' heart is beat
beats!
skip skip skippin' in the heart....

fuck fuck a-fuckin'
a fuckin' gives you heat
boy!
a fuck fuck fuckin' heats you hard....

fall fall fallin'
a fallin' in the dreams
o' no!
fall fall fallin' dreams apiece....

slip slip a-slippin'

a slippin' whore is cheap

o' yeah!

a slippin' man blames biology....

teenage

2010-06-28T10:39:00.001+05:30

talk to books

enter their worlds

keep your mind open

they'll get to you

look with wide eyes

at the characters curled

up in the plot and

let them seep in too

remember them later

the lover and the girls

and the fantasy world

and their life blue

books that show you

a tempting distant world

and get thrown away

on the pavement once you're through

mast ram was a personal favorite

died

2010-06-28T10:16:00.001+05:30

have you ever killed an ant?

maimed it?

watched it rolling in pain on the floor after?

felt guilty and helpless?

couldn't see its pain and couldn't kill it?

who's to decide when pain is worse than death

humans, the choice is easy

but an ant can't kill itself.

what did you do?

i looked away.
Eventually.

core

2010-06-28T09:51:00.000+05:30

lo and behold

take it and fold

into smaller and smaller

sizes untold

chits of white paper

with burnt across them

stories cold

that hide in the fold

stories of days

that lacked in ways

to be spent satisfied

and ended in greys

days so idle

you couldn't open

your eyes for the rays

that never found ways

and you forgot

them and thought

only of the ones that

managed to jot

those few memories

indelible in your

scalp that would not

take much a lot

life was more

much more a bore

than you remember

remember anymore

it had always been

forgotten unseen

whenever the whore

didn't let you more

oxymoron

2010-06-28T03:01:00.000+05:30

don't read too much
into my texts
they may be about you or some such

read them afresh
independent, yes
stuff i make sense of in the mesh

in the mesh of my brain
that oscillates
between you and stuff about money and grain

and most of all about
fulfillment
and making something of me and my own little doubt

and a lot of other pointless shit
random or prudent
and you too of course but don't read into it

2010-06-24T21:23:00.001+05:30

i don't care if to say it is to
spoil it or betray pretense
i write to woo you, you are
still my only audience

Hope it

2010-06-21T14:43:00.001+05:30

You thought a desperate grab with two open palms will provide you a living.

You thought a few beautiful infinite moments will stop the ones banging the door.

You thought randomness in a young sample space was representative of professional capacity.

You thought college was big.

You were no different,

everybody is Hope's bitch.

she

2010-06-21T05:12:00.001+05:30

she lives there

nonchalant

easy

she must laugh

effortless

still

she still loves

moments

each

she lives there

and i

don't

2010-06-19T05:29:00.001+05:30

the point is, i've got something here

the point is, i have an eye for meaning

and right now, the frikkin' point is that i spent a night here in this soundproof cubicle and ended up with something mine

To first-times!

2010-06-13T18:51:00.000+05:30

deodorant in nervous armpits
clutch in hopeful handshakes
smiles in an extra bend
and just wishful beliefs

kisses in empty air
jingle in lifeless dresses
eyes in furtive vigilance
and just ugly laughs

soap in deceptive hands
tears in lying bottles
truth in blindfolded hiding
and just lucky money

life in uncertain roles
slippers in cozy shelves
death in lonely apartments
and disappointed fame

showbiz.

twinkle little stars

2010-06-11T15:40:00.000+05:30

"Do you love stars?", she asked her father. She would talk to him about the stars, and change the topic when he said he loved them too. She didn't think that an adequate answer, because she never said she loved them. She rather loved the distances between them. To her, it was the distances between them that made them so filling. Mesmerising, you could say. And the much reputed twinkle that they held? No she never thought that was any exciting.

"Do you love stars?", he would ask his daughter. Because he knew she did, and was only trying to make good father-daughter conversation. He thought her eyes twinkled when she asks him the same question. He tried to see the stars in them, imagined her to be mesmerised by them. And said, "Yeah, I love them too". Because he wanted her to keep her love for them, and the twinkle, even though he never could see what the said beauty was about. He must be old and wrinkled, he thought. And her daughter gifted and special, to see what he couldn't, and so he would add sometimes, "Aren't they beautiful honey? Look at them twinkle!"

2010-06-10T20:02:00.000+05:30

tears in deep cracks
cracks in brittle skin
skin on a crumpled hand
hands in immobility

blood in generous potholes
potholes on ugly streets
streets in a shrieking cry
cries in the distance

electricity in broken wires
wires in the greedy ground
ground in a pimpled swell
swells in bubbling bursts

poison in viscous oceans
oceans on inadequate continents
continents in a finishing race
races in a hurry

2010-06-10T14:22:00.001+05:30

kutte ne paali bhains, diya doodh bhains ne roz
kutte ne paali bhains, diya doodh bhains ne roz
kamal ki baat hai

The Wall

2010-05-21T13:43:00.000+05:30

I am not good at realising changes in me and especially their sources. But I remember a wall. Pretty normal. Couldn't see much of it mostly, because of the clothesline, the text on it, and my generally low eye sight. But I didn't need to. See it, I mean.

