The Nightshift

Dear Mother

2011-12-07T10:04:00.001+05:30

I never say this to you mother,

but I am scared of darkness.

I don't show it very easily,

but I do care for you mother.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

Don't ever leave me in the crowd

for I won't be able to return home.

Don't send me so far away,

that you won't be able to remember me.

Am I so bad mother?

Whenever dad pushed the swing for me,

my eyes looked for you,

thinking that you would come and calm me down.

I could never tell it to him, mother

but I felt very cautious.

I didn't let it show on my face,

but in my heart I felt scared.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

I never say this to you mother,

but I am scared of darkness.

I don't show it very easily,

but I do care for you a lot.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

For a very dear friend.

Then and Now

2011-04-27T11:21:00.002+05:30

Between then and now,

lots has changed.

You and I, sigh,

we have moved away.

Between dreams of yesterday

and realities of today

lie those memories,

distorted here and there.

Beautiful they were,

yes indeed very.

Much as painful,

ohh, they are today.

How do I forget them?

How should I?

Is there a way,

I can go back and say

"You are too good to be true,

so let that be.

Let's part our ways, *wink*

So Long and Godspeed."

Leave Home - II

2010-08-01T11:09:00.002+05:30

Live Alone.

Live with friends. Parents.

Live with family. Live alone.

Live with her. Without her.

Memories. Forever.

Memories. Old as Wine.

Drink a Toast. To them Memories.

With Wine. Of Memories.

Paint them. With Wine.

Intoxicated. Lie. To them Memories.

Surreal Dream. Wake up.

Lie.

Leave. Live.

For Leaving is Living.

Forever.

* * *

Leave Home - I

Last Love

2010-06-19T21:49:00.007+05:30

Is this the last time you’d tread this road

to say goodbyes you’d never thought you would.

As fast as moments, that flit by you tread

with spectral images that capture happiness

you look by, but one last time, is this the last time?

Is this the last time you’d look at the sun

far in the sky, the crimson one

which you have not but reached, when you turned away

only to look back and come again.

Once again, is this the last time you turned back again?

Is this the last time you'd say you love

but to yourself and not your love

who waits for you somewhere you know

in the corner of your heart, the lonely one

the lonely love divine, is this the last time?

Is this the last time you’d say goodbye

to never return again, and move with much pry

with hands that wave to a soul that departs.

Is this your soul, the hands that wave

that treads the road with a lonely heart.

Is this your heart, your lonely heart

that wants to love yet one more time

to live those moments yet one more time

Is this your heart that fell in love

but one more time, is this the last time?

Indisputable

2010-05-12T21:44:00.002+05:30

“For most people success is defined by their ability to reach far and high. But for few, it is defined by their ability to shatter themselves and then gather the pieces to being all over again.”

“All your life you live away from home

Far far away you raise a happy family of your own

You turn fifty and are now the home

Of a family you once dreamt of

That is now once away on its own”

“He was their dream gone wrong”

“I used to think that this is just a phase and will pass away soon

until I realized that the phase is the life and shall never pass

Now I know, that life is a phase and shall pass away some time”

“Are you the one? the same son?

that brought the sun

shine upon my garden?

Are you the son? the same one?”

“Sadness is inherent. It lies somewhere deep within, showing its traces in every emotion. But then the very cognizance about every bit of sadness in every other emotion that he displayed, made him feel happy.”

“A man who is unsure about his present always has plans for the future.”

“My Dearest Mother. You know it.”

“I have changed, to the extent that I now answer most of your questions with a smile. Not because I don't know the answer; but because I know you do.”

“Let this life not be a portrait of moments unlived, of words unsaid, of feelings unexpressed, of hugs unembraced. Let this life not be a journey of miles without walk, of success without failures, of hopes without sacrifice. Let this life not be yet another sequence of life unearned. Let every breath you take, every step you move, every word you speak, every thought you think remind you how life is all but one and is at its best when it's earned.”

“There are two phases in adult life. In 1st phase you meet all kinds of people telling you all kinds of things when you have no clue where your life is heading. In the 2nd phase however, you once again meet all kinds of people telling you all kinds of things when they have no clue where their life is heading”

The Leader of the Future

2010-04-21T12:23:00.008+05:30

The blue and red pattern of the brocade carpet looked rugged and torn at places. It was so old, it could no longer attract attention towards itself let alone be as conspicuous it once was. But her tranquil eyes were fixed at it as if still admiring it’s jaded beauty.

