Alternate Perception

2011-12-05T12:43:00.000+05:30

annual repairs

just

2011-11-25T01:39:00.002+05:30

aise hi. felt like knocking on the blog's door. perhaps to look for a friend or two. perhaps to find a mirror. perhaps to see how much has changed. or maybe, just for a change. always a good feeling when your favourite corner in a coffee shop, still feels familiar.

back to base

2011-01-04T09:59:00.003+05:30

I couldn't stay away for much longer. I just needed to be away, knowing i didn't have to come back. Simpler. Simplified. Life has changed, by miles. The job has happened. The wedding bells ring at a distance that's not so far anymore. I'm leaving for Delhi after yet another round of wheeling and dealing, that now seems to be instinctive. Loads to unwrap. Very soon. Winter's gone.

closed

2010-10-14T01:23:00.000+05:30

I've come here to pull the shutter down. Can't bear the sight of my posts, the stink of my thoughts and the dirt of recycled words. Maybe it's me again, being tired of myself. Love to everyone who reads. Life is beautiful. Bye for now.

2010-09-25T14:14:00.002+05:30

i'm obsessed with beautiful people
and their beautiful eyes
and the beauty with which
they bat their eyelids
to cover up their lies

since then

2010-09-14T15:13:00.002+05:30

When i first started writing this blog, i had no idea what i wanted it to be. I was wondering if any of it was me. or un-me. I revelled in its obscurity and anonymity. It should be more about the music, than the musician. Or so i felt. More about the words than where it came from. All i wanted to do was ride with words. Wherever they took me. And i found synonyms. Of expression and of soul. I started communicating with words scattered across blogs. Words that coalesced together to form identities. people. personalities. friends. I've loved each one of them. One of them i've fallen in love with. At times when i'm dry of posts, i wonder if i'm relevant to this blog anymore. Or vice-versa. But there is stillness in this space. It's like the lakeside. Something that pre-existed facebook and twitter. Something that's more about reflections than projections. Especially when life is taking turns more dynamic than its motion. So much has changed between me at twenty-two and twenty-five that sometimes, i need to string the posts together and trace the locus of where it all began. In six months i'll be done with the b-school. Sometimes i wish i could press a rewind button. Or Pause. I thought i'd sort myself in two years but i'm coming off it with greater confusion. I need to reconnect. And recover.

dim, dim lights.

2010-09-02T12:27:00.003+05:30

I've scattered myself all over the place, over the last so many months. I'll start putting it all back together. I fear this course will end quicker than i thought i'd take to sort myself. Homecoming, tonight. Late evening.

.

2010-07-01T16:25:00.002+05:30

why does this feel so unfamiliar, almost like we're strangers once again. only this time, too old to be conversant and too lost to make sense.

2010-05-15T02:45:00.000+05:30

i'm not the he who used to be
if you came here looking for me

Sweat

2010-04-26T15:56:00.005+05:30

I haven't written in so long that even the rant now seems unfamiliar. When there are so many noises playing in the head, little is left of the inner voice, more than a quaint murmur that sparsely tries to comb the frayed synapses before drowning back into the constant noise. Sometimes i wish i could just sit at the base of a calm, azure pool, hoping my breath outlasts the ripples in my head. I cannot get myself to listen to music long enough, nor read. A crippling restlessness refracts almost everything that i try to put my mind to. And it gets tiring at times. Here again, i cannot write any longer to rant any better. But i guess it's better than not writing a post. Until greener days, cheers.

summer rain

2010-03-25T11:15:00.002+05:30

When you stop seeing beauty
You start growing old
The lines on your face
Are a map to your soul

When you stop taking chances
You'll stay where you sit
You won't live any longer
But it'll feel like it

I lost myself in the summer rain

Just as you find me
Always I will be
A little bit too free
With myself

I lost myself
Now there's no one else
In the summer rain

bland

2010-03-23T18:33:00.002+05:30

i feel bland. just not the same. feels like i've drifted too far from myself. i want to let go. for a few days. until i start caring again. about anything in particular. about myself. about people. places. things. the disconnection is incomplete. i've stopped enjoying my thoughts. i'm tired of myself. tired of sleepwalking through life. tired of bouncing. tired of sleeping. tired of sleeplessness. not bored. just tired.
i'm returning to bombay for two months. but it has stopped feeling like home. i'm not excited. not thrilled. i wish i could just turn the other way and catch a bus to hosur for all i care. i'm tired of unfeeling. half living. and leaving. for a few days, in a faraway place, i just want to be. to live and to see.

2010-03-06T19:49:00.003+05:30

between darkness and light,
sunset and moonrise,
the dusk of Holi
nineteen eighty five,
twenty five years back
i was born to be alive

gibberish

2010-02-24T01:12:00.002+05:30

i have a prostate problem in my head. i'm not as fluid as i used to be. nor fluent. it's a 'stuck in the box' routine and i realise that the blog is not too far from turning three. three and malnourished. what must be done to shrug off this ferric curse that jars every chain of thought from breaking into the erstwhile thrill of wordly sorcery that now lies lost like memoirs of magic, stripped naked by science. why must every sentence refuse to make sense in hindsight. including this.

2010-02-21T17:46:00.002+05:30

a change of seasons brings about the wilt and the promise of bloom is lost forever, like the colour that'll never again, be green.

2010-01-18T22:12:00.001+05:30

such is the misery of this night
i have a pending summit,
a blog to feed
and test in the morning to write.

2009-12-27T02:48:00.000+05:30

there's no use waiting for someone who doesn't know

the other one

2009-12-19T01:55:00.002+05:30

sinfully sinister is love outside love
the darkest of temptations
the most forbidden of sins
a whiff of crack
an acid trip
a mistake as simple
as a moral slip
what does it take
for a man to know
he's playing a game
where no one wins.

who be that

2009-12-11T20:26:00.004+05:30

who be that
who once was
now trying to figure
what he is
who gazed at stars
from naked rooftops
and chuckled as they blinked

2009-11-10T03:11:00.001+05:30

i have no excuses for my madness
except maybe, my dissent
for the illusion that you call reality.

two on two

2009-11-09T20:16:00.005+05:30

A wet thatched blanket of furry grey clouds has swept over Bangalore. The cold winter sun is fighting to find a way down, but the best it can manage is a diffused glow – the kind photographers, writers, singers and painters dream to recreate. A perfect holiday for me perhaps to lie back on my couch of solitude and reflect on the strange twist of destiny that made me cross roads with the most wonderful girl I had ever known. It’s been exactly two years to this day since I said the most beautiful words known to man, to the person went on from being my favourite writer to the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It is two years since that beautiful Diwali night in the hour between darkness and dawn. Three a.m. Neither morning nor night. The evening bustle was now a silence peculiar to Diwali nights. Drops of paraffin indicated a trail of candles that survived their battle with the breeze. Less fortunate ones stood like stubs in balconies and railings across the city. Diyas were now dry, except for a soaked sooty wick. Everything looked spent. Burnt out. Bombay now smelt like Sivakasi on a cold windless night. My favourite friends are the twinkling lights peeping out of windows. They always keep me company as I cherish wakefulness in the dead of the night. Stray fireworks would go off deep into the distant sky followed by a mild thud. It was about a month that we had met. We both knew it since. I just wasn’t brave enough to admit it. Or say it. I still remember the pause after I said “I love you”. It just felt so good to hear myself saying it to somebody for the first time meaning every bit of it. It was such a release. And a start to the most beautiful journey in my life. Magical. Can’t believe that it’s two years already. We lived so much of life in it. Two more years to go. I’ll marry the lady if she agrees to it. I’ll fill up these two years with so much magic that she probably won’t be able to refuse. The next two years will be difficult. We’re miles apart. The MBA would hopefully culminate into a job that’ll let me have the dream wedding in Goa or Shillong. A small, handmade wedding. Handpicked guests with compulsory attendance. That dream keeps me going now. I know this was a mush overdose. But can’t help it. It’s the Bangalore weather. And everyone who has seen this blog from its diaper days is a special someone in the story of my life. So it feels good to celebrate here. With friends. Love to all.

2009-10-17T20:55:00.002+05:30

twinkling lights peep out of windows

in a bombay washed in glow

and the way it smells here tonight,

no other city will ever know.

Feels good to be back home for Diwali.

2009-09-24T03:50:00.000+05:30

The most beautiful relationships in life end without a conclusion.

2009-08-31T18:02:00.002+05:30

I miss being here, and i'm missing my favourite people.

ellipsis

2009-07-30T02:05:00.004+05:30

I wanted to say something that i wanted to hear as well.
I waited for twenty minutes, and this is all i could tell.

2009-07-20T23:46:00.003+05:30

I'm missing too many birthdays this year that i really don't want to.

valium

2009-07-16T01:07:00.002+05:30

I'm lost. Without a torch or a beacon. A rhyme or a reason. Even the mirror seems untrue. I fail to recognise myself from who i once was. The sacrosanct solitude has been breached by sundry circumstances that are threaded together in what at times becomes a perpetual hallucination substituting life. Everything is so perfect, so right and so rigid that i can't help but detest it. There were objectives i had clearly defined before i dived into this corporate drain. I knew i'd have to fight the gravity of the system to stay afloat. Why is it always so easy to embrace mediocrity? So easy to give up on ideals and blame them for being lofty. Why is it always easier being someone else and why is it so difficult knowing it all along? There are no questions, only derelict solutions that lie in wait. A malnourished intellect feeding on subterfuge. How long can we hide the truth about the simple things in life. About love, passion, pain, joy. The simplicity of being maligned by the convenience of ignorance that we latch on to in our daily lives. Even the ignorance isn't pure. We know and then we unknow. It's easier. Until the doors of perception open to give us a glimpse of the outer world. Why then do we shut it when we ought to walk through? Maybe these are sluggish questions born out of sleep depravation. But what good is it to wake up from one slumber into another?

grief equilibrium

2009-07-15T02:07:00.002+05:30

The pictures are clear in my head. The ambulance, the ICU, the medicines, the wait. Your comatose body soaked in sweat. And tears. We waited three months to speak to you. To hear your voice. Now, we just speak of you. I can't stop missing you. Maybe, i'll just learn to live with it. Maybe i have. But there was so much left to tell you and one thing left to ask. Could you hear me as i spoke to you, for days at end by your bed? Or do you still hear me when i stop thinking that you're dead?

the bad goodbye

2009-06-29T02:54:00.003+05:30

I'd be gone nowhere without you
just living in a different mile
counting the length of every hour
and the distance between our smiles

status update

2009-06-11T10:47:00.002+05:30

Everything remains the same. Just a different place, from a different machine. I'm moving to Bangalore tommorow for 2 years. It's the MBA. The preceding chaos and hectic schedule have ensured i haven't had much time to speak here, but things will change in a week's time. I expect to be writing more often about things i wanted to often say. Already beginning to miss the most special one, two years is a long distance with heart too heavy to travel. This blog will now trace the locus of our journeys over the coming months and i promise i'll do my best to keep it safe from the b-school rant. Love and cheers, and until we meet again. Goodbye.

2009-05-12T17:27:00.007+05:30

Everytime i return after an induced sabbatical, my fingers find themselves shackled by the half spelt words in my mind. Saying every sentence twice before typing it and tapping the backspace while nervously gauging if they are close to what i want to say. Just like meeting long lost love or an object of erstwhile familiarity, the words are drying up in my head as i look to break the silence that is now getting uneasy. It is a sort of emancipation you know, not having a post to write. Losing the urge to read. No comments in the mailbox. No RSS feeds. And most of it happening for no reason. Just a lull that turned into a season. And now i wonder who still reads this. And more importantly, who still writes. If he's getting too lost in the overcrowded train of life, jostling for some space with me.

