ZLAEK

Where meanings get gauzy and where time gets lost

2012-01-09T20:00:00.000+05:30

For the mountain range, by every rise and every descent
The ocean, in stillness and in wave
Air current, with its every whim
Music, in all its indefinable glory
So many breaths are not enough
Clean laughter echoes from many unexpected directions
Eyes may shut but the sky will keep speeding away
And I will keep chasing it

Slowly, time will start to slow down
Slowly, words will start to fade out
Slowly, the head will turn and the eyes will see
The ears will hear and the skin will feel
Slowly, the mind will give up artfully managing everything
Slowly, it will learn to be

That piece of music

2011-09-20T17:58:00.000+05:30

Occasionally, when I (incidentally) observe people,
I am dragged into this other world
that I am only able to process superficially -
the trouble with it not being its complexity,
which, for that matter, can be easily broken down,
but its profoundly impoverished essence
that jars me.
This world where lives begin and end on each other.
Human lives become everything you revolve around.
This world where starting from infants to 80-year-olds,
everybody seems to be coping.
Caught in a mesh of hypothesized roles and goals,
barely catching half a breath,
and some pretending, within that bleak framework,
To be romantics, and some others
To be cynics --

Lying down in the tranquil of the night,
As the music, my mind and I shared one harmony
Half tempted to fling my phone and things like it outside the window
Arriving at a million conjectures
Arranging themselves in the mind's playground
Forming rapidly, the shape of an ethereal realization
Of which I needed neither to be certain nor uncertain
But that served as beautiful stuff to be maneuvered
Into quiet new learnings.

-- This world where actively destroying everything
except human lives is legitimate
Where, on the one hand
dismembered body parts of a coldly, elaborately murdered animal
qualifies as food for billions.
It becomes a big deal, on the other,
when a handful of humans are killed in an earthquake;
while we're at it - tectonic activity is rather magnificent!
But in this world here,
everybody wants to live inside their tiny brains,
satisfied, as it appears, with a keyhole view of the world;
thus demarcating their domain of functioning and exploration.
Afraid of living a life of rich stimulation,
of rich imagination and of rich thought -
blaming it on the need to survive.
What it is that they are so mindlessly trying to preserve,
even they don't know.

With elusive, self-initiated thoughts
Concatenated tacitly
Leading to an inevitable collapse of control
Easing into a blissful, catatonic state, I
Drifted to the conclusion that, I
Possessed no emotion that could match that piece of music.

Just a discussion

2011-08-19T13:28:00.000+05:30

Words bind ideas. It is nearly essential that ideas must suffer this sort of confinement.
But ridding thought of words lands you in a strange place- where there's beauty, but no means of survival. Or so I think.

At times though, words do prove to be useful, even beautiful - when they are arranged in such a way that there is more energy between them* rather than only within them.

So, now, that brings me to a place where I both love and hate words. And I'm left wondering, at times wordlessly, why I cannot remain indifferent to them... There's no calculation here, just a mild mess.

*I can't think of a better way to explain that. Here, it refers to the value attributed to (a combination of) words that transcends their mere semantic sense (that probably comes from subjective reading... I don't know. If you get what I'm saying, you would be confirming this for me).

Because there is nothing to do when late nights become early mornings

2011-05-21T04:41:00.000+05:30

That pillar obstructs my view
A single source of light hides behind it
I get to see a part of its glow
And I get to wonder

I worship the wind
It ricochets off many invisible surfaces in the dark of the night
And somehow finds its way here
I was a good student at Geography
But I sometimes find myself worrying it might get exhausted.
It won't
But what if it does?
What would I do?

I hate to admit to myself
that I have a finite understanding of the universe

But on some nights, and on some days
Clarity prevails
In the absence of thought,
intellect and reason.

I'm bound to my planet, and likely to remain so
Nobody had asked me
Surely something must be wrong?
On spending some life with it, I've realized
This was precisely the plan
And I am in it.

04/02/11

2011-02-05T23:27:00.000+05:30

I feel the need to write tonight although I have no reason or inspiration to do so. I can’t think of anything to say that won’t sound like everything I’ve said here before. If I write anything at all, it’ll be woven around my standard nonsense- those stale ideas of constancy, numbness, discomfort, timelessness, changelessness, hopelessness, unease. They are like the keywords in describing my every experience. So any effort to put down thoughts is guaranteed to fail.

I dive into a fictitious world every free waking minute of my life, unless my mind is too tired for it. And that happens way too often. My neural networks are catching dust; poor Na+ ions seem to be perpetually perplexed. And the neurotransmitters are probably on a holiday. Disorientation reigns. It’s a state that is inflexible and unaccommodating. It causes reluctance to carry out activities that are typically fun. Quite plainly, it’s dull and renders one incapable of exercising will. The psychologist calls it unresolved conflict. The psychiatrist calls it a mood disorder. The pragmatist calls it a phase. The optimist calls it a threshold. The artist observes silently. The narcissist calls it (pronouncedly) idiocy. The commoner calls it sadness. The realist calls it life.

