nascent nuances

The End of An Era

2017-11-04T03:31:00.001-07:00

Everything, as it happens, comes with an expiry date. That's the good and bad of it - there's great comfort and disillusionment, silently bundled in that thought. Adding perspective as it creeps up on you. Adding the pregnant pause. Adding, the much needed reality check to the rose tinted veneer.

Reality. Checked.

Goodbye, you. You've stood a witness to my nuances, as they have evolved over time tide. You have been my solace and my serenade, of eras lived and loved.

You, have been me.

Here's me bidding you goodbye, for my nuances are no longer nascent. They have unfurled, emitted fermented, and now finally rotted - with and often through you, drafts, inboxes et al.
You have borne a witness to the cocoon and the butterfly - and that's a strange comfort - knowing where one comes from. Identity, is a new challenge now. A new shore, for which we need newer masts.

So well then, Ahoy, you! Thank you for helping me be, the then-me. :))

The theros of the setting sun

2016-01-13T07:01:00.001-08:00

With every reality comes a perspective. Ours might be skewed. I will preserve mine, for there is not much else to do.

I un-friended you today. After almost a year of pushing the inevitable.
Just a click of a button, in Life. Tch.

Distorted visions. Long decayed delicacies.

Ours had to rot.

The something about endings. The theros of it.

The sunsets each day. We will have a new sunset tomorrow. Only you will have yours, I mine. I wish I could have claimed that mine, by the virtue of being by the beach, will be better. Only, I no longer wish to regale you with the wonders of my wanderlust. The corrosion of the seas and the mountains have made home in the impenetrability between us.
I no longer wish I had the power to combat your demons. It’s been exhausting. I am exhausted.
Today, I shall stop wishing unto you, too.

Know this, my love, the laments come from not only the loss of love, but also the loss of the person that will never again be, the you and the me, the we, long dead anyway. The memoirs, shared, or kept to be revelled in, later; the books, the cinema, the paintings, the dadu-dida and kakima, the lovers, the insatiable lusts, the passion, tears, the ambitions, both the lofty and not-so-lofty ones, the houses and homes, the complaints and glitches, the losses, the all of it that will never again be. I make peace with it today, after months of pretending I have.

Apologies though, for the painfully lengthy period of life support. It took me some time, a great amount of moving and doing to get here, undoing each pier, one by one lill painful block. I really am exhausted.

Little by little decay will set afoot; perhaps it already had in all its shrouded decorum. Powerful, sentient and vigilant. I like a fool had been gazing into the sunset.

I leave usually not without goodbyes. Ours is not needed.

Inertia

2016-01-13T05:18:00.001-08:00

PS: From a long time ago.
Thank God that bitch is done with!

Time to collect those stories

2015-10-07T12:16:00.001-07:00

As the smoke from my cigarette blows away in the wind billowing from the open door, sheer darkness of landscape whoosing by, i cannot help but go back to three months ago when i was on the exact same train. Leaving behind the familiar, heading towards moving on.

Life was a different saga back then!
Today, even the same people feel diffrerent. Amusingly, every time i pay attention to the incessant, soothing rhythm of the chanting train, i cannot help but marvel at perspectives, or the lack of them. That lone house by the tracks, with one little lantern lighting up the verandah? Reality checks often come in forms unapprehended!

These three months have passed in the blink of an eye. I've barely seen as many me-s in the last three years, as i have in the last three months. Each time, with a new realization, each time, holding fast a little tighter, hoping to not stumble and make a fool out of my resplendant self. And in that i perhaps bargained for a little more than what i actually deserved. Coherence. I remember thinking at one point, that it would have been a priviledge. I have only recently, and yet again, learnt that privileges also carve out a nook only when rightfully claimed!

Exactly three months later, as i head back, once again leaving familiarity and fondness behind, I'm a little more prepared to meet the dreary, hostile city at the other end of the train. A little more awake, a lill less apprehensive. A little more motivated by the light at the end of a tunnel. Or perhaps, just by the thought that this is yet another passing phase. In a month's time, i will merely be reminiscing, perhaps while smoking lazily on a mountaintop, looking out into the endless vistas. Or perhaps when I'm battling to not lose focus during a session of particularly bad sex. It all will become a new set of drunk stories, itching to be retold.

Priorities, prioties, my lill princess. Remember, self preservation is paramount?

Bring it on, you dreary city; I may still not be ready for what i am expecting, but this time, I am at least expecting. Well then, it is time to collect those stories.
:)

May love find and keep you

2015-07-04T11:37:00.001-07:00

The train has finally picked up speed. The soothing, rhythmic motion has overcome the inertia. It has taken me months to get here. To even get to this place where writing about this does not feel like a call for attention. A superfluous attempt.