Everyone around her looked attentively, not towards her but towards the whiteboard where the speaker was briefing about new possibilities for community mobilization. The spotlight moved from the speaker towards the person sitting on the other end of the conference room, directly facing her. All eyes, but hers, turned towards this new person who was the accounting champion. Some figures were announced, some pages flipped, faint sounds of scribbling could be heard but her eyes were fixed at the carpet. Between the volleys of figures being exchanged, I wondered if she heard the figures. I wondered if at all the figures meant anything to her. More figures announced, more sounds of scribbling heard and the spotlight eventually restored on the speaker; all eyes moved from the person to the speaker and so did hers. In an unflinching yet surreptitious manner she turned her gaze towards the person who had just spoken the figures and then slyly back towards the carpet.

From what I had heard about Ms. Tulsi Tamta what I couldn’t comprehend was how a woman who hadn’t had the chance to continue her education after primary was now the Secretary of a "Self-Reliant Cooperative Society" comprising of hundreds of members. As I sat there in the conference room wondering about its possibility, I looked towards her and had a feeling there was something unmistakably right about her.

* * *

I hadn’t informed her I wanted to write an article on her. Unannounced, the following day, I dashed off to the Input-Output center that was being managed by her in tandem with another. I glanced towards the store and found her keeping herself busy; arranging items, glancing at them and then rearranging them. I parked my motorcycle, entered the store and am greeted with her wide grin. During the interchange of smiles, I felt that a verbal greeting in the form of ‘Namaste’ was subsumed within gestural greetings.

I kept my belongings aside, sat down on a chair and announced my intention for coming there, to write about her. She became elated and threw her familiar grin. I started with asking her to tell about her life before becoming a part of the Cooperative Society. To ask someone to retrospect and talk about the internal changes one had gone through, sounded as a simple question. But to actually convey the question in a manner so as to dig in and fetch out the exact psycho-emotional changes that led to a radical transformation of the person required lot of skill, which I seemed to have lacked.

“Pehle mei ghar se kahi nahi jaati thi. Sirf ghar se jungle aur jungle se ghar. Pehle ghar pe mehmaan bhi aate the to badi mushkil ho jaati thi. Mei kaise saamne jaati hoon, kaise khilaati hoon. Pehle to jab mehmaan aate the to mei chip jaati thi”
(“Earlier I never used to go out anywhere from my home. Just from the home to the jungles and back to home. I also couldn’t face the guests. It used to bother me a lot and I would hide away from them.)

I had not expected such a candid reply. But it seemed to convey more than just candidness. It was a harbinger for me to stop seeking introspective answers, to stop trying to establish a connection between her inability to go anywhere outside and her gradual ability to do so with all of it culminating with her becoming a senior member in the Cooperative Society. Perhaps it was connected somehow, but it would take time for me to assimilate that.

My subsequent questions to her were about her present life, about the changes she had undergone and the problems she faced due to her being illiterate. In her candid, outspoken tone she continued.

“These days whenever guests come over I sit with them and talk with them. These days apart from a regular dhoti, I wear Sari and Salwar Suit. When need be, I take my children on my own to Almora, Deenapani. These days I am able to stop a public vehicle. Earlier, I could never do any of these. I never was able to stop a vehicle and get into it. I was afraid to do so. I have changed a lot since earlier. I went up till class 5, but never got to see the books and then got married. But my husband, for some reason, believed me and knew that I could read and write. I still don’t know how to perform mathematical operations, but I tell my customers to do so and help me out. During my free time in the shop, I sit and study. My husband also helps me out. Since I can’t write to maintain notes, I try and remember the important things that need to be done. People still wonder why I need to work when my husband earns enough. They think perhaps it’s because of the Rs. 1000 that I am paid at the end of the month. But you know it, it's too less. At times it becomes difficult to explain to them the whole concept of the cooperative and to tell them how the cooperative belongs to them. I had never imagined I would ever leave my 'Home to Jungle and Jungle to Home' routine to be empowered so much one day. But having reached this platform, I think it’s just the beginning.”