I’m eating my sandwich in college and daydreaming away royally. Two girls I haven’t noticed yet seat themselves at a comfortable distance. The next minute, I snap back to my surroundings with a start when I suddenly hear, “-that’s my MOST FAVOURITE track EVER!” I look at her almost wanting slap her for being so loud. But I gather myself and get up to leave. I join my few friends in college I call my saviours and indulge in small talk – often taking individuals or groups of people into perspective and belittling them for how stupid/frivolous they are – not only obscenely elaborately but also with an obnoxiously high degree of superiority-complex. To what end? Except for a few great laughs, nothing. The answers lie in that place where all these defense mechanisms originate.

Summer’s approaching. The 2-pm direct heat on the forehead feels incredible, almost like a physical blessing. Long walks on sultry afternoons are therapeutic. I colour the world around with the music in my ears. Life becomes easy again, free of bother – in harmony with my surroundings. A little surprisingly, I ask myself why I wanted to slap that favourite-track girl. Without thought or reasoning, I resign myself to the wordless understanding that the answer lies in my asking myself that question at this point.

Losing Composure

2010-12-10T21:52:00.000+05:30

The cold gives a shiver
a constant, internal rhythm manifests
Eyes close before they know it
Breathing is an uphill battle

Music turns into noise

Foot muscles are discovered with a sudden spasm
The shiver has spread from the chest to the shoulders
The stomach
The music sucks life out of the body
and sense out of the mind

Being finally admits to being barren;

Being disabled.

Caprices

2010-12-02T22:41:00.000+05:30

She sat with one leg folded and the other stretched out on the edge of the cliff, looking at the distant, snowcapped, mountain peaks. She felt the still cold air around her one moment, and the next, she forgot the sensation. The sun was positioned at half a right angle on her from the east. It was eight in the morning.
* * *

“I woke up from the dream thinking I was about to kill myself there. I don’t know exactly why I was about to do it; but I remember feeling very sure I wanted to do it. I was sitting at the edge, and I wanted to slip down into the valley. I’ve never felt that way, not in a dream, not outside of one.”

“It is said that the contents of one’s dreams are often thoughts that one suppresses consciously, in one’s waking hours. It is mind’s way of telling you that it needs rest.”

“But dreams are certainly more random than relevant. I’ve had so many dreams that don’t even make basic sense.”

“The contexts may be random, but your behavior in them is never so.”

“But how can behavior be significant in a context that is completely absurd in the first place?”

“What counts is how you choose to react to the situation, not what you’d like to believe the situation made you do.”

“One exercises choice in one’s dreams? Look, every time I make a choice, I remember doing it.”

“Sometimes, you make choices subconsciously. It’s not a controlled act.”

Momentary silence

“Are you trying to say that I want to kill myself? Because that’s a controlled act and I’m quite sure it’s not one of those things I’m going to do and then not remember later.”

“No. I’m trying to say that there is something you need to deal with, and you’re avoiding that.”

* * *

She sensed the occasional vehicle passing behind her. She perceived very little of her physical surrounding. She couldn’t see the bottom of the valley; it was translucent white from the mist. She inched closer to the edge. Her legs now hanged from it. The rest of her was firmly placed on the sturdy, natural rock plate. Her eyes were fixed at a height. She had looked down only once, indifferently. She thought to herself, I don’t want the strength of this rock beneath me, of the mountains. I want immunity from this planet.
* * *

“I know something today. I don’t want to die… I know what it is. I want release from management.”

“How do you suddenly know that?”

“I was sitting and wondering how I’d want that dream to end. So I imagined that I inch closer to the edge of the cliff. But I absolutely surely don’t want to let go, you know. Instead, I draw strength from the rocky earth below me, the strength to think again, to rethink.

“So… all you needed was to feel strong?”

“No… In fact, I wanted to give the strength up. But the unyielding force of the earth, not even an inch away from death, was what helped me realize that in the first place. That it wasn’t weakness that’s driving me insane—”

“—do you believe you might be crazy?”

“I dreamt that I was going to kill myself. That’s not sane to me, now… But I remember feeling weak through the dream, and the next morning. I was thinking weakness was the reason. But it turns out that it had nothing to do with me wanting to kill myself in that dream.”

“Then what has?”

“I wouldn’t be talking to you if I knew that.”

“So you do really wish to find out.”

Momentary silence

“I do…”

* * *

She was walking on a crowded street down in the market area. She has learnt to walk without feeling a sense of time or change around her. It is a familiar street and it takes no real effort to walk. It happens mechanically. The experience is only that of an ever-growing latency. It is like falling into a profound torpor while being continuously in motion.
* * *

“I might be losing control. If it has to be so, I don’t want it to be a process. Not an elaborate transition period of struggle and conflict. Either on this side, or that: I can’t be in the middle. That’s not my area. It never is.”

