Life - JFK perspective !

So I have a couple of friends whom I stay in touch with using various kinds of messengers. I was sitting idle the other day and was going through a list of people I have on various such IM softwares. I noticed a lot of people have various "enlightening" messages agains their names on my lists. You know those status things you can put against your name to tell the world something (don't know what!).

Many of these statuses were pretty heavy. Now you know me. I can be very thought provoking and philosophical at times, well mostly when I am drunk but the point is that I can be. People puke when they get drunk I go into my (often colloquial even if to myself) verbiage. However back to the point. So I was reading through these status messages and my deformed brain kinda went into an overdrive and started coming up with variations of these pretty thought provoking messages. I thought I would share some of these "Life - JFK style" thoughts with you.

Original - I had the blues because I had no shoes until I met a man on the street who had no feet
JFK - I had the blues as I had no shoes until I realized I had no socks too!

Original - I guess I could be pretty mad about what happens in this world but it is hard to stay so mad when there is so much beauty all around me.
JFK - I guess I could be pretty mad about what happens in this world but it is hard to stay so focussed when there is so much beer all around me.

Original - Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
JFK - Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be tried once. Now is the time to light that dope.

Original - If you're born an original, dont die a copy
JFK - If you're born an original, you're parents did it wrong.


Original - People laught because I am different, I laugh because they are all the same
JFK - People laugh because I am different, I laugh because they put me in the wrong ward!


Would keep adding to these as and when people give fodder to my starved mind. I would suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed. If you are using IE or Firefox it is pretty easy. You should see an icon like this


in the right hand corner of the adress bar or menu bar of your browser (i.e. where the URL is written. If you dont know what a URL is, go away now). Simply click that icon and you will know what to do.

If this was too complicated for you then simply write your email id in the box to your right (below my profile) and hit the button!

And before I sign off, here is this special award I would like to award to this special lady in the pic below. This award is the "Dumbest blond of the year award" and it goes to



Ta!
JFK

Who am I

I am drunk.

I am drunk and I am alone and lonely and I am bored. I am strong and I am iron willed and I am headstrong. I am torn between what my head tells me and what my heart yearns for and if I am neither my heart nor my head then I don’t know who I am.

Who am I?

Who?

I live in this body. I use its senses to see to hear to touch to smell and to feel. I use this heart to desire to ache to yearn to love to loath to convulse in alternating pangs of yearning and desire and love and loathing and I use this brain to think and contemplate. I use this hand to pour my drink to light my cigarette and I use this mouth to savor them both. I fill these lungs with this poison and I use this respiratory system to exhale the spent lethal smoke out. I use this brain to think to analyze to morally chastise others and myself for doing what I do and yet I am not bound by the thoughts that I force this brain to think. I then make this brain contradict the same line of reasoning I made it rationalize with the arguments I forced upon it. I give it an alternate path of analytical and logical reasoning and I torture myself when this brain starts liking the contradicting line of thought I just gave it. I make my own chains, I put myself at the two ends of this “logical” rope and play tug of war with it and then I make this heart cry out with this pull from the two ends that I suffer and I make it yearn for these contradicting forces to stop which I had forced this brain to come up with in the first place.

What am I?

What?

Caught between an intense emotional situation like death (http://achingpen.blogspot.com/2007/07/ode-to-death.html) or a heartbreak (http://achingpen.blogspot.com/2007/10/welcome-to-end.html) or an innocent desire (http://achingpen.blogspot.com/2007/08/angel.html) or a betrayal (http://achingpen.blogspot.com/2007/09/dance.html) or simple pure exhaustion (http://achingpen.blogspot.com/2007/09/weird-song-for-gym.html)I feel and I think. I react and yet I am detached. I stay in the situation playing around me in this world bound by the metaphysical laws defined by the equations of mathematics and theorems of physics and yet I float above the room in the hollow emptiness and watch the same situation passively from a distance impervious to all the emotional drama that is folding all around me. I then make this heart yearn to escape this multitude of sentiments pouring all around me and I command this brain to come up with an escape route. Then when this brain reminds me of the brilliant yet impossible conclusions of quantum mechanics I often find a black hole and use its gravitational field to tear across this universe and reach into another one which is a part of this multiverse to make myself content. Failing the availability of a black hole or a shooting start I simply pulverize myself and drift across the quantum foam present all around me to again reach another parallel universe. Yet I feel the tentacles of the same emotional drama reach me and lick me and burn me and what more, now that I have crossed the boundaries of my immediate universe and have escaped to one of the “n” possible universes I feel the simultaneous torture of all the possible emotional situations in all the possible infinite universes all together in all of my possible hearts in all of my possible bodies in all these universes and I burn in infinite infernos all at once. I am in this universe and that and another one all at once and I am caught in a whirlpool, a frenzied torrents of all possible sentiments which these muscular hearts are capable of realizing and I suffer them all at once.

Where am I?

Where?

I came into this universe as a byproduct of human love and in some other universes as a byproduct of pure simple lust. I was caught from that “place of eternal peace” known as the moksha or the pearly gates or jannat and was bound in this body and the others and was sentenced to spend some human years on this planet and all others. I was given an option called death to escape the cycle of time and a multitude of means to realize it but simultaneously I was bound by the magical ties called relations and was stripped of my ability to exercise a willing escape. I know not who am I know not I what am I and I know not where I am but I know for sure I am what I am and I shall never be what this heart desires.

I shall never be what my heart desires.

Welcome to the End

This one that I am going to share with you now is something which I wrote around 5 years back. Grab a cuppa or a single malt scotch if you wish because this one is long and would make your brain cells tingle. Besides you might not want to read this in one go. Take your time as this one would also probably be last for atleast couple weeks. When I have landed safely in Bangalore and am merrilly drunk enough someday I shall write more.

So then - Welcome to the End!

Something bellows in my ears sending tremors down my spine shaking my existence as I discover where I have been lured to. And as these waves of realizations crash over me again and again hammering against my ever so weakening resistance there is just so much that is boiling within my subdued conscience which is slowly but firmly rising to the surface as if hoping to evanesce from the pores on my skin and it makes me want to scream and shout and ask you - Now what!? And no I do not expect an answer or an explanation of any kind my love, just the courtesy that you hear me out till the end - the end of my existence. And with this hope that you are here somewhere just out of the reach of my mortal vision for I can still sense your presence lingering in my senses I shall pour it all out.

I am at the Point of No Return. I am left with no choices and though it is a bliss for me to not have myself being subjected to the strenuous thought process of separating the right from the wrong forcing myself to make some choice which is more morally correct than letting my humble heart gladly chase the more pleasing ones still, for some insane reason unknown to even myself I long to be given an option - an option to go back in time and undo everything. But since that is something which will not happen I shall stick to my present precarious standing and go on with my insane blabber.

I have been in love and madly. For though am sure I was blindfolded for I could not see anything but your innocent image seducing my eyes I distinctively remember following the hypnotizing sound of your voice asking me to come and get you and that I am almost there that you are just in reach and oh how I remember that giggling "no am not here baby come find me" I do not recall seeing anything else. And now as the music of your voice has come to an end and I remove this blindfold I find myself standing at the edge of reason beyond which is a steep fall to eternity that will swiftly carry me to nothingness. There is no way back the ground beneath my feet is trembling and I know I would have to make the jump sooner rather than later. And though nothing matters at this point the terms difficult and pain having both lost their meanings still my mortal self with all its weaknesses that a human inherits from his essence of flesh shuddered when I looked into this nothingness for it is not empty my love.

No it is not. Now that I have edged closer preparing myself to take that last step that shall end it all I see that this space beyond my existence and my exoneration is filled with infernos. Fires of hell are rising from somewhere deep below and are rapidly spreading their ghastly tentacles up to where I stand. I can feel the heat intensifying with every passing second and with it I see the shameless dance of these flames being executed with a perfect symphony, the music of death. I see shapes being formed in these fires, daemons of all kind and nature emerging from within its core taking their shapes from the worst of my fears from what now feels like an earlier life. But yes o my lurer I see them all - reptiles, dragons, sphinx all kinds of beasts and flesh eaters and it is a pandemonium down there a frenzy of activity a celebration for I can see that they are waiting for their next feed - me. Me!?

