circle, cycle

she's back.

Dreams deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? 

(I don't remember who wrote this. But it is my favourite)

bang! bang! she shot me down!

after i moved cities, for a long time, i survived on imaginary conversations.

chapter one

i used to have long chats with my bestfriend who lived inside my head and also back in my old city, having no clue that i had spawned her ethereal twin. then, when she telephones, i would forget to tell her a lot of important details as i had already shared the lengths and breadths of it with her twin i carried within. and there usually ensued little quarrels over why i omitted mentions of that and this, but then, i tell her about her twin and all dissolves in bouts of giggles.

she was my lifeline to sanity. 

this went on for a couple of years and more. my bestfriend continued to live elsewhere and flourish in my head. 

life had its plans for both of us. she fell in love and so did i. she found the right man and i found one too. she had ups and little downs. i had ups and ups for sometime, then ups and downs, then big downs and small ups, then downs and downs.

she went on to marry the man she loved. i was straining on the ropes of divorce. 

all the while, we spoke at lengths on whats and whys of my dire straits. she was on her honeymoon when my sky crashed. i broke into a million pieces. the her in my head shattered with me. days went by and the wind carried away specks of me. i was holding my wake when she called. period.

chapter two

the resurrected me, had gaping holes all over. i wasn't pheonix's favourite. chunks of decay had to be chopped off. i knew gangrene killed.

our calls became infrequent. i was being sucked into the vortex of trouble. she watched, helplessly. she wanted to stop my misery. but i let the demon gobble me up. she grew angry. our conversations became rarer. they turned into accusations from her and explanations from me. she on the offensive, me defensive. it went on. how and when we moved to rival camps, i do not know.

then one day, she pulled the trigger on me.

bang bang, she shot me down

bang bang, i hit the ground

bang bang, that awful sound

bang bang, my baby shot me down

in the green room

i am a bad gambler. i think long and hard, but is careful not to arrive at any logical conclusion. my choices are always on the wildest impulse, then i spend the rest of my life finding logic to back it up. sometimes, logic is plenty, yet i lose the gamble. the dive is the thrill, i might cut the water with no ripples, might even hit the hard ground -- it doesnt matter. 

rarely do i let an action replay happen. and now, the stage is slowly getting set. he is fixing the lights, actors are putting on foundation, last minute rehearsals at the green room. 

heading somewhere

i am taking the job, the new environ might do me some good. they threaten to bury me for three months at least and that is a good prospect. anything to break away from the rut i am in.

i often feel i can touch the life that is flowing past me in a hurry; that i can see myself and life around, with some amount of detachment. but then, i guess, a lot of others feel the same too. generally bored creatures who are lazy in the bargain. life is indeed tedious as i wait on to get on some caravan, playing good music and heading to exotic land of fun and frolic.

the t junction

the music of chance, i loved that book by auster. the music he talks about is sometimes loud, so loud that it threatens to break the ear drums. and sometimes, so soft that it barely is a whisper. and i have learned that whispers are what i need to strain my ears to.

right now, there is almost an avalanche of whispers burying me. at home and at the work front. i am walling myself away from him, i have nt made my escape yet, i fear.

a new job, it is an upheaval. will my survival instincts work? should i resist the call now and refuse to budge, i am waiting for answers

work is salvation

it is no gate of auschwitz. frankly, work has been salvation for me since some time. it helped me get over my brother's divorce which got so dirty that it rocked our family badly. it helped me tide over a broken heart too, however dramatic it may sound, work is what soothes me down. the daily pressures and stress, ooo how i love it.

but it is not always so gushable. sometimes i hate it, a lot of times i crave for a break, but i never forget what a therapy it has been.

and this once, i want it to help in a herculean way. it is but i want more help.

social concerns

i have professed many a time that the society means nothing to me. yet, as i grow older, i realize that i am a hypocrite if not anything else.

when younger, society and its norms were some far away beasts i had nothing to do with. with each of my mistakes, i realised that society is in fact as close to me as perhaps my little toe is. yes, it is still a toe, which will hurt like mad if hurt but i still can afford to have it amputated.

sometimes, i think it is like those ravenous cancer cells which are eternally hungry – cells who want to claim my whole self and no longer just a little toe. may be as big as a limb. i can still get it cut and use the prosthetic, but then i can’t dance, can i? it is these fears, those demons in my head which lead me.

was there ever a time when i was completely fearless? my father says i was the bravest child he has ever seen. so vouched my grandfather who had seen even more of the world. but then, for as far back as i can remember there were fears. most of the early ones are now downright silly, even some of those as old as a couple of months seem baseless now.

i fear i will ever get pragmatic.
mindlessly driven by fear – this is a phrase i have borrow, for it reasons the roads i have chosen many a time.

vice play

the chief among my vices is the inability to draw the line, to say No, this can’t be; i cannot do this. and this is what has dragged me to the abyss which threatens to drown me or making a swimming champ out of me.

green me

once i died
and was buried in a hurry
beneath the banyan tree
in the dark nights, the roots fed life into me
i grew shoots
and was out of the brown earth
a green new me.

kaarmekha varnaa ... krishna...

i am on the last stretch of a break, a well earned one that too. a lot of thoughts fight for space inside my head. these days, i am partial to some of those and they are who scream for clarity. yet most often, they don’t get any despite this space, for i am haphazard.
i have started dancing again and that has opened a door. it gave me something which nothing else has ever given me – it wiped my head clear of all the muck. all i hear while i dance is the music. the beats of the mridangam, the loud but beautiful voice of the lady singing praises of naughty krishna, -- they make me happy.
dancing after a six-year break is tough. i find myself wanting in every aspect of it, my hands refuse to obey when I want them to sway. my legs refuse to keep to the rhythm. only my face mirrors the story I have to say. my eyes tell them loud.
i do not dance well anymore. i hate to do things which i cannot do well but I can’t give up dancing now. for this time, it is my lifeline – the raft that drifted across to me, beating the rough rapids with hope at its helm wielding the oars.
i dance. well, soon, very well.

soaking in

Friday, June 13, 2008

i had once sworn i'll never keep a blog. that was when in college. i have changed my notions at least a hundred times since then.
this one is for me. here, i am whispering into an inanimate computer all those nothings and somethings which i want to push out of my head. this is no confessional. it is not a chronicle either; nor is it an attempt at something grand like the unbearable lightness of being (which annie seems to think i can match). this is just me talking to a friend without a face. and like all my conversations, i meander.
my rule book insists i steer far away from pretentious wordplay. it says i must be honest as well. i try.

i often wondered what happens to an undelivered message -- one which i sent but never reached the person i intended it for. i see them floating in the air, knocking at closed windows, wishing a wind could blow it in somehow.
here, perhaps is the last house for all of them. a house to stay, where wind is always ready to usher them in.