Leaving is not new to me. To those that stay, leaving is always a means of escape; those that leave will always tell you that they had to. Without debating the truth of either, leaving is perhaps the toughest call you will make. Inertia will perhaps truly characterize each of those baited-breath moments before you leave. You will wait for something to happen, something that will goad you into action, or inaction, or anything. Then you will leave. Sometimes, so that you can come back, content that you left. Sometimes, so that you can find new shores. Sometimes simply so that you can leave.

I leave a sizable chunk of my life and a done up apartment behind in Kolkata today. For the first time in years, I knowingly wanted to keep alive a thread of attachment in the lanes I’m forgoing for another. An apartment that is set up as home. For those who wander to find home, will always want to keep whatever semblance they can find of it. Going through life and my older posts sometimes makes me chuckle at my own search. Perhaps the knowledge that there is one I can call my own is a comfort. Perhaps it is only another throbbing thread of attachment kept alive for the one place I’ve always come back to; or wanted to. Time and again.

As life tossed everything I knew to be true and over time grew familiar and comfortable with, in the course of a few bad months and a few more worse instances of inertia, some that were mine, some that I took upon myself, the only realization that has stayed is that of self, and that it is to be valued and preserved over all else. Time tests everything. And many that you thought were failsafe will fail. Some, quite to your surprise and distaste. You will mourn the loss; you will then, at some point again, pick up the pieces and build new forts and cities. Inertia is only a static state of being; a stagnant one at that. New chapters and new stories will demand telling. And you ruffle through the pages before you move on to the next chapter. But move on, you will. To the next halt. And then another!

As I leave, here’s to the memory of that inertia. You did me no good. But without you, I would not again so badly have welcomed the restlessness. Here’s to each of my friends who became and to each that didn’t stay; you know who you are. Here’s to all those bonds I unmade over the last few months, here’s to the few new ones I made. Here’s to the life I lived and loved and here’s to the new one I’m about to embrace. Here's to all the times I stayed, and all the times I packed up and left. Here’s to all those posts in my drafts that did not make it, here’s to this one.

May love find and keep you!

Paradoxes. As they exist.

2015-05-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

“Because Margo knows the secret of leaving, the secret I have only just now learned; leaving feels good and pure only when you leave something important, something that mattered to you. Pulling life out by the roots. But you can’t do that until your life has grown roots.”

Paradoxes. As they exist.
As though life was inevitably designed this way. To go through the motions of the crests and troughs endlessly, indulging in each, then absolving each.

The gaping hole in the ground, that once was held together by the roots, then ascertains a new identity. Soon, the storyteller will fill it with his own stories.

2014-08-22T18:02:00.001-07:00

I like the idea of being driven alone over flyovers. It's a high. Lets me look down upon the otherwise so spuriously tall billboards.

Post modern attempts at un-vulnerabalization?

2014-08-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I begin to think about us - we the self-proclaimed superior creations of Nature, made in what we call {insert personal faith equivalent}'s own image. Then, upon not-so-keen, just essentially detached observation, I begin to ponder about the extent of the flawed-ness we own and exhibit. Another thought thread shoots off, sensing the window of opportunity and begins to wonder that if that is the image we were created in, ummn, well that not exactly what you would call a very worthy standard to have to live upto.

Anyhow, I catch the other (original) thought thread, by its collar and divert greater segments of attention to it. Flawed creatures. Yes, despite being the sharpest and allegedly the most evolved species we are still the only ones who fight about science and god, rape children, whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears, wage wars, walk across countries to meet love, expect love to wait for them, bake cakes, read, write or paint, hurt and kill in cold-blood, make angry promises, write love letters, make love, make and take heartbreak, la di dah.

As we grow older we begin to see, like i keep saying, the world with a lill bit of the rose-tint peeling off bit by patient bit, and we grow cynical. Yet, how existentially vulnerable we become in the process. And inspite of life, love, long-island-ice-teas or lacerations, we do not learn to un-vulnerablize ourselves. We perhaps learn to find our work-arounds, but never extricate ourselves from the vagaries of expectations. We may close ourselves off to them, distract ourselves, do everything that we can in good faith to close ourselves from the inevitable disappointments of expectations, but never, never are we able to not succumb to how vulnerable it makes us. At these times, I'm often envious of the unthinking lot. I think they have it easier. I also sometimes that, that us, the thinking lot, project these insecurities unto ourselves to make ourselves seem grave, despressionistic and thus important. For no one pays much attention to the frivolous.

Then I think of what many authors have said about Dolphins. And I tend to agree.

Wiser, perhaps.

2014-08-21T15:49:00.003-07:00

It is a sad trick.

Every single one of us, the intellectual, the intelligent, the keep-to-myself loner, the extravagant, the miser, the man in the gangly t-shirt across the street, the taxi-driver who refused you the ride, the secret-admirer, the superficial babe flaunting her red nailpaint, the everyone else – each one of us – is looking for that one thing that will make our lives better. That one single consciousness or that fragmented one, which will complete if not compliment ours.