Body Copy

2009-03-12T18:00:00.011+05:30

With the explosion of media, today's world is probably a lot more aware of my profession. It doesn't necessarily hold true for what i do. As such, there is no clean definition for what i do. Broadly put, i write to make a living. My words feed me. After six arguably sincere years of science including four years of professional training to make chips talk, i chose to drop out of mainstream. I started writing copy, dribbling past peer-parental suggestions that it was the wrong career choice. The white-collar dream has always fascinated bong bourgeois and they weren't the least amused by my round-collared meanderings. Honestly, i surprised myself as well. I started young but perhaps i started wrong. Only Perhaps. I risk my modesty here, not that much of it exists anyway, but sometimes the burden of being bright is especially heavy when you don't know where you're headed. When i was younger, much like a lot of us, i thought i could be anything i wanted to be. Strangely as i grew up, i failed to streamline that belief and much of it holds true even today. Only now, i'm a professional copywriter. Partly by chance, partly by choice. Struggling, good and lost in an alien industry armed with pure belief when i could rather have done with some clue.

Even after almost two years, i still wonder how i landed up here. I didn't know too many people in advertising. I didn't know much about it either. I loved ads and stories of advertising. I loved seeing the ad-people on print and television. I loved the fact that there were no rules. Rather, no strict rules. and you could look the way you wanted and wear what you were comfortable with to the workplace. I loved brands and their stories. I always had an idea when i saw an ad, only nothing to do with it. In the last few months of engineering when i was gearing up for the b-school routine, i had an opportunity to "write a few lines" for a small agency. A story-telling session followed in what i later learnt was called 'briefing' in my profession to-be. I liked the money, they liked my lines. More briefs followed and more money. I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was paid for burping words. In the absence of a desirable IT offer or intent for the same, I spent time cracking sums and writing copy. Slowly I started spending more time at the agency writing more than just copy. It was the phase I call ‘my drift’. The job-offer soon followed and was accepted. It was my first job and i had no one senior in what I did. Previous and previously experienced copywriters maintained atrocious levels of copy at the agency and i was their cheaper, better solution. I learnt everything on the job. In a year, i had a body of work spanning campaigns, ads, inserts, innovative media to every collateral that involved a written word. It was a proprietor driven agency so it had its pros and cons. Pros being meeting clients at a very senior level, incommensurate to my experience, getting to create entire pitches, handling accounts, recruiting people and so on. It was inexplicably too much to learn in the first year and probably the only compensation for not joining the big guys who of course would have pushed me through the trainee grind and paid me lesser.

Small agencies have an orbit by themselves. They're trying too hard to survive. Biting more than they can chew and chewing more than they should. They have a strange, self-repeating life-cycle. They find it hard to attract good talent, harder to retain them and are often annexes to the client organisation. They are forever struggling for the big ticket (read big client). When i joined advertising, i didn't personally know anyone from this field. Or from the big agencies. I always wondered what agency culture meant. I'm not racist, but the small agency trap for a copywriter is being limited to the creative exposure of a predominantly vernacular art department. I wasn’t sure where the job was taking me. Today, I have a higher pay and greater say in another agency that is happy to hire me. But the thrill is fizzling out.

I’m at mental crossroads. I see a deluge of people in the big agencies, none of whom I know, doing second rate work consistently well. And some young people doing prodigiously well. I’m missing that creative buzz. I wonder if buying time in this new job is actually losing it. It’s one thing plying your skills ad quite another honing it. There will be a time when I’ll outgrow this agency, if not already, but will I be ready for the big league? We aren’t much different, us writers, from aspiring actors in this city. Maybe just a little less desperate and a little more cerebral. Otherwise just the same. Armed with a promise and a portfolio, trying to get an audition with creative directors across the city. Our screen tests are copy tests and we have awards instead of gladrags. We struggle to land the big roles, with the big cast on a big script. So we settle for small agencies. Smaller brands, smaller budgets, smaller canvasses. They feed us, keep us going.

What keeps me going? It's the glint of hope in my eyes everytime i leave for work, that someday, i'll leave for a bigger place. Pit my wits against the very best and use my work as my ladder. That someday, i'll make it big here before i succumb to the i succumb to the left brain's lust for corporate moolah.

Two years down, I’m still holding on to the belief I started out with. Looking to break in. Only now with half a clue, as the copywriter by chance. No, nothing to do with copyrights :)

pause

2009-03-07T20:43:00.003+05:30

don't quite know what i want to say today, except for the fact that i want to say something. just put a few words here. set them free from the burden of meaning. they don't always have to mean something do they? i want to say that as of this moment, i'm happy. content in a very reassuring way. this equilibrium isn't meant to last. i'm happy it's here this moment. i'm happy to savour it. it's like that moment in a marathon when you pause for a while. you've run the hard miles, there are miles to go. yet, it's this moment when everything stops for you, if you stop for yourself. there is no destination, no goal, nowhere to get. life is just the next step. the one after that. and the one after that. this is the between of one step and the next. you look back to find out if you can still see where you started from. you look back to see the people you left behind. and then there's the road. the future. the dreams that'll get eroded by reality. but they'll take you somewhere. new people are waiting if you let them in. new avenues, new streets. it'll be another long run before you get to the next milestone.you wonder if you'll pick up more reasons to smile while you get there. we'll see. one step at a time. let me fill up my lungs today, after all, always good to feel happy on the day you're born.

metaphor

2009-03-03T23:38:00.004+05:30

Talk about fucked up neighbours. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka and Nepal. We are the Slumdog Millionaire in a way. What do you think?

sup?

2009-02-24T23:22:00.006+05:30

It's been a busy week and i'm robbed of space and time for posts that are bubbling in my head. The new job started well last week, but there's a part of me grudgingly unhappy. Add to that, the daily rigors of local trains borne out of complete lack of options. Work helps you value Friday nights. Valuation being alcohol. Much was ingested and assimilated as intellectual babble with a school friend and fellow brilliant copywriter (note the insinuation) without the 'right' job. Woke-up with a hangover that transformed to a pretty rough migraine. Yeah well, even vodka does that to me these days, should've stuck to beer. To add to misery, the next day i had GD/PI for the only b-school that i happened to date this year. However, hungover and headeached, i ended my rather long and entertaining interview with a brief discourse on spirituality and Osho. Clearly alcohol was still in my blood. I'm still uncertain and concerned about the market scenario after two years. Very few stories offer hope for a better tomorrow down the b-school channel. That apart, Delhi 6 was seen and forgotten. Milk was seen and loved. I was going to post this last week, but things haven't changed much since. A couple of posts need to be here before i wrap up another year of my life. Once they're through, maybe i'll reflect long and hard on what'll soon be, being twenty four.

2009-02-16T15:53:00.002+05:30

It's not so much about not having the answers anymore,
it's about not having the right questions.

to a tear

2009-02-13T12:44:00.005+05:30

The fading orange of the setting sun
deftly turns into pink,
trapped in your crystal body
rolling down my cheek.
Nor can i hold you back
neither gravity.
In your tangy potion
you've dissolved a lot of me
but i'm still not crying you know,
just sweating, emotionally.

Dev D

2009-02-09T19:48:00.008+05:30

Saw Dev D twice over the last weekend. It's a good film, but i was probably expecting too much out of it. Before i cave in to the inevitable urge of writing a review, let me tell you that i saw it twice and this post shouldn't take anything away from the effort and intellect that has gone into the film. In fact, i'm only disappointed by the fact that the film eventually didn't evolve from its brilliant promise and lost itself to its own cause. It is a good film that could have been a great film, but that is a matter subjudice in the court of perspectives.

I won't dissect the movie there are too many reviews anyway. I'll give you a rating. It's a must watch. Now for those who have seen it already and those about to, lets celebrate the non conformist niche that we have carved amongst Indian audiences and more importantly, film makers who partly sympathize with our sensibilities. In breaking the prototype, Dev D is brilliantly conceived as the pill popping snorthead drenched in the misery of lost love and vodka. It's a simple story immortalized by a novel and Bollywood's numerous tributes to the same. But in truth, the reason we all love this tragedy is because we have all been there. Because life in the shadow of a heartbreak is effortlessly dark and we're enamoured by the its trail of decadence. We fall out of the downward spiral and reconcile to the truth of our lives, but that magentic urge to give it all up is an unkindled presence inside each one of us. I have long believed that the greatest thing love does is that it submerges the ego. And when it ebbs, the ego rises like a stubborn rock at the shore. Waves crash into froth but the rock doesn't move. It wounds itself in this tidal tragedy of the heart. To that effect, Dev D brilliantly exposes the ego aspect of the story. While the motive of the story is to highlight the self-destructive guilt trip of the protagonist who burns out in repentance, in retrospect, Dev D does that too but is somewhere, somehow too lost in its own cinematic cause. Breaking the prototype.

The first half of the film is sheer delight as it builds up the story inter weaved with captivating screenplay, cinematography and a bingo soundtrack. In the second half though, towards the end, the movie loses its scheme and screenplay, unfolding as a montage of audiovisuals interspersed with very few dialogues or character interactions. After a point, you want to know the story more than seeing Dev getting high again, and again. It is essential but overdone given the ending the movie chose for itself. It should have been played up a bit more, the ante should've been stepped up. The ending is a bold statement poorly made.

I don't wish to give out too much of the movie but i can't resist spelling out a few magic moments from the film. There is a scene where Anurag subtly underlines his directorial masterclass. Dev, back from London is lighting up a smoke in the evening outside his house and his cigarette is not an Indian manufactured stick but rolled up tobacco, so typical of people coming down from UK. You'd argue it's a joint, but i don't think he'd smoke up so publicly in and around his house. I think it's a great touch. Emosanal Attyachar is probably one of the greatest creative highs to light up Indian movie screens. It's a story in itself and I'd watch the movie again for that stuff. Although dissected and played out in three segments in the second half, the rock version of the fore mentioned song is equally good and brilliantly composed. Also, scene compositions and shot breakdowns of Dev getting sloshed, captured by alternating sequences of focusing and de-focusing or coked, when is evidently high and flying (It's a technique called camera tripping and also the reason Danny Boyle is spelt out in the credits) or the background score when he dips his head under water are testimonies to Mr. Kashap's film making genius. The main leads are cast well and Abhay Deol pulls of yet another super-act. As the decadent Dev, he is effortlessly convincing and hungover and has played it to perfection. Mahi Gill aptly manages the raw, rustic charm of the pind girl and is delightfully in character. Also, every captivating eyes. The surprise is Kalki, strangely attractive with a subtle vulnerabililty in her portrayal of the besotted consort. Her second half performance is truly delightful especially the brief underplayed mush scene with Dev at the steamed momos. But i guess that's the best she got from a script which was rushing the movie to its end.

In summation, Dev D is like a juicy paan that is sharp, strongly flavoured and enjoyable but gets too bland to chew after sometime. But go for it. In the end you'll agree, Dev D is like great sex without an orgasm. You'll enjoy it, but will remain disappointed.

the indian woman

2009-02-04T01:17:00.002+05:30

She has a point here.

...

2009-02-02T01:34:00.003+05:30

Saw Luck by Chance over the weekend. Loved it and would strongly recommend it.