And as for me, I have no apprehensions of any sorts trailing on my steps and I would have gladly jumped in if, yes love I would have jumped in if and only if I was sure that this would be the end of the story. That I will jump in and these daemons from hell would all pounce on me and I will have the ecstasy of watching the barriers of my skin and flesh being ripped apart by their deep claws digging into my conscience, that the process of my ethnic cleansing shall begin and for the first ritual I shall be made to bathe in my own blood whose fury shall be used to pulverize the layers of my sins. And then when my blood has been made black enough these denizens of dark realms shall smother their faces with it while chewing on my flesh and then slowly as all veils are torn frontiers jumped and barriers breached and as my soul stands naked with nothing to hide these worshippers of Satan shall take me away to dissolve my essence into their black world.

No I would not have had any problems.

But I know that this can not be allowed to happen for I know that I have to give in, jump into this black pit and yet survive, that I have to fight till my last breadth that no matter how dark my blood is made I still have to save my soul, for darling I have duties still to fulfill, jobs to finish and people to live for. No matter how much I hate to but alas I have to survive. And so it is at this moment o my puppeteer that for the last time I want to ask you that which is burning within my sanity right now. Yes I have to I just need to even though I know you would not be able to take out this raging fire within me.

Why! Why did this have to happen!? What went wrong and where!? I know am not good but was I that bad!? I still fail to comprehend the entire sequence of events that lead me to this end of life. I remember the time when you had come to me had “begged” me to believe in you to let you be a part of my life and I remember despite the voices screaming in my head and those rock solid icebergs of insecurities crashing against the walls of my heart that decision of mine to let you in my life once. Yes I do remember all that, I do. And lo! Suddenly there is music in the air and wherever I turn I see flowers blossoming and the raging wind of hell turning into a zephyr and Almighty’s whole creation turning beautiful again, beautiful as the face of a new born and equally innocent. And my stiff nerves begin to relax, my eyes which were ever so wide open and staring aghast all around me forever watchful of any danger or misfortune that might be lurking in the dark corners and might just pounce on me lest I should look away taking me down, the same eyes begin drooping for it has been a long time since I slept. My insecurities melting away in the radiance of your smile just as what the warm sunshine does to the aftermaths of a violent night’s storm and I finally give in.

Yes my love I give in to the warmth of your smile the passion in your eyes and the surety of your touch. I surrender and rest my head in your lap for I know no matter if the face of our past is ghastly and ugly with chunks of fleshes removed and dark unexplained voids left in places but now that you are here with me loving me caring for me and truly mine I know that the future is going to be nothing less than the beautiful smile of Mona Lisa and this time my love we shall be the artists.

With these assurances and your love filling everywhere in my heart I let myself totally for you. And I watch you play those “oh so cute” games and I feel such pride in being the beau of the most desired wanted divine angel on this earth who by a flick of her hand a blink of her eye or even the color of her blush can fill this aura with the most natural, pure, raw and yet ripe emotion – Love! And I don’t have words to thank the heavens above or the faith to believe my destiny enough but oh I so blindly do for I know somehow don’t ask me how but I just know that this for the first time is true and is happening to me for I can feel it rising and maturing in every pour on my body. I sense it traveling down my spine and I can hear the music in my senses. I can see your aroma hear the beautiful color of your skin and visualize the music of your voice. And then I feel your hand on mine your body closing in and I know it is time. Yes my love I know your gestures and I want you to know that I desire you too and I am longing to feel those extremities of love when it reaches its crescendo where the three universes of human existence –emotional physical and spiritual collide and are merged and take the shape of something which can only be felt and not realized by any of our human senses. Yes my love I long to complete this triad this trinity. I take you in my arms and so we begin to compose the music together where the only instruments are us – our bodies. And now oh now I see you closing in and I feel you and realize your presence filling my senses shutting out whatever other human realizations I might have and oh now you ask me if you’d let you blindfold me and I who knows not the meaning of this word “no” when it comes to you can do little more than say “anything you desire my love, anything you want”. And you do it. All I can hear now is your giggling and chuckling and your voice asking me to come and get you and this stupid me keeps following it like someone charmed by a skilled master and I all I can do is to keep walking. And now that I can no longer hear that voice and as I remove this blindfold I find myself in this predicament.

Why did you do this love, why! I never asked you to love me to be with me, yes I wanted to but I never ever in my living conscience asked you to show me this beautiful world and the magic and charm of it that is so capable of enchanting anyone for I always feared craving for it when it is eventually taken away just as in this moment I am! And trust me if I can only get the answer to this raging humiliating “why” burning within me then these infernos I am to jump in shall be nothing more than a dip in the pleasant waters of river Ganges for they eventually would cleanse me of my sins but yes for this fear of uncertainty I face right now all these whys and why nots this is worse than anything I might have to face as I make this eternal fall.
This is why I want you to throw these answers at me. Oh please understand it this way if you must that I “want” to jump but I can not, something is holding my feet firmly below so please please please oh my love hit me with these answers throw them at me make me lose my balance make me complete this fall and for once in my entire life – make me certain of something!!
Still all I hear is silence.

I never expected an answer though I must admit that I hoped for one. And then again what is the meaning of our existence if not hope. It is hope that carries us forward, hope that springs within our hearts, hope that makes us go around and sometimes round and round in circles. Oh! What a time to realize all this when the dusk of this doomsday is just about to fall and I am about to release myself to satisfy the yearnings of these poor creatures, what a glorifying moment. And then perhaps this is the apt time. Had it been some other epoch of my more humane life I probably might have refused to recognize the truth and debated against the supremacy of love in this world. Though even now I admit that I haven’t the slightest ideas of what is love. Can you tell me what is love ? Is love conquering? That you see someone walking away from you and you suddenly realize that you just have to stop him and so like a beleaguered soul you rush after his fading silhouette drop down on your knees and keep on speaking beautiful words and make him realize he is the core of your existence. And then finally when he is convinced and you see some more tears falling in front of you along with your own and you raise your face to look each other in the eyes and read desires and wishes and longings and dreams and you rise and take each other in your arms, you as if suddenly jolted by the touch of his hands wake up from some kind of a deep slumber and suddenly break away from the embrace. “Oh! Am sorry you are not the one I want. I already have you. Look that’s the one I want, the one you can see is walking away. I have to get to him stop him before it is too late! Oh I am so sorry…”

Is this love?

Or probably not. This is not love, how can it be!? Probably love is like a child and a candy. A child loves his candy and is annoyed that he doesn’t get enough of it. Then one day by a fine stroke of luck he is granted his eternal wish. He can have as much candy as he wants and he is overjoyed. He rushes into the piles and piles of his favorite candy filling his hands, mouth pockets. But eventually he is bored and feels repulsed even by the thought of the same thing of which he could not get enough until the moment he was given enough!
No I think I am wrong again. Forgive me as it is a trifle hard to think clearly with all this smoke clogging my senses and the fire burning my skin and this trench of charring flesh making me a little dizzy.

What is love!? A philosophy, a wisdom, a poet’s words, a composers music, an athlete’s dedication, a pupil’s pursuit, a monk’s power of will, a greed’s lust or a smile that dances on your lips when you see someone or a thought that crosses your mind when you sit by your window at dusk and see the birds returning to their nests on the backdrop of a cherise azure and a sleepy tired sun? Or is it the desire you get when you lie down alone at night and see the stars twinkling right through your roof as if it was never there and feel the moon reaching its glorious youth. Or is love a trap where sentimental emotional fools like yours truly get trapped!? I apologize for the insanity of all these questions and for getting onto your nerves sweetheart for heavens know that I shall not in the least of my waking conscience would do anything to cause you grief but for where I stand I assume I can be given the liberty to hold you in my thoughts and shake you violently and say “wake up!! Look what you have done!” and it shall not be a complaint. No it is not a complaint but a breaking sense of realization that I possessed now and that which I want you to hold when I am gone.

And this brings me to the real reason of all this gibberish maundering I lofted in this thick smoke clogged air. I want you to know and realize what it is that you have done. Not just the pain you caused me baby but the trust that you broke.

And now what? The questions? Oh I let them go. For thinking about all that as I stand here my eyesight is sure getting blurred but my vision is becoming clearer. To put it rudely “Come on now ! what the heck you need the recipes for! If the damned food is good go ahead and savor it!” What good would the answers do to me my love? Pacify me! Well for someone whose soul would be ripped apart just moments from now I reckon there would be just so much good that quenching my ever ending thirst would do to me. So I let them go- the questions and the answers.

