This

We are here now, because we couldn't be anywhere else. Life has taken the exact number of turns and twists that it has, taken. Shorter and longer paths. Through whirlwinds and thunderstorms. Night walks and dawn breaks. Deafening silences and paralytic dumbness, later, we are here. Because we couldn't be anywhere else. But now, here. This.

We have stared at graveyards, through nights. And written poems on heartache. Breathed in smoke. Breathed out fumes. Made strangers our own. Discarded the ones that loved us, and those we loved, also. Walked by hills, gotten scared. Felt infinite. Crumbled under the sad misery of our very very tiny and hapless existences. Tasted momentary exhilaration. Felt bound, completely incarcerated, sometimes. For others, for our own selves. We've blamed others for our endless suffering and passed the blame. With ease. And sat back, and turned away. 

We have walked towards and walked away from. We have tried to write. To read. See through others' eyes. We've won, sometimes just the illusion of victory, vis-a-vis sometimes having actually won. But mostly we have failed. We have mulled over ending our lives. Yes, we have. Shamelessly. And thought that there be no shame in that, either. 

But more than anything else, more than everything else, we've run for time, and against it. To get things done. Some many of them. Groceries, salon appointments, laundry, work-stuff, shopping dates, temples, cleaning and wiping and dusting, errands, payments, receipts, crap, crap, crap. More than anything else, we haven't learnt to pause. We haven't waited to absorb, whatever is happening to us. We haven't rested to appreciate, the simple, the tiny and the beautiful. 

We've fucked up big time. By running around and not pausing. To be here. Exactly here, now. This. Yes. You heard me. 

28

It has been so long that I've stayed up a night. Not a single night. And read a story. Or just dreamed with open eyes. So long. This is a passing phase, like every other phase that is. Not a song written, or word scribbled. This breathless chase to get things done, is slowly ruining my appetite for life. One has to get some place, be some one, buy some thing. All the time. I haven't paused. In a long long time. 

Truly, pauses scare me now. And, motion does too. 

This is a time of forced peace, But I don't know why I seem to be pushing this disequilibrium down my throat. All this urge to be moving, is not letting my limbs rest. There is a constant vibration in them. My soul, if there is a thing like that is suffocating in utter restlessness. The excess of this tension is slowly oozing through my skin and settling as wrinkles. 

And under my eyes, is getting darker. And damper. As I age, rather relentlessly every night, every day, every year. 28. 28. 28

Implosion

I wish I had this juvenile ability to pick up two people from one point in time and drop them within another, doing the exact thing. Ceteris paribus. Everything else remaining constant.
That way I would crawl backwards a few days, to the night when you were singing to me. Forgetting lyrics midway and not caring. Inserting words as you fancied. In some impeccable American accent. Unashamed that I was there to hear you. Judge you. Rate you. Because I wasn't gonna do that anyway. Midway shifting songs, you halted on a soft romantic one. And I noticed there was a string of pain in your voice. The one I had been looking for forever. And was worried, wasn't able to find. But finally relieved I did.
And then how, just how we wrecked our brains because we couldn't remember what song it was that you wanted, only the video kept flashing across our midnight minds. That debilitating muted feeling, felt happy though, because I was with you. At a point, when I felt that my memory has been wiped off of that song, I felt like my heart would implode with the joy. The joy of trivial amnesia and another of great love. Later when I googled the lyrics for you, you were cold asleep.
I wish I could crawl back in time, pick the both of us from that moment, and place us here now. But I can't. Nothing can, bring that back.
Atleast I am glad, we don't have the other juvenile ability to forsee the future. For if, that night, I had seen that this was what our future was gonna be like, I wouldn't have let you have me, the way you did that night.

Phonebook

I was in the mall picking up groceries. I got a text. Someone thought we shouldn't see each other again. That's called breaking up over whatsapp. I choked. Couldn't breathe for a span of a few seconds. A paralytic pain took over. I walked out for air. From that groceries section to the hall where children played games. Clutching my bags in one hand, I took out the phone from my pocket with the other. Then took it out of the cover with my teeth. That part was always the trouble. Read that text again. It went all hazy over my head. Was choking still. Deleted it, that text. Breathed in two three deep breaths of air conditioned mall air. Told the friend who I was with. She asked me why I hadn't told her inside. Like that would've helped.