That one consciousness that we hope to draw from, that we hope to contribute to, in the eventual process of completion or fragmentation. That one consciousness that could make us feel a little less irrelevant. The one consciousness that could help us get an inch closer to the semblance of happiness, one moment at a time. In the process, evolution is inevitable – physically, metaphysically. The more we evolve the more attached we get to those that have been witness to and have in some way partaken and participated in the person we are today and the one we will become tomorrow. Perhaps, that is why it is so difficult to give up on old friends, childhood sweethearts, long-lost lovers, family, pets, however they may have failed you; for each of them have projected a part of themselves unto our present self. That is perhaps why, we will never be able to give up on love.

Evolution of love is a curious process. It simultaneously estranges you and makes you bond stronger with the people most relevant in the process. Born with a single consciousness, we are designed to succumb to loneliness, and thereafter seek that other consciousness that will draw our energies into theirs and replenish theirs from ours. That which will fill in those voids, you never knew existed. And in the process make you so much more aware of the person you are, inevitably making you become a different person than you were yesterday, inevitably thus estranging you, even if a wee bit from everyone who had this set perception of you.

Love is perhaps the design flaw then.

The moment you recognize an attraction, you rush with all your might to know the person, to know yourself around the person, projecting and eventually imbibing a part of them into you and a part of you unto them. You are always looking for some form of acknowledgment that would somehow concur with your projected person, and the sooner you reach there, you are looking to reach the next. It is an abyss that sucks you into it, deeper, each time you reach a check-point. Like that game, where you are craving to reach the next level. But once you have, it’s done with. Then it’s boring to go back and play from stage 1, because you already know of the hidden trapdoors, as much as you do of the crystals that will fetch you bonus points. The excitement naturally wanes. The other trick is to design the unending loop, where, at each stage you may or may not increase the difficulty level after a point, but you make minor changes in design, shuffle the trapdoors a little, trick and game the system to give you the bonus points at some familiar intervals, at others to just be a futile attempt at bonuses. While you may grudge the not-always-rewarding reward system, at least you will keep playing. The programmer has had his victory.

Human relationships are a tad bit more complex that way. Gaming the system, seems trickery – an unnatural effort – and hence not always appreciated. We like to believe that the system would be a self-updating game – and thereby fail to appreciate the effort our partner may put into actually gaming the system. We fail to recognize that that is also an attempt. We forget that the person we met is not the person who is and the person who will be. In our defence, acceptance is not always the easiest; not always the most natural course of selection. As much as we like the new, some more than others, we all take comfort in familiarity. That is perhaps why we re-read the same books, re-watch the same films, revisit photographs, play the same song on a loop, go back to our favourite places, go back to that one place for drinks, talk to the same people about the same things, succumb to the same mistakes. Even new mistakes are scary – unchartered territory they are. And while we like to imagine ourselves wiser after every mistake, we are merely being gamed. Perhaps that is why they say only unrequited love can last. For it is not blemished by the regularity of familiarity.

Yet familiarity is what we strive to achieve; what we are most comfortable with.

Wiser men and women have realized it, talked about it at length – in books, in movies, in real life. Yet we are all entrapped in it. It is indeed a sad trick.

C'est la vie, princess.

2014-03-09T12:28:00.001-07:00

'In essence, we become what we believe'. Many have said this in their own bejewelled words. Some ever so entangled in their own myriad blemishes, some ever so detached.

Sometimes perhaps, that is why it is easier to deceive ourselves. And truer. It is at those ambiguous moments unhinging becomes more important than ever. The lock however became rusty in all the time you never paid attention, sanctimonious in the charade of safety it cozened you into. The lack of the serenade is perhaps the bane and the boon, then. It settles as much as it unsettles. Truth be told, there ain't any, my friend. All that glistens may well be gold, but you never wanted gold to begin with. Somewhere in the bigger picture, the smaller one shied away.

Chronic dissatisfaction, hence. Sometimes, we pick snakes in the guise of twigs, some other times, we mistake the sugar for the sweetener. Then we let the insulin kick in.

Life goes on. C'est la vie, princess.

Calling out to the angels and demons: Time to come back home, darlings!

2014-02-03T11:54:00.003-08:00

Every time I read your mildewed dream, it gives me an inane urge to seek shelter in my own voracity of nuances. Though mostly, I cannot tell the urge apart, from the suppressed ceremoniousness that needs invoking to imperceptibly quieten that melancholic whisper. Or the one to weep silent tears for the loss of that vague feeling that I could never completely fathom, but inevitably always left behind familiar wisps. They blend into one another so seamlessly, that it'd take even you eons perhaps, to merely notice its reticent demeanour.