At the end of it I want you to know that I do not blame you for anything, anything at all. Or okay I take the liberty of having an upper hand and say “I exonerate you”. For maybe I know not what love is and the rules or the absence of them which govern the behavior of those in love with each other and I reckon it better to leave the job of finding these answers to you and the better people of God, I am absolutely sure of one thing – that I have loved you and there shall never be anybody else.

Take care
Jump

Awkward

The other day my machine in the office broke down. While I was sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for my machine to be fixed my hands accidentally touched a pen. And what do you know the pen was lying idly on a piece of blank paper too! Out of curiosity on how it would feel to touch a real pen for once I picked it up and tried to balance its nib on the paper. No sooner had I managed to accomplish this might feat the pen slipped through my fingers and this is what came out

Awkward

the first word that which comes to my mind right now. So used to dancing on the keyboard, my fingers are finding it terribly awkward having to balance the precarious tip of this pen over this piece of paper and channel the smooth flow of ink into these precise shapes and curves which might begin to mean something to a mildly literate human.

Awkward.

Awkward that this seemingly common practice of writing should bring back such a torrent of memories and emotions which I never knew I had. Awkward for this sudden revelation should make me feel like a boy who suddenly stumbled upon a hidden treasure and is now simultaneously exhilarated by the find and worried on how best to hide it from his mates and cherish it all on his own.

Awkward for I shall be made to realize how dependent I have become on the online spell checkers and what a way to realize how terrible I am now with my spellings. And awkward on how shall I pen down these seemingly endless flow of events, memories, emotions and that these thoughts which should be unleashed with every drop of ink my pen should smear on this page again and again and should wash over me with such torrent that I simply can not decide whether to put a cap on it (literally!) or to just let myself be washed over by them, allowing them to carry me legions back in these newly discovered memories where I was still an innocent child carefree without any botheration and without the capabilities to understand human psyche or what is right and what is wrong but only aware of what I suddenly want to do at any instant and then simply go ahead and do it without pausing to think the entire possible permutations and combinations of the event stack that which might occur in the wake of my simplest of actions like picking up a pen and writing.

Really awkward.

However probably what makes me feel most awkward is that fact that at the end of the day I would fire up my machine load up my trusted word processor and spell checker and type it all out losing again this newly discovered innocence of struck out links incorrect punctuation marks asymmetrical hieroglyphic curves and wrong spellings. Should I stop then? Cease this relentless flow of ink which shall lost its importance soon as my machine is back online and stop scarring the spotless beauty of this white paper? Or should I simply go on let myself slide on this joy ride as I know that innocent boy would have done without bothering to check whether the landing at the base of the ride is of soft sand or hard cemented floor and would simply not have bothered about the inevitable which I predicted would happen?

At this time my machine was back and I decided to keep this unfinished…..

Weird song for a gym

I wen to the gym yesterday and was feeling miserable. It was sunday and that too a sunny one! Man how I wished I could have simply slumped on my couch the whole day and fade into oblivion. However life as it is pushed me to my gym and when I started my regular routine I couldnt help but notice that some idiot in the management had actually put on a CD of love songs on the gym audio system! Just what you need to really prep you up and make you want to work out and sweat on a lazy sunday...love songs! Lol!

All said and done, one of them songs really caught my attention. I came back home, googled the lyrics and here it is! While this does not reflect my state of mind in anyway whatsoever I find this song pretty well done. The music is soothing for once and some bits in the lyrics are actually good. Better than the Kayne West, Timberlake, Rihanna brands which have been polluting the air space lately.



Simply Red - So Not Over You lyrics

The Dance

There's another world inside of me
That you may never see
There're secrets in this life
That I can't hide
Somewhere in this darkness
There's a light that I can't find
Maybe it's too far away...
Or maybe I'm just blind...

Maybe I'm just blind...

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

Love me when I'm gone...

Lyrics of “When I am gone” by band 3 doors down

The stage is set and they step out on it. Hand in hand, each step a precise beat in a symphony they come out into the spotlight and make their way to the center.

He faces her and looks at her. Dressed in a semi backless black evening gown with thin shoulder straps and with her shoulder length black hair she looks like an angel from heavens up above. There is no wind, not even a breath from the awe bound spectators and yet for some reason her hair maintain a poise of pride, like a halo.
Dressed in his black fit tuxedo immaculate in his appearance with his hair gelled and held back in perfect waves he looks handsome. A fitting beau for a beautiful princess. He stares into her deep brown eyes. The eyelashes as if long fingers protecting priceless diamonds, hide them and then reveals them again. The signal has been given, the acceptance acknowledged and he takes a step back. They turn to face the crowd and take a bow. He looks over his shoulder to his left, a crisp nod of his head and the music begins.

Facing her again and bowing just so slightly he takes her right hand into his left and with all his grace encloses her petite body in his right arm. The feet move, together. The eyes are locked.

The ceremony has begun.

He takes her around. She is agile on her feet, nimble. His movements are firm and precise. His head is held high and she is the image of perfection that moves with an astonishing agility around him. They move in unison, every step carved to perfection. Their movements are swift, rapid, calculated, fast and yet every position held long enough that they seem to be not a part of this space around us but the space itself, as if a maestro like Da Vinci is carving them out instantaneously and marking them fixed in a universe that they seem to leave behind with every passing epoch.

His arm uncoils from her body and she slides on his stretched self from his left to his right, spinning in front of him and making him feel her touch as she moves. She reaches the end of his outstretched right arm and at just the precise moment he catches her from her fingers and pulls her back. For an instance they are face to face again, for an instance the eyes meet again, for an instance there is a fire and they are the center of universe exuding such a powerful burst of energy which a thousand suns and stars cannot mar. She breaks away again, facing the spectators she makes her entire self balance on a tip of her toe of her left feet with her left hand as if caressing her body and her right hand raised on top of her head while her right foot slithers up her left leg and sits touching her knee. She lets herself fall back and he catches her. Her left foot slides in her front extending her body in thin air, her right is still bent and she bends down her neck in his arms and look up at his face. Another moment lived to perfection, another harmony sung out and another orgasm taken to the heights of divine ecstasies. He pulls her up and the feet begin moving together again. They take each other’s hands and for once, she bends back, oozing out an oomph from those who watched muted. She snaps back upright and at the same time flings herself up onto his cuddled up arms and he hoists her above his head claiming his adulation for her as his crown. She lies there suspended between heaven and earth, between a dream and a reality, between a heated desire and a nonchalant possession. He takes her down and she coils her lissome legs around his torso and sits upright in his lap while he stands supporting her feline body with both his arms. Eyes are locked again, lips are almost together and he can make out tiny beads of dew appearing on her forehead with all this love making.

She springs down onto the ground again and he wants to slow down for her sake. She is still electrified, still charged, still the cynosure and he becomes a follower lead by her severe desire. He moves with her still, holds her still and lets go of her still on her every small whim and command that she issues from her entire body using it as an instrument to dictate. The music heats up further and so does she. She moves faster and faster taking him with her and he follows blindly. She spins all around him holding his finger from on top of her head as if a beautiful puppet being suspended from thin air.

And then she stops and falls into his arms. He bends his right knee forward making her stretch horizontal once more. Her torso lies partly on his bent right thigh and partly in the air around her. Her right hand is in his left and his right hand is bent behind his back as if taking a bow. She lies there suspended looking in his eyes. He can see oceans of love and lust crashing with heavenly forces in those pupils. Her eyes burn with desire and affection. And he can see himself being reflected in them. A glint crosses in those sapphires and it takes him a second to realize the left hand which comes down suddenly and buries the blade in his back.
He falters but does not let go. How can he, if he does she’ll fall and he can not allow that to happen! Her hand moves again and the blade is pulled free. She springs free from his body and he tries to stand but bends double. Another flash of lightening and the blade is buried again. He tries to lift his face and look at her. The beads of dew are more pronounced, her hair though as if now beginning to feel the charge coming out of her and trying to stand up slightly still looks a halo. He looks at her and she lifts her right foot. The contact is made on his face and he ends up on the stage lying flat on his back. She moves closer, his eyes squint trying to bring her face into focus. There is a spotlight shinning at the top right at the back of her head, no no its sun, no it’s a moon, no probably it’s a star! Damn its hard to look at her with these rays burning his eyes and he closes them with a single thought running through his dying cells

She still looks beautiful.

Audience breaks into a standing ovation. She turns, takes a bow and leaves.


The ritual has ended.

So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

Love me when I'm gone...

The Real ME

Kicked off my shoes, stretched my body to the max, gave out a huge big dirty yawn and closed my eyes. Feels so good!