I was left without words and didn’t exactly know what to express. At some level I was completely spellbound. More accurately I was actually stuck between a dichotomy; whether the story of Ms. Tulsi was the story of her destiny or whether it was the story of her power to change destiny.

Whichever it may be, there was one thing that I was completely sure about. Watching her was like watching an 18 year old sit by the shore of a sea and gaze at its open waters thinking that someday she will swim through it and be on the other side.

* * *

Note: Ms. Tulsi Tamta is the present Secretary of Shri Mahadev Swayat Sehkarita Devaldhar, Bageshwar which is registered as a Self-Reliant Cooperative Society.

The Revolutionary

2009-08-23T12:50:00.007+05:30

“So why do you call yourself a revolutionary?”

It’s the wee hours of early morning, I splash some water onto my face and look at myself in the mirror. I try and look closely at my visage. I observe my eyes, the furrows just above it, the contours that run down from the corner of my eyebrows till the corner of my mouth forming a crater where once my cheeks used to be. Every time I look in the mirror I look for a different face. Sometimes I contrive to find it. Just the way he had said to me. Smiling, Smirking, Mocking, Laughing.

“Because I am mortal.”

It was about thirty years ago on a dark, sultry, inclement evening. The smoke from the barrels and the firings had covered the sky and turned it into a gloomy starless night. The atmosphere all around was tense. There were police constables and Black Cats ransacking the town and the state was in a mode of emergency. We were lying low with a tattered caravan covering us. The sweat from my body had mixed with the showers from above. The droplets that dripped from my mouth and my nose, I didn’t know whether it was my sweat or the rain and I couldn’t think about it then. He was lying next to me, bleeding, which is when I asked him that. The moment he replied to me it had not made much sense.

“When I look at people from your clan, I smile and the one thing that I am not is worried, for I know that in this country your clan is in minority. You are well-educated middle class men, you possess jobs worth in millions, you wear Che Guevara tee-shirts, you listen to hard rock and you smoke hash. You feel conceited about your education and grumble upon opening more institutions. You talk about progress and judge by numbers. You provide jobs and recruit your own clan. You remain awake with a coffee mug in your hand and stare at a terminal in front of you. You awe in shock when the graphs collapse and you take extravagant steps to secure your finances. You bring out candle light vigils when your clan is shot at and you turn your back when one of our men is killed, when one man from the rest of the majority is killed. Tell me, and you tell me very honestly, whenever you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see your visage differently? Do you see the man in front of you differently? Do you see him smiling, smirking, mocking, laughing at you for not what you are, but for what you are not? Tell me.”

I remember these words as clearly as as a kid I could clearly distinguish between red and blue and blue and green and green and red, for a memory as old as this is now transformed into a recurring dream. A dream that I see even with my eyes open. As he spoke these words he smiled and took the last breath. He had a bullet in his heart with his guts, from the shrapnel, ripped apart. At that very moment, I was conscious that God doesn’t really exist, because if he had and if as a kid I could distinguish between the reds and the greens and the blues, he, with two people lying right next to each other, wouldn’t have mistaken between the dispensable and the indispensable. Of course, just like I hadn’t understood what he meant when he said he is mortal, I hadn’t understood that God does indeed exist, though in forms I couldn’t have imagined then.

It’s been thirty years now since the revolution started and every now and then I meet such revolutionaries. They cry out his name in vanity and they say they want to liberate us all. They say he is their God and this is not the country he had perceived for us. Today, I met another young blooded revolutionary and I asked him what I had asked thirty years ago. “So why do you call yourself a revolutionary?” He was a young lad in his twenties, perhaps a drop out from school. He looked at me and smiled. “Because I am mortal. I will die someday. But the revolution, it will live on and on and on....”

The British

2009-08-23T09:40:00.003+05:30

White walls, green windows. Pink walls, novel platitudes. Woman in queue, pricking fingers. Serpentine curves, gazing glances. Shoddy roads, heightened anticipation. This, while on way to the 19th century. The more I see of the above, the more I am reaffirmed that this road does indeed lead to the 19th century. Half and hour; that’s how far this place is from the previous one. And I have kept track of every single minute in the past twenty-five minutes. For I don’t want to miss out on my trip to the past. The closer the minute got to half-past, the further my anxiety grew. More walls, white ones, pink ones, green windows, more platitudes, woman and more shoddy roads. Unanticipated wilderness, out of the blue. Anxiety grows into an apprehension. Apprehension discernibly visible as my countenance. Did they exaggerate?