For I could hear it. The wall had a hole. How appropriate. The hole at the far corner of it, far enough that no one can peep through from the other side and embarrass you in unguarded moments, but yet there to let some things pass through. Like Music. Music originated somewhere on the other side. Yes, originated. And I heard it. In the nights, sunny afternoons, beats on repeat, notes nobody had ever heard before, and stuff.

I heard a lot of things. I heard the Breakup song in its making, on the acoustic guitar that was merely an instrument. I heard Drop-dead and all its parts. I heard the blast of god-awesome high-frequency high-music noise after a conscious low and mid medley. I heard uninterrupted hours of unrestrained fingers on a synth playing unheard-of note sequences.

I heard sensationalism. I heard ingenuity. I heard tempo. I heard ADHD, that never lacked attention for me.

Then there was the other stuff. There was the big, high-philosophy stuff about things lowest on the philosophy hierarchy. Aesthetics decide the bathroom you use out of the three. Check. Aesthetics decide the wash basin you use out of the four. Check. Aesthetics decide where you put the red dot on a blank computer screen. Check. Aesthetics decide when your jaw drops and when your hands and head fly while watching Baraka. Check.

The Wall had a face. The Wall had an ugly face. The Wall had a black ugly face.

The Wall used to jump sometimes. In excitement apparently. About some shit or other. And shit turned to gold when it crossed the wall. I remember once for sure. Kgp remembers it, and will. For a long long time.

I can go on and on. About the video editing, the junta music, the poem which I regret I haven't with me right now, the nightlong voice recording for a fuckin-hot video, the dance on the music heard for the first time by anyone (which unfortunately becomes the first dance steps to be dedicated to the music that will get more feet a-shakin' sooner or later), and the high-fives that would vibrate in my palm from t=0 to t=some more time though my face would not have the space for the reaction deserved by the vibration.

A Queer Tree

2010-05-11T01:58:00.001+05:30

Full unedited version:

I am a queer tree. I mean I'm straight but, you know, still pretty weird. Just ecentricities. Like I can sometimes sway opposite to the wind just to confuse the other trees around me. Or start dropping my leaves way before autumn, gives them a real bad scare. And I love it, my eccentricities, my freedom, my sense of self. But, there's another side to me.

There's another side. A flat one. Like its not even there. Its not. Its surprising but it just never was. I simply never had in me whatever I was supposed to, on that side of my personality. Its as if some really sharp lightning just came and cut me in half right down the trunk, and removed the other half clean. It could totally have been so, except I don't remember the lightning. And there's no other side effect that would favor this theory, I'm pretty much normal otherwise. Really. Pretty much.

During childhood, with those other little plants around me, friends and otherwise, all trying to grow and become strong meaningful trees, I didn't even notice. I was too small, maybe. Or there was just not enough information. Whatever, I just didn't know that it wasn't how you were supposed to be. But a little bigger I grew, and I could say that there was something clearly different. Between me and them. Between me and everybody. Everybody else was normal. Ofcourse they had their eccentricities and differences and peculiarities, but they were still, in their basic selves inside, normal. And I somehow, just wasn't. There was one difference for sure that I never clearly acknowledged, but looking back, it definitely was real. I was weak, though just a little bit, but weaker than, say, normal. But I didn't know it then because I was taken care of well without any effort on my part. So strength apart, I still found myself a deviant, and the feeling only rose with years passing. It corresponded one to one with another feeling in me, that too, similarly, grew harder and more real as the years passed. It was the feeling of loneliness.

How I came to realize my uniqueness was actually because of my abilities. These abilities that I showed a flare for, made me known and talked about, and that really made me happy. It satisfied some inner craving for completeness which I knew not the cause of. And hence I tried even harder, and got better and better at them. It wasn't all of a sudden. Like what happened first was that I, in a moody swing one day, started swaying about me, a bit musically lets say. Its not something any tree can do, or does. Its an art, really, and there are trees popular in lands far far away just for their style of swaying. So anyhow, when I was doing that thing, pretty rookily I admit but atleast I seemed like I could do that stuff, I called out to a tree nearby. She saw me, and liked it! I was doing something on my own and somebody liked it! I was excited. So I did it more, and did it well. And kept trying. I don't know how or why, but I was fast. I pick up things fast. Soon I was all poetic in my motion and got pretty popular for it, atleast in the swamp. Trees used to turn to look at me do it when I called out for them, and used to nod in agreement, I was good.

And then I heard someone whistle. I never knew trees could do that. I mean wind made noises, sure, but to trap and move it inside you as you want it to and create those sounds that mean something, that's power. It is easily the most enchanting form of creative expression we possess. Revolutions have arisen out of the whistles of a tormented tree. And I could whistle. Its the most admired of art forms, and I really saw that I had some potential.

