You Know You are Grown Up When ...

Life is a long journey to undertake and every once in a while you cross a landmark that you thought was still miles away. I have reached one such stage. There used to be days when i thought this would never happen, but much to my parents' surprise and my own horror, this day has arrived when i am living. I feel like i just had my skin peeled off. There is a sense or burning pain, but i have grown up. There is no doubt. How do i know? Well,

You Know You Have Grown When

1. One of your friends gets married every second month leaving you really wondering if you're that old.
2. Conversation among your friends revolves around Real Estate Prices, mutual funds and the share market and not movies, girls and .... you knw ;)
3. The kid you used to babysit now talks to you about Metallica and Iron Maiden.
4. Unemployment is no longer a proletariat symbol but an embarassment, and you worry about the low pay package you have in comparison to others
5. You call it a night and turn off the lights at 11 pm.
6. All the girls you hit on are working and treat you like a kid, while the ones you stare at are younger (where is my generation)
7. The Jeans pant never leaves the shelf before Friday and printed t shirts in Yellow, orange and red colors begin to look too weird on you
8. You walk into a departmental store asking for rubber, and the guy goes 'Check the Medical next door' ( True story!!)
9. The movies, music and matches you watched are now being termed as 'Classics'
10. Drinks mean Scotch, Beer, Vodka,Rum......i think you got the point. They used to mean pepsi(50 ps waale) and nimbu paani once upon a time.

Is that Enough? Cos I got more if you want.....

Shall I see you Again?

Shall I see you again?

Smiling at me for reasons unknown

Shall I see you again?

Shall I see you again?

Walking through crowded streets

Hair trailing in the wind,

At dead tired bus stops

Outside crowded street shops

Shall I see you again?

When I am tired and beaten

With all the world’s weariness

Burning with stress

Shall I see you again?

When the whole world has gone to sleep

Amid dark days and darker nights

Between warm sheets and cold breezes

Between sniffles and sneezes

Shall I see you again?

In sleepless nights and weary days

When I tire of my stupid ways

When I long for someone

I could talk freely to

When memories attack me

And there is nothing else left to do

I shall walk down the same old road

Thinking about long lost ages

I will hum and sing an old weary note

And turn my life’s pages

And there standing in a corner

Surrounded by smiling faces

I shall see you again

One more time

I shall see you Again!

10 Things I Won't Do today

This is the last day of my beginning. From now the middle begins, and will eventually end. I am no more the person I thought I would be. Things change, so do people. A lot of things have changed for me. Today will see the beginning of some changes and the end of many routines. I am listing some of them for your convenience.

1. I will not wake up at 10 ‘o clock and eat breakfast at lunch
2. I will not carry the unshaven, grumpy look ( My mom’s glad about that)
3. I will not be seen in my crumpled tee and dirty blue jeans.
4. I will not wear my slippers everywhere anymore
5. I will not drink tea at 2 in the afternoon and again at 5 in the evening.
6. I will not say ‘yes’ to the next plan my friends make without thinking twice
7. I will not be online in the middle of the day (tentative)
8. I will not be shirtless and sitting on the top of the water tank at midnight.
9. I will not be home till 8 in the evening.
10. I most certainly will not be unemployed.

I’d like to add a bit more. But I’ll save that for later.

Serenity

Image via Wikipedia

The wind blew in from the south, bringing in the waves with renewed zest. I sat facing the west. The sea’s vast expanse lay sprawled before me, as the waves lolled to a restless stop at the foot of the rocks. Around me couples crowded in cuddly love, savouring the attention some others gave them. I could hear my friends laughing and fooling around. I stayed away, trying to enjoy the moment.

In those few moments of absolute solitude, I relaxed. I lost myself in the sounds of the sea crashing against the wet rocks. I listened to the sound of little wings flapping vainly against strong gusts. I watched the sun dip his orange fingers into the grey waters, staining the sky with a pink shade. I watched an artist at work, painting a large canvas. I stayed still, not wanting to move. I became a part of the painting.

How many moments like these have I lost? Scores? millions? In search of something more vibrant, I have lost silence. I have lost the joy of listening. The primal joy of sitting empty upon a wet rock and watching the waves come and go. Staying up all night just to watch the sun rise. Sitting empty and silent watching the sun set. Moments that make you feel someone was there to share. And yet, you knew to utter a word would destroy the moment. To wish for friends who look at you and know you are lost somewhere. To know that regardless of how long you take, they will wait.