Nothing helps. Nothing could. The worst happens, invariably. We had been talking in spells. In an on and off fragile acquaintance that ran across years of our adult lives. Between other fragile such acquaintances, with other people who cared the same or less. Whenever we talked, was good. Nothing extraordinary, but good. Sometimes it even felt just about alrite, tending towards the meant-to-be category. 

The moment I got that text, I assumed he was getting married. He must have been getting into something very committed and serious. And honestly, I even felt happy for him. He had been wanting to settle down for quite sometime. He used to tell me about it. And what was the cheapest alternative for love but marriage. I totally got that. Yet I was shocked.

I got over him with time. Over long walks. Unfinished blog posts. Most of him when someone else happened. 

But now, I stare at my Phonebook. I am yet to delete his number. It isn't synced with anything else though. Just his name and number. And a black and white picture of his. I like that picture. I love the look in his eyes. I wonder if he got married. I wonder if I am ever going to delete this contact. I stare at my Phonebook. Blank.

Lost & Found

The weekly horoscope, comes Sunday morning with the faint fragrance of newsprint. Layered between matrimonial classifieds and steals of second rate paparazzi. One quiet paragraph, beside the logo of a lone girl with wings. I try to focus; on every written word, and on each unwritten parallel, that could possibly be drawn between some silly astrologer's drunken babble and my life.

As predicted, I ensure that I cut short on all long term financial investments, which by the way are fictitious, and steer clear of backstabbers at work, and wear green on most days, and gather confidence for that turning point of my career that has kept me waiting long. I also wonder which of those past flames is going to make a peaceful retreat into my life. Before realizing the joke is on me, I actually, look up from the paper, ponder for a moment, which one could it be. Which one may have that slight possibility of pausing long enough to even consider. I shove the paper under the bed, where its ancestors have been, accumulating the hopelessness of a future that wouldn't be.

Then I take to a strange fancy. I should find something to contradict my turquoise nail paint. And go around looking. To come across this ancient-smelling market, which I could never imagine would be, stuck in a lost little place down-town. With dusty clay pots. Shiny silver toe rings. And anklets. Numerous other trinkets to appease the tumultuous effeminate swings of my mood. Pastel work on wrap-around skirts, and embroidered ponchos.

That neatly cultivated old world charm sunk into me, as we sat by a pond, pool of black scattering faint moonlight. Later I noticed a ring on my finger. The string of diamonds that never shone in the day and sat pale as a stone from every possible angle; now glittered. Glittered like a diamond should.

Later, I murmured, my ring shines in the dark. Just like me. 

Separated

And then there is that stage. The optional one. Not everyone sees it through but a few. Punctuation-wise it wouldn't be a comma, it's not a pause. Not a semi-colon, because I don't think so. Not a full stop at all, that would be too rude. And too un-affordable an assumption. It could be a conjunction of spaces. Because minds haunted by the said stage develop voids within.Or not. Sometimes it's not even a stage, it could last a forever. And it seems to last one anyway.

Talking about Separation. Lovers separated. Do you get how polished that sounds. We're not together. Not broken up. We're separated.  For now. For a while now. Could be a while longer. Or forever. But we're no more in love. Or may be we are. And we don't care. Because the by products of this affair are too much to take. And the stakes are high.

Also, there's no uncertainty. Only the nausea of a forced peace.

Punctuation-wise, this stage could be an ellipsis. We don't know what words to fill in anymore, so we hold the pen still and let the ink blotch into three dots. Inside our minds we keep asking, what else is there to say. Bewitched by this wordlesness, no one could say if there will be another shore. A few words after the ellipsis. Or some love that survived this separation...

