Who You Be

I don't keep a good track of time. Because what is to it. Every realization that such and such quantity of time has passed, you only feel nostalgia. And along with nostalgia, a tinge of sorrow. Helplessness because we have been so callous in life. Though we have been extremely savagely prudent, we have managed to be callous, nevertheless. So I don't appreciate keeping a track of time. I keep no album. No journal. Nothing. And it feels liberating, living like this, deliberately, without a care for time. Living life day wise. Hour wise. Week wise, at most. But not in any longer tranches of time. 

However, I remember, faintly though, deeply loving myself. Loving yourself is a good thing, no doubt. But I was a narcissist. I don't judge you if you are, by the way. But I don't like being one. It's a huge waste of time. But then what is not. If you are not the artist or the muse, your life is a ludicrous waste of time. But I was arrogant. For no apparent reason. I wasn't even pretty. That I wasn't pretty played over my fucking head a lot. I overcompensated the lack of being loved. It's basically sort of playing defense. But in a twisted sort of a way. 

After a long time, I cannot tell you how much time exactly, because I don't keep track of time, but after like a dozen rejections or so, I learnt my lesson, that beauty probably cannot be attained. And no matter what you do, you be who you be. And nothing you do, believe, can ever alter that truth of truths. So I shed the arrogance and compensated the lack of love with deep compassion for the self. Yeah. And it's been working. I guess. 

Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly. Khaled Hosseini

Baker's Delight

Do you remember the year of depression? Because I do. A terrible year that. 2015. I don't know, why exactly I realize this just now. Now, that another year has also almost followed 2015 into the bygone and the forgotten. Yet, I cannot cease myself from writing about it. 

The weekdays used to be delusional. You understand the kind of delusion, when you cannot recall how did things get so worse. You cannot recall the steps, the small pouches of misery coming in before the surfeit of it choked your throat. And you ask yourself, rhetorically though. Only one mere word. Why.

That kind of delusion. That could nudge mental heath enthusiasts off their comfy couches. It was concerning. But what was more demanding of empathy was Sundays.

I recall, it started with a rant of not-feeling-well to I-feel-like-cake. I poured an instant cake mix into the pressure cooker as directed on the cover. And, voila. An amorphous antidote for depression. I knifed it out, spooned it out, in crumbs and that was the first of numerous.

I took to the heavily underused microwave then. And blatantly decided to mix my own batter for the better. Better batter. And boy, did I bake some mediocre unpalatable stuff. I am told baking is so simple and often asked, how can I be bad at baking. But I just was. Probably it as my mood. My mental heath, as enthusiasts would say. 

I was battling my own wars. Arguing, screaming. And almost simultaneously baking. I whisked flour, eggs, milk, sugar. Sometimes bananas. The baking soda was either too scant or too much, it always failed me. I was in tears. Chocolate powder or vanilla essence, nothing sufficed to fill the holes in my soul. The knife I stabbed into the cake to check if it was done, I weighed against it the option of stabbing it into myself. I couldn't handle anymore questions. I had no answers. 

It was such a ruthless time. And I was so callously lost. 

I Google-d newer recipes to keep my mind engaged. I once baked an apple pie with a bunch of overripe apples. I distinctly remember baking my personal favorite, the caramel custard. Cup cakes were done too, Jars and jars of Nutella, and Hershey's chocolate sauce. Powdered sugar as icing with cherry toppings. 

But nothing helped me as much as I would have wanted to be helped back then. I would cut myself two generous slices on a plate and go to bed, every Sunday afternoon. The rest of the cake would lay on the dining table next to the microwave, untouched. Sometimes, I ate the rest of it, on week nights. It didn't matter. 

And then suddenly, things changed. Both for the better and the worse. It's hard to imagine it bothways, but it's true. And I stopped baking altogether. Probably because I don't own a microwave anymore. Amen to that. 

A Poem for Irrefutable Sadness

Something devastating must've happened.
Else why do I feel the way I feel.

Things must be fine in a parallel world.
Wherein time ticks in a different fashion.

Isn't most things crumbling as I speak.
It's a catastrophe in this world, may be.

Dreams being crushed, ruthlessly.
Too much for a mortal to handle.

So many handicaps to be ashamed of,
And so many smokes needed, there by.

Can't take this no more.
Now that everything has come to nothing. Zilch.