No am not thinking about those eyes, no am not looking out for my next prey and no am not sad or happy or blah blah blah. Am just me in all my entirety and on all of the planes-physical, mental, spiritual and emotional.

Sometimes I feel this life is stretching unnecessarily long. I mean I have seen and done and experienced enough in these short years that went zooming by. I am not inclined to live the full circle of this life. Nehhh, am not. Then why the hell am I still carrying on? I mean how difficult it is to end this all up? Gotta just go and stand in front of the next bus/train/truck that comes in and close my eyes one final time or maybe just keep walking on the balcony of 16th floor and forget that I have to stop when the railing comes or if nothing else then just go real high on the sleeping pills I have in my pocket! Just how difficult it is?

Very.

I once said this to someone who was very keen on ending up his/her life – “If you so want to end this up why don’t you just go and end this up? What is holding you back?” When the other person gave me back a look which was more comical than quizzical and I found it almost impossible to hide my wide grin (which is very famous by the way) I knew I had to carry on. I continued saying this – “I’ll tell you what. Close your eyes and ask yourself the same question and then give yourself an answer. Your first reaction might be that you are scared or you really don’t know. Don’t stop right now. Keep asking and keep answering and slowly and gradually you will realize that it is not why you don’t do it, it actually is all that you stand to lose when you do it! Fine no one loves you, fine no one cares about you. But is it so that you don’t love anyone? That you do not have even a single shred of this fibre called emotion attaching you to someone in this whole wide big world? Someone you are afraid would not if miss you then atleast find some difficulties when you are gone?” The next thing I knew, her id changed to smilingflower from witheringflower.

And I was glad. Quiet glad actually and here let me also kick off my modesty with my shoes and admit that I have been able to persuade quiet a lot of people around me to change. To see and to think differently. Its not something that I am really proud of but yes it is something that makes me split into a broad grin every time I come to think of it. I can be like a radiant sun exuding warmth light and hope when I want to and in a snap of fingers change myself back to a rapidly shrinking blackhole taking down everything that comes into vicinity. Really kicked out my modesty didn’t I? Lol!

Back to the question then. Why don’t “I” do it when I feel that this life is getting unnecessarily long? Do I have the same reasons to give myself as I gave to her? Can I convince myself with the same logic that I used to convince her? Probably not. And why not? Well lets just leave that between me myself and I. What I am trying to say here is that for whatsoever reasons I do indeed chose to live on and on and on perfectly aware that I have nothing to gain from this life anymore and yet much to lose to it if I chose to go on like the way I am doing now. Well yes somethings do help me to carry on. I mean when some ladies gang up against me and tell me they are going to make me fall in love I am like “ Jeez! Can life get any better than this!? Imagine being chased by these gorgeous girls when am trying to push them away!!” Loll! Yes things like these do help but then they can not be the only reason I carry on.

Of course there is sex. Come on now! How can you even think that sex is missing from this equation! There is sex and lot of it(modesty still out!). But then am at a stage where my mind is always in a frenzy no matter where I am what I am doing, even when am pulsating on top of a beautiful dark skinned dame whose gorgeous eyes are closed in either ecstasy or maybe trying to imagine Tom Cruz or Brad Pitt on her instead of me and frankly I could not care less even if she is trying to make love to God himself while calling out my name or even if she calls me out by the wrong name altogether (well happened once; seriously). Anyways, so having sex does lend a credible weight to the entire equation I am trying to balance here but it is not the only good thing in life I am left with.

Money? Not really. Have just started working, come from a very poor family so no inheritance other than a lot of social responsibilities which even if I try to give out as free gifts none will accept. Yes I have a couple of ideas which if I work on can get me billions pronto but then I am tooo lazy to work on them. Give me some time alone, a bottle of beer, a Marlboro and this is what I’d be doing – out of my shoes into my skin and onto my laptop! (right now am in my office though, yes I am!!).

Love? Now define love. If you mean love as in one of my regular readers (yes am talking about you starry eyed lasse) interprets it to be then NO! :-D. But if you say love as in what I might feel towards a friend, family then ummmmm maybe yes and that too a teeny weeny yes. I mean I am perfectly capable of snapping the threads whenever I want to and retract back in my shell, isolated. I am, and I do that often at times. These are the moments when I usually write heavy crap on my blogs, when I talk about philosophy and god and you know – the works. So love might just be a part of the equation.

Not making much of a sense right now am I? :-D I know I am not and this is the “me” when am in one of these relaxed moods! I try to think and be rationale but instead I get carried out towards all the sins of life and lose my way (temporarily ok!?) on the path of wisdom and land up in the arms of this Satan. Its like letting my hair down (don’t laugh!) and basking in the sunlight for once.


Oho! Sorry guys, would have to wind up right here, some one is calling my name in my mailbox. Would have to slip on my shoes again and type something worthwhile on my machine now. Damn! See what I meant? Cant afford to steal some time for myself ever L

Don’t know if I will publish it or not, but if I do, I apologize in advance for wasting a few moments of your time and making you see this irrational, erratic, crazy me!

Those Eyes

This one that I am going to share with you now is something I wrote last year in February. I was in London on a business trip, it was my last night and I was miserably drunk. She was a regular reader of my other blog which I once had. She approached me on yahoo messenger that night and we had a long conversation. It was indeed a night of literary verbiage and shared soliloquies. I did not sleep the whole night that one and was up chatting with her. We shared our lives, our secrets and a lot more. While on my way back on my early morning flight I kept thinking of her, kept drinking and wrote this out. She is no longer in my life now, left about one and a half month ago. But then again que sera sera….

My life is brilliant.
My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.

She smiled at me on the subway.
She was with another man.
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.

I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Song You’re beautiful by James Blunt

Sitting in a space which probably is just enough for a man to crouch in am living my life at a speed of 974 kilometers per hour at a height of 11142 meters above the sea level. I have slept 5.5 hours combined in the last two days and combined have already gulped down a full bottle of chardonnay, 11 pints of beer, 5 glasses of red wine a couple of brandies and have just asked these angels floating in these clouds with me to please now get me some cognac. My eyes are swollen, blood red and tired. I have watched two movies back to back, read 60 pages on philosophy, argued about the entire Asian eco-politico-social system with my fellow sufferer for 2 hour at length and though am confused am dodgy, am hallucinating and am feeling as if am dead with all these clouds around me still - I can not give up thinking about those eyes.

Been a couple of hours since I saw them for the first time and probably the last. Been a couple of hours since I tried to seduce them. Tried to make them look into mine and drown them. How often does it happen, that the hunter becomes the hunted? You are menacingly prowling the ripe grounds swarming with life looking for your next pray and as soon as you get a hint, a premonition, a hunch of your target you take an aim and fire your best shot and just at that precise moment your target turns around and she fixes you with a magnificent stare which sends a terrible bolt of realization shooting down your spine which enlightens you that what you were looking at was nothing but a mere reflection being cast in a wall of glass and that the projectile you just hurled has ricocheted and is running screaming towards you and no matter how much a part of your brain flashes the red warning light and sirens and instructs your entire muscular system to move, scram, begone, still the firm gaze hypnotizes you so bad that you just chose to ignore all such flashes of wisdom and stand completely vulnerable to the rushing bolt just so that you can see see some more of those magnificent, sparkling, pearly, deep, hypnotic, whispering eyes.

Just how often?

Not much I would assume for had it been a phenomenon that should occur like a beat in a symphony after every fixed interval of time or maybe that unexpected sound that comes in frequently when in the height of rhythmic ecstasy you smash the guitar on the drums, I shall content myself with the satisfaction of the thought that a hunter like myself would then prepare himself for the eventuality of the coming mirage and either chose not to hunt for a while or maybe and in more likelihood better prepare himself with certain more amount of exercise and caution. But what does a man got to do when it happens for the first time? When all it takes to render him helpless, hopeless and to a good extent even pathetically desperate is nothing more than a hypnotic look from two sapphires studded and shining in a milky white cloudy night!?
How does a man fight then!

How do you make your escape when the eyes not only look, seduce and hold you but also whisper in your ears from such a distance as if the very wind is their slave, calling you closer and closer just like the Sheila in the ocean who with their enchanting music cast a binding spell over innocent sailors, over their rationale, logic rendering them completely helpless and lulllabying them to their doom. When you yourself want to be lured and possessed. When all that matters to you in the world for that instant is a look of admiration reflecting back in those crystals. When you want to give in and not fight and lose and not win.