Ode

All the shitty movies you have walked out of, and all the suffocating dresses I have barely gotten into and barely   gotten out of, in trial rooms, whose mirrors I have suspected to be see through sheets o glass. All the summer days and the unreal mirages and real hallucinations. That we've lived through. In all these decades of our lives. Most of your unfinished paintings and my untold stories. Half dead love stories. Walks around the planet. On windy winter evenings. Each time i wore a skirt and shaved my legs. The fresh nailpaint. Cracks under my toes. The women in your life. The beads in your key ring. The letters I swept under your carpet. Letters you never read. Letters you didn't even know existed. The number of times our clocks ran out of batteries. And made us feel so stuck in time. Cozy and far away. Those cold, really cold showers. And everytime the towel fell down from the hanger and wet itself. The big fat moon. Your pictures from far away lands. Post cards rather. Telling me how you've become who you wanted to become. Your fairy tale climax. Yet the growing dark circles around your eyes. The lines on your forehead. My crazy writing. The humble acceptance of loss. The violent middle of the night screams. Screams inside my mind. My peaceful sleep. The books you read and died for. Others that you thought were a farce. The way our minds never met. Your insomnia. Your state of eternal heartache. And how I never got you. Your anger for life. That breath that you squeezed between your lungs and never let out. And other things. Random things that never made sense. To me or you. Or them.

But will always be an Ode. An ode to us. And that we aren't exactly over until we are exactly that. Over 

Travel-ouge

I had been on the move for the last twenty odd hours, practically for the last few years, but contextually. The road drive hadn't given me this bad a nausea ever, and the lack of sleep co-conspired. I would get out and take in gulps of air, roll my windows down, breathe in, try to sleep, fail in the process, regret my life, feel restless again. I had flown the first part of the journey and then took a train. The intention was to save some money. I had eaten out and shopped like a maniac this term. Besides getting tired of comparing the uniforms of air hostesses, I also have this thing for overnight train journeys, alone.

Sometimes I remember Geet saying Ladki aur AC ka kya connection? But whatever. So I was waiting at this station, having dinner by myself, sipping coke, people comfortably staring at me, lone woman, with lots of luggage, look who deserted her. I have reached that stage in life when I am comfortable with most of such stuff. Also I was reading this travelogue. By an author who accidentally happens to be an acquaintance of mine. I don't know which way to put it, an acquaintance who happens to be the author of that book?

So I was reading this book, yearning for a world that was all around me. Keeping sleep away, my shoulders we stooping, my back had almost passed away thanks to the bags. After I got in the train, I called people to tell them I was alive and safe. I was slouching on the side lower berth, if you know what I mean. But the man sitting opposite me was exposing half his underwear and more. I didn't know which way to look, climbed up to my berth and slept off.

At 3 in the morning, I was sitting on my suitcase near the door of the train waiting for my station, yet reading that book! That s-o-b railway guy comes to tell me that the towel from my bedroll is missing. Did I steal it? fuck! We go and search again. And I was so angry when I didn't find it. He asked me to show my bag, imagine! s-o-b. Just then all the old men were walking to the washroom in their crumpled pajamas. I cursed myself for waking up so early and it was scary cold. There was another guy with me, waiting. Smiled and asked me where I was coming from. Calcutta. End of conversation. I don't think it's a problem, but I just don't talk, not with people I know, not with strangers.

Then I remembered having broken up earlier this term. I had this sudden craving to have him beside me, cracking those nutty jokes and laughing with him. But dumping, when you sense being dumped is just around the corner, is the absolute zenith of human intelligence, the victory of the ugly human ego. Plus the ecstasy of being by myself is orgasmic sometimes.

Travel-ouge. So tell me, will I become a published author before thirty!

My Heart

I owe my heart an apology. I have always taken away from it the people it has so badly wanted. And it hasn't stopped beating still. Kudos to its perseverance. But the heart doesn't even exist does it. It's just bloody pumping organ to the left of the chest. And I have no evidence that it is empowered to think/feel. The mind does all the thinking, evaluates options and tells us when to give up on things. Nevertheless, my sympathies for my heart. It has done one hell of a job. I would have called it quits long ago, had I been in my heart's shoes. But my heart doesn't wear shoes anyway.