They said it’s British. And the Queen once lived in it. Is still owned by one from Jamnagar. Even Swami Vivekananda lived in it. On the long stretch of curvy road, not a single indication to portend that. Finally, my worst fear. A relatively large edifice, having multiple doors. Very traditional Indian. Phew, the jeep turned away from it. More serpentine curves and the jeep halts in front of what I saw a minute ago. Pink walls, large edifice, I am forced to convince self that a hundred years ago pink was in vogue.

I pull out my luggage from the hatch, load myself and start following others towards the entrance. I don’t bother to look towards the foyer. I focus on my steps and the grass and the trail underneath when I realize that I have moved alongside the entrance and still walking ahead following the trail. I lift my eyes with astonishment and hope. And in the next five minutes, my hope was envisaged. Rusted auburn roof, Rugged stony white walls. Creepers all over the walls and roof. Grape vines hanging over, rhododendrons, hibiscus, tiger lily, flowering currant. Green plants, florescent sprigs. Florescent plants, orange fruits. Time-honored fiddleback chair inseparable from the red-bottom bird’s nest. Blood-Red pomegranate trees, lemon yellow ones just next to it. In those five minutes, for the very first time I saw the nature and the man-made homogenize. Hence forth, since that day, every day I wait for the mackerel sky to restore its original azure so that I may have my date with the eternal Trishul and Nanda Devi, up close and personal. Ofcourse they didn’t exaggerate!

City of virtue of vice

2008-12-18T13:23:00.015+05:30

Quietly deprived of a silence within
the bandit emperor was caught by its kin
a talker it was of winds and miles
It galloped away across the isles

thrown in dungeon with no light to fright
the Bandit Emperor thought of its blight
It cried aloud to the might of all,
with a gust of silence as madness befalls

"When is the winter, that come and rain?
a success so reclaimed, it shan't live in vain
My love as she waits, in a fortress of the frail
i have to travel far and away"

A fortress in sight and a mile too far
with open arms and a heart too scarred
she waits for it, her lover in disguise
in the city they say of virtue of vice

an oubliette of hope in the dungeon of qualms
a descendant of rage, of calm he was
the Bandit Empror bruised from the dark
shone with a genteel on his stallion and stark

He galloped away across the isles
his kins browbeaten from the aura of might
the bandit Emperor strode the ice
towards the city they say of virtue of vice

"Welcome my lover, you come alone?
a battalion an army i thought your borne!
from the kingdom of ice you journeyed this far
alleged, alleged, alleged in amour"

"bandit you are, i don't want no more
i should have told, i know, a traitor i were
meet my kingdom and my prize
welcome my lover, to the city, they say of virtue...of vice"
--------

Alcheringa

2008-12-16T12:25:00.006+05:30

A Dream,

is where it starts.
A rush of blood to the head
and I dive in my colourful fantasy.
With the Red Fire in me,
I am what I want to be.
Like the Green in the wild,
I spread my roots,
or from behind the Blue skies,
watch all moves.
Amidst this fantasy,
all they say.....
"Its just a dream".
I wake up... and with
a rush of blood to the head,
I dive ...

http://www.iitg.ac.in/alcheringa/

The god that failed

2008-03-17T13:49:00.002+05:30

A wretched ruler, he stands by the wall
playing the one with his ping pong ball
an ether of uncertainty, it prevails
he was the god, that failed

Indicted awaiting the habeas of corpus
he walks by the gloom, a passage through vein
pictures of forgotten, memories of anonymous
Jack and Iris are ones that ordain

An Iris within she speaks to him
"different were you and yet the same
you walked by glory and spelled an honour
where is the one that made you in valour?"

He reaches for Iris and Jack bellows
"You are the lost one and now no more
of times and their purples you followed and erred
what is it you oft now mutter?"