“What do you mean by your area?”

“I mean, I’m not a person of conflicts and confusion.”

“Does conflict bother you?”

“No! I don’t mean it that way. I understand conflict and why it may occur. But my being has no space for it.”

“Do you wish it away? Or is it really non-existent?”

Momentary silence

“I wish it away.”

“But you understand it. Then you should probably deal with it?”

* * *

“The world I imagine… and the world that is…”

“Please… complete that thought. It’s important.”

“…they’ve been similar, recently…”

“In what way?”

“They’re… somehow… closer.”

“But you do know that they are different, that they are separate, no matter how close they might appear to be.”

Momentary silence

“Of what significance is that?”
* * *

The world she imagines isn’t any less real than the world that is. In a way – and she knows this for sure – the world that is, may or may not be real. The world she imagines, on the other hand, is surely real, because it is in her imagination. One knows one’s imagination better than one knows what one perceives… because they are the one who created it in their imagination. It exists. And so it’s as real as real can be.”
* * *

“I was thinking that, in a way, what we take for granted as real may not be real.”

“What is your idea of real?”

“The existence of which one can be certain about; with all our limitations, we can be sure of some things, you know. Those are real things.”

“Is it so important to be sure that you must accommodate the concept of real in such parameters?”

“What’s the point of anything if one is not certain about anything in—?”

“So purpose, now, is important too…”

“It isn’t! But… It surely helps you keep going…”

“Is that your purpose? To keep yourself going…?”

Momentary silence

“I don’t like how you sound.”
* * *

A sense of ease emerges from the overwhelming amount of discomfort in her. She enjoys the brief feeling that follows every failure in her daily life. She lost her way back on the street today- the street she thought she knew like the back of her hand. She didn’t remember what she ate when she was drinking water after lunch this afternoon. She smiled to herself, not in amusement, but because she never felt more natural before. She was finally able to start giving up contemplation. She could float in a free chain of thoughts again. There were no obstacles. She was finally free of them and she was finally certain.
* * *

“I don’t think I need you anymore.”

“Alright.”

“Yes.”

“And that also means you needed me all these days.”

“I did.”

“May I ask how you don’t need me anymore?”

“The conflict has been put to rest…”

“By who?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have I been of help?”

“Yes!”

“So we put it to rest together.”

“No… you always resisted that. But that’s what helped.”

“How did it help?”

“You always showed me certain possibilities about my own thought.”

Momentary silence

“Too… burdensome to accept them, was it?”

“Be explicit in what you say.”

“I was bringing you closer to your thought. And now you don’t want me.”

“Yes… I don’t want you.”

“Alright”

“Hell I don’t want you!”
* * *

She could feel the music physically, as an aeriform layer surrounding her skin. She was sitting comfortably on the floor. She knew that she had been angry. But at the same time, she had never felt more at peace with herself. She no longer had anyone to push her out of her real world. When she closed her eyes, she could sense the ease and effortlessness of being. Everything around her was coherent. There were no small bits that wouldn’t fit. There were no wrong sequences. There were no mistakes, there was no negativity. And the best part was that people here were happy, a little strange in their ways, but they all looked satisfied to be where they were. She smiled at nothing in particular, but it turned into a soft, brief laughter. She felt a little cold from the music. She got up to get a jacket .Instead, she walked around her house for an indefinite while and enjoyed the feeling of not noticing how much time passed by. Time— was a long-lost experience…
* * *

“Am I imagining this bliss or is it real?”

“If you’re imagining, it’s surely real, isn’t it?”

“Why are you here again?”

“I don’t know how, but I changed my mind. You were right about everything…”

“Right about what? What have I ever told you?”

“Nothing much. But you look good now… really comfortable.”

“Yes I am. And I’m glad you understand that... I’m quite glad.”

“Yes. Tell me if you still ever need me.”

“I will, I will… although I highly doubt it. I don’t believe, you know, that I might need to talk to you… but thanks. I’ll…I’ll keep that in mind. Yes.”