The tenacity of fragility. And our inane efforts, ever so subtle ones. Many regrets later, the palpable scaffold gives way. There's no dam that breaks, no subliminal conspiracy that metaphorically or otherwise, sinews sensation. But alas! the lack of it.

PS: Then, I go back to present-moment-sanctimonious-sensibility and tell myself to beckon both my angels and demons back home.

To the vagaries of Life and its likes!

2014-01-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

Year endings always see me a little lost - a lill encumbered, a little scattered, here and there. There's the old and the new, the eclectic mix of which you're seeking again, for Time's sake.

Its been a long year, one that has curled around the edges, gone over fences, sometimes has hidden under silent cold blankets and shirked away the restlessness. All in a day's work, on a more macroscopic scale. Heh.

There's so much to talk about, and yet nothing seems pertinent enough. Everything is, though. Pertinent enough to be not talked about, that is. So, i'll try and trace back, to a time, when I could tell the difference. A jealous lill kid, betrayed by the fact that the love of my life, the one who i gazed at starry eyed, Hrithik Roshan exchanged ceremonial garlands with his childhood sweetheart. Names dint matter, even then. So anyway, not being a regular follower of the Bollywood gossip streams, it came to me as quite a shock, staring at me right out of a newspaper (I'll confess, that by then my adulation had died down only by a mere inch, which is why I had not kept up with the whispers around B town, but I was too vain to admit that. I still am. Nevermind.) A diligent and faithful, starry eyed fan, I obediently followed up and lapped up all the stories the media generated about how the subject of my (and a million other women/girls/both) adoration, finally married his childhood sweetheart. Over the years, the media made their real life seem like reel life - the ones where the happy couple, walks off happily ever after into the sunset, and that is pretty much the end of the road.

A good few minutes ago, I read about the 'will last forever' couple having issued individual statements to the media about their split up and impending divorce. Still, not a regular follower of Bollywood channels, this news too came to me as quite a shock. Not that this time it triggered personal emotions (I like to believe that I've grown up beyond fandom, except for, when it comes to Johnny Depp), nevertheless, I yet again lapped up all media speculations that the first page of Google search would give me. The media did what it does - speculate and spin more stories, some very fancily titled with very badly edited images. One publication after another trying their best to get the scoop, make for a more spectacular story, sell a few more copies! The pandemonium of tragedy, when it strikes.

However, what was striking was the residual set of thoughts. About love, life and the likes of reminiscence. I, the self-proclaimed non-believer in all things pink and precious, was left a lill ajar. We all agree that 'happily ever after' does not exist, as much as leprechauns and topic change fairies do, but then what replaces it? The previous generations believed in 'ever after, happily or not', but we, as a generation of self-achievers, vouch our loyalties to 'happily, ever after or not'. Whatever works, works for us. 17 years later, i wonder what did not work with the couple that had the fairytale love story. It is perhaps the same thing that does not work for most of us - Life. I keep talking about it, but what really happens when the fairytale ends? And it ends, mind you. Life becomes mundane, where romance is replaced by 'these socks need to be washed', where the zing dissolves into Zinger burgers, where those consuming electric stares become blank ones of thoughtfulness that is inevitably followed by a 'huh?' That is perhaps the chemistry then, that you're expecting to be kissed underneath the stairs, such that the thought does not get your heart racing like it used to. Excerpts become rituals, excitement becomes regular and eagerness becomes reticence. You and me becomes us. But is that not what we wanted from the day we perceived the tension blooming? Perhaps is, but we humans, in our silly follies and inability to hold on to contentment, overlook the pitfalls of familiarity that we so desperately crave. Sometimes, I can even extricate myself from this endless loop to see the consequences of merely peripheral vision.

It is perhaps wise, to accept then. That we fail, to want without the law of marginal utility. But we succeed simultaneously, in keeping intact, the transient totes of love. Perhaps, it is ok, to be dejected and crib about how you barely ever are caught off-guard anymore. Perhaps, it is ok, to be then caught off-guard, complaining then.
Trouble is, that you always knew, that the legendary butterflies in the stomach are transient. As is the cocoon and the caterpillar. Tranformation, though, is what they call Life. And it happens.

A few days ago, giving precious words of advice to a friend who is currently in the 'I'm not sure what I want from this' stage of courtship, I relayed 'Stay unsure for as long as you can manage to. After that, the teas will seem to lack the flavour - the one that the zing of conversation added!' A trail I've been trying t trace around and over, step aside the precarious hidden trenches, jump over some of the not-so-hidden ones, finally seems to be catching up with me. And I am still not very sure, if I am actually complaining.

Floating Laments

2013-08-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

They fly by the edges of consciousness,
unending;
mostly without a beginning either.
Some sigh,
while some others cry
Some simply whisk by
some others
smile
with all the tenderness
you've ever known,
and that you will never know.