Two

2009-01-31T13:41:00.002+05:30

Alternate Perception is a two year old baby now. In the comfort of his crawl, he's yearning to walk. Learning with every half step, stumbling as he fights the gravity of reason while succumbing to instinct. He has made a lot friends growing up here. Some as old, some older and some timelessly captured in words. He has lamented lost love but he has also fallen in love here. With wonderful people. And the woman of his dreams. It's here that he learned to share his dreams and his fears. Sometimes, true to his age he littered and whined. Sometimes, truer to his age, he stained the walls with half broken crayons. With patterns and shapes that meant something to him. It was his way of capturing the world. It's here he vented his fascination with this world. It's also here that he let out his frustrations. It has been his closet, his fireplace. It has also been his playground. The canvas of his dreams. Alternate Perception is now two.

With his toothy grin and dimpled face, he's heard echoes and caught dreams. He's cut clouds of the shapes he wanted, to a perfect t. He's read things easier said and he's lost his heart saying.. Maybe. He's learnt subtext before words, but he's still learning to speak. He's still in need of diapers, he doesn't know when not to pee. He spills his food but mumbles a promise, he'll stop when he's three. He's held on to his name, his colour and his games. He's much the same, just a little lazy and lame. When the crawling comes to a halt, he'll take his first steps here. Learn and perfect his walk. There's much to probe, and he's only just begun.

Tonight he's happy, clapping flat with his little palms. He'll manage to blow one of the two candles and quickly phoo at the second one. He's waiting for the cake. The cherry piece. But so are we all aren't we?

2009-01-29T03:56:00.003+05:30

Motion is the greatest illusion of time.

Seven

2009-01-22T03:11:00.006+05:30

It's not because it's 3 am and i just dropped my most special one back home. It's not because i'm dealing with more ethanol in my blood than permissible by the celebrated standard called sanity.
It's the greatest truth, more honest than any film-maker has ever told you. The greatest thing you'll ever experience in life is loving and being loved in return. And in the humble theatre of my life - a mile for every inch, a gallon for every drop, a quintal for every ounce and a million for every cent. I love as a way of life and i simply love too much. But i have far more in return. So i'm dealing with surplus. Remember me in your darkest hours, in the loveless grey sunday evenings of your lives (earnestly wish there aren't too many). For i have a heart full of love and more than a hug to spare and your merit is this space at which you stare.

So

2009-01-14T01:31:00.006+05:30

I need a buzz. I need a trip. I need to be incredibly high on something. Substance or idea. That's the kind of indulgent writing that this blog endorses even as it miserably fails to sustain a readership. Sometimes it's just lack of solitude. Space and silence. An alliterative combination that crystallizes the amorphous contours of thought into more definitive forms of expression. It allows me to hear myself with a clarity that wanders lost in this worldly cacophony. That was probably how this blog started. Out of a need to hear. Myself. But when space and silence fail to translate into words, i wonder if i've lost the need to hear myself or if i have run out of things to say. It's tragic that the existence of this blog has been reduced to the tightrope between these two horrific ends.
The truth is i have become lazy, lost discipline, been too indulgent to inertia. So, to breathe life into this blog and punch it with posts till it wakes up with a shudder i'm working out a stimulus package in keeping with current trends.

The first fortnight of the new year has zipped past rapidly in what has been a very adventurous start to the long list of months to follow. From writing b-school entrances to boarding running trains on the way back from a clandestine trip to Delhi with the most special one. This year should necessarily be one of change. It'll start with the blog. It has to change the way it speaks to you. Or to me. The posts on new year resolutions, on delhi and on the most special one are simmering to a boil. There are request posts and pending tags. There's stuff to do with tone and identity. So well, yeah that's more or less where Alternate Perception is headed.

Altough i'm late as usual, it's not too late to wish you guys all the very best for the forthcoming year. I mean happiness, success, love, good place to sleep, good sleep, good people to sleep with, fewer hangovers, more parties and other such fun things. I wish all of that. Hope the recession ends, we dont fall prey to bullets and bombs and have a lot more to write about.

I'm using madness as a protocol this year, so i'll be a little mean. If you dont post with a week of reading this, i hope you land up with tapeworm from the next pork chop you eat. Vegetarians don't smirk. Post instead.

(Look who's talking)

Cheers.

Rear view.

2008-12-22T19:13:00.000+05:30

A part of me is numb. Frayed. Too overwhelmed to react. Unwilling to spend more words on an issue that demands action. I keep wondering at times if i have become too shallow, whether i secretly enjoy being cocooned in this inert opinionated world. The problem isn't hyperconditioned peddlers of violence unaware of their own evil. The problem is rooted in a world structure perpetuated by self sufficing components like me and you. Oblivious in our dark sleep, united by anger and angst. How can this unity exceed its shelf life beyond the glamour of protest? Where do we stand once the spotlight has gone?

And now, since i wrote this, the spotlight has gone. And now, i'm wondering where we stand.
We. You and me.

wonder

2008-12-11T17:52:00.001+05:30

As i look through albums
at an adorable one year old me
i wonder if I am the guy
he thought he'd grow up to be

Mrityu

2008-12-11T14:55:00.006+05:30

I don't know what i want this post to be. It is as much about life and death, as it is about my uncle.
It could also be about his life. His story. The story of a man who was twenty seven since twenty seven, till the day he died. He was the sort of Modigiliani, who never painted on canvas. Just picked the brightest shades to colour our lives and left quaintly without a word, not one about the greys and blues, or the bitter nature of the tragedy that was to be his life. Or death.

I'm more surprised than alarmed at the loss of grief i've been experiencing over the last two days. And i'm still unable to absorb the experiences i've had over the past two months. I remember every bit of it, just as clearly as his singing. Every time i close my eyes, it rings in my ears. He had a very gifted voice that he ignored with his typical nonchalance. I lose my count of the numerous evenings that he lit up with his trademark renditions of Kishore. He had an innate style in almost everything that he did. The way he spoke, the way he laughed, the way he walked. Stylish. That was him. He had the heart of a king with the purse of a pauper. Yet, he had the intent to give you the world that even money can't buy (to steal a phrase) in the wealthiest of our kind. I had never seen him lose his temper or raise his voice. I thought failure as a man had set barriers on his expression, only to realise that it was his nature. Millions would have wilted under the societal pressure that comes with the kind of life he led. His family loved him but they despised his failure. It's only human. There is no blame. He lived in public adoration like a king. He never let pity on his economic failure, ever, dilute the fabric of his character until his last breath. His life is a lesson i'll continue to learn for the rest of my life. But as i sit and sift through family albums to find an appropriate picture that shall tell his story to the ones who never knew the man behind the relation, the loss quietly sinks into my heart.

In the two months he lay comatose since his stroke, he has shown me the side of life we usually ignore unless thrust upon. Whether it was weaving our way through the crowded highways of Bombay in an ambulance racing against his erratic pulse or simply spending days at end, waiting outside the ICU. The pictures are vivid in front of my eyes. Disturbing, distressing, yet in its own sure way, enlightening. Speaking to him as he lay still, only to wonder if he still heard me, seeing tears roll down his immobile face as my grandfather first saw him, to beeps, graphs and readings on his ventilator. I still feel the warmth of his breath tracing down my forearms as i rubbed his stubbled, cold cheeks on his deathbed. His body shrinking to his bones. The phone call. The rush.
The first time i saw his corpse. Sitting by his dead body, trying to believe that my favourite uncle was no more. That his smile was to be gone forever and that there would be one phone call less this birthday, one with an eager voice, yet not knowing what to say.

Unlike much that is said about it, death by itself is very silent. Looking back at yesterday, i can't feel better about spending so much time with my uncle at his funeral. It's really enlightening to the extent that life feels trivial before the greater questions that stand before us. Touch a corpse and you'd know that emotions aren't barely involved. It's a malady of evolution that we still dwell in emotions about most things in our lives. Life and death though are much simpler existential puzzles. Just a breath apart. I feel liberated by the procedure that preceded the funeral. Excuse me for sounding grim, but this post deserves bare truth for archival purposes. You'd be surprised at the amount of answers a dead body holds. As i untied the knotted limbs before placing him on the pyre with the mild drone of vedic chants, i realized for once, this body wasn't him. The spirit was gone. The man i knew was the spirit. The body was a consequence.
The body will go. It must. My uncle will be alive as long as we keep him alive. It's up to us now. Me and my family. This realization murders grief.

I sat at the crematorium till the very end. Collected the remains, went to the sea. Walked back with sand between my toes only to know one thing. One of the people who loved me the most in this world, is now, no more. It'll someday be true for everyone who loves me. Salvation lies in my ability to do the best for them while i can. It's the simple truth of life. Life is air.

2008-11-20T20:25:00.001+05:30

ever so much to say,
just trying to find a way.

2008-11-08T00:33:00.001+05:30

I toss up a sigh
close my eyes
what do i do
what do i do
you need space
and i need you.

2008-10-29T03:02:00.008+05:30

It's precisely a year now. This calm, still, beautiful Diwali night. Kissed by autumn air nor crisp nor cold. Just perfect. And so, today i say it to everyone who reads this blog, like i said it to you last year this same hour.
I love you.

Happy Diwali and cheers all. Keep posting.

2008-10-16T23:15:00.002+05:30

The only regret i have in life
is having read too little and written too much.

2008-10-11T13:01:00.001+05:30

Stretch. Yourself. Your ideas. Your ideas about ideas. The invisible boundaries in your head. Your limbs. Stretch each one of them. The distance they carry you. Stretch till you can stretch no further. Stretch the extent of everything you so fondly clench. And then, when stretching becomes a limit in itself. Stretch, to break free.

Desert Pain

2008-10-09T13:23:00.009+05:30

Feels like resurrection. I was on the verge of committing suicide. Never before, ever, was i so hopelessly distressed in life. There is no one to blame, apart from one of the modern world's most evolved torture technique. A two and a half hour procedure that doesn't kill you, but compels you to shoot yourself in the wrong place so that you die the most painful death. Sadly, mundane citizens in India are denied that luxury. You cannot buy guns to kill yourself and the euthanasia debate is sub judice. Even if it is a dry day after you have seen Drona - a psychological thriller/ romantic tragedy about the super pansy prince of some kingdom where tombs resemble solar panels.

I wanted to kill myself because the movie didn't. And i have not been able to forget the painful experience. I wanted to kill myself because i actually saw the movie even though i wasn't chained to the seats. A movie so exclusive, that only 1300 tickets were sold across India (figures unvalidated by KPMG) apart from the cast and the crew (half of which surely walked out at the interval, like three of the 9 people who filled up our theatre)

How and why we ended up watching the movie is content edited from this post to sustain a readable length. Let's just say, under duress and with no other option, we didn't quite foresee what was coming. Our idea of bad is now unsuitably redefined.

Here's a review for the daredevils. Drona is a jack-ass. Such is the tragedy of this great script that he is also to be the designated protector of mankind by virtue of lineage. There are rotten puzzles to everything laced with the most stupid interjection of romantic moments that only the most evolved human minds could devise.
The soundtrack and the background score would put even the most menial youtube videos to shame. The only purpose it serves to the movie is preventing the viewers from falling asleep. Be it trance during medieval horse chases or Kenny G type restaurant music in sunset scenes rife with emotions, emoted better by the super hero's horse than the man himself. Whether it's insignificant characters with complicated names or sequences that are of no consequence to the movie, Drona lives up to its promise of being one of the worst movies ever made. It is frustrating to the extent that after a certain point of time, you can't even laugh at it anymore.

Drona is a futuristic film that goes without an editor. The costumes are funny to say the least, lest that be the intention and the art direction, juvenile. There are vague traces of a script in the movie. Knowledge of its existence is proof of its mediocrity. The dialogues are clumsy and the screenplay is deplorable. Unlike The Last Lear where Drona senior single handedly pulled the movie out of doom with a talismanic performance (inspite of the director's self indulgent and lousy handling of a brilliant script), Drona junior was denied an such challenge to his acting mettle. Thankfully.