Momentary silence

“I’ll be around.”
* * *

She hadn’t spent a thought in days together. She didn’t need to. She had stopped going to work since what seemed like another century. She remembered it when she didn’t have the money that morning to buy shampoo. She loved washing her hair. She loved the feeling of cold water running along her hair. She probably spent hours in the shower, but it felt good. It is what she had to do anyway. She didn’t do things she didn’t have to. Only the ones she really had to: like go for long walks and return completely exhausted, but without losing half a breath. She never felt sleepy at night. Nights were her days. Night was what the universe really was. Days are simply an illusion. It’s an isolated source of light, the sun. Generally, the background is dark in the universe. But every single thing in the universe is special. She could solve every problem without any mental calculation. Dilemmas and doubt self-destructed themselves in her proximity. Every once in a while, she would talk to a stranger on her way to a place where she ate her meals daily. They would always smile at her, sometimes shy away, but they never felt like strangers. They all looked familiar in a way. She felt connected to them. She could say she loved them. Once, as she was walking home, the last thing she remembered was smiling to a stranger on a street who’d smiled back at her. It didn’t surprise her to wake up in her own house the following afternoon. She was sure she had only forgotten what had happened in the “time” that had elapsed. She couldn’t possibly be wrong about it. And in all probability, there really wasn’t anything worth remembering after the stranger’s face. What surprised her, though, was the clarity with which she remembered the stranger’s face. Her memory was generally patchy, although more like a beautiful piece of artwork; it had sudden, bright black holes that were like blind spots, impossible to discover. The holes were growing, and she fuelled them with all her heart. Days together were going by, perplexed by her indifference. She never observed herself, but she smiled every time she forgot what the previous moment had been like. Because every moment was a new one, every moment was a new life. The music played with her mind beautifully, again. It eased her to a point of perfection.
* * *

She was standing at the edge of the cliff. She took a clean look at the surroundings. She scanned every bit of space on the circle of her vision at the eye level. She closed her eyes and knew she belonged to this land. She bent and lay down on the rock plates, embracing the land with her easy-flowing feeling and thought. She felt a rush of power building within her. She felt the sun's rays falling on her at an angle.
* * *

“Whatever are you doing here today?”

“I just thought, maybe… you’d like me to be around. You look really good, really happy.”

“That is true…”

“Can I help you with anything?”

“Could you just help me out with... Here. Let me just move a little, so that you can help me move from here... Yes, right about now. Let me get up, first. Yeah, I want to run, you try and make sure that I…”

“You want to run?”

“Yes… I… Will you make sure I don’t end up… you know…”

"Of course..."

She lifted herself up from the ground and stood up. Her solitary figure looked important on the edge of the cliff. She walked away from the cliff. She was bursting with a fresh force for life. She looked around her and smiled. She drew a trajectory in her mind with simple estimation. She closed her eyes to draw motivation from everything that was around her, including her immediate past, which was a distant place for her by now, and including her near future, which had never existed in the past so many days.

“Don’t let me sit down… okay… I need to run. I feel so good.”

“I can feel it, I won’t let you bend.”

She ran with all the life left in her and turned the force within into a new experience, a threshold, one she had waited for a right time, to welcome. She went through the distance with immense speed. The rocky surface underneath her bare feet felt shockingly cold. Cutting through space for that brief segment of time was praeternaturally peaceful for her. With great kinetic power at the edge, she took off. It was an impulsive leap off the cliff.

Permanent Silence

The fall was deliberate. The last impression taking form in her mind as she was freefalling was that she eternalised her happiness.

Tonight's lightning

2010-09-28T23:14:00.000+05:30

I never thought I'd write anything that started with "I wish"
BUT

I wish I could take off from the edge of a skyscraper, fly into the momentary rift full of life, in the complete, complete sky, and have the vibe of my death merge with the thundering. All I do get to do, however, is imagine, as the sky bursts into moments of purple-white. And viewing it from the (dis)comfort of my home, I'm wondering - Until lightning hits and strips the sky of its darkness and bares the floating clouds, they aren't there...
_____________________________________

I know for certain I wouldn't be writing here if I got to be in the middle of all that action. Usually, I don't mind gravity; it's quite a concept in itself. But right now, I want to be up there and I don't know how.

To a mother

2009-12-05T00:04:00.000+05:30

As a part of your own reality begins to exist
In the guise of another existence,
In the language of another world,
Luring you to follow it
You do...
Elevated by the place it creates for you
In your own life
Through its own...

When the glow overwhelms;
Reinforcing your potential:
A woman
Adding infinite purpose to your existence
Marking that much sought after difference
Between futility and meaning.

Time will never come in the form of a day alone
When you come to accept it wasn’t for you,
And proud memories are all you’d be left with.
As he grows up to be able to explain who he is
And about the love that will remain...

This moment his eyes may not tell so
But look into them, they are learning
And making base and space for all that will come
He is preparing to fly,
To go so far ahead one day
That he can look back, and reconfirm the purpose
He once added to your existence.

The Night Before Last

2009-11-01T12:23:00.000+05:30

Tonight is not like every other
Wanting my insides to play,
Change.
A storm within, I need
For calm to spread on my face

Riddance from tonight, and I need more
Discussing needs- sick indulgence
I stay; and let time speed backwards

A despicable, strong thought overpowers me
About all the good things I let happen to me
Depth, blankness, blackness-
Someone pulls my hand, to take me some-'where'
The hand keeps growing longer and I don't move.