Do you have time to react? Yes! Yes you do! You get a whole heartbeat’s length of time! People tell me that much is not enough and I ask them, really? It takes a heartbeat to look and feel. It takes a heartbeat (or a skip of one) in which endless words are spoken and heard and felt without any effort to communicate being made. It takes a heartbeat for a chill to energize those neurons so badly that every pour on your body is standing up in attention. It takes a heartbeat's length of time to fight and surrender and give in. A heartbeat's length of time in which an eyelash flashes, hides and reveals those waters again and pulls you so rapidly towards them as if someone hooked you from the navel and gave a massive tug making your feet lose the ground beneath them finally drowning you. It takes a heartbeat to take a click of those flashing eyes and imprint it on your memory forever which no amount of time can erase and which probably you would still see when you shall lie down for the last time in your life.

And they tell me it is not enough time?

I know those eyes would sweep through this page sooner or later. I know those eyelashes would flicker and batter and there would be a thought if this is really about them. Who knows probably they are here right now, on this very word? Probably there is a smile dancing on those lips now, probably those eyes have flashed for an instance onto messenger to check if I am online, probably now there is a urge and a hitch at the same time to leave an offline message for me, probably those eyes are a little mad now for the way I read through them and their inability to shut me off, and probably a certain mischief is now dancing in them toying with the idea on how it would be to give in just for once.....

Probably.

It was all about those eyes in whose temptation I allowed myself for a certain while to live the life of a hopeless, desperate romantic that I once was. Pardon me if I do not make much sense here given my current physical and mental state.

My plane just flew over Singapore and instinctively I arched my neck and looked down out of the window.

Probably......

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

My interview!

Yes this was long since pending and finally I got down to wrapping this up! These are my answers to the five questions which Bev asked me and now I am officially inducted in the interview a fello blogger sport! If you would like to be interviewed by me then

1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the
questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.

Now onto Bev's questions and my answers

1. Your lastest entry is titled "Angel" using both divine and horrific
imagery. Who or what exactly is symbolized by the "angel" in this
writing and why?

Well actually I do not plan my writings or the topics around which I would write. It seriously happens spontaneously at the spur of the moment. A fleeting image would flash in my brain and my fingers would start aching to start their tap dance on a keyboard. All I then do is sit back and let my fingers do the work. Most of my writings are completed within 15-20 minutes of my starting. Of course the feelings I portray or the images I paint come from my own experiences with this life. Yes they are mine but how and when do I chose to express them is something which gets decided by my fingers and my sub conscious brain. In this post Angel refers to a love lost sometime ago. I lost some more love recently but that would have to wait until I express it.

2. You mention quite often that your blog is a place to hide, but you've
also alluded to the fact that your writing allows glimpses into your
mind and soul. With that direction in mind, what do you hope to
accomplish for yourself through your writing?

I am not John. John is an alias, a mask behind which I hide but the life which this John lives is mine the feelings he feel come from my aching heart and the visions he shares he steals from my eyes. Yes this is place where I bare my soul but hide my mortal self. In real life or what we chose to call real life anyways I do not answer to the name of John, I do not look like John however yes I feel the pain John feels and I live each and every moment John lives. This is a place where I hide my mortal being and reveal my emotional self. My mortal self which I portray in my day to day life is at stark contrast with this. I am someone with a broad grin plastered on his face as if he ran into a solid brick wall and got this look plastered onto his face. My self which answers to the name I was given does not cry, he does not crib or cringe or ache or desire or distress or love or hate. That part I leave to John.

Whom would you rather know Bev, Kat?

3. If you could alter something in your life, large or small, what would
it be and why? (it's like your 5th year writing assignment again LOL)

Id alter the date my mom passed away. That was the day I stopped living my life and started living a life of responsibilities, taking decisions not for me but for my family. I so wish she were here, I so so so wish I could have completed my research, my higher ed. I so wish I could have taken that internship. Blessed with extraordinary IQ, intellect and logical analytical powers I was given the power to reach the sky and grab the sun but then the Lord piggy backed the world onto my shoulders and cut my flight short.

4. You describe some obnoxious woman as a "proton of positive charge".
How would you describe yourself in relation to the proton analogy?

Obnoxious! Lol!! She can be a pain at times but obnoxious, hell no!! Oopss I just swore, sorry Bev!

Whom do I describe here? John is quantum. He shifts, metamorphoses from proton to electron to neutron. He is flicker, ephemeral. One moment he would be on top of the world and proclaim himself as the king of the world ruling with his staff made of words the other he would be cringing to tell her how much he loves her and the next he would shut down his shell and cut himself off from any possible emotion. John feels every vibration this space time makes on his skin, he lives every orgasm he ever had with every passing second and he suffers all his heartbreaks with every beat of his heart.

Me….I am neutron. Shut down in my shell with lots of positivity and surrounded by negativity but impervious to any and to all. I do not care, I do not love, I do not demand, I don’t get sad and I grin like an idiot.

5. You've posted some wonderful writing on your blog and you've gotten a
lot of positive feedback and discussion. Do you feel your blog is a
success or quickly becoming one and, if not, what would you do
differently to achieve that goal?

I would beg Bev to please please please help me take this to a success. I have a reason, a motive behind this. No I do not want material comforts of money or publicity for myself. Yes I want to be famous, want to have my face plastered onto every tabloid, newspaper, tv channel all over the globe but I have reasons for this, reasons beyond your imagination or understanding and this heightens the divide between John and Me, we both want to be recognized and famous and rich but for Oh so radically different reasons.

Angel

image adopted from http://theurbanangel.net/home.html

I'm alone
Yeah, I don't know if I can face the night
I'm in tears and the cryin' that I do is for you
I want your love - Let's break the walls between us
Don't make it tough - I'll put away my pride
Enough's enough I've suffered and I've seen the light


Baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right

Song “Angel” by band Aerosmith

Lured by the melody of the whisper your feet move. You know naught where they lead you, you care naught where you are headed. All you need, you care, you bother about is the fading sound of those syllables which you chase despite your will, which call your name and take you away and you move.

You enter the chamber and the music goes strong. A whiff of her perfume allures you and eludes you. Eyes closed, curtains drawn, senses dimmed you keep moving and groping your way around to reach her, to find her, to hold her, to kiss her. You open your eyes and it still is same. The darkness, the whisper, the calling, the scent. Hands outstretched you tremble with anticipation yet you never stop moving.

A voice booms “Let there be light” and you are blinded by the piercing flash of light that suddenly fills the space around you. Big bang and your universe begins. Your eyes flicker madly trying to adjust your iris to this sudden revelation. Your hands that were aching to touch her skin suddenly and invariably are drawn to your face trying to shield your eyes.

The sound begins. It is not a whisper anymore but a rumble. Something else is moving in the space around you. The hmmm goes stronger and so does your eyes. You finally make a small window from your cupped palms and sneak a peak. It’s the walls! Damn it’s the walls!

You are in a 10X12 space. The walls are moving, coming closer like a lover to hug you and caress you. And then they are not just walls are they! Spikes are embedded into them. Long, strong, deep metallic spears projecting out, pointing towards you and as many as the pores on your skin. You see them approaching slowly, firmly drawing near with your each breath. You try to stop breathing, maybe that shall slow them down.

And it does! Yes they have stopped.

And you can hold your breath, this should not be a problem for you now my love, should it be? No it would not had it not been the scent of her skin. You still want to inhale her, feel her filling you from within, floating within you dimming your senses as if a shot of heroine. You want to breath damn it. Yes you want to and yet you can for every breath that you take somehow pulls those spikes those spears a tad bit closer. It’s a bargain, what do you chose my friend, where do you put your stake?

You breathe.

Yes you do. You breathe and you breathe. Inhaling deeper and harder, pulling those horrendous devils close and that elusive temptress closer. Every breath is a curse and a blessing. You can see them coming. You can sense her coming. If only you could draw her close before your soul is punctured by these tools of devil you shall not have any regrets. If..

If..

They come closer. They start elongating. Like a lover’s tongue trying to reach you, to lick you, to taste you before she bites you on your lips. They stretch out, reach out to you, trying to touch your skin before she can, while your conscience still is virgin, while you still are pure. Its her versus them and the only thing my dear friend that you can do is breathe.