The promos of Himesh's Karz and Bhandarkar's Fashion during the interval formed the highlights of my misadventure. Especially the unpretentious former. Like all great movies, Drona too has had far fetched implications.

1. The patriarch of Bollywood's first family on seeing the rushes of the film, took it upon himself to feed the clan and set off on an Unforgettable Tour to offset the economic fallout of this Forgettable Film.

2. Mrs. Bachchan's questionable quip on her linguistic affiliations could have been a clever last gasp effort to stop this disaster from screening. Raj Thackeray has clearly done them no favours by letting the movie play.

3. Aaj Tak's breaking news was that the Bachchans were not invited to Gauri Khan's birthday bash inspite of the Bachchans breaking the ice and inviting SRK for the screening of Drona. Well, i'm not surprised.

4. Foremost film schools across the globe and the Academy of Motion Pictures and Arts will archive this epic treatise on How Not to Make a Film.

I am no director. No film-maker. No actor. But i'm the audience who resents spending time and hard earned money for scum that would've fetched me five beers instead. As a kind example of my magnanimous highness, i hereby declare that i shall not sue Drona for the irrevocable emotional distress caused to me and restrict myself to the post.

Urchin

2008-10-02T18:37:00.003+05:30

Selling flowers on the street
bright, white bunch of lillies
yet moist with water sprayed.
Sold to his smile
i bought the flowers
But the moisture in his eyes
remained.

Again

2008-10-02T18:36:00.000+05:30

My delinquent endeavours to find words has certainly eroded the equity of this blog. Here it lies in derelict anticipation of a post that will be written and read. It has been a while even after it has been a while. Something has gnawed into this beautiful space and I miss it as much as some of you. Probe isn’t being probe anymore. Lazy efforts have failed to revive this comatose conversation. It that hangs suspended day after day. Countless hours are unspent to reclaim a solitude that consistently fails to find space in this mental clutter. See, the sentences are getting long. I feel like a scalpel blade unused in ages, with rust gathering moisture in edges too blunt to be incisive anymore. Not cutting under the surface, nor getting under the skin. Just a mere tapestry of words, an ornamental veil covering the epidermis of the unwritten underneath. The blade will make rough cuts. Septic and ugly. It’ll take time for the rust to dry. We’ll dip it in tincture and sandpaper it back to its sheen. Scrape the edges and make it sharp. Write. Get used to it. Give it back the time it has lost, denied by age and agency.

Brewed

2008-09-18T18:52:00.012+05:30

It’s difficult but not impossible. People have been known to fare better in the aftermath of prolonged onslaughts which were worse. I distinctly recall a situation when I could feel the beer in my veins. They felt bitter with aftertaste of brew. I woke up in the morning wondering if I could’ve had any more beer last night to merit wakefulness in time for work. I wondered if I should have.

Hangovers are bad. Period. On the morning after, you are in no doubt that alcoholic ones more difficult to deal with than an emotional one. I don’t remember what mom looked like when I got back home at quarter to four. She never forgets to latch the door everytime I have the keys. Thankfully, at my age, mothers refrain from playing the music so late at night. They just stare. Maybe it’s psychological warfare. Or ageing. Maybe both. But that stare means one thing and only that. ‘If you don’t get your drunk ass up for work tomorrow, I’ll make the rest of your day miserable’. Sweet misery offers motivation to sleep. Dwindling senses command it. Sobriety has been a protective mask and my passport back home after countless nocturnal excursions to the city’s nightspots that seem to be getting progressively loud and mundane.

I woke up to the blazing sun at nine, feeling like I had a beer transfusion. The sun looked brighter than usual and the usually busy road looked empty. I wondered if the cars had slowed down or my senses. My tongue felt bitter. The reflux had begun. I was never going to drink again. I thought. Not on weekdays. And not 10 pints. No. My movements and words were measured like an actor on stage. There werent’t too many. Bedroom to living room to bathroom to bedroom. I did well to not break the verbal moratorium. The last thing you want to hear with a hangover on your way to work is a question.

Cut to night. Someplace dark, noisy, bombay and bling.

At nineteen, most men claim plaudits for their drinking capacity. By twenty one they realise how ridiculous it was. And meagre. At twenty three, things turn out differently. I hear a slurring voice inside me that says Enough. I remember last night. Drinking and not being drunk. High neither. Indifferent. I wondered if I ever looked like those people on the dance floor making intoxicated sense of crap music remixed. Like monkeys let loose. Men, women alike. Maybe the idea is to submerge your cerebral hemispheres and flow with the proceedings. But when the booze fails to do it, the burp is always ugly.

Okay then. The purging is over, the cleansing is complete. A beer is all I ask for, a hangover is all I get. This bitter irony of life, I’ll live forever to regret :)

2008-08-06T19:00:00.003+05:30

Oh, i'm sorry i am just looking for my words. Can you help me find them?

For the sweetest thing

2008-07-04T19:21:00.002+05:30

I'm writing this in a coffee shop between two meetings. Such has been my plight that now i have to steal time to keep some for myself. Spare me no sympathy. It's quarter to twelve here, in one of Mumbai's most bling roads. The coffee shop is fairly bereft of "crowd", barring a few.
The table in front of me is empty. The one in front of it has a couple. Fighting. The guy is trying hard to push his point of view across as the woman bears a confused expression of exasperation. She appears calmer than her counterpart. Perhaps they're breaking up. The guy is asking for answers and his voice isn't hiding the questions. He is probably being dumped. Such things happen in mismatched relationships, and then i hear the words "but wasn't it a mutual decision?"
There's something latently malignant about the term "mutual" when it comes to two people in love.
I don't quite know what. It's not the same as unanimous. I know i'm being intrusive but the guy is distractingly vociferous.
The table opposite to theirs, diagonal to mine has a younger couple. Barely teenagers at best. Mumbling sweet nothings into each others ears for as long as i've been here. The boy has traces of a moustache and is pouring love out of his eyes. Two girls in an adjoining table are bitching their guts about someone and a third guy is inspiring everyone's curiosity by writing notes as it appears. Scribbling in the midst of phone calls and gazing into the nothingness of the Mumbai monsoons.
I think he has a lot to write about. A lot waits to be written probably. He looks disturbed, racing against time as if to finish a test. There is a smirk of success as the pen grazes paper in the penultimate minutes of his solitary waiting. He hasn't written much recently, his sentences are long. There's a hint of loss as time trickles by. It's precious now. This time. It never comes easy these days.
He thinks of his beautiful girlfriend, measuring up his love against the teenager's eyes. He'd never know but he wishes his eyes looked like that when he looked at her. The 'mutual' disagreement continues in the other table. The guy is probably losing his battle to save the relationship. He's a mess and messy. The girl looks merciful, patient and loveless. I'm late for my appointment so i'll stop. Finish my coffee, pay my bill and rush.

The next time i write, it'll be about you. You know it's you. The sweetest thing.

I'm dying to write a post on Delhi. I'm killing it, it's too late. I was gonna write it today in the coffee shop, but it distracted me into a post. Apologies. And love. To everyone.

Never back until again.

2008-06-10T13:49:00.000+05:30

This blog isn't having any fun. Let's swing. Tee-off into another series of wordly misadventures that have been conspicuous by their absence from this blog. I'm trying to not fall into the probish
trap saying how this blog needs to live again and wondering if the words are running dry, but we have drifted apart indeed. My blog and me.

The suspended dialogue will resume, but tell me how have you been? Each one. The Readers. The not-so readers, hoppers, trippers and the peepers. How is life?

It's a season of change with the monsoons hitting Bombay and i'm mildly tired of how Alternate Perception looks. Probably more so because it wears the same posts till they get stale, but let's try something new. Don't quite know what it is. Yet.

I'm off to Delhi tonight, leaving the wonderful monsoons back in Bombay. It's nice to be a complete stranger in a city you know very nothing about. Four days of new streets, new places and new people, spent with only the most familiar one. Sometimes it's a sin to fall in love with a city. You might know you'll have to leave it sometime, but you never know if it'll ever leave you. It's time to see Delhi with her eyes.

A vacation, finally. And the intimidating prospect of getting to know the family that predominantly consists of dominating women. Mostly.

2008-06-03T23:46:00.003+05:30

A high after the hangover’s gone
Is watching you wake up to dawn.

Panihati

2008-05-10T20:06:00.000+05:30

It is a small hamlet by the silt clad banks of Ganga. The Ganges, if you like it. I have never been to Varanasi, but everytime Discovery beams out those wonderful documentaries laced with Kishori Amonkar’s haunting ragas, I feel a small vacuum inside me. I miss tapping into ‘the flux’. You know how everyone has a bling term.
‘The flux’ is mine. It’s the memento I carry from my dates with spirituality.

There’s more to the aesthetic appeal of dingy streets rising out of smoke and gallies guarded by cows. There’s something beyond the beauty of temple-tops clicked in sunset hues or photogenic sadhus beaming out of saffron portraits. The flux is like this flow of energy that binds the world together, like the electricity that runs the cinemascope of life. Most times we’re so caught up with the imagery that we take the reel for real. But then again there are places, people, situation and times when the flux transcends the matter and energy bares itself if you have the eyes for it. Sometimes you just see it flow past, overwhelmed by it’s magnificence. Sometimes you get to touch it. That’s where the magic begins. Alternate Perception. Seeing more than there is. More than you know exists. I’m not sure if you’re catching the drift of this post, spirituality has seldom been conducive to articulation. It dwells on experience. But let’s just say, knowledge is driven by perception. You know because you perceive. You learn because you’re taught to perceive. But how will we ever know of ‘the flux’ that only few have ever perceived and fewer still have understood? Today it stands twisted as dogmas and rituals in the whore-house of religion that this world is.

Haven’t you ever felt connected to strangers at first sight? Had drunk conversations where words were entirely superfluous? Went to places where stones where livelier than wildflowers that grew around them? Walked down lonely trails but never felt alone? How many has it been that you resonated with every word in a piece of music or literature as if it was your very own? Think about it or think it drunk.. how many times have you transcended your body, the gross nature of matter therein and felt yourself as pure energy, pure flux, suddenly in tandem with a reality that you don’t quite understand but now you know it exists. Beyond you, including you.

I don’t quite know what to make of it. I’ve tried, slogged, learnt, unlearnt. Experienced and understood. Then missed the experience. The flux connects everything – The Bhagavad Gita to The String Theory, Osho to Jim Morrison, Yang and yin to Binary Digits, Kahlil Gibran to the dope hazed Hendrix or LSD to transcendental meditation.
We are all sitting on top of this huge Pandora’s Box but we have no keys. Perhaps it’s all a bit too jumbled up. All too complicated and entangled like knotted shoelaces. Maybe when we learn to unknot them, we’ll get somewhere. But sometimes, the flux is kind.
It flows in rivers and people and places.

I don’t know why, but today I feel like writing about Panihati. 20 kms north of Calcutta, light years from Bombay. I have been there only twice and the last time was almost two and a half years back. Bombay gives you the sea, but there’s something about The River. About this huge body of water drifting past you as you sit on the footsteps of a time-locked temple. Actually twelve. Twelve identical temples is a row, quiet and red in an elevation that is typically eastern. It stands still and desolate without the clamour of Benares. It gives you the silence that only a ruined temple can command. There’s no place for religion here, no haranguing priests. Locals claim that Tagore penned his first works by the ghats of Panihati. Sometimes, God is so simple I Wonder why religion hides It.