We'll leave it for that place in space
When I come face to face with who I am
If... I am.
Tonight is not like any other;
Tonight's poetry longs to remains in the mind...
Wishing it weren't coming down on paper.

Tonight's when a segment of thread
Threatens to discuss my existence
Tonight's when I'll bring my existence
To break down part by part
By talking about itself.

When tomorrow will bring another night,
I will put this up for all to see
And feel glad about
The few who may laugh...

Documentary of a random dream
So eternal, shapeless, slippery
To top it, my attempt!
Saying I'd like to believe I believe -
Doesn't that somehow bring me closer to believing?
But somehow never close enough?

Somebody look for the colors
You! Look for reaction
Are you the one for me? Right
My innocence is genuine...
Defense-
Am I waking up from the dream?

I'm better off as the background
To absolute combination
Comparison
Contradiction
So I can be; and just so.
So no one would require me to lean.

It's the music and body numbing sleep, by the way
Oh laugh for me
And a new thought will get magically chained
As I fight sleep and wakefulness at one time
Not letting either win over me
One of the most pleasant battles.
But for how long could I go on?

The next moment could be manipulated
Into my whole life time.
That's your cue, yes, laugh.

I long for finality?
Just question-marking myself.
But before meaning begins to surface-
But wait, meaning cooks itself up
Not itself
Itself- but not without your existence or mine.
That disgusts me.

How are the words coming though?
Because they know they shouldn't.
There's always that thing ...-
______________________________________

The above piece doesn't end here. But when I read it next morning, it was too heavy for myself. Done in a sleeping position, lying on my front, eyes half closed, I wrote.

Pausing To Turn; Leaving to Return

2009-08-03T11:21:00.000+05:30

Time to wrap this up. Nine months back, I began using this space to write what and when I wanted to. Last week, I found me telling myself that my last post was on 2 July, that I must write. And so it's time I do this.

I'm gathering my focus on something larger, and hoping to discipline myself. I'm writing something that may get long enough to be called a book.

A lot of the most beautiful bloggers I've seen are spontaneous writers, unlike myself. When I write spontaneously, my work turns out to be very incoherent; and random to the point that it sounds meaningless. But when I do write logically, simply, and in a well sequenced manner, I miss the whole point I want to make.

So writing, for me, needs some planning. The whole process includes thought restriction, channelization, a lot of concentration, and some motivation. Writing is expression, and I'm of the belief that we write to be read, to be understood. I don't write for myself, and I don't see why one needs to.

I'm suspending my blog for an indefinite period of time. However, I want to do a post or two occasionally, and be here.
_____________________________________________

I'll never stop reading some of you...

Meghna Naidu - is in a way the the answer to the question why Zlaek happened. A woman of rare intelligence, and with the ability to comprehend simple things at different levels. (Writing skills and such things are secondary) Though I wish I could call her work great, I won't; then that would would equate it to other things in this world that have been called great.

Mikimbizii - the most honest person I have or could hope to ever see. Path-breakingly creative, intoxicatingly fresh, gifted with a killer sense of humour, and somehow strictly correct all the time.

Quicksilver - I'm awestruck at her emotional capability and poetic skills. She, like Meghna and Mikim, helps in making living appear to surely make some/slight/a lot of/I don't know how much, sense.

Zero - shut her blog down recently, but nothing stops me from reading her work over and over again; her work is rich and brilliant.

Shamanth - is somebody I began reading only recently. He has his very own take on intangible things and I have yet to meet somebody else who makes such fine use of language.

T-Rex - A crazy writer, very erratic. I don't know if he writes what he lives, or what he wants to live, but he takes insanity flying up to another level, very casually.

Raghav Chopra - Generally an intense poet, he (unbelievably) says a hell lot in saying very little.

Isha (bondgal) - humorous, hundred percent free of malice, a complete entertainer, very bright and someone who makes the world and many lives happier and brighter. I love her!

Veda - an impressive lady, very bright and humorous, gifted with a cool head on her shoulders. Also somebody I'd love to know and interact with, offline.

vC's - amuses me. He writes carelessly, with direct and disjointed phrases. His every word screams that he's no writer. But interestingly, what he has to say is almost always shockingly good. The fact that he's perpetually confused, and the fact that he knows it, makes him and his attitude very real.

Prices We Pay

2009-07-02T23:30:00.000+05:30

A quickly dissolving voice desperate to be heard
A two legged thing begging for direction, wanting to be led
A secret dreamer with a rapidly eroding faith and no path to tread
A near dead fighter, turning into strength every drop he bled
A battle weary life working his low way to get the wife the child, the bread
A somebody who was sleepless on troubles in his sleepless bed
A life-fearing man who lived on with waking up with something new to dread
An insatiate soul that perpetually desired to be he, in his stead
An earless human who spent a whole lifetime oblivious to all sang and said
A dying thirteen year old of cancer, holding on to the last left thread
A thousands still in their lifeless quest for life and living, on stomachs unfed

The quickly dissolving voice desperate to be heard
Won over he who won over direction but left with nothing ahead
The two legged thing begging for direction, wanting to be led
Won over he who won over life, wanting to be dead.
_____________________________________________________________

Acknowledge the existence of things beyond your reach. Don't try to acknowledge the very things.