So yes, I had a few abilities, and was proud for them. But yet when I looked at someone with a normal, full round trunk with sturdy brown branches coming out of it, I used to feel something in me. Now he can't sway like me, can't wiggle his leaves like I can, isn't intelligent in its sounds and sure can't whistle, but he has something I don't. He is still, in some really basic sense, complete. He is normal, and I'm just not. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I saw it clearly somewhere in my adolescence. I saw the difference, right there, sitting in perfect view as if crying for attention. Like a chopped off half, like a joke. And the other half, it was in full bloom! It was all bright flowers and shapely leaves and poetry. But one half, just right there, naked. And I had a hint why. I could guess why I was so because I had seen more of life. Seen more of the others growing up to be normal, seen why they were turning out fine. And I couldn't bloody do anything about it. It was done with, it wasn't in my hands. And I thought what the hell, its alright. I mean I got abilities here ain't I. Show me someone who sways better.

And I saw trees who swayed better. Whoa. I saw some great trees of my time when I grew. Taller I grew, the more wonderful and able the world looked. And taller and taller I grew, for I was making up in height what I didn't have in width. I don't know if my incompleteness made me or I would anyway have been, but I was strong inside. Very much. And able. And I was using my abilities, my flexibility, and the beautiful spread of my leaves on one side, to hide the other flat side. It was awkward initially, it clearly showed, but I got better. I moved like a beauty, I whistled like a philosopher, and I started to atleast look like a perfectly normal tree, from a distance, yes, but yeah. Infact, given my moody sway, my mischievous tricks, my wild whistle, I think I'm now positively hot.

And lonely. I can excite other trees, I can make them want me, touch me, sway with me. I learned the tricks overtime. But I cannot make them love my incompleteness. I cannot counter my uniqueness, only the appearance of it, only temporarily. I can act, sure. But I don't want to. I don't even want to cover it anymore. I only want the company of trees that accept the fact. I want acceptance not without, but with it. I want to be seen in complete exacting truth, and then judged. For I believe, in all totality, given all my cracks and cuts, counting all my scars and losses, I'm still worthy of the pride I hold in myself.

My incompleteness made me what I am. It drives my instincts and makes me want to grow. Its fulfillment is the source of my satisfaction. I wouldn't have fought so much had I not had this reason to. An unsatisfied being, alone, is creative. And though I have not a hair's width of a guess as to how life would have been as a satisfied, complete, normal tree, I can say with all my power of belief, that this one is way more exciting.

And hence it is that I don't blame the seed I grew out of. It was only half a seed.

2010-03-26T22:46:00.001+05:30

If it's any deterrent,
if you ever go
i won't write poems
for you anymore

India TV the awesome

2010-03-22T15:05:00.000+05:30

India TV is like those mirrors in amusement parks that make you look funny no matter how repressed or melancholic you may be in real life. India TV is the Himesh Reshamiya of news reporting, the Kanti Shah of film making. India TV is the voice and face of that progressive strata of the public that has the taste, time and need for "fun" over and above the regular trinity of food, shelter and clothing. India TV, incredibly, is both niche and populist. Let me explain how:

You see, the lower economic class watches India TV with interest and possibly restrained belief. The middle class watches it with incredulity, and occasional bouts of laughter. The upper middle class will talk about it with animated hatred and yet stop for a few half-a-lip smiles during channel surfing. And in fact might even use it as a patience test. And finally, the relevant portions of the higher economic class keep a tab on it to understand the genius behind the whole idea of it, and in turn understand its vast audience as a potential customer base.

It is my belief that everything genuinely good basically derives from undiluted honesty. And India TV has to be, deep inside, an honest idea to achieve such a layered appeal. It is funny, without trying to be funny. It is incredulous, all the more so because it seems to not know of the same. It is, basically, for everyone interested, a powerful object of interest. I think that says it all.

(written for a journalism course application)

Where are my keys?

2010-01-27T15:07:00.000+05:30

In your pocket.

Of the other pant.

In the cycle.

With a 5th year.

Or 4th year, if aplicable.

Or 3rd, if applicable.

In C-302, Patel Hall. He is a collector.

Somewhere on 2.2, running away for freedom.

With you, in a parallel multiverse.

Nowhere. Not every lock has a key.

In the Kingdom of God.

At the wrong place at the wrong time. Always.

6 ft under the ground, on a skeleton's middle finger.

On the Tree of Wishes. Go ask it.

In your imagination alone. There are no keys.

With the Pope. Just Kidding.

Inside your CPU. Who knows.

In the keychain, wherever that is.

On an ego trip again.

In the hands of the Dark Lord. God save the earth.

In denial.

In the lock. And the lock in the key. It's a spiritual symbiotic relationship.

In the keyhole. Looking at you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

In a dark puddle in stormy rain on the edge of the earth, calling out for Momma.

Waiting in hiding for you to find it and go Boo!

Right under your nose. But go ahead and buy new ones anyway, sure.

In a different state of mind today.