Life above all else

2008-04-30T15:48:00.003+05:30

I want to wake up at night and go to my terrace, lie back and gaze at stars. When i was young, i'd call them names and i remembered each one. Now i don't remember, neither the stars nor the names. I vaguely remember quaint conversations i'd have with them. Then i grew up to know i only had conversations with myself as they looked on. Twinkled. Peeped out of holes in the sky. On the sly. Sprinkling sparks of joy over my reclaimed solitude. City lights twinkled at a distance. It was that distance that always drew me to my terrace. I needed it. I could feel my breath on my nostrils, i could feel the air in my lungs. But for my body, i would fly deep into the night sky. From space into space. I would see planes take-off into the night sky at a distance. And i'd see planes circling the city, waiting for a signal. I always wondered if the city would look any prettier from the sky than it did from my terrace. Now things have changed. There are thrice as many planes taking-off and landing. The terrace lies derelict in wait and i'm writing ads selling Penthouse dreams drafted from my terrace memories. Sometimes life just takes you too far to get back to where you've once been. Somedays you regret it. Somedays you dont. I just miss my terrace.

Oh, on a lighter note.. much to my dismay these Penthouses are not paperback :)

2008-04-28T17:34:00.003+05:30

I miss being here. Very much.

belief

2008-03-22T12:41:00.002+05:30

They haven't seen what i've seen,
they're the ones with eyes.
And you're not the vision, nor sight
the cosmos is your very eye.
So tell me, do you really see
a twisted crowbar called me?
questioning your existence
and half-counting every pence
given and un-given to me?
Or do you mock, like scriptures say,
the way I succumb to things worldly?
I shun temples to hear your voice
I shun silence and I shun the noise
Then one day,
when I’m drunk out of my way
you say nothing, just to say..
there is no dawn without promise of light
but to get there, we need the night.

say what?

2008-03-19T19:26:00.005+05:30

There is something about comatose blogs. They're never the same when they come back to life.
Take this one for example. There's everything that made it work, but it's just not quite there on the blog. And i remember the parallel tracks again and how no one is parallel anymore once they stop moving. There's no rush really, no where to get to and no ticking clock. The train of thought runs out of steam and the landscapes don't change for hours at a stretch. And then you wonder if the view will ever change. If you'll get to where the rivers lie, or barren land where they run dry.. if your fingers will remain tied to the syntax that chains your wheels, or they'll break free to catch up with your thoughts before they fly too far. Nah, you won't get this. Nor will i when i read it next. Let's just say the fingers aren't chained, it's just the thoughts. They're going nowhere these days.

Wouldn't have re-posted this if it wasnt for you. Now i'm glad i did.

2008-03-14T17:23:00.005+05:30

when you hold my gaze
in your dark magic eyes
as if it's always meant to be
i am looking for you
in them really
but your trick
is showing me to me.

Eastern Winters

2008-03-08T18:55:00.002+05:30

10/8/07
Beautiful October. Bright, clear, hot. I was tiring a bit from all the grey rain. Wanted the blue in the sky back soon. The adorable grandparents come down from the east for a quarter. It's usually an annual routine this time of the year. Nani can easily boast of the warmest smile there ever was on a pair of dentures. She's gorgeous. It's been almost two years since i've last gone to that city. Calcutta.

I remember hating my vacations there when i was a kid. Two months in the heat, with all friends back in good old Bombay, holidays gone waste. My verdict on Calcutta was never in doubt. A mad city with smoke, traffic, heat, sweat, wierd people and no electricity when needed most. Holiday hell. And then, gradually, the city grew on me. Every winter during graduation, i'd pack my bags after each sem and do a little 'traveller thingie' to Calcutta. Alone. It was almost a tourist affair in spite of all the family in that city.

Music, books, backpack and a tatkal ticket on Bombay Mail via Nagpur. On fortunate occasions it takes a good part of two days to get to there. I chose the foresaid train because it gives you two nights and drifts into the Calcutta winter early next dawn. It's the minumum required to drain out the Bombay blues, soak in the rustic charm of rail-road India and mentally prepare yourself for the East. Mentally.

I love everything about this eastside rail journey, especially the anonymity of being alone. Everything from the smell of coal, the changing terrain, the desolate ghost towns, to the thrill of getting off the train when it stops in the middle of nowhere, in dusk dimly lit by fire from distant huts, lighting up a smoke and wondering what if the train starts moving before i got back in? It's a time travel, this thirty-six hour affair, and i'm in no rush to get to the urban hustle at the other end. Simply travelling, to travel. The most vivid memory of most of my journeys would invariably be catching a cold while hanging out by the train door, once Kharagpur passes. It's a ritual that i've followed with crazy zest and the beauty is worst captured in words. There's something absolutely magical about winter fog, the moist smell of unweeded ponds and smoke that hangs mid-way in the air, too soggy to rise beyond the horizon, as one by one, you pass the small, sleeping mofussil towns yet to wake up to the first light of dawn. Save the lone cyclist with a lantern and a beedi. All this while i wake up to an India that beautifully exists beyond my urban coccoon. One that's blissfully oblivious to the world i come from as i sneak past their's.

This post was meant to be about my winter holiday home in Calcutta. This was meant to be about the best street food in the world, palm lined lakes, quick wit graffiti, hyper-opinionated people, zero traffic rules, coffee houses, clubs, politics, societies, communities, Communists. About so many things that are typically eastern and deep trenched in a mystique that only be Calcutta. I can't really say i understand the city, i think it's not meant to be understood. Amidst it's many gods, godmen, fests and festivals, political dirt and public activism, liberal ideas and downright cynicism is a culture that melts every diversity into a vibrant, noisy cosmos. Behind the linguistic barrier is a city that's not a city but an idea frozen in time. For those plainly intent on travelling and exploring, it gives you everything. For the two cities that define the breadth of the country, and also it's spectrum of life, Bombay is home. It always lets you be. Calcutta changes you to suit itself. It doesn't let you be. It pre and post exists while you adapt to it.

It was my favourite destination for cheap travel, distance and grandparents, in that order. Friday when i pick them up at the airport i know their days in Calcutta are running out. They're getting old and maybe age has other ideas about them living independently any longer. They were the epicentre of my idyllic eastern holidays and deep down, i don't really want them to grow any older. The beautiful Valley Park flat will be the same as ever. I doubt i'll ever go back to open the house once they're here in Bombay. It'll remain shut and hold some pretty special memories. The Calcutta chapter ends with my grandparents, and i don't know if these memories will be relegated to antiquity or will ever be redeemed. Youth and carefree, anonymous, reckless travelling.

2008-03-06T13:32:00.003+05:30

I'm learning to let you go,
but you're taking too long
and i'm learning too slow..

..

2008-02-23T13:44:00.006+05:30

Lets take some salt and some sugar. Put them in a glass. Soak them with water. Love. Some more till the glass can hold no more and stir. Which is salt and which is sugar? No one knows, no one can tell. A perfect blend where you lose yourself completely, dissolved as it were in love. And then the love goes away. You think it'll dry up and leave the salt and sugar separable from each other. But it doesnt. The sugar will always remain a bit tangy, and the salt never as much again. How then do you discover yourself when you are lost completely, when you don't know where one ends from the other, twined and tangled and merged, alloyed into jewellery that isn't ornate anymore. What then? How do you discover yourself?
Well. Let's look at it this way. You fall in love a million tim and then you fall in love forever. Sometimes it happens before the million times, sometimes a lot after. When it does, you know how every other time was an illusion well bought with ardent belief. I wonder if people do fall in love twice. I can only wonder till i do. In truth, having recently been on the other side of the fence, i have no doubt that love expands your heart.. however untrue it may be. The more the love, the larger you expand, the more you feel. Happiness and sorrow. Euphoria and pain. Sometimes i wondered if i was ever capable of feeling so much. Wondered if anyone who isn't me would ever impact me so immensely. Snatch away my individuality and help me discover myself. Now i know what worrying is. What it feels like and how crippling it can be. How i react to it. I've worried a million times before, not for someone. Not so much. Now i know which shades of green the monster can take. I always thought was inert to jealousy. Too humble for pride, but now, not so much. Now i know what fear of loss is. Why it invokes fear. Feelings lay hidden in my heart but now in it's magnified avatar, emotions aren't masked by my ego anymore. Nor by my ignorance. I like seeing myself this way. The enlarged heart now feels a gamut of emotions that otherwise passed by as insignificant meanderings of my mind. And so i discover myself. I'm not defining forevers here, i wish i could but i cant. Love doesn't stop once you start giving. It doesn't wait for the recieving bit. Maybe when it starts waiting, and it is a 'maybe' i wish is bereft of possibility, i'll discover another dimension to myself. Like i thought i had done before. Thought. Not felt.

F#

2008-02-23T13:10:00.006+05:30

The strings that once sung words when strummed, now lie derelict in rust. My voice has drowned somewhere in this mental noise. Am i writing too little or am i writing too much? Will words help me find myself again or will i remain lost for words?

Myocardial Infarction

2008-02-20T23:17:00.009+05:30

I think i love you too, even if i'm unsure if i do. You deserve much better really. See, the truth is, confusion is my best friend. It's always with me, even when i need it the least. It's just like you. Constant. The moment i think i'm sorted, i think otherwise. And then i'm sorted till i think otherwise. Which isn't too wise. But we're getting there. Me and my halves. And half of every half. A process of mulitplicity that started with every divided cell. So when i go to sleep at night, i don't know who'll wake up in the morning. And in the morning i don't know who slept last night. And there's nothing i don't like about this. I love it. It's a flux that's fluid, unchained and beyond all scopes of stagnation. Gives me the diminutive sense of being human that we all so desperately seek. To not remember nothing, just things i want to. But you are constant. Even in your change. I think it's good. You'll always remind me of myself, but let me come back to you someday. Please. Even when if i'm being a complete idiot. You see, it's only space i wanted. Don't call it distance.

What i said instead:

Te quiero muchisimo

Had written it before i fell in love. I'm still falling and falling so hard. Love is such a wonderful magnifying glass. It really enlarges every bit of you. Magnifies. Every emotion, every characteristic, every strength and every weakness as you see yourself clearly in it's light. Discover yourself a bit more and know yourself a lot better. I'm still in awe of what it can do to you. I thought i'd get used to it after half a year but i'm only growing in disbelief every passing day. Find a better word for Wow. Perhaps Whoa.. or better still, tacit silence. God was never explained in verbose and all such attempts at love are futile.

And now i want no space, no distance. How love changes it all. Forever. Irrevocably. Even if it isn't meant forever. Even if it is.

An interrupted swansong

2008-02-20T12:36:00.003+05:30

There was a time i'd write here each day. Almost. Or well, one in two days and at worst once a week. When an oasis runs dry, travelers don't stop by anymore. A thirst once united us wanderers on the sliding dunes of mind. Our sunsets were the same, so were our sunrises. Different only in it's scattering of light. Now i sit by these arid dunes that change shape with the winds of life. Yeah, sounds like a Scorpion song but isn't quite. Like this blog. It isn't quite what it was. Anymore. There is a circle of palm trees around a hollow. Balding palm trees with drying trunks. A withering shade of brown that once was black and green. There could have been. An oasis. In the desert you can't be sure of anything. I'm holding on to my thirst. And hope. That words will flow again and thoughts would glide on them. Now everything is a strain. I'm not out of time i guess, just out of patience. Sometimes when i look back at these posts i wonder if i should have written them at all. It's like looking at a shadow and trying to trace it's meaning. Pure penumbra with soft edges that merge into darkness. Darkness unto darkness unlit by mind. I wonder if i was better off not writing than being lost for words. But i want to write. To read. Maybe i'll hold on to my thirst and hope these trickling drops that are hammered into vapour by sunrays will soon flow to the surface in greater numbers. One can always dig Artesian wells, but it's not quite the oasis. I'm sitting with my thirst and wondering if there's a water table beneath. If there ever was.