We left soon. But I did not. I stayed there. Looking at the sea long after the sun had gone. Long after I could see anything. I stayed there longing for the peace of those few moments. Wanting a piece back from time, when my heartbeat breathed a sigh of relief.

Everything seems so finite and limited. But don’t you think that is what makes these times and moments so special?

The Man Without A Past

I can see him swaying in the sweltering sun. The mud clings to his skin, like magical powder; leaving a trail on the road as he walks. He is silent, like his eyes. Dead and dreamy. His entire persona is a contradiction in itself. His clothes, once respectable are now torn and grimy. The spit, sweat and vomit that has deposited themselves over the years rises as fumes around him. Funny as it may sound, that is his aura. People passing him try to stop breathing. He does not care. He walks his own road. Twisting and turning, going zigzag, down a straight cemented path. The world tries to ignore him, as he does the same. He is naked bottom down. His skin has turned black over the years, a sticky kind of black. His shirt is barely enough to cover his modesty. But who cares? Not him. Some cringe at his sight, some walk faster, some just stop and crack a joke, and some others laugh at that. I stare and wonder. Who is he? Does anyone know him? Did he have a family? Where are they? How does he live? How does he find food? Does he have a past? I have asked everyone in my locality. They know nothing. And yet they all agree on one thing. He has been around for a very long time. He goes on past me. Not blinking once, not turning or stopping. On and on to an unknown destination. Some place he might call home.

We are born into clichés and grow into them. We are taught to be what we should be.even if we chose to be something different, there is a cliché for that too. We are bound by a group, by its past. We are products of our past, and struggle to keep up its name and status. We all have a past to live up to, and a past to create for others to live up to. He has none.

Farewell

Image by gingerpig2000 via Flickr

Goodbye – probably the easiest thing to say and best said without emotions clouding your judgement, said with a smile plastered across your numb face. People believe it. Their faces will smile the same way, numb in the moment and honest. They move on, but do you? They are just faces that dotted your memories for a moment or two of your travels. Moments of empty conversations in filled classrooms. Moments spent at tapris with burning cigarettes and outside stalls with oily vadas in soiled hands. Memories are easy to forget, once you accumulate more of them. You just need to keep walking that far. Someday, these faces might confront you and you won’t even remember their names, but till then you will remember. Strange and unknown faces, that you saw everyday. Imagining that you knew them as they know you. Faces you looked forward to meeting. Awaiting their arrival with a weird anticipation. Faces that made you feel you are not the lone sucker in this shitland. There are more like you. Wondering, waiting and struggling. You loved them for the sense of companionship that they provided, even if it be fo a little while. You lived in those few moments that allowed you to be who you are. You wanted to fit in. Nothing is warmer than a smile at the end of a tiring day that says “This too shall pass.” A hand on the shoulder that said “Cheer up! You piece of shit! You got it better than us.” And nothing can beat that poor joke cracked in the midst of a serious deadpan conversation. Intentional or unintentional, it was welcome. I said goodbye to all that. With a deadpan face that had a smile stuck on it. A smile, I couldn’t feel.

I bid farewell to meetings under ancient trees. I bid farewell to borrowing credit on lunch food, to fights over silly change. I bid farewell to the ‘cigarette of the day’, that made us think better. I bid farewell to ideas thought up in crowded trains that got off at the next station and were lost in the streets at night. I bid farewell to early exits at boring examinations. I bid farewell to foolish discussions. I bid farewell to violent girls and vain boys. I bid farewell to hope and joy. I bid farewell to getting embarrassed and letting the blood to my face. I bid farewell to a foolish heart and its hopeless ways. I bid farewell to an awkward beginning and a pallid end. I bid farewell to all my friends. If we meet again, we meet again.

Run H Run!!

Let me go

Let me go

Walking past painted streets

Beneath tired old buildings

Towards greener pastures

Better stories with better endings

Let me go

Write my own fairytale

Bask in the sun’s glory

Drink a couple of tubs of ale

Let me go

Release my soul

From this prison that holds it

Bound by chains of wants and needs

Let it fly, soar

Let me go

I do not want to

But I have no choice

This is not my world

A world of dos and don’ts

This right and that wrong

No

Let me go

No more bills and paper wads of money

No more saying I can’t or I won’t

No more of you nor me

Destroy me, create something anew

Let me go.