Not inside the box, apparently. Think outside it.

darr lagta hai tanha sone mein bhi

2009-12-30T01:45:00.000+05:30

Fake lyrics for dil to bachcha hai ji.. (Ishqiya):

ऐसी काटी चुभन दिल पे डसती रही
ऐसे बहकी किस्मत, किस्मत हँसती रही

जब साँपों की बस्ती में आये हो राम
तो कैसे कहूँ जान सस्ती नहीं

वल्लाह ये चंचल
चढ़ने लगी है
आँखों के पीछे
उतरने लगी है

डर लगता है तन्हा सोने में भी
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी
थोडा कच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..
_____________________________

झड़ता सा पत्ता मैं गिरती डाल में
अटका हू उसकी लट के बाल में

शर्म कब की कट के हलाल हो गयी
उसकी भरती उमर के नए साल में

वल्लाह ये आदत
गढ़ने लगी है
सारे बदन पर
मढने लगी है

डर लगता है तन्हा सोने में जी
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी
थोडा कच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..
___________________________

खुद को झेलें या खेलें भी खुद से हमी
एक लड़की थी, दुनिया में अब है कमी

उम्र कटती नहीं नज़रें हटती नहीं
बस जो देखें वो देखें चाहे हो नमी

वल्लाह ये जान अब
खलने लगी है
करतूतें मन में
पलने लगी हैं

डर लगता है तन्हा सोने में भी
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी
थोडा कच्चा है जी..
दिल तो बच्चा है जी..

a shot

2009-12-20T23:25:00.000+05:30

for an irrational moment somewhere
don't lie, you felt it too

this time destructive that passes
will free us again of the two

the thing, the shot, the kink of it
won't live the hard-headed you

soon you will have killed it
and i will have killed it too

2009-12-16T19:46:00.002+05:30

What disturbs you, annoys you, makes you worried, happy, exuberant, mellow, yellow, makes you want to dance, die, cry, lie put, run, walk, stay in bed, pick up the phone, or fills you, thrills you, almost kills you, becomes the life in you, the dead in you, the sleepy you, the broken you, the shaken, the brittle, the angry, the loving, the crazy, the pointless, the bored, the sleazy, the lovely, the beautiful you, the ugly inside, the ugly outside, the unperturbed, the wishes fulfilled and the ones that were not, the dreams never remembered, the fears never acknowledged, the irrationality you tried to explain all your life, the empty, the smoky, the whatever that made you look up, turn away, put your head back down in cracking silence and explosive composure, made you want it, wish it, made you not care anymore, and struck you again as something that used to matter, or that it still does and how you wish it wouldn't, and that which never was said, which you never understood just forgot, or not, whatever which made you choose what you did, whatever you loathe in hindsight, or are proud of but no one else can know, and also that which is known, and that which should have happened, and that which shouldn't, and the gaps that formed and moments, long and small, unending and fleeting, and them that were just the right size. All of them. All of that. All of that which was. All of it and everything else. Finally. From a far enough vantage point, From an open enough mind. Finally, it was all fun. And will always be. How can it not, how can it be anything else at all. Fun it has to be and will. Just fun. Just fun..

The Rise And Fall Of The Apple

2009-12-04T13:24:00.004+05:30

Apples have been falling on the ground since before humans were mean to each other. Since before the first law of thermodynamics, and even before Archimedes jumped out of the bathtub. But never, I repeat, never was it a problem. Because nobody cared. Nobody noticed. Anonymity was just fine for the apples. And life was good. Falling with a healthy thump, and sticking in the marshy ground with pride, claiming their space and sitting on it fat and plump.

But along came Newton. And ruined it all.

This is a story of an Apple's fight against the Law of Gravitation, the story of one apple's fight against the whole of scientific community, those arrogant windbags who think they know apples.

This is the story of the Apple that hung from a tree branch, right above the crossroads of History, and said "I have a dream".

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of anywhere.

Thirty two point five score years ago, a stupid man, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, discovered the Law of Gravitation. This momentous decree came as a great blow to the self-respect of millions of proud Apples who had been living their lives with great satisfaction and freedom of choice since the Sixth Day of Creation.

Now countless years later, the Apple is still not free. Countless years later, the life of the Apple is still sadly determined by the manacles of the Earth's mass and the chains of the Gravitational Constant. Countless years later, the Apple lives on a lonely island of determinism in the midst of a vast ocean of unexplained phenomena. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come knocking at the educated world's conscience to prove a point. When the man in that garden under an Apple tree wrote those demeaning words of the Law of Gravitation, he was signing a humiliating profanity to which every dignified Apple was hence to be subjected. This law was a belittling generalisation that all apples, yes, small and large, educated and illiterate, would guaranteed fall to the ground same as every other. It took away the Apple's "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Free Will." It is obvious today that the scientific community has taken for granted this really-very-stupid law; and instead of honoring our volition to life, given the Apples a stringent rule, a law of motion through that sacred space between the revered tree branch and the holy ground.