You breathe harder and faster. They accelerate. Just when you thought, the battle is over, that they are almost here and you look up towards heaven mumbling your final prayers you see her. Agile, petite she floats rapidly down towards you from the space up above. Dressed in white, her hair flowing all around her she looks like an angel. And your heart knows no bound! You are elated, overjoyed! She is here, you are saved. It is all going to be over. She would be with you in an instant and you would hold her and touch her and kiss her and somehow you know that these approaching bearers of doom shall be stopped dead in their tracks.

She comes further towards you. Your arms are outstretched. You want to catch her before her feet touches this doomed ground. She is almost there.

And she stops.

Floating just above you with the smile of a white moonlit night she stands there and watches over you. You call her name. “What’s wrong my love, come down. Am here am waiting!” She smiles further. The spears edge closer. She opens her rose petal lips and calls out a name. No its not yours.

And you see him. He steps magically from the wall right in front of you The spears simply pass through him. He bends his knees jumps up and in an instant is standing right beside her. His arm reaches out around her. She rests her head on his shoulder. They both stand there, just outside your reach smiling down over you.

There is a sharp pain. A burning sting that arises from somewhere deep within. You look towards the walls. There is still some distance left.
Your arms droop, your gaze drops down to the floor. You lift your face once more to look in front of you. One of the serpents has reached. It flicks out its tongue and touches your skin drawing out the first drop.

You are breached.

You look up once more and they are gliding back up, swiftly, softly. Another serpent has come, time for yet another prick, another drop. And they come now, in dozens, as a flock of hungry ravines touching you, breaching you, piercing you. More blood, more slime, more drivel….more pricks.

And you stand there; breathing till the last one comes and stabs you right across the heart. There is a sharp scream. Sound of a heart being broken and they stop for a moment in their flight, look over their shoulders…..and fly away.

Baby
You're my angel
Come and save me tonight
You're my angel
Come and make it all right

Song Angel by band Aerosmith

Life's exit button

I wish life came with an Exit button. A big rotund gross hard top push down switch painted bright read enclosed in a glass case with a warning stamped all across in big block letters – “BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY! EXIT! DO NOT USE. PENALITY ON IMPROPER USAGE. YOU CAN BE FINED UPTO 3 MORE HUMAN LIVES ON THIS FUCKED UP PLANET”.

I would have pressed that gladly.

So what do I do now? I don’t want to live anymore. Nehh its not about being sad or something. It is purely about not wanting to do it anymore. You know the kind of feeling you have when you have watched a lot of tele or played for hours on your XBox at a stretch? You don’t hate it but you just don’t want to do it for a while. You switch it off, get up and go do something else. Wonder if I could do this with life? Stop when I want to and start again if I feel like it or maybe sell it on ebay or something. Do they have an online marketplace for this thing? Can I talk to God there? Maybe reach his customer services and yell – “Hey you guys! Sorry but I am not satisfied with this product. Ummm no reasons but what is your take back policy please? Yeah I have decided I don’t want it anymore. Throw the safety harness I gotta get back up there!”

Don’t think so there is any such service. And come to think of it, it is very weird on the part of God. I mean I get no say in my life whatsoever since the beginning? Mom and dad decide to get naughty and here I am, a by product of their love. No one asked me if I wanted to come into this world now, did they? And then I had no choice in my upbringing too. Grew up the way they wanted to, attended school, university etc. etc. No one asked me if I wanted to go through this or if I ever wanted to be born in the first place! I bet that idea of an Exit button doesn’t sound too weird now does it? I mean okay God decided to send you down here but then he should have given you the option to pull out of this whole mumbo jumbo called the world if you wanted to, shouldn’t he? How very inconsiderate. Tsk tsk, bad God, very bad God.

And now that I think more on it, I wouldn’t have any choice in my death too. I mean assuming that I live life by its normal course, one day I shall simply die. What if I don’t want to die then eh? What if I am too used to staying in this world (fat chance really) but then say what if I decided that no am a bit comfy here and would like to stay for a couple more years please? That ain’t gonna happen now would it? The angel of death would come knocking one day and tell me something like “Dude get up get up. Time to go big man!” and I would have no option but to follow him or else he would take me away anyways. How ultra cool is this now? Fantabulous! So if I were God I would have to be thinking something like this before coming up with this grand idea of the way the world would be – “Hmmm! Bored again. What do I do now? Idea! Bingo! I will create a world, put a bunch of different kinda guys on it and see how they work it out. And maybe I would give them things like booze and sex and cigar to keep them interested. Let us see how the clowns behave. BOOM! Let there be light!”

So whose life am I living then and why? If I didn’t have any choice on being born and if I shall not have any choice when I die then what the heck am I here for? Another marionette that Almighty put on this earth to pull strings and bemuse himself? I know I know what are you thinking. If I am a marionette really then where are the strings eh? Clever reader, really clever. You surprise me. Well then my clever friend here is your answer. The strings are my relations. People who care for me and whom I probably care for. People who are attached to me, who would be truly hurt if something were to happen to me. These strings are called relations my friend, relations! They are what keep me bound and stuck in my place. And I can not cut them now, can I? Clever God, created me, bound me with the strings and left the strings with other of his creations to pull and manoeuvre.

I wish to God (yeah I noticed the irony too) that he gets real bored by me soon. Maybe if I go dead inside and do not react to stimuli he would get fed up and pull my strings soon enough. What is your take on it? Would this work? If I simply were to shut myself in some deep dungeon or cave and refuse to play the game anymore would he pull me back out? Leave a comment and let me know.

Code Monkey

My day to day life

gotta admit, the music is great! This thing keeps on playing in a loop in my head the whole freakin' day!

DIGG this please if you like this :)

I walk a lonely road

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me

'Til then I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

Song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day

If I were to ask you how much time do you think you will take to recount your entire life, to visit your past again in your mind, to ponder over every decision you ever took and wonder if it was right or wrong, to visit every heart break you ever had and relive every orgasm, to think of all the people you loved and forgive all those you hate. What would your answer be? An hour or two? A week maybe?

One second.

I remember walking down a lonely road and it has indeed been the one I have ever known. It takes me to my office and brings me back. It is my solace, my haven, my escape and is much more closer to being me than anyone else since it is in real terms of the word-“lonely”. No one takes it but I. Yes I indeed remember that road.
I also remember a warehouse on the road. A deserted colossal structure with shattered windows, broken wrought iron gates and high walls. It is along one of those walls that I walk. The sun is out on my right shinning brighter than ever on my face as if trying to burn me to ashes and the huge wall on my left trying to make me feel dwarfed by the sheer virtue of its height while I try and take each step quicker and quicker not in my haste to get anywhere but just so that I am able to escape the combined onslaught of these two forces governing my psyche one of which is natural and the other man made. I trot with my head resolutely bent down my feet pounding on the asphalt one after the other with such precise rhythm as if they are not my own but pieces of a machine moving in tandem one after the other. Sweat is eventually beginning to pour out on forehead and would soon dance its way along my face and start dribbling down on the road just ahead of me. How fascinating this is. My sweat pours out of my body and drops on the ground just ahead of my feet. That ground that I have not yet traveled, that part, which is still to come under the pounding of my feet, is yet to be explored by me, to which I do not owe anything right now. Yet before taking my liberty to stomp onto the freedom of that virgin I first must make my due payment, my tax to trod on. What is more amazing is that it is not some one whose making me pay this tax as I would like to call it but just my body and that blazing hot red mass of matter in the sky both of which I can not try to reason with. I drip and I walk and I simply can not do anything about it.

How fascinating indeed.

Neither can I do anything about my companion. Oh yes! I do have a companion, someone who is walking right along me, making sure I am never alone. It is my shadow. It always walks besides me. I can always find it right here. Though it does not talk to me or amuse me or share my laughter or my tears or for that matter even my sweat yet it is always here-my dead reflection on a dead wall. Dead? Of course dead, for it speaks naught, it cries naught, it laughs naught. It does not have a face I can remember, it does not have eyes I can see in, it does not have heart I can share my pain with.

Conscience and Desire are perhaps a man's worst enemies and best of friends. One would make you do such forbidden acts that you can not even dream of doing and the other would make you feel so miserable when you are done with, that you just want to somehow kill yourself. And yet again these two force you to give up your seat to a lady carrying a child in a bus and propelling you sometimes to do something extra ordinary of such magnitude in your life that you end up as Mahatma Gandhi, Kennedy and even Bill Gates. The desire to explore shall carry you to the edge of a cliff where your conscience would subtly push you off.
Lost in my thoughts I must have taken some wrong turn for I do not know where am I wandering to. Somehow the wall is on my right and the sun is on my left. I am perplexed! I don’t know what is going on. For though I was not paying attention to the direction my feet were carrying me in but I am so used to this road that I daresay I can take a wrong turn.
Something didn’t feel right. I had a feeling in my stomach intensifying with every passing second. Something was just not feeling right. I was looking left and right trying to make some sense of what was happening.