Fluorescence

Now, the old lady lives in the forgotten mansion by herself. Parts of it they had rented out to teachers who came to teach in the little school they had started. Just for company's sake. Now that the old man is dead and gone, it's just her with her tenants. There's no jungle bounty to take care of. Guard against the wild. Years ago, when the old lady was only middle aged, she would shoo away herds of monkeys from her mango orchard with an air gun the old man no more used for hunting. The horns of the deer killed decades ago still adorns their doorway. But the orchards have vanished. Everything is a shadow of what it was. The clusters of bananas that she used to hide in sacks to keep safe until they ripened, to be sent off to daughters married off in distant cities, no more. The story seeping granddaughters never looked back. The sole singular lone son. Drunkard of a man, womaniser, once discarded by the old man for being a disgrace, must have decayed in some brothel. Or a cheap smokey bar. When the old man sat on the rickety chair, staring at the front door, there was not much conversation. But just one question, who was dying on whom. Which one of the two would last longer, asphyxiate in the dust that the termites ate off the doors. It is usually the diabetes that gets to you, or a cardiac arrest. Sometimes, they imagined passing away in sleep, but mostly it is plain loneliness. Now the old lady, in that ghost of a house cannot move around much. And cooks one meal a day, of rice and vegetables boiled in one black pot and sips as much as she can. Fighting the need to be against the whim to vanish, sitting guard on the decadence. 

Requiem

He has his eyes downcast. Staring at his lunch plate. Those are the most beautiful eyes in the world. One of the most beautiful. A beautiful pair of eyes, those. He is sitting amongst a large bunch of loud women. His blush is lost amongst their chatter. But, he doesn't look lost. Not yet. But out of place. Definitely out of place, Yes. He's eating with his hands, elbows quiet on the edge of the table. The set up looks like an experiment. Except his eyes. They look like dollops of love. And a shiver on his face. That hides his age. He has a son back at home, put away in some school. Standing by the road with a huge bag slung from his little shoulders, waiting for the school bus to pick him up. And the wife, who bought the lady fingers on his lunch plate. Who washes, cooks and waits. And loves, probably possibly, with a decent vigor. Like a woman should a man. And here, he is. Sitting alone among known strangers.

He must feel stifled. Does he? I would, if I were him. But I am merely sitting here, reading his story from the lines on his face, from the glint in his eyes, the shiver on his face. Drawing illegal solace from a perfect stranger. Sitting apart. Sitting opposite. Creating a requiem, for each moment that passes. Like, life had no ennui at all.

With age, love gets deeper. I mean, but of course. Whatother way could it be. I may be talking about the sentiment towards one man in particular. Or towards many, in a destined chronological order. One man after another. But the love gets deeper. I suppose.
I hope I am making myself clear. Or, let me come again. You love the man you loved at twenty-six more over the man you desired at twenty-two. Is this true? Does love have something to do with age? Or is it just my self pity and consistent estrangement making it appear so. I could harbor a self- bias, but still I think. I believe, it gets harder to deal with heart-break with age. What's appaling is that, the contrary seems to be true.
Because you are expected to become more mature, thick-skinned, self-obsessed, pragmatic, faithless and blah with age. It's only natural. And hence, the loss of love, isn't techincally expected to affect you as much as it did when you were young. But no..
Somewhere inside, the hurt is getting deeper. The cut is reaching for your insides, as you speak. The ghosts of those x-s and y-s and z-s live inside your head now. Because, probably because, he was the one, who you had caught up with so late in life, who you were desperately clinging to for your happyness, and then shockingly it all broke down. Suddenly, there seem to be less fish in the sea. And desperate clinging feels criminal.
Also sometimes, you feel the man you are going love when you get twenty-six is the same as the man you were crazy about at twenty-two. This is exactly when you realise that that SOB has made a home inside of your skull. And that you're doomed. Amen!

Between Us

Intimacy cannot fade. It is merely coated on top by other emotions, for other people. The naked warmth, the sighs and whispers shared, the confessions and intimacies traded, do not fade. Illusions, as if seen by only one pair of eyes, stay, unforgotten. Intimacy cannot fade, no, time isn't that powerful. Once you scrape off those settled layers of dust, you can see it preserved, far from fossilized. 

Because, when minds have conversed, mouths needn't reassure. What has been said, is never taken back. And whenever you turn your head to see what you have left behind, you find some memories, unmoved, as you created them. Even after a million waves have crashed on the beach where you felt it for the first time; even after the creases on the bed on which you slept for the first time have gone amiss, and it has been unmade and remade as days whiled away, one glance is sometimes 'nough to take you back.

Or a date. When you look at your cellphone and realize that it's the anniversary you once celebrated. But now it's another useless, unaccountable day. You skip a breath, palms go sweaty like you were nervous, about to make a speech to yourself. You fling the cellphone back, and stare at the wall opposite, re-living, trying not to, yet re-living.