First Birthday

2008-01-30T16:11:00.000+05:30

It has gone. The gift. But today feels a bit special nevertheless.
Today is Alternate Perception's first birthday and the blog is indeed a little mad at me. It feels neglected. It is screaming out for a post and i have had precious little to offer. Today, we'll talk. Just me and the blog, and you.

'Have you nothing to say?' my blog asks me these days.. and then it stops asking any further. It lends me it's silence. Silence. The most searching of all questions. Asking nothing, yet asking all. I'm devising a grand scheme to break this silence and replace it with mine. The one that lets me think. My mind hasn't been calm when i have had a chance to blog and when it has been, the chance wouldn't occur to me. A suspended conversation it has been, between the blog and me. An interruption to end soon. Anyway, the blog is expanding and i hope the coming year is brighter in terms of posts. More interesting, more intriguing ones. We'll ask the right questions and find no answers. Maybe we'll find the answers, but we'll celebrate in any case.
Today we're broke. It's month end. Maybe, month's fag fag end. Two bloggers for the lack of time and options will celebrate at a nondescript park bench in Shivaji Park. With Jagannath (who merits his own post) and his immaculate 45ml of masala chai. Maybe we'll buy a few balloons, blow a few candles, or maybe none of the above. Just wonder where we'd have been without the blog. Nostalgia is occuring most naturally to me, so i won't resist it. I'll get back to work with the hope of writing a lot more a lot sooner. To everyone who has swung by, everyone i've known here.. thanks for making it worth the ride, last year was wonderful with you guys. For the many more to come, keep the words flowing.

I promise i will. Cheers

2007

2008-01-14T12:34:00.000+05:30

There are posts that talk of tomorrow, posts that talk of yesterday. And some that talk of today. I havent been talking at all. To you. And myself. Right now i have three things to write for pay and one thing that has something to say. The tragic truth is that they are all driven by a brief. Like most of what i have written in two months. Now i don't feel like writing them anymore.

I'll write for myself. I have spent a lot of time waiting for a time to write. The way i like to read myself. The way i like to write. Age dawns the realization that such a time will get progressively rare and i can't spend time looking for time. I'll have to create time, create space and find myself through my words again. The way i did last year. This is about 2007. The year that changed my life. And how.

Can i just say i'm smiling right now. Mildly, content. A flavour that retrospection tastes best in. I'm glad it's occuring to me now just as it will everytime i look back at last year. It started with the blog and ended with a blogger. I still don't believe it. Turning twenty two, graduation, advertising, drifting, drinking, rocking, rolling, breaking away from the comfort of routine that structured the last four years of my life and then it happens. Unexpected, beyond expectations.
I kept thinking that my surreal script would reconcile itself with reality sometime. It shows no signs of any recession. In madness or love.

Life has changed completely. Every decision making paradigm now involves thought for two. It's new to me, but it's something i'm getting used to. Can't be reckless anymore. Wonder if i'll miss it. Anonymity is slowly trickling out of this blog. Drop by drop each day. So, this blog is changing. It used to be my secret study room where i'd sit back to reflect. Threadbare and naked. Where i'd drown my noise to hear my voice. Yes, last year gave me Alternate Perception too. And windows into a lot of lives that will grow and pass by my eyes as i pass theirs. Riding on words, the parallel lives we all lead, separated by degrees. Different, but not dissimiliar. Highs, and lows, joys and sorrows. We all have them so different, yet they're same in the way they make us feel. Oblique as an illusion. Parallel, really. Sometimes these parallel lines merge. Sometimes. And then we feel together. What we felt all along but alone. The good and the bad. It stops being 'yours only' as you move from a half-life to a more complete one. One you never knew existed. Now you do.

That's what i'll carry forward into the new year and the ones to follow from the very special 2007 among other things. Age, wisdom, a blog and a girlfriend. All for life. And the word that started it all. Maybe.

Post

2008-01-10T12:29:00.000+05:30

Oh, this blogger runs late. By now, infamously.

Posts are due and will come pretty soon. The hibernation is unintended and the wall of silence between the blog and me must break. Damn, i'm selling too many flats writing brochures these days. Writing for pay more than writing to say. The first post this new year is particularly lame, so readers, friends and fellow hoppers, i'm all apologies again.

Will post at my earliest, a couple of posts that i have been wanting to write for a long time. a routine one on the bygone year. Retrospection delayed. One on the special one (yes yes another one). And a string of special posts to bring in our first blog birthday. Maybe, a blogger party by the end of it which as of now will have atleast two people celebrating. Or atleast the one who writes it.

Wishing you loads of love and madness, let this year bring lots of posts. And otherwise, although late, the year still is new.. Happy New Year, lets hope that this one will be better!

2008-01-03T14:10:00.000+05:30

a million plans i'd made for life
a million more to go
wonder why they never work out
am i living too fast
or am i planning too slow?

Smiley Romeo

2007-12-17T16:43:00.000+05:30

He fell in love with my girlfriend, like i fell in love with her.

Ofcourse he only had her smile and that had him besotted all the way from Marine Drive to Dadar till we got off. And me, she gives me a million reasons to fall in love and i'm still counting. You know it's the most wonderful feeling to walk around with your girl, and she's glowing in her candescence like she always does. You think your eyes are lovelit in the soft glow of yellow that makes her shine. Then you see people look at her.
When i'm in the mood for fun, i look back at them. Each one. I bear them no grudge, it's just fun to make it known to them- they are also being looked at. Stared red-handed. They look at you and then quickly look elsewhere. Most as a rule, stealthily look back to see if you're still looking at them. I suitably oblige with a smile. Some return an embarassed one. Some consciously try to unlook. The leches get a hard stare back, the innocuous ones get a smile.

Our boy was simply besotted. He'd try to hide his gaze and i wouldn't let him. I think he hoped i left him alone, just let him be. Must have been eighteen or nineteen i guess, could've been older. And he was falling in love with her beautiful smile, like everyone who has ever seen it. Sitting right across our seats in a fairly empty Sunday night local, i think he got too conscious of his melting heart and our gaze. He was blushing. Poor little chap, what did you do to him Sangy? I think his name would have been Shahnawaz or Anwar. Could have been. We'll simply call him Romeo. He left when he realised he was getting too obvious. Left to stand by the door, looking outside the train is a chance distraction compared to what distracted him inside. I think he missed looking at our lady so he went quietly walked across to the other door. He'd look outside and then try to steal a glance. Everytime i got him, he'd return a smile.
Embarassed, helpless, charmed.

The slow train lazily creeped past each platform on it's idyllic Sunday night ride. A few would get into our compartment, very few would get off. And Romeo would heave a sigh of content relief for every station that left us without us leaving the train. A few more glances it meant for him. A few more for me. Then came Dadar. And disappointment. Perhaps. Because we did go and stand right next to him albeit for a few dying seconds before the train would suspend it's motion. And he couldn't help his eyes.

We got off and walked towards the exit. And then i just thought i'd look back at Romeo once. He was yearning for one last glance. I looked at him and couldn't help being amused. And he realised that i was having fun. Actually, i just felt for him. But Romeo, it's not wise to lose your heart over twenty minutes to someone else's girlfriend. Yeah she's charming but what did you get in return? Us fading into the crowd while you looked on with ardent hope? Actually a bit more. I told her about Romeo and she looked back while we were walking away. She broke into her usual giggle and Romeo grinned ear to ear. The train gave him time for just that. Then it left. We left. But i was walking back with you.

That evening there were actually two people falling in love with you Sangs. One for the first time and one, all over again. Like he always does. You'll forgive the habitual offender won't you for empathising with the first timer?

This is your post. The cornflakes are mine but you have a sweet tooth. Forgive me for the diabetic content because i know Romeo never will.

Like two plus two

2007-12-11T20:21:00.000+05:30

Havent rhymed in a while
just held on to a smile
these days it isn't always mine
that's how i want to end this line.

Postman diaries

2007-12-07T15:27:00.000+05:30

Not being on the blog enough. It's not your complaint any more, it's mine too.

Can't make the excuse of being busy, the whole world is. Can't make the excuse of being lazy, it doesn't count as an excuse. Shouldn't be making excuses in the first place.. but if truth be told, i hope i find a broker for time. Could really do with a few more holy hours each day. Infact, everytime i sit to write here, i realise there's a connect that's missing all the time i'm not writing. Excuse this for being another long one, but let's look back, or rather look into life over the fortnight. Two weeks have zipped past so soon that i almost need to write this one to ease the cramps in my head. Have been running too much and resting too little, having no clue where i'm getting.

Sunday IIFT.
It wasn't an exam i was too gung-ho about. Okay, it passes off as a B-school in the higher rungs of listings so i got myself a prospectus. Didn't really like the prospectus too much, except the placement details. Specifically starting offers. Ideally, the worst approach for an applicant. I don't disclaim it. Spending a grand on the form, steaming off from a strictly okay CAT and with nothing better to do on a Sunday morning, i thought i'd waste some more money by going and writing the paper. How i ended up writing it after leaving home is a different post altogether, but it just flagged off a couple of weeks of shit load of work that i couldn't really bunk. Unlike the exam i wanted to.

Two Weeks of Timelessness.
What followed the academic Sunday excursion is something that's lingering on. Now personal revelations suggest a more fruitful outcome to b-school entry routines if invested in with some more resolve, but work just explodes to a scale that consumes every bit of personal time and space. Even the time and space that ordains a rethink on the work scenario.

Last week.
A beautiful weekend spent in a beautiful city, in beautiful weather with beautiful people. And person. Two days don't get much better. Then, there's a hardhitting week, being tossed around in life's frying pan with all the wrong spices. Bheja Fry. But it's okay, it's life with all it's intrigues and it's wonderful.

You see, sometimes the only way to be in life is to be happy.. It's fluffy and easy to say so, but i think deep down i know, it's a choice we all get to make. Sometimes, it's a difficult choice to make. But it's a choice nevertheless. Whether it leads to an outcome different from the flow of time, i can't really say. Each figures out on their own. I did. I was smiling through the week. Only now, i do with more reason. Most issues have sorted themselves to gift me a pleasant weekend. No exams, no work. No pending mental cheques to be cleared. Just impending madness of the harmless kind.

Come to think of it, i'm glad i made that choice. Doesn't really change your quota of bad luck, but makes life simpler.

Awrite, i'm done being Dale Carnegie, now lets get plastered this weekend. Hope you have a good one too. Cheers all.

P.S : Computer undergoing bypass surgery, blogging from work.. so don't take the ranting too seriously.

Click

2007-11-23T19:39:00.000+05:30

This post has come so late that I can’t help but resign to the feeling that it’s stale. Now, that’s not how you want to begin a post. Reading or writing it. But truth is, it’s difficult to capture the magic of first showers in the fourth week of monsoons. Time is suitably strange in it’s erosion of emotions but, what follows is the wonderful turn of events that led to love across the blog desert. A little hard to believe, so maybe, writing it in retrospect will help me align myself with the fact that yeah, I’m in love.