MY Dad. MY hero!!

I had heard about it. Floating rumours, mentioned in party time stories, recollected by aging aunts and frustrated uncles. It was all so unbelievable that you were forced to believe in it as they were. As stories and myths, recreated to entertain children. Make them fee proud of where they belong. But everytime I saw my father, I saw a 60 year old, bald, short, passive educated man. The kind of men who work their asses off their whole lived for the return of nothing. Men brought up on values and ideals so strong that their morals might lay foundations. They are not the kind to fight. To take risks. To do what is right and not what they think is.

My father hobbled up the staircase in the evening. From the first look I knew something was wrong. It was different from the regular tired look that he brought back from a day at the office. He slumped into the chair with a grimace on his face. Wincing as he bent to untie his shoes. He asked my help, and as usual I sighed and made a fuss befor e I did help. As I was taking off the shoe, I noticed the slight bump on his forehead. His shin was blackened too. For a moment I was scared. Fear comes to a man before anger seeps in.And when anger does, your first instinct is to scream. I did.

I asked him what happened. And he narrated the whole story. There was an accident outside the factory. A man was hit by a trailer truck. Men gathered and the factory being located in a village area was soon witness to a mob. My father just happened to be in the area. He intervened as the mob was trying to beat the driver. And because of this reason, the people thought he was a part of the same company as the driver. Before he could explain, he was hit.

I was bloody pissed off. More so, owing to the fact that I was helpless. I asked him if he filed a police complaint. “Yes”. I asked him if he could identify the culprits who hit him “well, I don’t know them personally. Forgot to ask their names, but yes. I do know their faces.” I told him he should not go to office the next day. “NO …You think I’d chicken out like this. It’s nothing.” I asked him if he wanted me to come to the factory.”No thanks. I don’t want to be babysat by my own son.” I was royally angry. I didn’t want ot say a word, but what could you do with someone who is like that.

Later I asked him about the accident. Was the driver known to you? “NO”. Well, was the victim known to you? “NO”. Why in heaven’s name were you hit then? “because I interfered to save the driver and advised to take the victim to the hospital instead of creating a ruckus in the middle of the road.” And why did you have to do that? He looked at me like I was crazy. “There were two men almost dying out there. What would you have me do? Stand and watch!!”

For that moment I saw the stories come alive. I saw why my uncles were frustrated with an idealistic younger brother who did not know when to shut up. I could see why people in the society hesitated to talk to him about society problems. I knew why he hated when I took things too casually. For once, I could see I was wrong. I was happy that I was wrong. And for once, I was proud of my dad.

Tale of a Mad woman

Eyes have a strange way of talking

Telling magical tales,

They travel continents without walking

In mysterious ways.

But sometimes they are not so pleasant

Fear clouds their sight

Black eyeballs shiver like water currents

Like dead leaves on a windy night.

They looked sad and tired

Running away from a cruel world

A world of hypocrites and liars

Who at her curses hurled

And laughed as they heard her cries.

The eyes, they were filled to the brim

With tears glistening like pearls

Tears that cried out to me

Of hope that failed to swim.

She cried because she was sad

That is all she could do

Everyone called her mad

But that was not necessarily true.

“Am I really mad”, she asked me,

“Just because they think so.

But I cannot be happy

Not with what I know.

I know they hate me,

They hate my bloody guts

They talked in whispered voices

Their gossip drives me nuts.

I was a sane rational being,

Till they began talking to me,

Then I started seeing

What so far I refused to see.

This is the world of talkers,

Of gossipers and wily politicians,

Mean neighbours and meaner stalkers

Meanness is their only mission.

Son, you are far too young

To understand what I went through

You do not know what a name is,

It is much more than you.

You build it by the sweat of your heart,

Mould it gently by your hands,

And smile as you warm its hearth

And gaze longingly as it stands.

But this world, this group of animals

They rave and rant at it,

And drive a hammer through its walls

They bring it down .Destroy it.

Now alone through the streets I walk

‘The lone mad woman’.

Because I refused to join their talk,

Like an old mad woman.”

She took her bag and moved on,

Weaving through the streets

Singing a bad tune, an old song

About a man with two left feet.

And all the while people laughed

While she walked on her path

Children made jokes and scoffed

And women spewed their wrath.

I looked around and saw

Man speaking in two tongues

His eyes wily and glancing

Within them the devil dancing

I saw what the mad woman saw

A dying world talking.

