Untitled!

Read something somewhere and it reminded me of this exercise we had done for PCT last year.We were told to put down our academic and extra curricular achievements in school and college,the good and the bad qualities,interests,what you want to do and stuff-in a creative manner.Now that I look back at it it was not that bad a thing to do.Thought it too trivial and kiddish then.And ironically, diificult to write such things about your ownself. This is how it looked like: (Thank cell phone cameras-coz we had to submit it to never see it again!)

 

 

 

DismantleD

 

My blank slate…

In the elevator – A term coined by a close pal – ‘My slate is blank right now’. What is this supposed to mean?? I was equally perplexed. And then came the moment of enlightenment- it  implies a status check – single/not single. Well in that case my slate has always been blank ! And I know I have a lot of company here!

Spare me the mushy stuff – is my reason for the blank slate. Maybe I’m completely wrong- maybe I sound phlegmatic. My close friends know how fatuous and zany my ideas are about the Mr. Right who I have come to believe doesn’t exist. And if I go by my pre-conceived notions and list of requirements I’m sure to die a bachelor! Again, I’m sure I have a lot of company here too!

And as another friend put it- the commitment shit is not at all flattering. Agreed. From what I’ve seen friends not having a blank slate go through. Who wants to endure all this amidst the quotidian agony and anguish that we are subjected to !

 There can be a million reasons why one would have a blank slate. The whole !dea of this post is to elicit responses from fellow bloggers. As it is manifestly evident, I have no better work to do. Nothing inspires me enough. A writer’s block that has prolonged beyond expectation now is killing. Yet I’m willing to know- why is the slate blank??!!

BLACK

Now people who know me, know pretty well about my ongoing and never ending romance with Black. Black to me is the  colour I can most relate with and have come closest to experience. Black both mystifies and attracts me.

The emptiness that it withholds.The secrets that it never reveals. The fears and inhibitions that it enshrouds. The radiance that it emits. The silhouette that it creates. The void that it fills.

BLACK is beautiful.

(BLACK is a necessity!   :P)

Inconsequential I stand

Back from a place that defies every definition of utmost beauty and scaling magnitudes with daunting landscapes and freaks of nature, must say that I’ve started to feel too insignificant and inconsequential.  Not that I was unaware what a speck of dust I was. Suddenly starting to rethink my survival quotient, my existence status. Trying to search for the sense of belonging to this place where it’s more about the badges you wear and the cars you drive in. Same questions posing each day- what next? The pandemic CAT/GRE syndrome not sparing me. I wonder, is that all I can conjure up from my life so far. No more depth and meaning to it.

Band followers. Club supporters. Gaming enthusiasts. Team rooters. Movie buffs.  I’m surrounded by them all and many more. Ya I also fill in some categories. Minus all of this, little remains. That’s solely mine, not related to anyone else, not dependent on anything else. Something that I can call my own. Something that I have given to this world.  Inconsequential I stand.

We were passing the Rohtang pass Enroute Leh where we had to stop and give way to the army convoy. Almost 40 army vehicles passed by carrying the entire ration and other requirements from the base. These were people who have selflessly devoted themselves to the cause of this nation. Where we still cannot think above our own desires and live only according to what seems right to us.Sad, but true. We just get jingoistic at times but have never learned to think for the country and its welfare. We’re plain self-centered.  They’re serving a nation that has divided itself or rather being divided. Don’t know whom to blame. Met this guy, ladakhi scout posted at Changla-the third highest motorable road. He showed us pictures and autographs of Aamir Khan,Kareena Kapoor,Saif who were at Pangong for shooting. He was manifestly a huge Bollywood aficionado and Aamir fan. We got into DCH and RDB mode.Damn cool guy.But man he was working in the most inhospitable conditions one can imagine. How do they manage to do this and that too with such fervour! Inconsequential I stand.

It dawns upon me.Inconsequential I stand.For I know not how to look further. Know not anti-cynicism. (don’t know/know not grammatically correct sentence formation ? J) I have learnt to overlook mistakes. Accept things as they are. Comply.Impassionate actions. Impulsive reactions. Unwanted thoughts. Uncalled for emotions.  

Inconsequential I stand.

LIFE’s GOOD!

So finally am writing! There was a lot to write on and yet nothing gave me enough inspiration to start crunching keys. A lot of garbled emotions led me this long long hibernation period.

Nothing ever seems complete! Nothing perfect! And nothing enough! We certainly seem to think that we’re probably not one of the most blessed of our kind! And ya, life sucks most times and studying in Mumbai University just worsens it. Could go on and on as far as quetching is concerned!

A chance encounter with a show on a channel that’s a ‘must never watch’ changed a lot within me. It was a show for the ‘specially abled’ as they called them. I’d agree. On the outside, they looked as though they’d need a lot of aid for even the basic mundane chores. But certainly they’ve defied all norms and come a long way. Some sang. Some danced. Some had special talents. And how they performed! Made me feel so belittled. Ya, they were mentally retarded and physically challenged. But nothing looked impossible for them. They didn’t seem complaining.     

Wonder what makes normal and equipped people like us complain all the time. I am no exception. I love people who have no qualms about anything and just take things the way they are. It’s certainly an art to live life that way. It’s a lot easier to just keep thinking how much has gone wrong rather than actually making attempts to make things right.

Never felt so much before than now that LiFE’s GoOD! It certainly is. It might be splotched with some rough patches but otherwise the path is all too smooth.  

LiFE’s GoOD!

Adios!

Its not just poetry…

This is how it begins:

 

It’s a sort of disclaimer: You can proceed at your own risk-lol

 

 

If I’d be a lonely night

        Would the stars befriend?

If I’d be a tragic sight

        Would sympathy I grab?