Floating laments
They sometimes come by...

In my spree of unarchiving, I've been discovering quite a few of these. Some I'll post, some of course, I won't. This is perhaps one thing about writing - the complete right you have over it! heh! - The transient traps of ownership.

At times like these I wonder what is it with unfinished things. Unfinished letters, unfinished cards, unfinished paintings, unfinished affairs, even an unfinished emotion for that matter, seem to rake up, much more in you, than you knew existed. If I detach from personal experiences, it is also intriguing how much perspective it adds. It's like tumbling down a rabbit-hole of feelings, trying to decipher some, some just slipping away in plain sight, some others never there, and some catching you by surprise by their unexpected intensity. 'What happened then?' you begin to wonder. Well Love, Life did!

Shei golper resh

2013-08-26T12:57:00.002-07:00

Something that I'd archived again. Exactly a year ago. It's amusing how Life brings you a full circle, time after time. Unconscious, yet so omnipresent.

Aaro khanikta bhalobasha

Kotokta chena, kotokta tatotai awchena

Khuje pawar por abar kore hariye jawa'

Golpo shuru, golper desh

Shei shuru, shei shesher resh

Khanikta kuje newa

Tarpor abar shei shurute hariye jawa

Everything begins, so that one day it will end. The only thing that a beginning ensures is an ending. However long, short, amusing, enthralling, mundane, regular, aggravating it is, one fine morning, everything except for it, will be fine. That morning, it will die. Alongside, so will the smiles, the pain, the associated memories, the smirks, the hidden delights, the confusion, the wry smiles, the comfort of familiarity and everything else, good or bad, or good and bad, associated with it. You will have nothing else to do, except to accept it, and then perhaps with some more time, embrace it. There will be nothing else left to do with it, except to preserve its memory and then one day, that will die too...

It’s an incessant loop at the most, a vicious one, in the least. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, and day after... all will come and go as it will. You will make a set of choices, life will move on, pause, sing, dance, romance, cry, wilt and then give way to another chapter. The beginning of each chapter will bring with it, its own nuances, tenderness, the rough edges, but however it is, the traces of the end are ingrained from the very beginning. That is the nature of life. That is the nature of existence. One gives way to make space for another, and then another, and then another, till one fine day you finally finish the book. However long or short it had to end, so it did. There really is no deeper meaning.

Like another friend says ' We are afterall, islands' :)

...for we are also what we have lost

2013-08-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

I should have posted this a long long time back. My usual year end-new year beginning post, this ideally belongs to that category. However, anyone who knows me enough, also knows how soon i get bored of trends, patterns, or anything that has anything to do with repetitive quality, even if they are my own. So here is goes now - i hope it breaks another of those inane frenzied circles.

This is perhaps also a reminder. To myself. Of what I seeked then, and am struggling to keep now :)

‘...for we are also what we have lost’

We live in the illusion of a better tomorrow, perhaps in the hope of a better tomorrow. Someone once said, that hope is perhaps the cruellest of all emotions!

Everything that was wrong today, will be fixed tomorrow, what was broken today will be mend tomorrow, all that was lost today, will be found tomorrow! Everything will be allright. Tomorrow.

What we tend to discount in this equation is perhaps that a few things that were not-so-bad today will go worse. Then is it not a constant bargain? With faith, with your circumstances, with chance? What you are ready to stake for the sake of what?

Another whole year has gone by. It brought with it its share of the roller-coaster ride. Some bits i thoroughly enjoyed, some pits i thought i’d never get out of. Then the next moment came along. In the course of the meander, at those opportune moments when you begin to think you’ve lost the way, it perhaps takes just one stroke of luck, optimism, relentlessness, call it whatever you will, to make that your very course. And tango on. Because that’s what you do, when you get tangled up. Because there simply isn’t ANYTHING else to do.

In a similar conversation with a friend, i remember her insisting, that everything cannot always be wrong. There will be a time, when things will fall in place, because that is how life works, and if that seems to be now, i’d rather embrace it. I’m not too sure. What if the stakes are too high? Then again, what if i choke and die tomorrow?

Life is relentless. Perhaps it is beautiful, like nothing else, but it’s a bitch too. It’ll screw you over; it’ll then give you the strength to gather yourself, set the pieces of the puzzle right again and then wham! You were looking for a different picture altogether.

