The British

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.