Of the minions he cried aloud
"detested souls you need not laud
i am the one you chose to bow
sad it be true, as i so lay here indevout"

To Jack and Iris he denounced
"ordinary you made me you made me god
you gave me freedom to do not what
you failed me once and failed once more
alas you failed in failing thou"

"I pass my distress as unto thy
i let them be as without my
i decry my freedom as now no more
i shall walk and walk like god never before"

An Iris she flows she does with caress
the Jack downtrodden, oppressed and backlashed
smooth is she, he lies travailed
together they whisper with history betrayed
"you are the one and the god that failed"

Everytime

2008-03-11T22:33:00.001+05:30

Sometimes there's a person within me who's away from me

Sometimes i watch silly things and feel happy about it

Sometimes i like the girl i like and sometimes i don't
I haven't told her yet and i don't know when but maybe sometime i shall know

Sometimes i feel like living those moments again
Just the moments not the day and sometimes both

Sometimes i feel life is good after all and i never know untill its gone
Sometimes i feel life is a song and each and every word adds melody if not meaning
and sometimes i wish it were several songs

Sometimes i fall in love over and over again
and sometimes my mum asks me not to fall but i can't ask her how
Sometimes i tell the story of my love's lives that never took place
and sometimes i am the only one who listens

Sometimes i wish i knew the answers not the questions and sometimes neither matters
Sometimes i wish i stop wondering
and sometimes i pause and stop wondering, just when she asks me "what are you wondering"?

Sometimes i look at her closely when she's not aware, and i like doing it

Though not sometimes.....everytime, everytime

--
For a someone who shall read it sometime

Leave Home

2008-01-30T21:56:00.002+05:30

Leave home
Leave it
Leave things while you can
Leave it for you won’t let you

Leave your seatbelt, your car
Leave your cigar, your smoke
Leave your desk, your chair
Leave your workspace
Leave your work, leave the space
Leave him, leave her, leave them

Turn back, pull back, don’t look back
Move, lift, hold, smile, speak the last words
Leave home
For leaving.....is living

Max Payne - Chapter One

2007-12-07T22:54:00.001+05:30

Narrator: There are three things you are going to like about the future. One you are not alone, you are always with yourself. Two, Nothing would matter. Three, you will get to know Max Payne.

It was a sultry night as it always was. The rain seeds had failed to do their part and now it was overcast and torrid. Gushed with sweat all over her she ran to her room and locked it from inside. No one from the outside could get in and no one was there outside. She lived in the apartment all by herself. Locking her up was a part of her since antiquity but now is her predisposition. She looked outside her bleak window to see a barren outdoor.

It used to rain then. The rain seeds were never needed. And she would rush back home with the same jubilance as she would now and then she would lock herself up. But this time it was different. She walked home slow drenched with the torrential downpour. There was a fragrance in the air that was distinct, it was irritating and she didn't mind it. The dark thundering clouds had proved wrong the old adage "a thundercloud produces no rain" for that night it rained and she would remember it for the rest of her blighted life.

Narrator: It's known and it's strange how an overcast cloud makes everything below it lose all it's luster and shine. All the glory, the golden, the color, all of it lost in the uneventful takeover by black. And this black eventually takes over lives, people's lives.

She walked over to the door and there stood awaiting were pairs of torpid eyes glittering towards her. All of them moist with fresh pearls that may have melted off them. They were dressed in variations of white but deep within them was a black, a hole as big to annihilate all the pearls that had fallen in it. An anxiety grew within her and the only question that came to her mind was "who?"

Standing by the window she would often try and forget that night by trying and remembering that night. This was not possible and she knew it very well. But in the present day it did not matter much, for she was soaked in a world of her own. Enclosed by walls and a door, she was trying to escape from her and the only little amount of help whatsoever she got was from it. There lay in the corner with pages torn apart the graphic, Max Payne.

End of Chapter One.

Pair of lies

2007-11-09T00:29:00.000+05:30

The Impulse:

It lasts just a moment long. You pause, you exchange and you move on. It’s quite strange that it happens the way it does for out of your whole preempted life, with everything in your life happening and not happening just the way it should happen and not happen, out of nowhere you exchange those glances. And there you go. Things pause, life pauses, you look up, turn back and you try and find where has she gone, but no you can’t find her because it was momentary and it’s over now. It’s like one of those electric impulses you might get while turning on an archaic switch and you go like “whoa! What what was that” and you are brought back to consciousness, an awaken state. You look at the switch find nothing wrong and get back to what you were doing. You don’t realize that somewhere within that impulse just brought back in you what you had lost! This is the journey of Javed.