But we refuse to believe that this horrifying generalisation is a law. We refuse to believe that there aren't Apples who don't fall, but jump, of their own accord, in their own free path. Who here hasn't heard of the great lunges of Dapple, the Apple. And who hasn't heard since birth the stories of the daring, the adventurous Red Hot Balls, whose stunts in mid-air were an astonishment to the most experienced of flying apples. And so, we've come to prove a point, a proof that will give us henceforth the riches of freedom and the respect of complexity.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Appledom of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of predictability or to take the tranquilizing acceleration of 9.8 meter per second square. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate, anecdotal out-of-syllabus boxes in the corner of a page in a physics book chapter to the esteemed befuddling titles of research papers. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of us God's favorite fruits. Now is the time to prove that Eve was right, in choosing us.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in my Branch of Birth.

I have a dream that one day on the colored pages of Resnick & Halliday, the rotund curvaceous apples of a proud red color, and the quarks and mesons will be able to sit down together in the star-marked questions and the Appendices in the end.

I have a dream that one day even the Newton biographies, those books sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a story of the greatest false positive ever.

I have a dream that my four red neighbours will henceforth live in a world where they will not be judged by the value of their mass but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in CERN, with its vicious scientists, with its Chief and his lips wet with meaningless words like 'Higgs Boson' and 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty' -- one day right there in CERN, little red apples and enthusiastic interns will be able to join hands and churn out sponsored research papers about fast colliding apples.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every Apple shall be unique, and every fall and landing shall be eccentric, the Apple's individuality will be recognized, and the Apple that fell on Newton's head will be vindicated; 'and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all carbon shall see it together.'

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I fly down to the Ground with."

Thus another one walked the line, the acceleration, and fast bit the dust, exactly at t=under-root(2h/g).

Get up and do something

2009-11-16T01:34:00.000+05:30

Lose. Lose it.
Go out and kick a ball.
Write a poem.
Stick an illegal poster.
Pee on a wall.
Call the police and make retarded jokes.
Kill an ant.
Spray water in your room.
Jump from the first floor.
Ride a bike and swoon.
Howl at the moon like a wolf.
Throw.
Duck.
Break a cold-drink bottle.
Cross the road.
Spit water towards someone in the distance.
Play with a stick.
Poke someone. For real.
Make a bad joke.
Shut down.
Stop walking. close eyes, turn, and start walking.
Throw randomly selected keys away.
Bathe.
Fart. Be an ass.
Empty a bottle.
Wear the wrong clothes, inside out.
Dance like the music.
Climb a tree and scratch your name on it.
Hug a friend.
Drink some more water.
Calculate the risk of a very bad thing to do.
Walk.
Judge someone and tell the result.
Run.
Move your ass.
Get up and do something.

Blew Me Away

2009-11-16T01:26:00.000+05:30

I fear won't come again
that moment when, damn,
your face was brighter
than the light of that lamp

Telling me grown up
stuff and poetry
And desires and love
and rosy, forlorn history

I haven't had
many moments like that
with strong women
and faces that match

And that tilt of head
when hair don't part
and eyes egging me on
to figure out my heart

I had to jump a level
to match that demand
of truth, of force, of poetry, and character
I erred long enough, and soon hit the bottom

of my psyche, of my true desires
and told you so and you agreed
I felt so pure and you were an angel
Satisfied felt I in thoughts and deed

You're a force
in your most basic form
A big lump
of packed storm

I won't forget
that lit up face
the flushed features
of your lit up face

I won't forget
that mass of hair
sliding down in black
against a lady fair

And i won't forget
that feeling of daze and sway
that lifted and flew me
and blew me away

Hit me

2009-11-16T01:16:00.000+05:30

i don't sleep but lie down forever
in my death and unmoving pools of red
what difference does it make tell me
to sleep or die or live-on on bread

nothing to me are you or whoever
when nothing to me am i myself i said
i don't remember and i don't remember
and i don't ever get down from my bed

i need you to come for me alone
and kiss me in that sleep i dread
make me flush and blush o' tender
make beat faster my heart of lead

i know there is life outside and away
out of this dark and haunted shed
out of this bubble of infinity, my trap
right outside, just the width of a thread

i have no dreams to wake up from
and awake a dream i never have had
give me a dream or give me a will
give me curiosity, iron-clad

get to me and pour into my brain
make me dizzy and wake me from dead
i'm all empty, come fill me inside
get me high, give a kick to my head

ख्वाब ख़त्म नहीं होते

2009-11-03T08:54:00.000+05:30

धीमी सी आँखों से
सपने खुल रहे हैं
आँखों में रोशनी
और आसमां घुल रहे हैं

पलकें आतुर कि समा जाये
दुनिया बीच उनके
ठोस हकीकत
में जैसे यहाँ
सपने धुल रहे हैं

यहाँ आँखें बहुत हैं
जो भरी-भरी सी दिखती
सबमे ऊँचाई सब की सब
पलकें उठाये रखती

दुनिया में नहीं जगह इतनी
के पूरे सब सपने हों
पर किसका होगा,
पहले से ज़िन्दगी,
फर्क नहीं रखती

हो जाये पूरी चाह तो रहती
कमी सी दिल में उसकी
फिर भर जाये इक नए ख्वाब से
जगह महफिल में उसकी