'Her earrings were made out of metal twisted into circles, tiny stones hung from which, delicately, relfecting the setting sun's rays. He felt dazed by that shine, and by her faint golden summer skin. He held back her hands as she tried to tie her hair wildly yielding to the wind, and it fell like waves on both sides of her face. To that, he smiled. And asked, 'Do you remember, what day it is?''

The Fever Bird

A poet of repute writes about love. He mentions how he wakes up disturbed to the cries of the papiha in his garden, in the dead of the night. The lunatic bird sings in the midnight heat, without relief. Like a bone of pain is stuck in its throat. And our poet doesn't know sleep. He feels that the papiha is conspiring only against him, because there is no one else in the house awake. He looks out of his room, and can't trace the hidden bird. Its throttling cries split his heart apart. Those cries of pee-kahan, pee-kahan. Where is my love, where is my love. The poet christens this emotion as love. And tries to make me believe so.

Yet again, I have been lied to. Call me a man for having said this. But love is an extended mating-ritual. It's like fore-foreplay. At least this once, men are right. It's a terrible facade that love puts on, it cheats you for half a life. It's all about chemicals gone crazy in your brain. Some hormones out stepping their fucking limits. The same ones that ensure you get hair under your arms. That's about it. It's animal instinct. All that we suppose sets man apart from animals has been doctored to fill in books, to make people fantasize. And make this hunt for an okayish mate, a pink one after all. That's about it.

I saw a blind man and a blind woman. I don't know if I could impose our jargons on them. But they would have been objectionable had they not been blind. It was a public place, there were scores of people, like me, like you, who would but ogle at people who make out in public. But I couldn't find a term for them. I couldn't force any thought on what I saw. No one else was watching, so I could just stare on. Like an almost involved by stander. The woman was taking the man's hand and running it across her face, above her eyes, with almost all white and the squinted black, the dark circles around her eyes, her nose, the slightly hollow cheeks, and then his hands paused for a short breathtaking moment on her mouth, fingered gradually from the upper lip to the lower, like a beat of music. Then down to her chin and below her neck. There was a smile on the man's face. It was a like a mad man's. He must have been happy. So must have been the woman. Now I wonder, was that about it?

Poet in reference: Vikram Seth

en route

Flying, home bound. Nothing quite like it. Above the earth for three hours or so. Changing cabs, dragging her knapsack, she caught her flight after almost missing it. Home bound, after a long tiring Friday. For a marginally extended weekend, she couldn't make it on diwali and had goa plans with the girlfriends in December, so this time was just about right, to relish home.

Just after the seatbelt sign was no more, she headed for the washroom. In the mirror, she looked at herself, she didn't feel a thing. Couldn't decide whether to wash her face or not. Engaging in silly immaterial questions, she thought kept the serious scathing ones away. Ambivalence took over her and she stood there, staring at her own face, not feeling a thing.

Later, she saw him in the aisle. And lost half of her sanity in just about a second. Was it him? She saw him walk closer towards her, her seat i.e. Why hadn't she met him in the airport, she could've met him in the lounge at least, she could have abandoned the flight, headed back to her dingy apartment. But she hadn't, she bit her tongue. What would she do for these long hours now? She was suddenly getting tempted to hide her face with the newspaper or something. But that would keep her from noticing how he'd changed, in the last couple months. Undecided, she breathed in large gulps, blood rushed into her head and heart and she wasn't sure if she would break down into tears in the next minute or the one after that or was she crying already?

He was a mere two seats ahead of her, she could stretch her hand and touch his hair. That proximity scared her. All the self imposed stability, those no-i-am-just-fine's had just abandoned her. Behind her copy of the Economic Times, she was shivering. Her mind strayed to his goatee again that wasn't there anymore, she had so adored it. To displace people from your mind, you get rid of the things about you that they loved the most. Wasn't that why she never baby-talked ever, after him. 

She was struggling with facts, the next thing. Wasn't he in Delhi the last time she'd checked on Facebook? What was he doing here? And why did he have to go home the same time she chose to? Why did they have to share the same hometown? Why does life ridicule you after breaking your heart, she thought. It never just gets enough, does it. Call it a day now; now at least, she told the forces conspiring against her. Hadn't she been through too much? Thankfully they turned the lights off, and she sighed in short-lived relief.