On Easter at Mount Mary

I kneel at your feet

Beneath kind eyes

Shaded from the sweltering heat,

I don’t know what to say

Or think or how to pray

All I can do is sit

And try to talk;

I know this,

I am a sinner allright,

I have never believed,

Nor tried to perceive,

The truth when it stared at me.

But today I sit here,

In a silent prayer

Inadequate and broken,

A small simple token

Of all that I have to offer,

My eyes are sore and legs tired,

Limbs ache for needed rest,

But my heart aches to fly higher

To do what it does best.

Help me mother, help your son,

The waylain sheep, the black one,

I ask not a lot

But only this,

Take me in your arms

And render me a kiss.

Lay me down once again to sleep

Under your careful eyes

In the valley deep

Then once again shall I rise

Rejuvenated and strong,

Walk through the desert,

Ride upon the storm.

I am lost. I am afraid

I am neither alive nor dead.

Lead me from here ,

Lead me away.

Take me from the night into the day,

I have wasted and squandered,

All my strength.

But still have I much,

Much more to do, much more to say.

So here today

Defeated and hurt

Help me up from where I lay,

I do not know how else

But this is how I know to pray.

Tired Dreams

The pain is a killer

When you cannot speak or cry;

Your heart seems stiller,

But you still can’t die.

Every hour your eyes are open

You feel the darknesss close in

Nothing feels good, no one

Every sound is a noise, a din.

Words struggle to form meaning

The brain is in an intoxicated fury,

Hands smash against invisible walls

That imprisons powerless will,

Voices insinuate and curse

And heart struggles on

Wishing to die every moment,

But too much of a coward

To take its own life.

Oh! The suffering of a mute soul!!

To live and die at the same moments

In excruciating pain.

The pain is the only thing

That feels close to life,

The only source of joy

To a dead corpse,

Something that tells it

It still belongs to earth

It has a life,

‘You are alive,’ says the pain

Till the barbs begin to slowly sink in

Extracting flesh from blood

And a silent scream whispers

Out of tired lungs

To pass beyond the grey sky dome

When the screaming is done

And the blood dries up,

There is nothing left

Nothing that is human.

Except the eyes,

Still staring at faraway dreams

Long dead and
buried.

FEAR!!!

I live a life of nonexistence. One that should not be, but is. Like a million others who trudge through this marshland; each step dirtier than the previous one. I don’t know why, but I continue to live. Maybe because I am too scared to die. Maybe because I am not ready. It could not be worse though. You know, what is the worst punishment? To wake up every day and not know what to do, or why to do what you do. Its horrible. It’s a sense of nihilistic termite that has crept into the golden arch of my life. Everything is eroding. Inch by inch, slowly ground into dust. I can still see the paint chipping off the wall. The wall is not golden, it is red.

I am a fool. Deluded, hallucinating and depressed. They are not all bad things. Sometimes you see this world for what it actually is, when you are in this ‘blue’ zone. You see the lies people carry around within their hearts. Lies are much like cement fillings that you patch up in walls to hide the holes you drilled. But pretty soon, the wall is crumbling, till you add in more and more of these fillings and then, there comes a time when all there is left are the lies. The wall has long ceased to be. I know at least ten people who live their lives in such a falsely created façade. I am one of them.

I am at a stage where everything is supposed to fall into place. Good or bad. I should know it in a while. That is what scares me. Someday I am going to wake up and not like what I became. I am going to struggle to come to terms with the dish reality served me. Who am I kidding? I still am. That is the problem. Nothing seems simple anymore. Everything comes with a ‘conditions applied’ term. It’s a pain to read through all that small print to realize it was worth nothing. But then, I could not ignore it. Its my life. What do you care? All you need is good reading. Timepass. Well, I don’t blame you. I surf around the net too. Looking for pathetic life souls like me, crying whining. Gives me a sense of belonging.

Funny, isn’t it? All our lives we struggle to be different. Yet, somewhere deep inside, we are always afraid of it. We want to belong to some group. Weird, fun, boring. It is always better in a group. We need somebody to tell us, “its fine. You ain’t alone.” Constantly in search of self appeasement. Suckers for praise, aren’t we? It boosts our ego. Something that has no physical existence beyond the jellied borders of the cranium. We are a strange species.