Last year was a year of many epiphanies. Of many heartbreaks, of many heartaches, of realizations, simultaneously of many slight smiles, of many makings and that of many learnings. A lill more of the rose tint has peeled off the glasses. A lill more of the journey covered. Some strangers embraced, some embraces estranged. Some lessons learnt, some rewritten. New people, new circumstances, new roads, all the newness that i was earlier this year getting somewhat jittery about, have been out to the test of time. And none has failed me, neither have i failed any. It is amusing, to say the least, when you look at life as though it were cinema, rose-tinted glasses or not. I see this person sprinting, from one place to another, from one set of people to another, from one quirk to another, to look for happiness or the semblance of it, relentlessly, sometimes a woman, sometimes the mere makings of one. 2012 ran a full circle. As i sit here and type this away, i’m once again sitting in the shelters of my quilt, safely tucked in, in the comforts of what they call home. Everything that deserved a second chance, has been given one. However, one thing is different. Today, i do not wish to run away. I’ve the knowledge to my satisfaction that i embraced the roads, and drove while i needed to. After another tedious journey, today, the sense and semblance of home rakes a queer sense of comfort. And that, i’m still trying to get comfortable with.

Chasing the semblance of the illusion of happiness? Perhaps, but then again like another friend stresses, we are walkers. And till such time the road stretches, we shall keep walking...

Convenience.

2013-04-16T20:14:00.001-07:00

We all find a convenient version of the truth to tell ourselves - a convenient version of the lie we choose to believe in. Self-preservation is paramount. You always seem to be able to find something that you believe in, to surpass the something that you don't believe in. The last straw perhaps. And as amusing as it is, it is a different 'last straw' everytime. Heh! One thing though, that this whole process of self destruction-preservation cycle tells you is that, nowhere, in no part of your existence, will everything be allright. There always will be something amiss - that one huge gaping hole that you are trying to fill, with everything else that you have. And in doing so, you would have used up something else, to its last minutest bit, and in the process created another huge gaping hole. Life is perhaps, indeed a constant cycle.

I heard this somewhere 'Truth is singular, any versions of it, are, mistruths'

It's the same song playing

2012-12-18T10:34:00.004-08:00

The same song | By Susheela Raman

How many roads have I wandered?

None, and each my own

Behind me the bridges have crumbled

No question of return

Autumn leaves like discarded dreams

trampled underneath a tide of careless feet

it's the same song playing

everywhere I go

it's like an army marching right through me.

Nowhere to go but the horizon

where, then, will I call my home?

Summer spent, in the high grass

or just fragments, ransacked memories

dark river snakes, across this murky hall

boatman sings his downstream melodies.

How many roads have I wondered?

None, and each my own

Behind me the bridges have crumbled

where, then, will I call my home?

Then, there was once when willows had wished

2012-10-11T14:39:00.001-07:00

There come the mercenaries of Time
To salvage my forsaken self
From her own devious clutches
And take me back to the beginning of time

What was it like
When i couldn't see?
Blinded, blindfolded, lost to the sea
Was it nicer still,
Or was it simply another carcass of my dreams?

Life-like silence
Drowns the din within
Strangely today, there is no calm in that
Or perhaps not.
Neither is there the voice, begging to be heard

The puppet dance
A myriad of colors.
Like a frenzy of a glistening blur
They fade in and out
Sometimes they don't even try.

There was a time, time had stopped
Then, there was once when willows had wished
--lukewarm, fuzzy memories!
Stillness, eagerly seeking
validation that never came;
It's too late now
Not even the remnants remain.

Noh, you're unwelcome now!

2012-10-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

An abject subject
A simultaneous object
Of desire
Of lust
Livened your senses, did it?
Those benign-ed hollows!

...
Merely chuckling, are you?
Be my guest, so am I

Lightheaded
That faint rush of reminiscing!
The cold inside blankets
The rush of blood
Then, the dead-end
I knew, you did
You knew I did too!

...

Chucking, now are you?
Noh, you're unwelcome now!

'Ugh'-ness, a way of life, ever since i've known it! :)

2012-10-07T15:28:00.002-07:00

Foreword (they should really call it what it is - A Statutory Warning): Yayy! I'm back. With one of those 'ugh' feelings, hence coming up is another 'ugh' post!

But this time, (like most other times; again! ugh!) i'm not too sure, if this 'ugh' feeling, as it rises from deep within my guts, travels all the way through my oesophagus, sometimes stunningly passing on its 'ugh'-ness to my wind pipe (afterall, they're neighbours, and its stupid of me, not to expect some osmosis-reverse-osmosis; whatever!) and goes right upto my head, and happily tinkers around with feelings that had just begun to settle themselves in one cozy corner, is one of disgust/angst/ utter disgust/ plain simple distaste driven and motivated by someone else's doing, or by my own! But hell no, what is life without a lill bit (or a lot) of uncalled for, often self-created, self-indulgent drama?!
Now, that i've sufficiently laid my warning statements, i can guilelessly proceed, without any inklings of guilt whatsoever. (God knows why i'd be feeling guilty in the first place...this is afterall my blog, and if nothing else, i have every right to rant!)