Had he noticed her yet? Did he remember her? Of course, he did. They'd broken off just about when they were absolutely comfortably settled. Just about when they'd begun shedding their defenses, opening up, sharing nothings, getting used to having each other. They chose that opportune moment to call it off, suddenly, heartbreakingly. She wasn't sure why. She hoped, he didn't know either. It had just happened, and hence the reluctance to look at each other ever again.

When she turned back after picking her luggage, switching on her two cell phones, wondering whether to call up Mom, wondering if she'd arrived already, or was she stuck in traffic, he said Hi. In one go, she realized that her T was pathetically loose, hair shabbily clutched, half of it falling on her face, kohl smudged. And she smiled back at him.


How're you? 

Good, she said between that smile. Dragged the straps of knapsack on her shoulders and left, abruptly, just when he was about to say the next word.

Outside, she picked up a mauve gerbera for Mom. Only if gerberas could buy happyness!

The Missing Ring

Rahel's thumb kept going round and round around her ring finger, hurting it with its nail, like punishing it, like looking for the ring that used to be there. Broken patches of color on her nails made her fingers look unkempt, more bony. She was alone after a long time, sitting in a coffee house, staring outside.

Outside it was numbing cold. There always was a certain limit till which you felt the cold, beyond that you were numbed like it was incapable of hurting you, because your senses wouldn't respond to it. Rahel wondered if reaching that stage was humanly possible, where emotion was irreversibly frozen, and no warmth could melt it ever again.

If you took a closer look, the thin cracks on her lips showed, a nearly invisible wrinkle just below her left eye squeezed her skin, everytime she twitched. And sighed. And looked at her coffee, looking for a reflection of her face in the black liquid. It formed though, the image was irregular, outlines deformed, unrecognizable, just like the person Rahel had become now.

The cause behind the missing ring kept irking the insides of her mind, so hard that she fiddled with the zip of her purse, trying to figure out if she could do still without a smoke. There was a threshold of stress she had fixed for a cigarette, hadn't she crossed that long ago, she gasped!

To the Reader: Rahel, the name is inspired from Roy's God of Small Things. The book, every bit of paper in it, is deeply deeply ingrained in my conscious. Rahel, the character I stole here, is one of the twin children who almost narrate the story. I wonder if Rahel would have grown up to become someone like the one I wrote about. Because writers close their stories, not caring for the plight of an intoxicated reader, who can't bear to see the book end. And the intoxicated reader, keeps wondering whatever happened to the characters after the book closed and keeps writing failed sequels! 

Terminal.

She looked me in the eye. Held me with them for a few seconds before looking away. She must have been thinking about this deeply. About me, deeply. I felt like asking her if I was troubled for real. Then that urge got very urgent. As she was looking away, she looked peaceful. Strands of long shiny hair fell on her face, she didn't care enough to tuck them behind her ears. It was sunny and windy. And when it is both sunny and windy, there is always an impending danger in the air. I came back to my coffee.

This had been happening for the last two months with me. May, June and now consistently running into its third, July. Every morning after opening my eyes, I felt a constant aching pain. Initially it was but obvious, the hurt after the accident. It stayed for the morning, disappeared by lunch. Sometimes when I got busy, I would totally forget about the pain. Later I would have to squeeze myself to find out if it still pained. By the time dusk appeared, it would find its way back to me. Definitely; without fail. Late in the night it would make me weep, curse myself. I would make promises to myself not to drag this any further and visit the doc the first thing in the morning.

Meanwhile, I changed six doctors. They would tell me nothing is the problem with me. They would ask me to engage my mind in other things. In anything I want to. But not think about the pain. Not worry about it the way I did. I failed in explaining to them, how on earth was I supposed to not think of it while it was the only thing irking the insides of my mind. Thinking wasn't as voluntary a process as they thought, I thought. They would tell me that I was just fine, I knew I wasn't. So I changed them. My table was cluttered with empty bottles of tonics, strips of tablets, prescriptions, my test reports. When I looked at them I felt sick. Very sick.

People I knew, started looking at me as someone who had been ill for years. Their concerns felt nosy sometimes, relieving some other times, indifferent the rest of the time. But they always felt obvious, like I was meant to be asked about my illness. Everyone knew. Many asked me what the hell the problem was. And wanted me to get a serious doc. Suggestions too came pouring in. Those helped me switching doctors.

I called my doctors up, they would stop taking my calls. They wouldn't return them even in the rarest of chances. When this happened, I got scared. Scared because, I had a disease, they didn't have a cure for. I would die.I was terminal. And they were avoiding me. So I called on her, and stared at her, at her hair fly in the windy sunny morning. Waiting to ask her if I would live.