And then I saw it running-my shadow! It was sprinting along the length of the wall running way ahead of me. Yes it was mine, yes I am positive for there is no one around me till miles. I could do nothing but see it run ahead on the wall, sprinting and jogging.

I had just a second but I felt it. I felt the rush of the wind coming towards my hair, I felt the cold touch of the butt before it made contact with my skull before it knocked me out.

Time passed. Some hours or maybe some weeks. Maybe a life ended. Maybe I died and got reborn.

I am lying down. Someone is screaming. No I do not want to open my eyes or wake up. I am comfortable, cozy. I wish to Lord they would stop screaming. The voices are getting louder and louder. Oh damn! I can not take it anymore. I stir breaking the comfortable position my body had become so used to from lying down for so long. The first wave of consciousness hit me and along came deafening noise which rattled me right down to my soul. I jerked and sat up. I am on a stage, there are gothic figures screaming and dancing all around me. They are playing music.-hard rock, metal, deafening music. The screams are shrill and high pitched. Jumping and dancing all around me pointing at me and singing in a strange tongue which I can not comprehend these figures resembling monsters straight out of hell are entertaining a huge crowd. There are bodies as far as my eyes can reach. Everyone is using the same tongue. I do not know what they are chanting. My sitting up straight seemed to have enthused a fresh wave of energy throughout the crowd. Everyone is screaming, jumping, pointing figures at me.
And there I saw it-my shadow. Mute as ever it was jumping as hard as it could. and though there is no face, eyes, features that I can remember or recognize it by I am still sure it is my shadow. It is weird and the oddity of it was never clear to me until this point here. If I were to draw an example it would be something like picking your cell phone out of 3 other cell phones of the same make, model and color from a table. You just know its yours. You don’t need to check or to make sure.

I knew it was mine. I saw it and I had a weird feeling it was looking straight at me, right into my eyes. The meaningless babble of the crowd began to take shape, as if a picture is emerging by itself slowly out a pool of colors which were dribbled on the floor. I could make out what they were screaming. It was repeated incantation of just one word-Kill.

Kill, kill, kill.

I felt like a gladiator in an amphitheatre. A gladiator who has been thrown in the middle of wild savage animals and for whom the crowd is bursting with enthusiasm to see some flesh ripped of and blood being poured. It is like chattering of a sacred hymn in a temple. Everyone is on the same page, everyone is united and everyone knows just what to say at any precise moment in a singing tone.

Kill, kill, kill.

The chattering is getting louder. It is filling my ears and reaching my brain. My brain which is already thumping with a frenzy of activity from within. There are questions floating all around like sharks in an angry ocean, and my conscience is like a lost sailor amongst them.

Kill, kill, kill.

I looked all around me in a haste. No one I know but my shadow, which is now being hoisted on the shoulders of these gothic figures. Fresh energy is seeping throughout this menagerie. My shadow is on some shoulders. It is hopping and jumping and making way towards the stage where I lay. Everybody wants to touch it, to give it a part of their shoulders to step on. It is like the plate carrying sacred incense in Indian temples which is passed all around the devout participating in the holy prayer to touch and be blessed. My shadow is advancing rapidly towards me.

Kill, kill, kill.

A final hop and it is on the stage, facing me. The crowd has gone silent. The silence is so thick I can hear my every breath explode with a bang right in front of me. I do not know what is going to happen. I wish my shadow had eyes, eyes to give me a hint to let me know what is coming next. But no, that is not to be. Here we are facing each other. My shadow raised its right hand slowly pulling it up bringing in front of me clenched as a fist. Am I to take it? Grab the fist, bend down and kiss it? What am I expected to do? What is everyone waiting for! Torn as I am in all these confusions and questions the thumb popped up from the dark clenched fist in front of me.
The fist turned and the thumb pointed downwards.

Kill, kill, kill

The crowd erupted! The verdict had been passed. My shadow whipped his hand like a blade and the next thing I was looking at was a 9mm barrel of a revolver staring right between my eyes. The last thing I heard was the cocking as the trigger was pulled.

One second.

One second was all it took for the bullet to leave the barrel and penetrate my sanity. One second was all I had to live my life again. I had flashes, flashes lasting minutes, how I don’t know. I could see everything again. I as a child, I growing up, I losing my loved ones. I felt the pain of all my heartbreaks and relived all my orgasms. I hugged all those I loved and said good byes. After a long time I thought of God and said my prayer. I felt the chilled wind of London freezing my lungs skin and scorching heat of Delhi burning my skin. I lived every second and every year of my life again.

And I was happy, truly exotic on leaving the world finally.

The alarm went off and I realized I am late for the office. Damn! Cant even die in peace. Better get up. I have to go to the office and a road to walk. Maybe as they say my morning dream would turn out to be a reality....

An escaping ambition

Last night a silent whisper woke me up from my slumber. Out of the corner of my sleep filled eyes I saw a shadow trying to tip toe its way out of my room. Perplexed and still delirious I called out, “Who are you and where are you heading to?”

On hearing my voice the shadow stopped and stood with its head bowed. When I repeated my question, the shadow as if imploring me said “Sir I am a small ambition who lived in your eyes since ages and I was now leaving.” This shocked me and I could not do anything but ask “Why my old friend. What grave inconvenience could have I caused you which made you break this old relationship and leave?” As if I had embarrassed the shadow, it spoke meekly. “Sir, I have been with you as long as I could remember. You gave me birth and you brought me up. You nursed me in your heart. You gave me a place in your eyes and a place in your vision. You catered for me in your plans and you accommodated me in your sleep. Still after all these years and all this work I remained a black shadow. I could never be a reality and come and stand in front of you. I have hurt you, pained you and I do not want to do this anymore. I was leaving so you could live in peace.”

I was startled. My eyes suddenly felt heavy, as if something was filling them up. Tears maybe but I didn’t know. I was at a complete loss of words. It was as if someone had hidden all my words from me. I could sense them and see them as stars twinkling around me but as soon as I reached out with my hand to touch them they vanished with a pop like magic and the more I strained my eyes to follow the crisscrossed trajectory of these flying words the heavier my eyes became. I didn’t know what to say to this black shadow which now stood so humbly with its head bowed and arms dropped down to its sides. Perhaps an era or maybe a lifetime later I asked again – “If this is true my friend then why leave so quietly? Why not tell me and shake hands and leave? Why leave like a thief, as if you have something to hide or someone to hide from. Surely it can not be me. I have loved you and as you said, treasured you. Why then leave without a final hug or so much so as a handshake? Is our bond so weak that you can simply shrug it off and walk away?”

As if possible the shadow sank a few feet in the ground. It suddenly appeared smaller and weaker. With a sigh the shadow replied, “I was not alone in your eyes sir. A small hope lives right next to me. She is not very strong. She would not have survived if she knew I was leaving. She would have cried and insisted on coming along with me and had that happened, you sir would have been left all alone. I never intended that to happen. Farewell sir and please take good care of that hope. If anything were to happen to her you would be all alone.”

A sudden noise outside my room woke me up. I think I was dreaming. Yes it probably was a dream. Shattered pieces of a broken ambition still sting my eyes sometimes. A small hope still cries somewhere within sometimes.

Words

If words had any power, I’d be the king of this world.

Words. Beautiful ugly distorted perfect words. Words – all I have are these words. These words which I use to convey what I feel, to draw an image in the air of the objects floating in my brain and as if by sheer magic transpose that image into your mind, often without even speaking.

Words, which I am in love with. Words which I use as my rescue and my weapon. Words which I hurl at my opponents as spears and words which I use to rapidly conjure a thick shield impenetrable by all with such subtlety and suddenness that somehow still amazes even me. Words that I use to charm my way out of situations. Words that I use to create temptations arouse a mortal’s most hidden and primitive desires and make him obey me. Words that I use to manipulate, maneuver, connive and convince. Words with which my association goes back as far as I can think of. Often incomprehensible in one language, say the language I spoke when I was one or two years of age, yet words nonetheless perfectly understandable to those who understand the language I chose given a particular moment in this dynamics of space and time.