 

Am I so abstruse that the world can’t reach me…

Or is that how it’s meant to be…

What I’m doing now-

        Is a poetry of my quandary…

Or a quandary of my poetry!!

 

These were written a long time ago and I wanted to post something – so here it is….

 

 

HARD TO LIVE…

 

When life begins to beckon,

But it never takes place, what is reckoned;

And a strange loneliness gives a great thud,

And it feels like being an abortive dud…

 

It feels like being the greatest bankrupt-

There’s a bereavement of being a solitary being on this earth-

Life seems repaying all sins in penance-

Life appears to be fading, ceasing to blaze in mirth…!!

 

The worst of the worst thought of jealousy takes abode,

Life is endangered when hatred starts unveiling.

When you sense the support of none…

That’s when life becomes a traumatic killing!!

 

 

HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE?

 

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are?

When I zizz at night in your light

The world to me seems so bright.

 

All at peace, all so calm

When the world sees-your lambent charm;

Forgotten agony, forgotten pain

With your advent, forgotten all disdain;

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are?

 

Though you scintillate all over the sky-

I perceive that you are mine;

You are up above the world so high

Come with me, or take me with thy;

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are?

 

When I open my eyes at early morn’

I have nothing but the sky with sun, adorn;

Why aren’t you there all day, my friend?

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are?

 

… I perceive that you are mine

And though I keep reprising this line,

Your enigma is still befuddled,

Give me my friend, a sugary cuddle,

I yet don’t know what you are?

But still in me, there’s a pride

That our Creator is One

Considering this, you are my undisputable sibling;

Thus don’t bequeath me, till my Life’s evening!

 

 

JOURNEYING AWAY

 

Oh God! Oh Holy! Oh Lover of the world!

This man asks for nothing more than bread today-

This man asks only for Love in his gray-

This man wishes peace when the moonlight sweeps-

This man longs for a morn’, where there’s no more grief…

 

This man does not grumble,

                This man does not expect-

But this man wants to Live today;

Frapped in love-love all the way;

                Till he dies another day

                Till he goes away…

 

Blue

The two silhouttes who desolated their friend

I am not a story-teller of any sorts. This is an attempt at a story based on the theme-Blue. All that one can associate with ‘blue’.  I hope the narrative does not seem obscure.

 

 

 

I finally ceased the play…the final brushstroke came into effect…the blues jaded…for it had to be perfect…that’s how I’ve always been…an incessant striver…nothing less would do….and here it stood…A picturesque landscape reminiscent of a wintry panorama…of soaring altitudes…the silhouettes closing the summit neatly foiled against the iniquitous hues of bluish white… -”Discovery 10 pm Summit Everest”   

 

I looked at the silhouettes…It occurred to me…It was my story…

 

They must have been inseparable-to be together on the highest point in the world. But that’s not what one saw…A black anatomy lay desolated while the other blacks maneuvered towards the summit.The air was all blue, as his soul made the final transit…so close to the crystalline blue,ironically,the ethereal skies…

 

They had received a message. A blizzard in another 10-12 hours…with limited becoming scarce-of water,food,oxygen and the adrenaline pumping hard…they knew that taking him back to the base camp meant the end…there was no coming  back…they weren’t disposed for such a crisis, were they? This did not fit in their utopian idealism. He had to be left behind…

 

And so it was the death, not of a soul…but of a faith…a faith that is sacred…it was an end…of their blood brotherhood…a benchmark to be set soon. An unconquered height surmounted…it was their beginning…

 

I felt blue. The truth finally sank in. I was also left, by people I called friends, crippled with disease-a stigma, so they called it. A faithful signature obliterated my existence, I so unknowing of their discernment of my condition. I was scandalized!

 

Art had always been my passion-today it is my crutch.I paint hoardings; the scrimpy remuneration serving to buy a notebook, a pen for my son…while we scavenge at the hotel where I wash crockery. I want my son to be learned-as I was. The little investments I make will take him to college after I depart.

 

Here he is. He looks at the hoarding and exclaims-”Discovery 10 pm Summit Everest”-      his tryst with education is on…I’m delighted…satisfied…The journey is on…

And the blue ink forms into neat letters in his precious book…a miniscule blue silhouette alongside…just like the one I conjured up on the billboard…After all, they couldn’t take away our blue-blooded endowments! I don’t feel blue anymore…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DROPPED. LOST. MISSED

 

            There’s always this thing of grabbing the opportunity- of being at the right place at the right time -of doing what the moment demands- of not letting go off the golden chance. The desire to be ‘somewhere there’ – to be ‘that someone’ – to be able to possess ‘this and that’ et al… Wonder how many of us try to do all of this for all of some ‘that’…

 

          And then those times when it doesn’t happen what’s meant to have happened – and when it all seems ‘all wrong’ – and then this trying to come out of it- undaunted and unabashed. Resolute and readied for the next go. Aren’t these the times that make us what we are… ‘Defining moments’ of the person that becomes of us…

 

          It baffles me-where does this ‘trying’ and ‘keep trying’ (with nothing more than sporadic instances of content triumph) and ‘becoming’ end?? When does it culminate to tell you what’s in store for you?? What is it that will ‘happen’ for you??

 

          I’m not certain about who cares-not certain if I care…Certain that someday I’d rue ‘wish I’d cared enough…’

 

I’m completely oblivious to the rationality of all that has crept up and incognizant of the ‘whatever’ that has caused it to… Apologetic to myself for making me go into the depths of despair and disarray…On the go to lift myself to the domain of reality where the ‘obvious is oblivious’ and ‘where we don’t care if we care’.

 

As to why this is the first blogpost-did I just mention I’m completely oblivious… if we care’.