Live. Life didn't come for free- we pay for it by living it.

Their Ways

2009-05-26T11:02:00.001+05:30

Sitting back on her chair, comfortably, she spoke . His eyes were concentrating on her face and her mouth as she spoke carefully, truthfully, and with the kind of fluidity that comes with great effort- when one talks about things one knows, but seldom talks about.

"It's not about now or forever", he heard her say. "I'm not comfortable with time..."

Her gaze was fixed vaguely in his direction. There seemed to be a hint of frown on her face for a moment, and then she relaxed her eyes again. Her eyes looked as though they were looking at earth for the first time.

He saw her speak again. Her tone was stable and she was not in a hurry. She was not confused.

"I'm not lost." She looked at him for some time. She didn't know if he would understand if she tried to explain.

"But when you find yourself," she continued, "...when you understand the things happening to you... and it ends abruptly... it's left behind like just a chapter, while a complete story is what it was meant to be. Everything I thought I'd be till my last breath and my ways... don't seem... relevant.

"He always got the best out of me. You know him. But I can't thank him. It wouldn't be fair... on me... You know, I understood his most bizarre ideas. I could always make sense of his irrelevant speech. It was his way. His genius amazed all. His ways perplexed all, except me. And he knew it.

"He knew it... I know that. He told me how to come to a conclusion, and how never to tell yourself you came to one, and just act. Act.

"I, for the matter, thought. And he acted finally. Finally he left me behind... perplexed."

At this point, she was looking straight at him. He was grasping all that she said.

Her glance seemed to ask for answers. But he knew he had to let her speak. He remained quiet as she looked away, slowly.

"Everything I have with you is so direct. Sometimes I wonder if I'm all wrong" she said calmly.

"Look at this," she contemplated aloud, "I could never say these things to him. And though I have nothing to gain or lose from him any more. But look at it. Do I want to be understood or do I have to be understood? Must I understand simply or must I claim the Gods talk to me? The perfect silences of other realms... It was the best way i knew.

"But maybe now I know better..."

He seemed to calculate. She looked at him again. He thought there was longing, not in her face, in her eyes. Something that was not meant to be seen by him. But he grew more sure of it when she wouldn't take her eyes off him.

The simple look on her face spoke very little. It was free of malice, and very uncomplicated. Her body was relaxed.

"What we can do with words, we can't do with anything else. That's who I need. And I... should be needed in that way. I'm doubting this. Alright. But I'm telling you I'm doubtful. And that's what I need."

She looked at her own lap and was frowning. Barely half a minute. She was soon looking back at him. This time, really waiting. He stayed. The controlled intensity on her face was inducing intensity in his own self. She very simply hid all the longing behind a composed, easy look.

After some silence, her eyes felt heavy, and she closed them. Some time passed. She could sit that way forever. In his presence. To her, it felt more easy than solitude. Some more time passed.

He got up looking at her, walked a few paces and went to stand behind her chair, his back towards hers. After a moment, she turned behind, and looked at him with the same blank eyes. Her eyes followed his eyes that were fixed at hers as he walked round the chair and carefully took her left hand into both his hands. He paused, and then bent down to her. She closed her eyes almost immediately and lowered her face.
His grip over her hand was surety reassured. He knew who she was. The leaning figure that disturbed the air around was imposing to her mind. She felt his body incline towards hers, approaching it. She heard him breathing close to her own face. What followed was a firm kiss on her cheek. He then withdrew. He looked at her, fully, and said, "You'll find him one day." And he went away.

Sitting back on her chair, she tried to figure out if she was living. She was falling asleep. Her body was relaxed. She was all wrong.

Unite

2009-05-05T13:09:00.000+05:30

Turn around to look at the walls
Look for some faint mark that reminds you
Of some diagram, an instruction, a direction, a motive.
And if it's spotless,
Stare...
And understand the finest form of consistency.
Uniformity.
Particles playing on both sides of the standard human size...

Shift the focus of your vision from the nearest opaque
To a layer nearer
Air...
What light does, gives,
The favors you can never return
To the anonymous creations, concepts
Left to us without a factor of recognition
So that we fail to acknowledge, or to appreciate.
Realizations that maim our being
But that keep us going...

That we can abstract
That we can generalize
That we employ, brings us to feeling good.
Building from base to air, without losing its actuality
Is useful.
If belief is placed in purpose,
Air is no good.
Decide.
Or decide that you can't.
Does anything come between or beyond the two?