This blog has been a beautiful window into the lives of so many people. And they’re all like mirages. You know them, but you don’t quite know them. You relate to these people at times, at times their posts are right out of your mind and gradually, what happens is, somehow, in whatever miniscule way they become a part of your life. You begin seeing the broad spectrum of life through their eyes. Through their words. Their trials and tribulations, their ups and downs somehow transcend the barriers of semantics and you, unknowingly start feeling happy and sad for them. Rather, happy and sad with them. But it’s a window nonetheless, and these are real people in an unreal world.

She was one such mirage. And well, interesting one at that. I don’t quite know how I ended up meeting her. Okay, it had to do with comments that spilled over to mailboxes, smart retorts, wordplay, endless repartees and all of that. Basically intellectual warfare of the copywriter kind. She had just moved into Bombay a couple of months back and we were on each other’s blog for quite sometime before that. I wasn't exactly sure if it was prudent to extend this familiarity beyond blogs. I was in ways, seeing her new life unfold in this city through her blog. Gradually the familiarity grew on it's own to an extent that mutually demanded a reprieve from the virtual. And so for once, i thought it’s not such a bad idea to step out of the blog really. Also the twenty two year old adult male mind has it's own take that says, this chick is witty and interesting and well, also, insightful when she wants to be, so how bad could it possibly be. (i'll use the chick term sparingly hence) She incorrectly inferred likewise and one fine day, we decided to meet over some cheesecakes and cheap alcohol.

Firstly, I thought she was either a bit too brave or a bit too naïve to be meeting a complete stranger, in a city where she is a complete stranger herself. On my part when you meet strangers, you do your research, plan your back-ups and escape routes and if the whiff of adventure does the same things to you, that it does to me, you jump right in. Now you see, my social circles are blissfully oblivious to the location of this blog. A Saturday evening, meeting someone from the blog, forsaking regular weekending and not revealing the url were all active ingredients in a hot soup of curiosity. Responses ranged from
“What if she is a suicidal chick who is suffering from acute acne and depression?”
to the simple
“You have a blog? What’s the url? How come you never told us?”
to the basic
“What is a blog?”

Thankfully i had a hunch on this one, and that's all i needed to deviate from a regulation Saturday evening that wasn't to be consumed with consumption, soccer or socialising. It was an evening of C’s. Coincidence. Coffee. Conversation. Cheap alcohol (not really) and yes Cheesecakes. The last one left at half-shutter down Theobroma. She wasn’t suicidal. Nor thus far, acne ridden or awfully depressed. She was everything else. All that I could imagine. All that I couldn’t. It’s strange, you're not certain what you want from life, and then, suddenly you find yourself on the threshhold of all that you ever wanted, however subconsciously. It’s a bit overwhelming to the extent of disbelief at times. Life is so full and happy, and you wonder with a cup so full, what do you spill to fill some love? But Providence, sweet providence. It gives you another cup and two straws. Everyday since, i'm living bit a more. Breathing the same, but the lungs fill up with a bit more air.

There are wonderful stories about wonderful lives, but I had no clue that love would script mine It’s got everything that gets you incredibly high. There’s fun. Sometimes too much of it. There’s romance that can make you dizzy enough to see stars in daylight. There’s craziness and in no mean proportions. There's poetry, there's prose and there's humour in a heavy dose. There are words in as many languages. Who cares about perfecting linguistics when the grammar is purely cardiac? And then of course, there’s love. So much of it, so perfect and so beautiful. What else do you expect when a couple of wild and reckless romantics are hopelessly subservient to a celestial conspiracy that entwines their lines of fate? “Your face is your fortune” someone said the first time we met, waiting outside a popular Colaba eatery. Over a month since, I think Maybe.

Sometimes, a click is all it takes to change two lives forever.

First set, first game, Love all.

2007-11-12T12:56:00.000+05:30

I'm in love and i'm tongue tied by time. I wish i could tell you how wonderful it is. And well, this blog has been instrumental. I love each one of you, each one i read. I haven't written here much, atleast not as much as this blog deserves to know. I haven't been reading a lot of you recently as well. All apologies, but in a week, once done with certain academic misadventures i'll let this blog in on the most wonderful and elevating feeling one can ever experience. It finally descends down to my heart after years of trials and tribulations in my head. And well, Diwali is over, but at four am that night, i lit myself the brightest lamp i ever had. Okay, i almost blew it, but then, i didn't for once. And i wish each one of you, the near perfect script of Providence that i'm playing out right now. Not an inch less, but miles more. That's all i have to say this Diwali. Give me a week, roughly, and i'll tell you about the most magical story that my romantic faculties could never foretell or foresee. But now it's mine.

When the music's over, she says she'll sing me a song. But the music has only begun, and it won't be over for long.

2007-11-01T18:10:00.000+05:30

I tell you that i'm in love looking right into your eyes
and you look right back at me saying "thank you"
and then, you smile.
unadulterated by age, barely three
you have the right response to a wrong plea.
maybe next time, i'll get you to fall in love with me.

closure

2007-10-25T21:14:00.000+05:30

when patience runs out on patience
pride descends into your heart
the end of lines you try to bend
brings closure to a start.

bungee

2007-10-25T19:24:00.000+05:30

If dewdrops could kiss my ears
it'd feel like your voice
if there's a sound i could drown in
your laughter would be my choice
But i'm drowning in you,
you are the quicksand sea
and also the lifeguard
promising to rescue me.
You're gravity to my free fall
my reason to jump and see,
and the safest rope i ever had
my favourite bungee.
But i fear drowning
and i fear the snapping rope
the only friend i have betrayed,
is someone called Hope.

Frost and thaw

2007-10-17T21:32:00.000+05:30

I was wondering in the blankness of the evening on what is a good time to write. Sometimes being busy lets you forget. About a lot of things. Everything. And then you when you slowly step outside the workplace, with every step taken towards home, you start draining away the busy-ness. And the other world, the one with your people starts trickling in, drop by drop into your head. Today you're going to be tossed around by providence, but you don't know it yet. You return to find an empty home, unwind with some good old Neil Young and just when you think you're sorted, sorted with the decisions you've taken for yourself, the choices you have made, just then, something that's hopelessly innocuous blows up into the space it finds. The space you give it. Solitude. You know you're indulging yourself, you can just walk out of the door and get back to the world. Make a call. Switch on the TV, or just step downstairs and meet up with people who're willing and waiting. But you being you, want to find out what is a good time to write an honest post. So, you let your heart feel the tickle of a pinch. It's some strange feeling of loss over something you never really had. Just thought you could, now you can't. Well, let's just say, you feel that God is playing wicked games with you. Just because you refuse his best laid plans, he refuses your's. Gives you the euphoria of something promising and then even without any conceit or sleight of hand, he whisks away the possibility. Sweeps it under the carpet. And so, you decide, it's okay. Promising things are different from promises. God doesn't really make any promises does he? He's legally well advised. You smile. You've found out what is a good time to write an honest post with abstract references.You are done wanting to feel disappointed any longer, so you change the music. Get some Motorhead on. Take a shower, and head out for the world that's waiting. You've been a good man. You've given you're blues their due.

And then next morning when you're wondering what all of this was, but about to post it anyway, the poker player lays out another set of promising cards. Cards with possibilites. But everytime you buy his promise of possibilities, it's a gamble isn't it? Hoping that the dealer hasn't dealt a hard deal again.

to do.

2007-10-10T14:26:00.000+05:30

sit back and sip
old monk and coke.
light up another smoke.
blow rings in thin air.
write with long lost flair.
stop measuring the fall.
play flowing football.
swim into the night tide
deep into the sea
or run till i break free.
make some money
buy some time
add more rhythm
reduce the rhyme
wake up to dawn
before you do,
and see day
break into you.
relive the mush
hear songs of thrush
when it's over,
remember to flush.

2007-10-09T16:33:00.000+05:30

If i had some clue about what i've lost,
perhaps it'd be a lot easier to find it.

Eastern Winters

2007-10-08T18:02:00.001+05:30

.

2007-10-07T22:52:00.000+05:30

why post a bad one, when you know it's bad when drafting it?
such a waste of time. writing it. reading it. deleting it.
like this one.

DUI

2007-09-29T12:02:00.000+05:30

The ethanol sets in. Beautifully.
The medulla isn't numbed, it's just high
thro wet streets that shimmer and shine.
The city curves under my feet
As i fly through the velvet drizzle,
like a temptress teasing to be caressed
slithering; slowly, softly, smoothly:
Dark between the neon-lit drops of rain
and the windshielded droplets of streetlight
tossed between wipers
to the white noise of rain on road.
Every drop of blood diluted liquor
is an effervescence the head can't hold,
but i can't hold my head, i'm flying
on a sky, up high seven fold.
Then the car spins, tumbles and turns,
and the orgasmic peak of screeching brakes
climaxes with a metallic bang.
Horns yell out, the rubber burns,
the indicator blinks at "No right turns".
Hands on head, i wake up in bed,
Thankfully i'm not drinking, driving
Or dead.

A moment, a lifetime.

2007-09-26T17:27:00.000+05:30

The sum total of every choice we make in every moment we live. We call it Life sometimes.

These moments, they let us be. Even the ones we leave blank. They never give up on us. Like soft bubbles that are yearning for a touch; waiting to be frozen into memories, afraid that they might burst before you touch them. Untouched, they'll disappear into the vast unknown of unrecoverable time. Like moist flowers at the wake of dawn, they dress up in dew and wait. To transcend time. To be plucked before they wither into dusk. Before they dry and fall into the meaningless abyss of 'what could have been'. Before they're lost forever, they wait for you, but what do you do?

You are the express train to an unknown destination, and these are mere nondescript platforms unlit by lanterns. You will get there someday. There. Where you think you are going. The promised land. What if it's untrue? The untouched bubbles have already burst into teardrops, the flowers have withered, dry and too dead to be woken up by any subsequent dawn. And those stations, those platforms unlit by lanterns, they have resigned to hierarchies of dust by now. The lantern's dying flame, in it's dying breath was still hoping you'd look back in the rear view sometime, redeem it from the immortal certainty of death. But you let it slide into darkness didn't you. A moment lost forever. And the passengers with colourful bags you so conveniently called luggage.. They wondered why you never stopped but they too have all left. Except the rare some who might still be waiting on those unlit platforms, lit by hope. But you can't go back to see if they're still there. Even if you want to. You run on the single gauge track of time. So does everybody else. In parallel lines to unparallel destinations. Backtracking isn't prohibited. It's merely impossible.

But we know it already, why waste words on conversations that don't need any? Maybe to freeze a bad post and later remember why. And end it with the best word of the lot. The one of endless possibilities. Even when the moment has passed you by.
Maybe.

Cricket brewed.

2007-09-25T14:30:00.000+05:30

I like to play cricket when i am not fielding. That has been most of my deal with cricket. Inspite of spending a lifetime playing rubber on concrete or leather on clay, I can't imagine watching an entire match without a few yawns. I know it's art. I know the art. It still is boring. Football has always been the thing and I seriously wish we had a Liverpool joint (non herbal) in Bombay. Unfortunately, most matches in Europe are late night telecasts and the electric atmosphere of match-viewing outside stadiums had long remained an elusive charm. The first dose came from cricket over the weekend. Twenty20, yeah baby!
The semi and the final.
It was brilliant. I must have hugged everybody at an arm's length and everybody beyond. I've lost my voice to some reckless yelling. The crowd was good on Saturday, so was the chanting. It feels bludy good to have your chants echoed at far corners of a pub. Stupid stuff that people take a liking to, stupid but clean. Monday was a different story. There was no place to sit and chivalry claimed the hard fought chairs i'd managed to sneak from other tables. The crowd wasn't too bad, just too many of those happy-hours kind. So predictably, the chanting was profane and Bombay blah ( utter slang in it's Bombay glory). But the atmosphere was electric. Can't really claim that I had the best view of either screens, barely a fair idea of proceedings. As the pitchers tumbled, the screen just got bigger. Yeah, I like happy hours too. Just not the dodo teenagers. I mean, who uses 'Chak de' as a war cry among the other shit. Seriously what?