चले पहिये सा चक्र यही
हर कटती ज़िन्दगी में
चलेगा पहिया,
चाहे रुक जाये
धड़कन दिल में उसकी

Unfulfilled and not

2009-10-28T02:11:00.000+05:30

Been so long

So long
Just won't do
How would it
Would you wait as long
as I
and not be over still

You were love
my love
for as long
as you hid
in my heart alone
Good bye
now that you've gone uphill

Only so much
just so much
Could I wait
and I did
Now I'm out of songs
and time
and faith and love and will

And I'm off now
Off now
to my own
life replete
with problems of my own
and die
Than with your peaceful pill

I want to live
to live
I want to go
back and fit
I need a wind strong
and I
hope you understand
though i know you will

__________________

O' my sweet
My sweet
My eyes strain
in the heat
I don't see what's wrong
I sigh
and lie down heavy and still

I hear you
Hear you
in my head
Calling me sweet
Singing my name my song
I fly
with hope and joyful fill

My parched eyes
my eyes
Are much too
burnt to wet
Much too closed to open
And dry
and wry and screaming shrill

I was gone
was gone
Life was cruel
And I bet
you too it was on
Then why
should yet so crushed I feel

You were right
Are right
to go away
and just let
me deal with my own
Good bye
At least, your dreams shall fulfill

(Part 5/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

2009-10-17T16:13:00.000+05:30

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan

____________________________________

Dated: The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe and Everything

Now, God is a huge being. Its been what, some countless years since he stood on that stage and told us newly deads about the infinities of boredom and pointlessness. He was growing, atleast physically. Infact, He was now too big for anybody, or any combination of them thereof, to lift up or transport anymore. All He did, hence, was sit in seclusion, working and toiling away at his "salvation apparatus" in secret.

It was curious. Everything and everybody in all of heaven was curious. About the Apparatus. About what God was upto suddenly after millennia of sitting around being a beacon of optimism, reverse pessimism to be precise, to all of dead ones. But God did not let a sigh out of his mouth that would betray his intentions. There was no blueprint, no written plan or specification that he was working with, and no rest either. But still, at the end of it, in their heart of hearts, people knew one thing. There was one thing they held on to their chests with tight clenched fists. The knowledge that there was no escape. That however what may happen, you can't die again, and while you exist, you'll always have to think about and somehow spend the next moment, ad infinitum.

Years passed, and a violent sound struck the air one day. Continued churning of something heavy and clunky. I shut my ears with my hands but the sounds only increased. The bee broke its motionlessness. The elephant sighed. And then the elephant sighed again. A crowd formed and walked towards the sound, I joined them. The printer got excited and behaved like a TV news reporter, and gurgled out garbage. There were murmurs flying back and forth, against the background of the clanks and clatter from the direction of the sound.

A gasp escaped the open mouths of all except God and the printer. For God it was, that Great Gargantuan Tortoise, the Massive Titanic Turtle, who was up there standing at a slant on His hind-legs and about to be toppled by the machine, the Salvation Apparatus that He built himself! A silence ensued when God moved, through the air, in slow motion, with dumbfounded eyes watching, and racing hearts and motionless tongues, through the silent unsaid gasp that hung in the air, and toppled. He toppled. And rocked.

On that semicircular, hard shell of His, smooth like Motion itself, God slept rocking like a baby on its swing, peaceful and idle. Smiling imperceptibly. Sleeping. Cocooned in the comfort, that nothing could change now. There would not be another decision to make. No options to choose from. For once and for final, he was really free from thinking. Nothing can matter anymore. For nothing can bring him back on his feet, nothing can undo this final surrender. Complete bondage, captivity that can never be undid, brought him his freedom. Salvation.

And I stood watching. Mesmerized. Wishing with all my being. Wishing with every bit of my whole being, that I were a Turtle too. The best days of my afterlife were over.

(Part 4/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

2009-10-09T16:03:00.000+05:30

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This

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Dated: The Day God Had A Plan

I soon graduated to better things to do. I would turn a tap on and wait for the water to finish so there would be no water left and all heaven would break loose. I would wait for endless units of time with an evil grin on my curled lips but something even more exciting would usually catch my attention and I would leave, the tap on. My sheep count was now a 13 digit prime number, but I liked the number so much that I stopped counting further. I had already made brilliantly detailed graffiti on all the walls behind the secretive hidden doors all about the place. It was mostly reproductive organs. The depressingly maniacal bee wasn't so depressing anymore. It was exciting to watch it sit unmoving on the same precise spot for a span of 30 years, or some such big number. The spell was broken when the elephant had to go to pee, just for fun really, no necessity, maybe check if it still worked, and he was about to step right on the bee and then sigh, but the bee somehow managed to step aside, for it was painful to get hurt and not die. The elephant sighed anyway and went on. I saw him come back when the bee had already broken her previous sitting-still record.

Even through these hectic times, I did keep a check on the tap. It kept running. Everything is infinite here. Even the pages of the printer. It keeps spewing out something or the other, all the time. Even empty pages when it has nothing to say really.