Words which always stay with me ready to launch themselves from the tip of my tongue and fingers at my slightest provocation, which I can always rely on to come to my aid and yet, which always helplessly, hopelessly fail me when I need them the most.

When I try to describe the magic, the power those eyes have over me. When I try to compare her elegance with that of a flowing river and her poise her stature to that of a wisp of smoke delicately yet firmly positioning itself in the thin air, when I try and equate her laughter to the sounds of humming wind and when I try and compare the silent noise her tears make to that of a delicate bone china glass being shattered. When I try and conjure up a perfect world where she will be the queen and I shall be her most desired and humble servant, the object of her desire, her playmate, her dark secret life. Someone she would look straight into the eyes when the king is holding his court and mouth a wordless “I love you”. When I try and impress unto her how much her presence mean in my life. When I want to with all my earnestness minus any of my conniving make her understand how much she has become a part of me. When I reminisce about those glorious days spent in her arms and those moments of intense passion I spent looking down at her sweating face as we moved again and again together composing a perfect harmony taking it to its crescendo using our bodies as Lord’s gifted musical instruments.

When I call her name in the darkness and the fear that invokes in my heart thumping with its every beat that I shall never see her again. When I crave for her, long for her. When I try and tell her how much I love her, want her, need her and beg her not to go. When I try and scream at God for putting me in these predicaments, for causing me this pain. When I try and make myself believe she is not gone but simply hiding her somewhere in these dark shadows encouraging me to find her, prolonging my desire so that when I finally catch her I shall be a thirsty mad man and she will be the river that will quench my thirst satisfying my temptations. Words when I curse my fortune, my life, my existence. Words when I try to find them in these waves of destiny on my palms and forehead. Words which I want to use to express my loss, my pain, my grief, my need, my desire. Which I want to use to fill this void she created deep within me when she left.

Words, how I hate them and love them. How I use them with such ease and yet often find myself at a total loss on how to summon them.

Words. Nothing but a mere permutation of some dark spots of ink placed comfortably together or some modular variations in the wavelengths of this air all around us. No complications like quantum mechanics, thoughts of a philosopher, equations of Einstein, just simple plain words.

An Ode to Death

I went to a funeral today. As it stands I am in London right now and I have some relatives who have been based here for almost an eternity. And a human being being a social animal that he is, they obviously made acquaintances with people living around them or with those who had chosen to migrate to UK almost at the same time as they did.

One of such acquaintances of theirs was blessed with a very lovely charming intelligent and a beautiful daughter.

She was 24.
She was a meritorious students studying in one of the top notch universities of UK.
She had numerous scholarships and certificates to her name.
Her family is one of the richest in UK and most influential back home in India.
She committed suicide last week.
I never met her or knew her.
I was moved beyond my deepest emotions.

We lost our way to the crematorium and reached 5 minutes late. The service had started and the hall was packed. With many others we stood outside the hall in the chilly wind listening to all the family members paying their tributes to her. I could not see anything. I was there, standing outside the hall in a wind which was blowing with such an intensity that it might as well would have carried me with itself and with such a chill that I wished if it does indeed carry me somewhere it please be the fires of hell so that I not only get to warm myself but also reach my final destination and finally escape these dreaded talons of this life.

But no I am not that fortunate, am I? Had I been fortunate to get what I wish for, would have I ever wished to escape this vicious circle of life!

No it did not happen. No matter as much as I wished, yet I was there standing outside all the while listening to a voice booming over my head from a speaker. Wondering just why did I agree to come to this funeral in the first place when I don’t know anyone, when I have no relations with the deceased and her family other than that of humanity which as I have learned to understand the hard way does not really matter in this world and when I have long since lost my capacity to be touched by emotions such as grief.

And then she started speaking. I didn’t know who she was, perhaps her mother, or her aunt or maybe some grieved friend. I did not know then nor do I know now. But she started speaking and I was glued to where I stood. She started narrating a small poem she had written and suddenly I was washed with waves and waves of ice cold realizations which crashed over me with such fervor that the wind suddenly felt as burning ciders on my skin and just one question suddenly sprang up in my brain and spread its tentacles through my neural system with such rapidity that before I could have even realized its presence sweeping through my conscience, there it was flowing along with my blood all through my body and having already proclaimed and proven its dominance over my capacities to rationalize it was now trying to puncture that invisible barrier which separates my mortal self from my soul all the while screaming just one thing

“So what matters then in the end?”

I have been trying hard, very hard that I do not have to leave London now. I have been trying harder to clinch a job in the United States of America. I have been trying desperately that I do not have to go back to India or face my mortifying endless repeated act which us the denizens of this planet have coined job. I have gone from pillar to post to make sure I am always in touch with the “right” people, eating and drinking in the right places and made contact with the right authorities as much as I possibly can.

Would it matter to me in the end where I am burnt, dust to dust and ashes to ashes? Would I care if my car got its proper parking space or that my employer was not racist or my green card application was accepted or what my peer think of me whether I look good or am I looking to thin or am I looking too fat or whether the “right” people are attending my last journey or whether it is being organized at the right venue with kosher food and vintage wine and am dressed immaculately and I do not have stubs on my face and my hair is not messy and have they selected the best of my photographs to place along my body and is everyone seated properly and and and…….?

Would anything matter to me when I finally sleep?

Why then am I living my life too hard? Why am I always trying to be an edge apart and a step above those around me? Why do I hate some and love none? If nothing has to come to me in the end, nothing can give me all these comforts which I so desire now when I shall so need them the most why do I strive to possess it? Why then am I living now when I have to die tomorrow!? What is the purpose, the aim the final destination of my life?

My death?

That is? My life ends? Why then try so hard! Why study or work or amass wealth or love some when at the end I am going to be all alone, just me myself and I, stripped of all that I earned owned possessed and isolated of all whom I loved? Why why and why! I do not understand this. Maybe I am not supposed to, maybe I am just supposed to try my best shot at this life and take things as they come to me. But then if I am to do just that I do not understand what shall make me different from my vacuum cleaner or my TV or my car all of which can neither think or ask or analyze. All of them just do for what they are built. They have no power whatsoever to modify what is to be made of them or what is to finally become of them. My car can do little if I push it of a cliff and destroy it. My TV can not ask me why do I change channels rapidly but can only do what I wish for it to do.

Am I not like them then?

Or maybe I am worse, for all such things as cars and TVs have a purpose for which they are built. What purpose was I created for? Is there any or am I just simply a byproduct of human love? Am I worse than even the most minutest piece of machinery?

No I am not and I know that. The reason, the one thing that distinguishes me from a mechanized motorized pile of steel is my power to think and feel. And then again therein lies the cause of my misery. Why do I have this power to question the Lord when I am deprived of the ability to make him answer me! Why do I feel joy and pain when I am nothing but a puppet on this vast stage who can do little if his creator chose to end his part and pull his string?

She went on and on. Her pain was beginning to pierce me, seeping through these pores on my skin and slowly gradually mixing with my blood as if my own. I knew not why was I moved, I knew not what connection if any existed and I knew not what could I do to make her stop. Her narrations spoke of time well spent a life well lived and a death well embraced. Oh yes she was asking questions too. With her lament and her cries she was asking Lord again and again why did He have to make this 24 year old beautiful talented girl kill herself. And as He does to me, he chose not to answer her no matter her wails and sobs. The Church was quiet, the crowd was quiet and He was quiet.

Finally she stopped. Of sheer exhaustion or emotion I do not know. But yes she felt quiet. For a long time no one spoke no one breathed. We all stood quiet, very quiet. All waiting for Him to finally speak and sooth His bereaved, destroyed, devastated daughter.

He was silent still.And then there was music. Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s remarkable voice seemed as if a glass made of fine china had been delicately shattered. He sang and sang and sang. People started moving, everyone as if cajoled from a deep trance. A line began to form. We moved with the crowd of humanity which somehow now seemed more united and connected. Everyone was moving with just one aim, to hug her parents and cry and light a small little candle where she would finally be laid to rest.

And I who is ever unable to shed a tear could not do even that. I just carried my dead self back to the car heaved my body onto the seat and came back much like a dead body riding in a coffin only that my journey has not yet ended.

Rest in Peace Meeto. I was not fortunate enough to know you but I feel as if we never have been strangers. One day I will cry, and I will cry for you then. Till such time I am your guilty, forgive me.