However, I lost my vocal chords even the last few that survived the Saturday strumming. But I'll remember the circus act and looking at 100 people following every gesture. Yes, I was the madcap doing shamanic things on top of a chair, while confused waiters and managers were rendered innocuous by the frenzied pub support. But next time, for all purposes of self preservation (read larynx) I must carry drums and trumpets. I mean, i feel like Dylan but i'm beginning to miss my voice now. And i have drafted this one for way too long without posting it. Let's push this through.
Cheers Boys! for being young enough to be called that!

Fade into you

2007-09-21T12:45:00.000+05:30

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath thats true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life, you go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go black.
Some kind of night into your darkness
colors your eyes with whats not there.
A strangers light comes on slowly
A strangers heart without a home
You put your hands into your head
And then smiles cover your heart.
Fade into you, i think it's strange
you never knew.

Indulgence on a rain-soaked Friday morning :)

Dual

2007-09-14T18:59:00.000+05:30

Life has it's own fascination for duality. On the one hand it gives you an endless reserve of unexplored potential, at same time it tricks you with the greatest void in inspiration.

The world is unequally divided in it's opinion of the greatest tennis player of our time. It's a division that tilts heavily in favour of the obvious. If success is a measure of his greatness, he'll retire to be the greatest there ever was. Yet there is another great. Unsung but for the legend of his decadence. Gifted beyond measure, he is the epitome of unrealised potential. Each is what the other could have become. One for his own good, one for his worse. Roger Federer and Marat Safin. Equals both, in being gifted, yet separated by that strange constant of inequality among equals: Inspiration. This isn't what the post is about. It's on the crux of this metaphor. We are all in ways a Federer, or a Safin who isn't a Federer yet. Or somewhere in between, battling our own genius, battling ourselves.

But inspiration is strangely like Love. Infact love is a form of inspiration without the romance. But that's besides the point. The point is, it's either there or it isn't. You cannot time it, predict it and definitely not cause it to happen. It's a cause in itself. You only bear the effect. Like love, it's a season. This one's for the head. An unpredictable season. Sometimes, time can erode your patience and make you think otherwise. But just like you cannot trick yourself into believing that you love someone (inspite of those lovestruck phases of certainty), you just can't bang your pea head to get inspired. It'll when it will. You can blow your nose for all you are worth, but there ain't no phlegm till you catch a cold.

Life will always split you in it's love for duality. Giving you everything that is useless without something else. And then it sits back and watches you juggle in between the two contrasts. As you walk from one end to the other on the tight rope of possibilities.

I want him to win one last slam before he gives up on himself. The world in enamoured by Roger's poetry. I'm waiting for the climax of Marat's plot. His duel with his dual.

a different kind of change.

2007-09-12T17:56:00.000+05:30

He was normal. Inconspicuous. Nothing out of the ordinary. You could easily miss him in a crowd of three. Abnormally normal. And he never made an effort to change it. Unaware, like most of his immediate environment, of his very own existence amidst it. No one ever saw him smile. They say he had given it up a long time back. But he didn't frown either. Unburdened by the tribulations of a smile or a frown, and situations or emotions that came along, he almost always had the pre-glow of an imminent smile. The kind that people have when fast asleep in the snug blanket of happy dreams. Almost a smile of the lowest vibration. But not quite. For the few who managed to stumble upon him in a fleeting glance, he was a trip in himself. He could easily make you oblivious to all his surroundings. Including yourself. Sometimes, somehow, if he ever looked you in the eye, there was a certainty in his gaze that even the greatest familiarity can't claim. He is certain about you. Even when you are uncertain about yourself. He just had that air. What is the bling term for it? Oh, Aura. Yes, he had that. I had neither. The aura, nor the change. Just a piece of myself that i dropped at the signal. And piece of his preglow that i carried back. He wasn't begging, nor was I. But i got some change.
From that sunkissed urchin on the street.
...............................

Now that we've talked of football and loose change. This one's a lighter bit that funnily links the two. The kicking boots needed a desperate visit to the surgeon of shoes. Ashok Shoe Mart. Thats what our cobblerman calls his 3 feet by 6 feet patchwork of corrugated tin sheets. Neat as his work is, his "mart" is clearly unlike. Three rupees to thirty is most of what his work is worth per customer. And he doesn't like to be hassled for the loose change. To that purpose he has a very clear cut message in bold red. English written in a font that can't get any closer to the Devnagari script. The communication was certain. Just a little letter that added a little confusion.

"Please give me a change"

Eggjactly!
Maybe the message was clear. I was confused.

Addictions, soccer, nicotine, blah

2007-09-10T19:22:00.000+05:30

Most of the time in the last couple of weeks, i have been with the keyboard during my routine uninspired hours. Clearly, night is the master dope that i have been missing to find a way with words. But things have changed a fair bit in two weeks. Not that it'd interest you in particular, but that won't stop me from saying it. Not being much of an addict, the smoking has gone down a fair bit, almost a couple a day lately. I think that's ok. I only realise how bad it is when i get to the beach on Sundays for some football. Yeah, that's happening after almost a year since my knee ligaments broke up with me last July. Like all break ups, it's never the same when you get back together. It's an addiction really, weekend soccer at Juhu. Inspite of the horrible tan you end up with, the scratches, bruises and aches .. all of which are carried forward next week. Chocolate to dark chocolate. Monsoons are some respite from the tan. The rest remains. Mom as usual paranoid about all the sand and scars i carry back home, but i just carry the beach. The feel and the freshness. There's a strange charm to the place on weekend mornings without the usual fanfare and crowd. Most regulars are a bunch of 30 thereabout youngsters who have been weekend soccering for almost 10 or 15 years. The waves, the breeze, the sand, the unpredictable tide, i have missed all this for a year now. But the sad part is, you realise how out of shape you can get if you are not in touch with the sport. You don't run as quick, don't play as well, mere shadowing of what once was a decent touch on the ball. And two minutes of running, you're done.Your lungs tell you exactly why you need to quit smoking. Although i forget it by the evening. There is some sinister charm to smoking. Try looking at the flame with every drag you take. It's sheer beauty. Fire, moving closer. Shimmering, rustling it's way through the sundried leaves of tobacco. Turning everything to ash and smoke. You know it's a breath closer to the pyre. But then, every breath is. If i have one thing against God, it's really this. Why of all things is a cigarette harmful? I mean i know, nicotine, tar, impact boosting with ammonia, dopamine hassles in the head, yeah ok, but why couldn't you make us humans more immune to it? Maybe it's a subtle way of teeling us to stop choking him with all the smoke. The incense burning under his nose everytime we feel pious. But mercy, damn, mercy! Make me immune to cigarettes! I have rarely troubled you with incense sticks anyway! And for all the times i mess with your head, you give it back to me don't you?
See there goes my definition of a mundane post. But the blog was indeed looking empty and needed some change from all the mush talk. This is a change alright, but it comes in an uninspired hour. Time for a smoke? what say? haven't had one in two days.

P.S 1: Smoking is injurious to health. If you think it's ok to quit before marriage or kids or 40, beware of it's grim perils that'll take your case in your sweetest hour.

P.S 2: Sorry for the lekchuring.

Candy for two, me and you

2007-08-28T13:33:00.000+05:30

The soft riff of an acoustic rings in my head. In a moment of repreive from the urban hustle, i'm looking for my moment of peace. Some people who won't ever get to this blog, deny me of it. Today i think of you. Each one. Most. And how i wafted into the mellow sunset while you were waiting at the beach. I am sorry to have given expectations, to us both. I'm sorry for unmade promises. Unkept. Isn't it a bad bargain, if i expect nothing of you at all? So i do. Hope, you release me from myself. And from you. You know how sweet a candy is, as much as i do. But it melts in itself, melts in you. It isn't meant to melt you. It's worth a moment of sweetness. A sweet aftertaste. And then, it slowly disappears. First, the candy. Then the taste. Then, the aftertaste. Like me. Like you.
I have thought of you since, in case you ever wondered.
And now, when i want my peace, I wonder if you still do.

a small dose of change

2007-08-24T22:22:00.000+05:30

Okay, i agree here again, the posts are trickling in slowly. Slower than usual. To my own self, half as good, twice as bad as they ever got. Hopefully, it will change beginning with the template. I have been looking for the ideal template for a long time now. It's in ways, the story of my life these days. Hunting for the ideal template. Sometimes age teaches you a lot of things, arguably, a lot more than you need to know. And you don't know if you are the child with dreams or the adult with responsibilities. You must know however that you don't need to know either. Simply chase your dreams. It's the only responsibility you have, towards the only one you owe something. Yourself.
I started bouncing with the usual madness again. Thats when i realised how many knots were left tied. Everyday over the last week, i untied every single one of them. So today calls for a special cheers. A new template. A new post. And perhaps, taking off the blue sunglasses for soaking up the weekend sunshine.
The Dashboard tells me that it's blogger's eigth anniversary.
Cheers, to a healthy piece of software.
The lads from Anfield are playing their hearts out. Makes me incredibly happy for the club I supported all my life. Liverpool. Even when we were losing everything inculding pride, players and points.Now these boys inspire the Kop that stood behind them in their darkest days, roaring always,
"You'll Never Walk Alone"
Hoping for a good game, G comes back from M'lore, so hopefully the pints are on him.
For all else, Cheers.
P.S Does the new layout work?

words for no words

2007-08-20T19:39:00.000+05:30

madness, madness inside of me,
which side should i turn to see
rainbow prisms of eternal hope
a limitless horizon of endless scope
madness, madness don't stop short
a whiff of freshness i yearn to snort
when i rhyme more than i ought
i know my writing's outta sort.
madness, madness find me words
words my head hasn't long heard
words for you and me, you know,
read better, written best - these words
quench some unknown quest.

Graduation

2007-08-17T15:24:00.000+05:30

I wonder if I have become dispassionate all of a sudden. It's almost more than two months since i wrote my final paper. I wasn't on top of the world then. For no reason. I wasn't waiting for the results all this while. They were inconsequential. Always were. It's not an alibi for not doing well. I did rather well lately. Today when the results were announced, i had landed myself a score i'd willingly accept with a smile a couple of months back. A score i'd have considered to be an indulgent dream in my first few years of engineering. A score that will be an ornate etching on a worthless degree. And today, i had surpassed my expectation and also my critical evaluation. But i was unmoved. I wasn't happy. But i wasn't sad either. I felt nothing. Not even relief. Just felt like i didn't care anymore. Or maybe, i couldn't care any less.
A few calls had to be made to a few people. People to whom this meant something. They were happy. Not for my degree, but for me. Congratulations, good words, all, everything. I wasn't happy. For them, myself or my degree. Just blank.
For four years this was a dream. For four years it faded. Today it meant nothing. A worthless degree that certifies my participation in the rat race. Nothing more than a cheap poster of erudition that generations of unresisting youth have used as passport to a world that recognises them by labels. Graduates.
I also wonder whether this whole management thing will prove to be any better. It'll be a slightly well heeled race. Running with cats instead of rats. Running nevertheless, with animals. Like animals. In the middle of chasing lucid capitalist dreams, i wonder if i'll still be that somebody who's happy lying on the terrace gazing at the stars.
Wondering which ones are his.