Javed and Aali:

He lay there in the swamp, filthy, his heart in his hand, grimed with all the red wine that spewed across from it. His body had lost about a quarter of the red wine but his soul was lost forever in the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever come across. Even the red wine couldn’t have brought Javed the happiness in seeing those eyes again and his heart kept growing weaker, but he had to live for the impulse had brought him to this bliss and he was just there.

He got up, he didn’t remember who he was. Vicarious memories of her flashed across him. Even more transcendent were the visions of the zombies grasping him, pulling him back into where he had come from; his past. She was beautiful, happy, dancing, fluttering and they were gruesome, horrific terrorizing his oblivious construct of her, Aali. But Javed was not aware of the reality. For him reality was a concoction of the real and the delusional with the only absolute being her eyes. Wonderful was his world that he had constructed with a mere exchange of glances. It started right there and ended right there with everything in between. And his only mantra for survival was to look into those glistering eyes, with just about three quarters of red wine and his heart still pumping.

The lies:

In those days people carried their heart in their hand. It was difficult all right, but one knew it for sure when the heart was beating! He nimbled across the streets, his impetuous eyes moving across faces, exchanging glances but none of them had the same impact as the one he was looking for. In through the lanes, several of them, imperative to find her and his thirsty eyes turning desperate, he turning outrageous, an ardent fire burning within, his desperate eyes turning sore and his heart spewing even more red wine. He had to find her. This had to happen. This could not not happen, it was written down in the relics and he knew it. And there; he saw Aali, in the most exquisite splurge of beauty, sullen, solitary, inadvertent there she sat around the corner. Happy, dancing, fluttering, these were the images that were meant to flash. But it was different this time. Her face covered with a veil revealing just that what mattered. The images, yes they did flash by......those were the most beautiful pair of lies.

We are all made of stars

2007-09-22T01:21:00.000+05:30

"Do you see it.....coming?" She asked him. Sitting at the edge of humanity, quite possibly even reality, staring at a world away just by a few million years, dented, punctured with the burst of gentle streaks of white light from the other side, he looked into her eyes and had the same feeling. He could feel it, a similar hope emerging out those black eyes, like a ray of light piercing his heart, his heart tearing apart, his soul screeching out aloud and all this happening in the very single moment. The moment of question, of glance, the moment of being away from reality. Pain was relieved with the silence and the darkness around. No one would hear him cry, no one would see him sad. And she.....she was like him. "No", he said. She turned away and he kept gazing at her face. Her face just lit up by those streaks of gentle white light when a star broke and he saw it travel across those numb eyes from one end across the other.

"How close is it from here to where we gonna go? They say when people go far.....really far.....they.....they become one of those". She looked back at him hoping to hear without him uttering a word, of course knowing that he won't. He got up, stretched out his arm, pointed towards it and said "from here.....I am exactly six feet closer to the stars."

10 miles from nowhere (An answer to questions left unanswered in the above)

They stood under drizzling rain, hidden by the cover of darkness, illuminated only by the remnants of fading moon behind the cover of clouds - clouds that had a silver lining around them. She turned to him and said "See the silver lining? Its like a ray of hope - behind the clouds there is a moon waiting to shine. Do you think that the moon will ever come out?".

He stared at her face for a long time, then turned towards the clouds and said "Why does it matter? We both know the moon is there." She turned away and kept staring at the sky, her tears shielded by the rain drops on her face, watching the sky grow darker as the moon was engulfed by thick clouds. She asked him "Where do you think the moon is?". He just smiled at her and said "Ten miles from nowhere".

The above words are by a very good friend...thank you Shaiz

10 kilometers of life

2007-09-13T00:13:00.000+05:30

I don't know what it means when I call this blog 10 kilometers of life. But I would like to know. Perhaps even you do not know the answer to this and perhaps a hundred or maybe even a thousand more people who read this, do not know the answer. But does this make it invalid? Does it mean that it does not have an answer? Can it mean that I wanted to ask something else which had an answer, but asked something which doesn't? Can asking this question lead me to the other question that had the answer? Is the answer important at all, or is it just asking the question, right or wrong, answerable or unanswerable, that matters? Of all the things that I have known, and I have not known and those that I have wanted to know, have always had one thing in common. I.