Rest your chin in the cup of your palm
Stay till your eyes droop
Let the web of thoughts remain
As you fall asleep in your own silence.

_____________________________________________________________

They say, such thoughts are a result of lack of things to do in one's daily life. But, without missing the point, I repeat, such thoughts exist. What the thoughts express, exists too. We rely on the tangible, without giving anything else a chance.
But as Mikimbizii aptly explains how "it suddenly appears and sinks through the gauzy layers of consciousness", making her long to drop everything that she's doing and "plunge into that mysterious chimerical realm", it is something as inexplicable as it is real.
I believe it's a different way of dreaming.
Take a break from being who you are daily. Mix yourself with the universe. Unite.

We're Always Midway...

2009-04-25T06:00:00.000+05:30

"Once in a while stretching hard to see

What now is drawn toward by numb aches

Only to find the self snapping back--

Back to a place the present takes"

(-- Chinmayee, 2007)

It is interesting to see how the we, at times, are forced to halt, turn back, and look. There come such situations when there is sudden isolation from the present. There come such times when looking at the pictures ahead routes you back to where you once used to be.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling. It’s like a numb ache. There are no regrets, not about the past, not about the present. It’s just how it is.

Sometimes a piece of music, or a particular smell makes you travel back to the segment you once walked. You don’t remember anything precise. It’s just a feeling, like a very desirable pain that’s dry, but real... harmless, but strong.

After fully drinking it, you’re almost thrown back to where you are. And it’s when it ends.

Two years back, when I wrote those lines, I never thought I’d be reading them and thinking about them some day. But here, you see, I’m reading, thinking and telling. And as I do so, all of what it says is happening...

Night is when...

2009-04-08T00:38:00.000+05:30

All black is silhouetted against pale black

You are open to the sky

Near seems far and far seems near

Each star lives.

You need to embrace the world without color and noise... You need to get one with the stillness that fills..

You need to lie down and see the black... You need to touch the moon with your glance.

You need to share your desires with the stars.

You need to remember stars are not small..

You need to plan a path through the increasing distance of the space leading to where you know you have to be... You need to let the volume of space impose itself on you.

You need to breathe the colorlessness and the noiselessness in..

You need to touch water and know what liquid is....

You need to close your eyes for a while, to open them and understand that you are where you belong...

Uselessness

2009-03-25T21:27:00.000+05:30

Board exams got over this evening. Board exams over. Why doesn't it sink in? Board exams over!

Here are a few little things about the whole deal -

what I did with the two/three-day leaves:
Keep staring at the hour hand that circled a 360 seven or eight times over.
Wondering where I was going.

about what I did with the eight day leave:
Cursing, cursing more, and then a little more.

about my friends calling up to check how much I'd covered:
To hear them say, "Come on!" followed by what I'd tell, explaining exactly how wasting time on 'em books didn't occur to me.

about some of the best topics that weren't asked in the papers:
Thermal death; calculus from first principles; wave nature of matter; transmission of nerve impulse and so many more closest to my heart.

about collecting threads they kept giving for the supplements I never took:
Staring at my neighbors who inked pages after pages. In fact, I felt so put off by that, that I squeezed my last two sentences in a single last line in the English paper.

about learning so much about myself:
I can't work hard. I can't work at all. If schoolstudy were a bomb, nothing could motivate me to defuse it.

_____________________________________________________________

No thing's a colossal thing for me. But when nothing is big, is the nothing getting too big?
Until this afternoon, there was nothing to care about.
But now onward, there's nothing not to care about.
I panic.

The Backward Tale: People And Us

2009-03-13T17:19:00.000+05:30

A pair of eyes look outside of the window
The grey-black crow is cawing away to glory
As it swoops down to the roadkill
The mongrel pup was yawning as it had got hit by a car
Only the previous night he'd been petted by a pretty girl
The girl who loved dogs and hated people.

People live, plan, start, walk, reach... pray
HE prayed on silent nights for his love to return
That was now at another's, under the night's silent stars
And they winked at the man who celebrated his 89th birthday
Looking back at his neat past, his four grandchildren
One of whom was then working his dreams with canvas and colour
And circles and lines that belonged to so many others
As they leapt and dreamt and never returned
From their parallel worlds which were fantasy defined--
And like the rockstars that flirted with the cluster of
What we call people.

People live, plan, start, walk, reach... pray
They had returned home exhausted and totally spent that night
And wished they were Bruce Dickinson
Fly a plane to any place you wished
Places like islands
Where lay rare species like Eastern Fox Snakes at peace
She had been studying those and Climbing Prairie Roses in his book
When all of a sudden her old friend telephoned her
He had been thinking of her for a long time;
Of those days in the 90's when they swam in the river waters
The waters that used to be cold and white, home to a muckle of comely fish
One of their kind had been dinner for a man a week before
Who had had a long day at work
Just like his many other colleagues: him, her, him, and her
Who were alive
Like all other people.