Coming back to the 'ugh'-ness, after quite a while i spent a weekend being social. No, am not ugh-ing about that. I'm usually very particular about the company i keep, though i can make friends as easily as a chef can make good-tasting dal-chawal (and i judge the standards of 'good chef'-ness by Japps! i miss you much, Japps..as much for your stupid Surd-ness as for the brilliance with which you'd make the simplest food taste out of this world). I'm good with people, but that does not necessarily equate to me liking them, infact quite the opposite most of the times. However, this weekend i choose to spend in company, mostly of women i like, or/and am prone to liking.About about 36 hours of sumptuous alcohol-food-tea-gossip later i realize that most of us are in similar, if not the same boats. From directionless, if not entirely pointless lives, aka, jobs (because that's mostly our lives in this city anyway), to beginning or ending or simply dealing with pointless relationships (for the better or worse or simply for the lack of a better word - fuck buddy just doesn't do it here..there are emotions involved, you see!), mostly trying to figure out why and how on earth did you land yourself in this mess, though you knew most of the time while you were at it, that you eventually would! (my best friend keeps saying that i love to prove her right- i can't help it! She has a black mouth! Bitch!), to being broke soon after paying your rent to live in glorified pigeonholes, to cribbing about the maid and her rancid self-proclaimed selflessness, bitching about women who have it easier than you, simply because they could do without the conscience-ethics bullshit that stayed back with you while common sense evaporated, to propping up pretty red Marilyn Monroe-d cushions to make the make-shift blank walls look closer to home, to justifying monogamy and all its inherent troubles, to watching mindless humour in an it-can-only-happen-in-an-Adam Sandler-movie to take your mind off the constant turmoil, though sneakily checking various messaging forums on your phone in between, to check if you've got a message that you were/were not expecting, but wanted in your inbox all the same, thus defeating the whole purpose of the mindless-Adam Sandler movie ritual to finally discussing how much hair you're losing and what oil/stylist could help you in such plight!

Nevermind; the point that i'm trying to make here is that, almost all the thinking (if not rabindra-sangeet singing) women i've met and liked here share the same woes. That however, does not reduce the ugh-ness i feel, by one bit. Then what's the point you ask? That is the whole point. There isn't one! Did I not already warn you, that this was another of those pointless posts?

A few months ago, when i was innocuously trying to decide whether i should continue living in the shards of safety and security i had as Calcutta pitched against the unfamiliarity and the goosebumps they inevitably bring, in the name of Bumbay, in hoping to catch a whisk of the ever-so-elusive Bumbay-spirit, a very close friend had remarked that she has a feeling that i'll be unhappy here. I managed to assuage her and myself that this time, since i already knew Bumbay was not merely about Marine Drive in the rain, (though the notion of that bit, is just as pretty as it sounds) i did not have much expectations from this city apart from an insane, hence sane professional life! My personal life could go for a toss, and there has never been a true-er saying than 'be careful what you wish for'. All having said and done, the-then me, who was also sort of trying to sort her personal life by not having one, kind of forgot about the nature of that particular element, i so well thought i had mastered - expectations as we usually call them, sticky lizards as some of us among my closest friends call them! They just jump upon you, at the most unprepared moments, take you by surprise and the worst part is once they've appeared they build a cosy nest exactly in those parts of your existence which you'd consciously and carefully lined with baygon spray! All the while jeering at you, for your utter naivety of having termed it as a no-strings relationship.

Now, the thing here is, newness is my thing! As opposed to change, as contradictory as it may sound. You'd know what i'm saying if you were me, but you're not, and thank your lucky stars for it. Another friend at a similar time told me that while I may be quirky, i'm perhaps looking for a home to base the quirk out of. And since home is another concept that has competed, and hell, competed well with the elusive nature of the afore mentioned Bumbay-spirit, i did not pay much heed to that, either! However, a few more emotional upheaveals in an unfamiliar city later, i think i should have paid heed. And no, that is not regret. Everything deserves a second chance, if not a third. This city needed to have its fair share too. It does now. Whenever, and wherever i go next, i will have known that i tried. And i did not fail...it was this illusion that failed me. Somethings are just not made for you, and the sooner you realize that, the better. Or simply, just realize that. That's good enough!

I do not know where am headed with this. But its been a while I've wanted the semblances of what i could call home. They say growing up is when you realize that you are you, and what you want may not be what you need, but what you need is often what you want. I guess i finally am looking for home. Heh! (by now i've deleted this line thrice and retyped it in different words each time, just to make it looks less conspicuous!). It takes a lot for me to say this. It does. Essentially because i've always been so happy being the nomad, scurrying, if not escaping from one fanciful mirage to another. Here's my toast to Darwinism! Here's my toast to wanting a semblance of life, love, calm, solitude, and belonging, all the while feeding the wanderer with happiness! Here's my toast to me!