As long as the question is about something that can be answered logically, the I does not matter.
But when I ask you something about your life, say something to which I don't quite agree with, something to which you may try really hard to explain to me, but you will not be able to, it is this something where I need to forget the I. It may be paradoxical to say so, but in order to really understand somethings it is really necessary to forget the I. Maybe this is what being self-less is being all about. Forgetting one self in trying to understand somethings. After all I am not talking (of) logic over here.

I don't quite remember what she said when I asked her "So....how many places have you been to?". But I do remember that she didn't say much and I do remember what she said towards the end. She said "So thats about it. Ever since I have been born I have been brought up here itself. The same 10 kilometers had my school, college, everything. Never really felt the need to be outside it".

I couldn't say or even ask her much then, just like I am not able to write now. I don't know where this blog is leading to right now. Trapped in this self of mine which makes the I, I don't know what to say or ask her. So I ask you...what do you mean by 10 kilometers of life?

Assumed reality

2007-09-13T00:09:00.000+05:30

It’s time. It’s time I tell you the truth. The truth that lay buried within me, not wanting to escape, that lay behind the mask I wore all this while and the mask you were not able to uncover. It’s time I remove that mask and show it to you. No, I wasn’t lying when I said “believe me”, for you did need to believe me then. You needed to. I wasn’t hiding this from you. I didn’t want to tell this to you, partly because I myself was not prepared to admit it and partly I knew you couldn’t take it, just like you won’t be able to take it now. Yes I was scared, unprepared, but now I am and so are you. It’s the right time. The truth is, I, don’t exist. I don’t know you. I never was a friend of yours. I don’t care for you. Who are you? I never loved you. It doesn’t matter to me now and so it shouldn’t to you. I don’t exist, not like you. I assumed it. You assumed it.

It was the Assumed Reality. And now I am not a part of it. But here right now, I know I was wrong when I said “you won’t be able to take it”. I was wrong indeed. It was you who left me alone in this assumed reality, making me still love those moments that never existed. I was left alone inside with those moments that lost their value with time. Yes they did have value at some time, or at least I did assume that they did have. We both did. Even you did. But then you left. Without saying, without questioning you left and I was unaware. And now I had to come out of it. To come out of it and not say a word could have been easy for you. I am trying hard to make it easy for me also, but even in this assumed reality, what remains true is that I am alive or I was alive, with feelings, or at least I did have at some point of time, when it was all assumed. But not anymore, because now I don’t exist.

A new world

2007-07-12T18:57:00.000+05:30

Glass walls. Gust of fresh air, cold. Sweat, no longer sweaty. A feeling of honor almost coming, but lost somewhere in the crowd. Oh yes the crowd, more people like me or a lot better than. They speak tacitly in their vernacular. I don't understand them and even I speak in my vernacular with my brethren. Care less for what the rules are, in this space so enclosed with glass walls and air, as fresh as breath can get.

Surrounded by a circle of like minded people, or so I believe, a glance at the world outside this circle and I awe at the perfection with which this world has been created to perfection. I can still see the sun, can still see those streets flooded with people I once used to walk on, but I can't breathe that air and can't talk to those people. I can still see the world I left and yet not be a part of it. I haven't left it behind, can't leave it, it's still there right in front of me, but I am confined to a more limited space. A space quite defined by my ability to willingly be a part of it. I could have chosen to walk away from it, the glass walls, but no one would care less for my willingness to not be a part of it, or more for my ability to walk away from it.

I stand behind those glass walls and stare, less at the world without and but more at my world within.

Confessions of a People Watcher

2007-07-12T18:51:00.000+05:30

I know that there are three guys or maybe more living together right across my house in the building in front. I wonder what do they do together. I know that the people living next to them come out every evening to have their evening tea. I saw a new face today in the house just above their's. She looked pretty good from where I stay. I know that there is a girl living in the floor below mine who entices me with her mini-skirt. I doubt that she is married as I always see her carrying vegetables or talking to the maid. Though she looks really young. I know that a group of three guys wearing summer wear and a bag go some where. I think they go to the swimming pool, but I dunno where the pool is. I know that there is a girl in my building in the floor below mine who is dropped quite often by a guy, from college I guess.

I see a lot of people and I know them by their face and the activities they do. But all this is going to change soon, hopefully or hopelessly.