People......
That's all they do, I had been thinking the night before that
Not noticing I was doing only what I could, too.
I was them. People.

There's something I've intended to tell through these lines. It may or may not be clearly understood by all, since I write essentially from my experiences and perspective. So I shall not choose to be mysterious.

The lines are supposed to explain how restricted the human life is- A non-absolute nothing beyond the universe that we can perceive. But sure enough, the smaller things are always on our minds. And we live for, and by them. We move in circles, thinking the direction is forward. The very fact that I pronounce such a thing (assuming that what I say should be correct), proves my point again. And if one disagrees with me, the point is proved yet again. We're people. We talk of birth, life and death. That's all we do. And I swear by all the world I've seen-- that that's all I'll keep doing.

It's Loss I'm Talking About

2009-01-25T13:14:00.000+05:30

I am humbled today.

When you want to express how something slips out of your hands, like water, it's hard not to use a cliched way of talking about a cliched emotion. When it does happen, though, you feel it - nearly physically.
It's loss I'm talking about.

I welcome the pain that comes. And I almost laugh when I find myself gathering all the reasons why the pain has to be so true. The pain needs to be true. It's a question of the reality of that which is behind the pain.

But the first thing that takes over is disorientation. Loss of sequence. Loss of ease. You panic. I tried not to. I stayed... With calm. With things. Nameless things. The ceiling felt scarily close above my head. Went for the sky instead, in the dead of the night. Went light in the waters. Out in the open. Till the sun rose. Then back to the ceiling above. Couldn't measure the time that had passed by.
I wondered if it had been a dream. Then I remembered I hadn't slept.

...some organized thought:

Somewhere back in time,
There were days,
When it was about
Me.

Reflection, time, growing, now
All leads to but a feeling of shame.

Today, it's least about me,
It's most about you.

A tomorrow was sometimes thought of,
Inbetween those significant, silly nights
And then, when I opened my eyes today,
Heaps and heaps of yesterdays is all there's to see.

Shut them again,
It's not one night
Something promises it's for a long time
Perhaps for longer than I think
Perhaps for ever...

But what unsettles me the most
Is not that I lost something
It's that I lose that
Which holds that something

Things change. What doesn't change is the reality they are based on. And just knowing this makes everything so simple. It is what makes life so livable. So lovable.
The day you lost touch with this truth would be the day you couldn't manage loss anymore.

The 800 meters race

2008-12-26T14:28:00.000+05:30

That which drove me to participate in the under eighteen 800 meters race, is yet to be discovered. I could very well have not cared a damn about the race, like scores of other girls did. Moreover, I had been doing precisely that for all of the 11 years of my school life gone by. This time though, it wasn't about how I cheered for my very athletic friends as they crossed the finishing line. It was a different story. I signed up for it.

And then I ran. And then I finished.
Finishing an 800 meters race (for an unfit, underweight non-athlete) is like a test of endurance. And that, probably, was the only motivation for me.

Often after climbing half a flight of stairs, I feel so tired, I return back and take the elevator for the one floor.

When thoughts like, "I'd rather die than finish this... And (after the first miserable quarter)," and "That's it... it's FOUR times this, what was i thinking?" began to get the better of me, I found that my legs were not quite responding to them. They kept bouncing off the ground. I kept telling myself, I have nothing to lose, that I should stop right then, since it was so bad. But my body was up to something else. No matter how badly I needed to stop, I couldn't. It was as though I had forgotten how to.

I once climbed five floors. I took 25 minutes.

I went on. It was beyond sweating. It was beyond not being able to inhale air, or not having the energy enough to exhale it. It was close to a sense of vacuity. Like all the beautiful things in the world had come to an end; like there was no music, no future. Only a dry, dry throat, the scorching sun, a barren track, and the fellow racers that looked like machines that were running for an unknown purpose.

As I covered three quarters of the distance, I could hear voices shouting, "Come on! Just a bit more now.."
BIT? Yeah, right. But to whatever extent, comforting it certainly was. I dragged on, with a slow, continuous jog. The rythmic movement, lifelessness gave a weird sense of composure. It was far from misery. It was the kind of dragging-on that gets one tired of it, mentally.
And then I coudn't balance.

I fell on the finishing line.

I could have well fainted, fallen, dropped right in the middle. But somehow I didn't. In fact, such a possibility occured to me only later on.

I finished last.
And even as I type this, I can only comprehend the meaning of the first and the second word of that sentence. I'm quite proud. There's lots of good things I've done. Yet, I've never really found myself doing something unimaginable, something I wouldn't give a second thought to, usually.
And even though 800 meters is only half a mile, for me it was a milestone.