Abandoned

The first time you left me, I was angry. My uncontrollable rage wouldn't even let me ask for your reason. I was mad at me and my fate because of which I lost you. I kept asking myself, how could anyone forget anyone so easily? Was forgetting that easy a process after all? Teach me someone! Because I have serious problems forgetting certain people in my life. So many why's popped up inside my head, but my heart was ashamed. I cried myself to sleep, bit my lips, trying to overcome this unknown emotion, but I didn't try to confront you. Rather I stared at the horizon, waiting hopelessly for time to answer my questions.

The second time you abandoned me, I was almost in love with you. I was heartbroken. I wouldn't look at my face in the mirror because somewhere deep down I felt it was because of me that you had left me. I was the reason, for the betrayal, for my own estrangement. Some undiscovered flaw in me, or a pretty obvious one had made you hate me. I looked into myself, I got lost. I kept blaming myself, I wanted to cure the flaw, call you back, at any cost. I was so distressed, I indulged. In long walks, got lost amongst strangers, kept taking pictures to keep my mind off you. My life froze, completely. There was no way I could console myself. I was heartbroken.

The third time you left without a notice, I was expecting to see your face the first thing in the morning, probably give you a good morning kiss. A moist one, with the remnants of the dreams that I had seen in the night, of us. But you had left. Then I went on an indiscriminate shopping spree. At the end of the day it dawned on me that you are only incredibly stupid. Incredibly stupid to leave me. Or may be you are a trifle insane too. So this time around, I let you leave.

yasp 7 (?)

no matter what, it's never enough
it's weird, how it never ceases to irk me
it has to exist at the back of my mind
the drop of tear, waiting in the corner of the eye
is a perennial thing in my life
it just doesn't want to go
i wonder where it gets all that attitude to hang on!

my vulnerability always traces its way back to me
no matter how much i pretend that I wont fall
it always wins, and i am the invariable loser
i try to give a good fight
i don't give up breathing until i am nose deepin water
but somehow, it just doesn't work out for me

it's weird, no matter how far you go
life always comes a full cirlce
no matter what heights you aspire for
you always crash on ground zero
why?

knot for me!

Every small step feels like a giant leap. And honestly, I want it to feel like one. We should be careful when our hearts are busy trying to bond irrespective of everything else. You have a past I suppose, and I have many pasts. Forgetting takes time. And we need that time. Let's not be that fast that it takes my breath away. Everything is at stake, you know. Though its hard, but we can give a shot at being as sane as possible. My experiences have made me into a cynic, big time. And though I understand, how you want me to respond, it's difficult for me to shed that defensive garb that I have shrouded myself in for all these years  of seasoned solitude. And I think the same applies to you too. Come on! I don't even know you enough to comment on that. It will look ridiculous if we get serious about something that would look so silly later.


Recently, one couple I loved and respected for long, chose to split. For one minute I gaped in surprise. Then I gained my poise and wondered if that wasn't exactly obvious, something that should happen, only oftener. Marriage being the epitome of all compromises, every time a marriage works out shouldn't I gape in surprise rather than when it breaks? 

Nemesis

Nemesis.

What could be in common between January 2006 and Jannary 2010? Quite a lot I can sense. What followed in the months of February and March led to the worst thing that couldever have happened. The signs are similar this time of the year. Fouryears and my life hasn't taken leap. Yet.

I despise deja vu. It makes life predictable, of all things.

Beyond the fear of failure, is failure. The only favor that Failure does is, it takes away that fear. It makes you way more, way more bold. It doesn't make you callous, but brave, nevertheless.

It does. It does. It does.

Beyond Nemesis, is a tiny hope. A hope that tells me that life still hides within itself the slightest chance. That chance of springing back to life. Again.

B-reft.

I have never been taken care of. Never been told what to do. More importantly what not to do. Never been told that I am a child. Never treated like one. I have learnt things the hard way. My way. Falling. Getting up. Dragging my feet and walking again. All my life I have lived alone. Trembling with fear on dark unending nights I have evaluated the options at hand. I have taken my own decisions. Commited my own mistakes. Suffered my own regrets. Cried alone. I have been expected to behave like an adult. I missed growing up. I believe I was born this way. I have made myself into all that I am. And I have so got into this habit of being by myself, that now anything else looks like an impossibility. A possibility I have been bereft of. I do all my stuff thisway. I shop alone. I scream for cabs alone. I walk alone. I live alone. And now I wonder why. Now I cry why not?

I have never been taken care of. Never been told what to do. More importantly what not to do. Never been told that I am a child. Never treated like one. I have learnt things the hard way. My way. Falling..Getting up.. Dragging my feet and..