I owe my heart a thousand apologies, having given it away to people who din't keep it well. For making it travel so much, back and forth, all those tumultuous days of mind boggling confusion. For all those ego clashes, silent battles that I fought and my heart had to be witness to. For swallowing all that violence, for bearing the unbearable and continuing to be with me, within me.

Sometimes I think, I should send my heart away for a few days for a therapy or something, it's broken so bad, like totally shattered, it should be given sometime alone to convalesce, to breathe. I feel genuinely sorry for it and  bow down before that degree of patience.

I have taken away from it every single thing it loved. I have trained it not to remember things and people I've wanted to forget. I have deprived it of its right to feel. I have drugged it with the survival drug every now and then. I have sent it off to concentration camps every once in a while, tortured it to unhealthy extents, never obeyed it. Rather I have fought and trampled to death its every wish, reasoned against it. I have cried and wailed. And my heart, it has only succumbed, succumbed to me. My rage has murdered its free will.

And tonite as I do it all over again, my conscience wants me to apologize. So, I am sorry. But there isn't much I can do about this.. the show has to go on.

Stalemate

And I had supposed that we had moved ahead. We hadn't. We haven't. We are still there, where we were years ago. Holding hands, fingers clasped into each others', the same doubts in our hearts, the faint feeling of longing for each other, growing stronger by the moment, faltering at times, the same questions irking us now and then. We are still here, standing on the edge of the mountain, staring into the valley, trivially confused, as the cold wind blows into our faces. Holding hands, waiting. Possessing each other, yet waiting for each other to arrive, for some kind of completion. Time hasn't moved from years.

And I thought, we had moved along, grown taller and saner. We hadn't. We haven't. We are still the same. We never changed, despite all the change. Never moved an inch, despite all those miles traveled. You and I. I had assumed, all these years, we were on that endless voyage into each others' souls. But now, when I run my hand between us, I feel thin air. The gap hasn't shrunk. Oh.

Just adding a few more pages to our dateless diaries, doesn't stand proof enough for the whale of time that has passed. We could tear those off and tell ourselves, nothing has happened, make those months and days non-existent. Undo all the hurt, that has come along as we have moved along, as I had thought we had moved along. But we hadn't. Unuh. We are still there, staring into the valley, trust me.

Unknown

it's true, love is the thing between me and the unknown, waiting to take place, like since forever, between me and the unknown, it's true, it's an unending wait, thank heavens, it's never gonna come true, thank heavens, that this wait lives inside me and makes me live along with, this love, this wait, yeah, it's true, love's neva gonna happen,like i and the unknown are a characters in this old lady's dream, and she is not dying, not living still, and we are there, waiting to come true, between the thin strands of her consciousness and coma, when she moves closer to death, we come alive a little, and then step back into the dark, stay on as characters in her dream, waiting to come true, waiting to meet, like since forever, i and the unknown, yeah, it's true, thank heavens love isn't true, thank heavens love isn't true, and that we aren't flesh and blood, but you are a figment of my imagination, and you live inside my mind, and that you're unknown, unknown still, unknown forever, darlin! darlin! darlin! 


I just felt like writing this.
Also, I would like you to listen to this song, for me.

http://www.foeweel.com/compilations/JustInTime.mp3

Wont you do this much for me? Read me while this song fills your mind, Lemme move across your mind for those few minutes. Wont you do this much for me? Hm?

Now you're here now I know just where I'm going 
No more doubt or fear I've found my way.. 


Now that I have been struggling with the concept of it, (of love i.e.) for so long, I thought I should stop, at least for now. Like you know, idealize it, and shut it inside closed doors and make myself believe that it doesn't happen. Not to mortals. That deep connection, between souls. Mostly, it doesn't. And this wouldn't be a belief, it would be a truth, like you know, you had cereal for breakfast, like that. A truth that would have the surety of the past. This should help put my quest to rest. 


It's not that I wouldn't believe in love anymore, but I want to make it so rare, that it would quietly slip out of my reach. 


Yeah, that way..