Though my afterlife had many twists and turns, wars and victories, battles of the mind, and epic tales of love, passion and revenge, I still felt something was missing. Something important. Like the whole point of it, somehow. So I decided I would go talk to someone about this. God, I figured, would be the most appropriate choice to start with, apart from the fact that his misery always upped my spirits.

God, this time round, seemed actually to be enjoying himself in whatever he was busy with. Disappointed, I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Shhh". I thought about it for a while and decided he was just bullshitting me, so I asked him again. He replied,
"Fine. I'm thinking of salvation. Suicide, practically. And I am preparing the required apparatus."
"Suicide?! But what will happen to all of life! All of living beings, animal life, humanity, printers, christians, all the people!!"
"They'll keep jumping in the frying pan for all I care. I doubt if anybody will even notice."
"But how will you die? You can't die! Can you really kill yourself? You could, all this while?"
"No."
"Phew. Thank God. My whole afterlife was just going to be rendered pointless."
"It is."
"I know but, you know, you're worse right."
"Yeah."
"So what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill."
"Shhh."
"Ok I'll ask again. So what are you planning then, there's no escape man. I've tried everything already, even boredom. It doesn't kill."

God didn't reply. He wasn't bullshitting. He just kept at it, some big levers and ropes it seemed.

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(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 3/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

2009-10-03T13:09:00.000+05:30

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
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Dated: The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This

The Orientation Programme got over with the stupid Art of Living workshop by Jesus. We told him dude we know your stuff already, you have no idea how big you are in the Frying Pan, but that only charged him up more. Still hasn't forgotten the high of being the Son of God.

The workshop ended and with it pretty much everything. Now there was nothing to do. Ever. Time, people don't realize, is Evil. And if too much of it makes you a devil's workshop, an infinity of it makes you attempt to kill yourself an infinite number of times, but you don't die. You can't die. And you're looking for the son of a #@$^% whose fault it all is. One such time when I was really angry, I saw God himself slouching at a distance, and doing something very intently. It made me angrier, and I wanted to barrage him with questions and accusations and all the new creative expletives I had made up in my existential outrages. And so I went to him. I stood in front of him, with my hands folded and my eyes peeling his hard skin off in my mind. And the Tortoise turned his eyes to me slowly. He took millenia to do this. And looked at me straight, his eyes had the frustrated skin-peeling quality too, but as if they were shut inside a serene glass wall. Now when I had his attention, I actually looked at what it was that he was doing. He was playing dice. And by playing dice, I only mean throwing dice, picking them up, and repeating. Ad infinitum. I was somewhat shocked by this, truth be told, that here was God himself, and all he had with him to do is play dice? And then God, as if he really was the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient thing that he is made out to be, or maybe he just saw in my eyes what countless others must've approached him with before, slowly with great effort said to me, "And I even know what's going to turn up in the dice. Every. Single. Time."

That was all. That was all I needed to hear, I had my enlightenment then and there. I know because my ears twitched, and they never do. My enlightenment, the knowledge that brought me to peace for a long long time to come, was simply that, "God had it worse".

Until now I was only frustrated about how there was nothing to do, and even if there was, it wouldn't be able to, any amount of it, fill up the infinity I had in my hands. And that made me more frustrated. But God broke this chain. Now I was actually looking for things to do. Now I shut my mind to the endless, and concentrated on the moment at hand. And started doing something, anything, however trivial, and it never felt bad because God had it worse.

I think I spent a year trying to twitch my ears consciously, like they did on the Day of Enlightenment. I couldn't. It really was enlightenment, then.

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(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 2/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

2009-09-26T15:35:00.000+05:30

(Part 1/5) The Day I Died
______________________

Dated: The Day Of The Sermon

Holy Shit. God is a Giant Tortoise!

Today was the first day of my afterlife, and God entered the stage, while we sat in anticipation. His size made it really hard for the organizers to carry him on to the stage, and he seemed pretty amused by this fact. Kept making inaudible jokes I couldn't hear from here, but most of them ended with a butt-slap as the punchline.

And then he spoke.

"Congratulations, Loodlings. You are in Heaven!

(Waits for Applause)

(Smacks a disappointed lip)

Impressive. But I should still warn you about a few things. You're in heaven, and you'll always be. You just jumped from the frying pan onto the kitchen floor. You'll feel liberated initially. As if you know higher dimensions to reality now, something more than just getting fried in the pan. You'll roam about the place excitedly, looking for secrets and hidden doors, spend time skating in the Sink, and in general feel jealous (of the very, very, much kind) of the terrorist lot. But once you've been through the negligible, exactly zero, percentage of your eternal afterlife here in Heaven, you'll soon realize: that the place is small, that all the hidden doors open into a wall (trust me, I made them), that the Sink is actually one-dimensional (and you were a douche to ever enjoy it in the first place), and that you can't get laid here. There are only 72 virgins we've got, and they're all reserved, sorry.