Even if we are, I must be the strangest of the lot. At least in the top 100. The truth is, and it is always harder to say, I am scared. I am scared that I am not capable of what I am. I am not the guy everyone thinks me to be. I am scared that I might be living a lie like a million others, hoping that someday it becomes the truth. I don’t know how that’s possible, but I just hope. I am scared it won’t. My college days are ending. A huge part of my life is. Memories, fights, love, poetry and friendship shall be left behind in dark corridors frequented by unknown faces. The truth is always left behind. I am scared I’ll carry on with a lie. Forever. That is the curse.

Summer Afternoon

The afternoon slinks by silently past my window. Throwing in long shadows from past the box grill. I sit at the keyboard tapping in one key at a time. Each letter more tired than the next. Something in it all tells me I hate doing this. But there is nothing else to do. I can’t just sit quiet. Well, I could. What I meant was that I can’t vegetate in a single place. As a human, I am forbidden to ennui. And yet I have a uniquely hidden talent to find boredom in everything I do. It is not very hard. It usually takes less than 5 minutes for me to get bored of something. Life is so exciting, I could die without it.

I look back up at the nonsense I have just written and think why I wrote it. I have no idea. I am usually this confused and lost. It’s like I am on a permanent supply of dope. LSD running through my veins, coursing its way to my brain, exploding in a psychedelic mix of technicoloured madness. And I haven’t lit my first cigarette yet. Well, I think I might quit. After all, why do you need to waste money on smoke when you are smoked already?

The dust flies up in scattered difference when I type on the keyboard. I always promise that I’ll get around to cleaning it but never do. It now looks like the uncovered remnant of an ancient civilization. Soon it will be. With me. I wonder how it will feel to be old. I don’t worry about age a lot. It doesn’t seem to affect me. All around me, people keep growing up and changing. Kids I saw crying over lost cricket balls now have children of their own to feed. I am a creature in the zoo. The last one of its kind. The last Peter Pan. Somehow, the name has been corrupted in today’s world. It becomes more telling of a paedophile to be called that. Tragedy.

Time has a weird way of troubling you. It has this madness of stopping in its tracks just when you are egging it on to move faster. It is never the minute hand that stops. Actually, to think of it; you never see the hour hand move, do you? The thing that really pulls my whiskers is the second hand. The irritating fast moving second…when it pauses just when you think it’ll move. Maybe I am hallucinating, maybe I am not. If you believe in god, I am sure you’ll believe in all these weird phenomenon. I don’t. Not so much, so I think I am hallucinating. I can only write when I am. So there, I prove myself.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the

beginning and the end,

But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

I talk of the middle. The long languorous, never ending middle. The middle we are forever stuck in. One which drags and trails our bodies, caging our lives within through this dusty world. At each ste we tug harder at the noose aound our necks and are dragged an inch further. Till there comes a time when we give up and accept the exciting boredom of being dragged wherever we are dragged to. That’s all the nonsense there is for today.

I think it was Twain who said no one writes nonsense better than him. Its time to question that. Another insane madman has arrived.

Insanity!! My asylum from the world

Your brain pummels inside the skull.Beating its squishy pulp against thick fibroid walls, crying every time. You don’t know why. All you can do is stare at the world through itchy, dry eyes and every thing you see begins to burn in front of you. Nothing makes any sense anymore. Not logic, not nonsense. Nothing. It’s like the centre of your world just got shot by a cannonball, and you are left standing upon a black volume of vaccuum. It keeps sucking you inside even as you fight it, with the last amount of strength left in you. No one gives you a hand. People look at you like you were a weirdo. A drug addict, drunk, hobo beggar who has lost his mind. Yes, you have lost your mind. Insanity never felt so rational. But how can you feel? You are numb. Numbness is a feeling in itself. Se what I mean,hahahah see what I mean. How can you see meaning? You can only ..i don’t know what.. Fucking language!!! Never conveys what you want to say in the exact terms.

Breaths come in with a great difficulty. Every gasp wishes to be your last and you wish the same back. And yet you can’t stop breathing. It comes in fast and full. Filling your empty lungs with a light gaseous matter that enables your mechanical heart to beat on. You have half a mind to grab that lifeless mass that is keeping you alive and squsihing every pint of blood out of it. It’ll stain your hands, but you don’t care.