Feminist-I am not!

I know some men who are scared of age. Age is not as scary as it seems. Sometimes a strand or two of grey hair is more sexy than it could imagined to be. Age is experience, age is maturity. Age says, I've been there, done that. Age is a calm smile, age is nerves of steel, patience. Age is a just fine.

But some men don't want to grow up. They hate thirties. Oh! I love thirties. To console themselves, they flirt around with eighteen-year-olds. It's pathetic.Argh! It's frustrating, their desperate attempts. What kind of paedophilia is that now!

Also, it is another side of the same story that super-confused eighteen-year-old females find solace in the arms of the middle aged, sometimes. They could be, super-tired of the guys their age, who know hardly anything except for vital statistics. And for the old men, these chicks are a good bargain, aren't they? Poor chicks think, it's not the chic that their grey admirers are after, but have a quest of their inner beauty. Bleh! That kind of a thing, is beyond the comprehension of all the men on this planet. Men, irrespective of their age, are all the same.

stories from neverland!

the mind and the body are like Siamese twins. only death does them apart. this bond that binds them should be respected. they cannot stay uninvolved in each other's business. sometimes the body enslaves the mind. sometimes the mind asks the body to shut up and obey. figuring out a path of non-alignment towards either is difficult. 

oh this sounds funny already. but i will write this out anyway. 

each has a wish of its own. the mind's wish is like a longing, the body's is called desire. . they start looking for a common point of culmination. and if they don't find one, then life gets messed up. 

this was just fyi..  

Privilege of Chaos

Sometimes Red loses its significance. It merges with the background and keeps itself from being seen. It has a mind of its own. It does as it feels it should. Red is for love. Red is for anger too.

Lately, I have been angry a lot. And this has been taking a huge toll on me, because I have not yet found out who or what am I angry on. So as is the usual, I choose to blame it on my destiny. But it's just not fair to do that. Destiny would be a lame reason for my unhappiness. It is not a reason at all. The reason behind all my emotions is me.

I am alone, because I choose to be alone. I choose to draw a sphere around me where every other being is prosecuted for trespassing! I have chosen personal space over company. So much space, so much of it that it feels like a void now. But nevertheless, it is my choice. There would pros and cons of everything and I should be flexible enough to accept. And not to grumble over it. But the problem is I do. I want only the goodies and not the unpleasant side effects that come along with the goodies. I am looking for a way to sort this out. It will be good if I figure a way out before it drives me crazy!

Love? I have chosen self over love. Yes finally. Probably, there is no such thing as love. It could be just an illusion people worship for the whole of their lives. It is very hard to draw those lines. Between liking a man and wanting to keep him for life. It's difficult. It is very hazy. If I try to find out what love is, I never find it out. If I care not about the definition and just fall into it, let it enslave me, then my heart breaks. I think I should drop the topic altogether and take a break.

So this is it. Writing has been the only constant in my life for long. I want it to stay, that's the only thing I am sure about. For everything else, there is the privilege of chaos!

StalkedFinally

somewhere in time the forces inside me stopped fighting. they totally left me at some random zero-energy level. then on i stopped trying in life. i stopped trying because i didn't want anything out of life. i avoided unnecessary acquaintance. but those things could never get on my nerves, even then. their presence was as good as their absence. i was anyway lost somewhere within myself. i haven't essentially talked in years, or so i feel. depression has made way for staunch indifference. i quit wearing earrings. lost my ability to believe. to hope. i have been painfully at peace. i never color my nails. red, never. i keep wondering that this must be life's way of making the wise out of the foolish. the seasoned out of the adolescent. i like not to talk much. listening is involuntary and never happens.

but now an x has come out of th blue. x's absence is more conspicuous than x's presence. x has taken me back a few years or has made me as vulnerable as then. with x, i laugh a lot. i want to undo the above-mentioned process of seasoning. i'm afraid i'm beginning to believe, again.

x hasn't seen my face yet. and i'm wondering beneath my silver veil.

PS: this picture is unrelated to thispost.

yet, this is where it has to be.