Infinities suck, and you have no idea because you didn't have to deal with them. Now you will, deal with an eternal afterlife I dare you. Your death is gone and done with, there is no escape anymore, and there is nothing even to escape from. Life's hard, but Afterlife's infinitely boring. I'll appreciate recreational ideas here to fill up this stupid infinite time, though there's really no point trying to do that of course, mathematically or otherwise. And then, your recreational ideas will all probably involve retarded ways to avoid the heat of the frying pan. Please don't bother me with them, or anything else at all. I created you guys so I could see retarded creatures jumping on a fuckin' hot frying pan and trying to make themselves feel life's good. But it's getting boring of late, I think I'll just increase the temperature a bit. Anyway I'm sure that'll be boring too, and I'll still be left with an infinity to spend.

Hmmm. I wonder what's the point of my existence. Sigh."

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(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

(Part 1/5) The Best Days Of My Afterlife

2009-09-19T18:17:00.000+05:30

Dated: The Day I Died

I think I'm still in transition, since I'm receiving email as well as all my porn feeds. But the amount of spam is increasing beyond belief, I guess more people want to enlarge stuff before landing in heaven for an eternity, and then again money isn't really such a dear thing anymore.

Though a few restrictions are already in place on us (yeah I've got friends moving with me here - a chronically sighing elephant, a depressingly maniacal bee, and a rather excited printer). Restrictions like, you can't say Hell, you'll have to replace it with Hall whenever you mean it. Though you can still type it, without getting slapped by the fat pink lady and getting muted for half an hour. Muted for real, mind you, like no voice comes out and shit. But its really not fair, since the printer's not getting slapped.

The fat pink lady (She is pink, mind you, not her dress) just announced that she thinks we're gonna land in another few moments of Time (she thinks), that she thinks will pass soon. If you ask me, I think we're already there and she's just fooling with us. Just hasn't got her fill of the slaps I suspect. She mentioned something like orientation or some programme and bullshit that's going to start once we get there. God will apparently come and lecture us newbie deads. And then there'll be a compulsory Art of Living workshop to attend, though I wonder what's the point of that now anyway. Traditions are just hard to break I guess.

Here comes she charging in from the door of light. You won't believe what she's got tattooed on the palms of her hands; "Talk to me." on the left one, and "Here I come!" on the right one. Very ironic, I would say. I think somebody said Hell or some shit, and is going to get a good long indifferent slapping now. What, why's she turning to me? Hell, why's she accelerating! What did I say I'm just typing away in peace, o' hel- (slap)

**** ** *** *

..

.

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(Part 2/5) The Day Of The Sermon
(Part 3/5) The Day I Sat Down And Wrote This
(Part 4/5) The Day God Had A Plan
(Part 5/5) The Day I Got Frustrated With Death, The Universe And Everything

A jump from the 33rd Floor

2009-09-11T01:04:00.000+05:30

Floor    Brain
Roof     I Hate You All!
33        Finally
32        Wow
31        Whoa
30        This is fast
29        My ears!
28        Lets try some aerodynamic stunts
27        Is it working?
26        It hurts
25        This one?
24        Boring
23        There's my car, wow I can see it from here
22        Damn its taking too long
21        Hit me hit me hit me
20        Hit me hit me hit me hit me
19        this is pretty fast huh..
18        Will it hurt?
17        damn its too fast
16        why was i dying, again?
15        why was i
14        dying, again????
13        wait..
12        i can't recall!
11        what!
10        Why can't I
9        #$%#ing
8        recall!!
7        I
6        Want
5        To
4        Know
3        Why
2        I'm
1        DYING!!
0        Fuck.

basically, peace maar

2009-09-10T03:09:00.000+05:30

banda:

meri zindagi naraaz hai.
jabki sab isi ke kaaj hain

kabhi kehti hai kaho,
kabhi ye ki chup raho

kabhi bole ki chup kyu ho,
kabhi ye ki bas.. kyu ho

kabhi ye ke tu hai kaun,
kabhi puche bata main kaun.

zindagi:

keh pau agar chup ho,
sunne ko zara ruk to

ke main kavita hu tere man ki
aur tu syahi bhi kalam bhi

ke tujhpar hasi bhi aati hai
kabhi gussa aur sharam bhi

main kapde hu tere tan pe,
main dhabbe hu tere man ke

main joote tere pairon ke,
main vaade hu gairon ke

main parchhai main shehnai,
main naiyya main purvai

ab bas itni si hai arzi
ke anjaan bedardi

kadwahat hai to ho lazzat bhi,
ke badnaami ho, to izzat bhi

ke kab se saath hu tere main,
kab se kaaj hu kare main

kabse jeeta hai mujhko
kabse peeta hai mujhko

ke ghaav bhi deta hai
fir khud hi seeta hai mujhko

aa maan bhi ja ke roothe der ho chali
kahin roshni aag mein ekdum na jal bujhe

jal mand mand apne man ki chaal mein
samajhna kya hai, bas jeeta chal mujhe

2009-09-08T18:03:00.000+05:30

Click.

Click Click.

Click.

Sigh....

God

2009-09-08T17:56:00.000+05:30

God isn't a pair of shoes.

That's all.