And till i find what i'm looking for i couldn't have myself put it better than the unfazed Bass himself -

"I'm fine. It's nothing that can't be fixed with a night of scotch and perhaps a rogue socialite"

Cheers! Happy Monday!

insignificant, realy

2012-08-25T14:12:00.002-07:00

Trains always make me introspective.

The ever-so-eager rhythm and the restlessly changing landscape, the pitch darkness outside, the smell of fresh air, especially when I stand by the door and smoke and let the wind run wild through my hair; all this, while life whizzes by like a constant blur.

I sometimes fancy living a small life. Possibly in the larger scheme of things, I already am. ‘An extra in the coffeshop window’ for the passerby; the passerby with a myriad of entangled stories, just like mine; only, in his universe I am merely a countenance-less face in the window his side vision registered for a brief second.

Nevertheless, in my fancy, I sometimes live a life, far more insignificant, by perhaps my own standards. A life, in a small hut by the train tracks, with that sole lantern lighting up the verandah at dusk, while I lay on my cot, and let the sound of the trains lull me to sleep. Maybe in that world, I wouldn't suffer from insomnia. I’d wake up to the sunrise, finish my daily chores and then while the rest of the day away, into the sunset, listening to ancient tales from yet more ancient grandfathers, all the time playing with pebbles and bringing some back even, to add to my ever growing, proud collection of knick-knacks.

Maybe in that world, I’d smile back uninhibited, at smiling strangers, instead of tightening my grip around the can of pepper spray I don’t leave home without; maybe I’d trust people simply because I’ve never known otherwise, instead of continually looking for the minutest clue that would give away the catch; maybe the tiniest gesture of love, and its remnants, would make my day for months, years perhaps, instead of merely brewing bitterness at expectations having been dashed. Maybe, I’d also have the capacity to see black and white distinctly, and to tell them apart, instead of straining my eyes each time, to correctly identify the precise shade of grey. A world, where I’d not do anything remotely revolutionary, make no difference to the inane frenzy the world thrives in, have no self-acclaimed-earth-shattering revelation about the general anguish of life and yet lead a content life.

A world where I’d not be expected to do any more than light up someone’s world, with a cup of tea and a smile. Their smile, in turn, would light up mine.

Maybe in that world I’d stop and look at every passing train, scourging out strangers waving to me from the train, in the midst of their destination-less journey and wave back to them. All the time, fervently wishing, their life was mine!

Existential,even

2012-08-16T14:17:00.004-07:00

Estatic

Ludicrous.

Effervescent

Omnipresent, still

Brazen reality

sorely surreal

Fluttering thoughts

Nesting, resting

Killing time

Killing you

Perhaps sooner.

Cold and meandering

Scathed and scratched

A blur of colours

Blinded

By black light

Pause. Stay. Hurry

Tch!

Blisters.

They conspire with

Blemishless brevity.

Some others...

2012-07-10T13:14:00.001-07:00

Some half built ruins

Some slated grains

Some unkempt stories,

Some others, that perished in the making

A delicate thread of tumult

Balancing the reigns, forgo

Threatening to relinquish the anchor

Ah! I’ve lost to the sea, eons ago.

Some caves unexplored

Some claim my attention still

Some I choose to trample over

Some lost battles I fight unyielding.

The Black Parts Need To Te Loved As Well

2012-06-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

She said it, right after my own heart...

Selah Sue - Black Part Love!

You're freezed and I tried to make you,
You're freezed and I tried to make you warm, cause you always got what it takes to act like you are some kind of hard-ass
But I know better than that, I know you way to long,

You see I know 'bout your background,
It wasn't easy I know for sure,
But that's no reason to crack
It's in the ( unknown word ) to let it go,
Be who you are now, who you're supposed to be,

Now listen girl, learn how to love your self again,
And then just fly out girl, cause you are worth it, oh..

You fell and I tried to get you,
You fell and I tried to get you up,
cause when things don't work out " Oh, no!"
You shut yourself up let it all just drop,
But that's not the way it works,
That is not the way it works,

And I know that it's easy, it's easy to hurt yourself,
but then you must realize, the black parts need to be loved as well, oh yeah
The black parts need to be loved as well,

Listen girl, do you understand what I'm saying?
I know that one day you will get there,
One day, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Listen girl, listen girl, oh oh yeah..
Listen girl, listen girl, oh oh yeah..

You better find your love, you better go insane, find your love and find your way!!!
I know you're on the run, I know you watched it
This is all I got to say, this is all I got to say, say, say, say!
I know one day, I know one day, I know one day, I know that one day you'll get there, yeah, yeah,
but I know that one day you will get there, one day, yeah yeah

Now listen girl, learn how to love your self again,
And then just fly out girl, cause you are worth it, you're worth it!!

;)

2012-06-13T15:18:00.001-07:00

'...Because we've shared some laughs together'