All you wish for is death. Death. An end to all ends. When the whole world will fall silent. Nothing speaks nothing moves. If it does, you’ll never know. Peace at last. No questions asked, no answers to defend yourself with. Freedom in all its pure absoluteness. You are mad. Mad is what the world calls you. Funny, you should call it a madhouse. Yes, you are mad. The maddest of all people in this asylum. A lunatic beyond comprehension. You dance to silence and sing to death. The world goes on like a pallid dream in front of your sleepless eyes. Staring at you like a curious child staring at an absurdist movie. You don’t make sense to it. You never did.

You throw out money from your window, and stare as strangers rush in with beaming smiles to grab at these paper. You wonder if they are all right. Maybe you should call the asylum. They might need help. They think the same about you. They care. You don’t. You just point and laugh. At those masses of inane individuals who act irrationally. Paper is all they care about. And they call you insane… Well, artists always were. You can make music they cannot hear, you can sing to deaf ears. You do not have to explain. You do not have to follow. Lead, lead to your own wonderland.

The dance is tiring you out. It can be hard. In a world where no one understands you, it can be hard to survive. You need somebody to trust. And yet you are scared. They might think you are insane. If not, they might be as insane as you. You can’t cry. Not after all this. You can’t laugh, your heart is in too much pain. You are torn apart like a bunny caught in the jaws of a crocodile. Each gnashing teeth minces your soul to tiny fragments of the original self. Soon the fragments will vanish into the giant belly, nothing will remain. You’d like that wouldn’t you? You insane bastard.

I like you. I don’t know why, but still. Maybe because I am like you. In a way, not completely. You are after all a part of me. In fact, you are me. The other me. Lost, insane and cruelly true.

A Longing

It was a long journey. The train clanging its wheels as it rattled forward through unnamed lands that skirted dry beds of farmland. I looked out the painted blue window bars at cows grazing the parched red earth. That is the first thing you notice when you step outside your home land, the colour of the earth. As I traveled southward in my journey, I noticed it change. First, from a dark shade of brown to a pale yellow to pitch black. I traveled past empty fields. Empty, for human habitation. Animals have a knack of surviving where man gives up. Maybe they make it a point ot survive where man gives up. As I watched out the window, life inside the compartment took its own course. People settled in their seats and munched on oily foods. Thirsting for water every hour, as a thirsty young man, sweating and carrying the entire tub of cold water filled their needs. I couldn’t help but laughing at my thoughts. I thought I was traveling for fun, sometimes normalcy takes a lot of effort.

Indian railways has an alternate commercial enterprise thriving in it. Salesmen and beggars alike, throng this moving tin can carrying their wares and high tenor. The beggars often are more successful in selling their ware – sympathy. They’ll come in all shapes and sizes. Blind, deaf, dumb, young and old. Their bones sticking out from under their bare skin, teasing you to dig into your pockets. But any Indian is used to suffering. So much that he has turned to apathy as a resting place in his soul. I could never fathom the expressionless stares on the faces of my friends and their neighbours alike as they brushed off kids begging. I could not. But who am I to speak? How many people have I provided for? I am just another beggar living on the scraps of my own people. How many of those eyes have I seen when asking? A poor man has no right to be sympathetic. Not when he himself craves that emotion. Anybody else who does the same, is to him, competition.

I might have walked past them on a railway station. I am not the sympathetic fool, that I write like. I am a ‘bastard’. If I may say so. Crudity has this unreal way of telling the truth. Nothing seems real unless preceded by an expletive, in its most crude form. But they are always around. Naked, hungry and growing society of beggars. Waiting for a piece of their bread. But do they deserve it? What makes a man/woman give up everything and turn to begging? An ‘occupation’ so self deprecating and insulting…why would someone want to wake up everyday to that? I know people wh complain because their boss asks them to do what they are paid to do. Then why do these people do what they do? No other way seems to be an easier answer. NO other way!!

I looked again at the boy sweeping the floor with his shirt. He seemed to be in good shape. Better than me, at least. He tugged at my pants again, saying something like ‘saab’. As if I was a ‘saab’. I took out the change from my last cup of coffee and held it out to him. He grabbed it in his dirty hands and tucked it in his pants. I looked at his face, searching for the hint of a smile. Something that assured me I had done something that was of help to him. Nothing. The same blank look that had haunted my friend’s face before. What had I done then?

To The Father of A Son!

Someday he’ll wear torn faded jeans

And a white shirt,

Someday he’ll wear his hair long;

Someday he’ll walk the streets alone at night,

Someday he’ll sing a dirty song,

Someday he’ll make you feel bright,

On others he’ll prove you wrong;

Someday he’ll take a girl for a ride,

Maybe someday he’ll date a bong;

Some days he’ll be gone all night,

Some days it’ll be the days he’ll be gone,

But don’t be mad,

He won’t be long;

Someday he’ll start a fight,

Someday he’ll sing you a song,

With no reason at all

He’ll be running along,

Someday he’ll make you pay,

Someday he’ll pay you back,

Someday he’ll be shorter than you,

Someday you’ll find him too long,

One day he’ll cry to go to school,

One day he’ll stay in school way too long,

Someday he’ll be shy and serious,

Someday he’ll be angry and wrong,

Don’t worry you’ll get the hang of it

Soon, very soon. It ain’t too long.

But whatever happens remember something,

You can’t be right all the time;

Neither can he be wrong.

Get up!! Stand up!!

Death stands tall;

Tall upon sheared grass,

On the plains of life.

The clouds gather round

Sounding their ominous thunder

Clapping white shafts of lightning

Trying to drive fear into smaller hearts.

Death stands tall.

If it stands not like that,

It can never stand at all;

It has company

Sickness, evil and tyranny.

But there is something missing in all this

It lacks the courage

That we posess;

Courage that defines ordinary hearts

Hearts that struggle when everything is lost;

When life reaches the finish line,

There is still time

For one last gasp.

I have a fight yet,

One more round for me, for us

Till the bell rings

Till that hovering moment passes

Pain is but a feeling

Rage shall suppress it;

Hit that nail hard on the coffin,

Make sure the earth is firm,

For I am not ready to go down yet.

Make sure my pulse stops

If you slash,

For I shall again come.

Stand tall, Death….

For here I come.

Abhi saanson me hai dum

Abhi chalne de sitam

Khalbali hai/ khalbali

To all those effing bast'ds who think they can bomb us out!!

Lonely Nights

Some days of the month are worse than other days and nights longer. Long enough to be spent sitting like ghostly silhouettes while the moonlight casts a pale white shadow through the latticed windows. Nights when thoughts are like vague dreams, and dreams like hurried thoughts of a sleepless neurotic mind. Sleep is but an absence of action, and yet in itself is an act. All your actions in the last decade are put up for introspection, and none seems to be worth it. Every minor embarrassment you faced sits in front of you, the whole scene flashing in a perfect rendition of the imaginative form. You cannot avoid it. And go through every one of it like someone being convicted by a war crime tribunal. A criminal judging a crime.

The light flickers outside your window and you wonder if something is wrong with the moon. But something in your heart tells you it never was the moon. Everything seems so stupidly still. Enclosed within the dark room are three hearts. Two silent and one restless. Its amazing what can happen within the distance of 3 – 4 yards. How can they sleep so peacefully? Where do they find that exhaustion? If only you could derive a method to switch off completely, things would be so easy. Easy. That is what humans are always looking for. An easy way out. And nothing seems easier than death.

Yet death seems to be the last thing we meet. Why can’t I die a thousand times in this life? Maybe I do. Maybe this is death. Sitting sleepless, wanting to scream in a dark room where light tiptoes so as not to disturb the residents. The urge to scream is unbelievably loud. Your heart screams a thousand times and you hear it drown your thoughts. For a moment that seems comforting, and then they come back again. Haunting, and more violent than before. Scraping at the crust of your consciousness with long, sharp fingernails. All you can do is wait. Patiently, like a zombie. Too tired to fight. Too tired to scream or do anything. Sitting there on the bedside like a broken statue. The soul flowing like steam thin vapour out if your pores.

Nothing stirs.Except the morning light. Tiptoeing through the shadows of the night. But by now you are too tired to even react. All you can do is sigh, and go back to sleep.

wanting to be found....

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You seem so beautiful

When you walk in

Hair trailing in the wind

Storm follows the wind

Eyes blazing forth darkness

Smiles piercing them

With lightning whiteness

Till the rain pours out

Tremulous in your laughter

Clinking, clanking as it pours

Over tin sheds and cement rooftops;

All the while a shadow trails you,

Following you

Everywhere under the sun

One you can’t see

And yet feel it following you

Trying to grab at the edge of your swishing dress

And just when you think

Vanishing into an obscure angle;

For that moment it sees

In your eyes a want,

A search for something lost

And smiles

For it knows that it is the lost one

It is an amazing feeling

To be lost and be wanted for;